Through the Threshold Tower (Tiberium/???)

Reader mode
[X]Plan: Second grade
-[X] [MCV] ...provide military MCVs loaded with Second War technologies.
-[X] [Sonic] ...share harmonic resonance technology.
 
[X] Plan: No Half-Assing

Have to do something to cloaked enemies somewhat. And the sonic technology goes without saying as we still ought to preserve as much of the people we rescue as we've chosen in the first vote. I'm not sure which exactly count as higher tier though but at the very least in case things go full south from within, the only thing likely being stolen is the sonic tech somewhat but then two can likely play the game if the Brotherhood does something interesting to it that might be worth getting if it doesn't get in the way of protecting more people.
 
[X] Plan: No Half-Assing

this should hopefully get the territory viewing the GDI with suspicion reeling in shock at the actual generosity we're showing, and the harmonic resonance should allow us to outsource the work of containing and harvesting tiberium to the population, possibly reclaiming the yellow zone into a blue zone.
 
DiscordOxymoron said:
Have to do something to cloaked enemies somewhat. And the sonic technology goes without saying as we still ought to preserve as much of the people we rescue as we've chosen in the first vote. I'm not sure which exactly count as higher tier though but at the very least in case things go full south from within, the only thing likely being stolen is the sonic tech somewhat but then two can likely play the game if the Brotherhood does something interesting to it that might be worth getting if it doesn't get in the way of protecting more people.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I am classify higher tier equipment as consisting of stuff that in Tiberium Wars you would need to construct a Tech Center to unlock. That means no railguns, no Zone Trooper or Raider suits, no Firehawks, no Mammoth tanks, no Juggernauts, and no MARVs. They don't get access to space command uplinks either, which are essentially launch pads, and obviously no ion cannon control centers.

Sonic emitters technically fall under the umbrella of things that need Tech Centers to build, but their inclusion is actually determined by whether or not to share harmonic resonance tech being as the towers are really repurposed Tiberium abatement tools and not purpose built weapons.

There's also ZOCOM exclusive kit that is off the table. That includes their whole library of enhanced sonic weaponry, though their Tiberium field suits do get shared. Steel Talon's experimental adaptive armor systems aren't included either but their Titan Mk. IIs and Wolverine Mk. IIs are.

Despite me calling it basic, handing over everything short of GDI's highest tier of weapons is very generous an offer no matter how you cut it and there's definitely a reason why people are concerned with this level of tech share. That being said Kane's dudes, if they come back, won't be restricted to fielding militants and attack bikes and you need a certain degree of firepower to take down Avatars.
 
[X] Plan: No Half-Assing

Definitely a risk, but at least for now this should keep as many of these going as possible, which is both good from a humanitarian standpoint and for adding distractions to Nod's plate.
 
[X] Plan: Not taking any chances
-[X] [MCV] ...provide military MCVs.
-[X] [Sonic] ...share harmonic resonance technology.

The way I see it, Nod already goes toe to toe with the GDI, which fields all their top of the line stuff, not giving the yellow-zoners top of the line stuff too makes me fear it'll just make them a weaker target in the eyes of Nod, thus leading them to concentrate their efforts there instead of on GDI forces. Which is why I want to make them as unappetizing a meal as possible, so to speak, and that means advanced technology.

Those higher technologies could mean the difference between a city falling, and surviving. Or maybe just some dozens of people dying or not. The world is already violently on fire and I don't want to take any chances when it comes to preventing further loss of life.

Also, it gives the yellow zones the message that, ultimately, they are not any less important than the blue ones. We are trusting them with our full arsenal because we don't believe they deserve to have the better lives they can build with those MCVs stolen from them by Nod.

I guess there is an argument for not risking Nod infiltrators stealing the advanced technologies. But considering how Kane apparently emptied the cities from able-bodied volunteer fighters and hardcore believers, and how the fighters that came back to their own cities to find loyalist Brotherhood forces trying to burn their homes down were for the most part second line units (local militias and conscripts not nearly as driven by zealotry/ideology as the volunteers), I do feel confident saying that, whatever danger the cities might face, the most dire one will be the one to come not from within, but from without.

Also hi I like this quest so far, I'm enjoying it thanks QM for writing, hope you write more, you do a good job, many regards <3
 
Intelligence Database - Mercenaries
  • Sidestory
    • The Modern Mercenary​

    Mercenaries have played a pivotal role in global affairs since time immemorial. For a while they fell into insignificance, but that changed with the Second World War. The conflict not only immortalized one mercenary as a hero of the Allied Powers and returned soldiers of fortune to the forefront of the public consciousness, it also set the stage for mercenaries to once more step forth and ply their trade.

    Mercenary F-15s flying over Eastern Europe
    The disintegration of the Soviet Union and resultant independence of its constituent Soviet Republics, led to a string of regional wars between the former member states as they fought to claim from each other and the still cooling corpse of the USSR that which they believed to be theirs.

    Around them sat Asian and European nations once invaded and exploited by the Soviet Union, who in the aftermath of the war were largely in ruin and absent the industry and funds required to raise and maintain armed forces.

    These nations looked to the conflicts growing beyond their borders and feared the possibility of them spilling over into their lands. Others among them more suspicious of their ex-Soviet neighbors feared that when war came, it would not be so accidental.

    This would not be these nations' only source of concern. Soviet holdouts yet remained. The militaries of the Allied Powers in the post-war period were dedicated to tracking down large formations of Soviet holdouts – the campaigns against them lasting into the late '80s, formally ending with the destruction of the Scavengers – but smaller bands that registered lower on the Allied priorities lists roamed about uncontested. Leveraging MCV technology, theses bands assembled pocket armies capable of threatening ill prepared wartorn nations.

    Given such tumult, mercenaries found themselves awash in seas of contracts and for the period time between the Second World War and First Tiberium War, the sight of hired guns in warzones became the norm and not the exception. Additionally, the average size of mercenary outfits would rapidly balloon during this time, as countries hired on merc groups to carry out duties traditionally entrusted to large standing militaries.

    Allied armor engaging Soviet holdouts
    Many of the people who helped fill out these numbers were recently discharged soldiers of the Allied Powers. The Allied Powers, greatly diminished by years of total war, had understandably moved to demobilize large portions of their wartime armies once victory had been declared.

    This left many Allied soldiers free to join in on the burgeoning mercenary business where they could earn a fortune doing what they had once done for country, and leveraging the skills they had learned during their time in the service. For others it was an opportunity to live a unique military adjacent lifestyle that they found agreeable.

    Though that is not to say that mercenary work was always the preferred choice. More than a few men signed on to fight because they lacked alternative choices when it came to employment. Many former Red Army soldiers would become mercenaries as well for much the same reasons.

    Mercenary forces made use of an eclectic mix of arms, sourced through equally eclectic means. Soviet war material found its way to them through the black market. Allied equipment was acquired through government surplus auctions. Anything else was bought directly from a youthful military—industrial complex yearning to have another taste of the lucrative business it saw during the war. They treated paying mercenaries as preferred customers and lavished them with complimentary spare parts, choice ammunition, and state of the art upgrade packages.

    Aero pack schematics
    Thus began the era of mercenary armies, which would persist up until the '90s, when the nature of geopolitics would irrevocably change thanks to the arrival of Tiberium, GDI, and Nod onto the world's stage. Said '90s were a mixed bag for mercenaries.

    On the one hand conflicts were common thanks to the increase in terrorist groups such as the Brotherhood of Nod and accompanying terrorist activities. The commodities crash triggered by the introduction of Tiberium onto the world market, contributed to the rise of more extremist groups and resulted in a handful of wars.

    On the other many of the warzones that mercenaries had fought in during the '80s had by then quieted down. The United Nations was encouraging peace, Russia had stabilized into a democratic society, and Europe and East Asia were on the rebound.

    The nature of conflicts had also changed. Conventional engagements were becoming rarer and giving way to asymmetric fights. Large armies went from being an asset to a burden and many of the established mercenary companies began downsizing.

    M7 Micro tank schematics
    A few of the large outfits would retain their size and move over into the private security business, hiring themselves out to corporations. Their repeated successes in defending facilities against direct attacks would inspire corporate heads to scoop up out of work mercenaries and use them to create their own in-house security forces, similarly equipped with military grade equipment.

    Contrary to what they were labeled as, corporate security invariably conducted more than simple security. Often times corporations used their in-house forces to carry out military actions against the facilities and personnel of competitors.

    At the beginning such attacks were limited to overseas locations, but gradually as the governments of the countries that corporations were headquartered in became overwhelmed by the always increasing costs of countering the negative effects of Tiberium, they ceded more and more power and rights to the corporations, and these "commercial wars" soon extended to the home cities of corporations. The sight of militarized corporate security came to be commonplace in cities that housed corporate infrastructure, as was the occurrence of firefights.
    Armored stealth suit schematics

    By 2020, the ruling corporations had since dropped any pretense that what their forces were particularly well equipped security guards and openly armed their troops with state of art military kit that few national militaries had the budgets to afford.

    In between fighting other corporate troops, corporate armies enforced the wills of their masters within their "territories," cracking down on individuals and groups that attacked their de facto – though depending on the state of collapse of their host country it could be de jure – authority, demanding compliance with corporate regulations, and disposing of those deemed undesirable.

    Smaller mercenary outfits continued to operate in the new corporation dominated environment. Governments continued to hire them to act against non-governmental entities and small businesses and the occasional private citizen employed mercs for protection. Corporations handed out contracts too when in need of deniable assets.

    During this time, the relationships between the different kinds of guns for hire were strained. Generally, individuals who classified themselves as mercenaries looked down on private and corporate security personnel as self-important rent-a-cops.

    Those people working private security saw mercenaries as throwbacks to a more barbaric age but held little regard either for corporate types, viewing them as well paid stooges. Corporate security employees held no better a view of private security and considered them weekend warriors and saw mercenaries as anarchic thorns in their sides.

    Encounters between the groups tended to end in violence regardless of promised payout.

    Artist rendition of GDI X-O suits airdropping during the Corporate Wars
    The Corporate Wars spelt the end of corporate armies. To this day people continue to argue about which incident it was that sparked off the series of conflicts that altogether would come to be known as the Corporate Wars, but there is less uncertainty in regards to how the war ended.

    GDI intervention saw to the end of both the Corporate Wars and corporate authority, the conflict finally leading the Initiative to abandon their longstanding vow not to interfere in the domestic politics of sponsoring countries. GDI in conjunction with remaining countries vigorously hunted down and uprooted corporate influences in a manner reminiscent of the deimperialization and desovietization of post-war Japan and Russia respectively.

    Naturally corporate armies were banned in the aftermath of the Corporate Wars. Mercenary companies and private security firms were placed under heavy restrictions that saw most opt to leave the line of work altogether. Thousands of unemployed hired guns left GDI aligned territories for what we would refer to today as the Yellow Zones, unable to find employment with government militaries or GDI. The former because they lacked the funds to expand their armed forces and the latter due to the organization's stringent recruitment requirements.

    Only a few of the affected would go on to join the Brotherhood of Nod, the rest instead staying as independent contractors and offering their services as combatants. Independent Yellow Zone settlements would come to rely on mercenaries for protection, just as the battered nations of post-war Europe and Asia had done decades before.

    Interestingly Nod became the largest employer of mercenaries. More specifically, local Nod leaders. They hired mercenary outfits to protect them from and wage war against their most dreaded enemies, other Nod leaders. In this way modern mercenaries have returned back to their post-Second World War roots, fighting on behalf of populations in conflict with their neighbors.
     
  • Sidestory
    • The current vote will be closing in the next 11 hours. Currently it is as follows.

    Adhoc vote count started by Spart117MC on Sep 14, 2023 at 12:00 AM, finished with 16 posts and 14 votes.
    Click to expand...

    On a separate topic I would like to encourage the asking of questions regarding setting details. I'll do my best to answer them with Intelligence Database entries, though stuff that's relevant to ongoing votes I'll go ahead and tell in a more straightforward manner.

    There are a lot of empty spaces between the wars that go unillustrated by the Tiberium games and the incarnation of the setting I'm using in the quest leans away from the '20 minutes into the future' approach that Tiberium Wars took.
     
    How much influence/legitimacy do pre-Tiberium cultural/national identities have in the present day? I don't mean if there are any national government remnants, but what people think of themselves as?
     
    Spart117MC said:
    There are a lot of empty spaces between the wars that go unillustrated by the Tiberium games and the incarnation of the setting I'm using in the quest leans away from the '20 minutes into the future' approach that Tiberium Wars took.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Well, in this universe; what is the status of Svalbard Global Seed Vault?
    Did it never get off the ground here or is it still active but bigger and heavily protected?
     
    Vote closed
  • Voting
    • Scheduled vote count started by Spart117MC on Sep 12, 2023 at 11:11 AM, finished with 22 posts and 15 votes.
    Click to expand...
     
  • Voting
    • So kinda looking forward to when we hit the crossover event. There's a huge number of fun possibilities of how that can go.

    For example Battletech could be hilarious if we figure out how to get around the lack of Tiberium on other worlds because our big advantage is that we aren't as crippled by the FTL bottleneck since we can just ship people to the target and produce the hardware on site.

    Star wars would be great option as well because GDI production capacity simply let's us fight with the big boys once we get the ball rolling.

    And that's just two possiabilites out of dozens.
     
    Might be awhile, though probably it's going be more aliens and what-not.

    ..or we could be in a multiverse/universe with other series in it. Either works. For now though, baby steps till we get there. :V
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Back
    Top