Tribes roleplay

ARMOR

Imperial adventure sims set in the wilderzone frequently portray the Tribes of Man as savages in garishly-painted armors adorned with spikes, hologram tabards, and fur cloaks. Those zeit-visioneurs who know better engineer a more realistic perspective, but even they are prone to fanciful flights. The one thing all depictions of the wilderzone share is the presence of powered armor. Even though perhaps only ten percent of the population at most even has the training necessary to use powered armor, the overwhelming stereotype in the Empire is that all tribals wear shells.

It is a stereotype we in the Empire should not let cloud our thinking. Though they have many strange customs, a brazen independence, and a penchant for tremendous violence, the Tribes of Man are not primitives. At the same time, there is a paradoxical truth in the popular misconception. Tribal warriors are trained to be deadly in and out of their suits, but by far the most significant combat unit in the wilderzone is the warrior in powered armor. When a tribal speaks of going to battle, she means in her hard-shell. Though tribal warfare can involve frequent switching of armors to accommodate shifting tactical needs, most tribal warriors keep a personal armor, to which they can become quite attached. The more "professional" tribes such as the Blood Eagle or the Stormguard do not form such emotional bonds.

Armors are technically called "scarabs," from SCARAB, which in turn is said to stand for Servo-Coordinated Armor with Refluxed-Agility Boost. However, I understand this term could also refer to powered armor's origins as a primitive form of exo-suit used by ancient colonists on the planet Venus in Sol system during the Cybrid wars. Despite its antiquity, few tribals use "scarab" in common parlance, simply calling the gear "armor, "hard-shell," "shell," or simply "suit." There are indications that some more traditional tribes have lately taken to calling their armors scarabs once again-this practice is particularly noticeable in the radical faction of the Children of Phoenix: the Harbingers. (I'll speak more of this group in a future report, but I warn you now that they are a frightening source of discord in the wilderzone, and I fear they are gaining influence.)

---

Engineering Basics
Armors are primarily composed of a layer of titanium-cerapolymer alloy fused over shaped plates of honeycombed semiflexible stahlplast. The stahlplast contains a dense ablative gel that provides a secondary defense against thermal penetration. Finally, a soft orthoderm padding cushions the wearer. Each suit features mechanisms that open and close the suit on the user's command. A further automatic contraction-expansion capability in the frame allows the armor to alter its fit to accommodate the wearer, though this capability is somewhat limited.

Basic armor grants the wearer augmented strength, a protective shield aura, and enhanced mobility. The outer shell is quite resilient, and even without shields, an armor provides tremendous protection against physical attacks. The firepower of most modern weapons, however, means that unless a warrior wears a myrmidon, unshielded armor does not stand up to a well-armed foe. All armors receive a peren-diamond varnish that greatly enhances armor longevity by increasing resistance to environmental conditions, general wear and tear, dirt, dust, and the effects of heat and cold.

Modern tribal armor incorporates many components we may find somewhat unsophisticated, but the design has been refined through ages of near-constant conflict, and the current result serves its purposes admirably. As with the weapons, however, the tribal philosophy is that the armor does not make the warrior; it is merely a tool that becomes effective only when used by a well-trained soldier.

---

Control Systems
Gross maneuvering in armor-running, using weapons, lifting, throwing-is accomplished via normal movement. In these cases, the wearer moves body, arms, and legs normally, and the armor amplifies that movement, adding strength and speed as needed up to the limits of the armor's safe augmentation rating. A sophisticated neural link detects and implements the desired range of effect, in effect determining whether a warrior intends her grip to hold a teacup or crush steel and bone.

The neural-interface biofeedback system also regulates auxiliary armor functions such as the command circuit, optiks, and the armor jets. The interface uses a mix of direct neural impulse (DNI), pre-configured macromaneuvers ("macros"), and other biofeedback from the user. For safety reasons, most armor functions require a dual-phase trigger to access a function, such as (1) thumb-touching-index-finger in conjunction with (2) a squint. An analogy can be made to ancient computer commands featuring such quaint "keystrokes" as Control-Alt-Delete. A tribal is trained extensively until she can use all her armor's features reflexively, from the vision-enhancing optiks to the famous jets.

Upon donning armor, a brief period is required for the neural interface to establish itself. Warriors have described the sensation of neural synchronization as a prickling across the skin.

---

Optiks
Armor optical systems are called "optiks." They include integral flash protection, binocular zoom, low light, and a Heads-Up Display that tracks energy use, weapon status, waypoints, and targeting. The system operates via a close-neural induction link that paints the display directly onto the cornea using microlasers in the armor's headgear. However, optical magnification and the other vision-enhancing features are enabled by the armor's visor. Typical visors include a mutable opticrys layer hardened with an outer layer of peren-diamond and an internal lattice of metaplas nanofilaments. I know, Danli. It's surprisingly crude, but I am informed it is very reliable and effective despite the inelegant, hybrid nature of the technology.

Given a little time, a warrior can adjust his or her optiks to unusual battlefield circumstances. However this kind of action must be taken when the warrior is out of the line of fire. To try to make such adjustments in the heat of battle is suicide, I am told. An armor's on-board pulse sensors allow the warrior to navigate and select targets even in utterly dark environments.

---

Command Circuit
Command and control tactical communication is accomplished via a linked encrypted radio circuit among the members of a squad. This feature is called the "command circuit" or (again in typical tribal parlance) "the Bleed." The command circuit, abbreviated "CC," enables a commanding officer to coordinate the actions of her squad, by setting waypoints, issuing orders, and providing other tactical direction as needed.

The tribals customarily maintain a sub-channel as a "public" frequency. Any tribal who patches into it can communicate with any other tribal within range-even the enemy. Nicknamed the "patch" or the "underbleed," this integrated radio channel is commonly used for taunts, challenges, and sometimes negotiations. It is an optional channel, and most tribals find it sufficiently annoying that they simply keep it mute.

---

Strength Augmentation
Even light armor grants the wearer several times the effective strength of an unarmored human, whereas the heavy myrmidons have been described as miniature Hercs (a rather obvious example of dramatic exaggeration). Practically speaking, lifting strength of a light armor is approximately five times that of a man of average fitness in his prime. A medium is perhaps thirty percent more, and a heavy is easily twice the strength of a light. In conjunction with T-grav nodes in the weapon stocks, the armor allows a single individual to carry more firepower than an infantry platoon of the Cybrid wars.

The microservo network enhances all tactically relevant muscle motion, including the hands, oblique abdominals, and rotator cuffs as well as the more obvious gross limb movements. Flexor expansion-contraction sequences are keyed to the armor's neural link such that augmentation activates in proportion to a warrior's perceived need. Thus, an armored warrior can crush a human skull as easily as she can pick up an egg.

The design restricts an armor's servo output to levels the human body can tolerate, though some stories tell of warriors overriding their armors' limits to accomplish feats of speed and prowess considered quite improbable in real life armor use. Again, the popularity of these "tales of battle" is a common thread whenever one discusses military subjects in tribal space. There have been some documented cases of warriors who ripped their joints apart and caused serious permanent injuries by overriding the safety parameters of their armors' performance. In the popular "Renegades" vid series (to which I shamefully admit my addiction), the heroes continually ignore their armors' limitations to perform completely superhuman feats. Remind me to send you an episode sometime. You'll get a kick out of the tacnuke machine guns.

---

Shields
Tribal armor shields are based on the same technology used during the Cybrid Wars and still used by the Imperial military today. The standard military paradigm of the last fourteen centuries still applies: Take down shields first, then armor.

Shield generators apply non-Newtonian fluid field harmonics to create a protective barrier of phased electromagnetic energy capable of deflecting high-energy attacks. I don't pretend to understand the specific details of the physics involved, but I hope to summarize sufficiently for any reader not versed in the science. In this non-Newtonian model, the barrier's resistance increases with a magnitude inversely proportional to the amount of thermal, electromagnetic, or kinetic energy exerted at the point of impact. The practical threshold for triggering the shield's resistance is high enough that hand weapons and fists may pass unhindered through shields, but bullets or lasers will not. However, shields weaken quickly under sustained fire or a sufficiently powerful attack, since the actual resistance consumes enormous amounts of energy, often more than the power source can provide in a short amount of time. The shields are not one hundred percent efficient; some energy does bleed through to armor. Shields are more effective with kinetic energy than with thermal or electromagnetic attacks, hence the diminished role of non-explosive ballistic weapons over the last millennium. When resistance is not triggered, the ambient field does requires only a small amount of energy.

A tribal armor carries approximately a half-dozen shield nodes, usually one per limb and two to four on the torso and head, but configurations vary, depending on the designers' decisions regarding concentration of maximal shield strength. Approximately three centimeters in diameter apiece, the nodes create a force field aura around the wearer. Normally invisible, shields become visible when sufficient excess energy from an attack is reflected outward from the armor as light and low level gamma radiation. Tribal engineers skirt the energy drain issue by linking each node to an independent capacitor that provides power independent of the onboard energy cells. As capacitors burn out, shield protection drops.

Typically, a shield node burns out when an attack (or aggregate attack) exceeds the node's energy dissipation threshold. As node capacitors overload and burn out, the armor's shield protection decreases. Secondary damage (that is, damage that penetrates the shield aura) reaches the warrior consistently when the shields reach fifty percent, but the armor typically absorbs such a "damage bleed" quite well. As the shields fade toward zero integrity, the armor takes progressively more of the role of protection until it is all that keeps the warrior from death. When a damaged armor is repaired by nanites, the repairing unit transfers energy from its own source to replenish the energy in the capacitors. In some cases, tribal warriors can rig a refresh from their own energy cells, but they only do so under dire circumstances, as the procedure is a tricky one. The basic concern is that a link between a microfusion cell and the shield nodes risks a feedback surge that could disrupt or destroy the power cell itself.

As stated above, shields have a minimum energy limit that must be reached before the fluid field resistance activates. Lower energy attacks, such as those imparted by most melee weapons, do not trigger shield deflection. Hence, knives and other hand weapons can actually be used on the battlefield, though they must contend with the armor itself. Typically, the highly mobile nature of tribal battle mitigates against widespread use of melee weapons. In confined spaces and the hands of a highly-skilled blademaster, however, a sword can prove devastatingly effective.

The tribes have engineered an interesting feature into the shield nodes. Each node generates a field "bottle" that envelopes the entire armor to a thickness of two to three centimeters; the node but also concentrates protection for a half meter around itself. The overlap and the concentration combine to provide a layered aura that maximizes defensive potential. However, the true innovation comes in the tribal manipulation of the shield bottle's shape. The tribals have succeeded in having the bottle deform so as to partly cover weapons that normally would project from the aura. This deformation occurs automatically for all standard tribal firearms. The bottle stops short of covering the mouth of the weapon, such that the weapon is not plugged by a shield overlapping the tip of the muzzle. For non-standard weapons, a warrior can simply cancel the bottle extension. When the extension is dropped, the shield aura does not cover a melee weapon, but conforms to the surface of the armor.

Some tribes, such as the Children of Phoenix, wear partial armor that exposes portions of the bare skin. The rationale behind this behavior is rooted in the wilderzone's honor-based culture combined with the Children's peculiar elitism. They seem to believe they are so superior to other tribes that they can expose their vulnerable flesh and still prevail. Consequently, Phoenix warriors rely enormously on their own agility to keep them from harm, fully aware that most of their protection comes from the shields-unless they happen to be wearing Myrmidon-class armor. However, as the flames of the Eagle-Wolf War spread, most tribals - even those of the Phoenix - have begun to increase the secondary protection of armor once again. Thus, the tribal stereotypes may be even less accurate in future, as half-naked barbarian warriors vanish from the wilderzone's battlefields altogether.

---

Life Support
Armors offer wearers the ability to function in otherwise inhospitable environments. Built-in heating and cooling units enable the wearer to operate in extremes of nearly -50C to over 45C. The armor's shielding units will also protect the wearer from excessive radioactivity that would otherwise be fatal, and environmental filters can screen out harmful toxins. The shield aura also provides protection against high pressure environments, but this capability is subject to shield degradation. Recently, many tribes have begun to produce sealed armors that can function as EVA suits in the cold and airless environment of space. I understand most Myrmidons already had this capacity, but now the lighter armors are being sealed as well.

---

Energy
A microfusion energy cell powers all armors. It is located in the back section of the torso, and is quite a heavy component due to the ultradense medium required for stil-fusion operation. The cell enables the armor's wearer to use the jets, keep shields online, and power energy-based weapons and packs. It has a limited maximum output per second, although for all practical purposes the energy it generates is unlimited. The need to manage available energy forms the primary foundation of tribal tactics and armor skill.

The armor's heads-up display (HUD) monitors the level of energy reserves available. When energy reserves dip to a certain level, all nonessential functions of the armor automatically deactivate and the cell begins its brief recharge sequence. Essential functions-which include shields, life support, the command circuit, and strength augmentation-are always maintained, otherwise the armor's utility would drop dramatically. The first priority of the armor is to keep the wearer alive and unharmed.

Armor also includes a certain amount of backup energy storage capacity, but the battery alone won't last long. Without the microfusion cell, backup on most armors lasts for less than five minutes if the warrior sustains use of jets and armor-powered energy weapons. With judicious jet use, a warrior can stay operational for over an hour on battery power alone. Warriors typically keep a set of small tools in an armor compartment that can be used to remove and replace a microfusion cell from another armor, but this is a tedious and time-consuming operation. Mobile turrets and other deployed items that use microfusion are easier options. The tools can also be used to jury-rig a battery recharge from another armor or deployable device, which enables a warrior to continue operation as long as she has access to helpful squadmates or other convenient power sources. Nabterayl calls this practice "leeching."

---

Jets and Gravitics
The name "jets" is a misnomer. In actuality, the famed tribal armor jets are powerful ion thrusters paired with a gravitic subsystem that permits limited flight "jumps." The ion jets port from exhaust points located on the lower back of the Peltast and Hoplite armors and in the heels of the Myrmidon armor. The gravitics include stabilizers that enable the armor's wearer to remain oriented and upright during flight. The DNI interface allows a warrior's physical reflexes to play a role in the speed and agility of jet use.

A biofeedback trigger activates the jets. The location and nature of the particular trigger depends on the warrior's preference, but this is one area in particular that relies on the DNI component of the interface more than phased-sequence macromaneuvers. Once triggered, the armor jets provide thrust until the trigger is "released," at which time the jets deactivate and begin recharging. Cutting thrust is a flight maneuver that has saved the life of many a warrior with a sudden altitude drop to throw off an enemy's aim.

As with many tribal engineering choices, redundancy and durability is prized. It is extremely rare for an armor's jets to be disabled. However, the jets default to an inactive state if the energy reserve falls to below eight percent.

Acclimating to gravity differences between worlds can cause warriors to make mistakes on entering battle on a new world. Typically, faux-grav settings on D-ships are adjusted to allow the warriors to adjust their weapons and armor according to the target world's parameters. An armor's onboard gravitic systems incorporate an adjustment capability keyed to a reading of the local gravity. The armor's performance is then adjusted to account for the gravimetric reading. If the warrior wishes, he can override the system to remain at the same operating level. However, HUD targeting, ground agility, and jetting range can be severely affected by a change in gravity. On lighter worlds, warriors make few adjustments or throttle back jet output to conserve energy. On heavier worlds, the tendency is to increase the power output to keep agility and targeting performance within standard parameters.

Jet components are fairly modular and can be moved from armor to armor relatively easily. Over a recent dinner, Sub-Consul Margales St. Quebocher offered a rather hilarious story she'd heard about a Starwolf prankster who fitted jets to some cows and flew the poor beasts around his holdfast using a remote control. (Remind me to tell it to you in person when next we meet. It's even funnier with the facial expressions St. Quebocher used.)

---

The Warharness
This device is seldom featured in the entertainment sims, but it represents a crucial component of tribal armor. The warharness holds the unused firearms on the armor and allows a warrior to swap between weapons swiftly. Simple warharnesses are little more than woven metaplas and alphasilk combat webs with attachment points for grenades, weapons, mines, and the like. They typically have mechanisms that release the weapon quickly upon the wearer grabbing and pulling the desired object. More advanced versions of this web contain interface-integrated microservos (IIM) so as to hold weapons automatically upon command, and to shift so that the desired weapon is easy to reach.

The most advanced warharnesses-which are quite rare-are composed of nothing more than a layer of nanites incorporated onto the armor's torso. These nanites are programmed to hold weapons and make them available to the user upon command. Hence, the weapons of a warrior possessing such a warharness simply "stick" to her back until needed for use. When the warrior wants to draw a weapon, she simply reaches for it, perhaps triggering the request with a quick macro such as by tapping first her fist and then her middle finger on her breastplate. The selected weapon then swiftly slides along the armor's surface so that the grip slides into the warrior's waiting hand. When the warrior closes her hand, the warharness releases the weapon. Needless to say, this feature is heavily customized. The Blood Eagle possess the greatest number of this type of warharness.

Armors also have standard belt attachments for holding grenades, flares, medkits, and the like. Blasters are light enough to be slung from the hip, despite their size being close to that of a carbine. For holding more or heavier weapons, however, a warrior must use a warharness.

The Grievers and some indie tribes sometimes use a spidery mechanical variation of the warharness, but these jury-rigged devices are prone to malfunction or damage in the field and have not found acceptance among the Four.

---

Donning and Removing Armor
Tribal armor looks heavy and cumbersome, but in fact it is extremely collapsible when not being worn and weighs far less than it appears to. Peltast armors can be carried in a duffel bag or small suitcase. A Hoplite can only be carried in a duffel, and is somewhat awkward to maneuver easily. A small person could not carry it without the help of a T-grav porterclip. Myrmidon-class armor is definitely too heavy to be carried by one person without assistance.

As I mentioned earlier, all tribal armors include microservos and memory-plates that open and close the armor along designated seams. A person simply steps into Hoplite or Myrmidon armor and it seals up around her. A Peltast is usually donned one piece at a time after decollapsing it, as though it were normal garb. Nanoseals close the seams tightly and only open to a sequence of touch commands, though these can be activated by the wearer very quickly if necessary. The armor's fit is typically snug to allow for the best somatic feedback, but light clothes can be worn without reducing the control efficiency to wholly impractical levels.

An armor's headgear will automatically bind back the warrior's hair (if any) so as not to interfere with control systems. As the neural interface synchronizes, the wearer will feel a minute twitch from the armor's servos as they run through a brief test sequence. Then the warrior's vision will blur momentarily as the optiks come online. As with standard Imperial HUDs, microlasers paint the data displays directly onto the wearer's eyes.

---

Maintenance
Despite the many innovations and clever workarounds tribal engineers have worked into armor designs, they cannot escape the need for maintenance. However, many armor systems are modular enough to encourage easy replacement. Entek repari baths make much basic maintenance relatively painless. However, entek only deals with physical aspects such as microservo arrays, armor plating, seals, and gross component integrity. Checking operational efficiency of complex subsystems such as sensors, the command circuit, the DNI, onboard computers, and shield aura gestalt-overlaps requires a human technician. In addition, field repairs from entek repair kits do not return damaged components to a pristine condition. The reparis frequently leave stress fractures and may have reduced the strength or integrity of other components from which the material was drawn for repairs. Moreover, inevitable armor variants mean the reparis may not be programmed with the specifics of a particular armor, and so the repairs may leave the armor prone to breakdown or malfunction if follow-up maintenance is not performed. Finally, although the armors are designed internally with null-friction materials at joints and moving parts, some lubricants are necessary. Reparis are known for poor repair of such junctures.

Rule-of-thumb optimal maintenance requires one man-hour of troubleshooting and service per three hours of operation in the field under combat conditions or in unusually taxing environments. While this time seems unusually low by Imperial standards, one must remember that tribal systems are far less complex than standard Imperial military equipment, though I understand our saar-marines now use armors that incorporate simpler tribal design principles.

A typical service (absent major battlefield re-repair) can be accomplished by a single person. For the exterior, the first step for a warrior or technician is to spray the armor's exterior with a cleaning solution and wipe it clean. The cleaner, the better, I am told. Even though the peren-diamond varnish prevents most grime from adhering to the armor's surface, dust and other material can accumulate in the joints and over the optiks. (This is not unusual, as Imperial equipment still has trouble in the dust pockets of Old Mars.) The next step requires application of an oily silver paste that contains metal and carbon molecules that provide repair material for the entek. In the final step, a typical repair pack is used to apply the entek. For interior components, a maintenance computer is patched into the command circuit and DNI for diagnostic purposes. Any damaged or fatigued components are repaired or replaced. The cross-layered opticrys components of armor optiks frequently require replacement, since realigning the thin sheets of molecular crystal is a time-consuming process. Replacement is typically easy for "generic" components, such as shields, microfusion cells, and sensor nodes, which are common to perhaps ninety percent of all tribal armors. Optiks and DNI components usually require replacement. Occasionally, a technician may not trust the entek to do the work. In these cases, microscopic goggles, a laser welder, and an autosleeve are used. Such special repairs are quite time-consuming.

DNI interface replacement is a complex process requiring a period of "retuning" a warrior's neural signature. Typically, the DNI "node" is easily removed and replaced in a new armor, an approach warriors invariably prefer to breaking in a new node. Older interfaces often retain remnants of previous signatures, dissonant elements that can interfere with armor operation. Of course, myths have sprung up around the ludicrous idea that the DNI interface imprints some of its owner's personality, or even the owner's soul. A story in the Diamond Sword Kohan Scrolls tells of a newblood who inherited the armor of his uncle, a martial arts master versed in the Kamisori school of Venusian Zen. The newblood used the armor in a training match shortly after he received it. The style he used was far more advanced than his level of study, and he executed with a grace and speed that overwhelmed his teacher as completely as if his uncle still wore the armor. The newblood claimed later that he felt another presence with him, guiding each motion. As a consequence of stories like these, sworders value old interfaces and do not erase those used by masters and exceptional warriors.

Microservos can present problems when severe damage interferes with repari penetration or slags enough material together to confuse the entek. A microservo consists of a conductive metadura-coil fused around a flexor filament chain made of exo-crys. The exo-crys expands on application of an electrical charge, which is applied through the surrounding metadura coil. They contract when the charge is removed. The microservo cables network effectively mimics the human body's range of motion, though as armor weight class increases, range of motion and flexibility drops. A Myrmidon cannot match the moves of a Peltast, though I am assured it is not nearly as restrictive as its bulk suggests.

Battle damage often requires replacement of an exterior component or armor plate, particularly if the damage melted through several layers. Such damage often blends the armor's material and confuses the reparis, which may not "understand" how to recognize a muddled fusion of AKS and metaplas.

---

The Skinsuit
Beneath tribal armor, most warriors wear a skintight body glove made of entek-laced metadura. This deceptively sophisticated underlayer serves several purposes. It protects the wearer from chafing. It contains a nanotech recycling system that collects body fluids and other secretions, detoxifies them and uses the collected water to rehydrate the warrior. Waste material is shunted to a discharge port in the armor, to be ejected at the warrior's discretion. Finally, the bodyglove assists in establishing the neural interface with the armor, by providing an enhanced conductive medium via the wearer's own salt-laden perspiration.

Many tribals refer to the skinsuit as the "stinksuit." The name is an exaggeration, however, as the nanotech recycling components produce very little residual odor. In fact, IshM'lak wrinkled her nose more at the nickname than any memory of bad smells.

---

Design Philosophy
Peltast design philosophy values speed and agility, not raw power. Consequently, full coverage from the armor is not highly valued. The light microservos used in Peltasts burn out quickly if augmentation tolerances are exceeded. Given the lack of complete hard-shell coverage on many Peltast models, the lifting capacity provided from the armor comes more from a T-grav assist than from raw strength augmentation. The hard-shell components of several designs reveal quite a bit of the skinsuit.

Hoplite designs are intended to be mobile and hard-hitting, combining the best features of Peltast and Myrmidon. However, as with so many "compromise" designs, it appears to do nothing particularly well. Nevertheless, I am told that many tribal soldiers swear by their Hoplites and consider them either heavy recon or light assault gear.

Myrmidon designs are incredibly tough, and though they lack the deadly speed of the Peltast, they are unmatched in a defensive role. Moreover, the dense armor provides real protection once the shields drop, and a thick microservo array gives the wearer serious augmentation. A Myrmidon can deliver devastating blows capable of killing a Peltast outright-if it can hit the lighter warrior, that is. And that challenge, as always, is the rub. On the other hand, a Blood Eagle acquaintance told me of a highly-skilled Sikkyn-Captain who killed a Myrmidon in a hand-to-hand duel while using only a Peltast. This individual repeatedly delivered jet-assisted kicks to the head until the Myrmidon's neck servos overloaded. Very, very difficult maneuver. The victor was Starkar Mace, who you might remember once served as the leader of Alexandre Konovalev's personal guard. Mace was killed during the Marathon Pennant's defeat by the Starwolf in the Fourth Battle of Hepta Ourubis III.