HeySeuss

Star Wars: Liberators

_{The Rebellion doesn’t look so glamorous from the mud-side…}

TL;DR Summary

---

• Discord Chat for the RP. - to plot, collaborate and otherwise make things interesting.
• Star Wars Universe, but I decided to go with a Starship Troopers feel to this RP.
• Shockingly, this RP was written before Rogue One came out. See previous attempt.
• 0BBY (Before Battle of Yavin, or that is to say -- Episode IV)
• Rebellion Era - Far from Yavin, far from Scarif. Closer to Nar Shaddaa. Downside? Fringers. Upside? Far from Alderaan and open mic night at the co-op.
• 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 2nd Uslam “Liberators” Regiment, is a unit without a home planet, as the Uslam Liberators were forced off-planet during a vicious crackdown by the Empire. The unit has since become part of the fleet, as a strike force. Not all the new faces brought in to replace Uslam natives are from there; the new guys come from all sorts of places.
• The platoon is currently billeted aboard the Corellian Corvette Intruder attached to whichever Roving Line or Sector Force requires its services; the platoon specializes in a number of different operations that require a quick reaction force of specialist infantry. It primarily operates in the Outer Rim and near Hutt Space.
• The characters are members of this outfit, from a variety of backgrounds and formed as an ad hoc fire brigade intended to be able to provide an extra punch; a lot of its recruits are former bounty hunters, smugglers, pirates and assorted other fringe and Outer Rim native types, with a diverse skillset and hardy but also a degree of discipline problems. These are not Imperial Stormtroopers. They aren’t big on parade marches, but at least they can shoot straight.
• This is an RP about a military unit in Star Wars. So that means your badass bounty hunter is probably not a fit -- that kind of person would go to Alliance Intelligence. A Jedi survivor of Order 66 wouldn't be slogging around with a platoon of infantry -- he'd be giving them orders. After all, in the last war the Jedi fought, they were called "General." Every character will have gone through basic training with the rebellion; a Mando would find that training to be a joke and an insult, and there's no way they're taking orders from some amateur aruetii Alderaanian officer that was a kriffing pacifist in college last year while they were disintegrating bounties in Hutt Space. There will be NPC's that are not in the unit, but they're just that -- NPC's.
• Specifically, no Jedi/Sith, no Mandalorians, no Human Replicant Droids.
• The characters' decisions will affect the outcome.
• Collaborative GMing; I have final say, but I want to encourage people to have ideas on side quests and so forth.
• Multiple characters allowed

In Character Info

---

The Republic has fallen and the Empire has risen in its place, having undermined and manipulated its way into power -- what seemed rational and logical turned out to be a manipulation. The Jedi are gone, the law no longer protects and the military no longer defends. The Empire has turned everything into an instrument of oppression under the New Order.

Still, there has always been resistance, even through the dark times. The young take up the fight against the tyranny, filling the ranks of the opposition to the Empire with a generation that does not justify the Empire by claiming that the Republic was more corrupt, worse and so forth. Some are idealists, others have their backs to the wall. The Empire creates its enemies -- the harder it squeezes, the more people consider banding together against the Empire. And now the Empire's enemy has a name.

The nascent Rebel Alliance is generally unable to mount more than harassing attacks against the much larger Galactic Empire, but it has the advantage of surprise -- the Empire has to defend the entire Empire, whereas the Rebels can disperse their forces and often can strike where they care to, though if they are caught in one place too long, they are crushed. It has to, by necessity, wage a grim and dangerous guerrilla war in the shadow of the Empire's might, wagering their lives and freedom for small victories in a long, long war that has anything but a certain outcome.

All the same, when sector forces or the fleet must strike, need a hard target cracked, it requirea a strike force with the skills, training and specialized equipment to handle the necessary targets; it takes more than a moisture farmer militia.

That's where 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 2nd Uslam "Liberators" Regiment gets called in. The natives of Uslam, a mining planet in the Outer Rim decided to rise up in support of the Rebellion, were crushed by the Empire after a months-long battle on the planetary surface where the Empire wore down the Uslam Defense Forces by attrition. The survivors of its military units that got off-world rechristened themselves "the Liberators" and became shipboard troops. In that role, the Liberators are often called from sector to sector to perform boarding actions, orbital drops, raids and other forms of small unit actions as needed by the Alliance. Replacements from other planets filter in, and yet the Liberator ethos prevails -- hard-nosed, cynical and ready to do whatever it takes to fight the Empire, stormtrooper by stormtrooper, ship by ship, planet by planet.

They have one of the crappiest jobs in the Rebel Alliance and it sometimes feels like 1st Platoon is the only platoon in the whole damn Rebel Alliance and everyone else is in Supply, Intelligence and Starfighters. They don't get the glory like the Starfighter boys do, but without them, there is no alliance.

Out of Character Info

---

This RP will center around a specific unit within the Rebel Alliance, but it involves a lot of small sub adventures for a group. For the sake of convenience, I have decided to set it up so that the characters are assigned to the same group and on the same ship, supporting their leader. I have certain ideas on how to start off the RP and for various nemesis character types, but I am open to other people's ideas -- in fact, I'd like to provide enemies that people want to fight, and find interesting. I'd like to keep the whole thing going, and I've tried to craft a scenario where smaller operations feed into the overall large-picture; moral decisions -- who to recruit, and what actions to take that may bring some groups closer while alienating others, akin to the relationship system in a lot of RPG's; praising one character pisses off another.

So what kind of characters do I have in mind for this? These are the infantry of the Rebel Alliance, the guys that carry a rifle and do the fighting in the mud, with blood on their boots. They aren’t as clean-cut as Stormtroopers, and there are plenty of aliens in the ranks, but they can shoot straight even if they aren’t as easy to lead. The veteran characters of the unit are from Uslam, a planet that just got beaten down by the Empire. The survivors were in what was a baptism by fire for most of them, and got their teeth kicked in by the Empire. Uslam’s rebel uprising was put down and the regiments were forced off planet, broken up and put into small ships all over the Fleet, platoon by platoon. The replacements are coming in, but Rebel training isn’t the best and they’re learning on the job. Still, the fight won’t wait and you go to war with what you have, not what you want. That, ironically, is what Supply likes to say along with ‘figure it out.’

Pacing-wise, let's aim for a couple paragraphs a go, keep it moving. Also, this RP will start fairly quickly, so there will not be a weeks long screening process once in OOC.

Star Wars: Liberators

And here I thought it was only pilots who got the glory!

@Goldmarble

Don't worry too much, those bastards still get the best liquor and the most up to date bartending droids. The poor apes of 1st Platoon have to make do...

Star Wars: Liberators

_{The Rebellion doesn’t look so glamorous from the mud-side…}

TL;DR Summary

---

• Discord Chat for the RP. - to plot, collaborate and otherwise make things interesting.
• Star Wars Universe, but I decided to go with a Starship Troopers feel to this RP.
• Shockingly, this RP was written before Rogue One came out. See previous attempt.
• 0BBY (Before Battle of Yavin, or that is to say -- Episode IV)
• Rebellion Era - Far from Yavin, far from Scarif. Closer to Nar Shaddaa. Downside? Fringers. Upside? Far from Alderaan and open mic night at the co-op.
• 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 2nd Uslam “Liberators” Regiment, is a unit without a home planet, as the Uslam Liberators were forced off-planet during a vicious crackdown by the Empire. The unit has since become part of the fleet, as a strike force. Not all the new faces brought in to replace Uslam natives are from there; the new guys come from all sorts of places.
• The platoon is currently billeted aboard the Corellian Corvette Intruder attached to whichever Roving Line or Sector Force requires its services; the platoon specializes in a number of different operations that require a quick reaction force of specialist infantry. It primarily operates in the Outer Rim and near Hutt Space.
• The characters are members of this outfit, from a variety of backgrounds and formed as an ad hoc fire brigade intended to be able to provide an extra punch; a lot of its recruits are former bounty hunters, smugglers, pirates and assorted other fringe and Outer Rim native types, with a diverse skillset and hardy but also a degree of discipline problems. These are not Imperial Stormtroopers. They aren’t big on parade marches, but at least they can shoot straight.
• This is an RP about a military unit in Star Wars. So that means your badass bounty hunter is probably not a fit -- that kind of person would go to Alliance Intelligence. A Jedi survivor of Order 66 wouldn't be slogging around with a platoon of infantry -- he'd be giving them orders. After all, in the last war the Jedi fought, they were called "General." Every character will have gone through basic training with the rebellion; a Mando would find that training to be a joke and an insult, and there's no way they're taking orders from some amateur aruetii Alderaanian officer that was a kriffing pacifist in college last year while they were disintegrating bounties in Hutt Space. There will be NPC's that are not in the unit, but they're just that -- NPC's.
• Specifically, no Jedi/Sith, no Mandalorians, no Human Replicant Droids.
• The characters' decisions will affect the outcome.
• Collaborative GMing; I have final say, but I want to encourage people to have ideas on side quests and so forth.
• Multiple characters allowed

In Character Info

---

The Republic has fallen and the Empire has risen in its place, having undermined and manipulated its way into power -- what seemed rational and logical turned out to be a manipulation. The Jedi are gone, the law no longer protects and the military no longer defends. The Empire has turned everything into an instrument of oppression under the New Order.

Still, there has always been resistance, even through the dark times. The young take up the fight against the tyranny, filling the ranks of the opposition to the Empire with a generation that does not justify the Empire by claiming that the Republic was more corrupt, worse and so forth. Some are idealists, others have their backs to the wall. The Empire creates its enemies -- the harder it squeezes, the more people consider banding together against the Empire. And now the Empire's enemy has a name.

The nascent Rebel Alliance is generally unable to mount more than harassing attacks against the much larger Galactic Empire, but it has the advantage of surprise -- the Empire has to defend the entire Empire, whereas the Rebels can disperse their forces and often can strike where they care to, though if they are caught in one place too long, they are crushed. It has to, by necessity, wage a grim and dangerous guerrilla war in the shadow of the Empire's might, wagering their lives and freedom for small victories in a long, long war that has anything but a certain outcome.

All the same, when sector forces or the fleet must strike, need a hard target cracked, it requirea a strike force with the skills, training and specialized equipment to handle the necessary targets; it takes more than a moisture farmer militia.

That's where 1st Platoon, Charlie Company, 2nd Uslam "Liberators" Regiment gets called in. The natives of Uslam, a mining planet in the Outer Rim decided to rise up in support of the Rebellion, were crushed by the Empire after a months-long battle on the planetary surface where the Empire wore down the Uslam Defense Forces by attrition. The survivors of its military units that got off-world rechristened themselves "the Liberators" and became shipboard troops. In that role, the Liberators are often called from sector to sector to perform boarding actions, orbital drops, raids and other forms of small unit actions as needed by the Alliance. Replacements from other planets filter in, and yet the Liberator ethos prevails -- hard-nosed, cynical and ready to do whatever it takes to fight the Empire, stormtrooper by stormtrooper, ship by ship, planet by planet.

They have one of the crappiest jobs in the Rebel Alliance and it sometimes feels like 1st Platoon is the only platoon in the whole damn Rebel Alliance and everyone else is in Supply, Intelligence and Starfighters. They don't get the glory like the Starfighter boys do, but without them, there is no alliance.

Out of Character Info

---

This RP will center around a specific unit within the Rebel Alliance, but it involves a lot of small sub adventures for a group. For the sake of convenience, I have decided to set it up so that the characters are assigned to the same group and on the same ship, supporting their leader. I have certain ideas on how to start off the RP and for various nemesis character types, but I am open to other people's ideas -- in fact, I'd like to provide enemies that people want to fight, and find interesting. I'd like to keep the whole thing going, and I've tried to craft a scenario where smaller operations feed into the overall large-picture; moral decisions -- who to recruit, and what actions to take that may bring some groups closer while alienating others, akin to the relationship system in a lot of RPG's; praising one character pisses off another.

So what kind of characters do I have in mind for this? These are the infantry of the Rebel Alliance, the guys that carry a rifle and do the fighting in the mud, with blood on their boots. They aren’t as clean-cut as Stormtroopers, and there are plenty of aliens in the ranks, but they can shoot straight even if they aren’t as easy to lead. The veteran characters of the unit are from Uslam, a planet that just got beaten down by the Empire. The survivors were in what was a baptism by fire for most of them, and got their teeth kicked in by the Empire. Uslam’s rebel uprising was put down and the regiments were forced off planet, broken up and put into small ships all over the Fleet, platoon by platoon. The replacements are coming in, but Rebel training isn’t the best and they’re learning on the job. Still, the fight won’t wait and you go to war with what you have, not what you want. That, ironically, is what Supply likes to say along with ‘figure it out.’

Pacing-wise, let's aim for a couple paragraphs a go, keep it moving. Also, this RP will start fairly quickly, so there will not be a weeks long screening process once in OOC.

The Authors of History

Teal Deer

---

- Fantasy set in a world in the 17th century level of tech. A world of reason, where education and technology are starting to take off.
- Magic was a thing in the past, documented in history.
- The history, of course, is inaccurate. The real story is there.
- The Empire, which rules the continent and has for a long time, is built upon its founding myth, of the binding of magic by Jovon.
- Beasts of out of legends mount a ferocious attack on the Imperial family. They are led by men that seem to know magic, which is impossible since magic has been suppressed for millennia.
- Your character, a female descendant of Jovon and Yariel, his queen, watches her family being attacked and knows that the only thing she can do to save herself and even have a chance of fighting the fell beasts is to follow the instructions of a family legend - go down these stairs and insert that stone there.
- The plot proceeds from that start.
- Looking for advanced and someone that can collaborate on the design. The world as it is would be of your designing. I already worked out the world as it was. They now collide.
- You can PM or reach out to HeySeuss #6650 on Discord.

In Character

---

The official histories claim that Jovon, who became first emperor, defeated Ciron, the last great magocrat, a sorcerer that lusted to rule and coveted his wife to be, Yariel. Magic, that tore the world apart, was at last done for. Ciron, who represented all that was wrong with the world, was the end of the era.

Since that time, with the magic's sources suppressed, sealed away, civilization flourished under a peaceful rule without spirits, good or bad, to interfere in the affairs of mortals. The magic ebbed away without replenishment and there was a stable, prosperous golden age. No one had magic anymore, and order and peace prevailed. Humanity was not without strife, for there was unrest in the Empire, but the magic that nearly tore the world apart with its apocalyptic power was no more. The damage was limited.

Until, of course, someone found a way to partially unseal magic, and the Imperial family found itself under assault by fell beasts of a like from the legends of the Age of Tempest. Even the muskets of the guard could not stop these things, or the men that led them, wielding fire and lightning, felling those that ruled the Empire. It is the hell of the old stories come again, the old fear that someday, someone would figure out how to undo the ancient bindings.

An heir, knowing of an old family catacomb and a contingency against such a thing, stumbles down the stairs, as the palace rumbles, coughing from the dust, with a runestone in hand, to be inserted into a crevice only in the most dire of circumstances. They were Empress Yariel's instructions to her descendants, handed down from mother to daughter in the Imperial Family. This was only to be used in the most dire of need, when all seems lost.

Her savior, Yariel's contingency against the return of magic, the intended guardian of her bloodline, is none other than Ciron, the great villain of history.

Out of Character

---

There is, of course, a deeper story of what really happened, and I will be happy to discuss that in Discord with interested players. I need to use Discord to brainstorm quickly. What really happened in the Age of Tempest is a well kept secret, because the truth would shatter the Empire anyway. Who the heroes are, who the villains are, who did what? It's been centuries and an Empire intent on unifying a continent with ideas has been at the histories. The truth has long since been lost. Some of this plot will be the system shock of your character talking to a man that knew the heroes of the age in the flesh...and the danger of what he might say if it got out.

Is there an element of Mary Magdalene and that debate to this plot? Absolutely.

But what remains is that magic has returned and the Empire is being torn apart. And your character has to make decisions under duress.

If that's your kind of plot, please reach out via PM and thanks for reading!

Foreign Legion - First Contact is First Contract

This is pure genius. Yes, it is different and the Salvesh can tell it is different. When you encounter something different, isn’t it traditionally an Anomaly? Sure. Say it is a glitch with the system and drive on! Love it!

@Gunther

Pretty much. I feel like the Plashi might be second guessing the Salvesh here.

Love it. The Salvesh can’t have it their way every time. Poor Sahati and Rysch are in trouble.

How large of an element was at that more distant ambush site? The one we struck with sniper fire and indirect fire? Would this be a squad? ~10 soldiers…or a platoon? ~40 soldiers.

@Gunther

Amorphous amount between 10-50 troops depending on leader experience and stature/success, etc. Packs fight fairly efficiently within their ranks, but larger groups are temporary and command structure is very decentralized. I would imagine that means there are a lot of good Salvesh small unit leaders, but the Plashi are their higher command and create staff/logistics/support etc. They tend to play Great Squad Leader in the Sky.

It might be more than one element operating on guidance from the same Plashi though.

What sort of fire should we expect in response from the Salvesh? Is this gunpowder indirect fire or energy-based weapons? Who is targeted? The Observation Post (OP) our squad is on or the lead elements of TF Cox moving toward the Salvesh forces?

@Gunther

The Salvesh are firing at the OP to see what sort of reaction they get. Odds are, they are using gauss weaponry; magnetic propulsion rather than chemical propellant.

Foreign Legion - First Contact is First Contract

The typical pattern of invading a Grathik station was that the naval siege was protracted and dangerous, but the Grathik had no particular taste for or capability in ground combat of any sort. So while they were a very tough nut to crack, they didn't have much in the way of resistance once inside, except for sophisticated, but limited, automated systems. Still, they moved through with due caution, wary of the Grathik VI systems. They moved in to check out what seemed to be a duel between drone systems of some sort. The Plashi drone controllers had to receive the information, translate it from what the drones said and then direct it to their mercenaries.

Sahati wasn't prepared for the sudden escalation of directed firepower. Garil, the hunt pack leader, stood up to engage what seemed to be an automated system and caught some sort of projectile, single shot and it seemed to come out of nowhere. He immediately ordered the rest of the pack to find cover, estimating that the Grathik VI systems would deploy some sort of fire support now that they tripped whatever new perimeter system the mad scientists dreamed up.

Fifteen seconds after the leader went down, there was return fire in the form of some sort of indirect fire, high explosive weaponry. The Plashi controller, a strategist that established objectives on a limited level to their hired mercenary units, was indicating other anomalies in the area, but seemed to still think that it was a new variation of automated systems, some sort of leap forward in computing. The Grathik were unpredictable in their capabilities, and rapidly evolving their new weapons, but still never quite managed to establish best practices. The lag between the clicks and buzzes of the Plashi language the drones operated in and the Plashi report was maddening, but they made the best of that command situation. Pack leaders, and Sahati was a battlefield promotion now, had to make decisions in the interim periods on best judgment.

This felt like something different, Sahati grumbled to himself as the rounds hit. It was cruder than the typical Grathik technology, and his gut said that this was not the expected unexpected that they were reasonably prepared for.

Once the fire finished, seconds after the last rounds, he gave orders to his pack that were simple; stay hidden, keep your eyes out. Then he gestured to his sniffer -- Rysch.

Sniffers were a part of Salvesh culture, a traditional practice that were supplemented by the advent of drones used for recon in force and other duties, but Rysch was Sahati's litter mate and the odd story always popped up where the Plashi or other employers were in error, but the instincts of a sniffer, the subconscious training of the predator's hunting senses of sight and smell, and something never quite quantified, though the Grathik claimed "pheremonal detection," on their threat assessments, were accurate.

"There's something out there," he confided in Rysch, "and the Shells think it's more tin can soldiers," he sniffed derisively, "but I want to know what you think."

Three of Rysch's four eyes widened, for the last was ritually put out as part of the Sniffer's ritual of becoming. He'd watched the shot that took Garil, but did not string together the whole picture the way Sahati did, because they had drastically different roles.

"I'll be careful," he told his litter mate. He came into a crouch and started to move forward, cover to cover, trying to simply get one of his senses in range.

There was, to Rysch's nose, the overpowering smell of the nanites sprayed all over the place, as well as the smell of ozone and...some sort of chemical propellant. That was odd. The Grathik were highly advanced, and chemical propellant was not the most effective means of sending death down-range. He was careful to pick his way through the sculpted, though now blasted, alien underbrush of the station, even as his personal assistant set his nanite defenses to maximum stealth, potentially burning them off faster and requiring replenishment, in order to allow him to move now with more freedom than expected. After all, nanites, deprived of material and time to create themselves, needed to be replenished through traditional resupply. Burning through them meant less ammunition, medical care, countermeasures and any number of functions that a soldier on this battlefield required.

And like any good soldier, he used his sparingly and carried extras. It was as essential as batteries, ammunition and food, all three of which nanites could replenish/recharge if kept in stock.

From his vantage, he saw the drones being dispatched by the new enemy. Going by the comms chatter he could hear from other Salvesh units and the sound of much heavier weaponry from a distance, they were encountering problems of their own; they said 'large drones' were bypassing the ambush, suppressing them with a volume of fire and grenades, some of it from other drones in support, but then taking a turn and staying in motion.

And the Salvesh drones were being picked off by a separate source of fire. This he tried to locate, but it was difficult because the volume of fire they encountered initially slacked off. It was hard to detect the muffled sound of a shot from that distance, but it was a high, flat, crack that resulted in a scrapped drone. Single shots, and once he trained his eyes on the flash, he knew what he was looking at. The closer he got, the more he could smell; a wild and unknown presence. He could taste their discipline, their methodical approach and their utterly alien, even compared to the Grathik and Plashi, manner. It was a visceral impression of killers, pack-hunters, but something else -- this was no designed race. They fought according to a different experience and set of methods.

"Sahati, I am sending coordinates," Rysch radioed, "and I want you to engage the location with fire very carefully. I think I have located a new enemy. I want to see their reaction."

@Gunther

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

@HeySeuss I get that much but I'd like an example maybe of what these worlds are actually like. Like, are they planets orbiting stars, or turtles flying through space, or crystal dimensional spheres or what? Is that a clearer question?

@Dead Cruiser

Any of the three, honestly.

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

If permissible I could try my hand at both the firestarter and the vampire. The former for the fun character interactions, the latter just because I enjoy playing that sort of character.

I have a question about the cosmology of sorts: are there different worlds that characters are from? Are they called worlds? Would "homeworld" be an appropriate term to use? What kind of scale are we working at here? More information along this vein would be appreciated.

@Dead Cruiser

The scale is not space as we know it, it's more of an Astral plane. These are homeworlds, yes. But it's not space as we know it with huge expanses. That's to just sidestep the hard sci fi components and keep it very fantasy.

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

<Snipped quote by Dead Cruiser>

I'm pretty keen to tap into the weird with Lorne (and her focus on Outer Rift magic), so this concept might be a tad redundant.

I sort of envisioned the perils of navigating the astral plane being related to communicating/bargaining with said entities (or at the very least steering clear of them).

---

I'd be curious to see how a capital A-Anarchist interacts with the rest of the cast, given that two characters are more than alright with keeping/trading in flesh. And it'd be cool to see how a character with perhaps slightly more loftier goals moves through the world. I'm kind of stuck in Dune mode, but I could see a Duncan Idaho type of character being pretty fun.

Classic swashbucklers/duelists/swordsmen are always fun as well.

@Hour Error

Oh just being possessed by some of them, as is the case of Ghal. But he's linked to a series of potent spirits that are constantly fighting for control of his flesh. They tend to keep the non-member riff-raff out of the country club.

Black Star: Steampunk Fantasy Space Piracy

Either option looks good, so let's see the concepts!