- Location
- California,USA
...But Do these Bandits have counters to Mine Feilds, artillery and High Calibur weapons mounted to reasonably built Space Humvees?
Come on, guys...Warthog Calvery! Imagin the Image.
Mars Bleeds Red - A Red Planet Rising Quest
- Thread starter TheMaskedReader
- Start date
Come on, guys...Warthog Calvery! Imagin the Image.
Yest hey do since they have slave soldiers for both and all their power armor guys have been fighting for the entirety of the unification war or has bee extensively been trained in it in addition machine guns and infantry scale weapons quite frankly are esentially useless so unless you have anti tank munitions it'll only tickle in addition armstrong despite being an aristocrat isn't stupid and would use his serf militia as a sacrifice.Also most settlement militias lack even basic motorized units.Hell only station and Shanxi actually have anything resembling motorized logistics with Station being reliant on it's trains.
- Location
- California,USA
Bal...The Omake I'm writing is currently is set in the Tharsis Plateau, while I appreciate the information..,
I'm assuming a wide and wholly different set of circumstances.
True and mabye you could have an omake about a Hephaestus settlement doing a Rambo and managing to actually drive off the Dead Crusaders
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We're in Tharsis right now, actually- it's very continent-like, being a highland region spanning a ton of individual regions. We know we are in the east of Tharsis, in a large crack in the ground, the closest thing Mars has to a fault.
- Location
- California,USA
Yeah I'm actually planning on Using the Tharsis Montes Region if the GM is okay with it quite some distance away.
Question but what would've happened if Hephaestus decided to remain with the MPA and fight against the MUC with them during the Unification War.Since considering how much manpower and resources Shanxi put into trying to take Hephestus it would have probably made the War a more overwhelming victory for the MPA-UN forces.
The war would go better but I'm unsure how much. Hephaestus would try and form a free mars party/bloc but would be chill with the yeeting of the copos under the bus. Biodyne and Hephaestus would have problems due to red mars cult being somewhat active in Hephaestus. Phoenix Company would be a much higher priority due to red mars cult. Melas Chasma would be a lot safer, like other then Phoenix I don't think it would be possible for any other hostile faction to last long there.
Also hephestus troops might've been able to make the Long Retreat even bloodier for MUC and probably would've been able to make the First battle for Spaceport a draw or a MPA victory
It would also free up the Shanxi and might prevent damage to some of the terraformers.
- Location
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The answers above are some compelling speculation, and mirror some of my own thoughts about the matter!
If Hephaestus had not seceded, the war effort likely would have been a lot less devastating to Melas Chasma, at the very least. You likely would've seen far more intensive fighting during the Long Retreat, if it even happened at all, because Shanxi and Heph's forces would be there to back up Station. ODIN likely would've flipped sooner, as well. Unfortunately, it's unlikely Shanxi or Heph forces make it to the front lines in time for the First Battle of the Spaceport.
However, that also leads to some interesting knock-on effects. After all, if the Long Retreat doesn't wind up happening, then it's likely nobody's forces are in position to protect Stadium from Phoenix Company's attempt at a massacre after the Night of Dust.
In turn, while Melas Chasma's terraformers are likely entirely protected, that may mean the CRM can focus more on the ones they do have access to, meaning that the Mariner City Terraformer could be destroyed rather than damaged. While this is technically a net benefit over what wound up happening, with 3 terraformers fully active instead of essentially 2 and 1/2 - area dispersal of Terraformers is also relevant to how they'll function.
So, in terms of the war - You'd likely see a trade off for less destruction in Melas Chasm and a slightly faster victory, in exchange for a far more devastated Mariner City.
For post-war politics, you now have the issue of Hephaestus pressing you towards breaking off relations with the UN from within the Socialist Bloc. If they don't secede, then much in the same way as Stadium, they chose to be ride or die for the MPA, so they wouldn't necessarily leave unless you did something that massively went against their choice/personal ideals, like trying to impose your political system upon them. The UN, in turn, would likely be working against Hephaestus politically, trying to drive wedges between them and other blocs to ensure that their sentiment doesn't spread. So, the political situation would be a lot more hostile and adversarial.
So how much air power does Phoenix company have exactly? like apparently they have enough air power to slaughter Mariner City but of what type?also assuming we set up better communication would that cut into the corporate bloc's profit's?
- Location
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Slaughter Mariner City? Absolutely not. It's hard to convey scale, especially since I try to keep certain things vague to not hamstring myself about numbers in the future, but I promise you - They are nowhere near able to kill an entire city.
However, the Mariner Stadium is not all of Mariner City. It is a primarily civilian location, with little air defenses, which much of Stadium's culture and government is centered around. Phoenix Company could have feasibly overrun it had MPA forces not been in position to fight them off, inflicting a devastating morale blow to Stadium, as well as wreaking havoc on their civilian population and logistical capacity. They also took losses during that fight, and it's unlikely they'd be able to significantly threaten a major population center without significant build-up/outside investment.
Their air power tends to have a bit of variety, as the Nomads had quite the variety, with their HQ being an actual airship on which they journeyed around. However, Phoenix Company primarily uses the military-style helicopters that the Nomads favored for combat engagements, rather than more civilian craft, due to their primary source being defecting Nomad military personnel. You can assume they have some civilian and transport craft as well, though.
Setting up better communication? Depends. If, say, you set up a rival to MBC and started broadcasting your own news/entertainment on a large scale, they'd probably be pissed, but there isn't really a Mars-wide...economy, as we would think of it? Like, most of Mars doesn't have a unified currency, there's no stock market...etc. There are trade routes, traders, and whatnot, of course, but MBC is part of the corporate bloc/capitalist because, in their own states, the means of production are in the hands of the elite, who enforce a strict hierarchy on their workers, among other things - Their 'profit margins' largely come from their population, rather than from selling to yours. Their primary interaction through exports/imports isn't profit/the flow of actual money, it's the flow of materials and goods in exchange for other materials/goods/whatnot. The threat of blockading them isn't necessarily about a strict exchange of money that you're stopping, it's about halting that flow of materials into their state/economy, which in turn will force them to tighten their belts/start rationing/hurt any attempt at major expansion, causing internal economic instability and public unrest.
Now, a lot of where setting up better communication would hurt them is in terms of the information war. If MBC's dominance over the airwaves is broken, a lot of their immigration might dry up as Station/MPA territory becomes seen as a land of opportunity, which will start to deprive them of cheap labor over time, causing further instability as workers demand more pay/more rights. In turn, their current monopoly on spreading information being disrupted significantly would be a hard blow to their ability to project influence - But at the same time, they have a lot more experience and a lot more infrastructure than you at the moment, to say nothing of the benefit of inertia.
So your saying that we're playing in an economic arena more similar to the different Colonial empires during the Age of Exploration then? The MBC is essentially a bunch of medieval guilds with sci-fi tech and Station and the rest of the MPA is like the New World filled with a an exploitable workforce and resources. Hell the MBC,ODIN,the Dead Crusaders and to a certain extent University is basically operating similar to the enciomada system the Spanish used-They have a semi autonomous use of Nobles/Researchers/Knights/Corporate Executives who use conscripted labor for resource extraction which part goes to the Leader and the rest goes to skilled workers like Broadcasters/researchers/Power Armor wielding feudalists/Manufacturers who create the manufactured goods
- Location
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Unlikely. Biodyne's big turning point was when they got soft-couped decades back (think 60-70 years or so, there was a transitional period) by a bunch of CRM splitters who'd been infiltrating their corporate state for years and years. They used to be one of the corporate states, so they naturally cracked down pretty damn hard on unions/left-wing organizing, which wound up leaving them open to infiltration from another source who they could trust to be anti-union due to the historical roots of the CRM. The current leadership is pretty lenient about left-wing things in comparison, however, and their method of economic/political organization isn't actively offensive to the MPA in the same way the MEF's is, which is part of why they're in the MPA.
However, there are possibilities. In theory, Biodyne could've undergone a similar process to Hephaestus post-Collapse, where they suffer a revolution in the immediate aftermath and wind up going red. However...they probably wouldn't have lasted long. Enterprise and MBC were unlikely to tolerate a left-wing state on their borders for any amount of time, and Biodyne didn't have the same support network the founding members of the MPA did, being isolated through several bottlenecks from any other socialist state.
Now, for a funny one you didn't mean - It's entirely theoretically possible that the CRM doesn't wind up undergoing their post-collapse schism, or that the other side of that schism infiltrates Biodyne, turning it Red, as in the Church of Red Mars, which would have been very bad for anyone who wanted to keep terraforming. But that isn't what happened.
I'm not entirely sure which red you answered the question for but that was some neat lore
Edit: the Church of red/green mars were a single organization once. Did the reds split due to the Collapse, something like "Mars is unhappy with the terraforming"
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- Location
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Nope! The Church of Red Mars actually came first. They were a radical anti-terraforming political/religious organization backed/astroturfed (depending on who's telling it) by a mining billionaire who wanted to prioritize mineral resource extraction on Mars over the environmental/agricultural success of the planet, among other reasons. Post-Collapse, their beliefs spread rapidly due to their existing structures in place having put them in a better place than a lot of others, as well as the immediate post-Collapse chaos causing many to re-evaluate their worldview, but many of these new believers were either reliant on the terraformers for their immediate survival, or as part of that re-evaluation of their beliefs, re-interpreted CRM doctrine to be a bit more internally consistent/livable in the post-Collapse world. While the anti-terraforming radicals kept unity for a bit, after their primary material backer (and his network of material support for their cause) got put up against the wall and shot during Hephaestus's Revolution, that collapsed quick.
So, at that point, it underwent a schism. The moderates turned into the worshippers of the Mother, Mars, which is now one of the more dominant faiths on Martian soil, which takes a generally pro-terraforming stance, with Biodyne tending to be the 'accepted doctrinal authority', though a lot of congregations down in Melas don't get a lot of word from them/pay attention a lot, something that Biodyne's basically fine with so long as they aren't actively heretical ala the Church of Red Mars. The radicals turned into what we now know today as the Church of Red Mars, and have remained on the fringe of society ever since as anti-terraforming terrorists.
Status Update and Announcement
- Location
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Well, as you may have guessed from the thread going inactive for the past 4 months, things haven't exactly gone well for writing this quest on my end. Some folks on the Discord have seen this already, so, feel free to skip it if you've seen it.
For various personal reasons, it's been a bit difficult, but at this point I'm also gonna have to acknowledge that I'm having significant motivational problems working on Mars Bleeds Red because I've essentially fucked myself over in the mechanics department. This was my first real quest, frankly - And as it turns out, I wound up going with an internal system that causes me a real headache when I try to write it, and I got burned out on it. At the same time, I really love the setting, and I want to write for it - But that isn't going to happen under the current mechanical system. Unfortunately, the thematic elements of MBR is pretty deeply intertwined with the mechanics, and trying to swap that up is likely to destroy narrative cohesion as well, especially mid-quest.
So, what I've decided to do is let this quest end here, and start a new quest in the same setting, with a more character-driven direction, a smaller scope, and narratively driven, essentially picking up where the last one left off timeline-wise. It's very much intended to be a nigh-direct continuation to this quest, if on a very different scale and place on the planet.
I really appreciate the folks who've voted and given feedback on this quest - And I intend to take the lessons forward into my new quest. I'll leave a link here for folks who might be interested. Thank you for reading!
The City at the Center of Mars.
For various personal reasons, it's been a bit difficult, but at this point I'm also gonna have to acknowledge that I'm having significant motivational problems working on Mars Bleeds Red because I've essentially fucked myself over in the mechanics department. This was my first real quest, frankly - And as it turns out, I wound up going with an internal system that causes me a real headache when I try to write it, and I got burned out on it. At the same time, I really love the setting, and I want to write for it - But that isn't going to happen under the current mechanical system. Unfortunately, the thematic elements of MBR is pretty deeply intertwined with the mechanics, and trying to swap that up is likely to destroy narrative cohesion as well, especially mid-quest.
So, what I've decided to do is let this quest end here, and start a new quest in the same setting, with a more character-driven direction, a smaller scope, and narratively driven, essentially picking up where the last one left off timeline-wise. It's very much intended to be a nigh-direct continuation to this quest, if on a very different scale and place on the planet.
I really appreciate the folks who've voted and given feedback on this quest - And I intend to take the lessons forward into my new quest. I'll leave a link here for folks who might be interested. Thank you for reading!
The City at the Center of Mars.
Mars Bleeds Red - The GSRP!
- Location
- Phoenix, Arizona
- Pronouns
- She/Her
It is the future - 2217. The Collapse brought about the end of human civilization as we know it a century ago. Now, the remnants of humanity struggle in turn on Mars, fighting for survival and dominance. Raiders prowl the wastes, preying upon survivor collectives. Nomadic groups of survivors roam, trading for vital survival resources on their patchworked vehicles. And you - The largest factions on Mars, eye each other. For one day, Mars will be unified once more…and you intend to see it be under your banner.
Welcome to Red Planet Rising, a 4X Inspired GSRP of Post-Apocalyptic Politics in the ruins of Earth's largest Martian colony! In Red Planet Rising you play as members of the leadership of a number of survivor factions, each of whom has managed to successfully overcome the first century of survival on a hostile world made worse by the fallout of a grand conflict beyond the scope of any of the survivors. The main conflict of the game is about the future of Mars' governance and leadership- an increasingly important question.
Red Planet Rising is the GSRP that inspired me to write Mars Bleeds Red in the first place, and I've dreamed of running a (slightly revised) version of it for a while. With the help of some other people, now I intend to! If you'd like to join, the thread is here and the Discord is here.
Welcome to Red Planet Rising, a 4X Inspired GSRP of Post-Apocalyptic Politics in the ruins of Earth's largest Martian colony! In Red Planet Rising you play as members of the leadership of a number of survivor factions, each of whom has managed to successfully overcome the first century of survival on a hostile world made worse by the fallout of a grand conflict beyond the scope of any of the survivors. The main conflict of the game is about the future of Mars' governance and leadership- an increasingly important question.
Red Planet Rising is the GSRP that inspired me to write Mars Bleeds Red in the first place, and I've dreamed of running a (slightly revised) version of it for a while. With the help of some other people, now I intend to! If you'd like to join, the thread is here and the Discord is here.