"Nooooo I don't wanna learn Cyrillic!"
Final moments of a Hutt gunman as he's dragged off to the conversion chamber
Are those guys even augmented tbh, they just look like they're wearing combine made gasmasks.
Benefaction: A Combine Ck2 Quest in Star Wars Legends
- Thread starter Mantising
- Start date
"Nooooo I don't wanna learn Cyrillic!"
Final moments of a Hutt gunman as he's dragged off to the conversion chamber
Are those guys even augmented tbh, they just look like they're wearing combine made gasmasks.
Asmodemus
Subversive Element
"We have augmented you with this removable gas mask. You are now a transhumanoid worker. Congratulations." *alien party popper noise*
And I gotta correct myself. We have a mix of Half-Life 2 soldiers and Alyx units, all of which were assigned to us from the Overworld side of things, home base if you will. So we got Wallhammers and whatnot.
I hope this is canon now holy shit.
Non-Canon Omake: Vorak's Requiem.
- Location
- Somewhere Beyond the Sea
First time writing an omake featuring the Combine or Star Wars in general so I hope I'm not too inaccurate with the terminology here, and I hope it isn't too dark.
Vorak's Requiem.
Some Time In The Near Future...
"Attention Citizen Habitation Block C-09-17, daily permitted rations have been halved from two Standard Nutrition Units, to one Standard Nutrition Unit." The monotone voice of a woman echoed through the city square in Basic as a single-file line of people formed an orderly queue in front of a ration dispensary, above them, scanners monitored the Citizens and occasionally buzzed with telemetry.
It had been years since this 'Combine' had taken over the planet, since Vorak had been made a Citizen.
At first, there was rebellion, as there always was when an outside force tried to pry a world owned by the Hutt Cartel out of their greasy fingers, armed revolts, protests, disobedience, whatever the population could think of to resist the shackles of the next would-be ruler of the world.
By the Force, it went well at first, the so-called 'Transhumanoid Arm' of the Combine couldn't pin them down in the toxic swamps and choking miasma of the planets biosphere, entire convoys of their soldiers had met their ends in bogs that sucked them into toxic mud, stinging insects that burrowed into exposed flesh and predators that could make lunch meat of battle-droids.
It went well, until the Combine decided to drain the swamps, burn the bogs, sterilise the insects and dominate the beasts, the planet-wide empire was merciless in its consumption, not a single scrap was wasted, of either the wildlife or the rebels they found.
Vorak could still see the hollow-eyed things that were once his comrades-in-arms when he slept.
Week after week, defeat after defeat, the rebels either splintered, sold out their brothers to their overlords for better treatment, or simply gave up, until Vorak's cell was the last one in operation.
It took seven hours to burn the entire cell to the ground, seven hours of Vorak clutching at his necklace of pearls - his once-lucky charm - in atonement for his treachery.
But once the ash had settled, the Combine simply reassigned him to another city, and the rebellion died with a whimper, smothered in its infancy, with Vorak as the only one to remember.
As he stepped forward and accepted the - maddeningly low - ration pack for the day, Vorak kept a straight face, ignoring how the scanners seemed to linger on him for a little bit longer than the others.
As Vorak stepped away from the dispensary, he craned his neck upwards and drank in the sight of the alien - and he knew that term was wrong - architecture, organic and mechanical blended together to the point that his head struggled to differentiate the two at times, like the three-legged walkers that lumbered over the Citizens like a primordial titan.
Underneath its behemoth legs, was a platoon of gas-masked humanoids, the so-called 'Civil Protection' that doled out a warped justice to any malcontents, and Vorak shivered.
Those prods hurt, never enough to seriously injure a person, but enough to remind them of the pain even days after the event...
And that was when they were being merciful.
But as Vorak opened his rations and took a bite of the bland, colourless paste that kept him just fed enough to be able to work, a bitter chuckle escaped his mouth.
At least the Hutts were gone.
The Hutts were gone, and it only cost them their freedom, their right for self-determination, their souls...
Their children.
Vorak knew that there hadn't been any children born since the Combine took over, some kind of... 'Reproductive Suppression' was enacted by Overwatch the moment they enforced compliance on the planet.
He knew, because his wife had come to him, teary-eyed and feeling like a part of herself died.
That was when he had foolishly signed up to the cause, and it all started with a single, bone-chilling realisation.
The Combine didn't care about its Citizens, why would it? As far as it was concerned, if you weren't wearing the boots of Civil Protection or volunteering for the Transhumanoid Arm, you would inevitably be grounded down under the boot of someone else who did.
They fed Vorak just enough to keep him working, just enough to avoid starvation, but every night, he would clutch his necklace, crying as the gurgling of his empty stomach and the grief in his widowed heart carried him to restless sleep...
The Combine, was killing them off, not through blasters, or tanks, or great battles to decide the fate of the Galaxy, no, nothing so merciful as that.
They were killing their very souls.
And it worked.
As Vorak finished his daily nutrient ration, he glanced towards a poster of a Civil Protection officer, and he felt only the gurgling of his still-hungry stomach.
Maybe... it would be better to BE the grinding boot, than to be the Citizen under it.
Vorak's Requiem.
Some Time In The Near Future...
"Attention Citizen Habitation Block C-09-17, daily permitted rations have been halved from two Standard Nutrition Units, to one Standard Nutrition Unit." The monotone voice of a woman echoed through the city square in Basic as a single-file line of people formed an orderly queue in front of a ration dispensary, above them, scanners monitored the Citizens and occasionally buzzed with telemetry.
It had been years since this 'Combine' had taken over the planet, since Vorak had been made a Citizen.
At first, there was rebellion, as there always was when an outside force tried to pry a world owned by the Hutt Cartel out of their greasy fingers, armed revolts, protests, disobedience, whatever the population could think of to resist the shackles of the next would-be ruler of the world.
By the Force, it went well at first, the so-called 'Transhumanoid Arm' of the Combine couldn't pin them down in the toxic swamps and choking miasma of the planets biosphere, entire convoys of their soldiers had met their ends in bogs that sucked them into toxic mud, stinging insects that burrowed into exposed flesh and predators that could make lunch meat of battle-droids.
It went well, until the Combine decided to drain the swamps, burn the bogs, sterilise the insects and dominate the beasts, the planet-wide empire was merciless in its consumption, not a single scrap was wasted, of either the wildlife or the rebels they found.
Vorak could still see the hollow-eyed things that were once his comrades-in-arms when he slept.
Week after week, defeat after defeat, the rebels either splintered, sold out their brothers to their overlords for better treatment, or simply gave up, until Vorak's cell was the last one in operation.
It took seven hours to burn the entire cell to the ground, seven hours of Vorak clutching at his necklace of pearls - his once-lucky charm - in atonement for his treachery.
But once the ash had settled, the Combine simply reassigned him to another city, and the rebellion died with a whimper, smothered in its infancy, with Vorak as the only one to remember.
As he stepped forward and accepted the - maddeningly low - ration pack for the day, Vorak kept a straight face, ignoring how the scanners seemed to linger on him for a little bit longer than the others.
As Vorak stepped away from the dispensary, he craned his neck upwards and drank in the sight of the alien - and he knew that term was wrong - architecture, organic and mechanical blended together to the point that his head struggled to differentiate the two at times, like the three-legged walkers that lumbered over the Citizens like a primordial titan.
Underneath its behemoth legs, was a platoon of gas-masked humanoids, the so-called 'Civil Protection' that doled out a warped justice to any malcontents, and Vorak shivered.
Those prods hurt, never enough to seriously injure a person, but enough to remind them of the pain even days after the event...
And that was when they were being merciful.
But as Vorak opened his rations and took a bite of the bland, colourless paste that kept him just fed enough to be able to work, a bitter chuckle escaped his mouth.
At least the Hutts were gone.
The Hutts were gone, and it only cost them their freedom, their right for self-determination, their souls...
Their children.
Vorak knew that there hadn't been any children born since the Combine took over, some kind of... 'Reproductive Suppression' was enacted by Overwatch the moment they enforced compliance on the planet.
He knew, because his wife had come to him, teary-eyed and feeling like a part of herself died.
That was when he had foolishly signed up to the cause, and it all started with a single, bone-chilling realisation.
The Combine didn't care about its Citizens, why would it? As far as it was concerned, if you weren't wearing the boots of Civil Protection or volunteering for the Transhumanoid Arm, you would inevitably be grounded down under the boot of someone else who did.
They fed Vorak just enough to keep him working, just enough to avoid starvation, but every night, he would clutch his necklace, crying as the gurgling of his empty stomach and the grief in his widowed heart carried him to restless sleep...
The Combine, was killing them off, not through blasters, or tanks, or great battles to decide the fate of the Galaxy, no, nothing so merciful as that.
They were killing their very souls.
And it worked.
As Vorak finished his daily nutrient ration, he glanced towards a poster of a Civil Protection officer, and he felt only the gurgling of his still-hungry stomach.
Maybe... it would be better to BE the grinding boot, than to be the Citizen under it.
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I am genuinely warmed that my writing manages to inspire other people like this... Even if it is dreaming about just how horrible we can make things
Also mostly Non-Canon due to taking place in a future that may or may not happen, rather than any inconsistencies. Might end up becoming canon in the future though.
Asmodemus
Subversive Element
Reading through all that, I'd like to say, that I think we can be more efficient than that.
I mean, come on, years of resistance? Reproductive suppression? We need every Worker we can get as quick as we can get. We're not gonna be some poorly managed backwater in a place with no prominent technological advances like Earth, where the locals were barely worth more than the local water supplies, or even less than.
This is a galaxy with working FTL and all the offshoots of it! Functional artificial intelligence workers that almost never rebel! A galaxy wide psionic field of some sort to study and take over!
Yes, we're going to be not very.. pleasant about matters, but Earth was a troublesome highly populated backwater with minimal use save potential for soldiers. This is going to be a premiere dimension to exploit! Once we get in contact with back home.
Ideally if we can convert the Shell, we can have a smoother takeover going on.
I mean, come on, years of resistance? Reproductive suppression? We need every Worker we can get as quick as we can get. We're not gonna be some poorly managed backwater in a place with no prominent technological advances like Earth, where the locals were barely worth more than the local water supplies, or even less than.
This is a galaxy with working FTL and all the offshoots of it! Functional artificial intelligence workers that almost never rebel! A galaxy wide psionic field of some sort to study and take over!
Yes, we're going to be not very.. pleasant about matters, but Earth was a troublesome highly populated backwater with minimal use save potential for soldiers. This is going to be a premiere dimension to exploit! Once we get in contact with back home.
Ideally if we can convert the Shell, we can have a smoother takeover going on.
- Location
- USA
Point of order, said field quite rightfully HATES us.
Perhaps after these hired mercenaries have outlived their usefulness they shall "generously donate" their ship and fighters to the combine and they will "graciously" choose to join civil protection
Asmodemus
Subversive Element
Betraying them seems unwise, we want to work with local powers, this isn't like Earth, a primitive mud planet with barely any fusion power and held back from properly leveraging their resources, and we are not the Overworld but a smaller outpost, we must be conscious of the larger picture. Earning a rep for betraying our mercenaries will ensure we have no mercenaries joining us, but earning a rep for being a good employer for mercenaries and others joining willingly will get them flocking to our banner.
And they must have some plans about surviving betrayal.
We only require one working FTL drive to have what we need to make our own ship designs, with more designs offering more insights, especially better types. We will be given a firsthand look at the mercenaries' ship and fighters as we give them full maintenance.
It's easier to just give them what we promised, determine credit situation after conquest if we want to keep paying for their services.
On the topic of fighters witch would be better, a synth or transhumanoid design. Synth might Be more expensive and maybe more difficult to repair. But could have better performance.
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In fact, I think that like CIS, we could use drones as fighters. Despite the whole biopunk theme of The Combine, regular robots like manhacks have also been used. Or we can just put the brains of criminals into fighters and, through drugs and shock therapy, encourage them to behave appropriately.🤔
Realistically, fighters outside of atmosphere just shouldn't be used, and if absolutely necessary it should be some sort of disposable drone (think children of a dead earth where 'drones' are basically missiles with a computer and reactor instead of a warhead and a gun on front). In atmosphere it's a toss up between pilots, synths, and drones.
…though I will admit I'm guilty of liking space fighters in certain settings so I shouldn't be dumping on them like this.
…though I will admit I'm guilty of liking space fighters in certain settings so I shouldn't be dumping on them like this.
Were in star wars realism isn't really a concern here
And I swear to God if someone tries to make stuff "realistic" in this quest I will blow a fuse I've already has that devolve into arguments in other quests before
Asmodemus
Subversive Element
We'll see how Mantising plays it, but it would be cool to be a different paradigm of space battle, but we might just imitate the locals. Or do both, imitate locals and make some non-standard stuff that plays to our non-FTL space experiences as a faction, see what's more effective.
What's done locally is rather ineffective against Jedi so just blindly repeating it without experimentation is not ideal.
What's done locally is rather ineffective against Jedi so just blindly repeating it without experimentation is not ideal.
Even if we negate the technical/physical limitations of real single seat space fighters, the locals still have absolutely garbage fire control and anti-fighter countermeasures that we can massively improve upon with basically zero effort by just using designs the Combine already have or what we can dredge from our Earth databanks.
This would actually leave us in the position of turning enemy fighter assets into an non-issue on top of us using local fighters which are already good by their standards (until they take a look at our ships and figure out concepts like 'radar guided fire control' and 'rapid fire AA').
This would actually leave us in the position of turning enemy fighter assets into an non-issue on top of us using local fighters which are already good by their standards (until they take a look at our ships and figure out concepts like 'radar guided fire control' and 'rapid fire AA').
Perhaps we employ swarms of synth fighters that overwhelm any defense
Swarms of synth fighters deployed from huge synth carries.
Edit: That might not be possible because a mechanicle focus was chosen insted of biologicle. We could maybe have bording torpedos with portels. So once they hit they open and we swarm the with manhacks.
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One thing in this universe that might be extremely interesting to us is Beskar steel
that stuff can withstand blaster bolts at point blank range (something our own armor cant do) and resist lightsabers.
EDIT:by the way @Mantising do we use Suppressor units you mentioned we use the wallhammer but the heavy machine gunner fills a niche that is really useful (and other politys in this galaxy Have)
Edit 2 : another interesting thing you might want to explore is this scrapped combine heavy synth (since your using stuff like the crab and mortar synths)
View: https://youtu.be/n2gjdoa-GFg?si=jQPo3I2XYyvcKH7O
Timestamp 3:34
Basically a super battle Droid but alive
(Retexture it a bit to get rid of thexen aspect of the early designs)
that stuff can withstand blaster bolts at point blank range (something our own armor cant do) and resist lightsabers.
EDIT:by the way @Mantising do we use Suppressor units you mentioned we use the wallhammer but the heavy machine gunner fills a niche that is really useful (and other politys in this galaxy Have)
Edit 2 : another interesting thing you might want to explore is this scrapped combine heavy synth (since your using stuff like the crab and mortar synths)
View: https://youtu.be/n2gjdoa-GFg?si=jQPo3I2XYyvcKH7O
Timestamp 3:34
Basically a super battle Droid but alive
(Retexture it a bit to get rid of thexen aspect of the early designs)
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Asmodemus
Subversive Element
Main problem with that is that we are at the very southern tip of Hutt Space, Mandalore is northwest of us.
With local FTL travel, we can technically get anywhere quickly so long as no one blocks our ships, but with the Hutts on our butts, we're gonna have a bunch of pirates out for us.
While a small raid is easily done, a more intensive mining operation is something we can't really set up, and would have issues with us attacking a neutral pacifist world to set it up.
Although, if we play our cards right, support the New Mandalorian and Satine, join the Council of Neutral Systems, we could probably arrange trading of Beskar or setting up a mining operation. Especially if we offer our services in genetic manipulation and general modification of planets.
Just gotta keep the horror side hidden while we set up the trade. And get a good convoy going of transport and defense ships for moving the stuff.
Nicolay
The Sequel Trilogy is Canon!
Or we help Maul and join the Shadow Collective
One race that might fit EXTREMELY well into the combine is the kaminoans those immoral biologists would fit right in
- Location
- Somewhere Beyond the Sea
Is Beskar even worth the effort considering we can probably phone the Overworld (eventually once we've cemented our control over the planet) and ask them for some super-materials or something? No need to bother with the stuff when we can probably either make something better, request for some once we've phoned home, or probably just kidnap some backwater clan and see if we can reverse engineer the stuff?
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Remember phoning the overworld is a LATE game thing by word of god