Hard Space Redux
- Thread starter Golan2072
- Start date
Usually. Though corporate SWAT get the best personal gear and implants.
How do these compare in capability to their corporate or PMC counterparts generally?
Bloc militaries are large and inefficient and use relatively obsolete equipment. They mostly fight various insurgents, gangs, and non-state entities on Earth, as well as the protracted insurgency on Mars. Rapid reaction forces are better trained and better equipped, approximately on par with the PMCs. However, they are relatively small and, unlike mercenaries, can't be everywhere the corporations need them.
Corporate SWAT are cyborgs - easily outperforming bloc military rapid reaction forces, but usually having smaller units. Corporations are also loathe to put these highly expensive supersoldiers at risk unless absolutely necessary (i.e. in dealing with security problems the rapid reaction forces or PMCs/"transient assets" can't solve). So mercs do most work.
Corporate SWAT are cyborgs - easily outperforming bloc military rapid reaction forces, but usually having smaller units. Corporations are also loathe to put these highly expensive supersoldiers at risk unless absolutely necessary (i.e. in dealing with security problems the rapid reaction forces or PMCs/"transient assets" can't solve). So mercs do most work.
How augmented/chipped & jacked up are most military personnel, such as rapid reaction forces or PMCs or most corporate security generally?
Like do they generally have a lot of chrome in them?
Almost any combatant, including bloc soldiers and even many insurgents, has an implanted military OmniComm, providing a combat HUD and augmented reality features. Simple cybernetics such as internal breathers (providing partial NBC protection) and even implanted blades are common in such echelons, but serious combat cyber such as subdermal armor and reflex enhancers is expensive* and thus you see it on high-end mercs, first-echelon corp security (such as executive bodyguards), and corporate SWAT, as well as the special forces attached to rapid-reaction forces.
* Though Hard Space cybernetic prices are significantly cheaper than the ones in TSAO, as this is, after all, a cyberpunk setting.
Would most TSAO Terran Republic citizens be rather disturbed about the amount of cybernetics on display in Hard Space?
Better "understanding" of Spindles and of ways to manipulate them.
Does that mean practically all trader or civilian ships here have, potentially, jump-4 drives?
Like can you reprogram computers to offer better manipulation of Spindles?
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Only with the correct 'spell' or should I say eldritch computer program...
trying to understand the code could cost you your sanity :devil:
trying to understand the code could cost you your sanity :devil:
I'm using CT-LBB2 (or Cepheus Light) drive potentials so you can have Jump-4 at TL10 for small ships, which depends on computer software. Most small ships are Jump-1 or Jump-2, though, due to economics of payload.
Technological advancement allows operating multiple Spindles together with less interference between them, thus allowing larger drives and hence larger ships.
This works as in Classic Traveller Book 2: At TL9, you get Drives A-D; at TL10 (current Hard Space TL) you also get drives E-H. They work as in Classic Traveller Book 2, except that Jump Drives in Hard Space do not use jump fuel (the ship's fusion torch rocket uses massive amounts of fuel instead).
I know, about the fusion torch stuff I mean. I'm wondering if more advanced drives eat up more space in the ship, thus reducing the size of the fuel tanks for the fusion torch instead.
Potentially so.
How would most TSAO humans react to the amount of cybernetics one finds on most HS humans?
There is a stark contrast between highly controlled "suit" culture in the arcologies, with a relatively "high" quality of life but tight control of the individual, the Blight culture (criminal and with high street gang involvement), Wilds culture (techno-tribal survivor culture), and frontier culture (think Wild West/Gold Rush).
Corporate drones are "Suits" or "Salarymen"/"Salarywomen". A street cyborg is a "Razor", a particularly heavily-cybered one is a "Merka" (Merc + Merkava tank). "Clank" is a degeratory term to cyborg.
(Deus Ex is a major inspiration) - "Razor" or "Merka" would be apt, while Gunther Hermann from the original Deus Ex would be a "Clank" or a "Merka".
What kind of jobs do most middle class types have in Hard Space? Are people in such a class generally living in the arcologies?
Is corporate security, or law enforcement, usually pretty heavily cyborged up? Like would Jensen or Hermann, or Motoko Kusanagi, be considered pretty heavily cyborged in Hard Space, considering you said for Jensen that he would probably be called a Merka?
Is corporate security, or law enforcement, usually pretty heavily cyborged up? Like would Jensen or Hermann, or Motoko Kusanagi, be considered pretty heavily cyborged in Hard Space, considering you said for Jensen that he would probably be called a Merka?
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