OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & The Shoulder of Orion Military campaign - Send in the Marines or The Locals

 When it comes to putting together mercenary corporate forces Zozer games delivers the goods with the Marine Corps Handbook 2215. You get your money's worth with a perfect balance of background, character careers, weapons, vehicles, air- and spacecraft, rules enhancements, and mission creation. But let's pick this up from the last blog entry here.  The marines are not used lightly in a military campaign such as the Shoulder of Orion. 

Who or what military forces could a well established colony world bring to bear on other incoming corporate forces? What 2d6 supplements could be used to throw light on such an eventuality that players wouldn't be expecting?! Two supplements come to mind right out of the blue. Tim's Guide to The Ground Forces of Hub Subsector & Zozer Games Modern War both spring to mind for very different reasons. The Ground Forces of Hub Subsector  has a perfect set up for an organized & well developed military for an advanced  planetary defense force. And Zozer Games Modern War has an excellent 2d6 military set of rules for exactly the kind of actions one may see planet side. 

Out around the Shoulder of Orion there could be countless colony worlds that have been established for a very long time & yet they've gotten sucked into this corporate for the control of the Tanhauser gate hyperspace net work. Yet,colonies with fully home grown & manufactured militaries are going to put a kink in the armor of many corporate entities. 
If the marines are called in they are going to crush ninety percent of the corporate colony forces. There three reasons for this state of affairs. One the marines have access to better weapons & technologies. Two year is 2022 and the military are on the move again. So the weapons get teased at get their debut within the military events on the colony worlds. Within John Brunner's Science Fiction there's plenty of  people who are a part of the local colony milita's & military forces. In John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar there's hints of the outer world colonies already forming military forces against Earth. You can get caught up with Brunner's incredible book on the Blackgate blog here. 

And can you really blame the colonists in Stand on Zanzibar?! Think about it within the blackness of space between the natural forces trying to anhiliate you & the overpopulated Earth screaming into the solar system and beyond. The independent colonists don't have a lot of choice but to think about taking up arms against Mother Earth. But what does this have to do with the Shoulder of Orion campaign?! Quite a bit if we think about. 
The Earth's megacorporations  has pushed it's colonies further and further from Earth in a race to claim as much of interstellar space as possible. And some of these colonies could we be on the very edge of what was our known points of knowledge. Places where other alien civilizations once flourished in point of fact. But it's what they left behind that concerns our players. The  Fermi Paradox included within this campaign leaves the question given time & possible alien technologies what could we find around the Shoulder of Orion?! The most dangerous thing in space might still be mankind. But would we recognize the remains of alien technology or would it look like alien life?! 

Given this would such alien life adapt to our biology exceedingly quickly enough to begin adapting itself to our needs or it's own? The thought here is the latter and not the former. The frontier of space is much more dangerous then we even know. And this is where Zozer's Alien Breeds comes in for us. 

Speaking with my fellow DM's for two days or so, the origins of the Xenomorphs from Alien & Aliens esepcially from the heady days of the Dark Horse comics series. Seem more like a left over biological or is it extra biological technological product rather then some A.I. created abomination to us. And from this perspective then technologies left on some distant world might be more akin to a bioengineered disease rather then a biological weapon whose purpose is long forgotten. A product able to adapt it's biology to have humanity service it rather then the point or purpose of a tool user such as the human race. Stumbling across such a waste product might be the last thing that humanity would expect. 
And who would be dealing with such entities?! Well, that would be the local militia forces whose colonists stumble across such 'products'. On the outer edges of the Shoulder of Orion some colonists stumble into what they think are caves or caverns billions of years old. These are actually the remains of alien architecture and something begins the process of adapting the humans to servicing it. 
The  Unmerciful Frontier: The CCA Sourcebook Third Edition's forces would be called in first and eventually the marines would. But would the megacorporations let such secrets go?! We all know the answer to that one. 

Imagine what happens when the other armed forces stumble into such an alien world?! They might not even have a ghost of a chance. Whose left to clean up such a mess?! The local military forces of course. You've got to clean up your own back yard after all. And what is the role of PC's in all of this?! Well it just might be their backyard after all.