Chapter 63 - Playing the Players

At a front line base for the Alterran Alliance near what was formerly western Germany, the military academy cadets and recent graduates stationed here numbered only 50. This base would be considered under capacity since over the past 4 years only 200 cadets completed the military academy curriculum and they were distributed across the 4 main front line bases, but those 200 were all pilots while the rest of the infantry still was at normal capacity. No players were at this base nor had access to it so they didn't need to have any special services setup for them.

Inside the well lit meeting room of the Command Center, 3 generals and their assistants were discussing what they should do about getting the player's involved. The meeting room was a fairly plain room with a long table and 10 brown leather chairs around it. The 3 generals sat towards the head of the table but left that seat open while their assistants stood behind each of them with holoboard and stylus to take down notes.

"We need to get the player's involved!" said a rotund man with gray hair and a mustache wearing a dark blue Alterran Alliance Military uniform adorned with 1 star on each shoulder showing his 1 star general rank. This man is General Jameson Bell, one of the oldest generals left in the Alterran Alliance. It is often joked that he was around for the first Great War between the Alliance and the Hegemony back in 2050.

"We are all in agreement on that General Bell, no need to remind us of this again. The issue we can't agree upon is how to get them involved." A woman reminded General Bell. She was an attractive woman with short black hair, toned body and a heavy French accent who wore a similar dark blue uniform with a skirt instead of slacks and had two stars on each shoulder. This woman was General Elise Bellerose, she turned 50 earlier this year and has been a little sensitive about her age ever since, but she has always been very direct and not one to mince words so she earned the respect of a lot of her colleagues especially after serving as an Army Ranger right before the end of the 21st century.

"Just send me a few hundred of them and I'll train them myself the real way with blood, sweat, tears, and more blood!" General Bell said gleefully while his belly jiggled slightly from laughing.

"We do need to train them, but we have to be careful so they do not defect. We should offer incentives to motivate them and instead treat them more like a mercenary force rather than under our direct control." A man sitting across from General Bell said, this was General David Brian, a four star general and one of only four. He had a fairly handsome complexion and was approaching 70 years of age, but still maintained himself physically despite being a very high rank and not needing to partake in actual battles anymore. He earned his position by being honest, smart, and never giving an order he wouldn't do personally. Some might consider his strong moral integrity to be his downfall, but he has earned a small cult following and he even jokes about himself as being 'The Nicest General in the Army'.

"Nonsense! We do own them! Why back in my day…" General Bell started to carry on theatrically about his 'impressive' achievements that earned him the right to sit with all of the other generals.

"You haven't done squat in 40 years, you were only promoted to a general of the supply division to keep you from causing more harm than good you old windbag!" thought General Bellerose. Sadly the only reason General Bell was still around is because he didn't want to spend all day with his wife and he couldn't afford to leave her, or so he says. Truth is he really does love the military and the Alterran Alliance, but he is starting to go senile with age and his personality easily clashed with others.

"That's quite enough Jameson..." an elderly woman walked in flanked by two assistants as she told General Bell to quiet down. She wore the same uniform as General Bellerose, but hers had 5 stars and gold embroidery on the pauldrons symbolizing her as the commander for the entire army. This was General Lillian Deckard, her face carried a few wrinkles and her hair was gray and cut short, but her eyes still had plenty of life in them. Nobody knew General Lillian's age since she insisted on keeping it a secret, but it was rumored that she was probably around as old as General Jameson due to their familiarity. Unlike the other General's, she also preferred to be addressed by her first name instead of her married name.

General Lillian took a seat at the head of the table and everyone else in the room turned to pay attention to her. "So, Jameson, 3 assistants this time is it? Looks like David guessed correctly..." General Lillian stated then swiped General Brian 10 Alliance Credits.

General Bellerose clicked her tongue then also swiped General Brian 10 credits.

Each general had one assistant present except for General Jameson, he had 3 this time. Due to him going senile, General Bell would often forget if he gave himself an assistant or not for every meeting. Instead of doing the logical thing and writing it down, he would just try to remember it instead. This became a running bet among many of the generals as they would always guess how many assistants General Bell would have with him each time.

General Bell pretended to get mad as always about this running bet, but it was plain to see he enjoyed the attention. "Hmph, back in my day we bet with our lives!" General Bell said resolutely.

"Back in your day they used muskets..." General Lillian stated with a friendly smile.

The meeting room went dead silent for a moment before General Bell burst out laughing followed by everyone else except General Lillian. General Lillian didn't have much of a sense of humor, but sometimes it would sneak up on everyone and most of the time she wasn't even aware of what she said was funny as she was just giving her honest opinion.

"Now now, quiet down, I have a suggestion that should appease everyone." General Lillian said politely. "We need to give the players the option to join the military directly. Having only 200 pilots under our direct command is not nearly enough to counter the Hegemony forces. We may have 40 percent more pilots and superior mechs, but we're not a solid unified force."

"Given what we know of the player's nature, all we have to do is offer them 'quests' or 'missions' and they will come to complete them from what we've observed." General Brian said.

"Yes, but we are unable to control when and in some cases how they complete said mission. I still think it's better to force them to join the military so we can have a single united front." General Bellerose said.

"So let's try to take the positives of both of your arguments. I want to open the military up to them to join, but on a contractual basis. Merits do not cost us much so what we can do, aside from offering a salary of merits to those that join, is to offer them exclusive mechs and weapons as well as give exclusive missions." General Lillian said.

"Makes sense, from what I've read the players want to feel like they're special and if we can get them to think the military is exclusive that will get them to want to stay and maintain that status." General Brian stated.

"With player created factions though, won't they want to join their friend's factions instead of the military if given the choice?" General Bellerose said.

"Yes, but we all know that the faction system was designed to deplete the player's merits in order to create a greater demand for them and force them to disband their faction or have it be absorbed by the military." General Lillian said.

"Ok, so what do we do about those that want to leave the military after they recover their losses?" General Brian asked.

General Lillian's expression darkened slightly and she said "Who says we let them?"