Liam's "Denizens of the Deep Periphery" intrigued me so I'm posting some details on a little campaign world my friends call the BattleTech roach motel. We've played a number of fun scenarios on Watauga over the decades up through the various Battletech eras to 3150. This post is the 3026 write-up.
Watauga (Creech's World) 3026
Star Type: G2V
Charging Time: 183 hours
Transit Time: 9.11 days
Position in System: 3rd (1 AU from primary)
Diameter: 6500 km
Gravity: 1
Day Length: 24 hours
Satellites: Boone
Atmospheric Pressure: Standard
Atmospheric Composition: Habitable (Breathable)
Surface Water: 65%
Equatorial Temperature: 25 C
Highest Native Life: Mammals
Population: 5,000,000,000
Government: Various
HPG Class: none
Recharge Stations: Yes
USILR Classification:
Technological Sophistication: B
Industrial Development: B
Industrial Output: B
Agricultural Dependence: B
Raw Material Dependence: B
Overview:
Settled by American belters early during the first exodus, the distant and little known Watauga has flirted with becoming a major deep periphery power but never quite making it until in the early 2730's when a young, brilliant and charismatic Wataugan SLDF fleet officer, Mitchell Creech, began to rocket his way up the ranks catching the attention of the Wataugan government. More to the point, it was his connections with the Star League court they sought in their bid for a major Deep Periphery fleet depot contract won shortly thereafter. The contract proved a boon to both Watauga and Creech catapulting both to great wealth and power but as the Exodus came and went, so too did the easy money.
Mitchell Creech, now the planets Prime Minister, was a visionary genius whose skills in dealing with bureaucracy, politics and negotiation were unmatched. Playing his connections and manipulating the right players allowed him to prevent the sacking of the depot preserving much of Watauga's military and economic power. With the exodus fleets departure and the events unfolding in the Inner Sphere, Creech managed to take the Watauga Presidency, and with near dictatorial power Creech could control everything. His first action was to declare that no travel or communications would occur in or out of the small local cluster of worlds. He then began the withdrawal of all men and material back to Watauga to fuel the building of his utopia.
Surprisingly, all this power didn't go to Creech's head and he became more popular over the decades. Great arcologies were built to house the growing population, industry grew and the people flourished. Every now and again pirate incursions or tech scrounging house corporations met there end with the depot's SDS. These events only further reinforced the public's desire to stay out of Inner Sphere affairs as Watauga slowly faded from outside attention. Creech's world became a forgotten paradise of 28th century civilization as the Inner Sphere burned.
President Creech, his family and friends ruled the people from his private subcontinent where vast arrays of Nuro-dimensional virtual intelligences managed everyone's personal need from the world holonet to the distribution of vandalsynth. The output of orbital factories and the on demand services of the system wide economy were perfectly run all from his central offices. Creech had surpassed all before him truly building a peaceful utopian paradise, that is until it all abruptly ended when the long dormant super volcano on Creech's subcontinent unexpectedly erupted, exploding with such force as to obliterate Creech and his government in a matter of minutes.
Those caught in the countryside faced a merciful frozen death while billions more perished hold up in the comforts of the fusion powered arcologies victims of starvation or worse. Even these horrible fates didn't compare to those hundred million or so living off planet. It seems Watauga's much vaunted protector, the SDS, went into lockdown mode interdicting all traffic, treating every vessel as hostile. All transports found themselves unable to move less they be burned out of the sky.
Time passed and wounds healed. The cold didn't last more than a few years and the survivors recovered to rebuild a radically changed society. Roughly a billion people, once pampered, living the easy life of the creative society afforded by armies of VI run automation, now had to learn to survive a relatively harsh new world. Near two hundred years have passed since the amok time and the people of Creech have bounced back. Living in various nations or city states formed around the old arcologies and numbering a population in the billions, the people live a decent 24th century lifestyle.
Life is good but with the usual issues of working to making ends meet, paying bills and fighting the occasional war but one issue is in the backs of many minds; how do we get off this world with CASPAR looming over our heads and what happens if we can't ever defeat it? Anyone with a decent telescope can see the old habitats, the abandoned cities on the Jovian moon Olympus and the occasional drive plume of a CASPAR but just what else is out there, and how do we get to it before the planet can no longer support the population?
GM Section (3026)
Anything short of a full on invasion by multiple warships will be destroyed by the SDS. Even though the system has been worn down somewhat leaving gaps in patrols by rare incursions of pirates, deep periphery traders or explorers, there are still plenty of drones available to deal with most forces for decades to come. The SDS, as well as the SLDF's penchant for keeping secrets has afforded Creech's world a sufficient level of anonymity leaving knowledge of its existence today barely a whisper of a rumor and even then, a place where ships never return.
Should a small force enter the Watauga system, their best chance of survival would be to submit to the SDS order to shut down, abandon their jumpships, and make a dash under fire to Creech. The locals would be more than happy to confiscate any gear and intern personnel. Should surrender prove undesirable and the locals look an easy fight, then go right ahead and give it your best shot. Depending on where you make landfall and how good a shape your force is in after running the drone gauntlet you just might be able gain a toe hold and carve a name out for yourself on this world.
Surprisingly, the locals have very little knowledge of events back past the deep winter and those few who survived to this day are unable or unwilling to talk much of it. A few scholars have collected partial details pulling from arcology data caches as Creech's central archives were vaporized but overall the local s have only scant knowledge of the Inner Sphere or anything else outside of their world.
The locals may lack battlemechs, have no aerospace to speak of, and lack of any advanced military tactics but the more powerful nations do make up for this in numbers fielding large standing armies with decent primitive equipment. Better yet, the locals adapt quickly and many countries have large, sophisticated industrial economies. Lucky for you they have yet to build nuclear weapons. That isn't because of a lack of understanding, the people of Creech simply have yet to achieve that level of total warfare and only recently begun to consider such a weapon to use against CASPAR.
Really in the overall scope of things, the people of Creech have lived relatively peaceful lives of a political age roughly equal to the great powers of Earths late 19th century imperial expansion with war more a distant skirmish against weaker nations for resources . Only recently has a major world conflict occurred and only then did it end in a negotiated settlement. It would be a tremendous shock to these people should any Inner Sphere or Clan unit blunder into this system and make planet fall.