OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign - Hyperspace Gates & Artificials

 Today was another day when we players & dungeon masters got together to shoot the shite. Down some beers & work on some of our cars. And it came up as to the continuing role that China would play in the instellar warfare scene? And what would happen if one or more countries came across something truly alien on some exoplanet far from Earth?! This blog entry picks right up from here. The various interstellar corporate powers begin sending out scouts & explorers into  the Tannhauser gate. And these are as vital to our Shoulder of Orion game as the soldiers fighting on the various planetary beach heads. 

The  Tannhauser gate isn't simply one hyperspace gate but an artifact if you of a network of hyperspace gates built eons ago by some alien civilization. And in point of fact it's the only left over artifact of these unknown aliens. But what of the planets on the otherside of the gate network?! Well these exoplanets are actually the prize. But how to design the alien life forms of these?! While Zozer Games Explorers goes into some deep meaning exploritory material. We wanted to go into more details on these alien lifeforms that while familar are going to be few tech levels away. 

Enter Wondrous Menagerie: Uplifts in Clement Sector Third Edition By John Watts. Here we've got a guidelines for creating uplifted animal PC's and some common types of uplifts. These uplifts are perfectly suited to the Frontier feel of the Clement sector. But it doesn't take a genius to take one or two types add in some other cybernetic systems and here's an alien no one is expecting. 

But what if this is only the start of it?! Imagine coming across wild cybernetic lifeforms operating out of some poisonous world waiting for our space explorers to run across them?! Imagine running across a SW11 Malingee Warbot with zero touch stone for why it's there, who built it, and what it's purpose is. The SW11 Malingee Warbot is taken directly out of Artifical Robots in the Clement sector. Here's the full breakdown;" STR DEX INT EDU SOC 15 13 8 8 3 Hit Points 60/124 Spherical (Sphere) Chassis TL 11 Overall Weight = 394kg Armour = Cloth Reinforced Chassis = 4 points Hardened and Sealed System Spherical Chassis Head = All sensors & Vocoder Fuel Cell 50 Power Duration = 18 Days Arms = Standard (Heavy) 2x, Locomotion = Anti-Grav A (200kph) Medium Machinegun (Arm Mount External) 2x RAM Grenade Launcher (Chassis Integrated) 1x Low Autonomous Core, Full Command Core/6 Module 6x Synaptic Storage TL 10 5x (15) Advanced Storage 10x (20) Heavy Weapons (Vehicle Mounted)/2 Ground Combat (Infantry)/1 Flyer (Grav)/1 Recon/1 Zero-G/1 Advanced Optical 2x Optical Zoom 2x Advanced Audio 2x Polarising Shield 2x Vocoder Personal Comm Radio Class III (Regional 500km) 500 Round Machine Gun Magazine 2x 24 Round RAM Grenade Magazine" 
This cybernetic lifeform is really nasty. So who or what is maintaining it and why would it be way out on some random exoplanet?! 

Could corporations of Hostile accept the fact that there are other life forms out in the universe?! Or would the inherit paranoid of mankind expose some other power fielding such powerful warbots?! In John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar we see the first automated weapon systems & the seeds of the evolution of warbots such as these. In the alternative history of the Shockwave Rider we see that these warbots are just entering production. But these warbots are very flawed and the first steps maybe mankind's last. 

Warbots such as these especially if alien would be some of the deepest & darkest secrets of the megacorporations. Cybernetic lifeforms are a game changer for mankind the least of which is unravelling the secrets of such life forms.