ship hunters: A new faction for Robotech (all periods)
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 4:42 am
I'll be getting into this a bit moe, but I used this to justify some groups for my invid invasion and beyond period.
Intro:
Tens of thousands, perhaps more, zentraedi ships crashed into the earth after the fall of the Grand Fleet. Thankfully, most of them fell in a more or less controlled manner (however much it didn't look like that from the outside), else the damage might have been close to that of the rain of death itself.
For most individuals, the gigantic ships, sticking out of the earth like spears were the biggest sign of that-- many of those ships were quickly stripped, or used for shelter. The UEEF started an ambitious plan to deny any possible malcontents or breakaway governments access to their resources--and the resources were great indeed-- what was starvation protoculture rations for a fleet of over four million vessels was wealth beyond measure for a single world.
For a time, there was a drive to organize the looting--and then, for a time, there was a gold rush. Many died, either from angry zentraedi, bandits, or dangerous and malfunctioning weapons. But slowly, as the easy finds vanished, teh casual hunters went back home to find other ways to make their living.
But the biggest factor was the simplest-- the finding of the robotech factory satellite. While still valuable, the leadership of the UEEF had to confront the fact that there was simply not enough people ot keep hunting for new ships, not when every individual was needed to crew the newly constructed ships, to puzzle out the functionings of a factory system nearly 1/4 the volume of hte moon. Valuable the ships were, dangers they were, but not valuable or dangerous enough to warrant the diversions of the forces that had once been planned.
Besides, many pointed out, the limiting factor on the Zentraedi malcontents wasn't material--like the UEEF, it was men and women, and those could not be found in a wrecked starship.
So salvage efforts, if not stopped, were put on the backburner, letting private groups take the lead-- the UEEF would still pay handsomely for salvage (but not as handsomely as some).
But there was a second fact, one that many in the UEEF didn't consider. While they assumed that soon enough the ships would be exhausted, they did not realize that far more ships were hidden then were revealed. Many zentreadi ships, whether by the dint of heroic effort or emergency autopilots didn't slam streaight into the ground, instead plowing deep furrows into the earth. A great many found themselves sinking into lose earth or rubble, while others were deep under the former surface, coming to lay in the bottoms of the innumerable craters dozla had created. A few landed on now dry parts of the lake and sea beds, where the cubic miles of vaporized water had led to a drop in the water level.
But that water (some of it) did return to earth, in the form of vast deluges. In other places, the tremendous storms that ripped across the earth due ot the thermal input from teh bombardment covered them with sand. Some buried, some partly covered in mud as the rain led to the collapse of the surrounding earth, these ships, even before the UEEF had been able to start looking for them, were buried, whether fifty or a hundred feet under teh earth. Certainly, one could find them with ground penetrating radar... but the earth was vast, and in many cases their crews had died or been unable to locate their ships when they left, seeking other zentraedi (rather more had abandoned ship on the way down). Finding the ships was difficult, and it only grew more difficult as the explosion in growth that would see Scott Bernard and his group riding through what appeared to be old-growth forests added roots and trees to their earthen cover. (There is some evidence that the release of protoculture and other nutrients from the wrecked hulls might have assisted in this process, a ironic twist).
And so the ship prospector became a new figure, sometimes of mockery, and sometimes of respect and jealousy. Using their helicopters and trucks, they would travel the new world, looking for signs of buried zentreadi loot, hoping for the find of a lifetime that could set them up in luxury (and let them send others out to do the looking) but more often returning with some battered missles, or a few protoculture engines that the UEEF would buy to keep off the market. Other's risked imprisonment (or death at the hands of their clients) and sold to less scrupulous individuals. But away from the lawful regions of earth, every Ship Prospector knew that he or she might run into rogue zentreadi, criminals, covert government groups from the EBSIS or other splinter organizations, or merely fall afoul of a natural hazard. It was a job that required a certain mind set.
The process of finding buried treasure.
The destruction of Dozla's fleet had burned out nearly every system designed to track falling objects and what few data bases remained were generally unavailable to the public. For that reason, ship prospecters had to do things the hard way:
1. Obtain pre-Rain topographic maps.
2. Obtain post-rain orbital topographic maps.
3. Through a painstaking process often known as "making an educated guess" examine the two maps to see if one could determine where a ship might have landed, as opposed to simple natural pheonomena.
4. Travel to the most likely point with drilling and excavation gear, usually as part of a small group.
5. HOpe to be surprsied, expect to be disapointed.
6. Repeat.
If a ship was found, evaluating what was in it was th emost important goal. Most ships had little or nothing remaining in a functional sense, and were merely marked. A few had salvagable gear, undetonated ordenance and some remaining protoculture. Working mecha was considered a dangerous lucky strick, with many groups purchasing them-- even mecha that could not be used by micronians would be valuable for those groups that did not have a robotech factory.
An empty, more or less functional (in the sense of internal systems) ship could be sold quickly, as many homesteaders found the vast hulls usable, practically as a pre-fabbed city.
Finally, the holy grail, something that every prospector hoped for, was a ship that wsa flyable. The UEEF would pay a king's ransom for such a ship, unlike other gear, simply to ensure that no other group obtained it. It was this hope that kept prospectors trudging along, day after day.
After this, I'll talk about the three eras.
Intro:
Tens of thousands, perhaps more, zentraedi ships crashed into the earth after the fall of the Grand Fleet. Thankfully, most of them fell in a more or less controlled manner (however much it didn't look like that from the outside), else the damage might have been close to that of the rain of death itself.
For most individuals, the gigantic ships, sticking out of the earth like spears were the biggest sign of that-- many of those ships were quickly stripped, or used for shelter. The UEEF started an ambitious plan to deny any possible malcontents or breakaway governments access to their resources--and the resources were great indeed-- what was starvation protoculture rations for a fleet of over four million vessels was wealth beyond measure for a single world.
For a time, there was a drive to organize the looting--and then, for a time, there was a gold rush. Many died, either from angry zentraedi, bandits, or dangerous and malfunctioning weapons. But slowly, as the easy finds vanished, teh casual hunters went back home to find other ways to make their living.
But the biggest factor was the simplest-- the finding of the robotech factory satellite. While still valuable, the leadership of the UEEF had to confront the fact that there was simply not enough people ot keep hunting for new ships, not when every individual was needed to crew the newly constructed ships, to puzzle out the functionings of a factory system nearly 1/4 the volume of hte moon. Valuable the ships were, dangers they were, but not valuable or dangerous enough to warrant the diversions of the forces that had once been planned.
Besides, many pointed out, the limiting factor on the Zentraedi malcontents wasn't material--like the UEEF, it was men and women, and those could not be found in a wrecked starship.
So salvage efforts, if not stopped, were put on the backburner, letting private groups take the lead-- the UEEF would still pay handsomely for salvage (but not as handsomely as some).
But there was a second fact, one that many in the UEEF didn't consider. While they assumed that soon enough the ships would be exhausted, they did not realize that far more ships were hidden then were revealed. Many zentreadi ships, whether by the dint of heroic effort or emergency autopilots didn't slam streaight into the ground, instead plowing deep furrows into the earth. A great many found themselves sinking into lose earth or rubble, while others were deep under the former surface, coming to lay in the bottoms of the innumerable craters dozla had created. A few landed on now dry parts of the lake and sea beds, where the cubic miles of vaporized water had led to a drop in the water level.
But that water (some of it) did return to earth, in the form of vast deluges. In other places, the tremendous storms that ripped across the earth due ot the thermal input from teh bombardment covered them with sand. Some buried, some partly covered in mud as the rain led to the collapse of the surrounding earth, these ships, even before the UEEF had been able to start looking for them, were buried, whether fifty or a hundred feet under teh earth. Certainly, one could find them with ground penetrating radar... but the earth was vast, and in many cases their crews had died or been unable to locate their ships when they left, seeking other zentraedi (rather more had abandoned ship on the way down). Finding the ships was difficult, and it only grew more difficult as the explosion in growth that would see Scott Bernard and his group riding through what appeared to be old-growth forests added roots and trees to their earthen cover. (There is some evidence that the release of protoculture and other nutrients from the wrecked hulls might have assisted in this process, a ironic twist).
And so the ship prospector became a new figure, sometimes of mockery, and sometimes of respect and jealousy. Using their helicopters and trucks, they would travel the new world, looking for signs of buried zentreadi loot, hoping for the find of a lifetime that could set them up in luxury (and let them send others out to do the looking) but more often returning with some battered missles, or a few protoculture engines that the UEEF would buy to keep off the market. Other's risked imprisonment (or death at the hands of their clients) and sold to less scrupulous individuals. But away from the lawful regions of earth, every Ship Prospector knew that he or she might run into rogue zentreadi, criminals, covert government groups from the EBSIS or other splinter organizations, or merely fall afoul of a natural hazard. It was a job that required a certain mind set.
The process of finding buried treasure.
The destruction of Dozla's fleet had burned out nearly every system designed to track falling objects and what few data bases remained were generally unavailable to the public. For that reason, ship prospecters had to do things the hard way:
1. Obtain pre-Rain topographic maps.
2. Obtain post-rain orbital topographic maps.
3. Through a painstaking process often known as "making an educated guess" examine the two maps to see if one could determine where a ship might have landed, as opposed to simple natural pheonomena.
4. Travel to the most likely point with drilling and excavation gear, usually as part of a small group.
5. HOpe to be surprsied, expect to be disapointed.
6. Repeat.
If a ship was found, evaluating what was in it was th emost important goal. Most ships had little or nothing remaining in a functional sense, and were merely marked. A few had salvagable gear, undetonated ordenance and some remaining protoculture. Working mecha was considered a dangerous lucky strick, with many groups purchasing them-- even mecha that could not be used by micronians would be valuable for those groups that did not have a robotech factory.
An empty, more or less functional (in the sense of internal systems) ship could be sold quickly, as many homesteaders found the vast hulls usable, practically as a pre-fabbed city.
Finally, the holy grail, something that every prospector hoped for, was a ship that wsa flyable. The UEEF would pay a king's ransom for such a ship, unlike other gear, simply to ensure that no other group obtained it. It was this hope that kept prospectors trudging along, day after day.
After this, I'll talk about the three eras.