User:MJ12 Commando

History

Space was the last frontier that humanity had explored, but even so it was rapidly colonized as soon as the effective tools existed for it. Within twenty thousand years from when humanity had made its first step into deep space, it had spread throughout the galaxy, finding... nothing. The few alien races encountered were either remnants, unfathomable things found etched in black holes or star surfaces, creatures that had transcended biology via exotic science, or vastly more primitive, crawling through the heavens on pillars of nuclear fire at best. The former were left alone, the latter uplifted, ignored, or conquered as the local governments believed was the proper method of dealing with nonhumans.

Either way, apes or angels, alien races have been no threat to the human race, and are more a curiosity than anything. The threats, invariably, are always other humans, often those who wish to make use of potentially dangerous technologies to ensure victory over their fellow man.

The Galaxy

The galaxy is heavily built up from 20,000 years of civilization and population growth. As habitable planets are rare, many live on artificial habitats, up to and including Dyson Spheres. A significant proportion of the human race lives on near the galactic core in megastructures, tapping the supergiant black hole for mass and energy, while out in the arms life is a bit more sedate and spread out, often finding themselves still living on planets. The entire galaxy is connected by the Alcubierre Railways, a system that allows nearly instantaneous transit and trade via faster-than-light travel.

Faster-Than-Light

The primary faster than light system is the Alcubierre Railway, a system of markers, warp bubble generators, and other machinery that allows travel through its "tracks" to other areas in the galaxy at extraordinarily high speeds. As it is cheap and trivial to fit a vessel with the ability to use the Railway, this is by far the most common system. However, it is not without its faults-as cutting the railway with a vessel in transit may strand it thousands of light-years away from the nearest planet, leaving its crew no other choice than to go into stasis, plot a course, and hope for the best. Colonies have been founded when vessels with construction capability have been stranded by war or terrorist attack, the crew finding a nearby star system to convert and settle down in.

Another, much more controlled FTL drive is the jumpdrive, which is significantly rarer due to its expense. Found on warships and other vessels which may have to function with the Railway "cut" by defenders. A jumpdrive is a complex system which is somewhat slower and less accurate than the Railway, but does not depend on outside systems. However, although the Railway is ubiquitious and creating an interface with it is possible with almost any technological base, jumpdrives are some of the most advanced systems in the galaxy and must generally be bought from the Core powers. Even with fabrication technology, the exotic materials necessary are still rare and difficult to build.

The Human Race

Twenty thousand years of drift and human enhancement have made humans diverge into dozens of species and subspecies, all of which exist in different niches. Some of them may be essentially recognizable to the men and women who hunted with spears and lived in caves a hundred thousand years ago, but some are extreme, like the Sunskimmers, humans who have enhanced themselves to the point where they live their lives in hard vacuum, bearing children in the orbit of a supergiant star. Humans have taken on forms to thrive in every niche, enhanced by technology. However, humans with minimal obvious enhancement are still the most common demographic, although with the advanced nanotechnologies of the human race, they can still be formidable indeed.

However, twenty thousand years have not allowed the human race to grow any closer, and war still happens. With the distances and speeds involved, war is even more dehumanizing than ever, and weapons have gotten more destructive, making it so much easier to annihilate entire civilizations with the press of a button.

Eschaton

With such power and the potential to create weapons that can cause easy gigadeaths comes regulatory boards to ensure that a terrorist or government doesn't decide to inflict this fate on people. Although there are uncountable numbers of humans spread out in the galaxy, it is still undesirable to allow war to wipe out billions of people for no good reason, especially since warfare now is more of a battle to attain additional territory and resources than subjects. Furthermore, there are technologies that could be potentially dangerous to the entire galaxy-uncontrolled technological singularities, weakly godlike beings, aggressive hegemonizing swarms-all of which are still a potential threat to the galaxy at large.

Eschaton was formed by agreement by the Sagittarius League, Union of Core Stars, and the Cygnus Administrative Board, the three largest sovereign nations, to prevent such an incident from occurring. Gifted with advanced equipment and an impressive amount of autonomy it has been instrumental in solving problems that could doom billions-or more-to death.

The Agents of the Eschaton

Although galactic government is weak, the most powerful factions in the galaxy have understood the need for an independent, minimal-oversight paramilitary unit which deals with problems such as rogue AI gods, madmen using poorly understood alien artifacts, and anyone who would attempt the commission of gigadeathcrime. This joint force is equipped with cutting-edge equipment and augmentations, trained to work together in small teams, and given high initiative due to their job often taking them days or weeks away from command.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Agents of the Eschaton are all backed up-despite their protests, as a backup is a mere copy, and if you die, that's it for you. Most people find it sick that if they die, another copy of them will be decanted to die in their place, but the cost of training an Eschaton agent in dozens of different fields from the sciences to the arts to the knowledge needed to adapt to any world, any method of warfare, and any level of threat is expensive and prone to washing out 85% or more of its applicants.

Tentative Character Generation

An Eschaton agent comes in four subtypes: Direct Action, Technical, Investigative and Pathfinders. The first are combat-specialized, the second do electronic intelligence and technical support, the third are generally found investigating face-to-face and the fourth are found sneaking around like ninjas in the dark.

However, all agents are trained in the basics of tradecraft, combat, and etiquette.

Basic Attributes

An agent's physical body doesn't matter as much as their mental ability-bodies are cheap and easily fabricated, although the technology inherent to an agent is much less easily constructed. Minds, however, are harder and somewhat less predictable to construct. Primary Attributes are rated from 1-5, and secondary attributes are rated from 0 to +5.

A character has one 4, one 3, one 2, and one 1 to assign to the four primary attributes, as well as 15 points for secondary attributes. Furthermore, an agent always gets a bonus to one primary attribute and one secondary attribute-this is the only method of raising a primary attribute to 5 at chararacter generation. Direct Action Agents get a +1 to combat and a +1 to Endurance, Technical Agents get a +1 to Analysis and a +1 to Piloting, Investigative agents gain +1 to Fellowship and +1 to Composure, while Pathfinders gain a +1 to Resolve and +1 to Small Arms.

An agent's basic attributes and their sub-attributes are:

Resolve-An agent's most critical trait is his ability to keep going, despite what might happen. This does not measure physical,but mental toughness-as an agent's physical ability is entirely based on their augmentation. Resolve measures how well an agent can power through difficult circumstances like pain, fear, mental attacks, or their imminent demise. Resolve also measures how well an agent can adapt to being 'resurrected' by a Quantum Bio-Reconstruction Machine or an offsite backup.

Endurance-Endurance is how well an agent tolerates purely physical inconveniences, such as pain, temperature, fatigue, or shock.

Fortitude-Fortitude measures an agent's ability to resist mind-scans, brainwashing, viruses, and other methods of mental assault.

Composure-Composure measures an agent's ability to keep a "poker face" in situations where it might be necessary.

Fellowship-Fellowship represents an agent's ability to meaningfully interact with people.

Leadership-Leadership is how well an agent can rally allies to do things like charge autotargeting turrets or sacrifice themselves to nuke the cosmic horror someone just built in a lab.

Charisma-Charisma is an agent's personal attractiveness to others. An agent with high Charisma finds it easier to make people like him or her.

Subterfuge-Subterfuge is how well an agent can deceive others or resist their attempts at deception.

Analysis-an Agent's Analysis represents how well he or she can solve problems, whether they tend in the abstract or the practical.

Perception-perception represents how well an agent can make sense of sensors data from any source, finding useful clues or information. This is independent of the sensory ability of one's body-an agent with a near-baseline sensory ability but high perception will still be limited by bodily constraints.

Electronics-Electronics determines an agent's ability to bypass technical security measures, write his or her own programs, defeat firewalls, and otherwise hack computer systems, as well as the ability of an agent to make use of equipment such as bugs or tracking programs.

Intrusion-Intrusion covers a variety of skills, from lockpicking "dumb" locks to stealth.

Tactics-Tactics covers a wide-area knowledge of military theory, a good (but not strictly necessary) quality to have in a commander.

Combat-although undesirable, it is often necessary to take operations into one's own hands and hurt people. This attribute measures your raw skill at various types of combat.

Melee Combat-An agent's ability to beat people down in hand to hand. No matter how good you are at this, taking on someone significantly augmented in close quarters is probably a terrible idea.

Small Arms-Small arms are a great equalizer. Small arms expertise covers everything from old-fashioned projectile weapons such as assault rifles, self bows, and shotguns to advanced energy weapons or smart munitions dispensors.

Gunnery-if you need something blown up, this is your go-to skill. Gunnery covers the use of heavy weapons, such as calling down ortillery strikes or setting up and firing an artillery piece.

Piloting-from giant robots to hovercars to warships, this covers most forms of vehicle operation in a combat situation.

Augmentation

However, an agent's enhancement protocols differ from agent to agent, sometimes out of requirement or consequences, sometimes out of mental preference. All agents are equipped with nanohives and shield generators, but many agents desire and are granted higher levels of augmentation. Full body modification is not uncommon, and agents more commonly assigned to direct action situations often enjoy the fruits of twenty millenia of human enhancement research freely, modifying themselves into weapons platforms.

An agent has 11 starting points to put into augmentation. Augmentation ratings are from 1-10. All agents have, dependent on their role, a few bonuses to augmentation. These cannot raise an augmentation category beyond its maximum. A specialty for an enhancement category can be bought at half cost, which adds +1 to the enhancement's effective rating in a specific situation.

Direct Action agents start with L1 Combat augmentation.

Technical agents have L1 Interface augmentation.

Investigators have L1 Stealth augmentation.

Pathfinders have L1 Mobility augmentation.

Augmentation Categories

Enhancement-the most common use for augmentation technology is enhancing the base physical and mental ability of its user. High levels of enhancement improve one's offensive ability in hand to hand, increase the ability for one to take and recover from damage, improve sensory capability, and improve mobility and reaction time.

Combat-All agents are implanted with basic shield generators to allow survival in hostile environs, but combat enhancements improve an agent's offensive and defensive repertoire with equipment such as dermal armor, implanted weapons, and strengthened shielding.

Perceptive-Perceptive augmentations range from distributed smart-dust sensor swarms, to implanted gravity sensors or other esoteria. In general, these modifications improve one's ability to sense important events.

Stealth-Stealth augmentations range from devices which render one invisible to devices which shift facial and body features to create a convincing disguise. The net result is, however, that an agent can blend in or fade away much more easily.

Mobility-Mobility mods enhance an agent's ability to move, in general improving their ability to use locomotion means besides the ground. Flight, burrowing, and supercavitation-based swimming are not uncommon enhancements, while more exotic locomotion methods such as teleportation or personal jumpdrives are not unknown at higher levels.

Interface-Generally based on subversion, whether the target is biological, electronic, or otherwise, the simplest of such enhancement is a wireless interface node or subdermal circuitry with override codes but more exotic methods of transmission and subversion, such as utility fog based subversion of electronics and organics, have been recorded.

Miscellaneous/Utility-these augmentations do not fit neatly in any other category. These enhancements include items such as hammerspace teleporters, multiple independent bodies, an actively updated offsite backup, semi-autonomous drones, and others. These are costed as specialties, and one may have multiple types of utility augmentation.

Adaptive Augmentation

The most recent and a fairly common development for agents is adaptive augmentation-a network of distributed, multipurpose nanomachines which allow a variety of modifications to be manifested "at will" for the user. Physical attributes can be selectively enhanced, utility fog can be extruded for interfacing with machinery, and the like.

Agents all start with 1 level of adaptive augmentation and can buy additional levels of adaptive augmentation at triple cost. Adaptive augmentation works as any other augmentation except the points may be freely shifted from category to category.

Example Human Variants

Dragoon Full-Conversion

The Dragoon full-conversion serves proudly in the militaries of many galactic core forces, a heavy machine which is capable of incredible physical feats and armed and armored to standards more akin to light armor than an infantryman, its only faults are that its 3 meter height and 2500 kilogram mass make it about as subtle as a brick to the face. Generally found armed with a heavy antitank coilgun and antipersonnel pulse lasers, a Dragoon is a match for a full platoon of infantry.
Augmentation Value: 15 (class A threat)
Enhancement-6 (Brute Force + 2)
Combat-5 (Anti-Armor Weapons + 1)
Perceptive-1 (LIDAR + 1)
Miscellaneous-2 (Mini-UCAV Hive)

Alpha Upgrades

Alpha upgrades are generally very close to the baseline norm, and a common sight across known space. Although physically superior to baseline humanity, their physical prowess is not significantly better to matter-an agent with a moderate amount of physical enhancement can still break them like twigs.
Augmentation Value: 0.5 (Class F threat)
Enhancement-0 (Panimmunity + 1)

Beta Upgrade

Beta upgrades are a fairly common general category of enhanced humans, who possess enhanced durability and strength, as well as utility enhancements such as a DNI. These personnel are ubiquitous in the galaxy at large, as the technical sophistication necessary to build Beta-levels is fairly low. Lower-sophistication Betas are generally rough and chromed, while high-sophistication ones can be engineered right out of the womb with all relevant abilities.
Augmentation Value: 2 (Class E threat)
Enhancement-1
Combat-0 (Dermal Armor + 1)
Miscellaneous-1 (Direct Neural Interface)

Delta Upgrade

Delta-level upgrades are superior soldiers, common in polities with easy access to advanced technology. Their primary edges over alphas are their implanted shield generators and sensors arrays, as well as their superior DNIs and reflex augmentation.
Augmentation Value: 5 (Class C threat)
Enhancement-2 (Wired Reflexes + 1)
Combat-1 (Shield Generator + 1)
Interface-1 (DNI)

Eclipse Full-Conversion

Generally rated for special operations work, "Eclipse" class full conversion bodies are extremely physically adept and combat capable, with superior stealth, intrusion, and sensory ability. Shaped like nightmares come true, they are nevertheless still capable of using human weapons and equipment despite their alien-seeming form.
Augmentation Value: 12 (class A threat)
Enhancement-4 (Increased Agility + 1)
Combat-2 (Close Combat + 1)
Perceptive-2 (Full-spectrum sensors)
Stealth-1 (Thermo-Optical Camouflage)
Interface-2 (Intrusion-Adapted DNI)

Sunskimmers

The most extreme augmentation done is to create humans who no longer need to live in a habitat, but can thrive and reproduce in hard vacuum without worry, using energy from the sun and mining asteroids with equipment from their own bodies.
Augmentation Value: 10
Enhancement-1 (Vacuum Capable + 3)
Combat-0 (Heavily Shielded + 4)
Propulsion-3 (Inertial Drive)
Miscellaneous-1 (Implanted radio/laser comms)
Miscellaneous-2 (Photovoltaic sail)
Miscellaneous-2 (Lithovore)