You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

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Zor
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You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by Zor »

In this scenario you awake to find that you are in an apartment block on-board an 32 km long Space Station in the Battletech Universe and you are the Chairman of a nation in the Periphery (specifically about 50 ly from the IS near the Federated Suns/Draconis Combine border) in the year 3050. Said nation is The People's Commonwealth.

The Unity system in question has six planets. Nearest to the star you have a mercury sized planet the size of Mars, then you have two planets that could be compared to Venus (Unity II a bit smaller than Venus, Unity III a super earth with 4 G gravity) and beyond that you have three gas giants each about the size of Saturn (all of which had rings) with a few hundred moons between them. One of the moons of the forth planet has some microbial life in underground seas warmed by tidal forces but none of them could support human life in of themselves. However the planet does have two asteroid belts (one of which is in the habitable zone) and several times the amount of space junk that sol does. Plentiful raw materials, but as a general rule people have not bothered with this system due to the lack of a planet which could be terraformed. But for the last two and a half centuries it has been colonized by humanity.

The basic history is that a fleet of eight battered JumpShips (including a WarShip) full of 43,000 refugees (including some engineers and a few geneticists and some information on HGP tech) fleeing the Draconis Combine and Federated Suns in 2787 with some industrial equipment and livestock jumped to unity during the First Succession war to hide an effect repairs They were too badly damaged to continue to jump. As such they made for the nearest asteroid belt, found a 2.5 kilometer long asteroid and dug in. First warrens were dug into the surface and the asteroid was spun up using the JumpShips, which served for a time even though there were food shortages for the first few years. There was some die off which forced the collectivization of resources in that period before things stabilized and the People's Commonwealth emerged as a political agency. Necessity forced innovation and breakthroughs in life support technology, as well as refinements in industrial technology were made. After about 30 years they began to gather up smaller asteroids for raw materials and build new habitats. First these were modest Torus stations but over the next century newer stations got bigger until they went way up to full O'Neill Cylinders, with new Cylinders being built to accommodate new people as time went on. They are now up to twenty eight Cylinders with three more under construction that will be finished in the next three years and five more in the planning stages.
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There are also a number of smaller stations and asteroid habitats.

Things were pretty nice on the whole, social inequality was kept to a minimum, the government was not brutal and respected people's basic rights, there was a fair bit of artistic expression and similar (even if the food was limited to various combinations of rice, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, celery, oranges, peanuts, garlic, pork and sow cheese) for it's now 185,000,000 residents (including 15,000,000 Zero-Gravers). But there was always an element of Paranoia about the outside. The population had gotten over their bad blood of the Kurita/Davion rivalry after spending years focusing on survival, but the byproduct of this is that now they view both sides as invading conquerors. As such several steps were done...
  1. Exowomb facilities were created along with government incentives to accelerate population growth to about 0.035 for the last 150 years.
  2. The Industrial Base was continuously expanded
  3. The Zero-Gravers were genetically engineered: a species of humans with hands in place of feet, prehensile tails and bodies optimized for living their entire lives in freefall to serve as space workers.
  4. R&D Projects to develop weapons technologies ranging from WarShips to Battlemechs, these have been tested
  5. Raising an army with the intent of securing more star systems to strengthen the Commonwealth and (in more recent years) to liberate people from Kurita/Davion feudal tyranny.
These efforts were accelerated after a few Pirates wandered into the Unity system in 2962, 2999 and 3030. Now the People's Commonwealth is ready to push beyond Unity. The People's Commonwealth has no nobility and everyone thinks that the idea of someone getting political office because of who their daddy was is dumb. Most of it's government is democratic or technocratic with a chairman who rules for life as the executive unless voted out in a vote of no-confidence.

The armed forces of the People's Commonwealth include...
  • 12 Gladius class Destroyers (WarShip): 500,000 Tonnes, Crew of 120. Top acceleration of 3 Gs. Armed with two heavy naval mass drivers, two torpedo tubes, sixteen large laser turrets and twenty point defense laser turrets. Can carry one Dropship, six fighters, 5,000 soldiers and 2 mechs. Your shipyards can put one of these together every two years and another one is about 50% done. They've been tested out a few times in flights to other uninhabited star systems and work just fine.
  • 30 Junk class Transports (JumpShip): 1,000,000 tonnes, crew of 80. Top acceleration 0.2 Gs. Armed with four heavy lasers. Cargo Capacity of 500,000 tonnes, or 25,000 soldiers with hanger space for 20 Fighters with hardpoints for ten Dropships. Two of these can be built every year and two more are 25% and 75% done.
  • 350 Starfall class Dropships: 15,000 tonnes. Able to carry down either 1,000 soldiers, 12 light mechs or 4 Heavy Mechs. Has six heavy autocannons and two 200mm howitzers for fire support. Fifteen can be built every year.
  • 2,000 LM-3 Proletariat Light BattleMechs: 30 Tonnes, top speed of 95 km/h, Ferros Fiber Armor, 12 double double heat sinks and armed with a medium laser, a machine gun and a short range missile launcher. Has jump jets. Sixty five of these can be built every year. Mechwarriors are trained on the largest Titan-Like moon of Unity IV.
  • 500 HM-2 Emancipator Heavy BattleMechs: 75 Tonnes, top speed of 70 km/h, Ferros Fiber Armor, 14 double heat sinks, armed with a heavy laser, has two long range missile launchers on it's shoulders, an head mounted machine, an arm mounted heavy laser and an arm mounted heavy autocannon. Twenty two of these can be built every year.
  • 1,000 F-2 Voidmaster Areospace Fighter: 25 tonnes, Armed with 2 medium lasers, one medium autocannon and two short range missile launchers. Thirty Five can be built every year.
  • 1,000,000 soldiers of the People's Commonwealth Planetary Assault Force (PAF). Standard infantry has a modified mechanical pressure spacesuit with helmet and torso armor, a laser rifle, a combustion pistol, hand grenades and a Gladius for standard armament (as well as rocket launchers, mortars, LMGs and suchlike at the squad, platoon and company level) and these are supported with trucks, APCs, Armored Cars and artillery pieces. They are all volunteer reasonably well trained but have basically no first hand combat experience.
There has been a build up this force for some time and most of the population desire at least some expansion of territory. Continued isolationism will likely lead to a vote of no-confidence at some point.

What do you do?

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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by Darth Lucifer »

The idea of throwing in with the Inner Sphere worlds against the Clans is an appealing one, but I have no idea of the size and strength of the invading forces. But one thing is for sure, Clan society is even more oppressive than the nobility-driven factions. For all their technology, they act like a bunch of primitives at times.

A better time to come into the picture would be in 3052, during the fifteen-year Truce of Tukayyid.
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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by Tribble »

First off, Space Monkeys in the Battletech Universe? Is this an in-universe thing?
Darth Lucifer wrote:The idea of throwing in with the Inner Sphere worlds against the Clans is an appealing one, but I have no idea of the size and strength of the invading forces.
IIRC, typical clan military structure is:

Point: 1 Mech, or 2 Tanks, or 2 fighters, or 5 elementals, or 25 infantry
Star: 5 Points
Binary: 2 Stars
Trinary: 3 Stars
Cluster: 3-5 Binaries / Trinaires
Galaxy - 3-5 Clusters
Individual Clan Total: ~ 4 Galaxies at start of Clan Invasion

My rough estimate per Clan will assume:

All Trinary
1 Star of each unit type per Trinary
Tank / fighter starts and elemental / infantry starts will be split 50/50.
Full sized Clusters / Galaxies

Going off that I get:

~500 Mechs
~500 Tanks
~500 fighters
~1,250 elementals
~ 6,250 infantry

Also IIRC each Clan fielded ~15-20 warships in their invasion corridor.

In terms of Space combat, should a Clan decide to throw everything it had at us in a single attack we'd be at a disadvantage. However in terms of ground / air combat we are a lot bigger than any individual Clan, particularly when it comes to infantry. And our forces are concentrated in a single system at the start of the scenario. While they may have a tech lead, I doubt the Clan that has us in their invasion corridor is going to do well should they choose to attack.
Darth Lucifer wrote:But one thing is for sure, Clan society is even more oppressive than the nobility-driven factions. For all their technology, they act like a bunch of primitives at times.
Generally yes, though that varies from Clan to Clan. IIRC Clan Wolf was a lot more open than the other clans, and as the leading Warden member opposed the invasion of the IS (to the point where they secretly ordered the Wolf's Dragoons to help prepare the IS for the invasion, fought a trial of refusal to try and stop it, then fought the Refusal War to prevent Jade Falcons from breaking the Truce. If we were on the Wolf invasion corridor I would try to negotiate some sort of treaty with them over fighting, and they'd probably be willing to come to the table. However if we were stuck with Clans like the Jade Falcons or Smoke Jaguars I'd definitely end up fighting them.
"Darth Lucifer" wrote:A better time to come into the picture would be in 3052, during the fifteen-year Truce of Tukayyid.
While it be better for us, it wouldn't really be as interesting a scenario since the Clans would have been effectively stopped and Wolf Clan and Jade Falcons would have smashed themselves apart in the Refusal War. :P
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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by PainRack »

I have a feeling that I can simply expand via colonisation....

Although we can copy WOB by allying with Outworlds Alliance. I mean, in six years, they went from cottage and non automated manufacturing to.outcouping the Draconia Combine to design an Omnifighter.
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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by LadyTevar »

I want my Robotech-variants, dammit! Wasp, Stinger, Pheonix Hawk, with LAM variations, and the Maruader!
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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by Batman »

It's spelled 'Marauder'. And I think everybody wants the Lost Mechs back because they looked tons better than their replacement canon...replacements.
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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by Avrjoe »

About 50 ly from the IS near the Federated Suns/Draconis Combine border I believe this would put The People's Commonwealth well outside the Clan invasion corridor. We would be near or within the Outworlds Alliance It is militarily strong but economically weak. It also is under pressure from those opposed to the continued rule of the Avellar line.

I would send out intelligence operations first. I would want information on how much our industrial base could help replacing farming equipment. If things were favorable, I would then make first contact with Alliance by proposing a peace treaty. Mutual defense against outside aggression. Then a trade deal finished goods from our factories for raw materials.
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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by Imperial Overlord »

Tribble wrote:First off, Space Monkeys in the Battletech Universe? Is this an in-universe thing?
Darth Lucifer wrote:The idea of throwing in with the Inner Sphere worlds against the Clans is an appealing one, but I have no idea of the size and strength of the invading forces.
IIRC, typical clan military structure is:

Point: 1 Mech, or 2 Tanks, or 2 fighters, or 5 elementals, or 25 infantry
Star: 5 Points
Binary: 2 Stars
Trinary: 3 Stars
Cluster: 3-5 Binaries / Trinaires
Galaxy - 3-5 Clusters
Individual Clan Total: ~ 4 Galaxies at start of Clan Invasion

My rough estimate per Clan will assume:P
Your estimates are wrong, but not because there is anything wrong with your math but because you haven't factored in that you're not dealing with those numbers which represent the general spread of possibilities, not the composition of frontline galaxies for the most powerful Clans. Jade Falcon frontline Clusters, for example, almost all have 6 Trinaries each (1 command star, 2 trinaries of mechs, one trinary of elementals, one of aerospace fighters, and a supernova trinary composed of a full trinary of mechs and a full trinary of elementals ). The top clans have toumans in excess of 40 clusters and all their frontline galaxies have from 4-6 clusters (not counting the galaxy command unit, which can be cluster size in some cases and not counting the Khans' Keshiks). 250 'mechs per galaxy or 1,000 'mechs for the invading force of each Clan is about right.
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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by Tribble »

Imperial Overlord wrote:
Tribble wrote:First off, Space Monkeys in the Battletech Universe? Is this an in-universe thing?
Darth Lucifer wrote:The idea of throwing in with the Inner Sphere worlds against the Clans is an appealing one, but I have no idea of the size and strength of the invading forces.
IIRC, typical clan military structure is:

Point: 1 Mech, or 2 Tanks, or 2 fighters, or 5 elementals, or 25 infantry
Star: 5 Points
Binary: 2 Stars
Trinary: 3 Stars
Cluster: 3-5 Binaries / Trinaires
Galaxy - 3-5 Clusters
Individual Clan Total: ~ 4 Galaxies at start of Clan Invasion

My rough estimate per Clan will assume:P
Your estimates are wrong, but not because there is anything wrong with your math but because you haven't factored in that you're not dealing with those numbers which represent the general spread of possibilities, not the composition of frontline galaxies for the most powerful Clans. Jade Falcon frontline Clusters, for example, almost all have 6 Trinaries each (1 command star, 2 trinaries of mechs, one trinary of elementals, one of aerospace fighters, and a supernova trinary composed of a full trinary of mechs and a full trinary of elementals ). The top clans have toumans in excess of 40 clusters and all their frontline galaxies have from 4-6 clusters (not counting the galaxy command unit, which can be cluster size in some cases and not counting the Khans' Keshiks). 250 'mechs per galaxy or 1,000 'mechs for the invading force of each Clan is about right.
Fair enough, though even having double the number of Mechs wouldn't change much; we'd still outnumber a single Clan by a large margin in everything but Warships (though IIRC we still have more than the entire IS apart from ComStar). Seeing as the Clan's goal is to capture territory more or less intact I don't think we'd have to worry too much about using their Warships to bombard things. Also, that would a Clan's entire invasion fleet, and unless that Clan were willing to concentrate everything they had at us to the expense of everything else in their invasion corridor they wouldn't have those kinds of numbers during an actual attack.

Avrjoe pointed out that we are apparently not in the Clan invasion corridor, so we won't have to worry about a direct invasion. However, assuming we get to keep knowledge about the Clans going into this scenario we'd still probably want to do something about it. At the very least we ought to warn ComStar aabout the Clan invasion's true intentions and that Terra is the primary target. And dissuade them from doing something stupid like trying to take over the IS in the confusion. The last thing we need is for Comstar to split itself into the Word of Blake; IIRC that had some... pretty serious repercussions. Hopefully this would give them a bit more time to mobilise better.
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Re: You are in charge of a new Battletech faction (RAR!)

Post by Imperial Overlord »

We aren't at all in a Clan's invasion corridor, but any one of them would slice through our nation like a hot knife through butter. The invading forces are only part of each Clan's touman and they are far superior to us on an individual basis and have extensive combat experience. The real issue is the Outworld's Alliance, which is not some third rate bandit kingdom but an actually nation state with a powerful aerospace industry including shipyards (which eventually results in a merger with the navally focused Clan Snow Raven). They are right the edge of the Federated Suns/Draconis Combine border, maintain a policy of keeping a balancing act between the two most powerful and warlike Succcessor States, and have a powerful space arm (but no warships at this time).
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