Johannes replied to me: > It's an academic discussion now anyway, because you are not the GM, but > the impression i got was the setup of a third world country, where troops > are more loyal to their commander, then to their goverment. There you > can't really control remotely stationed troops anyway for long periods of > time.
Well, you know how it goes, the GM has a plot, but the players keep going astray. If we ask "can we find disloyal troops?" that might bring them into existence, if we play and roll well. The story we got so far is an entrenched, hereditary oligarchy with a vicious power struggle between different regional/family groups. (Oligarchs don't marry into enemy clans, so over the centuries the regional rivalries become family rivalries.) All factions agree to keep the lower classes and the primitives down, since toppling the game board benefits nobody. A third world look and feel, but more 1960s banana republic than 2010s African hellhole. > Ethnic militias, that might formally be part of the army seem to work in > third world nations. Maybe they keep the tribal militias from open rebellion, maybe not. > I don't think the hirering Tuareg mercenaries was really a problem for the > Ghaddafi regime for instance. Did he hire them while things were going well, or when things were already coming apart? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12647115 Re the sand speeder: 80 cf body, 4 cf non-retractable skids, two 8 cf flarecraft wings, loaded weight 2,000 lbs. With for open seats and no streamlining the drag is 253, effective lift area is 228.5, stall speed 40 mph. 1,600 lbs. thrust give 120 mph nominal road speed, or 40 mph off-road, and a flight speed of 220 mph. Those 1,600 lbs. of thrust could come from separate takeoff and cruise engines, a cruise engine with afterburner, or all from one engine -- 220 mph top flight speed isn't excessive. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
