One of the big perks of Kamau, as we all know, is that they're Shock Immune. This is obviously a pretty big deal from a gameplay standpoint, and we all agree it's very, very good. What I'm actually curious about is the lore reason for this: is it technological, or physical? We know certain 1-Wound units receive Shock Immunity because they're just that tough. We see that quite a bit in Ariadna, who have a particular statline emphasis on their physicality (Dogged, high PH, etc are prominent Ariadnan rules.) Possibly Kamau, as determined and elite operators, are also that tough. Or perhaps its technological? Kamau certainly are sporting great tech. I want to write an entire short story about a Snake Eater evaluating the pros and cons of ORC armor vs a Kamau Ninja Suit. BTS6, water-tight, capable of silent movement, and possible Mimetic materials are great features of the Kamau Ninja Suit. Is Shock Immunity part of that too? Curious what people think.
My bet would be advanced materials that cauterize wounds on contact with blood, essentially an insta-clot that stops you from bleeding out instantly. That gives you time to be brought back by a doc or paramedic. Still, anyone hit by a hollow point has to be a tough motherfucker to pull through and keep on fighting after that. So probably a little bit of both, but the end effect is greater than the sum of the parts. Would love to read your story though, sounds interesting!
Keep in mind that the Varuna Division ORCs also have stealth because they are highly trained in silent movement despite being in heavy armor. In order to pinpoint exactly what protects Kamau from shock rounds, we should first look at what shock rounds actually do in Infinity. From the wiki: Shock Special Ammunition is designed to cause a strong hydrostatic shock in its target's body, maximizing internal damage after penetration. Shock mechanisms depend on the manufacturer. The cheapest alternatives are hollow-point bullets that shatter into tiny metal fragments once inside the body, tearing internal organs. Melee Shock weapons typically have their edges covered with a rapid-action, selective neurotoxin of synthetic manufacture. Based on this, I'd say it's possible that the Kamau have suits that protect against these weapons, but it's also a possibility that their high BTS represents some form of artificial "ground" or survival system built into the suit.
@ThananRollice I guess I'd wonder if VIRD Division ORC armor has modifications that help make it silent, or if that's a capability of the Operator inside the suit. We know that VIRD Division ORCs have modifications to make their armor capable of Aquatic movement. It makes me realize I have no clue how noisy and clunky a suit of Infinity armor is, or if the armor itself is totally silent, and it's just the Operator who is noisy or stealthy.
Here's an excerpt from the Infinity RPG PanOceania book. According to this, the Aquatic terrain and stealth is all due to the skill of the operator, not the power of the suit!
Came to post this, am glad it's already here. To be fair, I think we should always default to assuming that any ability a PanOceanian unit has is Tech based.
I think some of the Metal Gear Solid games have had throwaway lines about high tech suits that help control bleeding amongst other things. That each Kamau is basically Solid Snake seems reasonable to me.
Ok, now I want a Kamau character called "Snake" with CH:Camuflage, but who uses BOX markers instead of CAMO markers.
Talking about the lore of VIRD, a long time ago I wanted to ask Why VIRD appear during the third offensive? What is the role of Varuna in the invasion of the CA in Paradiso? in the third offensive book nothing is said about it ...
That's well said. I would definitely like more lore about what the different sectorials and armies are doing in the field. As you say, it's nice to know about VIRD, but it would be really nice to know how VIRD ties into the main lore. There's some dialog about VIRD operations on the coast of one of the continents on Paradiso, but it would be great to know more. Blue Sea started out as a domestic counter-terror unit on Varuna, so presumably they were expanded to VIRD to help explain why they're operating off-planet. What do these operations look like? What do they do? How is a VIRD team/unit/regiment structured? What does a typical VIRD operations on Paradiso look like? Are they fighting against Shasvastii? Against Morats? Are they fighting offensively, or defensively? These are all questions I'd like to know, and while it was pleasant that the book let me read about Scuball and the population of the Varuna planet, I'm much more interested in the combat operations of a Sectorial I like.
Probably the faction advocate for PanO on the design team didn't want Kamau to be able to be shocked off the board. Not much more to read into it than that.
@kanluwen @Hecaton Next time I do anything involving imagination / creativity, I'll leave you both at home.
hahaha! ... but seriously, it would be good to see something like that. The role of SAA and MO in the conflict is clearer, but VIRD does not appear at all. I thought maybe in the RPG manual some of this could come out, but I don't have it. I think this could be nice for some players who like to get more involved with their armies than just for aesthetics or profiles. Also, I enjoyed very much the descriptions of the miniatures in the CB catalog, that now also disappeared to give space to a very small section in the online store (at least with PanO models), I don't know why.
You asked why they released it with Third Offensive and didn't really do much talking about the actual role the VIRD played. I answered as to why I think they did. They've said they were doing VIRD for years, and frankly? This was their opportunity to shoehorn them in. Would have been far, far more interesting to have had them in "Uprising". PanO stirs up the JSA, YJ returns the favor with Libertos.
I imagine we'll see more about VIRD teams in the next book. A rapid deployment to Paradiso to prevent catastrophe will almost certainly result in a more standard role. I would imagine something in the vein of "Green A protects the corridor, Red K hold the front, and VIRD strikes back".
