With regards to your questions on the progression of things in the senate, everything is shitty. The speaker is being shitty, the opposition bloc is shitty, and our own bloc is acting fucked up and shitty. The speaker (may his ego never eclipse his need to compensate) is, as he always is, a moron with the creative brainpower of a rotten fruit, who is too wishy washy and pant-pissing terrified of escalating the internal conflicts to actually do jack OR shit, and too fucking afraid of losing his position in the fallout, which would make him lucky is his name were to so much as show up in a bag of cracker jacks.

Your way is better, no matter how fucked in the head and desperate you are to suggest it.

I've been nudging here, shoving there, and paying people to bust windshields in the senate parking lot, but my influence is limited there. Thankfully, you had the necessary half a brain to give me influence HERE.

Oh, and when you asked if I was doing alright, if I was scwared by the bwig fwucking fwire wizards, fuck you. If you were smart you'd be pissing a hole in your pants. Only three things in this world scare me; that WITCHBITCH, almighty God, and the fact that we're putting any fucking responsibility in your hands. As you can see, I can still cus like a fucking man when I facing something I'm afraid of.

Basic information: Information on squirtle is rare, and squirtle are even more rare. Because you were unable to procure any viable living samples, we referenced old Kantonese docs, combat video, and HIS. If you're not happy with that, step up your procurement strategy.

The squirtle line is composed of three slowly maturing evolutionary water type stages in the monster and water breeding groups. They use some kind of SOMETHING to shoot water out of their mouths at high speed, high pressure, and great accuracy. These ought to be designated as 'extremely rare', as they are an endangered species and the only place we know that they are naturally present is in the seafoam islands, and in underwater caves in Kanto. There has never, not in our entire recorded history, been a recorded sighting of a wild squirtle in Orre.

Squirtle typically are short and dense, being between 8 and 16 inches in length (tail excluded), and weighing between 16 and 22 pounds. Wartortle are considerably larger, being between 2 and three feet long, and weighing anywhere between 30 and 50 pounds. Blastoise (which, are by our estimation extremely rare, even by final evolution standards) can be anywhere between five and six and a half feet from head to tail, and can weigh between 180 and 300 pounds. Hopefully none of our boys will ever run into these fucking monsters.

Biology: As stated before, you didn't send us anything to examine, so we had to rely on union docs, and union docs are at best unreliable, and at worst a god damn act of sabotage.

We had a few nerds with kinesiology experience examine some of our footage, and come up with what we have as probable skeletal structure for all three forms, but all that you really need to take away generally from that are three facts: one- the shell is a part of the skeletal system and is fully fused with the spine in all three forms, two-ribs only extend along the sides in all three forms, and three- the the plates on the bottom of the shell are the weakest and thinnest, parts of the whole structure in all three forms. There's some specifics, but those can be saved for specific combat discussions.

We don't know how they do the water attacks, our leading theories are a weird, enzyme that hydrolyzes elements in air at an extremely rapid rate, and fucking magic. I'm on team fucking magic personally, but we'll see if a more plausible answer comes forward in the future.

The only organ worth noting between all three creatures is something of an internal gill-like structure located in a separate bladder that fills with water via the esophagus. Swallowing water adds to the creature's weight, which helps it to sink, while expelling it helps it resurface quickly. The internal gills themselves are folded and have a high surface area for the diffusion of oxygen directly into he blood stream- this is, in effect, a highly specialized pseudolung.

The only other thing of note is the fucking canons on Blastoise' back that only guys with penis issues and girls with penis envy think are cool. We don't know how they work, so later we'll focus on how they can kill you.

History: as mentioned above, we don't know much about them historically. HIS record doesn't mention them once, and from what we gathered nobody ever cared to record anything about them, except for one record in Kanto's feudal exodus era that states that the Shogun used a blastoise to shatter the gate of the first Johtoan castle in their initial arrival and expansion into Kanto and Johto.

One thing of note, that is more contemporary, is that in the last two hundred years tentacool (the most common prey for the squirtle line) passed on a pathogen that heavily targeted female squirtle, and is present in every male squirtle to this day. A third of the female squirtle have immunity, but the remainder are infected in the embryonic stage and are effectively still born (The nerd looking over my shoulder says the term is still hatched, but I say nobody gives a shit). Course, union science has about the potency and permanence of a fart in a tornado, so nobody caught on until they were almost hunted to extinction for turtle shell soup.

Psychology and Sociology: difficult to pin down. They're semi social, at the very least. They don't engage in cannibalism, they have the mental capacity to form groups, but for most of their lives they choose not to. In their early life, they live as cave dwellers that don't travel far and typically hunt small prey and algae at night while hiding in their caves in the day. When going through what passes as Squirtle adolescence they form a posse and change from primarily secluded bottom feeders to organized, roaming hunters. Eventually, said hunting results in evolution into wartortle, the equivalent of full adulthood, and they compete for mates among their little group, and those that are successful at attracting one of the scarce females go off and mate, partnered for life, breeding constantly in an attempt to fend off the looming threat of total extinction. Those that do not mate gradually scatter, individually finding their own territories to improve their mating prospects, where they typically die alone after running into something bigger and meaner than they are.

Those that survive to become Blastoise, we don't know what role they fulfill in their social structure. Some theorize they continue to find a mate if they don't have one already, while other's think they outgrow the urge and instead dedicate themselves to killing apex predators that threaten squirtle. It's worth noting that Cinabar island, off the coast of Kanto, has dozens of mated pairs of Blastoise, so we're not completely in the dark.

Psychologically, in the wild the are inclined to total neutrality: they will always act in their best interests, in a way that minimizes their chances of total extinction. Good, because that means they are adaptable, and can be convinced to either not bother you or help you. Bad, because they can be convinced to work against you.

Of course, they're so rare in the wild you'll probably never encounter them, so you'll mostly be dealing with released ones or trainer ones...and at that high of a social complexity, no rules apply.

Combat: As you might expect, it is highly, highly unlikely you will ever encounter one of these in the wild, and even less likely that you will encounter one that wants to kill you. As with most things, the best way to survive a fight with them is not to fight them, and they are intelligent for pokemon and EXTREMELY intelligent for reptiles. Reason prevails.

Furthermore, it's worth noting that they can have a stabilizing effect wherever they are present, at least for us humans. Their preferred prey (remoraid, tentacool, and corphish) are all noted as being extremely aggressive by HIS, and given squirtle's inclination to reason, an alliance can be struck between us and the little scaly bastards. Further down the line, it may be worthwhile to investigate a genetic shift treatment to stem the stillbirth of their females, as a means of creating 'safe' areas in sea zones.

Now, this being said, nothing is ever certain, and since- in an extremely feeble conservation effort, kantonese scientists began distributing them to trainers- there's always the possibility that you'll run into one that wants to fuck you up, down, and sideways, which is the main reason I'm actually bothering to write this fucking thing instead of scribbling "Try again disphits" on a sticky note and submitting it.

Squirtle: On land, .8 IU's, in water, 1.5 IU's. Not much to say: walking they're just a tad over harmless, they use water gun, which is high volume, high speed, but low pressure; at anything more than 4 meters it'll knock you over. If you were to let it sit in your lap they pressure could be anything between a bruise or a broken foot, but it doesn't have shit on body armor. They can also use bubble; which sounds cute, but those suckers are filled with compressed air, which feel like tiny fire crackers when they hit, which is as annoying as fuck, but more unpleasant than harmful. Also they can bite, and it's jaw is strong enough to take off a finger but not quite a hand, but the jaw muscles don't develop until adolescence and it's jaw force isn't anything special. The shell is hard, and can protect against fists and blades, but anything but the most pathetic peashooter will crack that thing open like a nut, and even a hammer or baseball bat can beat it's way through.

In the water, it's another story. They can swim fast, and create jets of water that make them faster. Our non-gunpowder weapons that our water soldiers are pathetic, and won't scratch the shells, and they can move in and pick your bones clean, then run out. Or, even better, they can fucking drown you. That's not to say they're dangerous generally, only that we don't have anything really prepared to counter them. They can't do much to submareines, but then, we don't like those, do we?

Wartortle: On land, 1.4 IU's, in water, 2 GU's. Even power increases aside, the entire mental state of a wartortle is different: at this point they've gone from scavengers to middling predators, they will be more aggressive. Their water guns aren't much stronger, but are faster and thus have more range; getting hit by one of these is going to be like getting shot by a .22 if they get within 12 meters (or at least, that's what we've calculated). This being said, their jaws are now strong enough to take of a hand, and the stronger ones can use water pulse, which is slower, but probably feels like having a bowling ball thrown at you by an Olympian, being pelted by a bunch of marbles all at once, and being forced listen to the ocean, The Anthem, and Unovan classical, at the same time.

That's what the first hand accounts say. I'm not going to pretend to know what fuck any of that means.

Other than that, their shells are tougher, so you need an actual fucking gun to shoot them. Just about any dedicated, non-hollow point round will do the trick.

In a six on six, if our good boys treat them like human combatants, they'll probably come out on top with minimal casualties.

In the water, again, we have no good counters. Everything applies that did with the squirtle, cept now they're bigger, faster, stronger, and meaner.

Blastoise: Pray to God none of our boys run into these, cause if you run into one of these...you better have him on speed dial. 24 IU's, 5 GU's, or .7 ME's (I need to think about changing this rating system). Imagine a small tank. Did it? Good, that's about it.

In all seriousness, there's nothing funny about these fuckers. An HIS record says that these things will typical stand out in the open to draw attention, laugh at the puny mortal's attempts to harm it with meager things such as spears, axes, arrows, Akim's, grenades, and rockets, while shooting back all the while with those retarded looking water canons on their backs blast everything around them apart.

First, we'll take a look at why exactly every attempt to kill it before it kills you looks like a joke. That shell from before now contains calcium, lime, and small amounts of iron, and is between two and three inches thick, it's skull is now sloped (mind you, in the same way a tank's hull is sloped) and a little more than an inch thick, it's knees are covered in additional calcium plates that are domed and- I shit you not-two inches thick. Even if you get past all these, the skin itself is probably about a quarter inch thick, and it's scales are partially calcified.

In conclusion: these things aren't even going to FEEL most small arms fire from the front, from the back it's just going to feel like it's getting rained on. Grenades from the front might knock it over, but it'll piss it off. Most headshots will BOUNCE off of the inclined skull. The only place it will actually be injured is the eyes, ears, tail, and back of the knee, and all of those places can be drawn into its shell. HEAT ammunition to the shell will be ineffective just because the distance between the shell and the thick hide is far enough that the liquid slurry will be dispersed, and will just burn the son of the bitch badly, which will only make it pissed.

And then there's the offensive side. The arms on these things could crush you head like a beer can, their legs have enough power to tip over a small lightly armored vehicle, or alternatively, pound dents into one. The fucking jaws on these things can take off an arm, a head, and if it were to get it's maws around your waist, it'll take a bite out of you like a cheeseburger. Even armored, you're still looking at a ton of broken ribs.

Notice how I haven't mentioned the canons yet.

Two canons, both of which can train on individual targets. Probable PSI can range anywhere from 4,000 to 45,000 PSI, with some of our largest and most insane estimates measuring as high as 75,000 PSI.

In case those numbers mean nothing to you, 3,000 PSI is roughly the capability of wartortle. It's the same pressure recommended by manufacturers of pressure washing equipment recommending it for cleaning concrete. It ALSO is the pressure that was used in the accidents that prompted the legal People VS. Rosswell industries, for failing to inform the dumbasses that 4,000 PSI is enough to blow a hole in your foot.

45,000 PSI is on the low end of what industrial water jet cutters for the purpose of cutting through concrete, and THIN STEEL.

A 75,000 PSI waterjet cutter can saw through 8 inches of steel in 40 minutes.

Combine this with the fact that it can fire accurately in a line at 160 feet, not to mention that it can cross that distance in roughly half a second before hitting the ground, and you find yourself fucked beyond unfucking.

Good news is, there are limits: based on recovered reports most of these canons lack the strength to actually support such pressure, so you're more likely to encounter the ones that can fire between 4,000 to 20,000, which can still mangle you, but won't punch through lightly armoured vehicles at close range.

There's a number of reasons why this isn't as terrifying as it sounds: higher pressure blasts can only be maintained for about a second, and have a much longer cooldown (for a 2 second spray of 75,000 PSI, our nerds estimated a cool down of 10 minutes, whereas 45,000 could be maintained for five with a cooldown of eight minutes, and anything less than 6,000 could be used indefinitely). They don't work well against tanks for the same reason anti tank weapons don't work well against them. And they can't fire on targets while moving.

That doesn't mean they can't use them to shoot at the ground and somehow push themselves off the ground for fast movement though, as is reported. I'm not going to even try to reason that out, but it will be accounted for.

Shifting away from what they can do and what they DO do...they are capable of everything that their younger forms are, along with being able to coat their tails in water with some kind of viscious bladed aqua tail, protect itself with fucking energy shields, reinforce it's shell with energy shields, cause short rain showers by saturating clouds with water (Again, don't fucking ask me. There is an EXTREMELY long cooldown, but even then, the only answer that comes to mind is god damned magic), and blowing things apart with water canons, then closing distance and tearing you to pieces with its hands.

There's a few tricks that can be exploited in all of them, in a combat situation, which can slightly increase your chances of survival, and actually allow you to kill the big ones.

Scenarios in which you might encounter them as hostiles are 1) scavenging squirtle, 2) hunting pack of squirtle, 3) Trained Squirtle, 4) hunting pack of wartortle, 5) Roaming wartortle, 6) mated pair of wartortle, 7) trained wartortle, 9) Single blastoise.

Because there's so many, and some of them are almost fucking oxymoronic, and because there's no good reason for you to ever encounter one, I'll keep them brief.

Bear in mind, most of the following is determined by logic, simulations, and HIS.

1) You're unlikely to encounter it out of water, and unless it's starting to reach adolescence, they'll prefer to avoid anything larger than them in and out of water. If you're hunting them, just shoot them anywhere. If they're hunting you, don't let them get close, or else they'll shoot water or bubbles at you to get you off balance and bite you, then blow a hole in you. Not that any of that matters if you just SHOOT THE DAMN THING.

In water, just swim for your life. if it keeps dragging you to the bottom, either shoot it with your harpoon gun or grab ahold of it and then let go, and it'll swim away.

2) Squirtle don't have the tactical mind set or aggression to dictate proper fights in the two dimensional plane that is land combat, and typically won't go after targets much larger than themselves. From what I can see, if they get caught on land, they try to spread out fire on a target, and jump in their shells when the target get's too close, buying time while the others continue to fire an wear it down. But, again, you're not fucking cavemen, just shoot the damn things. Treat it like an actual fire fight, and you'll be better than fine.

In the water, abandon all hope. We don't have the means to combat them in the water, our current submarine infantry scouts are only equipped with small crossbows and thin chain armor, neither of which are going to amount to much when they move too fast to shoot, and can just drag you to the bottom and wait for you to run out of air. Best way to handle these is to travel in groups of at least four, which, you should be doing anyway, as they prefer to tackle either one or two targets at a time. For the dumbass that ignores my advice, your best chance of getting out of there alive is to either play dead, wait for them to come close, and THEN shoot the thing, or to preserve oxygen by not moving and waiting for help.

3) Trained squirtle are a lot like a mix between the two above, but imagine more aggression and more movement- they might actually try to take cover and avoid hunkering down in the open. Social complexity makes it impossible to say anything more for certain.

4) On land, treat them like human combatants. They can be aggressive, they can move from cover to cover, they can try to flank you, and their water jets are a lot like extremely short range, weak small arms fire. Your rifles are more than strong enough to punch through their shells, most of the time. In the water, everything else applies as with squirtle, but with an extra dash of doom.

5) Roamers are interesting: They seem to be equally comfortable in land in and in water, and are proficient at fighting in both. They hunt on land primarily by means of ambush: hiding in their shells, waiting for something to pass, then disabling it with a water jet and closing distance to finish it off with its jaws. If you survive the initial attack, or are on the offensive yourself, treat it like a human combatant. Just- and I should have mentioned them earlier, but I forgot how little faith I have in you jackasses these days- aim primarily for flat surfaces, and try to hit center mass. If you hit the very top of the shell there's a chance you can snap it's spine, but it's a small target.

In the water, same trick, play dead, spring the trap, have turtle for dinner. It's a bit easier, cause from what little info we have it looks like roamers favor using they're jaws to attack, and will typically be more direct: none of that drowning bull shit; they'll swim in, take a chunk out of you, try to get out, and repeat.

6) Mated pairs are like packs, just typically stronger, faster, but less aggressive and less inclined to take risks. Of everything on this list, these are what you are least likely to come into conflict with (granted, everything here is unlikely), and they'll only go against single targets. They also use ambushes like roamers, but if you get ambushed by one of these, then you're not going to be alive long enough to worry about it.

7) Trained ones are like mated pairs, just not in pairs.

8) And now for the one that actually fucking matters. These things are old, clever, and pissed off that they were almost hunted to extinction by a bunch of Unovans hipsters that thought that wartortle tails and squirtle shells were hip and would 'help to harmonize their inner selves with the sea', or something equally so God damned retarded and so distinctly fucking Unovan I want to reach for an icepick for a quick lobotomy.

Course, never helped that the kantonese and Johtoans that hunted them like they were fucking gold never noticed that the proportion of turtles with dicks and turtles with no dicks was suddenly skewed.

In the water...we don't fucking know what they're capable in the water, but it's safe to assume you have no fucking chance in scuba gear, and that even a submarine might have a problem holding up against a pissed off Blastoise that wants to fuck you up, down, and sideways.

On land, there's so many ways for one of these things to kill you I don't know where to start, so instead I'm attaching a link to a video that was somehow taken by someone on a battle between a Charizard and a Blastoise since the priming. To take the suspense out of it, it ends with the blastoise forcing the charizard to land by causing rain, then marched through fire on it's cooldown, let the charizard chip its claws and teeth on it's face, ripped off both of it's wings, and separated it's head from it's body by biting through it's neck. Anything that has the intelligence and brute strength to manage that is no a bitch with which to fuck.

They're comfortable at both close and medium ranges. If against a single opponent they'll use their water to cream or suppress you while rapidly closing distance to tear you multiple new ones. Against multiple targets they'll typically hunker down in favorable terrain if possible, alternating between spotting targets on two legs, adjusting positioning on all fours, and then firing while within the safety of its shell on near targets, until everything around it has pulled its head out of its ass and is running away, or figured out it's fucked and died already.

Weaknesses: Tanks, anti-material weaponry, maybe grenades for the big ones. The shells are thick and strong, but there's no way they can stand up to even a 20mm full composite round, and given that they shell is a large target AND fused with the spine, shattering the top half can likely cause permanant paralysis and death in short order. The little ones are easy enough to kill out of water without any fancy weapons.

Recommendation: HE GRENADES: Now, for a real hard fucker won't have too hard of a time with one of these, but for the average Joe, equipped as he is right now, has only two options: run in rambo style and try to score a lucky shot on one of the few weak spots before being turned into paste, or manage a lucky grenade.

I'm going place emphasis on the second option: when lacking force, use more force, as a general rule. Now, I've been put on record with opinions on saying to NOT throw grenades like cotton candy, but like I've also gone on record saying only politicians and pencil pushers believe in absolutes. Explosives have the extra 'oomph' necessary to give our boys an edge. Getting a grenade within one meter of one of these is enough to take them out of the fight for a solid minute. If you land one in front of it while it's on all fours, the pure force could at minimum cause some brain damage, and at best snap its neck. Landing a grenade under the shell while in his position could- between the closeness, weight, large surface area of bottom of the shell, comparative weakness of the lower shell, flatness of the lower shell- you're looking at a massive amount of transferred energy- potentially enough to shatter the shell, crack ribs, rearrange organs- the likes.

If infantry wants to stay viable when there's a chance that your average soldier could run into one of these, or something as tough as one of these, they need an increase in lethality. Our soldiers are equipped to kill Kantonese, not fucking monsters. You can either replace rifles, replace ammunition, or replace grenades (Unless you want to teach them all how to charge entrenched enemies with hammers). Our Akims have limited effectiveness, and the new challenger rifles are currently less than useless against one of these things, so unless you want to roll out a new line of rifles so fucking nasty that only our BT's would be able to hold and fire. A god damned child can throw a grenade competently, and the transition from throwing dodgeballs and baseballs to grenades is seamless. They have the power and versatility to be used against larger, more dangerous belligerents.

I recommend that you take this shit seriously, and that you begin developing a series of high explosive grenades for this purpose; minimum fragmentation, heavy weight, maximum bang, and begin drilling soldiers with them immediately.

The alternative is to drill our soldiers with fucking maces, but then, given the nature of this war is likely to devolve into a lot of close quarters brawling, that might be a viable avenue.

God Fucking Damnit, I just recommend we go into war armed with STICKS.

Freaks:

Mega Blastoise: What's better than a 300 pound walking weapons platform with two canons? Try a 450 pound walking weapons platform with three canons.

I don't have to explain why we don't know anything about how these things work. From pictures and video we've extrapolated that these things have heavier shells, calcium growths on the entire front of the thing, a thicker shell, stronger canons (especially the one on it's back), and-unlike blastoise- they can fire on the move. Those two canons on its arms mean it can fire on multiple targets in a 180-degree field of fire while on the move.

I rate these at a solid 1 ME, the only good news is that those canons make it harder to flip back off of their back if they get flipped. If you find one of these things staring you down, I don't care how man people you have, unless you have a tank, you should throw all of your grenades, disengage, and retreat rapidly.

Summary:

Encountering any of the above in the field is highly unlikely: Given the lack of overlap between our environments, typical neutrality of squirtle, and their rarity, you are unlikely to come into contact with wild squirtle.

Relations with the above should be considered "Live and let Live" or "Mutually Beneficent": For the reasons stated above, we are unlikely to come into conflict with them, both generally and on an individual level. Shoot at them if you have to, but their enemies are typically our enemies, so it's best to leave them to their own devices, nudging them in one direction or another if it benefits us, maybe bailing them out here or there.

There is presently no effective way to engage them underwater: As stated earlier, we have no way for infantry to properly counter these things in the water. If such is necessary, it is better to rely on other water types to combat them.

Exploring a cure for the squirtle disease is recommended: If the stillbirth disease in squirtle could be reversed, their numbers could be replenished quickly, and if their loyalties were secured they could solve our lack of aquatic infantry and help to secure our coast lines against the looming tentacool threat. Raising cured squirtle in captivity presents an opportunity that may give us an edge.

In the event of hostilities with squirtle or wartortle, engage them as you would human combatants: As stated above, their attacks are at most comparable to small arms fire, and wartortle are tactically similar to melee eager soldiers and squirtle are tactically similar to stupid soldiers.

In the event of hostilities with blastoise without anti-material weaponry- it is recommended to use grenades and then disengage: ...for the reasons made clear above, small arms fire are not typically effective against blastoise. Thrown grenades may at best kill and at least stun long enough for you to rapidly retreat out of the canons' effective range, confirm the kill or injury, and regroup with heavy weapons support.

In the even of hostilities with mega-blastoise without armored support or heavy gunship support, it is recommended to use grenades and then disengage: For the reasons stated above, you are best off running for your life, finding tank or artillery support, zoning and then killing it with extreme prejudice.

The development of specialized HE grenades should be a priority: We need to pack an extra, cheaper punch for things that can pick our Joe's out of their teeth. When lacking force, use more force.

-ME