Clone Army...Robot Army

[Aaryq]

Howdy, Folks.
Let me preface this by saying to the Mods and Palladium Staff, I'm not looking to do a conversion from Star Wars...I just happen to be watching the Star Wars Marathon and it got me thinking...
What is the feasibility of a Clone Army (say 4 million soldiers or so) in Rifts Earth? Who would have the capabilities to do that? Who, with the right contacts would be able to establish those capabilities? What other considerations would need to be made (aside of course from food, housing, and training/educating) for a 4 million strong army? I'm thinking about working on my own project...still in the brain storming phases now...
What about an army of robots lead by humans (think like the CS Skelebots or the NGR combat robots). Same questions as the clones.

[taalismn]

Gene Splicers, maybe, with enough of an interest in a mass-production project, rather than what amounts to handcrafting individual monstrousities
Splugorth, possibly, but why grow a clone army when you can enslave and bioborg a draftee army?
The CS already has a clone army coming out of Lone Star, but aside from Bradford's delusions of grandeur, the CS would draw the line at cloning humans...they'll readily clone non-humans(i.e. less sympathetic and more readily expendable) like Dog Boys.

Robots: that's easy...The Coalition, ARCHIE-3(though he's already got an army, he won't give it to anybody else)...Northern Gun could work on it for a decade, but expect low-quality 'bots(and the CS to take notice). Triax(though they'll want to know what you plan on doing with such an army, and will likely plant lots of safeguards in anything they sell you) The Republic of Japan and Ichto, definitely(and likewise on the security issue). The CAN Republic on the Moon also has mass production facilities for producing robots.

You could always find some long lost and buried NEMA factory complex, back-up lab(like maybe Shaper Corp. had other facilities) capable of turning out robot soldiers or clones. Maybe some other country's secret facility that was a knockoff of Lone Star or Cyberworks, but never went into operation before the Coming of the Rifts shut it down.

[Shadow Wyrm]

Gene-Tech in Phase world supposedly have clone armies, and will make them for a price.

[taalismn]

Gene-Tech in Phase world supposedly have clone armies, and will make them for a price.

Anvil Galaxy pg. 130-131----Genesis Factory and the Cages 1-7...They have millions of Thresher super-soldiers in stasis aboard giant artificial planetoids

[jaymz]

Gene-Tech in Phase world supposedly have clone armies, and will make them for a price.

Anvil Galaxy pg. 130-131----Genesis Factory and the Cages 1-7...They have millions of Thresher super-soldiers in stasis aboard giant artificial planetoids

Sounds like very Robotech Master/Zentraedi setup LOL

[Aaryq]

Clones and Robots...one can think for itself and as a bit of personality depending on experience, the other is more predictable but more loyal and has more options for upgrading (i.e. mini-missle launchers, cannons, etc).

I guess I'll lay more out. I have a friend. We've been playing Rifts for at least 10 years. When the opportunity comes up he will side with the CS every time. We have one character of his, a Captain in the CS Army (Military Specialist) who is brutally for the CS cause...think SS and Gestapo fanaticism...I plan on making el capitan lead his men to stop some kind of uprising or invasion by some outside party. If it's a coup, then the CS Top Brass wants to overthrow good o'l Karl and li'l Joeseph with their own leadership. The basic principles behind this are removing the bloodline precedent of leadership, differing views on Magic, D-Bee Treatment and/or Public Education as well as the normal human greed. If it's an invasion, I'm thinking something along the lines of Post-Tolkeen war survivors (or someone else, your input is needed) putting together some cash time and/or equipment and creating this army to destroy the CS. My buddy will be thrown in the middle of it. With outside forces, it's pretty cut and dry, defend the motherland. With internal conflict, he has to choose: Am I loyal to the Emperor or the Coalition...
I'm thinking the internal conflict as it would pose many problems as well as allowing him to do more sleuthing (he prefers roleplay over hack and slash).

[Joseph Kerr]

The Coalition as you mentioned already has a robot army.

The interesting bit, is that they also have the power to manufacture and support a clone army.

The Lone Star complex is well known for churning out Dogboys and other mutant creations, but it's also spoken about the numerous cloning facilities within the complex. The main figurehead running the show is Dr. Desmond Bradford. A man already out with his own goals in mind. He has an entire floor sectioned off for his own purposes (Sub-Level 9). And Sectors 357 for which he even keeps Emperor Prosek snow jobbed about. On top of that, the complex has clothing and weapon manufacturing processes. Food? They already talk about cloning their food to feed armies. With the right political support and motivations, Bradford could conceivably build a clone army to oppose and draw the attention of the Emperor while the rest of his backers enact a more subtle coupe behind the Emperor's back.

The Lone Star complex is the perfect place to build a clone army and support it. Cybernetics, Juicer Augmentations, Weapons Factory and R&D, Power Armor factories, M.O.M. Augmentations.

Enhanced Clone Soldiers Vs the Emperor and his loyal Coalition Soldiers.

The prize?

A large chunk of North America and the position as a super power.

What would be even more interesting, are the thoughts of what would happen if the coupe succeeded, but the Emperor escaped. How would a Coalition split in two proceed to form and grow from then on?

I might run this....some many tantalizing ideas..oooh...Republicans....*Devious thoughts*

- Joseph.

Edit:
Open Mouth. Insert Foot.: Need to read entire thread...just noticed Taalisman already mentioned Lone Star. Hah. Oh well, I'll keep my post in it's entirety. I like it.

[Aaryq]

The wheels are turning inside of my head. This will b a lot of fun...it's just a matter of keeping the Star Wars Parallel to a minimum.

[taalismn]

The wheels are turning inside of my head. This will b a lot of fun...it's just a matter of keeping the Star Wars Parallel to a minimum.

CyberKnights wouldn't get shot in the back by their own troops or technology!

[Aaryq]

Yeah, I don't want to involve the Cyber Knights in this at all. Here's my preliminary idea: Mind you this is independent non-canon thinking...and I watch a lot of movies
It is about 2 years after the Tolkeen War. Karl launches a massive recruiting campaign so he can fight the Xiticix. His army is decimated (what were the figures 6 million brave CS Warriors killed) and he needs an army. He announces that anyone living withing X Miles from a CS City is promised citizenship and authorization to the City they live by if they serve 6 years in the Coalition's Army. If they are killed in the line of duty (it must be confirmed that they were killed due to enemy action) their family will receive a payment of 500,000 credits and citizenship (of course the legaleese of this will prohibit 90% of the families of those killed by the Xiticix from actually receiving citizenship). Karl meets with his top brass and lays out his plans to fight the Xiticix. The strategy is flawed and the Emperor is unswerving in his plans to fight them...I don't know of a lot of good strategies to fight the X Bugs yet, but his plan is like comparing invading mainland Japan in World War 2 instead of dropping the A Bomb. Many of the Senior Leadership (those who love power as well as those who love humanity) are angered by this plan for their own reasons and a plot emerges to overthrow the Prosek Line. The two major themes are to de-thrown the Prosek line (allowing for anyone to become emperor and not just a Prosek); and to fight the Xiticix smarter and without such a severe loss of human life and money.
Seeing an un-winnable war on their hands, Dr. Bradford and General Cabot lead this anti-Emperor rally. The general agreement is that General Cabot will take care of the Proseks through his loyal juicer assassins (then he can also engage the boom switch afterwards or if they chicken out) while Dr. Bradford cranks out clone soldiers, dog boys and skelebots to replace the estimated 40% of the CS Soldiers that might mutiny.
Colonel Frederick Gagnon (an NPC of mine) is one of General Cabot's proteges and is work on the cover up story: Rogue CS Juicers working in concert with Tolkeen Vengance Squads assassanate the Emperor, his family, and some key leaders (politically powerful figures that will remain loyal to the Emperor and not the empire) in a mass shooting/bombing/something).
I'll further play it out by setting the Campaign as the troops are deployed to North Dakota (North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota style 3 front pinscer movement pushing them to Manitoba/Saskatchewan also forcing Free Quebec, Rangers and other Canadian Forces to take action and encourage FQ to reunite with the CS) when they find out about the rebellion. The Characters will part of the 169th Combined Arms Battle Group, Irregular Battalion, S&D Company A, Team 1. Alpha Company's Company Commander gets the memo about the coup. He has family on both sides of the impending conflict and he is choosing to just sit it out and tells the team to make up their own decision and leave him out of the fight. Then the team can go out and make their plans and do what they have to do...
So far what do you think?

[Jorel]

Awesome.

[taalismn]

Sounds good!

I wonder, though, how might outside powers react to a CS Civil War? Like the Republicans? Or ARCHIE-3(who CAN field a robot army)?

[taalismn]

Howdy, Folks.
Let me preface this by saying to the Mods and Palladium Staff, I'm not looking to do a conversion from Star Wars...I just happen to be watching the Star Wars Marathon and it got me thinking...
What is the feasibility of a Clone Army (say 4 million soldiers or so) in Rifts Earth? Who would have the capabilities to do that? Who, with the right contacts would be able to establish those capabilities? What other considerations would need to be made (aside of course from food, housing, and training/educating) for a 4 million strong army? I'm thinking about working on my own project...still in the brain storming phases now...
What about an army of robots lead by humans (think like the CS Skelebots or the NGR combat robots). Same questions as the clones.

One thing to consider: Who is taking care of the babies? Clones start as fetuses, then grow just like we do. That's a lot of childcare-professionals that will be needed(YAY! IN THE POST-POST-APOCALYPTIC-FUTURE MY DEGREE MIGHT MEAN SOMETHING!!!).

Mutant wolves as nursemaids....It's the Romulus and Remus Brigades!

[Aaryq]

In Triax 2, they have housemaid robots (AI). They could take care of the clones.

[Aaryq]

Well I guess they need someone to tell the programmers what to program since it will probably require custom programming.

[Aaryq]

Gosh, this would be fun. I'm going to have to draft up something and post it once I get my new computer.

[Blue_Lion]

may be a option in phase world (few cyber knights) and the tech to do both. Maybe a clone army vs mechnoid.

There is no faction that i know of on rifts earth that whoud build an all clone army. Wait scratch that blind warrior woman reproduce by self cloning so them vs the she-marian or archie three might work. but they are minnions of the splugorth.

[Shark_Force]

may be a option in phase world (few cyber knights) and the tech to do both. Maybe a clone army vs mechnoid.

There is no faction that i know of on rifts earth that whoud build an all clone army. Wait scratch that blind warrior woman reproduce by self cloning so them vs the she-marian or archie three might work. but they are minnions of the splugorth.

well then it should be really easy to get the shemarrians to fight the blind warrior women, shouldn't it?

[Blue_Lion]

may be a option in phase world (few cyber knights) and the tech to do both. Maybe a clone army vs mechnoid.

There is no faction that i know of on rifts earth that whoud build an all clone army. Wait scratch that blind warrior woman reproduce by self cloning so them vs the she-marian or archie three might work. but they are minnions of the splugorth.

well then it should be really easy to get the shemarrians to fight the blind warrior women, shouldn't it?

Maybe but all the other minions whould get in the way. But that whould be one horble fight even worse 4 days a month.

[Shark_Force]

If you have the means, I'd imagine Robots > Clones.

Since there is no canon mention of rapidly recreating or copying knowledge, you still have to educate, train, and indoctrinate clones. You should probably feed and clothe them. You have to use them with hardware designed to work with the human body (and human frailties). When the fighting is over, clones will still be there. Reabsorbing excessively large fighting forces into a peace-time population is a serious challenge. Are these clones going to get jobs and be regular folks? Planning on mercilessly killing them off afterwards? That carries its own problems.

Robots are easier. Roll 'em off an assembly line, test them, train them, and ship 'em out. When they're done, back into storage they go! The down side is that they're almost certainly many times more expensive up front.

and unless you're dealing with neural intelligences, the robots are probably dumber. not being able to change on the fly would be a pretty big drawback if you don't have anyone in the army able to think for themselves.

[Blue_Lion]

If you have the means, I'd imagine Robots > Clones.

Since there is no canon mention of rapidly recreating or copying knowledge, you still have to educate, train, and indoctrinate clones. You should probably feed and clothe them. You have to use them with hardware designed to work with the human body (and human frailties). When the fighting is over, clones will still be there. Reabsorbing excessively large fighting forces into a peace-time population is a serious challenge. Are these clones going to get jobs and be regular folks? Planning on mercilessly killing them off afterwards? That carries its own problems.

Robots are easier. Roll 'em off an assembly line, test them, train them, and ship 'em out. When they're done, back into storage they go! The down side is that they're almost certainly many times more expensive up front.

Mind werks has insta skill implant. Maybe a slower way to train them while they are in a tube.

[Blue_Lion]

Mind werks has insta skill implant. Maybe a slower way to train them while they are in a tube.

Can Mindwerks make clones? Does anyone else have the skill implant?

"If I had some chips, I could have some chips and salsa. If I had some salsa."

You said there was no cannon way to train skills fast but there is. Is there any canon army of robots fighting a army of clones? If you clone races with genetic memory the problem is solved, or if the combat skills are on institual nature. The only clone army i know of in rifts is the blind warrior women, and they pass skills on to the clone. Any other clone army fielded whould require some home brewing for a game.

[Aaryq]

Well a good use for the clone army when not engaging wars is to pull a page from ancient Rome and have them do civil projects like building roads and whatnot...either that or medically enduced comas.

[TechnoGothic]

Just for giggles...

Rift opens up, out marches an Army of soldiers (clones). They are from the Future of the CS. Wishing to change the Past of a great event.

Enjoy.

[Traska]

Who sent them back? Emperor Joesph Prosek II. To kill his father. Why? They claim it's because Karl will betray the Coalition. But wait! If they're trying to kill the Emperor, aren't *they* betraying the Coalition? And what's with the Dog Boys serving alongside the humans as virtual equals? Are we really sure these guys ARE the Coalition...?

[Lucas]

hahaha love it

[Lenwen]

What is the feasibility of a Clone Army (say 4 million soldiers or so) in Rifts Earth?

Kittani have that very ability ..

Who would have the capabilities to do that?

As I've already pointed out the Kittani have that ability since Atlantis book Two ..

They have mastered the abilities and technology of Cloning to such a point they have and can clone virtually any creation from Lone Star ..

Who, with the right contacts would be able to establish those capabilities?

Any Civilization on Rifts earth with the help of a Ley Line Rifter can establish such abilities .. if they simply head to the 3G's and establish contact with Gen-Techs.

What other considerations would need to be made (aside of course from food, housing, and training/educating) for a 4 million strong army?

Equipment, Vehicles, Armor, clothing ..

What about an army of robots lead by humans (think like the CS Skelebots or the NGR combat robots). Same questions as the clones.

Archie is thee leading creator of Robots on north america. And his creations are soo much more advanced then anyone elses they actually gain sentients !!

Archie has been said to be able to take on both the Coalition and Free Quebec .. and STILL be able to win !!

Fact of the matter is .. All you need to look twords is Archie for creation of a Robot Military.