Battles That Changed History, Second Period, Friday 2/5

[screwyoumarvel]

The students had handwavily been informed that they would be meeting in the Danger Shop today. When they arrived, they would find themselves in a mountain pass. Their teacher was standing next to a pile of red and blue jerseys, and another pile of assorted weaponry made out of Nerf foam. As the students entered they were advised to select a jersey.

"Welcome to Roncevaux Pass," Steve said once they were all assembled. "Modern-day Spain. It wouldn't have looked like this, exactly, but we'll take what we can get. This is an interesting battle; its actual impact on historical events has little to nothing to do with what actually happened here and a whole lot more to do with what people who weren't here would claim had happened hundreds of years later. The year is 788 AD. Charlemagne's forces meet with a Basque army. Charlemagne's army is defeated. His nephew, Roland, is killed, inspiring the famous Song of Roland. The Basque establish their independence." He paused. "Some people believe this was a battle between Christian forces, under Charlemagne, king of the Franks, and invading Muslim forces. This is not so. Both belligerents were Christian, in fact. Elsewhere, in other campaigns and other battles, Charlemagne did hold off the Muslim invasion, keeping them to Spain and keeping the rest of Europe Christian, which resulted in a lot of cultural developments on both sides and a lot of problems between the two religions regarding territory that persist to the present day. Charlemagne united Europe and helped set what it would be...but he didn't do it at Roncevaux. Here, he had a bad day. It's funny how legends get built, isn't it?

"So!" he clapped his hands. "Reds, you are the Franks. Blues, you are the Basques. Reds, see if you can change history. Blues, try to preserve it. Select your weapons, and begin."

Comments

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[screwyoumarvel]

Franks go here.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose wasn't exactly concentrating on the class today. The vast majority of her attention was on where she should be which was standing guard with Dimitri.

Still, he'd insisted and she had to admit Strigoi couldn't come out during the day so class it was. Even if she wasn't paying much attention.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[weetinyreese.livejournal.com]

"You're not a cat thing anymore," Kyle pointed out helpfully.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"You're like crazy observant," Rose told him. Not that she wasn't pretty happy to see him.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[weetinyreese.livejournal.com]

"It's one of my better skills. What did you do all week?"

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"Found evil post-it notes and destroyed them," Rose said, making a face. "And killed gremlins." She shrugged, giving him a grin. "As weeks go, it wasn't that bad really."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[weetinyreese.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, you might have had to go without destroying or killing anything!"

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

Rose snorted. "No, this week I just get to guard a jackass until whoever attacked that girl gets found out." And then she could kill them.

"What about you? I might've been a bobca, but I didn't notice you around that one class of Bond's."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[weetinyreese.livejournal.com]

"I fell into a locker and ended up some place called Vancouver. Someone got attacked?" He didn't really sound too up in arms about it. People got attacked all the time at home, but here it was a curiosity. Who, why, how - all of those questions came to mind. "And jackass aside, isn't the guarding thing good?"

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

She twisted her mouth. "Yeah, it'd good, just - " she shrugged, glancing over at him. "Not supposed to be yet, you know?" Also there was the whole bit with Dimitri there and Adrian and wow, too much weirdness.

"By a vampire," she explained. "Thus the whole guarding thing coming up since it's our job to protect him from the bad ones. The other night - it was that girl Raven who was in Ethics."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[weetinyreese.livejournal.com]

Kyle nodded in understanding. "I remember her. Think they'll find who did it?"

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[guardianborn.livejournal.com]

"God, I hope so," Rose said, fingering the silver stake that she hadn't managed to leave in the weapons locker oops. "Cause then I can stake his ass and never talk to Adrian again."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bloody-luck.livejournal.com]

Mat on the side with long odds and no chance of winning sounded about right, he thought.

And the race through the rain had somehow soothed the exposed bits of skin, even if he now smelled like a cookie.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bitchprince]

"So," Arthur said, sounding sporting about the whole thing, "I think we can turn this around."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bloody-luck.livejournal.com]

Mat plucked at his red jersey and then looked up. "I prefer winning," he said, glancing around at the terrain. "How did the Roland man make his errors? We don't want to do the same thing."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bitchprince]

"From what I've read?"

Of course Arthur knew a few things about this. Please. "He added to the enemy's forces by taking a few unpopular actions in the beleaguered city, then the Basques employed their superior knowledge of the terrain to trap and attack them."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bloody-luck.livejournal.com]

"So we can't change how bloody angry our opponents will be at us, but we could send out better scouts," Mat replied.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bitchprince]

"Better scouts," Arthur agreed, "But we still have the massive disadvantage of being somewhat trapped in a narrow space. We might have to lay our own traps."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bloody-luck.livejournal.com]

Mat glanced around again, eyes narrowing in thought. "This really is terrible ground," he admitted in an undertone. "What can we use to defend our heads? Do the shields lock?"

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bitchprince]

"If they don't, we'll simply have to make them," Arthur said, glancing at a couple. "Get a few archers in, get them a roof over their heads, point them up."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bloody-luck.livejournal.com]

He looked at the rest of the group. "Get the rest of them to run like hell?" he said. "There has to be better ground somewhere else while the archers hold the attack off."

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bitchprince]

Arthur shook his head. "That'll leave the archers with too little protection," he said, "We'll need to run a trap down along the beginning of the pass. I'm not sure if we can manage a proper fire trap, but we should be able to fashion something akin to a barricade. Give the archers some space to move towards the back, leave some cavalry at the rear..." He scrunged up his face.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[bloody-luck.livejournal.com]

"We're in a bloody pickle," Mat said, making a similar face. "Don't suppose any of our classmates can make bloody holes in the air to get us out of here?"

And they were really screwed if Mat was even thinking about using magic.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[notmyownage]

Claudia had a foam weapon and a give-em-hell attitude.

Unfortunately, she had no fighting skills to speak of.

Re: Group PlottyTime - Red

[morpherboy.livejournal.com]

Marco had a ton of energy and looked way too excited about the class assignment.