Conniving Multiplayer - Game 3

[Nevill]

The year is 2170, and it was a good year.

[MercantileInterest]

Spartan Federation: Analysis

[MercantileInterest]

Soon...

[Nevill]

The Drones admitted to attacking us without provocation.

Again. 

[MercantileInterest]

Probe teams are provocation.

[Nevill]

Yeah, yeah. Probes are provocation, big territory is provocation, no guards in the headquarters is provocation. In fact, even one player having less combat units than the other is a provocation in and of itself - why does he must tempt them so?

You are an aggressor in this one, and there is no wiggling room for interpretation. You can deport probe teams that are trespassing. That you didn't means you have attacked one that wasn't in your territory. There is no excuse.

[MercantileInterest]

//Initiating Transmission//

Origin: Union of the Steel Driving Men
Carrier: 5148 MHz, Narrowband
Time: 0800Z, June 28, 2174
Destination: The Spartan Federation
Stamp: Defiance

The captain said to John Henry
I'm gonna bring that steam drill roun'
Gonna bring that drill out on the job
Gonna whop that steel on down, lawd, lawd,
Gonna whop that steel on down.

John Henry said to the captain
A man ain't nothing but a man
But before I'd let that steam drill drive me down
I'll die with this hammer in my hand, lawd, lawd,
I'll die with this hammer in my hand.

//End Transmission//


Foreman Domai's address at Pig-Iron Plaza:

My fellow laborers!

Honest folk want honest work, an honest woman, honest homemade stew and cold liquor at the end of the day. My fellow laborers, we are all honest men! From the boomtown of New Botany Bay to the steaming smokestacks of the Crucible, from the isles of industry to the fishing quays of Cannery Row, from the shops of sweat to the pits of grime, we are honest men. We want a fair chance, a fair wage and a free land. Not the poorest among us would willingly give up the strength of his working arm for any privilege. We are honest men!

There's another type of man, a greedy man. He wants to sit on cushions sipping effeminate cocktails while groaning serfs moan under the lash. He wants indentured maidservants knotting up on the laces on his pampered wife's sleeves. He spits at the thought of honest work. The greedy man takes up arms to seize the fruits of the working man's labor.

The Spartan Federation would wrap chains around our necks. [Booing] Earlier today, we boarded one of their ships in the Pearl Sea, our sea, to conduct a routine smuggling check. Well, I don't what our sailors found there because the Spartans surprised and murdered every last one of them. [Uproar. Eighty-nine seconds elapse before crowd subsides.] Even after this callous act of war, I tried to negotiate with Santiago. [Booing]. She didn't want to hear from me. From us. She wanted war! [Tumult]

The Spartan heart pumps greed rather than blood. They destroyed the University. [Gasps] They slaughtered the placid herbivorous Progenitors. You've heard of that atrocity but you haven't heard of the Planet Cult. Decades ago, a lost Hive expedition settled by the freshwater sea. Cut off from the rest of humanity, they flourished as a content and fecund society. No, you haven't heard this before. Our scholars have only recently pieced the story together. The Spartans butchered the Planet Cult! In the night of a thousand tears, they struck across the entire civilization. Thousands died in fire. The surviving males were forced to toil on statues of paramilitary officers until they collapsed from exhaustion. The females, and I shake to say this, the females have endured lives as breeding animals, with no thought to their happiness. From this stock, Santiago has raised a generation imperious and cruel, an endless legions of Janissaries. Their supposed cloning vats? Lies! Foul-faced, treacherous, maggot breath lies!

They want to start a war but they're not going to like it when we finish it. To the factories, to the shipyards, to the forges, to the anvils, to the smelters, to the armories; build for victory! The Steel Driving Men will fight! [Thunderous outpouring of support. Repeated cries of 'down with Sparta' and 'death to Santiago'.]

[Nevill]

2175, the year of the first naval battle on the Planet.

2 years until our 50th anniversary of conflict with the Drones.

[MercantileInterest]

There really was a Planet Cult?  We only got the idea by watching cheap Howellite holo-vid 'documentaries', which we selectively remaster to improve the portrayal of the working class before releasing.

[MercantileInterest]

Union Bulletin: Flash Update
1715Z, August 4, A.D. 2177

The skilled sailors of the Rustbucket Flotilla, under the visionary leadership of Admiral Ulrik Svensgaard, have devastated the Spartan Hungerfleet. With superior firepower, superior vessels, superior seamanship and superior tactics, we have reduced what was once the pride of our cursed foe to no more than drowning galley slaves amidst melting slag on an ocean blazing with oil. The totalitarian regime has no strength which matches the strength of free labor. All interlopers shall perish upon our seas.

[Pierce Ji-Yang]

Announcement: Yang strongly objects to all the violence and bloodshed in the northern hemisphere. In order to stop the mindless devastation, Pierce Ji-Yang has reluctantly volunteered to be Planet's Supreme Leader. In the name of humanity and all that is good forward all pledges of servitude to:

Supreme Leader Pierce Ji-Yang
Most Humble resident of Grand Palace
#1 People's Lane, Pierce's Landing, People's Perfect Collective.

After this announcement, the People's Perfect Collective cheered in applause and celebrated with a party looking forward to the first foreign emissaries and the unification of mankind.

[MercantileInterest]

Nevill found a bizarre loophole which makes it possible to reverse engineer conventional payloads from Havoc Rockets. Naturally, this is against the rules. We've updated the rules in the first post to reflect this.

[MercantileInterest]

![Glorious Workers' Music]

High Alert!

Men of Steel, the battle for the Pearl Sea is over. Our flag flies from every isle. Our warships rule the waves. The piratical vessels of the Spartan Federation cower in their rotting dockyards.

Men of Steel, the battle for New Austrialis has begun. The Spartan Hungerfleet, rebuilt with a massive cost of energy and untold thousands of dead slaves, once again threatens us. Steaming through the murk of the Wormfloat Channel, the cursed fleet spewed thousands of mind scrubbed janissaries upon our fair shores but we were not unprepared. Though they battered their rovers to pieces on the defenses, not one Spartan set foot in our great city. Though they bled out an ocean of blood, still we held firm. Furthermore, Working Class Command had allowed them to attack. The Rustbucket Flotilla, under the fearless Admiral Svensgaard, ambushed our foe and broke the greater part of their strength. Spartan Blood-commodore Ignacio Stultz is presumed dead after the destruction of his flagship.

Hear this, you free men! The battle is not yet over. Oppressive fascist forces remain encamped amongst the craters of the battlefield or still floating with fires on all decks. They must not be allowed to succeed. All able bodied men to the battlements! Work for victory! Work for triumph! We'll give Santiago such a hammering she never comes crawling back this way.

Eh? What say you, men? {Cheers}

[Buster's Uncle]

Link fixed - the 's' in 'https' stands for 'submission [to the bossmen]' and has NO place in a proud working man's video embedding.

[MercantileInterest]

Link fixed - the 's' in 'https' stands for 'submission [to the bossmen]' and has NO place in a proud working man's video embedding.

Many thanks! Hard for us to figure these things out with -3 research.

EDIT: We're at -6 research right now.