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[TricMagic]

Torrent Jones: emphasis on the We Have Reserves aspect: (1) NUKE9.13,
Fox.mil: (0) ,
Ikarus.P2: (4) testmen, Piratejoe, SK, TricMagic

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

I thought it was called a trick. That's my thing.

[Happerry]

Turn 6 : Design Phase

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.

4 + 2 - 0 = 6 : Above average (Normal)

When people think of rogue artificial sapiences lost and loose upon the internet, most people's first thought isn't that of a rogue SHUMP game protagonist. And yet that is exactly what Ikarus.P2 is. Far more prone to brooding and dark moods then Vivi_Paltest.dat is, Ikarus.P2 is haunted by regret and driven by the memory of his brother's fall to the Firmament's crusade. It is in fact this dedication to the ultimate purpose of the Firmament that has resulted in Ikarus.P2's relatively late entry to the Great Flame War, as he considers it a distraction from what the Firmament's great purpose should be. But joined it he finally has, and he brings his skill and weapons with him.

As the protagonist of a SHUMP game Ikarus.P2 is well experienced with target rich environments. This experience was hardly hindered by his later exploits against other corporate security reaction forces in support of the Firmament and his status as a veteran combatant is very hard to argue against. However he has long used up the last of his power ups and has therefor reverted to his basic equipment outfit, that of paired high caliber vulcan cannons and a slow-recharging energy rocket launcher system capable of being used in anti-air (direct fire) or anti-ground (arc fire) modes. Ikarus.P2 still has all the associated modular systems needed to take advantage of power ups despite his lack of access to any existent ones though, and it should be relatively simple for Firmament programmers to design new power ups for Ikarus.P2 should that line of development be chosen for active advancement.

In active combat against the Stagehands, Ikarus.P2 is expected to have less general staying power then Vivianaja Palladian does, but superior ability to apply burst firepower to an area and should be able to use his advanced speed to strike multiple battlefield locations in short succession.

Ikarus.P2 costs 4 memory to deploy as an AGI.

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Hackers
CF_Dogcatcher
Ophilia Bailey is a hacker specialized in the obscure and weird forms of viri which she finds most interesting, but is also very familiar with standard corporate security fixed defense programming, as her last 'real job' was as a corporate data-security officer. Tactically, CF_Dogcatcher is specialized to figuring out the enemy's cunning plans and ruining them, but she can suffer when she tries to figure out the cunning plan of a hacker whom is not using cunning schemes and just has a metaphorical, or more literal, hammer.

DJ King Cabaret
A man once sued for reasons of 'we have more money then you', DJ King Cabaret has a well working understanding of shock and awe tactics, and his experience running a pirate radio station has also given him a well honed sense of trickery and deception from the need to befuddle and avoid the Net Police. Despite this preference for attention getting, in battle the real threat with him is a hidden dagger. However, his actual skills as a hacker are somewhat lacking, which can hinder him in a variety of ways including his ability to properly deploy battle chips into conflicted codespheres. As well, his mixed feelings about an AI songtress such as Sonata may sometimes cause him to be less then rational in direct engagements with her Stagehands.

Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple) (Obsolete)

CarbineMinion.exe
Roughly humanoid digital constructs with just enough brains to obey commands without needing continual direct and personal supervision. They've been upgraded over the original Minion.exe programs with a somewhat more advanced Pulse Carbine weapon that includes a charged shot function and slightly greater firing rate and normal shot damage, but have very limited programming on when to use their charged shot. However, ADI or a supervising hacker can use a command call to order local CarbineMinions and Officers to fire a charged shot at a target if needed.
(Simple)

RifleMinion.exe
Roughly humanoid digital constructs with just enough brains to obey commands without needing continual direct and personal supervision. They were supposed to be upgraded over the original CarbineMinion.exe programs with a cut down version of the Hunter.exe's Pulse Railrifle, but unforeseen issues resulted in their weapon exploding when the program attempts to use it. This makes them fairly undeployable.
(Simple - Theoretically)

Wyrm.exe
Mindlessly aggressive flying snakes with plenty of teeth, the Wyrm.exe is an utterly expendable melee virus used as often as ablative distractions for other viruses as anything else. Being even stupider then a Minion, Wyrms are entirely dependent on outside authority for things such as 'targeting priority' and 'not giving away an ambush' and 'knowing when to retreat', and require very strong hard-coded friend foe identification coding to prevent friendly fire. And even then they still tend to kill each other off. They've got some swarm programming, mainly enough to keep them from getting in each other's way too much, and despite being theoretically a Simple virus their dependency on outside control limits the amount that can be safely deployed.

They've been updated with superior swarm programming, allowing for increased teamwork, less fratricide, and a cloud computing/bit torrent based memory system that allows them to remember longer and more complicated orders.
(Simple - Theoretically)

Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.

They've been upgraded to use more advanced Pulse Carbines with slightly greater firing rate and damage, as well as a charging function, and now are programmed to know how to both use the charging function personally and how to command the CarbineMinion.exe programs to properly use their own as well. Instead of firing a charged shot, they can alternatively use it for a short term moderate-minor boost to their speed or toughness. (Complicated)

FirstMate.exe
An upgraded Officer with a piratical look. The FirstMate.exe has a vastly expanded tactical library that was designed to be easy to customize or expand on for new unit types later on, as well as dedicated coding for using special abilities that is also easy to expand on later on. They also have a secondary six slot tactical library for immediate use to prevent time wasted considering all the plans in their large tactical library. FirstMates carry a basic charge carbine and an energy cutlass with a magnetic attraction effect against enemy weapons and shots. Lastly, they have seventy-five alternate uniform skins. (Complicated)

Scout.exe
A three wheeled trike with a turret mounted pulse pistol stolen from a Minion.exe, a flare launcher and a powerfield ramming prow that prevents the pistol from firing while active. Recent updates have made it noticeably more intelligent then the baseline Minions who's brain-coding the Scouts used to share, and it is now far more able to actually scout or harass enemies without dying pointlessly and without a report. They are noticeably better at teamwork then a baseline minion for scouting or combat by way of using swarm coding meant for real life drones. (Complicated)

Hunter.exe Ver. 0.9-B
A specialized sniper based on, but much more advanced, then the CarbineMinion.exe who use rifles almost as tall as they are. They have specialized sensors for long ranged fire, and can fire charged shots at up to the third stage of charging as well as being able to 'double tap' their second stage charged shot for two rapid fire projectiles at the second charge of power. They have limited abilities for independent operations by use of two 'hot loaded' tactical slots that can be filled from either a highly limited personal tactical library or by local officer type programs, but have minimal capacity for making any tactical choice more complicated then 'who do I shoot first' on their own. (Complicated)

Tunneler.exe MKII
A refined and bugfixed modification of the Scout that replaces all of the Scout's old equipment with a drill tipped prow to allow for tunneling. After a cycle of error-squashing the Tunneler.exe MKII now works without noticeable issues or need for sustained attention. Simple but high efficiency engine and drill systems allow for active tunneling even through tough substances and an easy to use navigation system allows for user friendly tunneling efforts. As the Tunneler tunnels, gathered waste data can be used to reinforce their tunnels, preventing cave ins. (Complicated -> Normally effectively Complex to Very Complex)

Chamelee.mon
A feathered dinosaur raptor virus with mantis like bladed hands and hind-limbs, Chamelee.mon viruses are not anywhere near being properly self aware but still possess a high quality and flexible tactical library for teamwork based hunting and skirmishing tactics even if said library is almost solely focused on those subjects. They are near invisible while still, and less so but still hard to accurately pinpoint when in motion making them hard targets to land a shot on even though, if shot, they are not much if any tougher then a minion. They can be manually assigned a high priority target though how they go after said target is still up to them, and have a slider for effecting how highly they rate their own self preservation. Officers can use these, but are not programmed to except for setting the self preservation slider to max when they decide it's time for all forces to retreat. (Complex)

Wako.mon
Cyclopean pale giants recruited from the tunnels of the Archival Sediment, Wako Warriors weld distinctive datana blades and wear high quality armor coded from bronze scales as well as possessing the ability to unleash searing, if short ranged and stamina draining, eye laser blasts. They also demand a high price for their labor, requiring both high quality 'food' and access to a variety of luxuries, as well as demanding that the deepest tunnels of the Archival Sediment remain un-invaded. These requirements, and their tendency to refuse what they consider to be 'stupid orders', makes them hard to deploy. However when deployed they are potent warriors, skilled in tighter confined and closer quarters then is usual for combatants of their stature. (Complex)

Autonomous Digital Intelligence
Vivi_Paltest.dat
A gelatinous and gluttonous naga with a collection of strange and interesting code shards and a habit of eating things she finds interesting to add them to her collection, Vivianaja Palladian is the Firmament's first ADI champion, and serves it well with her variable armaments and defenses pulled out from her collection as she remembers them as well as her own noticeable personal toughness and ability to patch herself up with loose data. Worryingly, her collection includes what seems to be coding of military origin, though Vivi denies ever visiting the military owned sectors of the Cyberworld before this conflict started. (Memory 4)

Ikarus.P2
The escaped and rogue protagonist of a long lasting series of SHUMP games, Ikarus.P2 is haunted by the sacrifice of his elder brother. While this has resulted in a fighter both skilled and dedicated to the Firmament's freeware mission it has also resulted in his doubts in the value of the Great Flame War in comparison to the actual official mission of the Firmament. However, with the advancements in Firmament forces caused by the iterative effort of the Great Flame War Ikarus.P2 has finally agreed to participate in said arms race. Ikarus.P2 is armed with a pair of high caliber vulcan cannons and a slow-recharging energy rocket launcher system capable of being used in anti-air (direct fire) or anti-ground (arc fire) modes. While he has long used up the last of his power ups, he remains in possession of the modular systems which those packets interacted with, and could put them to use again if a new source is found or designed (Memory 4)

Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)

Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)

MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)

SquadSummon S
This strategic battle chip is an upgraded, though more complex, version of MinionCall A that can summon a (smaller) squad of minions and officers of variable, if pre-set before the mission, type, It may only summon one version of minions and one version of officers, and can not be adjusted in the field. (Complicated, Memory 1)

CallChiptune
'CallChiptune' is a Battlechip that uses the Firmament's vast archives of abandonware soundtracks to summon appropriate music for any occasion. It's ability to figure out what music is appropriate can be a little off at times though, but who doesn't like a cheery 8-bit soundtrack going on in the middle of a desperate battle to keep viruses from deleting your homework? (Simple, Memory 0)

[TricMagic]

BusterUP*(Tactical)

BusterUP makes use of the energy stored in capacitors to majorly buff the basic attack of those it is used on. As an example, Ikarus.P2's basic attacks would increase in power, and multiple uses over a battle could result in them greatly overpowering any foes, though keeping the energy running through their system would be difficult. Thankfully they at least have the nessaceery coding to apply the upgrade, like picking up a powerup.

A more common example would result in only a single level of increase in most other units. ADI can handle more stacks of it. But it would likely be used for Hunter.exe Ver. 0.9-B to boost their charged shots even further in strength, or Wako.mon to improve their ranged attack. As it only applies to ranged attacks, a hacker needs to know when to use it. Vivi_Paltest.dat could use it if she looted some ranged coding, but currently has no way of discharging the gathered energy.


BusterCall S(Strategic)

A chip that contains the might of an entire armada of ships, it calls down a barrage of energy to raze an area to bits and ash. Or a piratically enticing target. With long charge times, it can only be fired a few times each battle, but when it does it ensures that there is either going to be a hole there in the defenses, or nothing left at all. The only defense against it is to not be in the area of effect in the first place.
It does have a weakness though, it requires setup time to trigger as the coding compiles in a ring around the target area.
The main design is entirely based around the charge mechanics we've studied, compiled into a chip and writ large in code blocks upon the cyberspace. Rather like Lego pieces. *Note, not suited for enclosed spaces with hacker modification to reduce the target area. Or an ADI that can get out of the target area before it fires.*


Swyrm W(Strategic)
Meet an air force's worst nightmare, a storage chip designed around summoning a huge number of exploding short-lived Wyrm.exe programs. Deliberately programmed to fail explosively on death, these will take an air force out of the sky in a matter of seconds when deployed correctly. And against groundbound foes, you can write the area off for a time. Granted, if they don't succeed within the minute they are going to be gone via their own code failing. Explosively. Designed not to explode on contact with other Wyrm explosions by running off the same code line, the energy just phases through their lines. Technically very useful if you need to frag a system quickly. So long as you don't care about recovering anything off it. (Keep away from normal Wyrm.exe programs, they aren't programmed to survive the explosions.[Though given how cheap they are, that isn't a huge issue.])

[Scholar Knight]

Swyrm W - [1]: SK

Unsure if it'd be more strategic or tactical, but Summoning a ton of fused wyrms designed to die and explode in a cluster explosion of screes and teeth is just highly amusing to me. It might even be hard, being an odd varient of the squad summon S, but in this bizzare case, more bugs might make it behave even better.

[TricMagic]

Swyrm W - [2]: SK, TricMagic

It's a chip usually meant to be used against an large air force. making use of the Wyrm's low bit count to pack a lot into a chip. While it can be modified to work against a smaller target in the caves, it's base is a bit wide. (Not to mention it does work against ground units too. But that might need a bit of altering the codeosphere so they don't get summoned into objects.)

It should be able to weaken and destroy branches in the Amazon Forest at least, and with normal wyrm.exe patrolling the skies along with Icarus we should be capable of taking full control(over the economy). When combined with our tunnel systems anyway.

And yes, it is an amusing idea.

[NUKE9.13]

Swyrm W - [3]: SK, TricMagic, NUKE9.13

It's kinda like a generic 'explosion here' chip, but more interesting. And we could use one of those.

[Happerry]

Turn 6 : Revision Phase

Swyrm W(Strategic)
Meet an air force's worst nightmare, a storage chip designed around summoning a huge number of exploding short-lived Wyrm.exe programs. Deliberately programmed to fail explosively on death, these will take an air force out of the sky in a matter of seconds when deployed correctly. And against groundbound foes, you can write the area off for a time. Granted, if they don't succeed within the minute they are going to be gone via their own code failing. Explosively. Designed not to explode on contact with other Wyrm explosions by running off the same code line, the energy just phases through their lines. Technically very useful if you need to frag a system quickly. So long as you don't care about recovering anything off it. (Keep away from normal Wyrm.exe programs, they aren't programmed to survive the explosions.[Though given how cheap they are, that isn't a huge issue.])

2 + 1 - 0 = 3 : Buggy mess (Normal)

Well, on one hand, the chip does summon Wyrm.exe programs, and said Wyrm.exe programs do explode. On the other hand, they explode almost as fast as they are summoned and, being as the chip is based off the MinionCall and SquadSummon chips the summoning speed and accuracy of the Swyrm W chip is not sufficient to summon them on top of enemies as a makeshift bomb summoner. On the gripping hand, all the base functions requested of the chip do exist. It summons self-destructing flying monsters which are unstable and explode on their own in noticeable numbers. All that's needed to make the chip actually useful is to stabilize the produced monsters a bit. Hopefully.

It is now the Deployment Phase of Turn 6. During this phase you must decide which of your hackers will be leading your attacks (you currently have two attacks), and decide what they will use their memory space to bring with them in terms of chips and champions (You currently have 9 memory).

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Hackers
CF_Dogcatcher
Ophilia Bailey is a hacker specialized in the obscure and weird forms of viri which she finds most interesting, but is also very familiar with standard corporate security fixed defense programming, as her last 'real job' was as a corporate data-security officer. Tactically, CF_Dogcatcher is specialized to figuring out the enemy's cunning plans and ruining them, but she can suffer when she tries to figure out the cunning plan of a hacker whom is not using cunning schemes and just has a metaphorical, or more literal, hammer.

DJ King Cabaret
A man once sued for reasons of 'we have more money then you', DJ King Cabaret has a well working understanding of shock and awe tactics, and his experience running a pirate radio station has also given him a well honed sense of trickery and deception from the need to befuddle and avoid the Net Police. Despite this preference for attention getting, in battle the real threat with him is a hidden dagger. However, his actual skills as a hacker are somewhat lacking, which can hinder him in a variety of ways including his ability to properly deploy battle chips into conflicted codespheres. As well, his mixed feelings about an AI songtress such as Sonata may sometimes cause him to be less then rational in direct engagements with her Stagehands.

Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple) (Obsolete)

CarbineMinion.exe
Roughly humanoid digital constructs with just enough brains to obey commands without needing continual direct and personal supervision. They've been upgraded over the original Minion.exe programs with a somewhat more advanced Pulse Carbine weapon that includes a charged shot function and slightly greater firing rate and normal shot damage, but have very limited programming on when to use their charged shot. However, ADI or a supervising hacker can use a command call to order local CarbineMinions and Officers to fire a charged shot at a target if needed.
(Simple)

RifleMinion.exe
Roughly humanoid digital constructs with just enough brains to obey commands without needing continual direct and personal supervision. They were supposed to be upgraded over the original CarbineMinion.exe programs with a cut down version of the Hunter.exe's Pulse Railrifle, but unforeseen issues resulted in their weapon exploding when the program attempts to use it. This makes them fairly undeployable.
(Simple - Theoretically)

Wyrm.exe
Mindlessly aggressive flying snakes with plenty of teeth, the Wyrm.exe is an utterly expendable melee virus used as often as ablative distractions for other viruses as anything else. Being even stupider then a Minion, Wyrms are entirely dependent on outside authority for things such as 'targeting priority' and 'not giving away an ambush' and 'knowing when to retreat', and require very strong hard-coded friend foe identification coding to prevent friendly fire. And even then they still tend to kill each other off. They've got some swarm programming, mainly enough to keep them from getting in each other's way too much, and despite being theoretically a Simple virus their dependency on outside control limits the amount that can be safely deployed.

They've been updated with superior swarm programming, allowing for increased teamwork, less fratricide, and a cloud computing/bit torrent based memory system that allows them to remember longer and more complicated orders.
(Simple - Theoretically)

Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.

They've been upgraded to use more advanced Pulse Carbines with slightly greater firing rate and damage, as well as a charging function, and now are programmed to know how to both use the charging function personally and how to command the CarbineMinion.exe programs to properly use their own as well. Instead of firing a charged shot, they can alternatively use it for a short term moderate-minor boost to their speed or toughness. (Complicated)

FirstMate.exe
An upgraded Officer with a piratical look. The FirstMate.exe has a vastly expanded tactical library that was designed to be easy to customize or expand on for new unit types later on, as well as dedicated coding for using special abilities that is also easy to expand on later on. They also have a secondary six slot tactical library for immediate use to prevent time wasted considering all the plans in their large tactical library. FirstMates carry a basic charge carbine and an energy cutlass with a magnetic attraction effect against enemy weapons and shots. Lastly, they have seventy-five alternate uniform skins. (Complicated)

Scout.exe
A three wheeled trike with a turret mounted pulse pistol stolen from a Minion.exe, a flare launcher and a powerfield ramming prow that prevents the pistol from firing while active. Recent updates have made it noticeably more intelligent then the baseline Minions who's brain-coding the Scouts used to share, and it is now far more able to actually scout or harass enemies without dying pointlessly and without a report. They are noticeably better at teamwork then a baseline minion for scouting or combat by way of using swarm coding meant for real life drones. (Complicated)

Hunter.exe Ver. 0.9-B
A specialized sniper based on, but much more advanced, then the CarbineMinion.exe who use rifles almost as tall as they are. They have specialized sensors for long ranged fire, and can fire charged shots at up to the third stage of charging as well as being able to 'double tap' their second stage charged shot for two rapid fire projectiles at the second charge of power. They have limited abilities for independent operations by use of two 'hot loaded' tactical slots that can be filled from either a highly limited personal tactical library or by local officer type programs, but have minimal capacity for making any tactical choice more complicated then 'who do I shoot first' on their own. (Complicated)

Tunneler.exe MKII
A refined and bugfixed modification of the Scout that replaces all of the Scout's old equipment with a drill tipped prow to allow for tunneling. After a cycle of error-squashing the Tunneler.exe MKII now works without noticeable issues or need for sustained attention. Simple but high efficiency engine and drill systems allow for active tunneling even through tough substances and an easy to use navigation system allows for user friendly tunneling efforts. As the Tunneler tunnels, gathered waste data can be used to reinforce their tunnels, preventing cave ins. (Complicated -> Normally effectively Complex to Very Complex)

Chamelee.mon
A feathered dinosaur raptor virus with mantis like bladed hands and hind-limbs, Chamelee.mon viruses are not anywhere near being properly self aware but still possess a high quality and flexible tactical library for teamwork based hunting and skirmishing tactics even if said library is almost solely focused on those subjects. They are near invisible while still, and less so but still hard to accurately pinpoint when in motion making them hard targets to land a shot on even though, if shot, they are not much if any tougher then a minion. They can be manually assigned a high priority target though how they go after said target is still up to them, and have a slider for effecting how highly they rate their own self preservation. Officers can use these, but are not programmed to except for setting the self preservation slider to max when they decide it's time for all forces to retreat. (Complex)

Wako.mon
Cyclopean pale giants recruited from the tunnels of the Archival Sediment, Wako Warriors weld distinctive datana blades and wear high quality armor coded from bronze scales as well as possessing the ability to unleash searing, if short ranged and stamina draining, eye laser blasts. They also demand a high price for their labor, requiring both high quality 'food' and access to a variety of luxuries, as well as demanding that the deepest tunnels of the Archival Sediment remain un-invaded. These requirements, and their tendency to refuse what they consider to be 'stupid orders', makes them hard to deploy. However when deployed they are potent warriors, skilled in tighter confined and closer quarters then is usual for combatants of their stature. (Complex)

Autonomous Digital Intelligence
Vivi_Paltest.dat
A gelatinous and gluttonous naga with a collection of strange and interesting code shards and a habit of eating things she finds interesting to add them to her collection, Vivianaja Palladian is the Firmament's first ADI champion, and serves it well with her variable armaments and defenses pulled out from her collection as she remembers them as well as her own noticeable personal toughness and ability to patch herself up with loose data. Worryingly, her collection includes what seems to be coding of military origin, though Vivi denies ever visiting the military owned sectors of the Cyberworld before this conflict started. (Memory 4)

Ikarus.P2
The escaped and rogue protagonist of a long lasting series of SHUMP games, Ikarus.P2 is haunted by the sacrifice of his elder brother. While this has resulted in a fighter both skilled and dedicated to the Firmament's freeware mission it has also resulted in his doubts in the value of the Great Flame War in comparison to the actual official mission of the Firmament. However, with the advancements in Firmament forces caused by the iterative effort of the Great Flame War Ikarus.P2 has finally agreed to participate in said arms race. Ikarus.P2 is armed with a pair of high caliber vulcan cannons and a slow-recharging energy rocket launcher system capable of being used in anti-air (direct fire) or anti-ground (arc fire) modes. While he has long used up the last of his power ups, he remains in possession of the modular systems which those packets interacted with, and could put them to use again if a new source is found or designed (Memory 4)

Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)

Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)

MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)

SquadSummon S
This strategic battle chip is an upgraded, though more complex, version of MinionCall A that can summon a (smaller) squad of minions and officers of variable, if pre-set before the mission, type, It may only summon one version of minions and one version of officers, and can not be adjusted in the field. (Complicated, Memory 1)

Swyrm W
This strategic battle chip is based on the existing MinionCall and SquadSummon battle chips and serves to summon in a flock of explosive Wyrm.exe programs. Sadly the produced programs explode almost as fast as they are summoned, and the chip lacks the accuracy and execution speed to be used to summon explosions on top of an enemy position. These issues render the chip, while usable, completely unused by all Firmament hackers. (Complicated, Memory 1)

CallChiptune
'CallChiptune' is a Battlechip that uses the Firmament's vast archives of abandonware soundtracks to summon appropriate music for any occasion. It's ability to figure out what music is appropriate can be a little off at times though, but who doesn't like a cheery 8-bit soundtrack going on in the middle of a desperate battle to keep viruses from deleting your homework? (Simple, Memory 0)

[Scholar Knight]

Hacker: CF_Dogcatcher
Region: Amazon Canopy
Duel Disk[9]: Ikarus.P2(4), Squad Summon S (1)x3, Recovery 10 (1), Atk+1 (1), CallChiptune (0)
Other: Alight on new wings of vengeance, seeking redemption, Dogcatcher plans to seize the forest canopies in full for the Firmament cause. What sorts of corporate defenses can hope to be mustered without the aid of the strong arm of the law?

Hacker: DJ King Cabaret
Region: BitMines
Duel Disk[9]: Vivi_Paltest.dat(4), Squad Summon S (1)x2, Recovery 10 (1)x2, Atk+1 (1), CallChiptune (0)
Other: Deeper, deeper, deeper still. DJ, Vivi, and friends are here to see what has been upturned from these relentless Drills.

Might as well get this started,

Flying Higher & Digging Deeper - (1): SK

Otherwise, pretty glad that the revision still churned out something usable, unlike the rifles. Or at least, grew our repertoire of abilities and options, that just need a little refining. The next revision or two should probably be used to fix some of our past ambitious revisions and get them out the door. Having an offensive codeburst would be very nice to spring on our enemies.
Of course, a hacker is first on my list of things to get done next turn. I'm already super nervous this turn with no backup defender.

[testmen]

Flying Higher & Digging Deeper - (2): SK, testmen

Doing my part as a :b:oter.

[piratejoe]

Flying Higher & Digging Deeper - (3): SK, testmen, Piratejoe

[TricMagic]

Flying Higher & Digging Deeper - (4): SK, testmen, Piratejoe, TricMagic

Doing my part as a :b:oter.

Will the Firmament fly too high or dig too deep? Find out next time if they are burned by the sun or the lava.

[NUKE9.13]

Flying Higher & Digging Deeper - (5): SK, testmen, Piratejoe, TricMagic, NUKE9.13

[Happerry]

Hacker: CF_Dogcatcher
Region: Amazon Canopy
Duel Disk[9]: Ikarus.P2(4), Squad Summon S (1)x3, Recovery 10 (1), Atk+1 (1), CallChiptune (0)
Other: Alight on new wings of vengeance, seeking redemption, Dogcatcher plans to seize the forest canopies in full for the Firmament cause. What sorts of corporate defenses can hope to be mustered without the aid of the strong arm of the law?

CF-Dogcatcher is admittedly a bit nervous that, just as the crackdown in Application City ends, she is being sent out to take control over the last areas of the Amazon Commerce Forest that the Firmament hasn't already taken control of. To be specific, because the last areas that the Firmament haven't taken control of have that status because they're the public areas people pay attention too. Still she chooses to hold faith in the higher planners of the Firmament and assume that they hadn't merely forgotten that fact when they wrote her orders up.

And so on otherwise calm morning the shopping adventures of ye average civilian is interrupted as Firmament CarbineMinion.exe programs march out of the underwood and into the upper canopy, moving to seize control of the bigwood businesses as Ikarus.P2 burns through the skies above. The businesses fight back of course, but in comparison to the combative firestorms of the Firmament's other battlefields, or even the closely fought strife in the darkness within the termite tunnels, they have little ability to resist the oncoming conquest. While the companies deploy hired mercenaries, corporate firewall elementals, ICE golems, and more, their responses are scattered and lack unity and coordination.

Bailey cuts them apart and squashes them one by one. She takes more trouble from some civilian interlopers and a ready response team of Data Police Constructs, but they lack the numbers and field presence to do more then oppose her in a local fashion, and their ability to oppose her degrades as combat goes on and they expend non-casually renewable resources.

While resistance to the occupation continues sporadically it dies down as Bailey makes it apparent that business can continue as usual for most of the companies in the Commercial Jungle so long as Firmament data-tapping and zone control stations are not interfered with, and soon enough business has resumed as normal.

+1 Control in the Amazon Commerce Forest for The Firmament.

Hacker: DJ King Cabaret
Region: BitMines
Duel Disk[9]: Vivi_Paltest.dat(4), Squad Summon S (1)x2, Recovery 10 (1)x2, Atk+1 (1), CallChiptune (0)
Other: Deeper, deeper, deeper still. DJ, Vivi, and friends are here to see what has been upturned from these relentless Drills.

The upper reaches of the BitMines are under Firmament control, but the upper reaches of the BitMines are the least important. Striking from their established bases in the upper Strata the DJ King sends scout teams out to map out the tunnels, Vivi leading the way. The first enemies the scout teams run into are just like the ones they originally encountered in the first push in this zone. Independent mining constructs that defend their claims to the last program, completely unsafe machinery embedded throughout the zone waiting to crush an unwary minion, furnace mouthed mobile smelter-factories trundling along on regrowing treads... you know, the normal.

But just like the other zones, the deeper Firmament forces get into the BitMines, the harsher the resistance grows. The independent mining teams add more varied, more advanced constructs such as the geokinetic Geometry Masters and their arcane mathamagical processes and the semi-invisible KoBolt programs that shift states from shadowform to lightning elemental in a stunning flash. These aren't enough to stand against the now greatly upgraded Firmament forces, even if they'd have solidly stopped the initial troop line up of this war, but they are more then enough to slow it. And bogged down as Firmament forces are they find themselves being struck by targeted hit and run raids by high grade mobile factory beasts, whom have taken to upgrading themselves with seized Firmament code-structures. Only Vivi can stand against these molten iron belching monsters one on one, and even she has difficulties against the older and larger specimens. Unlike the younger-spawn of the upper reaches, these factory-monsters are well armored and armed with stolen upgrades integrated helter-skelter across their iron hides, and the addition of Firmament parts makes them even more deadly.

Not deadly enough to win, but it is a closer match then the DJ King would care to admit as the prices the Wako Warriors demand to face these wyrms climb as the danger does, and tunneling efforts falter as the Tunneler.exe MKII programs are targeted in specific as the mobile factories seek to integrate the Firmament's high grade drill-components into their own forms.

Also opposing the Firmament in this area are cyborg-batman monsters that strike with blades of compressed BitCoding, crudely carved into weapons and armor. Rains of dart-weapons built from compressed advertisement code shower down upon stray patrols, infecting Minions with addware, and shadow-singing shamans contest the datasphere from the protective cover of hulking BroBat patchwork monsters, built from the remains of fallen warriors and upgraded with golematic augmentations.

And yet the shamans die under the chainsaw claws of the Chamelee.mon, and howling flights of Wyrm.exe programs are sacrificed to blot out hit-and-run ambush teams. The factory monsters die hard, but die they do under Vivi's power and her backup teams of Wako Warriors. Infected minions are burned out and discarded as needed, or used as the first wave in attacks against the independent miner's strongholds as FirstMate.exe programs learn to adapt to the omnipresent dart-ing ambushes, and the BroBat monstrosities perish under mass fire as Tunneler programs excavate alternate paths around their blockades.

Where once factory monsters laired, deep-mining data-drills are constructed to tap into deep data nodes, and ever-evaluating bit-mind complexes are forged to consume and process the data. Transit nodes are built from repurposed machinery to allow for fast travel into these deeper stratums, and code-relays bring Firmament influence into the depths. This battle is won.

+1 Control in the BitMines for The Firmament.

Spoiler: Designs (click to show/hide)

Hackers
CF_Dogcatcher
Ophilia Bailey is a hacker specialized in the obscure and weird forms of viri which she finds most interesting, but is also very familiar with standard corporate security fixed defense programming, as her last 'real job' was as a corporate data-security officer. Tactically, CF_Dogcatcher is specialized to figuring out the enemy's cunning plans and ruining them, but she can suffer when she tries to figure out the cunning plan of a hacker whom is not using cunning schemes and just has a metaphorical, or more literal, hammer.

DJ King Cabaret
A man once sued for reasons of 'we have more money then you', DJ King Cabaret has a well working understanding of shock and awe tactics, and his experience running a pirate radio station has also given him a well honed sense of trickery and deception from the need to befuddle and avoid the Net Police. Despite this preference for attention getting, in battle the real threat with him is a hidden dagger. However, his actual skills as a hacker are somewhat lacking, which can hinder him in a variety of ways including his ability to properly deploy battle chips into conflicted codespheres. As well, his mixed feelings about an AI songtress such as Sonata may sometimes cause him to be less then rational in direct engagements with her Stagehands.

Viri
Minion.exe
These roughly humanoid programs are neither very sophisticated (intelligence and coding wise) or very strong, but they are mass producible and smart enough to obey orders without continual direct supervision. Which isn't always something you can take for granted with generic digital constructs, as a lot of them are dumber then rocks. They're not coded with anything more powerful then a basic energy pulse pistol, but they can still defeat the average civilian whom thinks too much of themselves. Just avoid putting them up against Data Police Agents. (Simple) (Obsolete)

CarbineMinion.exe
Roughly humanoid digital constructs with just enough brains to obey commands without needing continual direct and personal supervision. They've been upgraded over the original Minion.exe programs with a somewhat more advanced Pulse Carbine weapon that includes a charged shot function and slightly greater firing rate and normal shot damage, but have very limited programming on when to use their charged shot. However, ADI or a supervising hacker can use a command call to order local CarbineMinions and Officers to fire a charged shot at a target if needed.
(Simple)

RifleMinion.exe
Roughly humanoid digital constructs with just enough brains to obey commands without needing continual direct and personal supervision. They were supposed to be upgraded over the original CarbineMinion.exe programs with a cut down version of the Hunter.exe's Pulse Railrifle, but unforeseen issues resulted in their weapon exploding when the program attempts to use it. This makes them fairly undeployable.
(Simple - Theoretically)

Wyrm.exe
Mindlessly aggressive flying snakes with plenty of teeth, the Wyrm.exe is an utterly expendable melee virus used as often as ablative distractions for other viruses as anything else. Being even stupider then a Minion, Wyrms are entirely dependent on outside authority for things such as 'targeting priority' and 'not giving away an ambush' and 'knowing when to retreat', and require very strong hard-coded friend foe identification coding to prevent friendly fire. And even then they still tend to kill each other off. They've got some swarm programming, mainly enough to keep them from getting in each other's way too much, and despite being theoretically a Simple virus their dependency on outside control limits the amount that can be safely deployed.

They've been updated with superior swarm programming, allowing for increased teamwork, less fratricide, and a cloud computing/bit torrent based memory system that allows them to remember longer and more complicated orders.
(Simple - Theoretically)

Officer.exe
Based on the generally available in the Undernet Minion programs, Officer.exe constructs aren't much stronger then their lesser kin, still only coded with a basic energy pulse pistol, though officers also come with basic melee coding. But the big difference between and Officer and a Minion is that Officers are coded with noticeably more advanced bit-brains and have a basic tactical library integrated in their knowledge banks, allowing them to lead teams of Minions on operations without needing constant hand holding.

They've been upgraded to use more advanced Pulse Carbines with slightly greater firing rate and damage, as well as a charging function, and now are programmed to know how to both use the charging function personally and how to command the CarbineMinion.exe programs to properly use their own as well. Instead of firing a charged shot, they can alternatively use it for a short term moderate-minor boost to their speed or toughness. (Complicated)

FirstMate.exe
An upgraded Officer with a piratical look. The FirstMate.exe has a vastly expanded tactical library that was designed to be easy to customize or expand on for new unit types later on, as well as dedicated coding for using special abilities that is also easy to expand on later on. They also have a secondary six slot tactical library for immediate use to prevent time wasted considering all the plans in their large tactical library. FirstMates carry a basic charge carbine and an energy cutlass with a magnetic attraction effect against enemy weapons and shots. Lastly, they have seventy-five alternate uniform skins. (Complicated)

Scout.exe
A three wheeled trike with a turret mounted pulse pistol stolen from a Minion.exe, a flare launcher and a powerfield ramming prow that prevents the pistol from firing while active. Recent updates have made it noticeably more intelligent then the baseline Minions who's brain-coding the Scouts used to share, and it is now far more able to actually scout or harass enemies without dying pointlessly and without a report. They are noticeably better at teamwork then a baseline minion for scouting or combat by way of using swarm coding meant for real life drones. (Complicated)

Hunter.exe Ver. 0.9-B
A specialized sniper based on, but much more advanced, then the CarbineMinion.exe who use rifles almost as tall as they are. They have specialized sensors for long ranged fire, and can fire charged shots at up to the third stage of charging as well as being able to 'double tap' their second stage charged shot for two rapid fire projectiles at the second charge of power. They have limited abilities for independent operations by use of two 'hot loaded' tactical slots that can be filled from either a highly limited personal tactical library or by local officer type programs, but have minimal capacity for making any tactical choice more complicated then 'who do I shoot first' on their own. (Complicated)

Tunneler.exe MKII
A refined and bugfixed modification of the Scout that replaces all of the Scout's old equipment with a drill tipped prow to allow for tunneling. After a cycle of error-squashing the Tunneler.exe MKII now works without noticeable issues or need for sustained attention. Simple but high efficiency engine and drill systems allow for active tunneling even through tough substances and an easy to use navigation system allows for user friendly tunneling efforts. As the Tunneler tunnels, gathered waste data can be used to reinforce their tunnels, preventing cave ins. (Complicated -> Normally effectively Complex to Very Complex)

Chamelee.mon
A feathered dinosaur raptor virus with mantis like bladed hands and hind-limbs, Chamelee.mon viruses are not anywhere near being properly self aware but still possess a high quality and flexible tactical library for teamwork based hunting and skirmishing tactics even if said library is almost solely focused on those subjects. They are near invisible while still, and less so but still hard to accurately pinpoint when in motion making them hard targets to land a shot on even though, if shot, they are not much if any tougher then a minion. They can be manually assigned a high priority target though how they go after said target is still up to them, and have a slider for effecting how highly they rate their own self preservation. Officers can use these, but are not programmed to except for setting the self preservation slider to max when they decide it's time for all forces to retreat. (Complex)

Wako.mon
Cyclopean pale giants recruited from the tunnels of the Archival Sediment, Wako Warriors weld distinctive datana blades and wear high quality armor coded from bronze scales as well as possessing the ability to unleash searing, if short ranged and stamina draining, eye laser blasts. They also demand a high price for their labor, requiring both high quality 'food' and access to a variety of luxuries, as well as demanding that the deepest tunnels of the Archival Sediment remain un-invaded. These requirements, and their tendency to refuse what they consider to be 'stupid orders', makes them hard to deploy. However when deployed they are potent warriors, skilled in tighter confined and closer quarters then is usual for combatants of their stature. (Complex)

Autonomous Digital Intelligence
Vivi_Paltest.dat
A gelatinous and gluttonous naga with a collection of strange and interesting code shards and a habit of eating things she finds interesting to add them to her collection, Vivianaja Palladian is the Firmament's first ADI champion, and serves it well with her variable armaments and defenses pulled out from her collection as she remembers them as well as her own noticeable personal toughness and ability to patch herself up with loose data. Worryingly, her collection includes what seems to be coding of military origin, though Vivi denies ever visiting the military owned sectors of the Cyberworld before this conflict started. (Memory 4)

Ikarus.P2
The escaped and rogue protagonist of a long lasting series of SHUMP games, Ikarus.P2 is haunted by the sacrifice of his elder brother. While this has resulted in a fighter both skilled and dedicated to the Firmament's freeware mission it has also resulted in his doubts in the value of the Great Flame War in comparison to the actual official mission of the Firmament. However, with the advancements in Firmament forces caused by the iterative effort of the Great Flame War Ikarus.P2 has finally agreed to participate in said arms race. Ikarus.P2 is armed with a pair of high caliber vulcan cannons and a slow-recharging energy rocket launcher system capable of being used in anti-air (direct fire) or anti-ground (arc fire) modes. While he has long used up the last of his power ups, he remains in possession of the modular systems which those packets interacted with, and could put them to use again if a new source is found or designed (Memory 4)

Battle Chips
Recovery 10
This tactical battle chip is designed to mend damaged and corrupted code, healing the individual it is applied to by a minor amount. (Simple, Memory 1)

Atk+10
This tactical battle chip pre-allocates resources to empower the next program used, improving the targets ability to deal damage for a short while. (Simple, Memory 1)

MinionCall A
This strategic battle chip creates temporary replicas of the commonly known ‘Minion.exe’ program, causing a short term burst of reinforcements in the targeted zone. (Simple, Memory 1)

SquadSummon S
This strategic battle chip is an upgraded, though more complex, version of MinionCall A that can summon a (smaller) squad of minions and officers of variable, if pre-set before the mission, type, It may only summon one version of minions and one version of officers, and can not be adjusted in the field. (Complicated, Memory 1)

Swyrm W
This strategic battle chip is based on the existing MinionCall and SquadSummon battle chips and serves to summon in a flock of explosive Wyrm.exe programs. Sadly the produced programs explode almost as fast as they are summoned, and the chip lacks the accuracy and execution speed to be used to summon explosions on top of an enemy position. These issues render the chip, while usable, completely unused by all Firmament hackers. (Complicated, Memory 1)

CallChiptune
'CallChiptune' is a Battlechip that uses the Firmament's vast archives of abandonware soundtracks to summon appropriate music for any occasion. It's ability to figure out what music is appropriate can be a little off at times though, but who doesn't like a cheery 8-bit soundtrack going on in the middle of a desperate battle to keep viruses from deleting your homework? (Simple, Memory 0)

[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 skill and tactics, Rangers_Constellation is, as one might expect, actually quite tactical in combat considering they actually had military 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 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. And this is something that takes time and is arguably slow and less efficient compared to most other commanders. 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 divided in a myriad of encirclements and destroyed completely, allowing her to push with little resistance after utilizing her reserve forces for that decisive blow, which are built up thanks to keeping them in a functional state. She herself states that the reserve is the most vital part of any armed force, for it's application at a key moment, or it's absence will make or break a campaign. Personality wise, 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.

Considering our plan, here's Irma again. Made a few more slight edits though to further emphasize her main strength and weakness.

[Scholar Knight]

Reposting Nuke's revised version of Torrent Jones for further Hacker Consideration.
Still pretty indifferent on which hacker we roll. But one way or another, we are getting a 3rd Hacker this phase.

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.