SG/tg/

SG/tg/

See this? This is what happens when TeeGee runs the show

After just a few days of lurking in /tg/ amongst elegan/tg/entlemen and fa/tg/uys - I had been dragged in, kicking and screaming into a thread made by another, for a Stargate SG1 campaign which would be a "reboot" of the series, but with vehicles and a more militarised feel.

While the rest of /tg/ fumbled about - I had been waiting in the thread giving just about every second suggestion and post, nudging the post towards something that gave me epic level inspiration.

Mentlegen - I present to you, SG/tg/ . . . or what comes about if the Stargate command was operated by a Genre-Savvy fa/tg/uy who basically set out to own the known galaxy...

The basic premise

There is a little bit of writefagging to back this up at the moment, but I do intend to follow the fluff with some crunch - a short version of the backhistory is thus:

Pre-gate activation/discovery

• The campaign starts in a post 9/11 and Afghan/Iraq war world, where the first gate had been dug up, but never used.

• The second, Antarctic gate was then discovered, complete with DHD after testing with the Hadron supercollider caused a few side effects.

• With CERN in possession of the gate and unlocking its secrets, the UN stood in as each nation presented their interests in the gate and what it had too offer.

• The U.S was then forced to deal its hand, and revealed the gate it already had in its possession.

Post-gate activation/discovery

• With the U.N directing the operation as a multi-national interest - each nation contributed soldiers, vehicles, scientists and materials to the Stargate program as a group interest rather than an Air-force operation.

• With this in mind, a twin-gate base was set up - using each gate as a tandem in/out system (with a GDO and address for each) a plan was devised for the first gate address, Abydos.

First gate mission

• Abydos was reconed as the first gate operation - a combined arms ground team from each nation, counting up as 300 troops and vehicles all together (consisting of Strykers/Humvees/Mastadons and various other APC/IFV forces).

• The locals were contacted and Ra was alerted to an alien (read; human) presence on his world - he launched an all out attack.

• Unaware of the forces and tactics he faced, Ra's forces were utterly destroyed, and his own vessel taken, Ra himself was killed in a bloody firefight on the bridge of his starship, which was caught before it could be launched.

• The mission ended a success, with contact made with off-world humans, and new technology within the multi-national teams of Earth.

Post first mission

• Despite all of this, technology is still difficult to reverse engineer. Teams of scientists have been crawling over Ra's ship for months with no real progress other than identifying low-level systems and technologies roughly analogous to our own.

• The locals of Abydos have been uplifted with technologies from Earth, such as water reclamation and aide in growing foods and crops in harsh desert environments. This opening of hearts and minds lead to the discovery of the Gate repository on Abydos - and the real beginning to Earths mission in the greater galaxy.

At this point - I would start the campaign.

A little writefaggotry

And this mentlegen, is what we need too purge from the galaxy

The Stargate program in an AU, post 9/11 world, where the second gate was discovered with DHD before the first gate was activated, and was delivered into the hands of CERN with archaeological support - and cracked. Earth had two gates under a multinational project from the very beginning, with each of the major first world nations pouring funding, manpower and vehicles into the multi-pronged Stargate effort.

Abydos, instead of finding itself reconed by a small team of American soldiers, was reconed by a multinational mechanized infantry division of over 300 soldiers, scouts and scientists who not only freed the local inhabitants, but beat the everloving shit out of Ra, and did it with his ship intact . . . unable to figure out its workings, the multinational SG teams set up a semi-permanent base on Abydos and set about pulling apart its technological and archaeological mysteries.

While technology moved slowly, with little to no advance over several months, the locals of Abydos worked together with the Earther teams and eventually discovered the repository of gate addresses, and the path was set for Earth to explore on a grand scale.

First came Chulak - a small mechanized team reconed the first gate address on the menu, homeworld of Apophis and found resistance in the form of Jaffa and loyalist locals, but they were overcome by a combined arms team of Infantry, Vehicles and Apache helicopters, and Apophis was forced to retreat from these unknown, violent upstart humans from an unknown world.

As he set about fortifying his worlds against a beforehand unprecedented assault, reports are coming in from the other System Lords. Most of them have to be utter lies designed to set him off edge - after all, they have been playing each other off as fools in the grand parasitical schemes for centuries. But there has to be some truth in the rumors of an aging H'tak mothership flying from world to world and dropping unknown green, tan and yellow battle machines and warriors of non-Jaffa origins, flying machines without wings popping up and over forests and hills and destroying death gliders and bombers without even having a chance to retaliate - a Chappai opening to a single, metal bird - followed by blasts of earth and fire.

What the System lords have yet to learn, is that the Humans of Earth have arrived. They are organised and deathly, trained in arts of war that have been utterly unknown to Apophis and his brethren, and while they may not have the technological advantage - in sheer ferocity they are unmatched.

War has come to the Galaxy - the Tau-ri have arrived.

Things to keep in mind for the campaign

In this version of the world Apophis never launched his little foray into the SGC, kidnapping the soldiers standing guard and setting off the series. Earth made the first strike at what was reconed as a major enemy fortress. Their tactics have caught the System Lords off guard, as Jaffa troops with almost medieval training and mindset are set upon by combined arms strategies using infantry fighting vehicles and helicopters with collapsible rotors for air support unleashing a rape train of almighty proportions on aliens with egos the size of small moons.

While Earth has advantages in terms of training and deployment of force, the Goa'uld (and later enemies) still have the technological advantage that will have to be over-come in order to turn the tide against the enemy.

The preferred tactics for the Tau-ri in this re-setting are thus:

• Use of vehicles: almost everything up to, and including main battle tanks can fit through the gate - which has a diameter of 4.6 meters, if in doubt, wiki a vehicle for its width to see it it will fit, the examples I have used thus far have been Humvees, Stryker IFVs and the M1 Abrams, but seeing as the Stargate program would now be a genre-savvy operation, every nation involved would be fielding or sharing their vehicle pools. So feel free to toss any vehicle with a dash of common sense to the campaign, remember - if you don't need it, don't send it, resources could still be finite, and you don't need to send a Challenger II tank on a "meet the natives" diplomacy mission.

• IFVs are a man's best friend, they have good range - adaptable weapons and are useful in pretty much every role. I would think each SG team would have at least 1 IFV assigned to them for transport, and at least another three to guard the gate; say two Strykers (or alternate IFVs) with .50 cal guns and smoke grenade launchers and a third with a missile launcher to deal with death glider or bomber threats, and if you were feeling mean to the enemy, many IFVs can be equipped with a gun carriage system to give them a main weapon on par with most battle tanks.

• Use of air vehicles: same as above, so long as you watch the width of the helicopter - you can send Apache longbows through with their rotors collapsed - raise them on the other side and unleash a rape train on the unsuspecting fools, secure the gate for your return, fold the rotors again and then take it back home afterwards.

• Modern battle systems: it would be safe to assume after Afghanistan/Iraq that every force would be equipped with modern communications equipment - and more than a few special forces toys (expect throat mics instead of the puny radios from the original systems), multi-threat detection systems, gun cameras as well as helmet cams and a whole plethora of modern toys that have come about IRL since 9-11 that were not in the original show.

With these changes, and the mindset of a War on Terror Earth being thrown against the backwards mindset of the System Lords, whether or not Earth is destined to be turned into a smoking crater is yet to be seen.

As time moves on

Obviously, this is going to be a far more forward-orientated campaign, with force vehicles being used and access to heavier weapons granted, but Earth's use of this equipment and extended tactics is a double edged sword - so a few things to keep in mind for the early/mid/late campaign scale:

• Making use of vehicle tactics and blitzkrieg is a very, very high risk thing to do considering how quickly word will spread to the System Lords - as mentioned above; the first few strikes would be written off by the Goa'uld's arrogance towards their own backwards people under their rule (I.e to a medieval world an Apache may well be a freaking dragon, and IFVs and tanks would be glorified metal boxes) but as time went on making sure no clues lead back to the homeworld would be a priority. The reason why they have never had to deal with these tactics before is due to their preference of sitting in orbit and bombing worlds back to the stone age and then instilling themselves as gods.

• The Tau-ri have the ground advantage, and then some, but if they leave too many signs behind, say a uniform patch, or other incriminating marker back to Earth itself, the System lords will bring a rape train down on the planet faster than you can blink. So strike hard, strike fast, know your objectives and make no mistakes. The Tau-ri are ghosts with metal shells until they are ready to bring the hurt.

• Technology in this world is slower to adapt, due to everything being handled in a highly broken, bureaucratic manner between nations - while the greatest minds of every nation and every series are on board, it would still be early days until they run into and gain the trust of the Asgard or T'kra (if they even can) and we all know how the UN loves its paperwork trails...

• However, as time does move on, expect the first advantages to follow those of the series, Anti-staff weapon ceramic armor for both troops and vehicles would vastly increase life expectancy in the field, later, jury-rigging vehicles to make use of Naqueda generators (more of a mid-game tech) would give them nigh-unlimited range and reduce costs as to fuel in the long run. Late game techs would involve vehicle mounted shields, cloaking devises or even phasic systems to render vehicles as masters of the battlefields - railgun emplacements for both tanks and IFVs - and even helicopters as well as energy weapons and anti-Replicator systems as time moves on.

• Take the series, remove the Saturday morning cartoon villains and give Earth a proper military doctrine and watch as innovation wins out - perhaps /tg/ could come up with a few variations I have not, only time will tell.

• As mentioned above, Replicators - WOAH BOY - yes, vehicles would be a major asset in the field, but also a major food source, AND you would have to be careful to counter your losses or even destroy your own kit to stop the Replicators from adapting Earth-built tech into their own tech and making the fight for the Tau-ri/Asgard even fucking worse before it gets better.

• However, Strykers with Anti-Replicator beams (until the whole Sam/Replicator storyline) would make for utter shit-your pants moments for the little bugs as they try to run in fear from the marauding humans.

• If you choose to tie Atlantis into the system it would take a bit of doing, however porting a few AFVs through the gate (say, smaller dune buggies and such) as well as the other techs listed above would enhance an almost guerrilla warfare element against the waking Wraith Hives until Earth/Atlantis regained communications and then techs started flowing back and forth from each side.

• As for the Ori - the cheap Jaffa/Go'uld knockoffs that they were (yeah, I know the Ori themselves were technically gods - they still felt like knock-offs)- having them run into a multinational Tau-ri army from the start would kick the utterly alien culture shock of Earth tactics all over again, and with the Priors running around it would re-introduce vehicle weaknesses until the Anti-prior devices were researched and then eventually mounted onto every vehicle, forcing the SG teams (player party and the larger system) to re-think their tactics for a good long while.

• After all, when was the last time you saw a guy in a toga with a freaking staff shrug off a railgun round from a Naqueda-fueled, shielded M1 Abrams Tank?

The reactions of the other Races

• In terms of the allies to mankind: expect the T'kra to take full advantage of these batshit insane humans running amok across known space and use them as a distraction to further their own goals. Yes, they would still very much be stuck in the mindset of slowly turning the tide over a few hundred years of pushing the System Lords to war against each other, but these upstarts tearing through the universe with armed divisions kicking arse and taking names would be by far, one of the best things they could use as a cover to extend their own operations in the background. Feeding Earth with valuable intel and targets, while holding back the spread of information to the System Lords, making it so they could never see the whole picture until it was possibly too late.

• As for the Asgard, here is where I get a little unstuck. On the one hand, Earth is young, and from their point of view, vulnerable to attack, but on the other hand, in the space of a couple of years they would have hit major Goa'uld targets and set the System Lords on edge for the first time in a few thousand years, their ability to fight on the ground would obviously be unmatched, but in space they would be vulnerable.

• One side of the story would say these humans would be too young and violent to be uplifted to the Fifth race - and that they would be basically begging for the Goa'uld to knock them out of the fight with their brash attitudes and violent mannerisms.

• On the other side? These Humans could be the very thing this galaxy needs - a bright, young and vibrant force capable of the massive change the Asgard have been unfortunately unable to enforce thus far. While they would need teaching and guiding away from their more . . . violent habits, given time and maturation they would be an un-paralleled force for change.

• The Nox - I really don't know. One half of me says they would take on the first Asgard attitude, too young, too violent, they need at least a few millennia to grow out of their teenage stages. On the other hand, I honestly don't think they would give a shit, and would return to ignoring Earth anyway. I don't know.

Links

• The original thread
• A wiki full of spergs for the Stargate tv series http://stargate.wikia.com/