Return of Master Conquest: The Third Robotech War

[taalismn]

Ah, good...I was WONDERING what had become of this....

[Nekira Sudacne]

This is interesting stuff

[taalismn]

Observations:
Interesting....Jovian orbital disruption? Ouch....though I'm wondering how plausible that is(Jupiter's more likely to wiggle like a bag of jello, lose some gas mass, and form some rather spectacular rings as a result....possibly even a short-lived nebula before gravity sweeps up the gas or the solar wind blows it away...making Jupiter look briefly like the solar system's largest comet!)

Tiresia-class Corvettes---Interesting nomenclature there...having fought free of the Robotech Masters, it is interesting that the EDF would name a ship-class for the former capital city of the late enemy....a) It's a political sop to the Terran Tiresoids, who still have nostalgic feelings for the old homeworld(which means there should probably also be Optera-class and Fantoma-class ships in the fleet as well, just to keep the Invid and Zentraedi happy as well), b) it is an old (and outdated) concession to early hopes for reunionification with the REF(since removed from consideration with the 'come home, but leave the guns and medals at the border'), or c) the Corvettes are old Bioroid Carrier/Corvette conversions....for the sake of convenience, they're called Tiresia-class vessels...

[taalismn]

On a quick aside, this was is utilizing a Macross II level of tech rather than a standard Third Robotech War level, which is why the REF equipment in the Martian battle got beat so badly. Also, while the EDF currently utilizes designs that are clearly belonging to one of its component species, in the end they'll feature more unified designs. By unified I mean that they will look like a mix of Terran, Zentraedi, Tiresian and Invid designs. I have some ideas what I want to do with SMA tech, but no clear cut plans.

Well...to toss out a few quick ideas....

EDF....
*From the Invid......'Brain' A.I.s(I think this was mentioned at one time previously, with regard to AI rights)...lesser A.I. systems take advantage of G-95 style 'learning circuits' and organic nueral circuitry.....Regenerating physical armor(limited and slow, but great for long-term campaigns)
Bio-degradable 'mini-hive' colony ships...land them on a planet, and get an instant city...After the outer armor ablates, the outer skin layers degenerate(leaving an inner protective shell still over the interior) in the elements to form a rich fertile soil around the settlement, already seeded with soil terraforming fungi and other flora.....(also makes a decent camouflage....(g))
*Tiresian----Forceshielding(applicable to the larger warships)(note: the REF already knows of this, having settled on Tirol), micro-fold 'guerilla jump' capability for smaller ships(inspired by the DoZ's tactics)...Offensive computer hacking capabilities(again, copied from Tirolian bio-comp tech....if anyone has the ability to hack other ship computers, it's the Masters...) through radio-borne computer viruses.

SMA
The Karbarreans are your big arms dealers....some fan sources credit them with inventing the Reflex cannon.....I see them as big on massive rail guns firing big slugs or swarms of 'shotgun blast' projectiles....They also like nucleonics .....enhanced EMP missiles and mines, pumped X-Ray lasers. They are also the most likely to have multiple varieties of power armor, ranging from light ranger suits to tac-nuke armed heavy assault suits....Ship construction concentrates on medium- to large battlewagons...
Garudans are likely the least voilent of the diehard SMA....they have little to contribute in the way of technology, but their familiarity with Bioroid tech means they could have some psionically-enhanced Bioroids....Spacecraft-wise, they would tend to favor small, fast craft that fit their vision-guided tactics....
Perytonians ....teh survivors are likely to be mean mothers developing something akin to Technowizardry....If anything has a particularly telling affect on EDF Invid-Bitech, it's likely to have a Perytonian signature....Ships tend to look like a combination of something from 'Batman' and Battlefleet Gothic....Mostly medium class ships, with a few heavies from their few surviving colonies....Perytonians are also likely to have stealth ships and deploy small assassin-style units(being on the wrong end of the stick for so long, they have developed a mean attitude towards the cosmos and anyone they perceive as having done them dirt).
Spherians.....crystalline energy absorbers and reflectors...laser resistant armor(or rather, armor that actually GROWS and repairs itself with laser energy hits)...Ships tend to be in the small to medium classes...for either solitary explorers or large groups intent on exploration or combat...

Praxians----Strong on mythical imagery...They, too, develop laser-reflective/resistant armors, close combat weapons based on CADS technology, also plasma weaponry(impressive visually)...Their mecha might look like a combination of something from Beast Wars and Five Star Stories....Ships look like a cross between mythical beasts and siling craft, while the larger ships and space stations look like flying Athenian temples or Japanese castles....all those columns and crenalations are really energy absorbers....

Possible Threat Force Idea...Occured to me....What if the Masters seeded the Ort Cloud bodies with self-replicating robotic weapons platforms as a 'spoiler'? Since hardly anyone goes out to the Ort Cloud/cometary halo(all the fun's deeper in the gravity well), these mini-facs can go undetected, then glide down the gravity well in stealth mode over months and years to kill the ships of their enemies...Standard frame not any larger than a Bioroid Corvette, but sporting more powerful anti-ship weapons...Perhaps throw in a random generation chart for special features like advanced stealth, extra-smart A.I.s, special weapons, city-buster 'dirty bombs'(essentially mini-Neutron-S weapons...having seen them in action, the Masters aren't about to pass up a good terror weapon), etc....
Bad news....these self-replicating weapons mutate into classic berserkers NOBODY can control.....

[taalismn]

......Gotta feel sorry for the REF in this scenario...they get lost in space/time, miss the Masters, fight a civil war, lose their homeworld, then through bad timing and crossed signals, they essentially get turfed by their homeworld....then pitied by the very folks they helped liberate, treated as charity cases, and installed as a police force by those very same people, who then engage in a WMD-heavy war against said police force's former homeworld....
As for second-rate equipment, that will, with time(if I have anything to say about it), change as the under-appreciated 'policemen' go the route of 'smarter, not bigger', and 'quality, not quantity'....still vague on specifics, but something in me keeps whispering; "And if the Regis thinks she's got the monopoly on personal augmentation technology....."(a new generation of eugenic agents? Cyberlinked to their sentient companion mecha?)...Also remember that the REF still has Lang's files, the field-active RRG, and Janice Emm....
It may take awhile, but the REF(Robotech Enforcement Forces) will rise again

As for the Masters' 'spoilers', with your permission, I'd like to uncork some of that nastiness.....

[taalismn]

4. If you're going to do the REF, you might want to really consider doing the whole of it and work with me on the SMA, as the REF and SMA are closely bound together. (If it were simply me, I'd end up making some side-notes about them when talking about the SMA because I'd make the REF as little more than a name attached to one the SMA's military branches. However, you seem to be interested in making it far more viable than that.)

My apologies for the heavyhandedness....I seem to have jumped into your universe with combat boots and climbing spikes on.....I just put myself in the shoes of the disgruntled second- and third-generation REF brats(the Hunters' kids included) who see the universe as dumping on them....sort of like the pilots of the American Volunteer Group(better known as the 'Flying Tigers') of China fame, after the war when it seemed they'd be forgotten, or the kids of post WW2 Germany looking at how far they'd fallen relative to the rest of the world(especially true of the Terran-Tirolians)....These young turks are going to want to do something to again set themselves apart as a force to be reckoned with,and justify the sacrifices their parents and grandparents went through, before history dealt them a bad hand...The REF wouldn't be a major combat force, as per your outline(though some of the new generation will contend that even a giant can be felled if you know where to put the toothpick), more akin to an Interpol organization or UN weapons inspectors(and with much the same strengths and weaknesses)....but increasingly, much of their technological knowhow and younger talent will be quietly diverted off to the RES sub-division(Robotech Exploration Service), away from the SMA that's siphoning off their tech for war purposes, and from the front lines...and the 'Rezzers' are going out exploring new worlds, getting into trouble, and expanding the star charts(including re-checking the old Empire star charts), and making the new starmaps available to all comers, SMA and EDF alike...Right now I'm thinking of updated VFs with FTL sleds and 'companion' A.I.s, extended range Alpha-Beta Combos, modified Garfish explorers, and 'Precinct'- and 'Beagle'-class motherships...Still very low key, but still playing a role with potential in the greater scheme of things(g).....

"Dave, I really don't think you should go in there. I have a bad feeling..."
"Oh, don't worry, Hal...it's just some old abandoned Tirolian temple. Looks to be pre-Masters and Disciples of Zor....What can possibly be still alive out here after all thi.....*......"

[taalismn]

Thought just ocurred to me...with Jupiter exhibiting a more pronounced parabolic orbit and tossing its moons around, Earth may have long-term problems with 'dinosuar killers', as it is currently conjectured that Jupiter's position and stable orbit in the solar system 'sweeps' many inbound asteroids into destruction in its atmosphere(as was proven a few years ago...remember the comet impact?)....or diverting them into the various asteroid belts and/or back out....THis could be another incentive for the UESG to promote additional coloniztion efforts outsystem, as well as push the development of a more powerful integrated fleet and planetary defense net capable of dealing with not simply enemy fleets, but large rocks on collision courses....

[Hystrix]

If I missed it in one earlier post I apologize. However, I have to ask...

...Where are the Robotech Masters? Where they wiped out? Do they still have some forces? Are they powerful enough to make a comback, or are they too weak to be a factor?

[taalismn]

You're right. That's exactly what I was going for and hoped that somebody would pick up on it without me having to come right out and say it. Of course, given what I'm thinking about doing later (no details just yet), a mass exodus from the Sol System will happen anyway, even though the EDF does get a military victory.

IN other words.....SOLAR SYSTEM DEATH!!!!!
...and pyhrric victory.....
THis scenario has taken on a most Velikovskian air....

[taalismn]

If I missed it in one earlier post I apologize. However, I have to ask...

...Where are the Robotech Masters? Where they wiped out? Do they still have some forces? Are they powerful enough to make a comback, or are they too weak to be a factor?

When last we saw them the beloved ex-Masters of Earth had taken their massive armada and made a 'dignified' exit to deep space(i.e. they buggered off before the wrath of the Regis and her crazed human-zentraedi allies faster than a celebrity divorcee from a pack of child-support lawyers). Apparently they also disengage from their mostly successful campaign against the REF and Sentinels for much the same reason....the neighborhood's just gotten too hot for them...

In the earlier incarnation of this thread it was hinted that the Masters go far far away, but run into another group of hostile mind-sucking aliens who take them over and come rampaging back to the Masters' old digs to raise apocalyptic hell in the sort of gottendammerung(sp?) that forces the SMA, REF, and UESG to unite to drive off the nasties...

Another possibilty that was hinted at is that creepy Zand stages a coup and installs himself as Robotech God, and almost certainly comes back to finish grinding his ax on the folls who underestimated him....

IN any case, they're still out there, brewing up trouble...

[taalismn]

Just read a rather interesting short piece in Scientific American on what some astronomers think happens to some extrasolar gas giants that stray too close to their star...One recently discovered 'hot gas giant' nicknamed 'Osiris' is beleived to be orbiting its home star a 20th of the distance Earth is from our sun, and is thus boiling off its atmosphere at a rate of 10,000 tons a SECOND, creating a plume estimated to be 100,000 miles+ in length(fortunately, the same astronomers estimate that Osiris, with a mass 220 times that of Earth, has enough meat and gravity to hold its atmosphere until its sun dies)....Still, try flying a Zenn cruiser through that mess, let alone a VF....great traiining ground for turbulence if you can foot the insurance and vehicle maintenance costs....
Pretty spectacular, no?
Pinball Jup into the inner system and see how THAT looks close up.....

[taalismn]

it's either feast or famine, ain't it....
"Writing is easy...all one has to do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until the blood starts beading out on your forehead."---Anonynous

[taalismn]

Hmmmm....thought just occured to me, given the timescale versus canon developments....Would the SMA be likely to have Shadowfighters in addition to their superior numbers(since the REF was working on the Vindicator and its stealth technology even before the return of the Masters into the SEntinels theatre of operations)....of course, the ultimate development of the Shadowfighter took place during a period of calm, when the REF was anticipating only fighting the Invid on Earth, and not a two-front war...but still, the SMA would be quick to snap up and push the development of any REF technology promising an edge against the Invid...
THis would give the SMA another nasty edge against their EDF opposites, at least until the EDF developed ever more exotic detection technologies(refined gravi-metric mass detectors or psi-detectors)...
The default excuse against allowing the Shaowfighters is suggested in the novels...the cloaking systems were perfected with the input of Louie Nicoles....since he's firmly on the EDF's side, the Shadowfighter program is either delayed considerably, or nixed altogether....


AS for the Battle of Saturn....Another titan of legend takes a hit and those incredible rings either get shattered and/or replaced/complemented by a new set of rings...the remains of destroyed ships and vaporized moons...

How will the EDF bounce back from two(no, four) massive defeats? Likely not before taking it on the chin a few more times, then turning the tables on the SMA and showing 'em that it's suicide to forget the Sentinel Lesson(oppressing a bunch of disparate aliens, backing them into a corner, and incidentally forging them into the sort of fighting force that can and will go straight for your throat).....


On the list of other solar system bodies that can be used....Sedna, a possible double planetoid the size of New Jersey that is orbitting way out in the Ort Cloud....And there's always misplaced Macross Island with its own share of ghosts....
And on this scale of events, it's only a matter of time before someone figures on dusting off the plans of Dolza's old command base and applying them to other large nickel-iron asteroids....

[Marcethus]

um one quick question Is this going to be some sort of RT campaign? If so I would love to join. if not. It's a very interesting read. Have fun. Though I am a fan of the REF and am not to keen on them being at the bottom of the list.

[taalismn]

[
lol. Sorry, no moons being vaporized that time around. Solar System death happens, but not because of anything that happens out past Jupiter.

[
Who says somebody hasn't already? Something like that hasn't appeared yet because it hasn't been important to the stream of events, yet.

.

You really want to take this scenario to the extreme?....leave some of those moons and planetoids around for conversion into Dolza-style spacecraft when the EDF has to start evacuating Sol System....Micro-worlds with an Invid-inspired bio-management ecosystem...Or, if losing the old homestead of mankind is too much to handle....wrap the Earth in one big mother of a forcefield (protection and environmental insulation)and move it outsystem with a Regis-style phoenix-teleport...take the Moon along if you'd like...Note however, that this is an EXTREME feat that will tax all onplanet Protoculture and energy supplies, and likely the mental resources (part of the massive demands for computational power this operation would require can be accommodated by gestalt-linking the various Invid, half-Invid, and Protoculture/FoL-Mystics), and will likely require some fancy engineering on the other end of the trip to make sure Earth gets the right balance of sunlight/radiation and outside gravitation...

Sure, this is REALLY farfetched, but imagine the shock and surpise on the SMA's (and the old REF's) faces when a dying Sol system first throws out waves of Dolza-style asteroid ships, then a whole PLANET gets moved...

"Whattya mean Earth's been sighted in the Garuda system? You mean Earth SHIPS, doncha?"
"No...I SAID Earth, and I MEANT Earth....The planet Earth's sitting in Garuda system and they don't sound too happy..."
----Bad day dawning in the Sentinel Mercantile Alliance Stellar Navigations Office, Karbarrea.

[Marcethus]

The Master Conquest AU or its version of the Third Robotech War? I've been wanting to do a campaign on the Resistance Era (a bunch of Resistance Figthers fighting on a Robotech Master conquered Earth, I can send ya some of the files on that if you wish, just ask) for a while but the last time I tried I couldn't get anyone to actually join. As for the third war, there's still a long way to go before I'm close enough to done with it to run a campaign. I do, after all, develop completely new mecha, OCCs, etc. for this thing.

Well I would be more than willing to play whatever part of the RT story that you want to run. Go ahead and send me those files if you want. I would love to see 'em. Pssst what exactly is the resistance era? ie what books?
Keep up the good work I love reading this spin on things.

[taalismn]

um one quick question Is this going to be some sort of RT campaign? If so I would love to join. if not. It's a very interesting read. Have fun. Though I am a fan of the REF and am not to keen on them being at the bottom of the list.

The REF is being effectively subcontracted to fan=contributors like myself(so if you have any ideas, I'd be willing to hear them) to deal with as they may, as long as they don't suddenly materialize massive fleets of SDF-class ships and throw off the balance of power...the EDF is in ascension in this setting and will remain so, having effectively absorbed most of the best that the old REF had to offer....And what's left is trying to find its place as a police force, or neutral go-between, and having an awfully hard time of it ......
That places certain constraints on anyone (who absolutely Has to!) wanting to take on the role of the few remaining REFers(and their descendents) late in the scenario....but then again, one doesn't need massive fleets and swarms of mecha to make a difference....and sometimes small differences can snowball into bigger ones...As long as it's in keeping with the larger vision being plotted here...

With the permission of the mastermind behind all this, I hope to offer some some of IMHO, what the current thinking/peculiar psychological pathology of the REF is and what their plans for the future are....With the way events are going, some of the third-generation SDF-3ers are wondering if they're the only sane ones around....

[taalismn]

(G-95/Eve, who is rather sassy in this AU, saw early EDFers drooling over the few Cyclones that made it to Earth and decided that she could build a similar but better machine that didn't require special armor to use.)

Hmmm.....MODATs, you mean? (foreshadowings of Megazone? )

As for the rest...(bows head and blushes)...I'll try not to disappoint...

[taalismn]

Okay, before I take my six-day vacation, I thought I'd get off my notes on the REF.....It ain't crosschecked for accuracy, so there might be some inconsistancies...It is, of course, subject to Dairugger's review and revision...

The REF----At Bay, In Decline, or Awaiting a New Spring?

“Your efforts were noble, but you failed. You’re no longer necessary. Come home and help us rebuild. You can still help protect Earth, but not where you are out there, where you can’t see what we’re doing here on Earth. Your mission is over. Come back and be a part of us.”
------Emissary-Ambassador Tyra Montez of Earth, in an address to the REF PLenipotentary Council, Tirol.

“Bah! Tirol is dying world of little importance, any more....That old world just sucks the life out all who settle there...Even the Masters abandoned it when the upkeep became too much....And now it does the same for the REF...Oh, the Terrans had spirit and courage when they arrived here, but settling there drained what heart they had...They don’t even bother to get up and free their homeworld from the yoke of the Regis! They’re just content to sit there and issue statementsd about ‘unerstanding’ and ‘co-existance’! See how far they’ve fallen? These same people who once stared certain death in the eyes to save Karbarrean children from Invid genocide? Who bled lives into Spheris’ crystal sands before those recluses realized it was time to fight for their world? Gah! Those Terrans are dead, and what remain are puzzled dotards and frightened children, their brethren brainwahed slaves to another Invid tyrant.....Let, then, Tirol be the Terrans’ retirement, their refuge, and their sick ward...It is time for decisiveness to put the galaxy to rights, and preserve what we have all fought so hard for, and let that decisiveness flow from Karbarrea, Garuda, Spheris, Haydon IV, and New Perytonia. It is our time now!”
-----Rear Admiral(res.) P’rol Ironclaw, Sentinels Mercantile Alliance, in an SMA Congress hearing on increasing funding for expanded REF peacekeeping operations.


“How ironic...how tragic....We set out so long ago, unified in purpose, to defend Earth and Humanity, first from the Robotech Masters, then the Invid....Instead, we left our home world wide open to attack..By those very same Masters, then Invid, and then by our own allies in the Sentinels Alliance, who are frightened by the remaining presence of both Masters and Invid on Earth....
The Invid....I was skeptical at first, and fearful that perhaps those we had left behind or sent back blindly were to be used against us as hostages....Dana Sterling, Bowie Grant, Johnathon Wolff, Scott Bernard and Mars Division....all pawns in the hands of an ever more devious Invid plot, and when we were at our most vulnerable, hurting from the loss of Perytonia and Edwards’ civil war, and shocked at news of what our beloved Earth had suffered while we were absent...Now, I have to concede to myself that maybe those we left on Earth have won some small measure of what we were attempting to win out here so long ago...They have reached amity with their former enemies, and now that precious peace they have found is threatened with extinction from OUR allies....Our unity has been shattered, but theirs isn’t....
Perhaps, indeed, what’s happening on Earth isn’t a tyrant’s scheme, but something truly new and good, that will outshine everything we’ve managed to acheive so far since this whole damn business began....But only if it has time to grow and prosper...
I’ve spoken, cajolled, pleaded, for re-consideration of the Sentinels’ position in this conflict....I’ve pulled as many favors as I can to the point that I fear I may have alienated some of our allies....L’ron has suffered the brunt of my attentions, and he has time and time again assured me that the Sentinels have taken our position into consideration, but I hear from him less and less frequently these days, and when I do, he looks greyer and more grizzled....I get the impression that he’s lost control of the situation among the Sentinels more than I have...At least he has the honesty to be apologetic; most of the Alliance mouthpieces I have to deal with nowadays are downright arrogant and don’t seem to even acknowledge the idea of ‘diplomacy’.
Instead...I just read the report from the latest fleet attack in the Solar System....Jupiter? Reflex weapons? Planet killers?
Can’t they see? Are they trying to finish what the Masters started? What the Regent couldn’t?Can’t they see what is happening?
Apparently not...my sources tell me of new fleets being gathered at Spheris and Karbarrea....New troop levies being drawn up, the arms factories working at all hours...They’re not producing infantry arms either....they’re producing nucleonics....
My entreaties are falling on deaf ears.....but I keep making them, as does Rick, in hopes that someone will listen...but that is not all we are doing...We both agree that something must be done, so we keep on our face of diplomacy, and try to buy time...Time for something to change in our favor, time for our strength to be rebuilt, or some new solution to present itself, or for us to find it....We just need the time and leeway for that opportunity to develop. Rick’s pushing the new training programs, Jack and Karen are keeping our forces ready in the police role that the REF’s been pigeonholed into accepting, Cabell and Lang are talking up some new avenues of research they’ve been developing on the sly, and this new exploration initiative Rem is pushing is beginning to show results...
Our mission is far from over....The threat to peace in the galaxy is even greater...The Masters are still out there, stronger than ever, by all accounts....The galaxy cannot afford to be divided, and we cannot afford this increasingly bloody war.
I’ve already resigned myself to never seeing Earth again, and I gladly accept our self-exile, if only we can continue to make a difference....I, my husband, all those stand beside us in defying the madness we see afflicting the galaxy....We may yet have a role in turning this wretched situation, and so we must remain strong and ready, awaiting our opportunity....
We WILL make a difference. “
----From the personal memoirs of Admiral Lisa Hayes-Hunter, Robotech Enforcement Forces

Without a doubt, the post-Pioneer Mission era was to see the sure decline of the REF’s fortunes....What had once begun as a bold effort to insure Earth’s safety, through diplomacy or pre-emptive war, on the doorstep of the distant Robotech Masters, failed miserably. Far from achieving its original goals, it had instead arguably facilitated the threat to Earth, stripping away her defenses and openning her up to the Masters’ unexpetedly early assault. The freeing of the Sentinel worlds from Invid tyranny was a consolation prize, but the loss of Peryton to the returned Masters tainted even that accomplishment. The REF Civil War, and the subsequent fall from grace of many of the service’s best and brightest in its aftermath soured many others. The polarization between those who wanted to return to Earth, and those who wanted to hold on to what they had achieved in Tirol space, only seemed to emphasize what many were expressing more and more often and vocally; what had once, and should have been, Earth’s finest and most noble fighting force and technological agency, had become a dead behemoth in the eyes of many, and a fool’s errand in hindsight.
The Admirals Hunter, though sourly tempted to accept the offer of amnesty offered by the EDF, felt obliged to continue to head the REF, out of a sense of responsibility to those they had led into this mess. The Hunters’ many critics contended that their decision was simply to avoid returning to an Earth where they were most likely to be held in scorn and resentment for leaving Earth unprotected(EDF official pronouncements to the contrary notwithstanding) and instead take refuge with their Sentinel allies and personal friends, who still held them in high esteem. SMA support for the REF, it was felt, was more in the nature of an extended personal favor than any belief by anyone that the REF would ever amount to anything more...And even that relationship would be strained, and the REF’s neutral stance further discredited, as the SMA’s increasingly aggressive stance against Earth hardens.
To most outsiders, the REF is seen as a relic, creaking out its last, and occasionally coughing up some useful piece of data or interesting technology....most expect the service to eventually die out, along with the decaying glories of their adopted Tirolian home planet within the century. As the war between the SMA and the EDF drags on and esculates, the funding and material support provided by the Sentinel worlds seems almost certain to dry up, leaving the REF---now regarded as little more than a token police force---to wither on the vine.
However, many third-generation REFers(and there are quite a few who haven’t drifted towards the bright lights of either the SMA or the EDF) feel otherwise. With pariahs’ pride, these diehards persist in believing that something may yet be salvaged of the Hunters’ legacy. Though few feel any connection to Old Earth(most being born and raised on Tirol, or aboard the many REF fleet ships and deep space outposts), to them the current state of affairs just feels WRONG. Proud of their heritage(of both courageous Terran pioneers, rebel Zentraedi, and Tirolian dissidents), though uncertain of exactly what it is, these young turks are determined to vindicate their parents’ and grandparents’ idealism and sense of sacrifice. Feeling left out of galactic affairs and relegated to a third-string position politically and technologically(seeing their best siphoned off by treaty to the SMA, or running off to the EDF), the new-generation REFers feel stripped of the tools they need to restore honor to their name. Ironically, they look to the example of the EDF for inspiration as to how to rebuild and innovate from scraps of disparate technologies, and regard the rich economies of the SMA with no small amount of envy, but by the same token, they also feel beholden to no one but themselves. Ultimately, against the tempatations and scorn offered in equal amounts by their neighbors, the REF knows it will have to go it alone. Many of the Tirolian-born, having grown up amidst the centuried ruins of old Tirol, look back to the great ages of exploration and innovation before the rise of the Masters, as the direction that they should take.
In time, the Robotech Expeditionary Force seems destined to split into several new branches; the REF(Robotech Enforcement Force), the RRF(Rescue and Relief Fleet), and the RES(Robotech Exploration Service), though both the REF and RES are pretty much interchangeable in terms of manpower and equipment.....

Robotech Enforcement Forces(REF)

“It doesn’t matter that I don’t have a battlecruiser here, a Veritech fighter, or even a Cyclone here...what I DO have is this gun to your head and your hands in these powercuffs....now quit struggling! You’re under arrest!”
------Anonymous REF peacekeeper, on arresting a pirate commander on his own bridge, somewhere in the Trade Worlds.

Besides retaining the original’s acronym, the REF continues to follow the original directives of the Pioneer mission, though much curtailed in scope. Their role as the major military force in the Local Group has been taken over completely by the SMA’s various fleet militias. relegating the REF to third-echelon reserves. While the REF nominally stands ready to swing back into action against the Masters should they return, the have had little activity in the current SMA/EDF war. For the most part, the REF patrols the rearward spacelanes of the SMA, tracks down smugglers, and monitors the movement of technologies between the SMA and the growing number of non-Sentinel species now trading with them. They also have some anti-piracy capability, but for the most part their main activity is wadding through mountains of trade and cargo manifests generated by the SMA, and shuttling an increasingly frustrated corps of diplomats in their efforts to negotiate peace. However, the new REF isn’t entirely useless; regarded as a sort of ‘galactic Interpol’, they actually have managed to do some good in keeping illegal or controlled technologies out of the wrong hands and have actually made a rather good go at being peacekeepers....Many observers admire the REF’s courage, if not their actual effectiveness, recalling the almost suicidal bravery of REF troops during the Sentinel War. These ‘old guards’ are establishing reputations as fair and firm-handed law enforcers and diplomatic monitors(though they often suffer from being treated as ‘JAFOs’ by both their EDF and SMA opposite numbers), despite the fact that they feel constantly hamstrung by operational guidelines and charter restrictions imposed on them by the SMA in return for continued support. The good news is that the REF’s suffering has managed to distract the attention of everybody from the true scope of the activities of their RES brethren.

RES(Robotech Exploration Service)

“I just want to see what’s beyond that little star over there...”
-----Pathfinder Jetta Lee, RES Soloship Pilot

The RES is dedicated to exploration...Initially, its stated goals were to rediscover lost Tirolian colonies. forgotten Zentraedi depots, and stranded fleet assets, with the goal of locating usable strategic resources before the Masters can reclaim them. However, the RES is also pushing the boundaries of knowledge, voyaging farther and deeper into the galaxy on grand voyages of discovery. While much of the data acquired through these explorations is made available to both the SMA and the EDF, it is no small secret within the organization that the RES is accumulating far more in the way of updated star charts and exoplanetary data(as well as the locations of old factory satellites and other industrial sites not immediately turned over to the SMA), possibly for use as possible leverage against the SMA and EDF. Increasingly, the intrepid explorers of the RES are becoming known as ‘Rezzers’, and are acquiring a reputation as hotshot pilots and scouts, pushing farther and faster, often on a shoestring budget with antiquated equipment. Many in the REF see the carefree and dedicated RES mavericks as the true core of efforts to rebuild the REF’s reputation.

RRF(Rescue and Relief Fleet)

“I don’t know what your species is, or where you come from, but you’re obviously in trouble, so I’m here to help you...”
----Lieutenant Kylie Maximoff, Senior Medical Rescue Specialist, Rescue Cutter RRFSS Jonas Salk, on a First Contact rescue.

The RRF is far smaller, and is mainly a humanitarian effort acting in concert with the REF(they are, in fact, considered an adjutant subsidiary of the law enforcement division). They are mainly concerned with providing care and medical support to farflung colonial outposts, stranded spacecraft, and the increasing number of victims from the EDF/SMA war...Lacking, both by charter and disposition, armaments and combat capabilities, the RRF’s greatest strength is its diplomacy in negotiating for localized ceasefires to allow their ships to scour battlefields for survivors, and arrange for the safe internment and repatriation of those same survivors. Nicknamed the ‘Galactic Red Cross’, the RRG is sadly too small and impotent to be able to have any real effect on the events that generate it so much business, and given that most of its equipment is hand-me-downs(especially ships too old to be combat worthy) from the REF, it’s arguably in worse shape than the rest of the REF. On the other hand, the RRF is one of the few organizations that accepts support and volunteers from both the SMA and the EDF. The RRF is particularly well-associated and connected with the Haydonites, whose pacifistic stance in the ongoing hostilities is well-known.

Perhaps more than anyone else, the stalwarts of the REF and RES feel the grim irony of history repeating itself, and playing out in front of them....The rise and fall of empires, the tragic blunders and misunderstandings that continue to fuel the conflicts, and the forming of hatreds that further fan the fires. They also see the grim progression of destroyed worlds; Optera, Praxis Peryton, Mars, and now Earth, and are increasingly alarmed at the rate at which precious life-bearing worlds are being snuffed out....This has hardened the resolve of many REF enforcement officers to take a more active role in stopping the hostilities, and has pushed the ‘Rezzers’ to range further and harder in search of new inhabitable worlds.
Another irony has also not been lost on the REF; as the SMA and the EDF go eye to eye and lock horns, Tirol, homeworld of the Robotech Masters who started the entire Robotech Wars, and now home to the REF, may be the only power to stand between the embittered victims of those very same Masters, and galaxy-wide destruction. Or so they keep telling themselves.
All the same, though, there are just as many REF/RESers who feel that what both the SMA and EDF need is to have their heads smacked together and their undergarments wedgied, and that they are uniquely qualified to do the honors....for the Sentinels’ and the Earthers’ own good, of course.
Given that the REF/RES is still rather pathetically underfunded and lacking in resources, however, the few outsiders privy to the REF’s concerns are more apt to laugh at them, and dismiss the whole thing as the last chest-thumpings of a dying organization. This has only hardened the resolve of those who have taken oath to the REF to prove their critics and opponents wrong.
The odds are against them, and the very history that they claim to be trying to avert in the repeating should be telling them that their effort is doomed....but these proud few persist in believing that this time the REF is going to get it right, because there is no other acceptable alternative.

[taalismn]

this part isn't as thorough as I'd like, but gives some idea of where the REF could be going....

Organization/Facilities:
Admirals Rick and Lisa Hunter continue to be the nominal(some say spiritual) heads of the REF, though few outside the servive have seen them in decades....Leading to all manner of rumors; that the two have been replaced by digital sims, or that they’ve been taking Tirolian longevity treatments, or that they’ve actually taken off with one of the relativistic long-probe missions deep into unexplored space....But they continue to be regarded as the ultimate ethical authorities of the REF. Generals(-Arbitrator) Jack Baker and Karen Baker-Penn head up the Enforcement operations; Jack’s fighter pilot experience tends to lend itself to a ‘John Wayne’ style of law enforcement, tempered by Karen’s more diplomatic and studied approach. While Cabell, Lang, and Exedore continue to manage the groundside operations of the RRG and the RES, Rem is the main officer and Director of the Robotech Exploration Service(and wondering if perhaps Zor’s legacy hasn’t come full-circle). However, while the old Pioneer Mission veterans have managed to keep up and keep their hands in the action, the REF now pretty much belongs to the younger generations of their descendants; Roy Hunter is supposedly an up-and-coming in the RES, with two First Contacts already under his belt, and Drannin Tul looks set to follow in his father Breetai’s footsteps as a builder of bridges and enforcer of the peace in the non-agffiliated worlds.
The REF continues to be based on Tirol and Fantoma orbit, where its recruitment, training, manufacturing, and R&D facilities are centered. The REF also maintains token port and base facilities on the major SMA worlds, the largest of which are on Praxis and Garuda. The RRF has a large training and treatment facility on Haydon IV, donated and administered by the Haydonites. Regional listening posts are salted throughout SMA space, typically acting in support of the long range communications grid. Both the RES and RRF maintain networks of ‘lifecaches’ and ‘lifestations’...small space stations and outposts that serve as both communications relays and supply depots, and which can be expanded in emergencies to accommodate larger exploration efforts or rescue taskforces. Supposedly, in the course of the SMA/EDF War, the RRF maintained such a ‘lifestation’ out beyond Pluto’s orbit.....in the remains of Fold-displaced Macross Island.....
Typically, both the REF and RES operate from motherships(Ikazuchi-class derivatives or modified Zentraedi ships) in relatively small task groups; the REF to monitor and interdict criminal activity in its sectors, and the RES to launch sector-wide explorations. Because of its limited resources, the REF tends to focus on small, highly-trained special forces and lone operatives, with larger concentrations of force coming into play only when definite threats have been identified, adn their threat level defined....this emphasis on small group tactics has had a marked effect on the direction of training and technology development.


Composition:
The REF and its branches is primarily(60%) human/Terran/Tirolian, with a large percentage(30%) of Zentraedi, and smaller numbers of Praxians and Garudans. Disaffected Karbarreans, Spherians, Perytonians, and Haydonites have also joined, though not in any substantial numbers. A growing number of recruits from the non-allied worlds(those worlds not officially part of the Sentinel Mercantile Alliance) are also beginning to show up in the ranks of the REF.

Allies:
The REF/RES is both allied to everyone and no one. Nominally supported and financed by the SMA, the REF is both respected and distrusted by the Sentinels who suspect the service has divided loyalties. The Karbarreans and the Perytonians are the most vocal in their criticism of the REF for their failure to more enthusiastically endorse a war of liberation against their old home system, and have not demanded that the REF take a more active role in the war, in part due to that distrust. The Praxians and a silent majority of Garudans and Spherians support the REF, the latter more so because they understand the pain of the Terran REFers’ voluntary exile.
A number of non-affiliated worlds openned up by the RES or by the SMA contact teams have come to regard the REF as a relatively impartial voice of law, order, and sanity, and allow the REF and RES to operate within their space(whether or not this leads to more substantial support besides right-of-way and legal recognition, remains to be seen).
The EDF respects the desire of the REF for peace and relations were approaching warm before the outbreak of war with the SMA. With so many former REFers part of the EDF now, the EDF has found it hard to hate or distrust the REF, but have expressed growing disappointment that the REF seems to fall farther and farther back into the SMA’s shadow with each cycle. With each upset in the war, however, Terran support for the REF threatens to wane, as the unpopularity of the SMA increases. For now, the REF remains a common diplomatic connection between the two warring powers, even though negotiations have proven frustrating and ineffectual so far.

Enemies:
The REF really doesn’t have any major or personal enemies as such; most people really don’t pay much attention to them. However, as noted, increasing numbers of people in both the SMA and EDF are distrustful or scornful of the REF, seeing them as self-important has-beens still clinging to faded glories long past. This hasn’t been helped by the fact that the REF has shown an increasing willingness to interdict EDF operatives trying to sneak into the SMA, and arrest high-ranking SMA officials for illegal activities and questionable business practices, earning the lawmen some personal enemies. Another strike against the REF from the viewpoint of the EDF is the former’s role in developing the Neutron-S weaponry that the Sentinels have been using so freely in the war.
A number of criminal organizations in the SMA and the non-affiliated worlds also regard the REF with no small amount of hatred and dismay, for the law enforcers’ patrol activities and successes in cracking down on smuggling and piracy.
For their part, the REF remains somewhat suspicious, but open-minded, of the Invid of Earth; however, many in the REF remain skeptical of the Invid-influenced humans(their nickname for them being ‘lotus-eaters’, with the implication that they’re too drugged out to see what’s really happening), which has been another factor in keeping the two peoples from enjoying warmer relations. Rogue Zentraedi are regarded with both compassion and caution; with efforts at bringing the remaining giants into the ‘mainstream’ REF-affiliated Zentraedi.
If anyone is really regarded as an enemy that the REF feels intensely about, it’s the Robotech Masters.....Diehard REFers refer to the Masters as ‘unfinished business’ that the REF would very much like to lay to final rest, and end a rather sordid chapter in their history. How effective the much-diminished REF would be against the renewed Masters is dubious, but as the new generation REFers like to say; “A dagger strike can often better accomplish what armies cannot, if one knows where to put it.”

Technology:
Compared to the burgeoning ship mills of Karbarrea and the factory satellites of the SMA, the resources of the REF/RES are paltry; the old REF yards around Fantoma are antiquated and local resources spent, and the old Robotech Research Group Institute on Tirol a still respectable, but creaking, old institution, its best and brightest either defecting as soon as they can to either the SMA or the EDF, or becoming lost in increasingly obscure theoretical work. The REF yards continue to crank out modified versions of old REF stalwart designs, and the RRG churns out more paper and software than anything else.
Rumors persist, however, of RES-established shipyards and research facilities in desert systems just beyond the fringes of known SMA/EDF space, where a new generation of scientists are delving into new genetic augmentation and nanotechnologies. Word has it that just as the SMA siphoned off old RDF/REF research to their own ends, the REF/RES is quietly siphoning back technology and science back, and applying it in their own way.

Spacecraft:
The visible bulk of the REF fleet continues to be made of time-tested and travel-worn upgraded Ikazuchi carriers, Garfish/Katana frigates, Horizont shuttles, salvaged Zentraedi warships, and their derivatives. The REF does maintain a few SDF-class capital ships, but these craft are little more than orbit-queens, holding in parking orbits over Fantoma, and used to train cadets or junket diplomats....most of the SDFs have never had their main armaments installed or energized, making them effectively toothless.
Still, smaller ships like the Horizont IV FTL Courier see extensive service throughout known space, and the white-liveried ships of the REF Rescue and Relief fleet are a welcome sight to stranded space travellers. Both Couriers and rescue craft have made forays into the hotly contested EDF/SMA warzones, delivering diplomatic entreaties and rescuing survivors without regard to battle lines or nationality.


Equipment:
Most of what the REF and RES uses is modestly upgraded and updated versions of gear familiar to the old Sentinels-War era REF....The CVR armor’s a little lighter and tougher, the Alphas and Betas slightly faster, with a few more missiles, and the Gallants may be able to squeeze a few more shots out of a clip, but the stuff is still instantly recognizable and usable by anyone who shipped out with the Hunters so long ago. The REF gear tends to have a few more non-lethal options to fit their role as policemen, and the RES has more sensor gear and range-extending boosters tacked on, and both agencies use lots of drones, robots, and unmanned surveillance hardware to keep an eye on things and go poking around, but they look pretty much the same to the outsider. Certain operational restrictions under the revised charter imposed on them by the SMA keep the REF from deploying certain types of ordnance(heavy nucleonics especially) and heavy weaponry(no mobile Reflex Cannon, for instance) during their peacekeeping duties, though the RES has no such restrictions, in part due to their less visible operations.
The RRF gets by with whatever medical gear it can buy or cajole out of its neighbors, or produce on its own.


Mecha Design:
Despite its apparent neglect of its mecha forces, the REF has not been lax in designing new mecha....only in the introduction of new models. Much of what the REF does now is modify and upgrade existing REF hardware, but a few new designs are beginning to make their appearance in REF/RES ranks. Not having the resources to mount massive multi-mecha squadron forces, the REF have instead chosen to concentrate on designs that emphasize quality and the individual pilot, over quantity and group tactics. Both the REF and RES have begun to drift back towards the larger VF-1 style mecha configuration, designing mecha that are larger and more durable, with more internal space for additional equipment, larger engines for greater speed and range, and add-on modules for armor, booster engines(including FTL Psuedo-Jaunt ‘jumpers’ and larger mini-Fold generators), communications gear, sensors, and, tyes, weaponry. Some of the more heavily augmented RES mecha are small FTL spacecraft in their own right, and are often referred to as ‘soloships’.
Battloid and Destroid design have also seen a similar drift towards faster, multi-purpose frames with multiple options, including compatibility with a number of external drive/equipment modules, similar to the old Zentraedi Officer’s Pod Armored Sled.
Cyclone design continues to revolve around the armor-and-vehicle configuration, but the REF is looking towards developing lighter, and more powerful exoskeletons and similar systems.

Artificial Intelligence
Though lacking the organic neural circuitry technology of the Invid/Terran alliance, the REF has been making its own quiet advances in A.I.. REF and RES drones have become steadily more sophisticated in terms of their processing and cognitive abilities. The REF has also increasingly been installing more sophisticated A.I.s in the cockpits of their mecha, giving their pilots semi-sentient ‘companions’ to assist them in combat and exploration. In the REF, these AIs are often referred to as ‘deputies’, while the RES nicknames its cockpit AIs as ‘Fridays’.(as in ‘Girl Friday’)...

Biotech:
The REF/RES have quietly been experimenting with genetic engineering and bio-augmentation, using both old Robotech Masters data(especially on experiments with specialized Zentraedi and clone psionics) and what they’ve gleaned about EDF biotechnology methods. Their black projects have begun to bear fruit....especially in the form of organic cybernetic enhancements and implants(‘bioware’) to make recipients faster, tougher, smarter, and tougher. Bio-cyborg pilots able to handle the stresses of harder accelerations, and multi-task flight operations, policemen able to wrestle Karbarrean criminals, and the REF’s own corps of psychic operatives are among some of the possibilities offered by these new technologies. The REF soon hopes to begin fielding biologically-enhanced agents, while the RES hopes to begin equipping its explorers with environmental adaptations and sensory boosts. More radical enhancements and reshapings are supposedly possible, but the REF is leery of tampering too much with the human form, both because of security considerations, and fear of what pushing the envelope TOO much might do to the psyches of recipients.
(Game Note:The Bioware can be the less radical implants for the Eugenic Superheroes described in Heroes Unlimited Powers Unlimited Book 2...GMs might want to limit characters to no more than 4 or 5 implants).


Adventure Ideas:
*Wrong Turns on the Double Helix----Though the REF’s black projects to produce enhanced agents are conducted with utmost care and great consideration for the health and well-being of those involved in the experiments, mistakes are occasionally made....Now the REF have one or several heavily bio-enhanced supersoldiers/agents driven mad by their augmentation...and on the loose after escaping from the lab. These poor souls are suffering from any number of types of mental instability...from blind panic to cold calculating rage against their own people, or a misguided belief that the way to end the SMA/EDF war is to arrest or kill the leaders of both sides. The PCs(enhanced agents themselves?) are dispatched to track down the bioborgs and neutralize them before anyone else can be harmed, and before they blow the cover of the black programs.

*That Ain’t What I THINK It Is---An RRF rescue ship is trawling the aftermath of the Battle of Saturn, and discovers a wrecked ship(could belong to either side) drifting into deep space, with possible survivors aboard.....Rescue efforts are complicated by still dangerous systems, compromised structural integrity, battle debris forming dangerous ‘mini-storms’ outside, and badly injured crew members, with the occasional hysterical survivor, but things get really dicey when rescuers discover an unexploded, but live, missile warhead embedded deep in the ship......And it’s a type none of the ordnance experts have seen before(or maybe it’s a new mini-Neutron-Z warhead). As the situation evolves, it becomes clear that the warhead could go up, taking the survivors, the rescue team, and any other ships in the vicinity, if somebody doesn’t do something about it...
Complications can include crewmen who are paranoid about the RRF and their intentions(maybe it’s an EDF or SMA command ship with secrets to hide), boobytrapped warhead systems, or badly wounded survivors trapped by the warhead(maybe actually EMBEDDED in it)....Now is it the blue or the red wire?

*The Line that Divides----An REF peacekeeper patrol encounters an unflagged merchant ship in restricted space. It refuses to heave to and be inspected, so the REF crew has to take it by force. Forced inspection of the ship and its cargo reveals a mixed alien crew(Sentinels and some species not seen before), and the real prize...a concealed load of Nuetron-S-type weapons(or some other infernal device/components of).
Soon thereafter a sizeable SMA space force shows up and demands that the REF turn the ship and its contents over to them, no questions asked(or they reveal that the ship’s contents were stolen from a Karbarrean arms research facility). Then an EDF taskforce pops into the system in an attempt to intercept the ship themselves, claiming that they have intelligence that the weapons were being sent for use in a planet-busting raid on Sol system, and they want the ship and its contents as evidence. Both sides, especially after the other shows up, threaten to open fire if their demands aren’t met. Complicating matters is the fact that the REFers know people in BOTH fleets.....Giving in to either will violate the REF’s mandate as peacekeepers and force them to pick a side, but not giving in could make them the target of BOTH sides.....

*Maybe Sticking My Head in THERE Was a BAD Idea----An RES expedition has discovered something nasty, and it ain’t happy....Likely big guns won’t stop it, and the really big guns are light years away...Have fun....

[Marcethus]

Talisman: Great work on the REF stuff I love the Idea of the RES

Dairugger: keep up the awesome work

[taalismn]

Talisman: Great work on the REF stuff I love the Idea of the RES

Dairugger: keep up the awesome work

Thank you...hopefully, I'll be able to keep the REF and RES apace with the mounting hostilities between the EDF and SMA...and after being used as chumps by the EDF(or did the REF LET them, knowing they'd leak the SMA's technical knowledge back to Earth?)...By making sure that their ID files are kept up to date(they are, after all, a much smaller, and cozier, service than the other powers), and by instituting a policy of dumping some of their EDF and SMA prisoners(rather than turn them over to their respective forces or the REF's employers) on RES-discovered 'safe worlds' with enough tools for fairly comfortable, but non-spacefaring, existance..."That way, if your folks blow each other up back in the home systems, at least a few of you will survive out here..."

Turning Jupiter into a short-term star burning hot and fast as opposed to the more benign long-term life-source of the 2001 series(by Arthur C.)? Hmmm...we're looking at a short-term rise in ambient light for most of the year(excepting when it moves behind Sol, relative to Earth...possible heat build up more uniform than the Rain of Death...expect rising sea levels as the temperatures rise, unless Earth tries to shield itself with an artificially generated 'nuclear winter' solar shield in the atmosphere.....Radiation is probably the killer, and if Jupstar has sunspot-like flares and 'burps', electromagnetic disruption as well....possibly enough to cause Earth's magnetic field to reverse, and possibly compromise the natural EM shield....
Mars also might be blasted and lose structural integrity...forming a new asteroid belt that could drift in and give Earth some serious rock problems...some of those rocks might also be radioactive(we're talking advanced Reflex/Protoculture munitions here...)

Now, conceivably, Earth COULD survive with enough high tech, and most likely will remain, in spite of everything, borderline inhabitable in spite of big rocks, high sea levels, rampant ecosystem mutation, and climatic changes up the yin-yang, but it's noy going to be easy, especially with a war on...
Fortunately, when Jupstar goes phfttt! in a few decades, there should be enough interesting substances left in its husk to mine and pay for the eventual Earth recovery operations, but that's decades down the road....

As for raids on Karbarrea...you might as well call it 'Operation Shake and Bake'...between earthquake resonance gravitics and firebombing, it ain't going to be pretty....
"I just hate the smell of burnt fur in the morning."---Anonymous Karbarrean shipyard worker, asked to comment on his close call before the reduction of G'roz Reactor Assembly


Obviously I'm back...great vacation in Heaven.....bus trips arranged by Satan....

[Marcethus]

Weclome Back Taalisman, good to hear you had a good vacation.

[taalismn]

[

Welcome back, and I know bus trips can be (unless the bus is half empty and everyone gets at least two chairs for themselves).

First half of the trip back was the opposite of that, and the second part which was as you stated, should have been good, but for the presence of a young lady whose voice was to singing and tunesmithing what a live chainsaw is to a spastic epileptic.....and I forgot to pack my REF-issue 'Silent Slammer' Plainclothes-Concealable Stealth Mini-Missile Launcher.....Young people these days....

[taalismn]

right beside you on that one....I'm hammering away on a few Karbarrean ships, but developing new weapons systems from scratch takes time.....

[Marcethus]

awesome simply awsome guys. You are doing a great job and have sucked me in totally

[taalismn]

Thought occured to me, though...if the Earth is the place where the flower of life, so essential to invid bio-systems and Protoculture manufacture, is available in its 'truest' form(or highest potency), what long-term effects does that have for the FoL dependent EDF and its increasingly FoL dependent populace?
Either
a) The 'true' FoL can grow on other worlds...it's possession of the last remaining fertile seeds aboard Zor's battlefortress that screwed up everyone earlier...In other words, ow that the cat's out of the bag, people can grow the stiff just about anywhere....especially on the new worlds being openned up.
b) Thanks to advanced bio-engineering, the Terrans can now adapt the FoL to grow on just about any world without reduction in its potency(in fact, it was being used as a terraforming plant on Mars and Venus)
c) It's the presence of HUMANS that's important to the successful cultivation of Zor's last batch of FoL....Not Tirolians, but Terrans...just something about us that makes the plants just grow taller and greener...so, wherever we go, the plant goes too...
d) Even with the Earth wrecked, the stuff can still grow there...it's insanely tough once rooted on Earth(in fact, it may end up being the most sophisticated lifeform existing unprotected on the planet)...other lesser strains may be bred elsewhere, but for the 'real' stuff, risking the sandstorms and radiation to find a patch of genuine Terran Flower of Life is worth it! And makes having a continued near-Earth presence by the EDF(hidden in their lunar bunkers, next to the Eco-Rangers' Terraforming Institute) an on-going storyline schtick....


As for 'Moon Busters'....I'm working around the idea of a relavistic mass driver lobbing shells of ultra-dense collapsed material at 80%+ of light speed.....toss in a fragmenting warhead that 'buckshots' just before hitting, and you got a comsic shotgun blast from beyond....

[taalismn]

Thought occured to me, though...if the Earth is the place where the flower of life, so essential to invid bio-systems and Protoculture manufacture, is available in its 'truest' form(or highest potency), what long-term effects does that have for the FoL dependent EDF and its increasingly FoL dependent populace?
Either
a) The 'true' FoL can grow on other worlds...it's possession of the last remaining fertile seeds aboard Zor's battlefortress that screwed up everyone earlier...In other words, ow that the cat's out of the bag, people can grow the stiff just about anywhere....especially on the new worlds being openned up.
b) Thanks to advanced bio-engineering, the Terrans can now adapt the FoL to grow on just about any world without reduction in its potency(in fact, it was being used as a terraforming plant on Mars and Venus)
c) It's the presence of HUMANS that's important to the successful cultivation of Zor's last batch of FoL....Not Tirolians, but Terrans...just something about us that makes the plants just grow taller and greener...so, wherever we go, the plant goes too...
d) Even with the Earth wrecked, the stuff can still grow there...it's insanely tough once rooted on Earth(in fact, it may end up being the most sophisticated lifeform existing unprotected on the planet)...other lesser strains may be bred elsewhere, but for the 'real' stuff, risking the sandstorms and radiation to find a patch of genuine Terran Flower of Life is worth it! And makes having a continued near-Earth presence by the EDF(hidden in their lunar bunkers, next to the Eco-Rangers' Terraforming Institute) an on-going storyline schtick....


As for 'Moon Busters'....I'm working around the idea of a relavistic mass driver lobbing shells of ultra-dense collapsed material at 80%+ of light speed.....toss in a fragmenting warhead that 'buckshots' just before hitting, and you got a comsic shotgun blast from beyond....

[taalismn]

oops....didn't mean to post that last twice...me bad...

[taalismn]

[quote="Dairugger XVMore or less what I was thinking, but I don't care much for the shotgun bit. The main advantage of the Reflex Cannon and Gravity Wave Cannon is that they affect everything in their line of fire. However, even a large number of blasts from these weapons could only hope to scour a planet's surface really. The Moon Busters will only affect 1-3 targets (if lined up properly and one of those targets aren't tough enough to take full brunt of the hit) at most. However, used against things like a moon the size of Earth's moon, 2 shots (one if it hits the right spot) would turn Luna into one big meteor shower, hence the name Moon Buster. It would probably take less than a dozen shots from a Moon Buster to destroy a planet like Earth.[/quote]

I'm afraid my current stats are for something less powerful....more like punchinga 5-6 mile deep hole in the crust and gouging out a 20-50 mile wide crater(plus devastating earth shocks for hundreds of miles)...

The 'shotgun effect' was suggested by Pelligrino's novel 'Killing Star' where Earth is slugged by dozens of ram-scoop missiles going at as close to light speed as they can manage...to maximize the kill effect of the missiles, they MIRV to hit more surface targets...with each MIRV massing THOUSANDS of tons(the cannon I'm currently working on has a somewhat smaller warhead, in order to fit aboard a battlecruiser....but there's always room for upgrades and bigger ships).....Less efficient against ships and other small mobile targets(unless you really MIRV into what essentially becomes a nebula of sublight ball-bearings), but a single shot should blast a moon like Phobos into dust, and make a noticeable gouge in the Moon...Two or three shots to blast Luna...

Not quite Death Star, but getting there....

However, I will start looking at upgrading Karbarrean shipbuilding to be able to build the sort of 'superslingshot' you describe above(something on the order of a Master's Mothership or three strung together with dozens of MILES of acclerator conduiting...)

Might be simply easier to take an old Zentraedi warship, gut it, stick it full of fusion and gravitic thrusters and a payload of neutronium, piggyback it outside the solar system to a set of other ships stripped down for maximum accel, and boost it up to speed....oh, and pray your opponent doesn't do something nasty like toss a few shiploads of dust in your path early enough to disperse the debris of your shredded missile wide enough to prevent damage

Hmmm....maybe some of those pockets of rogue Zentraedi out there have already tried this stunt? MIght be some pretty vicious warlords out there who didn't heed Dolza's call(or couldn't)....

[taalismn]

It isn't much, and I figure there's a lot I left out, but to keep the thread alive and start providjng some stats for the AU....

EDF Telepathic Telepresence Systems(TTS)
One of the more striking developments of the merger of Human/Tirolian Robotechnology with Invid bio-systems has been the development of telepathy-based remote control telepresence system. Based on late studies of the Regis’ and Invid Hive Brains’ abilities to take over lesser echelon drones through the Invid shared consciousness, the telepresence system takes advantage of the growing Human telepathic ‘web’, to allow specially trained psychic operators to ‘insert’ their consciousness into specially-equipped neural-circutry-enabled robotic mecha. These systems lack any sort of consciousness of their own, even the rudimentary reflexes of Scouts, but when telepathically linked to an operator (usually in a safe location at a remove from the area of operations). So linked, the operator assumes the ‘identity’ of the bio-mechanism, seeing through its sensors, feeling what it experiences(the degree depending on the senstivity and sophistication of the bio-mecha), and able to respond as if they were there in person, piloting the machine. Among the advantages of the telepathic link are greater range, greater response time, more complex information exchange, and apparently unjammable communications.
The dangers of the TTS is the fact that immersion can be so total that operators can sometimes lose themselves in ‘becoming’ the teleoperated mechanism. Getting a linked operator to disengage can sometimes be difficult, and operators often complain of acute shock and discomfort upon surrendering a link and ‘returning’ to their bodies. Another danger, especially with high-level bio-drones, is feedback shock if and when a drone gets damaged or destroyed; psychosomatic shock can injure, sometimes critically, an operator before they can disengage. Thus, the TTS iso-pod chambers are often rigged with biomonitors and have medical personnel in attendance, in case of problems.
The EDF has begun to deploy TTS-equipped mechas as part of its deep space labor and recon forces, with combat units just now beginning to be used in the military capacity, supplementing existing older robotic drone systems.
Range: Instantaneous communications up to 60 million miles(evidence suggests that the system can be boosted even more, but so far, this is considered the standard)
Penalties:For every 100 MDC in damage the drone mecha takes, the operator must roll versus psionic attack. Failure means the operator takes 1d6 in damage directly to Hit Points, suffers acute pain, and may exhibit psychosomatic symptoms(limb hits may paralyze the operator's arm or leg, main body damage results in acute abdominal pains, a head strike may lead to temporary blindness or bleeding from mouth, nose, or ears, etc.). Once the operator reaches 0 Hit Points, they pass out and all bonuses are lost as the system becomes inoperable. The operator recovers these psychosomatic Hit Points at normal rates of healing, as their minds struggle to block out the trauma and their bodies get over the shock of being injured or ‘killed’.

[taalismn]

Oh goodie!
I was worried about this thread.....I've been behind on my writting for it!
Now I have something new to read!

[Jefffar]

Pretty light on the missiles if you ask me.

But I don't think you did ask, so it doesn't matter.


I like that you've limited number ofattacks per melee on the heavy weapons.

[Jefffar]

I suggest just double tubing the SRMs rather than going with MRMs. Don't increase the rate of fire.

Then add a possibility for MRMs on the wings where they fit better.