Hägg

Created Saturday 19 January 2019

> A well-rooted Hägg. You want us to attack a well-rooted Hägg. She has only one life to loose. We could loose, well, all our lives.

• Yeah, Häggs grow roots. Down into the iron, iridium, and rich radiation goodness that most hard planets have. They become their own production facilities, able to generate their own ammo and heal their own wounds.

• First had them listed under heavy infantry to be thought of as slow shock troops, but they are better thought of as castles, set up to control the area around them.
• Maybe Hägg salt Orgres? Trying to think of a neat carbide tie-in that fits the pattern of having cobalts, irons, and ________ for Ogres. Häggs works, even if it isn't an element. I was thinking, like, diamonds as a nod to the "biphasic carbide." And simply calling them Häggs instead the coyright-infringing Ogre is not a bad idea.
  • Yeah, I guess I like this well enough:
    1. An evil spirit, dæmon, or infernal being, in female form: applied in early use to the Furies, Harpies, etc. of Græco-Latin mythology; also to malicious female sprites or ‘fairies’ of Teutonic mythology. Obsolete or arch.
    2. †b. Applied to manes or shades of the departed, ghosts, hobgoblins, and other terrors of the night.
    3. †c. The nightmare.
    4. †d. fig. An object of terror, a ‘bogey’.
  • Also neat because that makes them expressly female whereas Jackson's Ogres are expressly male.
  • So, "salt-Hägg planetary defense platform."
• Point defense systems. Essentially trained castle "militia." Evolved to sortie out for raiding operations. Shock troops in a hit-and-run platform. Vikings, really, but of lands they are trying to either subjugate or keep subjugated. So actually bullies.
  • And they sortie from Ogres. Now, since in any near future, artillery will be able to hit any atmospheric target (anything on land or not too terribly far down in it) and anything suborbital, Ogres are essentially point defense systems for whole planets. Long as they're fed enough ammo, they can take a hit and keep on hitting even after they've taken many hits.
  • Have the navy port in the marines. Drop an Ogre planetside with a company of engineer/marines.
    • Goals of the engineer/marines:
      1. Get the Ogre in working condition. (Won't take long--Ogres are designed for that, too, and digging into position should be largely done by an accurate firing of this "package")
      2. Stay alive long enough to get the Ogre in working condition. (Won't last long, but gives the Ogre that much more of an edge in a dicey situation (with that admittedly shitty game throwing the dice))
      3. Become the first castle defense force until the Ogre is unoccupied with blasting all planet-wide forces enough to suppress-fire a tunnel for the relife castle forces to be flown in. (Might take a while)
      4. Be one of the few not to leave in a casket.
  • So, actually planet-wide artillery in a resilient and self-sufficient core. Ogres control planets like keeps and castles controlled counties. So not infantry at all.
• Before they land, they're in their larval state:
  • larva, n.

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈlɑːvə/,  U.S. /ˈlɑrvə/
Forms:  Plural larvæ.
Frequency (in current use): 
Etymology: Latin larva a ghost, spectre, hobgoblin; also, a mask.
1. A disembodied spirit; a ghost, hobgoblin, spectre. Obsolete exc. Historical.

• manes, n.

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈmeɪniːz/, /ˈmɑːneɪz/,  U.S. /ˈmɑˌneɪz/, /ˈmeɪˌniz/
Origin: A borrowing from Latin. Etymon: Latin mānēs.
Etymology: < classical Latin mānēs (plural), the spirits of the dead, frequently in phrase dī mānēs ; also used of mortal remains (see sense 2). Probably cognate with early Latin mānis , mānus good (see mane adv.); compare classical Latin immānis brutal, frightful, vast (see immane adj.). This association was made in antiquity, commenting on already obscure ancient poetry; the line di manes, manes sitis is recorded from an inscription. Compare Middle French manes (1488; French mânes).(Show Less)
1. With plural concord. The deified souls of dead ancestors (as beneficent spirits, as opposed to larvae and lemures: see larva n., lemur n.); (also, sometimes with singular concord) the spirit or shade of a dead person, considered as an object of homage or reverence or as demanding to be propitiated. Also fig.

• Oh wait. Been here already. Hm. Not sure what term I like better now, Hagg or Urchin. Urchin has the double meaning with street kids, which I like.
  • So, I'm thinking urchins are smaller and more for clearing tough areas like cities, underwater, etc. (Yeah, this is what they are: Heavy-gun suports for Häggs---both early in a Hägg's rooting and later as mobile artillery platforms that serve as strong defensive points for otehr troops that defend Häggs)
  • And the naming convention of keeping them animals.

1. hagg in hag, n.1 View full entry c1230

...An evil spirit, dæmon, or infernal being, in female form: applied in early use to the Furies, Harpies, etc. of Græco-Latin mythology; also to malicious female sprites or ‘fairies’ of Teutonic mythology....

2. hagg in hag, n.2 View full entry 1488

...A wooded enclosure; a coppice or copse....

3. hagg in hag, n.3 View full entry 1618

...The stump of a tree left after felling. Also hagsnare....

4. hagg in hag, n.4 View full entry a1400

...A break, gap, or chasm (in a crag or cliff). Obsolete....

5. hag(g in † hake, n.4 View full entry c1538

...A short firearm used in the 16th c....

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These have become so important, they really should be under the Weapon Platforms area.
Anyway (2021-12-29)

Orbital platforms

Such a clever name!
Anyway, the heat vent from Haggs on Venusian planets can send a lot of energy into space. And so an orbtial platform cna be built in that energy stream, letting the heat vent power the platform.
This is important because the distances at which you'll want to be figthing space battles are as long as you can make them. And at those distances, jumped attacks and lightspeed weapons hold great sway. So, these orbital platforms not only serve as a relative respite (and stable staging area) compared to the hellscape planetside, but---being above the atmosphere---are a much better platform for mounting energy weapons. Including big gamma-guns. These can be directed to fire towards the planet (maybe; the bloom maybe be worth it in some cases if not a one-shot kill of ground forces in a large range than the Hagg's own under-offing), but would probably mainly be used as a first line of defense (and thus one set up quickly) from space-borne attacks on a Hagg.

They could use space elevators, but that's a lot of material to invest in a place you don't expect a whole lot of people to survive coming to for a while.