Quote:
Originally Posted by (E)
Meta Q1 Opening up a second stream of questions relating to how the setting might be used.
Can you provide a quick summary for your players about the type of game you want to run in the setting?
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With what we've got so far, this is a possible rough sketch. I've made the state of the Earth slightly more pessimistic than what has been given so far, but that could be put down to differing perceptions.
Meta Answer 1- Campaign Sketch
Heritage Guard"We leave behind our ancestral home, but only for a short time.
One day, when the Earth quietens and the storms subside, we will return.
And when we do, all that we left behind will be here for us."Madame Jubilee Long, Chief Magistrate of the Anglo-Atlantic Commonwealth Protectorate
Leviathans from Biome Lambda-56 come thrashing across the landscape, nightly catastrophic aurorae scour the countryside with relativistic beta-particle torrents, seismic hiccups triggered by deep mantle magnetic instability regularly rock the land, the coastal walls holding back the rising oceans crumble as they are lashed by super-typhoons... and now the Department of the Protectorate have deemed the British Isles suitable for resettlement? Sure sounds like some political BS. And where's the funding to hold the unit together? The Heritage Guard are little more than a budget afterthought, and are way underfunded for the task they're sworn to.
This is a small unit military campaign for a deployment tasked with protecting abandoned human culture from the ravages of looters, territorial invaders, alien infestation and geomagnetic instability. It could suit various kinds of military unit, depending on the gaming group: infantry, power suit, tank, airborne, mecha, or special ops.
The Guard's remit is wide, so missions may include:
- Cultural Protection: In the Evacuation, priority was given to getting the populace off-world. With highly constrained lift-capacity, let alone time to manage the situation, a great deal of the Earth's cultural relics were left behind. And not just in museums and art galleries- manors, corporate vaults and private collections contained billions of dollars worth of art that was mostly abandoned, while architecture and archaeological ruins cannot be relocated. Two centuries have passed, but it's only been in the last few decades that surface conditions have been survivable enough to manage recovery and collection activities, so there's still a lot of work to be done. Are works to be preserved
in situ, centrally relocated, or sent off-world? PCs could either be investigators or military escorting the boffins.
- Infrastructure Protection: Early on, it was thought that the roads, buildings and industrial infrastructure were the most important assets of civilised society that would need to be preserved for our return. Technological advances mean that most infrastructure would be easily replaced upon resettlement, and this priority was eventually dropped. Nonetheless, the character of old streets and towns is deemed to be worth preserving. The Guard are sent to repel scavengers or xeno-infestations, but without wrecking the scenery if at all possible.
- Geo-Reform Engineering Escort: Essentially, the GRE lads are trying to terraform Earth back to a livable state, and are doing so with monstrous atmospheric reifying engines, draft funnels, recti-geomagnets and oceanic filters. Their activities draw attention from many unpleasant customers- tech pirates, sovereignty-claiming homesteaders and the obligatory alien bug-beasts. The HG's job is to let the GREs get on with their jobs.
- Preservation of Sovereignty: The Heritage Guard are the representatives of the various governments of the Anglo-Atlantic Commonwealth and are there to maintain the legal fiction that the lands are under government control until resettlement can be effected. Militias with discrete support from foreign off-planet governments have been known to make moves on pieces of AAC territory, as have the occasional alien nation or gang of buccaneers, and must be repelled.
- Resettler Escort: Well, some Department of the Protectorate doo-doo head sitting comfortably on Luna has decided to start sending resettlement groups. The HG is there to defend the resettlers from aforesaid alien bugs, insurgent militia, illegal squatters and cosmic ray aurorae… if there's a Guard unit near enough.