NJO force sub Mechanoids

[Ahriman238]

Because why not?

21 years after the battle of Endor, the Helska 4 observatory tracks inbound extragalactic objects and then all communication is lost. The planet of Serndipal is destroyed and consumed by a mysterious force, and former Chief of State Leia Organa, to the jeers of the Senate announces a new and terrible threat has come, a race of machine men hell-bent on murdering all humankind.

The New Republic is as it was at the start, with decided racial tensions and an ongoing debate about the role of the Jedi.

The Mechanoids are as after the civil war, only here they have fled to a new galaxy instead of butting heads with the AbMech again. There are 800 million True Mechanoids, with 24 billion robots. They have just 12 motherships and 250 or so battlecruisers. They will remain true to their directives to explore and catalog the wonders of the universe, eradicate all human and human-like life (which means things that could be mistaken for human, the Bothans are fine, the Twi'leks may be in trouble) and multiply/expand.

So can the Mechanoids match the New Republic? At first glance they seem to have inferior FTL and weapon ranges, but these do not seem insurmountable. And they DO have a dozen ships that can casually destroy planets.

If the Mechanoids do prove a serious threat, and they make it clear that all they want are the humans, but they're happy to kill anyone who shelters them, will the NR consider cutting humanity loose? They did it to the Jedi, but the humans are a far larger portion of the population.

[Darksider]

Some info about whatever these "Mechanoids" are would be nice.

I mean it's kind of safe to assume everyone here knows the capability of the NJO era New Republic by osmosis at this point, but I literally have no idea who you're putting them up against.

[Ahriman238]

Some info about whatever these "Mechanoids" are would be nice.

I mean it's kind of safe to assume everyone here knows the capability of the NJO era New Republic by osmosis at this point, but I literally have no idea who you're putting them up against.

Whoops. The Mechanoids are sort of like the Daleks, somewhat less advanced in technology, but with psychic powers. They're the villains of the 'Mechanoid Invasion' trilogy of role-playing games back in the 80s, and appear as crossover villains in Rifts. They've to date been the only subject in my Rifts Dimensions Thread, hence they were on my mind and I was curious how they'd stack up.

[Solauren]

By Comparison to the GFFA, the Mechanoids have vastly inferior weapon ranges. (400 mile particle beams, 2000 mile lasers)
Even their anti-planet/anti-fleet weapon only has a range of 30,000 kilometers.

During the NJO, we saw Star Destroyers at the edge of the Coruscant system fire Turbolaser shots to hit Vong worldships as part of a ruse to make the Vong think the Republic was developing a hyperspace superlaser.

We don't have any hard numbers of Mechanoid ship level weapons. However, given Palladiums history of mis-handling numbers, I'm willing to bet they are inferior to GFFA weapons. In fact, their ship weapons appear to be the anti-tank weapons from a large land walker. In other words, by Star Wars technology, they're probably at the Sith war weapons level.

So, their ships guns are safe to fire in an atmosphere, while GFFA warships are capable of turning a planet into a ball of molten rock in 24 hours.

Sorry, once they figure out how to fight them, the Mechanoids are toast. They don't have the weird ass biological advantages the Vong did (i.e micro-scopic Black hole generation)

All the GFFA would have to do is hang back from the mechnoid fleet (say 200,000 kilometers, less then 2 light seconds), and open fire with everything they have. Planetary sized warship with a 30,000 kilometer range anti-ship weapon? Base Delta Zero it with a local sector fleet from 200,000 kilometers.


Also, once it became evident just what the hell the Mechanoids wanted (the elimination of ALL human or near-human species), well, that's like 80% of the GFFA. They'll just be seen as a worse version of the Droid Army. I can't even imagine what they'd feel like to a Jedi. They'd probably have nightmares for months before the Mechanoids arrive (ala Rift's Earth prior to their arrival), and probably reek of the Dark Side.

Meaning that Anakin Solo won't become friends with one, and will have no problem pulling the trigger on them using Centerpoint Station.

The Mechanoids go down so damn hard, the entire universe pauses and goes 'Damn!'


On the ground, it's a completely different story, since each Mechanoid is at least equal to a AT-PT or a Darktrooper. Any planet they land on, write it off, and Base Delta Zero it just to be on the safe side.

[gigabytelord]

On the ground, it's a completely different story, since each Mechanoid is at least equal to a AT-PT or a Darktrooper. Any planet they land on, write it off, and Base Delta Zero it just to be on the safe side.

I'm getting a very wh40k vs SW style conflict feeling here, except the disparity between space and ground forces is even larger.

Star Wars wins in space and the Mechanoids win on the ground.

I wonder what they would do with Star Wars tech? Is it ever shown that the Mechanoids can adapt to new tech? And if so, how quickly could they do so?
Again the Mechanoids are the one race I've read very little about in Rifts, so I'm a little behind on the fluff.

[Ahriman238]

We don't have any hard numbers of Mechanoid ship level weapons. However, given Palladiums history of mis-handling numbers, I'm willing to bet they are inferior to GFFA weapons. In fact, their ship weapons appear to be the anti-tank weapons from a large land walker. In other words, by Star Wars technology, they're probably at the Sith war weapons level.

Not exactly, their anti-fighter lasers are the same as the ground anti-armor with more range (which is probably just the vacuum) but the main particle beams are the AT version scaled up 10x, which may not help them that much. The Rifts damage system is quite broken at this level, I usually use for a base the given damage for a 100 KT nuclear missile (at ground zero) of which the particle beams on a battlecruiser do... one third the damage. The close-range plasma cannons actually do double the nuke's damage. Not terribly impressive impressive against some of the calcs I've seen for SW on this site.

Mothership p-beams are twice as powerful as the cruiser's (66% of the nuke) while the AT lasers are amped ten times so as to be marginally useful. The plasma cannon are the same.

No defense on the range, the sad thing is the Mechanoids are high-end for Palladium sci-fi in that area. There are ship-to-ship weapons with a given range of 4,000 feet.

Sorry, once they figure out how to fight them, the Mechanoids are toast. They don't have the weird ass biological advantages the Vong did (i.e micro-scopic Black hole generation)

No, but they do have considerable psychic powers. Mostly among the leadership echelons, but even the grunts can read human minds with some effort. Of course, the Mechanoids' powers are sharply defined, the Jedi less so.

A few advantages the Mechanoids have over the Vong, they're smart and disciplined. They may become overly aggressive, even arrogant, but they learn quickly from their mistakes and never let ego override tactical necessity. They may underestimate their opponents at times, but if they're going to lose they have no problem with withdrawing to regroup, rebuild and get their revenge later, and I don't think the NR can stop them, there are plenty of accounts of CG drive working inside gravity wells.

All the GFFA would have to do is hang back from the mechnoid fleet (say 200,000 kilometers, less then 2 light seconds), and open fire with everything they have. Planetary sized warship with a 30,000 kilometer range anti-ship weapon? Base Delta Zero it with a local sector fleet from 200,000 kilometers.

This may be an occasion that warrants that tactical withdrawl, but consider another advantage the Mechanoids have. They pretty much wrote the book on fighter spam. Even a BC carries 110,000 fighters, most of them psychic, and a mothership 660 million.

Also, once it became evident just what the hell the Mechanoids wanted (the elimination of ALL human or near-human species), well, that's like 80% of the GFFA. They'll just be seen as a worse version of the Droid Army. I can't even imagine what they'd feel like to a Jedi. They'd probably have nightmares for months before the Mechanoids arrive (ala Rift's Earth prior to their arrival), and probably reek of the Dark Side.

Quite possibly. Again the Mechanoids abilities are sharply defined and mostly consistent, where the Jedi's are not. In this series in particular, Jedi like Anakin or Ganner were shown to wield absurd power for brief stretches.

On the ground, it's a completely different story, since each Mechanoid is at least equal to a AT-PT or a Darktrooper. Any planet they land on, write it off, and Base Delta Zero it just to be on the safe side.

Pretty much my assessment. I feel like some of the more skilled fighters, and particularly Jedi could stand a chance on the ground, so long as they didn't get into large or long-running engagements.

I wonder what they would do with Star Wars tech? Is it ever shown that the Mechanoids can adapt to new tech? And if so, how quickly could they do so?
Again the Mechanoids are the one race I've read very little about in Rifts, so I'm a little behind on the fluff.

In the sense of magic Borg-style "your weapons and defenses are no match against us." No.

The Mechanoids were created to be astronauts, and pushing the boundaries of their scientific and technological knowledge is their other great directive, besides destroying humanity wherever they find it. So whenever they encounter a novelty, be it a new lifeform, type of star or an unknown weapon, they'll study the hell out of it. There's no crisis so urgent they won't have at least a small research team working on it.

How well that may transfer to reverse engineering an unknown technology, made with materials never previously encountered is uncertain. They've had some successes in the past adopting tricks used by aliens, but always the aliens in question were considerably less advanced than the Mechanoids.

[Batman]

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Ship-to-ship weapons with a range 0f 4,000 feet. Wow. And I thought BattleTech was bad.

[Darksider]

Is that the absolute max range, or just what they typically engage at?

Because the "shot from the edge of the star system" was pretty much a one time-thing that people use as a theoretical maximum. SW ships typically engage at ranges so close that boarding is a viable tactic.

[Esquire]

Boarding? In Star Wars? I don't remember that happening...

[Darksider]

It happens in like every third episode of the Clone Wars.

[Eternal_Freedom]

And...right at the start of ANH.

[Batman]

Of course, with Wars accelerations 'ranges at which boarding is still a viable tactic' can still mean thousands of kilometres or more, and anyway if your intention is to board, you'd have to get close enough for this to be feasible to begin with so that doesn't necessarily mean much-either way.

[Ahriman238]

Ship-to-ship weapons with a range 0f 4,000 feet. Wow. And I thought BattleTech was bad.

That is the worst example I could find, not all or most are nearly that bad. But yeah, there are long range space missiles that with thousand mile ranges. Never mind a thousand miles in space is hugging distance.

Is that the absolute max range, or just what they typically engage at?

Because the "shot from the edge of the star system" was pretty much a one time-thing that people use as a theoretical maximum. SW ships typically engage at ranges so close that boarding is a viable tactic.

Unknown. It's a very tempting explanation to salvage something from the abysmal numbers.

Boarding? In Star Wars? I don't remember that happening...

It happened twice in the very first movie (granted the second time was a special circumstance) and in the first 10 minutes of RotS. To say nothing of all the EU examples including the NJO series we're talking about.

[Esquire]

It happens in like every third episode of the Clone Wars.

Haven't seen any of the show, so I wasn't aware.

And...right at the start of ANH.

You mean Vader's Star Destroyer and whatever Leia's corvette was called? Didn't they only board after shooting the ship to pieces and bringing it inside the Star Destroyer's hangar?

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's still a boarding action, but I see your point. You meant boarding actions as a means of taking the ship rather than capturing the crew.

[Batman]

...Which sort of means that fight happened at a range where boarding was undeniably possible?

[Ahriman238]

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Ship-to-ship weapons with a range 0f 4,000 feet. Wow. And I thought BattleTech was bad.

Also, I realize they aren't quite the same thing (though they do sort of blur together in my mind) but the same company that produced the Mechanoids and Rifts also did Robotech/Macross.