Author Topic: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition  (Read 29298 times)

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #30 on: 17 October 2017, 09:18:05 »
MacGregor
Star Type: K0V
Charge Time: 191 hours
Transit Time: 5.48 days

Position in System: 1st
Diameter: 8,300 km
Gravity: 0.53
Day Length: 36 hours
Satellites: None

Atmospheric Pressure: Standard
Atmospheric Composition: Habitable (Breathable)
Surface Water: 43%
Equatorial Temperature: 35 C
Highest Native Life: Avian

Population: 5300
Government: Athenian Democracy
HPG Class: None
Recharge Stations: None

USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: F
Industrial Development: F
Industrial Output: F
Agricultural Dependence: C
Raw Material Dependence: B

A marginal world in many respects, with low gravity, little usable water, and very little in the way of exploitable life, MacGregor would not be anybody's first choice for establishing a new colony. Nevertheless, the planet has been home to a human settlement for better than two hundred years. The locals are almost entirely subsistence farmers, working the land without access to any technology more advanced than relatively crude iron and steel implements, lacking even beasts of burden to reduce the workload. Their food supply is composed almost entirely of a strain of corn originally engineered on Terra for offworld cultivation in the 25th century. It handles the arid climate well, reaches maturity quickly, and is highly resistant to disease, however it was never intended to function as the sole component of a colonist's diet. What few alternate sources of nutrition exist are few and far between (there is very little native life, and even less of it is edible), and as such malnutrition is essentially a fact of life.

With all this stacked against them, one could be forgiven for marveling that they have managed to survive as long as they have. And understanding their origins only makes it more incredible. The settlers of this world came here fleeing their own dying home, and they didn't even have a Jumpship to do it.

The sole city on MacGregor is built around the bones of a centuries old and decrepit spacecraft, technologically speaking roughly comparable to the earliest interplanetary craft once built on Terra at the dawn of the fusion era. Though all of the spacecraft's technological systems have long since ceased functioning, researchers have been able to examine the vessel quite thoroughly with the locals' permission, confirming their claims that the vessel was a so-called "Slowboat", a craft designed to undertake an interstellar voyage at sub-C speeds. In this case, the vessel was designed with enough fuel to attain a velocity of 0.6c, coast for the majority of its journey, and finally decelerate as it approached its destination star, all the while carrying over one hundred and fifty passengers in cryogenic stasis (including four crewmembers who would be automatically taken out of stasis regularly to monitor the ship's status). The descendants of those passengers have only a few records left over from that journey, and the details have been badly muddied by time, but based on their claims, the journey must have taken decades at least, and apparently only half of the original colonists survived the trip, and not all of those in good health, due to faults in the stasis system. According to the locals, they had no spare parts and almost no tools with which to found a colony (with space being at a premium aboard the ship), and within a generation the last of the ship's systems had failed, leading them to regress over the succeeding decades to their current pre-industrial state. That the settlement survived at all is staggering.

The locals' descriptions of their ancestors' homeworld describe as a lush, technological paradise, though how many of their descriptions are true and how many are simply legend is currently impossible to determine. The cataclysm that was said to have destroyed their world is described as a "red poison" that spread among their oceans, killing the sea life and gradually poisoning the atmosphere. This suggests the mechanism of destruction was the explosive growth of some form of protist organism, similar to the toxic algae blooms known to occasionally occur on worlds across the Inner Sphere, though clearly far more catastrophic than what are normally only a local annoyance. We are left to speculate how a world with sufficient technological acumen to attempt interstellar travel would be unable to combat such an occurrence.

The locals maintain that theirs was only one of numerous ships sent out to promising stars in the hopes of preserving something of their civilization. Obviously, they are unaware of the fates of any other craft, including the other three ships that were supposed to be tasked to this star in particular. Our orbital observations have failed to turn up any signs of other settlements, or wreck sites.

Interstellar Expeditions' mission concerning the residents of MacGregor currently focuses on humanitarian relief, as well as further information gathering concerning the locals' ancestral homeworld. Based on the information we have learned so far, their homeworld was likely first colonized in the 25th century, and is apparently the sole planet (or possibly the sole habitable planet) in its parent system. We also estimate that it must lie a maximum of roughly fifteen light years from MacGregor (with some room for error, as the transit time of the colony ship and the overall time line is extremely hazy). Even with a single jumpship assigned to survey duty, it is expected to be only a matter of time before we are able to locate the original Homeworld.

Gamemaster's Section:

The slightly abridged stats of the colony ship:

Mass: 4000 tons
Type: Civilian Spheroid
Engine: 520 tons
Thrust: 1/2
Fuel: 3000 tons
Pumps: 60 tons
Tons/ Burn Day: 6.74
Structure: 32 tons
Integrity: 4
Control Systems: 60 tons
Crew: 4 (all officer quarters), 40 tons

Equipment:
88 tons consumables
166 stasis tubes, 200 tons

These were launched in the late 29th/early 30th century in unspecified numbers with the intention of targeting nearby promising stars for colonization. As was stated above, they have enough fuel to reach 0.6c and then decelerate back down, but most of their journey is going to be the coasting in-between. The intention was to keep the trip as short as possible (only around thirty years), but if you want to get extreme, one of these ships could potentially be reaching the edge of a successor state about now.

The stasis pods used by MacGregor's ancestors is functionally comparable to the Star League era stasis pods found in Handbook:Major Periphery States and A Time of War. For those of you familiar with the rules for these items, yes, this means the passengers of the ship that landed on MacGregor were incredibly lucky. For those who aren't familiar with these rules, even the slightly kinder current version in A Time of War... yeah, decades in stasis would be almost universally fatal. Devlin Stone came out with brain damage after only fifteen years, and even he was lucky. How seriously you want to take that helps determine how you might use this world and the other plot points it provides. If you want to be strict about it, there probably shouldn't be other colonies. And certainly any ship that's been in transit all this time should be a tomb. And possibly also a navigation hazard. The crew is supposed to be woken up on final approach to do the piloting, and the automated subroutines aren't that smart.

On the other hand, if you want to be more generous, maybe their pods work better. Keep in mind, though, that they have a particularly tiny population to work from, so it's not like they'll be spreading mega colonies. Also, none of these ships are named Botany Bay.

As for the population of MacGregor itself... They can be generated using the Independent:Generic affiliation, save that they're basically limited to the farm, backwoods, civilian job, and ne'er-do-well modules, AND any skill or trait that in any way is tied to technology (such as computers or tech empathy) is removed and its awarded point value converted instead to free XP.  Their base equipment technology level is A, B level technology is scarce and fancy, and anything more advanced than that is basically a legend.

Their original homeworld has yet to be found. Based on the information above, by now it should have a toxic atmosphere and virtually no complex life left on it. Please note that this doesn't rule out survivors. Possibly even pretty well off ones. Surprisingly, if you can make a fusion powered spacecraft able to keep out the vacuum of space and sustain life for generations, it's actually easier to make a fusion powered bunker to keep out atmospheric toxins and sustain life for generations. Who knew? It raises the question. Did the homeworld send out colony ships with an honest desire to save people, or just as an excuse to thin down the population of undesirables?
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

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nerd

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #31 on: 21 October 2017, 11:39:32 »
MacGregor sounds like a very Traveller setting.

A slowboat regressed tech colony started by human popsicles.
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truetanker

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #32 on: 22 October 2017, 16:29:04 »
MacGregor sounds more like Fallout than anything I can think of. And the Zetans would make a great opfor!

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Baldur Mekorig

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #33 on: 27 October 2017, 17:44:43 »
Good to see new "Denizens of the Deep Periphery" Liam!
Oh my brother, with your courage we can conquer,
In your sword I put my trust that you will honor
I will be the higher ground should you concede it
And my body be your shield if you should need it.

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #34 on: 08 January 2018, 05:27:54 »
Jeju
Star Type: M3V
Charge Time: 204 hours
Transit Time: 2.67 days

Position in System: 1st (0.14 AU from primary)
Diameter: 4,500 km
Gravity: 0.27
Day Length: 22 hours
Satellites: 3 medium, 3 small

Atmospheric Pressure: Low
Atmospheric Composition: Breathable
Surface Water: 5%
Equatorial Temperature: 13.85 C
Highest Native Life: None

Population: 38,400
Government: Limited Democracy
HPG Class: B (nonfunctional)
Recharge Stations: None

USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: D
Industrial Development: D
Industrial Output: C
Agricultural Dependence: F
Raw Material Dependence: C

Overview:

Cold, dark, barren, and bone dry, Jeju is a cruel, painful world that very few would want to see as home. The system (originally identified as Harding 496) was originally settled in the early 27th century as a penal colony similar to the Mican worlds, trading raw ore to the Draconis Combine in exchange for necessary supplies, but otherwise completely cut off from the rest of the universe. The convicts were left to manage their own affairs as long as the punishing quotas imposed by the combine were met, and perhaps against all odds managed to arrange themselves into something approaching an egalitarian, democratic society. Even so, constant shortages of supplies, bad equipment, an atmosphere that required respirators, and the extremely low gravity all combined to make life short and brutal for the population.

This state of affairs continued for several decades until the institution of the Kokugaku (National Learning program) throughout the Draconis Combine by Urizen Kurita II. The widespread institution of approved Japanese culture saw several of the Combine's many cultural groups gradually squeezed out of well established worlds, either accepting assimilation or striking out to establish new communities on new worlds. The prison world of Harding 496 was an early target for these new settlements, with colonists of Korean descent claiming the world for themselves with the Combine's blessing. Following a ten year terraforming effort (including multiple comet drops that may have killed as much as half of the original convict population), the renamed world of Jeju boasted small oceans, a breathable atmosphere, and a blossoming colony. The transition was not entirely peaceful, however. Efforts to take over administration of the world's mines set off years of bloody conflict with the convict population, eventually leading to the commitment of DCMS forces to dig these rebels out of the labyrinths of tunnels and mineshafts under Jeju's surface. Though active military operations would be concluded, and the surviving convict population successfully integrated, by the dawn of the 28th century, unrest would continue to occasionally flare up throughout the rest of the Star League era, necessitating a regular military garrison.

Though at first glance Jeju had been turned into a comfortable, productive world, it was still heavily dependent on continued terraforming, maintenance of the existing environment, and support from the rest of the Combine. When the First Succession War began, all of that support was quickly lost, and Jeju itself began to collapse. The troubles began immediately following the withdrawal of the Combine garrison, allowing a new wave of terrorism to sweep the planet that specifically targeted "the means of maintaining government tyranny", specifically stores of food supplies, terraforming equipment, and government maintained agricomplexes. Though each attack would only cause minor damage, without outside supply this was damage that could not be repaired and continued to accumulate. Within a few years, famine began wiping out the population and the Combine, considering the world non-essential relative to the damage wrought by the First Succession War, wrote it off completely. By the end of the First Succession War, the planet was declared dead.

In truth, there were as many as a few thousand survivors on world, barely able to sustain themselves with the few patches of fertile ground available to them, but they and the world they inhabited were considered effectively a non-entity for the next two hundred years, at best a brief rest stop for bandits or periphery traders on their way to greener pastures. Interest in the planet was renewed only during the Third Succession War, and even then it was limited to the occasional lostech prospector, looking to scavenge the ruins for choice bits of salvage. It wasn't until the late 3040s that the locals began to tangibly benefit from this attention, when surveyors from the tiny periphery state of Man'yoshu discovered the existence of surviving settlements and began regular deliveries of food and medicine in exchange for permission to establish a small listening post onworld. This aid allowed the locals to survive, and perhaps even thrive a little, growing to a population of five thousand by the time the Jihad began.

Jeju might have continued to thrive in irrelevance indefinitely if not for the arrival of a gang of mustered out soldiers from across the Inner Sphere in 3109, led by their self proclaimed Shogun Thomas Yamaga. This group, including hundreds of former soldiers and roughly a mixed battalion of heavy equipment, declared upon landing that Jeju had been annexed into their "Ezo Republic" and would serve as its capital world. Though they were quick to make sure that the locals received a clear look at their military strength, these "conquerors" also deliberately avoided significant interaction with the locals, establishing their new capital city (really a shanty town of less than a thousand people) in the abandoned ruins of the star league era capital, and well away from the existing local settlements. This new city (named Himeji City) struggled along surviving on prospecting, salvage and "taxes" of food from other worlds claimed by the Republic until 3123, when the discovery of an untapped vein of silver triggered a mining boom that has yet to peter out, and has fueled massive immigration that has swelled the population to nearly forty thousand.

Himeji City was the center of this population explosion, and has sprawled out across the ruins of the old capital. It's still mostly a shanty town, though large, beautiful estates owned by the wealthiest of mine owners have begun popping up. The city's economy revolves entirely around the mining efforts and providing support and entertainment to those miners. The city of nearly thirty five thousand people has one doctor, no farmers, and hundreds of saloons, brothels, and gambling halls, and critical supplies of food and medicine all come from offworld. Civil order is maintained by an informal paramilitary force called the Shinsengumi, who tend to enforce laws that are at best only ambiguously defined and at worst made up entirely on the fly. It all works, at least for the time being, though those with any ability to look ahead dread the day when the silver runs out, and the fact that so few members of this rowdy population appear to have the ability to look ahead.

The planet's original inhabitants, on the other hand, seem almost puritan in comparison. They've survived these centuries only through carefully husbanding existing resources and gradually scratching out usable land from the dead, otherwise useless soil, and they seem to consider the excesses and waste of Himeji city even more shocking than the annexation of the homeworld. This has proven to be not without justification. As the boom continues, those who've failed in the mining business have found themselves too destitute to leave, unable to find work, and unable to buy food. The hungry and desperate have caused a corresponding boom in crime in Himeji city, and even the distant settlements of the original inhabitants have come under occasional attack by gangs of desperate raiders.

Gamemaster's Section:

The Ezo Republic is barely worthy of the title of interstellar state, composed of a handful of agrarian worlds with a total population under three hundred thousand. It is officially classified as a bandit state by the Draconis Combine, though as yet it has not taken any hostile actions against any neighboring worlds. The republic claims a single jumpship to its name, which is normally tasked with traveling from world to world collecting taxes from the locals (usually produce that is then sold on Jeju to keep Himeji city alive). Their military is composed of a mixed battalion of badly maintained and repaired mechs and vehicles, supported by poorly trained and badly equipped militia and a sort of police force called the Shinsengumi, who style themselves as elite samurai swordsmen who enforce rough justice as the point of a sword. In practice, they tend to be thugs with swords and guns who do pretty much whatever they want. The Republic is ruled in a vaguely democratic fashion, though the only ones who really have a say are all cronies of the self styled Shogun, who can best be described as a blowhard whose not nearly as smart as he thinks he is with barely a passing knowledge of the feudal Japanese history he's chosen to brand himself and his petty nation with. The only significant part of the Republic to anybody outside of it is the current silver boom on Jeju, and even that is likely to bring more bad than good.

For one thing, it's unsustainable. Even if the silver doesn't run out, the population growth they're facing is already stretching the tiny republic's resources. The planet itself can't support much more than the five thousand locals who are already farming it, most of the world is simply dead, nothing will grow without massive effort and fertilizer. They can sustain themselves in the short term with imports from their other worlds, but there's a limit to how much they can take from these other meager worlds before they start to resist. As it is, one missed shipment can mean a month of famine in Himeji city before another can arrive, and the city is still growing at a stupid rate as offworlders keep coming in to get rich quick. Also, they've managed to alienate the foreign powers around them (Man'yoshu, the Raven Alliance, and the Draconis Combine) by being huge jags, so no foreign aid is incoming. And that doesn't even take into account what will happen if actual bandits realize there's all this silver for the taking...

Ezo Republic characters may be generated using any inner sphere or periphery affliation. The band that accompanied Thomas Yamaga came from all across the Inner Sphere, as did the more recent immigrants. Jeju's surviving local population can be generated using the independent/minor periphery affiliation, receiving in an additional +30 to survival/desert and -30 to either compulsion or handicap (any), and may not take the white collar or nobility stage 1 paths, the military or preparatory school stage 2 paths, or any stage 3 paths. Though they're generally viewed as primitive savages by outsiders, they take no further penalty to either wealth or equipped, as the locals have managed to scavenge and hide away some surprising things over the generations.
 
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #35 on: 13 January 2018, 06:40:12 »
Nightwish

Star Type: K8V
Charge Time: 199 hours
Transit Time: 3.47 days

Position in System: 1st
Diameter: 14,500 km
Gravity: 1.47
Day Length: 23 hours
Satellites: 8, plus extensive ring system

Atmospheric Pressure: High
Atmospheric Composition: Habitable (Breathable)
Surface Water: 74%
Equatorial Temperature: 44.85 C
Highest Native Life: Mammal

Population: 77,000,000
Government: Socialist Democracy
HPG Class: Class B (nonfunctional)
Recharge Stations: None

USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: D
Industrial Development: F
Industrial Output: F
Agricultural Dependence: B
Raw Material Dependence: B


Surveyed in the last days of the 22nd century, the star system PL-391 was not orginally targeted for colonization. Nearly five hundred lightyears from Terra, PL-391 was at the maximum operational range for the survey ships of the era (requiring a round trip of roughly a year and a half), and well beyond the range possible for any properly supported colonization effort at the time. Even if a group could be found willing to mount such an expensive expedition, the sole habitable planet, though teeeming with life, possessed a surface gravity well above Terran normal, too high to support healthy living among the colonists of the day. The planet also bore numerous scars from recent impact events, and the vast populations of asteroids, dwarf planets, and comets in the system made it abundantly clear that this could be considered a regular event. Because of this, after tagging the system Nightwish (for reasons lost to history), the survey teams filed the star system away as unsuitable, no followup required and left it to be forgotten. Even as the first permanent colonies began to appear in the region, the star system remained largely ignored, aside from the occassional passing ship tapping a comet for additional reaction mass.

Conflict back on Terra would eventually decide the fate of Nightwish, as the Outer Reaches Rebellion saw the collapse of the Terran Alliance's expansionist party and brought the Liberals to power, who in turn solved the problem of rebel worlds by cutting off the Alliance from most of humanity with the Demarcation Declaration. This notion of solving problems by handing them off to someone else became something of a bad habit, as subsequent leaders of the increasingly unstable Terran Alliance made shipping disidents beyond the Alliance's borders standard government policy. In one particular case in 2263, thousands of nationalist disidents in southwest Asia, who had been a thorn in the side of the Alliance since before it became the Terran Alliance, were loaded aboard a fleet of by now obsolete Ark class jumpships, often at gunpoint, and escorted by the Alliance navy out of Alliance territory.

These somewhat unwilling colonists would find themselves wandering steadily anti-spinward for a number of years, occasionally landing at an existing colony or uninhabited world to put down roots, only to then find themselves either unwilling to assimilate into or rejected from joining an existing colony, or pushed off of a new colony by larger, better equipped expeditions. Over time, their numbers gradually dwindled as members gave up on the hardline aspects of their ideology to be accepted on other worlds or struck out on their own, but eventually, four years after being forced out of the Alliance, they found Nightwish and declared it their home, for the very reasons it had been rejected for colonization in the first place. Their expulsion from the Alliance, as well as four hard years of journeying through space had turned a general distrust of outsiders into a hardened rejection of the rest of the universe, and Nightwish, at the very edge of inhabited space and unlikely to be targeted for colonization by anybody else, seemed an ideal place to hide from those who might yet again victimize them. And it worked pretty well for a while. The Nightwish colony flourished, despite the high gravity and a general lack of exploitable mineral resources, expanding to a complex, highly developed agricultural settlement home to a few million content residents by the early years of the 25th century, when the outside world once again came calling. Traders and explorers from the Lyran Commonwealth came first, and while their visits could be considered the definition of the "hard sell" extoling the virtues of Lyran consumer goods and the benefits of membership in the Commonwealth, they at least (eventually) left when refused. Visitors from the Rim Worlds offered no such courtesy. Offers of alliance turned to threats, and in 2421, invasion. Though the locals had only a few heirloom weapons brought from Terra and the Rim Worlds was able to field a large, professional army, the war quickly became a bloody quagmire for the invaders, as the locals contested every meter of ground using whatever improvised weapons and explosives they could get their hands on. Even as Rim Worlds troops managed to finally secure the world's major cities (built partly underground due to the risk of impact events), they continued to face years of guerilla war as rebels struck at their garrisons and supply lines from within the world's dense jungles. Rumors that Lyran smugglers were beginning to deliver modern weapons to the rebels, proved the last straw and, hoping to salvage at least something from this military disaster, Rim Worlds commanders sat down with rebel leaders to negotiate a permanent peace treaty. After six months of negotiation, a final deal was reached that saw Nightwish incorporated into the Rim Worlds Republic as an autonomous protectorate. Though this treaty ended the fighting and granted the world full control over all planetary affairs, for the more radical elements of the population, any degree of surrender (especially the regular taxation that would be paid to the Rim Worlds Government for their protection from outside forces) was deemed unacceptable, and low level resistance continued for over a century afterwards, forcing the Rim Worlds to permanently station forces on planet to ensure the safety and regular delivery of tributed resources. Even so, life under Rim Worlds rule was surprisingly peaceful, even given the occassional excesses of their Rim Worlds Overlords or those who opposed them. The unique hands off approach the Rim Worlds took to maintaining their authority even spared the world most of the unrest that plagued the Republic in the years leading up to the Reunification War.

It did not, however, spare them from the Reunification War. Nightwish suffered from particular infamy when it was targeted by the Combine contingent assigned to battlegroup Timbuktu. Citing the suspension of the Ares Convention, Combine forces savaged the planet, openly targeting civilian population centers and relying on torture to extract information. By the time the world was declared secured, thousands of civilians had become casualties, and Nightwish had become a rallying cry that saw Republic troops and civilians stiffen their resistance on every front, something that the people of Nightwish took little comfort in. The Reunification War had a dramatic affect on the people of Nightwish, however. Where before all outsiders were regarded with distrust and even hatred, the shared experience of fighting alongside Rim Worlds troops during the war against the brutal troops of the Combine contingent seemed to bind them closer to the Rim Worlds as a whole. Though the locals still retained their distinct culture, over time they began to see themselves as not just as citizens of Nightwish, but of the Rim Worlds Republic as a whole. Following the rise of Richard Amaris to the throne, for the first time the Rim Worlds Banner was hoisted over Nightwish's house of parliament, and by the time Stephan Amaris came to power, the citizenry of Nightwish could be counted among his most loyal followers. This loyalty (born both out of a shared hatred for the Star League and the isolation Nightwish had from the Republic's excesses) led to Amaris using the world as a linchpin in the buildups for the Amaris Coup, establishing vast storehouses for material, as well as recruiting heavily among the population for the Republican Guard divisions.

This loyalty makes it easy to tar the planet with the same Evil brush one might use on Amaris and his ilk, though it's important to remember that Nightwish, even at this point, still remained largely isolated from the goings on of the Republic. It was never directly ruled by Republic officials, and the populace's rejection of outside influences caused them to also reject outside media. Nightwish grew up in a bubble where the worst excesses of the Republic; slavery, corruption, human rights violations, state sponsored terrorism and piracy, never reached them. While their soldiers serving far away with the Rim Worlds Military might know differently, for those back home, Stephan Amaris was another in a long line of revolutionary icons striking back against tyrants seeking to enslave the world, and it wouldn't be until after the SLDF came to Nightwish that they would learn just how wrong they were. Compared to prior invasions, the SLDF's campaign against Nightwish was mercifully brief, with elements of 14th army quickly securing strategic points around the capital and repulsing a quick counter attack by the world's lone battlemech battalion. Rather than pursue the retreating defenders, the SLDF troops instead held their positions and called for negotiation. These negotiations were eye opening, to say the least, and ended with SLDF forces withdrawing unmolested, after receiving a pledge of non-agression from the world, which was maintained for the rest of the war.

The collapse of the Rim Worlds Republic had no immediate affect on Nightwish, as it was already effectively self governing. Unfortunately, the world was not yet done suffering. During the first succession war, Both the Lyran Commonwealth and the Free Worlds League targeted Nightwish relentlessly, launching numerous raids to recover materials left over from Amaris' hidden army. Though they often turned up little, these constant attacks caused tremendous damage to the world's infrastructure, especially the spaceborn infrastructure established to support asteroid mining during the Star League era. As the First Succession War spun out of control in the Inner Sphere, these attacks became more and more desperate and violent, leveling cities and towns in search of caches that had been long depleted. The planetary militia attempted to fend off these attacks, only to be gradually ground down to virtually nothing, leaving the planet completely defenseless as pirates replaced the house troops as agressors following the end of the First War. That the locals had almost nothing left to take did nothing to help, as pirate raiders quickly decided that the locals themselves were a sufficiently lucrative property. Even today, tasteless traders are known to remark that people are Nightwish's biggest export, and among slave trading circles, natives of Nightwish remain highly prized due to the perception that the world's high gravity makes them tougher, stronger, and better suited for manual labor. These centuries of victimization have turned a former distrust of outsiders to outright hatred, with the locals adopting a "shoot on sight" mentality that claimed the first exploratory team sent to the world, and has limited further contact exclusively to orbit to surface radio.

This is itself a tragedy, as through it all, Nightwish has maintained a vibrant, highly complex culture, with its roots in the pan-Arab nationalism of its ancestors. Its cities are practically stone and timber works of art, the streets lined with statuary depicting individuals recognized as cultural and revolutionary icons. Their temples function as both centers of religion and education, and though they have few modern technolgies remaining to them, the citizenry still enjoy near universal literacy and extensive education in the natural sciences (astronomy is especially popular). The shear artistry of the buildings and sculptures that decorate the cities is especially noteworthy due to both the pirate raids and meteor impacts that regularly leave their scars on populated areas. The local craftsmen excel at the constant repair work necessary to keep their cities beautiful, and their skills would command enormous fees almost anywhere in the Inner Sphere. Technology and healthcare lags well behind the inner sphere, but only for want of resources. The population and government is primarily secular, functioning as a representative democracy supported by socialist policies intended to ensure the well being of all, at least to the best of the government's abilities to do so. Religion remains a major part of the local culture, and some residents of the galaxy's more liberal societies (such as the Taurian Concordat or Magistracy of Canopus) might regard that culture as somewhat backward. In general, however, the population enjoys about as comfortable a life as could be hoped for.

Militarily, Nightwish has little to protect itself with. During the later days of the Rim Worlds Republic, the planet boasted its own mech battalion, composed entirely of Scorpion battlemechs (their quad frame made them ideal for high gravity operations). After generations of conflict, however, this force no longer exists (the last functioning Scorpion is believed to have broken down sometime during the mid 3050s). All that remains are small militia forces equipped with personal weapons and whatever improvised traps and explosives they can rig. Even so, these troops can be surprisingly effective, especially against battlemechs, which have to struggle against the high gravity and can sometimes be brought down by simple traps. Once they have the mech on the ground, the locals are quick to swarm the machine and atempt to breech the cockpit with an explosive device. It is rumored that mechs downed in this matter are dragged off and hidden away for later use, which only tends to bring more trouble to the planet, though it is noteworthy that the locals apparently no longer have any trained pilots of their own to man such machines.

The world itself is lush and beautiful in its own way. Every continent is covered with hardy life evolved not only to thrive in the high gravity, but also quickly recover from the occasional extinction level impact event (estimated to happen roughly every six thousand years). Regular extinctions means large creatures have failed to evolve on the planet, making the wilderness appear deceptively safe, however there remain several different swarming species, both vertibrate and otherwise, that have proven extremely dangerous to humans due to their large numbers and their voracious appetites. While the locals know the tricks and chemistry necessary to keep them at bay, outsiders usually have no such luck, thus allowing the Jungle itself to serve as Nightwish's first line of defense. Even beyond the directly dangerous species, however, nearly every lifeform poses its own risks, even if they're only ecological. During the Star League era, surveys by the Burea of Star League Affairs took the unprecedented step of declaring every native species on Nightwish as potentially invasive species and banned their export to other League worlds.

Interstellar Expeditions continues to monitor the system, though for the time being, any ground based surveys are limited to areas well away from known population centers to avoid further conflicts with the locals. Regular attempts at contact through radio are made, with some success, and the company is confident that eventually we will be able to make a face to face meeting.

Gamemaster's Section:

Characters from Nightwish use the Independent:Generic affiliation with the following modifiers. Primary language is changed to Arabic, while secondary language becomes English. In addition, the character receives -200 xp to Compulsion/Xenophobia, +100 xp to strength, and +100 xp to willpower. On Nightwish, any equipment of a tech level higher than A has its costs doubled and its availability code increased by one (availability F becomes X and the item is not available), due to the general scarcity of manufactured goods.

As stated above, in the current era outsiders are shot on sight. On the tabletop, the troops on Nightwish should be limited to rifled infantry (foot or mechanized/wheeled), or the mobs or insurgents described in Historical: Reunification War. Before the Clan invasion era, these forces can be supplemented with a small number of light, ICE powered vehicles or one or two SCP-1N Scorpion battlemechs.

If one wants to go all the way back to the Star League Era, at the height of the Star League Nightwish maintained its own battalion of Scorpion battlemechs (also the SCP-1N configuration) as well as supplying personnel for the Rim Worlds Army's Republican Guard divisions. These battlemechs were chosen primarily because their quad frame made them easier to handle in the high gravity, and their speed allowed them to retain some mobility. Because the gravity slowed everything down and kept them from using speed to avoid damage, these mechs were also usually equipped with smoke munitions for their SRM launcher, using it to provide extra cover on the move rather than extra damage capacity. Troops in service with Amaris would be similarly equipped, since the unique Scorpion is what they are most familiar with, and served primarily as skirmishers. Nightwish personnel were common enough to make up the majority of a Republican Guard Division (composed primarily of Scorpions and mechanized infantry), as well as being scattered among other units.

Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Takiro

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #36 on: 13 January 2018, 07:41:16 »
Excellent write up which touches on a controversial and under explored side of BattleTech. I wonder if the Bandit Kingdoms (near the Rim Worlds Republic) were in part so 'established' because of the slave trade. Nightwish is a sad tale of a former world victimized by pirates but whom benefits? After all there has to be buyers for the pirates to engage in such behavior. The InnerSphere seems to abhor such behavior but it would play to a isolated Periphery world that wants to fly under the radar to knowingly benefit from the trade.

Tegyrius

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #37 on: 13 January 2018, 10:45:26 »
As always, LG, this is first-rate material.  Nicely done.
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Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #38 on: 12 July 2018, 17:27:31 »
Armitage
Star Type: F1V
Charge Time: 171 hours
Transit Time: 20.26 days

Position in System: 1st
Diameter: 10,000 km
Gravity: 0.9
Day Length: 33 hours
Satellites: none

Atmospheric Pressure: Low
Atmospheric Composition: Habitable (Breathable)
Surface Water: 23%
Equatorial Temperature: 50.85 C
Highest Native Life: Reptile

Population: 44,000,000
Government: Theocratic Democracy
HPG Class: none
Recharge Stations: None

USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: C
Industrial Development: B
Industrial Output: B
Agricultural Dependence: B
Raw Material Dependence: A

Located roughly three jumps rimward of Hunter's Paradise, Armitage is a rather strange world best known for the apocalyptic predictions of its founder, Xander P. Armitage, a professor of Comparative Religions at Miskatonic university on Terra. Though his theories about beings existing beyond reality and the Star League's experimentation with and on them were excentric to say the least, the shear size of the Inner Sphere and the easy access to interstellar communications before the League's fall allowed him to accumulate millions of followers, many of whom willingly followed him into the periphery when he predicted that the rise of equally strange occult religions in the Inner Sphere (such as the Church of Starry Wisdom or the nihilistic cult of the Yellow Sign) was an indication that the ancient "old ones" would soon awaken, dooming mankind to extinction.

To protect his followers, Xander Armitage selected an uninhabited world in the mid periphery, claming his occult calculations indicated its location and the layout of the planetary bodies made it invisible to the Old ones. This haven world, which was named for him at the insistence of his followers, was not particularly impressive. It was largley barren, with limited surface water confined to a single, landlocked ocean. This ocean itself was formed around a truly massive impact crater from some cataclysmic past event, and is the only part of the planet to contain a fully breathable atmosphere due to its depth below the mean planetary surface. Further, despite the world's high metal content, it possesses only a fairly weak magnetic field, combined with a thin atmosphere, meaning the world is bathed in unhealthy levels of radiation from its large, bright primary. This may have been somehow beneficial to the native life, however, which is surprisingly diverse despite the harsh climate and relatively young age of the planet and its parent star.

Human colonization of Armitage began in 2744, and was a long, difficult process due to the curious beliefs Xander Armitage and his followers. One of the group's central beliefs was that the nations of the Inner Sphere had been studying the "old ones" for centuries and incorporating the secrets of their "abnormal geometry" into human technology. In order to protect his haven, Xander Armitage therefore insisted that every piece of technology that would be brought to the world would be scrutinized thoroughly using the same occult methods he devised for selecting the colony site. Any that failed to pass his inspection would be prohibited. In practice, this meant that almost all of the technologies developed for terraforming new colony worlds in the last five hundred years would not be used in making this marginal world fit for human settlement. Even the jumpships themselves were considered suspect. On each ship, all physical access to the jump core was sealed off (any maintenance would be conducted by remote operated drones), and a sofware block was put in place to prevent the jump computer from storing the actual jump coordinates of Armitage, requiring manual entry with each jump to and from the system. The crews and colonists they brought to the world would likewise undergo intensive psychological examination upon arrival to ensure that they were not "tainted" by some extradimensional entity between jumps. Those who failed to pass were moved to an orbital "asylum" station for treatment and "rehabilitation", or sent back to the Inner Sphere.

These self imposed limitations on technology and resources made the first decades of life on Armitage difficult, with shortages of all types common and unrest growing over the strange and increasingly unhinged dictates of Xander Armitage (who in retrospect most likely suffered from undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenia). It was likely that the entire planetary government would have collapsed under the weight of its own excentricities, if not for word reaching the planet of the beginning of the First Succession War. True believers were quick to claim that this was a clear sign that the Old Ones were truly awakening and spreading madness across the Inner Sphere, while even those who had begun to question their beliefs were taken aback by the (highly exaggerated) tales of the barbarity sweeping across the Inner Sphere. This held things together long enough for Xander Armitage to pass away, and his successors to impose reforms that curbed many of his excesses and gradually stabilize the situation. Today, Xander Armitage is regarded by his people as a visionary, but deeply troubled man, who had been overwhelmed by the very profane knowlege he had accumulated to protect his people.

Though it sought to remain in isolation, Armitage would not be completely spared by the Succession Wars. Rich in valuable metals and close to the disintegrating fragments of the Rim Worlds Republic, Armitage was a frequent target of pirates and raiders from the Rim Worlds who hammered the world mercilessly for years until the shear military losses of the succession wars drew most of them away to greener pastures. Though the raids didn't completely stop, Armitage gained enough breathing room to organize a militia strong enough to protect themselves from most attackers and allow them to gradually recover. By the middle of the Third Succession War, the planet was defended by a powerful militia composed of several regiments of infantry and armor, and only the occassional bandit force would brave those defenses to attempt a raid. Relative peace likewise brought relative prosperity. Aggressive industrial and agricultural development has allowed the locals to turn Armitage into a comfortable (if still somewhat primitive) place to live. Nuclear power provides the colony's energy needs, while high yield industrial agriculture and aquaculture ensures that the times of starvation are largely past. A diverse industrial base allowes the locals to enjoy a roughly late 21st century standard of living (albiet with little in the way of a microelectronics industry) and the planet has even managed limited, but regular trade with their Lyran and Rim Collection neighbors, trading cheap raw metals for (approved) cosummer goods from the Inner Sphere.

The strange beliefs instilled in the colony by Xander Armitage remain in place, though they have evolved to a degree over the years, and some of the older restrictions have softened in the face of trade with the Lyrans to allow more diverse amounts of technology into the colony. The old belief that the fall of the Star League was precipitated by the rising of the "Old Ones" is maintained, though this is considered less a physical event and more a consequence of "psychic impressions" caused by the Old Ones's stirring. Revelations of Comstar's activities during the Succession Wars was met with theories that the Order was in fact working to lull these old ones back to sleep by suppressing technology tainted with their essence. Other major catastrophic events are similarly cast in the same light, from the Clan invasion (said to be the result of an old one called Hastur) to the Jihad (attributed to the influences of a being called Nyarlethotep). As with all faiths, how seriously this is taken varies from individual to individual, with an increasing segment of the younger population of Armitage considering these claims to be more metaphorical. In fact, the planetary population considers itself athiest, and their beliefs in extradimensional entities being less a question of faith and more an expression of their somewhat incomprehensible "Occult Sciences".

The world's belief system impacts even its military forces. Though the militia has had the opportunity to salvage or trade for battlemechs for decades, it fields no mech forces, and in fact mechs of all kinds, be they industrial or battlemechs, are prohibited on planet. The local belief system teaches that these machines were first created to literally give form to or enslave extradimensional entities for the benefit of the Great Houses. Those battlemechs that have been recovered from raiders have been universally disassembled to their component parts then jettisoned into a decaying orbit around the world's star. Even those who don't hold as strictly to the state belief structure tend to abhore battlemechs purely for the damage they have caused over the centuries, both to Armitage and the Inner Sphere, and those who might speak in favor of fielding battlemechs among the planetary militia are a fairly tiny minority. This attitude was most recently reinforced during the 3070s, when Armitage came under repeated attacks from the pirate band known as the Green Ghosts.

Though Armitage maintains contact with the outside universe through its trade missions, even these are heavily influenced by their belief structure. Though the world eventually gave up on trying to restrict jumpship access to their system (having no means of stopping it), they continue to prohibit foreign craft from landing on planet. Foreign visitors thus make contact and conduct trade on the ancient orbital station originally put into place to handle "screenings" of potential colonists during the world's founding. The Rim Collection maintains a permanent diplomatic mission on the station, which handles not only diplomatic and trade concerns, but also serves to process the steady stream of emigrants who wish to leave Armitage for a new life elsewhere. The Marian Hegemony has also made recent contact, sending ambassadors to extol the virtues of membership in the Hegemony to a completely disinterested (even fearful) audience, and there are concerns that Hegemony may become more forceful in their overtures. Armitage also continues to operate a single jumpship, which is staffed by a crew hand picked for their ability to withstand the terror of the "space between spaces", and is tasked with handling trade deliveries as well as gathering information on the goings on of the Inner Sphere. At least one of Armitage's "Occult Scientists" is aboard the jumpship during every journey, and their job is to evaluate all new information in the context of the world's belief structure.

Gamemaster's Section:

The idea that a whole colony might form from people terrified that the monsters of the Cthulhu mythos are real and a threat to mankind isn't as ridiculous as it might sound. The Church of Starry Wisdom (originally created by HP Lovecraft for his story "The Haunter in the Dark" and associated with Nyarlethotep) is a canon religious cult found in the Draconis Combine. Likewise Hastur has a few name drops in the battletech canon over the last few years; as a planet in the Magistracy of Canopus, a Jade Falcon officer, and as one of the pentagon powers during Operation Klondike (the last is the most blatant, as other mythos entities are also name dropped as cities in Hastur, and the official camospecs scheme for the state makes sure to include the Yellow Sign as their particular insignia). So the mythos had its affect on the universe. But is it a supernatural affect?

I might be the wrong person to ask. It's up to you to decide how much weird stuff you want to put into your game, and how much of that weird stuff has a mundane explanation. A word of advice though, keep it subtle. Avoid going full Cthulhu unless you really, really want to.

Characters from Armitage can be generated using the generic/minor periphery affiliation with the following modifiers. The primary language is called Old Miskatonic (an incomprehensible pidgin of English, German, Dutch, Tibetan, and some things they probably just made up), while the secondary language is English. In addition to the normal traits, add Thick Skinned or Mutation (+50), as well as Handicap (-25) and Quirk (-25) (these genetic and emotional irregularities are totally probably due to the affects of generations growing up in a high radiation environment under a bizarre psuedo-religious structure obsessed with the end times). Characters may not be mechwarriors, industrialmech pilots, or battle armor pilots, nor may they own or have possession of such machines, unless they first change affiliations (indicating someone whose left Armitage). Characters who take the merchant or travel modules have an added attribute requirement of WIL 6, due to rigorous psychological screenings. Those who want to study the occult sciences may select it as a knowledge skill, however, I'm not going to give any guidance how to use it. It doesn't make any sense.

The equipment of Armitage's planetary militia are limited to infantry, basic APCs, and simple armored vehicles like the Vedette or Scorpion. Beam weapons are avoided, mechs are right out, even for allied units.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Tegyrius

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #39 on: 12 July 2018, 18:10:19 »
Glorious, LG.

Folks, if you can't spin a one-shot AToW scenario out of that, hang up your GMing dice.
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Takiro

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #40 on: 13 July 2018, 11:25:11 »
Very nice!

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #41 on: 13 July 2018, 18:45:19 »
Wait, Hastur and the Church of Starry Wisdom are in canon?!
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Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #42 on: 13 July 2018, 19:36:12 »
Hehe, yep!

From Housebook Kurita:

"One cult that surfaces from time to time, despite repeated (and violent) eradications carried out by the ISF and O5P, is the Church of Starry Wisdom. The cult takes various forms depending on what world it surfaces, but its core tenets are the same. Each group has what they call a “Shining Trapezohedron” used to summon a dark being called the Haunter of the Dark."

As for Hastur, Operation Klondike is most blatant, with both the nation and its leader named Hastur, and two named cities being named Cyaegha and Nyogtha. Just in case we weren't paying attention, the author even subtitles the section covering the fall of Hastur "End of the Great One".
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Daryk

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #43 on: 13 July 2018, 23:00:00 »
Hilarious!  Excellent work as always, Liam!  :thumbsup:

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #44 on: 27 August 2018, 05:11:24 »
Tybalt's Farm
Star Type: K5V
Charge Time: 196 hours
Transit Time: 4.12 days

Position in System: 2nd
Diameter: 9,900 km
Gravity: 0.92
Day Length: 37 hours
Satellites: One (Isekai)

Atmospheric Pressure: Standard
Atmospheric Composition: Toxic
Surface Water: 30%
Equatorial Temperature: 28 C
Highest Native Life: Insects

Population: 4,000
Government: Communist Cyberdemocracy
HPG Class: none
Recharge Stations: None

USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: B
Industrial Development: F
Industrial Output: F
Agricultural Dependence: B
Raw Material Dependence: C

Founded by the Tybalt Corporation during the mid 28th Century, Tybalt's Farm was meant to slip under the radar. The world was colonized to serve as a research facility for the corporation, specializing in the areas of medicine, synthetic agriculture, bioprinting, advanced computer simulation, and robotic system operation; all innocent enough pursuits in theory. It was the specific nature of the facility's experimentation, however, that necessitated its location in the rimward mid periphery, on a toxic, hostile world well outside of the Star League's borders. Almost all of the facility's research was founded in highly illegal human experimentation, all apparently focused on allowing humans to survive for generations in close, heavily restrictive environments.

The facility's most innocent endeavors focused on closed cycle life support intended for long duration interstellar travel. Tybalt's Farm has a completely self sufficient food supply based around a species of local insectile life that has been genetically engineered to be fast breeding and rich in nutrients. For the first couple of centuries of operation this was also supplemented by high efficiency recycling systems which reprocessed all surplus organic matter as an additional nutritional source. This system was extremely robust, but a century without spare parts following loss of contact with the Inner Sphere gradually led to a series of malfunctions throughout the processing systems, resulting in a fatal outbreak of prion disease in 2981 that led to most of the reprocessing system being shut down. Similar malfunctions also cost the inhabitants most of the variety in their diet. The original food processing systems were marvels of technology that could turn what amounted to a paste of edible hydrocarbons into a wide variety of meals with a dizzying array of tastes and textures almost indistinguishable from more traditional foods. Now, though, most of these systems have also broken down or been cannibalized for parts, and while the residents are still able to synthesize a variety of artificial flavoring agents to keep their food palatable, this food supply can at best be described as "firm jelly". This food supply is nutritious and abundant, however the locals are always eager to trade for virtually anything else to eat.

Medical research was another major part of the facility's work. Initial effort focused on "bio-printing", a process similar to cloning, in that it involves duplicating existing genetic material, but rather than growing an entire organ or limb from nothing, it instead utilizes a stock of previously created base materials (skin, bone, organ tissue, and the like) then uses sophisticated microassemblers to mechanically assemble these base materials into whatever is required. This process was theoretically much faster than cloning a new organ, and was limited only by the ability of the microassemblers to do the work and the availability of base materials, which could be grown in bulk to meet the need. Tybalt Industries had even expressed interest in producing complete organisms through this methodology, and the researchers at Tybalt's Farm had made several attempts to bioprint small, simple mammalian creatures before the program was shut down. Though the program showed great promise, and offered the possibility of using bioprinted tissue as an additional food source, following loss of contact with the Inner Sphere, the bio-printing program was deemed too energy intensive to keep operational without outside support and was shut down. Medical research was then shifted to focus on new medicines, and "Social Sedatives", in truth, narcotics intended to the restless and crowded population docile. The most infamous product of this research is a compound known colloquially as "Dream Dust", a sedative and paralytic that produces powerful euphoric halucinations that has become a significant problem in the Taurian Concordat (where it is believed to have spread from independent periphery traders that had previously visited Tybalt's Farm). Dream Dust is notorious for its use as a date rape drug and its incredible potency (dosages above fifty miligrams are almost always fatal due to respiratory failure), and is even used as a means of humane execution on some worlds. On Tybalt's Farm, recreational use is heavily monitored, but common and legal, and at times even mandated for therapeutic purposes.

The Isekai facility, located on the world's sole moon, was the center for a third branch of research, this focused on computer simulation, particularly the creation of entire simulated worldscapes designed to be inhabited long term by large numbers of individuals using a neural interface rig called the "SimSense" system. The SimSense rig was a remarkable technological achievement, but also very dangerous to its user. Though its neural interface technology produced an incredibly realistic interactive worldscape, the neural feedback had proven both addictive and damaging even before the program was installed at Tybalt's Farm. Experiments using Dream Dust in concert with the SimSense rig resulted in several deaths, but researchers reported a tremendous wealth of data obtained as a result, and the experiments were continued for some time (though at a lower dosage). The addictive properties of the Rig were such that when the decision was made to shut down the facility in 2845, three hundred of the thousand current test subjects demanded to remain connected to the system, despite knowing that all additional support would be cut off. It is believed that at least some of them survived for as long as two years after the facility was sealed and abandoned, at which point their nutrient supplies would have been depleted. Much like bioprinting, the Isekai facility was shut down due to its high energy demands, however a much stripped down (and far safer) version remains in use as a teaching tool in the main facility, and is the primary reason the locals have managed to maintain their technical expertise despite their limited resources and population.

Before the First Succession War, Tybalt's Farm received regular shipments of supplies and new test subjects from their home office in the Free Worlds League. Once the war began, these shipments, and all news from home, came to an abrupt end. Though there was much debate on what might be happening back home, the decision was quickly made to shift the facility's focus from pure research to long term sustainability. The facility's most energy intensive departments were shut down "for the duration of the current emergency" and all research efforts were focused on sustaining and controlling the population for however long they would remain out of contact. Food production and maintenance of the life support system became paramount. The entire population was effectively sterilized (breeding was to be conducted only under strict regulation to maintain a sustained population), recreation was heavily restricted, and those who were unable to support the continued operation of the facility (including several thousand test subjects) were quietly eliminated and recycled. These arguably heartless measures allowed the facility to remain operational for centuries, though the locals are generally not quick to discuss them with outsiders, or even each other.

The facility's first contact with the outside world since the First Succession War came in the form of traders from the independent world of Foxhaven. Though the locals were deliberately closed mouthed about their own history, they were eager to trade for supplies and news about the outside universe, while the merchants, being of a particularly disreputable type, were quick to realize the massive potential market for the world's synthetic medicines and narcotics. Trade between Tybalt's Farm and Foxhaven was brisk and especially lucrative for Foxhaven, which shipped Tybalt produced narcotics into the Taurian Concordat at a tremendous profit, and fairly safe for Tybalt's Farm, which had its location concealed by Foxhaven in order to protect their exclusive control of the narcotics trade. It was only after Foxhaven fell into civil war in 3057 that the truth about their narcotics suppliers got out, and put Tybalt's Farm on the map. The first to act on this was the Taurian Concordat, which sent a punative expedition to the world in order to cut off the flow of narcotics into their territory. However, with almost no information about the world to work from, the Taurian expedition was poorly prepared to actually attack the planet. The settlements on world are almost entirely underground, making the Taurians' mechs virtually useless, and their infantry forces were not properly equipped to operate in the toxic, corrosive atmosphere of the planet. Rather than a decisive blow, the Taurians could only manage a purely symbolic show of force. This was still enough to convince the locals to promise to end narcotics shipments offworld, an easy promise to make as their sole ofworld trading partner was too busy fighting a civil war to trade with them.

Several pirate raids have followed the initial Taurian foray, most of which have faced the same limitations and come away with nothing for their efforts. The most "successful" of these raids resulted in a loss of atmosphere for aproximately a third of the facility, almost instantly killing half the population, as well as the entire team of pirates whose careless infiltration caused the breach. Gradually, pirate bands learned there was much more to be gained by trading with the locals rather than attacking them, and as a consequence Tybalt's Farm has become neutral ground for many pirate groups, who will actively defend the planet (and their drug supply) should others move to attack. Surprisingly, this even extends to independent traders, as well as Interstellar Expeditions, who are able to operate in the system without fear of more than mild harassment from the pirates hanging around the jump points. This informal agreement was more or less formalized in 3117 when one of these groups parked an ancient, barely spaceworthy jumpship at the L4 point and turned it into a trading post and spaceborn shanty town. Quinsey Station, as it's called, hosts a permanent population of two hundred people and a transient population of up to three thousand, along with shops, brothels, bars, and a small security force led by a former Colonial Marshal from the Fronc Reaches to keep things (mostly) under control. It's a rough place, and visitors are advised to watch their valuables and avoid dark passages, but it's proven a relatively safe harbor for most, and a useful base for Interstellar Expeditions, as they continue their surveys of the system.

Gamemaster's Section:

Quinsey Station is indeed truly ancient, a primitive Cassiopea class transport built back in 2299 and refitted a few times in her life to try to keep her current before she was eventually pawned off on a Free Trader in the Rimward Periphery and passed down through his family for the next six hundred years. Her transit drive can only produce a trickle of thrust, and they didn't actually want to settle here, but the jump drive gave up the ghost on the last jump. Without reposting the whole stat sheet, the ship has an armor layout of f/a:8, fl/fr/al/ar:9, a structural integrity of 20, no remaining weapons, a complement of four shuttles and six fighters (4 Sabres, 2 Corsairs), twenty marines, and one battlemech (a Marshal piloted occasionally by the... well... the Marshal). But why would you shoot at such a wonderful hive of scum and villainy?

What hasn't made it into the public record is that the Isekai facility wasn't just working on creating simulated worlds, it was also using those simulations to create maps of the users' though processes, brain chemistry, how their memories were stored and accessed, and literally everything else they could find out about the structure of their brains, so they could bioprint a human brain. Tybalt wasn't content to just bioprint mice, they had a long term goal of literally printing people, fully grown, pre-programed to think in the way that Tybalt wanted them to. It... it was probably an unreachable goal, even without the Succession Wars getting in the way. But that goal shaped how the company did things. The SimSense Rig, if used just as a simulation system, wasn't addictive (any more than any game might be) or damaging to the brain. That was a byproduct of the amount of juice the scientists put through the system in order to get more accurate data about the subject's brain activity, and resulted in an affect similar to DNI or a Protomech Interface with prolonged use.

Another part of the program was using the SimSense data to make computer models of human minds for experimentation, and by the end of the experiment they were getting very good (though not perfect) results. I'm just saying, those last three hundred test subjects died a long time ago, but they might not be completely gone...

And that leads us to this last bit. The Isekai facility was sealed off, not destroyed, so intrepid players might find themselves in a position of wanting to get it working again and plugging themselves in. I'm not going to tell you what they should find in there. The whole point of the SimSense system was that it could simulate a wide variety of situations, even ones that can't exist in the outside world. So their experience could be as simple as plopping them in a new world with the same game rules, or putting them in situations incorporating new and unusual abilities (might I suggest the Nebula California?) or even dropping them into a completely different game universe and system for the duration of their stay. I leave that up to you.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Tegyrius

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #45 on: 27 August 2018, 05:29:19 »
Awesome.  Subtly horrifying (which is part of the appeal) but awesome.
Some places remain unknown because no one has gone there.  Others remain unknown because no one has come back.

Giovanni Blasini

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #46 on: 27 August 2018, 16:33:52 »
Quite the high-tech dystopia, chummer.
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truetanker

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #47 on: 27 August 2018, 18:10:36 »
Now someone has been working for Vault-Tech!

Or played Fallout 4 to much....

Or both!

TT
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That is, if true tanker doesn't beat me to it. He makes truly evil units.Col.Hengist on 31 May 2013
TT, we know you are the master of nasty  O0 ~ Fletch on 22 June 2013
If I'm attacking you, conventional wisom says to bring 3x your force.  I want extra insurance, so I'll bring 4 for every 1 of what you have :D ~ Tai Dai Cultist on 21 April 2016
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Nav_Alpha: That THING... that is horrid
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Daryk

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #48 on: 27 August 2018, 18:17:17 »
Another excellent post, Liam!  :thumbsup:

I have to say, though... I'm missing Foxhaven...  ::)

truetanker

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #49 on: 27 August 2018, 18:21:27 »
Well we did have a Baron whose cousins were pirates?, I believe... maybe they got reinforcements? And tried to take over...

Von Strong would have sided with the Baron, as his family's loyalties gave him some clout.

TT
Khan, Clan Iron Dolphin
Azeroth Pocketverse
That is, if true tanker doesn't beat me to it. He makes truly evil units.Col.Hengist on 31 May 2013
TT, we know you are the master of nasty  O0 ~ Fletch on 22 June 2013
If I'm attacking you, conventional wisom says to bring 3x your force.  I want extra insurance, so I'll bring 4 for every 1 of what you have :D ~ Tai Dai Cultist on 21 April 2016
Me: Would you rather fight my Epithymía Thanátou from the Whispers of Blake?
Nav_Alpha: That THING... that is horrid
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Tegyrius

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #50 on: 27 August 2018, 20:35:31 »
I have to say, though... I'm missing Foxhaven...  ::)

Y'know, if someone wanted to run an AToW campaign set on Foxhaven...
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Daryk

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #51 on: 27 August 2018, 20:57:10 »
Don't tempt me!  I'm trying to keep the Double Deuce going here, while getting a face to face campaign going...  8)

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #52 on: 27 August 2018, 21:57:35 »
Amusing anecdote, I actually wrote this entry because I was going back through my notes about Foxhaven, only to find out that I didn't actually have much in the way of notes aside beyond what was already posted, and started expanding on them again.

No promises, though.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #53 on: 28 October 2018, 00:29:46 »
Greenwood Station
Star Type: G4V
Charge Time: 185 hours
Transit Time: 7.96 days

Position in System: 2nd
Diameter: 4,500 km
Gravity: 0.34
Day Length: 28 hours
Satellites: none

Atmospheric Pressure: Low
Atmospheric Composition: Breathable
Surface Water: 5%
Equatorial Temperature: 34 C
Highest Native Life: Avian

Population: 7,700,000
Government: Weak Representative Democracy/Anarchy
HPG Class: none
Recharge Stations: None

USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: C
Industrial Sophistication: F
Industrial Output: F
Agricultural Dependence: C
Raw Material Dependence: B

Identified in official records as LT-1743, but more commonly known by the name of its largest settlement, Greenwood Station has always been something of a strange place. A tiny planet with only limited gravitational pull, annually subject to tremendous tidal stress and resulting massive earthquakes whenever it passes the enormous gas giant occupying an orbit between the planet and its star, and occasionally struck by objects that had been swept up by that same gas giant, Greenwood Station has still somehow managed to naturally develop complex life, as well as an atmosphere that, while thin, is entirely breathable.

Surveys of the world showed signs or rich mineral deposits as well as land suitable for agriculture around the world's sole, small sea, however the world was originally classified as low suitability due to extreme tectonic and meteor activity, as well as the planet's low gravity.

Though official organizations had turned their nose up at the planet, it quickly caught the attention of less reputable groups due to its proximity to the fringes of the Capellan Confederation, Taurian Concordat, and Free Worlds League. The first settlement was established in 2400, specifically as a rest stop for smugglers carrying illicit goods into the Confederation. At first this settlement, known as Greenwood, was little more than a shanty town hosting less than a thousand permanent residents, though it would grow with surprising rapidity as refugees, outlaws and military deserters fleeing the early Age of War found their way to the system.

Frequent clashes among the many colorful characters that were making their homes on this new world encourages these new arrivals to spread out, founding small farms, strongholds, and other settlements over most of the planet's small fertile zone. This became especially advantageous when the planet entered its yearly "Apocalypse Season" as the gas giant Nemesis passed through the sky, bringing with it heavy meteor showers, massive earthquakes, and still more meteor showers, leaving widespread destruction in its wake. Though always a damaging event, the season of 2508 was especially destructive, as several impacts, as well as a massive earthquake completely destroyed the settlement of Greenwood, killing most of its ten thousand inhabitants while leaving the many other settlements and outposts scattered around the fertile zone largely untouched.

Given Greenwood's tendency to attract criminal elements, it is of little surprise to learn that the planet was long a host to many of the various bandit groups that plagued the rimward periphery in the centuries before the founding of the Star League. Though the surrounding powers regularly mounted expeditions to clear them out, the bandits always seemed to return. In the years after the Reunification War, these bandits were augmented by renegades from the Taurian Concordat and Magistracy of Canopus who had refused to surrender to the Star League, and were able to muster nearly a battalion of serviceable battlemechs, as well as a damaged but operational Essex I class destroyer, originally captured in the Pleiades Campaign of the Reunification war.

These raiders apparently represented the most bitter of periphery holdouts, and their first attacks against the Capellan Confederation and Taurian Concordat were especially brutal. Entire towns on Capellan worlds were burned to the ground, while the same fate befell one town on the Taurian world of Landmark after the raiders declared its citizens "collaborators". The worst of their fury was apparently reserved for any SLDF personnel they captured. At times, entire outposts would be found destroyed, the men impaled on spikes, the women suffering even worse fates until their deaths were a mercy.

Their brutality would also prove their undoing. As they moved from atrocity to atrocity, most of their Canopean born and some of their Taurian personnel began to simply walk away from the band, horrified at what they were becoming. It was these defectors that ultimately provided the SLDF the location of the band's homeworld. Moving quickly, the SLDF sent a mixed regiment and a squadron of warships to Greenwood, catching the bandits off guard and quickly defeating them in space, cutting off their retreat. The ground battle likewise went against the bandits, with only a few surviving to scatter into the wilderness. Acknowledging the persistent bandit threat Greenwood had long been, the League then established a permanent garrison, at a new outpost near the original settlement of Greenwood, named Greenwood Station.

Though the locals would constantly grumble under Star League rule, the benefits were apparent almost from the beginning. Suppression of banditry and associated crime immediately made the world a safer place, while a concerted spaceborn effort by the League navy cleared out the most threatening asteroids in the system, reducing the impact of subsequent apocalyptic seasons considerably (projections showed that without League intervention Greenwood would have been struck by an 23 kilometer wide asteroid in 2801, with sufficient force to render the planet uninhabitable). Access to League medicine and the latest in genetically engineered food crops likewise improved the quality of life and average lifespan for the entire population. Though the populace never moved beyond an agrarian culture, the Star League years were arguably nothing short of a golden age for the planet.

Even so, Greenwood (now more commonly known as Greenwood Station after the town that had risen up around the SLDF garrison) was more than happy to see the League go. Though they did not take any direct involvement in the Periphery Uprising, the locals showed their support to their Periphery brothers by organizing a worldwide boycott against the League garrison, cutting them off from all local sources of food and water. Though a minor inconvenience at best, the locals were convinced that this boycott directly contributed to the garrison's eventual withdrawal (actually a result of the Amaris Coup).

Following the departure of the League, Greenwood Station quickly reverted to old habits, and has played host to bandits, smugglers, and other criminal elements ever since.

Today, Greenwood Station remains a largely rural world. The closest thing to a city is Greenwood Station itself, home to roughly sixty thousand residents and the small, Star League era spaceport. This city largely caters to offworld visitors, and is a somewhat rough, but at the same time strange place. Local superstitions are rampant, most notably the common belief that the entire city is haunted, primarily by the former residents of the nearby ruins of old Greenwood, but also the many bandits killed by the SLDF at the start of their occupation and those who die during each apocalypse season. This belief is so pervasive that even visitors are often swept up in it, reporting strange phenomena, sounds, or sightings of ghostly figures. The locals are deeply invested in these beliefs, and are known to react poorly to those who attempt to debunk them.

Beyond the town of Greenwood Station itself is primarily rural countryside dotted with farms, ranches, and other private dwellings. The ranches in particular tend to stand out due to their use of large fully enclosed cagelike structures (fashioned from wood) encompasing as much as an acre at a time. This is a matter of necessity, as the world's principle livestock, the nominally flightless Paracrax Bird, is renowned for its tremendous leaping ability, said to rival that of some jump capable battlemechs. The Paracrax Bird is highly prized for its large eggs and meat, but is useless as a beast of burden due to its temperamental nature, weak body, and tendency to flee at the first opportunity. Standard practices are to round up Paracrax Birds after the passing of the apocalypse season and keep them for egg production (Paracrax Birds are hermaphrodites, so every bird produces eggs, however they must consume a specific plant before they can mate and produce a fertilized egg). As the next apocalypse season draws near, a few of these birds will be slaughtered for meat and the rest released. This started out as simple practicality, as the earthquakes of the apocalypse season often damaged their pens sufficiently to allow the entire flock to escape, and long term denial of their so called "mating flower" proved detrimental to their health regardless.

In addition to ranching practices, the yearly apocalypse season influences how the locals live and build. There are very few long lasting structures on Greenwood Station, and those that do exist are leftovers from the Star League years. Locals tend to build light, easily repaired structures and simply accept that they will regularly need to rebuild them. This notion of impermanence extends to most of their culture, which discourages attachment to the material (with varying degrees of success). This attitude, in turn, appears to help smooth over relations between the rural community and the much more colorful residents of the city, making them more tolerant to the occasional excesses of the offworlders.

Greenwood Station has virtually no indigenous industry or capacity for harvesting mineral resources. All technology comes either from offworld or from equipment recovered long ago from the Star League outpost. Any long term mining is considered an entirely untenable endeavor due to the heavy earthquakes of the apocalypse season. The majority of metals collected on planet are meteoric in origin, which is far more abundant here than on most other worlds, but still relatively sparse, meaning even simple metal tools can be hard to come by once you leave the city, in fact it is often more likely to find modern technological tools that the locals have traded for than simple home made steel and iron, and it is not unusual for the rurals to construct their simple wooden dwellings using timbers cut with a vibro-saw, seeking warmth at night from an electric heater powered by a high density solar storage battery, or even hunting game with a laser rifle (the Intek model has become especially popular among rural folk who can get together a large enough harvest to afford one). If anything, the actual city of Greenwood Station doesn't really come across as a more technologically sophisticated location so much as a more consistent one. In the city, at least half the outhouses are connected to the old Star League sanitation system, the cell service and network connectivity is much more consistent, and the cranky old power grid can provide (mostly) consistent juice even at nighttime.

As a self described haven for the scum of the Sphere, Greenwood Station is a regular port of call for any number of bandits or smugglers who frequent the surrounding territories, along with free traders, particularly foolish adventure seekers (more and more common as nearby Herotitus took increasing steps towards respectability), and intelligence agents from the four nearest states. In order to keep the peace, the planet hosts a militia force composed of a reinforced combined arms company of mechs and infantry, supplementing them by hiring some of their more trustworthy visiting bandit groups as mercenaries. It is perhaps a testament to their ability to keep the peace that they are more often called upon to repulse probes and punitive raids from the neighboring states than they are to deal with problems from their visitors. The rural folk living outside the city are likewise armed and eager to defend themselves if need be, though they are only equipped with personal weapons. One group has somehow managed to domesticate a flock of the notoriously temperamental Paracrax Birds, and can sometimes be seen riding them into battle, though most consider this more comical than effective.

Gamemaster's Section:

Characters from Greenwood Station may be generated using the standard Independent/Generic affiliation. There's enough traffic through the system to allow a character to travel elsewhere for training, however those that spent their whole life on Greenwood Station should not take the blue collar, white collar, or nobility stage one modules, the high school, military school, or preparatory school stage two modules, any stage three modules, or any stage four modules except agitator, civilian job, ne'er-do-well, or organized crime. A character that's spent the entirety of their formative years (at least stage 1, 2, and one stage 4 module) entirely on Greenwood Station gain +100 xp to edge and -100 xp to compulsion/any.

Greenwood Station is a strange place. And the actual town of Greenwood Station stranger still. The local superstition is so pervasive as to be infectious. Visitors  to the town are treated as though they have the traits Compulsion/Paranoia(-1), and Unlucky(-2), stacking with any pre-existing traits, for the duration of the visit. If the character also has the Sixth Sense trait, the Compulsion/Paranoia trait increases to -3. In addition, the Sixth Sense trait itself does not function, as the character simply feels that they are always facing impending danger. GMs are encouraged to play up the spookiness by depicting strange, but arguably explainable events, strange sights out of the corner of a character's eye, unusual behavior among the locals, or vivid, disturbing dreams. This all should start once the characters have actually entered the town and interacted with some of the locals.

The planetary militia is composed of eight battlemechs (mostly light and medium with a single heavy used by the commander), two platoons of conventional foot infantry (each squad armed with 5 gunther mp-20s and 2 Intek laser rifles) and a single squad of Ravager battlearmor.

The various farms and ranches can each muster about a squad of troops in a pinch (meaning it would take several farms working in concert to organize a respectable force). These troops would be equipped with a mixture of Intek laser rifles and bolt action rifles, and can be foot, beast mounted (horse), or mechanized (wheeled).

Then there are the Paracrax Birds. There is a small group of individuals that have managed to domesticate the birds well enough to attempt to ride them into battle, but... it's pretty comical, or tragic. Paracrax mounted troops cannot carry support weapons (they are usually armed with Intek laser rifles), and receive four points of jumping movement. Jumping is the only movement mode they can use (Paracrax birds instinctively jump to avoid danger, and getting one to go where you want to is less about teaching it to accept you and more about getting it to continuously jump away from the person on its back). Because of their erratic, panicked movement, paracrax mounted troops are subject to the +3 attacker movement modifier for jumping when making a weapon attack. These units should not be fielded in numbers larger than one or two squads at a time, as the act of carrying a rider on its back is incredibly stressful and painful for the paracrax bird, resulting in its crippling or death after less than a year.

Paracrax Birds cannot usually survive offworld. Their body has evolved and fully adapted to the low gravity environment it lives in, to the point where it will quickly begin to suffocate in any gravity above 0.6. In addition the creature has very specific nutrition requirements to both breed and remain healthy. A diet easily met feeding on the wild plants of Greenwood Station, but which would have to be synthesized elsewhere at considerable expense.
« Last Edit: 28 October 2018, 00:41:53 by Liam's Ghost »
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Daryk

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #54 on: 28 October 2018, 04:06:25 »
Cool... nice Halloween addition Liam!  The only thing I might add to the militia is a lance of vehicles (say, 2 heavy APCs, 1 battlemech recovery vehicle, and 1 MASH).

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #55 on: 28 November 2018, 04:57:38 »
Reyne
Star Type: F5IV
Charge Time: 185 hours
Transit Time: 14.94 days

Position in System: 2nd
Diameter: 10,500 km
Gravity: 0.97
Day Length: 27 hours
Satellites: 3

Atmospheric Pressure: Standard
Atmospheric Composition: Breathable
Surface Water: 40%
Equatorial Temperature: 20 C
Highest Native Life: Fish

Population: 9,700,000
Government:
HPG Class: none
Recharge Stations: None

USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: C
Industrial Sophistication: D
Industrial Output: D
Agricultural Dependence: C
Raw Material Dependence: B

Best known for the destructive battles that took place on the world at the end of the Jihad and the turbulent events that have followed, Reyne has never been a stranger to conflict, and in fact owes its existence as an inhabited world to warfare. The first "colonists" to settle on the planet was the crew of the SLS Prince William, a Farragut class battleship that came under attack in the system while in transit to the Taurian front of the Reunification War. Her opponents, a small squadron of converted freighters operated by the Taurian CSS, was able to surprise the massive warship with a heavy barrage of naval missiles, crippling the ship's drive before it could bring its own guns to bear and forcing it to surrender. Though the Taurians had hoped to recover the ship for their own use, their boarding parties quickly determined that the Prince William's jump core had likewise been badly cracked in the onslaught and was non-operable. With no way to salvage the ship and unwilling to linger in the system for too long and risk further attack, the squadron instead marooned the ship's crew onworld and crashed the Prince William and its attendant dropships and small craft into the world's sea to prevent the League from recovering them, before moving on to their next objective.

While the Taurians had assumed that the League would eventually locate and recover the crew of the Prince William, no such rescue was forthcoming. The ship's captain, hoping to make up time after a delay caused by a drive malfunction, had moved off the ship's original planned course without notify his superiors, while the desperate need for ships at the front had limited the effectiveness of any search operations. The fate of the Prince William would not be discovered by the SLDF until well after the war had ended. The surviving crew, numbering less than a thousand, were thus forced to survive on their own on this marginal world. Though they had years worth of food, medical, and survival supplies left to them by the Taurians (who had either taken or destroyed everything else), their isolation would last decades, forcing them to adapt to their environment. Wood was virtually unheard of, though copper proved richly abundant and easy to work, quickly becoming a substitute for smaller projects. Stone and concrete became the principle building materials for larger projects. Terrestrial animals tended to be scarce and of limited utility, thus the locals survived primarily by harvesting the world's abundant sealife, often working from boats constructed of copper or copper reinforced concrete. Terrestrial plant life was also limited (predominantly mosses and fungus) but these (along with marine based kelp analogues) further supplemented the local diet and provided a means of producing workable fabrics. Though it was not a comfortable life, as time passed it proved a fairly stable one for the survivors of the Prince William and their descendants, who eventually christened the planet Lincoln Island, after a fictional location in a novel recovered from the Prince William's library.

It was another forty years until the outside world once again touched the planet, when Taurian refugees from the Pleiades cluster began arriving to establish their own settlement. Deeply embittered over the League's conquest of the Concordat and the Davion annexation of their homeworlds, they were particularly ill suited to handling first contact with the planet's existing residents, and with the locals' own institutionalized grudge against the Taurians that had stranded them there, conflict was inevitable, and quickly turned bloody. While the Taurians had advantages in weapons, resources, and shear numbers, the locals understood the land they were fighting on far better, and managed to wage a bloody guerilla campaign against the Taurian "invaders" for years. It took nearly ten years (and thousands of lives, including half the "Lincolnian" population) before some measure of peace was established, and the conflict would flare up several more times over subsequent generations. Today, the Lincolnian population (numbering approximately a hundred thousand) maintains its own seperate identity, territories, and political structure, though it continues to struggle in efforts to maintain its independence from the much larger Taurian population. Though conflicts between the two groups will still rarely flare up into outright violence, for the most part the disputes between the two sides are limited to arguments on the floors of parliament.

The world's Taurian population has evolved considerably over the centuries. In the early years of their settlement, the Taurian population was almost rabidly nationalistic and xenophobic; unwilling to even seek membership in their own mother country in the Concordat as long as the Star League banner still flew over Taurian worlds; actively harboring and supporting terrorists, freedom fighters, and pirates who might cause trouble for the Star League and the Federated Suns; and seeking to wipe out their Lincolnian neighbors purely due to their prior allegiance to the League. Resolving the years of bloody violence between the Lincolnian and Taurian communities on Reyne seemed to drain some of this poison out of the local society. Establishing regular contact with other worlds (originating as an unsuccessful plan to expel the Lincolnian population back to the Terran Hegemony) also led to re-establishing ties with families left behind in the Taurian Concordat and the Pleiades cluster, further softening some of the hatred felt against the League. Though the Taurian population never truly forgave the League (and would supply volunteers and limited material aid to Amaris' secret army) they would become much more forgiving of House Davion, standing out from many of their Taurian kin by being fairly accepting of their once hated neighbor.

Reyne's status within the greater Concordat was always one of a close neighbor rather than a full member. What began as an act of defiance (rejection of Star League authority, or that of any state under the League's sway, was written into the planetary constitution by the original Taurian settlers) became a matter of tradition for the planetary population after only a few generations, and the world of Reyne was never incorporated into the Taurian Concordat, despite their close cultural and political ties. This has served both Reyne and the Concordat well on several occassions, as it has spared Reyne the excesses of some of the Concordat's more unstable leaders, while the world's close ties to the Concordat and acceptance of the Federated Suns has allowed it to serve as a clearinghouse for trade between the Suns and the Concordat, even in those times when the two states were in open conflict. Starting during the reign of Thomas Calderon, this world took on even greater significance through the efforts of the Far Looker sect, which used it as a baseworld for supporting colonization efforts in the region without having to operate under government oversight. Many locals would join these colonization efforts, forging ties with many newly colonized worlds in what would become the Calderon Protectorate.

Unfortunately, the secession of the Protectorate had resulted in the abandonment of a few of these new colonies, and stories of pirate raids against the undefended worlds brought to Reyne by refugees led to a souring of relations with both sides of the Taurian conflict. This led to Reyne turning inward, investing heavily in expanding its own defense forces as well as assembling a small battlemech force from both Taurian defectors (members of the New Colony Lancers unwilling to support Kithrong's secession or return to the Concordat) and veterans of the Fedcom Civil War seeking a place to make a new start. To fund this expansion, the world was able to call upon recently opened germanium mines and a particularly willing but ultimately disastrous investor, the Word of Blake.

The planet reaped tremendous profits from Blakist interest in their Germanium deposits, and not just financially. The Word of Blake invested tremendous resources in building up local infrastructure and industry, not just to support germanium mining, but in every segement of Reyne's economy. In return they received not only exclusive control over the world's Germanium output, but also the right to station troops onworld (officially for training the planetary militia and as a garrison for the mining complex). In addition to these fairly mundane pursuits, the Blakists also established a cybernetics lab onworld (building on prior work done by the Far Looker sect) and even commenced construction of one of their "super" class hyperpulse generators. During the Jihad, the Blakists staged raids out of Reyne against targets across the Federated Suns, even establishing an armory of nuclear weapons onworld for use by their raiders (without the knowledge or consent of the locals). Without an HPG of their own, and largely cut off from outside contact since breaking ties with the Concordat, the locals knew almost nothing about what was going on in the Inner Sphere around them or what their "eccentric" Blakist clients were up to.

As such, it came as a complete surprise when a large assault force appeared over the world. Numbering nearly two combined arms regiments and composed entirely of a hodgepodge of mercenaries, this force (identifying itself as the "Strange Bedfellows") assaulted the planet with barely a communication spared for the locals, smashing headlong into the planetary garrison and laying waste to the capital in nearly a week of continuous fighting. Though brutal in their tactics, the Strange Bedfellows were unable to overcome the combined force of the planetary militia and their Blakist allies and were ultimately forced off planet with heavy losses, though this would only prove to be the beginning of Reyne's troubles. The planet would be attacked by mercenaries several more times in the next three years, causing considerable damage across the inhabited portions of the planet and leading the Blakists to cut their losses and abandon the world.

As though a final insult, unidentified forces would attack the planet one last time in 3081, detonating five half megaton nuclear warheads over the world's largest population centers before departing (and an additional, salted warhead over their primary germanium mine). Given the world's limited contact with the rest of humanity in the aftermath, it would be decades before the locals could completely piece together exactly what had happened to them. It was eventually determined that the original attack by the Strange Bedfellows, as well as at least some of the subsequent attacks, had been bankrolled by a unique alliance between a Taurian noble and the nobles of several Davion worlds devastated during the Taurian-Davion conflict, who had hoped to strike back at the Word of Blake for their role in provoking the conflict.

Reyne has been picking up the pieces ever since. Most of their industries and infrastructure were destroyed during the attacks, as were several million lives. The confusion surrounding just how and why they were attacked combined with the devastation spread chaos and uncertainty across the planet, and the day to day struggle to distribute scarce resources drove the planetary government to near collapse and led to infighting across the world. It was only through the imposition of martial law that the planet avoided collapsing into complete anarchy and slowly began to recover. Since those days, great strides have been made. Civilian government was re-established in 3092, and cleanup from the final nuclear attacks has been largely completed (though the Germanium mining complex is expected to remain contaminated for another century). Though basic services have been restored, few of the world's major industries have been rebuilt, and domestic agriculture and aquaculture remains just a bit shaky. The gradual collapse of the Concordat into numerous independent worlds has proven a blessing in disguise for Reyne, with many of these worlds seeking a source of raw materials to support themselves. Increasingly brisk trade with these independent worlds, the Calderon Protectorate, and House Davion's Periphery March has led to the opening of several new mining complexes to meet the demand, and has brought much needed money and resources to Reyne, helping to fund reconstruction of the planetary militia (though on a much smaller scale than its pre-jihad form) and generally bringing stability to the still shaky world. Another profitiable, though somewhat questionable industry to come to Reyne is lostech prospecting. Though the Blakists were quite thorough in dismantling their installations onworld before withdrawing, the mere fact that the Word of Blake brought some of their unique technologies to Reyne has been enough to draw treasure hunters from across the Inner Sphere, looking for some leftover cache of Blakist wonder weapons. Though very few notable finds have been recovered, the locals seem to take a perverse joy in perpetuating rumors of hidden treasures to bilk gullible prospectors, and it is believed that at least some of the great houses maintain operatives on world, just in case the rumors prove more substantial.

Gamemaster's Section

Characters descended from the Taurian community on Reyne can be generated using the Major Periphery/Taurian affiliation, though Compulsion/Distrusts Fed Suns is replaced by Compulsion/Distrusts Outsiders, with the same experience point value. Characters descended from the Lincolnian community can be generated using the Independent/Generic affiliation. Neither affiliation may take the Military Academy module.

Though official sources don't put much stock into these claims, Reyne is actually a potential goldmine for the aspiring lostech prospector. While the Word of Blake did strip out everything they could carry and thoroughly destroyed their most advanced materials, they couldn't carry everything and had to leave a fair bit of not only equipment but refined germanium behind (though obtaining the germanium means braving the contaminated mining site). Not only that, but there is also the wreck of the SLS Prince William, lying at the bottom of Reyne's small ocean. The ship will never fly again, obviously, but there is still a tremendous amount of resources that might be recovered, possibly even including intact naval weapons or small craft.

At its height during the Jihad, the planetary militia fielded a full battalion of battlemechs, as well as several mixed battalions of light armor (based on the light SRM carrier) and infantry. At present, they can field roughly a combined arms regiment, with a company each of battlemechs and armor and a few companies of light infantry. The crown jewel of the militia is a salvaged Archangel, though it serves more as a showpiece to draw in prospectors. The mech has been extensively rebuilt, costing it its omni capability but also making it reasonably usable by the cash-strapped locals, if a little strange.

The Lincolnians are largely separate from the rest of the population, and their limited economic and political clout leaves them relatively impoverished, but also kept them from being a target during the jihad. They maintain their own private militia, composed of lightly armed foot and mechanized infantry, with LAW rockets issued when they need to face something stronger.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Takiro

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #56 on: 28 November 2018, 06:16:41 »
Another fine addition to your fine collection of Deep Periphery worlds bud, nicely done with this planet born of conflict. Very BattleTech.

pat_hdx

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #57 on: 28 November 2018, 06:31:15 »
Reyne is a lovely scenario and the write up an entertaining read by itself!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #58 on: 05 December 2018, 05:30:38 »
Mladshiy Brat
Star Type: G1V
Charge Time: 182 hours
Transit Time: 9.75 days

Position in System: in orbit of the gas giant Starshiy Brat approximately 1 AU from the parent star
Diameter: 7000 km
Gravity: 0.42
Day Length: 96 hours
Satellites: 3

Atmospheric Pressure: High
Atmospheric Composition: Breathable
Surface Water: 20%
Equatorial Temperature: 24 C
Highest Native Life: Reptiles

Population: 12,800,000
Government: Unitary Republic
HPG Class: none
Recharge Stations: none

USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: C
Industrial Sophistication: B
Industrial Output: C
Agricultural Dependence: B
Raw Material Dependence: B

Mladshiy Brat ("little brother", contrasting with the gas giant Starshiy Brat, or "Big Brother", which it orbits) was colonized in the early 25th century by defectors from the Capellan Confederation. These defectors, once ardent supporters of Chancellor Arden Baxter (one of only three non-Liaos to hold the title) and his "Republican" ideals, left the Confederation shortly after the start of the Rim War between the Confederation and the Taurian Concordat, disillusioned by Chancellor Baxter's brutal prosecution of the war against his peaceful neighbor. Though relatively small in number and lacking in resources, they had the advantage of support from a significant military force, among them a full aerospace regiment (recently mustered out of service on the Chancellor's orders), which allowed them to leave the Confederation unharmed and protected them during their trip through the wilds of the Periphery.

The system they found to settle (lying roughly ninety light years rimward of what would eventually become the Fronc Reaches) didn't seem like a particularly ideal location at first glance. The habitable zone was dominated by a lone gas giant, which had apparently swept up any other free planets that might have harbored life long ago. A closer survey, however, revealed that one of the gas giant's many moons actually hosted a breathable atmosphere and a highly developed ecosystem rich with complex life. Despite its small size (and consequently low gravity), the moon's atmosphere proved particularly robust, replenished by a torus of free gas which surrounded the gas giant the moon orbited, creating a thick, humid climate that fueled constant rainstorms.

Though the settlers had few resources to call upon initially, their settlement thrived fairly well, suffering few of the problems so common among new colonies. Local flora and fauna proved well suited for both cultivation and consumption. The local climate, though offering whole new dimensions on the meaning of "wet", was regardless little impediment to human settlement, especially once proper shelters had been erected. Pirate activity was likewise held at bay by the new colony's large aerospace force, though this force, operating the poorly designed Firebird aerofighter exclusively, suffered attrition with every engagement and gradually saw their strength whittled away. Limited access to replacement parts forced the wing to become adept at customizing and rebuilding their craft from whatever was available, more often than not resulting in craft superior to the fighters they were originally issued, despite being the product of a somewhat makeshift workshop.

The subsequent centuries have been very kind to Mladshiy Brat. Operating a pair of ancient Kestrel class jumpships, the system maintained regular trade with the Inner Sphere, particularly the Taurian Concordat and later the Magistracy of Canopus, throughout the Age of War. The system would even take on a few refugees from the Concordat during the Reunification War, and served as the launching point for the colonization of the world of Eros III, one of the founding worlds of the ill fated Alexandrian Covenant. Engineers from the Concordat would also be responsible for significant upgrades of the world's military industries, helping them develop a more modern, capable version of their lackluster Firebird aerofighters. Contact between the Inner Sphere and Mladshiy Brat would become more intermittent after the Reunification War. Though this was partly due to fears that the Star League might turn their attention to the world, the primary reason for this was the gradual breakdown of their ancient jumpships. Unable to acquire a new vessel to replace them, the world lost any means of pro-actively making contact with the Inner Sphere powers, though their closest periphery neighbors made occasional contact through trade and diplomatic missions. This proved advantageous to Interstellar Expeditions during our investigation of the Alexandrian Covenant, which remained in intermittent contact with Mladshiy Brat until sometime before the so called "First Upheval". Records of the locals' occasional interaction with the Alexandrians offered valuable context to help puzzle out the mysterious circumstances of that nation's collapse.

Mladshiy Brat was largely unaffected by the fall of the Star League and the subsequent Succession Wars. Though the chaos in the Inner Sphere brought with it a corresponding spike in piracy in the periphery, the planet was able to ride out these hard times with little trouble, being too well defended to easily succumb and too poor to really be worth a serious attack. Its status as a relative safe haven has resulted in the world becoming a regular stop for some periphery traders, and the locals have taken full advantage of this limited but regular contact, hungrily devouring news from the outside universe and trading food and raw material surpluses for new technology and finished goods. Most recently, the world has begun selling small numbers of their Firebird aerofighters (virtually hand built in workshops scattered around the system) to passing merchants, and even hiring out a few of their fighter squadrons as mercenaries to their most trusted clients. Possibly because they have no familiarity with the greater mercenary trade, these squadrons are willing to work for less than most Inner Sphere mercenary forces (some seem simply happy for the inherent adventure of traveling beyond their homeworld), and though they lack experience and their equipment is somewhat antiquated, they are well trained and a welcome sight for those merchants who might otherwise have to travel the periphery without protection.

Though Mladshiy Brat is a fairly quiet world, in most respects similar to the typical minor worlds of the periphery, it has its own interesting quirks. Despite their fairly unsophisticated tech base and limited industry and resources, the locals maintain a surprisingly sophisticated space program, primarily focused on recovering needed mineral resources unavailable on their homeworld. Crude mining stations dot a number of the other moons surrounding the gas giant of Starshiy Brat (most of these moons are likewise identified by a Russian number followed by "Brat", or brother, in line with the "Big Brother" and "Little Brother" names for the gas giant and its habitable moon, and are collectively identified as "the Brats"). These complexes are not terribly different from some of the earliest historical spaceborn settlements, are almost famous for their casual attention towards safety, and produce only a relative trickle of critical materials to meet the homeworld's needs, but it is enough to keep the world going. 

On the homeworld of Mlashiy Brat, the settlements tend to be squat, utilitarian affairs, and even after nearly seven centuries the planet has yet to shake the frontier stylings. The locals insist that this is by choice, as the world's constant rainfall and overall humidity (the old joke is that the rain falls almost as fast as it evaporates) creates an oppressive atmosphere that limits interest in outside activities and makes creating a beautiful building a pointless endeavor. Despite this "I'd rather stay inside" attitude, however, the world does enjoy one particularly unique outdoor activity, well suited to their unique environment. The combination of the thick atmosphere and light gravity is very well suited to flying, and personal flight rigs (often built from kits) are cheap and plentiful, as are injuries associated with mistakes made while flying these personal flight rigs.

Gamemaster's Section

Characters from Mladshiy Brat can be generated using the Independent:Generic affiliation, save that their primary language is Russian. English is available as a secondary language.

Due to the aerospace bias of the world's original defenders, the planetary militia is built around a large force of aerofighters, with only light vehicles and infantry for ground operations. Their standard fighter is a modernized version of the primitive Firebird from Era Digest: Age of War, first developed with help of Taurian Engineers after the Reunification War. The planet has two full wings of these fighters in active service, with a third wing held in reserve. Half of this complement is available for hire in squadron sized units, which brings money into the planetary coffers as well as valuable experience to the fighter forces. The planet lacks any sort of significant manufacturing capacity, so any replacement craft have to be built practically by hand using a series of small workshops. This means any particularly heavy losses could be potentially crippling and limits the number the world has available for export. The locals can accelerate the process by importing manufactured parts from ofworld, though this is painfully expensive, and without control over which merchants come to the world, could still be painfully time consuming.

Though the planetary militia's ground forces are limited to light vehicles and infantry, the local fondness for flight means that they do field a significant force of Microlite VTOL infantry (page 324, tactical operations). In addition, the cheap and virtually disposable nature of the personal flight rigs the locals love so much means it's no great pain to simply abandon them in flight and parachute into battle, essentially functioning as paratroops (tactical operations page 341). It goes without saying that the locals still understand the arcane secrets of making Vodka.

A personal flight rig is a 100 kg tech level C fixed wing support vehicle with a safe thrust of 2, electric propulsion, the prop chassis modification, and three points of fuel, or roughly enough to get off the ground and fly about eighteen kilometers in powered flight. Other similarly sized vehicles can be built using the VTOL or Airship vehicle type.
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!

Liam's Ghost

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Re: Denizens of the Deep Periphery: 3130 edition
« Reply #59 on: 05 December 2018, 05:40:17 »
A glance into my thought processes:

The above entry came about because I was looking through Era Digest: Age of War for a completely unrelated alternate universe and decided that the Firebird aerofighter deserved better than it got. I mean, it was literally designed to be terrible to justify a narrative that was pretty much abandoned immediately after (that nobody bothered with primitive fighters because they sucked).

So I started tinkering with the Firebird. I made several examples before I got to the one attached to the above entry.

Then I started thinking about ways to bring it into the Inner Sphere. It was a fighter so bad that nobody wanted it. It never existed long enough to be upgraded. So I had to work around that. So I thought... hey, Capellan expatriates!

Then I needed to fit that together, which meant going through the dates when the fighter was in service (2400 to 2420) and looking for a hook for them. I almost didn't find anything because the current Capellan handbook had almost nothing to say about that particular time period. It just sort of jumps to 2451. But there was a note in the timeline about a non-Liao Chancellor and his republican ways.

That led me to other books, trying to figure out more about this guy, who decided the powers of the chancellor should be more limited, ordered cutbacks of his army, and started a war with one of his neighbors, all at once!

Now, it's like six hours after I first got the idea to make a better firebird, it's two thirty in the morning, my head is killing me, and I think I forgot to eat again. But here we are. 
Good news is the lab boys say the symptoms of asbestos poisoning show an immediate latency of 44.6 years. So if you're thirty or over you're laughing. Worst case scenario you miss out on a few rounds of canasta, plus you've forwarded the cause of science by three centuries. I punch those numbers into my calculator, it makes a happy face.

(indirect accessory to the) Slayer of Monitors!