Join the Party -- The Utility of Jammers (Content)

A Wanzer, from Front Mission -- an inspiration for the Jammers. 

One thing I have discovered about my writing is that I do my best stuff when I am working with someone.  I find new energy when I can bounce ideas off of people, and my prose is more direct when someone else can call out my crazy ideas and pull them back.  Part of the reason I am doing this blog, and airing my ideas for all to see, is that I am hopeful a handful of you out there will see merit in The Difference Equation and decide to help out.

Luckily, I have had a number of people step up so far and help.  I pitched my core setting concept to a bunch of friends, and they gave me initial feedback.  Since then, I have asked a couple published rpg writer friends to look over the core catalog and timeline to see what they had to say.  The setting has evolved considerably since those first few collaborations, to the point where I think many of the original group would be surprised to see how far things have progressed.  Its a better, more exciting setting specifically because of those first key pieces of feedback.

...and now there is Brandon.  Brandon is a buddy I met on the Dream Pod 9 forums.  I am convinced he is responsible for at least half the hits that come in to this blog -- and he single-handed carries on a conversation over on G+ that pushes me farther and farther into the setting and forcing me to make smart and critical decisions about the direction I am taking the game.

Brandon has been so helpful, he went so far as to start tentatively writing some content.  His stuff is really good.  Real good.  I am happy to have him and his insights on board.

So, I'd like this, the last content post for the week, to focus on one of Brandon's contributions.

The Best of Bad Options: Jammers in Modern Warfare:  The few major capital ships built by the SCEs and major powers of the Solar System are often leviathans that carry firepower strong enough to cause major damage to colonies and enough reaction mass for sustained combat burns.  Their downside, however, is their enormous mass and detection signature.  In space, it is nearly impossible to hide a ship due to the advancements of sensor technology.  Mass detection devices are used regularly by every colony and ship as a means of observing asteroids, comets, and other debris that might come dangerously close to impacting with stations.  The tremendous velocities of these naturally-occurring projectiles makes them a viable threat to all. The mass detection devices are also used by the powers to montior each other's naval shipyards, allowing nations to be made aware within hours of when a ship is departing from a specific area.

For this reason, any unannounced departure of capital ships from their dockyards is tantamount to an act of war by all powers concerned, and the space command structures often announce at least a day prior of any patrols in order to avoid provoking an international crisis.

With this current state of affairs, Jammers have become a vital necessity for the powers.  Their small mass allows them to be transported aboard most any ship available, and it is not uncommon for them to be given specialized ships designed expressly to be innocuous-looking, even ragged in appearance, while actually housing an entire team of Jammers and the facilities needed to maintain them.

Due to Newton's Third Law of Motion, mass-drivers and railguns using kinetic energy projectiles are limited in distribution among space-based Jammer squadrons, and their ammunition typically includes a self-destruct mechanism contained within their spikes so that if they do miss their target they do not present a threat to innocent travelers in the area surrounding a hot zone. Missiles, while slower on initial launch, are also safer, and include the same self-destruct mechanisms, often made tamper-proof so that industrious pirates do not attempt to retrieve the weapons after they have been armed and launched.  Lasers, meanwhile, have become the long-range weapon of choice, but their enormous power requirements typically mean that a Jammer must be equipped with an auxiliary power system to maintain the weapon for prolonged skirmishes.  To offset this, Jammers will also carry aerosol chaff that can be used to diffract the laser's intensity and lessen its pinpoint killing power.

Space-based Jammer squadrons on deep space missions typically use a highly-reflective armor skin, like silver, which helps to avoid visual detection when further away from the sun's light. Nearer to the gravity wells, this is changed for a brighter color scheme allowing visual recognition from friendly units and also from civilian ships passing in the area. Planet-borne Jammer squadrons will typically use a mimetic skin that can be charged or heated to change and adapt its colors to the surrounding terrain.  Due to the enormous firepower carried by most Jammers, deep space combat is short and vicious, with pilots using stealth and surprise to overwhelm their opponents. Any engagements that last longer usually occur near stations and other large objects that provide cover and concealment and also mask the mass of the Jammers from enemy sensors.

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Awesome, right?  I edited a bit, but not much.  90% of the above is his - and is the result of some very smart and intuitive mental leaps on his part.

If anyone else out there has ideas they want to contribute, please do so -- here, over email, or on G+.  If I can get this setting and game to a point where it gets published, I promise you will get the credit you deserve.  This isn't me just trying to steal other people's ideas -- this is me trying to open up my playground so other people can play on the jungle gym.

...and selfishly, like I said, the more interaction with others I have as I hash out ideas, the better my stuff becomes.  So, for that and many other things, welcome aboard Brandon!

JAMOR-V "Jammers" (Content)

More Mecha...

I'm exhausted tonight.  Got some writing in on clone soldiers and the war for Mars, which is good.  However, I dont have much left in me to pontificate on the nature of the game and why I made the choices I did.  So, in an effort not to think too much, I see that the OCRI entry is getting the most hits, so I figure give the people their bread and circuses and post some more content...

Not a Jammer - but one of the images I use for inspiration (from Front Mission)

The Future of Warfare -- Joint Atmospheric Maneuver / Orbital Regression Vehicles (JAMOR-V or “Jammers”):  Jammers were created in a joint venture between Australia and the United States, with the Aussies taking the lead.  As both countries developed colonial assets farther and farther away from Earth’s immediate orbit, a new class of vehicle was mandated for a series of very diverse missions.  The original design challenge was for a vehicle that could fight effectively on land, sea, air, orbit and the deep void of space while also being as fuel efficient as possible to allow long deployments.  Not surprisingly, when the media got wind of the design demands for the proposed vehicle, both the Australian and American militaries were humiliated.  

In what can only be called a fortuitous development, the program was not scrapped.  In part, this was due to both governments being focused on the population crash of the ‘80s and neither legislature getting the time to simply axe the experimental program.  So, despite a considerable cloud hanging over the project, requests for concepts were solicited.  Two proposals came back, one of which made it to the design stage.  

BAE Systems Australia in partnership with Lockheed-Martin proposed creating a war machine based on the human form, using a number of innovative technologies to ensure it could operate in just about any environment.  Two core technologies proved to be the key to the operations of Jammers.  The first was the creation of the Wibe True Gyroscope, and the second was the use of Spaulding-series of Direct Neural Interfaces (DNIs).  Both technologies were used for the first time in conjunction with another to allow for a large, mobile, humanoid form.  

The advantage of building a humanoid machine were enormous.  Tests showed that pilots that operated humanoid exoskeletons using DNI learned faster and generally reacted faster for longer periods of exposure.  This meant the prototype Jammers required relatively little initial training and allowed the pilots to operate at higher degrees of difficulty at later stages of their career.  The Spaulding DNIs also allowed pilots to subconsciously use energy-saving techniques by tapping into autonomic responses that maximized the output of the their own bodies.  Rather than need to invest considerable energy to building vectoring units across an entire craft so that it could maneuver in a war-time environment, the pilot only needs to shift the weight of the Jammer to get the same results - with much less energy wasted.  Better yet, each pilot already had a life’s worth of training by the time they interr’d  into the Jammer.  

A Jammer’s humanoid form allows it to effectively and efficiently transit each of the original design demands - land, sea and air (though, admittedly, aerial and void/space techniques normally require extra training).  Looking back, the 2090s are considered the beginning of the era of the Jammer.  The early part of the decade saw the battles of Valparaiso Downport, the Mare Imbium insurrection, and a host of minor conflicts in NEO and UEO.  Time and again, Jammers proved their worth, particularly in the running battles of Valparaiso and Mare Imbrium which both involved combat shifts through radically different environments.  Historical records show that from 2090 to 2100 Jammers were used in successful contacts on all the inner planets, Ceres, and the Jovian L4.  

It should have come as no shock to a student of human society or pop culture that once unveiled, Jammers and their pilots would prove to be enormously popular.  Holovids quickly grabbed on to the merging of man and machine and glamorized the process.  In short order, Jammer pilots were romanticized as daring warriors harkening back to a bygone age of action and adventure.

Truth is stanger than fiction, because while the Holovid industry was getting ahead of itself portraying Jammer pilots as devil-may care superstars, the real Jammer pilots were inadvertently proving the entertainment industry correct.  The first handful of engagements by OCRI Jammers and traditional combat vehicles operated by insurgents and pirates proved the worth of the Jammer concept.  The Holovids got it right, to some extent.

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... In other news, I have an artist in the wings.  We are finishing up another project and will then start talking about doing up some art for the Game That Has No Name.  Jammers will be at the very top of the list of things that need visuals, stat!

The Outer Edge of the Permissible (aka Why mecha?)

One of the challenges that this setting is going to give me is reconciling my vision of mecha-centric space combat and the hard-ish SF elements I want to feature.  I feel that adding elements of realistic politics is complemented nicely by realistic technology -- it creates an overall feel of being grounded in the possible (rather than the fantastic).

So.  Mecha.  Yeah.

You see mecha, I see possibilities!  

Thats going to be my conceit.  Mecha will be in the setting.  They will play an integral role.  In fact, the default PC will be a mecha pilot.  Mecha will set the very outer edge of what makes sense in terms of the science of the setting.  I plan to set parameters by walking backwards from mecha in terms of technology.  If it is less advanced than humanoid robots powered by DNI, then its probably permissible.  In this way, the technological setting element I just cant do without (and which might break the setting) will serve as a useful tool for defining other setting elements.

So, theres no getting away from Mecha.  Now, if I am going to ground the setting in what seems, at the very least, plausible then I have some work ahead of me (and probably no small amount of handwaving and demanding that Dorothy ignore the man behind the curtain).  I need to present mecha in such away that the reader finds them an organic extension of the setting -- and that means a lot of thought into what they look like, how the perform, and their background.

This will be my attempt at that.  I am very open to suggestions about how to improve the presentation and/or development of mecha in the setting.

Oh?  And why wont I get rid of mecha?  Because they are awesome.  Full stop.  They might not make perfect sense, but they are too cool not to feature in the setting.  Plus, I can do a lot of things to give PCs agency by using mecha.  Want to play in a military-style campaign?  Sure.  Want to play in a medical SAR-focused game?  Okay.  Want to fight in space?  No problem.  Want to fight underwater?  We can do that.  Want to do a kickass spinning kick while underwater while planning to blast into space to fight the forces of the colonial hegemons?  Yeah, thats possible.

No.  No they dont transform.  Thats not possible.  Sorry.