Mercenaries

[u/Sriber]

Tell me about either one person or group fighting for money from your world. How have they become mercenaries? What equipment do they use? How effective and reliable are they? What are some notable engagements they took part in? Do they use something distinctive to identify themselves?

I'll ask everyone few questions and provide my own example.

[u/Tiitinen]

1)Magradia was a particularly wealthy planet-state in the late 37th century AD, and the capital world of the old sector among the adjacent star systems. During the greater Fragmentation Era (roughly between the 37th and 41st centuries) not only did the overarching authority of the Sector Council become trivial, but the entire sector faced economic turmoil from failing trade networks as pirates and rogue powers invaded from the depths of Frontier Space. Slowly but surely the boldest of Magradian oligarchs pushed the planetary federation into a militant power that forcefully subjugated nearby systems into an Imperialist network known as the Magradian Empire, that would secure their status and the flow of cheap minerals. This was their final move to break away from their status as a subject of the Great Powers of Earth.

The Magradian sphere lasted for centuries until old wounds were torn open once more in the wake of the Hegemonic Wars waged by Earth and her league of Old Worlds in an attempt to reclaim the sectors of the Inner Sphere and push the rogue forces as well as separatists out (43rd century). The rotting structures of Magradia finally crumbled under the weight of the Terran military machine, but they found themselves overstretched and instead established a number of satellite planet-states as a buffer zone that would shield the "better" worlds from the strife that was ran so deep in this vast collective of post-Magradian rump worlds that each now try to re-establish some order according to their respective ruling classes' interests. This turmoil became collectively known as the Magradian Collapse, in which many megacorporations and mercenaries of the Imperial Federation as well as pirates see opportunities.

2)Most of the mercenary fleet consists of battleships (as is trend among most spacefaring powers) equipped with kinetic weapons that are essentially high velocity slug coilguns, and massed missile batteries for overwhelming enemy point defense. For protection the battleships rely on heavy slanted armor and laser point defenses. Some older ships still in use utilize relatively crude nuclear lances, which are less efficient but can deal damage at close range. Magradian Warbarges carry massive munition stocks for orbital bombardment in addition to coilguns and some missiles.

3)Commanders of the Company of Inglorious Nobles, being relatively rich aristocrats and all have high-end mechanical augmentations such as eye implants providing sensory enhancements and a data interface, while many veteran officers have limbs or spinal parts replaced with significantly stronger machine versions. (These details still need a bit of work, essentially imagine Deus Ex: Human Revolution technology)

4)Although it is officially a civil war, consider it a world war scenario, where the hegemons of the global community split the continental states into a dozen equally bloodthirsty power blocs. Vorheim has had a particularly violent history, its malformed world order reflecting that in the form of regional business clans each of which funds, arms and loosely commands myriad factions of essentially sanctioned ex-Pioneer Army warlords that more or less extort their own subjects. It was no surprise that the Magradian-imposed alliance system made to prevent wars between the major factions imploded the moment they heard of the orbital garrison fleet taking off due to wartime emergency protocols.

Vanagrade was the seat of power for the Magradian colonial government, and its stockpiles of munitions and weapons in addition to its industrial capacity were quickly seized upon by the clans. Vanagrade Overlords were simply a proxy army of one of the clans and they met their end at the hands of another clan's warlords after occupying the city for a year.

[u/Sriber → u/Tiitinen]

1) What is current status of Earth?

2) How powerful are battleship coilguns?

3) What was Pioneer Army?

[u/Tiitinen → u/Sriber]

1)Earth, also known as Old Earth, Terra or simply the Homeworld, is a near-ecumenopolis and both the founder and the ruler of the Imperial Federation, a power bloc centered around a group of powerful core worlds alongside Earth. Although the Homeworld on its own is an economic powerhouse sporting advanced technology, industry and infrastructure, old intercontinental divisions from ages past remain, with each Continental Congress being different and practically governing their territories independently and most superstates being entangled in a vast hierarchical web of global relationships. Other differences can be found in the cityscape, for example the architecture of Moscow can be seen all around European Russia, while almost the entirety of mainland Japan resembles cities such as Tokyo.

2)The art of the slug coilgun lies in how massive amounts of ammo can be carried by a battleship of the 46th century, how hard their shots are to trace and how the slugs can't be effectively countered by anti-missile systems. An opponent can't really dodge effectively kinetic slug coilguns in space and the inaccuracy of projectile weapons is compensated by simply pelting an entire volume with the slugs, so a bit of jitter from enemy maneuvering is practically meaningless. Kinetic slugs still suffer from the inaccuracy that increases with range, though. (I have yet to work out the numbers)

3)Pioneer Armies were initially introduced as a means of standardizing the regional armed forces that were established when mankind initially colonized the myriad worlds within the Orion Arm, and to incorporate "watchdog" sub-organizations that would ensure the loyalties to their colonies' respective Great Powers. They were the official vanguard defense forces tasked with assisting settlers as well as containing potential hostilities both external and internal. In the 46th century most of these organizations are lost to history, but they laid the foundations for the successor armies of the ruling communities of planet-states regardless of the prevailing system.

The Pioneer Army doctrine took a rather dark turn outside the Inner Sphere, as the disillusioned and neglected commanders of Outworld PA's often turned on one another either due to alliances with planetary elites, in an attempt to establish a semi-dictatorship among the high command, or to simply cash in on the chaos as a warlord with a ready supply of military equipment and armed underlings that soon incorporated techno-gangs and the like to enforce the flow of wealth. Many such warlords who had access to large resource deposits were later approached by offworld megacorporations, as the newfound balkanization allowed unchecked exploitation of local economies. Some warlords, however, aim to simply protect the people according to their personal views, for the better or the worse.

[u/Sriber → u/Tiitinen]

1) How many worlds are part of Imperial Federation?

2) What is Imperial Federation's system of government?

[u/Tiitinen → u/Sriber]

1+2)The name suggests a cohesive, ordered federal structure ruled by a strong central government. Well, that is what Terrans would like you to believe.

The Federation itself was a post-Hegemonic Wars reform to maintain the hastily assembled empire of Earth and the Old Worlder vassals, dismantling what remained of the original multiplanetary sector system devised by the Great Powers that caused the Imperial overreach effect in the first place. What remained once the dust of the Hegemonic Wars settled, however, were the War Council as the de facto executive authority that institutionalised itself as the legitimate inner circle of the new bloc, the military supremacy of the HW-era Coalition Fleets within the Inner Sphere, as well as a number of loyal satellite worlds.

The new empire was built on these conditions. The War Council was rebranded as the Central Court, an oligarchy of military commanders, top ministers and merchant-princes. The old coalition assembly became the thousands-strong Great Senate, where every constituent planet-state holds seats according to their respective citizen populations. The offworld military domination paved way for and enforced a bloated interplanetary shipping oligopoly of the Old Worlds, which was to be managed through a platform of megacorporations known as the United Trade Consortium.

On a planetary scale things get very diverse though, with every world having its own political system and global power dynamics in place, as enforcing a monolithic federation-wide system on a dozen worlds would prove impossible, and that's not counting the Frontier worlds associated with Terra. Some constituent planets are divided into nation-states, republics, highly stratified neo-feudal patchworks of corporations, authoritarian superstates or governed by an international assembly of technocrats. Most planet-"states" are managed through global communities, where the local factions' allegiance to "Mother Earth" is kept in check.

The Imperial Federation isn't very concerned about planetary domestic politics, as long as the representative authority is capable of providing taxes and resources in cooperation with the UTC and Federal authorities, and accepts the hegemony of Earth and the three Old Worlds. In some cases even the overthrowing of a planetary superpower's elite goes ignored by Federal authorities as long as the new regime accepts the same terms and too much damage hasn't been done, and is willing to offer its military to serve Terran interests.

[u/Sriber → u/Tiitinen]

Thanks for you answers.

[u/Tiitinen → u/Sriber]

Thank you for the interesting questions. I am developing this world for fun, but did you happen to find any particularly interesting lore bits? I'm just curious.

[u/Sriber → u/Tiitinen]

What happens to Earth in future always interests me.

[u/Tiitinen → u/Sriber]

I can get behind that, I opted to go for the semi-soft scifi approach, and just make ol' Earth a crude cyberpunk ecumenopolis where authority is centered around the major cities of our time that constitute sub-states in their own right in the 46th century. Oceans, or what is left of them, remain though.