Fleets of the Three Galaxies

[Braden Campbell]

Just to prove that, now that my family is nicely moved into our new digs, I am working on finnishing up my Rifter "Fleets" article.

"Fleets of the Three Galaxies" will take a look at definitive classes of starships, where space battles take place, what space fighters are good for (and what they cannot do). It will also include notable facilities and commanders for the CAF, the TGE, the Golgan Argosy, the Warlock Navy, and the Altess Armoria.

Below is a sample taken from the section on the Golgan. Enjoy.

_______________________________________________
Notable Facilities:
Feynman Radio Array, Mekanik.
As the Kultural Revolution begins attacking its list of targets, the other power blocs in the Anvil Galaxy are all wondering the same thing: how in the hell did the resource-poor Golgan manage to upgrade their fleet with so much new technology in such a short period of time? The Golgan’s natural paranoia means that, ultimately, they trust only their own race. So their technological upgrades cannot be the product of an alliance with some other power. No intelligence agency has yet been able to come up with the real answer. Few would believe it even if they did. The technology in fact is entirely of Golgan design; just that it comes from several hundred years in the future.

Sixty-six years ago, the Coucil Scientifik abandoned the planet of Mekanik, leaving it entirely run by machines. The Council was curious to see what would happen when all of the machines were left to make their own decisions. When two robots walked into the government buildings on Gologo Maxus, and claimed to be the new delegates from Mekanik, the founders of the Kultural Revolution saw their chance. A bloodless coup was staged, and in the course of a single afternoon, the Golgan Republik became a militocracy under the leadership of Gaus Binjo. The new government’s first order of business was to make Mekanik a full member planet.

Then the robots and the Revolution leaders got to work. The Argosy needed a complete overhaul, but the technology gap was too great between the Golgan and their neighbours. Obtaining outside help was impossible, and there was not enough time to develop all the needed systems. So a massive device was built on Mekanik that would allow the leaders of the Revolution to receive information from the future: a Feynman Radio.

The mathematics that allow the Feynman Radio to work were developed almost entirely by the robots of Mekanik. Their theory goes like this: you jiggle an electron, and it makes a radio wave. That wave travels outwards into space. It’s also traveling outwards in time; that is, leaving its source and traveling to a receiver in the future. However, if there is an equal and opposite reaction for everything in the universe, then that jiggled electron is also sending a kind of "inverse wave" that does the opposite of the first: it travels backward though time, to arrive at a source. Thus, a weapon schematic completed four centuries from now can be “faxed” back in time, and used by the Golgan living in the present.

The very idea of gaining information and intelligence from the future is something no one else has even dreamed of. It is generally accepted as a fact, even by the magic-using cultures of The Three Galaxies, that the past cannot be altered. One cannot travel back in time, nor change was has already happened. But with the Feynman Radio, the Golgan seem to have found loophole in the physics of the universe. They are not changing the past, but merely altering the future to one more preferable to the Republik.

The Radio is not without its limitations. Firstly, communication is one-way: backwards. The present-day Golgan get whatever the future Golgan feel like sending. And although they should be able to receive messages from any point in the future, they have been doing almost all of their “talking” with Golgan who claim to be living four hundred years from now. The future Golgan have been very sketchy with descriptions what their life is like. The directors of the Radio project believe that four centuries from now, the Republik is either in complete shambles, or does not exist at all, and that the future Golgan are directing the present-day Golgan in ways to avoid this fate.

The future Golgan will often send intelligence of things that have happened to them, but have yet to occur in the present, allowing the Argosy to prepare for large battles before they are fought. However, with every altered present event, the future (where the Feynman transmissions are being sent from) is also altered. So this information is not always correct, as it might have applied to an event that no longer will happen. Or which has no longer happened.

Confused? So are the men and women in charge of the Project. They simply take it on faith that they are doing the right thing, and blindly trust the voices on the other end of the line.


Notable Commanders:
Gaus Binjo, First Citizen of the Republik, Leader of the Kultural Revolution.
Gaus Elia Binjo is now doing what he was groomed his entire life to do: lead the Republik to a new era of greatness and security. His mother, Littain Twenik Binjo, has been head of the Council Scientifik for the past 200 years. It was she who ordered Mekanik turned entirely over to machine control, and it is she who now heads up the Feynman Radio Array.

When he was born, Elia Binjo was immediately identified as having all four heightened Golgan senses. He was educated in the finest state-run private schools, and trained from a very early age in the art of rhetoric and political maneuverings. It was assumed by all that he would go on to serve on, and perhaps even lead, the Council Politik. So when he joined the Republikan Guard at age 50 (after finishing 35 years of bureaucratic study), only his mother was not surprised.

His education and ability to command others should have allowed him to quickly rise to the rank of Gaus. But when the Army never sees any action, elevations in rank are hard to come by. Elia and a dozen select others were then organized into a special “investigative task force” under the command of the Council Scientifik. Binjo’s task force was sent on missions of study and exploration far from the boarders of the Republik, bringing them into hostile contact with all manner of alien races. By the time he turned 90, Binjo had seen more combat than any member of the Republikan Guard, and his underlings were a small but finely honed fighting force.

Upon returning to the Republik, Binjo’s group came to see that the Republik was disintegrating through its own apathy and inaction. With every world that left, the buffer zone around Gologo Maxus grew smaller and smaller. Binjo came to believe that action must taken to save the Republik from itself, even if it meant a complete societal overhaul. The Kultural Revolution was born.

Binjo’s group of fighters, now calling themselves the Assemblage, began to find like-minded Golgan. Their numbers grew into a well-organized underground movement. When the robots of Mekanik presented themselves to the Council, it was Binjo’s group who secretly entered into talks with them, asking what they could provide in return for full membership and protection. One hundred days later, with production of the Feyman Radio already underway (and Binjo’s mother leading the construction), and the Council Politik still unsure what to do, the Assemblage announced that they were now taking over as the ruling party.

So far, the Revolution has made great strides. Using the future information from the Feynman Radio, Gaus Binjo has delivered on what he promised: that the Republik would rebuild its crumbling buffer zone. The majority of Golgan see this as a new golden age, and are going along with the militocracy for the time being. They are used to having their civil liberties stepped on in the name of increased security. However, Binjo is playing a desperate gamble that few are fully aware of. The coffers of the Republik have been almost entirely emptied with the construction of the enhanced Argosy, and should the Revolution be somehow thwarted, the entire thing will collapse into economic anarchy. Binjo knows that the Republik was doomed anyway, and that he only has one shot to save it. He has become increasingly dependant on the intelligence provided him by the future Golgan, to the point where he often cannot make an important decision by himself.

Quick Stats
Alignment: Scrupulous Good
OCC/Experience Level: 10th level Golgan Administrator
Atrtributes:
Hand to Hand: Basic
Special Powers: has all four enhanced Golgan senses (see Anvil Galaxy, pg. 57).
Notes: Can often be found living aboard one of the new Sylnor Dreadnoughts, and is growing ever more dependant on the Feyman information to direct the course of the Republik. If the situation continues, the Republik will in fact become a chronocracy, ruled by Golgan from 400 years in the future. Gaus Binjo enjoys music, even though he cannot sing a note and is totally tone deaf.

[KLM]

Err...

The Golgan’s natural paranoia means that, ultimately, they trust only their own race. So their technological upgrades cannot be the product of an alliance with some other power.

This is a bit opposing to the fact, that the Republikan Guard is (was? )
equipped with Naruni stuff, by canon.

Otherwise go on, I am interested.

Adios
KLM

[Braden Campbell]

But all that naruni gear goes to the Golgan-only Republikan Guard. they do not trust it to the non-Golgan races of the Auxillery Guard.

[KLM]

Err.... I begun to question my English...

First you mentioned, that the Golgan (supposedly
the Republikan Guard, since the Auxilary is mostly
non-Golgan) got some new toys. But it cannot come
from outside source, because they are paranoid.

Now, I argued that according to canon, they gladly
took NE gear... Therefore if some - say - Core
power gave them some know-how about advanced
stuff, they would gladly use it - according to canon,
and IMO.

So... How comes the trusting or not in the Aux into
the debate...?

---
Nevermind, keep it coming

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

1.) IIRC, the golgan republik is a collapsing nation loosing member worlds faster than a ice cube melts in a fire. how in the world can this still be happening if the main leaders can receive information about the future?

2.) Feynman Radio: TDTMNT specifies that manipulating time takes a huge amount of power, that the temporal energy 'pressure' means you can't reverse time, and that the timeline is resistant to paradox.
by palladium 'fizzics' F-radio signals wouldn't be able to influence the past.
but they do open up a interesting possibility. since the signals are supposed to propagate in reverse time, but temporal energy keeps them from doing so, they'd remain 'stationary' in time. instantaneous interstellar communication. because they propagate in a time frame reference that is frozen, the signal could get anywhere.

(note: the idea that the golgans could pull a 'bill and ted' and just send back a warning every time something goes wrong is way to munchkin, and begs the question "why, with all this, are they shattering?"
giving them FTL radio doesn't really give them a immediate advantage, since you'd still need to be able to use the info. look at today's bureaucracy, and how long it takes to get info around today. military intel runs 12 to 24 hours at the least, since it's run through data gathering, intel interp, prioritizing, ect.
and the golgans LOVE red tape, so they'd be looking at even more steps and people in the process.



also, Feynman was human, so you might want to invent a golgan name for it instead.


edit:
einstein paradox-
a time traveller goes back, and gives einstein a copy of a book detailing out Reletivity. einstein then just copies from the book, 'invinting' reletivity.
who invented reletivity? einstein didn't in this scenario, because he just copied from the book. the time traveller didn't, since all he did was give the book over. Reletivity just 'spontantiously invents itself'.


pulling a 'bill and ted'-
using timetravel to rig an event with 'miraculous' saves.

Golgan admiral "we've lost, the seperatists will kill us all. send warn our past, make sure we bring reinforcements next time"
massive golgan armada drops out of FTl, and stats to decimate the seperatist fleet
"i see the message got through...."

[KLM]

Glitterboy2098:
Since there are paralell dimensions, time travel via the astral
plane and of course the Clairvoyance psi power, anything
can be on the other end of that line.

Also, the FR is just recently put to use, so it may take
some time to feel the effects on a galactic power level.

(As a side note, I prefer more "static" settings in
space operas, not an arms race like IRL but I hope
this will not Braden to continue )

Adios
KLM

[Jefffar]

Well, just because the peopel working the Feyman radio know what they did wrogn in a specific circumstance doesn't mean that the Golgan in the present will fix it properly (or infact be able to avoid making it worse by incorrectly interpreting the Feyman's messages).

The Feyman could also only have a limited "range" as it were, going back only a few hours/days/weeks and specificalyl only that. If you miss the window of oppourtunity to change things, you're outta luck.

[Braden Campbell]

IIRC, the golgan republik is a collapsing nation loosing member worlds faster than a ice cube melts in a fire. how in the world can this still be happening if the main leaders can receive information about the future?

The hope is that Binjo and the Feynman project will be able to turn this around. They are only about to get started.

note: the idea that the golgans could pull a 'bill and ted' and just send back a warning every time something goes wrong is way to munchkin, and begs the question "why, with all this, are they shattering?"

Any GM worth his/her salt can put a cap on the obvious balance issues generated by having such a machine, the same as their are still cities on Rifts Earth while the CS has nuclear weapons. Remember that the present Golgan get whatever the future Golgan send them. you can't make requests in present day. It might be that the power requirements needed to send a message backward are incredible, and therefore only the ones with highest priority get through.

Manifold Time

Stephen Baxter is the man.

anything can be on the other end of that line.

Very true. The present Golgan are taking it on faith that the people sending them messages are a)Golgan and b) have their best intentions in mind...

just because the peopel working the Feyman radio know what they did wrogn in a specific circumstance doesn't mean that the Golgan in the present will fix it properly (or infact be able to avoid making it worse by incorrectly interpreting the Feyman's messages).

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future...

The Feynman Radio is a writing excuse to have the Golgan ships pose a threat to PC's. It is also the seed of many adventures, or even a whole campaign. What if the secret of the machine gets out? Will the TGE try to take it? Will the CCW try to copy it? If everyone is trying to predict the future via Clairvoyance, or manipulate the outcome of events in the future, can anything actually get done?

Quantum Clairvoyance. The observer changes the nature of the thing being observed, simply by observing it.

[Braden Campbell]

Awesome!

I'm making a difference after all.

Take that ex-girlfriends and highschool guidance councillor!

[Braden Campbell]

I'm now working on the Altess Armoria, and I am coming up against some balance issues (those who know me know that I'm all about the game balance)

The Armoria is small in number, but stupidly powerful. There are only 1 million Armoria officers, and the rest of the navy is crewed by robots. Billions of robots. Even their fighters are big Naruni-style fighter drones.

Now, in rough, I have based their fleet size on a robot population of 60 billion (the population of Terra Prime). This gives them 170 Flagships, 1200 Cruisers, and about 2000 destroyers.

The destroyers and cruisers aren't so bad- they are powerful, but not overwhelming. But I was going to base the Flagship super star destroyer along the lines of the Cruiser, only 6 times as big. However, that ends up with it being about the size of the packmaster, but able to carry 150,000 battle droids, plus drone fighters. Moreover, doing so gives it a Main Body MDC of over 800,000 with shielding at 72,000 per side.

My internal balance alarm is screaming. The only trade off against these galaxy-destroying ships is that the Altess never use them... they don't have to.

Thoughts?

[glitterboy2098]

out of 1 million personell.....you'd be looking at what, maybe 300,000 actual combat roles? and those would be split up at one or two per infantry company, maybe a few dozen per ship?

yikes, you right.
reduce to effective robot population down.

maybe 6 billion? but make the ships tougher for a balance. they have lots of funds to spend to get the best gear, so the 'quality over quantity' mindset wins out.

[KLM]

For my part I imagined the Armoria over the following
lines:

1, They have a vast sensor network around Altess space -
therefore no ship can enter unnoticed. Smaller ships are
dispatched by "not commercial grade" Naruni stuff,
like FTL and Mach 14 capable Fire Eaters, up to and
maximum Frigates (capable to go toe-to-toe with the
average cruiser - also costing more than your average cruiser).
They probably have the most Star Ghosts after Phase World.
(Or a similar, but exclusive design manufacture only for them)

2, Most non-altess are also employed by the Armoria,
giving it the much needed warm bodies (besides a healthy
supply of Repo-bots)

3, Forces, bigger than a casual pirate fleet are handled by
proxy. They are paid off or assassinated - life is ...interesting...
when you are hunted by Repo-bots, Oni ninjas, Gun Brothers and
a temporal warrior assassin squad. Simultaneously.

4, Most importantly the power of the Armoria comes not only
from their superior technology, but from the dedicated,
and very professional personell. Most armoria officers are
doing their second or third tour of duty - and one tour of duty
is a flat century.

5, If they have a weakness, it is their "zero loss" tactics -
ie. they will spend vast resources to avoid the loss of Altess life.

Adios
KLM

[Braden Campbell]

Actually, now that I've had some Tylenol and time to think it over... the Altess don't need to build giant Flagships. Their cruisers and frigates (destroyers) will do just fine.


Kind of like the Dominion...

But thanks for listening, all.

[KLM]

Actually, they do have dreadnoughts - but they classify them
as self-defense capable luxory liners. A giant yacht, if you
like. They are serving the Armoria as diplomatic vessels,
with some very visible weaponry (mostly the smaller,
defense batteries), and some very well hidden
heavy weapons.

She is big enough to be self-sustaining, but carries at
least 4 Wrath of God destroyers and several wings of
lesser craft - well hidden in the bays, they are distastefull,
after all.

Adios
KLM

[Braden Campbell]

Just a note to say that I'm finishing up the Altess... and man, they did not need dreadnoughts... not with Nazsam Intelligent Missiles, compressed quark matter reactors, and magnetic photon beams that cripple force fields!

You'll see...

[Braden Campbell]

UPDATE:

I know this thing has been a lot longer coming than I would have liked, but that's life when you're a stay-at-home Dad. The Altess section is done. Here is a little snippet. I think it nicely pulls some things together:
____________________________________________

Notable Commanders:
Jelko Rodula, weapon designer, Harker’s Enclave, somewhere in the Anvil Galaxy.

Although never an Officer, Jelko Rodula must have special mention whenever discussing or studying the Armoria. Rodula was a weapon designer, and very possibly one of the most intelligent Altess to ever live. His active career spanned nearly 2800 years, during which he built nearly every weapon design currently in use by both the Altess and the Naruni. He is most famous for building the Rodulan Accelerator (Anvil Galaxy, pg. 115), and his pioneering work with strange matter. He sat on the NE Board of Directors for several centuries, although he no longer does.

Jelko Rodula is famous as much for his attitude as for his accomplishments. He was very much akin to the human Frank Lloyd Wright; in that Rodula was a genius who believed that his weapons should be as much works of art, pleasant to behold, as they should be destructive instruments. He is responsible for the smooth-flowing lines that are the hallmark of Naruni Enterprises.

However, Rodula is most famous among the Altess as being the only member of that race to ever declare bankruptcy. He liquidated all his known assets ten years ago, and vanished. The Armoria, fearful of loosing his bloodline, have standing orders to find him and drag him back to Altess Prime by any means necessary. The reasons for his disappearing act are unknown to everyone but Rodula, and some of the top execs at the Hartigal Combine.

Ten years ago, Jelko’s good friend, Lester M’Kri, found himself in desperate trouble with Naruni Enterprises. M’Kri had been a designer for the super-corporation, but had left to found his own line of weapons and military systems. His company, M’Kri Hardware was instantly set upon by endless hordes of Naruni lawyers, who sued the poor man into oblivion. At the end, M’Kri apparently committed suicide, though many suspect he was “cashed out” by Naruni Repo Bots.

Rodula went into a deep depression when he received the news. The company that he and fellow Altess owned a majority of had allowed his good friend to die needlessly. Furthermore, M’Kri shared Jelko’s stylistic flair, as could be seen in the statuesque form of the Avenger A-1. Finally, Rodula decided that both the Altess and Naruni had to be made accountable for their actions. He cashed out everything he owned (which caused a three week-long slump on the galactic stock exchange), and filed papers for bankruptcy. Then he boarded a ship of his own design and went to Harker’s Enclave. He personally bankrolled the creation of the Hartigal Combine, determined to create a company that would hurt his enemies’ right where it counted: in the pocketbook.

There are rumors that Rodula is assembling a fleet of advanced starships based on Altess designs, with the purpose of destroying the Naruni blockade of Gandon Point (see Anvil Galaxy, pg. 104). If fighting breaks out, the Armoria will be called in to drag Rodula home. Whether or not they get involved in an all-out war between NE and their competition depends on the Seenth who gets the job.

[cornholioprime]

Notable Commanders:
Jelko Rodula, weapon designer, Harker’s Enclave, somewhere in the Anvil Galaxy.


Jelko Rodula is famous as much for his attitude as for his accomplishments. He was very much akin to the human Frank Lloyd Wright; in that Rodula was a genius who believed that his weapons should be as much works of art, pleasant to behold, as they should be destructive instruments. He is responsible for the smooth-flowing lines that are the hallmark of Naruni Enterprises.

Constructive Criticism, so PLEASE don't take it as anything but:


Given the fact that very few entities even know of Rifts Earth as it is today, much less its pre-Golden Age History, the blurb in this Paragraph doesn't "feel right" even though you're trying to convey a point directly to the Readers (that is to say, you're trying to give us an example of how Rodula works as opposed to saying that he actually knows of Frank Lloyd Wright).

That sentence seems (to me, at least) to be breaking the Fourth Wall....

PM me if you agree or disagree, or even post a Response here in the Forum....

The rest of this Article is pretty damned good, though....although I'm a little leery of this particular Altess' age (yes, I know that they can live for hundreds if not thousands of years with their level of Medical Tech, but STILL...... )

Note to the rest of youse: Frank Lloyd Wright is pretty famous here in Arizona; they say that he designed a significant number of Buildings both here and around the world; and we have a street or two named after him.

[KLM]

Some points to consider:

-My perception was, that the Altess Dinasty, does not market
it's ownership with Naruni. Yet, the article presents that as a fact.

- While not clear, it seems that NE is just recently popped
up in the Three Galaxies (like around the start of the Golgan
Republic's fall, when the golgans begun to arm themselves
with NE stuff). It certain is in the centuries, maybe a millenia,
but not more... IMO of course.

- The Altess is mentioned to have a common racial goal,
the Forge, to the point that their society is based upon
the Zero Growth theory...
Therefore it is not likely, that an Altess would turn against its
society.
Pressing the plot further, if Lester M'Kri was an Altess, he would
not be killed by the Altess owned Naruni, without heads rolling.
If he was not, how could he be as important to an Altess,
as a mere mortal, so that Rodula turned against his race?

- It is mentioned, that the Altess Dinasty has a share in Hartigal.

Adios
KLM

[Braden Campbell]

heh! I don't recall, did the books ever say where the name "Hartigal" came from ?

who were his partners ? (if you've gone that far)

Hatigal was formed by a bunch of disgruntaled Ex-naruni Employees. This implies that Rodula helped them get started.

??? I must have missed that. Seenth ???

Sorry... its mentioned earlier in the same section. Seenth is an Altess Armoria rank: about equal to a ship's Captain.

the blurb in this Paragraph doesn't "feel right" even though you're trying to convey a point directly to the Readers

Hmmm... what about:
"He was a genius who believed that his weapons should be as much works of art, pleasant to behold, as they should be destructive instruments. (Some vague interdimensional explorers have compared him a Human named Frank Lloyd Wright)".

I see what you're getting at... as much as you see what I'm going for.

My perception was, that the Altess Dinasty, does not market
it's ownership with Naruni. Yet, the article presents that as a fact.

It is a fact. They just don't tell everyone about it. Rodula is not telling anyone about the Altess connection to NE. He's just showing up with a ton of capital and kick-starting a new company.

Pressing the plot further, if Lester M'Kri was an Altess, he would
not be killed by the Altess owned Naruni, without heads rolling.
If he was not, how could he be as important to an Altess,
as a mere mortal, so that Rodula turned against his race?

Maybe I should clear that up. I don't think M'Kri was an Altess, otherwise you would be right. As for why they became friends... genius seeks out genius.

[KLM]

Err... missed in the last post:
So, if Rodula was making weapons for a few millenia
(Altess are known for that kind of behavior)...

IMO while the NE stuff is the most ubiqious in the Armoria,
they have their own designs in the vaults, which might
even surpass Core tech... but certainly superior than
mass-market NE hardware.
Therefore it is not unreasonable to assume, that Rodula
worked most of his time directly for the Armoria (see my
prev. post about NE's age in the 3 G's).

I hope this all contributed to make this article better.

Adios
KLM

[Braden Campbell]

Added last night to the end....


Quick Stats
Alignment: Anarchist
OCC/Experience Level: 15th level Altess Operator
Attributes: IQ 30, ME 19, MA 15, PS 12, PP 17, PE 20, PB 17, SPD 21
Hand to Hand: Basic
Special Powers: Standard psionic powers for the Operator OCC.
Notes: Rodula’s prototype attack ships, the Guradian-class, are light cruisers with many experimental armaments. These include Strange Matter Torpedoes (8D6x100 MDC) and pulse HI-Lasers. The ship’s coated with reactive armor, and takes half damage from kinetic and explosive attacks. There are only two of them so far, with an average construction cost of 8 billion credits apiece. They have a crew of 75.


And, yes KLM... all of this is helping to make it better. I just hope that people enjoy the ideas it contains, and have the paitience to sit through the whole thing (it' sstill not done and is 50 pages long)

On a related note, the section on hte CCW is jsus about done, with only one new ship to add to their fleet. The Kreeghor: toying with some variant of submarine warefare... cloaking or out-of-phase fields maybe? Anyone have anything they'd like to see for the UWW.... I never really use them, so I have no idea what to do with them. I will talk about how they got founded, and talk about how big the Warlock Navy is... but other than that, what do you guys want to see?

[KLM]

I more like interested in noro psylite stuff used in CAF ships
(extrasensory stuff, maybe bio-manipulating crew of enemy
ships, telemechanical attacks on craft hundreds of klicks away,
and the like...).

Same for TGE's (shilouette) TW additions.

UWW... They are supposed to have their own books. One day.

But if just a quarter of ideas from a creative party gets
through into their designs, the Warlock Navy can mop
up the floor with almost anything.
(Except maybe the Sploogs)

Yeah, Splugorth/Kittanni/Rune ships

Adios
KLM

[KLM]

KLM:
TW stuff & shiluettes: do you think they have an affinity for T-wizardry?

The RCC description states that they colonised several
planets (before their "TGE membership") using:

magic and rift-drive technology

QED.

Adios
KLM