Forums of the Megaverse®

Does anyone know or know where I can find statistics about the CS?

I am trying to understand what life is like in the CS. If I Rifted into the territory of the CS. Say I am out in the woods or plains. I'm with my friends from the year 2020. I look around and see wilderness. My phone doesn't get a signal.
Road's gone?
I figure our which way is North and follow trails to get to my home residence only to find my town isn't there anymore or it looks totally different.
Any "people" I come across I see dressed as farm hands or peasants or adventures in MDC armor so I think they are cross-players or like something out of a movie.

I ask, "What happened to world?"

Do they think I'm a con artist? A crazy person? Do they rob me? Lock me up? Kill me because they figure I'm from the past out of a Rift? Would they even know what I'm talking about when I asked what happened to the world?
They have been born and raised in Rifts Earth. To them nothing has changed or just big current events like the fall of Tolkeen, Minion War, etc. Besides, if they are a regular person in CS terrority they can't read, are uneducted (but not stupid), lack knowledge of history. They don't know what was before, only what is now.

I see what? People with bionics/cybernetic?
Using psychic powers?

I ask around enough would I get the general information:
Total population of CS territory:
Humans?
Dog Boys?
Psi-Stalkers?
D-Bees?
Percent Pyschics?
Percent possessing Bionic/cybernetic?

Somewhere before, during and after "this" I'm going to think, how can I get home again?

Then, how do I survive and thrive in "these" new times?
I think, like a movie, I need a gun?
I think, strength in numbers?
Money still has value, that hasn't changed. But I don't have modern currancy, only what I have on me I can trade.

Honestly, I'd keep trying to wake up, like it was a bad dream. Then I'd probably run back to where I Rifted in and hope another Rift opened because I have no money "here" and there is not sign of a Walmart, Starbucks and my job and place of living are gone. Anyone NOT with me is gone, unless I can travel back to them. Eventually, I would give up hope of ever returning and have to get a job before I starved or got eaten.
Knowing only what someone in the CS territory told me I'd probably buy into the CS propaganda until I met a Dbee or magic user or friendly supernatural. Even then, they are probably just normal for them and I'd still be thinking about how to save myself. Where am I going to go? How will I get a job when I get there? How will I survive until I do?

The main Rifts rulebook as well as most sourcebooks (New West, Mercenaries, Lone Star) already have the information you are searching for.

If you want more flavor for the world to pass onto your players, Palladium did authorize novels, although I haven't read any so can't make a reccommendation
http://palladium-store.com/1001/category/Novels.html

The award for the most open-ended question goes to ...

It all comes down to who are your PCs, where they end up, how they got there, what do they choose to do at that point, and why do so. When they show up might impact how you use major events as a backdrop, like the Juicer Uprising or Tolkeen War, etc.

If not super-powered or special in some way, they will be at best be beaten, at worst be eaten, and in the long run dead. And no self-respecting, patriotic CS peasant is going to have a fire-side chat about the world they live in with an obvious dbee, lunatic, or worse! For all they know, they'll get shot for harboring a Tolkeenite refugee.

Foilfodder is right. As GM, you set the tone. Talk to your players as part of a session 0, pick a setting, read the book, and develop a sense of the area the PCs will find themselves in to craft the likely encounters to throw at them. How good, bad, or ugly you make it is your choice as GM.

darthauthor wrote:I ask around enough would I get the general information:
Total population of CS territory:
Humans?
Dog Boys?
Psi-Stalkers?
D-Bees?
Percent Pyschics?
Percent possessing Bionic/cybernetic?

Most of the actual information you're looking for can be looked up. SB1 has a lot of info, for example.

BUT that's not necessarily the same information you'd get if you were on Rifts Earth, asking CS citizens, because the CS is all about propaganda.
In the original SB1, in the year 102 PA, the population of the CS territory is about 24 million:
14 million humans
10 million D-Bees, Mutants, and other intelligent non-humans.

But when you get to the section of the book titled D-Bees and Other Mutants Population Zero, it's explained that non-humans can never become Citizens of the CS.
Presumably, that's why there's a "population Zero" of them, because they're not citizens so they're not counted.

Would the average CS citizen know about their existence?
Unknown.
If you show up out in the sticks, they may well not. They might fully believe that there are zero non-humans in CS territory.
If you show up in the Burbs, where there are a ton of non-humans, people will know about the non-humans.
But will they be able to talk about the non-human presence in a meaningful, useful way, or will their heads be so full of propaganda that when you ask about D-Bees, they'll day "Oh, we don't have those around here."
Then you point to some D-Bees walking past, and the person you're talking to is like, "Oh, them? Yeah, they don't count. They're just passing through."
But then you ask more questions and find out the D-bees in question have been in the Burbs for 12 years so far, and the person you're talking to doesn't seem to see a conflict.

I mean, that's a semi-plausible scenario to me, that some people would think that way, due to the propaganda they're saturated with.
Of course, others wouldn't.
But some of the others might go the other way, having broken free of CS propaganda only to fall into believing the D-Bee Liberation Front or whatever, who insists there's like 50 million D-Bees in CS territory being oppressed, compared to only 5 million humans, and if you join their fight the rest will rise up and help you easily crush the evil CS forever.

It's the kind of thing where there's not likely to be a lot of official and/or impartial information.

Thanks for the replies,

Foilfodder, Grazzik, and Killer Cyborg (respectively).

I left wondering about the DBee point of view.

I am not sure how they all got there (in CS terriority) but why does the CS not do regular PURGE month like the movie series only on DBees?

I am guess my own answer now:

1. The CS has too much on their plate with urgent threats in and outside of their boarders?

2. They need the DBees as cheap/slave labor for their farms and mines? Why if they have Robot labor?

3. They don't have the intelligence on their whereabouts and numbers? Many are nomads who never stay long in one place?

4. If they began purging in mass overtly panic would spread and the DBees within their territory would die running and fight. The destruction could damage farms and such while risking 1% CS casualties? Could insight North American DBees to unite and attack most vulnerable CS humans in their territory?

5. They are "human" shields of sorts against attacks from other DBees?

While from the DBee in CS territory's point of view, they stay in the CS because:

1. They are slaves and mentally broken or lack the means of escape from their slave drivers?

2. They are ignorant of the world and have no idea which direction to flee to a safe place where they won't be killed, enslaved, eaten or die by starvation / exposure to the elements? Pre-Tolkeen fall? Lazlo? New Lazlo?

3. They lack the means of transportation and resources (food, equipment) to travel?

4. Life in the CS is bad but their belief is that it is worse outside of CS territory?
In the CS they have security against supernatural threats and employment?

5. They are terrorist/freedom fighters who believe they can taken down the CS or reform them?

Did I miss anything?

1) the wilderness of Rifts Earth is deadly. Magical creatures, bandits, aliens can destroy your town in a blink of an eye. The C.S. / N.G.R. are "safer" due to military power.
2) being a non-human in the C.S. N.G.R. is hard, you are second-class and may be beaten or killed and nobody will care
3) being a non-human in the N.G.R. C.S. is a death sentence. No tolerence unless you are a registered psychic or dog-boy.

**Edit - points #2 and #3 changed to match sources cited by Grazzik below**

Let us compare the Coalition States (C.S.) with the New German Republic (N.G.R) for a moment.

Similarities:
- pro-humanity
- pro-technology
- highly militaristic
- anti-magic / wizards and creatures
- anti d-bees / Rifts

Differences:
- N.G.R. is trying to maintain/defend existing borders against enemies
- C.S. is trying to expand borders and assimilate human neighbors into itself, exterminate others
- N.G.R. has a great educational system and kept technology from the Golden Age / Pre-Rifts
- C.S. has had to rediscover or reinvent technology and is still below Pre-Rifts in most fields
- N.G.R. has sufficent automation and human labor
- C.S. needs/wants more production/labor then it current has, and needs increase as it acquires more territory.

The C.S. wants to expand to control its neighbors, some of whom are more tolerent of magic and d-bees. Even the burbs of chi-town you will find non-humans...but be sure they know a C.S. deadboy squad won't hestitate to kill them if given even slight provocation. They are still a part of what keeps C.S. and outlying settements industry and commerce going and the C.S. knows it. Gradually the C.S. builds toward humanity-only ideal but are willing to let non-humans live on the fringes (For now).

The N.G.R. has no need for non-humans. Any mutants or d-bees would take limited resources that could support a human. Society and industry are pre-rifts, established before d-bees and magic came to the planet. The N.G.R. never allowed such beings to integrate into their workforce or population and uses military force to make sure it does not happen has limited programs to allow useful individuals to integrate into useful military or labor forces. Scorched-earth campaigns are acceptable to preserve the N.G.R. and only human lives have more value.

So darthauthor, does that help you understand why there are d-bees within the C.S. despite the active hostility toward the non-human population?

Thanks Foilfodder,

Yes it does help.

I will have to read up on NGR. I thought I heard from someone that the NGR has a lighter attitude on D-Bees. A few in their ranks as war heroes.

Where the CS can kill D-Bees with impunity and even compliment, I thought the NGR deported them. Recognized their value in border defense. Even employed the human looking ones for 25% of human rates. Had a few D-Bee war heroes in their ranks (a four armed officer, general?).

My confusion and uncertainity was about how the D-Bees of the CS arrived, why they stay, and why the CS didn't kill as many as they could as often as they could.

I reflect now, that they are foreigners in a world where they are short on allies and resources. I imagine they also have their own prejudice against other D-Bees which divides them futher. I sure if the CS didn't exist or operate like an empire some D-Bees would attempt to dominate others.

Power doesn't like a vacuum. It demands an order, the CS's order but order all the same. If it was not theirs I'm sure it would be someone elses.

Tolkeen and Lazlo are exceptions fosterd by great leadership, the power of hope and cooperation, and a sufficient amout of food and other precious resources ("Nothing Can Breed Violence Like Scarcity"). r

Actually, I like your break down of the CS and NGR better. Strikes me as more intelligent. I just have to read up on it to find out if what someone told me was a simplification, mis-memory or or mistake.

Either way you rock foilfodder

darthauthor wrote:Actually, I like your break down of the CS and NGR better. Strikes me as more intelligent. I just have to read up on it to find out if what someone told me was a simplification, mis-memory or or mistake.

Either way you rock foilfodder

While I have the R.U.E. book, I haven't kept up to date with Rifts over the decades. What I put down is what I remember from the Triax/N.G.R. campaign a friend G.M.'d a long time ago. My memory could be faulty, but I am glad you appreciate my post.

Darthauthor, you are right.

For example, referring to WB 31 (Triax 2)...
Pg 56: Mutants and psychics are registered and recruited by military, govt agencies and Triax, though considered by Polizei armed and dangerous if on the wrong side of the law.
Pg 57: NGR has the Refugee and Dimensional Being Integration Program, a program to integrate human DBees
Pg 60: Official policy under the Mandatory Deportation Law is deportation, not genocide. To avoid deportation and earn citizenship (though generally of a second class type), there are 3 options...
1. Military service of 10yrs in Dbee regiments, after which they can sign up with a DBee Work Release Program
2. 15yrs of DBee Industrial Service Program
3. As outlined on pg 61, DBee militia towns that elect to protect the border can designate individuals to become NGR citizens

Pgs. 62-68 go into great detail as to the limited rights of NGR DBee Citizens, including a bio of Gen. Rasheen, a member of the Council of Governors.

No DBee can become a CS citizen - human or otherwise - other than through some form of subterfuge. Heck, most 100% Rifts-born humans who show up in a Burb or at a border town don't get citizenship and have to make a go at it as a type of 'squatter' in a Burb or other community, always at risk of arrest or worse and having their home raised. Psychics and psi-stalkers have been accepted by the CS, but registered and face discrimination.

That said, I'd agree with much of how Foilfodder characterized the CS. In my games...
* The CS territories are largely undeveloped and they need labor either free (slaves) or cheap (to prevent humans going where they shouldn't go, and possibly incentivize DBees to leave desirable areas without pulling troops from more important tasks, like war or border/road patrols)
* In CS lands, the wilderness can still have DBee communities, but if they are remote and not causing problems, they are left alone unless it is a target of opportunity, i.e. a couple bored SAMAS find a village they came across unexpectedly and strafe it just to send a message.
* In Burbs, purges do happen, but such purges are typically reserved for when things get too out of hand. But during times of crisis or war, purges may be limited due to lack of resources. ISS regularly liquidate DBee troublemakers with impunity. (Was just thinking of Soylent Green for some reason...)
* Human DBees from other worlds bring dangerous ideas that are probably more threatening to the CS system than a bunch of non-human DBee thugs. So, someone from the Golden Age, BTS or HU would likely want to keep a very low profile in CS territory.
* DBees see the trade-off of living a month in the Burbs before some Deadboy shoots them as better than living a week in the wilds before a giant carnivorous panda eats them. However, DBees can earn money - by working, trading or stealing - in urban areas like Burbs, frontier towns or farms/ranches. That money could be used at some point to bribe a Deadboy to not shoot. In the wild, they are on their own and not all DBees can cut it as a hunter/trapper. And pandas don't accept credit...
* From a CS trooper's perspective, why waste a shot on a worthless DBee peasant, when you might need that shot ten minutes later to take on a giant carnivorous panda? EClips don't grow on trees!
* From a CS govt perspective, the reasons for keeping them around are legion, but some of my favorites are A) DBees are consumers of CS products (Soylent Green, anyone?) that can keep the economy going when times are bad, B) DBees are a visual trigger to keep citizens and prospective citizens afraid and in line, and C) DBees are an easy source of replaceable "volunteers" to send into the Hivelands to swat some bugs

Grazzik,

You are Wickedly detailed and I love it!

Your attention to details is awesome like a lawyer but exciting rather than boring.

Poor Pandas wouldn't stand a chance a against you.

ALL your contributions (foilfodder and Cyborg Killer too) have made my Rifts World view brighter.

New understanding lets my Rifts world be something I didn't think it could be. Now a hamlet of D-bees can exist out in the woods. Whole sections of CS territory are unexplored where anyone or thing could be on them.

Although "Mack" shared a good idea in the Rifts board.
Dog Boys automatically sense supernatural beings at no ISP cost. So two platoons of them could fly side by side in a line on Sky Cycles flying 100ft apart would sweep an area a mile wide. At a leisurely 15 mph, such a group would sweep just over 120 square miles in 8 hours. They would only stop to take a break or once they have detected a supernatural being to eliminate.
If I were running the CS I'd make it standard to do a monthly or weekly sweeps our territory for supernatural beings (demons, dragons, etc). CS borders are too big and there are too many ley lines outside of CS territory. Also, "evil" spell casters "could" summon all sorts of entities and monsters to do their bidding and run free causing chaos. Its like pest control of ones house.
Also want to set up observations posts at all ley lines and nexus locations (in CS territory) with kill teams of skelbots, SAMAS, human psychics trained in fighting demons, and grunts. Kill the dimensional invaders as soon as they arrive. Failing that video recording them for the Psi-stalkers and Dog Boys to hunt them.

Even if only 1 in 10 visitors are "bad guys" their bound to be the death of a 1 to 100 non-heroic humans out in the wild before heroes banish or kill them in self defense. Between special times of the year (around a half dozen) ley lines are bound to put out monsters or D-bees. The additional place Dog Boys in every community of in anticipation of supernatural attack. Failure to report in every 12 hour means they are dead and send in kill team for the killer. Rotate them to keep everyone from getting to friendly.

What does Lazlo do about their supernatural problem cases?
I guess they have their own supernatural detectives and magic using security forces to detect their crimes and arrest or destroy them. Well, it wouldn't be Rifts if they did not have something like a Xiticix problem.

Thanks

The idea of DogBoy or Psi-stalker sweeps had me do some back of the envelop math and you'd need approx. 300,000 ISS troops to cover the entire ~450K sq mi (which is an estimate that excludes Free Quebec and areas covered in ley lines) in a single day-long sweep. A more reasonable number assigned to this duty could be 30,000 ISS troops, which means that a given area might be subject to a psi-patrol ON AVERAGE every 2 weeks. The closer you get to a population center, the higher the likelihood of a sweep. By pop centers, sweeps could be hourly, some parts of rural CS Missouri might not see a proper sweep for three months.

This means smugglers, Tolkeenite refugees, and wandering DBees would probably pay well to know the timing of psi-patrols in a given area or blue zones where such sweeps are ineffective. Then, they'd just have to contend with roving squads of other nasties, like skelebots...

I'd suggest that during known times of the year, communication between patrols, outposts and command units is constant. Even regular check-ins likely increase at certain times of the day when ley lines pulse (RUE pg 186) or during Ley Line Storms. Time is of the essence for ISS hunter-killer teams, as a rift could throw out anything between nothing and a demonic horde.

I don't have Rifts Lazlo, so I go by what's in the Rifters or references in other books.
With respect to Xiticix, Lazlo's war on the bugs is outlined in WB 23, pgs. 118-126.

darthauthor wrote:My confusion and uncertainity was about how the D-Bees of the CS arrived, why they stay, and why the CS didn't kill as many as they could as often as they could.

The picture has changed a bit from the original Rifts book, but the basic idea of why D-Bees would stay in CS territory when the CS hates them and sometimes kills them is simply because CS territory is mostly "civilized" enough that people don't have to worry about random monster attacks and such.

If you live in the territory of a large and active predator, who has chased out all other predators, you ONLY have to worry about that one predator.

Also, the stuff that trickles down to them is likely to be better than a lot of stuff in the wilderness. Especially for D-bees who don't know anything about living off the land, at least not living off THIS land.
Compare it to people who would rather be homeless in a large city, than wander off into the wilderness to survive on their own.
Even if the cops crack down on them unjustly at times.

Now, as Rifts has been increasingly fleshed out, it seems to me that there are are a lot more alternatives that D-bees could go to, but in the RMB the CS was pretty much the only game in town, unless you were lucky enough to find your way to Tolkeen, Lazlo, or a tiny handful of other places.
Even still, the populations and territory of the CS dwarfs the alternatives.

On the CS's end of things, RUE 28 discusses the Chi-Town Burbs:
Coalition Police and military patrols don't care about or protect the Burbs inhabitants, but seek out demons, D-Bees, and practitioners of magic for extermination.
The seem to be content for now to focus on serious threats, and ignore the beings that seem mostly harmless, most of the time.

I tend to see the Burbs--D-Bees included--as a kind of human shield around Chi Town as well. Any monsters or army attacking Chi Town will have to fight their way through the Burbs first.
For powerful enemies, this wouldn't be hard, but it would at least be a bit of a delaying factor and potential distraction.

For lesser stuff, like the monsters that raid the outer edges of the Burbs from time to time, they're either handled by Burbites at no CS cost, or they eat Burbites at no CS cost.

Also the CS does use D-Bees for cheap labor sometimes, apparently. And they might well benefit from their existence in other ways as well.
A lot of CS culture may have been appropriated from local D-Bee communities, from music to storytelling to food to fashion, with the CS taking credit for any good ideas.
Not just culture, but any other innovation or invention that a D-Bee might come up with that the CS didn't think of.

Beyond all that, I think one of THE main reasons why the CS doesn't wipe out the D-Bee populations in their borders is that it would take time, money, and manpower to root them all out and destroy them, while leaving them intact gives the CS just that much more propaganda fodder.
If the D-Bees keep a low profile, the CS can talk about the evils lurking in the shadows of our very Empire, about why it's necessary to have so many patrols, such tight security, and why it's important for good citizens to not question the CS authority.
If D-Bees are spotted by somebody who freaks out, the CS can make a show of finding and executing a random D-Bee in that area, and hold it up as an "All Clear" sign of their success and superiority.
If a D-Bee commits a crime, same deal only moreso--it serves to remind the citizens how dangerous D-Bees are, and the swift response of the CS in finding and executing the D-Bee responsible (or someone that looks like them) is good propaganda.

Also, it's possible that there are some D-Bee communities that function the same way that I picture the Burbs functioning when it comes to enemy attacks. If there's a D-bee community at the borders, or at a nexus, or any other vulnerable point enemies could attack from, the CS might allow them to exist there simply as unwilling cannon fodder that enemies will go after first, softening the enemy up (or even eliminating them) without wasting valuable CS resources or lives.