Hoo damn. That's quite a turnout. Well, let's do this!
The Battle of the Embassy
The battle is spilling into the lobby already as the lot of you rush for weapons. It's roughly an even mix of bi-colored rebels, High Command's black-clad personal guard and the soldiers loyal to them, and nationalist soldiers from either side. In the chaos, it looks like everybody is having trouble telling their own apart due the confusion of uniforms. The black-clad guards are just shooting anybody who approaches them, doubtless including some of their own loyal soldiers. Civilians who were present are mostly running for cover, though a lot of them have donned rebel garb since the fighting started. When you part in the lobby, there is a moment of tension- there has only been a little time to argue about causes, and not all of are certain if the person you were previously sitting next to will be an enemy once you have guns in your hands.
Andres:
You grab your MC16AW, and a backpack containing a few yards of belt. You step out into the lobby and unleash a torrent of fire in the general direction of the door, causing people of various factions to dive for cover. After a few seconds you yell, "Death to the High Command!" Three quarters of the people there figure that means you're on their side for now, and don't shoot at you. When you look down at your barrel, it's glowing orange.
Continued below at Killing High Command
evilcherry:
You grab your MK Stallion, an MK47 chambered for .600 Horsekiller rounds. When you emerge, one of the other engineers -a Moskurg engineer, your former colleague, no less- is pointing a grenade launcher at you. Or maybe he isn't really pointing at you, but he has a terrible sense of humor and you've frankly just been looking for a good excuse. You fire a string of rounds at him, or try: The muzzle rise is so drastic that by fifth round the MK Stallion has left your hands and is flipping through the air behind you. You missed completely. He aims his grenade launcher, and blasts you to smithereens.
Powder Miner:
You don your Rabid Tiger, Tiger armor with two arm-mounted Horsekillers, in your own semi-automatic variant (thank god, because it's hard to load a Horsekiller while wearing this armor). You can't use the sights at all, but that doesn't stop you form blasting an armored guard who tries to stop you right in the chest. You make your way out the front door to the growing din of battle outside.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Tryrar:
You brandish a detonator in your hand and announce, "If I let go of this trigger, my Pocket Nuclear Bomb will detonate, blowing you all sky high! I demand safe passage off of Forenia!" You're not entirely sure if your Pocket Nuke will work, but hopefully you don't have to find out. At any rate, you've got people's attention. Nobody wants to kill you badly enough to try shooting you, and you make your way out the door.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Funk:
You pick up your Rocket Thunder Pistol, and wade into the bloodbath to escape- maybe to your motorcycle parked outside. A guard gets in your way, and you explode half of his chest with a 15mm rocket. You're pretty sure this violates the Hague convention. A few blasts later, you've made it out a window close to where you parked your bike.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Kashyyk:
You equip your MM-12, the semi-automatic shotgun that you would have put into production years ago to give Moskurg a decisive close combat advantage which might have reversed the war, but it was such a cool weapon you had to keep it for yourself. You've donned Tiger armor and grabbed some grenades from the Arstotzkans, in time to see Andres yell, "Death to high command!" You echo his battlecry and join him.
Continued below at Killing High Command
Playergamer:
You load your Cascade with the new Waterfall magazine you've been working on. Like the MC16 dual drum mag, it looks a bit like, well, you know. However, the Waterfall magazine is sized to put the Arstotzkan one to shame. Sized specifically with that in mind, in fact. You see Andres going to kill High Command, noting that he has pre-emptively one-upped you by giving his SMG a belt feed! Cheeky bastard thought of everything. Well dammit, you're going to do it first!
Continued below at Killing High Command
10ebbor10:
Your experimental XP-ARAC-AT is erected outside. It's a special shortened version of the ARAC which launches small rocket-gliders by catapult. You join some of the other engineers running outside with the intent to escape by the ARAC and assert a new chain of command once the old High Command is dead. You take a bullet to your left arm on the way out.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Sheb:
You have an experimental tank outside, the XP-T35C, a heavily armored tank with three turrets for combined antitank and anti-infantry roles. You rush outside with the other escapees to get it, hoping to protect the ARAC-AT. Luckily you get to your tank, and some of the other engineers are willing to help you pilot it.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Kot:
The AS-SS1935X. Your crowning achievement. You damaged your reputation when you published papers claiming that the behavior of Moskurg's recoilless rifles was physically impossible and accused them of witchcraft, but this will prove you are Forenia's greatest engineer and physicist! It's a rocket, a rocket to end all rockets, a rocket that will carry a landing pod, crew, food, and space suits all the way to the moon where you can proclaim your success from on high (by radio). "It's time to launch the rocket!" You yell. The AS-SS1935X has been built in secret, but the Rocket Club knows it well. Most of its present members were simply fleeing, but they join you instead. Unfortunately, none of them are attractive women. In fact, every single one has a waxed mustache.
Continued below at The Rocket
Ghazkull:
You don your armor and armored M-36 Flamethrower, and join Andres to kill High Command in the name of the rebellion.
Continued below at Killing High Command
Devastator:
Those bastards are responsible for all of this. Your fellow engineers who wouldn't listen to you, the Arstotzkans, they're all a bunch of bastards. You shoot them mean glares on the way out. One of your former compatriots tries to gun you down with a ridiculous over-caliber MK47, and you blast him to bits. You make your way to the Moskurg end of the front lines as the din of battle rises outside.
Continued below at Fighting the War
Baffler:
Your X23B SMG isn't the craziest submachine gun variant on display today, but its ammo rail is light and it should get you out of here. Hopefully. Despite a close call with some maniac wielding a flamethrower who doesn't appear to be on anyone's side, you dive through one of the front windows to escape the building unharmed. Except by shards of glass. Actually, you're pretty cut up, jumping through a window was a terrible idea.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
QuakeIV:
A MOST GLORIOUS WEAPON! YOUR AS-36-RPH ROCKET HAMMER IS THE EFFIGY OF AN EAGLE, TO CRUSH YOUR FOES, POWERED BY A HOLY FIRE! YOU ARE OF IRON WILL AND STEELY MUSCLE, WITH GREAT ARMOR AND THE MIGHTIEST HAMMER YOU ARE ARMED. YOUR ARE A BULWARK AGAINST TERROR, A DEFENDER OF FORENIA, AND YOU SHALL KNOW NO FEAR! DEATH TO THE TRAITOR COMMAND!
CONTINUED BELOW AT Killing High Command
Taricus:
You awkwardly load the magazine into your bullpup Alpha Assault Rifle (you'll get used to it eventually). Other Moskurg engineers say longer guns are always more powerful, but you know better. The Alpha performs marginally better than the MK47A due to increased barrel length despite less overall length, and is select-fire. You move swiftly through the halls, blasting royal guards and nationalist soldiers, and exit the east side of the building having killed several people.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Elfeater:
You have two interns help you strap into your Dust Devil powered armor and start the motor. You lift one steel-clad leg and feel the the hydraulics move with you... and then keep going up... you try to shift your body weight slightly, but you just can't. In a moment the armor failed to catch up with your leg, and then the rest of your body, and you fall on your side. You can't get up. Lucklily, you at least have a switch to eject from the 600 pound armor. The best you can do now is rush for the door.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
heydude6:
Outside, is your Cycle of Death, a motorcycle with an assault rifle and a recoilless rifle and rockets and flamethrowers. You just have to get to it. Luckily, it's just a short sprint to the front door. You make it out without getting shot.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Adwarf:
You've had enough of this. Time to grab a rifle and get the hell out of Forenia. But for you, not just any rifle- you've been building the Horsekiller 1935, a deadly accurate, scoped, mag-fed rifle in the .60 caliber. You make a dash for the door. A stray .60 caliber bullet from some guy who can't hold on to his rifle strikes you in the head and kills you.
Coleslaw35:
Outside is your PAOC APC, a heavy armed and armored car that can carry six. You run outside to find that it's been hit by heavy artillery and destroyed. For now, you grab a motorcycle and get around the back entrance to see if High Command pops out that way.
Continued below at Killing High Command
Andrea:
You shall kill the High Command, and you shall do it with your gyrojet rifle! As long as they aren't too close when you fire it. For now though, you go to join Sheb in his tank.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Elephant Parade:
Time to go bowling! You have a half size, remote-control-assisted death ball, near the back entrance. That's probably where those high command bastards will be going. You find your way to a window with a view in case they escape the building.
Continued below at Killing High Command
Tiruin:
You don your Panthera Hybrid Armor, a set of armor considerably heavier than Tiger Infantry Armor, and proportionally more durable. However, its weight makes it impossible for an ordinary soldier to bear, so it has a series of "lightening devices" which reduce the weight of the armor. The Devices exert a force counter to the earth's gravity, making it possible for a soldier to move in the armor. Well, let's be honest, the lightening devices are balloons. You storm forward in your tank-proof armor (well, hopefully it's tank proof) with a massive congregation of colorful balloons trailing behind you. More or less the moment you enter the lobby, someone decides you look like a good target. Bullets ping harmlessly off of your armor. But then, a string of machinegun fire (it looks like some guy lost control of his MK47, spraying bullets into the air) pops most of your balloons. You fall with a clang onto the floor, unable to even get your armor off. You call for help, and somebody drags you indignantly out of the front door.
Continued below at Escaping Forenia
Urist Mc Dwarf:
You equip your modified Tiger armor, designed to fit your AS-M35-200000000 motorcycle, which is a motorcycle with rocket boosters and like fifty weapons on it. When you made it, you just started welding weapons on until there wasn't any room left, you don't even remember what all the weapons are. Before you do that, though, you pick up an AS-AR34 and join the growing party of people headed to kill High Command.
Continued below at Killing High Command
E-AS-09-05:
You attach your under-barrel grenade launcher to the rail of an AR34, and shoot your way out of the building. An Arstotzkan loyalist in armor turns to attack you, and you pull the trigger on your grenade launcher. BOOM! It explodes in the barrel, killing both of you.
Killing High Command
Five engineers have made an alliance to gun down the High Command. Playergamer, however, is more interested in doing it himself- and more to the point, some of those are Arsetotzkan bastards! Playergamer opens fire with his Waterfall SMG on Andres, but Andres jukes aside, knocking most of his team on their asses in the process. It's a duel of over-ammoed SMGs! Andres' MC16AW and Playergamer's Waterfall keeping firing constantly as the two run about the lobby spreading chaos. Neither engineer lets off the trigger the entire time. By the time Playergamer has run up on to a balcony for a better shot, both weapons' barrels have gotten so hot they will no longer fire at all. Playergamer runs through the balcony entrance to the speech room, while the rest go by the floor. Those down below are entering a battle between all of the different factions, with the rebels having the upper hand as their soldiers duck and move between rows of amphitheater seats. Urist Mc Dwarf takes a 9mm round to the leg and falls behind, retreating for his motorcycle. The party runs up on the stage and past the burning curtains, Kashyyk drops a stage light on a Tiger Armor-wearing Royal Guard with a few pumps of his shotgun. The backstage area is still occupied by the Royal Guard, loyal to High Command, and a few soldiers who have joined them. After some shooting and flaming, with support from behind by rebel soldiers, the party comes to a locked door. Quake swings his hammer, activating the rocket, and misses the door, creating a door-sized hole in the wall and turning a guard on the other side of the wall to fine red mist. The party bursts through the gap in the brick wall to see the Former King and Glorious leader hurrying out the back door. Kashyyk fire and wounds the King with some shotgun pellets, but they run outside. Playergamer, on the upper floor, watches the pair exit and drops his red hot gun on the King's head. The Glorious Leader keeps running as Elephant Parade activates his mini Death Ball and runs the king over, crashing into the building. The group on the ground climbs through the rubble around the Death Ball's impact site (the back door no longer exists in any recognizable form). The Glorious Leader is running out into the battlefield, looking for soldiers loyal to him. Coleslaw gets there just in time to tackle him to the ground. The main group holds their fire while the two are engaged in fisticuffs, giving Quake enough time to put a new rocket into his massive warhammer. Quake orders Coleslaw out of the way, raising his hammer. With one rocket blast, Quake slays the Glorious Leader, and digs him a shallow grave in the process.
The old rulers are dead. It is a new age for Forenia.
Escaping Forenia
Sheb (in tank protecting ARACAT), Baffler, elfeater
The area surrounding the embassy is utterly consumed with battle. Both armies have been shorn in two as the nationalists and loyalists turned on each other, and there is now a third rebel army, most of whom were wearing national uniforms only minutes ago. The main ARAC has launched planes, though you don't know who they're loyal to. AS-T33s have turned on eachother, circling and firing their cannons. A group of Moskurg officers are jousting each other with scimitars while riding stolen motorcycles, and all this is in addition to the continuation of a 25 year long war.
About half a dozen engineers have banded together, looking for a way out of the battle. 10ebbor10 leads the group to his ARAC AT, and Sheb and Andrea go to Sheb's experimental heavy tank. Together the group retakes the ARAC-AT from Arstotzkan nationalists, including two AS-T33s. Powder Miner and Taricus climb into the first rocket glider, and the catapult cable launches the craft along the runway before Taricus actives the rocket motor and steers out of the battle. A wing tears off of the glider and it loses control, but they manage to bail out. Funk and Tryrar board the next rocket glider. When climbing in, Tryrar accidentally drops his Pocket Nuke Detonator! ...nothing happens. A whole year of studying nuclear physics, down the drain! The glider, however, launches and flies towards Moskurg's port without incident. Heydude6 finds his Cycle of Death bike, climbs on, and realizes that it simply has too many weapons to ride effectively. The Cycle of Death is overweight and unbalanced, and the recoilless rifle is liable to hit the rider with backblast. He falls over while riding it and opts for a truck instead. Elfeater helps load Tiruin, still trapped in his armor, onto the truck and the group races out of battle for the Arstotzkan airport to the south, with Sheb covering them. 10ebbor10 and Baffler climb into the last glider and launch away. Lastly Sheb, convincing some rebels to help him crew his tank, carves a bloody path through a group of Moskurg nationalists to escape the battlefield and drives until running out of gas (surprisingly not that far) before stealing a motorcycle.
The escaping engineers charter ships and planes, and disperse themselves about the world, or go into hiding until the war is settled.
The Rocket
Kot feeds some lines about a "massive rocket weapon" to a group of Arstotzkan nationalists, to convince them to lend him an AS-HV19 truck for him and his few most trusted Rocket Club associates to drive up to the observatory. High on the peak of Mount Glory (all mountains are Mount Glory since Arstotzka took control of the mountains) sits Arstotzka's finest observatory- that is to say it cost millions of Arstotzkan Credits and doesn't even have a telescope. There are a few imported civilian stargazing telescopes to use on sight, actually, but Arstotzka's telescope manufacturing is by and large limited to 4x zoom rifle sights.
This has been an effort spanning years. Kot worked to gain the trust (and funding) of high command, plan the project from the ground up, and turn the Rocket Club from a loose group of academics who shared notes and met for experimental rocket demonstrations into an organized secret society with him as its leader. The truck was just now finishing is long climb up the bumpy road, after a two day journey. It is a clear night, the stars are visible in the sky, and little points of light are visible down below too, the fires of battle in the distance. Most of all the moon is large and full in the sky, clear overhead. No sooner than the truck comes to a halt, he is running to the doors of the observatory, and shouting to the Rocket Club members there- "It's time! It's time!" The people there are roused from their drowsy state, standing up from chairs and leaving their telescopes. "It's time!" they echo the call through the building to one another. "It's time! It's time! It's finally time!"
The observatory's two great dome halves fold back, and the rocket is lifted into position, its head (the lander capsule, with an aerodynamic shroud) rising out of its deep silo. Rocket Club workers scurry like ants about the site, removing fuel lines from the lander and placing the gangplank. Provisions are hauled from storage. Men with thick glasses look over every inch of the craft for flaws. Kot and his team are helped into their space suits, and sealed into the capsule. A countdown begins. Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Ignition! Glory to Arstotzka! There is a blast unlike any before heard on earth as the silo's supply of powder is ignited, launching the entire craft abruptly into the air. Shortly thereafter, the first solid rocket stage ignites. Kot and his crew rise into the sky, the rocket growing smaller. The second stage ignites, dropping off the section of fuselage below it. By now the craft is a pinpoint in the sky, visible mostly by its trail, which glows in the light of the rocket's flame. The third stage ignites. As Kot looks out his view-port, the stars are clearer, the earth is beginning to look very round, and the atmosphere gauge reads very little. The fourth and final stage ignites, and the craft makes its days-long journey towards the moon.
The AS-SS1935X's high-powered radio seems to have failed. Arstotzka receives no radio transmission from the rocket. Arstotzka's telescopes have difficulty finding the rocket, until on November 28th, a member of the Rocket Club confirms an observation using a new high-powered astronomy telescope of their own design. They conclude this: "The rocket has not arrived at its destination. It has passed by the side, but sufficiently near to retain lunar attraction. The rectilinear movement has thus become changed into a circular motion of extreme velocity, and it is now pursuing an elliptical orbit round the moon, of which it has become a true satellite. The elements of this new star we have as yet been unable to determine; we do not yet know the velocity of its passage. The distance which separates it from the surface of the moon may be estimated at about 2833 miles. Either the attraction of the moon will end by drawing them into itself, and the travelers will attain their destination; or, the rocket, following an immutable law, will continue to gravitate round the moon till the end of time. At some future time, our observations will be able to determine this point, but till then the experiment of the Rocket Club can have no other result than to have provided our solar system with a new star."
Fighting the War
As the battle has begun to wear on a bit, the Loyalists are outnumbered and surrounded by Nationalists and Rebels. Ghazkull and Andrea go to join the rebels. Ghazkull uses his flamethrower to oust a group of Moskurg nationalists from their B2 Destroyer position, and holds it for the rebels. Andrea follows him, using the Gyrojet rifle to great effect defending the artillery trench, until an enemy soldier gets so close his standard-issue chestplate blocks the round. Andrea gets shot before Ghazkull can cover him, and is carried away from the battle, alive but bleeding badly. Andres joins the Arstotzkan nationalists, picking up a standard-issue AR34 after having melted his MC16AW's barrel. Devastator blasts a group of Arstotzkan motorcyclists with his grenade launcher, the motor-cavalry are easily dispatched in the open because the grenades don't even need to hit directly. As he makes his way towards Arstotzkan lines. Andres spots Devastator and his repeated explosions from a couple hundred yards away, and shoots him fatally in the chest before the MK47A wielding Moskurg soldiers can accurately shoot at the Arstotzkan lines. Playergamer picks up another Cascade to use with his Waterfall magazine and fights through the Moskurg motor pool, which is overrun with rebels, but is killed by a Tiger truck exploding. As the fighting continues, Andres is knocked unconscious by a falling chunk of airplane (good thing he had a helmet) and captured by rebels.
Urist Mc Dwarf gets in his AS-M35-200000000 motorcycle, and realizes it can only achieve about 35 kilometers per hour when fully loaded, and the weapons can't be aimed with any accuracy. After firing a few useless shots (and one RPG that finds a new home in a SPAT) he activates the rocket boosters, which bring the bike to 100 KPH before shaking it to pieces and causing the mines to explode in a huge fireball. Urist Mc Dwarf does not survive.
Eventually Arstotzka's army is forced to retreat, and the rebels hold the embassy. After a few months of fighting, and a lot of (not untruthful) speeches about how the old High Command were terrible and willing to throw their citizens under the bus, and the nations they built were terrible places to live, the rebels control all of Forenia. It is declared to be the new nation of United Forenia, but its charter is yet to be written.
To be continued?
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Topic: Arms Race, OOC [Completed] Now with Arms Race III, against another forum! (Read 217499 times)