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[Destructionator XV]

A'millian ground combat technology, a quick overview (you may consider this relevant).

The branches of the A'millian armed forces that are more relevant when it comes to ground combat are the Army, the Star Marine Corps, and, to a much lesser extent, the Knights. The Marines are generally attached to starships or starbases and move with the ships, whereas the Army is a larger dedicated force for invasions and occupations.

The Knights are a small group of specially trained elites. They are generally competent in many fields, and are all trained as mages and in ways like the Bene Gesserit from Frank Herbert's Dune. You will rarely see them, and if you did, you probably wouldn't live to talk about it.

The Army and Marine Corps both have a wide selection of vehicles, weapons, support equipment, shields and armour (both body armour and tanks) at their disposal. In this post, I will go over some of the more common infantry technologies employed by individual men in these forces. I will not be going into vehicles nor heavy weapons such as artillery. I will also not talk about theatre shield technologies. Be aware that all these categories do exist, however, and are used in warfare. We aren't redshirts with hand phasers.

Let's get started with common weaponry. We have a wide selection of weapons available, from Earth like guns to phasers to directed energy weapons (lasers).

Phaser's effects are like seen in Star Trek. The type I is the most common, a small tertiary weapon, easily concealed. My type I phasers do not have a kill setting though: they are stun only. If you need a kill or disintegrate setting, you must use a phaser pistol (type II). Phasers are most commonly seen with police forces.

Hand held directed energy weapons are not often seen on their own; most are part of a projectile weapon system. Some are lasers (a realistic laser: a beam that snaps through the air, superheating it as it goes (also wasting its energy) and burning through flesh on the other side.) Lasers are of little use against a well armoured target, and are almost always a worse choice than a rifle or even a phaser.

Most commonly seen are projectile weapons. These aren't much different than modern Earth guns in concept, but some have integrated secondary modes, such as grenade launchers (like Perfect Dark's Superdragon) or lasers (where the laser fires, then a burst of bullets, then the laser fires again with each press of the trigger, attempting to compliment each other's weaknesses).

There are also hand held guns with special ammo: explosive rounds (like the Phoenix from Perfect Dark), electric rounds (where before firing, the bullet is given a big electric potential, so when it hits flesh it discharges causing more shock damage) and rounds that can pass through walls (Similar to Farsight from Perfect Dark). All of these require special guns to use.

Alternate ammo for normal guns include armour piercing and bullets that shatter in flesh (both like they are in reality, and you may have bullets that pierce armour then explode when they hit flesh: nasty stuff).



And now, defensive technology. There are four categories here: light armour, heavy armour, shields, and powered armour. This section is the largest, because it is quite important.

Light armour is the most common as to how many fighting men in th Empire actually use it (the most common seen in the PW thus far is powered armour, because most actions we've seen so far are special assualt with small groups of people). Its intention is to lessen injury so if a man is hit, he can be cared for and evacuated to a hospital.

Light armour also has a primary goal of not inhibiting the soldier's movements. A soldier should be able to wear light armour for extended periods of time without being overworked. It also should require no power source and can function in almost any environment where a person could function.

Light armour consists of a protective vest and a helmet. These are designed to lessen projectile impacts and spread out energy weapon fire over a larger surface area, protecting the soldier.

Next comes heavy armour, which is similar to light armour, but it covers the whole body, and as a consequence, weighs more and limits his movements more.

Then is powered armour. These cover the whole body with a hard shell and personal shield (see below). It has systems to support its own weight, and the interior is temperature controlled to keep the soldier from over heating. Powered armour also integrates a number of support technologies (again, see below).

Big advantage is a guy wearing it is very hard to hurt. If something gets by the shield, it still has the hard armour itself to get by, which is a non trivial task. The view inside integrates various scanners, overlaying computer assisted targetting information and perhaps even the location of friendlies if known for the soldier as well (almost like the fancy radars in FPSs).

Powered armour has a number of drawbacks though:
1) it is expensive for the military to buy, making it not widespread.
2) It is hard to get into and out of; the soldier requires assistance to suit up and to take it off and it takes some time. If you aren't ready ahead of time, it isn't of much use.
3) It needs to be fitted more specially than light armour (which is fitted, but if it is the wrong size, you can probably still use it). This adds to the cost and could cause complications in the field.
4) It is somewhat loud, but not as bad as you might think at first, but that is still a problem.

And the big one:

5) It gives off a lot of heat compared to a regular man. This is a requirement of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, so there is no way to avoid it. This makes it stand right out on infrared scanners like a son-uv-a-bitch.

Lastly:

6) If something does penetrate the armour, it can send fragments of the armour into the wound, possibly making it worse.



Personal shields are similar to shields in Dune crossed with shields in first person shooters. Personal shield systems are a belt and straps that go around the shoulders and sometimes down the legs and over the head to provide full body protection.

When the shield is activated, it hugs the soldier's body and has a number of advantages and disadvantages:

The faster something is coming in to it, the stronger it gets so it may counter it. This speed limit is adjustable on some shield units. This makes it very efficient at protecting the wearer from projectiles and fragmentation. However, very slow moving things can get through, such as a slow knife swing (in this respect, it is like Dune). The momentum from the projectile is transferred to the belt and straps, and this spread out over the wearer's mass, usually being irrelevant at that point.

Energy is absorbed by the shield, spread over the whole thing, and reradiated. Again, the threshold is adjustable on some units. For things like bullets, this usually makes it shimmer slightly at the impact point. For focused energy weapons, like blasters, it can cause the whole thing to light up for a moment while it reradiates. This light might temporarily blind the wearer.

A shield's momentum limit is based on the straps: if it takes too much momentum, it is all transferred to those straps which might break or still break the bones of the wearer.

A shield's power limit is based on how fast it can radiate the energy and its upper limit for buffering. If the buffer is full, it will not accept any more energy while radiating, meaning shots pass right through it. Think Halo 2, kind of.

Unlike a starship's shield array, a personal shield can not act as a cloaking device under any circumstances.

A shield also slows gas transfer across its membrane, which has two sides: it slows poison gas from getting in, but it also slows air transfer. Under calm breathing, it can keep up, but with frantic breathing, CO2 can start to build up inside. Also, a result of less air transfer is less convection: it can get warm inside a shield, but some of this is mitigated by the shield spreading out the internal energy as well and radiating it.

As a secondary effect of this, sounds going in or out of a shield are muffled.

Activated shields occassionaly shimmer, and darkens the view of the wearer, because some of the light is stopped by it. This is an effect of it reradiating both incoming energy and internal heat. This also has the secondary effect of pulsing between smaller infrared signature to larger infrared signature as it releases heat.

As shields stop fast moving outside threats, they can also inhibit the wearer's movement. Normal movement is generally below the hardening threshold (the reason slow knives get past it), but fast movement, such as jerking an arm or kicking a leg is harder to do. It is not entirely blocked like a move of that speed from the outside would be, but is feels like the wearer has additional weights on his arms and legs the faster he tries to move. Just as with weights, strong muscles can overcome this, but it does take some effort.

It might take a minute to properly put a shield on, but it is not a difficult task.

Personal body shields are common.


Shields took some time to talk about, but they are an important aspect of the defensive system with many repercussions that should be understood.



Lastly, individual support technology, including communications and detection tech.

Tricorders, set to active or passive mode, can aide in detecting enemy movements, and tricorder modules may be attached to a gun to free the user's hands.

Scanning technology is also often built into a heads up display to let the user see it through filters in front of his eyes. Many times, these devices also have communication radios build right in. These look like Scouters from DBZ, but that is where the similarity ends. This is rather common, and a more elaborate version of this technology is built into the helmets of powered armour.

Not really much more to say here, so I will conclude this post, for now at least.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Ra's newest post is the best thing I have ever seen.

Uh, there are actually hundreds of hyperspace spy sattelites orbiting A'millan Prime.

Nah, just kidding.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Alright, everybody. Just a note:

While it is probably necessary to bolster the Zergs with Guardian technology to keep up the balance (otherwise the Zergs, lacking space combat capability, will be everyone's whipping boy in this STGOD). However, I strongly suggest to NOT making the Zergs as strong as the Guardians.

See, as Adam has said, during Phoenix War I, the Guardians were so strong that other factions (A'millans, Goa'ulds, Trolls, etc) almost became irrelevant; only the Empire could match the Guardians (and mind you, even the Empire was fighting an uphill battle at that time), so other factions had to resort to 'quest-style' STGOD in order to find a deus ex machina solution.

Now, if we made the Zergs as strong as the Guardians, then it will be Phoenix War I redux: the Empire will be the only one capable of fighting the Zergs, while Lord Adam, Ra, Commander Flotsam, and Darth Kreshna will be doing a 'holy grail quest' again to find another deus ex machina. Where's the fun in that?

[Ra]

Agreed.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

Agreed.

Anyway, Jon, won't Ra be asking for (at least diplomatic) support from other countries? In the real world, it's supposed to be a normal thing for a country under attack, isn't it?

[Ra]

No, because he's still covering everything up. He doesn't know that you know what is truly going on (but has an idea that you do), but Ra is playing the whole "rogue brood" ploy to the extreme, acting like he wouldn't need outside help for dealing with "a minor incursion".

And likely, if he accepted outside help it would make himself look even weaker, and Ra doesn't want to piss off his Dark Jedi security chief any more than he already has.

Ra wants to avoid war at all costs, just as much as he wants to avoid letting everyone know that the Zerg caught him with his pants down, and just as much as he wants to avoid letting the galaxy know he was being naughty and playing with Guardian technology. It's in Ra's best interest to stay under wraps right now.

After the press conference, Ra is going to do something, however. He's actually going to fly right into Zerg space and demand a meeting with Kerrigan, and ask her what the hell she's doing. That should be a very fun bit of dialogue.

[Destructionator XV]

With the Zerg, I see it as if they took all of us on at once, they would be mercilessly crushed. They have to pick their enemies.

They are hitting Ra where he can't strike back, and getting power at the same time. Good.

They took out a little science ship, which the A'millians dismissed as them defending themselves. The A'millians here are like the US in 1939 almost: a sleeping giant who really don't want to get involved. They frankly don't care if the Zerg slaughter the other powers, and indeed, would secrely encourage it, but they also don't want to see the Zerg rise to any serious power, so they might assist the others too.

They are on their own side, just looking out for the things that interest them and nothing more. Those things are: Base 242, the planet at I-1071, and of course the homeland. Many of them are still bitter about the Empire BDZing some of their planets in the Guardian War, and want to see the Empire brought down to size - this goes in with their goal of peace through superior firepower, or at the very least, peace through terror of mutually assured destruction.

Right now, they don't see the Zerg as a threat to themselves. Smart Zerg would want to keep it that way while they take down the others one at a time.

[Destructionator XV]

Oh Jesus, I just had the most awesome 100% original idea ever. Imagine this completely never before thought of line:

"Enough is enough! I have had it with these mothafuckin snakes on this motherfuckin Death Star!"

Coming to a thread near you.... soon.

[DesertFly]

As far as the Zerg go, I don't want to make them as strong as the Guardians, or indeed strong enough to totally smack anyone around. I want to approach the Zerg less as "Overwhelming Hordes" like Starcraft, and have more of the diplomatic maneuvering like Brood War. People think the eventual goal of the Zerg is to take over the entire galaxy or something, but that's just because they've played too much Starcraft. We Zerg actually have our own goals, both long and short term, and I promise that none of them involve pissing off everyone to unite and come stomp us down. Don't think of us as just rabid animals. We are a nation in our own right, and open war is not our only way, or even preffered way. Indeed, the leaders of the Zerg are like any other nation's, they just have much more complete and immediate control over their warriors.

[Destructionator XV]

Quick note: I just watched recordings of the press conferences because Lord Adam got back late and missed them live, but if there are still questions, they can happen. Remember, just because I am a day ahead doesn't mean you are.

Edit: and to be honest, I am not sure if those Zerg actually were rogue in or out of universe. My people's in universe truth sense is pretty good, especially face to face, but Zerg are so new to them they can't read their emotions, lies, or anything else of the sort.

[DesertFly]

As far as:

"I call upon you, ... and you Lord Adam, ... leaders of the free peoples of this galaxy"

"Sorry pal, not of this galaxy."

"I'm not even sure most of us could be honestly called leaders of free peoples."

is concerned, I meant the rulers of people who live in this galaxy, which includes colonies of Imperials, and A'millians, unless I'm mistaken. If I am, well, we can chalk that up to Namtaru being too lazy to do his proper homework. Or, you could just realize that he was being dramatic and "patriotic".

[Destructionator XV]

Well, they were just talking amongst themselves, and they are far from infallible. Even beings of superior intellect sometimes misinterpret what people are saying.

[Ra]

Edit: and to be honest, I am not sure if those Zerg actually were rogue in or out of universe. My people's in universe truth sense is pretty good, especially face to face, but Zerg are so new to them they can't read their emotions, lies, or anything else of the sort.

As far as I know, me and DF had agreed that the attacking Zerg were under Kerrigan's control, not rogues. Ra just made that statement because he's too obsessed with keeping Tais II under wraps.

Logically, he would invade the Zerg for what was clearly an act of war. But that massive a fleet movement would tell everyone that the system had a lot more significance than a naquada deposit, so he's not going to invade. He's even willing to let the Zerg sit on the planet, although right now he's not even willing to admit that line of thought even to himself. Ra's weird like that.

[Destructionator XV]

A'millian assets in the Milky Way galaxy:

There are two fleets: the 14th Starfleet and the 74th Roaming fleet.
There is one major base: Starbase 242, and two outposts: one is a mining facility and the other is what they are calling I-1071 right now
And some irrelevant minor powers under their protection or trading partners.

Let's quantify these fleets.

A'millian 14th Starfleet:

• One Galactica class attack carrier (ASV Pacifica AC-603)
• Six Warrior class battlecruisers (including ASV Warrior BC-1000 and ASV Fearless BC-10492)
• Seven Discovery class science ships (including ASV Endeavor SV-2473, ASV Challenger SV-2411, ASV Columbia SV-2436, ASV Discovery SV-2400, and used to have ASV Pathfinder SV-2405 until her destruction in AW 4008)
• Ten Falcon class light destroyers
• Four Loso class stealth destroyers (including ASV Quine DG-13104)
• One Tseng class general purpose cruiser
• Unspecified number of support craft (transports, fuel carriers, etc).

The 14th isn't very big because the Milky Way is not really a big concern to the ASE as a whole, and because moving in too much requires more supplies from home, which is expensive to maintain.

However when the situation arises, things can be stepped up, and step one has been taken with the 74th:

• Two Galactica class attack carriers.
• Eight Warrior class battlecruisers.
• Six Dyne class battlecruisers
• Fourteen Falcon class light destroyers (including ASV Minnow DE-1103 ... let us hope this mission won't be a three hour tour!)
• Four Loso class stealth destroyers
• Three Tseng class general purpose cruisers.

BTW, by general purpose cruisers I basically mean a TNG Galaxy class type ship: pretty good at everything.

And let's not forget The Lady's Pride, a special purpose ship designed specifically for taking down Imperial Star Destroyers, and not half bad at it either, even without the Guardian biolasers she used for a short while. It is currently attached to the First Fleet, based near A'millian Prime.

The Genator II, Galactica class flagship of the Destructionator secret navy is still around and may pop up. The Destructionators, however, report to the Department of Special Intelligence unlike the Starfleet, which reports to the Department of the Navy. Of course, both report to the Crown, but under that, they have separate chains of command. The Destructionator fleet was devastated by the Imperials early in PW I, losing the first Genator and most the rest of their small secret fleet in one of the early battles.

And the Aurora, docked in neutral ground somewhere. It is a shared asset between us all.



Fleet distribution is simple: all warships are at 242 except for one Warrior class and four Falcon class ships, which are at I-1071.

Base 242 itself also has heavy defenses itself. It successfuly held attacks from the Imperials (with aide from the Trollish forces) , the Borg, and the Guardians during PW 1.

The base consists of facilities on the planet and many orbital facilities, including the transwarp gate leading back to the home galaxy.

It is defended by a planetary shield, theatre shields around individual facilities, orbital weapons, and ground based weapons.





Fact: while looking through the old threads to make sure I was maintaining consistancy here, I was reminded of a fact: Kresh death star'ed Pluto back in PW 1 chapter II to kill some Trolls! Poor Pluto.)

[DesertFly]

Fact: while looking through the old threads to make sure I was maintaining consistancy here, I was reminded of a fact: Kresh death star'ed Pluto back in PW 1 chapter II to kill some Trolls! Poor Pluto.)

Bah, it doesn't matter anymore. Pluto's not a planet now anyway!

[Ra]

Yes it is. I don't care what a bunch of astronomers say.

And Xena's a planet too! YEYEYEYEYEYEYEYEYE!!!

[Ra]

Alrighty people, the game's at a standstill. Where's KAN? He ain't posted in three days, going on four.

[Destructionator XV]

I haven't been home all day today and might not be here tomorrow either during the day. If I don't post tonight, I will post tomorrow night though.

[Destructionator XV]

I am currently reading up on some of the world's largest cities and buildings trying to make the sci-fi city I am describing be both realistic in the numbers and still spectacular like you would expect from a sci fi civilization, and wow, just wow.

I think up a number for area, population, and skyscraper size, thinking these are certainly large numbers to my amazement, find that buildings and cities even bigger exist right here on Earth!

The biggest city I've ever actually been to is Syracuse, New York, and even there, I don't often venture far into the city. Reading about places like New York City and Tokyo just boggles my mind. It is truly amazing to see what real engineers have done.

What I am doing right now is trying to get a feel for the Wivillian capitol city for the alternate universe story (which will be concluded in three more posts with my current plan so they will be home and it opens up a method for Narsil's people to get home).

The capitol on A'millian Prime is tiny: the city only about 8 square miles, and the largest structure is the Royal Castle at only about 40 metres tall. Now, of course, modern like cities exist in the ASE, about 2,000 of them with populations greater than five million in the city itself, but the capitol isn't one of them.

In contrast, the Wivillian capitol is a huge metropolis with a massive government building to house their Senate. In my head, it exists as a cross between NYC and Esthar from Final Fantasy VIII, but I want to flesh out at least a few basic numbers.

Anyway, just wow, the real world has far more wonderous achievments than my limited brain can seem to dream up.

[DesertFly]

Just to clear things up, I'm going to explain one of the things that I've modified from Starcraft, so there's no confusion when I use them.

Infested "Blank" (insert sapient species here) are no longer limited to Terrans, but can be anything that has enough intelligence to be taken over. In other words, Unas will also work, as would Trolls or A'millians (if one of them were to be captured), and all the minor little Star Wars races that may be running around the galaxy.

Also, they come in several different "flavors" or levels, from very little change (parasited), to completely consumed (infected terrans) to destroyed (broodlings). I'll describe what I have, and put what its Starcraft equivelent unit was (if it had one) in parenthesis at the end so you can have a more clear idea of exactly what it is and how it works.

Additionally, the lines between forms are somewhat blurry. I've broken them into levels for easier description and classification, but between different levels there's usually a gray area, where it has characteristics of both levels for a time. I'll explain more as I get there.

Almost all mobile infection is done by the "Queen" unit. If there's some poor schlub who's been captured and is in a Zerg camp, he's going to be processed in a much more industrial manner, i.e. in specialized structures that can make a large number of modifications at once. But I digress.

To start it off, we begin with a Parasite. This is the smallest and simplest form of infection, and basically acts as a spy for the Zerg. The exact mechanism of infection can vary, but it invariably is either done without the victim's knowledge, or the host is somehow brainwashed to remove the memories. It would be of little use to have a spy implanted in someone who was aware of its presence. The amount of tissue implanted will be as small as possible to help avoid detection, but large enough to still do what is required of it. This small "organ" burrows into the body along the spine, and uses tendrils inserted into the brain to gather information on what the host sees, hears, feels and experiences, then transmits the data back to the swarm. This is all painless and transparent to the host, and is difficult to detect without actually cutting the person open, though advanced medical scans will probably be able to spot it without too much difficulty. (If they can scan for Goa'uld, they can scan for this.)

At the discrection of the swarm, the parasite can begin growing farther into the brain, the tendrils branching out to the point where they eventually control the targeted being. This process is not instantaneous, but usually is completed within a short time, depending on various factors. During the transformation, the host can have all those classic sci-fi things like hallucinations or paranoia or going crazy, but once started, the process cannot be halted without medical intervention! It doesn't matter how "strong-willed" or "in control of their mind" someone is; the thing is physically interfering with the operation of their brain. The one exception to this is those with psychokinetic power and the ability to control it well enough to actually remove the strands from their nervous system. Of course, even then, unless they are exceptionally proficient with their talents, it still may prove to be futile.

There may come a time at which the secrecy of the infection has been compromised, or where the need for subtlety is no longer required. Or, new warriors could be needed. In any of these cases, the infection can go still further, and the parasite can completely take over the body and begin to manifest physical changes in the person. Typical changes include spines, claws, tentacles, and other nasty implements capable of dealing death and destruction. Other popular alterations consist of enabling the host to survive in an environment for which it is not suited, or turning the host's body into a breeding ground for some disease, toxin, or chemical. It is at this stage that the infection can be said to be close to the Infected Terran from Starcraft.

Unfortunately, even with the advanced knowledge of genetics the Zerg possess, with many or drastic changes the body will eventually begin to decay. This can also happen if it has been severely damaged. While most forms are able to heal back to full capacity with enough time, the altered nature of most infected organisms will have lead to enough decay in the base cells that the lifespan of that creature will be greatly shortened. In this circumstance (or earlier, if needed), the organism will be instructed to convert many of the organs of the host into sacs that produce volatile chemicals of an unspecified nature. When enough have been accumulated, the now hideously deformed and almost unrecognizable monster will be used as a living bomb, a highly effective and demoralizing shock troop.

If there are any questions or obvious errors, please share.


EDIT--Yes, I mentioned Broodlings at the top and completely forgot to include them. It's late and I'm tired, so I'll put them in later.

[Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman]

I'm having a fever. Fuck. :sad:

[DesertFly]

As far as I know, me and DF had agreed that the attacking Zerg were under Kerrigan's control, not rogues. Ra just made that statement because he's too obsessed with keeping Tais II under wraps.

Logically, he would invade the Zerg for what was clearly an act of war. But that massive a fleet movement would tell everyone that the system had a lot more significance than a naquada deposit, so he's not going to invade. He's even willing to let the Zerg sit on the planet, although right now he's not even willing to admit that line of thought even to himself. Ra's weird like that.

I just read through all the relevant communication, and I honestly couldn't find any mention of the issue, and, to be honest, I would rather keep it ambiguous right now. What Namtaru said in the press conference is the official stance of the Zerg right now; whether you believe him or not is of course up to you, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[Destructionator XV]

Well, the Argo arc is coming to an end, but in its place will come the Lightbringer arc, which has quite a few more potential consequences and I also have no real idea where I am going to go with it. Here are my plot threads currently coming up:

The big one is the Galactic Empire thread. You will note we recalled our ambassadors after getting the refusal, and there is more going on there as well. The Destructionators are going to come back, and where they go, destruction follows. They cater to your destruction!

I am itching for something more than negotiations and side plots, so I am going to stretch the characters a bit to make all hell break loose.

Second thread is the I-1071 thread, a scientific mission designed to bring us back to the Milky Way out of universe, but in universe, they will find some things that interest them, and possibly an ancient weapons cache just to make things more interesting there.

The third big one is the Argo / Lightbringer thread. Its immediate thing is it gives the technology to the Commonwealth so they can go home. The secondary effect is that there are now 82 more biological A'millians wandering around (Ericson and the crew of the Lightbringer). Mirror universe A'millians at that: these bastards are more like Goa'uld: they pretend to be gods to enslave primitives. And Ericson has an agenda or two of his own.

Hell has got to break loose soon!

Then I need to clean up a few loose ends (and payback some debts) relating to the Zerg killing the Pathfinder, but that will all come in due time.



So yeah, caution and negotiation be damned. All hell is about to break loose.

But remember in universe you have no idea.

[Destructionator XV]

There is now about 1/2 of a gigaton's worth of matter/antimatter bombs planted on DS3. That is going to be one fuck-hell of an internal explosion.

But before that goes off, we have another surprise for you folks on the DS: but all will be revealed in due time. Tomorrow night I will post the next part of this plot.

But this is going to be taking a turn to more action packed death.

[Dartzap]

Well, this could get intresting....