Judas Iscariot
SOC-10
I finally managed to get a few players to run a game of Striker.
I have several scenarios that are in a series for a campaign that I have been wanting to try out.
They all revolve around a planet that went from TL4/5 to TL10/11 in the period of less than 1 generation, and in the process was consolidated into a one gov't planet.
Even though the Planet was at TL4, it had many technologies that we often consider to be much higher... flight for example, as Hot air balloons are a technology that can be created as early as TL2/3... Same thing with a steam engine if you want to get down to it... and the Computer (Remember Babbage... If Archimedes had not been killed by a disgruntled Roman soldier he would probably have been able to concieve of a machine just as effective as Babbages would have been had he been able to complete it)...
So, even though the society was essentially Napoleonic in nature (hybrid Steam/Sailing vessels, primitve steam power, hybrid hot-air airship/aircraft, and analog computation - although the difference engine is a form of digital, only it is not binary, muzzle laoding weapons, and so forth) it was a fairly well founded society in terms of the scientific method.
So, one day, this thing comes into the sites of a telescope on Öome (That is the name of the planet), and the astronomer tracks it long enough to see that it is going to crash into Öome. It lands in what is the equivalent of the Soviet Union (Minus the incredible amount of Corruption and the violent revolution that created it... This "nation state" wound up socialist through a form of intelligent self-interest), which then used it to do what it had avoided: Force its politics upon the rest of the globe.
So, Öome winds up reverse engineering the thing, launches a space program based upon chemical rockets using portions of the technology from the crashed spacecraft (OH! It was a TL13 starship. Just a private merchant of semi-custom construction), learned all about nuclear weapons (manages to avoid a war as only one nation-state had them which used their threat to create a world gov't), and eventually advances to TL10/11 through 50 years of advances... Much of the world is still in a TL6/7 state, but there is very little hunger homelessness or need among the population.
As they begin exploring other systems they run into a small confederation of systems in their small isolated cluster that they wish to become part of.
About this time, a semi-nomadic society that is pretty old (TL13/16) winds up discovering the vast natural (and rare) resources of he Öomed system, and through an act of sheer arrogance makes it known that they are going to do to Öome what the communist nation state did to it 50 year ago... Take over.
So, a war begins to rage.
Although the Öomed are unified in their defense of their planet, there are still patriotic fragments of former nation states who are running their own covert research programs into technologies that are supposed to be forbidden (Gravitic weapons, Thermonuclear devices, etc)... This will become important when I get to the actual opening scenario.
The war quickly bogs down due to political shortsightedness on both sides (plus the lack of resources by the higher TL force, and the lack of practical usage of many of the technologies by the Öomed). The Öomed have many projects to develope third generation gravitic and energy weapon technologies, and in the process of testing one of these that the Cumbri (The enemy, who I mentioned above as a TL13 semi-nomadic society) discover that one has crashed in a relatively remote river delta.
Since it is not in an active war zone, neither side is prepared to quickly retrieve it. The Öomed send a couple of platoons to recover the data capsule and destroy the craft with demo charges. The Cumbri send a quick reaction lift-platoon to try to secure it for recovery, which will take several hours for the recovery craft to arrive.
The Öomed orders are to recover the data capsule and not allow the craft to fall into Cumbri Hands. One platoon will enter the delta to do the actual recovery and the other will watch and shoot anything that doesn't look friendly. They are to avoid any other contact and not engage anything that doesn't first engage them.
The Cumbri Orders are to capture said craft (they believe that it may contain technology that surpasses their own in AI capabilities, since the Öomed have had computers almost as long as the Cumbri, and are able to integrate analog and digital systems far better). They have several other units rushing to the site as reinforcements. They are to hold off the Öomed recovery teams untul the reinforcements and recovery vehicles can arrive.
What neither side is aware of is that there is an Öomed research station operated by one of the former nation states hidden in the hills to the North of the delta. They are aware of the crashed craft, but cannot reveal themselves to either side. If the Öomed government finds out what they are doing, they will be in BIG trouble (and endanger entry into the interstellar confederation of systems). On the other hand, if the Cumbri get their hands on the Crashed vehicle... They may be able to develop counter measures to many Öomed technologies.
Their orders are to assist the two Öomed platoons as long as it doesn't reveal their presence, and remain undetected as long as the Cumbri do not secure the downed vehicle.
If the Öomed platoons discover their presence, then they are to use an Orbital Mass Driver they have secretly placed in orbit in an old peice of space junk to destroy the two platoons, the Cumbri lift-Platoon (and any reinforcements) and the downed vehicle.
They are not to use the Mass Driver for anything BUT this (It is a 20cm 4 barrel MD with a ROF of around 600 rounds per minute... enough to devastate the delta) mission.
The game only got to the point where the first Öomed player began to suspect that there was something strange about the delta as "blips" he had on his various sensors that were ID'd as Cumbri would suddenly disappear... and there were other "Undefined" blips that kept showing up that the first Öomed player just couldn't seem to let go, despite his orders.
Unfortunately, we had to call the game before anything definitive happened. The Öomed player was in a fire-fight with two squads of the Cumbri Lift-Platoon, and had called in support from a platoon of heavy grav-tanks (only one showed up) to protect them from the fire from the Cumbri APcs and Support vehicles. The Cumbri player had JUST discovered that there were some far more dangerous troops in the hills around the delta and were trying to get new orders to deal with that threat when the game ended.
A couple more turns and the first Öomed player may have just sent an elite fire team over to see what was in those hills... and got himself pounded into the ground with depleted Uranium rain...
I hope to be able to run it again at Historicon or Conquest SF...
I have several scenarios that are in a series for a campaign that I have been wanting to try out.
They all revolve around a planet that went from TL4/5 to TL10/11 in the period of less than 1 generation, and in the process was consolidated into a one gov't planet.
Even though the Planet was at TL4, it had many technologies that we often consider to be much higher... flight for example, as Hot air balloons are a technology that can be created as early as TL2/3... Same thing with a steam engine if you want to get down to it... and the Computer (Remember Babbage... If Archimedes had not been killed by a disgruntled Roman soldier he would probably have been able to concieve of a machine just as effective as Babbages would have been had he been able to complete it)...
So, even though the society was essentially Napoleonic in nature (hybrid Steam/Sailing vessels, primitve steam power, hybrid hot-air airship/aircraft, and analog computation - although the difference engine is a form of digital, only it is not binary, muzzle laoding weapons, and so forth) it was a fairly well founded society in terms of the scientific method.
So, one day, this thing comes into the sites of a telescope on Öome (That is the name of the planet), and the astronomer tracks it long enough to see that it is going to crash into Öome. It lands in what is the equivalent of the Soviet Union (Minus the incredible amount of Corruption and the violent revolution that created it... This "nation state" wound up socialist through a form of intelligent self-interest), which then used it to do what it had avoided: Force its politics upon the rest of the globe.
So, Öome winds up reverse engineering the thing, launches a space program based upon chemical rockets using portions of the technology from the crashed spacecraft (OH! It was a TL13 starship. Just a private merchant of semi-custom construction), learned all about nuclear weapons (manages to avoid a war as only one nation-state had them which used their threat to create a world gov't), and eventually advances to TL10/11 through 50 years of advances... Much of the world is still in a TL6/7 state, but there is very little hunger homelessness or need among the population.
As they begin exploring other systems they run into a small confederation of systems in their small isolated cluster that they wish to become part of.
About this time, a semi-nomadic society that is pretty old (TL13/16) winds up discovering the vast natural (and rare) resources of he Öomed system, and through an act of sheer arrogance makes it known that they are going to do to Öome what the communist nation state did to it 50 year ago... Take over.
So, a war begins to rage.
Although the Öomed are unified in their defense of their planet, there are still patriotic fragments of former nation states who are running their own covert research programs into technologies that are supposed to be forbidden (Gravitic weapons, Thermonuclear devices, etc)... This will become important when I get to the actual opening scenario.
The war quickly bogs down due to political shortsightedness on both sides (plus the lack of resources by the higher TL force, and the lack of practical usage of many of the technologies by the Öomed). The Öomed have many projects to develope third generation gravitic and energy weapon technologies, and in the process of testing one of these that the Cumbri (The enemy, who I mentioned above as a TL13 semi-nomadic society) discover that one has crashed in a relatively remote river delta.
Since it is not in an active war zone, neither side is prepared to quickly retrieve it. The Öomed send a couple of platoons to recover the data capsule and destroy the craft with demo charges. The Cumbri send a quick reaction lift-platoon to try to secure it for recovery, which will take several hours for the recovery craft to arrive.
The Öomed orders are to recover the data capsule and not allow the craft to fall into Cumbri Hands. One platoon will enter the delta to do the actual recovery and the other will watch and shoot anything that doesn't look friendly. They are to avoid any other contact and not engage anything that doesn't first engage them.
The Cumbri Orders are to capture said craft (they believe that it may contain technology that surpasses their own in AI capabilities, since the Öomed have had computers almost as long as the Cumbri, and are able to integrate analog and digital systems far better). They have several other units rushing to the site as reinforcements. They are to hold off the Öomed recovery teams untul the reinforcements and recovery vehicles can arrive.
What neither side is aware of is that there is an Öomed research station operated by one of the former nation states hidden in the hills to the North of the delta. They are aware of the crashed craft, but cannot reveal themselves to either side. If the Öomed government finds out what they are doing, they will be in BIG trouble (and endanger entry into the interstellar confederation of systems). On the other hand, if the Cumbri get their hands on the Crashed vehicle... They may be able to develop counter measures to many Öomed technologies.
Their orders are to assist the two Öomed platoons as long as it doesn't reveal their presence, and remain undetected as long as the Cumbri do not secure the downed vehicle.
If the Öomed platoons discover their presence, then they are to use an Orbital Mass Driver they have secretly placed in orbit in an old peice of space junk to destroy the two platoons, the Cumbri lift-Platoon (and any reinforcements) and the downed vehicle.
They are not to use the Mass Driver for anything BUT this (It is a 20cm 4 barrel MD with a ROF of around 600 rounds per minute... enough to devastate the delta) mission.
The game only got to the point where the first Öomed player began to suspect that there was something strange about the delta as "blips" he had on his various sensors that were ID'd as Cumbri would suddenly disappear... and there were other "Undefined" blips that kept showing up that the first Öomed player just couldn't seem to let go, despite his orders.
Unfortunately, we had to call the game before anything definitive happened. The Öomed player was in a fire-fight with two squads of the Cumbri Lift-Platoon, and had called in support from a platoon of heavy grav-tanks (only one showed up) to protect them from the fire from the Cumbri APcs and Support vehicles. The Cumbri player had JUST discovered that there were some far more dangerous troops in the hills around the delta and were trying to get new orders to deal with that threat when the game ended.
A couple more turns and the first Öomed player may have just sent an elite fire team over to see what was in those hills... and got himself pounded into the ground with depleted Uranium rain...
I hope to be able to run it again at Historicon or Conquest SF...
