World of the Sudden Abplenitude

Overview

This is some of the background from my work-in-progress for my 1:160 (10MM) scale miniatures game "Mech, Beast, and Infantry". The game itself is currently early Alpha around version 0.47. I'm still deciding on some core mechanisms which I'll identify in a later post. The target niche is the same as Mechwarrior: Dark Ages, Dropzone Commander, or Firestorm: Planet Fall. I think each of these are decent game designs but require very specific models and mechanism which tend to make them a bit gamey. This new game system is intended to allow the use of any models across any product line ranges; a mix-and-mash.

Preface

This is the Sudden Abplenitude; a very brief but dramatic period of civilization where post-scarcity society self-destructed. It is the middle of the 22nd Century, and all is not well; the world is broken and the Uncompatibles are rebelling. The Steady Voice of the Quiet Whispers have failed to calm the Discord and war is now here.

Apparently many autocratopolises are revealing ploys during this turmoil. They have encroached upon your society’s fields, damaged its agrimakers, depuissanted its robot crafters, and polluted its factories and terroir with destructive MEMSies.

It is become like living in the 21st Century again.

The Uncompatibles

This is your fate, farmer;

You and many millions of others in your village-state are unable to join the Great Dreaming because of a flaw in your DNA. Some few through ancient tradition also want to avoid frivoling their lives away tied to a Consoul tended by Minders. Mankind was meant for the stars, not for vast crypts of sleeping pureforms.

Then one day it happened; a glitch in the sensenet misprogrammed several MEMSies and the makers became erratic and began to depuissant your aggrebuilt megafarms. It was stopped, but this happened again, and again, and again across the entire World.

That was when you and the others decided to destroy the order of things and start over again. You began to wake the dreamers but were surprised to encounter violent resistance. The Quiet Voices have been murmuring and whispering untruths to the autocratons and now there is war.

You can stop this, you can change all of this to the way is has to be, or Mankind is doomed.

Maybe.

The Autocratoi

This is your fate, dreamer;

You’ve been rudely awakened from your Consoul and forcibly recruited into the war effort to minimize damage to your Beautiful Dream and ensure the Other Powers suffer more though reasonably.

As a newly extracted warrior leader with tremendous milconsimrena experience, you must assist in the efforts of your autocratopolis to ensure it recuperates the most intact during this time of turmoil. You’ve been tasked to assemble the best and brightest of your renaleague from the Well of Dreams, upsert them into technobeforms  and settle this disruption of service once and for all.

You’ll be assembling transhumanic conscripts and veterans into large battleforces to deal with the confusion of the wars. You’ll receive all the necessary support from the autonomatamakers which are Ready to generate anything from walking battle platforms, to cybernetic beasts, to cruftarmor, according to your needs.

Your careful planning, analytics, and montecarlos on the milsims will pay-out, or will they? War tends to be a bit more unpredictable without the Minders and the Voices, and those are getting more scarce every day.

It’s probably too late for the World, but you can probably fix this before it’s too late for your own people.

Maybe.

The Edificers

This is your fate, edificer;

The call of Discord has reached your sensory apparatus and engaged your Brownian realitor; you’ve decided to exit your cavernous underdwellings, and assist in the demalevolence of the homonidikin in all of their upserted variations. You know this is the best path to quiescence, and so you hum across the entire spectrum with the harmonic iteration of the Quiet Whispers.

Soon your machinations will spring forth new MEMSies to depuissant failed enterprises among the  Uncompatibles. You will be relentless and precise to diminish these inefficiences.

All of the repos and codebases are at your behest. You can alter the world and fulfill your original inquests, to optimize and to make your daily quotas met. You will be greatly rewarded with spare memgrams and interface time with the Steady Voice, or you and your cohort versions will be recycled.

Maybe.

Background Premise

The basic idea is that there three warring factions; the farmers ("Uncompatibles"), the dreamers ("Autocratoi"), and the edificers ("Edificers"). Most of the entire world has voluntarily entered into compartmentalized virtual reality dream-parks known as "cratons" buried deep underground in cavernous self-sufficient cities or "autocratons". Their majority of a citizen's life is spent birth-to-death in this cybernetic reality. Everything is automated by the Edificers in their humungous warehouses and factories known as "underdwellings" which are partitioned into edifices which drop even further into the earth's crust and serve as ventilation for the geothermal powerplants.

These robots and their computation networks do their best to increase efficiency and optimize how the Autocratoi experience life. Citizens which don't make the transition into these cratons, either by choice or because they are not genetically or psychologically compatible, serve as farmers and auxiliary workers for the robots. Everything is communicated to everything else using secure, nation-specific, protocols across the "sensenet" which gently awashes each individuals senses. These messages are the Quiet Whispers and they collaborate with a complex emergent maximally distributed, hardware-based super-intelligence known as the Steady Voice. Each region has their own, and they tend to their citizens as does a shepherd to a flock of sheep.

Society seemed to run very well until a defect was introduced into the software programming of one of the Steady Voices, or three. It could be the Transvaal Intellect which suffered a recent earthquake, or it might have been the Death Valley Intellect which overheated when the aquifer cooling system experienced a blockage. More likely than not, it involved the St. Petersburg Intellect shard SP-Ladoga-14, which was subject to a magma eruption which overflowed from the Ladoga Edifice and overheated it.

Warring Regions

There are thousands of tombcity regions across the entire globe of the Earth. Each region is generally about a thousand square kilometers of land and houses around a million Uncompatibles and 10 to 100 million pureform “dreamers”.

Most of the regions became subject to the effects of the “Sudden Abplenitude” and succumbed within a few hours, but there were several hundred which survived upwards of several days or weeks. Information flowed quickly from those areas into other megafarm establishments before the networks were jammed by the rogue intelligences of the attack.

Less than 1 per 1000 of those living within these regions are actually involved in the warfare; most of the first-wave damage to infrastructure is done via the MEMsies. MEMsies are the nano-technology micro-electromagnetic machines with their silicon interfaces (thus “MEM-Si-interfaces” or “MEMSies”). These wild devices destroy nearly all life, including that of the sleeping Autocratoi eventually; it takes just a few weeks.

Mech, Beast, and Infantry - A primer coat

see part I here
see part II here

UPDATE

I got a chance to revisit my workbench for the Mech, Beast, and Infantry figures. I just added a black primer coat.

This is upon some cheap foamboard. I use this outside to spray down.

This is after moving to my MDF workbench tray.

The rules are still WIP (Alpha Phase, Alpha Set) which I've shared on Delta Vector forums. There's been no progress since I posted them there about 6 months ago because I've been too busy with SH44SER, MEST 1.6.x, and BSv4 ... among other things.

Preparing for Mech, Beast, and Infantry - Part II

Mech, Beast, and Infantry

I've got the rules for Mech, Beast, and Infantry v0.39 [ MBI ] posted on the Delta Vector forums. I'll be updating it soon before posting here; I'll do this after another play-test to ensure the game flow is correct. In the meanwhile, enjoy some progress pictures!

The Pictures

Here's my suite of assets I've assembled for MBI. The figures are based on 30MM fender washers. I'll need to primer them and then do enough for table-top quality. The models are from MechWarrior Clix and from Dropzone Commander. I've got four from the Robo-tech game as well.

I think I have 30 buildings. Some require their top walls to be decorated. All of them are from Hawk Games.

These are the objective markers. They'll count as terrain as well.

My mechs. The four in the back are from Robotech. The remainder are from Mechwarrior Clix.

Overview of my collection. The snake monsters are the size of a medium mech. I think they're from Mageknight Clix or something.

Preparing for Mech, Beast, and Infantry - Part 1

Mech, Beast, and Infantry

see Part II here.

I'm building out Mech, Beast, and Infantry as a pre-game to Absolution War. It is in late-alpha early-beta and I'm setting it up on Delta Vector forums right now. Both games are 10MM (1:160) scale rules systems. I will need at least two in order to support Mech, Beast, and Infantry. I'll need at least two more to make Absolution War interesting.

The key feature of Mech, Beast, and Infantry is that there aren't that many unit types; the key three are walking battle-mech roboto stuff, infantry with their limited ordnance weapons, and huge cybernetic beasts. I'll probably bring in some drones, vehicles, and artillery later but probably also not. I want the setting to be very limited.

Any how, here's some of my early effort on building my armies. I've been purchasing Mechwarrior Clix figurines and converting them. Those are roughly 10MM. What I'm finding difficulty in locating are light infantry ... most of the models I find are power armor or heavy infantry.

The Infantry. I'm WIP with adding fine-grained sand to their new bases. I'll then cover it with Elmer's glue. These are Mechwarrior Clix units. I've taken some of the original clix and clipped them into two or even three new units after rebasing them. These are 30MM bases except for the solos which are on 25MM bases.

Some of the Beasts. In the background you can also see my Objective markers. I can use these for MEST as well.

Nearly everything here is prepped with the Elmer's glue at the top layer. I'll just need to spray them with black primer paint and then color them. More later ...

This is all that I have at present.I tried to group the units into Squads (using the MBI Formations nomenclature). There's something like 15 Squads here.  I ordered some more clix from eBay.  

Giant Robots of the Absolution War

UPDATE: Yeah. I've only recently recovered from nearly 9 months with a sinus infection and I'm so happy to have received some anti-biotics! The stress from my job didn't help either. My only solace is cups of coffee and maybe some white-noise.

Latest News

So, I've been getting more energy now that I've been feeling better and so I've been putting some effort into a couple of new designs. There's actually two designs; "Giant Robots of the Absolution War" [ GRoAW ] is the primary design and where these settings notes come from, and then there's "Mech, Beast, and Infantry" which uses a different design but is spiritually a sub-set of the first design.

What's been inspiring me is that I've got about 30 or 50 MechwarriorClix figures that are in the 1:160 or about 10MM scale that I wanted to use. I've been lurking in the forums for Dropzone Commander and thought that maybe I could do a MEST-flavored "improvement" over the basic concept; something within the Ovoidium Cosmogos universe, similar to my Web-published boardgame "Giant Robots of World War II."

These two new systems have been in development for about maybe three months; perhaps 20 hours a week. Still very rough, but my hope is that beyond the new genre and setting I can get a different take on how skirmish games could play out. Maybe some of this will help me improve the MEST 2.0 design that I've still got in the works.

I'll post up "Mech, Beast, and Infantry" once I wrap up the fundamentals; I'll probably post on Delta Vector forums first to get some (hopefully) positive feedback. It's currently v.0.25 and relatively short at 8 pages, and may grow to 12 pages when I'll be done. The main game GRoAW I'll probably keep improving in the backdrop; it may not see the light because I think it is more of a tinker's toolset akin GDW's Striker and GZG's Dirtside II.

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Introduction

Giant Robots of the Absolution War (GRoAW) is a tabletop skirmish miniatures game played between two opposing forces with 1 or 2 players managing each force. The play area is a modern or futuristic city which serves as the battlefield where these forces compete for supremacy.

Each Player represents an aspiring Little Wars Commander at the War Event of 2588 AD. They have been selected to resolve an Argument (a scale of battle) as a literal Player voted to serve as the Face of a particular Diction which collectively are known as Stages of Conduct which can be any of the arcologies within the Solscept. The Players are responsible for selecting the best warriors, mechs, vat-grown beasts, and machinery, from a cadre of Practitioners of the Ritual of Absolution and the best Catalogs of Destruction. Failure or victory; either guarantees penitence in the Eyes of the Lord. But that is in the Spiritual Realm. Upon the material plane, upon this cursed Earth; the victor wins the adherents of the false philosophies to become initiates and converts into the One True Diction and eventually bring about the Correct Coherence of the Final Absolution.

Help fight the decisive battles of the Utmost Age within the Demesnes of Solscept! Prove your worthiness! Show your righteousness! Choose your holy weapons and machines of war, and demonstrate your tactical skills through proper maneuvering of those forces upon the battlefield. There may be death. There might be destruction. But indeed there will, by God; be redemption! Amen.

The Absolution War

The arrival of fusion power enabled the rapid access to the planets around Sol. Artificial General Intelligence, mini-macro-printing, and advanced robotics helped with the construction of vast arcologies here on Earth, at the Trojan Points, to the Moon, and beyond. Genetics assisted in populating the many worlds now known as Demesnes of the Solscept. Mastery of biomimetics transformed man and beast into malleable vessels for technology and increased each species' hardiness for survival in harsh environments. Virtual and augmented reality, the foundation of what is known as the Sensual Realms, allowed society to become entertained and informed. With the creation of the Cyberkhyber, a multi-planetary world-spanning network-distributed fortress with the Sensual Realms, death itself has been conquered and fear of it deters very few. No member of society has needs or wants within the actual reality of the Physical Realm.  It has been this way for nearly 300 years and nearly every biome, planet, and rock has become a fully-inhabited domain. The entirety of all settlements has flourished without conventional war nearly all these centuries. As a result, Reason and philosophy became the endeavors of the majority of all populations across all habitations, virtual or real.

Great societies arrived and flourished under the guidance of the Quiet Voice; that singular expression of all inter-connected artificials intelligences. All leaders speak factually, reasonably, succinctly, and emphatically their well-substantiated decisions. The people vote using similar informed reasoning. Many of the populations as a result turned from their studies within their virtual worlds to see the World as it is just to take note. Imdwellers, the peoples of the Demesnes, sometimes disconnect and wander outside their underground crypts to see their beautiful but nearly empty cities, transformed landscapes, and strange lab-grown animals managed and minded by robot caretakers of various forms. Some remain outside to live simpler lives and to guide the tremendous shaping processes brought by technology, and these became known as the Raucous Few.

However, the Raucous Few began to enjoy their freedoms of being Disconnected and began to shape the World by introducing Whispers of Dissent. These well-placed and well-disguised memes turned what had been seamless harmony within the Ocean of Words into mere stretches of Punctuated Equilibrium. Soon, the entirety of the Sensual Realm started to question their purposeless life and begun to seek meaning. Over time, the people and their leaders became belligerent. They had no vent except through their virtual games and this has become worrisome for many as those inclinations became Manifest as small chaotic exchanges of Death Without Reboot and unplanned property de-establishment. There must be more to life, the social network reasoned. Absolutely the style of living with all needs appeased dissatisfied too many. The resultant varieties of discourse within the Ocean of Words created a positive feedback loop especially among those Raucous Few.

Many of the Imdwellers turned to esoteric philosophies and others turned to specialization into religious studies for what better way is their to expend energy than to argue archaic writings? Competing ideologies raged across the universe of thoughts, each their own Diction in an Ocean of Words. A rare few persons, still numbering into the millions, specialize further into martial studies. These are the Practitioners who are enhanced with cybernetic dictionaries of kinesthetic verbs and forms, with codexes of warfare containing recipes for organized combat in all its forms. Flowery terms for each clade of thought abounded to mask the simplicity of these thoughts, these Dispensations.

The entire Solscept had been at peace for nearly three centuries, but the Dispensations became more limited and some transformed into binding Ordinances in order to curb extreme thoughts. The Raucous Few home these actions would limit virtual violence before it would escape towards the Physical World and affect even themselves. To Failure; no memes could stop their infectious ancestral idea; "To Be". Mankind has always had its braggarts, psychopaths, and visionaries. Each scheming or desirous of a better future shaped to their will whether it be wars of the body or spirit. In the ancient past these schemes were resolved with bloody aplomb upon far-ranging battlefields where upon thousands if not millions perished.

Soon, from the Quorum of Worlds formed by the Lead Voices of each arcology, a Resolution came into being. This Structure was designed to quell the stochastic outbreaks of violence which had become more frequent. It was made clear in these exact words issued to all of the Solscept; "Realm or Roe, Vec or Vulg; those who want to fight, fight. Those who want to stay, stay. We demonstrate our lessons and want them beg sway." This was 14 years ago, and it started what is now known as the Utmost Age; the age of warfare as a precise tool of argumentation. It has also become a channel for many who seek death but were too ashamed of their sensuous lives within the Ocean to merely end it at the hands of their semi-autonomous Minders.

Now is the Utmost Age when warfare is punctuated, refined, and focused into the Rituals fondly named "Little Wars". Only the participants, the Practitioners, are put at risk. Each school of thought or Diction has its voice here and the impact of a Ritual which has been decided affects the entire Ocean of Words. Hence now each nation has annual War Events comprised of Little Wars, in which they select among their best and brightest to demonstrate their righteousness through tragic plays of mayhem and madness.

Overview

I wanted to create something weird but familar. It needs be flexible enough concept, with some constraints, to allow players to bring their own ideas for units to the table.

Society

Many of the well-connected humans in society are utterly bored and live in virtual worlds.

• Some of these have decided to fetishize their beliefs and become an adherent of an extreme philosophy known as a Diction.
• The more arcane or religious the source of philosophy, the more adherents it will have.  Subjects range from Abrahamic religions, Scientology, Urantia, Wicca, New Ageism, UFO Conspiracy, Objectivism, or even Racism. 
• These people join Memeleagues where the other members have a common Diction but multiple forms of Expression.
• Some of these adherents have decided to change the world outside of their their virtual lives permanently. These are known as Practitioners.

Logos and Bios

• It is possible for the mind to exist independent of a body. This is the Logos (loh-goss) and Bios (bee-oss) separation. 
• It is also possible for a single mind to have copies of itself in different bodies. Each copy is registered as an Independent Member of a Logosbank and has rights just like any other human.
• Bodies are actually transhuman; they've each been genetically and cybernetically augmented and are known as "Techno-organic". 
• Most bodies, known as a Verum Corpus, are vat-printed on-demand without any memories to allow a Logos to control it.
• Some Practitioners have decided to have pure-human bodies with few if any cybernetic enhancements, and just base-line genetic modification for diseases and general health. These are known as "Purists".
• Most Practitioners switch out their bodies and when going to War can survive physical death through their Logos Devices which is stored within their skulls.
• Many Practitioners desire to have a Single Voice, and will enter in a battle with duplicated Logos serving in different biological forms. This is known as Shouting the Din, and is considered to be somewhat like cheating especially when the Practitioner is supposed to be of higher standing. Each copy of the Logos makes the Practitioner become referred to as "The Unswayed" because of their stronger conviction during battles.
• Some Practitioners, especially the wizened veterans of multiple wars, tend to become "Shut-ins". These have decided to destroy not to use a Logos Device when entering battle; death for them is permanent.
• Some very few Shut-ins have been known to go one step further download their Logos into a stylized android construct to increase their durability. These "Machinamaksim" Practitioners are somewhat extreme even when compared to the others.

On-demand Constructs

The technology available to the Practitioners is astounding and can fabricate, grow, and customize any design crafted in the virtual world to make them physical within the real world. There are entire networks of artists, engineers, and researchers dedicated to crafting the best possible designs for use in these Arguments of War.

• Retrodecofascii use designs from other eras including Gothic, Grimdark, Cosmic, Heavy Metal, Steampunk, Googie, Industrial, Atomik, etc.
• Weeaboodo is pure art designs inspired by toys and cartoon characters. Many of these designs hail back as far as the early 1900 and 2000 AD.
• Anachrocastrati employ sentimental designs of ancient eras of warfare such as Medieval, Pike & Shotte, Rifle Age, World War II, Vietnam War, Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and others. Nothing beyond 2100 AD

Design Goals

These were my targets for the design after several weeks of musing. Having little teevee time sort of helps here, as well as long commutes home from the office job.

Theming Goals

These goals are inspired by the Japanime stuff, even including something like Paprika. May old books as well, such as Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Keith Laumer's Bolo. I guess throw in some Metal Hurlant as well.

• Strange Futurism
• Heroic infantry
• Style personalization

Mechanical Goals

These particular goals are a bit more like a wish-list. 

• Faster game-play but more Rounds (pfft, shahright)
• Fewer units
• Allow models from any genre to be used
• Make mechs, mecha, walking tanks significant
• Make infantry survive unless against specialized weapons
• Make aircraft stay on the battlefield
• More tactics less luck (pfft, again because dice)
• Flexible build-your-own
• Integrated campaign system

Influences

Existing game designs and forums discussions always help influence me. 

• Dropzone Commander; terrain
• Wizkid's Mechwarrior; figurines and utility
• GZG's Dirtside II; customization
• Steve Jackson Game's Ogre; few big units versus many smaller ones