User:Zeromanicus

Anthropocene 2020, Modern Era Geopolitics

This is a SD set in the modern era, in a world similar to our own but in many ways quite different. The intent is that history has the same broad strokes, colonialism in the early modern era, an industrial revolution, a rather nastier world war and the arrival of the internet.

The nation creation rules are an aid to imagination, the SD will be relatively free form. There is a map, you can suggest alterations for your nation, but the broad geography already created will be the baseline.

http://i.imgur.com/FvjexGZ.png

==Nation Creation== (Created by Shrike) A typical PC state should probably be 22-23 points; if you want to have things be a bit random you could roll 20+1D6. For reference, the IRL USA would be 35-40 points, depending exactly how you interpret it.

CAUTIONARY NOTE: 'Hard' numbers such as GDP, PPP and military expenditures are presented mostly for comparison purposes. The system is not set up to return 'true to life' values. Use with caution/for guidance purposes only.

GDP (2010 approximate equivalents) This is the raw size of your economy. Implicitly, larger economies come with larger populations - this assumes all nations have broadly equivalent per-capita income and levels of economic development.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - $1 trillion (South Korea)
  
• Rank 1 (1 point) - $2 trillion (Spain)
  
• Rank 2 (3 points) - $3.5 trillion (Germany)
  
• Rank 3 (5 points) - $5.5 trillion (Japan)
  
• Rank 4 (8 points) - $8 trillion (China) PC Baseline
  
• Rank 5 (12 points) - $11 trillion (continental EU)
  
• Rank 6 (16 points) - $15 trillion (United States)
  

PPP Modifier This is essentially 'bonus' GDP when it comes to domestic productivity. Nations with higher PPP modifiers tend to be more populous and poorer than their raw GDP would otherwise suggest.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - 25% penalty to effective GDP (excessively affluent first world state)
  
• Rank 1 (1 point) - No bonus to effective GDP (affluent first world state) PC Baseline
  
• Rank 2 (2 points) - 25% bonus to effective GDP (poor first world state)
  
• Rank 3 (4 points) - 50% bonus to effective GDP (indstrializing state)
  
• Rank 4 (7 points) - 100% bonus to effective GDP (developing state)
  

Military spending While this doesn't go down to nuts and bolts like cost of weapons, this gives a general 'militarization level'. Obviously the higher your military spending, the bigger the military you can afford relative to your GDP. Hurray! Tanks!

• Rank 0 (0 points) - 1% (pacifist nation)
  
• Rank 1 (1 point) - 2% (World average)
  
• Rank 2 (2 points) - 3% (interventionist)
  
• Rank 3 (4 points) - 4% (militarized)
  
• Rank 4 (7 points) - 8% (highly militarized/fighting a war)
  
• Rank 5 (10 points) - 25% (A military with a vestigial state)
  

Technology How unbearably awesome your shit is. Has a knock-on effect for the civilian sector (and vice-versa), but this is mostly about how up to date your state's widgets are.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Vietnam-era
  
• Rank 1 (2 points) - Reagan-era
  
• Rank 2 (4 points) - PGM-era
  
• Rank 3 (8 points) - Stealth-era
  

Superweapons This covers otherwise impractical technothriller bullshit like laser stations, mind control fighters (think in Russian!), submersible carriers and the like. This is deliberately uneconomical. (note: this may/should also cover nuclear weapons, in which case it represents your nuclear arsenal)

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Nah. We're not crazy.
  
• Rank 1 (2 points) - You've developed a few unexpected things, like stealth bombers in 1980. Still 'plausible'.
  
• Rank 2 (4 points) - A handful of things that only exist in fiction have been built by your engineers, like SSTO spaceplanes or laser-armed superfighters.
  
• Rank 3 (8 points) - You've gone all-in on the Ace Combat superweapons. Go nuts, right up until Yellow Squadron shoots them all down.
  

Diplomacy By definition all player states are rogue states, but in the eyes of the NPCs (and the League of Extraordinary Nations) they may not be.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Yep, you're a rogue state.
  
• Rank 1 (1 points) - Just another flag hanging in front of the UN building.
  
• Rank 2 (3 points) - Your diplomats get listened to and you can often get support from others.
  
• Rank 3 (5 points) - You are seen as a regional if not global leader and other nations regularly ask for your opinions and support.
  

Freedom of Action A corollary to diplomacy, a broad measure of how much world opinion gives a shit about what you do in your backyard. Note that this is not a get out of jail free card - major wars will still attract (at least some) international attention.

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Every act you take is denounced by the General Assembly of the League of Extraordinary Nations.
  
• Rank 1 (1 points) - Every act you take is ruthlessly analysed nightly on CNN.
  
• Rank 2 (3 points) - Every act you take is repeatedly mocked on RT.com.
  
• Rank 3 (5 points) - Your state occasionaly have a Vox article written about it.
  
• Rank 4 (8 points) - Wikipedia regularly deletes your nation page due to [Citation needed].
  

Espionage Do your spies use exploding cigars or Polonium?

• Rank 0 (0 points) - Clownshoes. Better than nothing . . . maybe.
  
• Rank 1 (1 points) - Generally unexceptional, with the occasional mistakes generally not being critical.
  
• Rank 2 (3 points) - Quietly competent.
  
• Rank 3 (5 points) - Sean Connery Bond. Suave motherfuckers who get the impossible missions done in style.
  
• Rank 4 (8 points) - What the KGB and Mossad want to be when they grow up.
  

Advantages/Disadvantages I'm currently leaving this field blank - it's intended for particularly noteworthy things that wouldn't be covered by the above but would have a not-insubstantial effect, like a hugely loyal population - or a hugely corrupt one. Any specifics are TBD.

Military The following is to provide some loose baselines for people who want to go the extra mile and figure out how many Treecat-class dreadfrigates their navy should have - I did the math so you don't have to. As per the GDP/PPP numbers, this is intended primarily to answer the question of 'do I have too much? too little? am I close enough to not be seen as a cheesemonster?' It is not intended as a point-buy system, just a sanity check.

US 2010 GDP: 15b (Rank 6 GDP)
Spending: 610m (4% - Rank 3 Militarization)
Ground forces: ~33%
Navy: ~25%
Air: ~22%
The remaining percent is shared misc stuff. TLDR; the following numbers assume an approximately equal spread between the three branches. The PC baseline is an 8b GDP and a 3% military spending, which works out to 40% of the US military budget. So assuming you don't start tilting the balance between the three arms, you'd have ~2500 tanks, 4 supercarriers (or maybe 6-8 smaller ones) and ~1400 tactical aircraft of all sort. You'd also get 34 large surface combatants, but maybe you hate Burkes with the burning fury of a million exploding suns, so you trade them out for 10-12 Kirovs - about the same tonnage. *handscales* Again, sanity check, not point-buy.

Ground: 6,300 tanks
6,700 IFVs
12,700 APCs
2,400 artillery pieces
2,130 SAM & SPAAG
10,000+ mine protected vehicles
A fucking bazillion hummers and trucks
Helos n' shit I didn't count

Navy: ~1,600 tactical air (includes attack helos)
~150 Support/patrol air
11 CVNs (100,000 tons ea)
32 amphibs of various sorts (includes 'light carriers')
74 SSNs
18 SSBNs
86 large surface combatants (~10k tons ea)
28 small surface combatants and patrol ships

Air: ~2000 tactical air
~160 bomber
~800 cargo
~450 tanker

BREAK BREAK BREAK

Name: The Anax Triumphant
Location: ?
Goverment Type: Shogunate analogue
Population: Minor State (32 Points)

National Advantages [Rank 2] (1 Points)
Transhumanoid
A Game of Enders

National Disadvantages (+1 Points)
No Mass Shadow

Infrastructure: Rank 3 (3 Points)
Growth Potential: Rank 3 (3 Points)
Military Size: Rank 3 (3 Points)
Military Support: Rank 3 (3 Points
Military Quality: Rank 4 (8 Points)
Superweapons: Rank 3 (3 Points)
Espionage: Rank 2 (2 Points)
General Advancement: Rank 1 (4 Points)
FTL Drives: Rank 1 (3 Point)
Outsystem Territories: None (0 Points)

Historical Overview:

To understand the Anax Triumphant, requires an understanding of the Anax themselves, for it their history and innate nature that informs so much of the society they have created.

The Anax are the result of unethical experiments in genetic manipulation and cybernetic augmention during the scourge. Created on an industrial scale as tank grown supersoldiers, no regard was given for the longterm consequences of such radical alterations and no thought was given to their human potential. They were treated as mere weapons of war, despite the capable intellects they possessed. It was always forseeable they would prove uncontrollable and ill-treatment given to them as human beings would result in rebellion. The Anax rose up almost in unison, casting off their servitude in a violent frenzy that earned them animosity across the solar system.

Present Overview:

The Anax Triumphant is a militant society, modeled on a Hierarchy which places emphasis on individual achievement and combat ability. It is a grouping of Warrior Clans, individuals with common beliefs and/or genetic lineages pledge allegiance to each other for life and to the ruling clan. Despite this collective nature, the Anax believe the individual has primacy and it emphasizes individual rights and responsibilities.

Within a clan, rank and prestige is determined almost solely by combat prowess, either as individual warriors, or as a squad. The combat is highly ritualised, involving the use of melee weaponry within an Arena through it does extend to sanctioned ranged weapons. Advancement as a Clan is also based on inter-clan combat, the most successful of which as the right to rule.

The Anax themselves are genetically engineered humans, but their most notable divergence is the carapace worn by their soldiers. Grown alongside them, a Carapace is a biological armoured suit that when fully grown, is further augmented with cybernetics. Encased within the suit, an Anax is a formidable warrior, capable as infantry and pilots. This union has produced a morphology that can be quite disconcerting. Anax have coal black eyes, and pigmentless skin. The lateral and posterior surface of the torso are lined with short vascular tentacles with enmesh with the carapace, binding the nervous and circulatory systems of the body with that of the suit.

Without the suit, the Anax are no more capable than a baseline human being.

Tyran Rewrite

Not many know what scorched the sky, land and sea. We did of course, we sacrificed a verdant world for our liberty and for the sanctity of our souls. The world of Diktat is a desolate realm, shattered megacities dot a landscape of grey earth, patched with struggling greenery and dangerous ancient forests who bathe in the harsh light of the sun. The Federated Convoys are scattered across the supercontinent that still supports human life, wandering in vast and ancient Wagon-Trains whose aging systems provide life and protection in a dangerous world of feral creatures and radioactive rainstorms. The Vault Dwellers reside underground refusing to deal with the overground world, while in the ruined capital of Autoc, evil is said to stalk the streets.

The True History:
Known by the Vault Dwellers and the Night Stalkers, the following is the true history of the world. Over a thousand years ago, Diktat was a world of promise, commonly known as Prospa. It had one principle continent and a subcontinent attached by a thin peninsula. The subcontinent was Autoc and was completely covered the megacity Capital of the planet. To the outsider observer, the planet appeared normal, but behind the scenes Prospa was ruled by the Night Stalkers, through their intermediates, the vampires and their familiars. Across the stars, on the world of Heaven’s Gaze, a prophet was born who declared that the Federated States of Autoc was a nest of unnatural creatures and it’s the Crusading Paramilitary forces of the ‘Fellowship of the Sun’

THE FEDERATED CONVOYS
Descendants of both survivors of the apocalyptic war and the invaders, the Federated Convoys are a nomandic group of humans who wander the wastes of the main continent, never stopping.

The Federated Convoys practice ritualistic tattooing, a demand of their binding religion, The Tableau. They believe that their world is infested by the Night Stalkers, who prey on the living and corrupt and doom their souls to oblivion. Though this knowledge is lost to them, it stems back to the original Stalker hunters who’s magical tattoo’s warded them against Night Stalker manipulation and magic. The religion has remained strong, as those who forgo the wards do succumb to madness, often wander off into the night where they die or babbling incoherently in cells. The Vault Dwellers do not share this practice, but they never leave the Vaults, to those that look closely, the vaults themselves are warded in a similar manner.

THE VAULT DWELLERS
The Vault Dwellers were once the intellectual and economic leaders of Prospa, they are fully aware of the true history of the planet and the war and are absolutely terrified of the Night Stalkers. Before the opening of the ways, they exerted all their efforts into tunnelling deeper into the ground, while fortifying all access to the surface. The Vault Dwellers lie in a maze of underground bunkers, with countless defence barriers, automatic turrets, kill corridors. Every Dweller is a soldier from birth who is dedicated to defending the home caverns from any invader.

THE NIGHT STALKERS
The Night Stalkers are buried deep within the Earth, in the old capital of Diktat known as Autoc. As the human population around them died and many vampires were purged in the nuclear flames, one old one took his brethren deep into the ancient tombs they had originally risen from and committed them to torpor along with thousands of human slaves. Even in their sleep, the powerful psychic forces of the Night Stalkers manifests on their world.

A century ago they began to awake, sensing that enough mortals existed to sustain their appetite. Night Stalkers are roughly human in appearance, with white marble skin and blood red eyes. They are entirely hairless and possess sharp clawed fingers. Though many apt a more human appearance in order to blend with populations, they possess a variety of magical and mundane techniques to achieve this. Central to the Night Stalkers is the Veneration of the Blood, it is not merely a dietary requirement, it is a compulsion and key to their mystical existence. A Stalker denied blood who cannot enter torpor regresses into an animal, losing much of it’s humanoid appearance and sustaining itself on any mortal food source. Blood teems with mystical energies not perceptible to humans, but keenly felt by Stalkers.

Stalkers are analytical creatures, the emotional centres of their brain are capable of being shut off and exist mainly to facilitate empathic responses for the purposes of infiltrating human society. Night Stalkers are capable of creating foot soldiers from humans by infecting them with a parasitic organism that alters their genetic structure to be closer to that of Night Stalkers. Nominally human but stronger, longer lived with a small appetite for blood but mainly requiring the same nutrition as human beings. These are what are commonly referred to as vampires.