The Reluctant Vassal's Guide to Living in the Frontier (with some Treason)

Battle Lineup and Target Selection
Due to the vast void of space, naval battles between vessels require each of them to make attack runs on one another to get into range with one another while avoiding being a predictable target for enemy vessels to focus onto. This "jousting" maneuver is ingrained into naval doctrine across civilized space and leads to full broadside attacks as ships pass by one another, separate by a great distance but in an intimate dance that could not be any closer.

Once the ships involved in a battle have been established, a number pool is then generated to use for determining what a each ship will target in the moment. The values are based on the tonnage and the most common are listed below:

Destroyer: 1
Cruiser: 2
Warship: 3

Each ship has only one "joust" attempts but can be the target of multiple attempts throughout an engagement. They can always respond to said attacks with their own, so long as they are able to.

The turn order of which ships will attack first is one after another down the line, from biggest to smallest, swapping sides with every other ship. There is an initial roll at the beginning to determine who will strike first, with modifiers based on character stats or any other situational considerations.

Joust Ranges
When the attack vectors have been lined up, then to rush to face one another begins.

There are three distinct engagement stages at which weapons will open fire in: Long/Medium/Close. If a weapon's range matches the current stage, it can open fire. The one making the attack will strike first and the defender will hit back afterwards. Once both sides have exhausted all weapons they can fire in the current range, the clash proceeds to the next stage.

After Close range, both ships involved will back off to assess their damage and ready themselves for whatever other more "jousts" will come their way until the current battle is over.

Weapons and Defense
Each weapon, if in the right range, will have an attack roll with modifiers. There are different results depending on the threshold hit.

1-25: Total Miss (No damage)
26-50: Glancing Hit (Only minimum damage)
51-75: Good Hit (+1d10 damage)
76-100: Solid Hit (+2d10 damage)

If the attack roll exceeds 100, then the spillover will carry as a negative modifier to the attempted defense roll. Each attack will be met with an overall defense roll that indicates how well the ship can endure or reduce incoming damage. Like attack rolls, there are different thresholds with different results.

1-50: Badly Recovery (No reduction)
51-75: Partial Recovery (-1d10 damage)
76-100: Good Recovery (-2d10 damage)
100+: Outstanding Recovery (-2d10 damage. Can reduce minimum damage)

In most cases, the lowest a successful hit can be reduced to is the weapon's individual damage stat. However, the exception to this is in a result over 100, which can reduce a minimum down to one (1). This is the lowest it can go, and is meant to represent gradual attrition even in the finest of ships.

Escorts
Escorts are very small frigates that orbit around their attached ship, consisting of only about a dozen or so crew. Their main job is to ensure that in the "joust," their assigned ship isn't swarmed or focused upon by opportunist enemy escorts. Though should they themselves have the chance, they'll happily lend their own aid to the clash to support the fight.

At the start of every run, they'll engage enemy escorts and keep them occupied in a 1:1 ratio. For those who are still free after the match up, they will instead aid attacking the opposing ship, giving a positive modifier equal to however many are available. Their weapons deal mostly ineffective damage to larger ships, so this is the most they can do to help tip the scales.

At the end of the "joust," escorts will break from the fight and assess their losses. It is a simple d10 roll from both sides to determine the victor, and the difference is how many escorts the loser has lost. Afterwards, they'll regroup and prepare for the next possible engagement their assigned ship may get involved in.

Critical Checks
As ships come under fire and get damaged through a battle, they start suffering malfunctions and issues on board that complicate their willingness to keep fighting. However, it is far from certain and sometimes, a ship will endure magnitudes more than it should. Take heed that the reverse can also occur.

A Critical Check occurs everytime a ship's Hull reaches a threshold of ten (10) damage. A dice roll is made to see the severity of the newly sparked issue, with modifiers to adjust.

1-25: Severe Crit (+1 to crit table)
26-50: Regular Crit (+0 to crit table)
51-76: Minor Crit (-1 to crit table)
77+: Ignored Crit (No crit roll)

There are two primary modifiers to this roll. The first is a positive modifier based on the remaining Hull divided by half to symbolize the ship's overall health. The second is a negative modifier based on the damage of the last hit the ship suffered, aiding in determining just how severe the last attack was.

If a ship crosses multiple thresholds in a single hit, it only needs to make one critical roll to check. However, it may still be required to make multiple rolls depending on the outcome for the rest of the current fight.

Hull Fate
When a ship is too badly damaged, it can no longer fight and must withdraw from the battle for the safety of the surviving crew. That is the safest outcome, but far too tragically, many are unable to even have enough remaining functioning systems to move on their own terms.

When a Hull dips below zero (0) or the most severe crit effect is applied, the ship must now roll on a Hull fate table to determine how torn apart it is. The most gentle of these have the crew surviving and coaxing their wounded ship out of the engagement zone. But often times, the damage is too much and the ship is adrift, the survivors within in need of dire rescue by any surviving escort frigates or lifeboats. The most severe case involves a conplete ship detonation, the vessel ripped apart with all hands lost. In all cases, those performing evacuation and humanitarian efforts must be clearly broadcasting a withdrawal signal on all frequencies.

Attacking such a defanged and defeated vessel is considered a war crime of minor severity.

Dr Tamara Trench's Guide to the Realms and Peoples of the United Empire: The Preatorium of Pogora

Founding of Pogora and Birth of the AEEs:
Pogora, which at its birth had another name now long forgotten to time, was founded to extract the planet's valuable gases and oils. Pogora itself is not an easily inhabitable planet, covered in endless bogs and swamps, only broken up by the occasional small sea and massive mudflats. The fauna was even less friendly, with massive water snakes inhabiting the swampwater and other bug-like tiny reptiles spreading a plethora of new diseases.

Still, swamps were cleared, settlements founded and massive gas wells built to extract the planet's noxious riches. Workers, researchers and administrators made the planet their home and generation by generation. What began as mere work camps grew into proper towns and a few exploding into real cities.

But Pogora remained a humble planet, just one of many extraction colonies. Or, it did, until the discovery of the Artificial Evolutionary Enzymes (AEE).

Pogora was in one sense a remarkable planet, namely in the sheer diversity of exotic biological gases its lito- and biosphere possessed. These were, with a few very profitable exceptions, mostly useless. Still, researchers worked for years and years to try and find a combination which could be of any use (and therefore profit).

And in the end, they found the first AEE. The researchers were testing just one of countless novel gas combinations, when their lab rats began having weird reactions. Rapid growth, enhanced speed and reflexes and heightened intelligence. They had just discovered a nearly unrivalled biological enhancement tool. The fruitless search had reached its end and a new search had just begun.

When the discovery began circulating across the planet a new race for advancement began. While the first AEE was effective, it was unpredictable in its results and did eventually lead to the slow and painful deaths of all the lab animals exposed to it. Still, the experiment was a breakthrough and by using the novel ideas it had implemented new, more stable AEEs were quickly discovered.


Development of Pogora and Light of the AEEs:
With the first generation of AEEs having been developed, the desire to mass produce them appeared. The planet's biosphere, which had so long been seen as nothing but a hindrance, now became a goldmine. Teams of extractors, from every settlement, ventured out to collect the gases mother nature provided them, be they from plant or animal.

Industries grew, producing AEEs to be sold across the planet and beyond, though by now every new successful AEE became a closely guarded trade secret to their respective corporation or settlement.

The Pogorans loved their AEEs. Administrators huffed AEEs to remove the need to sleep, the researchers huffed AEEs to increase their mental faculties, common workers huffed AEEs to enhance their strength and endurance and everyone huffed AEEs to feel relaxed, feel energised or feel happy. Some warned of the moral degeneracy of mass drug use, others of the still largely unknown side-effects, but few listened and basically no one tried doing anything about it.

As AEEs prolifered through Pogoran society, the planet grew ever greater. Productivity increased, scientific breakthroughs grew more common and wealth continued to flow into the planet's coffers.


Troubles of Pogora and Darkness of the AEEs:
No golden age lasts forever and as humanity as a whole entered a new age of strife, so did Podgora.

Podgoran society was now wholly centred around the AEEs, with all political power centres around the corporations and guilds which produced them and the merchant houses and gangs who distributed them. But a new problem had appeared with this status quo.

A biosphere, especially a newly colonised one, is a fragile thing. Podgora's biosphere had begun collapsing, the extraction teams slowly killing it. The men and women who led the planet's various factions knew this, they were no fools (especially when high on intelligence-enhancing AEEs). Attempts were made to limit the damage, to preserve areas for sustainable extraction, but with an entire planet's population hooked on AEEs, more was always needed.

But words and cordial agreements failed. Conflict followed.

At first, small security detachments clashed in the wildlands, but before anyone realised, it was private armies battling in the streets of major cities. Corporate espionage evolved into mass assassination campaigns. Handguns and riot shields were replaced by artillery and combat speeders.
All while the supply of AEEs grew smaller and smaller, with industrial capacity redirected for war production and collection crews being constantly harassed by enemy soldiers.

Probably the only good thing to come out of the constant conflict was the rapid advancement of hover technology. Since many wars were mainly focused on protecting local environments, no faction wanted to risk damaging the delicate ecosystems they were fighting in. Therefore, speeders, hovering APCs and mobile bases were developed to allow warfare with minimal damage to its surroundings.

This level of thoughtfulness was not granted to the cities and settlements though and with the systematic destruction of the logistical and industrial systems which had made life of Pogora not only livable, but comfortable, slowly being broken under the pressure of constant low-intensity (and intermittent high-intensity) combat, the planet was on the brink.

Yes, goods kept flowing in and out of the docks, the AEEs continued being produced and the guilds and merchant houses continued their internal politicking, but anyone with a keen eye could see how the planet had decayed and anyone with a sharp mind could see it wasn't improving. The Troubles was set to drag yet another part of human civilisation into the abyss.


The Unification of Pogora and Mastery of the AEEs:
Yet it seemed history had another plan for them, for in this darkest hour came salvation, salvation in the form of the Stellarch, the herald of hope and unification. While his word had reached Pogora much earlier than the Stellarch themself, it had mostly gone ignored by the movers and shakers of Pogora. Civil war had left the planet largely cut off from galactic affairs, the few merchant ships selling gases and AEEs to the neighbouring systems the only exception.

So when the Stellarch arrived in the system with their fleet, it caught the Pogorans very much off guard. Still, if there is one thing an age of strife teaches a person, it is to see opportunity in the unknown. Hundreds of small ships, carrying the cream of the political and economic elite, ventured forth to meet the Stellarch.

When the Stellarch met with these hundreds of merchants, industrialists and scientists, they managed to do what had never been thought possible, they managed to sway the planet's hundreds of leaders to their side. Through charm, guile and shrewd negotiations, the Stellarch played the leaders like they were mere children. The Stellarch would stay in the planet's orbit for one standard year and in that year they managed to end the conflicts, kickstart the restoration of both AEE production and research and to unify the planet under one authority.

So complete was their authority by the year's end, that all the leaders of the planet prostrated themselves before the Stellarch, begging them to stay, to rule the planet as they had come to rule its rulers.

The Stellarch did not stay, but did not leave before appointing one out of the hundreds to lead Pogora in their name. So was appointed the first Praetor of Pogora.

Once the Stellarch left, to go find more wayward realms to bring back to humanity's fold, life would begin anew on Pogora. Industries would be rebuilt, new trade fleets constructed and a new, sustainable system of extraction would be designed.

This new golden age also brought with it new ideas and ideals and most preeminent of these was the Stellarch themself. Even the oldest, most AEE affected Boss (for that is the title the vassals of the Praetor would take) could not have navigated the political stage like the Stellarch had. The Stellarch was an unattainable ideal, an unrivalled mind in an rivalled body, but untainted by the side-effects of the AEEs.

For while the AEEs brought with them innumerable gifts, they still stained the body and mind. Even in these early days the most AEE altered barely looked human. But they knew, while they might never attain the undivided and untainted perfection of the Stellarch, they might attain at least an aspect of that whole.

So once more the Pogorans delved ever deeper into the science of the AEEs. No longer would they constrain themselves, for no amount of alterations, physical or mental, would stop them from grasping for a piece of perfection.

Nowadays few of the Pogoran elite resemble human beings, in mind or body, so altered by AEEs that many live most of their extended lives in opulent mechanical suits. AEE still filters down to the lower classes as well, though not nearly to the same extent as in the first golden age.

But be they merchant lords in flying palace complexes, no longer able to live without cutting-edge AEEs or humble workers in a concrete block, scraping together money for the next month's huff of AEE, they all live in service to the Stellarch. Few are the planets so obsessed with their sovereign.




"I arrived on Pogora just a week ago, but already I have noted down so much for my book. Pogora is one of those planets so markedly different from the average planet I have the pleasure of visiting. While I would never call any planet wholly uninteresting, Pogora is exceptional in its uniqueness, like Khepron or Helm. On the first day I met my host and local contact, Boss (yea, that's his actual, official title!) Tsakhia. The Boss' of Pogora live in these massive flying palaces, according to Tsakhia because no one wants to damage the valuable wetlands by clearing land for building space. Tsakhia himself spent the first few days in this massive mech suit, though it's not like any of the combat suits I have seen previously, instead this one is slow, kinda bulky and extremely richly decorated. I asked him if the suit uses hover tech to be able to carry so much gold. He only laughed at that.
On my fourth day I ventured down to Tsakhiaiin Khüree (you can guess who the place is named after). The settlement is on the smaller side, but from what I've come to understand, so are most settlements on the planet. I met some charming fellows at a bar who told me about life as a Collector. The Collectors are the workers responsible for going out into the wetlands to collect the surprisingly diverse set of gases the biosphere offers. I asked one of them if I could go with them the next day to better document their job. I was sadly rejected, apparently the tech they use is a guild secret. Plus, they didn't want the Boss' honoured guest to be eaten by the giant snakes. I couldn't agree more.
Another thing I noted in the city is how many statues there are of the Stellarch. I asked both the locals and Tsakhia about this. While their explanation had to be left for the book proper, I feel I can safely classify the Pogorans as a "Stellarch Worshipping" culture.
I stayed a few more days, before returning to the palace today. Boss Tsakhia had prepared a massive feast for me, this time in his personal chamber. I didn't know at the time that this meant I would be meeting him face to face. His personal chamber is precision built to allow him to leave his life-supporting suit, at least for a time.
The Boss is la very. There is no polite way to say it, he's basically a massive mound of flesh, a face with a few too many eyes buried inside a body a few tons heavier and a few shades bluer than any human body has a right to be.
I'm going to have to check with Tsakhia if I should remove that part (Edit: He said it was one of the nicer descriptions he'd heard of his real form).
He explained that the AEE (that being the drug chemical enhancer the planet is so famous for) had changed him to what he now was. When I asked why he allowed it to happen, he explained how the AEE had enhanced his mind to the level that he now ran a trade empire which would usually have needed a support staff of 500, all on his own. He barely even used AI, being able to do unimaginably complex calculations in his head.
At the end of the night he asked me if I wanted to try a huff of his personal cocktail of AEEs. He'd started huffing from a nearby barrel by the end of the feast, having started reaching the end for what his altered body could handle. I said yes and tried it and can now wholly admit to understanding why the entire planet seems hooked on the stuff. I am writing this still under the effect and my mind is running a mile a minute and the past months memories are as vivid to me as if they happened less than a minute ago. It's overwhelming yet such a wonderful feeling.
Anyhow, I should get back to organising my actual notes. A book doesn't write itself after all."
-Excerpt from the Personal Diary of Dr Tamara Trench

---

Well, that was one hell of a night.
I was busy working on the next Blood Runs Cold Omake when I saw Celeshiro asking for Omakes here and I realised I couldn't not have the first Omake be mine. So I sat down for three and a half hours and wrote this.
I'm so happy I got a chance to write worldbuilding like this, it's something I'm much better at than the character-focused Omakes I usually write, so... Thank your Celeshiro, the quest seems great. If the muses will it we'll surely see more of Dr Trench's travels in the future.

Guess I should get around to writing something for Digital Higabana now

/Royalist