Combat Report: Winter 1964We did in fact get raided by the B.E.O.; absolutely no warning to any of our staff, and they made themselves quite at home taking and destroying select documents. So we don't know much about what exactly they take or did. However, we do think we know
why they conducted the raid, thanks to some internal investigation of our own days before the B.E.O. arrived.
Andre Morth, the
formerly mildly-insane Astral researcher who discovered Wadjet Branding, disappeared. Most likely on his own terms. He was working on unknown Astral research prior to his disappearance. His own covering up was pretty thorough, but we managed to recover some signs of what he was researching. Lucky for us we did this before the raid, as double-checking confirms the original sources to be taken or destroyed. In fact, everything related to Andre Morth is taken or destroyed. We just know from our own investigation that whatever he was doing, it was seemingly looking into the connection between death and the Astral.
The timing of his disappearance is no coincidence; he must have been tipped off about the raid. Maybe. We don't actually know. We know a lot, but the B.E.O. likes keeping us as well as everyone in the dark. We'll have to figure out this one for our own, if we even want to know.
IntrigueGather samples of any flora and fauna in the new Mountains as well as geological samples for continued investigation. What can we learn from this stuff? Can we figure out where it came from? Or when?
We've sorted the flora and fauna from the new Mountains into three categories:
1.) Native. Stuff that existed in the Mountains before, and should be there.
2.) Not native. Flora and Fauna that is recognizable and known, but has not ever been in the Mountains before the Tear and should not be in the mountains.
3.) Strange. Flora and Fauna that's just... off.
Geological investigation has shown a much more uniform consistency in the minerals than one could expect in mountains or any kind of geographical feature. It's odd enough to be well outside the bounds of just being a coincidence. A mountain with consistency this uniform is next to impossible to occur naturally.
But back to the mountain life. Humans are nonexistent, of course. There are no known survivors that were inside the Tear. We don't think any life that was in the Tear actually made it out, in fact. But rather, everything we see is completely new, created during or after the Tear. Most of the life here is native. It's what you'd expect. Moving on.
The non native life is perplexing. We consulted some people more experienced with botany for flora, and other similar fields. Most of the life does actually exist in mountains. Just not our Mountain range. The exact climate there doesn't fit the non-native life usually, hence the wilting plants and similar events.
Finally, the "strange" stuff. Technically, none of it is alive. Maybe at least still alive. Plants -- no animals -- that defy natural laws and convention. Lots of the plants in this category look like a frankenstein of other types of plants, usually from the prior two categories. None of the stuff we sampled is alive. We theorize that at least some of the plants
were alive immediately after the Tear, but quickly died as they couldn't rationally live in the first place.
It's all interesting stuff. Strangely enough, by coincidence we matched some of our research with the recovered research done by Andre Morth pre-disappearance. And it's similar. Morth was researching the new Mountains as well in his time at the Black Chamber.
1 Research Credit
Transport Capacity: 2/3 (2/2 Oil Imported)
Space Transport Capacity: 0/0 (Nothing Imported)
(Aratamite STC is the sum of its designs' STCs, multiplied by two thanks to the ANGEL Project.)Resources: 3 Ore,
4 Oil,
2 Rare ChemicalsMoon Region Rating: 0
Moon Resources: Nothing
(Succesfully imported Moon Resources are included in "Resources" as well)Weapons- HMKR-59 'Osprey': Hybrid Magnetic Kinetic Rifle; a variant of the Pursuit rifle that houses coilgun components to increase the velocity of bullets after conventional firing. Has a slot in the back for a single SynthOil battery, which has enough charge for 10 powered shots (soldiers carry 2 batteries total). Powered shots are accurate to Medium range (unpowered shots to Short range) and have increased lethality and armor piercing capabilities.
[Cheap] 1 Ore, 1 Oil - Tesla Rifle: A "rifle" that fires bolts of ARC lightning at Medium range. Using an inner "Lightning Rod" chamber, it gradually charges from a backpack SynthOil battery - it has four levels of charge, with Level 3 being the optimum Medium range + good lethality and Level 4 being overkill with a chance of explosive backfiring. It takes about 40s to charge to Level 3 (charging can be paused but the charge decays slightly over time), and the battery has enough juice for 5 Lvl3 shots. Extremely lethal against anything conductive, and has a modest area-of-effect as the electricity arcs to other conductors in close proximity. Can be hooked up to external SynthOil batteries as well. Soldiers pre-charge to Level 3 when aware of hostile situations, but are still vulnerable to ambushes.
[Cheap] 2 Ore, 2 Oil - "Chelsea" SMILE: Single-use rocket launcher with Red Skies incendiary (useful v. COMBAT armor) or Tesla (useful with area of effect and v. electronics) payloads. Effective to long-range (still useful but unreliable beyond), and has a flip-out glass targeting visor with a crosshair predicting impact site based on wind and fall.
[Cheap] 1 Ore, 3 Oil - "Storm" GMRL-ECP-61S: A 250lb active radar homing missile with a 6km range and 5m effective blast radius. Fired from 4-rail trucks (with radar) and aircraft mounts. It has a poor resolution, greatly decreasing the reliability of locking onto non-huge aerial targets and making locking onto surface targets next-to-impossible, though large ships prove easy targets. Equipped with an HE or ARC warhead, with the ARC warhead using a chain SynthOil reaction to generate arcing electricity frying electronics and melting metal as it jumps from conductor to conductor.
[Cheap] 3 Ore, 4 Oil
- ION-Storm: Variant with a second stage, improved tracking, reduced payload, and it's only able to be launched from a truck. Designed to intercept Merethan air(space?)craft re-entering the atmosphere.
Expensive] 3 Ore, 5 Oil
- "Red Skies" Multiple Missile Launcher: A 300 lb version of the Storm missile using Inertial guidance and adapted entirely for surface-to-surface use. Has a SynthOil-based incendiary payload that's capable of effectively burning through armor, but is less immediately destructive. Has a range of 15 km. Its guidance allows it to easily and effectively target any ground point, but it can't change course mid-flight and can't actively track any targets; its effectiveness in accuracy mostly is based on what intelligence the operator has when firing. Intended for use as surface-to-surface artillery.
[Cheap] 3 Ore, 4 Oil
Land Vehicles- M3T1A1 Raider: The Raider is a Diesel-Electric tracked APC designed to serve as a base platform for many roles. It has light RHA armor with a sloped front, plus slats. It holds ten passengers and three crew. It has an interchangeable turret, which is very wide and flat with medium armor. Default armament is a Can shredder, plus 6 external Thumper barrels for smoke grenades and an RPG, these can only be reloaded from the outside. It's also chemical warfare protected, and amphibious, with a trim vane and two electric powered propellers. Exits are on large rear hatch and one small top hatch, only latter can be used while afloat.
[Cheap] 3 Ore 2 Oil - Privateer 1 1/2 Ton Truck: An antique Cannalan truck somehow still being used for cargo transport.
[Cheap] 2 Ore, 2 Oil, Provides 1 TC - "Glaive"-Electromagnetic Coil Cannon Battletank ECCB-72: A large silent tank armed with a 120mm coilgun and a Reactor-charged coaxial-mounted Tesla Rifle (capable of firing a steady stream of L1/L2 shots). Has a respectable speed for its size, and the Coilgun turret is powered but manually aimed. Powered by a GMBP Reactor, allowing for unlimited movement and power for Coilgun shots, making the only main logistical concerns for the tank being Coilgun ammunition and crew supplies.
[Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil - "Ettin" Electric-Motor Flak Tank EMFT-61-B: A "tank" where the turret is an unarmored cage on top of the squat chassis where the gunner sits; two self-loading automatic cannons fire automatically in consecutive fashion flak shells to shoot down aircraft and infantry. The turret can be angled downwards effectively to shoot at infantry; limited ammo supply means the gunner has to be somewhat conservative with his firing patterns and can't just fill the sky with flak. Electric computer & radar guidance overlays a digital crosshair on a small sheet of "glass" in front of the gunner that is overlaid on top of the physical crosshair to maximize accuracy, allowing for decent accuracy as long as the aircraft isn't too fast or evasive. The commander and driver reside in the cramped interior and exit/enter largely via a door to the side, with the front of the tank being heavily angled downward for firing angle reasons. The turret is armored, but has poor visibility. Can travel for 10 hours on a full SynthOil battery, and the gun doesn't require power to operate.
[Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil
Spacecraft- Slug-Throwing Orbital Platform (STOP): A small "spacecraft" with an extremely cramped 2-crew compartment, 24 hour life support, and a reactor with enough fuel to keep it running for a week. Tiny plasma thrusters dot the platform for great turning and very slow movement. Small radio allows contact with ANGEL Complex, small radar allows detection of nearby enemies and display of their blips on the HUD. Gunner controls turning and targets enemies via just the canopy/HUD, their sight, and radar blips. Controller manages moving and maintaining systems. Large gauss cananon lining underside (30 seconds to load in a new shell, 20 seconds to charge to max once a shell is loaded) can fire up to 10 shells at enemies, with extreme damage at 100% charge and exponentially less but still very good damage at 50% charge. Each 100%-charged shot takes about 9% of SynthOil fuel, leaving a STOP that fired 10 100%-charged shots with only a few hours of operation. Crew compartment and life support can be explosively detached, where crew enter stasis to slow breathing (surviving for about a month on a full tank of oxygen), a beacon starts pinging for retrieval, and solar panels just barely power life support + beacon. Can be easily brought to geostationary orbit on board ANGEL shuttle.
[Cheap] 3 Ore, 2 Oil
Air Vehicles- 'Lantern' A-7 Armored Jet: A large jet built with metal-recombinated materials, giving it good structural integrity and relatively good durability. Massive amounts of recombinated armor are present all across the aircraft. Direct hits by Shrike missiles can be survived with only moderate damage, and air-bursts/lasers are much less effective. An integrated Gel-Matrix Bio-Paste Reactor is used to power electrical systems and SynthOil tanks are used to fuel both the reactor and the combustion Ramjets. The heavy weight of the armor give the Lantern a great speed but not quite matching Mereth's Blizzard jet craft. Different systems provide the Torch with great relative agility, but only SEEM Operatives are capable of properly operating the complex controls in the airplane (though their enhanced abilities are a huge boon with speed and agility). 2 always-powered Ospreys are mounted on the front, with no other weapon capacity.
[Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil (Expense can only be as low as current SEEM expense) - 'Meteor' Air Frigate: A gigantic flying vessel, more akin to a boat than any traditional aircraft. Foregoing aerodynamics, it's propelled by 6 (4 on bottom, 2 on back) thrust-vectoring plasma GM-BP Thrusters (based on expelling plasma generated by the GM-BP process seen in Reactors for large thrust) that also produce its power. It can move quickly and isn't too sluggish, being able to easily outpace any kind of ground force yet being much slower than Merethan aircraft. Four Tesla cannon turrets -- 3 on top, 1 on bottom -- with greater range and rate of fire to their counter parts powered by the Meteor's capacitors provide an excellent anti-air screen, being able to fire once per few seconds and being able to intercept missiles and bombs when operated by SEEMs. A coilcannon array on the bottom largely mechanized allows for slow yet respectfully-paced terrific bombarding of ground targets, with mediocre targeting. A full radar suite and command center/bridge inside the hull give excellent battlefield intelligence and this information is distributed via radio to nearby forces, and to turrets on the frigate. Very heavily armored and able to resist constant Shrike bombardment for a relatively long time, yet limited internal space forces any non-essential for short-term operation facilities outside on the hull where they're more akin to fancy camps, providing a convenient target to greatly decrease combat effectiveness of everything but minimal radar operation and Coilcannon operation. Constant firing of more than one Tesla turret fairly quickly drains capacitors, quintupling tesla charge times. Thrust vectoring allows the Meteor to stay in the air with multiple missing thrusters. An internal bridge serves as an excellent mobile field command center.
[National Effort] [8 Ore], [7 Oil]
Navy- Corsair Destroyer: The Corsair is a moderate sized ship with light (for a ship) steel hull armor. It has a light cannon armament of two hydraulic-equipped Nightwind cannons and four Can Shredders. However, its main armament is its Shark Torpedo launchers (it has a couple on each side) and newly-invented Seahorse mines, which use the same warheads as Shark torpedoes but rest on the sea surface, detonating on cpntact with ships. It is powered by steam turbines and easily outpaces battleships like the Kalmar, Kraken and Kurokami.
[Expensive] 4 Ore, 3 Oil - Santos-Class Naval Aircraft Support Vessel: The Santos is a large aircraft carrier. It is about the size of the Khorne but not armored. It's powered by four oil-burning steam turbines. The hangar deck stores two dozen fighters, moved to the flight deck by a hydraulic lift. On deck is an Eagle Eye Radar system, con tower, a few Firecracker AA guns and a miscellaneous autocannons wherever there's spare room. It also has a decent sized flight deck, with an arrester cable for landing aircraft, and two overlapping runways with room for ready aircraft on deck. [5 Ore, 4 Oil]
[Expensive] 5 Ore, 4 Oil - SLS-61 Magpie: A basic landing ship with a bow able to open up with a ramp to allow vehicles and troops onto the shore, and has extremely basic treads to de-beach itself. Has Thin armor and a few mounts for infantry rifles on the top to provide basic covering fire. Powered by Gen 1 SynthOil engines, which requires it to use the majority of its cargo space to hold enough SynthOil to make it across the sea without running out of fuel. Normally has a modest capacity for soldiers (and capable of holding a few moderate-sized vehicles), but the fuel requirement limits it to only a small amount of soldiers and/or perhaps one tank at best.
[Cheap] 3 Ore, 3 Oil - Atlas-class Cargo Ship: A Santos-class with the weaponry and aircraft equipment and just about everything else stripped off. Utilizes SynthOil batteries for general powering of ship, though oil-burning steam turbines from the Santos still power most of it. Uses a system derived from Cryostats to cryogenically freeze perishable cargo as well as people for maximum storage efficiency.
Provides 2 TC
Chemicals & Drugs- Spice: An extremely potent manufactured drug resulting in extreme schizophrenia, delusions of power, frequent seizures, and eventually death. Extremely addictive. Those who undergo the week-long "Goldeneye" treatment in a CryoStat tank become accustomed (and permanently addicted) to low dosages of Spice, enabling very high awareness of surroundings and mildly increased reaction and thinking speeds when under the influence of the drug.
[Expensive] 5 Rare Chemicals.
- SEEM: Systemic Elimination of the Entropic Mind. An extremely intensive and long procedure where top-ranked veterans are subjected to week-long bouts of sensory deprivation in CryoStat tanks, and have their mind essentially transformed into a new form via the combined use of modified Metal Recombinators and Spice. Experienced SEEM Guides facilitate this Journey across the barrier into the Astral Realm. For now, this allows survivors of the treatment to exhibit extreme (much higher than Goldeneyes) awareness of surroundings, visible or not. This awareness manifests itself in many ways, from avoiding traps/bombardments to knowing where to shoot at to knowing when one's being shot at, and more.
[Expensive] 5 Rare Chemicals,
- Combat Drug 'Fury': A Spice-based drug that massively decreases reaction time, and lasts for ~2 hours. Also incites rage, decreasing soldier effectiveness at range and chances of occasional friendly fire. Mild hallucinations are common, preventing users from being effective at recon/espionage/etc. roles. Makes veins much more apparent and red. Addictive, and takes effect >5 minutes after injection.
[Expensive] 3 Rare Chemicals - Metal Recombinators: A special mixture that separates pure metal from ore, obsoleting a large part of Aratam's refining industry. A variant can also be used to fuse metal with (likely) any other matter.
Provides 1 Ore.
Astral- BioForged Guardians: Recruited as children or younger teenagers, these candidates are subjected to long and incremental SEEM/light organic recombination treatments in addition to intensive training. Gradual welcoming of their mind to the Astral along with minor recombination enhancement of the brain allows for greater Astral abilities and full awareness of the Astral, along with conscious control of many brain functions. Superior memory and much stronger/tougher/quick-healing than even Military Baseline. They are consciously aware of events about to happen in the near-immediate future, and have "insane" reaction times in addition to greater smarts. Generally better than SEEMs in every way. Can shunt their awareness to the Astral realm, where they can perform mental combat with others and sense the consciousness of other humans a notable distance away.
[Very Expensive] 1 Ore, 6 Rare Chemicals, Complex - Blackwell Technique: Through channeling Astral Energy into a specific area, an Astral-trained operative can create a reflection of the Astral Realm coded for the astral connection of one specific person (targeted via line of sight or accurate recreation). This person will suffer severe symptoms ranging from death to severe brain damage to memory loss to seizures to full-blown hallucinations to extreme paranoia and more. But permanent affects are rare for those without long exposure times. Non-targeted and non-Astral-trained individuals will suffer milder, all-short-term symptoms only when looking at the Reflection. Looking at a recreation (i.e. television screen) of the Reflection will only affect people who've already seen that exact Reflection, recreating their prior symptoms.
All Astral-trained operatives can invoke this. But it requires intense concentration and 10 seconds to create the reflection, and continued intense concentration to maintain the reflection. - Wadjet Branding: Tactile symbols of the Eye of Horus printed on the exterior of the hands in uniforms for our Astral-enhanced individuals. For some currently unknown reason, focusing on this symbol notably improves Astral effectiveness and safety for the focusing individual. Useful for newbies to practice Astral techniques by feeling the symbol in different ways through extravagant hand motions, apparently.
Other- R.A./M.P. Suit: A metal/ceramic/rubber recombinated suit of armor with heating/cooling capabilities and a quick-inject system where any single one of 6 vials stored in a back compartment can be instantly injected w/ instant effects by a series of buttons on the wrist. Contains a default adrenaline mix, but vials can be filled with FURY, SEEM, or other drugs. A particle filter and visor (w/ internal red lighting) covered by a recombinated hood sit on the head, and a jacket covers the rest of the suit for appearance/morale sake. Light, yet surprisingly durable: survival rates of soldiers are increased greatly across the board, with soldiers oftentimes being able to shrug off light-caliber shots from Merethan rifles. Looks like this, but with a slightly-red-glowing visor instead.
[Cheap] 2 Ore
- R.A./M.P. Space Suit: Variant of the RA/MP suit that is very bulky and cumbersome, but lets the occupant survive for an hour in a vacuum before suffocating/suffering drug withdrawal.
- CryoStat Tank: A large three-meter tall "coffin" with a small glass vertical slit inside showing a tank. A single "set" of machinery required for operation, taking up ~36 square meters of space total, can manage roughly a dozen CryoStat tanks at a time. Basic automation assists technicians, allowing for a single technician to manage many CryoStat tanks. Subjects are put into "stasis" via a numbing solution they're submersed in, and medical drugs in the solution naturally infuse into the bloodstream through the skin. Once taken out. Use is tracked through a computer-assisted bureaucracy dubbed the "CryoState". A day stabilizes minor life-threatening wounds, and a week stabilizes near all wounds. A month starts completely healing scars and generally brings up health status to pristine, and a year can restore lost limbs. Also used for life-extending "rejuvenation" processes by important people.
[Cheap] 2 Rare Chemicals - SynthOil: SMRO-58 "SynthOil" is an advanced form of oil - it's made using a combination of oil and other chemicals, making a much more stable and energy-dense solution. Has a peculiar property - with the right tools, it can directly produce electricity.
Provides 1 Oil - Gel-Matrix Bio-Paste Reactor: A 1m-radius spherical "nuclear-ish" reactor that uses gamma radiation to break down SynthOil into electrical energy. Rather efficient and good at making energy, especially compared with anything else in the world comparable in size/expense, but hard to miniaturize and has a notable radiation poisoning issue with anyone spending a notable amount of time in proximity.
- Stormcaller Circle: A shift-based group of the top SEEMs in Aratam, "bonded" with tendrils of Tesla energy embedded throughout the atmosphere surrounding the continent. They can use their tremendous amounts of Astral energy at store to manipulate these tendrils and thus weather. Every season, the Bureau may vote on a single theatre and single weather phenomenon to invoke there. Our troops will be prepared (with the equipment that they already have, that is) ahead of time, but we can't micromanage the phenomenon to further aid our troops.
Infrastructure- The Refinery: An extremely secretive facility hidden under the canopy in a remote part of the rainforest, identifiable only by its smoke. Contains large liquid storage tanks and refineries for the production of chemicals, well-equipped laboratories, cells for test subjects, a steady supply of test subjects from Aratam's prisoners, and more. Useful as a base for chemical research.
Provides 1 Rare Chemical - The Militarized Baseline: Our soldiers are enhanced above regular humans (in notable, but not major ways) in many categories; namely strength, reflexes, and intelligence. All soldiers now have implanted ports for quick drug infusion, and a logistical structure is in place to facilitate the drug infusion and treatments of the entire Aratamite military.
- The Black Chamber: A giant facility built beneath the Refinery full of specially-modified CryoStat tanks, training areas, niche laboratories, and subjects attempting to reach the world beyond ours: the Astral Realm.
- Embassy "The Brewery": An embassy for Cannalan diplomats that doubles as a highly advanced brewery of Aratam's signature drink, Arachaca. The Cannalans can see the brewing process below through their glass flooring and taps straight form the brewery are available for Arachaca straight from the source. Uses basic electronic systems for very limited automation in conjunction with its general advanced brewing systems.
Wonder- ANGEL Project: A space elevator, comprised of the Complex, Shuttle, and Station. The Complex is a huge facility anchored to the sea floor north of Aratam's coast, and holds a large number of docks and warehouses. Training facilities. Orbital command center. Logistics centers. Worker residences. Security posts. "Mini" embassies for other nations to coordinate their usage of it. And more. Three massive struts going up 100km to the end of the atmosphere hold up electromagnetic-propelling rings to acccelerate a large shuttle hooked to four recombinated Graphene tethers to maximum safe speeds. It cruises from left-over speed to the Station.
The Shuttle has two decks -- a top deck with space for 30 comfortable people, and an unpressurized much taller bottom deck for cargo. Movement between decks is impossible without an external structure to maximize cargo space. The shuttle's top deck reaches the station, with the buttom deck having access to space.
The Station is one moderately-sized pressurized room in Geostationary orbit with primitive life support reliant on constant resupply, fitting a 24/7 rotated 4 crew and 6 other people (3 guaranteed to Aratam for research/tourism/development, 3 given to other nations).
International use of the ANGEL Project is authorized, though limited to non-military use and analyzed for security risks.
Doubles STC, Gives +1 STC to Mereth.
Can be used to easily send people, prefabs, supplies, materials, station parts, ships, ship parts, etc. etc. into Geostationary orbit. Can be used to improve R&D of space assets. Can assist construction of anything in space.
Both sides can use it for civilian/non-military use and R&D, but Aratam will know of Merethan activity if they do use the ANGEL Project in an action (after that action is processed). Only Aratam can use this for military purposes/R&D.
Author
Topic: Mad Arms Race - Aratam Design Bureau (Fall 1965 - Final Design Phase) (Read 60677 times)