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Victory Belles Lore questions


RockyArby
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Well as you may recall I myself am a Yank (though calling myself a Yankee feels disturbing and offensive) of Irish and German descent, and getting her into shape enough to make an Atlantic crossing, then having her fit out, and snagging a bunch of German American recruits and old salts from across the fleet was a very natural conclusion. However that plan was the most obvious course of action assuming no or minimal support from the Kriegsmarine. The plan could also sound biased in the favor of the United States. So I decided to let someone else raise it and force myself to consider other options.

 

[OOC] That and it's what I consider the most obvious plan that has potential to be acceptable by Derfflinger. I love Scoot's version of her, she's an interesting character but if you had me write an HSF character besides raiders like the Seeadler (Now there's a Belle that would be truly wild.) because of my own inexperience with the Kaiserliche Marine my mind tends to conjure up very Prussian officers. Now Derfflinger's namesake Georg von Derfflinger had a reputation for loving his alcohol a tad much (by German standards mind you), being a life long soldier (his list campaign was in his 80s) and the former doing nothing or very little to impact his martial skill and tactical thinking, which is probably where Scoot's Derfflinger gets her own drinking habit. I'm not sure I'd personally follow that logic and justification on that if I was writing her.

Perhaps she's rather like a fictional daughter of Field Marshal von Derfflinger. Not only does she not drink, or drinks extremely little, she loathes habitual drinking and considers excessive alcohol consumption a moral failing as well as a failing of discipline. She's a martinet even by German standards, and channels her irritablility into her training letting emotion fuel her direct actions while the mind remains cold, calm and implaccable. She has a dueling scar under one eye, but she didn't wake up that way, she simply arranged for swordsmen of sufficient skill to come and match swords with her. She has been defeated twice, once by a master German swordsman and an Italian heir to the Capo Ferro school, she stays in regular contact with both for instruction... and so she can challenge them for a rematch. And so on.

Her modern crew have taken up the Iron Dog nickname with a passion, occasionally referring to themselves as the Iron Pack when morale is high. On the other side of the coin they sometimes call Derfflinger the Iron Bitch after a particularly severe tounge lashing, but never to her face and always with some degree of affection. Dame Derfflinger holds herself to her same high standards and will report to the Captain for punishment for her own infractions. Said infractions are fairly rare anywhere outside her own head, but the crew respects her for her standards being universal. Etc.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So I apparently failed to post this change like I thought I had...

I ended up adding to my letter, I updated the post, but wanted to post the whole thing on it's own because I'm just pleased with it over all.

 

To sailors and Marines, Belles didn't need to manifest for us to know they were there. It was, and is, an article of faith, we have evidence of this faith of sailors and their amphibian counterparts dating back to Greek Tiremes if not earlier still. Superstition drives the heart and soul of the sailor and the Marine and always has. Our ships are everything to us, and we love them as such. Shelter, sword and shield, a mental haven as the ramp drops on an assault craft, where you return, either in good spirits, flush with the twin thrills of victory and survival against all odds, or to be healed, or shattered, to be conveyed home or to be passed into the sea to eternal rest. For many of us over the centuries, those same ships became our place of final rest themselves.

How could such creations, more than the sum of their parts, be it wood, iron or steel, not have something more to them than just being a mere object? So strong is this emotion, so strong is this conviction, this article of faith, that... it simply is. Civilians and the land bound do not question this faith, they see it as normal, and how we refer to ships and aircraft in most if not all world languages that have words for such things reflect that faith.

Not mere objects. Her. She, not it. It's not that ships are just gendered in the same way certain words are gendered in say the romance languages either. They are referred to like one would refer to a person. In tones ranging from friend, to lover, to trying to start a bar fight during a particularly frustrating maintenance task. This linguistic reflection is subtle, but I believe because of it, many people who come into contact with a ship knows that there's something special in them. That a heart beats within her engines. The crews of the USS Constitution were men of courage and honor, but the ship herself is famous, a legend in her own right, lauded and beloved by every American who has heard her name. How could there not be something more there than just some wood and iron fittings? So when the Belles rose, we may have been surprised because it happened, but if any man or woman aboard was worth their salt, they weren't surprised that the Belles were there, because all that happened is that our faith was vindicated.

So it appeals to an old salt like me to ask a superstition about their own superstitions. Belfast for example may well carry some belief or sense of the old Fae lore of our mutual home island with her. 

Respectfully submitted,

T. Heavens, USMC

Commanding 

 

------

Regarding adoption, seems a bit odd with the Belles we've met so far. Even the "childish" Belles tend to be depicted as older than Yukikaze from Kantai Collection but could be an interesting alternative mechanic to have available in parallel to the "marriage" mechanic most of the other games offer.

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Just now, lazarusdw said:

 

 

Fifrein

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So here's an odd question for you: Can Belles manifest for 1) unarmed ships or 2) incomplete ships? For example, could a Belle manifest for the Iowa shortly after her keel is laid and persist, becoming more and more tangible and complete until her final commissioning brings her to entirety?

i think this is a interesting question for a lore update

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how a question about freewill and loyalty. if a belles recieves a illegal order can she ignore it or would she comply without question.

second if when working with captain from a diffrent navy learns a secret of her nation has been compromised but her captain orders her to never communicate that ever what can she do

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also does a belle know who her captain is before she meets them or is it i see them then i know.

what kinda conection does a belle have with her captain after meeting can she tell where captain is at all times even if they are off ship at the time i.e. a belle can point in a direction and say how far away they. do belles also have a sense of the condtion of her captain for instance if a captain overworks themselfs ose the belle know

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Firstly happy new year everyone.

Next, I believe Ensign Fif's question has pretty much been answered. A ship who's just had her keel laid probably can't manifest a Belle. Commissioning has been determined by the detectives in this thread, and indicated in some of the lore updates, to be rather critical to manifesting, followed by exposure to Morgana mists, which is much harder when one is sitting in dry dock.

As to ships not carrying arms, we have more or less proved who killed Cock Robin, and the identity of our mysterious hostess, and even if we are wrong with our specific deduction, we can safely say she is certainly not what you'd call a warship (I here define warship as a purpose built vessel designed specifically for engaging and destroying the enemy by naval gunfire, torpedo, aircraft dropped munitions, or similar means) even if she was given some AAA to defend herself from aerial attack as part of her wartime service. Ms. Rawalpindi, wildly popular with the Captain's Association as she might be is likely another example of this, as she was built and born a merchantman and retroactively armed however lightly by the Royal Navy.

So all signs point to yes... provided said ship can survive an encounter with the Morgana, which seems to be quite the feat for a lightly armed or unarmed vessel, but one that we can safely sumise has happened. Not that I personally would stop resisting the enemy if I was down to a rifle (the kind carried by a single person, not the ladies naval rifles) and foul language, but I am also an obstinate bastard and I'm lead to understand that such actions are not normal human behavior.

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4 minutes ago, TwoHeavens said:

Firstly happy new year everyone.

Next, I believe Ensign Fif's question has pretty much been answered. A ship who's just had her keel laid probably can't manifest a Belle. Commissioning has been determined by the detectives in this thread, and indicated in some of the lore updates, to be rather critical to manifesting, followed by exposure to Morgana mists, which is much harder when one is sitting in dry dock.

As to ships not carrying arms, we have more or less proved who killed Cock Robin, and the identity of our mysterious hostess, and even if we are wrong with our specific deduction, we can safely say she is certainly not what you'd call a warship (I here define warship as a purpose built vessel designed specifically for engaging and destroying the enemy by naval gunfire, torpedo, aircraft dropped munitions, or similar means) even if she was given some AAA to defend herself from aerial attack as part of her wartime service. Ms. Rawalpindi, wildly popular with the Captain's Association as she might be is likely another example of this, as she was built and born a merchantman and retroactively armed however lightly by the Royal Navy.

So all signs point to yes... provided said ship can survive an encounter with the Morgana, which seems to be quite the feat for a lightly armed or unarmed vessel, but one that we can safely sumise has happened. Not that I personally would stop resisting the enemy if I was down to a rifle (the kind carried by a single person, not the ladies naval rifles) and foul language, but I am also an obstinate bastard and I'm lead to understand that such actions are not normal human behavior.

sod being normal it's boring and take that from a time travelling wizard

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  • 2 weeks later...

Question if a morgana is worth an entire fleet of normal warships. Would it then not be practical to have as many belles as possible even going as far. To rebuild warships that were scrapped. Since the captain's of belles are not beholden to any treaty they could assemble the resources to build a certain Japanese battlecruiser or perhaps the lion class battlecruiser and maybe HMS thunderer too

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But isn't the battleship HMS Lion under construction at Newcastle upon Tyne when the war begins?  Even assuming that anything of the battlecruiser HMS Lion was left to reassemble (she was sold for scrap in 1924!), why would one settle for resuscitating that hull, when she could be provided a bigger, brand-spanking new ship?

Unless that is what you mean by rebuilding warships that were scrapped.  If so, then the only thing standing in the way of  Vickers Amstrongs turning out a new receptacle for her would be labour and materials.

The very same things that stood in the way historically.  If things had turned out differently and there had been consistent available resources to finish her?  Who's to say?

I do think that the Captains of Belles have a war to fight though and while it may be Neutral, the INPF isn't a country.  Shipbuilding from scratch should probably remain in the hands of the various countries, if for no other reason than even with a freshly commissioned ship and crew (and a handful of souvenirs from her battlecruiser days) , there is no certainty the Belle of HMS Lion would awaken.  (And the Royal Navy is gonna need every ship it can beg, borrow or build).

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8 minutes ago, Panay's Ghost said:

But isn't the battleship HMS Lion under construction at Newcastle upon Tyne when the war begins?  Even assuming that anything of the battlecruiser HMS Lion was left to reassemble (she was sold for scrap in 1924!), why would one settle for resuscitating that hull, when she could be provided a bigger, brand-spanking new ship?

Unless that is what you mean by rebuilding warships that were scrapped.  If so, then the only thing standing in the way of  Vickers Amstrongs turning out a new receptacle for her would be labour and materials.

The very same things that stood in the way historically.  If things had turned out differently and there had been consistent available resources to finish her?  Who's to say?

I do think that the Captains of Belles have a war to fight though and while it may be Neutral, the INPF isn't a country.  Shipbuilding from scratch should probably remain in the hands of the various countries, if for no other reason than even with a freshly commissioned ship and crew (and a handful of souvenirs from her battlecruiser days) , there is no certainty the Belle of HMS Lion would awaken.  (And the Royal Navy is gonna need every ship it can beg, borrow or build).

i know i picked lion for emotional reasons so kongou could meet her english sisters also the hope that lion and the royal could have the same refits that all the kongou's got

 

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5 hours ago, lazarusdw said:

actully at this point it's amagi that i'm interested in

Considering Amagi was never completed, never commissioned and they started scrapping her after the Great Kanto earthquake rendered her unserviceable in spring of 1924, in a war economy where resources like steel were at a premium, I doubt there was much left by 1939. I hate to say it Laz but, as a great chief medical officer once said, she's dead Jim. If it was within human possibility to save Amagi, she would already be in service with the Kido Butai. I'm sure she'd be happy to swing in for the fight, but there has to be something for a Belle to manifest on in the first place. At least Derfflinger is still a ship, "lawn ornament" at Scapa or no.

Of course the Unryu class aircraft carrier Amagi might make it into the game, but that's in the far flung future of 1944. Could that Amagi be saved? Probably. She was only capsized and was refloated without issue, and I find it doubtful she'd have been sitting in Kure without aircraft with the Morgana war still raging. As we have said. A ship is a valuable strategic resource. A ship with a Belle is valuable beyond measure. 

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