Twilight 2033 Tech

[TKalbfus]

I think 2033 is far enough in the future to be a safe Twilight setting for a couple of decades, but I think we have to extrapolate what sort of warfighting technology that will be available then without consideration of what this would mean for the more futuristic 2300 setting.
So lets say World War III began on September 1, 2029. (90 years after World War II began)

What would the typical equipment of the World War III soldier be?
I think the typical soldier would wear some sort of ballistic armor, perhaps a full face helmet with a computer display and mobile computer network, a GPS system with a map showing the soldiers current position and the position of his buddies and the location of enemy soldiers as located by multispectral sensors, he would carry a grenade launching assault rifle with a sensor attached so the soldier can see what the rifle is pointing at while keeping his head down. I think there would be a number of battlefield drones, some that fly through the air and some that crawl on the ground. I think active camoflage/stealth technology might be employed with the soldier's uniform blending into the background. Now how much of this technology might survive to 2033?

 

[Eamon]

This would probally be the equipment of a superpower infantrymen such as US,NATO,Japan. These countries could afford to have one or two divisions (or brigade equivalents) in their Force Structure. But rest of the world armies might only have a few specialist equiped as such attached to each company or battalion.
Gurellias or Special Forces trained as Partisans might be the only option a country might have to oppose an attack by a superpower force. An attempt to force the invaders into a costly and long term occupation, such as Vietnam or Iraq.

 

[TKalbfus]

Yeah, Guerilla fighters probably won't have body armor, no electronics, just some stupid AK47s. Also the GPS will probably be knocked out during World War III. Also I wonder what might happed to any Moon bases or Mars bases when the war commences in 2030 or whenever.

 

[PBI]

What happens to any potential off-planet bases depends greatly on how self-sufficient they are. If they're dependent on resupply from Earth, they're toast. If they don't have any capacity for population expansion, they're eventually toast if the recovery period is long enough.

 

[TKalbfus]

They'll probably have transport back to Earth as a matter of course. Most Nasa missions are designed that way. No one will have to send a ship there to go get them. Basically the astronauts on Mars will spend two years there until the next launch window and will either try to stick it out on Mars or head back to Earth and "face the Music".

 

[Eamon]

Depending on what the off world bases missions are. If they are just a show the flag or generic science mission they would be mothballed then abandoned. But if they are mining a stragetic mineral or investigating an alien artifact they would probably stay as long as they could.

 

[TKalbfus]

I think using the Traveller rules one could put together a TL8 mission on Mars that takes place with the backdrop of the Twilight War occuring on Earth. The Astronauts are on their own, there is no Mission Control. Fortunately because Mars is so far away, a manned mission is designed to be autonimous. The astronauts on Mars don't need help from Earth to operate their equipment. This would be a fortuitous time to discover an alien artifact or even an abandoned spaceship. Perhaps something on Mars could be of benefit to people on Earth, such as say a working Jump Drive or a stutterwarp engine depending on what sort of setting you want T2033 to lead to.

 

[kafka47]

Watch the independent film Stranded for ideas dealing with Astronauts on Mars.

I think combining Astronauts & Twilight is a potentially good idea but have the Astronaught land somewhere in the French territories in the Pacific or Australia laying the basis for the future French Empire.

I would not introduce alien tech, save to introduce the idea we are not alone. A revised version of Twilight Nightmares could be to have the Vilani come visit...invasion of the people who look like us but want to exterminate us before we get Jump Drive...

 

[Eamon]

I agree introducing fully operational alien tech would unbalance the game. But just evidence of aliens (wrecked ship or remains of an alien outpost) could be useful as an Deux ex Machina to move players out of a Twilight mode into the next step in your campaign.

 

[TKalbfus]

Lets just say they find a fully functional scout/courier partially buried on the surface of Mars. How are the people on Earth going to duplicate it, considering their current wrecked state. A civilization fully focused on the task would have a hard time duplicating an alien technology, and until that happens the scout ship is a one of a kind item.

 

[PBI]

But that's not the way history developed, was it? My understanding was the Terrans came up with FTL all on their own.

 

[mike wightman]

There have been a few conspiracy theories mooted over the years AFAIK.
The main one is thet Vilani free traders made contact with Earth long before Earth's invention of the Jump drive.
Others have put forward retro-engineered Ancient ships discovered either on Earth or on some other planet in the solar system.
In GT Loren Wiseman is adamant that Terrans invented the jumpdrive from first principles.
I don't know what MWM's official stance is, but I think it may be the same as Loren's.

 

[mike wightman]

Don't forget, though, that the Twilight Universe leads to the 2300 universe, not the CT universe timeline.
In 2300 mankind invented the Stutterwarp FTL drive, now how they did this may be explainable by a recovered alien craft...

 

[Whipsnade]

PBI wrote:

"But that's not the way history developed, was it? My understanding was the Terrans came up with FTL all on their own."


Mr. PBI,

That's Traveller not 2300AD. However in both games, mankind develops FTL drives; jump and stutterwarp respectively, on their own.

In Traveller, the Terrans develop a nonstandard version of jump drive to move around the Belt and outer system. (Using jump drive in a planetoid belt isn't a good idea, so the project that developed jump drive actually failed from a certain viewpoint!)

What was exactly nonstandard about the Terrans' first jump drive isn't exactly clear(1), but the smart money is on it being a 'fuel hog'; i.e. it uses more fuel than the usual 10% of hull displacement per parsec jumped.

After First Contact with the Vilani, the Terrans quickly; in a matter of years, either develop or reverse engineer or recieve or steal 'normal' jump drive. They then go on to develop, reverse engineer, steal, recieve jump2 within a few decades - a technology the Vilani have kept secret for over 3000 years.

If that isn't enough, the Terrans eventually develop jump3 - a technology the Vilani haven't developed at all! Some folks have suggested that the lessons learned from their first, nonstandard, fuel hog, jump1 drive gave the Terrans insight into the requirements for a jump3 drive.

2300AD's stutterwarp is something else entirely.


Sincerely,
Larsen

1 - Hopefully GT:IW will clear this up.

P.S. DGP wrote an early 'Four Knights' adventure in which the heroes stumbled across evidence that the Vilani were active on Earth prior to the world wars and deliberately introduced technology in an attempt to make the Terrans bomb themselves back into the Stone age. The evidence turned out to a carefully constructed piece of 'black' propaganda; i.e. disinformation made to seem as if it is from other, reliable sources. Naturally, IYTU the story may be true!

 

[TKalbfus]

PBI wrote:

"But that's not the way history developed, was it? My understanding was the Terrans came up with FTL all on their own."

Its pretty much the same either way. Finding a scout ship on Mars in working order won't oblivate the need for the Terrans to develop an FTL Drive on their own. The scout ship might work, but they have only one scout ship. The only way to find out how it works is to take it apart and that would likely distroy it. A scout ship is Tech Level 11. The Twilight setting is on the border between Tech Level 7 and 8, that's 3 tech levels difference, it is equivalent in difficulty to giving an M1 tank or and F22 Fighter Jet to Union Soldiers during the American Civil War and letting the US War Department figure out how these weapon systems work so they can build additional copies. How about letting Thomas Edison examine a personal Pentium 4 computer, and let him examine it with his magnifying glass so that he could trace the individual circuits of the computer chip. I don't see how one tank, one fighter Jet or one personal Computer can change the world of the late 19th Century, they'll know that such things are possible, but they won't be able to figure out how they work. The technology is just too far advanced for them to examine, so they'll have to work toward the goal of building something like what they found. Taking apart they item will simply result in destroying it without gaining much useful knowledge. A Party of PC Soldiers or Astronauts can still use the Scout/Courier to explore nearby star system while it functions, no annual mantenance or overhauls are possible. The scout/courier would also need a very user friendly computer interface to allow the primitive humans to operate the Scout/courier, perhaps if the form of an AI program that can quickly deduce human languages.

 

[cougashika]

There are rules set up to deal with potential alien influences on Earth during the Merc/Twilight era (of sorts): the Dark Conspiracy rules. Now before some of you purists start chanting the "horror is not science fiction" mantra at me I didn't say ALL the DC rules needed to be used. Heck, IMTU I used the "X-files" gimmick to introduce one party to the outside (TNE)universe. As well as there being some pretty cool consumer items in the Dark Tek sourcebook, one of my alien races that is a more "organically" based technology use many of the Dark Minion devices. It gives another alien twist to the game. Another advantage is its compatibility with other TNE/Merc/Twilight systems.

 

[TKalbfus]

Aw come on, during World War III everything is let loose and out in the open. There is no longer any "FBI/Men In Black" government conspiracy to sweep things under the rug as there is no effective government. With World War III going things are not normal, so its pointless for some conspiracy to try to make things appear normal in a not normal world. If a starship is discovered, so what? Most people have bigger problems like survival. A laser rifle isn't going to do much except for the character that has it and only as long as the charge lasts and it works.
Horror to me is when some squishy monster descends from space, puts on a human mask or takes over a human body and blends right it. Of course the squishy monster is perfectly designed to do this. Now what about some aliens that aren't so mysterious. There is no World Weekly News anymore, no mainstream press or government experts to laugh or discredit the witnesses. I think in the wake of a nuclear attack, people are more likely to see a monster as a monster and not as something else or try to explain or rationalize it away.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Back to the original topic, I see a couple of more innovations which should be significant in 10-20 years.
The USN/USMC Spike Missile (NOT the Israeli Spike/Gill missile). Not an anti-tank missile, but a cheap ($4k), light (2 Kg), fire-and-forget guided missile good enough for light vehicles, crew served weapons, etc, up to 3 Km away.
http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app4/spike.html
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/article.cfm?Id=674

Also robotic vehicles. This will initially be self delivering supply trucks that will go to a GPS location without a vulnerable driver. The US Army is also developing a robot "mule" that can carry packs and ammo for a rifle squad.

The third area is tactical ROVs. The USMC's Dragon Eye is a 5 lb UAV that can give company commanders their own air recon. Smaller systems in development can be useful to squad leaders.

Fire support. More robots like Dragon Fire. This is an automatic, remote controlled mortar that an be dropped by helicopter on a hilltop and delivers fire out to 8 km away.

 

[Eamon]

UAV's are probably going to as signicant to military progress as the tank or machine gun.
So much so that the decision to include them in Twilight 2000 might over balanced the game in favor of forces that have them.
The low end ones(Company or squad level) are cheap and easy to deploy, little more than model airplanes.
The high end ones have already conducted combat missions (and may replace the attack helicopter).
But more important are also being considered to perform many electronic missions such as ELINT, SEAD, and to replace saterlites as communications platforms for computers,cell phones,radios.
So one of the premises of Twilight 2000 that the worlds communication would be knocked out by the EMP would not be true anymore.

 

[TKalbfus]

Also there are ABM systems to consider. They're not much now, but by 2033 their effect may be considerable. I think nuking cities, installations and massed troops might not work as well as under the original scenario. The ABM systems will have to be overwhelmed by missile barrages for some to get through. There is the hand delivered terrorist bomb to consider and also scramjet cruise missiles as well. The ABMs might protect some GPS satellites though, as terrorists can't get to them and scramjet missiles become ballistic and vulnerable to ABM systems once they leave the atmosphere. Also the army is working on a powered exoskeleton to be worn by troops. As for those poor ill equipped guerillas, too bad. World War III requires a 1st World Technically savy opponent, not some peasant with a gun. Although equipment will breakdown over time and soldiers will have to make due with what's available, but some of the high tech equipment will still be around and who has them will make a big difference.