Amber Zone - Occupied Territories (Cadre)

Last Updated 25 January 2004.

By: Rob Prior
From: traveller@mpgn.com [Digest 473]
Dated: 03 Nov 1995 10
Subject: Re: Occupied Territories
[Rob's comments, 473]

>>What about removing trouble makers and bringing in tame
>>colonists from other parts of the Imperium (a la Israel
>>and the occupied territories)?
>
>The Regency is doing this with the Sword Worlders: it has not
>proven to be a success, as mutual loathing has risen between
>settlers and locals.

This episode is not part of the CT/MT universe (which is why I'm cross-posting to the TML).

However, it does leave room for some interesting socio-ethical conflicts in what looked like a simple mercenary ticket. Imagine this:

The players are hired for a cadre ticket: training the 'settlers' in self-defense and small-unit tactics. Equipment is high quality, their students are motivated, the pay is good, and the mainstream media calls them 'heroes'. This seems like a dream ticket, until they begin noticing that:

  1. The wants of a few hundred settlers take precidence over the needs of a few hundred thousand locals, which seems strangely non-democratic.
  2. The settlers seem to have nothing but contempt for the locals and treat them poorly, provoking responses that are then brutally suppressed. Settler provokation goes unpunished, indeed unrestrained.

Let the players see a few starving children, possibly meet a young girl willing to do literally anything to feed her younger siblings (both parents killed in riot, which the players know was provoked by extremist settlers). Then have the players called out in defense of a unit of settlers that has been surrounded while demolishing native homes and fields. Do they honour their contract, or prevent the settler militia from machine-gunning children? Can they do both at the same time?

(This final action could even make an interesting Striker II game, with the veteran mercenaries switching sides if they witness too many settler atrocities. Hm, the settler player must keep the mercenaries away from the bloodiest fighting, so they don't switch sides, while the native player must try to have some units wiped out in front of the mercenaries so they will switch sides).


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