Howl: A World at War Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

again, every single competition was about that. Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost, and sometimes you watched your team's season go down in flames and wished you had been raised a White Sox fan.
    The door behind him opened. “Good morning, everyone,” a familiar voice said. Danny turned to greet Dr. Unger as he took his seat.
    The doctor set his notes down on the table in front of him and opened them up. He had a paper notebook, not a tablet or a holographic display. Danny often wondered about that. Maybe it was just nostalgia.
    “We'll get started, then. I've been compiling reports on your actions for the past few months, and many things had caught my interest. There was the idea of a battle between ideologies, as you remember, though you were fairly quick to debunk that notion. But one of the other things I noticed was your apparent use of psychological warfare.” He looked over at Miko. “In particular, I noticed that you seem to specifically target enemy commanders for assassination. Is there a reason why, besides the obvious?”
    “ Killing commanders disrupts an enemy's ability to coordinate their actions,” Miko said. “Not having a strong central command hurts anyone, but it really hurts a big force.”
    “ It also forces them to post a much bigger guard at their headquarters,” Nora said. “That hurts them as well.”
    Dr. Unger nodded. “But that also invites retaliation.”
    “We took the idea from Ragnarok, actually,” Danny pointed out. “They were the ones that started using it.”
    “ I imagine it must be very demoralizing to be a victim of those types of tactics,” Dr. Unger said.
    “ It's not much different from being blasted by an enemy mortar or RPG team,” Javy said. He had been killed a few times leading his squad.
    Miko frowned. “I'd disagree, actually. You can chalk up a lot of kills to the random chaos of battle. But having someone come assassinate you makes it feel like you're being specifically targeted. And that can make people really nervous.”
    “So you perform assassinations because they cause a specific type of intimidation?” Dr. Unger asked.
    Miko shrugged. “That seems accurate.”
    “I think it's just one part of psychological warfare,” Danny said. “We do a lot of things to intimidate or confuse the enemy.”
    That was one significant weakness that human players had compared to NPCs. Players were generally much better shots, had better abilities and were able to come up with plans on the fly better, but they also had the weakness of human psychology. NPCs could be confused, tricked or suppressed, but as virtual constructs they weren't capable of feeling fear. In contrast, human players were vulnerable in many respects. They could guess enemy plans wrong, they could be intimidated by the volume of enemy fire coming at them, and their judgment could be skewed by their own prejudices and perspectives.
    That was what made communication such a vital part of the game. Zach had been one of the main designers of the game's communications systems. At first glance it didn't seem like a significant advantage, but at second blush it was a huge one. It wasn't like there was any secret knowledge, but he had understood better than anyone the need for players to exercise coordinated teamwork. That was what truly separated the elite companies and alliances from the rest of the pack.
    “ Is there anything in particular that you push for?” Dr. Unger asked.
    “ Confusion,” Danny said. The others nodded in agreement with him.
    “ Can you elaborate?”
    Danny leaned back in his chair. “During the battle around Lerna Bastion, there were a few small teams operating outside of the walls. They really didn't amount to much, but they were really important in turning the tide of the battle.”
    “I think that a lot of it had to do with intimidation and surprise,” Selene said. “We took out an artillery position manned with a couple of platoons with just a four person team.