Quite a while back I posted an idea about a revolution or colonial civil war taking place on Mars - about 100 to 200 years from now as the background for an RPG campaign.


Anyone have good suggestions for class descriptions, 'templates', or general guidelines for Marines that might be posted to Mars to keep the peace - or enforce what the government back home on Earth wants.

What sort of equipment training would Marines (or Army soldiers) in that environment need?

Part of my background for the campaign was going to be that a terraforming operation is happening.
The trouble is that its really gradual and taking a longer amount of time than the people back on Earth were told it would.


- Ed C.

Zero G
Hostile Enviro
Heavy weapons
mechanized lifters and equipment
maint. of Specialized Enviro facilities
Piloting
Peacekeepers (M.P.)
medic
"Coreman" (medical/Equip logistics)

If you think about it -
what do the Marines or Army corps of Engineers already have?
...
Now add Outer Space to the equasion...

Clearly the "Colonial Marines" from Aliens were James Cameron's fantasized version of space marines from the late 80's
(so DO NOT look there for inspiration)

the ODST/Marines from HALO video game and story fluff can be a good resource... if for nothing else how "Space Marines" would look for YOUR use
(Obviously we know what Real Space Marines look like )

Depending on how remote their station is... I would say they should have some sort of psychological training to help them deal with the isolation.

Something like that could have a big impact on the type of character.

Also, you mentioned that they are there to "enforce" earths goal. While realistic as an organization (say... the military) I don't think this is something that can be directly worked into the marine template. It's more of an officer thing, not frontline officer mind you. Perhaps the colonel on station has a directive from earth that he has to enforce, after all foot soldiers are just tools at the end of the day.

If the terraforming of Mars is only partially done, I would imagine that we would have:
warmed it some, but would still be pretty cold in general.

Introduced some oxygen into the air, but it would be very thin? Like enough to survive breathing it but it would be very hard to exert much energy?

Probably wouldn't have created a better magnetic field for the planet yet so radiation would be a long term danger so people would have to wear protective suits outside.