• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

IDS Yīnghuā - Log 2.0: "If you are far from the enemy..."

CadetNewb

CadetNewb

Administrator
Staff member
Wiki Moderator
Empire of Daqin,
Pínqióng (貧窮) System
Tiāntáng (天堂), High Orbit
Heavy Transport 172673-262688

Hoshiko was not the mother-empress.

"Listen up you Zhūtóu (豬頭)!" the short tiger-princess leaped onto the Jiǔjiā (豬頭) table. All around her, men were quickly throwing out kicks and punches in a grand display of martial arts, while women fled and cowered in fear. "It's time we planned our upcoming mission - "

"Hand over the Sword of Destiny!" a brigand interrupted her, brandishing a knife. She glared down at the filthy peasant of mythical China and simply jabbed her finger at the man. He instantly started screaming as he blackened, derezzing with prejudice from their virtuality. The other NPCs all stopped to look on in shock at the incomprehensible horror that Hoshiko had visited. Just as quickly, another brigand picked up a teapot and made to smash it over her, only for him to blacken and fragment. Screams of absolute terror spread through the asian tavern, and with a clap, they all vanished.

"Playtime is over. I've put planning our op off long enough," the princess began, now leaping down from the table. Hoshiko was not the mother-empress, who's black-mood hid in the shallows of her smile to suddenly surface like a shark. "So there's caravans heading to one city, and we're sure it's all the major players in Aos'Si politics coming to gather. What do you all think we should do? I want to hear your opinions," she half grumbled, focusing more on arranging the appetizers into a crude map of the area.

Unlike her mother-empress, she seethed and bubbled like an angry pot that would scorch anyone who reached out without caution.
 
Xian would carefully evaluate the situation. There were temperamental princess' to consider, and the stain on their reputations from the last encounter. Xian would have to say something to establish herself. Her mother would inist on taking control of the meeting in its entirety! Be the most in charge of the situation!

But that wasn't all there was to think of.

She did have the clout to shout down someone like Oumijia or Wen, but the two princesses here wouldn't stand for such a thing.

She could speak up early, but that was an honor reserved for those of lower rank. A younger officer speaking first gives the higher officers a chance to correct them. A higher ranking officer being corrected by a lower one would be...


"Lets find out what they do for fun. Big party-thing. Hit'em with the Daqin bubbly and uh maybe some party favors. It'll be a ton of fun, how many of us have actually experienced how the Aos Si unwind?" Jun said, the princess jumping right into the middle of things with her own recommendation before Xian could get it together enough to speak.
 
Wen was wholly unbothered by events days prior. He would have plenty of private time to dwell on the embarrassment and failures, but right now, a job was a job.

He looked at the crude map made of food, which might as well have been a blank sheet to him. "What is our objective? Are we there on an assassination job? Just observation? Diplomatic contact?"
 
"Hmmmm..." For a moment, it seemed like Hoshiko was actually considering what Jun was saying, but Wen brought up some of the more important questions. "That's the thing. Intel is spotty. We don't know the parties involved, and since we are acting on our mother-empress's behalf, she's probably expecting us to at least get a feel for everyone before offing someone." By now, Hoshiko had assembled a large array of Dim sum on the table, and began spooning out hoisin sauce until they recognized some of the planet's topography.

Whether or not hoisin sauce was apocryphal to the Three Kingdoms Era though, nobody knew anymore - The Communists probably burned the records on accident or on purpose.

"So, we're going way south of Gūdú Shì (孤獨市), the sole city we have on the planet's surface," Hoshiko pointed to a cube of Hóngzǎo Gāo (紅棗糕) and traced downwards. "Recon suggests several caravans with person's of interest are gathering here," her finger lead them to some southern placed Shāomai (燒賣) to designate the place they'd be investigating. "It's one of the largest walled cities, and apparently has a large military host, even after sending most of it and their magic artifacts against us."
The Aos'Si had failed to eject the Daqinren thanks to lots of modern firepower, but the status quo was unsustainable.

"Oumijia, you've been quiet. New guy or not, I expect you to participate, even if it's being dumb like Princess Jun," she jabbed a thumb at her sister-in-law.
 
"OH MY FUCK, is that like the military version of a one night stand? Just meet someone and kill them right away? People really hate it when you start killing people at a party." Jun replied, "Maybe they are just having a bad day you know? You've gotta get a feel for them over a few days before you go all the way. Unless, you know, they do something unforgivable... or like, they have a lot of money and aren't ugly."

Jun continued to maybe lose the plot, "So what makes for a rich, hot, Aos Si anyways? Are we wanting to see their magical artifacts? Or find out some Tea about who's hooking up with who?"

"Wen is right. We should have a clear objective for this operation." Xian said, finally getting involved at what seemed to be the right time, "Without an understanding of why we are conduction this operation, we will not know how to help achieve our overall goals. We should also avoid getting entangled with these Aos Si"

Xian would cast a glance towards Jun.

"WOW. Ok. I'm a PRINCESS now and I'm just here to have some fun. I'm not looking for a one night entanglement, just going to have some fun."
 
"Lacking an objective for this operation, I suppose we have to set one ourselves." Perhaps this was just the Mother Empress's way of telling them to take the initiative. "We do not know why the Aos Si are all gathering, so we should go learn. I propose the mission objective be to study and observe Aos Si diplomatic interactions, and their reasons for this large, abnormal gathering." Wen suggested outloud.

"What assets do we have for this reconnaissance mission? Xian is right, entanglement would complicate any mission. What stealth assets do we have available? It seems that the Aos Si were able to detect us despite our visual cloaking technology."
 
Though she eyed Oumijia at first, hoping the newcomer would speak up, the silence allowed the regulars to chime in during the awkward pause instead. As they did so though, Hoshiko tossed out a cup of some NPC's tea over her shoulder and poured herself a new one.

"I suppose the Aos'Si can detect us, at least, when we call out to them or start making a fuss among ourselves," Hoshiko remarked to Wen with some measure of sarcasm. "I suppose Viz putting sparkling star decorations all over us counts too, at least to a degree though," she admitted. In hindsight, it was admittedly rather creative use of what turned out to be an entertainment spell of all things. Taking a sip of the oolong tea for a moment, she decided to jot her finger down onto the empty side of the 'map' of food. "We'll requisition native fauna based spy Chongwu from our city then, since the new governor will be a lot more...willing to assist," ominously paused.

As neat little board pieces of their assets appeared, they all remembered what happened to the previous Governor.

"Once we figure out what's going on though, we'll either have to conduct kinetic action, or diplomatic action depending on what we find, so we might as well grab a transport and load up for both," the Tiger Princess noted, looking to Wen and Xian. A box of board pieces appeared in her hand, and she set it down for them to look through. Whatever The Lonely City had in its garrison, they likely had access to. "Kinetic is the easy part, but diplomatic...well, the rich, hot Aos'Si don't look all that different from us and will probably be dressed up more nicely," Hoshiko admitted to Jun.

"Theoretically, if we want to barge in on a party of mean-girls Jun, and, theoretically, get their friends on our side, what would you do?" she asked the horned cow woman.
 
"We could just crash the party with some booze and snacks but it'll go a lot smoother if we get an invite. Maybe ask one of the groups showing up to +1 us? Or maybe we got an Aos Si somewhere willing to vouch for us?" Jun asked. "After that we just gotta work the crowd. Talk to people, have drinks with them, that kinda thing... though if its a bunch of old Aos Si then we'll have to talk about whatever old Aos Si like... probably like... prunes... and board games. If we're lucky they'll just be happy to see some boobs."

"TACTICALLY." Xian said, trying to mask her discomfort with this topic, "Aos Si historically have had issue dealing with our air support. This is a large open area. We should be ready to engage close support from the air should a kinetic operation be needed. We should also retain air transport to bring in additional ground forces to secure the area should a kinetic operation start. The more firepower we can drop at the start of things the better, it will make us appear as if we are a larger force and get any armed opponents to retreat rather than stay and face an attack."
 
Oumijia thought hard about what was being considered here especially on the terms of potentially kinetic action. He had no business weighing in on diplomatic measures, but as a soldier he had some professional input on the matter.

"Ma'am, perhaps a force reconnaissance in hide sites surrounding the city would be preferable then. They can conduct a zone recon around areas of interest, and switch to offensive the moment you deem kinetic action necessary. And if the force is not deemed necessary they can simply exfil out of the area to avoid any further diplomatic missteps. And it might be lower stakes if say-- the Aos'si were to find out either before or after-- than say an entire strike-force staged some ways off the objective."
 
Last edited:
"Pffft!" Hoshiko failed to not laugh at Jun's idea. "Getting invited by the Aos'Si?" the princess scoffed. "That's! Uh...well..." Unfortunately, she became more uncomfortable the more she thought about it, and the more sense it made. "I guess they're not a monolithic group, so one of those caravans heading in might have the political disposition to bring us along," Hoshiko realized. They might really be able to crash the party by being the 'mean girl' that surfed in using a guest.

Looking between Xian and Oumijia though, the princess couldn't help but feel a little unsettled - the two clicked together very well.

"Well, there's rotor-craft in the city, but they don't have the loiter time we need for this op," the princess noted. She combed through what she could see in their city's inventory, and found something else that might fit the bill. Pulling the tail off of a cooked shrimp, she placed it on the food-map. "Nobody's going to question one of our armed transports taking off to do stuff," she pointed out. "Plus, the laser turrets should be able to deal with anything we run across, and the transatmospheric fusion thrusters have the endurance to loiter for a really long time."

With Xian's idea - maybe - covered, she thought about what Oumijia suggested.

"It's going to be just us and what we can procure without raising too many eyebrows, so no additional personnel," Hoshiko admitted. "Though, there should definitely be some war animals we can take from the garrison," she realized, referring to the more militarily modified Chongwu. "They're dumb cannon fodder, but we just need them to hide, and then start shooting things if the mission goes bad I guess." The princess sprinkled some toasted sesame seeds onto the table to represent the gun toting, near-sapient grunts they could source.

Looking at the mission-map, Hoshiko's tiger tail flicked with surprise.

"This doesn't look half bad! Any other ideas?" she prodded at them all with her chopsticks.
 
"Yeah, so lets find one of the smaller groups and get them to let us crash the party with them. You guys can then do all that Kinetic stuff if you want after we get an invite and are into the party proper." Jun said, sounding suspiciously like she didn't really know what went into a kinetic operation. "I'm gonna need some shopping time though. We can't just bring wine spritzers if we want to crash a party like this. We're going to need something SERIOUS."
 
"Stupid cow." Wen grumbled. He had to admit though: Jun was right. Riding on the invitation of an Aos Si group would maximize their intelligence gathering: they will gather more information by actually being there.

"Which Aos Si tribe can we influence to invite us?" Wen asked. Meanwhile, he looked over the assets available to them and the geography of the area to plan their exfil.
 
“Are the Chongwu… smart enough (for lack of a better term) to be able to understand the commanders intent as you’ve described it?” Oumijia asked concernedly. “I worry they may compromise what you’re trying to accomplish here, ma’am.”
 
For a moment, Hoshiko looked confused, but she tried to remain professional by addressing Oumijia first.

"The Chongwu are definitely not smart enough to understand our intent." Pulling up a cloth napkin, she put it over one of the Shāomai for emphasis. "They barely have the object permanence necessary to understand the asset hasn't vanished just because there's a...smokescreen," she decided to call the napkin. "Just think of them as brutes. Gun toting muscle. They have programmed combat routines, but don't really think." Of course, there was also the other matter of which group of Aos'Si to deal with.

"As for the Aos'Si, the groups closest in proximity to us and who were friendly had their Polis' sacked and razed by the more hostile parties during their civil war," Hoshiko explained, plopping down some deep fried Yù Jiǎo (芋角) dumplings to represent the destroyed metropolis' she had mentioned. "Basically, the further north we go from our fortress-city, the more hostile they grow. The best chance we have is maybe with the Aos'Si near the equator between the southern landmass we're on, and the northern one." The princess laid a set of Phoenix Claws or Fèngzhuǎ 鳳爪 on the table to represent the largest equatorial city. Thinking about it for a moment, her tail perked up in preemptive annoyance! "This isn't a beach episode by the way!"

Hoshiko then cleared her throat and addressed the other thing that had been bothering her.

"Anyways, how'd you end up so competent all of a sudden?" the tiger princess pointed a finger at Jun. "I thought you wanted to marry one of my royal relatives and live the easy life? Not have to work? In fact, why are you even coming along for this mission?" she suspiciously asked the cow.
 
Last edited:
"I'M BORED AS FUUUUUUCK" Jun claimed, looking exasperated in the virtuality as she explained her situation, "You try teaching some NEET that they need to do something besides playing GATCHA games and doing online roleplay with their friends. Do you know how hard it is to compete with these virtual girls and the absolute FLOOD of women online willing to show their tits for engagement? I'm fucking TRYING and barely getting looks and I promise you I can get a whole room DROOLING when I want to."

It was a solid moment before Jun realized...

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL OF A SUDDEN!?"
 
Wen quietly got to work. With their assets and contacts confirmed, now it was just a matter of going through the motions to establish the logistics and carry out Daqinren doctrine for this kind of operation. He'd start looking for ways to intercept these equatorial Aos Si and establish diplomatic communications with them, before sending them for approval to Hoshiko. At the same time, he'd establish a battle plan for the meat drones, reluctant as he was to work with these mistakes. Assets were assets.

As he started going through the mechanical motions drilled into him since college, he had some mental bandwidth to deal with Jun. Part of him pitied her and the royal family: that they produced such a worthless Daqinren, and that Jun lacked to foresight to avoid marrying the two-fifty. He didn't dare criticize the royal lineage though.

"This is what you get for chasing after material wealth, stupid cow. Perhaps you would apply your self-worth for the Empire from now on. It is much more fulfilling."
 
"Wen, I mean this in all the best of ways, What the fuck are you even chasing after? You aren't building your own wealth, you aren't building your own clout, and your contributions to the empire amount to being less than a footnote in Hoshiko's biography. Maybe you think you can en passant your way to enough promotions to become a player but things don't work that way."

Jun rubbed her face in exasperation.

"Can we take a break for a bit? I've got a friend who's been in a bit of a dry spell and maybe if I hook her up with Wen some serious problems will be resolved if you catch my meaning."
 
Oumijia took a moment before speaking, his tone steady, but dry, yet a rare bit of humor from the young soldier.
"If it pleases the group, I would prefer to remain uninvolved in… matchmaking operations. My focus is the mission.”

He shifted his eyes toward the table-map, voice clipped but professional. "I have a bad feeling about deploying the Chonwu in such a capacity... I think they might be more trouble than they're worth for this mission."
 
Hoshiko gave a condescending 'snerk' at Jun's reaction.

"Have you tried showing your husband what real sex is? It's supposed to be way better than VR stuff. Inbuilt safeguard and all that." In many instances, time moved a bit differently for the Daqinren, and this was one such instance.
As they talked, the dropship had reentered the atmosphere, and as they whined and complained about each-other, it landed, and soon enough, they were 'shopping' for equipment. "In fact, instead of putting a friend up to it, you could show Wen yourself too," Hoshiko added.

The last time they tried showing him anything though, it ended in disaster. Which was fine as long as it didn't involve herself again.

"That aside though, we can just keep the Zhànshòu (戰獸) in the ship and drop them along with the combat walkers," the tiger princess replied to Oumijia. The war beasts were made for such things and could reinforce them in a hurry, which was something that they were better suited to anyways. Gathering all the goods was the easy part though. Waiting was the hard part - they'd have to spy on the Aos'Si and determine who they would have to bother to get invited.

Given their capabilities, didn't take long.
 
"I don't do the things I'm good at for free," Jun replied, "... wait, I guess I can't say that now that I'm a princess? I guess I just have to encourage Wen to bag a royal of his own. Maybe stop calling his superiors stupid and do something to get the Empress' attention."

Jun's attention would shift towards Wen,

"WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING HERE ANYWAYS?!" She asked, dramatically pointing over in Wen's direction, "Is this just a paycheck for you? Just trying to prove you know a thing or two about shooting people? If you're trying to do politics you're bad at it and everything is politics."

Jun would throw some side-eye at Oumijia, "Even staying out of politics is politics."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top