Colonial Reconnaissance Corps: Overview

From SSDC, Inc.

Expansion is a fundamental drive in most life forms, from the tiniest insects to the most evolved sentient races. At the galactic scale expansion means finding, or making, new worlds to house populations ranging from the millions to the billions.

In the 23rd century setting of Battlelords, governments and corporations seek out new worlds for colonization in the name of expansion and profit. Organizations exist to facilitate the location and development of heretofore undiscovered planets, and among the most famous and widespread is the Colonial Reconnaissance Corps.

The CRC is divided into 2 separate but equally important groups. The System Reconnaissance Wing specializes in rapid interstellar travel to explore solar systems that might contain habitable worlds and the planetary reconnaissance wing that carefully studies and evaluates planets tagged by the SRW.

The SRW is composed of large, powerful observatory outposts that scan stars from great distances in search of ones that are likely to be able to sustain a habitable planet, and ships that are dispatched to the systems they deem likely candidates to carry out close-in study. The ships of the SRW are fast and fitted with the best astronomical and orbital survey instruments available. The seek out worlds that may be suitable, and if any are found in a system, carry out an in depth evaluation of the system as a whole. It does little good, for example, to find a planet with favorable conditions if, every few hundred years, it's sun flares up in violent activity that would make it unlivable for long periods, or if it occasionally passes close to another planet and is wracked by devastating earthquakes as a result of the gravitational tides.

For efficiency, most SRW vessels are not equipped for atmospheric operations, let alone surface landings. They carry instruments meant to evaluate stars and system orbital dynamics with only secondary attention paid to studying planetary surface conditions, tho of course they can determine certain gross factors like surface gravity, mean temperature, general atmospheric composition, etc.

Whether a SRW vessel finds a potentially suitable planet in a system or not, they are under standing orders to conduct at least a cursory sweep of each system they are dispatched to looking for signs of potentially hostile sentient activity, most often meaning Arachnids.

While the SRW is a vital institution and plays a great role in expanding the Alliance, providing living space for it's citizens, etc. it offers relatively little (tho certainly some!) opportunity for role playing enjoyment, and Battlelords is a role playing game. Thus, for now, the SRW is relegated to a background note while we concentrate on the more RPG friendly element of the CRC: The Planetary Reconnaissance Corps.

(Author's note: What follows is by no means 'hard' science fiction, where technical detail and attention to scientific reality is prominent. In such a 'realistic' setting it would take years, or, more likely, decades, to determine if a planet was safe for colonization, if such was even possible. In all likelihood, a ship would orbit a planet for many years, sending down one way probes, gathering data and so on before it was deemed safe to even attempt landing a man and bringing him back. More likely some animals would be landed and exposed to the planet's biosphere and observed remotely for long periods of time before a man was sent down, and even then the risk of bringing back a disease would be great. Even if a man brought back no virulent microbes he could bring back a benign, and undetected, one that could mutate into a killer over time.

Explorers of worlds that already have an indigenous biosphere will be very, very careful to avoid a “Omega Pandemic Scenario”. Note that a great deal will be said about the precautions taken against potentially virulent alien microbes. This is for a good reason: The possibility of a deadly microbe, or a benign one that might mutate into a killer when transposed into another environment, will be one of the greatest dangers an interstellar civilization will face and thus the Alliance in Battlelords will take it very seriously. Now, while battling a disease can make for an exciting story, as in some excellent SF novels, it is not something most players will want a steady diet of. So the BM is free to assume that Alliance “wonder medicine” can deal with the issue more or less automatically in most cases.

In the end, however, Battleords is not about 'realism', it's about having fun, so don't let minutia over microbes get in the way. They certainly don't in most SF stories.)

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Colonial Reconnaissance Corps: Chapter 1: Planetary Reconnaissance Corps

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