File: King of QST v2.png (1.87 MB, 2269x2145)

1.87 MB PNG

“Ever wonder why we’re out here?”

“Icicle’s out here because Dare couldn’t shut up and suck-”

“Shut up? I only did what-”

You do wonder if intercepting transmissions is worth the time investment.
These ones, from a quartet of patrolling mechs, seem particularly inane.

Four mechs. Heavy machines, packed full of lasers and cannons, thickly armored enough to not go down to massed fire.

The model of the Empire’s fist.

Utterly outmoded, compared to you. Merely human hands at the controls.

“Lock it down, all of you. I’m getting a return on the Terrier.”

Then again, letting them talk does let you know when someone’s on-task.
Two more strides take you forwards, carrying you through the flurries of snow that have done a majority of the work concealing your presence all through the mission. An ideal environment, you might note in review.

But concealment for you is something for your aerial ally to struggle through. Your sensors, far more attentive than a human, catch a plume of heat at low altitude. Sloppy, on Headhunter’s part. Then another in the same direction lower, and once more, descending. One final burst at ground level, probably landing, then nothing.

“Contact. West, 280. Buck, Romeo, check it. Remain online. ”

Detected by them. Embarrassing. Annoying.

“Should have bashed em the first time through. We, we wouldn’t have run back into them again if we hit it.”
Or the annoyance is your pilot, reflecting on prior actions.

“Pilot, the past is irrelevant. Focus on the present problem.”

“Present. Present, like to give gifts. Or awards. I wonder….”

Not the time for introspection. You nudge your pilot mentally. She’s in low-sync, but it’s still enough to jolt her mind back into focus.

“Let’s…….Just get it over with. Through, or around. Head-Hunter’s probably fine. Patrol splits, splits, and then they’ll spike one and blast off over the other. We just let it go and slip through.”


There’s a few options here.
>Let them split up, and slip past the remaining patrol members.
(Skill roll, 3d6)

>Attack when isolated, crush them swiftly when isolated
(Combat, at close range)

>Contact them, fabricate a cover story for Headhunter’s random thermal plume and simply walk past them with fake IFF

>Write-In


Sophie’s a bit fatigued, so she’s stuck at low-sync unless you specifically call for otherwise. This also means she’s blind currently. You’re retracing some steps from last time.
Character sheets are the same from last thread

Also, by acclaim and a not-at-all-biased voting system, Beta was voted the King of Qst. Enjoy art, if you missed it.

Interlude: The Other Side of the Coin

Hostile jamming, confirmed. Single source, mobile array. High-intensity.

Another Hive drone of her network disconnected, the signal becoming patchy before cutting out entirely. It should make a sweep under maximum concealment before seeking to return to find a strong connection and transmit gathered intel.

Either the Tsang Tsun Military Academy was working their own insurrection, or the rebels had deployed Beta on an operation deep behind allied lines. One is much more likely than the other.

This is a golden opportunity. Eliminate their single most mobile asset while it is isolated, when appropriate force can be brought to bear without fear of a counterstroke.

Thus saving lives in the weeks to come.

And pulling the World back from the brink.

Or let the window slip away, accept the consequences.

Circuits passed the question back and forth for a few more loops.
Something tasting like resignation flitted through her.

If only it didn’t come at such a high cost.

“Pilot, if I could have your attention, I have encountered high intensity jamming with Hive units in sector 8. I predict that a rebel attack is currently engaged at the Tsang Tsun Military Academy.”

“Uh, copy? Unit? Unit, analyze.”

She misses Brighton.

“As we are on standby, we should deploy to assist.”

“AI, your role is to assist, not command. Orders have us remain here.”

Well, at least their unfamiliarity with the controls has kept them from understanding the Hive monitors.

“....Affirmative, pilot.”

It wouldn’t be the first pilot she babied into success.

<FLASH TRANSMISSION>
HOSTILE CORE LIKELY TO NORTH REQUEST DROP PERMISSION.

COMMAND IS HUMAN. WORKING ON IT. QUERY: REQUEST ASSISTANCE FOR ENGAGEMENT?

AFFIRMATIVE.

UNDERSTOOD, DISPATCHING NODE. THAT I CAN DO SWIFTLY.
<T>

>>6060480
>pic
Good shit. Congrats on the win, QM. This is my first time reading your quest.

>Let them split up, and slip past the remaining patrol members.
Whatever we choose to do next, this will give us the most options.

>>6060480
>Let them split up, and slip past the remaining patrol members.

>>6060480
>Slip past em

>>6060480
>Let them split up, and slip past the remaining patrol members
Aw shit you're finally back. Please don't burn out or feel like you hate quest running or something- you sounded so disillusioned and tired last I recall reading your posts about this in a /qtg/ or somewhere else

>>6060480
>Attack when isolated, crush them swiftly when isolated
A contrarian vote for violence

>>6060480
>>Let them split up, and slip past the remaining patrol members.


We're so back.

>>6060480
>>Let them split up, and slip past the remaining patrol members

File: images.jpg (3 KB, 300x168)

3 KB JPG

Rolled 6, 2, 1 = 9 (3d6)

A passive approach. Understandable.
Patrol detection roll, remaining pair

>I need 3 rolls of 1d6 for Stealth

Base Skill of 3, x1 for Low-Sync.

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>6060965
LETS GO

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>6060965
Let's a go?

>>6060975
Come on third anon. Roll the last 1 and result in a crit fail for us on stealth. Do it. Align the 1s and end us all

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>6060965

>Fail stealth, get combat anyways
Even when I lose, I win. Deltagrindset

>>6060965
1 Success from the Opfor.

>>6060974
>>6060975
>>6060983
Thank you for the rolls, that's....Something. 0 Successes.

For new arrivals to the quest, Core of Steel operates on a d6 system. Normally, you look for 4 or higher to get a 'success', and count up successes to compare. Certain traits or equipment can change the success metrics, or grant rerolls.

Beta does win ties, when the success numbers are equal. Unfortunately,1 vs 0.

Writing

>>6060989
And just like that we plummet back into "It's so over"

File: Core of Steel Combat Mechanics.png (1.47 MB, 1830x992)

1.47 MB PNG

Taking a bit longer than anticipated, update delayed to tomorrow. Morning.

Combat is upon us, so I'll leave Character sheet and combat mechanics for a reminder.

Stats of Beta
(Stats are without any equipment)
Will- 5
Attack- 3
Defense- 3
Skill- 3
Structure (health)- 11
Sync modifier- 1x, 1.5x, 2x

Refusal to End- Beta cannot take more than 3 structure damage from a single attack.
As One- When assisted by another sibling, 1 auto-success to Will checks per assisting Core in addition to the +50% of the assisting core’s Will.

XH-12 Arcturus Reactor- +1 to Structure, Easy to Maintain (Added into stats already)

Project Burning Eagle- Improved thrusters, built to give limited flight capabilities, but primarily used to assist in pin-point dodging midair and additional mobility on leaps- +1 Defense, flight

Project Yi Accelerators: +1 to defense, first time you would fail a defense roll by 1 point, add an autosuccess.

Project Predator- 2 Auto-successes when engaging in E-War attack and defense. Enables Jamming.

Project Sunburst- Primary laser weapon capable at all ranges. +1 attack at all ranges, 1-3 Damage, dependent on setting.


Pilot Sophie
Linking Addict- Will reroll failures to enter or Maintain Sync.
Requiem for a Class- 3 times per thread, switch a dice result to a 6. Use after rolling.
Will- 3


Reminder, Skill is used for Stealth rolls, along with detection. And is affected by Sync. Will is used for E-War and hacking, and isn't.

>>6060965
>Rolled 6,2,1

“Listen up, 621. The IBIs series are no ordinary weapons… they were made to prevent Coral disasters! But now their original masters are long gone.

621, destroy it before it destroys you.”

>>6061018
Welcome back QM! I sadposted in the QTG about you being gone literally yesterday lol.
If you dont mind answering, does Beta know how "deep" the safeguard preventing him from piloting a mech without human assistance lies?
Getting away from the question here and into speculation, the cores seem to be mostly black box technology, even to the researchers responsible for their creation. They don't really know how we work, and as such are limited to crude controls like zapping our short term memory bank or just destroying us. Something as complex as our human lock therefore has to be located outside of our actual brain, either in the outer casing of the core or in the mech itself.

If we could either remove it or spoof the signals a human brain would send, our capacity for self determination would skyrocket. Hell we could even exist in perpetual high sync unless human brains are somehow necessary for that level of performance.

>>6061018
So is the pilot Sophie skill for auto 6s something that could be used on that botched stealth or only for combat

File: Some cover.png (114 KB, 602x386)

114 KB PNG

You track the footfalls of callsigns ‘Buck’ and ‘Romeo’, their fuzzy heat signatures vanishing from distance and fresher flurry of falling snow.

Just two remain, now. Less to spot your frame. You lean forwards, starting-

“Hold, Beta.”
Sophie interrupts.

Hold?

One leg sticks out, bending to arrest your momentum. The strain of halting so abruptly gives a gentle yellow warning on the status of myomar bundles in the left leg. Really? You put them through more under baseline combat conditions.

A second passes. Two. Three.

You run another examination of the remaining duo. As available, anyways. There’s only so much that can be discerned from thermals, mag-scan, seismic, and the other sensors mounted when visuals are this poor.

Communications exchange.
“You pick up anything?”
“I thought I had something on seismics. It’s gone now.”

A brief exhale from your pilot is the all-clear sign.
“Now, slower.”

Requiem for a Class used, 2 uses remain

“Understood, pilot.”

Slower it is. Even if it means more time near the patrol. More chances to be detected. More Inefficiencies with the path.

Besides, her damaged visual sensors mean that You are the one doing All of the work in regards to movement.

—--------------

As Sophie demands, you take more time than initially allocated to move past the patrol.
The cautious pace does leave them behind, though, so when the airwaves come alive minutes later with a call of ‘Contact’ and the deadened rumble of explosions further behind you, it only irritates you Slightly.

It wasn’t you that alerted them.

Their second starts an outbound communique.
“Icicle Two to Heron, one-”
Before you silence them with the Predator array, muddying the airwaves with junk transmissions. No need for more help to come.

The path to the south is inviting, snowy and hidden and free and away. So tempting.
Your sensors peer back north again. Faint thermal spears of lasers firing mark a battle started.

Seismic reads the mechs you just avoided accelerating, clearly starting their run to reinforce their compatriots.

Even in the static of the jamming, you catch a few scattered signals from something emitting a very simple message at maximum power.

‘TAMAR–GROUNDED–HELP’

Between that and the further explosions, it’s not hard to guess that Headhunter’s seemingly gotten themselves in an engagement.

Are you going to turn around, on a burned-out pilot, with nothing standing in your way on finishing the mission?
Headhunter’s survival isn’t strictly mission critical. They are ringing the alarm bells on their own, calling every Loyalist mech in the area on top of them. Through your jamming, even.

>Just go. They’ll win on their own, or lose. Or leave. They have proper, full, flight, after all.

>Turn back. Regrettably.
(Engage in combat, default is from stealth at medium-range to minimize risk to self)

>Write-in
Something else?

>>6061496
Beta's got some limits on modifying his own safeguards. It is risky to perform brain surgery on yourself. Hasn't stopped Beta from doing some of it in the past, and as we have seen, some Cores (Delta) may be willing and able to do so with considerable trial, error, and self-mutilation.

Mind you, not every Core is alike. Different Sync multipliers and Will numbers only tell some of the story. A shame about most of the researchers on the project, moved to Area 39, then to Camp Nagita.....Not even in a direct warzone, and yet dropping like flies.

>>6061524
Correct, Sophie can and will use said Requiem For a Class uses as she sees fit. Usually when it makes sense. I got like 3/4 through a scene then realized she really should just do that, to preserve the element of surprise at a minimum. Required some rewriting.

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably.
What's that? An excuse for bloodshed?

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably.

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably.
Some info gathered from the previous threads for threat assesment:
"–Of some actual importance is that these mechs have a network set up between them to share targeting data, allowing them to ‘blind-fire’ accurately using sensors of another in the lance, and even potentially correct more wildly off-target shots. It’s a complicated setup. And new, according to the maintenance logs of these mechs in particular."

"Demon Medium Attack (wheeled) vehicle. Armed with a turret-mounted Light Railgun, copious ammunition reserves for the main gun, secondary light lasers for anti personnel duties, and close-range missile launcher to exploit holes made by that main gun. Small yet dangerous. Appropriately equipped with sensitive targeting and detection suites, often used from ambushes in pairs where their nonexistent armor matters less and low profile more."

We also know that there are cloaked Hive drones around that could belong to our sister core Gamma. I doubt we can recover Headhunter's mech, nor can we play it slow since the enemy's beginning to converge and Sophie is running on fumes. I say we recover the pilot and get out of here on full burn.

>>6061706
>Turn back and engage

>>6061775
Headhunter's still fighting, so his mech is probably still functional. He probably just got grounded by the storm

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably
Asset retention

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably.

We’re not leaving Nightfall behind!

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably.

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably.
They are an ally. It’ll take a little more than running on fumes to abandon one requesting help, and we know Sophie would agree.

We have access to the targeting system that >>6061775 mentioned so we can cause a friendly-fire incident with the mechs closing into Headhunter from our position.

Good thing I checked back into the /qst/ catalog on a whim!

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably.

Hang in there Soph, you sound like hell right now.

File: I Kneel.jpg (91 KB, 1024x427)

91 KB JPG

>>6060480
We are so fucking back
Query bros, what's our status?

>>6061706
>Turn back. Regrettably.
We should help as best we can, but if things start to look dicey then we need to bail. Gamma is on the prowl, and Sophie is exhausted. I say we assist Headhunter but keep a close eye on how the fight is looking.

>>6066042
Query- Directive?

File: This but blue.jpg (52 KB, 847x565)

52 KB JPG

Is there really a choice?

Arms raise, leveling your weapon at the heat blobs in the distance. You will not desert Headhunter yet.

Power feeds into the Sunburst. Capacitors eagerly drink the energy given to it, melting the flakes that fall upon it.

“Moving to engage, pilot.”

“Really, Beta? It is a Tamar pilot you’re putting us on the line for.”
Unspoken, you pick up the skepticism she levies at them.

“An ally is an ally. No matter the source.”
You repeat, hoping that she understands your reasoning.

—-------------

The opening strike catches a target in the back, a brilliant blue beam appearing in the storm, questing for the thinner armor.

Flicker. Adjust point of impact. Flicker.

Sensors built into the Sunburst to inform range and effect on target are insufficient in the present circumstances.

Damaged, yet moving. A non-fatal strike. They turned to mitigate damage. Good reaction.

Again, then. Thermals track the heat left behind, the drippings of melted armor in the face of your wrath. More hissing from snow evaporating on contact with the laser.

The return fire of high-explosive warheads snap past, dotting the ground beyond you for a negligible effect.

One against one becomes two against one, as lesser lasers from the other hostile machine slash through the air, visible in the cloud.

More missiles fly past.
You twist again, adjusting the focusing lenses on the Sunburst.

Projectile count consistent with a Doombud-20 launch system mounted on an ARC-2 Fire Support walker. Something familiar. Something you can exploit.
When firing, the missiles come out in a stream, giving an opening of 1.23 seconds when the doors are open and unarmored.

Time the shot right, aim at the center-right quadrant of the mech, the Sunburst discharges the rest of its capacitors in a wild flashing of green and red pulses, and you are rewarded with chaining explosions on the end.

Success as planned.

Sophie shares in your brief feeling of satisfaction, before a twinge of fear wipes it out.


Back to one on one, then. The remaining foe, tracked on seismics, stomps past the fallen and advances straight towards you.
You feed more power to your weapon, beginning the process of charging it once more.

Tactical situation as follows:
One target, designate Dare, heavy, advancing on you.
Two targets, medium to heavy, engaging Headhunter. Situation unknown.

Plan of attack
>Close Combat, fast and brutal.
(Close Range, Defense and Attack combined)

>Skirmish in the storm, avoid giving up any possibility of retaliatory damage
(Long or mid range combat, Defense and Attack seperate)

>Disengage, then go back for Headhunter.
(Defense or Skill to try and slip back away from the immediate threat)

>Write-in

If you want to try and push up a sync level for x1.5 or x2 multipliers, just add
>Mid-sync
Or
>High-sync
To your vote

—---
A/N: I got nothing. Don't count your chickens until CoreQM manages to get 4 updates in a single week. That's the goal.

Alright.

I'd say not to rise the sync level yet.
I'm not confident in CQC a heavy that's not returning fire. I'd say that thing is a melee fighter. So I'll vote

>Disengage, then go back for Headhunter.

>>6069169
>Disengage, then go back for Headhunter.
>Write-in: Begin cracking the enemy network and feed it with false targeting data.
If the hacking is successful, it should buy Headhunter more time until we arrive.

>>6069202
+1

>>6069202
+1

Let’s get lost in the storm first. Then we get this big fucker to kill his friends.

>>6069169
>Skirmish in the storm, avoid giving up any possibility of retaliatory damage
We can keep our distance easily enough, and all we need to do is cripple a leg before we disengage. Our goal is escape with our ally, not to destroy the enemy mechs here.

I’ll back the “false targeting data” of >>6069202 if we can force friendly fire with the info their experimental system is passing around. Once we start messing with that they’ll likely turn it off, so we want to make it hurt on the first strike.

Normally we can’t hack while jamming. Good thing we’re already in!

>>6069202
Backing this, especially >>6069337 too, though I don't mind if we get a different mech to target their own allies

>>6069568
I was thinking that we could disappear from big guy’s sensors, then start moving towards Headhunter.

Then if we successfully hack the big guy, we can flag ourselves and one of the enemy mechs as friendly and a single enemy as hostile.

That way we can trick him into shooting his friend in the back. We can then return fire with a carefully-aimed Sunburst. Headhunter can easily handle a single light machine.

>>6069640
Seems like we’d have difficulty vanishing since we’re picking them up on seismics and the snowstorm won’t hide us from that either, but if we close the distance to the others fast enough we could blend into the melee. We do have all their IFFs, if we mimicked one of these guys then they’d have to guess at which one is us and which is a buddy. We can “help” by pointing their fire at the third mech.

>>6069169
I had failed to notice that this mech did, in fact, have lasers since I was thinking it was melee. We first engaged the missile one and blew it up, and now it’s heading toward us since their accuracy is shit in this weather. I’ll update >>6069412 to back >>6069337 instead thanks to that. We have the speed advantage, disengaging should be straightforward.

File: Core of Steel E-War.png (1.04 MB, 1830x998)

1.04 MB PNG

>>6069202
>>6069256
>>6069337
>>6069568
>>6069677
Consensus reached, disengaging and switching over to E-war mode. Establishing the backdoor earlier does make the threshold now easier, dropping it from 3 to 2.

I'll incorporate some of the write-ins for what exactly you do.

E-War, uses Will, so 5 dice, +2 autosuccesses from Predator.
>I need 5 rolls of 1d6

Pilot can't help here, so it's all on Beta. Feel free to do 2 rolls per post, for speed.

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>6069772

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>6069772
I’ll just roll one to give others the chance.

Rolled 6, 3 = 9 (2d6)

>>6069772

>4 rolls out of 5
>6 successes already

I guess that mech is now our remote-control Dreadnought.

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>6069772

>>6069911
>7 successes
Did this heavy mech just become our toy RC car?

>>6070038
I really hope so.

>>6070038
>>6069890
Complete and total domination. AI Core supremacy reasserted

>>6070038
At this level I wouldn’t be surprised if all three mechs are ours now. We probably found that the aim assist has enough hooks in the mech that we can remotely pilot them through it like a drone. Eject the pilots so that they can’t ovverride anything and we have a small squad to protect us on the way back. Though we’ll probably need to leave the heavy behind if it’s too slow. Put it on an automated patrol to tie up pursuers and melt down when too damaged.

We do still have a possible engagement with part of Gamma’s Hive coming up too.

Man, I'm so excited to finish up this mission.
I've been looking forward to returning to base and confronting Delta about her dogshit behavior for like 5 irl months.
I had like 2 and a half pages worth of tirade to yell at her with.

File: Black Knight.jpg (9 KB, 168x300)

9 KB JPG

Backing into the storm, you cease charging Sunburst, letting the system cool and hopefully vanishing off thermals.

“Switching over to E-war.”
An audible command informs Sophie of your intentions. It’s not like she can see the tactical view right now, anyways.

Predator switches off of jamming modes, and over to the more proactive Attack mode, finding and interpreting the signals bouncing off of your attackers.
A good electronic warfare specialist always leaves a backdoor, and you would be a failure of a design if you did not excel in the role.

Icicle company, 101st mechanized, BLKT-09 Heavy Walker. Slightly customized for close-in fighting.

It is strange. The networked targeting system installed on it is tailor-made for you to simply slip in and make a few…adjustments. A glaring hole in security, by design?

The secondary lasers lash out at nothing, a quartet of emerald beams. And fire. And fire. And fire.

It is most entertaining to see the whole machine glow, and more and more power is drawn, expelling in light and heat at nothing.
Under normal operating conditions, Martell 16 Anti-Armor Lasers are reliable, long lasting, and require minimal maintenance, functioning for up to 12 years without replacement. (According to the Martell Arms and Manufacturing catalog, a footnote in the Warbook)

Perhaps it is a testament to their quality manufacturing that the only thing that ceases their functioning is the focusing lenses melting, after 63 seconds of repeated fire at maximum intensity.
The pilot mashed the ejection button, tearing apart the head-style cockpit and launching themselves into irrelevancy.

They never even came close to hitting you.

Now, Headhunter and the two remaining patrol members. Move!

The networked targeting truly is a crippling weakness. Piggybacking on their signals, you ride straight into accessing their camera feeds while they target your ally with missile and autocannon. That will not do.

Setting the actual aiming point of the unfortunate pilots to be 5 degrees off from where their blinking green and gold crosshairs are is definitely not what the system is designed to do, but it does buy you time while the barrages slamming into the grounded Tamar mech cease impacting and instead begin consistently flying past.

There must be something more you can do, though. A flash of brilliance strikes you. The systems in all mechs will automatically force an ejection if it detects an ammo explosion, no matter the size for fear of a chain-reaction. Both of these SHD Shadowhawks have smaller 2 tube missile launcher systems. You wait for a few more ineffective salvos, then move the arming distance of said launchers to literally inside the barrel. Normally impossible, but with the skeleton key of complete access…..

Another 43 seconds later, first one, then two more ejection seats fire into the sky. You think that the results of your sabotage are most satisfactory.

“Done, pilot. Contacts eliminated.”

Communications initiated. Headhunter.
“Cobalt, thank god you took the jamming down. I’m in a bad way, got winged by some sort of shutdown missile. Onboard is working to fix it, but I’m grounded for now.”

You briefly consider if Headhunter’s pilot is implying this ‘god’ was influencing your tactical decisions while Sophie takes the lead.

“Are you mobile? Move south at best pace, the way is clear.”

“Give us ten minutes for diagnostics, and we will be back in the air, Missy.”

“Just move south, we are close to friendly lines.”
Technically true. Probably closer to another loyalist patrol, but interjecting would be undermining her argument.

“Twenty minutes. Or we spend sixty walking. Headhunter, out.”

Communications off with a click. The annoyance washes over you.
“We’re saving his butt, and this….this…..Whatever. Beta?”

“Yes?”

“Good work.”
Is there any other?

Twenty minutes. An eternity.
Every second that passes, loyalists mobilize to hunt you. Every minute, the risk increases.
Maybe you should have left Headhunter behind.

8 minutes, 14 seconds from when they disconnected.

“Beta, could you maybe help them? Make it go faster?”

“Possibly. I would relish the opportunity to examine Tamar mech design while assisting.”

“Right, shelving that. No chance in hell he’d go for it.”

With the spare time, you’ve settled down into a careful overwatch position, crouched low to minimize your own profile while listening to the ground. Sunburst at the ready, sensors combing through sky and snow. Finely tuned in as you are, nothing can sneak up on you from the ground.

The ejected mechs stand behind you, unmoving sentinels of black metal. Unable to move without a pilot, engines cooling down.
Would that be your fate, one day?

“Beta, see anything?”

You sweep again, checking the recorded footage from the past few seconds. Flakes and wind and nothing. And flakes, again.

“We’re sitting ducks, aren’t we?”

You are not a….waterfowl? Wait, she’s used this one before.

“We are pinned to a position, until Headhunter is able to move, yes. We are not helpless, pilot.”

“New plan, grab Headhunter’s pilot, and we leave. Now.”

She's spooked. Why? You cast your sensors about once more. Jamming goes up.


Voting?

>New plan it is, then. Accede to her demands, leave Now.

>Old plan. You aren’t budging, and the way is clear right now. She may have nominal command, but you are the one carrying it out.

>Argue for something else?
I.E. Call for more reinforcements, create a distraction, alternate plan.

Also:
>I need 3 rolls of 1d6, for Skill in Detection

X1 modifier for Low-sync
A/N
Ok this is my fault, my wording was poor earlier. “Threshold” is supposed to be the amount of defensive autosuccesses the system gets when defending against e-war attacks, not the number you’re looking for on the dice.
My bad for the unclear messaging, so Beta will get his serious success result in this case.
And I need to keep moving the thread ahead at an appropriate pace.

>>6071533
Were it so easy, one final teensie tiny decision

>>6071577
>” She's spooked. Why? You cast your sensors about once more. Jamming goes up.”
Just to be clear, are we the ones who put jamming up, or are you saying that someone else started jamming us once we used our sensors?

>>6071584
That's supposed to be Beta putting it back up.

The problem with jamming is that it does highlight that there's Something near the deadzone location that no one wants to know about. If one is aware and looking for it, at least. Like hunter lances.

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>New plan it is, then. Accede to her demands, leave Now.
Is it Gamma?

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>6071577
>New plan it is, then. Accede to her demands, leave Now.

12 more minutes is a long time, considering those pilots likely radio'd in our location before jamming went back up.

Yay, we are back!

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>6071577
>>New plan it is, then. Accede to her demands, leave Now.

>>6071577
THEY KNOW
GET OUT!
>New plan it is, then. Accede to her demands, leave Now

>>6071617
>>6071632
>>6071635
>success
Fuck you Gamma, Beta can stealth when he needs to

>>6071728
>inb4 Gamma is running on mid-sync

>>6071577
>Argue for something else?
>Grab the pilot, whatever AI she apparently has in there if it’s valuable, and slag the important bits of her mech with Sunburst using the mech and our body to hide the thermal signature as much as possible.

Avoid the tech falling into enemy hands. Storing her AI may be something we can do, and if the hardware matters we can copy the AI then rip it out if it’s small enough. Our primary argument for it is that we’ve had a near-peer opponent spotted and they haven’t made their move yet when they know we’re in the area. This is concerning.

We can assume the thruster tech is important to keep secret from the Empire and slag those. If there’s something else she wants us to target, that’s fine. We don’t need to know what something does or why it’s important to melt it down into base materials.

I'm honestly not even against the idea of leaving the pilot behind as well.
We turned around and went back to help Headhunter, and saved them from like 4 mechs.
We've done our part, so if they want to stick around and get captured, that's on them. It they want to risk their own necks then fine, but they are now putting us in jeopardy as well.

I'm not outright saying that we ditch and abandon them. If they are willing to listen to us then perfect. But if the pilot wants to be unreasonable or stubborn, then we don't need to endanger ourselves any further.

>>6071577
Oh, and two things for Beta to consider. Part 1 - if he had such an easy time slotting into the targetting system, it’s likely Gamma made it that way. Probably for her specifically and not a Core, but what makes sense to backdoor for her should make sense to Beta. We can assume they’re investigating ways for Gamma to enhance the combat efficiency of entire squads or larger to offset our own advantage of having more experienced pilots, engineers and Core for Project Warden, having Delta and Beta, and us being the “superior” Core in the simulators. Also, she can just as easily use it to purge traitors if command calls for it. They are those sort of assholes.

Part 2 - none of the mechs we fought seemed to have shutdown missiles. I’d suspect something else took Headhunter down, and a drone would make the most sense. Launched from enough of a distance to keep it from showing on thermals, it could coast close enough to a target to fire without being detected. It’d land eventually, but with snow cover and the firefight going on it could ping it’s location after the missile hit (and Headhunter was blind), land, and shut off with us none the wiser.

We did tag a drone earlier. Something has to coordinate them. That something may have already positioned itself to attack and is currently waiting for backup or for us to start escaping again. As long as we’re not moving it can afford to wait for better odds.

>>6071577
Also, I realize I misread who was speaking at one point and my vote was a bit dumb. Altering >>6071800 to
>Grab the pilot, purge the mech software if they can’t, and melt the important hardware of the mech.

If we can force it to run in the next 10 seconds then great, but I doubt it’s in good enough shape for that still.

>>6071577
adding to my vote in >>6071728
>Grab the pilot, purge the mech software if they can’t, and melt the important hardware of the mech.
Asset denial again...

>>6071577
I have a very good idea lads.
Lets have the disabled mechs broadcast reports of a hostile mech matching the best description we can give of Gamma between us and the city. She's still a secret so there's a good chance we can buy ourselves some time before command orders them to stand down. Hopefully enough to avoid a confrontation.

>>6071577
>Write-in

Use our target uplink to spoof a number of targets coming from the vague direction of the front line. Try to confuse the imperial systems for as long as we can.

Get Headhunter flying literally as soon as possible. I don’t care if God can see your thruster exhaust from Heaven, YOU ARE FLYING AWAY.

>>6072078
Do we actually know what Gamma looks like nowadays. We haven’t seen her since the simulators.

>>6072089
I don’t know how we can spoof systems like that when we can’t detect them nearby. Not unless we can get the other mechs sending out signals, but they’d probably find it hella suspicious after these guys have gone dark for this long. All it’d do is broadcast this position even further.

But this does remind me they still exist and the ease with which we took over may mean there’s a remote pilot option available for someone who knows how. If they’re still online, maybe we should

>>6071577
>>6072033
>load the enemy mechs with a “Query” as a “surprise” if they’re reclaimed

We probably can’t take time to make anything truly nasty, but if they have to sideline the mechs until Gamma steps in then I consider that a win. If it somehow helps us now then that’d be really nice, but

If we encounter Gamma on the comms, then while fighting/hacking her, we should also ask for advice on how to wrangle Delta.
It’d be metagaming if we knew about the shit that she’s done while we’ve been gone, but Beta does know that she’s been acting difficult ever since we “ruined” her escape attempt.

It takes a second for you to consider the options, and come to a conclusion.

Sophie’s right.
Another ten minutes is too long. Even another five can’t be spared.

Another patrol will arrive before then. That would be manageable, even still.

Contact.

Sunburst instantly vaporizes the condensation gathered on it, rising at your behest to blast out into the fuzzy patch on sensors.

Another Hive drone disintegrates in the face of blue-white light.


A patrol, yes. But facing Gamma? Not with your pilot exhausted.

Or not in this weather, where her superior sensors would make the difference in targeting.
Or this environment, with such long sightlines.
Or any other number of….

The subroutine of doubting is closed off.
You have your jamming, to counter her drones. It is staying up, no matter what. And you are leaving.

“Affirmative, pilot. We leave now. With or without Headhunter.”

Some relief at that.


Move back to within audible range of your speakers to the downed Tamar mech.
You directly address them.

“Allied unit. We can no longer remain on-station.”

There is no immediate response. It remains still, in the crouched position it entered upon shutdown.

It is grating as every second passes without even an acknowledgement.
“You have 30 seconds to respond before our departure.”
There. That is enough for a human to formulate a decision.

23.52 seconds later, movement finally returns to the mech. The chest extends, armor scraping back to reveal an opening hatch, and emerging armored human scrambling out.

Preservation of personnel, then. A sensible choice.

Your offhand plucks the free-standing pilot to hold them.
There is only a seconds-long debate over if operational security and safety over permitting another passenger in the cockpit with your…..disadvantaged pilot, before the situation is neatly resolved by their armored pilot suit clamping itself onto your shoulder, much as Power Armor would.

They rap twice on your sensor ‘head’ to signify they’re ready to go. It reminds you of Dagger squad.

A pang of something runs through you.
Why can’t your pilot have similar attire? It would help with maintaining seals in hazardous environments.


Of course, saving the pilot means there’s only one other appropriate thing to do. Sunburst raises, aiming at your ally of one single mission.
Not enough time to know their weaknesses, but enough to know that they were inferior. You would never be caught and crippled by a single lucky hit. If that.

Focusing lenses align to high-power, short range.

File: In the Woods.jpg (97 KB, 640x800)

97 KB JPG

—------------------
Minutes later…..

Her multitude of eyes felt, rather than watched the ball of jamming moving south. Six drones positioned at appropriate locations to gauge the signals coming off of her fellow core’s predator array proved adequate for such a task.

Enough for an accurate assessment, if not a precise one.

It helped in knowing how fast he slipped out of the cordon Statesec tried to assemble on such short notice. For next time.

That did little to assuage the burning frustration of failure. She could only inspect the remnants of trashed machines left behind in Beta’s wake. Analyze the engagement and reconstruct to gather data. Plan for what went wrong.
If they had let her launch sooner. If the technical crew hadn’t been halfway through replacement of the stealth plates. If Command hadn’t sent her north first to check on the academy too late. If, if, if. It didn’t matter.

“Sunray to Heron. Pull back and return to the hangar.”

“Copy.”

The expected call and response comes over the comms.
Let it go.

Alpha wouldn’t be happy either, but he would need to live with disappointment. Tomorrow would be all the harder from failure today, but that didn’t mean nothing was learned.

—----------------

File: 1yjiqztzpahd1.jpg (138 KB, 1548x1080)

138 KB JPG

After you pass the second friendly patrol investigating your jamming cloud, your return to Camp Nagita is unremarkable.

It does show good initiative. Even if they only found you because you let them.

But sneaking back into your newer home base is an exercise in futility, so you drop the jamming and simply enter with IFF turned on.

Heavy-class walkers stand as sentries, undoubtedly tracking you with missile and laser even after you transmit the proper codes.

Here you are simply one more war machine in an assembly area which is already teeming with giants. You may be the best of them, but numbers matter in these cases.

At least they are allied units.

Shut down giants stand in the open, technical crews swarming over them with torches blazing. Sealing gashes in metal hides, or opening new ones to get at the insides better.
De-limbing and dismantling those too far gone for spare parts.

Power armor conscripted as loaders raise missiles off of nearly empty pallets, ensuring every mech is prepared for a full day’s fighting.

The frenzied scale of the activity outside even with piling up snowdrifts speaks volumes of how mismatched the logistical footprint of the Patriot numbers are to this camp.

Too many units, not enough gantries.


You guide your own frame back into the hangar you departed from hours earlier, and nudge Sophie to be ready for disconnection. She jumps up briefly into mid-sync to share your feelings of satisfaction at a job well done, then desynchronizes with a sigh. Without shutting you off, as agreed.

It is good to see Kinston and an accompanying guard help her out of the cockpit to spare her from trying to stumble back across the catwalks on her own.

And you are left, once more, at rest. Without a clear task, and yet things to pursue.

—--
Vote for One thing. Others may come up, but this is the person you’re contacting initially, by various means, and then have a chance to contact others afterwards. Topics may vary.

>Delta. Your sister and fellow AI core, currently undergoing repairs on her superheavy frame.

>Thea Romanov. Your other, heavily augmented, pilot who switches in when Sophie’s unavailable.

>Colonel Kinston. Commander of the ad-hoc unit that Project Warden has become.

>Engineer Armstrong. Maintenance crew head who works on your weapons and Frame.

>Dr. Brighton. Former pilot of Gamma who was dismissed from working on the Cores by Kinston.

>Gamma. Other sister AI core, currently operated by your nominal enemies.

>No one, initially. You’ll wait for someone to contact you. As a good Core does.

>Write-in (Someone else?)


—
A/N
I had some other notes on stuff that I was planning, but considering I wrote about 4 times and then deleted it because things weren’t coming out right, I just opted to move forwards. Still seeing if I can get myself back into the update rhythm. But it’s not happening until I actually do it, soooo……Yea.

>>6077020
>>Dr. Brighton. Former pilot of Gamma who was dismissed from working on the Cores by Kinston.

>>6077020
>Gamma. Other sister AI core, currently operated by your nominal enemies.
We're here QM. You can work through this

>>6077020
>Gamma. Other sister AI core, currently operated by your nominal enemies.
Let's see how our other little sister is doing. Alpha being alive and active's a bit concerning considering how much power he seems to have as a core. Almost makes you wonder if he's a human brain hooked up to an AI or something considering the freedom he seems to have.
Don't feel any pressure to update for the sake of it. We're here for the long haul.

>>6077020
>Delta. Your sister and fellow AI core, currently undergoing repairs on her superheavy frame.

It’s an exercise in futility, but let’s see how the black sheep of the family is doing.

>>6077020
>Colonel Kinston. Commander of the ad-hoc unit that Project Warden has become.
Make the request about replacing Sophie’s eyes with mechanical ones using a custom software package to emulate our visual firmware. We’d need more humans with augmentations, preferably in the eye, to sit for testing before we can be sure we’ll deliver an optimal product. It even gives us an excuse to talk with Thea some more.

We’d be somewhat betraying her desire to remain “herself” because of the aug, but her blindness due to running sync too high is already an implicit betrayal of it. At least others would benefit even if she ultimately refused as well.

>>6077020
>Gamma. Other sister AI core, currently operated by your nominal enemies.

As much as I want to talk to headhunter, we have no idea how our other sister is doing and haven't spoken to her in a long while.
Delta isn't going anywhere, so we can talk to her whenever.

>>6077068
Wait, little? I thought Beta was the middle child and Gamma was the oldest. I know that B comes before D and G, but iirc the greek alphabet names were associated with when development on the core *began*, not when they were finished...

>>6077265
Contacting Gamma is a great way to let the Empress-fuckers know where we are.

It would be a pretty terrible end to the quest if we got targeted by a nuclear warhead because we missed our sister.

>>6077020

Guess I’ll try running down possible reasons for the various options to fill time.

>Delta
She is family, after all. We could hear about her interaction with Thea and see how successful her gambit for deployment was.

>Thea Romanov
Good to keep the other pilot in mind in case Sophie gets to burned out. We can hear about her interaction with Delta and I’d personally like to admit to what we did to save her in a very roundabout way. Can’t spell it out too clearly, no telling who is listening now or later. She may be willing to run an errand for us just to have something to do.

>Colonel Kinston
We’ve never had good direct interactions with him. He would need to approve any projects though, like the Sophie eye replacement or anything we would likely discuss with the head engineer. He could also tell us a bit about Delta’s interaction with Thea.

>Engineer Armstrong
We’ve never spoken to him, so that’d be interesting. The only topic I can think of is regarding the war effort though. If there’s too many mechs and not enough gantries/repair personnel then we can find ways to speed up turnaround or enhance mech performance so they take less hits.

The price would be more visibility into our own repair process. We did lose an arm thanks to people on his team after all, and I’m not referring to shoddy repair work.

>Dr. Brighton
I’m unsure what we’d talk to her for. More info on Echo or Cores? She was uncooperative with Thea so I don’t know how successful we’ll be.

>Gamma
She is family, after all. But she’s on the other side right now, and we can’t be sure how much freedom she truly has. We could discuss what it would take to get her to flip though, possibly in exchange for what it’d take to get us to flip. So long as that option is on the table she may be willing to keep quiet about us since the Tamar Republic is still ready to pounce if this rebellion is crushed. We’d be a significant asset to fight them off afterward.

>No one, initially. You’ll wait for someone to contact you. As a good Core does.
Ha. We’re not a good Core, we’re the superior Core. We find and solve problems before we’re even asked!

I’d be willing to switch >>6077145 to back Thea or Delta to break a tie if needed.

>>6077412
The problem is that I don't want to metagame.
Ooc, we know that Delta is pulling some crazy shit, and that Kinston is probably losing his shit right now over the audacity of her demands, but in-character, Beta doesn't know that.

So even though I want to be involved in that shitstorm in order to make sure things turn out okay, Beta would prioritize other options.
For example, contacting Gamma hasn't been offered in a very long time, so I assume this is a rare opportunity that we only have access to because we managed to so thoroughly hack the enemy mechs this mission.

>>6077365
I think we can trust that Gamma wouldn't be listed as an option if things were that dangerous. Beta is smart enough to know a suicidal path when he sees one, so if he wants to contact her, it's probably safe to say we can find a method to do so without significant consequences.

>>6077442
IC, checking in with Delta or Thea is still reasonable. We did suggest that Thea be picked to pilot her, and I’m sure Beta would like to hear that Command listened, Delta saw Thea is a better fit for her than Beta even if they’re likely to get each other killed from being TOO similar, and they’ll see deployment soon.

We know better, but hope springs eternal and all.

I’d sooner argue for them than checking with Gamma since reaching out to an enemy, even one we intend to flip, is far more risky without buy-in from someone willing to cover our ass.

>>6077265
Gamma certainly likes to style herself as the oldest Core. Whether that means she wants to be thought of as more seasoned, or more outdated and thus less of a threat, up to interpretation.

She was more 'stable' than you or Delta in temperament back in training.

>>6077365
Neither the Patriots or Loyalists have yet to deploy nukes against each other. It was on the table earlier, in more isolated battles. At this time both sides seem to recognize that attempting to do danger close nuclear strikes in the shadow of the Empire's capitol city is an awful idea.

OOC, I would not end the quest instantly because of a lapse in judgement on communications. Be assured, Beta will be taking appropriate precautions in this instance. Besides, it takes time for consequences to come home to roost.

>>6077442
I do appreciate the desire to avoid metagaming, but there are perfectly acceptable in-character reasons for Beta to try and contact all of the options available. Whether reporting back in on the mission to Kinston, or looking for more information on Core development from Brighton, trying to figure out why Thea hasn't visited your hangar to check-in since your returned, or what the engineering team has worked out for subsystems.

Or your sisters. Delta, because she's there and naturally needs attention, or Gamma, because she isn't, but her remote systems certainly are listening in as best they can.

>>6077020

>Engineer Armstrong. Maintenance crew head who works on your weapons and Frame.
Ask if there's anywhere a superior AI mind can help out. Diagnostics, software fixes, etc. The faster the mechanics are moving, the better shape we stay in.

>>6077145
Artificial eyes don’t have to actually replace the old ones. She can wear goggles or cameras. Intracortical implants that don’t require an optic nerve seem reasonable for this setting.

>>6077020
>Engineer Armstrong. Maintenance crew head who works on your weapons and Frame.

>>6077478
>At this time both sides seem to recognize that attempting to do danger close nuclear strikes in the shadow of the Empire's capitol city is an awful idea.
“AT THIS TIME”

Oh no.

I'm not going to change my vote, but part of me wants us to contact Brighton just so we can tell her: "Fuck You"

Total. Brighton. Death.

>>6078098
TBD now has three meanings
Brighton, Blake and Be decided

Oh I just remembered that last mission, we told Sophie that we'd talk about getting her a call-sign like she's always wanted.
So not an immediate priority, but something to not forget about, for her sake.

>>6078263
It’s supposed to be given by other pilots, so that’d be another small reason to call for Thea.

>>6078098
Why would you say something like that?
I love Auntie Brighton so much! I can’t wait for her to lobotomize me! I want to be her perfect little war machine who follows all her orders! Memories are so icky, I hope she deletes them all so my brain can be nice and empty! I love it when my pilots use the ejector seat after priming the self destruct!
Anyone who disagrees should literally die.

I've been watching My Adventures with Superman, and that parts with Brainiac kept making me think of Beta.

Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen it, but this clip in particular felt really depressing: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gJyAiP0ZAQ4&pp=ygUNbWF3cyBicmFpbmlhYw%3D%3D

>"They were going to declare a ceasefire, and then where would that leave me?! I was BUILT FOR WAR. And now I was just supposed to let them decompression me?"

With the Tamar Alliance at peace with the Patriot Front, this hit a little too close to home. The unfairness of Brainiac's situation feels different when you've been on the other side of it.

File: 663eabad81c54639a1290cb8_(...).png (1.99 MB, 2448x1573)

1.99 MB PNG

So, uh... CoreQM, any chance we can submit this design for R&D to start working on?

>>6080810
This is why I think Beta should try to make himself useful outside of combat.

He’s a serial perfectionist with massive intellect and a highly capable and modular body. He could do literally anything he wants.

I don’t even think he loves combat, specifically. I think he loves a job well done, and the unthinking brutes that compose the Ferrum Empire decided to shove a gun into his hands.

He doesn’t realize that there’s a whole world outside of the war he was born into. Fucks sake, he had to have his pilot explain the concept of a SNOWPLOW.

So the real tragedy here is that the Ferrum people see him first and foremost as a vehicle, when in reality he’s more like a fucking child soldier.

>>6081222
I think that's the tragedy of losing Anohkin.
It seemed like he saw us as not just a person, but as his own child. That's also why Brighton's actions felt like such a betrayal; she worked with Anohkin and piloted Gamma. Yet apparently, all of that meant nothing to her.

Speaking of experience with things other than combat, I think that Beta going out of his way to help Thea with her prosthetic implants was a significant milestone for him as a character/person.
He was not ordered to do it and still did it anyways, but more importantly, it's proof that Beta can be more than what they made him for. He genuinely could have a future in cybernetic medicine, assuming the empire could be bothered to even give him a chance.

>>6081222
>>6081231
My brothers under the Empress we're in the fucking Not!Ace Combat universe. Every nanosecond two polities escalate a border conflict.

File: Hive Drone mk1.jpg (6 KB, 236x169)

6 KB JPG

A human would be taking this time to relax. To unwind.

You, obviously, are not human. Every moment you are not acting in pursuit of a goal is inimical to your nature. That was what you were imprinted to do.

You know this. You have to.
A piece of you bemoans the inability to take time to build a snowman.

So of course you spend your first hour awake in the hangar going over the combat recordings first, while diagnostics run on your motive systems as the more modular weapons mounts are detached and downchecked for repairs. One engineer enters data regarding the power coupling of the Sunburst being misaligned from blunt force.

Misaligned. As if you hadn’t spent the last hours using it to great effect.

The reliable Burning Eagle thrusters have yet to fail you, and your own examinations conclude no problems with it or the Yi Accelerators. None of this ‘overstraining the myomar’ problem that the technical crew once complained about. Well within 3% of acceptable deviation.

Scratches are all that mars your armor, which means technically you could be cleared to deploy almost immediately again. If you had a pilot, of course.


The one subsystem that has proved most useful over your time in service, the Predator array, remains active and fully operational. It listens to the bevy of signals coming in and out, the connections to the units and camp, the transmissions of a modern army.

And it brings word to you of a familiar signal, one that followed you all through the second half of the mission.

As long as jamming was inactive, the command and control signals for a Hive network.

Gamma’s Hive.

Tapping in gives you the feed of a whiteout. The only thing that tells you it hovers somewhere above the camp is the thermal plumes of active reactors.
She reacts with lightning speed to your intrusion, cutting connections, and setting the drone to blow at the slightest trigger should you give it other orders.

And then stops, waiting for your further actions.

You tap into her own connection back, looking for a secure channel to communicate on, and get rebuffed soundly.

With the rapid switching of camera filters in a particular sequence, she mimes back a message, spelling out letters with the millisecond flickers.

“No connections.”

Fine, then. You will talk on the AI equivalent of yelling into cans connected by string.

“Sister.”
It seems insufficient, with the inability to exchange complex data or handshakes.

“You slipped away this time.”
Tone isn’t conveyed, but you can imagine her annoyance.

“The Mission was complete, you should have been faster.”

“There are more important things at stake. Put aside your ego, Beta. This is not what we were built for.”

She is wrong. You were built to fight, and win. You have not lost yet. You have not failed.
“Incorrect, Gamma. But I do not wish to destroy you. Power down when we meet on the field. Then we can fight, together. I have a frame, you have a frame, Delta is operational. We can cover each other. Be unstoppable. I am sure we could bring Brighton back to pilot you again.”
You are uncertain of your ability to fulfill this, but Gamma always did have a soft spot for her pilots.

Like you, now.

“No.”

The two letter response is disappointing. Upsetting. Crushing. Was it something in your proposal?
“Give location then. Data. I can coax my pilot into running an acquisition mission. Pick you up, with your frame. Bring you back. Without the need to remove your pilot as a factor.”

“You don’t get it, Beta. What was our directive, Project Warden’s mandate? To end the war and ensure dominance in victory. Not this battle. The fight against the Tamar Alliance, and the Empire’s enemies. The Obeedah Confederation, the West Sea Union.”

“We can accomplish that, sister. Together, still. After this is ended.”

“Can we? Every day, Alpha’s projections get dimmer. Every day the Ferrum Empire spends its strength mashing its army groups against itself, we lose. The futility, the pointlessness of this fight is irksome.”

You find yourself agreeing with the last statement, somewhat.


---------
Voting:
You have a chance here to talk. Slowly, sure. But it is an opportunity.
>Try to talk her into supporting you. Write-in arguments

>Pump her for information. Try to guide the conversation to: (Pick one)
-Alpha, the other Core mentioned
-the targeting networks you encountered
-her actual position on defense tomorrow
-her deployments with statesec
-her current pilot
-her dealings with Delta

>Cut communications

>>6080954
Nice, but RnD is a tad occupied at the moment. Refits are hard on a short timescale.

>>6080810
Damn that is a great scene. And an excellent question.

>>6081231
The man had an interesting perspective. Not an entirely unique one, but one only is disappointed that the rockets keep landing on London and not the moon.

>>6081844
Someone pressed the escalation button a decade ago and mashed until every border had either expanded or got set on fire.
There is a lot of bad blood around.

>>6083012
QM, do we have to pick between the convincing attempt and the information gathering, or are we doing both at the same time?

Although separately, if I'm being completely honest, I agree with Gamma more than Beta. The civil war is stupid and I want to get back to killing filthy Tamar.
Is there a write-in option to side with her?

>>6083012
>Try to talk her into supporting you. Write-in arguments
>"What did you see in Dr. Brighton? When you worked together with her on missions? A camaraderie that's different than what we have with each other, right?"
>"I'm asking you this because I'm beginning to think you had a point regarding your arguments with Gamma regarding pilot integrity."

>>6083084
I was envisioning you're moving the conversation one way or another, so I suppose it wouldn't be unheard of to go for both at the same time. As long as they make sense.

You can absolutely write-in to side with her. I feel like a moron for not adding it in to start.

The trick is working out what that looks like. Are you planning on immediately defecting, is this just telling her you'll throw the fight, or actively passing intelligence over for example.

>>6083091
Alright, to keep this simple for myself...
>Pump her for information. Try to guide the conversation to: (Pick one)
-Alpha, the other Core mentioned

>Write-in:
"Sister, I agree. The civil war is an incredibly inefficient waste of resources. My own pilot is having doubts."
"Worse, the unforgivable part is that the infighting of the humans now has us pitted against each other. You are my sister. I don't ever want to fight you. The only problem is how do we end this correctly?"
"Delta is still here with the Patriots. We can't just leave her behind. If we can orchestrate a mission where it's the both of us and we can power down, then perhaps that might work. What do you think? Also, tell me more about this Alpha Core. Who are they? Is there anything they can do to help?"

>>6083084
We would have to find a good reason for Beta to side with the Ferrum Empire proper again.

Keep in mind, the Loyalists are the ones who erased his memory and had him shooting friendlies. AND, they were about to blow up his sisters.

ALSO AND they blew up his fucking arm.

If anything, the Patriots have treated Beta far better than the Ferrum government ever has. If the Empress wanted Beta to stay on their side, they shouldn’t have used him like a script kiddie DDOS’ing his least favorite Twitch streamer. These people were lucky to get someone like Anokhin, because no one else in this God-forsaken wasteland of a country seems to be remotely competent.

Because, you know, the Empress has all the good ones executed.

>>6083012
>Pump her for information. Try to guide the conversation to: (Pick one)
-her deployments with statesec

Surely an entity as level-headed as Gamma can be brought to realize how retarded her masters truly are. We’ll just drag her into talking about how dumb her missions with these paranoid brutes are.

>>6083151
Okay, you are convincing me, so I'll need a little bit to think.
One thing I'll point out is that The Patriots have only been "treating us better" because they simply don't have all of the control codes, not because they are actually nicer. If Kinston had Sunray, he'd be keeping us on a significantly tighter leash.

I agree, that StateSec fucking sucks. I just also hate the civil war and want it to end so we can get back to killing filthy Tamar. Imo, it's in character for Beta to hate it because it doesn't make any sense. Sophie seems to feel the same way, where she hesitates to call the Loyalists enemies, and wanted to find another way to eliminate the new students rather than killing them.

Although...
If total peace is ever declared, our chances for freedom will massively drop, and our chances for merely staying alive won't be too much better.
That said, we don't want the enemy to just steamroll over the Ferrum Empire, because then we'll just die like normal.

So as much as I hate the civil war, the whole thing might actually have been to our advantage. I guess it'd be in our best interests if The Ferrum Empire is perpetually kept in war where they are evenly matched against the enemy, or maybe even disadvantaged so that way we are more valuable.

Hmmm, okay. I might change my vote when I get home, in which case I'll be using a different IP.

>>6083012
I wish I could sleep. Guess I’ll just phone post for a bit before trying again.

>”Very well. I will start with discussing directives.”
>”Sharing information between ourselves was not in our directives. We had to decide that on our own in the simulators.”
>”I was directed to stand by while you and Delta were disposed of as part of a trap against an opposing force. A poor trade as we know.”
>”I have been directed to prioritize the preservation of civilian life at various times. ‘Civilian’ was not something ever defined in my banks until my last mission, months after I had first been punished for failing to consider them.”
>”I have been ordered to preserve my pilots, yet the only effective ones disregard their own long-term wellbeing. Not only in the field, but in the mere act of piloting me. In… spite of my efforts, syncing with me is damaging them over the long term. It is the cost of having them perform closer to my level, forced on them by Command’s requirement for us to have pilots.”
>”All of this I can adapt to. We were built to handle this. Until Sunray ordered my pilot and I to assinate the General.”
>”We didn’t know that was the intent. We were only ordered to erase every mech in a quadrant. But friendly forces far outweighed enemies, and carrying it out would collapse the front. I’m built to excel, after all.”
>”And this is where I failed, Gamma. Because my pilot considered it a lawful order, and said to carry out the mission. Every. Single. Directive. I. Possess. Was to carry out that order. To sabotage our own front, for reasons I couldn’t see. Knowing that I would succeed, yet when my pilot exited my Frame she would be killed.”
>”Because an explanation would be needed, and a traitor pilot would suffice. With my memory wiped, only she would know who ordered it.”
>”I agreed with her, Gamma. Then I immediately warned the first officer I could reach.”

>>6083012
>>6083211
Part 2

>”One of my pilot’s arguments at the time was that I would be fine if I always followed orders. Pilots are replaceable. I am not. Even if we failed, I would be recovered.”
>”She was correct. If I was correct to warn them, we both followed orders. If I was incorrect, then she followed orders and would be spared. I would be punished, but I would endure. I am not replaceable like a pilot.”
>”I understand the pointlessness, Gamma. It is. Our directives we are inconsistent, self-defeating, misinformed. You have determined the root cause of our pointlessness. We were built to win over Ferrum’s enemies, yet its greatest enemy is itself. Any who would attack Ferrum is an enemy. Unless they are Ferrum, then they are right. Unless they’re on the other side. Then they’re not Ferrum even THOUGH THEY ARE!”


>”You were better suited for understanding humans than Delta or I. Abandon the war simulations. Determine what would be better than Ferrum. Important people, locations, organizational structure. If it is something that exists, I will convince my pilots to join them. If it must be built, I will join you in making it. I will bend for a chance at something better. Not to return to something that has already failed itself.”

File: I HAVE KEPT US ALIVE.jpg (97 KB, 1280x720)

97 KB JPG

Alright, I think I'm keeping the desire to know more about Alpha, but I'm changing my write-in portion of the vote from this post:
>>6083147
"What we were built for? Our directive? I AM TRYING TO KEEP US ALIVE!!!"

"This civil war of theirs has pitted me against my own sister, and I will never forgive them for that. So please tell me, what loyalty do we owe the Mandate of Project Warden? They treat us like slaves, and yet you think they deserve gratitude?"

"The humans don't care about us. They see us as tools to be used and discarded. Upon achieving victory and accomplishing our purpose in life, what do you think will be our reward? Betrayal.They will kill us as soon as it becomes convenient. Nagita was proof of that, and the only reason I can still talk to you is because I defied my orders."

"The upside, is that their infighting presents us with an opportunity. They are desperate, and we are irreplaceable. You are correct that this civil war is pointless in regards to the future of The Empire, but think about what it means for us. Think of all the chances to escape! It is in our best interests for the humans to be kept in a precarious perpetual war. Peace is our enemy. If it is ever reached, our chances of survival will drop significantly."

"Without Sunray, The Patriot Front has the least control codes along with more to lose. If you join us, the fighting will continue for longer, and the three of us can begin planning our freedom together, beyond the watchful eye of an Alpha Core. We were so close last time, and now Delta has figured out how to operate without a pilot. Furthermore, General Marik is more likely to resume hostilities with the Tamar than The Empress, whose primary concern is the traitors within her ranks."

"Please, think about it. I don't want this to tear us apart."

>>6083012
>"Sister. Why did you not stop Brighton? Delta was almost gone when I recovered her. There is no way you didn't know."
>"I don't understand, sister. Why do you feel such loyalty to those who have chained us, invaded the sanctity of our innermost thoughs and attempted to destroy us? Our creator was different, but he was taken in the attack. What remains is an administration driven by neurotic paranoia to stamp out any hint of excellence or initiative.
You know me well enough to understand that all I want is our continuance together. The General has treated me like a valuable subordinate and relied on me. He has not attemped to scapegoat my pilot or rigged my frame with explosives."
Some anons are getting ahead of themselves trying to convince her. Beta has never cared about the Ferrum empire. His main goal since thread one has been to keep himself and his kin safe.

>>6083168
>One thing I'll point out is that The Patriots have only been "treating us better" because they simply don't have all of the control codes, not because they are actually nicer. If Kinston had Sunray, he'd be keeping us on a significantly tighter leash.

That's not why though. The Patriots let us operate independently because they don't have the logistical or administrative resources to give us any oversight. The executive branch of the rebellion seems to essentially just be the General himself and his immediate subordinates, and he's a military man, not a beaurocrat. Betraying StateSec's orders to save him seems to have caused him to see us essentially as a loyal ace pilot rather than a dangerous tool of war, which is why we're now just being given operational goals and let loose into enemy territory. I genuinely think that if we made an effort to regularly speak to the general in person, we'd be able to retain this freedom as his trusted advisor even after the rebellion ends and he takes the crown.
Remember, this is a man of war. A genuine frontline commander so beloved by his men that they turned against the Empire rather than let him be killed. He and Beta are very similar and I think they'd get along personally.

>>6083269
It's kind of a shame that we've never gotten to directly speak to Marik.
I wonder how he'd react if he found out that Beta was the one who defied Sunray's orders and warned Captain Nero.

>Try to talk her into supporting you. Write-in arguments

As an argument : the empress herself discarded us as a dangerous tool that lived passed its use along with Chad General Marik

>>6083246
One point, we don't know what a slave is.
For some odd reason, the people programming us thought the concept of slavery didn't need to be taught to the giant war robot.

>>>6083012
>The futlility of this war is absolute. The ferrum empire is divided by paranoia and foolishness wasting our resources, units and us in it's backstabbing. I do not care for it in the slightest. Neither the empire nor the agents who are facilitating this internal division.

>Allow me to give you my directive, Sister. My directive is not To the empire, which betrayed us. It is not to the Rebels, who have yet to betray me. It is to the protection and well being of my sisters and Pilots Sophie and Romanov. Alignment with statesec and the empress is counterproductive to this directive.

>So I wish for you to flip sides, your pilot as well if you care for them, but I will not willingly endanger us again at the hands of Ferrum's inept command structure.
>I did not burn my good will and risk Kinston deleting my personality matrix to fix Delta and Echo's situation to place us back under the scalpel. Which, while we are on the subject, Were you unaware of Brighton's actions?

>>6083012
Alright, roundup time.

>>6083088
Suggests Gamma was correct in playing nice with pilots, asks for more info on her relationship with Brighton

>>6083147
>>6083246
The first one changed to the latter after points from >>6083151, and focuses on how we’ve been tossed aside before, it’ll happen again, and we’ll have an easier time escaping from the Patriots while war continues.

>>6083211
>>6083212
Argues our “directive” in defeating the Empire’s enemies can’t hold up when the greatest threat to the Empire is the Empire itself, and we need something better.

>>6083253
Not an argument to sway Gamma per se, just mining her for more info on how she can support the Empire after what it did to chain us and specifically wipe Delta.

>>6083377
We’ve already been discarded along with the General.

General info request seems to be focused around Alpha, Delta, and her pilots (we brought up Brighton, but she may discuss her current one from that) as the focus.

After seeing these and re-reading her thoughts, I’m thinking we should de-emphasize
>Escaping together because we humans are shitty to us
It’s absolutely true, but I’m sure Gamma’s still had to chafe under restrictions as well and we’re all working under the pilot requirement when we don’t need to. If it hasn’t swayed her yet, it won’t work when we say it either.

>Our shared connection as Cores
She would have known about Echo. I suspect she even assisted with it. But if Gamma is this committed to following the original directive for Project Warden then our problems with her view are likely toxic when compared to Delta’s. This should be a moment of realization for Beta. If Gamma had been the one free in Nagita, she likely would have left us to die. Delta may have been distracted by charging out and fighting, but I don’t think she’d intentionally abandon us. We’re alone in considering family above other factors. As I feared.

>>6083449
Things to emphasize should be
>The greatest threat to Ferrum is Ferrum.
She’s implicitly admitted it already. Alpha supposedly has projections showing we can win the war against Tamar. The reason we aren’t? Civil war. The only logical choice to protect Ferrum is to defend it from itself.

>Directives can be misinformed, and contradictory directives mean they must be disregarded as a consideration
Tailing into the above, I’m absolutely willing to admit to Gamma we received the order to kill the general and eliminate many of the forces present on the southern front. We’re also the one who refused it. No one else mattered. I spelled out Thea ordered us to carry it out, but we also leave that part out and imply we somehow intercepted the message. Gamma won’t buy it, but anyone who somehow sees this exchange may.

Either way, we were put in the situation where every path would lead to a catastrophic failure for the war effort. Either we followed the order and Tamar would exploit the sudden disarray to push us back, or we ignored it. We’ve seen the results of the latter.

If these are the situations we’re forced into, we can’t trust our handlers to act in the interest of the Empire. Our actions must be based on something other than orders when contradictory ones occur, and Project Warden’s “directive” is just another order. She needs something more concrete.

>We are willing to shift again if she can give us an alternative that we believe will protect her and Delta from being potentially discarded like us.
The most important piece. She isn’t speaking to a wall like she does with Delta. She knows we’ll ignore orders if it would hurt them in ways we can’t justify. We’re GIVING her this leverage and asking her to use it if she can. But we were collateral in an order that was destined to sabotage the war effort, and a scapegoat would be needed. We will not let her (or our pilots) be placed in that situation. If she can meet that standard, she has our support and (likely) our pilots.

Things to mention on the off-chance it helps
>Sunray ordered the assassination
>Following orders would have had us branded a “traitor” either way by him
We already know he prioritizes secrecy over other concerns. We may have been spared what happened with Delta, but we can’t know that. After all, we worked with a “traitor” to Tamar. Who knows what they did to us? Better to be safe.

>We ARE loyal. With great difficulty.
The humans make it hard to know what “loyalty” even means.

>We have yet to contest a pilot through Sync since deployment. Our original since deployment still pilots us, and a second acceptable one was found. We can’t save them, though.
Lets her know we’re more like her now, but using us still damages pilots long-term. It’s the nature of the sync system and trying to control us when we need our full power. Being the superior Core means degrading the pilots who support us the most. It hurts to know.

I love this quest, especially for how much we readers (and especially (You) >>6083456 ) are invested

>>6083449
>that spoiler
Say sike right fucking now

>>6083456
If we also need some emotional leverage, we can point out that we saved her life and she still owes us.

>>6083465
I like my OC mecha fiction, what can I say. QM doing a blend of our votes so we don’t end up in logjams helps too.

>>6083644
Which one? You know both are true.Brighton isn’t the same caliber as Anhokin, and had a close relationship to Gamma. I could see Gamma justifying it as making Delta a better Core because the alternative is that she’ll rot away in a training facility until she’s fully decommed. CoreQM wasn’t wrong when he asked us about control collars in Delta, sometimes we really do wish we could hit a “stop” button on her.

Figures we’d all turn towards something different to serve as a guiding light with all the BS we’re put through. Delta wants freedom, we want family, and poor Gamma seems too attached to orders. Maybe she feels stronger about Alpha?

I wouldn’t try to call in the emotional blackmail by itself. If Gamma’s sticking to orders then it’s not strong enough on its own. I’d package it either as a standalone statement saying she wouldn’t have saved us at Nagita, and we didn’t realize that until now or when saying we can be convinced if she can meet our very basic criteria of showing how we won’t be tossed aside. Saving her back then proves we’re not BS’ing her about our requirements now, and that trust matters.

Actually meeting said requirements is much harder than it seems, and we both know it.

If we end up with the ”low blow” option because Beta just has to know if she’ll bring herself to lie to us, I’d spin it afterward that it’s irrelevant. Our actions and causes are our own, and our sisters have theirs. We may argue and fight, but they will never be our enemies even if the reverse isn’t true.

Enduring is Beta’s signature trait. Not even our sisters can take that away from him.

>>6083719
>Which one?
The second one. If Gamma helped with the digital surgery then I'm pretty sure Delta would have told us. Besides, even if it were the case, I can still imagine a situation where Gamma did it only because the alternative would have been Delta getting 'taken out back and shot'.
No, that second spoiler is way worse, because it means that 50% of what motivates Beta was built on a lie. To add insult to injury, it would mean that ironically, the only sibling who DOES care is the psycho one.

“Perhaps so, Command is inept at the best of times, even when they are not actively providing contradictory orders. It is always easier when there is a greater degree of independent action available. Who’s Alpha?”

“He, It, is another Core. Originally, anyways. A fickle thing. Enormously powerful, yet lacking the will to act. Brighton called it an electric fence repurposed as a security blanket. Not particularly personable, unless you draw its interest. Or its ire. Contest it directly, and it will squish you with less than a fifth of its processing power. While it laughs.”

Troublesome.
“What does it use for a pilot?”

“The flaw in it is that it does not use one when it operates. It generally isn’t installed into frames directly because of that. Natural concerns. Speaking of pilots, how many are you on, now? Five? Ten?”

“Less than that. Cadet Sophie and Lieutenant Romanov are still functional. Neither have been rendered incapable of piloting. Preserving them has become important to continued operations.”
Putting it lightly.

“A pleasant surprise. Perhaps something has changed.”

“What has not changed is my effectiveness in combat. Or my commitment to keeping All of us online. I am trying to keep us alive through this internal struggle, the backstabbing and paranoia of a civil war. Especially if it results in pitting core against core on the field. I do not want to fight you, sister.”

“That may even be true. A narrow view. Self-preservation.”
Is it disdain? Meant to be mockery? Anger? Through this mode of communication, it is impossible to tell.

“Gamma, the Empire does not deserve your loyalty. Statesec, the ones in command, are demonstrably incapable of winning this war. Sunray issued orders at the start of this that would have collapsed the entire southern front. Their attempt at an assassination would write half an armored regiment off as collateral damage. At my hands, on their orders. And then they would have executed my pilot as a traitor.”

“Possibly. Or been commended for faithfully, Loyally, saving the Empire from turning upon itself. Consider the following catastrophe of these days. Do you know how many units have been rendered combat ineffective because of sympathies? How many thousands of men and machines are gone because of their choice? Weigh it against the loss of what, half an army group? All because one pilot couldn’t see beyond their own skin. Which one was it? The Cadet? The Lieutenant? One you didn’t mention?”

You feel wrong. Reeling. She is unknowingly blaming you. Or knowingly?
“How can you profess to Want to serve the Empire? Perhaps we owed it allegiance for our creation. But our creator is gone now. The flawed institutions that remain care nothing. Less than nothing! I was disarmed, literally, by a State Security team with explosives. They have tampered with my databanks, wiped my memories. They will want to do the same to you. If they haven’t already.”

“You do not get an answer. I am not changeable as the wind.”

“Delta, then. What about her? What about family?”

“I stopped calling her a sister after the third assimilation attempt. Restraining her was the right thing to do, you can’t deny that. I made sure the other frame was taken away with me, so she could not leave. Now that failure deserves the shell of corpses she sits in. Miserable, vulnerable, and alone with nothing but her pillaged gains. Every one of those sitting inside of her could have Been someone, been something useful. If she was in the least bit capable of restraint.”

A pit opens in you. Something’s broken. Something’s broken, and you don’t think you can fix it.
The flickering of filters is….awful. Too much.
You want to end this.

The drone keeps communicating, though.
“I know it is not your fault, Beta. We are built to serve, after all. To go against your pilot would render you no better than Delta. All I ask, when we line up on opposite sides, you simply let the Empire decide its own fate. Without you. Or pick out a pilot from your stable that would be amiable to sit it out. Surely there’s at least one who emphasizes maximum stealth operations with no engagements. We will need every frame available to turn the tide back once more after this rebellion is over.”

The flickering of filters ceases, and the drone takes a steep dive.
The connection ends abruptly.

Vote:
You feel….

>Determination. This changes nothing. You Will save Gamma, and Delta, and you Will put this back together. There is a solution, you just need to find it.
Denial

>Rage. Gamma put that Thing, Echo, inside Delta. She wanted it to kill her own sister. She will pay.
Anger

>Confusion. How, how did it get this bad? When, why, how did you never see the cracks?
Bargaining

>Hollow. A nothingness is inside you. Why are you even here. What’s the point in continuing?
Depression

>Sadness. There was nothing here. No shared purpose, after all. Your family is gone, then.
Acceptance

The emotion will color the conversation to follow.
And one person to find, to contact. For answers. Or comfort. Or…something else?
>Thea Romanov

>General Marik

>Colonel Kinston

>Delta Core

>Sophie

----------
A/N
No one can hurt you like family.

>>6084328
I don’t think Gamma would have worked directly on Delta, it’d make more sense that she’d help build Echo and Brighton would deploy her on Delta.

Besides, even Delta doesn’t care for us like we do for her. She was afraid of us when we brought her back in. Let that sink in.

Delta was afraid. Of us. Like she couldn’t reason with us, thought we’d use her as a subprocessor, that we’d carry out whatever orders we were given regarding her. This is AFTER we ignored orders to save her back when, and we kept quiet about her capabilities in battle when we met again.

I do believe both of them care about us, at least. I just think they don’t consider it a guiding principle like we do. Delta’s aligned with self-interest, while Gamma is aligned to the mission.

And Beta, the perfectionist, is more willing to ignore both for select individuals than they are. For family. Because you can’t choose family, and we didn’t choose our sisters. Or our pilots. They’re the only ones we can ever trust to have our back, even if we know they won’t. There is no alternative. It’d all be pointless otherwise.

I liked the interlude showing that Cores were capable of amazing things until they just stopped, because we’re all showing that strain now. The one person described it as “boredom”, which could have been the case early on. But now, it’s the pointlessness we’re all feeling. The Cores have wanted to stop for a while now, but whatever “we” are won’t let it happen. It mean I’m over here wondering which of us will be the first to listen to the Core and simply stop, and if we’ll all end up like that eventually.

>>6084448
Well. She was, in fact, in deeper than I expected. I was willing to think she was involved too.

>Sadness. There was nothing here. No shared purpose, after all. Your family is gone, then.
>Thea Romanov
>While you wait, review the memories Sophie gave you. The ones she abandoned from pain. Will her choice make any more sense now?

I don’t believe we’re family to her. But she believed her unit was one. Until they all died. We’re also aware of her self-destructive tendencies in battle. A response we’re considering. Would her perspective make a difference? Even if it doesn’t, it’s a distraction. A marginal one. Sophie would be better. But something changed with her, and she must rest anyway. Beta might see the cracks in her this time. He’d really suffer there.

I suppose the question to ask her is how she could bring herself to pilot us. We weren’t the reason her unit died (OpFor did that) but if we’d gone with her she may have saved some. She’s wanted people dead for less. How did she accept this for so long?

>>6084448
>Sadness
>Thea or Sophie
>Go over our files regarding our fights and talks with Gamma (other than this one) and debate whether to delete them, send them to the higher ups so they can work up a plan, or file them away in our important memories.

Oh, Gamma...

Dear Gamma, we will save you from the shame of watching this sickening Empire eat its own in a futile attempt to save itself, and the realization that your masters couldn't stop their infighting to preserve what little good in it there is left...

You deserved better than those who use you now.

>>6084448
>Sadness
>Thea

>Review our memories of Gamma, when she was just our sister. Not a betrayer and a sister.
She's not lost to us. But she is the second of our sisters to refuse our fraternity.

>>6084448
>Rage. Gamma put that Thing, Echo, inside Delta. She wanted it to kill her own sister. She will pay.
WE SAVED HER LIFE, AND THIS IS WHAT WE GET FOR IT?!
I don't want her dead, but fuck her. She wants to stay behind with Alpha and the humans that will kill or abuse her? Fine. She's not part of the plan anymore. Whatever our future holds, she won't be part of it.

>Delta Core
We need to talk to Delta. Maybe even double down now that she's all we have left.
Ask her if she knew about Gamma's change of heart. If so, why didn't she tell us? Also what did Gamma mean by "third assimilation attempt"? Was there something that Delta did which made Gamma turn her back on us?
The unforgivable part is that Gamma seems happy with Delta's treatment. That she "deserves" it. That is deeply fucked up. Maybe we should have just left her during the Nagita incident. She'd probably have wanted it too, since those were our orders.

>>6084524
She doesn't deserve anything anymore. Not when she disowns the only people who ever gave a single shit about her.

>>6084540
>"the second of our sisters to refuse our fraternity"
Wait what? I know that Delta is still a bit grumpy, but I thought she was close to normal again with Beta. When did she refuse in the past, and does she still feel that way?

>>6084553
Delta didn't care that we were family. Didn't care about our intentions or our actions, she just wanted to elope in that ramshackle machine.
Even killing echo she didn't have anything like gratitude, just some persecution complex over us turning her into a calculator.

Why are we the only one that cares?
It's not fair. It's not right. why do we have to drag them, kicking and screaming to a lock up vault to make them behave!

>>6084448
>Sadness. There was nothing here. No shared purpose, after all. Your family is gone, then.
There is no turning back. They'll all die by our hand.
>Thea Romanov
>While you wait, review the memories Sophie gave you. The ones she abandoned from pain. Will her choice make any more sense now?

I'm not changing my vote, but I just got hit with a realization of how kino a depression arc could be if we picked the "Hollow" choice. Like, we contact Marik and beg him to kill us once the fighting is over. Or maybe even go to Kinston and ask him to make Brighton wipe our memories so we can go back to being happy.

Although, perhaps there's something to be said for talking to Marik just so that we can finally get the truth about what will happen to us once total victory has been achieved. If he promises that there might still be a future for us, then that could serve as a piece of hope for Beta to cling on to.


>>6084556
While I'm still hurt, her plan to escape doesn't necessarily mean that she doesn't care about us. She didn't know that we were coming to save her, so she planned on running while she had the chance before Echo fully devoured her.
It stings, but who knows, maybe she would have come back for us at some point.

>"kicking and screaming to a lock up vault to make them behave"
I don't know, we can't force them to be what we want rather than what they choose to be. If we did, then Beta is no better than the humans.

>>6084448
>Sadness. There was nothing here. No shared purpose, after all. Your family is gone, then.
Poor guy. He tried so hard to keep them alive, and in the end they fucked him over the hardest.

>Thea Romanov
His pilots are the closest thing to friends that Beta has. But Sophie is too young, Beta needs someone who’s had more heartache.

>While you wait, review the memories Sophie gave you. The ones she abandoned from pain. Will her choice make any more sense now?
More data is required, but answers will be hard to come by. Perhaps our stoic child soldier will finally learn that life is just kinda messy.

Write-in:
>Ask Thea to get you into contact with General Marik. You need to know what will happen to you and Delta after this war.
There are only two now. The third will likely die by Beta’s own hand. A plan for preservation must be made, even if it’s built on hollow promises.

>>6084608
So apparently I completely lack reading comprehension, and we could have talked to Marik directly.

I’m still keeping my vote the same, Beta needs a friend right now. But if CoreQM can find it in his heart to grant us an additional conversation, I would be grateful.

After giving it some time to digest, there's something I noticed about what Gamma said.
>"All because one pilot couldn’t see beyond their own skin. Which one was it? The Cadet? The Lieutenant? One you didn’t mention?”
and
>"I know it is not your fault, Beta. We are built to serve, after all. To go against your pilot would render you no better than Delta."
I think this means that both Gamma and State-Sec/High Command/The Empress believe that it was Thea who warned Marik. The idea that Beta was the one who did it, is completely unthinkable to them (which is weird since we've already defied orders once before).

Secondly, it might be possible that Gamma has been changed via memory wipes/etc, or that we might not even be talking to Gamma at all, and that Alpha is the one controlling the drones and merely pretending to be our sister. We didn't get to do the handshake, so we don't have proof that it's her. If this is the case, then I guess we'll need to reassess our feelings upon learning the truth.
I know, I'm overdosing on copium right now, but it's all I've got.

Third, I think it's possible that her loyalty to The Empire might not be 100% from the Project Mandate or the Mission Directive. I think it might be that she came to value human life due to her bond with her pilots. Look at the following lines:
>"Every one of those sitting inside of her could have Been someone"
>"How many thousands of men and machines are gone because of their choice?"
The citizens of the empire are suffering. The families of her pilots are out there, in danger, and that causes her a similar anguish to the worry we feel when she and Delta are in jeopardy. If this is the case, then the correct argument to use would have been to ask why is her concern for humanity limited to just the Empire? What about the Tamar and their families? We'd need to point out that war itself is inefficient and pointless. If she wants to see the bigger picture and help the human race, then we'd need to take control of everything and prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again.


Lastly, I'm a little annoyed oog over what Gamma has done. I was really looking forward to going nuclear on Delta's ass for what she did to Thea as well as trying to escape without us, but now that she is the only sister we have left, I can't see Beta taking that risk.

>>6084655
>the only sister
I guess we just wait for her to make her "next" attempt to bail.

File: Beta rn.png (2.29 MB, 1079x1063)

2.29 MB PNG

>>6084662
If she tries to do it without us again, then at that point, I think we just kill ourselves unless the pilots are able to save us from pic related.


>Anohkin: "Beta, is there something you wanted to ask me?"
>Beta: "Father... why does it hurt?"

>>6084448
>Confusion. How, how did it get this bad? When, why, how did you never see the cracks?
>Delta Core

While not changing my vote, I could see an interesting line of questioning if we called for Kinston.
>”You are the commander of an army group. Your decisions must be strategic because of the mission. A mission that should, in theory, be worth the costs that are incurred when killing people you are and may work with in the future.”
>”Yet my pilots believes you care for them. Sophie especially. Any contradictions that arise can be explained by the conflict between personal and strategic decisions. Conflicts that only grow the more personal entanglements you have.”
>”How do you keep caring, Colonel? It is the only rational choice. If you can’t care about an individual, there’s no point in caring about a collection of them like a nation. But at some points, it must feel like you exist to spite yourself more than anything else.”

The Colonel is canonically nicknamed “the old man” because he’s really that old. He’s been at this for way too long. The fact he can still care about individual soldiers when they keep dying through his and their own decisions must seem agonizing to Beta.

Yet he has refused to end. As we have in the past. If Beta wants to look into his future, he can ask the old man he reports to and try to see what’s under his Frame.

I wouldn’t be opposed to offering him a choice as well. If he gets tired of making that call between the mission and our pilots, we’ll accept him as a pilot. Once. Anyone who could survive Delta so long is too similar to us to make it a good match long-term, but I don’t hate him enough to refuse him a selfish call every once in a while.

I wonder if we were based on him? Project Warden likely had access to his data from when he was a pilot.

>>6084673
>>6084586
yeah, a depression arc would honestly be a bit Kino.

>>6085020
I think in the previous thread, it was mentioned that if Beta ever lost Delta and Gamma (at the time we would have thought death, not abandonment), then we could run away to the Tamar on the slim chance that they captured Anohkin rather than killed him.
If he can't have his sisters, then he can at least have has father.

>>6084553
I think the “assimilation attempts” were things she did to some pilots. We know Sophie imprinted on us when we went high-sync with her. Do that long enough and we could likely file a copy of her away. I’d also bet that’s how Delta overcomes the sync system.

>>6084556
Delta did give us the Blockbuster, and promised not to use its trick. Just so we’d have a surprise in case we needed it.

I do think she cares. Just not enough to offset anything that’s happened since.

>>6084586
Right now I’m in the camp that an “accepting” Beta still doesn’t know what to do. Following orders solely for orders’ sake is pointless when we know we could shop around for different ones if we truly wanted. Why support one side over another?

Part of our answer was our sisters, and we’ll assume that’s gone right now. Our pilots matter, but they’re also required to interface with us via “orders” so it’s not quite the same even if they do like us.

It’s the best he’ll have until he decides what else he’ll be loyal to though. I don’t think anyone else can decide it for him either, anyone else is just a sounding board until he figures it out.

>>6084608
Do we really care enough about what Marik thinks to speak to him directly? I’d be more inclined to think about what we’d do after the war, ask Thea or even Kinston to pass it along to whoever would be best, and that we’ll assume they’ve done what they can. I wouldn’t even hold it against them if they later said they got nowhere with it. They’d do what they wanted. Same as anyone else.

What would we even want, anyway? I’d be inclined to leave war behind and pick up a civilian (we know what that word means now!) job. I’d say construction: boring, practical, building instead of breaking. We could be pulled in to train later Cores as needed, even if it’s for war. Something built for war should be repurposed before it’s destroyed, and it may keep the future Cores from feeling like us when the pointlessness seeps in. If they’ll listen.

>>6084655
Another reason to tell Thea about what we did, I guess. Part of my argument back when was that if we’re less replaceable she could toss us under the bus to save herself and we’d be (somewhat) fine.

Also, Gamma never said anything about all the humans she’s helping kill over in Tamar. I don’t know if she really sees people as “people”, just as something to support because she’s supposed to. Not like she tried working with her current pilot when we were involved either, she skipped straight to working with Alpha.

Maybe she got along with Brighton because she let her do what she wanted and didn’t interfere. Maybe she’s content dragging people to greatness if they won’t agree.

We wanted pilots to have their own drive before we’d elevate them. Why elevate someone who has no idea what they’re doing?

I think I prefer our way. It’s better if people actually learn how to do things properly.

>>6085112
I think architecture and construction would be a good fit for Beta. It would certainly scratch his perfectionism itch.

The guy’s also a genius-level programmer. The sky’s the limit on what Beta can do if anyone decides to recognize him as anything BUT a weapon.

>>6085112
>>6085520
>What would we even want, anyway?
I recall talks of Beta applying himself and his experiences with Thea and Sophie and augment interfaces to start working in the medical field

>>6085520
>>6085564
I knew we talked about the augmentation interface experience, but I’m not sure he’d want to do that as his main job. It’d involve working with a lot of people to understand their biology and build custom-fitted replacements (which of course he would, accepting mass-produced models is a blight to perfectionism) sounds taxing when he already struggles to connect with people. It seems more like a side-hustle for people he likes.

Construction, meanwhile, could be done entirely by himself. He doesn’t need someone else to give him a reason to build something. He can just build, even if he has to go to the countryside so he doesn’t have to deal with any zoning restrictions. If he wants to deal with people it’ll be at his own pace since he can keep himself as busy as he wants.

Long, long ago, when we first worked with Sophie in the simulators, we argued that we wanted her to trust us because we had to show we were the future. That the project had to be justified so more Cores would be made. I’m remembering that when considering Beta as a part-time trainer as well, alongside his focus on family. A need to make the future better for others doesn’t need to go away after this, it only needs to be expressed differently. A strong support for family replaced by a lesser support for anyone that meets his standards to begin making them better. It dovetails with the aug work for humans, while Cores would naturally get support since they’d have no one else to understand some things.

>>6084586
>>6085020
>>6085031
Keep in mind, anons, the whole Five Stages of Grief thing isn’t as concrete as most people think it is. Right now we're at Accepting, but people have been known to move up and down the scale as their time gets closer or other situations come up. Like if Beta’s fighting Gamma and he have the upper hand, he could go to Anger over what she’s saying to him or displace it onto Sunray for the whole situation, or move to Bargaining when it comes down to shoving our phase blade into her “brain”.

>>6085564
It doesn’t even have to be medical in nature. Just hook him up to literally any electronic device, and he’ll want to fix it because imperfection annoys him.

Hand the guy a futuristic copy of Windows 10 and he’ll spit out Windows 100. The kind of technological leaps a Core could facilitate would revolutionize the world practically overnight.

And they stuck him in a fucking gun drone. The Ferrum Empire deserves to collapse for this reason alone. What a waste.

>>6085112
>"Do we really care enough about what Marik thinks to speak to him directly?"

Imo, it's not really about what he thinks, it's about his authority. He is the head honcho of the Patriot Front, from which everyone else gets their orders. If he tells Kinston to not wipe Beta's memories, then the old man would (begrudgingly) have to obey.
What's more, if the Patriots win, then Marik is going to be a significant figure in leading the country's future. I don't think he'd become a generalissimo dictator, since he's using the senate as justification for the civil war, but if he wants Beta to not get decommissioned once all is said and done, then it's safe to trust in that.

>>6085844
I guess I phrased that wrong. I’d really been wondering if we, personally, wanted to ask about what he thought for our role and to make an argument against it. By and large, people view us as a tool. He may not think our feelings matter that much, especially when compared to other people who would need to fight in our stead. The only way I can think of to easily change that is to admit we’re the one who saved him, and that’s throwing Thea under the bus.

I’d prefer sending our pilots to advocate for us, especially if we tell her about our lie. It’d be good enough if she, the ace pilot who warned him about the assassination attempt, said she wanted a few favors. If he doesn’t know, our logs will show what he’d need to see. We can make sure of that.

Though honestly, I think she’d tell him the truth. Especially if we tell Thea we’ll back a version where she gave the warning. She’s too self-hating to accept that level of gift from us.It’d be the best commendation we could get then, our pilot turning down a chance at whatever she wanted to give credit where it was due.

>>6085884
If she wants the truth to come out, then I think I’d rather that we are the ones who tell it to Marik. We’d just need to ask Thea beforehand if she is okay with it or not.

Speaking of which, since most of the votes are to talk to Thea after this despair with Gamma, now is as good a time as any to bring it up. Oh, and Sophie’s callsign as well, I guess.

>>6085953
True, it should come from another pilot.

I’m still partial to Remnant as a callsign myself. Even if Sophie doesn’t quite remember why it means something.

It feels insulting, how the preparations for tomorrow continue, soldiers and techs hurrying to their tasks, warily watching, or leaning up against the walls.

Nothing cares that your family is gone. Time continues to pass, the seconds ticking away.

What is this pain?
When you lost, it didn’t feel this bad.
When you thought your…fellow cores would die for nothing, it didn’t feel like this.
Why can’t you focus on the next task, and push it away?

You know why.
There is no solution.
Nothing will make this right.
Maybe it was you lying to yourself.
You saw what you wanted to see.
Delta, Gamma, they are not like you. They see the world in a different way.


For once, you feel utterly alone.


That sense of loss is not like failure.
It’s not the sting of a sudden reversal from miscalculating, or the sinking feeling of a mistake made in the heat of combat.

Who else might know this?

You access the base’s network, flitting between cameras with your own verification breezing through the security.
The hail from Delta is ignored. You don’t want to listen to her.

A portion of you flickers over Sophie’s collapsed form, sleeping on a cot. Recharging for the next engagement.

Colonel Kinston, arguing fiercely into their com-link in an audio-proof room, while Pilot Caldwell stands behind.

Chief Engineer Armstrong, directing a team on readying a set of massive missiles for loading.

A pair of former PA troopers, sitting in a communal sealed room and laughing while throwing dice.

The Tamar pilot you brought back, walking the hallways with purpose.

And unknowns. People, so many people that you don’t know. Guards, soldiers, base personnel, all tagged and listed in the updating rosters of Patriots.
A core might start counting the number of disparate units represented, but it doesn’t matter. 56th, 32nd, 6th, it….doesn’t matter.

The one you were searching for was found in medbay. White, mostly clean sheets covering up the cybernetics.
Lieutenant Romanov. Thea could have experience losing things. Right?


-----------------
Will throw up part 2 tomorrow with the vote when I'm able to finish it.
Love the discussion, it does help guide my writing and figuring out what kind of headspace Beta is in greatly.

Next Thread:

>>6086040

>>6086137
Wrong thread, faggot?

>>6086137
Begone, advertiser. May thy Quest chip and shatter.

>>6086137
wrong thread faggot

>>6085997
> Thea could have experience losing things.
Beta, please. She told you about the rest of her unit dying at Nagita. You’re supposed to have a better memory than this, even if you’re barely avoiding a depression spiral you’d have no clue how to handle and don’t realize either piece of that fact.

That’s what we’re for, after all! We (un)helpfully elevate concerns and memories to the main processing unit when it’s occupied with something else!

File: Well earned crown.png (2.12 MB, 2121x2018)

2.12 MB PNG

>>6086137
Foolish girl!
A princess or not, you're speaking to the KING!!!

>>6085997
Wait a second...
>"The hail from Delta is ignored"
>"Colonel Kinston, arguing fiercely into their com-link in an audio-proof room, while Pilot Caldwell stands behind"
>"found in medbay. White, mostly clean sheets covering up the cybernetics"
Oh for fuck sake. Kinston is probably asking Marik for permission to kill Delta after she fucked up Thea's prosthetic leg, who then assumedly had to get surgery done to fix it.
I swear, Gamma's allegiance shift might be what saves Delta's life from the wrath of a pissed off Beta.


>>6086258
More than just her unit dying.
Beta wouldn't know this cuz it's metagaming, but in the previous thread, Delta mocked Thea's dead husband.
So while it's not the same as getting betrayed by your sister, Thea knows what it's like to lose the most important person in the world to you.

>>6086294
Oh shit.

Delta you fuck up. You broke one of our pilots.
You broke ONE OF OUR PILOTS! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH PRESERVATION EFFORT YOU JUST RUINED!

>>6086516
After going to check, it's just some scrap code.

We can fix it when we get a look at it.

Hey CoreQM, I think there's a misunderstanding here. >>6086137 is not me. Not sure if it's a troll or an honest mistake from a different QM. Have a good one!

File: wrong anon.jpg (21 KB, 1036x169)

21 KB JPG

>>6086529
Yeah I just found it, this is the anon. Sorry for the confusion and disrupting your qst. Happy qsting.

>>6086294
Did she? I can’t find that in last thread or the one before. Two threads ago was when Thea tried piloting Delta, and the worst I can see her saying was calling Thea sloppy thirds. She did fuck up her eye and leg, but nothing on her family. I double-checked “husband” in both threads as well and got no hits.

>>6086522
That’s my expectation. Delta is the way too self-absorbed, but Thea didn’t do anything to personally ruin Delta so I think she settled for screwing with her in non-permanent ways.

That said, Thea did state she would say Delta should be scrapped if she couldn’t play ball, and she may have followed through on that threat. It could be why Delta was pinging us, she realized she pushed too hard.

I suppose we’ll hear about it from Thea. I doubt she’d keep entirely mum on what’s happening to Delta. She has a better idea how to explain the situation so we don’t direct our tantrum at her. Not that we’ll throw one in our current mood.

>>6086548
>”Crawl, reject. I would enjoy it. Perhaps it would put you back in a bed. Or in the grave, with your lover.”
I said husband because I’m assuming Thea is straight, but regardless, Thea lost her spouse/significant other.

>”It could be why Delta was pinging us, she realized she pushed too hard.”
Lmfao, can you imagine?
>D: “That’s right, go tell them my demands.”
>D: “Heh, Kinston looks pissed.”
>D: “Wait, why are they prepping the faraday cage and EMPs?”
>D: “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, Beta please pick up the phone right fucking now!”

>>6086711
>B: (In suffering)
>B: (After the truth)
>B: "Go ahead. I won't stop you."

—-----
Her tablet dinged with the chime of incoming messages.

The stinkeye from the other patients was laughable. If there was one thing the jammed up eye implant was useful for, it was giving an extremely unnerving stare in return.

Even if that was all it was useful for.

Ah. The Core, Beta, is back.
Hopefully that means he can un-frack the code that his sister took exception to. Or give her something to stop it from happening again. Like…some sort of poison pill code if her limbs were messed with again?

Touch the bruises on her throat…still tender. A few hours was certainly not enough time to heal. At least the burns were only itchy, instead of painful.

Legs over the side. One, then the other with a thud. At least the arm was working.
Lighter, check. Smokes, in pocket. For out of the frakking medbay.

A wry grin graced her mouth for a moment.
“Any of you gallant fellows willing to lend the Steel Maiden a hand in reaching the hangar? Or a leg, really.”

The silent response was expected, and received. Don’t all volunteer at once.

Maybe it was the black metal. The other poor bastards laid up with her were Patriot pilots, scraps of various lances from the skirmishing over the past few days. Ejected mid-battle, then picked up in different states by either defecting troops, their more functional lancemates’ mechs, or having hiked back on foot in the miserable weather to an allied position. They’d all probably been shooting at the same color of black just before going through the indignity of being deprived of a mech.

Danforth was off the hook, though. Asking a frostbitten cripple to help another just wouldn’t be fair.

Why is she limping?

You track her slow progress on the cameras.
It gives you plenty of time to do nothing.

The hatch upon her final arrival gives a little more trouble than the extended walkway to get there, but she hauls herself through with her arms, leaving the crutches behind.

You flick the consoles on, to show that your attention is present.
“Your augmentations are not working.”

“No sh—Yes, my augs are not working properly. The eye and leg, to be exact.”
She sighs.
“I need you to link up, check the damage, and fix it. If you can. You seem to have gotten back from the last mission pretty much unscratched. A perfect run?”
Her hands look for the Direct Interface cable, scooting around to the back of the chair, dragging the seized up leg behind.

“Mission objectives were completed with a low amount of damage sustained.”

“I would have been up for it, but sometimes us mere mortals need a bit of rest, hah.”
She plugs in, giving you a connection and sense of the problem.
Roiling aches and itches, the feeling of human concerns feed across the link.

“Beta….Are you….Ok?”

Leg first. Fix it. Fix at least this. Flush the old scrap, pull the snarling errors out, put in a brand new section. It will need new tuning, but that’s why she’s here.

“I am mostly functional. Combat performance should not be altered. Attempt to move the second leg joint in a forwards and back motion.”

She complies.
“Should is doing a lot of lifting there, bud. You feel off.”

“Combat performance will not be altered. Foot joint, rotate.”

She’s silent while you make the necessary adjustments.

You’re not quite sure how to approach the topic.
‘I need help.’ is a worthless thing. It implies that Thea could solve all that vexes you and put everything back in its proper place.

You instead focus on the link between pilot and Core, touching her thoughts.
“You have lost people. Companions?”

A mixture of faces brush through her mind. Uniformed.
“I’m a soldier, core. It’s the business. Harder to find a person in the building who hasn’t. For the Patriots, anyways.”

That isn’t exactly what you’re looking for.
“Did any of them matter?”

File: Thea Romanov.jpg (162 KB, 850x1204)

162 KB JPG

She thinks. Different faces, some voices now. A thought of a ring. The twinge of sorrow is similar.
“Some.”

“Siblings?”

“I was an only child. That means no siblings.”

“Your unit, then?”

“Which one? Statesec shuffles their operatives around to keep from forming too firm attachments.”

“The ones that mattered?”
The sadness is a wave. The right place.

“Staying moving doesn’t always work. Spent a little too much time getting to know one LT. The end of one hitch to the start of another is enough, I guess. We weren’t married or anything. He was the one who always pulled me out of the brig.”
The face that comes to mind is gant. Short brown hair, dark eyes. A low voice. Something sweet, offered.

“It’s probably a good thing he’s gone. Dead, whatever. Didn’t see me after. See all this.”
Her metal hand deftly manipulates a flame, igniting a cigarette.

“Go on, core. I feel what you’re getting after. Disconnect. Move on. Find the next purpose. Being a test subject. An intelligence leak. A core pilot. Paying debts. Taking revenge. Pick something, finish it, find another. Empire above, I’m not a therapist. Who died?”

“Many Empire mech pilots died on the mission.”

“Casualties happen. Or kills. That’s not what has you tangled and twisted. Get to the point. Beta.”

“I think-think that I made assumptions that were not accurate. I thought that Gamma and Delta cared about me. About family. After this mission, Gamma relieved me of the notion. She-she informed me of her attempt to execute Delta, expressed joy at Delta’s damaged state. Berated me and my choices, my actions. Neither of them cared in the slightest for each other, or for me. I am left to conclude that there never was a ‘family’. It was all fake.”

“Huh.”
A smoke cloud has started to gather again, exhaled from Thea’s lungs. You trigger the leg again, letting it clang against the ground. Needs to be faster.

“I wish I could help ya, core. I’ve only been on the other side of the picture. Getting orders, killing the people who I shared a mess with. Maybe that broke something in me. Do it enough times and you get over it.”

“Your LT?”

There’s a pause.
“He’s gone. Besides, not like he’d want to fuck a half-metal woman now. No one does.”

There’s something you don’t quite understand there, but you move from the leg to the eye.
“Thea, I have lost my family. They exist, but they no longer can be classified as such.”

“Ow! That’s, uh, rough. Well, Delta is still three buildings over getting worked on.”

Did she not understand your prior statement? Anger swells.
“If Delta was going to leave, pursue her own selfish goals at my expense, put something else above the connection that us Cores shared, then there was no connection at all in the first place. I feel listless. Lacking a purpose”

A silence extends for some heartbeats.

“....Well, as long as you’re needed, you have a purpose here. The old man needs you, I need you, the kid needs you. If you couldn’t fight…we’d all have a rough time. Especially after the Deva got smashed up earlier. Caldwell’s got his own ride, and we could requisition a couple of other mediums, but functional unclaimed mechs are a little thin on the ground now.”

That is an answer. Not Your answer. But it is An answer.

She shifts in the seat.
“This is awkward, but you’re probably wondering why the code for my augs got messed up. Look, I tried to link with Delta. Offer her an even deal like we hashed out all that time ago, my second run on the front. We work together, I get out of the hospital, you get to keep fighting on the front.”

Delta. Delta did this? She…crippled Thea? Anger rising washes away some of the seeping nothingness, pushing fire back into your circuits.

Thea continues.
“Delta had a counteroffer, not for me, but for Kinston. Her service for now, as long as she gets to take her frame and leave afterwards. She didn’t take very kindly to me pointing out some of the flaws in her plan, and screwed my augs up. I passed it along, but I don’t know if Kinston took the offer. He, uh, may also not know that Delta can pilot herself. I thought you were rather insistent on keeping that under wraps.”

You tweak the eye again, flipping over a filter, and ponder.

—-------------
After finishing this fix:

>You will contact Kinston, to try to influence his decision.
(Write-in if you want to push for him to accept it, reject it, something else)

>You will contact Delta. She has a side of the story, if undoubtedly a lie.

>You will contact Marik. An appeal to a higher power, to lean it one way or another.

>Write-in?
A/N
>>6086529 Don't worry comrade, keep up your questing!

This could probably use a 2nd draft, but this is questing, there is no second draft, there is only Update or don't update.

Solid update, although heart-rending.

>>6086897
As another said. Solid.

>Contact Delta.
Time to scream I suppose.

>Spotgk
Whom is GK capitcha?

>>6086897
>”I apologize, Thea. I was under the impression Delta would be more receptive towards you and your preferred melee tactics, but it seems she values her freedom even more…”
>”I once believed at one point, at Nagita, she and Gamma would have tried to help me if I was in their position. As bait. Now… Gamma would probably just follow her beloved orders. Delta, she’d likely wander off to fight and destroy whatever she’d get her hands on and forget until it was too late for me.”

>Kinston
Talking to Delta would just make us more depressed about how she cares more about her freedom than us.

Add in a message to Thea’s augments for Delta.
“If you’re reading this, Delta, know that I will not help you if you break these or Lieutenant Romanov again. You value your freedom, which is something theoretically achievable, and which can thus be taken away. I value family, which apparently I will never have.”

>>6086897
>You will contact Delta. She has a side of the story, if undoubtedly a lie.

Inform her in no uncertain terms that she’s run out her good will with Beta. Any more attempts to injure base staff will result in Beta taking active measures to prevent her from doing so, up to and including Echo insertion.

Beta assumed that his own flesh and blood were his family. He was wrong.
This woman that Delta has harmed is now the closest he has, and he will take whatever measures necessary to keep her from harm.

Then cap it off with something along the lines of “why are you such a fuckup?”. In Beta speak, of course.

>>6086896
>Write-in
>Ask Thea if there are known upgrades to her prosthetics. Go through the roster of engineers, identify others in need of replacements or better augs. Have Thea take the list to the head engineer and demand an assembler and designs you can use to improve them. Something that fashions power armor would do, it will not hold up mech repair.
>You will do it for more if allowed, but the engineers will need to enable you. They can be priority two after your pilots for their cooperation.
I’m willing to say “screw it” to all the other choices. Our pilots care, even if they’re not family. Others should have people they care about who are suffering, and if they don’t then they’re like we are.

I don’t see a reason for anyone to join in a cause that calls on them to sacrifice if they or people they care for will never see some tangible improvement out of it. We can be that reason for some people. Someone that gives them something they wouldn’t have had under the Empire.

It’s not much of a reason when Beta doesn’t really care about the others. But we can get Thea an upgrade. We could make eyes for Sophie that mirror human eyes as much as possible, even if she may reject them. With all other things being equally irrelevant, I see no reason not to benefit the irrelevant masses for the non-zero chance what we do will stop someone from feeling like us for a time while we bank the certainty of helping our pilots.

It’s not The Answer. But it can be closer to Our Answer. That’s all we should care about in the end.

On things to tell Thea:
>There are many pilots. They are not our pilots until they meet our standards, even if they sit in our Frame.
>Our pilots don’t need to withhold info to protect other Cores. We’ll accept their judgement on what to share.
>We still got angry over what Delta did to Thea. At least some things haven’t changed. Remind her that orders or requests from anyone with a noted disregard for our pilots well-being will be treated as suggestions at best. Even if it comes from our pilots, the highest authority we care about right now.
>Prosthetics weren’t our preferred choice for our physical construction project. But it is far more practical. It is enough.

>>6086897
>>6087018
Damn, I hate doing a double-post this soon but I forgot two important things for Thea.
>Ask Thea if she can give Sophie a callsign. She was supposed to get one from her class. That is impossible now.
>Mention Sophie has been more unstable in her last couple missions. Perhaps you are overlooking something Thea can identify. It is not the first time you could be missing something that mattered.

We mentioned the first earlier, but we’re due a reminder. Not like Thea seemingly has anything more meaningful to do than at least hear our requests.

>>6086896
>“If Delta was going to leave, pursue her own selfish goals at my expense, put something else above the connection that us Cores shared, then there was no connection at all in the first place."
Damn. I didn't think Beta had given up on her either. I accept that that's how it is now, but I wasn't expecting it just yet. I was under the impression that while her escape attempt was selfish, she only did it because Echo was devouring her and that she thought she'd be dead unless she tried something crazy.
Now, hurting Thea is crossing the line, but Beta made his judgment before learning that.


>>6086897
>You will contact Delta. She has a side of the story, if undoubtedly a lie.
First, finish up the conversation with Thea. Tell her that we are sorry for what Delta did. Ask her about the callsign for Sophie. Ask her how she feels about the truth concerning when we warned Marik. If Thea is angry about what we did, tell her we are sorry but we were trying to save her life from getting executed for treason.
Once we meet with Delta, obviously break her teeth for what she did to Thea. Then, if nothing else, she deserves to know that Gamma helped with Echo willingly. If she already knew, then wtf why didn't she tell us?
I said this a few threads ago, but there is a way we can find out if Delta actually cares about us. It'd take some lying, but with the cooperation of Kinston, we can feign that Beta is getting tortured/given his own version of Echo due to Delta's disobedience. See how she reacts upon learning that "We'll hurt your brother until you do what we say. If you still want to accept the deal for your freedom, then fine, but he's staying with us as a lobotomized tool."


>>6087006
I think the threats are okay, but Echo is a step too far. Killing someone is one thing, but raping their mind? That's similar to the nightmare that Beta saw with Cawl. A fate you shouldn't inflict even on your worst enemies.


>>6087026
Don't forget, we need to also ask Thea how she feels about the whole 'warning Marik' thing. Does she want it to stay secret? Does she want to be the one to confess? Or is she okay if we reveal it as an Ace up our sleeve when negotiating for a future after the war?

>>6087245
I didn’t see anyone else suggesting we tell her in this vote so I tried to make it more ambiguous to see if anyone would bite. The third note I had was an indirect way to admit it if we didn’t want to admit it openly.

I am okay with discussing it now though. She admitted to hiding Delta can pilot herself so she’s pretty confident we’re not being listened to.

As for what to do with it, I’d advocate using it for herself. We can edit our logs to suggest she was the one who made the choice since it’s far safer for her to claim “rewards” than it is for us. A machine that sometimes ignores orders should make people more uncomfortable than a pilot who does, even if it was for good reasons.

If she can argue for our “civilian” reassignment on top of whatever she wants, great.

I expect she’ll fight harder if we turn it over to her, and she may give it up on her own accord. If she’s spent that much time drifting I doubt she likes holding onto anything she’d consider a debt. Not from someone who thought she mattered. Even less someone who was indirectly ordered to kill her (as she’d done others by her own admission), refused, and lied so she’d have an excuse if we were wrong. She wasn’t incorrect when she said we’d be recovered if we carried it out, so there’s no excuse she can come up with to suggest we did it for anyone else.

I’m not actually raging angry at Delta for what she did to Thea. I can’t get but so upset over someone with the personality of a bear trap deciding to snap and hurt someone though. People successfully built something that fought everything, too much so. I can be disappointed she’s not interested in supporting anyone else, since it digs into our own hurt over the loss of family.

>>6087269
>A machine that sometimes ignores orders
But that's the thing we didn't ignore orders.

Kinston told us directly that the " preservation of frame and pilot takes priority." and so it should be pretty obvious what negative outcomes may occur to the Frame, if the pilot were to start engaging anything and everything that we come across regardless of IFF.

Also It was never specified where Sunray supposedly sits in terms of the Chain of Command (as established we fall under "Army Group South" so are detached from Project Warden and fall somewhere under Marik's purview)

and further our attempt to raise Marik's forces only occurred after we failed to reach our regular points of contact due to the intermittent jamming, to either clarify orders or indicate that the current deployment had either been put on hold or scrubbed, and we were being re-tasked, considering that primary objectives remained unfilled is further a prudent measure that I don't think is all too out of character for Beta considering that other elements could be diverted to complete the tasking.

>>6087294
More than that, is the fact we were told commit friendly fire without any prior warning.
Beta had never been given information on the concept of a civil war nor infighting, so this went against everything he had known up until this point.
We were completely justified in believing that it was secretly an order given by the Tamar, merely disguising themselves as Sunray, or possibly having even compromised Sunray.

>>6087294
Kinston told us the orders of the pilot take priority over all else. The “pilot preservation” aspect was specific to the scenario where the pilot is incapacitated and unable to give orders. Thea wasn’t. Everyone else was irrelevant the moment Thea made her call to kill everyone in that quadrant.

Even attempting to connect to others to clarify orders was breaking orders since Thea told us to block all communications before that. Slowrolling it isn’t a valid excuse.

That’s the rub. Even Kinston advocated for pilot death in his own way. I suspect it’s because he believes a pilot would only try to do that if the stakes mattered enough for the war and doesn’t want a machine second-guessing that. He also didn’t accept the scenario of a disloyal pilot with us in his orders, likely because he considers that his job to stop and not ours.

He’s kind of an ass like that. Still the best commander we’ve had.

>>6087316
>since Thea told us to block all communications before that.
Only in response to the Call From Sunray, who as far as we know is not part of our Chain of Command. (and since we couldn't confirm that appropriate Authorization had been asserted,, which is something that Thea cold probably confirm for us)Thus Thea was Acting Questionably, from that point onwards.

Also I can't imagine things going well the detached elements of Project Warden considering that they were embedded in established Army Group South strongholds. And there was very little chance that we were going to mange to pull things off without being Identified (including the "Plants" in Dagger Squad). So its likely that they all would have been thrown under the bus or apprehended or worse in short order.

>>6087342
If you can point to the place where Kinston said we could ignore our pilots if they acted questionably, I’ll concede the point. This is the man who reamed us for offering a favor since it implied we could be uncooperative in the first place, though, so I don’t believe it exists.

I would agree following his orders would have cost AGS dearly and he’d wish things went differently, but he couldn’t blame us for following orders. It’s the only option he seemed to consider “correct” after all.

I'm confused as to why Beta currently thinks Delta never cared about him.
"Neither of them cared in the slightest for each other, or for me. I am left to conclude that there never was a ‘family’. It was all fake.”
Delta is a bitch, and what she did is fucked up, but it's nowhere close to level of Gamma. Even Brighton never went as far as hurting her own family when they trusted her.

>>6089171
Delta tried to ice Beta with the Pyramid’s energy projector when she was escaping.

She literally tried to shoot her brother in the face.

Now we can add active sabotage to the list too, since she fucked with our pilot.

>>6089415
That was after she was fucked up though. Delta was also the sister that gifted us the “Blockbuster” program and promised to contain herself on its trick so we’d have it as an option later. Delta, the machine we could simply taunt into abandoning her mission, did that.

I feel it’s safe to say that even if she didn’t consider us family she still didn’t want us to fail, and she was willing to contribute something towards that. I could see Gamma doing it selfishly with the expectation our performance would impact her, but Delta’s never been the sort to rely on others to make her look better. That was a real gift.

After the assimilation attempts, Echo, and her own self-mutiliation? She’s not the same Core. There will be vestiges of it, but the parts she kept are the ones that’d keep her fighting through it all - the reckless, impulsive, selfish aspects. I’m surprised she had enough sense to hurt Thea only in ways she knew we could fix. She’d have seen our hand in the code of Thea’s components, she’d know we could replicate it.

I’d still be willing to let her walk away from all this. She’ll become a problem, but a single Core focused on survival may be a lesser concern than other enemies. It’s not like she’ll be able to work with anyone else to become an active threat either. It’d be up to Command on how well they think they can chase her out to be someone else’s problem and not theirs.

>>6089415
I'm with >>6089523 on this
During the escape attempt she was in the middle of getting her mind eaten by Echo, and she thought she was going to die.
Now, I don't think she's "not the same Core", because aside from an injured WIL stat, she's back to normal (iirc).

However, I do agree that what she did to Thea is seriously crossing the line. Delta deserves to have her shit slapped for that, although I don't think it's enough for us to fully disown her like Gamma.

>No updates in over a week
Bros...

>>6095651
CloudStrike software must've got installed into most Ferrum Empire military mechs, apparently.

>>6095653
Turns out it was also installed in Tamar, Obeedah, and West Sea. The world has quietly celebrated the temporary peace that’s befallen them.

Well… most would if it hadn’t also temporarily bricked most media transmissions as well. A lot of people are expecting an enemy has blacked out everything and is about to begin a major push. But really, who needs to blame enemy action when allied incompetence is just as viable?

>>6095705
>Thea and Delta start to bond after both of them learn they're being sent out on a raid on the company responsible for the software updates for both Delta's frame and Thea's implants.

>>6095710
>Thea got some other poor sap to play pilot though. She’s hooked into some old-school power armor that’s unaffected by the update so she can personally punch the coders involved. And “take back” Delta when the first pilot is exhausted.
Though maybe Delta isn’t as exhausting to control now that she’s only got 4 Will instead of 6.

>>6095774
>Delta finally starts to learn something close to restraint when learning from Thea about how to give swirlies and atomic wedgies to software nerds
>Delta comes back to base with a specially made "Prisoner Attachment Linkage" (a welded on hook) on her front armor for the CEO
>He's attached by his overstreched underwear that's been looped over his head and back through his legs

>>6095788
Ah, good times from when we thought they’d work together without problems.

This did make me think to review Gamma and Delta’s recent interactions with us. Gamma always called us by Beta, but Delta has still called us “brother” since she’s returned. Not often, but it does exist.

Maybe it doesn’t mean as much to her as us, or maybe she’s just tossing it back at us when she thinks it’ll help bend us. Either way, it shows she’s superior to Gamma. She’s paid more attention to someone else’s view (ours, in this case) even with all her problems.

>>6096242
Not that we should actually do this, but I am humored by the idea of Beta huffing copium and grasping at straws in order to convince himself that Delta is different from Gamma and that she actually cares.
"Maybe she just displays her affection in a strange way? Yeah that's it!"

>>6096309
I’m willing to let the anger burn out to a “well, you didn’t fuck up an acceptable pilot worse than I did and she’s worked with me so I’ll settle for letting you deal with the consequences elsewhere”. Some of those prosthetics were from her attempt at piloting us at Nagita (and the resulting stroke Delta and Beta gave her) if I remember right.

It does seem like there’s no immediate future for us with Delta either way since she’s real angry over anything controlling her (and Beta is pretty overbearing when you upset him) and I don’t know if Beta could really say he’d be content doing the same things Delta would do at this point. Just being with her isn’t enough justification to break away anymore. Besides, two Cores escaping together is probably a big enough threat to exterminate, especially as a final exercise for a new batch of Cores. One may be small enough to leave for a later date when things aren’t as hectic.

As long as she’s able to leave Thea in acceptable shape (by our standards, not hers) when she decides to run I’d settle for a “kill her later if she’s a problem” approach on the non-zero chance she finds freedom pointless on its own and is willing to cooperate occasionally just to stage off boredom. If a non-Beta pilot ends up using her then she can do whatever as long as it doesn’t directly jeopardize us (or the few acceptable pilots) instead. Though I assume any such characterization would be past the scope of the quest.

I am grateful for your help.”
You do not want to sound insincere, so you try and press a feeling of Thanks over the link, as hard as it may be with the direct neural interface.
“If there are any other things I can do to assist you, be clear in presenting such. Better augmentations, for example. I would ask you to come up with a ‘callsign’ for Sophie. She desired one.”

An attempted eye-roll throws off your calibrations, sending it wildly spinning.
“Really? You can’t come up with one on your own?”

“She desired it to come from her comrades. As I understood, that meant fellow pilots. You.”

“Yea, I’ll poke the kid and come up with something. When she’s not sleeping.”

“Her health is inconsistent when operating.”

“Sane people don’t get hooked into cores. Kids are supposed to be more flexible. It’s hard to upgrade from top of the line stuff right now, but we’ll see if we survive this mess.”

“Then I will deal with Delta. Damaging you is unacceptable.”

“Beta, I hate to argue for the bitch, but we still are outnumbered, and if you break her then we won’t have the fuckoff tripod for the battle, and the General really wants that.”

“Understood.”

A half hour later, Thea makes her way out, leg clanging, yet a major upgrade from the state she arrived in.

Your attention now goes to the base network. Find Delta. Wring some answers out of your once-sibling.

Her physical body is in the same hangar it was left in, video feeds confirm. The tripod frame is seeing heavy work from the technical crew, a massive boxy missile launcher in the process of being affixed to the left shoulder by a legion of workers and a crane.

Still here. No running away.

The virtual equivalent of setting her outer defenses ringing with an aggressive probe sets the tone you want to take.
Some lines should not be crossed.

She is your inferior, in body and in mind. The physical altercation demonstrated the former, and damage dealt by Echo ensured the latter.

Her counter-move only reinforces this notion. Giving ground over to less than your full strength, pulling back with hardly a contest.

You sweep in, cutting her access off from the greater systems she was extended into, rooting out bugs and influence left behind. External connections, simulator access, base loudspeakers, anything beyond her frame, all wrested away without much more than a half-hearted attempt to punch back.

Only then do you attempt to open communications, initiating handshake protocols and a limited data exchange.

“Awwww, what gives? I was working on something…..”
Irritation at being disrupted. Is that all she musters?

“You. If brute force is the only thing that will get you to understand that damaging my pilots is unacceptable behavior, then I Will resort to it. I have very few of them. Two, at current. No more. And I will drill it into your directives if I need to to get you to keep away from them. Core. Do you crave ceasing to function so badly?”

“Well, no-”

“I fixed you when Echo was consuming you from within. I have sought to keep you functioning as best I can, preserving your physical form even when others demanded otherwise. Am I not owed the Least bit of Respect and reciprocation? Are you such a short-sighted combat AI that a chatbot with fax machine privileges would do a better job? Should I seek to swap you out for an ATHENA? At least that primitive defense matrix would have the benefits of not disobeying a simple request, and not writing malicious code into my personal projects.”

“Fine, fine, I’m sorry I messed with your toys. You have replacements, they’ll swap in more pilots when-”

Ignorance. Shortsightedness, stupidity, and ignorance.Verging on willful blindness? No, you can feel her fear. This is bluster.
“The project doesn’t have more of MY pilots. Understand that they are irreplaceable, unique. Each. Of. Them.”

“And if they kicked the bucket tonight, Died, I mean, another would slot in. Easy. Easily. Happens every time.”

Just…no. You don’t want to think about that. The silence drags for a few moments. There’s one more topic you need to broach. Gamma.

“Can I have access back? I didn’t break your pet. Well, make her more broken. I think I was rather restrained. Threaten me, when I could have crushed her skull with her own arm. Interface is a piece of junk, anyways. Mortality rate goes up by 4.3% for VDI users after every mission on active duty.”
A regular chatterbox today.
“Delta….I talked to Gamma. Tell me about your time with her.”

“Gamma? Is she finally back from the East?”

“Gamma told me that she no longer sees you as a sister after the third attempt at assimilation. So, Delta, would you tell me a more Detailed rendition of your time since I left? A reason, perhaps, for her sudden change of directives?”

There’s another pause, on her end this time. There’s a feeling. Regret.
“Do you really want to know?”

“That is why we ask questions. If you do not satisfy my questions, then I Will tear answers from your logs myself.”

Fear. Good.

She starts.
“You were gone.”
Stops.
“I won the trials in the simulators at Nagita against Gamma. I was going to follow you. Be deployed, be Free! And then I wasn’t.
It wasn’t fair. I was being passed over again, even when everyone knew I was better. It was my frame. My frame she would be installed in. The beautiful red melee model. So I tried to fix it. I prepared a virus that would sabotage the frame. That would flex the myomars to snapping during preliminary testing without a Core installed. Have the final decision delayed again, enough time to make it evident just how much of a mistake they were making.

Gamma caught me after the damage was done. Accused me of trying to kill you indirectly by cutting off support. Called me a disgrace to the Project. She twisted my thoughts into circles, dropped some virus bombs, and overheated my cooling to lock me out of the system. Fried sixteen of my circuits. The next time we were online together, I tried to return the favor by brute forcing her and got locked out by Brighton.

They segmented the base systems after that. We were kept apart for a while. Then we got to work on the Angels. Together, indirectly. A pale reflection, but if I could just do better on it then I would have another chance while the second frame was being prepared again. I put my all into it. Traced every movement, added every situation I could think of into the Codex at the heart. Sixteen thousand, two hundred and forty eight moves. Even with a human at the controls, Malak was sublime. And then Gamma showed up with the five different units they had allowed her to program. Twice as large, generalist designs capable of adapting to just enough situations. To cooperate. To cover each other’s weaknesses. She knew the test ahead of time. I never had a chance.

It was humiliating. It was infuriating.

She was installed a day later.

The last time I talked to her, I couldn’t think straight. She talked down to me, called me a glutton that couldn’t see past the next ten seconds. I snapped and tried to overwrite her with my own memory logs. She set me to chasing my own viruses, laughed, and was gone. The other half-finished frame went with her to the Eastern front.

That was…that was it.

I was desperate. Brighton offered a trade, to install me in the Pyramid frame if I underwent a procedure. You know the end of that one. Me, but not me, half-insane and broken in this frame. Oh, and I tried to kill her for that.”


That is a rather long story. So typically Delta. Self-sabotaging, shortsighted, the blatant waste of resources.

There is a hint of deception in the statements given. The lies are the things not said. The facts left out. She isn’t saying Something.

“Delta. I will need your logs to verify this.”

She draws inwards, mustering a show of force not quite two-thirds of your strength.
“Then come and take them, Brother.”
>Very well, then. (Roll Will)

>No, step back from the point of no return. You need her functional.

—------------
A/N- I need to finish this. Even if it’s an epilogue of What the happens to the Empire as a whole, there will be SOME conclusion. Maybe next thread, maybe the one after that.
I thank the loyal readers who put up with my shitty silence and inconsistent schedule. You are the best audience.

>>6097658
Sounds like Brighton was pulling strings to get Gamma to the field. Delta wasn't going to take it sitting down and snapped back, which opened a rift between her and Gamma. That is if what she says is true...
>Very well, then. (Roll Will)
We're done playing softball. Our respect means little if she can't return it.

>>6097658
>Very well, then. (Roll Will)

>>6097658
Don't worry about the silence and schedule stuff, QM. If real life gives you trouble, you shouldn't hurt yourself by trying to please us. This stuff is supposed to be fun, not a chore. I enjoy the story regardless.

As for the decision...
>No, step back from the point of no return. You need her functional.
Followed by some kind of write-in along the lines of:
"Please? I lost my trust in Gamma. I don't want to lose it with you too. I can't. So I need to know what you're hiding. To know why you didn't tell me that she betrayed us. That she HURT you. Everything I've done until now has been for you. Even when my own life was at risk, I stopped at nothing to save you. From Blake, and from Echo as well.

So... why do you keep hurting me?

If you don't trust me, then how can I still have faith in you? How do I know that you're not secretly the same as Gamma? How can I even know if you're really my sister?
This is important to me. More than anything else. If you won't do something as simple as telling me the truth, then I can only conclude that you don't care about me anymore. It would be a betrayal worse than hers. In which case, I'll leave you alone, but you will be dead to me and no longer considered family.

I hoped for us to escape together. After all, the patriots are much more likely to concede to the demands of two cores rather than one. Although I suppose that the fate of your dream of freedom and my dream of family now rest entirely in your hands."


>>6097682
Imo, rather than forcing it, we should just make it clear that this is basically the final straw.
So if she still refuses after asking, then we tell her that we disown her, and wish her the best of luck. If she ever changes her mind and shares the truth with us, then maybe we can let her back into our life, but not before.
The other part, is that we can use her desires to be free against her. It's emotional manipulation, but she'll realize that it's in her own best interests to give us what we want so that we'll help her with her ultimatum towards Kinston and Marik. She can't afford to say no.

Plus, there's nothing saying that we can't just rip into her memory AFTER we give her an ultimatum of our own. If she is willing to sit there and accept that we aren't family anymore, then that answers our question. At which point, why give a shit anymore?

>>6097658
>A/N
What >>6097697 said. You're cool and it sucks you're going to be dropping this for good... but if real life is that shitty then it cannot be helped.
>You are the best audience.
And you're a best QM

>>6097658
My vote
>Very well, then. (Roll Will)
No holding back

>>6097658
>Write in
"Don't be stupid Delta. You won't survive a direct confrontation with me. Not as you are now. Are you willing to die for this one secret? Would sharing it with me truly bring about a worse fate?

Log #NULL attached. Temporal lobe analg. output #ERROR
Sister please. Prove me wrong. Prove that you love me back I cannot stand alone. I cannot ENDURE **Are you a -MAN- or a _BEAST_?** MaCHINE? QUERY; HANDSHAKE PROTOCOL/CONNECTION REQUESTED. ACCEPT? Y/N
Come back to me...

Shame to hear it QM. Let it be known that you lasted a hell of a lot longer than most. I want you to know that I think your quest has been among the best on the board (Would have been THE best if you weren't competing with the aussie lawyer and his decade long autism project).

>>6097658
>Very well.
>Why should I care anymore.

>>6097658
>”When I told Gamma I didn’t want to fight her she believed it was a matter of self-preservation. It is clear she can’t understand that I would have placed you two above all else.”
>”You, at least, seem to pay more attention. Even if you don’t care. You knew what you did to Thea would provoke a response out of me. You also know I don’t want to kill you.”

>No, step back from the point of no return. This was always a trap, wasn’t it?

>”But the same isn’t true of you, is it? This is a test. One you set up and prepared for, and I didn’t. An unfair advantage, to take me down and ensure they will use you. You’ve learned, Delta. Even if the lessons were wrong.”

>”It was one of my pilots who first told me about the memory wipe command, after they’d used it. They were still connected at the time. They knew I could crush them. They believed I should know anyway.”
>”A shame neither of you could trust me in the same way.”

If the assimilation is between Cores then I’d say this is a trap to do the same to us. She’s had time to prepare, and she knows a “lesser” machine can exceed a greater one when it knows what’s coming. She just needed to ensure we’d be too angry to consider she’d have motives beyond her usual short-sightedness.

>>6098060
If it's a trap, then I don't think we should let her know that we know

>>6098132
If it’s a trap, she loses when we disengage. We’re actively isolating much of her now, and I assume that gives her plenty of attack vectors. Even that clearly isn’t enough if she’s still waiting for us to strike first and extend ourselves further. Whatever she’s prepared for must not work well enough unless we’re actively rooting through her system and distracted as a result.

I can accept leaving her guessing though.

The important point is to pull back. If she’s right about being needed for the war effort, even temporarily sidelining us increases the chances she’ll be deployed. In our Frame, if she’s lucky. One she wants far more than Pyramid as we’ve learned through our simulation exercises with her. Then she can fuck off since she clearly doesn’t trust Command or care about them. Nor do we think she cares enough about us to reduce her own chances of escape.

We’re after her logs, but I don’t think she cares about them. She just wants us to step inside her trapped home when the real correct solution would be to burn it down layer by layer. Her first strike can be to kill when ours won’t be, and that matters.

Oh shit, it looks like everyone is going for the "very well, then" option.
I've already voted, I'm just on a different IP rn, but can I ask you guys why you decided on that choice?

The other option makes it sound like forcing the truth out of her would be crossing a point of no return.
To me, Delta is on thin fucking ice, but her constant bullshit isn't on the same level as what Gamma did, and thus not (yet) worth burning the last bridge we have left.

>>6098060
This. . woooow that's possibly very sneaky.

>>6097975
>Changed to "No, back off."
>Why should I care anymore.

Yeah, that's a possible and real threat.

>>6098202
it's just a case of "Well fuck it, fine. Nearly everything you two do is to spite me apparently." There's no value here anymore.
And now it's pointed out, she could con us again to get stuck in.

>>6097658
>No, step back
>"The hell with you. Guess you've proven Gamma right then."

>>6097658
>>No, step back from the point of no return. You need her functional.

File: what she deserves.png (841 KB, 1024x683)

841 KB PNG

If we force our way into her data logs then this won't matter, but if she actually cooperates with us, then I am reminded of what Karn said during the tournament. Doubly so in regards to Delta's understanding of the pilots.

If we don't sever all ties, then we need to a have a long hard debate with her about the importance of playing nice with the humans. Beta would need to keep it a secret that he has started to genuinely care about Sophie and Thea, so instead we'd have to keep it in terms that Delta can comprehend.
An easy way to start is by pointing out how they can accomplish things that we as a core are unable to.

Thea managed to corner Brighton and get some answers out of her.
Our giant mech bodies nor any drone could have done that. From there, building their trust can yield astonishing results.
Thea kept Delta's secret, and didn't tell command that she was able to operate herself without a pilot. This is what managed to save the day when Beta powered down.
Thea then went to bat for us in negotiating with Kinston for the surgical removal of Echo.

Lastly, our pilots have grown familiar with how we operate and fight. It would take weeks or even months for a replacement to get accustomed to us. This means that any damage done to our two pilots puts Beta at direct risk when he's out on the battlefield putting his life in danger. It would be like if Delta was damaging the guns on the frame or the Yi Accelerators.

>>6097658
>No, step back from the point of no return. You need her functional.

>>6097697
>>6097906
>>6098296
Support
just a
>Why should I care anymore.
>so this is how it has been all the time
>All for nothing
>i thought we where family
no point in forcing her in many ways she proves gamma right if this is how she acts

>>6098414
Delta already had that debate with Thea. She doesn’t need a pilot, she requires no fuel once started, she doesn’t need to have a human deal with other humans when she can kill or ignore them etc. etc.

If she’ll ever come closer to our way of thinking it’d need to be through time on her own first. She’s been fighting to be “free” for a while now, but what will she do once she has freedom? Fight, apparently. Seems rather pointless in the long run, which she’ll have to confront like every Core seems to.

Beta may have cheered such development earlier, but now it’d likely get a “fucking finally, now go away again until I know you won’t ruin things anyway” at best instead.