Your diplomatic mission drives across the vast interior steppe of Paradisea's largest continent. Your holy men do not like it. It is not that the land is cursed, it is simply…
empty. The only plant growth is scattered grasses, thorny shrubs, and cacti. You see birds, once a long-legged running wolf, and some feral goats, cattle, and horses. There are no nature spirits your holy men can sense.
You do see people, and machines.
They mostly pass you by in caravans of trucks, hundreds strong, visible from miles by their dust cloud. You do see permanent fixtures, mostly geothermal power stations, a few open-pit mines that cause your holy men to mutter, and once, a vast rolling city, on treads a hundred feet high, grinding its way across the steppe.
Finally, you reach the Holy Mountain, capital of the Machine Army of All-Under-Heaven. The mountain has been carved out and burrowed into and built atop, so that it is intertwined with the industry and armories and barracks and other emplacements. Steam from geothermal vents and smoke from factories rises in columns.
Within, the Commander-in-Chief awaits. He is only a man, fairly advanced in age in fact. Around him are the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many guards, and many officials and clerks and servants. The uniforms are elaborate, trimmed out with gold braid, chests pinned with dozens of medals. Cybernetic enhancements are also very much in evidence, from prosthetic limbs to eyes to more unusual additions; one female member of the Joint Chiefs has four arms, all of them mechanical.
Your diplomatic mission allows for the ceremony, the changing of the guards, a demonstration of their drill and equipment, the regimental band playing marching tunes. The Machine Army seems to run on no small amount of ceremony. The mass of troops salutes you and the Commander-in-Chief both, and your foremost Speaker approaches.
"Thank you, your Excellency, for this audience," she begins, "We wish you to understand that war between our peoples is not desirable, for either of us."
The Commander-in-Chief nods.
"Indeed. A total war would destroy both our societies, and turn this world back to the ruin and chaos we found it in when we arose all those generations ago. However," his face darkens, "Do not think our interests are all aligned."
"No indeed, and that is why we are here, to draw the boundary between what is possible and what is not."
Now he seems to smile.
"We believe nothing is impossible. Let us begin."
The Machine Army of All-Under-Heaven
Government and Economy
The Machine Army is a semi-hereditary oligarchy. The Commander-in-Chief is the ultimate authority and he always appoints his successor. At times it has been outright hereditary, with the Commander-in-Chief picking his favorite, most competent, or simply oldest child, other times he has adopted a child trained for the position, and sometimes he has chosen a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The current Commander-in-Chief was the adopted son of the previous one, and it was his decision to cancel the invasion of the Machine Army of Living Metal and seek diplomacy with us.
Naturally the lack of a clear succession causes uncertainty but it could be a lot worse.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff are the Commander-in-Chief's inner court, staffed with the highest-ranking commanders and they are selected by the Commander-in-Chief based ostensibly on competency – they have a sophisticated system of officer academies and exams – but political concerns naturally play a role. Since it is very difficult for a Commander-in-Chief to rise to power without the consent of the JCOS, the system is self-reinforcing.
There seems to be a sort of officer aristocracy with the ruling class dominated by certain families, but their society is set up so that there isn't extreme stratification. It is difficult to amass wealth when you are mostly techno-nomads.
Their economy functions on a few pillars. First, their self-replicating war machines are part of a vast, largely automated industrial complex they've developed over time, although it does require human input. Actual labor is done by the Army Corps of Engineers, which is similar to the proposed Labor Corps at home. A mobilized reserve force of organized labor. The economy, while automated, is centrally planned, directed by the JCOS and executed by Industrial Executive Officers who are appointed by the same.
Belief System
The Machine Armies have been through quite a bit of social change since they united. Their society is complex; they have a sophisticated oral tradition, value art and self-expression, have cultural institutions and a complex social order, and have their own philosophical schools, some of which are challenging the definition of humanity and who seek morphological freedom and the merging of man and machine.
On the other hand, propaganda is widespread and that complex social order is used for social control; there tends to be little privacy, and their society is highly regulated and bureaucratized. There is a strict adherence to ceremony, rank, and tradition. The main project for the ruling class is reinforcing their ideological hegemony.
The Machine Army of All-Under-Heaven has a universalist ideology that drives them to conquer in the name of peace and order, though how much they believe this actually varies. There are true believers who say the Machine Army is fated to bestride the galaxy, there are cynics who believe it's useful for maintaining legitimacy, and there are pragmatists who are willing to play the long game and don't want to destroy civilization in a mad dash for power. The current Commander-in-Chief seems to lean towards the pragmatists but we cannot be sure.
On the other hand, dissent has been bubbling to the surface for some time, and there are those who challenge the ruling ideology or the way that the Machine Army is organized completely. This includes democratic ideas, "demilitarization" of society, and the aforementioned transhumanist ideas.
Discussion of religion has been moved to the next section due to how intertwined technology and spirituality are for them.
Technology
Their religion heavily focuses on the machine spirits, although there is also a great esoteric tradition. Esoteric cults are prolific and serve a vital social role, and tend to focus on communing with spirits, mystical healing, mind expanding and mind-altering techniques, spiritual cultivation through meditative practices, and of course secret and hidden knowledge not privy to outsiders. Their spiritual practices have developed in parallel with ours, although with quite different applications.
They also seem to have as part of their spiritual universe a type of being they call a Machine Angel. Our diplomatic mission encountered one, a humanoid being seemingly shaped of metal with jointed limbs and wings made of sharp metal blades that evoked feathers, and an uncanny fourfold facial pattern. Their tech-shamans claim this is the highest expression of their machine spirits.
Aside from the war machines and automated industry, they also utilize magnets, both in practical industrial applications, such as maglev trains, but also in magic, for example in magical healing and as a focus for spells. They have a variety of radio that allows them to communicate with spirits, they have heavy integration of magic and technology, they have advanced mechanical augmentations and prosthetics – and that's just the technology they're willing to share with us.
Industry is centered in the cities, which are in truth massive – not to editorialize here, I mean they boggle the mind – rolling vehicles, or complexes, that can house thousands of people and contain industry and food production along with everything else the populace needs. They move between massive open-pit strip mines, geothermal power plants, and strategic points, occasionally meeting to trade and hold social events. The Holy Mountain is the only permanent settlement.
The cities tend to be hotbeds of radical thought and organizing and the Army Corps of Engineers in particular are a font of potential change.
Conclusion
There seems to be a division in the JCOS between those who want to keep us at arm's length and build up their military strength for the universal conquest, and the pragmatists or reformists who think forming ties will prevent a destructive war and move everyone towards collaboration on the project of universal order and harmony.
Cold War Actions
You exist in a cold war with the Machine Army of All-Under-Heaven. This will be a conflict fought on many fronts – economic, cultural, and ideological. You can either compete, or collaborate; collaborative actions will unlock joint projects. You can also attempt to shape their society through subtle means, but be warned. As you seek to influence their society, so they will seek to influence yours. On the other hand, taking openly hostile actions will embolden the radicals, and increase the chance of open war.
Cold War Actions will be available next turn.
