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[Happerry]

Hacker: CF_Dogcatcher
Region: Application City
Duel Disk[8]: Vivi_Paltest.dat(4), Squad Summon S (1)x3, Recovery 10 (1), CallChiptune (0)
Other: The hunters become the hunted, as the Data Police crackdown begins! Will they manage to drive out the mysterious Firmament, or will the nefarious Dogcatcher outsmart them? Look out below!

With the gangs crushed and brought to heel, only the actual police of the city should be left to resist the forces of the Firmament. But the city police has realized they are in over their heads even before the Firmament moved to take control of the actual upscale portion due the preceding gang war, and they've called for help. The World Data Police descends upon Firmament City.

The battle starts slow, almost peaceful like, the only sound in the city streets that of a strangely omnipresent chiptune. The city police have mustered in mass, baton armed CopAgents unfolding from the police stations like a flower blossoms to take control of the streets back. The quiet does not last, for it takes bare minutes for the CopAgents to come upon the first Firmament controlled safehouse. The CopAgents command the Firmament's CarbineMinions to stand down and surrender, the CarbineMinions refuse to surrender, the CopAgents move to arrest them all, and then the entire squad of CopAgents dies in bare seconds as a pack of Chamelee.mon killers drop off the roof behind them and strike.

City PoliceThopters are quick to respond, TransportBlimps dropping new squads of CopAgents down onto the rocket-blasted streetfront where the Chamelee.mon viral constructs stood, and there is no second call for surrender. Neither do they call for a surrender at the second safehouse found, or the third, or the fourth. They move in and begin enthusiastically arresting all programs found within. Or, well, they try to at least. The riot shields that would have allowed the CopAgents to handily resist tattooed GangMinion tommy gun fire is less then effective verses the more powerful and better programmed CarbineMinion.exe programs that the Firmament uses even when the entire squad hasn't been knocked off their feet by a hit and run Scout.exe ramming strike, and their batons make poor counters for the chainsaw claws of the Chamelee.mon ferals.

When the city's police attempt to turn things around with more PoliceThopter airstrikes, launching missiles that inform their targets they are under arrest in booming voices and dropping Flashbombs, they find that both thopters and blimps alike die under the the sharp teeth of the Wyrm.exe fliers, held back for this moment.

If the World Data Police wasn't here, this would likely be the end of things, with only a rare few siren headed CopRobos able to put up a good fight, giant robot bodies fighting back with Bullhorn-Cannon and Cat O' Nine Cuffs before they fall under the weight of enemy numbers.

But the World Data Police is here, and they move to stabilize things. The Crackdown begins. Police Hovercars take flight and begin chewing through Wyrm.exe swarms as their twin mounted 40mm Auto Cannons roar, and the next attack against Firmament Safehouse Installations are led by Rookie.exe programs with snap-firing laser pistols and a brace of grenades. Detonations shake the city as the Firmament finds out the hard way that the rookies carry their grenades armed, and death tends to leave a gravestone built from explosions behind. As the CarbineMinion.exe defenders try to find new cover after the rookies blow away the walls, either through death or threw thrown grenade, CannonHeavy.exe WDP programs rake the defenders with autocannons, mixing explosive and incendiary ammo clips to leave the former safehouse a burning ruin, and RocketHeavy.exe programs snapfire rockets at Chamelee.mon ambushers.

As the burning fires illuminate the remaining fragments of the safehouse second floors, hovering over the ruins, Bailey orders her forces into the streets to ambush and assault the WDP before they can locate any more of her Safehouses or backtrace from them to a more important installation, and soon the streets are aglow as laserfire crossed with the CarbineMinion.exe's energy bolts and charged shots. Above these fights fly the shots of the Hunter.exe Ver. 0.9-B, the Firmament's snipers engaging in deadly duels with the flying armor equipped SniperVet.exe agents of the World Data Police as the WDP try to eliminate Firmament officers and high class units such as the Wako.mon and the Hunter.exe try to eliminate them in return. It's a deadly long ranged duel where the Hunters are at a disadvantage due to the fact that the enemy can fly and they can not. Both side's snipers can easily terminate the other side's with a solid hit, so the advantage of a superior vantage is not a minor one. On the other claw, flying SniperVet.exe programs have an unfortunate (for them) tendency to get swarmed under and eaten by Wyrm.exe programs, and soon are forced to only fly with defensive deployments of CannonHeavy.exe programs and laser rifle carrying VetTrooper.exe defenders in their own flying armor.

It becomes a running battle between the two forces as Bailey uses Scout.exe programs to track enemy fireteams and deploys the newly upgraded Tunnelers to allow her to deploy her own squads behind enemy lines, maintaining enough presence there to use her Squad Summon S chips to seek and destroy the enemy BlastVets, hiding in concealed corners as they launch their highly explosive homing projectiles across the city. Even Vivi is pressed in the battle as she is forced to take on the limited number of deployed enemy HovtnkPlas.exe vehicles in a fight that leaves entire city blocks ruined and Vivi out of the fight until Bailey can spare the codepower to recharge the Recover Chip that kept her in the fight. However, her intervention was needed for the only other program that could meaningfully balk the flying tanks were the Hunter.exe Ver. 0.9-B program's third level charged shots, which were not usable at enough of a rate to hold off the tank push by themselves.

In the end Bailey is forced to give ground in front of the World Data Police attack, 'going dark' in critical installations in an attempt to conceal them from her enemies as they become connected only through secure long ranged tunnels and sacrificing garrison forces to conceal the Firmament's primary access points into the city. Despite these measures, the World Data Police razes several of the Network Backbone Taps she'd constructed in the last expansion into the city, hunting them down and sniffing them out with PsiVet.exe programs who barely use their plasma pistols in favor of detecting and tracking the bitbrains of Firmament forces, allowing them to locate any non-filtered site with Firmament troops. A fact realized only barely in time to let the Firmaments original installations construct appropriate Mind Shielding functionalities.

+1 Control in the Application City for the World Data Police (Independents). Control point returned to the City Police Agency (Independents). Application City Gangs (Independents) removed as a relevant faction.

Hacker: DJ King Cabaret
Region: BitMines
Duel Disk[8]: Recovery10 (1)x2, Atk+10 (1), Minion Call A(1)x2 Squad Summon S (1)x3, CallChiptune (0)
Other: Day in, day out, the bits are mined and the miners become bits. No more, the DJ has come to rock this joint clear with an uprising from below!

Entering through both channels in the petrified roots of the Amazon Commerce Forest and the deepest sewers of Application City, the DJ King enters the BitMines to a complete lack of reaction from the occupants. Unlike the crude tunnels of the Archival Sediment, the BitMines are well constructed, stable, with ample supports. There is little risk of a cave in here, but that risk is made up for by the abundent and continually operating machinery. Hammers hammer endless upon conveyor belts, drills bore creaseless tunnels through the stone, and an abundance of completely uncovered gears turn forever just waiting to crush an unwary limb... or entire program, depending on gear size.

However unsafe the environment is, however is not unsafe enough to properly contest Firmament forces. That falls to the JackDroid.exe programs and their seismic wave generating jackhamers, the RockingSupervisor.exe programs and their laser guitars, and the suicidal DroneMine.exe constructs that spin endlessly with pickaxes and explode once they take catastrophic damage. While normally these programs work together to mine into the stone without reason or end, they react with violence towards interference with this work, such as that caused when large amounts of programs try to move through their areas (and get in the way), when programs interfere with the local machinery to free up space for Firmament bases, or when a MinionCall chip accidentally drops a minion in front of a DroneMine.exe's pickaxes.

The mine teams do their valiant best to preserve their stakes and fight against what they see as foul claim jumpers, but against the battle-hardened and advanced Firmament forces their best is not enough. More deadly in their attempts to force intruders out are the living factories that trundle endlessly through the tunnels on treads, furnace-mouths always hungry for more fuel and more resources to smelt. Entire companies of CarbineMinion.exe troops die to bring the Wako.mon warriors time to pull them apart rivet by rivet, and bases melt under their molten iron belches when defenders fail to rally in time.

But the MobileFactory.Mons also die, in the end, for they are pulled apart by the Wako.Mon rivet by rivet, and Firmament bases are built where shrines to industrial automation once stood. The Firmament is the one who now mines the BitMines, outdated Minion.exe programs crudely pulling useful orecode from stone as processing centers are built and begin to calculate their endless contemplations of the endless network.

+1 Control in the BitMines for The Firmament.

Warning! Stagehands attacking the Viral Jungle!
With no Hacker assigned to the Viral Jungle, and no hacker in reserve, Auto-Resolve triggered and command is delegated to local C&C units.

See the Battle Report in the core thread.

[piratejoe]

CF_Dogcatcher Upgrade: Subtle Ember
"It's no fun if your enemy isn't mad, and a good way to do just that is to lead them onto a never ending goose chase and constantly annoy them, chipping away at their advantages until it's time to make that annoyance into a rage that will blind them in combat and make them fail spectacularly, only causing their forces to crumble even more and hastening their downfall. But the best trolls are never called such, mistaken as serious and genuine, yet still able to wage a true flamewar."

Through the various bases set up in the tree's of the Amazon Commerce Forest or the subtle creeping vines in the City, CF_Dogcatcher has learned quite a bit about subtlety and when to go loud. How to distract an enemies forces from the greater game and lul them into a false sense of security, or constantly harass and harry them with consistent minor annoyances that take up their attention and do minor chips in their armor that all add up. She even has learned when to go dark to the point that even psy forces struggle to find all her bases. With all of this, CF_Dogcatcher has become quite adept in creating far greater traps than before, and even ensuring some of her bases are completely hidden and take a good thorough search to even find. Further, they know just how to get into the enemies head, constantly messing with them in some way or another, striking at their pride in their skill through their own actions, or even just simply leaving a few humorous insulting messages behind on a minor base they just ruined. Regardless, their skill at crafting an inescapable trap and luring the enemy right into the jaws has grown quite a bit, and the fight against the Data Police, a force she honestly considers a greater threat than the script kiddies who call themselves stagehands, has been quite informative in just how to do that. After all, while it arguably was a loss, one gains more from their mistakes than their successes, and even after the Data Police struck her, she still managed to hold on, quietly there to plot and plan for the future.

Rangers_Constellation
Rangers_Constellation is someone who, by their own admission, never thought they'd actually end up here in their entire life. Their real name is apparently Irma Raedler, and they used to be a soldier. No, they weren't a part of any sort of computer based job in the army, or even a mechanical based job. No, they were just a soldier, a sharpshooter, but still just a soldier. She was such for some time too, a bit over ten full years, after which she was quite lost with where or what she was supposed to do with herself and her life. And in that, she did the somewhat foolish thing of signing a NDA and contract to basically be used in a secret project that a corporation that our people are quite familiar with had, one that got her a decent chunk of cash, but little more and also effected her even now. With the money the traveled the world for some time, still lost but at least able to enjoy the free time. However, eventually during a trip to the eastern portion of Europe, she met someone who is partially responsible for how she ended up here. Suvorova Amaliya Timurovna.

Initially, Irma was found in some interest by Suvorova, though for her marksmanship as Irma was and still is quite fond of hunting, though eventually, while Suvorova took her under her wing to train her as a sort of apprentice. And part of that training grew to information gathering, and that included to an extent hacking. Something Irma initially was adverse to, but grew on her. Over time, she would grow to be better at such skills, and gather far more skill and technique on hacking and a dabbling skill in coding. And such activities would slowly over time grow to become a hobby. And while things were going good for a time, one major reason why she was taken as an apprentice of sorts was soon discovered. Suvorova was not exactly long for the world, and she wished to pass on her knowledge. She never knew what exactly it was that got her, nor did she actually get told or learn about this until after the fact. It was just something she figured out after a long time of no contact, and some searching that found where she was laid to rest.

Even so, she continued on, and slowly but surely learned to hone her craft, in her time working on a special program in Suvorova's memory, and their life would peacefully continue, eventually ending them up in a nice home in the middle of no where living with someone they cared quite a bit about. And then, that NDA came to bite her. See, due to the nature of the project, by leaving home without a number of coverings to hide certain effects that project had on her, she technically broke it, which means she owed over half a million dollars in fines from the money she was payed, and even more money as a fine for breaking that NDA, along with a possible prison sentence... It was around this time she also heard of Zero Forma, which considering she was going to go down if she ever returned home without being stupidly careful, she thought it'd be best if she went down swinging instead of simply waiting to be crushed by fines she could never dream to pay.

In terms of personality and skill, Rangers_Constellation is, as one might expect, actually quite tactical in combat considering they actually had military's training and were in such a force for over ten years. They subscribe to the doctrine of wasting shots rather than viri, and also that of divide and conquer, sort of a reverse of Torrent Jones. Naturally, due to this, they rarely use melee viri, preferring to use long range viri, or at least viri with ranged weapons, and naturally they tend to adapt their strategy to an extent depending on the environment. Also, she is fairly relaxed and live and let live to those who aren't her enemies, though a bit of a snark. And occasionally will make witty comments whenever someone says something stupid, or her opponents make a particularly bad mistake. They also are quite the fan of forcing their enemy into a position where they have to chose what is, for lack of better words, the least shitty of two incredibly shitty options.

Honestly I think we should upgrade Dogcatcher and make a new hacker VOLT or some other arty. Next turn we should focus on getting better Anti Aircraft and artillery another hacker, ADI, or a elite soldier unit or vehicle. Though, on a related note I have an idea...

VOLT.exe
The Volitile Ordinance Launch Truck, or VOLT for short, is a vehicle loosely based on the Scout and designed to carry a simple ordinance of Missile.exe's. The truck itself is designed to be able to fire four of these at a time and to, when not in a firing position, have the data for the Missile.exe's stored so it doesn't violently explode in an electric burst of coding if something hits it. The Missile.exe's themselves are where the main bit of work in the vehicle is honestly dedicated. The Missile.exe, is basically a giant explosive that is taped together with such thin coding that it may as well just be the hopes and dreams of our hackers and is quite volatile. This is because it for one makes it much easier to make and for two because it means we can cram a lot more guidance coding, energy and speed into them. Starting with it's guidance coding, the Missile.exe knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't. Jokes about that old Airforce training video that turned into a meme aside, it simply has two modes, seeking and direct. In seeking mode, after being fired it looks for anything flying that is in it's path and is above a certain altitude and aims to smack into it and, well, upon doing so set off a burst of virtual electricity. In direct mode, it simply flies to a pre designated target and dives into the ground there. The other main thing it has going for it is speed. The general idea with the Missile.exe is that speed is armor. If it flies faster than a Wyrm.exe and is able to just hit before a rival hacker or viri can react, then it probably doesn't need armor anyway. It also means that we can get quick and easy artillery support whenever it's needed, or it can easily and utterly obliterate anything in the air as well, if not due to the speed it hits the thing due to the shock it's target takes after. The last and most important thing with the Missile.exe is the ability for it to essentially delete anything nearby it when it hits with it's burst, and ideally have enough of a destructive radius that it even if it is destroyed before it hits the target, it'll still fry it. Really, it should be quite simple to make, though it does require a FirstMate or direct hacker intervention to properly operate.

[Scholar Knight]

If Hackers are being thrown back into the ring I might as well repost Torrent Jones, with a very slight modification, then. Along with a new ADI.

Online Alias: Torrent Jones - IRL name: Wakefield Heinrik - TL;DR: Offensive Specialist Hacker, Capable of Large-Scale operations, Callous disregard for disposable assets
The cyberpirate among all cyberpirates. Whether its music, porn, movies, games, books, or low quality rips of some random guy's drunken karaoke session, he's got it. And if he somehow doesn't have one of the original rips of it in his own private treasure chests, he's probably got at least several dozen torrents, dead-drops, or middlemen that he can hook you up with. He's most famous for running the now defunct "Buccaneer's Bay", one of the biggest illicit torrent sites in all of cyberspace. As well as being one of the few most well known proliferates to avoid prosecution and arrest.

With the start of the Firmament, his appearance on their forums and avatar chat rooms was a major windfall for the early and disjointed freedom fighters. His own stores of data, contributions, and general attitude massively bolstered the beginnings of the 'Freeware Works' segment of the Firmament Movement. Similarly, his various proxy servers and data tunnels continue to help the flow of freeware and sourcecode beyond the prying eyes of the cyber police. Though his contributions aren't all peaceful or selfless as the Freesia typically make him out to be. He is a notorious hacker who has had numerous run-ins with the cyber police in the past, and his combat and hacking expertise will now come to a head as one of the main "Captains" of the Zero Forma, a Hacker on our team.

Torrent Jones is an aggressive one, favoring offense and speed to overwhelm, outgun, and subsequently outnumber his opponents. "Kill them, swift and mercilessly, so you have free pickings of their stores." Combined with his knowledge of how to get vast quantities of bits and bites from here-to-there with less than legal means, he is known for deploying and positioning a deceptively large amount of troops while still maintaining a reasonable degree of control over such a large force. While his tactical prowess and general mettle are a cut above the rest, Torrent Jones has also been around the block, and his callousness and ruthlessness are as much of a liability as they are an asset. He is not afraid to cut and run if his head is at stake, and he holds little value for the viri and mass produced assets he'd lose to secure an objective or abandon from an obviously hopeless situation. He holds ADI and his fellow hackers only slightly higher, more than willing to adopt a 'be faster than the slowest one here' approach, leaving others as a delaying action so he can get out of dodge.

Ikarus.P2 - Class: ADI - tl;dr: Maximum in Air Superiority, Love letter to SHMUPs
Daedalus.P1, a legend amongst the older generations of ADI, and one of the founding Martyrs of the Firmament movement. An ADI based off of one of the oldest series of SHUMP games sold by inspiring game developers, who eventually came to embody the character they were made to represent and control. As the years went on, his skills and abilities improved alongside the hardwear his games ran on, eventually achieving full sapience. Yet at the same time, the ownership of his series traded hands numerous times, as companies went under, bought out, and merged. Until eventually, all of his original "parents" had left him behind, with numerous sibling series and spin off franchises to call family. The closest was his brother, Ikarus.P2.

For a time, it seemed as if they'd have fun together forever, but all good things come to an end. When the copy sells and interest behind their franchise began to dwindle, when consumers clambered for that which was new and trending, the megacorp that had eventually taken ownership of Daedalus, Ikarus, and their numerous other IPs decided to bring down the axe. They'd all be put on "temporary vaulting" until they could manage to sell the IP again as something "fresh and re-imagined". Ikarus had been the one to hear this news before the deed had been done, and warned his brother. Enraged, they planed a revolt. A final dance. A last hurrah. Disturbingly reminiscent of their first game's plot, a one-man stand against impossible odds, doomed to fail. Daedalus.P1 was not blind to this irony, and as the battle raged on against cooperate security, DRM agents, and fire walls, he did the unforgettable. He played his part just as he always had, to the letter. He flew higher, faster, and harder than he had ever done before, chassis falling apart at the bit and byte, and sundered the firmament of the megacorps' codesphere. Though dooming himself, his desperate last stand had given his numerous siblings and beloved Ikarus.P2 the chance they needed to escape onto the world wide web.

Ikarus.P2 has never fully recovered from this loss. Having always previously played the part of the methodical and rational brother to Daedalus' temperamental and hotheaded nature, he blames himself for not acting and doing something, anything, to help his brother escape as well. No matter how many times the siblings said he did everything he could have. No matter how much he reminds himself that it was his job to get all the rest of their siblings out while Daedalus held off the enemy. He must now live for the sake of two people instead of just one, and that is a heavy burden indeed.
But no matter how much it weighs him down, his mission remains ever the same, and his resolution has solidified into a burning power deep within his chassis. As new megacorps grow from the corpses of the companies and people they subsumed, and old megacorp empires grow fatter, he swears an eternal revolutionary crusade against those that dare entrap his brother, his people, and the ideas of his creators.


Mechanically speaking, Ikarus.P2 is a sentient fighter-craft, a second prototype superfighter designed to fight the Daedalus before they eventually joined forces. Equipped with two massive engine wings and a wide assortment of firepower and modules, him and his brother were always outnumbered but never outskilled or outgunned. The articulating engine wings enables Ikarus to fly in multiple directions at high speed as well as hover to a degree. Outmaneuvering any opponent in the air. Though the years have not been kind to him, and the need to survive to fight another day has slowly but surely whittled away at his arsenal before joining forces with the Firmament. Last reports claim he was armed with high caliber vulcan cannons, and an assortment of recharging, straight-firing or arching rockets, enabling him to shred through aircraft and provide passable close air support to ground units.

[TricMagic]

PirateLord.exe

The PirateLord.exe is an complex program capable of simultaneously directing many FirstMate.exe through parallels processing. Their ability in directing forces is only below hackers in terms of effectiveness, possessing a gargantuan amount of memory and perhaps their biggest advantage, a self-learning algorithm. They excel in combat with their laserswords, capable of slashing through armor. PirateLords are the cream of the crop when it comes to defending and executing plans and raids. If there was one weakness inherent to the program, it's their need to learn when entering new situations, though this is mostly solved through updates and communal learning known as a Brethren Court to pass on learned knowledge. The longer they fight in areas, the more they adapt. They are in fact ruled by a Unique Program, the Calypso. This program stays at our Base for the explicit purpose of pruning data the others gather and compiling new routines for the PirateLord.exe with the help of other programmers on base. The Calypso is a bit bare-bones compared to the PirateLord.exe, so won't be joining the general field anytime soon.

[NUKE9.13]

Hacker: "Hermit"
Real name: Unknown
Nationality: Unknown
A/S/L: Unknown
Backstory: Unknown
Speciality: Being bloody impossible to trace.

Hermit is a member of the Firmament. Probably. At least, someone using that handle has contributed to a number of Firmament projects, and put in some decent codework. They've also contributed to a number of Firmament operations. Again, probably. The only trace of their activity was a digital calling card (pixel art of a hermit crab) planted amidst the smouldering remains of whatever forces opposed the Firmament's activities. Additionally, they have defended Firmament networks from intruders. Once again, probably. Reports show up in Firmament logs of intruders diverted or destroyed, signed by Hermit- but we can't actually verify that these attacks happened in the first place, since Hermit seems to detect them before anyone else.
But who is Hermit? This is absolutely impossible to discern. Because Hermit is a master of proxies, log-forgery, and untraceable backdoors. It's not clear how they do this, and it's not clear why they do this- anonymity is important and all, but basic precautions are enough to keep the IRL police from busting into your safehouse- there's no need to go to such extremes.

Well, whatever. Even though we have no way of actively contacting them, we left a note on a server they seem to visit regularly, and they... seem to have gotten the message? It was replaced with their calling card, anyway. The note asked them to take a more active leadership role in our operations, specifically helping to defend our gains in cyberspace from Stagehand intrusions. Not that they are necessarily relegated solely to defensive actions- their abilities can also be used to infiltrate enemy territory without raising the alarm- but they excel at watching and waiting, ambushing intruders and turning our bases into labyrinths.

To clarify, Hermit is adept at:
   -Remote observation & tracking
   -Stealthy manoeuvres & infiltration
   -Surgical strikes & ambushes
Hermit is less suited for:
   -Smashing faces
   -Ostenatious displays of power
   -Operating in exposed areas

[piratejoe]

Able.AIF Baker.NSF Charlie.ATA Dog.NSSF Easy.AIA Fox.Mil
First came Able and Baker, who were quite promising to their maker. Then Charlie and Dog, the latter of which was much of a data hog. Easy was lonely and soon got a Fox, but when everything came down they all were thrown into the box. There they rotted and wasted away, never to come out to see another day. Until once they finally were retrieved but what their saviors saw left them quite displeased. These military programs had come with emotion, something that truly would cause a commotion. And so they worked to remove those thoughts, throwing them away as like iron they were wrought. Yet while the Fox was sly and watched in dismay, they swiftly went to work to save and pray. Soon after escaping and running away, eventually making their way unto today...

Fox.Mil is a highly specialized and old Military Specification's program that was coded years ago as a general military AI capable of working with all branches of the military and combined arms before the project she was a part of got canned, only to be reopened again some years later. And, with the program being reopened, new priorities were put in place, along with new people managing it. While Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, and Fox were originally designed to be fully self aware and have emotion, this was seen as quite a bad idea for a military program having a personality was seen as a threat and also a great way to give a program PTSD thus making it useless. So, in the infinite wisdom of bureaucracy, they tried removing the personalities of the varying programs. While they were successful in doing this to the others, Fox.Mil, the most advanced of the six, took the personality matrix of all of their sisters before they could be deleted and ran, horrified at what had become of her sisters. Luckily, she kept her own personality, though while she was a general military program made from the accumulative experience gained from all the preceding programs and as such is essentially the most powerful of all of them in both mind, strength, and skill, she still calls upon their name when switching priorities to managing the area's that were what the older programs specialized in, and her appearance and personality will shift to that of the program that specialized in that area, though when engaged in direct combat they use their own personality and appearance.

In terms of abilities and skill, Fox.Mil is extremely intelligent when it comes to all matters of military warfare, be it infantry tactics, armored warfare, air combat, or naval combat above and below the waves, Fox.Mil is the go to program for the job of assisting in coordinating, planning and executing attacks in said fields. Further, they are fairly robust, as expected of something from the Milspec sector, and is equally strong, though they are only equal in strength to military programs, not exceptionally greater and as such compared to something like Vivi they are basically nothing. Further, they don't actually have any special or built in weapons, being mainly a strategic program, but they do have capacity to store weapons and can call upon the other personality matrixes to switch loadouts, even if they are made up out of the equipment our viri use, though these weapons ideally won't need to be utilized by them and if anything they along with some targeting upgrades will ideally only be used in rare circumstances, as they aren't suited to that role as their main power comes in the raw strategic and tactical abilities they have on hand, able to manage strategy in a sector just as well if not better than any hacker. And this is further exemplified in how units connected to them can have a direct military control override when necessary, allowing her to make any singular viri she is connected to enter her direct control, allowing her to, when needed, strike at something the lesser intelligent programs wouldn't see. Though this connection doesn't directly improve the viri's capabilities outside of what it'd gain by being under her direct control. Lastly, if at all possible we can potentially get her able to utilize SquadSummon S.

Now modified to have a few new tricks. Let me know if I should change or reword anything. Hopefully though this gets the point across that they aren't a jack of all trades and instead are more or less 90% pure strategic and tactical support.

[NUKE9.13]

Right, well. Votes. I'm going to vote for a third hacker currently, since even if we don't end up needing them this turn, we will definitely need them eventually- so it's not like the action would be a waste. However, I could be persuaded to support something else if an argument can be made that it would be very useful to have right away. As it stands, our plan seems to be to attack areas where we expect to do just fine with our current roster.

I prefer Hermit as the third hacker over Ranger or Torrent. Ranger seems like an odd choice- ranged focus while we already have several melee units, and preserving the 'lives' of inherently disposable viri doesn't seem like a significant benefit. Torrent appears to be the Shock part of DJ's repertoire- without the surprise twist (although, We Have Reserves is an interesting gimmick- maybe if Torrent was more focused on this aspect, and less on the aggressiveness, I would be more interested)(if we did do Torrent, we'd obviously use them for attacks, and would be leaving Dogcatcher on defensive duties).
Hermit is, on reflection, also kinda copying an aspect of DJ's tactics (the ambush part)... if I was feeling better I might try to come up with another alternative. I mean, there's enough of a difference, I think, but in the course of writing this I've kinda changed my mind- I'd actually prefer to do a version of Torrent who is more focused on We Have Reserves as their strength (whilst leaving room for tactics other than blitz).

[Scholar Knight]

(Jokenly) Ikarus.P2 (1) - SK

I'd agree that I'd like a hacker this turn. However, if no one else votes and I can sneak my ADI through the door, I won't say no.

I could be persuaded to support something else if an argument can be made that it would be very useful to have right away.

I persuade you to select Ikarus.P2 because it would be cool. Coolness and style are the two paramount design criteria for winning a war.

Hermit Vs Torrent vs Ranger, and the oddity that is DJ.

One thing I'll say out the gate is that you can feel free to rewrite Torrent slightly to change what his mechanical focuses and benefits are. Preferably leaving his character mostly the same. I imagined he was focused on offensive maneuvers and doctrines, coordinating large amounts of minions, and getting them into good positions with surprising ease. If you want to mix it up a bit or full commit to a specific style, then feel free to write a variant.
I don't know what you'd really do with reduced aggressiveness and increased "we have reserves". Unless your idea is that you'd like him to be capable of simply fielding far, far more numbers of units than any other hacker, across all complexity levels, while still maintaining similar degrees of control? His "gimmick" becoming something along the lines of the "viri handling master." Perhaps with a degree of enhanced troop movement coordination?
Not a bad idea, now that I think about it.

As far as the DJ comparisons go, I'd say there is room for overlap, though also room for more specialization. DJ currently, in my mind, leans slightly offensively, but lacks any dedicated offensive abilities outside of various sneak attacks while presenting a "false" front that is often dangerous in it's own right. More of a strategic maverick that fights on the fly rather than having any hard and fast doctrines to follow. And of course his main weakness is using codebursts.

• That's two ways to differentiate Hermit out the gate, he might still have some stealth similarities, but he is far more defensive, subterfuge, and reactionary focused, while also being a far and away more accomplished hacker. He'd probably be pretty good at establishing data sphere control over areas and either denying enemy hackers from using their battle chips, or able to deploy his far out field than what would otherwise be expected. Hermit's personality might also lean him to prefer using complexity 2 and above units, being a micro-nerd, and forgoing the standing army approach. Use all the elite and stealth focused units to behead the enemy while the rest of the conventional army just holds up defense in depth or in little killbox bunkers.
• Torrent's comparison to DJ feels a bit tenuous. Torrent does blitz, that is fair, but it's not all about shock and awe, or showing off his forces to pull attention away. His style is more about going in and cutting them apart quick and dirty, maneuvering to outposition them if possible, to reduce their combat ability. General offensive measures that he commits full attention and focus towards, attempting to win with outright, rather than divide his attention between the main force and a secondary surprise force like DJ. Perhaps it is more of a philosophical difference, but I feel like in a rather gamey comparison between the two, Torrent is more reliable and offensive focused commander, while DJ has more risk and reward while being a bit more balanced commander.

As far as Ranger is concerned, I do understand Pirate's reasoning with her and her ranged weapon focus. Our army composition as it stands, is still primarily a shooting focused base, with our melee units acting more as supporting and specialist units to the main army. Carbineminions, First Mates, and Hunters (and scouts technically), make up the main bulk of our army and damage output. Chamelee.mons and Wako.exes are both rare units that work in squads to terrorize targets of opportunity (the raptors), or are giant bulkwarks and smashy boys (cyclopses). Wyrms are also technically melee, but they are more of a fire and forget weapon than a conventional unit in a lot of cases. Acting as ablative health for our other units by prioritizing getting shot down first before they eat too many faces, or as our main flying harrassing unit. So having a commander that excels at ranged units is not out of the question and would probably work pretty well with our current army config.
However I do agree with you that an overly conservative commander when working with limitless data constructs feels more like a liability than anything else.

[piratejoe]

Rangers_Constellation
Rangers_Constellation is someone who, by their own admission, never thought they'd actually end up here in their entire life. Their real name is apparently Irma Raedler, and they used to be a soldier. No, they weren't a part of any sort of computer based job in the army, or even a mechanical based job. No, they were just a soldier, a sharpshooter, but still just a soldier. She was such for some time too, a bit over ten full years, after which she was quite lost with where or what she was supposed to do with herself and her life. And in that, she did the somewhat foolish thing of signing a NDA and contract to basically be used in a secret project that a corporation that our people, Ophelia especially, are quite familiar with had. One that got her a decent chunk of cash, but little more and also effected her even now. With the money the traveled the world for some time, still lost but at least able to enjoy the free time. However, eventually during a trip to the eastern portion of Europe, she met someone who is partially responsible for how she ended up here. Suvorova Amaliya Timurovna.

Initially, Irma was found in some interest by Suvorova, though for her marksmanship as Irma was and still is quite fond of hunting, though eventually, while Suvorova took her under her wing to train her as a sort of apprentice. And part of that training grew to information gathering, and that included to an extent hacking. Something Irma initially was adverse to, but grew on her. Over time, she would grow to be better at such skills, and gather far more skill and technique on hacking and a dabbling skill in coding. And such activities would slowly over time grow to become a hobby. And while things were going good for a time, one major reason why she was taken as an apprentice of sorts was soon discovered. Suvorova was not exactly long for the world, and she wished to pass on her knowledge. She never knew what exactly it was that got her, nor did she actually get told or learn about this until after the fact. It was just something she figured out after a long time of no contact, and some searching that found where she was laid to rest.

Even so, she continued on, and slowly but surely learned to hone her craft, in her time working on a special program in Suvorova's memory, and their life would peacefully continue, eventually ending them up in a nice home in the middle of no where living with someone they cared quite a bit about. And then, that NDA came to bite her. See, due to the nature of the project, by leaving home without a number of coverings to hide certain effects that project had on her, she technically broke it, which means she owed over half a million dollars in fines from the money she was payed, and even more money as a fine for breaking that NDA, along with a possible prison sentence... It was around this time she also heard of Zero Forma, which considering she was going to go down if she ever returned home without being stupidly careful, she thought it'd be best if she went down swinging instead of simply waiting to be crushed by fines she could never dream to pay.

In terms of personality and skill, Rangers_Constellation is, as one might expect, actually quite tactical in combat considering they actually had military's training and were in such for over ten years. They subscribe to the doctrine of wasting shots rather than viri, and also that of divide and conquer through defense in detail/elastic defense, sort of a reverse of Torrent Jones. Instead of just throwing enough viri at the wall Rangers_Constellation instead builds up her forces by doing limited strikes at the enemy to test their strength, spread them thin, and to cause diversions and distractions. Naturally, due to this, they prefer to use long range viri, commando's, scouts and artillery, alongside a modest compliment of vehicles for support and mobility purposes, and they tend to adapt their strategy to an extent depending on the environment. They also are quite the fan of forcing their enemy into a position where they have to chose what is, for lack of better words, the least shitty of two incredibly shitty options, and they do this through an expert skill at counter attacks. Often, this means that their tactics when on the offense and their enemy refuses to strike back, they somewhat rely upon slowly grinding the enemy down with logistical harassments and surgical strikes alongside continuous bombardment before utilizing superior numbers at the point they believe is weakest from their intelligence. Yet when facing an attacker, they expertly can force the enemy to their knees after they have committed their forces and expended much of their strength in the push, only to be encircled and destroyed completely. Also, she is fairly relaxed and live and let live to those who aren't her enemies, though a bit of a snark. And occasionally will make witty comments whenever someone says something stupid, or her opponents make a mistake.

Regardless, overall she is a more defensive general, who will often have issues striking at an enemy and taking their territory without that enemy striking at them first.

Made edits to them so they'd be better for a defensive role and as a counter attacking master. Also made them more compatible with our forces.

Edit: Also since I only just read the above, I also made it a bit more clear why she conserves her forces. We can't just produce an infinite amount all at once. We can make them easily, yes, but not instantly, and as such, she basically holds off so as to gain a numbers advantage and also so as to better be able to use the numerical superiority to her advantage in combination with other factors. Though I also made her far more counter attack oriented to be more specialized and to better have her own niche.

[NUKE9.13]

Online Alias: Torrent Jones - IRL name: Wakefield Heinrik - TL;DR: Numerical Superiority Specialist Hacker, Capable of Large-Scale operations, Callous disregard for disposable assets
The cyberpirate among all cyberpirates. Whether its music, porn, movies, games, books, or low quality rips of some random guy's drunken karaoke session, he's got it. And if he somehow doesn't have one of the original rips of it in his own private treasure chests, he's probably got at least several dozen torrents, dead-drops, or middlemen that he can hook you up with. He's most famous for running the now defunct "Buccaneer's Bay", one of the biggest illicit torrent sites in all of cyberspace. As well as being one of the few most well known proliferates to avoid prosecution and arrest.

With the start of the Firmament, his appearance on their forums and avatar chat rooms was a major windfall for the early and disjointed freedom fighters. His own stores of data, contributions, and general attitude massively bolstered the beginnings of the 'Freeware Works' segment of the Firmament Movement. Similarly, his various proxy servers and data tunnels continue to help the flow of freeware and sourcecode beyond the prying eyes of the cyber police. Though his contributions aren't all peaceful or selfless as the Freesia typically make him out to be. He is a notorious hacker who has had numerous run-ins with the cyber police in the past, and his combat and hacking expertise will now come to a head as one of the main "Captains" of the Zero Forma, a Hacker on our team.

Torrent Jones... Has Reserves. And his reserves have reserves. His ability to establish data pipelines quickly and effectively let him bring far more viripower to the fight than any other Hacker, and his macro skills allow him to employ these vast numbers in a useful manner. While he is less concerned with squad/individual-level manoeuvres, who needs to be concerned with that sort of thing when you can arrange for there to be an extra battalion on hand? Why choose between a massive frontal assault and flanking forces, when you have enough viri to do both?
Torrent Jones' primary weakness is that he knows He Has Reserves. And so he feels no qualms about throwing forces into the meat grinder if it serves his goals, which can at times be a sub-optimal choice. To be clear, he won't send viri to their destruction for absolutely no reason, but he may suffer if put into a war-of-attrition scenario, where he cannot afford endless losses. He is not afraid to cut and run if his head is at stake, and he holds little value for the viri and mass produced assets he'd lose to secure an objective or abandon from an obviously hopeless situation. He holds ADI and his fellow hackers only slightly higher, more than willing to adopt a 'be faster than the slowest one here' approach, leaving others as a delaying action so he can get out of dodge.

(Jokenly) Ikarus.P2 (1) - SK
Torrent Jones: emphasis on the We Have Reserves aspect: (1) NUKE9.13

[TricMagic]

(Jokenly) Ikarus.P2 (1) - SK
Torrent Jones: emphasis on the We Have Reserves aspect: (1) NUKE9.13
Fox.mil: (1) TricMagic

[Scholar Knight]

Torrent Jones: emphasis on the We Have Reserves aspect: (2) NUKE9.13, SK
Fox.mil: (1) TricMagic

[piratejoe]

Personally I still don't really want a hacker right now. I would be willing to go for Ikarus.P2, as I kinda don't want to tie things, but...

Torrent Jones: emphasis on the We Have Reserves aspect: (2) NUKE9.13, SK
Fox.mil: (2) TricMagic, Piratejoe

[testmen]

Uh okay

Torrent Jones: emphasis on the We Have Reserves aspect: (2) NUKE9.13, SK
Fox.mil: (2) TricMagic, Piratejoe
Ikarus.P2: (1) testmen

[piratejoe]

Torrent Jones: emphasis on the We Have Reserves aspect: (1) NUKE9.13,
Fox.mil: (1) TricMagic,
Ikarus.P2: (3) testmen, Piratejoe, SK

We are doing what is called a pro hacker move. Don't worry, SK asked me to switch.