agogelogs | THE SKY WENT BLACK,

THE SKY WENT BLACK,

WHO? Everybody!
WHAT? Agoge's inaugural TDM.
WHEN? The Battle of Hattin, 1187.
ANYTHING ELSE? Violence, as always. Please warn in subject lines for anything beyond physical violence, and move to a personal journal if things go beyond PG-13.

FROM JERUSALEM WITH LOVE;

the horns of hattin, 1187: the holy land

read the jerusalem setting infopage

Your eyes open, and above you is the roof of a tent, a heavy woven material that blocks you from what must be an otherwise glaring heat that is beating down. Near you stands a man - you understand him, but you aren’t sure you are supposed to. Aware as you are that he is speaking Arabic, a trickle of words as he dabs water on your brow, that as you go to reply, you realise, you are speaking Arabic too. Urging you to sit up slowly, and now that you are awake -

“Good, slowly does it. You are meant to have heat stroke. Nothing sudden now. The Commander will explain it to you soon - in here it’s safe, no outsiders can come in. Check your BCE, it will tell you what has happened - ”

As he indicates to the small pack that seems to hold your belongings, he explains: you are in the encampment of Saladin, the greatest commander in all of Islam. He has been fighting the crusading invaders since the death of the Crusader King Baldwin VII. But one of the most important was about to start: you are here, at Hattin, though the enemy hasn’t arrived yet. Not that it means it’s time to rest: this is a war camp. There is much to do. Saladin runs a impressive army, and it wins by its discipline, no idle hands here, and for you, newly awakened to it, there is just as much to do. So enjoy the first few moments of reprieve, there won’t be much of it in the coming days.

MISSION OBJECTIVE

The forces of COST-- allied, today, with the armies of Saladin, though they will never know-- aim to win the day.

This is imperative, because Saladin's victory at Hattin makes his next victory possible: he intends to march on Jerusalem, long held by invading Crusaders, and take his city back. Historically, he wins a Hattin and at Jerusalem. But, the Regency supposes, if they could weaken Saladin in Hattin, perhaps even completely defeat him, he would not be so able to take the city.

Preserve the flow of history. Aid Saladin's army. Defeat the Crusader army at Hattin.

A MESSAGE FROM GROTHIA

>>@CMDR

@ALL I don't have time to explain right now, but the transporters have played havoc on the way in and we think that the - nevermind, the techdacts don't make any sense at the best of times. Your memory has been tampered with, one of the Regency's tricks, no doubt. Price for late intelligence, we didn't know until we made the transfer.

Short of it is, I put you all down as having a bout of heat stroke that knocked you out and that’s the story you need to stick to. Even if you don't want to trust me, you're going to have to follow my instructions if you want to live through the next week. We can do our reintroductions later.

Follow our instructions and we’ll all make it through this with minimal casualties.

Welcome back, soldiers. Good to have you with us again.

WIN THE DAY

MEDICAL

Help build up the army after the Siege of Tiberias.

After this battle, Saladin's forces turn toward Jerusalem, and eventually take it from Crusader control. It's imperative, then, that Saladin's forces are strong, healthy, and most importantly, alive. This is war: there are a larger number of soldiers who are wounded and require medical care to maintain the numbers. Saladin's forces are lucky: their medics are some of the best in the medieval world. But there is constant need for more hands on deck to assist. Whether that’s holding down a soldier to cut off his leg - or dress a wound. Maybe it’s just as simple as a soldier that wakes up from his fever wanting water, there is always something that needs doing.

STEALTH

Sabotage the water supply of the crusaders.

All armies march on their stomach, and in the desert, access to water means life or death. Saladin knows this, and the Crusaders are heading for the largest oasis between Jerusalem and Hattin to replenish their stores. Saladin has placed a line of defense at the oasis to stop the Crusaders. Some truly desperate Crusaders are risking death, attempting to break through the defenses in an attempt to get some water. Your orders are simple: no Crusader should be getting to that water.

STEALTH

You know what else armies need? Sleep. For those brave enough, its been encouraged to try and exhaust those Crusaders. Your orders are vague, leaving plenty of room for creativity: psychologically mess with them, mimic loud animals to wake them up, forcibly introduce these 12th century men to Cyndi Lauper at the top of your lungs. Whatever takes your fancy, just try not wake Saladin’s forces, they still need their beauty sleep. And most importantly: don't get caught.

COMBAT

The Crusaders are here: fight them. Crusaders will in heavy chain mail into battle, often with a padded gambeson underneath them. Aim your weapons for the chinks in the points that quickly immobilize: the throat, armpit, inner elbow, inner thigh, inner knee. You will always want to aim for the veins and joints. This isn't about clean, this is about hard and fast. Battles in the desert are made worse for every hour spent in the gruelly heat.

They fight with heavy sword and shield, and the metal they wear makes them more strongly defended, but also slower; they cannot mount their horses without some help, so if you manage to unhorse a Crusader, they must survive the remainder of the battle on foot. Often if you wounded a horse, it can kill the man riding it.

Medieval warhorses are huge animals that can do serious damage with a single kick; however, by Crusader tradition, many are stallions, which are famously willful difficult to control. Being thrown from one of these horses, especially in armor, is no small thing. This is where by contrast Saladin's army comes into its own. They ride a lighter horse more suited to this kind of warfare, and the cavalry works by spiking in quickly, reigning down an attack, then retreating. The Turks are famous for riding by, and shooting down arrows into foot soldiers before retreating out of range again.

Aside from the knights on their horses, keep an eye on hired mercenaries and others of all classes storming into battle. Watch out for crossbows: a single bolt can punch through thick metal, much less whatever you might be wearing. However, the shots take a great deal of time and strength to load, requiring the user to pull the bolt back while standing on the bow. The weapons are not stealthy, and striking an opponent while they load them is the surest route to victory. More traditional archers are far more difficult to defeat; though their arrows can't cut through metal, they can shoot from much farther away and draw another arrow ten times as fast. Other fighters charge in with cudgels, maces, spears, axes, polearms, and the fervent determination fanaticism brings. Do your fellow soldier on the battlefield a favor: try and take out an archer whenever you can. But for those fielding the arrows, don't stay put, they'll always try and take you out first.

The battle of Hattin is one of the most bloody in the history of the Crusades; famously, it is said that its outcome left the sky black for all the birds hungrily circling the carnage. Your job in this battle is twofold: fight to win, and survive.

COMBAT / STEALTH

Capture Guy D'Lusignan.

History dictates Guy D'Lusignan, current King of Frankish-ruled Jerusalem, is captured by Saracen forces, which later leads to Muslims recapturing Jersusalem from Frankish hands. Help the Saracen war parties ride out, make sure they aren't sabotaged, and attack King Guy's war party. Along with them, you'll find Reynard de Chatillion, another nobleman whose capture will herald a collapse of the Crusader forces. Medieval battle isn't like modern warfare, where soldiers fight on in spite of their leader's capture or death.

A medieval battle ends when one side gives up, or when a leader has been killed or captured. Capturing the heads of an army leads to the immediate death of the battle's morale and will to fight. To win the Battle of Hattin, it is imperative that Guy D'Lusignan and Raynard de Chatillion are captured, as they were in history.

read the jerusalem setting infopage

NAV. NETWORK LOGS OOC PLURK DISCORD

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( she's in a similar situation to him, finding herself pulled from one battlefield to the next, and one that looks, in its sandy description, similar to where she'd been before. though they're not the same, if the weapons, sole language and clothing didn't tip anyone off.

she'd been exploring the tent, taking a moment to look outside of it when she hears the question. she supposes that this is it, whatever 'this' is supposed to be. and when given how rudimentary the weapons are. if she could remember what they've supposedly forgotten... hopefully once they make it through this they'll find out more )

Do they not cause enough damage on their own?

( she doesn't have her suit or staff with her, but they'd worked together long enough that jack would still recognise her, even though she is clueless as to who he is )

Edited 2017-09-16 20:22 (UTC)

[Despite being content to grumble to himself about having to fight a literal medieval battle and be period-accurate about it, 76 isn't so caught up in his own musings that he doesn't recognize the voice. For a moment he wonders if it's someone or something playing a cruel joke on him--if she's pre-programmed into the simulation and thrown at him to extract information. It takes him a moment to realize she doesn't recognize him. Why would she, when even without his visor, the clothing of the era allows him to keep his face covered?

But this is Angela, he can tell that much, and he feels the bottom drop out of his stomach at the very sight of her. Six years and all of his efforts to distance himself from the man he used to be seems to mean nothing when she's right in front of him, talking to him like he's a stranger.

He might as well be.]

I--

[His eyebrows are furrowed together, and there's no playing this off like he's just startled someone heard him talking to himself. It takes him a long moment to find words, steeling himself against a tide of feelings he's worked very hard to keep at bay. It's easier when the human cost of his actions isn't standing right in front of him.]

It's not what I'm used to.

( there's a gentle frown at his hesitation, a few different questions going through her mind as to the cause. had she startled him, did he know her, was he as uncomfortable around women as many of the soldiers here were?

instead, his actual answer tells her why he'd paused, and her expression shifts into a sigh, soldiers type of look. she knows this type very well )

I'm not used to the level of supplies we have here-- ( or having to disguise herself as a man, though that part was easier to do than work with what she could only consider limited resources. rudimentary supplies she was used to in their own war-torn areas, but antibiotics themselves seemed such luxury now )

We have to use what we're given.

[It's amazing how easily the sound of her voice starts to wear away all of the carefully-constructed defenses he's erected in the wake of Overwatch's fall. It's like fine-grained sandpaper, rubbing at the calloused exterior, trying to reveal the man buried underneath. Slow, inefficient work, but if this keeps up, Jack already knows he's doomed.

He should come clean--maybe--or maybe that's what they want. He can't imagine that Angela's presence here means anything good. She might be as much a part of the simulation as the rest of it. That might be the goal, now that he thinks about it. Give him something familiar in a situation that's otherwise completely insane.

76 swallows hard. Tries to rebuild his defenses.]

I've made do with worse. Can't say I like it.

[He should end the conversation there--walk away, but of course there are answers he wants.]

Do you remember signing on to this?

( of course he has. angela doesn't know quite how much it's true, everyone's always "had worse", but at least he doesn't like it. that angela can agree with. she might be going along with the situation, helping those that are in need, but suddenly being brought here, kidnapped if it wasn't something she agreed to--

but until those memories return angela doesn't know what it is, just that there are people that need her help. their help )

No, though after I woke up things weren't too clear. I'm not certain whether I have something I can't remember or if it was something else that they did.

( her eyes are probing him, trying to find something in his expression, though with how well concealed his face is it is difficult to see much )

Do you?

No.

[And his conversation with the so-called commander of this operation didn't exactly put him at ease. If what she's saying is true, then he's got six entire months of memory he can't account for. Has he been away from Ana that long--from their mission? Did he willingly sign onto this, or was he kidnapped, and this is just their way of convincing recruits to be complacent?

It's all a little much, and he can't tell whether or not he's relieved that Angela can't remember it either. Perhaps it'd be a worse sign if she truly believed herself to be from this place.]

What's the last thing you remember?

[She might think it won't make sense to him, but it will--much more than she knows, and it'll help him give some context to where they stand.]

Hmm?

( there's a small frown. it wouldn't matter much to him, not when they're not from the same place most likely. she has yet to find anyone from home here, and even so none of her friends or former colleagues had been with her, or in the past few months. or years )

I was treating a patient. An old wound had been reopened.

( it was also far from the first time that it had happened )

Do you think what we were doing has something to do with why we're here?

Back home?

[Jack isn’t sure whether or not he should pretend not to know her—she’d be recognizable to anyone from their world simply because of her involvement with Overwatch, so it’s not out of the question that even Soldier: 76 would know Angela Ziegler if she stood in front of him.

The question, then, is if he wants to reveal that they share a world of origin. Angela is smart, she might guess as much before he manages to confess it himself.

If she’s not already programmed to know, of course.

He doesn’t have a good answer to her question—if he happens upon more people that he knows, he might be able to decipher a pattern, but for now he can’t even begin to guess.]

Skills they needed, maybe. You’re a doctor?

I am, but I was thinking more than just the obvious.

( of course doctors and soldiers would be needed in a war but they could have then recruited anyone. angela didn't know anything about this man other than what she could currently see, and even barring his physical appearance that wasn't much, but based on herself she had a few guesses )

Perhaps what we've done or how we've used our training is what they needed. Or somewhere that we've been. I've treated soldiers, and been on a battlefield before. Perhaps you have something equally as usual, more than any soldier may know.

[Doctors. Soldiers. 76 can't accurately start drawing patterns until he has a larger sample size, but if they're yanking people out of the time stream or whatever the hell it is they're doing, it makes sense to take individuals with the skills they need. She's perceptive as always, voicing what he's thinking as he thinks it.]

I'm a soldier.

[Might as well admit it. He's willing to disclose some basic information about himself if it means they can get to the answers they want.]

Not much else special about me.

[That, however, is an outright lie.]

( it is an outright lie, and whilst angela doesn't know that she doesn't like the implication that this whole thing could be random. that they were randomly selected to be brought here. surely there must have been a purpose? )

I understand 'classified' very well. I'm not looking for details of your missions, though I expect that our... travel partners are very familiar with them.

( whomever, along with this 'commander' brought them there )

Though lying will not get us very far. We have to be honest, at least honest enough to keep each other safe.

( they're in another place, and what seems like another time. they had to work together, even if it was just keeping each other alive )

[76 really does not want to think about the kind of dossier these people might have on him, or whether or not they chose him because of his very specific skill set. All things he'll try to fight down unsuccessfully, even after he's determined whether or not any of it is real.]

I ain't lying to you, Doc.

[That's the biggest lie of all, because he's lying to her in more ways than she'll ever know, at least for now. He raises his hands just a little defensively.]

But I know my way around a battlefield.

[Not necessarily one like this, but he's trying to reassure her that he knows what he's doing.]

( it will have to do, angela supposes, though she's distinctly not happy about the conversation, about a few things. it all feels a little familiar, and that was a familiarity that angela had put behind her a long time ago. she can't put her finger on it exactly but-- )

Then you'll certainly be put to use here.

( and angela has no doubts that she'll be seeing him again. even the experienced and highly skilled soldiers end back up on her table. jack had been one of the best that she'd known and he'd had more than a few injuries )

Hopefully for the right reasons.

I'm getting that feeling.

[They're here to fight--to preserve history as it should be, but thrust into this situation as he is, 76 can't be entirely sure he's on the right side of things. With an apparent gap in his memory, he's not sure how much he's been manipulated. It's not surprising to hear Angela imply the same thing. She's always been smart. Cautious. Never wanting to cause undue harm.]

They say we'll be able to ask more questions if we survive this.

[His tone of voice, however, indicates that he's not entirely pleased with it.]

That's a big if to give us.

( it isn't entirely a question of their abilities or whether they'll survive but how long would they have to survive for before they were given these answers?

would the answers come? asking questions didn't mean that you would get the answers, and they'll have already have done this group's work. you work once before asking questions you may not get to ask the questions )

Surely there's someone that would be amenable to a conversation before that.

( even just a short one, with a better promise )

I plan to survive, doctor.

[If only to get some answers, but the truth of the matter is that survive is what he's always done. 76 will fight until there's nothing left in him to give--that much has always been his greatest strength (or greatest weakness, depending on who you ask).]

Did you speak to the commander?

[The person who calls herself the commander, anyway.]

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THE SKY WENT BLACK,

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