This is from over one spacebattles, where I had a thought. It was not a nice thought. :)
You know, on that, with B-tech tech, there's one thing that cannot be stopped at all.
A 10K dropship that was jumped in way the hell beyond the usual range, and accelerates all the way, until it's nailing a world at .75C with 10,000 tons of mass. Even if they could stop one, it didn't do much for the 5000 1 ton impactors that were distributed from it.
Nobody knows who started, but it was probably a Davion, as the first use of this weapon was removing the Kuritan capital, along with everyone else on the planet at the time after Kentares.
The first, but not the last.
Because the moment that attack was launched, every world with industry or a population that could support an offensive was a target. And eventually, to people who had nothing but ashes behind them, it became less about winning and more about ensuring the other side lost.
On worlds with industries, mobs formed to tear them down, to prove that they were not a threat--that they could be left alive. Some of them were actually joined by their governments, tearing down, burning factories, leaving the cities in some cases, beaming the evidence out into space.
Sometimes, it worked.
Others collected who they loved and fled out into the night in caravans of jumpships and warships, trying to pull as many people out, to run as far and as fast as they could, maybe to find a world beyond the madness--but the fear remained.
Factories were death. Big armies were death. Don't radiate out into space. Peasants may not have long or happy lives, but they do not fear death from the skies, either.
At least not the death that ends worlds.
Today
It is 3025 and the great worlds of the past. Terra, New Avalon, Tharkad? They are all dust on the wind. Nobody lays claim to a stellar empire, and any who do often die at the hands of their neighbors, fearing that trying to build such an empire will see the Scouring return. Building a factory, especially the ancient factories that could create marvels is likely to get you killed just as quickly. Even those groups who do not hate learning, fear where it might lead, and are very careful of what they do with it.
in this world, the durable mechs are some of the most powerful weapons left. Warehouses of spare parts on a world are fought over, while the mech is not only a powerful weapon--it is a safe weapon. Aerospace weapons are both hated and feared.
Death comes from space, after all, though atmospheric craft are allowed.
The few jumpships left are mostly the remains of the fleets that didn't run, along with comstar and its few orbital HPG stations. They form a union, most of those who took to space, living in newly built (and often rather ramshackle) habitats, trading among each other, and building the vary rare jumpship or dropship. They trade throughout humanspace, exchanging equipment for biological resources, and accept that many hate them--and on more than one field, there is a destroyed dropship where the crew was murdered and the ship itself ransacked.
The sky brings only death, after all.
But some argue this cannot continue, that one day, enough will forget the Scouring that they will start to go to war again, and a new Scouring will rise. Some believe that the way to solve this is to form a new confederation... And others, those who follow what they think was Blake's will (and his bones drift with murdered terra), believe the solution is to prevent the rise of any such new nation--by any means.
Needless to say, this requires some changes. A big one is that most worlds are balkanized. "Merc" units might only be a company or so of 3025 mechs, or if they're really lucky, old SLDF mechs and they can change the course of history--and losing your mech really does mean you're likely to never see one again--since, if you ignore people finding mechs and putting them together out of salvage, the IS probably builds about 100 new mechs every year.
The Clans--assume Kerensky stayed and ended up just getting zorched along with Terra. As for Assault dropships, warships, or Aerospace fighters? Well, if you want something that brands you as someone who says Amaris Did Nothing Wrong, that's okay. But people will either run away from you, or kill you. A few of the night-caravans have space weapons, but no mercs do. All you need to do is look at a thousand murdered worlds to see where that goes.
And thus, we have a setting with big, stompy robots and a reason why nobody wants to rush ahead to the newest SLDF tech.
