NationStates Jolt Archive

Jakob Gard was torn from his alcohol-induced slumber by the same irritating bell that had awoken him every day for the last twenty-six years. Sometimes, when he was horribly bored, he could still recall how the bell sounded that first day, the day after he turned ten.

"Go on now, stay safe. There's good luck in this family, you know – we've all kept our fingers." His beloved mother had told him.

"Good luck son," his father had boomed as Jakob dashed out the door, "I want to see 'Member of the Merchant Cadre' after your name someday!"

Well, Jakob had kept all his fingers – thanks to the family luck – but he was still J. Gard, Apprentice Ratcheteer to the rest of the world. His parents were long gone, his father euthanized after burning iron dust destroyed his lungs – his mother ended her own life shortly after. The alarm clock in his room was the only thing that remained static, it seemed, always calling him to work at four in the morning. Just like the Merchant Cadre remained static. The same people had always been in charge, for all of his thirty-six years he had always been in the same place, everyone he knew was still in the same place, unless death had decided otherwise. Long ago, Jakob had learned hope would find you disappointed, and ambition would find you in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Foundation, the city his miserable existance was bound to.

---

"Heya Rik, what do we have today?" Jakob inquired with forced optimism.

Rik didn't return the kindness – the circles under his eyes made his exhaustion obvious. "Uh...oh, yeah. Mk III Rescrapper."

"Really?!" Now Jakob was faking incredulity. Their repair hanger worked on Rescrappers all the time. "Mk III...bloody ancient."

"Yeah...you're on the twenty-second wheel. Needs a full interior scan, refit anything that's messed up. And cut out the British junk. It's really, really not funny."

"Uh..." Jakob decided faking emotions wasn't fun anymore, either. "Right. Sorry."

"Just get to work."

---

"Urk." It was the only thing Jakob could muster as he moved one of the heavy cogs into the recesses of the twenty-second wheel.

The main wheels of an industrial steamcrawler were gigantic, for they had to propel the five story monsters about Foundation to continue the expansion and matinence of the city. The interior of a wheel's workings were easily the size of a premier apartment, filled with cogs of all sizes and scrolls of power and mobility. Finally, perfectly centered within each wheel was a crystal attuned to its master's magical signature, so he could operate it with a series of commands, as one might do with a human subordinate. The Crusader Cadre had similar steamcrawlers, but of widely varying designs, weapon loadouts, and sizes. In the world of steamcrawlers, there was no such thing as uniformity, for every one of them had its own idiosyncracies – their own personalities, some might say.

"Alright boys, clear the 'crawler! Let's see what he'll do so far!" Rik hollered, his voice ricocheting about the hanger's steel walls like a rubber ball.

From every niche of the Rescrapper's iron body, men and women coated in grease and oil fled from the monster like ants from a decending boot.

However, it was nothing but a metallic mumble to Jakob, who was busy sealing the twenty-second wheel's new cog with a scroll of speed when Rik gave the command.

With the groan of an awful beast rising from sleep, the mechanisms of the Rescrapper began to move, including the new cog in the twenty-second wheel.

Jakob found his arm pinned, then crushed. He looked to the rusted maze of rotating iron before him, and exhaled slowly as pain filled him. With deep resignation, he realized the pain would only last for a moment more. Luckily for him, his skull was neatly crushed. The Gard family line died with Jakob, though the world was just as uncaring as the cog which killed him, and the steamcrawler to who it belonged.

Yes, in Steamhaven, people never moved up or down. They just died.

((Thank you for the lockage in the duplicate thread.))

Steamhaven's existance was not widely acknowledged, but those that did know about it for one of two reasons – its residents' godly reverence for the machines that did the Cadres' biddings, and the tremendous amount of pollution Steamhaven had managed to produce in its relatively short span of existance. In fact, Steamhaven's industrial stampede had done little more than turn an icy wasteland into an icy wasteland coated in soot and pelted by the occasional acid rainstorm. It was rumored – rumored because the citizens of Steamhaven were never allowed in the Cadres' great flying machines – that Steamhaven looked like nothing more than a great ink blot from above, and that no dicernable figure could be picked out from below the miles-high plumes of smoke and steam. The citizens were regularly told by the Cadres that this proved what a fantastic industral beast their fair nation was. This was obviously the popular opinion of Steamhaven's people, because there was nobody to tell them otherwise, and it made enough sense, if you didn't think about it too hard.

---

Head Cog-Priest Julius Fyartho.

Julius loved his signature. Head Cog-Priest Julius Fyartho. He figured his new title was more important than his name, so it preceeded his name. Some called him arrogant. Some called him suicidally ambitious. But none of his detractors were Head Cog-Priest Julius Fyartho, so who cared what they thought? The priest finished etching the last rune into the circumference of the cog, and moved to sign the scroll of confirmation sealed to the cog's edge. Head Cog-Priest Julius Fyartho. It took him a few seconds of staring at the ink-drenched parchment to realize he'd already signed the scroll three times prior in his fervor, like a schoolgirl idly prefixing Mrs. before her latest infatuation's name. Julius shrugged and moved on to the next cog. At least they would know for certain that cog had been graced by Head Cog-Priest Julius Fyartho.

Oh, damn the God-Machine, he was doing it again.

Zeppelin Kaiser's Glory

The vast flying machine that single-handedly managed to simultaneously ignore basic aerodynamics, buoyancy problems and the less-than-positive effects of comparatively inefficient coal-powered propulsion was still far out in the north atlantic, several dozen kilometres away from greenland.

Not that it would get any closer, of course. Greenland wasn't its destination, it was merely getting close to it as it crossed the ocean in search for... Well, nothing. It crossed it mostly to show the flag of the Kaiserreich to the sizeable traffic all around.

Fähnrich 3. Klasse Max Eberl looked out of the windows, along the dirty, armoured body of the insanely ineffective but nonetheless intimidating craft he was on, for the moment diverting his attention from pointless guard duty to the black fumes out there, over greenland.

Looks like things are changing here, he thought, imagining the blackened snow falling there, and then switching back to full attention, noticing the vast, black (And compulsory for all higher ranks) moustache of a gold-and-silver adorned officer in front of him.

"Ahem-"

"No excuses! You'll be reprimanded!"

Well, damn...

Still, his thoughts were with whatever had started to grow out there... He was quite curious indeed.

Not only him, come to think of it. But for now, Kapitän Heinrich von Schinkel had to reason to do anything. Still, at least he made notes in the overcomplex, curved scripture of his people. Perhaps later, he could visit this place.

Fredrich had been ecstatic when the acceptance letter arrived. He had been ecstatic when he was annointed with holy oils and proclaimed Chaplain-Adept of the God-Machine. He had been past ecstatic by the time he had stepped into the Lancer Fraternity.

Fredrich was far from ecstatic now. He had learned quickly that "zergling" was no term of endearment. It meant he was the lowest of the low, overseeing masses of the simplest of steamcrawlers, the constructs that could hardly even be called 'crawlers. Not until the fraternity decided his skills had been adequately honed would he be allowed access to even the basic warcrawlers. Fredrich was beginning to think his new life in the Crusader Cadre was all too much like his old life in the construction hangars – dangerous and joyless.

Fredrich had been focusing hard on memorizing his prayers to take away the hunger pains of his initiation fast. It wasn't working.

"What is my little zergling doing in the study? Distracting himself from hunger?" Brother-Chaplain Adecus inquired from the doorway of the fraternity's massive study.

"No...just fine. I must study these incantations hard if I wish to move upwards, is all." The Chaplain-Adept responded, carefully filtering the venom from his voice.

"Move up," Adecus scoffed, "right. Let me tell you something, zergling. There is a very low ceiling in the Crusader Cadre. Once you hit full Chaplain, that's it. The end. You're there for the rest of your miserable life. I was you once, zergling. I thought I could be a Lancer Bishop, or even the Archbishop, if I worked hard enough and was faithful to the God-Machine. I trusted the God-Machine would watch over me, and reward me for my piety to His Greatness. Guess what – the God-Machine does not watch over us. It is the dark powers of Ambition and Ruthlessness that reward us. But there is something else to be learned – for all the wily tricks and backstabbing we try, all the green pastures are already taken. There is nowhere to move up to, zergling, so you might as well put the incantations back, stow the faith and piety, and settle in for the worst years of your life."

Fredrich rocked back on his haunches, mulling Chaplain's lecture over.

"Well..." he breathed, "if that is so...may I have some bread now?"

Adecus scoffed even louder, in a piercing tone that echoed about the marble study. "No, for you see, little zergling, cruelty to others is all we have left."