Setting:Nutopia

Nutopia: a world in ruin. a world of hope.

Setting Introduction

Without a doubt, the most pivotal movement in the early 21st century was the accelerated curve of technological advancement known collectively by trend watchers and futurists the world over as the Technological Singularity. As it rushed onward, much debate was had whether the sweeping changes it would doubtless bring would create a New Eden, or a Hell on Earth.

The truth would be something less dramatic. Technological advancements of those early years mingled with the wounds of history and grew into events that precipitated radical, unforeseen shifts in the global political structure. The notion of a Corporate state, once the provenance of speculative fiction, became stark reality. Not every existant state was gobbled up by the entities of industry, but a good portion of what had once been ruled by monarchs, dictators, parliaments and presidents stood instead beneath CEOs and Board Committees. The world over instability spread, but the uneasy malaise between the new Corporate States and their traditional counterparts was assuaged somewhat by the wonders of modern technology.

Safe gene-modded crops fed millions who would once have starved, and the construction of a world wide infosphere allowed media complacence to be broadcast directly into the homes, if not heads, of much of the species. While questions were asked about the cost of the seeming peace, about the slow death of privacy and self determination in the name of safety, most ignored these troublesome issues. After all, as the Inquisitor said, "where is there freedom of choice where men are bribed with bread?" The technologies that might have liberated man from the bondage of war, famine, disease, or even death itself stagnated, bottle-necked and rationed by corporations and governments alike. There was no profit in a cure to the ailments that shaped human conflict, only temporary treatment could generate repeat business, engender dependence. Some in control acted in order to stay in the black, others simply to stay in power, the ends long ago forsaken in favor of self sustaining means. The Curve, once seemingly inexorable, found itself slowed.

Still humanity crept closer to the Singularity, although the global limbo seemed to be drifting more towards a hellscape than a utopia. Finally, however, the tension that had been steadily building right along with the curve burst its seems, and the world devolved into a planetary conflict. In an event commonly referred to as The Fall long standing hatreds between governments, corporations, and the subjects of each erupted into violence. Border conflicts went hot, riots spilled into the streets, cities burned, entire militaries mobilized and became engulfed in conflict. It was a global cataclysm of war on a scale history had never seen before, and one that the species was lucky to emerge from.

The humanity that dragged itself through the other side of the firestorm saw a world changed in a matter of months, or in some places a matter of seconds. Most corporate states were in shambles, torn apart by infighting and revolutionaries of a hundred different creeds. The U-States hadn't fared much better, many shutting their borders in an effort to quell internal distress, or simply in fear of the new world beyond their borders. The setback to the evolution of the species was a major one, the Singularity kneecapped with thermonuclear force.

Many call the time after The Fall "ACE", After the Common Era. Humanity has had 25 years to settle into the ashes of its old form, but whether a heaven or hell will be made of the wreckage remains to be seen. The men and women who make their lives in the ruins will be the ones to determine, in a very real way, the course of Humanity. Will The Fall merely be the catalyst for a slow, agonizing extinction? Or will we struggle through the birthing pains into a new being, finally attaining the next step in our combined journey. These are questions that will be answered by the choices of individuals with the will to decide who and what they are, what they want the world around them to be. This is the world of NUtopia.

In-Setting Perspectives

Recorded from an interview with noted hiver luminary Anton Tokarev from his home in Spire

It's 25 ACE, after the common era, after the Corps fell.

Well, they didn't fall, we toppled them. After a hundred years of toiling and striving we finally got back what we wanted. We got back our freedom, we became relevant again.

The Corps were ironclad. We were well and truly theirs. Those of us that weren't taken in the night and modded beyond recognition for some impossibly niche task were worked to death compiling data. We created and slaved and toiled for a system that existed to perpetuate itself. New skin colors and hair styles that none of us would ever see. Our minds were worn down to nothing for the pleasure of one tenth of a percent of the population.

They were well protected from all forms of attack. Their 'bots and Mercs protected them from the few unincorporated nations and from each other, but they neglected their foundations. The Global Network was truly ubiquitous. Its transmitters float in the stratosphere and permeate the crust; our Earth is a literal infosphere. The formulations of a rebellion flowed along the back channels. It allowed us to execute perfectly coordinated insurrection. One day the cogs, the gears that moved their massive industries and bureaucracies, Us, rose up. We moved outside their machinery and brought it down.

There were losses. In some places atomics were detonated in their silos as the last spiteful acts of newly impotent CEOs. 'Bots were given liquidation orders, Mercs set loose. 5 years of strife followed, and with it went 5% of the earth's livable surface. 1, 201, 372, 459 people died. We know because everyone was tracked. It was one of the first things we did away with. We've actually got kids being born now without transponder chips, and they'll never have them. The Unincorporated States still exist, and many ran to them after The Corps Fell. Some people simply couldn't handle a life without someone else determining its structure. A surprising number of us, however, stayed in the wastes.

We are creating something new amongst the wreckage of the past century. There are of course dangers, simple scarcity being the biggest threat. For this we have The Delvers, individuals of unique capability and motivation who dive into forgotten supply depots and ammo dumps, plumbing the treasures of the last age. Some protect our communities from still roving 'Bots and Mercs, and from those of us who find it easier to prey on isolated communities than contribute.

It is a new age; we are for the first time in the history of the species a globally connected collective of true individuals. We are clawing our way out the ashes of the worst atrocity this planet has ever seen like a new born phoenix, and we are creating something wonderful.

We are, for perhaps the first time, Human.

This is the world of Nutopia. At some point in the early 21st century the world’s governments were almost entirely supplanted by powerful corporations who where more than happy to step in when traditional authorities couldn’t keep up with the implications of the technological leaps and bounds that the young millennium saw. However, the age of progress grew into a nightmare.

The corporations grew ever larger and more powerful, and more and more paranoid. They themselves then fell to the inexorable march of technological progress, the world wide infosphere they had created serving as the soil in which a global rebellion took root.

The survivors of the terrible rebellion and the age of oppression that preceded it are of a new mind They value freedom in its purest forms, and know well the dangers of unchecked power.

For all the hatred we pour on them, it’s important to note that without the Corps we could never have gotten here. It was their technology that facilitated this next step in history. It was the lessons that they taught us, lessons that all saw and none can forget, that brought us out of the darkness.

Humanity has no doubt had its share of dictators and tyrants, but this is the first time that the whole world was integral in their destruction, and evidence of that war is etched across the surface of the planet. Abandoned cities and nuclear craters serve as surgery scars to remind us of what we had to do to excise the cancer of oppression and forced subservience.

Source unknown, supposedly a communique issued on a sealed military channel, allegedly by infamous CSC pilot Red Widow

Back before the Fall, you were the shit. The finest, most psychologically stable, tried and tested not to go insane even as the lab techs crammed more and more implants into your skull, overloading your brain with information. Unwaveringly loyal, unceasingly lethal. You fought in the Hidden Wars, the conflicts that didn't exist in the official records. You dueled with rival companies' Mercs in arctic wastelands, in desert heat, in space and underwater. When the shit really hit the fan, they brought you out to suppress riots back home and you watched the little men scream and run from the mere sight of you. You felt divine. And why not, do you believe in God? Now imagine that God spoke to you, personally. She upgraded you, made you stronger, had you enact her will. But it was more than that. She was always there, with words of love and encouragement and comfort. Then the fall comes and God falls silent, murdered by usurpers, the enemies of civilization.

Then they approached you. The new victors. The communities. The God killers. They invited you to their new free utopia, their uplinked, organic, low-tech, democratic little enclave of peace and prosperity and hope...

And you took one look at that and said fuck it. Fuck the anarchists, the globalists, the oh-so-helpful new government officials and their let's-get-along tripe. Fuck the way they look at you as you stroll down the market street. Fuck the inquisitive Operators and their "so where were you in -32?". Fuck'em and let it all rot.

So you and your unit left. For the wasteland, where true freedom is won with the railgun barrel and the hydraulic claw, where you wander the old ruins of your former makers for maintenance and spares and kill your old comrades who have gone insane from isolation and abandonment. When death is around the corner, that's when you're truly alive. This is how it's always been.

And you're happy. There's Jane, and while the both of you left your humanity on operating tables, sometimes when you make camp for the night and catch a few minutes downtime, you interface, and online your avatars looks just like you did in basic training, 50 years ago. And you smile at each other as you embrace, and you think... This can go on forever. If you can fight and if you can win... You'll be immortal.

Game Information

Nutopia:Rules

wip. Information being retrieved and formatted from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=xm5yzxw5udvk9rllab3kurk8&page=1#4 All works created and/or carefully stolen by our good friends Nutopia_Flufffag, Pengu1n, quicksilver (especially for putting things together on the tvtropes site), and teka . If you feel you should be on this list, let me know, i am forgetful. if you don't want your name attached to this abomination.. too bad.. mwahaha.

sup/tg/ Thread List: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/4393640 http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/4401683 http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/4419141 http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5165430 http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5179055 http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5459874 http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/7310859

Player Information

Those brave souls going into the dark places and risking themselves are known as Delvers. They take risks and struggle in ways few can imagine. They all have their own reasons for going out there, whether is money, revenge or humanity.

Delver Classes

From a purely mechanical standpoint it is important to point out that Nutopia is at heart a classless set up. That said the archetypes below represent simple broad divisions of Delvers by capability. Within these categories there is a great deal of wiggle room, and they exist as basic guidelines. While blending between these categories is not unheard of, understand that a jack of all trades is a master of none, and that in some cases the detriments of one category would greatly impair the acquisition of abilities from another.

Soldiers

These guys are the workhorses of a Delver team. They specialize in combat, the kind of combat varies wildly from soldier to soldier. Snipers in light, agile stealth armor stand right next to brutal close range beasts in the heaviest of power armor totting rotary cannons in each hand. They have access to the widest array of combat modifications both cyber and bio, and access to a fair amount of nano mods as well.

A player who chooses to roll a Soldier has access to all the weapons and armors of the world, the Corps spent decades making a fortune in the various arms trades, and the Soldiers are the ones most qualified to take full advantage of the fruits of their former master's labor.

Outside of the many roles they fill on the front lines soldiers can serve a number of functions when the bullets aren't flying. Close combat claws and the inherent strength or their armors let soldiers get through barriers and overcome obstacles their fellow delvers cannot navigate, as well as allowing them to simply carry more than others. The less strength oriented delvers can bring maneuverability to the table, high speed and amazing manual dexterity second only to crackers are not uncommon, and exotic methods of mobility like flight, climbing claws or special adapted swimmers are not unheard of. Soldiers are also the most familiar with the direct mechanical actions of their gear, meaning they are often the go to individual if a railgun strip comes out of alignment or if a servo in your leg is on the fritz.

Soldiers come from a variety of backgrounds. Many were employees of the Corps low level security forces, others are immigrants from Unincorporated States' militaries. Motorpool sports a considerable community both special forces and technicians from both Corps and U States, while Babel has a large population of "Swimmers" soldiers cyber and/or biomodded for combat beneath the waves and in the deadly close quarters of battles aboard ship.

Hivers

Among the Delvers, Hivers are often the most eccentric individuals. They are drawn from the ranks of musicians, artists and dancers, sculptors and poets, architects and engineers. These are individuals who for one reason or another decided to take a radical step to accentuate their chosen craft, and those that become Delvers are perhaps more eccentric still, as performance artist come combat engineer is a transition not often seen in earlier ages.

The decision for an individual to become a Hiver is not one to be taken lightly. The implants involved and the conditioning needed to control them are invasive and at first quite painful. The most common implant sites are in areas of dense muscle, limited capacity Maker blocks are implanted in the quadriceps, triceps, deltoids and latissimus dorsi beneath the skin. Some of the surrounding tissue is the bolstered and modified to provide energy for the Makers, while the skin covering the implants is biomodded to allow the pores to dilate far beyond their usual size, letting fresh batches of nanites come through the epidermis. Near the implant sites exterior plugs are introduced, allowing tubing from an external feedstock tank to be attached, as the Makers need material to do their work. The Makers are hardwired together via sub dermal cabling, as a wireless link might allow a malicious Cracker to hijack them and dissolve the Hiver with his own Nanites. All of this is then hardwired to a cortical sheath that allows the Hiver fine control over his new “organs”.

The cost of these implants is high, without further extensive implantation the lost muscle mass is difficult to compensate for, leaving the Hiver comparatively weak, especially next to a gene-bulked Soldier. The use of the surrounding tissue to supplement power to the Makers also gives Hivers a much higher metabolism than most, and the repeated ejection of nanites can be damaging to the flesh, so when not doing anything terribly pressing they can usually be found scarfing down whatever high carb/high protein food is available. The general weakness and the need for ejection ports for swarms greatly limits a Hiver’s ability to use most of the heavy weaponry her fellow Delvers wield and keeps her out of anything other than specially modified armors.

The upshot to all this is immense, however, Hivers are the most versatile class of the three, both in and out of combat, and can accomplish amazing things with the implants that cost them so much. In combat Hivers can act defensively and offensively, outside of battle they can build shelter and supply all manner of useful items and materials. Even more radical is the way Hivers can go about doing these tasks. For example, in combat an Offensive Hiver might create vicious swarms of macro nanites in the shapes of stinging insects to harass her opponents, while another could use the makers to expel a chemical mixture that ignites with air from their fingers or build up a large electrical field and discharge it at an enemy, still another might create and fling spikes and spines of diamond or create blades and wade into close combat. What a Hiver can do and how she does it is really only limited by the players imagination and the Signal Man’s ruling (Signal Man is what we’re calling the DM/GM/ST for now, until someone comes up with something better)

As stated above Hivers come from extremely diverse backgrounds and all walks of life. Nearly all Hivers were born CE, as in the current era the machinery needed to create the implants is difficult to come by. There are of course still some young hivers born ACE, but they are few and far between.

Edit: It seems worth noting that some of the inspiration for this class was a picture of Till Lindemann wearing a jockstrap with a flamethrower attached to it... Make of that what you will.

Crack3rs

From young punks to wizened old code master, Crackers come in many varieties. Their skills range wildly and each has his own mix of abilities to bring to the table. On the combat scale they reside between Soldiers and Hivers in terms of firepower and survivability, while nowhere near as heavily protected as a Soldier can be they can still wear more armor and lug bigger guns than the physically weaker Hivers. They rest on an odd tipping point in terms of modification, some sport little more than wireless interfacing tools, while others are full hardshells comprised of hissing servos, synthetic muscle and whirring processor stacks.

The most unique ability of a Cracker is their mastery of VI and Forking. They can control more advanced Virtual Intelligences in greater quantities than other delvers. These software drones can be used to autonomously attempt many tasks while the Cracker themselves attacks a more pressing issue, or they can assist a Cracker in a particularly difficult task. For example a Cracker might allow a Fire Control VI to keep an enemy pinned down while they flit off into the infosphere to jam that same enemy's senses with scrapcode, or they could bring that same VI in line with their own attention and together pull off a highly improbable ricochet shot to bring the fight to an end.

Forking is a process deployed for when a VI just won't do. The Cracker creates a copy (of varying fidelity depending on the circumstances) of his own mind. This allows a Cracker to multitask with even greater alacrity, or to focus in even more extreme detail, but maintaining the split is stressful. The process is hardly without risk, and is never done on more than a temporary basis, but no one can do it like a well trained Cracker can. The most skilled of said group can even run multiple Forks and VIs at the same time, leveling a frightful amount of thinking power at any problem.

Amongst a delving team Crackers handle any obstacle pertaining to the infosphere. Their electronic warfare skills are unmatched, and given the right VI assistance they are no slouch in physical combat either, their parallel thought processes allowing them to accomplish great feats of acrobatics and marksmanship if they put their minds to it. They can control a wide variety of robotic minions for scouting or numerous other roles. Above all else the Crackers portable processing powerhouse represents a way to amplify the abilities of the other members of their team. A Soldier has turned target acquisition an neutralization into a science, teamed with a Cracker it becomes an art. A Hiver can create anything the mind can envision given enough time and material, with a Cracker's help these creations can be realized with great speed, and the reach of the Hiver's abilities extended.

Fluffy Details

Money and Barter

With a toppled/toppling megacorp no doubt taking a big chunk of virtual currency and oversight out of the system, what are folks using to exchange goods and services in the years ACE?

paper/coin currency seems risky, since I am fairly sure that a meagerly skilled Hiver could pump out plenty of either. Without a huge overarching government/corp entity in the background, securing value seems difficult.

One option would be that most Settlements do a grudging business with notes or coinage or markers from one of the largely intact Unincorporated States. Remember that with the existence of the info-sphere things like the current exchange rates should be easy for everyone to keep track of.

The Nu-Dollar <-> BancBuc <-> Motorpool Cred exchanges would end up fairly visible though we would probably see a certain shred of profit-taking from the money changers involved, just as today. Expect to see someone expressing a preference in their pay, picking Motorpool Creds because they want to do some business out that way, or demanding a few more percentage points worth of Nu-Dollars because "damn gougers cut you more and more every year with their fees and I got 'nuff bills to pay already"

A heavier, literally, medium of exchange would be raw materials. Sure, with enough time and juice and spares, you can tickle a cloud of nanites into separating that pile of rusty scrap into ingots of component elements.. but a five-kilo block of pure, really pure copper from the mines up in highlands (they finally got them open again, its amazing.. heard something about badgers, believe it or not) would represent a reliable time and energy saving factor that would go beyond mere material worth. Could be the same thing with many products:

• Refined-Carbon rods, pure and ready to drop into the Forge of your choice. Salvage from a Corp' building site, perhaps.

• Gold. the Original shiny-thing. Some people still horde the stuff like it was going out of style, everyone else values it for its chemical/electrical properties.. and shininess. Everything from the meager ingots produced in massive automated pit mining arrays to ancient coins 'liberated' from the vaults of Corporate Officers after they, um, didn't need them anymore.

• Radioactive Materials. Sure, exotic materials have a lingering bad name from some of the.. ah.. Unfortunate events of the War, but there is still a need. The would be a large and somewhat dangerous category, ranging from the molded uranium or plutonium from weapons captured still in their cradles to tiny amounts of the vast category of transoceanic elements for exotic applications. As a whole these are one of the hardest to handle, able to burn out half the tech in your bloodstream if you look at it funny.

Energy

Just before the fall the preferred energy source of the corporations was solar power, orbital solar operations to be precise. Before the corporations exhausted just about every source of fossil fuels and radioactives on earth, Orbital solar power amounted for about 2% of the global energy production, but when the supplies began to dwindle due to massive rise of energy consumption due the introduction of makers.

The biggest problem that the orbital solar power plant had was the maintenance, an traditional array had an endurance of about 5 year before needing an expensive repair space flight, the maker technology changed that. An solar panel array with an maintenance maker had an lifespan of an century before needing to resupplied with raw materials. Just before the fall the orbital solar power amounted for 73% of the global energy production, However during the fall many arrays were either damaged, destroyed or de-orbited by including but not limited to: hit by an frenzied anti-ICBM defenses, not evading an piece of debris, evading an piece of debris too hard or even de-orbited on purpose to be used as an projectile.

After the fall the Free States were quite desperate to get the power plants back on line as most of the more traditional manufacturing infrastructure was destroyed during the fall forcing them to rely on the makers. Even by 25 ACE there are still many power plants that have no place to beam their power and therefore the Free States are constantly sending delvers to uncover access codes to the powers plants so they could be moved to either to orphaned receiving dishes or newly constructed ones.

Nanotechnology

There are two broad categories of nanites in the world of Nutopia: foglets and universal (dis)assemblers.

The foglets are lighter-than-air nanomachines that form an cloud around the hiver. The cloud allows the hiver to send his assemblers trough the foglets to anywhere within the cloud, however an average hiver can produce an cloud that is only about 10 meters of spherical volume at maximum even dispersion. Most settlements and any functional high tech manufacturing facility, on the other hand, probably have their air full of utility fog. The foglets purpose is to act as an bridge, communication- and an powerline for assemblers going from their hive to their target. The foglets aren't terribly smart and cannot distinguish between commands from friendly or hostile source, and as such anyone or thing capable projecting nanomachines is capable of doing so within the utility fog.

The universal (dis)assemblers can manipulate individual atoms and chemical bonds around their immediate surroundings, according to the instructions from their hive. Compared to foglets the assemblers are considerably more intelligent because by micromanaging every single nanite would require an supercomputer to build even the most homogeneous and simple objects, therefore the assemblers have an limited group intelligence and an onboard database that allows them to identify materials and assemble even the most complex chemical compounds by themselves with little instructions from the hive. The assemblers also have several different kinds of sensors that when using them as an group the assemblers can give very detailed information of their surroundings.

The "universal" in The "universal (dis)assemblers" is no joke, if it can be accomplished by manipulating matter it can be done. An average hive can assemble an delicious meal from dirt, clean firearms without disassembling them, heal wounds, and turn an bandit accosting him into an puddle of protein, but this comes at a price: all action by nanites require energy, and while the assemblers can utilize ambient energy in their immediate surroundings to an extent, most of the energy is provided by their hive. This is problematic for hivers even as all of their cells are modified (either genetically or nanotechnologicaly) into organic self-recharging batteries, an average hiver would find himself quickly exhausted if he devoted all his energy to simple brute force disintegration. A hiver's flexibility in terms of tasks they can do simultaneously at any one time is limited both by their own capabilities for multitasking control and the simple volume of nanites they can contain at any one time. Some of these problems can be alleviated by portable bio-electricity batteries and special hiver exoskeletons that store extra energy and nanites. In addition the special cerebral implants for nanite control common to all hivers can be loaded with low level VI software routines that can execute specific functions (i.e. "liquefy", "stabilize that guy") with little input from the hiver.

In a world with such adept computer wizards the possibility of nanite swarms being simply taken over and turned to malicious uses is well understood. To counteract this several simple security measures are in place. The communication between a Hiver and their swarms is omnidirectional (figuring out functional tightbeam communication to a swarm is something of an engineering holy grail that remains unattained), and thus easily picked up, it is conversely heavily encrypted. A diligent cracker could of course, given time, break said encryption, but would find that in order to prevent mutations or corruption in the nanites, all their programming is stored in ROM (Read Only Memory) and have an tiny bit of RAM to process commands. The programming is intentionally brittle, any changes to such simply resulting in the nanite becoming nonfunctional. More nanites can only be constructed within the Hiver's own stacks, and these operate on a closed, hardwired circuit within the Hiver's own body. To hijack these systems wirelessly would require a full body/mind takeover well outside the capability of most crackers.

The nanites are an exceptionally efficient in their design: every atom in their bodies pull an double-duty, this however leaves them with very little in the way of redundancy or backup systems. This means that an individual nanites are rather easy to disable, for example even an weak EMP in the vicinity of the nanites can erase their command buffer, as the nanites become inert if they aren't ordered to do something as an security measure. Ionizing radiation also does an number on the nanites, even small amount alpha particles slowly corrupts the programming of nanites and also the particles interfere with assembly of new nanites and other things the hiver or the maker is creating. Beta particles, gamma and x-rays are even worse, causing nanites to breakdown completely from far smaller amount of radiation that would pose an lethal threat to even unaugmented humans.

A Word On Firepower

The arms trade was, as ever, extremely lucrative to the corporations. Most communities have Maker Templates for simple conventional firearms (one of the biggest finds in recent memory was a template for a Romanian AK-47 and 7.62x39mm ammunition). In the delves, however, things get much more interesting. The big corporate Makers allowed for the synthesizing of room temperature super conductors in large amounts, and rail/coilgun tech became much more feasible as a man portable option. Rail arms vary in size from handguns to large bore cannon. What wasn't Rail used caseless ammunition and exotic electronic ignition methods, sometimes even guided munitions to make up for the like of straight line firepower compared to a railgun.

Towards the end of the Corps some companies began to look into more creative was of killing a man than simply putting bits of metal into him at high speed. Sonic rifles for riot dispersal, highly concentrated particle beams that could punch through armor and melt flesh, and jacketed plasma launchers were all in development just before year 0.

All that firepower is further augmented by further advances. Autosensing weapons link wirelessly nanomodded eyeballs, projecting all manner of targeting data into the operators field of view. Steadying rigs and power armor hard points allow for the usage of truly epic firepower.

Power armors vary in size from close fitting exosuits that serve to mildly augment the wearer's strength, speed and endurance to 10 foot tall Nephilim 2B Breaching Armor equipped with nanite clouds, reactive panels, ceramic plates, rolled steel sheets, shock absorbing gels and Kevlar all wrapped around big servos and internal ammunition bays.

Larger still varieties exist, but few are willing to undergo the one way bonding process needed to pilot something as massive as one of the Merc Tanks. Still, Digitized Delvers are hardly unheard of, and if they are willing to sacrifice human contact and can afford the upkeep they can elect to inhabit what amounts to a cross between a bus, a MBT and a spider.

The common families of weaponry available, if expanded beyond "Electromagnetic", "Conventional" and "Other" look like this:

Railguns- These use pairs of rails (go figure) made from room temperature superconducting magnets to fling small darts at incredible speeds. They have superior armor penetration characteristics but can be loaded to deal with soft targets.

Pistols, Rifles, Long Rifles, Railcannons

Coilguns- Uses a series of electromagnetic coils (go figure, again) to heft large projectiles that would normally require a much longer barrel.

Coil Launchers (Grenade), Coil Launchers (Artillery)

Superposed Load Weapons- Uses ammunition blocks stacked nose to tail inside a barrel (See the Metal Storm family of weapons). Firing is electronic, allowing the user to decide the number of rounds fired and even from which barrels. Characterized by a potentially incredible rate of fire. Ammunition Cassestes are bulky, being comprised of multiple disposable barrels and the blocks inside of them.

Pistols, SMGs, Assault Rifles, Machine Guns, Grenade Launchers

Caseless Weapons- Uses a simple improvement on modern cased ammunition, each round is made from a penetrator of some description encase in solid propellant (See the Heckler and Koch G11 Rifle). Since there is no need to eject spent casings the rate of fire is commensurately higher than a cased weapon, though still no where near as great as that of a Superposed load gun. The firing mechanism is also somewhat more complex than most other weapons. The rate of fire allows multiple round bursts to be used before the recoil impulse is felt, allowing the weapon to be accurate even with controlled automatic fire. This, in combination with the lack of clean up, makes them a favorite for covert operations.

Pistols, SMGs, Assault Rifles, Machine Guns, Shotguns

Cased Weapons- More or less any conventional modern firearm. A firing pin strikes a percussion cap in a metal cartridge, igniting the encased powder and propelling a bullet out of the barrel. Even though this is the closest there is to modern firearms in terms of function the cased ammunition is still comparatively exotic, often using telescoping or polymer cases rather than the conventional brass.

(In addition to most actual modern weapons) Rotary Shotguns, Rotary Cannons, Auto Cannons, Shotgun Pistols

Other Stuff- Anything that doesn't fit above.

Flamethrowers (compressed gas & jellied fuel), Sound Based Riot Guns, Automatic Hypo-Dart Gun, LoSAT/LoSAA Missiles (Line of Sight Anti-Tank/Air Missiles)

Vehicles and Travel

Land

Land travel ACE takes many forms. Much of the transportation a Delver team might be able to lay hands on is similar to what can be found in earlier ages. Solar powered trucks and off road jeeps are a favorite of some teams, both for their terrain handling and reliability. In some urban areas automated cabs are still in operation, sitting on the curb waiting for passengers that never come. Big aggressive motorcycles and sports cars are of course still present, although the more utilitarian settlers sneer at them. For the stealthy types, ultra light collapsible bicycles equipped with piezoelectric cells allow for powered cruising or silent pedaling along the streets. A recent invention is the so called Signal Truck, a semi truck is armored up and filled with communications equipment and whatever other handy gear is available, allowing a Delver Team with the resources to maintain it a forward command and control center.

More exotic forms of locomotion do exist. Along the east coast of the United States, much of Europe and in Japan city wide lev roads were created, allowing anyone with a properly equipped vehicle a swift and bump free ride. The extension of this technology is the enormous resource hauling lev train lines that crisscross Incorporated Territories. The hustle and bustle of Oasis in South Africa or the dead silent train yards of Novaya Sibir are two hubs for such travel, although the former is understandably more popular than the latter.

The most iconic way to move ACE is via legged transport. In the early years of corporate reign a German engineering firm joined forces with an American military concern and a Japanese synthetic materials and robotics lab. The powerhouse conglomerate became known as Armacor, and the invention that catapulted them to the forefront of defense contracting was the legged tank. Advances in fine control robotics and the ability to synthesize near frictionless materials allowed for the production of very quick and immensely powerful servos. Biological engineering allowed the growth of a combination of Kevlar and muscle fiber that could be molded and woven into a variety of useful shapes. Combining their own advances with new technologies involving uploaded consciousness and man/machine interfaces Armacor created a way to make large armored vehicles useful in urban warfare. Their legged tanks could scale rubble and change direction with incredible speed for something their size. Soon other corps got hold of the technology and whole families of legged vehicles came into being.

While Armacor’s first efforts were hugely powerful tanks that could easily go toe to toe with modern MBTs and come out on top, other companies filled various niches with the new vehicles. Personnel carriers that could navigate any terrain, smaller attack vehicles equipped with nanotube pitons for assaulting mountains and skyscrapers with equal ease. The powerful servos and synthetic musculature were combined with new types of ceramic armors and solar cells to create prolonged operation power armors. Infantry scale protection advanced by leaps and bounds.

Air

Like land transit the traditional methods of air travel are still around, acquiring everything from a Cessna to an old milsurp Mi-24 Hind to even a 747 can be accomplished if one looks hard enough. In terms of new technology, however, air travel has evolved in several major sectors. The most obvious to anyone living ACE is the prevalence of nimble, high speed VTOL aircraft as a means of transportation. The advances in materials sciences and production that were made due to the introduction of nanofabriction allowed the creation of lighter, more powerful and all together much more efficient aircraft of all stripes. VTOLs benefited from strong, but lightweight airframes, and advances like the shrouded rotor that turned via the use of linear motors rather than a traditional turbojet engine, lowering heat and noise signatures to negligible levels. Coupled with advanced computers and some of the same servo/synthetic muscle architecture that made legged vehicles possible it became much easier for these vehicles to safely switch between vertical and horizontal flight configurations rapidly and remain stable. This allowed for the creation of cargo and troop transports larger than anything that could pull into a hover in previous eras of engineering. Additionally, Close Air Support aircraft became a terror to behold. Quick, almost unnaturally agile, heavily armored and armed to the teeth, these craft could sit on station for hours, gliding on collapsible wings made from memory material and thin carbon tube spines. They could descend without warning, gliding in on an attack vector, retracting their wings and pulling out of a dive into a hover in moments, the only announcement of their arrival being rotor wash, rocket exhaust plumes and cannon fire.

While VTOL craft gained prevalence as the chief means of transport and aerial combat, more "traditional" airframes maintained a niche in the areas of heavy transport, high speed travel and air superiority. Heavy fixed wing transports served to lift goods that needed speed or flexibility that sea or rail transport could not provide. Private supersonic aircraft gained some ground, along with novelties like low orbit "puddle jumpers" that could provide around the world service in a couple of hours. Both cargo and personal transport were typically handled by drones; the most radical advancements took place in the military sector. The invention of CSC technology meant that the capabilities of an aircraft were no longer restricted by the physical limits of the pilot. Only the airframes intrinsic ability to survive high speed maneuvering held them back. Soon craft capable of cruising at hypersonic speeds became the norm, streaking across the sky using scramjets and aerospike boosters. The difficulty of maneuvering at such extreme speeds using current control surfaces was countered by a comeback of variable geometry technology, aided by the same advances that had made improved VTOL flight possible. Vectored thrust and large numbers of articulated control surfaces allowed craft the size of a school bus to flight through the sky like a mach 5 humming bird. Individually these craft represented a great investment of resources, and their defensive measures reflected that. radar deflection was of course a must, as was a refractive coating that made the craft difficult to lase properly. Decoy drones and nanochaff designed to play hell with nearly any tracking method imaginable were also common features. With armament ranging from cruise missiles and small diameter bombs to scramjet AA missiles and railcannons the most powerful attack aircraft of the end days of the Common era were by many metrics the most powerful military machines in existence.

The final and most radical permutations were individual flight capability and the reemergence of such novelties as the Vacuum Envelope. Short range individual flight could be attained by a number of means. While such ostentatious methods as biomodding for massive bird or bat wings were not unheard of those lay more in the realm of fashion statement than practical method of mobility. Far more common were collapsible ultralight craft that could be broken down and folded into something the size of an overlarge golf caddy, allowing leisurely touring or covert egress at a moments notice. The most advanced form of that technology was actually developed after the Fall, originating from the heights of South Africa's Spire settlement. A combination of a dedicated VI, a very small monotask maker and a few muscle/servo motors allowed for the creation of a set of the same glider wings used by some VTOL craft, but in a package the size of a small hardened backpack. On their own these flight packs allowed up to 300 pounds to drift gracefully through the air, coupled with miniaturized LMR nacels a person with such a rig could attain actual flight. The Vacuum Envelope, on the other hand, is with one notable exception very much a novelty. Maintaining a vacuum within a large envelope was a technology only made possible through the use of carbon nanotube construction, and then at no small cost. The blimps and zeppelins that could be created with this technology exhibited buoyancy greater than that which any normal lighter than air craft could provide, but they were simply not cost effective as anything more than a toy of the idle rich. Such things as aerial yachts or zeppelin cruises did exist, but in limited numbers. The greatest achievement of the technology would only become widely known after the Fall. Armacor had experimented extensively with the idea, and the penultimate result of their research was a prototype airborne aircraft carrier known as "The Hive". Comprised of a massive network of vacuum envelopes and huge LMR nacels The Hive is powered by solar surfaces as well as its own miniature fission reactor. Its intended purpose was to allow VTOL craft to have a roost that allowed them to refuel, rearm and repair, and could move along with them in an evolving battlefront. Shortly before the base commanding the flying structure disappeared in a flash of nuclear flame it was given a default patrol order, and now it floats lazily over northern Europe on a constant circuit. A number of mercenary VTOLs have taken up residence in its hangars, using it as a raiding base. Assaulting it directly has proved extremely difficult, not only due to the mercs residing upon it, but the automated point defense turrets and missiles, as well as an experimental magnetic effector that purportedly is capable of actually bending the trajectory of railgun projectiles. In light of that and the tendency of the resident mercs to pillage most anything in the immediate area surrounding the slow moving station the standard policy has simply become one of avoidance. The station moves in predictable patterns, and just moving away from it is the easiest method of preventing danger. However, after 25 years of nomadic lifestyle many are beginning to favor some sort of attack, tired of picking up stakes as soon as the Hive comes to call.

Mercs

"Merc" is the blanket term used to refer to the most elite, most heavily modified, and often most brutal soldiers the corporations had at their command. The name is derivative of the fact that many of these corporations had Private Military Companies on the payroll for security, or even as wholly owned subsidiaries. As advances in warfare and the way it was fought continued to blossom, the sacrifices that militaries asked of their best men became ever more extreme. The extensive body modification now common after the Fall was pioneered amongst the armed forces of the world first. Extensive research into prosthetics yielded replacement limbs and even organs indistinguishable from their original counterparts, or even with improved capabilities. The most extensive modifications naturally found their way to those with need of them in an operational capacity. Special forces who could look into the infrared spectrum at will, mountain troops with enhanced endurance and EOD technicians with blast resistant endoskeletons.

Northrop Grumman were the first, however, to successfully implement the most extreme modification available in terms of cybernetic and biological modification. An Illium-Russo Conglomerate fighter ace was badly injured in a simple car accident, to the extent that not even the most advanced cybernetic augmentation could save her. Under dubious circumstances she was transported to an American medical facility. There her brain, brain stem and a few inches of healthy spine were sustained in a specially designed cask. The system allowed the pilot to control the entire airframe with her mind, changing course and lining up targets at the speed of thought while being able to pull incredible maneuvers without fear of blacking out, the only restriction on agility being the strength of the airframe.

The Cerebral Suspension Cask (or as it is or commonly known the "Brain-in-a-jar" or "Headcase") was a breakthrough of such magnitude that it, and its descendant Upload technology, warrant their own discussion. Suffice to say the military applications were incredible. Experienced troops could come back from nearly any injury, could download their memories for use in the training of other personnel, and had more command of their given chassis than any unmodified pilot. Vehicles were designed with the capability of CSC pilots in mind, leading to a great increase in the power and complexity of land and air vehicles. The process and its results were proven most publicly in a famous incident during the NATO wargames, when that same Illium Pilot, flying a never before seen variable geometry, linear aerospike propelled stealth aircraft disabled fourteen veteran (but unmodified) pilots in conventional fighters in less than five minutes in a "cannons only" dogfight.

As corporate control strengthened, the corporate mercenaries at their command made more and more use of what would become their signature modification. Pure human piloted military vehicles became alternately rarities or relics. Even non-CSC pilots used extensive uplinks to their cortical stacks to achieve the same effectiveness, and they were not preferred, their bodies took up space that might be used for armor and ammunition after all. Even the infantry began to change in major ways, bodies specialized for their given rules to such extreme degrees that they were barely recognizable as human. Armacor made famous through a television series their Paladin assault teams, 9 foot tall power armored knights fighting crime, saving hostages and shooting away to the rooftops on high powered grapple lines. The truth of the late night abductions or the messy espionage raids would only become known later. Illium went the biological route, turning the various Russian special forces into purposefully terrifying genetic hybrids. MVD trackers armed with dog noses and bat ears could hunt by a number of unlikely means, while genetically bulked hulks could tear a normal man limb from limb with ease. The Spetsnaz, ever in love with the capability for a surprise attack, even took to a number of non-standard modifications like venom injecting fangs or claws, or skin that could excrete slippery or acidic coatings.

Regardless of their shape or size, "Merc" became the term that referred to these extremely modified corporate troops. Those that remain active, still under the sway of corporate hard coding and brainwashing or simply possessed of a bloodthirsty attitude, are the most dangerous threat to physical survival that any Delver is likely to face. Conversely, those that have overcome their training and wish to assist in hauling humanity from the ashes can be an incredibly powerful ally.

Mercs After the Fall

During the fall the central command structure of the mercs collapsed nearly instantly which prevented them from organizing an credible resistance. By the time a provisional chain of command was re-established it was already too late: the corporations had lost, they just refused to admit it. Before the collapse of the last holdout of organized corporate resistance, many surviving mercs were given a standing order to destroy any rebels encountered. Now after nearly two decades after the fall very few still follow that directive, as most of them have realized that the new world order is here to stay and there is nothing they can do about it anymore.

Soon after the fall the scattered merc units began to re-organize, and at first the last order of their now mostly dead corporate masters were a natural thing to follow as the new settlements were poorly defended and raiding was very rewarding. But soon thing began to change the settlements began to have better fixed defenses and more trained militia. Sensing the change in the winds there were increasing amount of mercs that hired their services to defend the settlements. Things took an turn for even worse for the mercs with the appearance of delvers, the delvers competed for the same salvage and spare parts as the mercs. While the delvers weren't as well equipped or experienced as the mercs, their greater numbers began to wear down them down. The last nail to the mercs coffin was the organized an common defense for settlements and first after-fall cities, based around fast VTOL transports that could rapidly deploy reinforcement to any settlements under attack.

These days an slight majority of the mercs are either hiring themselves to the settlements for maintenance or equipment or are part of delving teams. In any cyborg city like The Junkyard or similar you can guarantee that in the bar there is an old, beat-up hardshell merc going on about the "good old days" to anyone who will listen. They tell stories about their pre-fall exploits under the corporations and stories about vast, invincible, unstoppable, burning and pillaging hordes of state-of-the-art killing machines. Those honest-to-flying spaghetti monster raider mercs that refuse to trade or barter are an dying breed, but while no means rare they are slowly being wiped out by delvers or simply by the lack of salvageable spare parts.

Biomercs

When the corps ruled Mercs were, as now, the greatest fear of the common citizen. Massive vehicles and and armors that prowled the streets and leveled homes on a whim. There were, however, a more secretive kind of hired muscle employed and engineered by the corporations; Biomercs.

Designed and deployed for missions where a 126 ton thinktank just wasn't the right tool for the job, Biomercs were the Corp's hitmen and assassins. Rigged with the latest and best biomods and cybernetic parts most Biomercs would never pass as human. Animal limbs and organs along with weaponized appendages created perfect snipers and close range massacre artists. They specialized in pin point precision and high speed attacks.

Perhaps even more frightening were the covert operatives. Externally a normal human, and internally shielded so that cursory scans will turn up nothing amiss, covert biomercs were the ultimate tools of deadly infiltration.

Nowadays Biomercs are becoming less and less common. They were by their nature on the bleeding edge of genetic modification, and needed constant monitoring and medical assistance when not in the field. Most died or went insane after the fall from simple withdrawal symptoms. Those that managed to survive by finding caches of medical equipment are loathe to move far from their lairs except to fulfill their encoded desire for the hunt. The Coverts, to, are a dying breed. A good deal of them went active as soon as the Corps started to lose control and were killed in the ensuing violence. Most Communities are diligent enough to catch any trying to sneak in, and some will even allow in "reformed" coverts who have gotten over their old genetic imperatives and memetic commands.

Short Stories

• The Afganistan Expedition

Now Working on this.