Characters
Mai Keighley (Callsign: Boomer)
Bio:
Mai is a blonde girl who is short in stature but makes up for it with an eccentric personality. She grew up poor in a ranch trailer home in the rural outskirts of Alice, Texas. Unlike Hikari, Mai doesn't mind making compromises and can live on the bare minimal in extreme cases. She's quite popular with her classmates for being incredibly smart with mathematics and now studying to become a mechanical engineer in University. She lived her mother and late father who was in the army for a couple of years. He taught Mai how to shoot firearms whenever he was not in deployment and Mai instantly fell in love with firearms ever since. Her favorite rifle is the Type 56 SKS Carbine which she inherited from her father's personal arsenal. It's no wonder she was hooked into Mil-Sim Story the moment the game launched.
Likes:
Dislikes:
Favotite Song: Boxcar Willie - You Are My Sunshine (Mai's father used to sing it to her when she was very young.)
Weapons:
The SKS is a Soviet designed semi-automatic rifle which was adopted right at the end of World War 2. It was originally intended to be the standard issue rifle for the Soviet Army, even with the introduction of the Kalashnikov AK-47 which would have served a traditionally submachine gun role despite the caliber. The SKS would had been considered obsolete by the time the AKM was adopted but the design proved to be popular in many communist and soviet friendly nations across the globe and specifically in the People’s Republic of China were it was produced as the Type 56 Semi Auto Rifle (56式半自动步枪). In same way the Soviet Union was planning on implementing the SKS, the PLA wanted the Type 56 SKS/Carbine to be the standard issue rifle for it’s armed forces with the Type 56 AK (56式突击步枪) being used in a submachine gun role for special troops. I know. The naming convention is a bit confusing. In any case, the Type 56 SKS as I’ll be referring to it for the sake of simplicity turned out to be a pretty good rifle. It was reasonably accurate at longer ranges, rugged, reliable, and the PLA especially loved having a bayonet attached to their rifles. It was simple enough for conscripts to operate, field strip, and was used by the PLA all the way up into the very late 1970s with the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979! The Type 56 SKS was also exported to other countries in Africa, Europe, and Asia. Eventually most of them ended up on the United States surplus market where the Type 56 SKS was sold for bargain bin prices as there were so many of them that were imported, sellers couldn’t get rid of them. They proved to be a favorite budget option in the 90s and early 2000s often being used by ranchers/farmers, preppers, collectors, and recreational shooters. There were even some aftermarket products intended to turn the SKS rifle into a somewhat modern equivalent to something like an AK or AR-15 but on a tight budget. In recent times, the inventory for SKS rifles including the Type 56 have all but dried up and prices are no longer as affordable as they once were, being outcheaped by AR-15s as the new budget rifle since the 2010s.
Despite the antique nature of the SKS, Mai remains vigilant with using the Type 56 SKS as her primary rifle. Mai actually owns a real Type 56 SKS which used to belong to her father so she’s incredibly proficient with her rifle in-game as she is in the real world. In the online world of MIl-Sim Story, the Type 56 SKS isn’t as common as the AK or AR platform rifles but will still see plenty of use with historically focused players or those who are playing with a tight budget as the rifle does not cost a lot of in-game credits to obtain. Some players will try to get the most of their SKS by doing some modifications like switching to a Tapco stock or using interchangeable magazines to min-max their primary in the most affordable way possible. Most SKS players, such as Mai to some extent, prefer a more pure experience with their SKS and will insist on using stripper clips and keeping the rifle in the original configuration. After all, there is a certain charm to the simplicity of the SKS and you lose some of that by modifying the rifle to be something that it isn’t. That’s not to say the SKS or the Type 56 SKS in particular is not a capable platform even in the age of modern tactical rifles.
The Hi-Point C9 is as low as you can get in terms of a cheap semi-auto pistol that will function some-what reliably and shoot as well as any other handgun in theory, at a bottom of the barrel price that anyone could afford in theory. Designed in the 90s as a "high-end" Saturday Night Special without the risk of such a weapon blowing up for being so cheap. The Hi-point C9 is anything but a high point in firearms design. It's commonly found in evidence lockers as criminals often use Hi-Points as disposable weapons; using it for a crime before throwing it away. On the other hand, it's an affordable option to those who cannot afford anything better to arm themselves with. It’s a chunky heavy pistol with questionable build quality that operates with a simple blowback design just to feed the next round in the magazine. Speaking of which, the magazine capacity is considerably low for the size of the pistol. There are certainly better and more capable pistols than the Hi Point C9 for just a little more, but they usually will not cost as little as the C9. There is a variant in .380 ACP for a more mild recoil if 9mm is too much and then there are the really big boys in .40 S&W, .45 ACP, and 10mm. A new variant of the C9 (Known as the YC9 Yeet Cannon) retains most of the original design but makes a few changes such as a double stack magazine, thread barrel for a suppressor, and optics mount, and slightly less ugly aesthetics. Regardless, Hi-Point pistols are fairly common in Mil-Sim Story. It is often defined as a meme weapon that is somewhat capable if not outclassed by arguably better sidearms.
Mai is of course too cheap for such an upgrade. If it works, it works. That’s all that matters to Mai. To her, a sidearm is just going to be a last resort weapon no matter what anyone tells hers. She’d rather save her money on 7.62x39 ammo for her Type 56 SKS than waste it on what she considers a replacement showpiece for her last resort sidearm. Her Hi-Point C-9 has seen better days. The grip panels broke off at some point while Mai was being careless so she improvised by taping the frame instead. The slide of her pistol looks like it has a small crack but she doesn’t care. It’ll shoot 9mm just like any other higher end pistol. In a worst case scenario, she can use her pistol as a blunt weapon if it jams or breaks. Maybe if she feels like it, she’ll buy some $100 bill grips as a joke to tease Hikari.