It is the year 2786 and, if I may be so bold amongst us here, it is an incredibly shitty time to be alive on any world with an economic worth roughly equivalent to "sells a single potato offworld per annum" when fleets of the Great Houses scour the stars for any chance to annihilate and destroy anything that their foes may use, all under the smug knowledge that the vast majority of the SLDF fucked off to who knows where. They most probably, if I may be so bold as to offer my personal opinion, fucked off to "anywhere but here."

Likely while also singing Fuck This Shit, I’m Out in a pretty impressive cohesive fashion across their entire armada.

I am confident that the tens of billions that are currently dying because of liberally applied nuclear, biological, and chemical atrocities would be clapping appreciatively at the show. You know - if they weren’t too busy getting domed by a nuke/bio-bomb/atrocity-in-a-can and bleeding profusely from the wound and weren’t being dissolved into their constituent energy contents/biological components/roughly-human-shaped goo.

Unfortunately (for you, that is - I am perfectly safe in my home, where I only have worry about slowly dissolving in the heat of summer for four months out to twelve), for the planet we are currently above, this war currently going hot (soon to be called the First Succession War) has just reached the system, and the barely-set-up colonists are frankly cooked.

They were, after all, in the Periphery of the Sphere. Perhaps even what you could call the Deep Periphery, but that would require a liberal interpretation of the word and interstellar cartography, alongside a heavy heaping of imperialist superiority. Yet, they have the relative advantage of being enough out of the way of the interests of the Great Houses to avoid being punted by several dozen attacks and raids to stroke the ego of some fuckwit noble. That means that, despite the utter horrificness happening horizontally and vertically and chronologically across the Sphere of human expansion, this world has the chance to rise and shine into the Bright New Dawn (on account of all the nukes being dropped) with something that may not be simply a long awaiting series of centuries filled with misery and steady declines into irrelevancy and desperation.

But, before I shall give unto you the tools to nudge this world forward onto that new path, another question must be answered: one pertaining to how much you want to nudge the universe itself to allow for...creativity.

N U D G E : [] M I N D There are...things in the dark. Something that is sleeping in the cavities of existence. *Inconsistencies *in how reality works. Forces that nudge the interpretation of the laws of nature in unspeakable ways. Unspeakably rare, and far rarer still, something to be harnessed, and yet... was it not *curiosity *that drove the first ape to stare at the stars and question? (Old Battletech - The supernatural exists. But it is rare.)

[] M E A T Crack the bones. Splice the genes. Lick the blood off the offal. Gently stroke the decanted babe to sleep. Let the fruits of science and madness not be contained by fear anymore. (Sidestepped Battletech - Flesh is just a machine. Pay the horrific costs, and you may reap the abominable rewards.)

[] M A T T E R No doubts, no questions, no alterations. This world remains as it is, you have the tools already laid before you to crack it wide open and spread its intestine across the gears of history and sew its skin into a jacket that shall fit like a second skin atop yours. (Modern Battletech - Machines and Man rule the stars.)

And now...look at the world of Kornheim below you. A world deliberately engineered by its patrons for the settlers, it features an extensively modified Great Eared Nightjar to be even more majestic and a government that had barely stabilized itself into coherence before the entire thing (said thing being "peace" and interstellar civilization) had come crashing down two decades ago.

It is adrift, helpless, and would, in this time, this place, and this future, slide into a civilization barely above the 19th century, only slowly recovering into the widespread use of electricity in the time most other nations of humanity would spend banging their heads against FTL communications instead of arguing in circles if nuclear power was better over renewables.

But that was then. This is now.

Nudge: [] Infrastructure The last two decades have imprinted a lesson on this world’s elite: there is no help you do not make yourself. It taught that lesson to its children, the newest generation that had grown old enough to make children of their own, and will continue to teach it to all generations to come. Help is not coming. In accordance, the planet tried to pick itself up by the bootstraps: an impossible task. But they had to try. (Socio-Industrial Levels: D-C-C-C-D. This only applies to Kornheim.)

[] Diplomacy A nation that cannot feed itself dies. A nation that cannot replace its tools dies. A nation that cannot sustain itself dies. But that is the part here: singular. There were other colonies out there: Hadara and Pale Ash, both worlds that had something Kornheim required. Both needed things Kornheim could produce. A trio of JumpShips fled the violence and the press-ganging to this corner, and all were willing to sign on to ply safe, boring, reliable routes. (Starting Worlds: Kornheim, Hadara, Pale Ash. Your nation meets its raw material/agricultural demands. Start with 3 Merchant-Class JumpShips: ‘Coffee Is Overrated,’ ‘Martha Sucks At Cards,’ and ‘Oinkity Sploinkity.’ Start with 5 Danais-Class DropShips, and the blueprints for Leopard-Class Dropships.)

[] Culture Sacrifice. Duty. Need. Loyalty. Deliverance. Kornheim suffered. It suffered like many other worlds. But that suffering bred resentment. Resentment stoked fires. Fires roared in the kindling. And that roar became Foundation. These people know well the price of being weak. The price of being soft. The price of refusing a hand to others. It will not be a victim, no matter the cost. (Replace a Nudge vote with a Crisis - Invasion vote. Become effectively impossible to occupy.)

[] Military When you need things, you cannot simply sit idly by. You need to make them, acquire them, or pray for them. The people of Kornheim weren’t so religious as to pray for a miracle like cargo cultists, so they tried to make the things they required. They failed. But they noticed their neighbours could make the things they need... (Start with 1 Scout-Class JumpShip, 1 Dictator-Class Dropship, and 1 Veteran Mech Regiment of Light Weight. Also, the hatred of your neighbors, if they aren’t brought under your heels.)

Important Rule Designs for BattleMechs, Vehicles, PA/BA, and DropShips may only be posted during their respective Design Turns. Those Posted outside of those turns are declared illegal.​

AN: You get three Nudge votes and two Crisis votes to boost your nation’s stats before we go into normal gameplay. AN2: Crossposting this on SpaceBattles. AN3: In addition, this may not be a long quest, depending on how much time I have to write to get this brainbug out, so be warned.