Republican Stealth Suit

[Aermas]

Do you guys think it unreasonable for the Republicans to have their own version of the Northern Gun Coyote Power Armor? It honestly seems WAY more up their alley to have a slim stealth armor that can be hidden under some fatigues. Would it be remiss to stat up a similar suit of 150 MDC that was a bit more polished & covered in Eagles? The reasoning being that with their Golden Age materials & tech their armor seems to be about 30ish points above other armors of the same class.

A few Repubs in suits sneaking around Free Quebec, Chi-Town, etc wearing the enemy's uniform makes way more sense then some outdoorsmen in Michigan wanting to wear something under their camo.

[darthauthor]

I like the idea of the Republicans but it feels like Palladium company forgot about them.

I can only assume that they started off with Golden Age Military Tech that was around before the Dark Ages. How they could improve I don't know. In some ways, the world going to the Dark Ages would make mass production of better tech unlikely. It's a struggle for survival. Of course, I have no idea what the resources of the Rupublicans have. They might be help by Archie leaving them the tech they need. Also, over the course of 300 years or so the Republican survivers would come up with ideas for how to use their tech better and the need to design it better for the world in which they live.

So yeah, it's possible.

[Aermas]

The Republicans are in a shadow war with Archie. They also have secret access to one of his manufacturing bunkers & they have been printing out high tech golden age gear from there. They were mentioned in the Megaverse in Flames book so they aren't forgotten...

I wish we could get a Jucier Uprising style book about them. I love the idea of some old fashioned idealists still trying to bring back America with a mix of old fashioned heroics & grassroots mixed with CIA black ops & infiltration

[glitterboy2098]

honestly, i could see them investing in buying the northern gun suits. why develop their own version when it would be easier to just buy them.. especially since using open-market gear for their infiltrations and operations agents allows improved deniability?

[Aermas]

honestly, i could see them investing in buying the northern gun suits. why develop their own version when it would be easier to just buy them.. especially since using open-market gear for their infiltrations and operations agents allows improved deniability?

Why? They have their own uniform combat armor even though they are supposedly secret kingmakers & don't have a reason to. So why not have an undersuit power armor similar to the Coyote? If not better from an MDC perspective, maybe make it even slimmer or maybe faster?

[ShadowLogan]

honestly, i could see them investing in buying the northern gun suits. why develop their own version when it would be easier to just buy them.. especially since using open-market gear for their infiltrations and operations agents allows improved deniability?

Why? They have their own uniform combat armor even though they are supposedly secret kingmakers & don't have a reason to. So why not have an undersuit power armor similar to the Coyote? If not better from an MDC perspective, maybe make it even slimmer or maybe faster?

IINM though the Republicans utilize existing designs, and don't create their own. So, if they have this type of hardware, and I'm not saying they do, it will have to be pre-Rifts design.

[Grazzik]

SB1r sets out a lot of the Republican background. Chaos Earth gives similar info re NEMA, the Republican's predecessors. Body armor is 3-5 years more advanced than the CS (SB1r pg 134). So it is conceivable that they have leveraged the advantage of lighter, stronger materials to make a variety of armor styles.

They have access to three automated factories (of which ARCHIE knows of only one). While ARCHIE describes the designs manufactured in Factory 7 as familiar, it is possible that the Republicans have been experimenting in Factories 8 & 9.

The Republicans have engaged in industrial espionage in that they gave the early instance of Chi-Town the details of pre-Rifts technology for armor. It may take some doing, but it is possible that through espionage they could secure access to tech specs for NG armor and upload it to one of the factories, perhaps improving on the design. Indeed, the NEMA FR-EX-220 armor has exoskeleton augmentation and a military version was designed, but not tested (CE core pg 64).

Trim down the 220's MDC plating by 20% to make it less bulky and you have effectively a NG-X32, but with half the weight!

[Mack]

Or they could just use the Coyote as is.

SB1r, page 136:
"The Republicans also use weapons from other manufacturers, with an emphasis on Wilk's laser weapons and Northern Gun armor and vehicles."

[Grazzik]

Indeed. Good call out, Mack. They can buy armor. They can build armor. They can even steal armor from ARCHIE's cached stores.

However, I'd be cautious about falling into the trap of thinking this is an either/or situation.

Can they do it? Yes.
Would they do it in a given situation? Depends on the situation.
* Look like everyone else, blend in - buy the body armor.
* Save money when cash is short or needed elsewhere - use factories to make it.
* Recruit unwitting outsiders who don't need to raise questions about their sponsor - buy the body armor.
* Outfit Republican patriots with superior gear ahead of anticipated combat - use factories to make it.
* Reallocate production capacity to higher value gear like heavy robots - buy the body armor.
* Need fast money by selling counterfeit armor - use factories to make it.
* etc. etc.

To improve the storytelling, I'd suggest avoiding absolutes and, if it is important to your game, elevate factions like the Republicans beyond the two dimensional caricatures that they can sometimes appear to be in the books. Look at their capabilities, their resources and determine what are all the options available to them. Then assume that in the last couple hundred years more than one way of doing things has probably works out since they are still around.

[glitterboy2098]

honestly, i could see them investing in buying the northern gun suits. why develop their own version when it would be easier to just buy them.. especially since using open-market gear for their infiltrations and operations agents allows improved deniability?

Why? They have their own uniform combat armor even though they are supposedly secret kingmakers & don't have a reason to. So why not have an undersuit power armor similar to the Coyote? If not better from an MDC perspective, maybe make it even slimmer or maybe faster?

they have their own body armor and PA for their direct action teams which aren't making attempts to hide, for use when they need to act and their identity is already uncovered. at that point capability takes precedence over being able to hide who they are. but their infiltration and covert action cells would be using deniable hardware sourced from the open market to prevent anyone from being able to point to a bit of kit on a corpse or in uncovered safe house and go "what the hell is that, we're dealing with someone new" and giving the investigators clues to follow to discover the Republicans.

Or they could just use the Coyote as is.

SB1r, page 136:
"The Republicans also use weapons from other manufacturers, with an emphasis on Wilk's laser weapons and Northern Gun armor and vehicles."

because Wilks and Northern Gun are ubiquitous on the open market in NA. everyone uses them, which means that if you find wilks guns and NG PA in the hands of a group, you can't ID their origin based on their equipment.

[Aermas]

I'm not against them using the Coyote, it just seems like they would want to make a similar product with their higher tech for their own use, if not making its systems better, then at least making them slimmer. It doesn't need to be starspangled & advertising themselves.

[glitterboy2098]

just existing though is advertising their existence. if they use the NG Coyote, it just means someone bought one. if a similar more advanced suit shows up it a bullhorn shouting "secret advanced faction here" whenever encountered.

that's my point. a low profile PA is only really useful for infiltration and covert ops missions, letting an agent have access to PA level abilities while still allowing them to use costumes and other such methods to go unnoticed in plain sight. the NG coyote write up calls this out as a main use. such covert ops need to be be deniable. that is, they can;t have any details that will direct a witness to suspect who pulled the op off. (or even better, leaves evidence that someone else did, as a false flag.) this not only goes for evidence left behind (such as bodies or discarded equipment) but also visual identification of the gear used and its abilities. even if they were to copy the NG suit exactly for outward looks, the increased toughness, strength, endurance, etc of using a more advanced tech is going to be noticeable.

plus you'd have issues with supply.. smuggling in advanced republican gear is going to very difficult to do without the smugglers leaving evidence of their activities, and a trail that can be followed. but with the NG suit they can easily just arrange for a suitable front operation to buy a few suits at a nearby NG outlet and have them delivered to a innocuous site, here they can more easily be delivered (via deadrop, fake break in, what have you) to the operatives tat need them, with much less chance of being intercepted because most of the delivery chain is legit business, and only the important bit where said legit product "falls off the back of a truck" into the hands of the operative is covert.

[Aermas]

just existing though is advertising their existence. if they use the NG Coyote, it just means someone bought one. if a similar more advanced suit shows up it a bullhorn shouting "secret advanced faction here" whenever encountered.

that's my point. a low profile PA is only really useful for infiltration and covert ops missions, letting an agent have access to PA level abilities while still allowing them to use costumes and other such methods to go unnoticed in plain sight. the NG coyote write up calls this out as a main use. such covert ops need to be be deniable. that is, they can;t have any details that will direct a witness to suspect who pulled the op off. (or even better, leaves evidence that someone else did, as a false flag.) this not only goes for evidence left behind (such as bodies or discarded equipment) but also visual identification of the gear used and its abilities. even if they were to copy the NG suit exactly for outward looks, the increased toughness, strength, endurance, etc of using a more advanced tech is going to be noticeable.

plus you'd have issues with supply.. smuggling in advanced republican gear is going to very difficult to do without the smugglers leaving evidence of their activities, and a trail that can be followed. but with the NG suit they can easily just arrange for a suitable front operation to buy a few suits at a nearby NG outlet and have them delivered to a innocuous site, here they can more easily be delivered (via deadrop, fake break in, what have you) to the operatives tat need them, with much less chance of being intercepted because most of the delivery chain is legit business, and only the important bit where said legit product "falls off the back of a truck" into the hands of the operative is covert.

None of this really matters when the answers are "we don't know who made it" "we dont know how he got it" & "we don't know who it is wearing it"

Again, I'm not saying they couldn't or shouldn't use Coyote, I'm just saying there is a decent reason for them to have their own version of it & it could have even been them who "leaked" lesser schematics to Northern Gun. Many of the manufacturers in RIFTS Earth have knock offs from competitors.
Like, I'm sure the CS have a few sets of PA similar to the Coyote, maybe they have it in matte black with glow in the dark painted bones call it the wraith suit or something spooky like that.
I was just wondering what might be the advantages of the Republicans making their own

[Grazzik]

I'm with Aermas on this one.

I'd say in the particular case of an operative entering a fortified city while wearing such a suit, it wouldn't matter if it were of NG or Republican manufacture. Just whether it was available as needed and, if it gives a small advantage, why not?

I grant you that if the operative is caught and their armor examined, it may show an unusual manufacture, but if products of that type are known to be on the market thanks to NG advertising, why put the armor through a close inspection? If, as Aermas says, the suit were designed to look like a NG product, it comes down to how well it passes inspection by a trained armorer. However, if arrested by beat cops or stopped by a military patrol, it is unlikely they would have an armorer among them.

Second, as I pointed out before, the performance of a Republican version of the armor (using their better materials) is really only in its weight. So, a guard shooting a fleeing suspect a couple hundred feet away may comment that the suspect is light on their feet, but that could be put down to a number of things in the heat of the moment, including psionics, magic, cyber, drugs, etc. After the fact, it may be recalled if the guard were perceptive to recall it, but it is likely that they'd be more intent on finding out what the operative was up to in the first place.

Third, IIRC, armor of any kind is prohibited in most fortified cities. It is unlikely that any armor would be legitimately delivered into the city, so the drop point would have to be beyond city walls in the surrounding burbs, weapons depot, or an outer marketplace, where it is unlikely there would be a high degree of scrutiny if MD armor is freely sold and traded. Sure, tax collectors or custom officials may look inside crates marked "MD armor" to see if such are there, maybe have a Dogboy sniff over it to see if there's any enchantment, but I doubt they would go so far as to do a QA test to see if it is a counterfeit, let alone a more advanced copy. From their perspective, that's the buyer's problem, as they get paid either way.

Finally, the presumption here is that something is going to go wrong and lead to the discovery of the Republicans. The operative will be caught. The smugglers are not good at their one job. The design of the armor is too obviously not NG. I'm sorry, but with professionals doing what they do best, whether it be manufacture, shipping, or use of a product, and perhaps a few lucky dice rolls, the likelihood that anyone would draw the conclusion that there is a mysterious new faction with super tech is slim. It could be a Kittani knockoff. It could be a pre-Rifts relic. It could be a Black Market custom job. There are a lot of other more likely conclusions in the wacky world of Rifts than there is a previously unknown group in the shadows that practically no-one has heard of. Then again, it depends on what level of paranoia you ascribe to the authorities that be in your game