Underground Structures and Tunnels

[slade the sniper]

Any ideas about what could be underground in all those transcontinental hyperloops that would be deep underground.

I don't really want to go with an underdark type of thing, but if there are thousands of miles of tunnel at least 250 feet deep all throughout North America and Europe, I am thinking that there are all sorts of things that could be down there. Seeing as how a lot of them would have collapsed there would not really be a large network of them, but I would figure that some of them would still be viable. Perhaps some of them could have been found and mapped by the Colaition which is how they were able to move small parties of troops hither and yon without being found or even explained?

Any ideas?

-STS

[Killer Cyborg]

I've long thought that there should be a "Rifts: Underground" book.
This would be good fodder for it.
I'd have the tunnels unexplored by the CS, out of their genera defensive paranoia.
I'd use that kind of thing as a sort of Underdark for Rifts, with all sorts of special critters and factions dwelling in the tunnels.

[dreicunan]

I figured Rifts: Totally Not the Underdark was next on the plate after Rifts: Totally not the Blood War wrapped up.

I do like the general idea, but would note that with the idea that whole sections of the planet (like the Rockies, for example) may have been swapped out during the Cataclysm, one has to account for that as well.

[taalismn]

There was a Rifter article for PFRPG Underground which has a few ideas for possible denizens, there's China's Geofront, and I've toyed with subterrane species and NPCs, so, yeah, down is a potentially fantastic direction to take .

[slade the sniper]

I figured Rifts: Totally Not the Underdark was next on the plate after Rifts: Totally not the Blood War wrapped up.

That is a great idea...RIFTS: Totally NOT the Underdark...LOL

-STS

[glitterboy2098]

keep in mind most of said tunnels would be well below the water table, and crossing tectonic zones (not to mention all the weirdness in land elevations from the cataclysm)

if any of said underground transit lines aren't filled in, i'd be surprised.

[taalismn]

keep in mind most of said tunnels would be well below the water table, and crossing tectonic zones (not to mention all the weirdness in land elevations from the cataclysm)

if any of said underground transit lines aren't filled in, i'd be surprised.

Brings new meaning to the word 'subway'.

[glitterboy2098]

one of the reasons i always laugh at any post-apoc setting where you have people hiding out in new york's subways.. without pumps running constantly, those tunnels would be completely flooded.

[slade the sniper]

one of the reasons i always laugh at any post-apoc setting where you have people hiding out in new york's subways.. without pumps running constantly, those tunnels would be completely flooded.

Not being a subway user, or really an urban dweller for that matter, this caught my attention...and lo, thou art correct!

"...few realize that on an average day—even when it’s dry outside—about 13 million gallons are pumped out of the system. It’s an unavoidable by-product of the city’s geography, and a detail of 150 transit workers does nothing but manually clean the gunk that collects in drains throughout the system."

Unfortunately, I want RIFTS: Totally NOT the Underdark, so I shall have to handwave these "facts" away with my "super-tech" wand, and of course if that fails, I still have "It's Magic" *shrug* At least now I know that if I want the PCs to drown or be buried by millions of tons of rubble, I know the *wink, wink* "reasons" why it is totes legit to do so.

So...ideas for monsters?

-STS

[dreicunan]

one of the reasons i always laugh at any post-apoc setting where you have people hiding out in new york's subways.. without pumps running constantly, those tunnels would be completely flooded.

One of the things that I liked about Madhaven was having the city get elevated high enough that hiding in the subways would work.

[glitterboy2098]

one of the reasons i always laugh at any post-apoc setting where you have people hiding out in new york's subways.. without pumps running constantly, those tunnels would be completely flooded.

Not being a subway user, or really an urban dweller for that matter, this caught my attention...and lo, thou art correct!

"...few realize that on an average day—even when it’s dry outside—about 13 million gallons are pumped out of the system. It’s an unavoidable by-product of the city’s geography, and a detail of 150 transit workers does nothing but manually clean the gunk that collects in drains throughout the system."

Unfortunately, I want RIFTS: Totally NOT the Underdark, so I shall have to handwave these "facts" away with my "super-tech" wand, and of course if that fails, I still have "It's Magic" *shrug* At least now I know that if I want the PCs to drown or be buried by millions of tons of rubble, I know the *wink, wink* "reasons" why it is totes legit to do so.

So...ideas for monsters?

-STS

i heard about it on one of those "what would happen if mankind vanished" TV specials, and it stuck with me.

[Shark_Force]

So...ideas for monsters?

-STS

well, obviously alligators.

and ninja turtles. can't forget the ninja turtles

[Warshield73]

So...ideas for monsters?

-STS

well, obviously alligators.

and ninja turtles. can't forget the ninja turtles

After spending some time in NYC subways the first thing that comes to mind is cockroaches. Giant, maybe even semi-intelligent cockroaches.

and don't forget rats, with pizza.

[slade the sniper]

OK, mutant alligator clans, ninja turtles clans, rats clans, and cockroach insect shamans...

and absolutely no dark skinned alternative shemarrians fighting the misguided above ground shemarrians

Now I am seeing massive underground habitat structures similar to Zion in the Matrix (but not stupid) and all those thousands of miles of deep tunnels for....stuff.

-STS

[taalismn]

OK, mutant alligator clans, ninja turtles clans, rats clans, and cockroach insect shamans...

and absolutely no dark skinned alternative shemarrians fighting the misguided above ground shemarrians

-STS

Is that a CHALLENGE, Slade?

Because I already have an underground Tribe and at least three tunneling Warmounts.
Of course, I could always create a new Fringe Tribe and call them 'Sladians'.

But how about giant cicada larvae..I mean GIANT...and like Australia's giant wombats, they basically blunder about, doing great damage to anybody they inadvertently run over, while sucking down trees from the surface. Then every 25 years they climb to the surface and mature into Megalon-like adults that terrorize the countryside for a week while looking around for mates. Then they die.

[Daniel Stoker]

I did a version of the Underdark for one of my games and had it be a bunch of portals in tunnels across the world sorta like fade towns led to a dimension of underground tunnels that you could navigate from Point A to Point B and get from place to place in the real world by them. It wasn't until they had a Shifter join the party that they even realized they really weren't on Earth anymore, not that it really mattered, but it was fun and let me get away with a lot of stuff.


Daniel Stoker

[Library Ogre]

I'd probably start with goblins, living in the refuse. Maybe some morlocks. And, of course, some sort of watcher-in-the-dark alien intelligence.

[taalismn]

Rogue AI tunneling/mining machines?

Wandering Earth and Fire Elementals(I remember one old British sci-fi movie that had a mass of radioactive primordial ooze or living magma bubbling up out of a hole in the English countryside and hunting down sources of radiation to eat).

[Mack]

Had an idea for a set of underground complexes across North America that were created during the dark age, but that something happened to the creators (some unknown event/force killed them). In modern day Rifts, each complex has been taken over by something different or left completely undiscovered. Each one would contain just enough references to neighboring complexes that the players could explore one then have a reasonable chance of finding the next one. Some might be tens of miles apart, others hundreds. Thus the players would find themselves dealing with all the surface problems of getting to the next one, plus whatever currently resides within it.

So the adventure spans the continent, with an Indiana Jones flair to it (or Star Gate). The players would have to use a large variety of skills to be successful. Each complex would be built by a different tribe, thus the clues to the next complex would be different each time. One might require math to solve a coordinate system, one might require archeology, the next geography, the next astronomy...

[dragonfett]

C.H.U.D.'s anyone?

[Killer Cyborg]

C.H.U.D.'s anyone?

Well, of course C.H.U.D.s.

[taalismn]

Cuddly Handsome Unmarried Dwarves

It's a transcontinental singles club network for Dwarven folk. Underground clubs.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Had an idea for a set of underground complexes across North America that were created during the dark age, but that something happened to the creators (some unknown event/force killed them). In modern day Rifts, each complex has been taken over by something different or left completely undiscovered. Each one would contain just enough references to neighboring complexes that the players could explore one then have a reasonable chance of finding the next one. Some might be tens of miles apart, others hundreds. Thus the players would find themselves dealing with all the surface problems of getting to the next one, plus whatever currently resides within it.

So the adventure spans the continent, with an Indiana Jones flair to it (or Star Gate). The players would have to use a large variety of skills to be successful. Each complex would be built by a different tribe, thus the clues to the next complex would be different each time. One might require math to solve a coordinate system, one might require archeology, the next geography, the next astronomy...

Sounds a lot like Deathlands without the Mat-trans.

Which isn't a bad thing.

[Library Ogre]

Had an idea for a set of underground complexes across North America that were created during the dark age, but that something happened to the creators (some unknown event/force killed them). In modern day Rifts, each complex has been taken over by something different or left completely undiscovered. Each one would contain just enough references to neighboring complexes that the players could explore one then have a reasonable chance of finding the next one. Some might be tens of miles apart, others hundreds. Thus the players would find themselves dealing with all the surface problems of getting to the next one, plus whatever currently resides within it.

So the adventure spans the continent, with an Indiana Jones flair to it (or Star Gate). The players would have to use a large variety of skills to be successful. Each complex would be built by a different tribe, thus the clues to the next complex would be different each time. One might require math to solve a coordinate system, one might require archeology, the next geography, the next astronomy...

Sounds a lot like Deathlands without the Mat-trans.

Which isn't a bad thing.

Reminds me of Vault-Tec and the Vaults.

[Mack]

Had an idea for a set of underground complexes across North America that were created during the dark age, but that something happened to the creators (some unknown event/force killed them). In modern day Rifts, each complex has been taken over by something different or left completely undiscovered. Each one would contain just enough references to neighboring complexes that the players could explore one then have a reasonable chance of finding the next one. Some might be tens of miles apart, others hundreds. Thus the players would find themselves dealing with all the surface problems of getting to the next one, plus whatever currently resides within it.

So the adventure spans the continent, with an Indiana Jones flair to it (or Star Gate). The players would have to use a large variety of skills to be successful. Each complex would be built by a different tribe, thus the clues to the next complex would be different each time. One might require math to solve a coordinate system, one might require archeology, the next geography, the next astronomy...

Sounds a lot like Deathlands without the Mat-trans.

Which isn't a bad thing.

Reminds me of Vault-Tec and the Vaults.

Not a bad thought, but I was thinking more carved rock tunnels & caverns, with a similar look as found in the Dragon Age games. In particular, I'd like most passages to be large enough for a PA suit to walk in. A larger robot vehicle might be able to crawl from chamber to chamber if the players are foolhardy.

[Razzinold]

Had an idea for a set of underground complexes across North America that were created during the dark age, but that something happened to the creators (some unknown event/force killed them). In modern day Rifts, each complex has been taken over by something different or left completely undiscovered. Each one would contain just enough references to neighboring complexes that the players could explore one then have a reasonable chance of finding the next one. Some might be tens of miles apart, others hundreds. Thus the players would find themselves dealing with all the surface problems of getting to the next one, plus whatever currently resides within it.

So the adventure spans the continent, with an Indiana Jones flair to it (or Star Gate). The players would have to use a large variety of skills to be successful. Each complex would be built by a different tribe, thus the clues to the next complex would be different each time. One might require math to solve a coordinate system, one might require archeology, the next geography, the next astronomy...

Sounds a lot like Deathlands without the Mat-trans.

Which isn't a bad thing.

Was thinking the exact same thing myself. I remember when they jumped to the one that was flooded out.

[kaid]

Although it is the raw preview and may change when it gets released the sovietski book does have a lot of stuff on golden age and prior major/minor bunker complexes.

It would be no real surprise to find some pretty significant underground infrastrucuture from the golden age but the issues would be A> finding it in the first place given most surface access to it could every well be gone or burried and B> with all the earth quakes a lot of what you do find is not going to be fully intact especially long transit tunnels.

[drewkitty ~..~]

I would say there the long range tunnels would be out of commission due to cave in's and being inundated with water and damage by beings. But there would be there and for the right people would be a shortcut (due to a decrease in random encounters) between two places.

Local undergrounds….I would guess that these are/were easier to repair so they would be used by the locals once they got back to tech and income level that made it feasible to repair. Also they might 1st be used/fixed up by the local black and grey markets to smuggle-import merchandise into places. So there might be traps incorporated within the repairs.

There is the Cheyenne Mt. article in one of the Rifters. Which people could use to fill out there games with.
The complexes in the Old Ones could also be raided for ideas for underground adventures.

[glitterboy2098]

IIRC didn't either the GMG or the adventure guide include in its plothook/advanture ideas that kansas has a boomtown developing around the entry point(s) for a massive cavern system.. actually the ruins of a (implied to be) pre-rifts city entombed in ash, where the insides of buildings, basements, and such had become caverns connected by tunnels and passages? the boom town occurring because people were adventuring into it in search of pre-rifts artifacts and treasures.


i would imagine that the closer you get to yellowstone, the more likely there are pre-rifts cities entombed in rock.

[taalismn]

..and there's luckless d-bee communities transposed INTO solid rock....
You're digging iron ore or something else and WHAM! EEKKK!!! You uncover some luckless sap who got instantly entombed during the Coming of the Rifts...Dig a little further, you find the poor bastard's family, his house, his car...all looking as if they just got stuck in air that turned to bedrock around them...
Serious creepy and hauntsville....

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

Had an idea for a set of underground complexes across North America that were created during the dark age, but that something happened to the creators (some unknown event/force killed them). In modern day Rifts, each complex has been taken over by something different or left completely undiscovered. Each one would contain just enough references to neighboring complexes that the players could explore one then have a reasonable chance of finding the next one. Some might be tens of miles apart, others hundreds. Thus the players would find themselves dealing with all the surface problems of getting to the next one, plus whatever currently resides within it.

So the adventure spans the continent, with an Indiana Jones flair to it (or Star Gate). The players would have to use a large variety of skills to be successful. Each complex would be built by a different tribe, thus the clues to the next complex would be different each time. One might require math to solve a coordinate system, one might require archeology, the next geography, the next astronomy...

Sounds a lot like Deathlands without the Mat-trans.

Which isn't a bad thing.

Reminds me of Vault-Tec and the Vaults.

There are alot of commonalities between Deathlands and the Fallout series. The Mat-Trans redoubts are an awful lot like Vaults, except that the bombs fell before people were able to take refuge in them.

[glitterboy2098]

actually the Redoubts were top secret and unknown to the wider world. so taking refuge in them was unlikely. and presumably most of the staff at those places either were caught off guard, or used the mat-trans to evacuate to more centralized locations.

but they were part of a massive covert set of experiments (into time travel and teleportation, mainly, but also various military projects) so there is that connection.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

actually the Redoubts were top secret and unknown to the wider world. so taking refuge in them was unlikely. and presumably most of the staff at those places either were caught off guard, or used the mat-trans to evacuate to more centralized locations.

but they were part of a massive covert set of experiments (into time travel and teleportation, mainly, but also various military projects) so there is that connection.

They were also meant as refuges for military units and high-ranking civilians with the right clearances (which they found out when they popped up in the one in Alaska), they just never made it. The nuclear event caught eveyone off guard.

(And we will just leave Outlanders' revelations about what was really going on out of the discussion... though i guess it would make an interesting Dimension Book for Rifts)

[Freemage]

Chicago has, not only subways, but also a string of old coal-rail tunnels that connect many of the buildings downtown, and an underground Pedway system and multi-tiered roads--several years ago, there was a crack in one of the tunnels that led to several skyscrapers having flooded basements.

I figure that when the CS troops went into Old Chicago, a lot of the residents literally went underground and used magic and tech in whatever combination was needed to hide out down there. Now they just keep a low profile, waiting for something to happen to make re-emergence safe.

[Razzinold]

Although it is the raw preview and may change when it gets released the sovietski book does have a lot of stuff on golden age and prior major/minor bunker complexes.

It would be no real surprise to find some pretty significant underground infrastrucuture from the golden age but the issues would be A> finding it in the first place given most surface access to it could every well be gone or burried and B> with all the earth quakes a lot of what you do find is not going to be fully intact especially long transit tunnels.

How about running a campaign where the PCs start out buried in one of these secret hideouts ? After seeing people emerge from them you know the secret wouldn't stat secret for long.

When I run my games I run them like the Marvel Shared Universe, so word would get around about the tunnels and they would pop up in other campaigns, so it would be plausible in my game that the PCs would have heard about the tunnels/hideout, even when playing as different characters. It's just like they hear about past exploits of their previous characters when they overhear some NPCs swapping stories in a bar.

[glitterboy2098]

sort of a Morrow Project approach?

[Blue_Lion]

keep in mind most of said tunnels would be well below the water table, and crossing tectonic zones (not to mention all the weirdness in land elevations from the cataclysm)

if any of said underground transit lines aren't filled in, i'd be surprised.

Well as I understand it rifts opened and deposited minerals and stuff underground. So it may be possible that structures and even underground races could be deposited. Underground races could have powers that allow them to create and maintain massive tunnel networks.

During the cold war many communities had underground fallout shelter.(i could see more built during the build up before the coming of rifts. There are also people that built their own fallout shelters or underground bunkers.) The high school I went to had one in its basement. Such shelters could very well exist in rifts and be used as a base of operations for different groups.

So there is lots of potential for underground places to exist. It just a matter of to what scale they would exist.

[Razzinold]

sort of a Morrow Project approach?

Never heard of that game before but yeah something like that.
I was thinking more along the lines of them living down there for generations, I guess more like Fallout then Deathlands, so it's like you are the offspring of your great-great-great-great-great-granfather that first went into the underground shelter.

Although for that to work there would need to be a lot of people down there to avoid inbreeding.

[kaid]

Although it is the raw preview and may change when it gets released the sovietski book does have a lot of stuff on golden age and prior major/minor bunker complexes.

It would be no real surprise to find some pretty significant underground infrastrucuture from the golden age but the issues would be A> finding it in the first place given most surface access to it could every well be gone or burried and B> with all the earth quakes a lot of what you do find is not going to be fully intact especially long transit tunnels.

How about running a campaign where the PCs start out buried in one of these secret hideouts ? After seeing people emerge from them you know the secret wouldn't stat secret for long.

When I run my games I run them like the Marvel Shared Universe, so word would get around about the tunnels and they would pop up in other campaigns, so it would be plausible in my game that the PCs would have heard about the tunnels/hideout, even when playing as different characters. It's just like they hear about past exploits of their previous characters when they overhear some NPCs swapping stories in a bar.

This basically appears to have been the start of the sovietski in "modern" times. Emerging from a massive bunker complex once the 30 year snow died down enough for them to emerge. There is no telling if there are other major bunkers. From the archie stuff it seems clear golden age north america had some type of hibernation technology as there nearly a full army of sleepers in archies care. Who is to say other nema facilities did the same trick close things down put everybody into sleep pods set the timer for 300 ish years and hope things look more sane then.

[glitterboy2098]

too bad the sleeper pods were not a thing when rifts canada was made.. i think i'd like it better if the tundra rangers got to PA times that way instead of a convenient D-shift

[boring7]

Rogue AI tunneling/mining machines?

My first thought as well. Helps with a lot of x factors since you have 300 years of "insane AI wanderings" for whatever construction you want. The Dimension-shift idea is also useful, not just for some poor rock-fused person but for entire underground biomes of D-bees, robot societies, or whatnot in classic style.

Random thoughts:

-With AI-digger is you kind of need unreasonable brands of technology and/or magic to keep it going. Eating rock and turning it into other forms of matter to brace the tunnels and repair/reproduce itself. Golden age earth didn't seem to have that level of technology.

-Mountain ranges are good for large complexes that might not flood terribly. Like the Rocky Mountains in the New West that don't have a lot on the map.

-Crazed survivalists with self-funded "Vaults" might go Morlock, or set off AI diggers, or get really lucky and have awesome (and salvageable) alien technology drop on their heads during the great cataclysm.

[taalismn]

There's also the example of the Amtrak Wars(before that series was renamed)....transportation corporations setting up their own survival redoubts connected by underground tunnels.... By the time they start emerging to fight the surface mutants, the tunnel-folk have acquired compromised immune systems and other genetic frailties, but they retain their high technology, or at least what they can reasonable maintain.

[Killer Cyborg]

Rogue AI tunneling/mining machines?

My first thought as well. Helps with a lot of x factors since you have 300 years of "insane AI wanderings" for whatever construction you want. The Dimension-shift idea is also useful, not just for some poor rock-fused person but for entire underground biomes of D-bees, robot societies, or whatnot in classic style.

Random thoughts:

-With AI-digger is you kind of need unreasonable brands of technology and/or magic to keep it going. Eating rock and turning it into other forms of matter to brace the tunnels and repair/reproduce itself. Golden age earth didn't seem to have that level of technology.

Golden Age had nanites.

[glitterboy2098]

Ref on that please. I have done a fairly detailed research effort into prerifts tech mentions in the game and Nanites have not appeared so far

[Killer Cyborg]

Ref on that please. I have done a fairly detailed research effort into prerifts tech mentions in the game and Nanites have not appeared so far

IRMSS kits.
MiRR.
Juicers.
Crazies.

[boring7]

Ref on that please. I have done a fairly detailed research effort into prerifts tech mentions in the game and Nanites have not appeared so far

Archie 3 has/is nanotech in very limited amounts. He's also one-of-a-kind cutting edge prototype research technology...up until subsequent books dropped another half-dozen into the setting. And it's unclear whether the nanotech is limited to "makes really small stuff in very controlled environments" or "omg replicator nanites, grey goo on the horizon" or "depends on the source."

In other words, your mileage may vary.

Oh right, sources. Sourcebook 1 page 60 first mentions it and reminds me that part of the Juicer Biocomp systems also run on nanites, but again they're fairly limited and I believe they explicitly are finite and have to be replaced along with the drugs. RUE mentions the IRMSS and microscopic robots, YMMV whether they count as "nanites" but Juicer Uprising (WB 10 pg 12 and probably others) uses the terms interchangeably.

I choose to assume (warning! Homebrew alert!) that there are a few "we can't recreate this" nano-bot forges as scattered remnants of the Cyberworks Network business empire that require very expensive raw materials and squirt out very limited (and expensive) gel-packs of medical nanites. They don't get much press because they have a very specific list of uses and no one besides Archie is smart enough in nanotech to expand on/research their use (and Archie literally CAN'T have creative thoughts without the help of a human, and his current 'idea man' is an evil psychopath with the maturity and ideas of a 13 year old who "tends to think large and monstrous").

ANYways...I operate under the assumption grey-goo matter-editing nanotech isn't a golden age thing, at least not without some "No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup" research lab thing, but that's just my subjective judgement call.

[dreicunan]

Just rift in a group of people from a different earth that have the nano-tech that you are looking for (preferably in long black trench coats and black sunglasses that they wear at all times).

[glitterboy2098]

Irmss is not nanobots. It isn't even micro scale. It is milli level.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix

Also worth reminding that nanotech =\= nanobots/nanites.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology

MDC is rightly a product of nanotechnological knowledge, because it is described (in triax2) as basically a metamaterial that derives its special properties from a specific molecule structure.
However while the properties are the result of nano scale structure, such structures can be assembled using macro scale systems.

Nano scale robotics is not currently a prerifts tech. Further the manipulation of specific atoms by such bots would be massively inefficient in terms of energy, and transmutation of elements via non super collider methods would basically require pico or femto scale engineering knowledge.

[Killer Cyborg]

nanotech =\= nanobots/nanites.

Fair enough.

Reading a bit more on things, and editing this post a couple times accordingly....

Statement revised:
Rifts Earth technology has nano-bots that can manipulate nanoscale objects with great precision.

RUE 263
IRVT Internal Robot Visual Transmitters or "Seekers":
This is another nano-bot about the size of a pinhead.

The IRVT are officially nano-bots.
They are officially the size of a pinhead, like the IRMSS robots.
Since the IRVT is listed right after the IRMSS description, and it starts by saying that the IRVT is another nano-bot, I think it's safe to say that Palladium considers the IRMSS bots to also be "nano-bots."

Rifts Bionic Sourcebook 87
Cyber-Nano-Robot Repair Systems
Similar to the RMK and the IRMSS medical repair systems used by humans, these nano-bots can be released when needed most to make minor repairs. They use available spare materials to effect mechanical and armor repairs, but can also reroute, patch, and secure internal circuits and repair internal organs--at least to some degree.

Now, according to Dictionary.Com, there are two definitions of "nanobot."
1. a machine or robot built on the nanoscale, still in the research-and-development stage, with potential applications in medicine and industry.
2. a machine or robot that can manipulate nanoscale objects with great precision.

So what we have here is:
Premise 1: The IRMSS, IRVT, and CNRRS are nano-bots.
Premise 2: Nanobots are either machines that are built on the nanoscale, or are machines that can manipulate nanoscale objects with great precision.
Premise 3: The IRMSS, IRVT, and CNRRS are not built on the nanoscale.
Conclusion: The IRMSS, IRVT, and CNRRS are machines that can manipulate nanoscale objects with great precision.

[glitterboy2098]

And yet since none of those are nano scale in size or manipulate items at the nano scale (they operate at cellular scale and up, not molecule scale) they cannot be nano machines.

Which means references to them being such must be classified alongside references like 'thousands of miles between villages' in areas where the maps and listed locations clearly show only tens or hundreds of miles at most.
Just palladium's writers trying to make something seem more than it is as a form of dramatic hyperbole.