The Robotech Masters Never Came...

[Nightmask]

I'm not sure why Monument City would end up destroyed in that scenario, given it would have no military value in a purely human war and without its destruction the Flower of Life wouldn't be spread to attract the Invid anyway. I suppose you could argue it just naturally exploded on its own at a point some time after it would have been destroyed to spread the Flower in the series but it'd probably change the attack vectors of the Invid as the Flower wouldn't spread near as far leaving North America as close to the only place worth targeting.

Without the losses against the Masters (which had to have exceeded anything the EBSIS could have inflicted) the SC probably would have lasted a bit longer but in the end the anime has Earth hit with utterly unstoppable force beyond any hope of really stopping the tide. I would say like pretty much everyone else the SC series main characters would have all ended up dead at that point as they just wouldn't have been able to hold up against the Invid. Unless you want to write it that for some reason they were unable to go into the fight (perhaps protecting refugees resulted in them surviving by being away from the main action) in which case they could be acting as Freedom Fighters using salvaged SC mecha to continue the brave but futile fight and cross paths with your main PC.

[taalismn]

Well, if the Invid can sense trace amounts of Protoculture in Zentraedi blood(I cite non-canon sources for this, so do with it what you will), and have a serious grudge against the Zentraedi in general, HALF-Zentraedi would be $#!+ outa luck, as the Invid would, in absence of full-blood Zentraedi to kick around, go after them with serious prejudice...Dana Sterling would attract more than her fair amount of attention and get creamed fighting her command to the last(cue major angst-fest and Marcus Rush-like urge for revenge when word reaches her parents and sister). Without a 'human' enemy to stir feelings of ambivalence, Bowie would likely follow her in death, trying to protect both his superior officer and friend on the battlefield. The rest of the 15th might escape(especially if Dana laid her life down covering their retreat) to be absorbed into another unit after the cities get swarmed(and Monument especially).

The Invid, even with a lack of 'big gun' starships, would burn through the Southern Cross space forces, if the TSC isn't able to nail the Clamships with the big shipkillers before the carriers start spawning mecha...SC mecha are NOT missileboats like the Alphas and Betas, so they'd be fighting hordes of grunt-mecha at direct-fire range rather than at long range with fire-and-forget weaponry, allowing them to concentrate on other things(like dealing with other mecha, or escaping).
The ASC's best bet is to smack the Invid hard and fast with heavy nukes when the Invid first emerge from Foldspace, are bunched up, and before they start breaking formation to encircle the globe and get their orbital bombardment weapons in place(converted clamships? Flying Hives?). This is where the lessons of the Zentraedi War come in handy, if the SC can 'shotgun nuke' the Invid while they're still bunched up. After that, it gets a lot more iffy.

[taalismn]

If the Second Robotech War doesn't happen, then Earth has the advantages of having a slightly higher population to resist the Invid...and industrial infrastructure...The Robotech Masters were into surgical strikes on key infrastructure, so the fact that the SC could have, even with a war against the EBSIS, more intact industry, would be a factor in the war against the Invid.
Greater population means Humanity has more troops to throw at the Invid beachheads, either forcing the Regis to 'unpack' more of her children to fight with, or to use up the energy reserves she was counting on using to sustain her race until the first FoL harvests could be made(depending on whether you see the Regis as using only a portion of her people in the initial assault, or use them all for an all-out, then pack them in stasis afterwards until the FoL harvests get into full swing and she settles on a 'final' form for them in her New Optera).
If the humans manage to hide some of their mecha factories and don't use active Protoculture to power them, this too is a major plus...They start out with more mecha, and if they can manufacture more, they can buy time to mobilize more of the population. True, some of the Battloids and power armor will see some production shortcuts(like much more limited power supplies) and use of locally available weaponry, but the resistance will be more persistent, bloodier, and the Invid unable to establish their network of collaborators, communications, and logics as well...ESPECIALLY if the UEG's former onplanet enemies and rivals decide to settle their differences later, and take out the aliens first.

Suggested sample weapon for the Battloids: Commanchero AH-style missile pods modified for carriage aboard the ATACs, or for handheld use by the Battloids. THe pods allow for easy selection of single or volley shots, and the rockets, while short range, don't require a very high tech base to manufacture.

Oh yeah, and Sean Phillips is the other member of the 15th you missed. He could have been killed in the fighting, or escaped to find another resistance group. If he survived, then he's bearing a grudge, maybe a few scars(or he could just lose it altgether, and retreat into a hole somewhere, requiring Bowie to stumble across him and try to persuade him to rejoin the fighting) . Nova Satori likely stayed to coordinate general intelligence operations and help coordinate the resistance(likely feeding information to resistance groups like Yellow Dancer's from her various boltholes around the continents).

[taalismn]

Even sooner if the ASC HADN'T been bled down a bit with a human civil war.
Yeah, if the ASC can keep the Invid from setting up a comprehensive system of Flower of Life farms and Protoculture processing facilities, not to mention communications arrays(which they apparently NEED), then the Regis's canon game plan goes out the door. Her development of more advanced stages of evolution also takes a hit, since she can't set up Genesis Pits in unsecured territory(and any such facility would be sure to draw the attention of all those various specialized Armies in their respective environs, leading to attacks on what appear to be strategic Invid targets). The Regis would have to base her evolutions on incomplete data, or more limited field work and experimentation(on humans).

When the shortcomings of the ASC's veritech fighters becomes evident, you'll see forces like the TAF and CDFC coming back into their own, flying everything from refurbished(and in some cases wholly new production) jet fighters and brushfighters, with an emphasis on rocket and missile armaments. Hovertanks and Battloids will still be the favored weapons on the ground(sending tanks against Invid mecha is just plain suicide), but you'll also see a lot of the old Destroid weapons systems(not the big mecha themselves) getting hauled out and bolted on a variety of 'technicals'(let's face it, them old Phalanx/Raidar X cannons just ROCK for range and rate of fire).

[Nightmask]

Why would even if the Invid could detect trace amounts of protoculture they be able to locate half-Zentraedi like Dana? There shouldn't even be trace amounts of protoculture in a half-Zentraedi, especially if the father was the Zentraedi of the pair. We're talking a single cell here, the amount it could hold if any would be below any means of detecting especially by the time an individual was grown. I'm just curious how or why that'd be even possible? Full grown, born from the vat, Zentraedi I can understand but I have to scratch my head why a half-Zentraedi (or the perhaps non-existent offspring of two Zentraedi the natural way) would have any detectable amounts of protoculture.

[Alpha 11]

One major flaw of this is that the Invid arrive in energy form. Just look at the first few minutes of the Invid Invasion saga. I don't think the space fleet could do sqate againest it. In fact, anything that comes near it might even be vaporized. The same thing when they hit the ground. After that, ya they might have a chance, as long as they hit them hard before they can really estblish themselves.

[Colonel Wolfe]

The Destruction of Monument City is completely unrelated to the spread of the FOL in the atmosphere.
Monument City is Located in or Around Monument Valley Colorado. and Tommy Moved point SX-83 to Canada.
(Thou the Original Robotech had Macross City being a few hours away form Boulder Colorado via car. Thus SX-83 would be near by too)

I used a simmilar idea in an alternate Robotech design, where the Invid were drawn to the destruction of the Zentradie Fleet, and arrive some few years after the Destruction of the SDF-1 at Khyrons hands, Leading to the Freedom Fighter Scott Sterling coming back to Earth to Free it form the Invid Oppression. and the 3rd era follows the mis-adventures of Annie's Daughter some 20 years later when the Zentradie's Masters come to recover the missing Protoculture.

[Sgt Anjay]

Intact ASC vs. Invid would see the entire paradigm of SC weapon systems basically reversed from what we saw in the series. The first wave of SC equipment to run into the Masters and their Bioroids tended to be on the light side, fast, with good rates of fire to their beam weapons...but not enough punch to pierce the bulk of Masters defenses. Against the Invid, though, that equipment (Logans, conventional fighters, Battloids, etc) has more than enough punch per shot to score kills in a big way.

Moreover, I'm not convinced one-and-done missile spam is the silver bullet for anti-Invid operations. Limited ammo when the enemy just keeps coming does not seem like the recipe to success unless you have your own incessant horde of ammo-ed up units to keep throwing at them, and then its just you using numbers to counter their numbers anyway...you either have enough numbers (Battle of Reflex Point, maybe, barely) or you don't (the first two Reclamation attempts).

But just like rapid fire weaponry turned simple swarm tactics using soft targets into mass casualty generators in WWI, rapid fire beam weaponry without ammo limitations could very well chew up lightly armored Invid formations. Or, to put it another way, Bioroids are "tanks" compared to the lower-level Invid "infantry" which mostly make up their swarms. The same weapons fire that would fail against formations of "tanks" can make hamburger out of "infantry"...which means a bad day for the Invid.

As to the initial Invid Invasion itself (alliteration ahoy!), I've no doubt their energy form would not be stopped by the space fleet and land, scoring instant mass-casualties and succeed at acquiring a beachhead. And then what? Now the Invid are faced with a force not just capable of fielding ships that can pound them from orbit with very heavy beam weapons and launch trans-atmospheric attacks like they did against the Reclamation Forces. With a force not just possessing standing armies on the ground. They're faced with a force that can both muster a fleet to attack them from orbit with rapid fire beam weaponry, mass launches of ship-killer missiles (because ASC ships don't have the lack of missiles that ASC mecha do), and trans-atmospheric fighters, and also has coherent field armies on the ground with full combined arms capability (ground/air/sea)!

Now, don't get me wrong...I do think this is a war that would've been a bad time for all involved, and Earth would've had a horrid time in the initial "what's going on?!" phase. But the Regis would assuredly have been in for one rude shock after another.


This is especially true if her dialog from the end of New Gen is taken into account, in which she says that the Invid (or possibly just her Invid) are all linked, and each loss weakens the whole. That would mean that if you can ride the first wave of swarms out, and keep them from rebuilding their numbers, then each following wave isn't just smaller, but also weaker.

[Colonel Wolfe]

Also the Invid numbers are quite small, being Sera and the Regesis say the REF forces outnumber them.

[taalismn]

Why would even if the Invid could detect trace amounts of protoculture they be able to locate half-Zentraedi like Dana? There shouldn't even be trace amounts of protoculture in a half-Zentraedi, especially if the father was the Zentraedi of the pair. We're talking a single cell here, the amount it could hold if any would be below any means of detecting especially by the time an individual was grown. I'm just curious how or why that'd be even possible? Full grown, born from the vat, Zentraedi I can understand but I have to scratch my head why a half-Zentraedi (or the perhaps non-existent offspring of two Zentraedi the natural way) would have any detectable amounts of protoculture.

Told you I was using non-canon sources(although admittedly, in the Eternity Comics Aftermath saga, the Zentraedi leader relating the fate of the Zentraedi under the Invid notes that the half-breeds are effectively invisible to the Invid). I just went for a more ghoullish possibility. The EVIL extension would be to have the Invid be able to sniff(at very short range) anybody who worked closely with Protoculture.

[taalismn]

Also the Invid numbers are quite small, being Sera and the Regesis say the REF forces outnumber them.

Which suggests that while the Invid may have a hive-like society and tactics, they don't have an explosive fecundity(they probably breed faster than Humans, but not fast enough to drown us), at least in an Earth environment(making the Regis's efforts to adapt them to our world all the more imperative if they're to build up their population.

Though obviously the Invid were able tp procreate fast enough off-Earth to give the Zentraedi a fight. Possibly one of the factors in the Regent-Regis split was the former's willingness to approve stamping out mass-production numbers of low-quality fighting drones, while the Regis wanted to (relatively) conserve numbers and go for quality units(relatively speaking)?

[Colonel Wolfe]

Though obviously the Invid were able tp procreate fast enough off-Earth to give the Zentraedi a fight.

I just don't buy the Invid ever fighting the Zentradie at all, its not implied in Robotech its self... since the first mention of Invid is by the Masters, nearly 20 years after the Zents fell to the Earth.

[taalismn]

Though obviously the Invid were able tp procreate fast enough off-Earth to give the Zentraedi a fight.

I just don't buy the Invid ever fighting the Zentradie at all, its not implied in Robotech its self... since the first mention of Invid is by the Masters, nearly 20 years after the Zents fell to the Earth.

So, Ci'Vonians or Disciples of Zor keeping the Zentraedi busy, and the Invid blitzed in after the Grand Fleet got nuked and the remaining Zentraedi ships ran out of gas?
It's generally held, however, that the Invid did wack the original Zor, though no in-anime source confirms this(in part due to the shortsightedness of the original script and the problems of intersplicing two, no, three, wholly different series...and it would be damn well IMPOSSIBLE now to try to do it what with the copyright fortress around the original Macross material).

[Tiree]

Though obviously the Invid were able tp procreate fast enough off-Earth to give the Zentraedi a fight.

I just don't buy the Invid ever fighting the Zentradie at all, its not implied in Robotech its self... since the first mention of Invid is by the Masters, nearly 20 years after the Zents fell to the Earth.

Robotech Graphic novel with a word from Macek in the beginning would disagree

[Rabid Southern Cross Fan]

The Invid, even with a lack of 'big gun' starships, would burn through the Southern Cross space forces, if the TSC isn't able to nail the Clamships with the big shipkillers before the carriers start spawning mecha...SC mecha are NOT missileboats like the Alphas and Betas

Umm, huh? The FA-112 Chimera Heavy Escort Fighter carries 27 BVR-capable missiles. The Ajax's missiles carry cluster warheads that can destroy multiple targets. ASC mecha can fire from far further, which is critical in space.

[taalismn]

The Invid, even with a lack of 'big gun' starships, would burn through the Southern Cross space forces, if the TSC isn't able to nail the Clamships with the big shipkillers before the carriers start spawning mecha...SC mecha are NOT missileboats like the Alphas and Betas

Umm, huh? The FA-112 Chimera Heavy Escort Fighter carries 27 BVR-capable missiles. The Ajax's missiles carry cluster warheads that can destroy multiple targets. ASC mecha can fire from far further, which is critical in space.

Okay, I stand corrected; they have a missile boat to their name and an MRM platform..
I'm still using the VFs and Alphas/Betas as examples of Itano-barges.

[Chris]

Looks sweet, only one question. Of course this assumes that the EBSIS and the AUL are one in the same. If this is the case then After the SDF-3 leaves in 2022, since Leonard is a leader within the AUL, and Supreme Commander of the ASC, wouldn't it be more expedient and efficient to just depose PM Moran, absorb any UEDF units left over by decree (disbanding those that do not comply) declare to the AUL/EBSIS that 'It is now our time' (with the UEEF gone) and based on the feudalism that is already in place, bring the various EBSIS / AUL leaders 'into the franchise' by giving them land and title?

Could be a form of monarchical oligarchy, Leo and his elites just bring into the ranks any one that challenges them (that have sufficient resources) all other are crushed. (All Hail Leonard the 1st, long live the king!)

Any wars at that point would likely be bushfire affairs, with the ASC leadership allowing some small dissident factions to remain so that any problems within the ASC can be blamed on them, this would also serve as a good excuse to keep the military at high levels (even add a cultural component, with the military now being seen as a way to advance and a rite of social passage.)

Anyway, just a thought.

[everloss]

Wouldn't the Veritech Hover Tank be effectively useless against the Invid?

I only have the original SC book, so maybe they changed it, but it only moves at 8mph in tank form, and has a limited number of shots from its main gun - A dozen Invid scouts could swarm it and rip it to shreds before it could kill more than a few of them.

[taalismn]

Wouldn't the Veritech Hover Tank be effectively useless against the Invid?

I only have the original SC book, so maybe they changed it, but it only moves at 8mph in tank form, and has a limited number of shots from its main gun - A dozen Invid scouts could swarm it and rip it to shreds before it could kill more than a few of them.

Gotta go to hover or battloid mode, or use your autofire gun, but yeah, Gladiator mode is squiffed. PLus that open cockpit, unless you had it refitted. That's when you need/want cover fire from your supporting units(who hopefully are NOT other Spartas in Tank mode).

[everloss]

Wouldn't the Veritech Hover Tank be effectively useless against the Invid?

I only have the original SC book, so maybe they changed it, but it only moves at 8mph in tank form, and has a limited number of shots from its main gun - A dozen Invid scouts could swarm it and rip it to shreds before it could kill more than a few of them.

Gotta go to hover or battloid mode, or use your autofire gun, but yeah, Gladiator mode is squiffed. PLus that open cockpit, unless you had it refitted. That's when you need/want cover fire from your supporting units(who hopefully are NOT other Spartas in Tank mode).

HA! I forgot about the open cockpit!

[Nightmask]

Wouldn't the Veritech Hover Tank be effectively useless against the Invid?

I only have the original SC book, so maybe they changed it, but it only moves at 8mph in tank form, and has a limited number of shots from its main gun - A dozen Invid scouts could swarm it and rip it to shreds before it could kill more than a few of them.

Gotta go to hover or battloid mode, or use your autofire gun, but yeah, Gladiator mode is squiffed. PLus that open cockpit, unless you had it refitted. That's when you need/want cover fire from your supporting units(who hopefully are NOT other Spartas in Tank mode).

HA! I forgot about the open cockpit!

That always seemed like a glaringly stupid idea to me, given their personal body armor was limited and they're going into deadly battles and yet the tanks were designed with open cockpits? Got to wonder at the military contractor who managed to con(vince) the military high command that 'Yeah guys leaving the pilot totally exposed to enemy fire is a good thing trust me!'. For which as I remember it the RPG seemed to actually provide that the tank was a sensibly closed cockpit design.

[taalismn]

[

That always seemed like a glaringly stupid idea to me, given their personal body armor was limited and they're going into deadly battles and yet the tanks were designed with open cockpits? Got to wonder at the military contractor who managed to con(vince) the military high command that 'Yeah guys leaving the pilot totally exposed to enemy fire is a good thing trust me!'. For which as I remember it the RPG seemed to actually provide that the tank was a sensibly closed cockpit design.

Or else they figure the pilot's protected enough by the built-up armor coaming and seatback...of course, this doesn't help the civilian passenger you dragooned along to ride in the rumbleseat...

[taalismn]

[
Well...seeing as how half the time they rode hovercycles on recon missions into enemy territory while dressed in naught but brightly colored uniforms...

They didn't know it was enemy territory....they figured it was just valueless wastelands and buried radioactive garbage...stumbling across the excavation was accidental(though, yeah, patrol protocols should have dictated that you wear body armor...ESPECIALLY during wartime conditions).

[ESalter]

If the masters didn't arrive, things would get pretty boring.

There would be no fighting for the southern cross. Dana would be discharged and serving time at Monument City prison. There would be no three mounds opening up and releasing the flowers. The Invid would not come to Earth. The events of the Sentinels might come to pass, but with no reclamation missions sent and no giant REF fleet built for reclamation mission number three. I guess the Sentinels would have to thank the REF with a fruit basket or something. The Regess would wander through space until she ran out of power or found a fertile planet.

So... Rick Hunter comes back to Earth more than 20 years later with a fruit basket. Yeah. Great way to end Robotech. At least it sounds better than the shadow chronicles.

IIRC, the FoL were releasing spores, the Invid Sensor Nebula was in-system, and the Masters were panicking, even before Zor blew up the mounds. Earth may not have proven itself Optera-like, but the Invid would still be interested. I imagine the Second Robotech War would have gone similarly, with the Invid secretly probing the mounds, etc.

[taalismn]

When you say 'secretly', I suddenly have this image of Invid Troopers skulking around with hankerchiefs tied 'aux-ninja'-style under their optical sensors....

[taalismn]

That's where we get hosed again by the original Glorie storyline; where I'm presuming that the 'Flowers' and the mounds are alien technology.
The staircases inside could be easily explained by access ways meant for hazmat-suited workers working on building a Chernobyl-style sarcophagus for the hazardous materials(presumably the people would get in and out via a sealable hatch or by a by-then defunct elevator from the top)...In which case, the ASC had damn poor construction quality if it was breached, apparently by accident, less than two decades only(maybe the way the Southern Cross troopers got in was part of a test hole made by the Tirolian excavation teams and openned up fully during the subsequent battle?). The spiral grow-lights are less easy to explain, but one can handwavium them awaay by saying they were part of the Original Zor's included grow-gear to jumpstart the FoL's on their way...yeah, he meant to screw us over even back then).
The opening mounds can be a combination of two things; the original mound containment structures being built on the Improved Chernobyl Sliding Sarcophagus model where the new containment structure is built at a distance and then slid into place, and the Tirolians' excavation beam being a sort of 'force cleaver'(you don't want to use a cutter beam that might accidentally vaporize your prize, now, do you?) working on the existing structural seams.
My two bits anyway, that contribute zilch to the ongoing storyline.

[Sgt Anjay]

IIRC, the FoL were releasing spores, the Invid Sensor Nebula was in-system, and the Masters were panicking, even before Zor blew up the mounds. Earth may not have proven itself Optera-like, but the Invid would still be interested. I imagine the Second Robotech War would have gone similarly, with the Invid secretly probing the mounds, etc.

Yeah, but the plants were maturing in a contained environment. A machine had to activate (err... or as Robotech's complex plot structure dictates, the ruins of three starships that collided and were bulldozed into three mounds contained undamaged upright ancient ruins with working mechanical devices that allowed plants to grow) to let them out.

No, that's not so at all; watching the episodes makes that abundantly clear. Spores were being released into the outside (humans kept choking on them whenever they approached the chamber; Dana barely reacted; the Tirolians didn't react at all). The Invid Sensor Nebula was already in the Solar System: even if Earth wasn't yet a FoL garden they would hardly have missed a global war's worth of protoculture being fought over/with, and I doubt they would have dismissed the presence of a true Robotech Masters armada in either case. Musica, Zor Prime, and the Masters themselves all state it is already too late before the explosion of the Mothership over the mounds.

The explosion turned Earth into "a garden awaiting cultivation by the Invid", which might be why the Regis came and not the Regent, but the Invid were already locked on to Earth.

[taalismn]

Either way we end up with the Invid on our doorstep; we just don't have the place fouled up by previous unwelcome houseguests(though we do a bang-on job of fouling up the place fighting with ourselves). We might have had a slightly better time of it if everybody had remained united and we hadn't lost men and material fighting the Second Global Civil War(under such circumstances, an enlightened EBSIS might well have become the Bulwark of the North, partnering with the ASC to provide a united front against the Invid).

Still, it could be worse. The Regent, if he were around and in charge of the Earth invasion, might be miffed that he never gets his showdown with the Robotech Masters(provided he didn't already destroy them with his own forces) ifthey just disappeared enroute(victims of misFolds or cranky Robotechnology)(though a nasty addendum might have a UEEF scoutship discover the drifting ships and evidence of cannibalism* on some of them), and would likely vent his frustration on Humanity. Whereas the Regis just wouldn't care. If she doesn't have to see those jerks ever again, all the better.

*Security Triumvirate tastes like chicken.

[Sgt Anjay]

(snip)... ifthey just disappeared enroute(victims of misFolds or cranky Robotechnology)(though a nasty addendum might have a UEEF scoutship discover the drifting ships and evidence of cannibalism* on some of them)...

*Security Triumvirate tastes like chicken.

That scenario could easily play out in the normal timeline in a section of the Tirolian Empire cut off and ditched as protoculture reserves took a nose dive and Invid and rebellions split Tirolian dominions. Could even have a drifting Masters fleet that evacuated whatever distant post they were at and ran out of juice on the way. Really, an imploding, disintegrating empire has lots of fodder of nightmare-fuel scenarios

[FreelancerMar]

One most also remember when the Origional RPG books were writen too. The EBSIS and the AUL would be 2 seperate entities. Not to mention that 1 must also remember that the EBSIS would probably also still have it's Pre-Zentraedi Stockpile of Thermo-Nuclear Weapons. Some of which WOULD be used on ASC targets to make sure that they could never be recovered, rebuilt, or ever used again. The Pre-Invid Portion of this game Kind of reminds me of what Happened in the Movie "Red DAWN". The ASC forces would still be just as chewed up if not more so by the EBSIS if the masters never came because the EBSIS wants the Real-Estate and the Tech that the ASC has. The World would be in an even larger mess by the time the Invid Arived.

[ESalter]

When you say 'secretly', I suddenly have this image of Invid Troopers skulking around with hankerchiefs tied 'aux-ninja'-style under their optical sensors....

Well, it would provide an excuse for the existence of Ariel....

[taalismn]

(snip)... ifthey just disappeared enroute(victims of misFolds or cranky Robotechnology)(though a nasty addendum might have a UEEF scoutship discover the drifting ships and evidence of cannibalism* on some of them)...

*Security Triumvirate tastes like chicken.

That scenario could easily play out in the normal timeline in a section of the Tirolian Empire cut off and ditched as protoculture reserves took a nose dive and Invid and rebellions split Tirolian dominions. Could even have a drifting Masters fleet that evacuated whatever distant post they were at and ran out of juice on the way. Really, an imploding, disintegrating empire has lots of fodder of nightmare-fuel scenarios

Feral colonies and ships of the lost, colonial rebellions, and religious cults taking over the regional outpost governments...yep; gets ugly real fast...