So, I posted this story on the Girls' Frontline subreddit for feedback reasons because the fanfiction community for GFL is infinitely smaller than what I'm used to, and they provided some actual feedback which is very nice, and also the guy who writes Girls' Frontline: The Fall showed up to the thread, so I'll post the responses I made and a brief summary of the criticisms people had.
/u/NoGoodPikachu brought up how the jet didn't really make sense, and artillery would have been better, SOMOPD isn't crazy enough, the WW2 era tanks didn't make sense, and Mosin could have used more inner monologuing.
Yeah, artillery would make more sense, but the jet represented a more present threat, and also gave Skorpion the opportunity to warn everyone of their impending demise. I'm not used to writing crazy characters, so SOPMOD might seem a bit weird until I can get a good handle on her. I was saving this for later, but it's not totally important, so I'll just say it now; the WW2 tanks aren't original tanks, they're reproductions of the real thing, but they're modernized with composite materials and shit, so the Tiger 1 doesn't totally suck, just as an example. As for Mosin, she definitely could have used more monologuing, and that's a problem on my end. I kind of just wanted to get the introduction chapter out of the way so I could finish on writing Grimm Retreat Chapter 5, which I felt was taking too long for me to write out, so that's why Mosin has a lack of inner monologuing, and why her decision was so sudden.
To Haxatix, who could you possibly be referring to? The only men in the story so far are Kryuger (the middle aged guy) and the Commander. Do you mean Skorpion, Mosin, Ingram, or the Igla?
Also, how do you guys feel about crossover characters? I know they're not a thing on EN yet, and I'm genuinely considering adding them, but I'm not sure if that's too great of an idea, all thing considered. To give you an example of what these characters would be like, they wouldn't straight up be characters from other universes, like Master Chief, or Han Solo, but rather this would be taking the weapons from those universes and then turning them into T-Dolls, like for example, the MA5C from Halo 3, or the DC-15A from Star Wars would be turned into T-Dolls. That's probably the better of the two options anyways, as much as I would like to ram Grimm Retreat's version of Courier Six into this story, I gotta have some restraint.
Anyways, on with the story.
GRIFFIN & KRYUGER AREA S09 BASE
7:25 AM
"Allow me to communicate to you my desire to have your guns!"
"'Scuse me, are you part of the command staff for this base?" A caucasian man asked a woman with blonde hair in a G&K jacket, who had her back turned to him, focused on a tablet. She looked up, looked around, and finally turned around to lay her eyes on the man. She studied him for a moment. He was about 6'3", and was wearing a red beret and a pair of ballistic goggles, and he had a stubble and amber eyes. It took her a moment to process this before her blue eyes widened in surprise.
She spoke up with a faint Russian accent. "Oh! You're the new commander, right? The one from SOCOM? I'm Kalina, your second in command and logistics officer." she said.
The Commander nodded. "Pleasure to meet you, Kalina. If you don't mind, I'd like to get started, so could you please me the way to the ops center?" He asked, his accent sounding largely like a Texan, with a small bit of a stereotypical Canadian accent.
"Right this way, commander!" Kalina said, directing towards a nearby staircase, and they started walking. Kalina immediately turned to the Commander, and started talking. "I've read your file, Commander. Gunnery Sergeant Riley Jäger, born in Anchorage, Alaska in 2030, a few months before the Beilan Island Incident. Arctic Warfare specialist, trained in counter insurgency, counter terror, and you led a squad for SOCOM to combat Canadian terrorists in the Alaskan Wastes, crushing multiple major rebel cells. Quite an impressive record, if I must say." Kalina said, eyeing the commander. "However, as impressive as it may be, G&K Command has dictated that you are fresh meat. They believe you're inexperienced with commanding at this level, especially with T-Dolls. As such, they have sent me to assist you in getting set up here." She said, checking her tablet, and then refocusing her attention on the commander.
Riley stopped walking. "What do you mean 'getting set up', Kalina?" he asked. Kalina was walking and came to a sudden stop when she realized the commander wasn't following her, and she turned around to look at him.
"Things like setting up echelons, manufacturing new T-Dolls, combat operations at the command level, that sort of thing." she explained.
"The fuck's an echelon? Do you mean echelon formations?" Riley asked, confused.
"Yes and no, an echelon is what you would call a squad or a fireteam, but the T-Dolls are always organized in an echelon formation."
"Do you mean to say that T-Dolls just walk right at the enemy, not taking cover or anything, holding the trigger, over open ground, with minimal tactics, in rows?"
"That's correct."
"What the hell? Can they be reprogrammed to, I don't know, not do that? I'd like my soldiers to NOT be full of lead, thank you very much."
"I'm pretty sure they can. I'll notify the technicians to have the changes made to our current dolls as well as any future dolls." Kalina said, tapping on her tablet several times, before both she and Riley continued walking to the command center.
7:28 AM
The command center was considerably roomier than what Riley expected. Sure, it was pretty cluttered, with files and documents all over the tables, and there was a big tactical map in the center of the room, and a monitor that took up half of the back wall horizontally, but it was still pretty roomy.
"So, where do you want to start, Commander?" Kalina asked.
"Let's start with fireteams, Kalina." Riley said.
"Echelons. You mean echelons."
"No, I mean fireteams. Calling them echelons is incredibly stupid, and I refuse to do it out of principle. They're fireteams, and that's that." he said, dead serious.
Kalina let out a sigh of defeat. "Fine, fireteams it is. Come here, and I'll show you how to set the eche…fireteams up." Kalina said, motioning to the tactical map. Suddenly, the holographic map changed into some sort of user interface, showing five empty slots, a sixth locked slot, and a list of fireteams.
"Tap one of the empty slots, Commander." Riley did so, and then images of five different T-Dolls appeared. In order, they were Galil, who was using a first generation Galil, and not an ACE variant like one would expect, Spectre M4, MP40, who was wearing what looked like a genuine Wehrmacht uniform, OTs-12, who was absolutely plastered in Soviet iconography, and…
"Is there something wrong, Commander?" Kalina asked, confused.
"…Yeah. Why the hell do we have a maid available as a T-Doll?" Riley said, slightly angry. Kalina looked even more confused.
"What do you mean by maid?" she said, moving closer to where Riley was pointing his finger. When she looked where he was pointing, the look of confusion on her face practically evaporated. "Oh, you mean PPK! That's just what she normally wears."
"Even into combat?"
"Yep!"
"Have her report to the armory for a set of fatigues and body armor. She can wear her maid outfit on base, but not when she's going into combat scenarios. While I'm at it, have them all report for body armor."
"Are you sure? She doesn't really like being told what she can and can't wear. She actually makes it a habit of…'punishing' commanders that try to tell her what to wear." Kalina said, trying to tread lightly on the topic.
"'Punishing' them? As in, insubordination, or…?" Riley asked, slightly confused.
"Whipping, like with a riding crop."
"Amazing, and other commanders just let this shit fly?"
"Yeah, pretty much. Some are actually into it." Kalina said, shrugging.
"That's not gonna be happening on my base. She needs to swallow her pride and wear the fatigues, otherwise we're gonna have a problem."
"Noted. I've gotta say, it's nice to finally be assigned to a commander who at least takes the job somewhat seriously instead of just submitting to a doll's whims." Kalina said, and Riley tapped everyone's icons, adding them to the fireteam.
"So, what now?" Riley asked.
"Now, we move on to combat operations. We'll be doing this within a simulation, primarily for safety reasons. As far as the T-Dolls will be able to tell, the simulation is live fire, but no harm will actually come to them." Kalina said, tapping on her tablet a few times, and then the fireteam select screen turned into a simulated urban environment, with clear offensive and defensive points, with the defensive positions being on higher ground, plus simulated terrain. The big feature in the simulation was a five story high tower in the back-line "Give me a bit, and I'll have the fireteam hooked into the simulation. Speaking of, do you want to name the fireteam?" Kalina asked.
Riley looked thoughtful for a minute. "Yeah, that'd be good for communication, wouldn't it? Call them Fireteam Echo, Galil can be the Actual."
Kalina was confused again. "Sorry, 'Actual'?"
"Squad leader."
"Oh, understood. I'll let them know of their new name, and let them know about Galil's status." Kalina said, tapping on her tablet even more. "So, while we're waiting on the dolls to get hooked into the sim, let me show you how to set a simulation scenario up…"
7:35 AM
After a few minutes, Fireteam Echo teleported into the simulation. Everyone wandered around the starting area, and much to Riley's surprise, PPK actually complied with his orders, and was wearing her fatigues and body armor, and a helmet, all in a woodland flecktarn pattern. She was also slightly upset, because she looked where one of the camera was and gave a sadistic smile, mimicking the action of smacking a riding crop on her hand.
"Charming." Riley said, before opening communications to the simulation room. "Alright, listen up, this is a basic search and destroy mission. See that big tower in the back? The enemy has stashed a big ammo cache in the top floor. Your job is to get in there, eliminate all hostile forces, and blow the ammo cache. There should be some incendiary grenades in the cache if you don't have explosives. Good luck, Fireteam Echo." he said, before closing the comms.
"Well, there are our orders. How should we approach this?" Galil said, observing the battlefield with binoculars.
"There's plenty of cover down in the center lane, but that would be too obvious. What about the right flank? There's probably less resistance there, and it's less open to potential sniper fire." Tiss said, pointing to the right flank.
"Maybe? We're going either center or right, the left flank is too exposed." Galil replied, looking at the left flank, which was basically barren of any cover or varied terrain. She sighed, and pulled her binoculars down, leaving them to hang from her neck. She pulled out a quarter, and tossed it. Heads would be center, tails would be the right flank. Galil flipped it in the air, and a brief moment later, it landed.
Tails.
"We're going on the right." Galil said, moving to gather the other fireteam members.
The right flank was fairly linear, with most of the direct lines of sight on the tower being blocked by hedges and hills. A few of the more open lines of sight were quickly passed by, and now Fireteam Echo was incredibly close to the tower. Galil was surprised, as they hadn't taken any contact yet. "Why was this flank unguarded?" she thought to herself, cautiously turning the corner. Sitting right on an elevated position was a machine gun emplacement, and Galil barely had time to process this before it opened fire, and she scrambled back into cover, nearly dropping her gun in the process.
"MP40, PPK, Tiss, suppress that MG! Spectre, try and get close, and kill the gunner!" Galil directed. Tiss, PPK, and MP40 nodded, and immediately started suppressing the gunner. The gunner instinctively stopped firing, and got behind cover to avoid getting shot, and Spectre saw her chance, so she ran up to where the gunner was, outflanking him, and she and sprayed him down in a hail of bullets.
"Clear!" Spectre yelled, and Galil motioned for the team to move up to Spectre's position.
"We've blown our cover and we're exposed, get in the tower, double time it! We'll clear it as we go!" Galil commanded, running towards one of the tower's side entrances and taking cover, waiting for Spectre and MP40 to get in and start clearing the rooms out. They both ran in, and automatic weapons fire quickly started and stopped, before MP40 yelled "Clear!", and Tiss, Galil, and PPK entered the first floor. Spectre and MP40 were already moving up the stairs, so Galil and Tiss took some of the furniture in the room to block the doors to try and delay anyone breaching the building. The trio then went up the stairs after Spectre and MP40, with automatic gunfire and the sound of boots stomping still periodically being heard higher up.
Galil stopped Tiss from getting up on the second floor. "Tiss, hold position at the top of the stairs, I need you to keep them off our backs. I'll send Spectre and MP40 down once they're done clearing the building, and you can come up with me."
Tiss nodded. "Of course, Galil." she said, saluting, before going prone and pointing her gun down the stairs.
Galil looked at PPK. "Speaking of clearing the building, PPK, double tap the bodies, just on the off chance that some of them are playing dead." PPK nodded, and started moving around the room, double tapping each of the bodies in the head with her pistol, before moving up a floor, and repeating the process. Galil herself started heading up the stairs to catch up with MP40 and Spectre, who were likely at the fifth floor already.
About a minute later, Galil was at the top floor, and saw Spectre and MP40 just finishing up. "Top floor clear!" they both yelled in unison, before staring at each other. Galil coughed to make her presence known, and both dolls turned to her.
"Spectre, MP40, head down to the second floor and have Tiss come up here, and take her place guarding the stairs, and if you see PPK, tell her to head down when she's done mopping up." Galil said, pointing to the stairs with her thumb. Spectre nodded, and MP40 saluted, and both headed downstairs. While she was waiting for Tiss to come up, Galil crouched down took a peak outside of a window to check for remaining enemy forces.
She did NOT like what she saw.
There was a whole platoon of men who looked like they were dressed in pre-Beilan Island U.S. Army gear in olive green camo. It wasn't gear from a few months before the disaster, but was gear from 20 years before. They were packing heat, too. For every three guys, there was a fourth with either an M249, an M240, or an M60. For every two guys, there was another with a shotgun. Multiple people were packing SMAWs, M72 LAWs, and AT4s, too. Some guys had MP5s and M16 variants, but most of them had M4A1s. Galil was so focused on the platoon, she didn't hear Tiss walking up the stairs.
"Galil, you asked for me?" she asked, and Galil practically jumped.
"Tiss, don't sneak up on me like that!" Galil said, trying to keep her voice down.
"Sorry?" she said, shrugging. Galil sighed.
"I called you up here to help with a plan. A plan that is, unfortunately, no longer viable. We were gonna take shots at anyone outside from this floor. Instead, there's a whole platoon of guys directly outside that window behind me, and that means we'd get shot the second we made our presence known." Galil said, rubbing her face in frustration. "We're screwed, basically."
Tiss looked around for a bit. "What about that clothes bin over there?" she said, pointing to a blue bin in the corner.
"What about it?"
"Simple, we take explosives from the cache, fill the bin with them, toss the bin out the window with the explosives in it, and then use a detonator to detonate the C4 we put in the bin. That should thin their numbers significantly, if not outright smashing the platoon."
Galil's face rose out from her hands. "Why didn't I think of that? Help me with this, they'll be breaching the tower any minute."
Galil finished tying a blanket over the now highly lethal basket of explosives. "Tiss, did you link the C4 and detonator?" Galil asked. Tiss just showed her the detonator, which had a green light on. "Great, open the window, and help me toss this thing out." Galil bent over and grabbed both ends of the basket, and Tiss grabbed the same ends on her side. Moving the basket was a challenge in and of itself. There was probably fifty pounds of explosives in the basket, give or take, and accidentally tipping it and spilling those explosives wasn't exactly ideal. After a short while, Tiss and Galil managed to fit the basket into the window.
"Three."
"Two."
"One." they said in unison, sending the basket flying. Galil quickly pulled out the detonator, and waited for the sound of the basket connecting with the pavement.
Instead of the sound of the basket hitting the pavement, they heard the sound of someone screaming in pain. That works too. Galil and Tiss immediately dove away from the window, and Galil activated the detonator. There was an earth shattering explosion, and both Galil and Tiss were knocked unconscious by the concussive force of the blast.
When Galil came to, she couldn't really see all that well, but she saw someone pacing in front of her. Her ears were still ringing and she felt like death. Galil tried to get her bearings, but she got punched in the face for her efforts. She felt someone grab her by the throat, and then felt something against her back. She tried opening her eyes again, and saw one of the soldiers from the bottom floor of the tower pacing in front of her. To her right was an unconscious and bleeding Tiss, and to her left was an incredibly bruised PPK, barely breathing. She tried to focus her vision on the back wall, and saw MP40 lying next to the ammo cache, unconscious, and a still conscious Spectre beside her, disarmed. Her ears finally stopped ringing, and she could hear what the guy pacing in front of her was saying.
"…come into MY HOUSE, kill MY MEN, and expect to get away with it? What the flying fuck do you have to say for yourself?" he said, crouching down to get eye level with Galil. Only, eye level wouldn't exactly describe it, as his gold tinted ballistic goggles and helmet were blocking his eyes. Galil tried to find words, but couldn't. Instead, someone else spoke up.
"Actually, I can speak for her." the voice said. It took Galil a minute to process who the voice belonged to, and it was MP40's, who had somehow woken up without anyone noticing. Galil looked at MP40, and saw she was holding one of her M34 Incendiary Grenades that she kept with her Molotovs. "Remember to fully disarm your prisoners, dummkopf." she said, pulling the pin, and dropping the grenade into the ammo cache. The men tried to scramble to get out of the building, but it was too late, and the cache exploded, taking everyone in the room, as well as the fourth and fifth floor, along with it.
7:47 AM
Riley was dumbstruck. If that was the first reaction all T-Dolls had to being surrounded in a building, or being captured by enemy forces, he had a lot of work ahead of him to stop the incessant martyrdom.
Riley opened the intercom. "Attention please, will Galil, Spectre M4, and MP40 please report to the command center for immediate debrief. I repeat, Galil, Spectre M4, and MP40, report to the command center for debrief." he said, before closing it.
"So, how did their first mission go?" Kalina asked.
"I'm tempted to say horribly. Galil's entire tactic revolved around a coin toss, and she blew her cover before it was ideal. However, she and Tiss also came up with the washing basket bomb, which was brilliant. Their tactics for clearing the tower were also mostly solid, however, the end result was a 100% casualty rate on their end, and one of two objectives completed. That's a mission fail if I've ever seen one. I'll need to discuss this with Galil. When I'm done with the debrief, we'll continue on with whatever else G&K wants me to do before they consider me ready." Riley said.
Kalina simply nodded, and left the command center for the moment.
7:50 AM
Galil, Spectre, and MP40 all walked in to the command center. Riley immediately pointed to Spectre and MP40. "No, you two can wait outside while I debrief your squad leader. When she leaves, you can come in." he said. They both looked at each other, shrugged, and walked back out. "Take a seat, I need to discuss something with you." Galil was confused, and took a seat. Riley cleared his throat before speaking. "Galil, what the fuck did I just watch? Your squad's coordination was all over the place. You were pulling 'tactics' I saw rookies doing in basic back when I was with SOCOM. Constantly splitting your squad up, sending people alone, not sticking together as a cohesive unit, rookie mistakes like that. MP40 and Spectre are especially guilty of not coordinating well between the two of them, who had the important job of CLEARING THE TOWER OF HOSTILES. You even had to have PPK clean up after them, because they left at least five hostiles without checking. Seriously, what the hell?"
Galil sputtered. "Commander, with all due respect, we're all fresh T-Dolls. None of us really have the experience of veterans. I did what I could with what I knew about squad tactics, which was very little." She was obviously very worried about being reprimanded, so Riley decided to ease her fears.
"Relax, Galil, I'm just winding you up. I'm not my drill instructor. If I were him, you would have to re-try that simulation until your damn legs turned to a fine powder, or your brain got fried. One of the two, anyways. You honestly did better in your first simulation than a lot of the guys I knew in basic did at the end of training. No friendly fire incidents being a big reason why, actually."
Galil was shocked. "Really? You mean that?"
Riley nodded. "Yep. I actually wanted to go over a couple things with you, not to tear you a new one. First, what was up with the coin toss? That didn't seem very tactically informed, it just came down to chance where you would have went."
Galil shrugged. "Force of habit?"
"Well, I want you to cut that out, starting now. I don't want the lives of my soldiers being up to chance, I want commanders making tactically informed decisions, not gamblers putting their squad's lives up to a coin. Got it?"
Galil nodded, and Riley smiled in satisfaction.
"Good, next question. Why did nobody throw a flashbang, a smoke grenade, or a grenade at the machine gunner?"
"We weren't issued any, only MP40 had any type of explosives, which she was saving for the ammo cache."
Riley's face went blank. "Could you repeat that first bit?"
"We aren't issued flashbangs, smoke grenades, or hand grenades unless specifically required of us."
Riley's face turned to frustration. "That's gonna get changed immediately. I am having none of that 'only select people get incredibly useful equipment and nobody else gets it' shit. I am NOT risking your lives because someone wasn't allowed to bring a specific type of grenade." He sighed, and made eye contact with Galil. "Final question, what was with the IED? Was it your idea?"
"No, actually, it was Tiss' idea. How many kills did it get, anyways?"
Riley paused to think. "33 out of 50 guys total, I believe." Galil whistled.
"I only saw a platoon out there, where were the other 10?"
"Around the opposite side of the tower."
"Oh. Well… what did you even put in the cache?"
"Five or six demolition charges, twenty bricks of C4, and enough sticks of Comp B to make the Germans shit themselves from the grave, plus the ammo, grenades, and rockets. I think you put three or four of the demo charges into the basket, and seven bricks of C4, which is why you and the others got knocked the fuck out. That was a damn smart move, even if it was suicidal as hell. Probably would have worked if your entire squad wasn't knocked out, too."
Galil was stunned. She expected to get chewed out for pulling a stunt like that, not told it wasn't that bad of an idea after all. "I..er.. thank you, Commander."
"That should be all before I have to chew out MP40 and Spectre. Was there anything else you wanted to discuss before I dismiss you?"
Galil paused for a minute. "No." was all she said.
"Then consider yourself dismissed. Bring Spectre and MP40 in when you leave, though." Riley said. Galil nodded, and headed for the door to get the two SMG dolls.
Several seconds after Galil left the room, both MP40 and Spectre came in, and Riley directed them both to the chairs in front of him. "Take a seat, I've got a bone to pick with you two." he said.
Both girls sat down, and Riley pulled up a video feed from the simulation, replaying the machine gunner portion and tower clearing on a loop. "What the fuck is this?" he asked, pointing to the feed.
"What's what, commander?" Spectre asked, confused.
Riley zoomed in on the footage of Spectre spraying the machine gunner down. "This." he said, pointing to the Spectre in the video feed.
"I still don't understand. What are you talking about?"
"You're spraying the machine gunner mindlessly at full auto. You aren't even aiming down the sights, for God's sake. How do you even hit targets without hitting your allies?"
MP40's eyes widened at the realization of what was going on. "Oh! Kommandant, I'm not sure if you're aware, but SMG T-Dolls like Spectre and I are trained NOT to aim down the sights. We're mostly used as distractions for the main T-Dolls in an echelon, like, say, Galil and Tiss to use to distract the enemy while they shoot at them. Distractions can be anything from running into the enemy's line of fire, to suppressing them with inaccurate fire." she said, and she felt Riley's eyes immediately fall onto her.
"What in the fuck? Why suppression? Are machine gun T-Dolls not a thing?" he asked, confused.
"They are, actually." MP40 said.
"Then why is there a need for you to act like you're a bunch of Stormtroopers, instead of hitting accurate shots?"
Both girls looked at each other, and shrugged. "Dunno, honestly." Spectre said.
"I want you both to start aiming to kill, not aiming to annoy. I also want you to start aiming down your sights and using short controlled bursts in open areas. That means no more full auto unless you're in a tight CQC space. Am I clear?" Riley said, eyeing both of the girls.
"Ja, Kommandant. Crystal clear." MP40 said, and Spectre simply nodded.
"Good. Dismissed." Riley said, and both dolls left the room. Riley moved to the intercom. "Logistics Officer Kalina, please report to the Command Center. I repeat, please report to the Command Center."
That's chapter 2 done, and I've introduced the commander. Now, to explain a few things.
In the last chapter's A/N I said that T-Doll death was permanent, and Fireteam Rommel, who had an MP40, got wiped out, yet here stands another MP40 with Fireteam Echo. What I said about T-Doll death is still true, but I should have been more specific about what this means. When a T-Doll dies, that specific T-Doll, and all of the memories and skills it had acquired over its lifespan, is gone for good. However, duplicates of those T-Dolls can exist with the exception of AR Team (for obvious reasons) and, to my understanding, Squad 404. They'll lack the memories and skills of the original T-Doll that died, only mimicking them in appearance and functionality. This wasn't originally how I intended this, but I had a realization that was basically "wait, fuck, how do I explain the duplicates oh fuck I have to clarify the permadeath rule" after writing chapter one.
Conveniently, this also gives me a bit of wiggle room regarding my killing of Agent. I'm not entirely sure what path to take with Chapter 4, and my realization of the duplicates being unexplainable under the original rules enables Agent to live again, albeit without the memories or skills of the original Agent. I've got two paths to go down regarding Agent, one is the way I intended chapter 4 to go after saying Agent was perma-dead, and another is bringing in a duplicate of Agent without the original's skills or memories. I'm probably gonna go with the former, but we'll have to wait and see.
Before anyone asks "why weren't they fighting Sangvis Ferri dolls?", Sangvis and Griffin aren't in an open war at the moment. Don't you think it would be a bit suspicious to Sangvis if Griffin were loading up all of their commanders with simulations and scenarios focusing on fighting Sangvis Ferri? That would be 1930s Germany level of "hey we intend on fucking everyone's shit up lol please ignore us until we attack you". Sure, some commanders would likely have scenarios and simulations for fighting Sangvis, but it's more of a 1960s Cold War situation where both sides are trying to sabotage the other (See: Chapter 0) rather than openly bombing each other into the dust. I wanted a coordinated force for them to face, anyways, but at this moment in time, Sangvis Ferri is not that coordinated force.
Also, fun fact, the Army in the simulation was actually originally going to be the UNSC using their Halo 3 designs. I cut out a significant chunk of dialogue that explained this, and it felt very hamfisted with the UNSC. Here's what that was originally supposed to look like in the debrief section.
"Yeah, actually. The soldiers we were fighting in the simulation, who were they? They looked like they were UN soldiers from before Beilan, but something was off about their armor, like it was more angular, and made of a harder material than Kevlar. Plus, I've never seen any weapons exactly like the ones they had, ever, only one looked familiar and that one was like a longer F2000." she asked.
"They were the UNSC. They never existed, and are purely fictional, but their guns are comparable to your own. They're from some sci-fi series from the mid 2000s that was partially inspired by two sci-fi movies from the 1980s, to give you a better idea of how fictional they are." Riley said.
"If they never existed and are fictional, how did you put them in the simulation? Wouldn't making them have taken more time between us getting the order to go to the simulation pods, and the simulation actually starting?" Galil asked, confused.
"You're right, normally it would have, however, the computer that I used to set the simulation up actually let me throw a bunch of images into it, then the system would then build a faction from said images using a neural network and deep learning, and then the faction is ready to go. I expected it to take longer, honestly, but it was done with the reference images I gave it in about two minutes." Riley explained.
"So they're fictional, I got that bit, but why them and not one of the groups that could pose an actual threat to us? Wouldn't we be better off fighting those in the simulation than a group that doesn't actually exist?" She asked, still confused at Riley's logic.
"I would have pitted you against an actual threat to us, but didn't, for two reasons. First, the simulation was only pre-loaded with a bunch of unorganized rebels and terrorists, and two, I wanted to test your squad against a coordinated force to see how you handled against them and their tactics to get an idea of what I'm working with." Riley explained, leaning on the table in the center of the room.
"Oh, that's…understandable." Galil said, looking down at her feet.
See? Hamfisted as fuck.
That covers just about everything, so 'till next time. Be sure to leave reviews.
-Tweak