For the most part S5 HI is old tech (for humans). That means if it is just a standard gunner who didn't really need the size. Generally it isn't all that easy. The Sujian is bigger to allow for Transformer stuff, multiple weapons and more mobility. The Yan Huo is better described as a shrinked TAG than a big HI. He needs the size to carry all the stabilisation gear to allow him the use of his arsenal. The Sogarat carries ARM6 around, something humans could only manage on S6 TAGs outside of Achilles' prototype V2 suit. Haq and Ariadna S5 Hi even has 4-2 Move with weapons S2 troops could carry. They're definitely lower tech. The Taskmaster has 4-4 and decent stats, but his specs have already been beaten by multiple other Factions with S2 Hi. Kriza Boracs should be S5 for the same reasons a Yan Huo is - the firepower of a TAG on a big HI. Charontid and Anathematic don't count as they are not Human and have no reason to be S2 to begin with. Very good specs including NWI and very high tech options available should make it simple to tell they're far from lowtech. TL:DR Human S5 HI, without TAG Firepower and better than normal mobility, is indeed lowtech.
The Yan Huo is a S2 HI, then they strapped too much gun, and suddenly it needed extra stabilization thingies, so it ended being S5 because of the deployed "extra legs" and weapons. The Su Jian is so "bulky" because of the transmutation systems. As for the Remote Presence, it might be considered a testbed because of the non-human "body" while in cat form, making a bipedal remote presence TAG is perfectly inside YJ's technological capabilities, Uprising or not. They just have the same good sense the Nomads have, which is to not place heavy weaponry in telepresence platforms that can be taken over by the enemy (fluff conclusion, game rules allow Posession of all TAGs with no mind to hacking vulnerabilities... if only Remote Presence ones were vulnerable to POS, it would be quite leveling with the piloted ones).
S5 really does suffer from the fact that, despite the fluff that it represents HI who lack futuristic miniaturization (either because they're older, lower-tech, or because they use systems that haven't been miniaturized yet such as remote presence or superheavy weaponry) the models look COOL. In the real world, smaller is better, but on a tabletop, bigger things have more presence, and even if its incorrect there's a psychological association between bigger and better that comes into play. I'd be jealous of Haqq getting the 'better' Al-Fasid just from that, if too many years of grimdark hadn't given me the hueg-pauldron trauma to overcome it ^_^. @psychoticstorm Your view of the (in)significance of Japan within Yu Jing concerns me a little, and I hope you're wrong. The idea that they aren't significant allows for a 'cleaner' break, but this is Infinity. Corvus Belli has given us a deep interconnected setting, one of the key things that makes their sci-fi playground better than oh-so-many generic boring attempts at space opera or science fiction. Maybe they present that Japan didn't matter much to Yu Jing in the book, that secession hurts pride but Yu Jing's economic and defense positions are not lessened, but I think that will make the book worse, its a bad cop-out. In a complex world, nothing is clean. In an earlier post I compared Yu Jing losing Japan to the Soviet Union losing Ukraine or the People's Republic of China losing Manchuria... these regions are not dominant, but they are significant in terms of population, industry, integrated infrastructure, their loss is not at all a fatal blow but it would shake the states they're leaving significantly. You see Japan's significance in Yu Jing as more akin to that of Tibet within the PRC, it seems? A loss there is a major political blow, and some territory, but the economic disruption is minimal?
All Tags can be possessed because the master/ slave system is a vulnerability, the hacker just bypasses the master/ slave link and controls the slave (the tag) directly, theoretically SU-Jian should be vulnerable to possession, but it can be hand-waved as non standard protocols that translate the bipedal/ quad-pedal motion or, the Su-Jian while remote controlled is not an actual master slave system meaning Yu Jing have not unlocked the actual remote presence PanO has (yet). I have no info for that.
More or less, I view Japan inside Yu Jing as they were described, second rate citizens always viewed with suspicion (they lost their status as normal citizens because they had secessionist groups hidden inside them), Yu Jing would not trust them the more important or sensitive positions except to the most trustworthy individuals and for sure they would not leave to the Japanese critical infrastructure that could cripple the state empire for security reasons if nothing else, them leaving is more a political blow and a blow to Yu Jing pride than something that would actually cripple the state empire, I am not sure they even lost that much population the blog mentions Kuraimori Shentang been turned into a police state, this is were the vast majority of Japanese were.
That sounds logical if you're speaking about the techy races, but since we Tohaa prefer living armour suits, how it is actually possible to hack those? I can understand how a hacker can tamper into a system that is being controlled via some sort of hardware-enabled neural link between the user and the suit, but I don't get how it is possible for human hackers to control another living being (the symbiont) through these means.
Yeeeah... well... who was the genius that connected the Pilot's systems to the radio? I could understand the hack to rewrite the IFF beacon, edit people in/out of the pilot's view, etc... (play with their senses), but taking control of the wheel, so to speak? Space magic, man. Welcome, no-Citizen, to the world of Starship Troopers, where all people are 2nd rate until they become 1st rate CITIZENS!!! Yo uonly need to enlist and protect humanity against the bugs! Or, said in other way: has it been described what it means to be a 2nd rate citizen in Yu Jing? Because if that means "you cannot participate in democratical processes", then it's bad, but not THAT bad. If it's "you cannot own land (plus no voting)", its quite bad, but not THAT bad... and they still had private property and High education, and lots of money and Zaibatsus. So... that 2nd Rate classification, status and how others saw them aside, might not be reason enough. Also, as far as I understand it, the main reason the Kuge organize this is because they want the Japanese Emperor as their Emperor, and not the Chinese one... (yeah, JSA as cannon fodder, and the like. I bet you for most kuge that is irrelevant, that's their duty) You love to look at things from the director's office, don't you? Big surprise: you still need people to direct! ^^ That means workers assembling really small systems that can be assembled by more workers into big systems that, iterating such process, produces things like the Su Jian. Not to mention R&D, you can bet most of the people who ran away were scientist and engineers that would take decades to replace (well, you can use less qualified ones, or those from other projects... crippling overall efficiency anyway). Plus all the money the Kuge took with them (Tunguska must have been reaaaaaaaaaaally happy with its commissions lately, they might even launch their own sectorial... oh wait! XD). Oh... and of course there is little reason to leave Kuraimori and not blow up the factories there. So a whole continent worth of industrial production gone to hell... and the workers, it seems like... So time to rebuild! A work for decades... sure you can replace a car in a year or so, but there is a reason industrial plants are planned to last for a century at least (with refits along the way): it takes time, resources and tons of money to design, build and start production in those places. Enough to populate Japan, several space stations, and Svalarheima colonies, by that same blog. Losing millions of civilians... hurt a country.
Second-class status in Yu Jing means unlike all regular subject-citizens you aren't automatically issued a Cube by the state, that you Maya access is limited, and that you can't stage public demonstrations other than those linked to traditional culture. I presume that there have to be some political rights lost too but that isn't clear. Japanese citizens were restricted above and beyond that, they're banned from using Japanese language in official communications and cannot celebrate Japanese cultural holidays, and Japanese-owned businesses pay an extra ethnicity-based tax. Its also possible that wearing traditional Japanese clothing or symbols is legal cause for you to be detained, but the material isn't so specific and the use of those symbols in Yu Jing approved JSA uniforms is so ubiquitous I think this isn't an official legal thing so much as Yu Jing police treating people wearing kimonos the way US police treat people who are African American. @psychoticstorm Now, I am willing to grant that it is possible that negotiations mean the factories of Kuraimori might have survived intact... secessionist Japan evacuates rebels, but leaves the infrastructure behind in exchange for Yu Jing not shooting the transports out of the sky. And evacuating the whole population seems a logistical impossibility. So, lets say the factories remain, and the Japanese workers remain. @xagroth very correctly points out the ones who DID have ability to leave will be the most skilled, the top researchers and engineers and project leaders, that is intellectual capital which is hard to replace. And if you are locking down the remaining Japanese population in a harsh police state, productivity is going to be impacted, and can you even trust that population with doing the jobs they had before Succession? This scenario, which I consider too overly-idealistic to be best-case, still results in an economic impact that is going to be significant. Perhaps we've got a disconnect in terms of assumption. I'm not arguing that Yu Jing would be crippled by Japanese rebellion, but that it will be weakened. I'm going on to assert that such weakness will be on a scale significant in terms of its rivalry with PanOceania and its position amongst the other powers of the Human Sphere. The nature of the balance between the Hyperpower and its rival means it doesn't take much to tip it one way or another, and the various scenarios we've gotten to see (such as Dire Foes, or the events of Outrage) show how much advantage is gained from relatively minor events. The Uprising is going to lessen Yu Jing's ability to counter moves by PanO, and it is going to deliver a package of embarrassing incidents to every other power which they will use at negotiations to see the StateEmpire disadvantaged in trade deals, political arrangements, et cetera.
While it is true that the Japanese scientist and engineers are the most likely to be able to make it out of Yu Jing's hands into JSA controlled territory, I don't think it would have a huge impact on Yu Jing. Because of Yu Jing's general distrust and oppressive rule of Japanese decedents, it is unlikely Japanese would have been allowed to enter infrastructure critical positions, and if they had, they would have been watched extra close by the ISS. So while the Japanese individuals who defected could be highly intelligent and capable people, I doubt very few of them were in critical Yu Jing positions. As for lost labor pool, that just means Yu Jing can now boast of lower unemployment rates! Besides I am sure the every friendly Aleph would be willing to loan out some technically specialized Devas to help Yu Jing to transfer to a more stable state. And despite what some crazy Nomads may claim, there definitely would be no strings attached.
Mhm, not that bad. So people don't really care about being forced into 2nd place and constantly reminded about it. Taking minor things from them wouldn't enrage aynone. I'm sure we as a species are well beyond losing it because... lets say our favourite wargame faction loses some sparsley used tools and we don't want to wait a couple months for the upcoming replacements. Interesting thesis you have there. The sad truth is some kid shot his sibling last week over a game controller. Humans like to play pretend their world is okay but it really isn't. Taking the ability to lie to themselves about the current status quo away and then procceeding to constantly remind then about it is not the fastest way to push someone to the brink. But it's a failsafe longterm plan if you ever were looking for one. Especially with readily available military gear and powerhungry competition for the oppressor ready to jump on any weakness.
I'd say, given they're S6 and TAGs (I don't know if you were joking lol). I really like Geckos with the new fatality rule actually, the Dmg 16 MK12 or Dmg 15 Panzerfausts and Blitzens.
Regarding Kuge*; The aristocracy of the second class citizens, a portion of the population that is known to harbour not only large number of dissenters, but also terrorists and active revolutionaries, would have their movements monitored and their communication on constant surveillance. The ISS would likely use them as the natural target for training aspiring agents in information sniffing or to do a deep dig into their activities when an incident has occurred, any movement is flagged as abnormal, or when an agent is bored. Having the Kuge as the ones behind the revolution smells of typical wargame or sci-fantasy hand-wavium, the stuff that only gets a pass in movies when it happens for the villains in the opening third of the movie or for the heroes when it happens in the closing third. In a setting with on-going story where none of the factions get to be heroes and few are actually villains, I find such a thing to be weird. Sure, it's reasonable to assume that they would be able to pull it off on a small scale, but a revolution that activates and coordinates the entire damned population across the Yu Jing Empire on several planets (and if I am not mistaken in more than two solar systems), that level of communication would mean they had some serious players able to help them with covering their tracks (including breaching the Yu Jing firewalls to get communications through the net) to make it believable. My conclusion can only be regarding who is actually the true mastermind behind the rebellion; Kuge did it - Hand-wavium. The scale is simply too large, the distances too vast, for low-tech communication to work. The whole thing would collapse should ISS capture the wrong person, and coordinating so many would mean there's a lot of wrong people to get caught. Aleph did it - Sure, sounds likely. We, as the players, know Aleph is working to destabilise both Yu Jing and Pan-O (as well as the other stronger factions) to better control and coordinate humanity, but also to get the common man to get squeezed between them slightly less often. EI did it - Now we're talking heavy stuff. Should the Kuge secretly have been infiltrated or willingly allied with the CA, this would mean all sorts of trouble for the rest of humanity (especially in the world wide campaigns when CA is allowed to potentially ally with someone) Pan-O did it - I wouldn't believe it. They're standing on the side like sleazy lawyers at a car crash, rubbing their hands greedily ready to profit on it, but I doubt they'd be in a position to directly allow Kuge to do this. * And should the Kuge have been anonymous, that would only speak against their ability to coordinate as individuals with too many connections would be targeted as suspicious and be put under surveillance.
I can assure you Aleph didn't do it. I am sure all sorts of digital documents could be found to prove such. Also don't even consider the fact that Aleph may have set up the Nomad nation as a Honeypot to draw all the dissenting voices into one place for easier monitoring. Arachne? Yeah right, sure that works the way the Nomads say. . . Tunguska is totally not an Aleph Sectorial. . . William Wallace totally went rogue. . . Now if only Haqqislam would trust the AI's glorious gift of Saladin . . .
That seems the most likely to me if Aleph could do it without Kuge knowing what was happening. Aleph manipulating behind the scenes the efforts of the Kuge and letting them think they did it on their own, or with the help of some of the smaller factions.
Given they were the worse TAGs of the series and even praxis "miracles" have a limit Gecko picked the shortest straw of them all, but hey they are kinda good and lovely for oversized HI. Now I would argue Yu Jing dipped deep in successful Japanese R&D but probably did not allow Japanese scientists on their own projects, as for population I think most if not all territories free Japan has, are territories that had heavy Japanese population or only Japanese population because Yu Jing would not sent proper Chinese to such bad places, given the blog post mentions Human Edge space stations, a place were everybody prefers to hire Nomads instead of sending their own people and even hardened Nomad workers revolt for the conditions of work. Edit @Pierzasty That was a good one!
let me explain: I like the geckos, I use them often and I like a lot the pilot specialist. But: A lot of s5 hi now seems to step on the same field as the gecko. Compared to this, gecko has: Vulnerability to more hacking programs -6 to dodge Incapable of going prone -5 to CC +1 to PH +3 BTS +1 Str vs NWI (I'd say it's a little more useful to have 1 unconscious state) gecko gets 0-g and duo, while it loses MAL2, dual wield and heavyweight. Now MAL2 is massive on a HI with 3 effective wound because it gives courage and stealth Regarding weapons: gecko get a B4 dam 14 combi, a chaincolt and a panzerfaust. Daiyokai get a B4 dam 15 red fury (shock ammo), an AP-DA ccw and a panzerfaust. Gecko costs 4 more point but 1 SWC less. So. I'd to say that while the pilot is definitely something good, the daiyokai has far few weaknesses. Daiyokai is immune to possession, can't be target by Expel and has stealth so he can move through Hacking range, plus having cc20 and ma2 and ap-da ccw make it a dangerous threat even for specialized CC troops. More so if we consider that the daiyokai get a better weapon (more range, more damage, shock ammo). The gecko gets a rather weak DTW(many an have dogged), and a pretty useful pilot, but frankly, when the pilot is out fighting you're usually already lost the tag. Mainly the daiyokai seems to me a better wb/LI bully than the gecko.
