196. Multi-Soldiers

Transhuman augmentation offers tremendous potential to military organizations, but augmentation isn't free and good morphs are certainly not cheap. Programs for standard augmentation, once the costs of surgery, downtime, and augment-usage training are factored in to the equation, can quickly become impractically expensive, even for hypercorps. Those augmentations that become standard are those whose benefits best outweigh their costs.

The multitasking augmentation, requiring only a cortical stack and therefore compatible with virtually all morphs, has become one of those standard augmentations. The primary disadvantage is the need for skilled soldiers, as forks have the skills of their originals and the most effective multitaskers will be those who can fill the roles of multiple types of specialists as well as typical soldiering.

The first fork is the most like a traditional soldier. This fork has direct control of the body, shooting, moving, and otherwise doing what a soldier would be expected to do. This fork is the only one with bodily control, and will typically be the only one using its senses as well.

The second fork maintains communications, tacnet, and operational awareness. This fork acts as a voice in the ears of the other two, giving important information, relaying orders, navigating, and keeping an eye on the situation as a whole and updating the others when needed. This fork typically spends its time in a simple VR environment containing tacnet feeds, communications, maps and other important sources of information.

The third fork typically specializes in infosec or bot-jamming, depending on what is needed. In the post-singularity battlefield hacking can be a powerful weapon, in the hands of one's enemies as well as oneself. An infosec specialist fork exploits weaknesses in enemy communications, but their primary task is typically defensive. It is also common for the third fork to be tasked as a bot-jammer, maintaining control of a small group of combat drones. A multitasking soldier who is actively fighting, maintaining situational awareness, and with control of several drones is as effective as a squad.

168. Training Under the Influence

The transhuman battlefield is a source of new and strange forms of stress. TITAN weaponry targets the ego almost as often as the body, and soldiers must often use augmentations and combat drugs that create strange states of mind.

A soldier who can field-strip their weapon, run an obstacle course, and relay technical information not only while sober, but while drunk, stoned, hallucinating, numb to the world, or filled with synthetic bloodlust can be trusted to keep their heads while in any of the strange situations they might encounter in the post-Fall world.

Ultimates will dose initiates with inhibition suppressants in order to gauge their personalities. Scum militia often use drugs for fun, but some have also been experimenting with hallucinogens to teach themselves to ignore their senses when necessary. Direct Action sends recruits through normal training, then runs them through the same drills, but this time while they are nearly out of their minds on a cocktail of combat drugs.

124. Shepherds

A shepherd's primary tactic is chaos. A perfect shepherd attack is an ambush, with as many animals as possible suddenly swarming the target. Flying and grounded species are often mixed to further overwhelm and confuse the enemy, and in zero-g or underwater, a shepherd will attempt to attack from as many directions at once as possible. Shepherds are most likely to fail if forced to attack through a bottleneck.

A skilled shepherd, therefore, has an instinct for capitalizing on confusion. Some fight alongside their horde, usually with high speed augmentations and melee weapons. Others fight as one of their horde, puppeting or sleeving into an animal morph. Police units on Mars often swarm a location with police baboons, then flood the area with knockout gas, neutralizing suspects and baboons alike, whereas Martian rangers will send their animals forward, then support them with sniper fire.

Shepherd's often specialize in certain types of animals, learning the capabilities of a few species as well as possible. Often, of course, there are environmental concerns: the hidden concern's shepherds usually use hellsquid simply because so few other combat animals can live in Ceres' seas. Humans often use dogs, bearcats and primates, as do primate uplifts, but dinosaurs or terror birds supported by venomous birds are preferred by neo-avians, while aquatic uplifts will typically favor aquatic animals.

Mercurial uplifts and particularly ferals are often shepherds, and tend to have a particular knack for it. Of all shepherds, they are most likely to directly puppet or sleeve into a morph that allows them to be one of the pack/flock/school.

When designing animals for a shepherd two factors must be balanced. Each animal should, of course, be as effective a combatant as possible. At the same time however, even heavily modified animals are some of the most fragile things on the battlefield, and more enhancements means more expense. Typically most animals are glass cannons, given only medichines to enhance survivability, with a focus on key offensive upgrades. Drug-glands, poison-glands, speed enhancements, complusion goads and, for those who can afford it, berzerkergang are all popular. The only thing more frightening than an attack by a swarm of baboons is an attack by a swarm of MRDR-crazed, venomous baboons who move twice as fast as you.

63. Screen and Strike

Direct Action is determined that their doctrine will accurately reflect the realities of rapidly changing fields of technology, so the continued success of the war is measured by its continued production of new methods and tactics. One of the most effective tactics, adapted for use by martian Rangers and other planet based forces, is the "screen and strike".

The "screen" element consists of small, fast bots (commonly saucers.) They are equipped with small weapons with high rates of fire (commonly shard pistols or rail smgs) or stunning abilities (commonly microwave agonizers or electrolaser stunners). Each weapon is equipped with a laser sight, capable of painting targets for seekers. The "strike" element can consist of any combat force with sufficient seeker weapons and missiles.

The screen element maintains a circle around the strike element. The size of the circle will depend on the size of the screen element, up to the maximum range of seeker weapons (2 or 3 km). Otherwise, the circle will be as large as possible while still allowing for a dense screen. When a screen bot spots a hostile, it suppresses and/or stuns the target, while using its laser to guide in seekers from the strike element.

Ideally, this tactic allows for a patrol to effectively engage hostile infantry at virtually no risk to themselves, with cheap robots as the only casualties. Realistically, there are weaknesses. The tactic depends on the ability of the screen to detect the enemy; if an infiltrator works their way past, they can hit the strike element directly. The screen element must be produced in great numbers, and are generally not equipped to deal with heavy threats; any hostile that can ignore suppression and stunning can simply push through. Finally, the tactic is designed for 2d open landscapes, it is impractical in urban, 3d or otherwise complex environments.