This was originally intended to be a PDF to be released on April Fools but this project stalled for over a year, as such I am releasing it as is.
I will make a separate designs thread. ->
https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=68581.0connection/CALIFORNIA NEBULA/SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT 01 [CLASSIFIED]INTRODUCTION In the past Catalyst Game Labs (CGL) would create April Fools products as a special treat for the fans. As one fan that has been inspired by the April Fools products I am making an attempt to provide the community with a supplemental.
This fan-made document is designed to function as a supplement for April Fools: 35APR23 - Welcome to the Nebula California. This report and any following supplements will expand the non-canon Nebula California setting with more parodies and technologies.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT: CALIFORIA NEBULAHow did we ever managed to leave? In our line of work we sometimes encounter mysteries, the most perplexing one that I was a part in was the return of the CalNeb Expedition from the California Nebula. The logs showed that our JumpShips were unable to exit the Nebula, we were gradually losing equipment and people, after four years we gave up and prepared to settling down on Toreel, by force if necessary.
However just before our ships jumped to Toreel, the situation went out of control. Not a lot of data survived about what occurred then, the only thing that we knew for sure is that a massive glowing anomaly appeared in front of our JumpShips, and that I gave the order to scatter across the Nebula.
The next thing that I remember is being on a Long Range Shuttle heading for the planet Farhome, the location of our local base in the Rimward sector of the Deep Periphery. We were later shocked to find out that many more years had passed. Over the following months even more members of our expedition, missing and some who were presumed dead, found themselves back near Farhome, having no memories or physical evidence of what had happened since the anomaly.
Upon return to base, the expedition leadership were asked to explain the lost equipment, lives and ships.
At the time I was only able to present my initial explorer's report from 3109, with no physical evidence to back it up. Logically we were then immediately arrested, thrown into the brig, and made to cooperate with psychiatric evaluation.
Several months of fruitless investigation later, they were forced to take us more seriously, this did mean that they had to resort to more extreme measures. This involved the surgical retrieval of emergency data implants from our tail-bones. These implants are made from materials that can't be distinguished from normal tissues, allowing us to secretly store data even when all our possessions and even our lives have been taken. Some of the data had been corrupted, but enough was recovered to begin with historical fact-checking and technical plausibility studies.
From the results we can now say that the Nebula California appears to be even stranger than previously indicated, with many more weird worlds, peoples and technologies.
We still don't have answers of who or what was responsible for our return, but we have now dedicated ourselves to documenting our new discoveries in these classified supplemental reports.
This supplemental report I will detail the history and technology of the Nebula Confederation, and several related FTL capable nations. The Confederation rescued the crew of the scout-class Marco Polo, including myself, after being stranded in deep space, which had been the consequence of multiple quick-charges of our K-F drive in an effort to evade the anomaly, that kept hounding our JumpShip after our first encounter with it.
–Dr. Pankaj Rani, PhD, Senior Mission Director,
IE Deep Periphery Expedition CalNeb I, 3115
THE NEBULA CONFEDERATION The following is a summation of our findings in system SLSC G2V.1499-25a , named the Progenitor System, which is part of the Nebula Confederation. There are eight planetary bodies orbiting the yellow G4 main-sequence star, it has four rocky terrestrials in the inner system, followed by an asteroid belt, and four gas giants in the outer system.
It has to be noted that the Nebula Confederation is much larger than a single system, and that we didn't have access to the ship's sensors while in their capital system. All our data for this astronomy summery was based upon local civilian literature and ground-based observations.
A rare trait of this system is that it contains three inhabited planets with wildly different climates, however we could only make a stop at the middle planet which is named New Houston. The other worlds, named Hephaestus (2nd planet) and Ares (4th planet), require environmental precautions to survive their extreme climates. These factors are not an issue for the natives of either planet as they have been genetically modified to handle the hostile climates. These three worlds and their branches of humanity are the founders of the Nebula Confederation, which is a close association of several gen-mod human races. The primary tasks of this association are exploration, defense of the Confederation and quarantining the Nebula. The flag of the confederation also contains three stars to symbolize the founding members, with a circle around them and the nebula to indicate unity and protection.
Contact Review After rescuing us from the Marco Polo they took us to the lounge of their ship the Explorer-class Funny Guy for a meal and drink, allowing us to slowly regain our strength even as we had a pleasant conversation. During this they managed to get us to say a lot about ourselves, as though we had been previously trained to resist interrogation. We were interrogated in greater depth after we arrived to their fleet base orbiting the world of New Houston. They clearly wished to know everything that we had done locally in the Nebula, likely to determine if they had to intervene somewhere. After several weeks they were satisfied with their findings, we were given a short but free vacation on New Houston while we awaited the Diplomat-class Bald Eagle, so that we could join and help with their mission of finding other survivors of our expedition. During our interactions with various crews and civilians we quickly learned that the Nebula Confederation and other technologically similar civilizations originate from the Progenitor system, which is their home-system.
They divide the California Nebula into several zones. Alpha Zone is the Progenitor system and neighboring systems. The Beta Zone extends that border to anything in a radius of 25 light years from the Progenitor system. The Gamma zone covers the rest of the Nebula California, outside of the Nebula is regarded as the Delta Zone.
Historical Analysis
During our stay with the Nebula Confederation we observed many different gen-mods and learned a lot about the local history, culture, and technology behind this phenomenon. The people of the Nebula Confederation claimed that the Alpha Zone was initially colonized in the early 23nd century by the Progenitor Foundation, this has been deemed plausible by us as we have found historical records of an organization, in that time period, buying up a lot of aerospace and colonization equipment. According to the locals this Progenitor Foundation subscribed to the ideology that humanity should adapt to the local environment when colonizing other worlds. However to validate their beliefs, they sought to put their ideas to practice in as many different environments as possible. The distant location of the California Nebula, combined with the extreme density and variation of habitable environments, made it perfect for their needs. To get enough test subjects they discretely recruited the poor and desperate from heavily populated worlds such as Terra. These people were offered a free colonization package, at the cost of becoming a test subject for a heavy gen-mod. A lot of people accepted the offer and were smuggled to the Progenitor system where their gene-modding would take place. After a group was finished they would be brought to an environment for which their gene-mod was designed and help colonize it. After a century of hard work the system contained many separate ecosystems, each with their own true-breeding genetically modified populations. There were only two exceptions, first is the planet New Houston and second was the Forbidden Moon. The former is home to the control group of standard humans. The later was the location where the Progenitors lived and housed all of their proprietary activities.
In the early 24th century the task of colonization of the entire Progenitor system and the perfection of the initial gene-mods were completed. Each population was thriving in their environments and building up their own industries. This signaled the start of the second phase of the Progenitor plan. This phase focused on worlds within 1 jump of the Progenitor system. This phase would be succeeded by the next phase in the 25th century, which aimed to colonize worlds in the Nebula that were more than a single jump away.
However implementing this phase re-tasked many of the Jumpships that were being used for local transport. Losing these would have been very bad for the local economies, but the Progenitors had anticipated this issue and provided DropShips that had been refitted with Skip Cores. which allows a vessel to travel in the lowest bands of hyperspace, like a stone skipping over water. These allowed for improved trade between the various populations in the system, but the short-comings of this technology also prevented the locals from interacting with populations that had been created in later stages.
The activities of the Progenitor Foundation seemingly weren't discovered by any Intelligence Agencies until the early 28th century, when a group of Rim World Republic spies posed as settlers to investigate the smuggling ring. These agents gathered information for several years before reporting their findings. The Rim Worlds Republic quickly saw the potential of creating warrior races and military skip drive vessels, and decided that they would need to take over. More infiltrators were send in, while heavier forces were slowly gathered at what is now know as RWR Outpost #11. The infiltrators tried to steer the political development of several key races to something more compatible and useful for the RWR. Their efforts had mixed results, some races embraced their influence while others dismissed them. Only one population became heavily polarized, which was the Vulcani race that live on the planet Hephaestus, which became polarized between the pacifists and imperialists.
On April 1st of 2719 a Rim World Republic WarShip squadron jumped into the Progenitor system using a pirate jump-point. This squadron consisted out of several obsolete WarShips taken from a SLDF mothball yard and a crewed M-5 Capital Drone, it is quite unclear how they managed to obtain the SDS Drone. The RWR WarShip squadron easily brushed aside any opposition, and within several hours reached the first gas giant to take up orbital bombardment positions over the Forbidden Moon, which was the central place from which the Progenitor Foundation operated in the Nebula California. With their ships in position, the RWR forces publicly ordered the Progenitors to surrender or to face seeing themselves and all of the resisting client races be turned into ash.
The Progenitors replied to their demands in a very unique way, by somehow having their moon performed a hyperspace jump, a side-effect of which was that all the orbiting WarShips were dragged along with the moon into hyperspace, never to be seen again.
[[[Note: We all have a very hard time believing this aspect of their history, even with our own testimonies of having seen videos of this event. Jumping an entire moon is ludicrous, especially while orbiting a gas giant, however these progenitors were experts in KF physics, so it is a remote possibility. Also from what we could gather both the Forbidden Moon and the WarShips are still missing, nobody knows where or when these will show up again. The possibility that another IE expedition could encounter it forces us to include this section in this report.]]]
In the meantime a Civil War had erupted on Hephaestus. The imperialist faction of the Vulcani had secretly developed military technology, militarized many of their Skip-capable DropShips, and were preparing to launch them to support the Rim Worlds Republic forces.
Seeing no other way to stop the imperialists the pacifists actively sabotaged as many of these ships as possible, severely delaying their contribution. The retaliation from the imperialists quickly escalated to use of WMDs, nearly ruining the already hostile planet. The ships that did managed to liftoff were chased away by a superiorly coordinated force from New Houston. With no hope of victory the surviving RWR forces and their affiliates, such as the Vulcani imperialists, retreated from the Progenitor system to the home of another local ally, to later form the Rim Alliance.
In response the three main colonies in the Progenitor system, including surviving Vulcani pacifists, bundled their resources and the Nebula Confederation was founded, ended the Progenitor era and starting the Rim War.
Following the founding, each of the member states quickly invested into upgrading their navies from civilian Skip DropShips to more military designs using more advanced technologies. This included early parallels into sub-capital weapon development, the inclusion of powerful sensors and communication systems, and various weight-saving innovations. The availability of accurate sub-capital weaponry had a side effect of making orbital bombardment of combat formations, a culturally accepted practice. This also lead to the move away of heavy vehicle and 'Mech forces in favor of infantry and light vehicle forces, the latter combination having a far easier time in finding shelter or hiding from enemy sensors. Both sides are rumored to still have some 'Mechs, but these are either capable of extreme movement or some form of stealth.
While the Rim War era was mostly known for the constant conflict with the Rim Alliance there were also multiple encounters with the Superior Humans, who were described in the previous report. The Nebula Confederation tried to stay away from that Earth, but sometimes one of these Superior Humans will manage to leave their star system, usually ending with them either stranded in space or another planet. Peaceful contact has been attempted in all cases but they all proved to be either fanatics or under the delusion that they are gods. Unsurprisingly all of them were willing to kill to get what they want, which was usually a FTL capable ship. So far the Nebula Confederation was able to prevent them from achieving their objectives and thus stopped them from spreading beyond their original star system.
The continuous conflict between the Nebula Confederation and the Rim Alliance often switched between cold wars or intense border conflicts involving fleets of ships. Early on the Alliance had the technological advantage, while the Confederation had to rely on superior training and coordination, but in time the Nebula Confederation began to technologically out-pace the Rim Alliance, who decided to invest more in quantity.
By the 31st century the Rim Alliance had been clearly falling behind in both technological advancement and industrial development. This forced them to overwork their factories and workers to keep a numerical parity, the resulting series of industrial accidents crippled them even further, this left their leadership with two possible choices for the future; either order their ships to go out in a blaze of glory for a remote chance of a possible victory, or to sign a peace treaty with the Nebula Confederation to end the Rim War.
In the end they choose to preserve themselves and signed a peace treaty, called the Prime Treaty, reducing the conflicts between them to rare raids from supposedly rogue Rim Alliance ships. The Prime Treaty also prevents predation of primitive cultures but does allow the Rim Alliance to attack non-signatures, provided that they are outside of the star system of origin. This has lead the Rim Alliance to prey upon isolated Star Empire or Rebel ships in the SLSC G4V.1499-07 Oort cloud providing them with a valuable source of refined materials, which reduces the stress on their industrial base, even while allowing them to productively vent their aggression.
For the Nebula Confederation itself the signing of the Prime Treaty was greeted with great optimism leading to lower military investment and higher investment for diplomatic expansion and comfort. This trend is quite visible in the design of the Diplomat-class Skip DropShip, which is massive and luxurious, while being far from optimized for combat.
The situation radically changed in the late 31st century as a new powerful enemy was encountered at the edge of the Nebula. They initially called this enemy the “Bjorg” this enemy proved itself to be incredibly hostile and powerful. Sadly the decades of peace had made them too soft to properly handle this conflict, causing a lot of internal problems before they could force themselves to fully focus on the new threat and start development of dedicated combat ships and other military platforms.
Since that time there have been several increasingly more powerful incursions but the Nebula Confederation has managed to stop each one, however at a great cost. But there were boons to this conflict as well, for example from the recovered salvage they have manage to reverse-engineer a lot of advanced technology and in turn implement some of it in their own forces.
Our hosts had been concerned about another matter that they weren't able to solve one critical issue on their own, as before encountering us, they had learned very little about the enemy's history or culture. Thankfully the members of our expedition have managed to provide them with the missing clues for figuring out those details. This included helping them to uncover the true name of this enemy, which is the “Manei Servus”, which seems to mean “Slaves of the Master”. This made it clear that the enemy are WOB remnants, something that we had suspected from the reported heavy cybernetic usage among the enemy forces.
Present Analysis Our our recovered notes we have concluded that our former hosts of the Nebula Confederation seemed capable enough to handle their local threats and might hopefully be capable to end the Manei Servus.
However we also have to consider the possible threat from the Confederation to the Inner Sphere. From a political and cultural angle the Nebula Confederation should be completely non-hostile to the Inner Sphere, however their unique technology could become a powerful military advantage if is any conflict, as their defensive and offensive capabilities make their large DropShips about equal to small WarShips. Gaining this technology for ourselves is highly unlikely as they seemed to have never told us how it exactly it all works, also we were unable to secure any samples, making it currently impossible for us to reverse engineer any of it.
If there is any conflict we would recommend to use WarShips with LF batteries. This is because their Skip-Core technology is slower than equally developed jump-drives, allowing a dedicated Inner Sphere force should be able to outrun or strategically outmaneuver them. However conflict should also be avoided as the Confederation is a strong stabilizing force which means that if something ever where to escape from the Nebula, we might need their help to stop it.
ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
STAR: SLSC G4V.1499-25a (NEW HOUSTON)
Location: Approximately center of California Nebula
Planetary Information:
Star Type (Recharge Time): G4V (185 hours)
Position in System: 3
Number of Satellites: 1
Surface Gravity: 0.97
Atm. Pressure: Standard (Breathable)
Equatorial Temperature: 30C (Medium)
Surface Water: 68 percent
Highest Native Life: Mammals
Population (3111): 2,000,000,000