Lycanus

year or two back....need to edit the link to my webpage in the descrip...that webpage is more or less obsolete

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPt665_1agA

I've been writing up some example organizations for the setting and decided to do an "upright" (mecha) military unit for the example US unit. But I don't want to just cobble together a structural model for this. I'll include the organizational write up I have so far after a brief summary of standard build philosophy for US military on uprights.

US military philosophy on uprights is to use them as quick response units that alternately support or are supported by infantry that can be deployed in quick fashion (helicopter cavalry, etc). They prefer to have a limited number of models that don't require too many different kinds of facilities to build and can be equipped for different tasks as appropriate. So weapons are usually external and "handheld", with some built in back-ups.

I know that they use battle uprights and scout uprights, but as said, they prefer to limit the number of models to a select few and try to get as much use out of each model as possible.

uprights are 12 to 15 feet tall...so think Zeus titans or Siege in size...Zeus titans might be about right for how clunky the 1960s uprights were...

********************

Establishment: January 3rd, 1961

Type: Military

Influence: US military

Racial Makeup: 100% humans



History:

The 6th US Army Upright Battalion began as an experimental volunteer unit envisioning the use of uprights as infantry support vehicles. The concept was already on the drawing board along with three other units when Burma began its Indian and South East Seas offensive in 1961. When the volunteer call went out for the new program, they found themselves with a large number of citizens from the Asian territories of Shandong and Okinawa. In the end, perhaps as much as forty percent of the new units were drawn from these two territories.

A rumor going around at the time was that the US and the CRCMP would be taking this opportunity to attack the northwestern territories of the Empire of Myanmar. Perhaps even making an effort to liberate those regions that had been under Burmese control for over a decade. However, this was proven false when the US and CRCMP instead only sent a fraction of its ground forces to support India. It was like someone had decided that the Four Pillars and Burma would have a quick sparring match to gauge their respective levels of power.

The earliest American uprights, the Boxers, were awkward and slow by modern standards, but were still more immediately mobile than existing armored vehicles as well as capable of getting in and out of a larger variety of terrain than existing vehicles. They weren’t able to carry as much firepower as the heaviest tanks of the era, but could match the guns of other armored vehicles and the lighter tanks. The decision to use them as infantry support was made based on these decisions.

The 6th began as a group of soldiers who their attached infantry units looked at rather doubtfully. The common ground pounders ended up calling them the “TS guys” in reference to a popular US comic book character at the time. Likewise, many people at the time were still doubtful of the Asian territories as embarrassing relics of a past imperialism that should have been shucked off already. Some even wondered if the citizens there could truly be considered American given they had different cultural norms and had only been in the union for a short time.

Initial experiments with the unit were promising, but limited and they began to enjoy a better reputation with those conventional units they worked with. The uprights were able to get into jungles that stymied tracked and wheeled vehicles and significantly harder to target for existing anti-armor weaponry. The result was an mobile attack force that could be used as a harassing flanking or herding force for the bulk of the infantry. They might have stayed a limited curiosity if it weren’t for the results of the Bihar Breakthrough in early 1962.

The Burmese had previously recalled their own uprights from battle and it was assumed that they had decided the machines weren’t useful enough to invest in. This was proven false when a large defensive force in the Indian state of Bihar was liberally picked apart by a smaller force of Burmese that made significant use of heavy tanks escorted by and supported by the previously recalled uprights, many of which had been refitted for specialized roles. The battle started the main push of Burmese forces until they occupied a much of eastern India.

The 6th began to see more extensive use as it became clear that Burma had started mass production of their upright designs. Political decisions left the allies fighting a defensive war for the most part, with offensives having to go through several stages to be approved. The plans for any proposed offensive went through so many civilian layers that various commanders were certain that any offensive planned was well known to the Burmese in advance it going into operation. Eventually, these limits were worked around when it came time to plan the defense of Rajasthan at the extreme western border of India.

Similar to what the Burmese themselves had done, the allied forces pulled back their own upright units and decided to take a risk by introducing another experimental tactic in addition: helicopter cavalry. Likewise, the new units were supplied with new advances in squad level anti-armor weaponry. Some thoughts were put into specializing the uprights of the allied forces as the Burmese had done, but for the most part, it was decided that a single all around design capable of being equipped for different circumstances was an overall better bet.

When the Burmese came to Rajasthan, expecting to sweep through then on down the rest of the peninsula south, they found the 6th along with fourteen other upright units from the allied countries. While it started in that one state, the conflict soon spread to the neighboring states growing into what is the now referred to as the Last Line, or the River of Steel and Blood. After three months, the Burmese forces began to pull back to Northeastern India and consolidating their hold on a third of the sub continent.

As the Burmese began to pull out, elements in the Indian populace and government began pushing for the Pillars to step out of affairs and leave it to them. The US similarly had a developing anti-war sentiment that was demanding an end to what they termed “imperial interference”. Likewise, the trade pipeline between the NAA and CRCMP had by this time been completely moved to other, less vulnerable countries and their own interest in the matter was becoming less.

While the fact that the allied forces stopped the Burmese advance from taking all of India is considered an overwhelming success, most military personnel of the time consider it a massive politically induced failure to put an end to Burma on the spot.

The very prominent activities of the 6th during the whole of the war led to them being something of an icon of heroism. Predominately their reputation existed in the Asian territories of Shandong and Okinawa, with some carry over into various Asian countries that participated. On mainland US, the accomplishments of all US military of the period was stained by the “imperialist” perception some radical civilian elements had of the entire affair. Several soldiers of the 6th ended up moving to Shandong and Okinawa even if they hadn’t been born there. While others continued in the military and a handful of the others simply seemed to vanish from public and official record.

In 1965, Okinawa territorial government used the local reputation of the 6th and their young legend to encourage a campaign that had the local citizens pushing to achieve official statehood. The main strength of the campaign was based on their growing position as a financial hub in partnership with Seoul and Tokyo since Hong Kong and other major Asian trading centers had long since been in Burmese hands, but the Heroes of the Last Line were a recognizable symbol for the local citizenry to relate to.

Okinawa succeeded in their application two years after the campaign started, in 1967. Shandong used similar tactics with the 6th, but did not succeed until 1981. Some people have stated that the US government was reluctant to confirm a full state right on the borders of Burma while others have suggested that the rural nature of the area made it less of a jewel needing securing than Okinawa.

While the US military did not officially participate in the Warsaw invasion of Afghanastan from 1973 to 1979, the 6th is rumored to have engaged in a handful of classified black ops operations against Warsaw uprights of the period. If this is true, they were limited to single squads rather than the full Battalion. US involvement in the situation was largely in terms of intelligence and information gathering through the CIA. Afghanastan’s primary source of military aid had come from the NAA, again because the Warsaw was now threatening the pipeline of trade that the NAA had with the CRCMP.

From 1979 onward, the 6th was involved piecemeal in small time conflicts here and there around the world, but continued to be the flagship unit in terms of upright development and tactical experimentation. Since its inception, it has continued to be considered by Shandong and Okinawa as “their” unit and a disproportionate number of Asian-States recruits continue to apply to be a part of either the 6th or one of the helicopter cavalry units they were largely associated with. The main US army discourages this and prefers to keep the active personnel of the unit from a widespread pool of volunteers.

They did not see full action again until late 2001 when US declared war on Czechoslovakia in retaliation for the attempt by agents of that country to set off a nuclear explosion in New York City. Some in NATO and Europe had assumed that after forty years that the original heroism of the 6th had to have faded, but failed to consider that, as had happened in 1961, a flood of enthusiastic volunteers packed the unit with the same sort of aggressive spirit that they had in the Burmese Aggression. Several young pilots of the 6th began to make a local legend for themselves.

The 6th has been in and out of rotation in Eastern Europe since before the German War and the Czech War merged into one conflict which has dragged on for ten years. They are currently pulled out of the action zone in the favor of a younger unit while they themselves are being equipped with and trained in the latest upright advances.



Structure:

<request suggestions and advice>



Relations:

A number of members of the original 6th moved on to join Avalon as a sort of unofficial liaison between the independent organization and the United States. As time moved on, this connection matured to the point that the command staff of the 6th is on the committee involved in dealing with Avalon’s research division and making decisions on directions for upright development. Some elements of the 6th who know more about the hidden powers in the world suspect that one or more of the other upright units in the US Army have a similar relationship to the Path of the Golden Dawn.

Other than that, the “TS Guys” remain a dual icon of American and Asian heroism in South and East Asia. The Japanese, CRCMP and Korean film industries tend to default to the 6th and associated infantry divisions when they want to show “good” American soldiers in contrast to “normal” American soldiers. Every film industry seems to operate under the belief that the 6th unit is more than 90% ethnic Asian and operating under some bizarre combination of whatever local warrior tradition there is with American individuality and initiative. Media originating in Shandong and Okinawa are usually more accurate, but they are generally overshadowed by the larger entertainment industries in the world.

The medical exams of the US military prevent the majority of non-humans and even many human psychics from enlisting, but units like the 6th exist as an unreachable goal for a large number of American non-humans. Faustians and Heralds alike are prevented by the rules Yomi and Nirvana have about interfering in mortal government and politics even though many of them are still essentially normal mortal humans who could get past the checks. As such, the 6th generally don't have many psychic encounters except with the occasional akira and those are rarely powerful enough to worry the pilot of an upright.

3rd edition solved a lot of the problems inherent in the system for ages (level limits, class choice limits, multiclassing limits, THAC0, convoluted saving throw system, etc). Unfortunately the way they did multiclassing brought in some severe problems of its own, mostly due to the infamous dead levels that would have people switching classes just to avoid that.

4e solved the multiclass issue and also solved some long term balance issues. The "it's a table top MMO" complaint always made me roll my eyes because....well...DUH...MMOs are basically direct descendants from tabletop RPG. They use the same basic mechanics and character advancement threories.

For other people the biggest complaint was "there's no rules for roleplay" which again has me shrugging since I've never believed roleplaying rules accomplish much, the roleplay is the responsibility of the player, not the game and D&D has always focused almost entirely on just the combat/physical action system and let the players determine the setting and social interaction.

Then there was "there are only 4 classes" or even "every class is the same", which is rather silly, looking within the various roles there were distinct differences between how different classes in the same role played. An easy one for me to point out was that paladin as a defender was better for a single powerful enemy than it was for a large group of enemies. Fighters, on the other hand, were generally the best for that large group of enemies and were almost as good at the single enemy tanking. The reason you'd take paladin was the inclusion of same ranged damage and healing abilities that the fighter lacked.

For me, my complaint was that it was very miniature dependent. Sure you could get by with a sheet of graph paper and some chits, but the powers were such that a simple thematic imagining of the area didn't feel like enough. I loved to play it when I only had to worry about my character and any summons they had, but running it was a headache when I had to deal with the other miniatures/placekeepers too.


However, the biggest problem D&D as a franchise has is that while it is still a strong franchise, it is no longer the only franchise.

HERO System, GURPS, BESM, Shadowrun, White Wolf and numerous independents like Fate systems have both brought new gamers into the genre and sapped some of D&D's audience. D&D is now looked at as a gateway game. It has more of a reputation for being mainstream among gamers and when I think of families playing, I think first of D&D and HERO system.

The main comment I hear when people are choosing not to play D&D is actually "we always play D&D let's play something else".

This is NOT a situation that D&D can fix by simply changing mechanics and setting around.

In fact, their frequent changes are starting to get them looked at as being unsatisfied and impatient with their gamers.

Look at what they did with Forgotten Realms, pretty much tore it apart. Their generic points of light setting was excellent in its simplicity, but they took a loved setting and introduced massive changes to it. Always a risky choice. Many FR fans reverted back to the old version of FR in response. And that setting is probably another reason fewer people took to 4e.

But again, the main reason D&D is not played as often anymore is because its not the only game in town anymore.

If they just let things be and watch as the gaming market grows, this wouldn't be a problem.

They could keep putting out splash books for d20 modern, 3.x D&D and 4e D&D and people would buy them because they're good reliable systems for people, and as long as they kept up all four lines, people would be happy. Most gamers play and purchase multiple game systems anyway, so its not like they won't be able to sell to the same people that play White Wolf or HERO system.

Constantly dropping lines and changing the brand is going to lose people.

Teryl Rothery played Janet Fraiser on Stargate SG-1, a rather down to earth and practical character.






She also did the voice Kodachi Kuno in Ranma 1/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH0IG0M8uiM

I lost patience with most of the two big names over a decade ago and then found I thoroughly enjoyed Gold Digger and various other independent American mangaka as well as the Japanese manga.

Marvel and DC got too recycled for my taste...the story never progressed, it was just the same stuff over and over again. When it looked like there was progression it would be reset to 0 by some dues ex machina often involving such words as scarlet, crisis and/or witch.

Just got fed up with it.


Also, the vs list is merely the conflict and is missing Man vs Self. Conflict is only one aspect to the story, not the story in and of itself. There are generally accepted to be 36-distinct plots.

That said, I do subscribe to the opinion that all stories are the same story just from different points of view and focusing on different portions.

given I'm in the camp where any death is a failure on my part, I won't respond to the idea of actually planning to use vengeance or fallout

It would be nice if you could activate the weapons options on various costumes for power sets that don't normally need ranged....

I know the slot in the costume developer already exists


the problem would be that every power would need animations to accompany the weapons option


however, I think it would be nice to be able to focus bolts of power through a magic sword....or fire concussive energy from a beam weapon (classic energy blast)....or deal electrical damage with a spear (electrical melee with a electrified spear/staff)

the basic mechanics would stay the same, only the visuals would be different, this might result in some character drift from one power set to another, but overall people I would think this means people would be able to move their theme character to the play style they want

likewise having a weaponless option for other power sets would be interesting....which would be kind of like a telekinesis thing for an assault rifle or dual pistols with no weapon....or another superstrength variant for titan weapons with no visible weapon



oh well, these suggestions aren't likely....but would still be nice

Twelve Labors of Heracles written down by some guy named Bullfinch


Okay, I know that's not a comic book, but while the comics were a sort of "okay, that's cool" sort of thing, myths and legends filled most of the space comic books are supposed to take in people who pay attention to this genre

give Elite Bosses and Archvillains access to more powers...maybe one or two extra powers from a third power set for EBs and up to four from an extra power set (maybe two) for AVs

Also, allow us to make AE content for incarnates...ie, a toggle somewhere that says basically "allow incarnates to operate"

I would like control over eye color in even normal faces including the ability to have different colored eyes...heterochromia is a very interesting trait that we are unable to give our characters.

That noted, I'd like to say that the older faces are generally more aesthetically pleasing than the newest ones....

Steampunk, Medusa, Vampire, and Imperial Dynasty in particular are rather ugly. While the older faces simply look like video game faces, these newer ones look like cardboard cutouts of photographs. Technically more realistic, but creating a rather severe descent into the uncanny valley that makes me cringe and worry about whether or not my character has been reading the necronomican or something.


Too bad it's far too late to have a choice of facial parts as well as the sliders, ie: pick nose number 10, eyes number 4 and mouth number 11....THEN apply the sliders


Also, take away the human ears when people choose cat ears, rabbit ears or the like...or rather give them the option to remove the ears....I hate it when I create a character and my hair options are limited to "what do they have that'll hide those ears"....granted, I know I only have one bunny-eared character, but it is still annoying....


that said...an actually tufted rabbit tail rather than that ball, and maybe some rabbit feet


further: deer-stalker caps....pipes....bee-catcher guards....actual headless options so we don't have to approximate it with the brain tank.

more options that result in the right side being different from the left...there's a word for that which is irritably escaping my search right now....It'll probably pop into my head when I shut down and go to bed or something....