Bit of Analysis: Rifts II

[Ahriman238]

Serpent Hunters are the elite, the first line of defense against massive monsters or invasion. What every little Lemurian boy wants to grow up to be. They are trained to an insane degree, requiring physical and mental perfection, reaching the pinnacles of psychic ability and learning some magic on the side, as well as cramming all manner of schooling on the behavior and handling of monsters. The selection criteria is rigorous. At a minimum you need to have unusual discipline, the ability to work in a team, extraordinary mental stability and combat aptitude to even rate consideration.

All the standard Lemurian powers, though their empathy with animals is replaced with one more specifically for sea serpents and similar monsters. Sense serpents within a range of a mile, but it's only a feeling that one is range, not directional. Double damage hitting monsters from behind, an extra attack per melee when fighting all qualifying monsters, dodge bonus and lowered threshold for crits. Magically can cast breathe without air, globe of daylight, impervious to fire, lightblade, magic shield, magic net, armor of Ithan, sense magic, sense evil, tongues and chameleon. Psionically speaking; empathy, telepathy, death trance, resist fatigue, impervious to poison, mind block, TK leap, and levitation.

Serpent Hunters are the only ones who get bio-weapons made with sea serpent essence, MD weapons that hit twice. Once with the edge, once with a fire or electric attack.



Leviathan Armor is the signature look of Serpent Hunters. Made from their own mount's flesh, the primary advantage is it has a magic-nullification system that yes is vulnerable to overload but is a lot more protection than most get.

327 MDC, immune to dragon fire half damage from magic fire and lightning, TW and Rune weapons and all other dragon breath weapons, can no-sell 3+ (character level) spells/psionic attacks a day regen 4-24 MDC an hour, triple that on a ley line. Can run at 30 mph/48 kph ten times as long as when unarmored, same underwater speed through propulsion systems, max depth of six miles, can jump 8 feet high and 16 long, lift a bit over a ton.

8-30 MD off the claws, the left shoulder has a light-producing area that can serve as a spotlight or a 3-18 MD laser. Got a big stonecaster gun mounted on the off-hand. 60 rounds, 3-18 MD for sediment, 6-36 MD armor-piercing metamorphic and igneous ammo goes 4-24 MD on impact, and hits twice more for 2-12 MD. Serpent hunters will carry two non-integrated melee or ranged weapons, smart Hunters grab one of each.


A given Hunter may ride dozens of Sea Serpents over the course of a career, more. They have stables full though inevitably they will bond with two at a time that are theirs and no one elses. If their bonded mount dies, they grieve for months before being able to form another link. If a rider dies, his mounts are tagged so no one captures them and released into the wild near a Lemurian island or underseas farm, becoming sort of an unofficial reserve to their security. You don't have to be a Serpent Hunter to ride a mount, but it is recommended.

Do recall that these animals usually have living armor of their own, with half as much MDC as they do.



Icthyosaurs travel in small groups of 3-9 and sometimes pull down far greater monsters. Air breathers, dive down to two miles, magnetic sense of direction and good senses. Friendly enough they're often used as mounts by non-Hunters. 25-75 MDC to start, add 30-60 every hundred years of the beasts' life. Can live past 400. Swimming speed of 32-38 mph/51-61 kph.



Saber-toothed Sea Lion, vicious enemy but domesticated they're pretty much huge aquatic puppy-dogs. 114-150 MDC, can also hold their breath 40 minutes and dive down to two miles with a magnetic sense of direction. 30 mph/48 kph swimming speed. Hunters like to ride them surfboard style.



Thrall Serpents are usually the starter mount, the source of the Leviathan armor which a trainee raises by hand. The first life created from whole cloth by Biomancy, endlessly loyal to their masters and harsh towards their master's enemies. Killing or bringing down a rider will drive them berserk. They also rear back to bob and weave and sometimes throw their rider at enemies. 150-300 MDC, regen 3-18 MDC an hour. Speed is 36 mph/58 kph on the ground, 72 mph/115 kph in the sea, and 50% faster on a ley line. Shark-like smell and echolocates.



Panther Shark, or the thing that happens when you ask a Biomancer to forget all other concerns and design a creature solely as an ultrafast delivery system for clawed, toothy death. 114-274 MDC, regen 2-12 MDC an hour. 40 mph/64 kph on land, can jump 40 feet high or long from a standing start, 30 mph/48 kph in the water dive down to five miles. Highly developed sense and aggressive, predatory mindset.



Sea Lance, or the unholy fusion of a dolphin, manta and a narwhal with a mostly dolphin personality. 65-115 MDC, regen 1-6 MDC an hour. 36 mph/58 kph on land, 72 mph/115 kph in the wet double on ley lines. Hold breath for 60-70 minutes and dive down to four miles. Can glide about 200 ft. On ley line, double all speeds and add slow flight (36 mph/58 kph).

http://terralthra.net/sdnet/rifts/R_UCSaber.png

Sea Saber, continuing the theme of 'fast and mean.' 90-190 MDC regen 1-6 MDC an hour. Swim/run at 58 mph/93 kph. Fantastic climber, leaper and glider. With strong winds can fly up to a thousand feet in the air and 20 mph above the windspeed, or can use it's biomagic jet engine to fly up to a mile in the air 60 mph/96 kph for 75-100 minutes. Can dive to four miles, much prefers the shallows, likes fresh air better than most mounts.



Sea Whip, so named for it's very long prehensile tail with an armored paddle near the end, rudder, weapon and shield all in one. Also has a bio-jet for very rapid lunges underwater. 140-240 MDC, regen 2-12 MDC an hour. 36 mph/58 kph on land, can jump 40 feet long or high, and 72 mph/115 kph underwater to a depth of four miles. 130 mph/208 kph underwater with the bio-jet running which can go for 5 hours or more.


And I'm very sorry, I shall have to cut this short here.

[SAMAS]

Full view of the Sea Whip and Saber.

It should be noted that due to escapes, losing riders, theft, and the like, there are a good number of feral Biomantic Sea Serpents of various types that may be found roaming the oceans.

I'll leave the rest of the sea serpents to you. You can find pictures of a few more over at Walton's DA page.

[Q99]

Chuck Walton is simply brilliant with those.

Know O'Neil readers, there was once an alliance of four Great Races, who had magical civilization on Earth while the rest of us were still figuring out how to smelt metals. The Atlanteans, masters of dimension travel, the Nazca who drew stuff (we'll get to them in just a bit) the Lost Ones and the Lemurians.

Lost Ones? I only remember the other three.

[Q99]

The obvious problem with the Kittani is that bigger, slower craft are more expensive than smaller, faster ones. But at the same time, you will inevitably have more rookies than veterans of a given seniority in your fighting service, because some of the rookies die or wash out before becoming veterans.

So how on Earth or off it do you have enough battleships to give every lieutenant a battleship command, while the long-service veterans are all operating singleships and fast-dancing fighter craft?

I assume most Lts don't have full commands, but rather run various departments and such, serve as bridge crew and ship pilots and such, areas where one can learn about ships and commanding crew without being in solo command.

Hm, it also occurs to me that the big ships are where High Lords are going to stand over their shoulders, while small ships, the vets can act more freely, since minion status still trumps command status to an extent.

[SAMAS]

Chuck Walton is simply brilliant with those.

Know O'Neil readers, there was once an alliance of four Great Races, who had magical civilization on Earth while the rest of us were still figuring out how to smelt metals. The Atlanteans, masters of dimension travel, the Nazca who drew stuff (we'll get to them in just a bit) the Lost Ones and the Lemurians.

Lost Ones? I only remember the other three.

They're mentioned in Rifts' Mercenaries. Look under "The Dreamer" in the Demonbusters group.

[Q99]

They're mentioned in Rifts' Mercenaries. Look under "The Dreamer" in the Demonbusters group.

*Checks* Ah, looks like an allied group, but the themselves only number a hundred or so, and it looks like they appeared and allied with the Atlanteans after the sinking of Atlantis.

Similarly there's the Chiang-Ku, dragons who're tight with Atlanteans, but all in all I'd only classify it as three big civilizations.

[Typhonis 1]

Good gravy how many books does Rifts have now??? And is the power creep still there?

[Q99]

Good gravy how many books does Rifts have now??? And is the power creep still there?

There's around 35 worldbooks, 10~ dimension books, and a small smattering of other source books.


And the power creep is overstated- I mean, don't get me wrong, there's powerful stuff, but World Book 2 remains one of the strongest, and South America 2 (which is world book... 9 or so, iirc) also has a lot of powerful stuff, to the point that one of the later books mentions optionally downgrading it's megadamage some as a balancer.

Power goes up and down region to region, basically. The Lemurian bio armors above are good, but not top contenders- sorta what one'd expect from a group that's advanced but only began learning war in the last century or two, and only begin really coming out of hiding and fighting sooner still. They're tough, nasty in melee, and have self-healing, but have unexceptional ranged firepower (with newer models getting better in that area).

Later stuff has also upgraded tech in North America and Germany, but, in the sense that time has actually passed by about a decade, and newer designs have come out, and even so the new Coalition stuff is well below Atlantis stuff, new Northern Gun stuff is below Old Coalition stuff, etc.. Stuff that was high tier in the early books is still high tier now, a Glitterboy remains one of the strongest power armors in the game.

[SAMAS]

Good gravy how many books does Rifts have now??? And is the power creep still there?

The Main book, around 34 or so World Books, 7 Sourcebooks, 15 Dimension Books, 6 books in the Siege on Tolkieen, 3-4 "Mercenary" books, and a few Miscellaneous books on top of that.

[Ahriman238]

Good gravy how many books does Rifts have now??? And is the power creep still there?

2 main books, the new one supplanting the original, plus 16 sourcebooks (3 more in the works) 4 oddballs (GM guide, Adventure Guide, Indexes, and Book of Magic) 33 world books, 14 dimension books, 3 adventure books and at least five novels. And three for the Chaos Earth prequel setting, 7 books specifically for the Coalition War. Countless articles in Palladium's errata magazine, the Rifter. And because of the system used and being RIFTS, the game is cross-compatible with every other game Palladium has ever made, no reason there should be problems stepping into a rift and getting zapped into Dead Reign, or having supervillains displaced into Rifts Earth. Three more conversion books to smooth over any bumps in adapting settings.

Wow that's kind of a daunting list. And then I realize just how far I am through it.


@ SAMAS: Much obliged.




Seal Serpents. Yes, that's a thing. 53-258 MDC and regen 1-6 MDC per day. Land speed, no more than 13 mph, swimming speed roughly 40 mph/64 kph. Airbreather but can hold it's breath for several hours and dive down to two miles deep. Not the most impressive showing but they're punny and apparently really playful?



Sea Horse, the newest model with armored hide and integral shoulder stonecasters and ion blasters. 340-640 MDC, regen 3-18 MDC an hour. 36 mph/58 kph on land, 54 mph/86 kph underwater, double each on a ley line. Breathes underwater, dives down to 4 miles. Shoulders contain stonecasters (equal in all ways to those on the Leviathan armor) and a pair of ion guns, 4-24 MD.



Shadow Serpents, closest thing to dragons so far. What’s the difference, you ask, between a sea serpent and an aquatic dragon? They are both large magical reptiles, but serpents tend to be weaker and while many are technically sapient they’re more likely to act and live like smart animals than anything civilized. 140-340 MDC, regen 2-12 MDC every fifteen seconds. In darkness, the Serpent turns invisible and can only be spotted by thermal or dispelling the effect with light, and gets a bonus 120 MDC. Speed is 15 mph/24 kph on land, 50 mph/80 kph underwater, can dive seven miles down. Starts with four spells, cleanse, shadow meld, cloak of darkness and fear, learns one spell per level, restricted to the first three levels of the standard list.



Tiger Serpent, I’m sure you can guess why. 250-400 MDC regen 3-18 MDC per hour. Landspeed is 20 mph/32 kph, underwater it’s 40 mph/64 kph, dives six miles down. Stripes give it superior camo in woods, grass or seaweed. Venomous bite doesn’t kill, but does some damage and is debilitatingly painful for hours.


Sorry for the short update, I did this in pieces as time and motivation allowed. Almost done with the mounts, I still need to add the actual dragons, then I can move on.

[Q99]

The Sea Horse shows how they're still somewhat newish at war and developing their capabilities- it's only the latest model that has integral guns.

Of course, being melee centric is more reasonable underwater, but they've had to rely on size and melee a bit more in the past.

[Ahriman238]

Not entirely fair. They dominated the Ancient World so hard that fighting anyone was just unfair. Then they graduated straight to modern warfare after a few generations of isolation. It makes sense that there'd be an adjustment period.




Sea Turtle Dragon, a very friendly 50-foot long sea turtle with solar powers. Technically not a dragon, but too smart and powerful to be a sea serpent. Sea Turtle Dragon is gently amused by the limitations of your categories. 300-1200 MDC, regen 4-16 MDC a minute, half damage from heat and fire. Swims at 38-56 mph, triple speed on ley lines and dives down to eight mile's depth, but needs to surface to breath once every two or three days. Excellent smell and sense of magnetic north, outstanding dark and wide-spectrum vision. Every week, they must come close to the surface and bathe in sunlight for 14 hours, whether for two hours a day or all at once to fuel their life and solar abilities. They can radiate a light aura that pains the and repels the undead (100 ft. range) shoot solar beams from their eyes (4-24 MD, 10-60 if specifically weak against sunlight) and create sunstones, beachball sized pearls that glow for twelve hours, rechargeable by laying out in the sunlight, and if bashed into a vampire or other supernatural evil being will explode into light dealing out 100-400 MD while not harming anyone nearby who isn't a monster. If a Sea Turtle Dragon eats an undead, they are dead. Cannot regenerate, cannot be revived, don't care about special powers or rules, they're gone and they're not coming back. STDs have a variety of sensitive psychic powers, though empathy and sense evil probably get the most workout.




Leviathans, if you ask them they'll tell you they're the real rulers of the sea. Everyone else? You just live in it. Except Larry, whom they hate like everyone else. About a hundred on Earth, of which only a quarter are aligned with the Lemurians. There are two references to where Serpent Hunters get their armor, even "essence" from the thralls like that which provides their blades, or they climb into a Leviathan's mouth. The latter seems more likely to me, because bio-armor seems to come with an explicit gut-check. 1000-6000 MDC, plus a hundred for every century of life and they can live to be 2,000, regen 16-96 MDC per minute, immune to fire, half damage from cold and electricity. Swim at 32 mph/51 kph. Good smell, can sense magic and naturally see in the dark, magically speaks all languages. Breathes fire, 5-30 MD as a wide-area cone, or 10-60 MD if he focuses on one target. Can breathe SDC scalding steam, the usual method for expressing annoyance. No magic, minor psionics: meditation, mind block, sense magic, sense time and telepathy only.

[Q99]

Not entirely fair. They dominated the Ancient World so hard that fighting anyone was just unfair. Then they graduated straight to modern warfare after a few generations of isolation. It makes sense that there'd be an adjustment period.

Yes, and I think they're doing a good job of it, and it's a nice touch by the writers to show that they're still catching up.

[SAMAS]

As for Power Creep, it's a bit complicated.

The primary causes of the Power Creep accusations come from a number of books written in the '90s by one C.J. Carella. These are primarily Rifts Mercenaries, Dimension Books 2 and 3: Phase World and the Phase World Sourcebook, and South America 2. Also noted is World Book 11: Coalition War Campaign and maybe WB 10: The Juicer Uprising.

Personally, I find the scaling to be, though maybe not necessary, to be at least justified.

Mercenaries introduced the trans-dimensional alien company Naruni Enterprises. NE is from a civilization, depending on your interpretation of canon, is just(or about an order of magnitude) below Star Wars in firepower, and exceeding it in scale. They also tended to have the highest level of firepower. Phase World and its Sourcebook are, or course, about said civilization.

South America 2 is arguably another matter. As I'll get into with Arihman's permission, it also has heavy alien/transdimensional influences(the primary conflict is Gods + Ancient Magic vs. Aliens). Coalition War Campaign is portrayed as a result of technological development on part of the CS, partially in response to the arrival of the Naruni in Mercenaries, and the events chronicled in The Juicer Uprising.

As of late, however, the creep has slackened off considerably. Triax 2 certainly crept up some, justified by their being in a near-continuous war that is turning genocidal, and Naruni Wave 2 turns up the heat in true Naruni fashion. On the other hand, Australia falls into SDC combat in many places, and while Northern Gun One and Two brought lots of new toys, much of it only barely surpasses (or still falls short) of Coalition gear from the original book. Even stuff that was itself originally from that book and upgraded.

[Q99]

Other fairly high-power Rifts books include Pantheons of the Megaverse- literally the God book, opening up Godlings as PCs- and Skraypers, the superhero dimension book (technically in the Phase World setting).

China 2 and Warlords of Russia are on the above-average side, Dinosaur Swamp on the low end.

[Ahriman238]

SAMAS you don't need my permission to add content, your contributions are always welcome. On vacation at the moment with limited time to post. My rough plan is to finish Lemurian, do Orbit, then South America (so... many... factions).

The policy of Carella and Siembienda has been fairly consistent that game balance is a problem for GMs, not designers. It's on them to make sure every character gets their moment in the sun, and needs help from the party sometimes, and to sometimes say "I don't care if it's a first party source, it's too much cheese for this campaign."

Funnily enough, a lot of the more broken things I've found have bits and pieces widespread among otherwise more balanced books, like the Apok and Entrancer in Wormwood.

[SAMAS]

So, South America. The place that started it all. Yep, you heard that right. Rifts' Earth got its start in South America.

Before the coming of the Rifts, Argentina was a rising star on the world stage, and a big part of the transhuman arms race. One company pushing for the forefront was the South American corporation ShaperCorp. They got caught performing illegal experiments on poor peasants to develop humans capable of surviving underwater. If this sounds familiar to you, yes I'm talking about the Amphib scandal that helped shape the oceanic nation of Tritonia. But the story doesn't end there.

Most of the people responsible for that mess were arrested by the Argentine government, which promptly turned around and put them to work in their super-soldier program, Project Achilles. As you might expect, they embarked on newer, more horrible experiments to develop the perfect warriors for Argentina's military.

As the Golden Age came to an end, some small nations in South America took the economic downturn out on each other. Perhaps not unsurprisingly, American intervention came and made it worse. Somehow, the US forced NEMA to loan one nation that they backed a dozen USA-G10 Glitter Boys, with the stipulation that they only be used for "defense under extreme duress." You can guess how well this is gonna end.

The very next time that country was attacked, they unleashed the Glitter Boys on the invading rebels. This ended about as well as you expect. They whooped the invaders and chased them right back across the border. Then followed them and... well you give a dozen soldiers nearly invincible power armor, decades of rivalry and often ancestral hatred, let them loose in the territory of people they don't like, and guess what happens?

In response to this, the now-besieged rival nation sent out an Army Battalion against the Glitter Boys. Problem was, the Battalion was a conventional force with outdated equipment (i.e.: still S.D.C.), going against top-of-the-line MDC gear that was damn near overpowered in it's own tier. What followed was one of the worst curbstomps in history, as the Glitter Boy squad systematically killed 12,000 enemy soldiers, and incidentally wiped the town of Gauda Marta off the map, adding another 24,000 civilians to the death toll.

Now was this possible? Well in Game terms, the only weapons an S.D.C. army that could even hurt the Glitter Boys were anti-tank and heavy vehicle weapons, and even those would do maybe 6-8 points of damage at best (out of seven hundred M.D.C.). Meanwhile, the Glitter Boys are killing whatever they hit in a single shot. That said, one of the GB's was taken down, and most of the rest suffered heavy damage by the time they finally withdrew.

The nation using the Glitterboys refused to apologize, stating that they acted in self-defense to neutralize a potential threat. The invaded nation of course publicly denounced NEMA and the United States, and called for sanctions and restrictions on such destructive weapons. The Glitter Boy-using nation basically told them "Shut up, or we'll do it again". Tensions escalated from there.

On December 22, 2098, They went nuclear. Millions of people died in a flash. Their inherent P.P.E, doubled at the time of death, surged into the ley lines all at once.

At midnight(an additional 2x modifier).

During a planetary alignment(30x modifier). And yes, those modifiers stack.

And the first city nuked was sitting on a Ley Line Nexus. And nobody to control all that power. The energy surged into the Ley Lines nearby, loading them to capacity.

Then the retaliatory strike hit, further overloading the planet's ley line network. Cue sudden triggering of Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other natural and unnatural disasters. Killing more people by the thousands all over the world, sending more energy back into the ley lines that still haven't gotten rid of the excess energy from the initial surge.

The only way this could possibly have been worse was if it was during... Oh wait... (checks Google)

..Right. December 22 is the Winter Solstice. So once the sun came up in the middle of all this, they hit another 10x multiplier that lasted until dusk, on top of the second 2x modifier that comes at noon, which caused a peak 600x modifier for every person that died during that time period. By now, terms like "Feedback Loop", "Cascade Failure", and "Total Clusterfuck" should be entering your mind.

And thus the world went to hell.

Now, let's take a look back at Argentina's Project Achilles. The former ShaperCorp employees, Along with local and possibly international geneticists, were split up into different teams, each with more or less free reign over how they developed their super-soldiers. And oh yeah, the same utter lack of scruples they showed in the Amphib scandal. They worked not only to provide the strengths and senses of animals, but many also attempted to develop psychic powers as well. Though horrific, these projects did succeed beyond their wildest dreams, though they never lived to see it.

At least one team focused primarily on felines. Another worked on Capybaras, Some tried to make flying troops, while one tried to make Mythological creatures. A final group worked with the Human gene.

But before the Cataclysm hit, events were already brewing. In the Feline lab, a tiny Ocelot mutant named ZB-23(a.k.a. "Zee"). He was scrawny and small, and would've been considered a failure had his ESP score not been off the scale. He had even managed to calm down other mutants who would've rampaged against their creators, and earned the respect and friendship of both the researchers and their subjects. Zee was dubbed a success, and so they made an entire breed of "Oracle Cats" to help keep order. The Week before the Great Cataclysm, the Oracle Cats received a vision. Three feline faces told them of a place in the jungle where they would find a home. The Oracle Cats developed a plan, sharing it telepathically with the other felines. Scant hours before the Great Calaclysm, the felines revolted and escaped. Fleeing into the jungle, the Oracle Cats completed a ritual and called down a great city to Earth. This City, Omagua, was ruled by three feline Gods; Yaguar-Ogui, Bast, and Simba, who had split off to form their own pantheon, and populated by feline species' of all kinds. From Werejaguars to Ramen. Naturally, the mutant cats fit right in.

Meanwhile, a more kindhearted researcher named Cordelia Valdez discovered that the Human project had used some of her own DNA to make their subjects. When the cataclysm hit, orders came down to terminate the subject. Rather than kill the innocent mutants, some of whom were effectively her own children, she released several of them and kicked off her own revolt. More on that later.

[SAMAS]

Three hundred years later, South America is the single most eclectic hodgepodge of states on Rift's Earth. Human Republics exist side by side with Mutant Republics, Pirate states, Vampire kingdoms, Splugorth Puppet States, Amazons, Elves, Theocracies directly under their Gods, Trans-dimensional American/Alien mercenary armies, Alien invasions, Alien Hordes, Alien Drug Dealers, Communist Guerillas, and even a small chunk of Wormwood.

To the far north, you have the first major conflict, between the Republic of Columbia, ironically taking up only a small part of the former territory of Colombia (and most of where Venezuela used to be), and the Vampire Kingdom of Haktla, which takes up the rest of Colombia.

Colombia is a lot like the Coalition States and the NGR. The core of what would become the new Colombia was four military bases in the jungle used to fight against drug lords.People flocked to these bases as the only bastion of stability as the world fell apart. In time, people with magic and psionic abilities showed up, but these "Brujos" were accepted as long as they used their gifts for the good of the community. Soon enough arrived the "Enanos", that is to say, Dwarves. These Dwarves came from an advanced Techno-Wizard society, and contributed greatly to the growth of the community. Other D-Bee races soon followed, and within a few decades, the Republic of Columbia was (re)born.

For its first century the Republic was very tolerant of all D-Bees, until the Vampires came. A Vampire Intelligence named Haktla decided to set up shop in South America, and gained the assistance of a Demon Lord named Enumu, King of Drought, who had the ability to control and restrict rain(which is a good thing to have when trying to spread water-averse minions around a continent full of rain forests). Haktla sent dreams into the mind of one Edgardo Amendariz, a young shepherd. Dreams of invincibility and power over his neighbors. Dreams of tearing his enemies' throats out and gorging on their blood. Edgardo began to grow bitter and resentful of his simple life, growing angrier with every slight, real and imagined. The final straw came when a girl he had a crush on was betrothed to another man. Now Haktla stopped being subtle, and straight up made his offer. That night, Edgardo died and Hak-Talon was unborn.

The vampires spread over the area, aligned with a race of giant bat-like monsters. Enumu keeps it from raining at night, and controls the local climate otherwise. Eventually, the began infiltrating Colombia's territory. The authorities managed to get their act together, identified the problem and began establishing countermeasures, but they barely had a month to set these in motion when the Vampires made their move: Three thousand Vampires, thousands of giant vampire bats, and thousands more of human slaves and monstrous D-Bees and Sub-demons like Brodkil, Sowki, and Dybbuk attacked the country in what became known as the Night of Blood. 30,000 people died that night, with another five thousand carried off and enslaved. But the Colombians fought back hard, destroying half of Haktla's forces and driving them back. The Depredations of the Vampires in the battle and subsequent hundred years of war has hardened the hearts of most Colombians against most D-Bees. Human-looking ones like Dwarves and Elves are still accepted, but most others are considered second-class citizens.

As of 103 P.A., Colombia has a population of just over two million. Of which, nearly three-quarters is Human(1.7mil, mostly mixed ancestry (European, African, and Natives combined)). Of the D-Bees, there are 150,000 Dwarves, 60,000 Lizard Men, 3,000 normal Elves, 2,500 Jungle Elves, and about 6816 members of other species', including nomadic bands of 800 werejaguars, 16 Dragons, and a hidden community of about a thousand Changelings.

Colombia is a Military-dominated republic. The President is elected by the Military Council, and while cities and towns can elect their own local leaders, the Military holds most of the power. Power that is thankfully rarely abused. After the military are the Six Families: Amendariz, Crespo, Rios, Sanchez, Torrijos, and Villarreal; Clans numbering in the hundreds and employing thousands. Each owns massive plantations that contribute to feeding the country. This gives them a lot of influence, but it's not total. There used to be Eight Families, until two of them stopped paying their taxes and tried to blow off the war. The military marched right onto their compounds, dragged out their patriarchs, and summarily executed them right there in their own front yards.

[Q99]

Before the coming of the Rifts, Argentina was a rising star on the world stage, and a big part of the transhuman arms race. One company pushing for the forefront was the South American corporation ShaperCorp. They got caught performing illegal experiments on poor peasants to develop humans capable of surviving underwater. If this sounds familiar to you, yes I'm talking about the Amphib scandal that helped shape the oceanic nation of Tritonia. But the story doesn't end there.

Ah, ShaperCorp. There's a lot of pre-rifts companies in various books. Armatech, KLS, Cyberworks, Triax, Mindwerks, etc.. Some of which like Mindwerks, themselves, were involved in human experimentation (mindwerks mainly focused on adding implants to the brain).

ShaperCorp is the one that makes me go, "Wow, the people running this company were trash."

When the cataclysm hit, orders came down to terminate the subject.

Just, like, total trash.

For all the researchers were making supersoldiers and such, I have a hard time believing they'd trust them enough to use them as soldiers.

[Scottbert]

Just wanted to say: I've been a fan of RIFTS for a long time, but there's a lot I didn't know, and these threads have been very helpful! Ahriman's overviews of the various places, factions, and ideas of RIFTS Earth are also great for pointing people to when I need to explain something!

And now, my own contribution: It bugged me for ages, wondering what the heck a 'nuclear power supply' actually was. When I learned that RIFTS Canada clarified it was 'micro-fission', I feared I'd never find a good answer and I'd have to chalk it up entirely to handwavium. However, after a little more research, I see a way this could make sense...

Micro-fission could be a kind of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveling_wave_reactor made possible by the same advanced science that produced MDC armor, handheld energy weapons, and practical solid-oxide fuel cells (World Books Northern Gun 1 and 2). Perhaps with the advanced technology of mankind's Golden Age, they found a way to make a compact, self-modulating, solid-state traveling-wave reactor. I have some more thoughts on the design, but for the purpose of justifying scifi technology it's rare enough to have even this much legitimate science* to stand on. The upshot is you get something compact, long-lasting, and easy to use.

And once micro-fission was developed, it may have been so safe (elegant design or built-in computers modulate the reaction, MDC shielding makes it hard to breach or break) and useful that there was much less of a push to develop fusion, the go-to energy source in a lot of other sci-fi. And while I doubt Siembada thought this much about it, there's something to be said for a power source that lasts for years or decades without refueling and uses fuel you can mine in lots of places on Earth (natural, unenriched uranium). Fusion requires a constant supply of fuel, and RIFTS Earth sure isn't mining Helium-3 from the moon... although they could have Hydrogen-1 fusion reactors like in Battletech, I suppose.

So there you have it: Prolific nuclear power from 'micro-fission' and the lack of fusion actually makes sense.

What do you think?

Also, random thing I always wondered: SAMAS, if you're SAMAS, why is your picture a Gespenst?

*The last people who tried to build a TWR decided to go with a different design that is much more complex, involving integrated robotics so it could never be made solid-state and it would be much more difficult to make it compact even with advanced materials science. Still a better scientific basis than a lot of things.