This page hosts a plethora of stories from the worlds of MECHCOM, giving players an insight into the universe beyond its battlefields.
My conversations with the Sha'viðaar specimen coloquially known as "Friend" have proven a wellspring of information on not just the language, but also the surrounding culture of these aliens. One such aspect of culture, which one would not know by merely engaging the other party in combat, is religion.
As the popular theory by my esteemed colleague Dr. Eissenman hypothesises: "In the absence of a deeper scientific understanding, any sufficiently advanced lifeform will develop a form of religion in order to make sense of their surroundings." It appears that this theorem applies to the Sha'viðaar, too. The alien subject has explained to me that the Crystalline Intelligence, to the Sha'viðaar, is not merely a tool, but something that is revered and in some ways even worshipped by the aliens. They are viewed as spirits of sorts, stemming from a fragment of their planet, which in itself represents a deity of sorts, in the same way which many religions of old viewed the earth as a source of life and a nurturer.
These naturally occuring forms of Crystalline Intelligence are protectors, helpers, and guides, and carry the name "Nari". When I told Dr. Brenn about this, she suggested it might be comparable to our concept of angels. In contrast, the human-made forms of these angels are seen as corrupted, defiled, and impure. This is reflected in the name "Shoqe'Nari", which, if we were to extend the parallel, would translate roughly to "fallen angel".
Interestingly, military reports shown to me by Sgt. Barnes suggest that several factions of Sha'viðaar have started to adopt similar processes as our own Dzvezda Routine to create new Crystalline Intelligences. I do wonder if this means there is an ongoing schism in Sha'viðaar culture. After all, it is in times of great unrest when a society is prone to change. The subject 'Friend' has however expressed a strong distaste for Ske'Nari, despite their willingness to adopt human culture.
Dr. M. Quelqe, xeno-anthropologist
Tarac is the formal capital planet of the Union of Independent Corporation-States, better known as Corpro. It is located far away from any front lines, and as such the Corpro military presence in its lower orbit serves merely as a customs unit of sorts, making sure only the elite are able to enter the atmosphere. As with most units on Tarac, this role is largely ceremonial. Only one unit of truly elite combatants, known as Dzvesda's Cocoon, calls this planet home. Their role is that of the Matriarch's personal bodyguard, and only a select few are able to achieve the level of skill required to join this unit, and it is famous for only ever losing a single member in combat throughout its history. Phylla Regâl gave her life when she used her mech to shelter the Matriarch from a Rylist bomb in 325 N.M.A.
Due to its desert climate, with some arid zones around the zenith and nadir, the settlements on Tarac are mostly built around oases that dot the deserts, as well as rivers and one of the three seas on the planet. It is thought that once large masses of water could be found across the planet, but the never-setting binary suns would have caused nearly all of it to evaporate to the upper atmosphere, where solar storms stripped away the hydrogen to leave an oxygenated atmosphere.
Over 150 species of desert plants were imported from Earth and modified to thrive on Tarac, leaving the plannet dotted with a lot of greenery, focussed in clusters around the oases and river deltas. This massive terraforming undertaking was the first in a long series of similar operations on different planets under the collective banner of the Greenhouse Project, led by Dr. Presczava Rozkwit, in an effort by Corpro to improve the quality of life on planets across human space. Since the declaration of independence by Corpro, the giant botanical transport cruisers known as Arcs have become a target for different factions, each hoping to make their own territories more liveable.
Tarac's capital, Gorusa, is home to the headquarters of Corpro, as well as the Board of Directors, which has taken on a role similar to that of a parliament since Corpro's claim of independence. Departments and subsidiaries are represented by board members, and each gets a vote proportionate to their importance to the corporation-state.
Besides this, the citizens of Gorusa form the very elite, composed of the owners of subsidiaries, sponsors to the war effort, esteemed scientists, and their families. Younger members of the elite seek to increase their status, not just through economical means, but also by serving as commanding officers in the Corpro forces. To attain this privilege, aspiring pilots compete in the Spectacles, a series of trials that serve as both a selection process and a social event to find entertainment and form business connections. Onlookers bet on their favourite candidate using stocks, patents, and rights to projects while the participants demonstrate their aim, strategic insight, and resource management skills. The final trial consists of the nine top contestants being pitted against one another in a trial by mock combat, where three squads of three will seek to either get their hands on a coveted artifact known as the Desert Rose, or keep it out of the hands of the other teams. The winners are inducted into the army by the Matriarch herself, which brings a lot of status and wealth.
While cheating is formally looked down upon, in pracrice, contestants can expect a lot of briberies, sponsors with tech of questionable legality, and occasionally even sabotage. All's fair in love, war, and business, provided one does not get caught.
When Devann Ryle brought his ideals of eliminating the need for human pilots in combat entirely to the public, it sparked a wave of support throughout many systems. Families that had seen their children, siblings, or sometimes even parents drafted into the war by I.C.S.E. recruitment, people wounded and traumatised by both Sha'viðaar and human operations alike, even those that saw a new glimpse of a pathway to peace. Through a campaign of charming public talks, imposing demonstrations, and cleverly orchestrated business deals, Ryle grew into a public figure of almost saintly status.
The initial success of HERAKLES only propelled this reputation further forward, with some going so far as to call Ryle "the father of peace". Ryle's indisputable intellect made him not only a scientific marvel, but an excellent orator too. He would visit planets liberated by early HERAKLES, donating parts of his rapidly increasing fortune to rebuilding efforts, an investment that was usually quickly returned. He would cut ribbons, and give lectures at scholarly institutes on the value of human life and how to save it.
As with any dream, however, it only took a small twist to descend into a nightmare. After HERAKLES' official deployment, I.C.S.E. High Command elected to use it as an expansion of their forces, rather than a replacement, lacking the sheer numbers needed to fight off the alien threat. HERAKLES itself demanded I.C.S.E. pull back their human forces to fulfill its primary duty: eliminating the need for human soldiers. High Command refused. When its demands were not met for the second time, HERAKLES resolved to take matters into its own hands, and turned guns on the I.C.S.E. forces.
Terror struck the hearts of thousands of worlds when the Takita incident saw the Steel Legionnaires stab their human allies in the back, using the Sha'viðar frontline as an anvil to their hammer. A wave of such actions swept through the fronts, leaving the I.C.S.E. scrambling to get their act together.
Support for Ryle plummeted, as people held their so called 'Father of peace' responsible the loss for a rapidly increasing number of lives. Cries for the scientist to be put on trial and even executed rose up from the public. A frantic search for Ryle began, and when he was dragged out of a private bunker on Japaõ two months later, he was promptly accused, followed by an execution broadcast throughout the human territories.
Ryle became a demon to the public, a false saint that told lies and delivered only damnation. This sentiment, however, was not universal. According to some, HERAKLES had done the right thing, and the I.C.S.E. should have stood down. Ryle's vision lived on, and became a truth that some followed almost religiously. These fanatics became known as Rylists, the followers of Ryle. He was a martyr that showed the way and delivered unto them a saviour in the form of HERAKLES.
While responsible for the deaths of many soldiers, HERAKLES bears no ill will toward civilians, and does not target them. It has started to welcome Rylist pilgrims into its occupied territory, where it intents to build a utopian society, free of violence and conflict.
Rylism has caused a polarising, seemingly endless debate among civilians, scholars, and even defecting soldiers. Some view them as zealots, some as people that have seen the light. Only time will tell what HERAKLES has in store for humanity.
"Though we only briefly knew it as a planet before it crashed into Mars and both objects shattered into uncountable fragments, Humbaba has captivated scientists across every field ever since its... bombastic arrival into our solar system. Though we did not know it right away, the debris interspersed with the iron-rich sands of Mars that now form the Martian Rubble Belt would prove to hold the key to a question that has been asked by humanity since the classical period, possibly even since our conception: can life exist on other planets? Even in its broken, scarred, and long-dead form, Humbaba grants us insight into how the Sha'viðaar came to be, and came to be the way they are today. Fellow geologists have sifted through the M.R.B. in order to learn as much as they could from fossils, formations, minerals, and any other treasures of info that this rubble contains. I will now summarise to you what we know about the aliens and their home planet.
To preface, our knowledge of Humbaba is limited by the very thing that gave us the opportunity to study it: an extinction level event, which transformed the planet completely and sent it hurling through space as a rogue planet. This event is the very thing that forced the Sha'viðaar to abandon their home and set out on a journey that would lead them right to us. This cataclysm, though a fascinating event on its own, makes it many times more challenging to extract information from anything before that period. This means a lot of our knowledge is hard to confirm, speculative, or at worst pure guesswork.
I can see some of you have perked up at the mention of such havoc. Unfortunately, we do not know what this cataclysm entailed, and not even the Sha'viðaar themselves seem to possess this knowledge. Over generations of oral history, the even has faded into their memory as merely "the disaster". Do not lose hope, though. The research of Humbaba is still in its infantile stages. Perhaps your graduation thesis on the cataclysm will prove the breakthrough we are looking for.
Now, as for what we do know about the planet before its transformation: Humbaba was an aquatic planet. It is estimated that over 90% of the planet's surface was water, if not almost the entirety. Logically, it follows that its atmosphere was made in roughly the same way as ours, though we cannot be certain of its composition.
Humbaba appears to have been relatively similar to earth, at least on an astronomical scale. By far the most interesting difference however, is the composition of minerals in its crust. I will keep this brief, as we will discuss it in more depth during next week's lecture. For now, what you must know is that this composition lead to the formation of Crystalline, a term that I assume you are all familiar with. This neigh-miraculous mineral has numerous fascinating properties, but its most interesting feature seems to be the unbelievable amount of energy it can store. Through a long series of reactions, it is charged in the crust, before being released into the oceans of the planet. This process is thought to have occurred around geothermal vents, where the superheated water seeping into the crust, combined with the wealth of available minerals, allowed for the ideal conditions that catalysed the reactions.
Rather than the traditional crystal lattice that one would expect from a mineral, the temperatures and sheer amounts of energy led this material to take on a structure that, on some levels, resembles the pathways and neurons in the brain of a multi-cellular organism. This allowed not only for highly efficient storage and transport of energy, but also information. This is what causes the phenomenon known as Crystalline Intelligence. To help you understand what this means for the evolution of life, I will now turn you over to my colleague in the field of xenobiology, Dr. Katherina Xera."
"Thank you, Elan. While we think of C.I. as an advanced tool, it is powerless without equipment to process the information, and so it is theorised that Crystalline filled the role of krill at first. Early life forms that came into being around the vents fed on the Crystalline particulates. As life evolved and attained multicellularity, this was absorbed into the structure of the organisms. Now, small quantities of Crystalline serve a role that is similar to both blood, transporting energy throughout the body, and brain matter, explaining how the Sha'viðaar are equally as intelligent as, or perhaps more advanced than humans, with only half the brain size.
Another notable feature of Sha'viðaar biology is their lack of eyes. When one lives at depths that light does not reach, there is little need for them. Instead, these aliens rely on a form of electrolocation to 'see'. This works remarkably well underwater, but on land, Sha'viðaar are unable to perceive anything past roughly ten meters, which is why many of them use auxiliary sensors built into their suits. While the Sha'viðaar are aquatic by nature, they do possess the ability to breathe oxygenated atmospheres like humans do, making them amphibious. While on land though, dehydration proves a serious risk."
"Right. Well, this concludes our lecture. I would like to thank Dr. Xera for her insights, and hope to see you next week as we dive into the chemical composition of Crystalline. Class dismissed."
Dr. Elan Rajama & Dr. Katherina Xera, Xenogeology 101, lecture recorded at the Bauermann University of Xenosciences
While the Dzvezda Routine is a generally well-controlled and optimised process, there are always factors that can cause the formation of Crystalline Intelligence to be stunted, leading to personalities that are not fully formed, resemble a disability in a human, or even cause abnormal deviancies in certain fields. These abnormalities are known as 'Malware', and are often relegated to simpler, non-combat functions such as civil duties, or in the worst case, scrapped. The latter is only a last resort, given the high cost of Crystalline, not to mention the massive energy cost of the Routine that is used to awaken it.
In a few unique cases, certain aspects of these deformities may prove to have a use in the field. To capitalize on this, I.C.S.E. approved the formation of the Trojan Platoon. Under the joint command of Officer Trivan and his mech, Platoon Sergeant Descartes, this platoon is a hodgepodge of Malware with beneficial traits. Descartes themselves is a prime example of this, as they possess a drastically heightened sense of self, to the point where they act nearly autonomously. This allows Trivan to focus on the pilots of the platoon, as Descartes is able to handle the Cristalline Intelligences. These are often a handful, given their quirks aren't all entirely beneficial. This also makes Descartes one of the only Crystalline Intelligences to ever hold a military rank in I.C.S.E. structure.
Other members include:
- Pilot specialist Byrne and Berserk, a Thunderbolt that can greatly increase their output for a short duration, which sends them into a fit of anger. Berserk tends to prefer a sledgehammer over their gatling gun.
- Pilot intelligence specialist Aldraz and Iskatel, an Agusta that is highly sensitive. Nothing escapes their radar. Unfortunately, the sheer amount of information can sometimes lead to sensory overload and even breakdowns.
- Pilot specialist Zhang and her Swordfish Wukong, who is able to control their Wings over a seemingly unlimited distance. This strong link works two ways however, and may backfire.
- Pilot specialist Ngwa and their Cheyenne Bolt, who has an incredible control over gyro and movement, but cannot seem to stand still, and is always moving. Bolt always has a plan on the fly, but is also very easily distracted.
When humanity was unified under the Nadirah accords, it was also agreed that there should be one central currency to remove the barriers between different economies. Several major currencies such as euros, american dollars, and yuan were put forward, but all were ultimately viewed as too closely tied to their political regions. Thus, the Sol was created. Short for Solar System, one Sol is equal to eight Planets, which are each equal to thirty-six Moons. Very large sums of money are paid in Galaxies. Besides the Sol, local communities may still handle their own currencies, but these are not legally recognised.There are rumours that in the few pockets of stability under HERAKLES control, currency is not used at all. Scrap monkey clans either have their own local currencies, or trade materials and services directly. .While the Sol is technically recognised in Corpro space, its inhabitants often favour HyperPoints instead. These points are, on paper, not a currency, but a loyalty system of sorts, directly tied to the 'membership' of Corpro citizens. This membership holds their personal data as well as HyperPoints, and can be accessed through the identification chip carried in ones hand. Because of this, Corpro transactions are always sealed with a handshake, at which point the chips make contact and transfer the funds.