Andreyich

Andy's hunt for kin-spirit dreggs

Precipice Of War: The Reboot of a Reboot

July 7th, 1955

Our country of Turkey has long suffered injustice. Indeed it had done so from its very inception, where Imperialist invaders occupied its rightful lands. The international stage as some called it scoffed at the Turkish people, they decried their efforts to be free from terrorism that the Arabs and Kurds so viciously insisted upon. But the Turks persevered. Turkish resolve pushed out the traitors, the villains South. It pushed them North, it pushed them East and West and every way away from Turkey. Many times a foreign coward has tried - and failed pathetically - to return these wrongs inflicted upon our brave people. Not once have these horrible people succeeded.

But our work is not done. Though within the Republic of Turkey our people enjoy unprecedented rights, freedoms, a cultural renaissance, luxuries, and a respect for our way of life, many of our kinsmen abroad cannot enjoy such wonders. Within the Caucasus, even now our fellow Turks of Azerbaijan, Azeris, Azerbaijanis, they are oppressed. The tyrants of the self proclaimed Transcaucasian Republic stifle their culture, their development, their faith. They demand their efforts for conflicts they have no interest in, they aim to remove the soul of our dear brothers and sisters for their childish cause. We cannot let this stand.

As of today, I, your Prime Minister, demand of the Transcaucasus that they issue a free and fair referendum for Azerbaijan to willingly join the Turkish Republic as an autonomous Republic. Should the self-determination of Azerbaijan’s people be resisted, then our nation will be forced to take drastic steps. Thank you.

The recording was distributed across the nation by television and radio, and a very similar letter was sent to the relevant embassies and couriers some time before. It was truly a throw of the coin on whether or not the Transcaucasians would accept the offer of a free referendum, and though he did not doubt the results of it he doubted the good faith in their presentation. They would of course be intelligent enough to not falsify the vote to a truly obscene level. But he knew there were other ways to suppress the will of the people. Perhaps men from the rest of the Caucasus would be bussed in to vote in a land they had never lived in. Perhaps they would create a protocol to apply for the vote by which they would cut out much of the relevant voters. But if lazy they could quite simply adjust the percentage for a narrow victory in their favour.

There were contingencies in place for just this. Mountaineers, artillery, and motorized infantry had all been discretely mobilized in the Turkish East to ensure that if the Transcaucasian government failed to do so, the Turkish government would ensure the destiny of Azerbaijan would come to life. At the same time, infantry and mechanized divisions had been prepared in the South for a counter-attack in the event of opportunism from the Kurds and Arabs. Avnicoglu truly did not want war. It was bad for everyone involved, but it was better than letting injustice reign. Drumming his fingers on his desk he relaxed, asking his secretary for tea and the newspaper. One of those which he didn’t control the headlines for if possible. Perhaps he’d go for a walk with the children after lunch! Then of course, he'd have to sit with the generals to hear of the preparations for the smaller, more isolated conflict that would be made to control an actual land border with Azerbaijan should it be allowed to reunify but said route was not given. After all, enclaves and exclaves were so messy on the map; they just wouldn't do.

N.E.O. - New Earth Oracle

>>>Monday February 25 1991

>>>Rhodesia

“Kirkorov, the fuck is up with you?”

The officer looked down at the M9 in his hand, the smoke coming from the barrel, and the stricken man at his feet put out of his misery.

“I serve the Soviet Union, Comrade Lieutenant.”

“You’re wasting the Fatherland’s time, pack up.”

“Yes Sir.”

Kirkorov considered mouthing off some smart talk about the fact the Lieutenant should have been speaking in English, but he decided not to push his luck. He had been in the KGB for almost a decade and in the Spetsnaz unit for around half of this service. He had done clandestine work many times before, and this was not the first time he had ended the life of those that deserved to live on. But this was different.

The man looked down at the star and striped patch on his shoulder, then at the shoelace on his boot that had fallen in a pool of blood. A whiff of smoke from the burning house beside him entered a nostril, competing with the scent of his own sweat. A comrade tapped him on the shoulder and he fell out of his stupor, running forward to hop onto the jeep they had used to get to the village.

Ekatini. Weird name for a village. It didn't matter, really. It had made the mistake of supporting the forces that in turn served American interests. The Fatherland had objected to this and decided to make an example of it, and the ploy of a false flag was sprinkled on top of the atrocity. He knew that journalists from abroad would soon be called in to witness this, and to be quite frank this sort of crime wasn't out of character for the Americans. There was an argument to be made that these few died so many would live. But Kirkorov wouldn't be the one to make it. If there was a God, he would know it was a lot of horseshit.

He knew there was great operational secrecy in these things, and though he had no proof it was probably not the only village that was suffering this fate. But it was the only one he was responsible for. Kirkorov wondered if he would have been happier as an ordinary soldier. He would still thus be serving the Soviet Union, and if he got deployed here he would still face some smoke and mirrors not fighting under the laurelled sickle and hammer. But he’d stare in the face the Americans and their serfs that he would be killing rather than ending these poor bastards to make them do it for him.

If not God, he wondered how other people would react. What would it look like if he was put before a United Nations war crime investigation authority. Of course knowing his government this would never happen. Trials were something inflicted upon other nations, he had once heard a General say. It was true enough. The Soviets were all to happy to condemn other nation’s criminality whilst denying either the wrongdoing or simply speaking against the wrongfulness of anything that they did. But what about his name in history books? If not in the Soviet Union, what would people elsewhere say. Would children in Europe look down in a history book in the twenty second century, see his face, and write notes about the villain? Would history describe the extenuating circumstances of order, and the greater threat of the United States?

The man decided it didn’t matter. It was done and considering the matter further served no purpose. All that was left to do was to make a mental note to drop a few coins in the sobor when he was back home in Leningrad.

Mass Effect: Vigil

Os

	Oslo Kassam Ossie | Ace 180cm | 95kg | Age Shanxi | 7th of December 2169 Human | Engineer

---

Dossier

APPEARANCE◢

Oslo is a man of moderate size and frame, otherwise simple sinewy proportions corrupted by cybernetic enhancements. These modifications provide a similar effect to his face: he naturally has very soft and pleasant almost androgynous or effeminate features and skin that can be simply described as boyishly handsome. But they are warped, marked by alloys and plastics. His neck-length hair is jet black and typically shining with unwashed oils, though by contrast the rest of his face remains cleanly shaven with an almost unhealthily pale tone on his skin. Fearful of suspicion regarding the origin of his modifications, he will most usually wear a helmet or in civilian situations a keffiyeh with headset and sunglasses; his flesh remains tender and red wherever it meets machine with some points even being dead, black. Conversely, there are lumps of grafted-on skin upon him that hide elements of his augmentation. Often this will make showing emotion through facial expression or general body language difficult as skin and even muscle and bone struggles to take the desired positions when stretched across his modifications, not to speak of their morphing of the body in its resting position or the parts of himself he quite literally lost control of. Though this modification does not scream of its origins as indoctrination tech, an expert in the subject matter of reapers or Cerberus could get some measure of suspicions if given an opportunity for in depth examination of his person.

Armour and dress will alike usually be darker, containing just a little flair, but otherwise he doesn't put much care into clothing; unless desired for a disguise or similar occassion he is happy to wear flea marked hand me downs. His eyes were once a dark brown, but now have the whites replaced with black orbs glowing red at the pupil and green-blue through a few elements of core cabling.

Much like his personality his voice is rather erratic. When calm it is a soft and quiet base but excitement (regardless of positive or negative origin) will usually raise the pitch and give it either a grating or nasal timbre.

MOTIVATIONS AND OUTLOOK◢

Ossie is a confused man. He still dreams of reforming the systems alliance into a more assertive state readier to deal with its adversaries. The aliens in the Sol System demanding humanity bend the knee for their extraterrestrial interests are all squatters that must be ejected like the Quarians, by force if necessary. At the same time, with the world the way it is following the death of the reapers much of his past philosophy and goals are null and void leaving him somewhat aimless as humanity no longer fears extinction. Still, the longing to find community combined with fears of retribution over his past lead him to two main goals: accumulate capital to live off of in the immediate term, and find himself a new cell or the remnants of his previous one to advance the same goal he has had for years: defend mankind.

To this end, when he is not doing odd jobs to scrap for a meal he is happy to do whatever is needed as a volunteer in the reconstruction of Earth. Oslo fancies himself to be a hero just like his late mother was, and in all he does he first questions if what he does will make her proud of her son as she gazes down towards Earth from eternal rest.

But the results of all this are inconsistent at best. A long time of pretending to be somebody else in conjunction with what he internally describes as failures of the past has every waking moment be a gaslighting of himself. There is a dark cloud looming in his mind that insists all he had done during the greatest war the milky way has seen was wrong. He is insecure, yet does his best to internalize all of his issues and presents a believable veneer of almost macho confidence.

INADEQUACIES AND FEARS◢

There are many things Oslo struggles with. Following his indoctrination at the hands of Cerberus and more than a year of taking on new identities has left his mind riddled with issues of even figuring out his own personality, leading to at times rather erratic behaviour with mood swings of amicable extroversion to calm indifference to savage irritability. He has a not entirely unfounded paranoia that he is hunted be it by another cell following the unplanned dissolution of his own, or by authorities that traced his past. Oslo does have greater concerns on matters of the future of the world, but for the most part his mind's worries are more selfish focusing on what may or may not happen to him.

Under his shells, Oslo is also quite simply put immature. His father raised him alone and was oft too ailing to be an adequate father figure, let alone compensate for a missing mother. As such he struggles with many realities that more adult people face, that can largely be condensed to the fact life is not fair, and it never will be. This is all the more devastating when compounded with his youth, and lack of (complete) formal education in much of life, even if the army and Cerberus provided him with quite a good amount of the practical stuff. Though experienced beyond his years he is still ultimately young and green.

Oslo is also affected by some perceptive illusions. As a result of the haywiring of the indoctrination tech within him following the defeat of the reapers, he at times is maligned with anything from stray lines of code in his vision, to whispers and phantom smells, to at times more serious apparitions combining all sensory elements.

The cybernetics in him can also prove to be just as much a liability as they are a boon. If not maintained, or successfully struck with things like overloads they cause massive pain and malfunction of bodily functions rendering him sluggish at best. Even when unaffected by the efforts of adversaries he deals with chronic migraines resulting from the foreign matter in him.

Finally, he is very scared that he might never get back the things he lost. Community, friends, family, love. The feeling he isn't alone, he is wanted, that he doesn't have to hide. This is made all the worse by growing self doubt of the validity of his past and the actions in it, as well as consciousness of his appearance and identity that he forsook.

BACKGROUND◢

Oslo was born to what one could argue to be a military family. His father Iskander Kassam was a cripple following his valiant resistance against the Turian aggressor during the contact wars. His mother Agnieska Kassam (née Haskau) was a Captain of a vessel that was destroyed by Batarian slavers, and she died before he could ever meet her.

Though difficult, his upbringing was rather happy. He heard many a great tale of what a great warrior his mother was, and all that she did for the protection of her people. Oslo would look to the skies imagining what adventures she would have had, what great deeds were accomplished in the soundless void. While his education continued and he took on work to help support the family of two once his siblings left for other worlds, he kept a smile upon his face, retreating from the poverty into a world of his mind. It worked, until it did not. His father passed away of a stroke whilst he was at school.

At the man's funeral, the boy looked to the stars and saw only one way forward. He went on to enlist, lying about his age and doing his best to edit it in his documentation. It was a poor job of the matter, but at the base of the recruitment centre was a Colonel that had known his mother that - upon learning of the full story - decided to humour the boy. He assigned him to a harsh drill Sergeant through his training, hoping that the man would squeeze out the adventurism of the lad if he wasn't serious about the matter, but insofar as he saw the pain of the training was only a fulfillment of the fantasy he had built about the nobility of being a soldier.

The kind Colonel eventually relented, and once the formal training was done he let the boy go through what he thought would be a simple tour of duty patrolling the edge of the Solar system. He was not so lucky.

It was only a few months into his first assignment that the vessel he was crewing found itself in combat. A vessel of the Eclipse Mercenary corp. struck at a trade vessel. The Alliance vessel outgunned that of the Mercenaries, but that did not matter much when the Eclipse mercs initiated a boarding action. The biotic veterans made short work of the green recruits in the ranks of the troops, only eventually facing defeat by attrition as the use of biotic powers wore them out and they began to run out of ammunition.

The officers amongst the crew insisted to Oslo he remain in reserves, but he was one of the few men left to take the offenders prisoner. As they were taken to the military base in the System, it was soon revealed that two of the members of the captured force were daughters of a powerful matriarch that insisted on their release, a demand that the Alliance Government acquiesced to in hopes of preventing a diplomatic incident.

While many of the locals accepted this knowing they were of a small colony with little voice, Oslo was infuriated. This defied all his expectations of his presumed honourable way of the military, and he made sure to express this wherever he could. This was overheard by the same Colonel Samson that had helped the lad enter the army, who thus decided to visit him one night on the way to the barracks.

Samson stated that the Asari duo would be escorted out in a week, and in one of the hallways leading out there was a segment undocumented by camera surveillance. If so truly Oslo wanted justice, he could be assigned to the position of escort of the asari to the shuttle that would take them to orbit and eventually freedom. Within the short stretch of hall he could murder them, and claim that they struck first. The Colonel had expected caution from his counterpart at the prospect of such vigilantism but received only unquestioning acceptance.

As planned he took them through the halls, and relished the moment he spent but two shots of his thermal clip for the villains. A court martial happened to investigate what happened, and despite much of his unit and officers standing up for him Oslo was charged with negligent discharge of his weapon in an effort to appease, and was thus no longer in the Marines.

Returning home he was approached by the Colonel. Samson stated the obvious: that his life expectancy was rather short now given his transgression against a very powerful person. Seeing the boy only shrug his shoulders more concerned with the fact that he was now out of the army, he made him an offer. Samson stated there was an organization he was part of, one that needed those as uncompromising in their dedication to standing up for their people as he, one that needed those sufficiently devoted to this cause: Cerberus.

The Colonel gave him a time, and a place. Oslo showed up under a street light, and from there darkness. He awoke in the Med-Bay of a vessel, sterile white surrounding him everywhere save for a pair of mechanical goggles scrutinizing him. The visor came off, and there was a face smiling upon him. It introduced itself as Doctor Strasser Ochekwu, M.D., Phd, and a lot more letters. As proper consciousness flowed back into the lad he began to sit himself up, answering the barrage of questions that came at him regarding his past, his motivations, his education, skills, so on and so forth. As time went on, Strasser got ever more serious, her smile turning to a frown, only for the smile to return once the last questions were done. The Doctor was open to Oslo about the truth. He was far from the peak of material that the vessel had held, but he seemed to have the devotion and desire to be able to be moulded into a tool for the defence of mankind. It hurt, but Oslo swallowed his pride and accepted the offer that Strasser gave him: to join the Achilles Cell of Cerberus and fight for what he knew was right.

He was introduced to the crew soon after. Korwin Markov, an N7 defector that blew an aggression inhibitor before turning coats. Jonah Khaled, once Olympic fencer now swinging a true blade against the dark. Sofia Cortez the Captain and Pilot of The Ascension; a veteran of the Alliance Navy that turned to becoming a pirate against the Turians after disagreeing with high command in the peace that was forged with the Turians then taken in by Cerberus. Nika Reigel, the Engineer he'd be most closely working with given the work that he was doing during his service in the Marines. Dozens of colourful people, an assortment that despite not always being the most welcoming did warm up to him and returned to Oslo some semblance of what he felt he had lost overnight with the dishonourable discharge.

Oslo received a training far more rigorous than what he had before as a simple Private. Though he had broken every bone in his body before he won a spar, he accepted the punishment with glee as it hardened him. He learned of stealth and disguise from the infiltrators within the cell, and spent much time with Reigel to expand the core of his professional abilities. Indeed the very first thing he was taught was of damping, a skill that was much appreciated. The Eclipse mercenaries that had massacred his comrades had left him a feeling of helplessness against biotics, and a veritable fear of them. With her help, he was able to overcome this and know that next time it would be the bastards on the other side that needed fear.

It was eventually his first assignment. There was a Turian research station at the edge of a system in the Terminus sector that had made a breakthrough on the Collectors. What it was, leadership would not say, but it didn't matter. They couldn't be allowed to have that, and as such they would perish. The attack was swift and merciless: with the facility more relying on its hidden nature for security than actual guards. Those that were posted were taken out after a prompt boarding action, with the defensive turrets and VIs getting hacked or struck by EMPs and the scientists gunned down before all the data was downloaded. The facility was destroyed and no evidence was left.

Following this a more discrete assignment was given to the Achilles Cell. They were to infiltrate parts of the Citadel to prepare it for future Cerberus activities. Caches of weapons and ammo were hid, several men were deployed to be sleeper agents. People within the city were given bribes or otherwise convinced to look the other way, some human officers of C-Sec convinced to sympathize with the cause. At the same time those that could not be swayed had to be assassinated; people were strangled and it was made to look as a robbery gone wrong or doors to homes were programmed to unexpectedly close on their owner to squash them. Many people perished, but they were all those who would have harmed the Cell members had they known of their activity and hence Oslo had no qualms with the matter.

The Achilles cell was recalled however to a hidden base of Cerberus. They were to report in for improvements to themselves. These were rather quickly revealed to be cybernetics and though the first hours following the surgeries it was merely the pain that occupied the minds of the cell, Oslo very soon realized he felt different. He did feel good. Stronger, faster, clearer of sight and mind. But with this clarity there was the realization almost as if he could no longer think as much as he could before; trains of thought would end abruptly on many topics, and he felt himself hesitate at the prospect of discussing many things with his crewmates on the matter of ideology or the cause. He wanted to question the matter, but Oslo quite simply could not.

They were then given an assignment that even the new implants could not in entirety clear his consciousness of. A small ship of the migrant fleet was docked in the Citadel, and it had to be slaughtered. They of course could not charge in, but they were able to infiltrate the ship to tamper with the electronics and machinery. Exhaust gasses were made to route into the life support system, that was in turn sabotaged to not vent these when a dangerous mass was detected. When the quarians returned they died a savage death in space as over-pressurized atmosphered cracked their suits, young and old alike bursting within their protective gear. Despite the machinery within him that was working against him questioning the Illusive Man's orders, there was something wrong here. Turians and Batarians he could understand, they were a people that had committed grave crimes against man-kind. There was no military honour in this, and rather horrifyingly he feared that his mother and father above would curse him for the crime he had committed.

He struggled with trying to justify this. Mental gymnastics an olympic medalist would be jealous of streamed through his mind, but he could still not give a satisfactory explanation. But again they were recalled to a Cerberus base for more enhancements. The pain was even greater this time, and now they were somewhat visible if he undressed in a light. But once more they felt good after time passed. Now the questions of the validity of the strike on the Quarians evaporated from his mind. They were friendly with the Turians and other scum, they unleashed the Geth on the galaxy, their people spread out across the stars to be vagrants, vagabonds, criminal nuisances.

The Achilles cell then participated in the strike on the Citadel. Though at the time many of the preparations they had done before seemed pecuiliar their value was soon apparent. Stashes of ammo were used by sleeper cells to destroy defender lines from within, mines had C-Sec units vapourized while running to armouries and demolition charges dropped rubble to prevent refugees from escaping the slaughter. Every nerve was crying out that this was wrong. For every Batarian or Turian in which he saw those that crushed his family, Oslo also saw the death of those he had little to no qualms with, including other humans, those who it was his sacred charge to protect. But wires and cables superseded nerve, and his finger held on to the trigger.

The day was eventually lost for the defenders of man. Covered from head to toe in the red product of his work Oslo fled with tail between legs as Cerberus in its entirety had to lick its wounds. It had suffered great losses that day but there were many cards that it had not played and the Achilles cell had much work to do. Terrorist operations all across the Milky Way were performed as well as supporting actions for the more open actions of providing reinforcement to larger scale Cerberus operations.

Every new assignment brought them to inflicting new levels of horror on the galaxy, but they were always followed by a return to a Cerberus base that layered on yet more augments that inevitably included indoctrination tech. Every increment in atrocity was matched with a decrement in ability to question it.

The time of the final showdown came, as the battle for Earth approached. Cerberus had gone into hiding by this point, but cells arrived at the edge of the Sol system with the aim of supporting their hero - the Illusive man - in the great gambit.

As Shephard destroyed synthetic life of the galaxy, the vessel of the Achilles cell crash-landed on Earth. In the crash a half of the crew perished, and another half perished from the shock of the destruction of synthetics as core systems shut down without the stolen reaper-tech within them malfunctioned. Of those that lived to gaze upon their birthright of Earth, the marvel of setting foot on their true home could not truly be enjoyed.

As much as two thirds of the bodies of the different members could not function. Strasser had her legs rendered immobile and a right arm quite simply break off. Markov's biotic implants reacted with the rest to burst a hole in his back and turn him to a gibbering mess, Captain Cortez was rendered wholly deaf, while Oslo himself had his eyes pour out of his head. A whole week was spent hungry and thirstty as they did the best to restore themselves to working order. In the time it took to do this there were many reflections for the whole Cell. Arguably for the first time in months Oslo was truly lucid. He could look at the proverbial rivers of blood on his hands and the reality of the lives lost in terror sank in. Though his body was covered in instances of necrosis from failed or failing implants, he still struggled to be confident in coming to terms with the world around him.

The indoctrination implants had fed his mind arguments about the validity of the actions of the Achilles cell, and as was designed they were logical at their core. But now he had the freedom to think against them. It did not take him long to consider that the entirety of his time following his discharge from the military was wrong, that he had failed those he had looked up to.

But on the other hand, there was little time or use in retrospection. Oslo told himself that even if it was not enough, he had done his best. Now he was surrounded by people important to him, and what mattered was surviving in the post war world.

A large taste of reality struck Oslo when venturing out from the crash site to look for food, children screamed at the sight of him and adults with weapons at times fired at the sight, believing him to be a yet operational husk from afar. To see that the people he swore himself to defend fear him so, to be rejected by his ancestral homeworld was an experience that crushed him. What was worse was that he realized even if he hid the physical changes, anyone who found out what he had done would do the same. Could they believe him if he said it wasn't himself, it was the implants' influence? He dreaded the inevitable question that would follow in response: whether or not it really was just the implants.

With survival more important than musings on his crimes, he ineffectually tried to drown out these intrusive thoughts. The lad took to covering himself with rags to form a bandana, sunglasses, a headset, anything that would let him and the rest of the cell wander the ruins of Earth and look the essentials that would let them survive. It was not enough of course, for close enough many would be able to get a better look and see the truth. Eventually the crew started to add in additional skin grafts on their flesh to hide some cybernetics, whilst outright removing or disabling other parts, or replacing them with less egregious ones. Slowly they returned to operating like a normal Cerberus cell in clandestine work. They dispersed from their meeting places to do their work, only reuniting to pool their resources and share updates on the ongoings of the world. They had no greater goal, but ultimately the message came in one day that the cell was jeopardized.

Oslo ran for days as far as he could from the ruined basement that he had known as home, eventually making his way to one of the population centers of ruined Earth. He felt hollow, alone, given all the more time to stew in reflection of what he had done with Cerberus and what was real or a fiction of his mind's corruption. He began to do odd jobs from construction work to killing off wild animals that ransacked supplies to looking for salvage to sell; anything that would help him get by; though considerable modifications had been done to hide the nature of what was below his skin, he was still fearful of approaching official channels for help. Only now with hearing of the Sol Restoration network he finally mustered the courage to sign on for this new job, hoping he can stop scraping mud for survival and make use of his past experience to once more fight for humanity.

There was an Old Earth saying he had heard: "A guilty one runs unchased." Oslo decided that he would not run.

Capabilities

POWERS◢

-First Aid
-Damping
-Tech Armour
-Hacking

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND CRIMES◢

Following a year in service of the systems Alliance armed forces he spent much time in a Cerberus cell wherein he obtained broad experience from technical work to combat and covert operations. While Oslo Kassam is assumed dead, his work for Cerberus has him on a yet unwritten list of wanted people for elite terrorism of a quite literally galactic scale. Has killed two daughters of an influential Asari matriarch, an act that has received a still active retribution bounty on his head.

RELATIONS AND AFFILIATIONS◢

-Private in Systems Alliance Marines (dishonourable discharge)

-By virtue of his mother's esteem in the Marines he still has friends in the organization unaware of his terrorist activities.
-Colonel Samson, the man responsible for his recruitment into both the Marines and Cerberus

-Former Cerberus cell operative

-Strasser Ochekwu, the Doctor responsible for much of his current condition.
-Sofia Cortez, his former Captain
-Nika Reigel, fellow Engineer in the Achilles cell and somewhat unrequited paramour.
-Korwin Markov, a cell member that Oslo came to see as a paternal figure for much time.

-Has a brother named Oscar and a sister named Maryam somewhere out there.

OPINIONS◢

(For group members and NPCs; fill after IC introduction)

Inventory

CREDITS & VALUABLES◢ 11 Credits	OUTFIT◢ When on assignment he will wear light mercenary armour with a recon hood. Otherwise the best he can scrounge up. At the moment its the batter overcoat of a dead Alliance Marine private (medal resting upon it in a brazen display of stolen valour) along with jeans and mismatched Engineer's boots, usually with his armour below or on top of this ensemble. He will oft tie a scarf as a keffiyeh, and wear sunglasses & headset.
WEAPON & TOOLS◢ An omni tool on either arm, a Harrier rifle with stock removed for mobility. He will pick the dead clean for any augments he can make to his arsenal be it a few spare grenades or a shiny new gun. Cybernetics given to him by Cerberus make his otherwise unimposing frame belie surprising durability and physical performance, along with better sensory abilities from sight to hearing and smell; most important in the role he grew to perform has been a mental link to his omni tools. At the same time many of these systems are disabled or malfunctioning following the destruction of synthetic life leading to some extreme awkwardness in the man's movements.	CONSUMABLE◢ Some medi-gel
ID & DOCUMENTS◢ None	BAGS & CONTAINERS◢ Pockets, a burlap sack, an empty wallet.

Mass Effect: Vigil

Putting a placeholder here. Need to see how much time I have, but thinking about an ex Cerberus lad

Precipice Of War: The Reboot of a Reboot

Turkey

Nation: The Republic of Turkey

Map:

History:
Following the defeat of the Central powers in the first world war, the Ottoman Empire was in a poor predicament. A noticeable part of its nation was under occupation by Entente and allied forces. The Sultan was weak, unable to free his country from the invader and the work fell into the hands of those who could show initiative. Mustafa Kemal Pasha in particular was a great leader, his role in both driving out the aggressors as well as establishing a civilian government gave him the great title Ataturk — Turkish Father.

Turkey became a radically different place, following an ideology that would later come to be known as Kemalism. It was a thought-system of many contrasts; it had an ultranationalism reactionaries across the whole world would be jealous of. And yet this ideology’s founders also secularized this nation, instituting a strong and popular democracy with a socialized market economy.

Naturally there were many opponents to this strange new system. In the very construction of the Turkish Republic were the events later labelled genocides of the Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians.

The core territories of Turkey at this time came to enjoy newfound freedom and prosperity, but the trend of vast internal variance continued as at the edges of its borders Turkey experienced many problems. Kurds, Arabs, and Islamists made for a powerful alliance of convenience. However without the support they received in the great war, the better armed, trained and supplied Turkish armed forces were able to push these people to the very borders of the country.

Seeing this as a great treachery from these people the Turkish republic instituted a nigh apartheid on these people; although nowhere was it explicitly mentioned to do so, any people of a “rebellious” ethnicity were subject to great discrimination finding difficulty entering educational institutions, receiving loans, and perhaps most importantly applying for loans to buy a car or horse as well as obtaining firearm licenses.

However as is so often the case such draconian policy only served to gain support for the cause of the insurgents even if it hurt their immediate capabilities. Upon the death of Mustafa Kemal they struck once again, riding upon horses and motors aliked into Turkish territory from hideouts within Iraq and Syria.

Turkish calls to root out the terrorists were agreed to but not acted upon, and once recovered from the death of its glorious leader Turkey acted in its own defence.

Large offensives were made into the borders of the Arab states that routed both terrorists and standing army; as Turkish casualties started to mount, great reprisals were taken against the Kurds. Eventually a ceasefire was made with Turkey occupying strategic positions in Syria and Iraq to not only hold a defensible line against remaining insurgents but also hold critical oil fields.

One now comes to modern Turkey, where many ticking time bombs and boiling masses come to a critical condition. Nationalism has peaked to the degree that there are grassroots demands amongst the people to act in the interest of the Turkic people to the East, the Azeris who are in fact one people with the Turks. At the same time, efforts to negotiate friendly governments to the South have failed, and Arabic Turkophobia grows ever hotter. Relations with the rest of Turkey’s neighbours are lukewarm, but alienated as a consequence of decades of Turkish realpolitik.

Monkeys and Typewriters

That is not to say that random chance cannot create beautiful things, or things in which I can derive pleasure and greatly enjoy. Art created by chance can also be filled with meaning, but only ever the meaning of the beholder. There is no communication of ideas, there is no connection beyond the self, no dialog. I think this will always leave randomly created art somewhat poorer than its consciously constructed cousin.

@Kassarock

Do you think the devs did not want to communicate anything? Or that open ended art pieces never existed? Regardless, people are just sufficiently complex computers made of a squishy material, its a strange luddite elitism to feel superiority over the ones made of a hard material

the truth is we just haven't found the limit yet

@POOHEAD189

why do you think said limit exists

Andy's hunt for kin-spirit dreggs

Just a little late for victory day, a bump.

Flames on the Dnieper

Okay I dropped my post, I'll be around plenty this weekend for any questions or corrections re: my post.

Flames on the Dnieper

Anatoli Marchenko listened as attentively as he could when given the first briefing of the operation, still in some measure of disbelief. His impromptu force had already committed non negligible violence in its efforts to support the Eastern Presidency. But this coordination with the military to do war in the middle of the country still took some time to digest.

He did not say much in the meeting with the other officers, only nodding politely. These were true military men, more professional if - by their whiskers - less experienced than he and his. He was confident that by his side the objective would be accomplished, but not at great risk to the lives of far more men than any engagement that he had been in, and for the first time in many years at great risk to his own life if enemy artillery and recconaissance could not be dealt with in a timely manner by the combined forces assembled.

Even when returning to brief his own unit about their assignment he was somewhat dazed by the occurrences of the day. Though there was no fear of death in the people under his command, there was anxiety regarding the success of the operation, and the aftermath. Well, in the documents he would draft before the assault at least there would be records that his operational orders were with the best intentions.

Sokol Group

Sokol Group OPORD

Task Organization:

The paramilitary platoons are organized in an ad-hoc fashion more for record-keeping and cooperation with other units rather than internal use, with platoons moving interchangeably between companies if required. In internal use within the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Sokol group remains organized as follows:

1st Company (Motorized Infantry) (Improvised):
1st Pltn.
2nd Pltn.
3rd Pltn.
4th Pltn.

2nd Company (Motorized Infantry):
1st Pltn.
2nd Pltn.
3rd Pltn.
4th Pltn.
5th Pltn.
6th Pltn.

3rd Company (Mechanized Infantry):
1st Pltn.
2nd Pltn.
3rd Pltn.
4th Pltn.

I. SITUATION.

Within the area of responsibility the enemy has diverse assets complementing one another including motorized anti-tank capable of negating our initial advantages in armour. There are also mechanized companies within range to reinforce in the event that we can successfully threaten them with enfilade, and if allowed to consolidate they may have localized numeric superiority with artillery support blunting efforts to outmaneuver.

The enemy also maintains a non negligible advantage in terrain. This will insure reconnaissance units positioned along hills or other features of the sector will provide an advantage in reconaissance. Particular attention should be given before first contact is made in positions like the bridge crossing to Ternovka, or the woods and entrance to Mal Smelyanka where enemy reconaissance will have allowed for disastrous attacks upon our advance. For this same reason a note must be made to excercise extreme fire control such that sound is not compounded with OPFOR advantage in visual threat recognition.

At the same time these parts of the sector threaten allied forces for the same reason they threaten ours as likely occupied sight lines will also be able to be used against the troops of Route Green to report on their activities. Roads and the territory as a whole in our sector can also be used to create minor encirclements of allied forces in the event their successful advance produces a salient.

Roads are almost a matter of priority as noticeable differences between them insure that the control of paved routes will determine who decides conditions of engagements. For Sokol group in particular control of roads is critical as our assignment demands of us to create a defence South-West of hill 140 and traversing too much grassland instead of road to get in position may delay our accomplishment of the task in a reasonable time as well as opening our companies to being outmaneuvered rendering the assignment null.

Air and artillery support is present but the lower priority of Sokol group in queue insures any plans must be made without these assets in mind to insure that allied divisions in more target dense sectors can efficiently use this support. Helicopter support should only be called in the event of a potential rout or destruction of our units in its absence, or in the event enemy maneuvers ensure allied units do not engage at expected times.

II. MISSION. At 0600 29 August 2004, Sokol group will attack along Route Yellow, clearing OPFOR presence until reaching the road South-West of objective Sablya where a defensive line will be formed.

III. EXECUTION.

The four platoons of the first company are to split such that each of the four platoons will move independent and occupy the four corresponding heights of our sector routing any OPFOR reconaissance units along the way. First platoon will then leave behind single digits of vehicles at each height to control their sight and relay any information seen about OPFOR to our and allied units.

Second and third companies are to slightly lag the first waiting until control of the hills ensures we have the vision to guarantee a safe advance North.

At this point first company will now be lagging second and third and must be on standby to prepare to assist 34th infantry with their soft skinned vehicles if local OPFOR AT units prove more effective or numerous than anticipated. The first platoon of second company is to pass through the wooded road with orders for immediate retreat if an ambush is prepared within. Otherwise it is to occupy the entrance to Mal Smelyanka and wait until the arrival of the other platoons and companies. It will then form defilade together with the rest of second company whilst the third and first head West to form enfilade and eliminate enemy units within Mal Smelyanka.

Pending reassessment of the working situation Sokol group will then have first and second companies disembark their vehicles and use the cover of Mal Smelyanka to provide cover for an aggressive push across the bridge with third company that is aiming to encircle local mechanized and motorized infantry defences.

Following destruction, rout or surrender of resistance the road will be used to move North West avoiding enemy artillery and rocket fire. Pending reassessment first and third companies will then move to secure the Southern side of the road for a defence, whilst second company elements will patrol within the region thwart the work of enemy reconaissance units, create a fall-back line in the event the Northern defence is overwhelmed, and assist allied Units in the event it is required.