So after delving into Morat lore a bit more thoroughly, I've been wondering about the possibility of their uprising. Is it probable that the CA will at some point in their campaign suffer a setback harsh enough to lose the dominion over the Morats? And in that case, how would they go on to establish themselves outside of the CA's influence? Would they become an unpredictable force of destruction without affiliation or would they pursue their own conquest forging allies along the way? What is your angle on this?
*Yu Jing players start having violent Uprising flashbacks* It's definitely possible, but the ensuing riot from the playerbase might burn down CB's headquarters.
A minor expeditionary force is in the human sphere, I guess it would be possible for a really small subgroup to go rogue (well krakots exist), but I do not expect something major to ever happen.
My own lore for my morats is that most of them harbor strong separatist feelings after Wotan and that clusterfuck. I am very much on the camp that we should have some force of morat secessionists in Infinity. It matches the lore of the faction both as hating being controlled by the EI and as being prone to infighting.
Forget that, what about the Shasvastii elsewhere in the Milky Way galaxy that aren't part of the Combined Army? They'd probably have spookily-advanced tech, too.
The lore for both morats and shasvastii, as well as the narrative in Betrayal, is very enabling for players who want to run their sectorial armies themed as separatists or insurrections if they want. :)
Morats (or some faction of Morats) eventually breaking away from the EI sees baked into the setting to me. One of the very first things we ever learn about Morats is that they fought the EI with everything they had, and only conceded one the EI started blowing up planets. They seem narratively destined to break away at some point. I think eventually we could see the defeat of the EI (at least locally), with CA factions splitting. Independent Morats and Shasvastii remnants, as well as unified CA that is still holding itself together with Morat and Shasvastii loyalists.
We already have renegade Morats hiring themselves out as mercs in the Human Sphere. Though it doesn't seem likely I can imagine an NA2 of rebel Morats possibly with a smattering of less scrupulous human mercs like Spiral Corps. Units would be split between ones that have kept their gear and tactics like Suryats and Yaogats, and ones that have scavenged/embraced human gear like Krakots, Morat piloted Ramhorns, etc.
CB could easily make an NA2 sectorial of mostly Morats with like 3 or 4 Human troops and REMs in it change up the flavor enough and also allow for a couple more Morat units to be made that also serve as mercenaries through out the Sphere. Think of them like the dwarves Thorin and company. Still Morats, Still doggedly loyal but take up merc jobs to stay afloat and keeping communications to the main Morat forces while leveraging relations with Humans temporarily to take put the EI. Morats are honorable but they arent stupid. They would accept an enemy of my enemy sort of situation.
Yes, but Exrach have been wiped out (well the local branch and then were replaced with a new branch) for trading voodootech with humans, I am not sure Morats would take that risk to do it in mass, a few deserters here and there is more likely.
As someone who started playing CA through MAF, I'd be glad to have our own Uprising leading up to Morat independency. It would be cool in lore and not being tied to vanilla CA could mean some buffs to Morat in game.
This. I know this is a hot take, but the JSA uprising has been nothing but a success for JSA as a sectorial in my book.
I've said it before, but I think we need 'Morat Spartacus' Make him/her a charismatic morat leader able to band both MAF units and human units together and have them break off not as 'sneaky, dastadly monkeys doing their thing', but as a heroic band looking to unite the Human Sphere against the EI. This would both allow them to have a nice selection of human troops and MAF troops, and even have some converted stuff like someone said, a MAF-piloted Ramhorn or morat ramshackle HI somewhat like the Blackjack/Ratnik. I particularly like this idea because it's both fun and breaks away from the 'NA2 super evil offshoot of the main army' vibe that we get sometimes. Plus, morats are already cartoonishly evil, making them even moreso as mercs wouldn't be as great as giving them a somewhat heroic figure.
I had just bought fully into Morats and still I'd love a touch up that would dump the purple-yellow logo stuff and distribute their abilities into natively Morat stuff, make Vanguard make sense and in the end have Morats be a standalone Vanilla force like Tohaa, which could also have mercs in NA2.
I imagine a "successful"/"permanent" closure of the wormholes to most of EI-controlled space could make that possible, coupled with a human force exhibiting enough martial prowess to convince a Morat commander that they could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them. After all, Morats don't despise other species for just being, but for not being as capable of warriors as a Morat.
Wild a$$ speculation (coming soon in Infinity N6, probably): The EI transcends by merging with Aleph. Morats and Shasvastii suddenly have a major power vacuum to deal with, as does the human sphere. The Tohaa are faced with a big question of reconcilation. Voodoo tech remnants are disseminated and reverse engineered throughout. These realignments yield an uneasy alliance between Nomads, Shasvastii, Exrah, and Haqqislam. Bakunin gets real weird about froggirls. On the other side, most Morats, PanO, and Ariadna find common cause. We get a Morat space knight... A smaller breakaway faction of sneeky Morats align with Yu-jing and their Tohaa co-conspirators. Literal Triad Triads. Post-Aleph Aleph and O-12 try to remain more neutral, as their emphasis becomes a voodootech empowered post-human project, one focused on distributed intelligence (hive-lite with instant democracy) vs. an overarching central intelligence. The Umbra are once again extinct, banished from the universe for an unforgivable sin: bloated stat blocks
I find the idea of a Morat Heavy (but with other assorted Aliens "Renegades from the Combined, EVEN especially "Survivors of Exrah Traitors") Mercenary Force willing to work with Human Factions, extremely appealing. . . Bonus points if they happened to fall on Svarhalheima Contested Borderlands. . .
Not the Lore everyone else is talking about but Morats are supposed to be big tough "aggressive" apes and they honestly just feel like every other faction aside from veterans... I'd like to see CB use more Tactical Awareness, ARM, +.5 Wounds and NCO to emphasize professional soldier and basically space Oni. Number of troops on the table would go down but viability and Morat-ness would go up.
I feel like dogged is the most moratty rule in the game but they barely get it on anything. Nothing makes you play more aggressive with something more than knowing it will die at the end of the turn.
