A Brief History of Mobius
The planet of Mobius bears a remarkable resemblence to Earth, some of which is a product of human habitation and some of which is not.
Mobius and Earth both have one moon, roughly two-thirds the size of the planet, share the same rotational period (24 Terran hours), and the same time to orbit their primary star (365 Terran days). Evolution on Mobius followed a similar track to that of Earth, but diverged where it came to sentient life. At some point or another, it is believed another starfaring race intervened on Mobius and genetically engineered sentience and semi-humanoid forms into several species of animals. They also left behind artifacts like the Chaos Emeralds, Floating Island, and the Master Emerald. Very few other clues to the identity or even exsistance of this have been uncovered…but this could possibly be the result of the echindas hoarding all the artifacts.
However, this other race jumpstarted Mobian evolution, causing sentient life to develop long before it would have.
Human Arrival
Early Mobian civilization followed the course of most civilizations, Human included. The only noteable difference was the conspicious lack of major armed conflict. That all changed on April 23rd, 2164, when a fleet from the Terran Confederacy arrived in orbit. Mobian technology had reached a level roughly equivalent to the 1700s on Earth.
While things could easily have gone badly for the inhabitants of Mobius (as had happened several times already over the course of human exploration), the commander of the fleet was relatively enlightened, and so was the leader of the colony mission that followed. Ultimately, there were remarkable similarities between Mobian and Human culture to begin with, making it much easier for the two to have an amicable relationship.
After roughly a hundred years of Human habitation, the two cultures had effectively merged, and there was no difference between Mobian and Human ways of life. The only exception to this was the echindas, who were, and remain, deeply xenophobic and have had nothing to do with Humanity.
The Universe Intrudes
The concept of armed conflict was foreign to most Mobians, though their Human neighbors had introduced them to the idea, if not the reality. Never in its history had Mobius had a major war, and comparatively few minor ones. This changed when the Terran Confederacy and Humanity as a whole ended up locked in a war with a felinoid race known as the Kziniti. A Kziniti army landed on Mobius, intent on taking over the planet.
The Kziniti were beat back, ultimately, though less through the efforts of Mobius’ inhabitants then the fact that the Terran Confederacy was winning the war elsewhere. This left the various nations of Mobius with large and well-equipped armies. While a two-decade peace ensued, it was probably inevitable that they would use these armies to try and achieve their goals.
Ten years into that peace Mobius withdrew from the Terran Confederacy, a move that has been widely considered one of the worst of all time. Had they not done so, the Confederacy would have intervened in the following disasters.
Civil War
The Mobian Civil War began as a border skirmish between the Republic of South Mobius and the Kingdom of Tolstad, and ultimately killed some six hundred million Mobians and Humans as well as threatened to initate a nuclear apoclypse.
In essence, all the major and minor powers on Mobius save for the Kingdom of Landfall, which had its continent to itself, spent four and a half decades beating each other halfway back into the Stone Age. Ultimately it culminated when a small nation of islands was forced to use a nuclear weapon to defend itself against the much larger Republic of South Mobius. The Republic retaliated in kind, and for three days the planet hovered on the brink of nuclear armageddon.
The Kingdom of Landfall, lead by the Acorn family, had adopted a posistion of heavily armed neutrality in the Mobian Civil War, but had been building their military and making plans against just this occurrence. In a brillantly executed blitzkrieg campaign, the armies of the Kingdom of Landfall secured the nuclear arsenals of every nation of the face of Mobius. Queen Emila Acorn then issued an ultimatum: Lay down your arms and submit to our rule, or see your country converted into a parking lot. Several nations attempted to resist, but a combination of civilian discontent and political manuvering kept them in line.
All of Mobius was united under the banner of the Kingdom of Landfall, creating the first worldwide government. The nuclear weapons that had nearly ended all life on Mobius were dismantled, and peace reigned for a few brief years.
The Robotnik Coup
Ivo Robotnik was the genius designer behind much of the hardware used by the Landfall Armed Forces during their successful blitzkrieg, including the superb Black Knight power armor. One of the most important men on Mobius, he was widely considered to be the greatest scientific and engineering mind alive. His name was known and respected as far away as Earth itself.
What exactly caused him to become the megalomaniacal and pyschotic man he is now will probably never be known. Whatever the cause, he launched a coup d’etat that effectively beheaded the world government. His robotic hordes caught the Mobian Army on North Mobius, where the new capital city of Mobotropolis was located, sleeping, wiping most of them out. The only major unit on North Mobius to survive was the 21st Armored Division, assigned to garrison the city of Lysander’s Hope. On manuvers, the division was ready when the SWATbots came. They saved Lysander’s Hope, but the majority of the Mobian Army and eight major cities (along with many smaller communities) fell before the onslaught.
Similar scenes played out in cities on two of Mobius’ other inhabited continents, though nowhere was the initial victory as complete, or even close to it. Only on the continent of Landfall was the intial assault repulsed.
A World At War
Mobius did not long retain its world government. The planet has fragmented into several competing, and sometimes warring, powers. All are involved in the struggle for survival against the forces of Ivo Robotnik in some way.
The war is one of attrition, a war Mobius is losing. For all their stupidity and general ineffectiveness, SWATbots are both easily mass-produced and easily repaired. Trained soldiers, Mobian and Human, are not. Robotnik’s forces gain ground steadily, if slowly. The various powers weaken, attrition takes its toll.
Mobius fights on, however. Surrender is not an option, and death is preferable to what awaits those who do.
Snapshot: North Mobius
The continent of North Mobius has been almost entirely overrun by the forces of Ivo Robotnik. However, a continent is a big place, and scattered groups of Mobians and Humans hide out in the wilderness. Most are just hiding, but some strike back as best they are able. Some of these “Freedom Fighters” are former military who survived the destruction of their units. Most are not.
The Freedom Fighters are scattered in small groups. For the most part, they lack basic supplies, training, weapons, and equipment. In the time-honored tradition of rebels and guerilla warriors throughout history, they can mostly make up with this through ingenuity and courage, but not quite. The greatest problem they have, however, is that they are cut off from one another and the rest of Mobius.
Most Freedom Fighter bands believe that they are essentially alone, possibly even the last non-roboticized beings on the face of Mobius. They have no inkling of the greater war going on elsewhere. Nor does the greater war have any inkling of them. Many believe the task of Robotnik’s destruction an impossiblity, but are determined to sell themselves dearly. Many have.
North Mobius, however, is not entirely without hope. There remains a single free city, Lysander’s Hope, and two divisions of Landfall Confederacy Armed Forces troops garrison it. Combat there is fierce, and while there are occasional lulls, it never fully stops. The troopers of the LCAF are the best-equipped and best-trained on Mobius; they are on the attack as often as they are on the defensive. The battle for Lysander’s Hope consumes most of Ivo Robotnik’s time, as he must personally direct his forces there to keep the LCAF in check.
Robotropolis, formerly the capital city of Mobius’ world government and now the center of Ivo Robotnik’s power, is on North Mobius as well. It is here that the megalomaniac himself resides, and here that he is strongest. It is also here that he has perhaps his greatest problem: the Freedom Fighter band lead by Sally Acorn and Sonic T. Hedgehog.
Welcome to North Mobius, and remember to keep your personal weapon handy at all times…
Snapshot: Tools of War on Mobius
Chemical-Propellent Weapons
Guns, basically. Largely supplanted by more advanced weaponry, but if one seeks absolute reliablity, ease of maintance, and cheapness, this is where to look. Regular old firearms lack the tempermental optics or galven circutry of energy weaponry, and have zero power requirements, unlike railguns. The principals behind them are well-known and their manufacture easy. They offer decent damage for their size, and larger, vehicle-mounted guns can outstrip both railguns and chemical lasers of similar size in damage. Chemical-propellent artillery is the only over-the-horizon weapon used
The problem with firearms is ammunition. Railguns use ammunition too, of course, but railgun ammo is just the actual bullets: firearm ammunition includes the propellent and casing as well.
Railguns
Railgun is the generic term, though they may actually be railguns, coilguns, or Gauss rifles. The functional differences are minimal. All use magnets to propel a projectile. They are highly reliable and easily maintained, as well as relatively cheap.
Railguns are, generally speaking, silent. Few of them have a muzzle velocity above the speed of sound due to the power required to accelerate a projectile to that speed. If one is very close, there might be a bit of capcitator whine when they fire, but not much else. This makes them ideal weapons for use at night or during ambushes: they produce neither noise nor light, and so do not give away their posistion. The exception to this is the famous RG-14 Rapid Acceleration Railgun, or “Boom Gun”, used by Glitterboy powered armor, which actually creates a sizeable sonic boom when fired.
The power requirements for railguns generally mean they are vehicle or power armor mounted, although machinegun-like portable crew-served versions do exsist. A nuclear reactor is not necessary: a traditional generator works nearly as well. Ammunition for railguns is lighter and smaller than equivalent ammunition for a chemical-propellent weapon, and so large amounts can be carried.
Lasers
Laser weaponry is par for the course on Mobius. It falls into several broad categories: chemical lasers, direct-throughput lasers, and laser variants. All of them are generally longer-ranged and more accurate then other types weaponry. Only large railguns and chemical-propellent artillery surpasses the laser in range, by being able to arc a shot over the horizon. Lasers are not as reliable as most other types of weaponry: their optics tend to be tempermental and take poorly to violent jarring. A broken laser, on the other hand, is much easier to fix then a malfunctioning ion weapon or particle beam cannon.
Chemical lasers mix two gases together to create an intense flash of light, which is then focused and directed. In essence, they make a very small explosion and focus the light from it into a laser beam. This is not as insane as it sounds, as regular guns essenitally use a small explosion to push a bullet. The power requirements are minimal and the “ammunition” weighs nothing, is easily stored, and one can get a very large number of shots out of a very small amount of it. Almost all handheld laser weaponry, and about fifty percent of the rest, are chemical lasers.
Direct-throughput lasers are really just flashlights with a lot of focusing optics and a very powerful bulb. They have quite a few advantages, including the ability to adjust the power level and frequency of the resulting beam. The downside is that the power necessary to run a weapons-level direct-throughput laser is very high. Direct-throughput lasers are generally mounted on vehicles or powered armor, where an onboard fusion reactor satisifies the power requirements. Handheld versions do exsist, mostly in rifle form and with a backpack-type heavy-duty battery.
Laser variants are lasers in all but what they use. Laser beams are light. Laser variants fire more exotic beams, like focused microwaves or X-rays. These are referred to as masers or xasers. They work in the same way, and are rare because they are more complicated and much more difficult to make while generally offering little advantage over regular lasers.
Ion Weapons
Ion weapons are descended from lasers, representing an intermediate step between the laser and more advanced energy weaponry. Like lasers they use optics to focus a beam, but the beam is designed to ionize air along a path to the target, allowing a followup with a bolt of (relatively) low-charge ions. Power requirements are slightly less then those of a similarly sized railgun, so handheld ion weaponry exsists. Range is about half that of comparable laser weaponry.
While ion weaponry is about as close to directed lightning as anyone has yet come, any military equipment worthy of the name will not be bothered by the electrical charge of an ion bolt. Any non-military (and therefore non-armored) equipment will be devastated without the charge.
Particle Beam Cannon
Particle beam cannons, PBCs for short, are considered the best all-around energy weapons. They are also the most expensive, but less tempermental then lasers or ion weapons while doing considerably more damage then either and having only slightly less range then a laser. Power requirements are high: most PBCs are vehicle-mounted. Power armor with a PBC is likely to use chemical lasers, railguns, and missiles as its other weapons so as to devote as much energy as possible to the PBC. Handheld particle beam cannon do not exsist, and aren’t likely to anytime soon.
Plasma Weapons
Plasma weapons are powerful, vastly so. They are also very short-ranged (range is approximately one-eighth of that of a comparable laser weapon), only slightly less expensive then particle beam cannons, and very difficult to maintain. A fusion reactor is mandatory, as the plasma is created in the reactor.
Missiles
They come in all shapes and sizes, use just about every kind of warhead and tracking gear imaginable, and are carried by almost anything and everything. Most missiles are used as direct-fire weapons: cruise missiles exsist, but are not widespread or in large numbers. Nor are there any ballistic missiles on Mobius, of either the nuclear or conventional-warhead varieties.
Explosives
Primarily, explosives are of the chemical-reaction variety. However, there are some plasma or mini-fusion explosives. Fusion blocks are, technically speaking, nuclear weapons: however, they are very tiny ones, and the damage is small and very localized, to perhaps a ten-foot radius at most. Plasma explosives might be best thought of as naplam, only much, much more powerful.
