Chrysalis

The First Stage

Concept

You are the pinnacle of human technological development. Superior soldiers, your bodies enhanced by nectar infusions, who have gained the ability to pilot mankind's ultimate combat machines - the Jaegers, or, as some took to calling them, the Papillons, semi-organic, living combat units created to combat the most dangerous threat that mankind has faced so far - the Leviathan.

The Leviathan have been attacking mankind seemingly without provocation for the last three decades, and the onslaught of the bizarre, inorganic living space organisms seems to be only growing stronger as time goes on. Conventional units of the Earth Sphere Defence Force are utterly outmatched - you and other soldiers like you are mankind's last hope.

You have been deployed to a frontier world which came under attack by the Leviathan. There are thirty million civilians alive within the system.

Try to keep it that way.

Character Creation

There are 4 stats

• Physical
• Mental
• Social/Command
• Integrity

You have 20 dice to assign to them. Social/Command also determines how effective the conventional forces under your command will be in actual battle, while Physical and Mental determine your Papillion's and personal combat prowess. (physical handles dodging and melee combat, mental is responsible for ranged and exotic weaponry, like bits etc) Integrity determines your own psychological stability and your innate resistance to nectar's less-than-welcome side-effects.

Jaegers/Papillons

Approximately 20m+ humanoid semi-organic adaptable combat machines, controlled by direct link with a nectar-infused pilot. Adapt to the pilot's preferences in aesthetics and tactics to a degree, though they universally have claws as melee weapons and Higgs boson particle cannons for ranged engagements; other weapons are either grown as the unit acquires experience, or are acquired from local conventional defence forces.

You

Nectar infusion results in significantly increased physical parameters as well as giving the pilot the ability to interface directly with their control machine, achieving precision and reaction speed normally thought to be impossible. However, there are some concerns about long-term psychological impact of the infusions, and pilots need to regularly take medicine to keep their bodily functions within approved norms.

The Second Stage

Concept

The initial deployments of Jaeger units have been judged as highly successful by the Earth Sphere Defence Forces. However, at the same time, it became even more obvious that ESDF units are not capable of defeating the Leviathan conventionally - long-range scout units deployed into enemy space have only confirmed the old worry that the alien threat was not even remotely exhausted by the fighting so far, while the ESDF was slowly approaching the breaking point as it attempted to defend the myriad colonies of the Earth Sphere. As such, if the war continued to be waged as it was, humanity would lose - Jaegers or not.

Therefore, a group of naval and intelligence officers have drawn up a plan for another kind of operation, based on the data gathered by the scout ships - a plan that would later become known as the Operation Ragnarok. A vast offensive on all fronts, designed to attract the attention of the Leviathan, while a single, high-performance carrier would slip past the weakened enemy lines, and, travelling through the vast slipspace gates created by the Leviathan during their advance, reach the heart of the alien threat - and rip it out.

You have been stationed on ESDS Jörmungandr, the first of its class; a peerless capital ship, designed with this mission in mind. Over three times as big as the earlier ESDF fleet carriers, it is equipped with the most advanced technology that humanity could provide.

This is a plan that bets everything on one chance - a faint possibility to grasp victory in a situation where the defeat is otherwise certain. If it fails, then the Earth Sphere will be left vulnerable, and dozens of colonies will doubtlessly be lost, along with billions of lives. As such, retreat is not an option - and neither is defeat.

You will win this war, pilots, or you will die trying.

Characters

Character creation rules remain the same as before. Of note is how the nectar infusion system works - each level of overdose allows you to add an additional dice to Physical or Mental stats, however, it also forces an integrity check. Each level of overdose past 1 also adds to the Integrity roll's target difficulty. Scoring low - and especially failing - can have unpleasant consequences.

It is also notable that nectar-enhanced humans are significantly more physically capable than non-enhanced personnel, and even many combat cyborgs.

ESDS Jörmungandr

The three-kilometer vessel that you are now serving on, equipped with highly sophisticated technology - weapons, shielding, experimental slipspace engines and internal fabricator systems, among others. Its overall fighter wing is composed of:

• 120 old-type humanoid combat units
• 48 conventional fighter units
• Several Jaeger units

In addition, it carries 3000 espatiers, wearing space-capable combat exosuits and wielding guided missile launchers capable of damaging lesser Leviathan entities at point-blank ranges. It possesses ability to repair and rearm existing combat units, but it is unlikely that the fabricators will have an opportunity to produce whole new units - the ones you lose are likely to represent a permanent loss of combat power, so take care.

In practice, Jörmungandr is your mothership and your transport vessel - not a battleship that you can rely on carrying the day in direct battles. However, it is sufficiently capable to hold its own while you serve as its main striking arm, and can provide long-range fire support with its heavy Higgs boson particle cannons.

Conventional Forces

While Jaegers are piloted, modern ESDF frontline combat small craft are unmanned - both humanoid-type and fighter units are unmanned, controlled remotely by quantum neural links with their pilots, who remain aboard their carriers. Initially intended as a way of lowering the mounting ESDF casualties, it resulted in an overall increase in combat power as well, as experienced pilots were now getting killed much more rarely. ESDS Jörmungandr carries some of the best that could be pulled from their units for this mission - they are a capable asset at your disposal.

There are fundamentally two kinds of conventional units:

• Old-type humanoid units: they predate the creation of Jaegers, and are based strictly on conventional technology, instead of the semi-organic construction of the nectar-infused combat units. Typically, they are armed with assault cannons firing high-maneuverability homing rounds, along with high-frequency blades, to counter the Leviathan ability to alter local spatial geometry, which makes conventional direct-fire weaponry much less effective - and to provide a defence from their close combat attacks. However, 12 of the units stationed on Jörmungandr have access to Higgs boson particle cannons, which, with proper calculations, are capable of successfully engaging and destroying Leviathan units at long range.
• Fighter units: fighters, incapable of engaging the Leviathan in close quarters, took a different role to the space infantry of humanoid types - instead, they are high-maneuverability long-distance strike units, deploying swarms of missiles while travelling at speeds that minimise risk to them, effectively turning into missile buses. They are however far more rare than humanoid units, as, while a human form is easy to control via a quantum neural network, the inhuman form of a fighter is extremely difficult in comparison. Fighter pilots tend to be aces, and are highly capable in combat - but lack the numbers and staying power of the humanoid units.

In practice, standard mech units are akin to high-powered naval infantry, and form a persistent presence on the battlefield. Fighters, however, are treated as a support roll that uses Command as the relevant stat, deploying missiles and leaving the combat area.