Story Concept: Gritty military sci-fi

[Dauntless]

Hello,

I was wondering if people could give me some feedback, suggestions, and ideas on a game world I've been brewing in the undigested parts of my brain for some time now (the brain digests??).  Here's the nutshell description to get you up to speed...

Time:  2090AD

Setting: Near future, transhumanist, post-apocalypse, futuristic warfare

Technology: Near GURPs Transhuman levels.  This means limited nanotechnology, very extensive genetic engineering (including eugeneered humans), nascent quantum computers, Autonomous Agents (robots, androids with near indistinguishable from human AI), and fusion power.

Things that are different from Transhuman....
Zero-point energy systems.  While fusion plants produce more power per cubic meter, ZP plants are 100% safe, relatively cheap, and most importantly, have created reactionless drives for starships (if you don't know, some physicists believe Inertia is actually a property of the Zero-Energy field...hence I postulated that the ZP engines can in essence push against the "sea" of the Zero-energy field).  Therefore space travel is much much more common than in Transhuman (ZP engines being extremely safe,  inexhaustible in energy, and requiring no reaction mass allow them to accelerate for much longer periods of time).

No Brain mapping.  I take the stance that only quantum systems can be a part of consciousness.  Furthermore, we're not entirely sure that memories are the interconnections between neurons.  I've also taken the stance that we can not yet download memories or consciousness into computers.  Feynman proved that classical computers can't simulate non-determinism, and many physicists now believe that the quantum aspect of our brain is what "powers" our consciousness.  Hence, classical (non-quantum) computers must act deterministically (non-randomly) and therefore can not be conscious (in the sense that we are).  The short answer to why is that I take the Buddhist stance that in essence, there is only one consciousness....we just think we all have unique conscious awarenesses.

Atmosphere:  Very dark due to the lukewarm war going on between several of the Free Zone factions, the Protectorates, and the NEC (New Earth Council).  While standards of living for the Colony worlds and some parts of Earth are extremely high, other parts of Earth are still war scarred and barely at 1900's tech levels.

World War III:  This world is a lot darker than Transhuman.   A damaging and intense WWIII took place in 2050, starting when a failed reunification process between North and South Korea spread to Japan, then China, then Taiwan...and into India.  Simultaneously, an Islamic Caliphate which had been created sometime in the 2010's-2020's with Pakistan in its lead took out its aggressions against both India, the United States and Europe.  Limited nukes and biological agents were used, but the casualties were atrocious nonetheless.

Another cause of the war was the economic tension created by new Power blocs between several third world nations (mirroring in some respects Transhuman's Transocialist alliance) which helped them compete on an even footing with the major industrialized countries.  Biomodifications only became widespread because 3rd world countries used them to gain a competitive advantage against the Industrialized countries that were morally squeamish in using them (i.e. most of the Abrahamic religion majority worlds).  More importantly, they had financial backing from China.  With China's money, they got access to the research development, and the third world countries were able to compete in agricultural environments that the US and the EU simply couldn't match.  China's lack of an ethical or moral stance against human genetic engineering also paved their way to leading in this field.  Only when the UN mandates on genetic engineering failed did the EU and US try to catch up.  But the economic juggernaut that China had become along with it's third world "allies" made Japan, the EU, and the US realize that China would interfere with its own intentions.

The war finally ended after 30 bloody years thanks to several off world colonies that banded together.  The Mars, Moon, Io, Titan, L4 and L5 colonies were barely self-sufficient by the time the war started, and could only watch in horror as the homeland descended into chaos.  Using their limited infrastructure, they decided that they had to be the modern equivalent of the monasteries of old, and try to salvage knowledge and technology.  While the war only used WMD's sparingly, that combined with the conventional warfare was ravaging both life and progress.  The colonies  felt it was their duty to do something about it.  They pooled their resources together, hoping to be able to build up their own armed forces so that when the remnants of the earth nations were too tired too fight, they could restore order much more quickly and effectively.

Realizing that high technology had to be used to counter their small numbers, the colonies (reluctantly to some) pursued the HAP (Human Augmentation Program) which pursued several means of making humans more powerful.  They also did most of the pioneering research into quantum computers and classical Autonomous Agent systems that could be put into mechanoid bodies (the first androids).  Since most colony civilians were already very adventurous and extremely intelligent in order to even be off-world colonists, they took to the challenge readily and excelled at it.  Moreover, most of the off-world colonials were multinational efforts, and the war and the necessity of their union a requirement for their survival created a tight knit bond between all the colonials.

Within 25 years, the Colonies had finally decided that their military might was strong enough, and the Earth survivors weak enough to finally reveal their hand.  Unfortunately for the New Earth Colonies Expeditionary Force (NECEF), though the remnants of the countries on Earth were indeed weary...it was more of a physical exhaustion rather than a lack of a will to fight.  An entire generation of children had grown up knowing only war, and they did not lack a stomach for it.  In the eyes of the surviving governments and factions , the NECEF was yet another invader trying to stake a claim to their land.  It took the NECEF 5 years (they had planned on 1 year) to finally subdue most of the remaining factions left on Earth.  However, several large factions or entities never signed a peace treaty with the NEC.  These factions would later come to be known as the Free Zones.

The Factions:  During WWIII, many nations splintered or got absorbed by others.  As the fighting wore on and communications became poorer, local authority and power became more important than a seemingly far-off central goverment.  Loyalties switched to those who provided the food and protection.  Almost every nation on Earth split into myriad groups, sometimes allying with themselves, other times fighting with each other.  The US became fractured during the War, and took a somewhat north-west/south-central split mostly due to political and religious differences.  China fractured into 3 groups.  The mainly Cantonese speaking areas split into one and adopted a more capitalistic form of government (to which Taiwan later joined).  The central and western portions remained under Communist rule, and the northern reaches like Mongolia formed yet a third group.

All of the sovereign entities that submitted to the NEC forces gained some advantages.  First off, the high technology of the NEC became available to them as well as rebuilding assistance.  In a controversial move within the NEC itself, a form of government was imposed in which every faction that surrendered would elect a senator from within their own populace, but a Governor-Provost would be installed who was an NEC member.  Later, the people would be allowed to vote on an NEC council representative instead of being appointed one.

[Dauntless]

The Freezones:  Several portions of North America, China, Europe and Japan did not capitulate to the NEC.  These sovereign entities (some claiming to be the "official" surviving embodiment of its former country) would come to be called the Free Zones by the rest of the New Earth Council (it was renamed to Council to reflect the status of the Earth Protectorates and not just the off world Colonies).  At first the Freezones were extremely hostile to the NEC and any Protectorates that challenged their autonomy.  Several high profile terrorist incidents also ignited a fear among many NEC civilians that the Freezones were a problem that needed to be addressed.

But the NEC itself was war weary and had greatly stretched itself thin.  It too needed time to rest and recuperate, and so both sides looked at the other uneasily.  The surviving Freezones were generally the most militarily powerful organizations at the outbreak of WWIII, and were able to keep intact some of their strength.  More importantly perhaps, all the Freezones were also the most technologically advanced.  Although the war had set them back greatly, the knowledge was not lost only the much of their manufacturing capacity.  The breather that the NEC granted them allowed the Freezones to catch their breath as well.  In truth, some of the terrorist incidents were carried out by elements within the Freezones (some officially sanctioned, others not).  However, the NEC was for all intents and purposes, yet another invading conqueror.  

Simmering War:  For the next 10 years, each side rebuilt as quickly as they could at an astonishing rate given the devestation that had occurred.  Rearming was seen as vital and necessary.  Research and Development once again played a key role in everyone's budgets.

In 2088, the Communications and Analysis Bureau (CAB) of the NEC (which was their primary international Intelligence Agency) discovered an alarming fact.  Intercepted intelligence pointed to the creation of a Faster Than Light drive which seemingly had undergone a test run and worked.  It seemed inconceivable to the Intelligence Analysts that this could be, since none of their physicists had made any headway in their projects. But the now the NEC Administration was in a quandry.  They desperately needed to confirm this possibility, and if so, to take out and/or steal the information from the "Union of America" Freezone.  But having FTL technology in and of itself wasn't reason to go to war.  While some civilians in the NEC and the Protectorates were just itching for an excuse to go to war with the Freezones, quite a few others were tired of war, and the terrorist incidents had stopped 8 years prior.

For the next 2 years, CAB was unable to verify the validity of the intercepted intelligence, and they began to write it off as potential disinformation, especially since not another peep was heard.  However, a leak from an unknown source allowed them to infiltrate one of their test facilities and verify that indeed, the Freezones had created or found an unmanned FTL vessel.  This was all the NEC needed to know.

Fifth Generation Warfare:  The War of 2090 takes warfare to both familiar and unfamiliar levels.  

Conventional Weapons:  Chemically propelled kinetic weapons (i.e. guns) are still common.  Tanks are still the most powerful beasts on the ground, and Helicopters and VTOL Close Air Support are common as well.  The average infantryman is interlinked into a tight Command, Communications, and Control web that allows the platoon leaders access to important information on the status of each trooper.  GPS and IFF systems have allowed the re-emergence of Airborne drops, as now the troopers can find each other much more easily after a combat drop as well as the new Stealth systems allowing the troop transports to penetrate deeper before visual spotting.  The trend has been to move away from smaller caliber small arms ammunition, and 6.5mm is a common size.  New armor composites for tanks have made most disposable type rockets mostly ineffective, but newer airburst ATGM's are quite lethal.

Body Armor systems come in several types, and the inclusion of new Medsuits, which use nanocloth, nanites and special drugs can greatly heighten a soldier's odds of living, and even of continuing to fight despite a wound that would have crippled a man 80 years prior.

Future Weapon Systems:  Some special units may be equipped with Gauss Guns, EMFasers or Plasma Guns.  These tend to be more rare due to their more fragile or expensive nature.  ExoFrames are 10-15' tall exoskeletal mech frames that carry a human pilot.  Larger ExoFrames exist, but only in Space roles.  Powered Armor also exists, similar to the ALICE unit from the Aliens movie/videogame.  It's more akin to an exoskeletal frame that is slaved to the user's limbs.  Ground fighting vehicles are still the majority of vehicles however, as Power Armor and ExoFrames have severe maintenance issues that regular ground vehicles don't have.  However, PA and ExoFrames are common with both Airborne and Marine units to help beef up their lack of combined arms support (Marines traditionally not being able to have vehicles help them on ships or amphibious landings, and Airborne not having the transport to carry large vehicles).

Androids, Bioroids, and MartialDroids all play a fairly large role in modern warfare.  Along with Bioroids, which are humans designed specifically for an intended purpose, there are large numbers of Augmented humans that belong to the military.  The difference between augmented humans and bioroids is that the augmented humans are meant to be more well rounded and versatile, while the biodroids tend to fill a niche role.  The augmented humans often aren't just genetically enhanced, they are also trained practically from birth in specialized schools or "Orders".  China and the US had both secretly experimented with eugenics programs before WWIII, so they were not far behind the curve of the NEC Human Augmentation Program at all.  In some ways, they even excelled.

The scale of warfare is one one hand smaller than in the past, but in another matter entirely more destructive.  Instead of the millions of troops that were seen in action in WWII, most of the factions can field barely 200,000 total military troops.  However, the firepower is much more devestating even if it is more accurate.

[Precious Villain]

Seems to me that this could be a great setting, but I think I'm coming at it from 180 degrees opposite your position.

From the write up, it looks like the PCs are going to be among the colonists or the NEC.  They'll work in some kind of military capacity: using the exoframes, augmentations and high tech weapons to advantage against the vicious terrorist thugs in the mad max like free zones.  From that angle, the game sounds a lot like Robotech to me.  The PCs are good guys, out to do right in the world through military force and ultra high technology.  Bioroids bread for warfare, augmented humans, exoframes. . . sounds like Zentraedi, Robotech Masters, etc. . .

And that's cool.  I mean, Robotech was awesome.  But it wasn't usually very gritty.

The angle I see it from, I'd set the players up as soldiers for the free zones.  Now you're talking about a guy who's known war for his whole life.  His country is torn apart.  Where the US was once a beacon of democracy and prosperity, it's now cut into several zones where free elections aren't always held and where all the technology and military power rest in the hands of colonists.  Colonists who sat on their heels safe and comfortable at L5 while the country that paid trillions to put them there suffered and ultimately broke.  

That's not all.  When you do fight these invaders, it's you with maybe mid 20th century weapons against a terrifying foe that isn't even fully human.  Augmented humans, nigh invulnerable in their Exoframes and Medisuits.  Massive supertanks immune to anything in the US Army arsenal.  Bioroid snipers whose superior vision and coordination would make them the terrors of any battlefield even if they didn't have gauss rifles and sensor systems that can hear your heartbeat from half a kilometer out. . .

These freezoners have a raw deal.  If they're lucky, they have pride and courage and that's about it.  Even if they do happen to have some better technology, they have to know that NEC troops can outdo it in a heartbeat.  Sensor readouts can't be trusted.  Your radio may not get through to the next platoon over.  And when they answer, it may be an Mimic Bioroid bred to impersonate any voice or language with precision trying to get you to give away your position.

I don't know.  Maybe you've considered all this.  But I got the distinct impression from your post that the Free Zones weren't the focus, while the Gee Whiz boys from Space were going to be out saving the world.  Again.  And that's cool if you want to do it.  But if you want Gritty military SF, you should step away from the glittering wall of tech and try to take on the mindset of someone who knows that sooner or later he is going to die, unless he's lucky enough to get pulled off the front first. . .

[Dauntless]

Thanks for the comments :)

Actually I envisioned the players to be able to play it either way.  My inspiration for the background to this game was, believe it or not, the American Civil War.  So I agree with you that in some ways, it'd be more fun to play on the Freezones side (and in fact, in the story I'm writing, the main protagonist is a genetically engineered "monk" who was born and raised under an order created by a Consortium of the Freezones working together).

I didn't want the game to be the "poor outnumbered rebels struggling against the vile evil empire".  While the Freezones are indeed outnumbered, there's something I didn't mention in the above.  There's going to be a Civil War between the NEC colonies.  See, some of the constituent members didn't want to subdue the remnants of the Earth to begin with, and some were also very leery of creating the HAP project to create these ubermensch.  When the NEC declares war on the Freezones on hopped up reasons, it's the straw that breaks the camels back.

Moreover, the NEC has some legitimate reasons for going to war.  They were undergoing terrorist threats, and the possibility of an enemy gaining a serious trump card of FTL travel could threaten your existence.  So they aren't really evil.  And it was members of the Freezone who utilized terrorist attacks to throw the NEC forces off balance.  So neither side can exactly claim to be the good guy.

Also, the surviving Freezones aren't ragtag Mad Max Humunga Cowabunga wannabees.  They are survivors of 30 years of limited NBC and conventional warfare.  While a large part of their industrial and manufacturing capacity was destroyed, and the civil and social infrastructure was turned upside in surrounding areas...these were the survivors.  They held together their semblance of national might and still retained manufacturing capacity.  I see them more like Germany circa late 44...a war weary society with some of its manufacturing capability still intact and though obviously losing, still very dangerous foes to the Allied forces.

Now granted, I do think the 10 year lull between the wars might not be enough to let them rebuild sufficiently, but then again, we are talking about much higher technological capabilities.  Maybe 20 years might be a better recovery period.  But I envisioned that by 2090, the Freezones are only slightly behind in the technology curve, and combined, aren't that far behind the NEC and the "allied" Earth Protectorates manufacturing capabilities.  Think of it this way, look how far Germany still has to go in reintegrating the former East Germany up to speed.  The NEC has to this for almost the entire planet.  It's resources were already stretched thin to begin with.

As for the perception that this is Robotech with the Freezones only being able to fight fully against the Zentraedi with captured weapons and alien technology....that's not how I envisioned it to be.  Both sides are relatively well matched.  The NEC is going to have a technological advantage, but not a great one.  They were able to beat many of the countries and factions on Earth more by virtue of what they offered (help in reconstruction) as well as fresh troops.  When the NEC encountered forces that were larger, and still decent military personnel and equipment they faced a tougher time.

I also posited that a lot of the restructuring of political entities stemmed more from civil anarchy caused by the disruption of food availability, power, fuel and communications (a few well placed nukes can do that).  It wasn't so much caused by massive civilian deaths.  In fact, I was thinking that less civillians overall as a percentage die in this war than from WWII, however, because we have become so reliant on technology, any disruption in this technological fabric will have far more deleterius effects.  

So this WWIII caused massive social upheavals and chaos, a fairly huge amount of deaths (I was positing anywhere from 1-10% of the world population, or roughly 30-300million), but it still allowed for the continuation of a large amount of civilization to continue.  In other words, we didn't bomb ourselves into the stone age, but for close to 30 years, technological and manufacturing progress inched only ever so slowly forward while the New Earth Colonies were allowed to advance.  Also, the NEC had to develop a lot of its military technologies almost from scratch as they only had small military detachments.  Only the very high number of scientists and researchers allowed them to proceed as quickly as they did.  So in some ways, the NEC lagged behind the former nations of the Earth, and only partially surpassed them along the way.  The NEC's greatest edge is primarily in computer technologies including Martial Droids and Combat Androids.  In genetic engineering, they are about even with some of the Chinese and American Freezones, though the latter don't have as many facilities to produce them.  They are also the masters of Space travel and to a lesser degree aeronautical craft of any kind, while conversely, what's left of the Freezones are the masters of the Sea (or rather undersea...as the Space Superiority of the NEC allows them to sink most surface ships....but earlier in history, the move towards huge submersible aircraft carriers to avoid killer satellites had already been achieved).

I'm envisioning combatants with only slight differences against each other's abilities, and the Civil War amongst the NEC only spices things up and makes it equal.  There's also going to be some underground movements in the Protectorates once the war begins.  This will allow players to play in "neutral" territories that aren't really neutral, ala Spain or Portugal in WWII.

[Dauntless]

I guess I should define what I mean by gritty military sci-fi.  Alot of the feel and flavor of the game is going to come from an extrapolation of how our current military methods of waging war will evolve within the next century given the technological advancements I posited.

I tried to make the technology leaps believable and with the exception of the Zero-Point engines very plausible (and even these are theoretically possible...just way beyond our means at the moment).  I personally think my take on how AI will develop to be more realistic than that posited by Transhuman (and not just because I'm a CS major), though it's mostly just an educated guess.

I want the military aspects to seem both familiar and different.  Both the Freezone militaries and the NEC (and auxilliary Protectorate) forces will have recognizable military branches and arms.  The tactics will be much the same, but differing in the level of information available. But some things will seem odd.  For example, in space naval combat, almost everything is going to be done by the AI systems onboard.  Combat will take place beyond visual range, and the winner will usually be the ship with the best sensors and/or EW system.  Erratic manuevering is somewhat silly given that the change in velocity of a massive ship will be next to nill, and therefore the percent error in determining where the ship will be next is almost nil.  Not exciting in some ways, but a nail-biter in other ways as stealth and ECCW will win the day instead of manuevering and jockeying for position (ala WWII naval battles).

ExoFrames will not rule the day, nor will the even be all that common.  They are specialist vehicles that fill a niche role.  Ditto for Power Armor which requires extra training and more maintenance.  Combined arms warfare and coordination of all combat teams wins battles.  And the adage, "it's easier to break a man's will than his body" is also an important part of my game system.  Mental and Emotional stability as well as awareness are more critical in my game system than skill and attributes.  

The actual game system will support this as much as possible.  Weapons will be realistically designed and be internally consistent (not a "hey, this looks about right for a gauss gun" weapon design system).  I'm actually creating simplified computer program that allows you to design your own weapons and vehicles using a wizard system to engineer your designs.  

The character creation system utilizes a lifepath system that goes from childhood through whenever you want to stop, and takes into account a character's social, economic, cultural and morphtype (augmented human, bioroid, andriod, etc) to determine what paths in life he can take (for example, going to a Military Academy, a HAP Training Order, a University, on the job training, etc).  While the emphasis is on the military, I'll have quite a few options for civillian careers and lifepaths as well.

[Nazzi]

Actually what Villian said sounds like Johns Ringo "Aldenata series." In witch modern day armies, aided by a limited alien technology fight maraudering aliens. See, the first book at www.baen.com

[Tobias]

For what it's worth, I think the setting is cool.

I would also try to focus on the differences between your setting and the settings we know already. I'm more hyped about Sci-Fi elements and assumptions you use and explain, the 'scientific monastery' and the fear aspect of certain droids than I'd be about yet another another type of exo-skeleton or lists of high-tech guns, for instance.

In other words, the NEW cool things.

[Dauntless]

I guess a really short description of this setting would be, Heavy Gears meets Transhuman.  The Freezones are akin to the Terra Novans who have to fight a slightly superior Colonial Expeditionary Force.

I liked the overall militaristic feel of Heavy Gear, but I wanted to accomplish several more things.  Firstly, I wanted to inject more science into the fiction.  I tried to posit how the replicating technologies of genetics, AI and nanites will change our lives (and there's an underlying theme that while it seems that these technologies are very good....I for one as a designer look warily at the prospect of a Singularity happening).  I also wanted to extrapolate events in history which make sense for 2005-2030 which builds up to WWIII and lends an air of plausibility to everything that happens instead of placing the game in the 63rd century.  In other words, I want the players to be able to relate to what's going on.

To me, that's what sci-fi is all about.  It's about things that could happen.  Otherwise it's space opera or fantasy-in-space.  Almost by convention, sci-fi should be gritty or realistic for that's what gives it the appeal to many people, namely that this is something could happen down the road.  For example, I consider Star Wars to be fantasy-in-space, and I don't see it as science fiction.  Star Trek on the other hand I would consider science fiction, as it tries to extrapolate events and how human society would evolve under those conditions.

This setting looks at how technology will alter our society, for better and worse.  Despite all the high tech, there's going to be lightly running undercurrent of a Luddite nature.  While I'm not going to be Mary Shelly-like in making these technologies to be Frankensteinian, I am going to include many elements that try to point out that our technological progress is trying to solve the problem of human suffering from the wrong angle. The notion that our materialist objective metaphysical viewpoint of the world is not the answer will be the theme of the storyline I'm writing for the game.

[Precious Villain]

Dauntless, thanks for the explanation.  I guess I didn't pick up on the level of destruction among the FreeZones.  Of course it probably should have been a clue that they resisted NEC incursions successfully in the first place.

I am much more liking the sound of this.  Do you have any plans for the system you will use?

[Dauntless]

Education and Training:
When the Chinese and US forces first started their dabbling in genetically modified and engineered humans, both programs realized the necessity of instituting an in-depth training institution that would provide not just the education for these new breeds of humans, but also to develop them socially.  

Because these children would have substantially different intellects than the average person it was considered a priority to raise them in a carefully controlled and monitored environment.  This wasn't totally in the interests of the child.  Fears of the enhanced humans wanting to turn on their creators and rule the world were hard to concede as illogical or improbable.  By carefully "indoctrinating" the young parahumans, it was thought that by instilling codes of honor and ethics as well as dulling the ego would help curb this tendency.  And while military purposes were seen as the first priority of these new projects, the benefits of creating scientists, leaders and teachers was not lost upon them.

The Chinese, who already had a great deal of experience in selecting and training talented youths from their Communist regime developed special "Academies" to develop the children mentally, physically and emotionally.  Ironically, despite China being the birthplace of Taoism and Chan Buddhism, the still somewhat religiously leery Beijing-Chinese government had the most secularly and non-esoterically oriented training of the 3.  However, after WWIII broke out and China split into various groups, the Canton government (which had two of these training Academies) decided to experiment and introduced what they liked to think of as the new Shaolin.

The American approach was slightly less militaristic and dogmatic in its approach compared to the initial Chinese attempts.  It's fous was not quite so narrow either, and they simultaneously developed training regimens for both the military as well as academia.  The American approach was also the most eclectic.  Figuring that they would try to sample various techniques, the parahumans of America were the most diverse, the training diversity mirroring the cultural and ideological landscape of American ways of thinking.  From purely Miltiary Academy slash-Spartan training regimens to asiatic monastic training, the American training systems ran a varied gamut.  While the training was more eclectic, the actual engineering of the humans was not as radical as the Chinese or the NEC.  Being rooted in Judeo-Christian concepts of morality, some of the scientists were leery of crossing an ethical boundary that they didn't want to cross.  While this was also true to a lesser degree with the NEC HAP program, the pragmatic necessity of pacifying and unifying a wartorn Earth overrode much of those concerns.  As the American and Chinese programs had begun slightly before WWIII, they did not have the luxury of the mitigating war reasons to encourage more aggressive genetic engineering practices.  So even though the American parahumans are slightly inferior in purely physical or mental capacity, the variety and intensity of training in some regards is the finest, and they are capable of doing things in a quasi-mystical sense that would even make the New Shaolin order parahumans take notice.

The NEC's primary motivation was of course in creating an armed force in order to stabilize and pacify the war ravaged Earth.  At the outset of WWIII, large industrial factories were in place already, but they had to be retooled to gear for a war economy.  The NEC's greatest limiting factor wasn't so much its manufacturing capabilities as its limited human population.  The answer was to create androids, bioroids and augmented humans to fit the bill.  Bioroids were considered a top priority (as well as the concomittant food resources to feed all the new mouths) at first, as they needed more specialized combat line units at first.  Also, their inability to crack the maturation process until 2065 also made them realize that they had to grow humans the old fashioned way....by raising them.  By 2065 however, they had cracked the genetic sequence that caused the physical and mental maturation of human beings, and were therefore able to rapidly grow bioroid armies (with the help of advanced education regimens).

In terms of genetic engineering capabilities, the NEC is slightly ahead of the Chinese.  However, because of their initial insistence on specialized purpose bioroids, their HAP training system was relegated mostly to purely military education.  It wasn't until about 2066 that a more fully fleshed out and well rounded training system was fleshed out for a more broad background.  Mirroring Chinese development, the NEC training orders mostly consisted of a secular education with an emphasis on adhering to society's wishes.  Unlike the Chinese, they place more emphasis on sharpening the intellect rather than gaining knowledge (the old Confucian ideal of Sage knowledge being strong in the Chinese system until the New Shaolin order became predominant and emphasized internal mental discovery rather than external knowledge).  While the NEC parahumans may have the most potential physically and mentally, they also have the most limited training regimens, though that has been changing recently.

One unusual twist in the NEC training orders is that some Androids undergo the same training as the parahumans.  A few experimental Quandroids (quantum computer androids) have excelled and placed the highest marks ever at the Orders as they learn to integrate into human society better.  Chinese and American androids are barbaric compared to the NEC models however, so they do not undergo the same training as the NEC models do.

[Dauntless]

The system is going to be homegrown.  It's going to be extremely crunchy and detailed....so this game setting and system are definitely not for the rules-lite crowd.  In fact, I call my system STRIKE which stands for Strategic, Tactical and Roleplaying Integrated Kit Engine.  It's an attempt to create a unified play system that goes from divisional level combat all the way down to the personal level (roleplaying).

So it's basically a wargame in a roleplaying game, and a roleplaying game in a wargame (similar to Battletech or Heavy Gear).  However at each stratification level, the depth of detail becomes greater as you go down and conversely becomes more abstract as you go up.  But the key is that at the bottom, it's going to be very detailed and require a fair amount of record-keeping.  To combat some of the time stops required for the record-keeping and decision making, I'm requiring that the players have to write down their intended actions in a continual time flow sequencing system similar to what Phoenix Command did.  All actions have an Action Cost, and players pay this amount and keep on adding it to the "tab" so to speak.  However, after they reveal one action, they must then write down their next intended action.  Changing your intended action is possible (for example to dodge or block a blow), but this requires more time.

By having a free-flowing, continuous time phase system, even though the action will occasionally break down in order to do the record keeping or decision making, the chain or flow of events must always be foremost in the minds of the players in order to figure out what to do next.  So the intermittent stops caused by the complexity of the system is compensated for by the contiguity and internal flow of it as well.