标签： Lore

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[Mail Call] 2017/07/20 – Fairies in Pacific

by Morgane 2017年7月21日

Hi Morgane! I think the fairies in Pacific are neat. They aren’t very cute like the KC ones but they have their own charm to it. Are those based on real people?

In short, yes. Any fairy fully illustrated tend to be referring to historical figures. (From an out of universe perspective that’s because I want you to look these guys up!)

Recall in AR we explained that Pacific appears to have a category of “named fairies” who possess many attributes similar to, well, their historical counterparts.

In-universe, STEC doesn’t understand this at all. Nominally, fairies are notoriously difficult to communicate with. Even the shipgirls can only sort of “suggest” things to do for the fairies – they have no issues getting to do their “task” related things (like, say, loading a shell), but anything beyond this for the rank and file and it’s just like herding cats.

For instance, you’ve read about STEC carrying out R&D and stockpiling weapons for the shipgirls. You also know that at any given moment there are probably tens of thousands of fairies literally derping about and doing absolutely nothing on Avalon. Why not mobilize them and get them to, well, build stuff?

You can’t. For one thing, the vast majority of fairies doesn’t seem to really understand orders. They don’t really communicate. Specifically, they seem to have their own singsongy kind of language that (some) shipgirls claim to understand. They are definitely aware of humans and knows the human language, but how much do they listen or pay attention varies extremely considerably.

For instance, let’s say you have a bunch of AO fairies lounging around.

CV Girl: “Guys, it’s training time!”
Fairies: <o/ (very eager and ready to get working)
Mike: “Guys, it’s training time!”
Fairies: zZzzZzz…. (Basically puts it off until they have to do it.)

Or something like this:

Shipgirl: “Time to eat!”
Fairies: “YAAAAAAAAAY!” (is happy)
Shipgirl: “Time to do the dishes!”
Fairies: ??????? (literally rolls around and want to skip out on work)

Certain charismatic individuals can charm some fairies into doing extra work, but as someone in STEC put it, if fairies are meant to also represent humanity in some form, then the astounding laziness that these guys exhibit is pretty a strong piece of evidence.

I mean, you can’t really bug them either. If you nag them too much they’ll just fade “out” of existence and go dark for a while until you stop bugging them.

The exception here are the named fairies. STEC has several theories. They range from “these fairies are actually these people just empowered by God/supernatural force/whatever and turned into fairies” to “these fairies are just fairies who grew sufficiently powerful and managed to take upon a particular identity” to “these fairies aren’t fairies at all but are a totally different category of beings like shipgirls.”

STEC really doesn’t know. What STEC does know, however, is that these fairies are as intelligent (if not more so) than their real life counterparts. What’s more, they can be communicated with. Which means they can be reasoned with and given tasks to assist with the anti-Abyssal effort.

…Except that’s the thing. STEC’s not entirely sure if these fairies are “fairy-enough.” Specifically, these guys behave, well, entirely like real people. Yes, they have access to the full array of fairy powers ranging from invisibility to teleportation to “conjuring” physical illusions. They are more powerful than the non-speaking “ordinary” fairies. They appear to be unique in the sense that multiple copies of the “same person” hasn’t showed up yet.

But their behaviors are entirely human. Or, rather, their behaviors are very different from the ordinary fairies. Personality-wise, the individuals that know them describe these individuals as what they “would” or could be. They seek out entertainment and get bored just like normal people. They have hobbies and dreams and wishes and get fascinated by technology. In short, they lack the single-minded, almost autistic type behavior of the –

Actually you know what. I take what I said up there back. A lot of these guys are so absorbed in their work that they really aren’t too different from the fairies themselves.

I mean, for instance, that guy? Good luck getting him away from his papers.

Oh yeah? Well, excuse me. I’m just trying to get humanity to Mars!”

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[Mail Call] 2017/07/16 – Morgane’s Fireside Chat #5

by Morgane 2017年7月17日

Or what should be titled “Alternative history in Pacific”

 

“Why is Pacific set in sorta-90s and not the modern day like most of the other works?”

First of all, the “start” of the Pacific plot (think of it as 40k moving the plot forward) hasn’t occurred yet because the Abyssals haven’t invaded. The vast, vast, vast majority of non-historical works, ranging from the shipgirl introductions in the Pacific books or Silent Service, is set in this pre-Abyssal invasion period. So approximately 1987-1990.

Everything else, such as AR’s histories or my site updates, ranges over a period of about 40 years.

To me, I think in order to create a believable world (after all, my purpose is to immerse yourself in our world design), the overall technological capabilities should match what you’re trying to communicate with the story.

Pacific’s tale isn’t about fall from paradise. It’s not about working towards an idealized society. It’s not really slice-of-life or relationship drama or battle-tech-epic. It’s about fighting off an extra-dimensional, all-consuming threat. Simply put, it’s about humanity and what humans do. Pedantic, I know, but that’s the point. Right off the bat this rules out any generalizability of post-human or future-fiction level of technology, civilian or otherwise. If humanity can still be starved into submission with matter replicators or gauss weaponry then humanity is either very incompetent or my Abyssals are. Doesn’t really work that well.

Considering that the focus is on humanity at large, there is a close theme of international cooperation. Thus, it necessitates that I set the world in a time period where it is easy to acquire information. This basically means that anything earlier than say, the 1850s, would be difficult. Not to mention anything before that simply wouldn’t fit – if the Abyssals nom modern armies like a snack, Napoleonic navies wouldn’t stand a chance, period. It isn’t realistic either.

Lastly, Pacific is America-centric. This basically narrows down the time period to sometimes within the last seventy years. Why choose to start the tale in a “90s” type setting as opposed to immediately plunging the world into the Abyssal war in 1950? Why wait for 40 years before kickstarting what should be Pacific’s main event?

Well. It’s what I want to do. You ever play with little plastic or metal soldiers? The set-up, the build-up, the development. The, uh, laying of your dudes on the carpet (age 5) or the selection of your paint scheme (age 19) or the readings of many history books (age 23) are all a part of it. I don’t want to just “pop” out a world setting. I want my reader to see how the world got to that point. For instance I’ve told you that communism is still alive and well in the USSR. How? How is this even possible? I’ve told you that the US in Pacific is also considerably more unified, peaceful, and prosperous than its real-life counterpart. Again, how?

If we simply follow the trajectory of history in real-life, these things cannot be. They would be wishful thinking. You need to know how they turned out differently to see (or start to see) how our thought processes arrived at this kind of a conclusion. For instance, consider for instance one of the earlier Lens of Histories.

Take this incident. Note the key locations. Rickover is clearly pissed at something that’s happening in the Kuril islands. If you understand the history (as well as the real life claims by the Russians and the Japanese) you’ll quickly understand why the KOG is ticked off.

In real life, that area has both strategic and economic value. Fishing and natural resources are very important. Now, consider that in Pacific’s world, there are now shipgirls. Wouldn’t that be a good place to develop a base? What if there are other strategic materials underneath there that may be useful to the countries that want that land?

Ah, so now you see it. First of all, Rickover’s calling about something – what appears to be supplies – given to the Soviet Union. Considering that the USSR has literally been made Great Again (TM) under Draa and K9’s development, the first question should be: what? Reading that appears to be defensive armaments or weapons. Hm. What could the Soviets buy from the US?

Actually, a better question would be: how in the WORLD is the US selling weapons to their #1 “cold war” rival? Noticing this point you immediate can reach two conclusions.

  1. Rickover is doing this under the table. This is plausible, as STEC has a gigantic amount of covert operational capabilities. STEC literally crafts its own pseudo-sci-fi tier tech. Just think about the tech requirements for something like MERLIN to function. That’s beyond even the military of Pacific’s timeline.
  2. Relations with US and the USSR are actually warm enough that weapons are sold as-is.
  3. Relations with the US and the USSR are enough to facilitate trade. STEC just made up an excuse (like, calling them tractors or cranes or something) and nobody checked the packages.

Which one of these is more plausible? Well. Consider some other pieces of information you’re given. The answer here is all of them. I’ve written on the KOG before (and there are well-written autobiographies of the man out there if you’re curious), but the telltale signs of 2 and 3 being plausible are all over the place. There’s no grain embargo in the Pacific-verse. AR2 talks about exchange of military advisors and attaches – something that would never happen during the Cold War. On top of that the USSR was too focused internally to be spreading communism worldwide, and that they are at least aware of the Abyssal threat very early on and seem to be nominally cooperative.

On that last point, too, is something worth thinking about. There is a sort of masquerade that goes on. Conspiracy theorists would have a field day in the Pacific universe, because at the moment it is quite literally the elites of the world gathered together to create a secretive, high-tech special force dedicated to fighting basically space fish-monsters and occasionally “monster girls.” The degree of operational depth that STEC possess is going to be immense given that there’s been virtually no leakage of the Abyssals, period.

(A reminder, too, that if you think about it, with STEC’s observational capabilities… Remember how I mentioned earlier that STEC has entire divisions of staff combing news to see if the secret is out in OCEAN –

Aw cripes I forgot I haven’t posted the translated OCEAN yet.

Um, just know that STEC basically watches for “conspiracy theorists” involving the Abyssals because those folks are likely pretty damn capable to have started to figure things out to begin with. STEC may or not, I dunno, have like Marby launch a few floatplanes over NYC or something to keep the UFO or Lizard guys guessing.)

So, looking at this island dispute, you can immediately gather that:

  • The world is currently unaware of the Abyssals as of 1982. This is probably because the collective powers that hold shipgirls all decide, in one way or another, that the costs far outweigh the benefits.

But, the build-up. Well, think about this. Let’s say we suddenly massed a lot of troops to South Korea. Surely everyone would be reporting on it, right? So…

  • This build-up is either insignificant or otherwise went unobserved by the world’s collective militarizes at large.
  • This build-up is par for the course in the area as a sort of routine provocation and it’s probably not worth the paper it’s printed on to report heavily on it.
  • News is slow to travel.

STEC and the other shipgirl organizations. In effect and in no particular order, their strengths lies in the ability to innovate, the shipgirls themselves, basically free semi-sentient/intelligent labor/assistants (fairies), and a fully functional and complete intelligence system.

That’s why I joke that Pacific is high fantasy. You step on Avalon and you realize that half the stuff on it is really magic – or technology so capable that it’s indistinguishable from “magic,” anyways.

In the outside world? By necessity, there needs to be a contrast. Fairies aren’t house-elves. There aren’t a fairy for every electric appliance or vehicle out there for everyone to use. MS-DOS was invented in the real world in 1981, and in Pacific’s setting the internet basically got invented earlier – but its use in the real world is still currently very limited. Media companies latched onto the LED extremely rapidly (fairies had a hand in helping the development of the technology), and so you have a curious 60s-styled minimalist programming coupled with basically high definition TV and a sort of prototype Netflix-on-demand (let’s just say Pacific PBS is a major network and a significant producer of content) nationally available in the US.

However, TV has yet to supplant radio as the king of home entertainment, and in a strange fashion, because the American right never developed in the same way as it did here (well, less threat from the communists, after all!) contemporary arts and entertainment turned out differently as well. Hollywood’s music industry, for instance, never reached the same level of prominence it did in real life – its position of prominence are challenged by a large number of US cities such as Nashville or New Orleans. The golden age of Hip-hop basically showed up about twenty years earlier than its equivalent and faded away even faster. Classical and neoclassical music is probably actually dead in the US given how much it’s developed across Europe and ironically, the USSR. Country, popular in the Pacific timeline is on the rise. Rock and roll is experiencing a resurgence. Metal is probably more popular than what we’d expect in this society. So on and so forth.

Why might this be? Well, basically, an important factor to consider is that in Pacific’s America, thanks to some important changes in legislative precedent, large corporations simply never had a chance to rise. Today you can count media conglomerates on one hand, but in Pacific’s world, the “big names” are still pretty much small fries compared to where they’d be in real life. Competition forces innovation. Innovation results in change.

Take, for instance, music, again. Suppose a new alloy comes out that results in vastly improved acoustics for any musical instrument of your choice. What’s more, it basically drives the prices down such that every school can afford to buy itself an orchestra’s worth of musical instruments. Let’s say the US is a population of 200 million. Let’s say out of 100 people only one picks up an instrument and plays with it. Ten years later that’s still 2 million extra musicians in which one can add to the pool of talent.

What didn’t get developed as much? Well, ironically? Word processing software for some reason hasn’t hit the vogue yet. Most news outlets are still operating with the trusted typewriter. Print media is cumbersome, slow, but otherwise reliable since paper is a lot cheaper. Newspapers are still alive and well with little evidence of decline.

This went on for way longer than I had intended. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that US culture at large is much slower than it would be in real life. Technology has massively improved the lives of most Americans. Rural life isn’t usually so dreary that many wishes to head out to the ‘big cities,’ and city life isn’t usually so hectic that the average city-dweller is overwhelmed and overworked. A 20-20-60 rural/urban/suburban split is pretty approximately what Pacific’s America look like.

In contrast, due to improved infrastructure, public transportation is used a significantly greater deal. Information travels slower as I’ve mentioned, and most of the nation gets its news from radio or print media. Due to improved production certain cultural phenomena such as fast food took off and evolved past in the blink of an eye (well, when microwaves became ubiquitous and preservation/rapid freezing technology is excellent would you really want to pay 1$ for a burger when you can get a full course for 3$ at the local grocers), so the result of which is a sort of stagnant 90s level tech with oddities of 50-60s era mentality with flashes of inspiration from modern day. I use the term stagnant because the improvements tend to be incremental rather than dramatic in 90s Pacific timeline. The groundworks for potentially revolutionary concepts have been buried way earlier – like the internet, for instance. However, America’s currently preoccupied with more trivial things like making a better and bigger oven or a lighter type of canvas fabric rather than figuring out how to get everyone to spend all their time glued to a screen.

… In fact, I’d say that the most innovative thing to pop out of the Pacific timeline that’s managed to hit general use is probably the humble hand-held calculator in the 70s. Basically, to put things simply, this sparked off an actual tech war between US, UK, and Japanese companies. The result of which is that 90s Pacific has basically … super-calculators? Think like, basically modern-day cellphone type UI and highly advanced mathematical functions, but it can only really do math.

(Like, nobody’s honestly thought, hmm, I wonder if we can’t make this fancy stuff into some kind of hand-held entertainment device. Nope. Better just leave it to do work instead.)

If you read history you know what’s coming. Generally, something comes along that tends to shake up the order of things every couple of decades. Again, it’s almost as if Pacific’s got something waiting to happen…

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Silent Service: Lori

by k9catforce 2017年7月14日

Alright. I got tired of the Roman numerals so this one’s just Silent Service. I’ll go back and edit the titles and stuff later… *yawn*

Hey. Trout. You ever notice how everyone is in a Bikini?

Yes. What about it?

Don’t you think that’s a little weird?

How so?

It’s like, 40 degrees out? I mean, that’s not freezing but I wouldn’t call it warm out either.

Your point being?

Are people here incapable of wearing a jacket?

Tog, the girls can wear whatever they want. If it’s a bikini then it’s a bikini.

But why is “bikini” the iconic representation of a subgirl?

Plenty of subgirls don’t wear bikinis. Bats don’t. Pam doesn’t either. Neither does Lori –

HEY GUYS. HOW DO YOU LIKE MY NEW LOOK?

…

…

…

I… see what you mean, Tog.

‘Sup guys! K9 here. Tonight’s been pretty hectic with delays and uncertainty, so I decided to poke some fun at Silent Service. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to laugh at your own creation. As any team member will tell you, at the end of it all, we just want to enjoy creating and sharing ideas. Pacific doesn’t have to be WORK WORK WORK.

Yes, that goes for you too, Je – I mean, Morgane. Anyways! Here’s Lori. Don’t worry. She still have her catsuit too. 😉

How’s your day going, Lori?

Great! Can I have the keys?

The keys to?

Ammo dumps #2-18.

Uh, okay…

Yay! *twirls*

Today was a great day! It’s my day off so I had a lot of fun slacking off. I got up by dawn’s early light, did 300 pushups, then headed to the kitchen and made myself breakfast. There is something intensely patriotic about frying a dozen eggs while fending off Colbert’s hungry talons, but he’s getting too fat to steal bacon and sausage from me these days since Chester kept on trying to feed him that FREEDOM powder Cusk rigged up. I tried it myself and it was bleh. Tasted like fish paste. Definitely not for American consumption.

Then I cleaned up, did the dishes, and headed out for range day with Trout & Tambor & Tautog. Well, more like two hours, and as usual Dolphin was yelling at all of us. I like it better when Narwhal’s teaching. She’s nice! She doesn’t yell! I get nervous when people look at me! Then I ate like, eight double cheeseburgers and drank a gallon of coca-cola for lunch. Took a nap. Woke up. Went for a swim. Didn’t find any sharks to punch today but I did end up suplexing a blue whale that got too curious at Hata’s fishing lines. Can’t have critters stealing our dinner, you know!

Then I came home, tuned into my favorite afternoon talk radio, and started working on my all-new leather outfit. I think if I do this properly I just might be able to imbue that thing with the same quality of powers that my current outfit holds! Stars and stripes are nice and all, but a girl’s gonna want a change in wardrobe at some point. The way I think about it, if I worked on it for an hour every day, in ten years I’m definitely gonna become an expert if the war doesn’t start up.

But, even if it did? Well, I’m just going to pick it right back up once the whole thing boils over. We shipgirls are gonna have to fight, but what are we gonna do once the Abyssal War’s over? Just disappear? I wouldn’t like that.

Oh. Also! You are coming to the dance tonight, Mike, right? Better hope you can swing!

Lori, it’s a busy time around now, can’t I –

You really think an excuse involving work is going to fool a German-American shipgirl? Ha! Look here. You’re free. See? I’ve even helpfully blocked off the next day so you could recuperate.

Wait a minute. My schedule is generated and maintained strictly using the highest classification protocols, how did you –

Chester said if I sleep on an ENIGMA machine every night I’ll be able to break any encryption if I stared at hard enough.

… Seriously?

She also said that you can learn Japanese by watching those silly cartoons, so, yeah. Do you want one too? I think we rigged up a spare the other day.

Thanks, but I like my pillow just fine…

This is an emergency message insertion from Tautog.

Sleeping on top of an ENIGMA machine will not magically cause the commander’s schedules to become decrypted. At most it may give you a very mild headache for the next day. STEC also does not condone the harm of species protected under International law. As the unofficial spokesperson of this organization I am obliged to comment in order to minimize any potential misunderstanding or misinterpretation of STEC’s activities.

Tell me a bit about your namesake?

Sure thing, sir! The Type XXI U-boats were highly advanced for their era. They were definitely the best German submarines the Kriegsmarine had to offer. Tautog’ll probably have a sub corner on this, so I really don’t think I need to say more.

Downsides? They were pretty badly engineered in the sense that they weren’t really mass-producible. Dracha always say that if Admiral Donitz had his way and swarmed the Atlantic with A MILLION U-BOOTS the war would have been won before 1941, but I, um, somehow doubt that’d be the case. The Kriegsmarine, while professional, had very little actual naval combat or design experience prior to the invasion of Poland. Germany were simply outmatched by the Allies at every turn. Nevermind the fact that they were up against the British Empire who had been doing this “seapower” thing for the last several hundred years on the high seas. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

To put things into perspective, Hitler didn’t think to seriously seize the U-boat as an offensive weapon until the Sixth Army fell at Stalingrad. There’s a reason why the Type XXI were so different from the other U-boats. It was basically wunderwaffen, like the Toi-ga, the V-2 rockets, or the Me 262.

How do you feel about the Abyssal War?

Courage is the thing that keeps us free! Hella yeah! Something freedom something fighting for the rights of every man!

Eagles?

Hey, Lori here!

If my daily life sounds awesome, that’s because it totally is. As you may or not have been aware in the Action Report series, I’m an immigrant in every sense of the word. Much like the actual Type XXI U-boats that joined USN service, I willingly choose to become American after escaping from a very hostile situation that was developing between West and East Germany in Pacific’s universe.

Morgane likes to say this is for thematic reasons, but for someone like me? Of course America is the greatest planet on earth – er, I mean, the greatest country on the planet. I naturally seek out things that are “American” in nature, and I love everything there is about it! Be it going fast or riding horses or pro-wrestling or outdoor sports or shooting stuff, I want to experience everything there is that the country who had adopted me could offer. Sure, I might not be the most mature of the girls we have here in Pacific, but they say I’ve got a big heart!

Don’t let the team’s optimism fool you. The world isn’t automatically made a better place because we’re here. If anything, the tensions have receded somewhat, but they’re replaced by very concrete matters that the various countries of the world has to ask themselves if they are to survive. What happened to my country of origin – Germany – is one such example.

Do you really want to hear it? Well, okay… Here I go. It’s not a happy story, but it does have the happiest of endings.

Fractured after World War II, the two halves never truly evolved as they did in the “real world.” Even today, East Germany has very little reason to want to be whole again – while poor in comparison to the West, the USSR is prosperous enough and its rule functional enough that many of those in the East consider themselves to be citizens of the Soviet Union first, and Germans second.

Meanwhile, the … situation that resulted in my escape to America? Let’s just say, unlike your world, the shadows of Nazi Germany and the Vier Mächte never departed from West Germany. I couldn’t blame them, either. There is a growing sense that many German politicians did not truly have the interests of the German people at heart. Decades of stagnant economic polices coupled with scandal after scandal, alongside pressures coming from France and the United Kingdom created a hotbed of civil unrest. Germany was growing. She was alive. Yet she wasn’t healthy.

…

For years, I wandered alone. I had no friends or family to count on. I survived not because of dumb luck, but because I was one out of billions of individuals who were gifted supernaturally. Street hooligan or gopniki, I had to deal with them myself. I thought I’d be cursed to wander forever, like the heroes of those old stories, until one day governmental people tracked me down.

I played dumb, of course. I didn’t trust them one bit, and sure enough, they wanted me not because of who I am, but because of the strategic benefits that would come with having someone like me on their side. They were interested in a machine that could do their bidding. At no point did they ever consider if I even wanted to go along with their plans.

I just wanted a warm meal and a safe place to sleep. Maybe a real bed. I wasn’t interested in spy-rings or meeting politicians from East Germany. But the latter was exactly what they had me do. Someone higher up wanted to stir up rebellion in East Germany, and they needed someone like me to be the focal point for the rebellion.

“For Germany,” they told me. To them, it meant unifying with the East. With war if necessary. They know full well the weight of the Soviet Union stands alongside a heavily fortified battle line, ready to move – and respond – at a minute’s provocation. Naturally I was to balance the odds. The Soviets had no shipgirls (that was a lie, as I learned from STEC much later), so I would have been a decisive factor that would bring them victory.

How many would die? How many Germans would die in the crossfire? I was sent here to protect humanity. How many millions would die in a conflict between the West and the East?

For disagreeing with such a plan, they threw me in prison. Laughable. You know? I could have broken out at any moment I had wanted, but I was so shocked at the betrayal that I just cried in that tiny dark cell for days on end. I’m a good German – until I’m not. I’m a good girl – until they say I’m not. One minute I was destined to be a hero, and the next I’m now a Soviet spy.

Then the Soviets came, and I was buried beneath fifteen tons of rubble. They had heard news that West Germany might have a shipgirl of their own, and decided to take matters into their own hands.

“She is probably a Nazi, if she is indeed a German shipgirl.”

The Soviets knew of my existence, but that was what they had concluded based on what their own agents – some of those politicians I had met – told them. I, I said nothing during any of those meetings at all! I was silent because they told me I should say nothing. Am I a Nazi just because I’m German? I-is this what all German shipgirls have to d-deal with?

I, I’m sorry. *sniff* It’s just not fair. It’s not right. This isn’t supposed – this wasn’t …

…

*sniff*

T-they asked me if I wanted to retaliate. Surely I now understand the evils of communism now, right?

They didn’t ask me, hey, are you okay? Are you hurt?

They just wanted to use me as an object to further their ends.

Was this what it is to be German? Then I wanted no parts of it. I could not and did not want to be German anymore. I speak the language. I know the culture. I love our traditions. But to be German meant also to be the citizen of a particular state, and I could not support the actions of that country.

I, I just had to get away. But, where?

I had nowhere to go. I could not go to East Germany. They just tried to kill me. I could not stay in West Germany. They just wanted to use me.

They brought me to a new cell and told me to think about it seriously. So I sat in the darkness and cried. My cell had no windows, you know? You didn’t think the U.S. Embassy out of all places would have a concrete windowless bunker in the basement, but thank God they decided to lock me up there. Never did figure out why they did it either.

Anyways, I sat there. By now, I was used to hearing the footsteps of the patrolling guards. My old guards did theirs methodically without a break, always in double-time and rotating every four minutes. Here, in my new prison, I heard something different. These new sounds were loud, heavy, and uncoordinated. They were so very different. They were singing, too, and it wasn’t German.

At first, I wondered if I was hearing things. But, the next day – roughly an hour or so after they drop food in my cell, the footsteps would come back. With it came the song, too. Slowly, over the course of a week, I figured out what the lyrics were. It took me a while to realize that they were singing along to stuff playing on the radio.

I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.

And I won’t forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.

And I’d gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today.

‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land

God bless the U.S.A.

I was taught that the Americans are a bunch of fools, and that they were dim, arrogant, and undisciplined. Yet, at the same time, there was one thing above all else they valued.

They yearned to be free.

And you know what else?

They believed in something greater.

… The rest of my story, I’ll tell you some other time. It’s no good for any of us if I just dwelled on the bad things that happened in the past.

But, I will tell you, at last, I found a place where I belonged.

I found home.

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific

[Mail Call] 2017/07/11 – Who’s in charge edition

by Morgane 2017年7月12日

Tautog here. Today I get to take a question, so, yay!

Okay, just what rank is Mike anyways? He’s an O5? Is he even a proper admiral? Avalon is like a carrier basically right? Aren’t commanders of aircraft carriers actual admirals?

Yeah you know what? We do have a vice admiral on Avalon.

For the record, mister, an O5 is not that low on the pecking order. Neither is an O6. Commanders (O5) command things like modern destroyers or submarines, which are pretty complicated. O6s get to command entire fleets of ships or something large, like a cruiser. Avalon itself is also a bit more than an aircraft carrier, so that wouldn’t be quite appropriate there.

The thing is, Avalon’s own defenses are decidedly unorthodox. Shipgirl “squadrons” are a different type of command altogether than say, a fleet of destroyers. The land-based (fairy) aerial squadrons are controlled directly by shipgirls like Langley. It’s why Mike’s got guys like Leon or Viktor working under him – special operations and technological warfare aside, Avalon is very much a “modern” or even “future” type of “warship.” I’d say that if it ever went to mass production, we’d be looking at basically a crew of maybe a few hundred – so something an O5 would be suitable for.

That being said, “Commander” is something like an honorific in the U.S. navy. In navy lingo, “commander” literally means “commanding multiple units.” STEC’s actual organization is fairly similar to some other US special forces, meaning that Mike is actually a Captain (O6) in command of multiple “group”-level forces. The rank given is not surprisingly considering STEC’s front as an R&D organization, but in actuality STEC is closer in size to DEVGRU than say, the NSWC.

A reminder, too, that Rear Admiral is about the highest permanent rank during peacetime. So it’s actually not easy at all to make flag!