Patreon Post: The Rebellion of Grist

Junk World by Mark Molnar

For today’s Patreon post, I’ve finished off my series on Insurgents by letting you, my dear Patreons, design the Rebellion of Grist, via a series of polls, including who leads the rebellion, what their great assets are, their great weaknesses, and what sort of rebellion they are.  These polls are available to all Companions ($5+).  If you’re a patron, go check it out!  If you’re not, I’d love to have you.

For the rest of you, I’ve included a cultural discussion of Grist below, which is a copy of Grist’s culture from Iteration 5, which may have slipped past people unnoticed.

Support me on Patreon!

Local Color: The People of Grist

Grist is a “junkworld,” once a dumping ground for ancient civilizations and also the site of several major battles. Now, the denizens of the polluted world dig through the discarded remains of bygone eras in search of treasure or artifacts.
Grist is populated primarily by humans and a race of mutants that are well adapted to the more toxic parts of the world. It’s not a truly distinct culture, but differs in a few small ways from the galactic standard culture. Namely, it tends to celebrate innovative solutions and clever discoveries (Cunning) and rugged survival on a harsh world (Independence).

Language

The people of Grist have a unique accent, “Gristy.” It is non-rhotic, in that they tend to skip the final R sound of a word. They often add diminuitives or vowel sounds on the ends of their words anyway, especially nouns, as in “Hand me that wrenchie over theya, will ya, hey?” They often “pronounce” questions with “hey?” at the end, especially if it’s a rhetorical question or one where you want to emphasize that you already know the answer (“You can loan me some credits, hey?”). Finally, they have two words unique to Grist: “Dugga,” which is a term of respect for fellow scavengers, and “Gef” or “Geffy” which means “Off-worlder” or “Client,” though it has negative connotations, and some Gristians prefer to shift to the more polite galactic standard of “Sir” or “Mister” which are inevitably pronounced “Sirah” or “Mistah”. Gristy is a low-prestige accent, the accent of the uneducated working-louts of Grist. Those who leave the world (like Dun Beltain) do their best to shake the accent, but some of them keep it, so they can use it when they get back home.
Gristy might sound something like this “Hey dugga! I got a crazy geffy that’s askin’ fo a spaya hypa-drive. You got one, hey?”

Cuisine

Grist is sufficiently industrialized that it has food paste regularly served from spigots or in packets. Most scavengers bring in their daily find and either exchange it for credits, or exchange it directly for food. Food paste is cheap and plentiful. Interesting flavors aren’t. Thus, smart entrepreneurs make a living out of finding local food they can serve up.
Street vendors often carry smoked “scuttle-rat,” a ubiquitous, chitinous vermin about the size of a small dog. When properly smoked and pried free of its shell, it has a soft. lobster-like texture and a smokey, ham-like taste. Most vendors will leave it in the shell when selling it (to keep it better preserved), and carry it on strings or chains danging from a coat. Their smell and the thump of bouncing scuttle-rats on their bodies tend to announce their presence, as well as their opening of their coats to show their haul and saying “Kido, you want a scuttle-rat, hey?”
The water on Grist is absolutely not safe to drink. Gristians will either purify it (or better, get it off world), and the purified water is sometimes referred to as “Geffy water.” Given its expensve, Gristians who want to flaunt their status often make a point of drinking crystal clear water, and might even spend a great deal of money tracking down pristine water imported from interesting worlds. The rest tend to get their liquid from “sludge-wine,” an alcoholic slurry made from rarified food paste and until it looks a thick black (or more rarely, brown or green; one community is very pleased with their luminescent green sludge-wine). It contains plenty of liquid and nutrients and has been through a distillery enough to ensure that any toxins have been removed and has sufficient alcoholic content to kill any bugs in it.

Games

The people of Grist love adventure and a chance to show off how scavenging skills. They do this with yearly Scavenger Runs. A community will design an obstacle course and place some high value parts therein, and the object is to find such a part and return with it. Generally, the part is at the far end of the obstacle course, but the observant or the clever might notice a way to short-circuit the race by getting the part early. Otherwise, the participants need to make it past all obstacles, get the item, and return with it before anyone else. This is generally a test of Observation, Scrounging and general parkour skills or, for really big courses, vehicular skills. Violence is frowned upon, but characters with decent levels of Games (Scavenger Run) can know how much they can get away with, and under what circumstances it’s alright to accidently bump another contestant off into the sludge.
Most communities will maintain their own course, and particularly adept sportsmen will go from community to community (which often stagger their yearly scavenger runs to allow for the most interesting participants to make it). The sport is definitely filmed and broadcast into nearby homes.

Insurgency Summary and Retrospective

When I started writing the Insurgency, I really had no idea where to start.  I had to dig around.  How are rebellions fought?  What are some good examples of rebellion?  What popped out, and I hope this doesn’t reflect too badly on my material, were terrorists, from the IRA to the Taliban to the Vietcong, which served as the primary resources for my material, plus general discussions on how guerrillas win wars, and a look at the French Resistance.  I didn’t use more classic inspirations, such as the American Minute Men or the various rebellions of the Americas, primarily because the technology, and thus the needs of war, differ so much.

One element that I find fascinating about the whole affair is how few changes I had to make to get these elements to fit into Psi-Wars.  Perhaps I’m not thinking about the technological differences enough, but I happen to think that’s the strength of Psi-Wars: as it’s essentially modern action thrillers with a thin, space opera veneer, our rebels don’t use molotov cocktails and clubs, but plasma cells and neurolash batons, but otherwise everything looks very similar.  I think you have to knock the setting for originality, but at least give it marks for ease of entry.

The hardest part of this exercise was the realization that there’s no such thing as a “typical” insurgency.  The Vietcong, French Resistance, Taliban and IRA all fight very differently, so your insurgency should fight very differently from my insurgency.  When I hit upon the design of four arbitrary “types” of insurgency, though, that made it work well in my mind, as well as a “grab bag” of various insurgent characters and tactics that you could grab for designing your own.  When I worked on the Empire, I came up with “Tactics” to help me sort out my thoughts on how the Empire fought.  I had initially dismissed doing the same for insurgencies, as they all fight so differently, but then I realized I could show those differences, use them to contrast.  The result is, perhaps, a bit long, but hopefully useful in giving you, my dear reader, how an insurgency might conduct itself and why it might actually be a serious threat.

So, how are we doing? Is the insurgency useful, appropriate and fitting?  Let’s take a look, with a bonus “Insurgency Summary” for those who want to jump right in.

A Guerrilla Retro

As I’ve said before, I have three major target audiences: Star Wars fans who are open to something different, GURPS Sci-Fi fans looking for ideas, and people who just want to game and are willing to borrow whatever they can get.
I think the Star Wars fans might find this either the hardest or the most interesting part, depending on their perspective.  I’ve tried to take a carefully neutral tone when it comes to morality, not because I am loathe to pass judgement, but because I don’t know what sort of game you’re going to run.  Traditionally, Star Wars is about heroic rebels fighting off an evil Empire, and some of this has slipped through into my wording of both the rebellion and the empire, but I know many people (myself included) like the Empire, and I would feel it a failure if the Empire wasn’t playable.  So, in addition to heroic Freedom Fighters, I’ve added the wicked Terrorist as an insidious opponent for heroic Security Agents to defeat, and the more morally uncertain anarchists and ideologues, whose nature depend very much on what you choose to do with them.
But this is also a reflection of the fact that the rebellion of Star Wars just doesn’t work.  The franchise wants it both ways, with desperate heroes barely surviving imperial onslaught after onslaught, trying to gather supplies and constantly on the run but at the same time having secret bases, numinous figures like Mon Mothma, and huge cruisers and squadrons of fighters.  Mountain insurgents who make deals with arms dealers do not, as a rule, have their own aircraft carriers complete with jet fighters that are a match for the jet fighters of the USAF!  I’ve only really seen insurgencies handled properly twice: in Rogue One (especially in that the Jeddah insurgents were diplomatically at odds with the “core” of the rebellion) and in the fifth season of Clone Wars, which introduced Saw Gerrera (I’ve just started Rebels).
So, our insurgencies couldn’t look anything like what we see in Star Wars, because Star Wars doesn’t really deal much with insurgencies, despite its bold “rebellion” advertising.  The result must necessarily be different.
The sci-fi fans might be disappointed that my material doesn’t really include that much sci-fi ideas, though the Anarchist insurgency is riddled through with cyberpunk ideas that you could certainly borrow for your games.  Still, I found it extremely enlightening for any Action game.
It doesn’t grab-and-play quite as well as the Empire does, for my “GURPS fans who don’t want to do any homework,” but it is somewhat grab-and-play.  You’ll need to devise your own insurgency, but that shouldn’t be too hard.  Hopefully, the material is obviously usable and thought-provoking, and I think it is, but I had some pushback on Imperial Intelligence and Imperial Black Ops for being too sparse on details: what’s obvious to me isn’t always obvious to my readers, so we’ll see.
That lack of hard detail likely hurts all four of our “typical gamers,” from Willow (“But what do they fight for?”) to Bjorn (“But what cool stuff do they have?”) to Desiree (“But why does my character care?”), though Brent probably understands “Insurgents, fighting the Empire, right, got it.”  For all of these, you need to bring your own level of simplicity and complexity.  It’s up to you to pick a world, design the insurgency and create their context in the world.  I think a few worked examples will help, and I’ll work on one with my Patrons, but the rest will have to wait until I have worlds to populate with insurgencies, which will happen later in the iteration.
So, by and large, I’m pleased… but I think I need to see this in the hands of players before I’m convinced its the right approach.

The Rebel Insurgency: Summary

Many who suffer under the oppression of the Empire, or who watch that oppression fall upon the shoulders of the innocent, can no longer stand idly by. They take up arms and fight the Empire from within the Empire. They resist with words, speaking out against the tyranny of the Empire so others know they are not alone. They resist with sabotage, undermining the Empire’s military-industrial complex with sabotage and well-placed bombs. They resist with arms, laying bombs before the convoys of the Empire, or assassinating its officials with sniper rifles or holdout blasters, or mounting full-scale insurrections with guerrilla armies.

Despite their best efforts, insurgencies amount to little more than behind-the-lines commando actions at best, and no single insurgency has managed to collect more power than a few star systems under their belt. Insurgencies need to coordinate with one another to achieve any kind of success or, better, to coordinate with an outside power, such as the old Houses of the Federation or alien powers willing to wage war upon the Empire, like the Cybernetic Union.

Unfortunately, no single, unified insurgency exists. Each group bands together for their own reasons and have their own agenda. True Communion Fundamentalists fight for total dominion of the peace and unity their faith offers; Cybernetic sympathizers fight for the total liberation of robots; veterans of the old wars fight for a return to the honor of the Federation; and some rebel insurgencies either had no honor to begin with, or slowly lose it over time and become little different from criminal organizations and roving bandits. Only hatred for the Empire unifies these disparate groups, but with careful diplomacy, a hero might temporarily forge these fractious factions into a single fighting force capable of paralyzing the Empire for long enough for its enemies to strike and unseat the wicked Emperor.

The insurgencies of Psi-Wars break down into four broad types:

  • Anarchists, who fight against the Empire for the sake of fighting. They love to stir up trouble, to tweak the nose of arrogant officials, and to reveal Imperial hypocrisy to the world. They prefer to rile up populations, to sabotage the Empire, and it steal its secrets.
  • Freedom fighters, who fight against the Empire because they cannot stand its oppression. They tend to be common people or old veterans pushed too far by Imperial injustices. Now, they fight to restore what they see as right and proper. They tend to see themselves in militaristic terms and focus their fights directly on the Imperial military, rather than on its civilians.
  • Ideologues, who fight for a particular ideal with fanatical zeal. They might be religious fundamentalists, or determined patriots fighting for the survival of their species, or they might be philosophical die-hards. They prefer to preach their particular philosophy, to weed out the unworthy through targeted assassination, and then die martyrs to their cause.
  • Terrorists claim to fight for any of the above reasons, but in practice fight only for the sake of power. They seek to replace the Empire’s injustice with their own or, at best, they’re willing to go to any lengths, no matter how extreme, to enact the justice that they see the galaxy needs. For them, no target is forbidden, and none are innocent. Their preferred weapons are terror and crime, and they embody the propaganda the Empire promulgates to tar the whole the rebellion.

Playing an Insurgent

Members of an insurgency must have Criminal Rank [0] and Secret (Rebel, Imprisonment) [-20]. Rank 1+ members must have Duty (12 or less, Extremely Hazardous) [-15] or better.
Insurgents typically have specific disadvantages that emphasize their focus on a particular ideology; that is, why they fight. Members of a specific insurgency may add the following to their template’s disadvantage options.

Anarchists: Bad Temper [-10*], Impulsiveness [-10*], Intolerance (Authority Figures) [-5], Overconfidence [-5*], Pyromania [-5*], Stubbornness [-5], Trickster [-15*].

Freedom Fighters: Charitable [-15*], Code of Honor (Soldier’s or Rebel) [-5 or -10], Gullible [-10*], Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents) [-10], Sense of Duty (Comrades or Specific community) [-10]

Ideologues: Disciplines of Faith (Any), Fanaticism (Rebel Cause) [-15], Hidebound [-5], Intolerance (Non-Believers) [-10], Selfless [-5*], Sense of Duty (Nation) [-10],

Terrorists: Bloodlust [-10*], Bully [-10*], Callous [-5], Greed [-15*], Jealousy [-10], Selfishness [-5*]

Preferred Templates

Insurgents tend to be Commandos (Freedom fighters, Terrorists), Spies (any, but especially Anarchists and Ideologues), Assassins (Terrorists and Ideologues), Smugglers (any!) and Scavengers (Anarchists and Freedom Fighters). Mystics work particularly well for Ideologues focused on a specific religion or philosophy.

Insurgents, by their very nature, tend to be Outcasts. They come from the edges of society and experience the full weight of the Empire’s injustice. Escaped Slaves, especially if they came from an Imperial work camp, definitely have a bone to pick with the Empire and happily join insurgencies. Survivors can represent characters who spent a great deal of time in the wilds of some world evading Imperial justice and now take the fight against the Empire. Wanderers tend to have less of a specific problem with the Empire (they can just pick up and move), but their high mobility makes them excellent assets and contacts for insurgencies. Finally, most characters with Humble Origins have no bone to pick with the Empire, but a few might want to stand against the Empire on principle, and often either end up joining Freedom Fighters or naively find themselves in the hands of terrorists.

Insurgent Power-Ups

Most Insurgents take the Heroic power-up, with emphasizes their sheer pluck. Veteran insurgents might have the Experienced power-up. Some Insurgents have Cybernetics or Psionics, depending on their ideology, though neither are explicitly emphasized by insurgency.

Agent Provocateur 25 points

Insurgents aim every attack, protest and riot directly at public opinion. An insurgency cannot possibly hope to win by defeating the much larger, more dangerous Empire. Instead, they hope to turn enough of the public, or enough key personnel, against the Empire that it becomes easier for the Empire to accommodate the rebel wishes, rather than continue to fight.

In pursuit of this, Insurgencies often use Agent Provocateurs, charismatic (or sleazy) preachers who exhort their cause to the public. All exceed at making grand speeches, but some focus on persuading individuals to join their cause, while others focus on broader political opinion.

Traits: Choose one of Charisma 3 [15] or Smooth Operator 1 [15]; Public Speaking (A) IQ+1*† [4]; Choose three of Acting†, Fast-Talk†, Propaganda, or Streetwise† all (A) IQ [2], Diplomacy† (H) IQ-1 [2], Carousing† (E) HT+1 [2], Sex Appeal† (A) HT [2], or Observation (A) Per [2], or improve any of the above by one level for an addition 2 points.

* Add +3 if Charisma is chosen.

† Add +1 if Smooth Operator is chosen.

Clandestine Insurgents 25 points

Insurgents must remain undiscovered to survive. They make use of drops, they vanish into crowds, they know how to secret weapons and messages on their person. In short, they’ve mastered the art of “tradecraft.”

Traits: Choose one of Foresight (Ambush, Getaways, Loyalty, or Swaps) [5]; Choose four of Filch (A) DX+1 [4], Acting, Forgery, Holdout, Shadowing or Smuggling all (A) IQ+1 [4], Observation or Urban Survival both (A) Per+1 [4].

Counter-Interrogation Training 15 points

Insurgents always expect to be captured at some point; the wisest prepare for that inevitability by practicing evasion, escape and counter-interrogation tactics. The best even allow themselves to be captured, just so they can get an idea of what the enemy wants, or to bring themselves into close contact with the enemy so that they can persuade them to switch sides!

Traits: Will +1 [5]; Lockpicking (A) DX [2]; Choose two of, Acting, Fast-Talk, Holdout all (A) IQ+1 [4], Observation (A) Per +1 [4], Mind-Block (A) Will+1 [4], Meditation (H) Will [4].

Munitionist 25 points

The insurgent has trained in building explosives, armor or weapons from nearly anything, often a feature of insurgencies that cannot rely on outside assistance.

Traits: Gizmo 1 [5]; Explosives (Demolition) (A) IQ+2 [8]; Scrounging (E) Per+2 [4]; Choose two of Armoury (Body Armor or Small Arms), Electrician, Machinist, Mechanic (Hovercraft), Streetwise, or Traps all (A) IQ+1 [4] or Chemistry (H) IQ [4]

Elite Munitionist 25 points

Prerequisite: Munitionist

The cinematic insurgent can rain destruction upon his foes if you give him 20 seconds and access to assort office supplies. Elite Munitionists represent these sorts of cinematic heroes, able to construct weapons from nearly anything,

Traits: Quick Gadgeteer (Munitions -50%) [25];

Rogue Agent 25 points

Coordinating an insurgency often proves the most difficult task. Many insurgent leaders deploy elite “rogue agents,” though their names vary from insurgency to insurgency (“Apostles” or “The Black Hand” etc). These answer directly to either a high-level commander, or the leader himself, and go out among the insurgency, offering spot assistance and checking to see if everyone is truly faithful to the cause.

Traits: Criminal Rank 4 [20], Security Clearance (Insurgency) [5]

Insurgency Traits

Quick Gadgeteer (Munitionist -50%): Munitionists may use Quick Gadgeteer to build, invent or improvise any explosives, small arms and body armor. Any attempt to build “Dirty Tech” explosives, small arms or body armor gains a +5, and uses the Quick Gadgeteer invention rules rather than listed rules; all Dirty Tech automatically counts as “simple.”

Code of Honor (Rebel): Only attack military targets or collaborators, never unassociated civilians. Never leave a fellow rebel behind. Die before you betray your cell. If necessary, sacrifice yourself for the rebellion. When the conflict has finished, put aside your weapons and return to civilian life. -10 points.

Insurgency Personnel Part 2: Veteran Insurgents

Amateur Insurgents with sufficient experience or training, or Insurgents who come from more violent walks of life pose considerably more risk to security forces than their amateur counterparts, but still don’t represent the full lethality of a completely professional fighting force. Some insurgencies have just a few veterans sprinkled among amateurs, while others are composed entirely of veterans.
Some insurgencies are rumored to have even more elite agents, usually associated with the leader, and have ominous names like “the Black Hand” or “the Twelve Apostles.” These tend to be named NPCs or player characters, but the GM may instead treat them as skill 15 minions instead.
As before, each insurgent comes with a suggested insurgent type.  I provide these as guidelines, to get a perspective on different ways insurgencies might fight, and to emphasize that not all veteran insurgents appear in all insurgencies.  Feel free to mix, match and adjust.

Arsonist

Common Insurgent Types: Anarchists and Terrorists

The single greatest weapon available to an insurgency is the bomb. Carefully placed explosives can assist every insurgency, from a freedom fighter’s targeted strike at a piece of military infrastructure to a terrorist killing as many civilians as he can. Arsonists master the art of bomb-making and bomb-placement. They can destroy an establishment, sow terror and discord throughout a populace and create bedlam for an attacking forces.

Though Freedom Fighters and Ideologues will scoff, in truth all insurgencies need access to Arsonists. That said, Anarchists and Terrorists use Arsonists more than most insurgencies.

ST 10 HP 10 Speed 5.25
DX 10 Will 11/13 Move: 5
IQ 11 Per 11
HT 11 FP 11 SM +0
Dodge 8
Parry 8
DR: 0

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Blaster Pistol (12): 3d(5) burn sur (Acc 5, Range 300/1000 RoF 3, Bulk -2)

Hand Flamer (12): 4d (Jet; Range 30/90)

Weaponized C-Cell (12): 6dx4 burn ex sur (Acc 1, Range 40); Unstable!

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-10, Chemistry-12, Electrician-12, Explosives (Demolition)-12, Forced Entry-12, Running-12

Traits: Fearlessness +2; Gizmo (Explosives); Pyromania (15)

Notes: Human; Trained; Will always argue for and attempt to blow things up unless it’s obviously a bad idea for the group. Always has at least on explosive gadget on hand: may be an explosive charge, a unique detonator, or anything else appropriate for the organization. The weaponized C-Cell is a modified power-cell that explodes when thrown. A strike against the cell, or a critical failure could set it off!

Arsonist Tactics

Burn Baby Burn (12): The arsonist throws a plasma charge or first his hand flamer at the target. On average, a single shot from his hand flamer will instantly ignire anything flammable (dry wood, oil) or flame-resistant materials (seasoned wood, clothing, most electrical equipment), and will ignite anything that can burn, no matter how resistant (flesh), with 10 seconds of continuous contact on a 16 or less. Plasma charges will ignite anything in the same hex that can burn instantly, and anything resistant within 1 yard of the blast, and anything flammable within 2 yards, etc.

Cover Fire (11): While in cover, move one step out of cover, make an All-Out (Determined) Sighted, Pop-Up (-2) attack with ROF 3 at the target with your blaster pistol, and then return to cover. If you hit, strike a random hit location. You may not defend.

Assassin

Common Insurgent Types: Ideologues and Terrorists

Only the most ideologically minded insurgents lift their nose at the idea of committing murder. In the end, removing the Empire requiresbloodshed. The assassin does this with greater precision than his more aggressive comrades, but he still isn’t the elite death-dealer found on the rim. Instead, he’s someone trained with a sniper rifle, who understands how to stay quiet when approaching his opponent

ST 10 HP 10 Speed 5.5
DX 11 Will 10/12 Move: 5
IQ 10 Per 10
HT 11 FP 11 SM +0
Dodge 8
Parry 8
DR: 0

Blaster Rifle (10): 6d(5) burn sur (Acc 10+2, Range 500/1500 RoF 3, Bulk -4)

Hold-Out Blaster (12): 2d(5) burn sur (Acc 5, Range 100/300 RoF 3, Bulk -1)

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-10, Fast-Draw-12, Observation-12, Shadowing-12, Stealth-12.

Traits: Fearlessness +2; Bloodlust (12)

Notes: Human; Trained; Will always push to kill targets, even if not strictly necessary.

Assassin Tactics

Snipe (19):After three successive aiming actions, make a braced, sighted All-Out Attack (Determined). Successful hit strikes the skull and deals 6d(5) burn sur. You may not defend.

Quick Kill (12):Fast-Draw your weapon to a hip-shooting position (13); if successful, immediately open fire with your holdout blaster. If successful, hit a random hit location and deal 2d(5) damage. You may defend normally.

Vanish (7):At the beginning of a fight, you may attempt to vanish and get the drop on his opponent. Roll Vanish (7 or less). Success means he may attack one opponent “from behind.” He may not do this at any other point in the fight.

Child Soldier (Hardened)

Common Insurgent Types: Terrorists

Many insurgent forces favor, or even exclusively recruit, children over adults. Despite their small size, they’re difficult to hit, don’t require as much food and, most critically, they’re easily molded by the leadership of the insurgency into lethal killing machines. Many veteran fighters of the insurgency began as child soldiers, and evolved into superior, and thoroughly loyal combatants.

ST 8 HP 8 Speed 5
DX 9 Will 9/11 Move: 4
IQ 9 Per 10
HT 10/8 FP 11 SM -1
Dodge 8
Parry 7
DR: 0

Hold-Out Blaster (10): 2d(5) burn sur (Acc 5, Range 100/300 RoF 3, Bulk -1)

Cheap Assault Blaster (10): 4d(5) burn sur (Acc 8, Range 250/750 RoF 8, Bulk -3)

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-12, Observation-12, Running-12, Stealth-12, Urban Survival-12.

Traits: Pitiable; Fanaticism; Fearlessness +2; Easy to Kill -2; Social Stigma (Minor);

Notes: Human; Untrained and largely unready for combat. Willing to die for the cause; +3 to resist attempts to persuade him away from his cause. Alwayscount as “innocent” for the purposes of Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents).

Child Soldier Tactics

Spray Fire (7): With an assault blaster, make a hip-fired All-Out (Suppressive Fire) attack against a one-yard zone. A successful attack strikes a random hit location. You may not defend.

Focused Burst (20): While prone, after aiming for one turn with an assault blaster, make a All-Out (Determined) sighted attack against a single target with RoF 8. A successful attack strikes a random hit location. You may not defend.

Spot (10): If you notice something, say something! Shout out advice to an ally and roll Observation (10). On a success, if your ally listens to your advice, he gains +1 to his next attack roll.

Vanish (7):At the beginning of a fight, you may attempt to vanish and get the drop on his opponent. Roll Vanish (7 or less). Success means he may attack one opponent “from behind.” He may not do this at any other point in the fight.

Fighter

Common Insurgent Types: Freedom Fighter and Terrorists

Insurgents fight a war, and so many of them act like true soldiers. They practice with military grade weapons, they wear armor, and they make heavy use of explosives. For a fighter, an insurgency isn’t about careful espionage or maneuvering, but about bringing fire down on the enemy. They tend to be the most broadly dangerous of the insurgents.

ST 11 HP 11 Speed 5.25
DX 10 Will 10/12 Move: 5 (4)
IQ 10 Per 10
HT 11 FP 11 SM +0
Dodge 8
Parry 9
DR: 20

Cheap Assault Blaster (10):4d(5) burn sur (Acc 8, Range 250/750 RoF 8, Bulk -3)

IML (15): 6dx8(10) cr inc + 8d cr ex [3d cut] (Acc 3, Range 750/30k, RoF 1, Shots 1, Bulk 4)

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-10, Soldier-12, Observation-10, Stealth-10.

Traits: Combat Reflexes

Notes: Human; Trained; Lightly Encumbered

Fighter Tactics

Spray Fire (7): With an assault blaster, make a hip-fired All-Out (Suppressive Fire) attack against a one-yard zone. A successful attack strikes a random hit location. You may not defend.

Focused Burst (22):While prone, after aiming for one turn with an assault blaster, make a All-Out (Determined) sighted attack against a single target with RoF 8. A successful attack strikes the torso. You may not defend.

Fire from Cover (12):While in cover, step from cover, make an All-Out (Determined) sighted RoF 8 pop-up (-2) attack against a target. Return to cover, A successful attack strikes a random hit location. You may not defend.

Hunter

Common Insurgent Types: Freedom Fighters and Ideologues

Most insurgencies that survive for a long period of time do so by establishing themselves far from the urban centers of the Empire, deep in the wilderness where the Empire cannot easily reach them. They’ve mastered using the land to avoid their enemies, and in laying out traps for their opponents.

ST 10 HP 10 Speed 5.5
DX 11 Will 10/12 Move: 5
IQ 10 Per 10
HT 11 FP 11 SM +0
Dodge 8
Parry 8
DR: 0

Cheap Blaster Rifle (10):6d(5) burn sur (Acc 10, Range 500/1500 RoF 3, Bulk -4)

Vibro Blade (10):2d+3(5) cut (Reach 1, parry 0)

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-12, Hiking-12, Observation-12, Stealth-12, Survival (Any)-12, Tracking-12, Traps-12.

Traits: Fearlessness +2; Bloodlust (12)

Notes: Human; Trained; Will always push to kill targets, even if not strictly necessary.

Hunter Tactics

Vanish (7):At the beginning of a fight, you may attempt to vanish and get the drop on his opponent. Roll Vanish (7 or less). Success means he may attack one opponent “from behind.” He may not do this at any other point in the fight.

Remove Sentry (16/11):If the target is unaware of your presence, make a telegraphic grapple for the head (16). You may defend normally. If your target is grappled, make an all-out (Determined) with the blade on the target’s neck (11). Opponent dodges at -1 or parries at -2. If you hit, deal 2d+3(5) cut to the neck and double all damage that penetrates DR. You may not defend.

Quick Snipe (24): While prone, after a single aiming actions, make a braced, sighted All-Out Attack (Determined). Successful hit strikes the torso and deals 6d(5) burn sur. You may not defend.

Trap (12):Deployed guerrillas may have already prepared a variety of traps. Ideas:

Sensor Wire: Roll Per-based Traps to detect. Signals to Hunter when tripped.
Trip-Wire Grenade: Roll Per-based Traps to detect. Triggers grenade (6dx4 cr ex)

Saboteur

Common Insurgent Types: Anarchists and Freedom Fighters

The Empire and it citizens use vast, technological infrastructure to power their civilization. A saboteur knows how that infrastructure works and, given an opportunity, can turn that technology against the Imperials who use it. Generally, insurgency movements bring a saboteur with them as they attempt sabotage missions, but they have a few tricks up their sleeves even in combat.

ST 10 HP 10 Speed 5.25
DX 10 Will 11/13 Move: 5
IQ 11 Per 11
HT 11 FP 11 SM +0
Dodge 8
Parry 8
DR: 0

Blaster Pistol (12): 3d(5) burn sur (Acc 5, Range 300/1000 RoF 3, Bulk -2)

Improvised EMP (12): HT-8(5) (8 yard radius, Acc 1, Range 40); Unstable!

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-10, Computer Hacking-12, Electrician, Electronics Operation (Comms, EW Security, Surveillance), Explosives (Demolition), Mechanic

Traits: Fearlessness +2; Gizmo (Sabotage); Trickster (15)

Notes: Human; Trained; Will always try to play games with their opponent unless truly problematic to do so. Always has at least on electronic gadget on hand, including jamming equipment, distortion chips and tools for electronic meddling. The improvised EMP is a modified power-cell that shorts out violently when thrown. A strike against the cell, or a critical failure could set it off!

Saboteur Tactics

Jam (12): While he focuses on jamming enemy signals, any attempts to communicate with the outside world must succeed at a Quick Contest of Electronics Operations (Comms) vs the Saboteurs Electronics Operations (EW).

Cover Fire (11): While in cover, move one step out of cover, make an All-Out (Determined) Sighted, Pop-Up (-2) attack with ROF 3 at the target with your blaster pistol, and then return to cover. If you hit, strike a random hit location. You may not defend.

Insurgency Personnel Part 1: Amateur Insurgents

The combatants who make up resistance movements vary as much as the movements themselves. Thus, the following list offers suggestions to help guide a GM who wishes to create his own resistance movement, or as a grab-bag of “generic” rebels he can throw at his PCs.

The characters listed below have no specificweapons. I have chosen genericweapons for GURPS Ultra-Tech or from previous iterations of Psi-Wars. These can be replaced with any similar or appropriate weapons.

Between the Insurgent Type and the suggested traits associated with each Personnel, a group might have a wide variety of disadvantages associated with them. These represent suggestions. Feel free to ignore, mix, or swap as you see fit. In principle, each Insurgency should have a unique character, and some flaws that a clever Imperial can exploit.

Lens: Insurgent Type

Different cells have different philosophies and approaches. Choose one of the following lens to represent the approach of a particular movement. Sometimes, multiple philosophies live within a particular movement, so a GM can mix and match as he sees fit. Furthermore, the lenses below offer a basic guideline on how to handle a particular philosophy, but also options for giving each movement some unique flavor.

Anarchist

Anarchists live for chaos. They rebel for the sake of rebellion and their fight with the Empire ultimately boils down to a disdain for authority. By default, their critical weaknesses are a lack of planning and an unwillingness to listen to others. Many anarchists fight for their own amusement and may have Trickster, while others do it for the sheer pleasure of watching things burn (Pyromania), or just to spite authority figures (Intolerance (Authority Figures)), or just because they’re so angry(Bad Temper). While most such characters do not last long, Anarchists, especiallyyoung ones, often have Overconfidence.

Default Traits: Impulsiveness (12), Stubbornness (12)

Freedom Fighter

Freedom Fighters fight for principles. They resemble Ideologues in this way, but they’re less devoted to a specific cause than that they’re just righteously indignant at the crimes of others. By default, they will not harm anyone not directly associated with the conflict, but nor can they just stand aside and do nothing as injustice is inflicted on those they know and love. This devotion to principles might manifest instead as Code of Honor (Rebel), and the drive to help others might become Charitable. Freedom Fighters tend to be derided by other factions as Gulliblefor their idealism; this may or may not be true.

Code of Honor (Rebel) [-15]: Only attack military targets or collaborators, never unassociated civilians. Never leave a a fellow rebel behind. Die before you betray your cell. If necessary, sacrifice yourself for the rebellion. When the conflict has finished, put aside your weapons and return to civilian life.

Default Traits: Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents), Sense of Duty (Community)

Ideologue

Ideologues fight for a purpose. By default, they devote themselves wholeheartedly to this ideal or, at their most generic, to the rebellion itself. What explicit purpose they fight for varies, and often determines the exact nature of their Fanaticism. Patriots devote themselves to the ideal of an independence movement or the safety of their people, and often have Sense of Duty (Nation). Fundamentalists devote themselves to religious ideals, and have some version of a Discipline of Faith. Ideologues who hold to more abstract ideals (like a deep devotion to some particular philosophy or economic model) might have a strict Code of Honoror be Hidebound. Those Ideologues who aren’t fanatics tend to be at least Selfless or have Intolerance (Outsiders or Nonbelievers).

Traits: Fanaticism.

Terrorist

Terrorists do whatever it takes to win; for them, atrocity is just part of the game! By default, Terrorists suffer (benefit?) from an overeagerness to shed blood and a complete disregard for the safety of others. Terrorists often enjoy the violence they inflict, and might have Bully or even Sadism. Most willingly engage in warcrimes for a reason, which might be Greed, Jealousyor Selfishness.

Traits: Bloodlust (12), Callous.

Amateur Resistance Members

Not every member of a resistance organization is a hardened warrior. In fact, mostmembers lack decent training and believe that enthusiasm can make up for a lack of combat experience. In the most idealistic resistance movements, these eager allies assist on the edges of the battle until they’re skilled enough (or old enough!) to join on the front-lines. In more scrupulous resistance movements, they become cannon fodder, used to tire out the enemy before the resistance brings in its veteran fighters.

Child Soldier (Innocent)

Common Insurgent Types: Ideologues and Terrorists

Rebellion is often a family affair! Whether or not resistance members want children involved, children usually find a way to involve themselves. They might admire a big, strong resistance fighter that rescued them and want to be just like him or help him out. They might have lost their homes and only survive under the protection of the rebellion and seek to help however they can.

Innocent child soldiers don’t generally participate in combat, though they can; instead, they usually act as spotters, guides or distractions for the primary combatants. The stats below assume a human child of about 10 years of age.

Few resistance movements go out of their way to use Child Soldiers, but they’ll show up most often with Ideologues, who respect their devotion, and terrorists, who don’t care about the fate of the children. Anarchists tend to be dismissive of children, and Freedom Fighters actively oppose their use (It violates their principles!).

ST 8 HP 8 Speed 5
DX 9 Will 9/7 Move: 4
IQ 9 Per 10
HT 10/8 FP 11 SM -1
Dodge 8
Parry 7
DR: 0

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Hold-Out Blaster (9): 2d(5) burn sur (Acc 5, Range 100/300 RoF 3, Bulk -1)

Rock (Thrown) (9): 1d-3 cr (Acc 1, Range 6)

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-10, Fast-Talk-10, Observation-10, Running-10, Stealth-10, Urban Survival-10.

Traits: Pitiable; Combat Paralysis; Easy to Kill -2; Pacifism (Reluctant Killer); Social Stigma (Minor);

Notes: Human; Untrained and largely unready for combat. Apply a -4 to shoot any recognizable humans (or other galactic sapients generally considered non-monstrous) with visible faces, or -2 if no face is visible. If they killed someone with a visible face, roll against Will or break down. If faced with imminent bodily harm, roll HT; on a failure, you are mentally stunned. The lower Will value applies to all fright checks. Alwayscount as “innocent” for the purposes of Pacifism (Cannot Harm Innocents).

Child Soldier Tactics

Distract (10): Wave your arms, hurl insults and shout at the target. Roll a quick contest of Fast-Talk (10) vs your target’s will (if you hit the target with an attack in the past few seconds, including a thrown rock, add +1 to your Fast-Talk roll). On a success, the target must either chase you, attack you or suffer a -2 to combat for as long as you continue shouting at him.

Spot (10): If you see something, say something! Shout out advice to an ally and roll Observation (10). On a success, if your ally listens to your advice, he gains +1 to his next attack roll.

Partisan

Common Insurgent Types: Freedom Fighters and Ideologues

The common man and woman serves as the backbone of the rebellion, not trained soldiers. The Partisan represents the civilian who takes up arms (whatever arms he or she can find) against the Empire. They tend to make poor soldiers, with an inability to handle direct confrontation well and, despite their enthusiasm, they falter when they come face to face with an enemy they must directly kill.

Partisans can show up in any resistance movement group, but they tend to be most common among Freedom Fighters, as they represent the every-day person pushed too far, or ideologues, as they represent the relatively common people who have given themselves over to some religious or philosophical cause.

ST 10 HP 10 Speed 5
DX 10 Will 10/8 Move: 5
IQ 10 Per 10
HT 10 FP 10 SM +0
Dodge 8
Parry 8
DR: 0

Blaster Pistol (10): 3d(5) burn sur (Acc 5, Range 300/1000 RoF 3, Bulk -2)

Cheap Assault Blaster (10): 4d(5) burn sur (Acc 8, Range 250/750 RoF 8, Bulk -3)

Cheap Blaster Rifle (10):6d(5) burn sur (Acc 10, Range 500/1500 RoF 3, Bulk -1)

Blaster Butt (10):1d+1 (Reach 1)

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-10, Observation-10, Professional Skill-12, Stealth-10, Urban Survival-10.

Traits: Combat Paralysis; Pacifism (Reluctant Killer);

Notes: Human; Untrained and largely unready for combat. Apply a -4 to shoot any recognizable humans (or other galactic sapients generally considered non-monstrous) with visible faces, or -2 if no face is visible. If they killed someone with a visible face, roll against Will or break down. If faced with imminent bodily harm, roll HT; on a failure, you are mentally stunned. The lower Will value applies to all fright checks.

Civilian Militia Tactics

Potshot (17, 20 or 22): After taking an Aim action, make a single, sighted, All-Out (Determined) attack against the target (+5 Acc with a pistol, +8 with an assault blaster and +10 with a rifle). If the target has a visible face, apply an additional -4 penalty. A successful hit strikes a random hit location. You may not defend.

Spray Fire (7): With an assault blaster, make a hip-fired All-Out (Suppressive Fire) attack against a one-yard zone. A successful attack strikes a random hit location. You may not defend.

Panicked Strike (10):Make an All-Out Attack (Determined) with your Rifle Butt at the nearest target to pose a risk to you. Because this is close combat and a “non-lethal” attack, it does not suffer from Pacifism. You may not defend.

Punk

Common Insurgent Types: Anarchists and Terrorists

Often, the angriest members of society, too young or too unstable for military service, find their way into resistance movements as an outlet for their rage. Punks serve on the front lines of riots, inciting violence and bringing the fight directly against the Empire. They also act as “strong arms” for less professional insurgency cells. They push for violence, and rarely consider the possibility of defeat at the hands of the Empire, until that inevitably happens. Punks often don’t survive long, or quickly evolve into harder opponents, like Fighters.

Punks are too undisciplined for Ideologues and too violent for Freedom Fighters; they tend to be most often found among Terrorists and Anarchists. Some particularly brutal Punks (especially working with Terrorists) exchange their clubs for vibro-blades or neurolash batons.

ST 11 HP 11 Speed 5.25
DX 10 Will 10 Move: 5
IQ 10 Per 10
HT 11 FP 11 SM +0
Dodge 8
Parry 8
DR: 0

Club (10): 1d+2 cr (Reach 1)

Neurolash Baton (10): 1d+2 cr + linked HT-5 (5) (Reach 1, parry 0)

Vibro Blade (10): 2d+3(5) cut (Reach 1, parry 0)

Weaponized C-Cell (10): 6dx4 burn ex sur (Acc 1, Range 40); Unstable!

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-10, Intimidation-10, Forced Entry-10, Running-11

Traits: Bad Temper (12); Overconfidence (12)

Notes: Human; Untrained; Highly likely to use tactics not properly trained for or to make unforced errors; Never resists distraction or “Draw Aggression” attempts. The weaponized C-Cell is a modified power-cell that explodes when thrown. A strike against the cell, or a critical failure could set it off!

Punk Tactics

Shoving Match (14): Make an All-Out (Determined) Shove. Your opponent may defend normally. If you hit, inflict 1d-1 dbk only(no damage!). If the target is pushed at least one yard, they must roll DX, Acrobatics or Judo or fall prone. You may not defend.

Beat Down (10): Against a prone target, make an All-Out (Strong) attack with your club. Your opponent defends at -3 for being Prone. Inflict 1d+4 crushing damage to the torso (or random hit location). You may not defend.

Night Nurse

Common Insurgent Types: Ideologues and Freedom Fighters

If an insurgent movement needs anything, it’s medical personnel who can help deal with wounds, whether those inflicted on the insurgents themselves, or upon poor civilians. Some such nurses amount to little more than local medical personnel with a strong stomach and a little medical training, but who find themselves sympathetic to the insurgents who come through their door and fail to report them to the Empire. They may even find themselves joining in battle, just to keep an eye on their fighters to make sure none of them go down.

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Night Nurses tend to be most common among Freedom Fighters or Ideologues, as most medical personnel will only join their local insurgencies if their philosophies align, and both such organizations see a direct need for tending to the wounds of civilians. Terrorists and Anarchists tend to be too violent to attract civilian medical personnel, and generally don’t see the point in assisting wounded civilians or, worse, wounded Imperials.

ST 10 HP 10 Speed 5
DX 10 Will 12/10 Move: 5
IQ 12 Per 10
HT 10 FP 10 SM +0
Dodge 8
Parry 8
DR: 0

Blaster Pistol (10): 3d(5) burn sur (Acc 5, Range 300/1000 RoF 3, Bulk -2)

Pneumohypo (10): HT-3; penetrates up to 1 DR, Reach C, cannot parry.

Skills: Area Knowledge (Local)-10, Diagnosis-12, First-Aid-12, Physician-12, Pharmacy-12, Stealth-10

Traits: Combat Paralysis; Pacifism (Reluctant Killer);

Notes: Human; Untrained and largely unready for combat. Apply a -4 to shoot any recognizable humans (or other galactic sapients generally considered non-monstrous) with visible faces, or -2 if no face is visible. If they killed someone with a visible face, roll against Will or break down. If faced with imminent bodily harm, roll HT; on a failure, you are mentally stunned. The lower Will value applies to all fright checks.

Night Nurse Tactics

I don’t want to shoot you” (17): After taking an Aim action, make a “Wait” maneuver; if your target moves to attack you, you may attack first. If your wait triggers, you may make an All-Out (Determined) sighted attack. Success hits the torso. You may not defend.

Pnuemohypo KO (14): Against an unaware target, make a Telegraphic Attack with Knife or DX-4 (14). Unaware targets may not defend; other targets may defend at +2. A successful attack injects the drug, generally Morphazine or Soothe (both UT205), which can be resisted with an HT-3 roll. Failure generally puts the target out of commission for awhile.

Medic! (12): You attend to someone’s wounds. This takes 10 minutes; at the end, roll IQ-4, First-Aid or Physician (12). Success heals 1d+1 damage. You may use Medic at most once per victim for a given set of injuries.

Amateur Errors

Amateur insurgents don’t present much of a challenge. They largely serve as a back-up for superior forces, or as a story element, allowing the players to train plucky villagers into a decent fighting force, or forcing imperials to question the morality of slaughtering women and children. As such, the GM may wish to emphasize their lack of professionalism. The following represent ideas that the GM can inflict on Amateur forces, if he wishes. A successful use of Leadershipinstantly snaps an amateur insurgent out of this unprofessional behavior.

Action Hero

Many amateur insurgents only have an idea of what combat feels like from watching the holo-vids, and might have even joined an insurgency so they could feel like a hero. They expect a blaster to be a fire-hose spewing brilliantly colored shards of death at their opponents, who simply fall before they like grass before a mow-bot. Action Heroes will step out from cover, hurl some insult at the enemy, and then open fire. If they have a rapid fire weapon, they will make an All-Out Attack (Suppression Fire) at the nearest group of enemies. If they have two pistols, they will draw both, and make a Dual-Weapon All-Out (Suppression Fire) Attack by combining the ROF of both weapons. This is at -7 and has a maximum value of 7. Those with a single pistol or a single RoF 3 long arm will make a Fast-Firing All-Out (Suppression Fire) Attack. This applies a -4 to the roll, increases recoil to 2, and has a maximum value of 7. In all cases, the character cannot defend and those who target him have no penalty to hit him (he’s not behind cover).

Big No

Many insurgents have family ties with one another, but only an amateur allows that bond to override his good sense during battle. When an ally falls (especially a child soldier), the amateur insurgent runs up to the fallen ally, cradles them, touches them, weeps and wails and may only choose Do Nothingfor the next 1d6 turns. Thereafter, the amateur either retrieves the body and quits the field, or goes berserk (treat as the Berskerk disadvantage, but only against those who harmed the ally).

Charge!

For many, blasters don’t “feel real.” When their adrenaline pumps, especially in close combat, they react on a primal level and lash out physically with their weapon. They’ll move right up against their opponent and either attack with the rifle butt (1d+1 cr for most insurgents), or turn it around and swing it from its barrel, often while screaming (1d+2 cr for most insurgents, and unbalanced). Treat this as an All-Out (Determined) Attack, giving most amateur insurgents a skill roll of 14 to hit.

Gangsta Shootin’

Some amateur shooters have peculiar notions about how best to fire their blaster pistols. Holding them at odd, dramatic angles to fire applies a -1 to all ranged attacks with the weapon, it reduces the Malf to 16, and the character cannot make All-Out Attack (Determined) sighted attacks or use a two-handed grip with his blaster pistol.

Gape and Point

Unless an untrained combatant has explicit orders to attack, if he sees the enemy, he may simply observe them in a detached way, without realizing the danger he is in. Unless the enemy is immediately violent (for example taking shots at the target), the amateur merely observes them, and makes comments to anyone nearby, saying things like “Hey, is that an Imperial trooper? Woah, I think it is. Gosh, I’ve never seen one this close. What do you think he’s doing?” When violence breaks out, the amateur is immediately mentally stunned for the next 1d seconds, as though totally surprised, not because he didn’t realize the enemy was there, but didn’t truly grasp the danger it implied.

Go Away!

The average person wants to survive, but feels a strong instinct preventing him from killing unnecessarily. When faced with combat, the character shouts at his opponents and makes an Attack, but deliberatelymisses, aiming over their heads, or even up into the air. Treat this as an Intimidationattempt.

Horrors of War

Most amateur insurgents have never seen the true brutality of war. The first time such an insurgent is the target of an attack or sees an ally hit or killed, they must make a Fright Check without the +5 bonus from combat. Remember to apply a -2 penalty if the amateur has Combat Paralysis! If the amateur passes, he still hunkers down and avoids conflict unless he gets a stern rebuke or hears a sharp command shouted at him.

Organizations of the Alliance: Rebel Insurgencies

Rebel Insurgency and Resistance Movements

“I’m not a terrorist. I’m a patriot. And resistance is not terrorism.” ―Saw Gerrera

Star Wars drew a great deal of inspiration from the “heroic patriots” who resisted great and powerful enemies, such as the American Revolutionaries vs the British Empire, the French Resistance against Nazi Germany (I have found no references to equally interesting Eastern European resistance movements), or the Viet Cong resisting the “Imperial” Western powers (America in particular). However, the Rebellion of Star Wars doesn’t really depict an actualresistance movement, but rather hard-pressed soldiers of a power fighting a more powerful army. We see well-supplied starfighters, vast warships run professionally, soldiers fighting in formation, and grand and elegant award ceremonies, led a princess!

In reality, insurgencies rely not on soldiers, but on irregulars. They fill their ranks with old veterans, women, even children; anyone who can or will fight. They lack funding, so they must resort to homemade weaponry, whatever citizen-legal weaponry they already had, or hand-me-downs from a stronger power (or even stolen from their enemy). To make ends meet, they often need to resort to criminality, such as bank robberies or kidnapping rackets. Because they fight a superior opponent while they lack the funds, training or firepower to meet them head on, they must resort tothe underhanded tactics of asymmetrical warfare, such as hit-and-run tactics, sabotage, assassination and terrorism. In short, they act like nothing in the Rebellion exceptthe rebels as depicted in Rogue One.

By their very nature, this sort of organization represents a challenge, because there is no one rebel resistance movement. While any organization has variation throughout its ranks (not every Imperial Security Bureau is identical, of course), they still have common protocols, ranks, tactics and equipment. With a rebel insurgency, I lump everyone from minutemen-type patriots laying down their lives for their planet to extremist terrorists willing to blow up anyone who disagrees with them to criminal organizations with pretensions at governmental legitimacy. Not only can one resistance movement be completely differnet from another , several of these might operate at the same time on the same planet! The French Resistance was notoriouslyfractured, with some cells even coming to blows over resources! While nearly anyone, from a band of pirates to mutinous soldiers to secretive assassins could be an insurgency, I want to focus on a very specific subset: the unskilled, untrained and underfunded “citizen soldier” that tend to be the first thing we think of when we discuss such movements. For me, when people wax poetic about “rebellion,” as they do about Star Wars, they have visions of Red Dawn and the Patriot more than Inglorious Basterds or Anthropoid. They mean these sorts of rebels.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I want to mention it again: I take no moral position as I write these organizations. I think my write-up of the Empire tended towards the “villainous,” but I tried to leave room for a heroic interpretation. I want the reverse for the rebellion, and especially resistance movements like these. While I will happily accept that Rebellion of Star Wars clearly drew inspiration from the American Revolution, I cannot help but draw parallels with ISIS, the IRA or FARC, because all represent the same sort of approach to warfare. This is not to say that I believe all are the same, but that all have a lesson to offer us about how these sorts of soldiers fight. Moreover, a heroic Imperial game needs bad guys to fight against, and perhaps some resistance cells really are terrorists! This is especially important for organizations as fractured and divided as resistance cells can be, as even in a Rebel-focused game, a rogue movement might prove to be an interesting and thought-provoking opponent. If you smell moral relativism in this piece, it’s not because I’m trying to “bust the myth” of Rebel heroism or that I’m an Imperial partisan (I mean, I totally am, but that’s not why I’m doing this). Rather it’s to provide the GM with the tools he needs and, often, organizations in an Action game tend to be complex and full of hypocrisy. I want to give you, dear reader, the room to explore whatever it is you might wish to explore.




Insurgencies

Once the common people of the Galaxy faced the tyranny of the Emperor and the dickering delay tactics of the Houses of the Federation, some realized they have to stand up for themselves. These everyday people raise their fist in defiance of their own oppression. They don’t wait to be rescued; they rescue themselves!

Alas, the common man lacks combat training or access to military equipment. So, he or she must fight asymmetric warfare. A freedom fighter might harry the enemy as a sniper or a poor man’s commando, fighting behind enemy lines. Just as often, though, they act as saboteurs, using their intimate knowledge of the Empire to undermine it directly. They hack media data-nets to plaster anti-imperial propaganda, or they break into factories to destroy the robotic machinery. They remind their fellow citizens that they needn’t suffer, that they can fight, rather than endure slavery.

Once you’ve infected a man, woman or alien with the ideals of freedom, though, they become a stubborn lot. Resistance movements, by their very nature, defy authority, and thus struggle to organize. No single resistance movement dominates the rebellion of the Galaxy, as much as the Alliance would like to pretend otherwise. Instead, a vast patchwork of rebel cells eachfight for their own grievance, united by only one thing: mutual hatred of the Empire. Thus, the resistance movements here must be described in broad, generic detail. Actual, concrete examples of a resistance movement must necessarilydiffer!

A rebel movement could be anything from a mutinous unit of former imperial soldiers, to roving criminal gangs with anti-imperial tendencies to pro-Communion religious fanatics. The resistance movements discussed here are explicitly those of the “everyman,” the workaday civilian and the social misfit who band together on the edges of society and civilization to fight the good fight. Other examples may well follow similar lines, but typically have slightly different objectives, equipment and tactics.

Resistance movements come in a bewildering variety of philosophies, ideologies and approaches. A few examples might include:

  • Anarchists: Anarchists rebel for the sake of rebellion. They tend to be the most visible of the resistance movements, as they love to humiliate the authorities, foment chaos, incite dramatic riots and set the world on fire. They might offer lip service to an ideology, but at their heart, they tend to believe that chaos is better than order, and thus their presence threatens any regime, whether Imperial or Alliance, and so the Alliance fully intends to wipe their hands of them once they stop being useful.
  • Freedom Fighters: For some, injustice and oppression itself must be wiped from the world. They care little about what comes after, and often have an ultimately conservative or reactionary ideology, in that the only end game they see is “to restore what came before.” They tend to be the most easy going of rebel movements, but they also tend to be the least well-equipped, emotionally or strategically, to handle the rigors of a long conflict.
  • Ideologues: Also called patriots, fundamentalists and die-hards, ideologues believe fanatically in an ideal and are willing to do anything to fulfill that ideal. Their unwillingness to deviate from their strict code endears them to those who believe in that ideal, alienates them from those who oppose it, and makes them predictable.
  • Terrorists: While the Empire calls all insurgencies “terrorists,” some actually deserve the label. Terrorists are willing to whatever it takes to win. They aren’t constrained by an anarchist’s childishness or a freedom fighter’s principles. If mass murder, terror and atrocity will win the day, then that’s what the terrorist will use. Most other resistance movements decry the Terrorists extreme acts, but Terrorists scoff that other movements don’t have what it takes to win this war. Terrorists without a core ideology act out of self-interest. They push less for major social change, and more to put themselves in a position of power. These facts together might harm their image, but terrorists use the stick of terror with the carrot of ambition to draw in recruits and to finance their operations.

Agendas of Insurgencies

A resistance movement exists to fight the Empire (or whatever power it rebels against). But before it can do this, it needs weapons and manpower, and to get those, it needs money. Furthermore, if the Empire uncovered its activity, they would crush the resistance movement, therefore they must execute all of their plans as discretely as possible. Finally, no resistance movement has sufficient firepower to make a serious difference on its own, but if it works in conjunction with better armed, better equipped allies, their effect can be devastating, and to do this, the resistance movement must organize its attacks with other (sometimes rival!) cells or with the greater rebel Alliance.

Money frequently proves a major sticking point for any resistance movement. Some movements rely on the generosity of their community or wealthy donors, but this tends to dry up quickly. Instead, resistance cells often have to take more proactive measures to secure capital. Some raid the Empire itself, hitting imperial payrolls or robbing imperial banks. Some of the more professional resistance movements offer their temporary services as mercenaries for other factions. Finally, some turn to outright racketeering, kidnapping rings or support of illegal activities like smuggling, drug-trade, slavery or arms dealing to make ends meet. Other resistance cells often accuse these sorts of resistance movements of being little more than criminals who wrap themselves in the flag of patriotic resistance, but every resistance movement who has felt a financial pinch has been tempted to take a quick step over that line “for the greater good.”

Resistance movements, because they are in the Empire, must necessarily take far more risks than the rest of the rebellion. This has perks, in that they can often turn imperial officials or sympathetic soldiers, but they also risk vanishing into an Imperial gulag, or having their stronghold evaporated by an orbital blast from a dreadnought. Thus, they take their secrecy very seriously, breaking up into distinct cells, engaging in very carefully communication, going to ground or picking up and leaving as soon as they’re spooked, and if one of their own turn on the group and rat them out to the Empire, well, then the resistance movement knows what it has to do…

When it comes to actually hitting the Empire, resistance cells generally focus on propaganda, sabotage and violence. A “resistance cell” might be nothing more than underground agitators, quietly protesting the Empire anyway they can. They might whisper to others, or find ways to counter propaganda feeds by revealing events censored by the media, or they might plaster their city with cheap posters. Those more inclined to action might damage the Empire’s logistics. They might disrupt factory lines, spike transport systems, blow-up data-net stations, or damage naval shipyards. But, eventually, if any resistance movement means business, it must take human lives. The most devoted resistance cells ambush and kill soldiers, assassinate officials and may even engage in terrorism against civilians that they see as “collaborators.”

Insurgency movements tend to have their own unique agendas and concerns. These serve as the ultimate purpose for the organization and most only fight the Empire because it represents the greatest obstacles to the things the movement wants. Examples might include the restoration of the Oracular philosophy or the faith of True Communion as the “one true governing principle,” or a fair redistribution of wealth, or independence for an oppressed alien race, or the total abolition of slavery (possibly including the “enslavement” of robots!) or the restoration of the “rule and order” of the previous golden age of the Federation. Often, they use the local popular support for these agendas to drive recruitment and donations, and they further integrate themselves into the community by acting as a vigilante force that deals with the problems that the Empire won’t.

A single insurgency movement is nothing before the might of the Empire. Those factions able to set aside their differences long enough to see the advantages of working together need some means of coordinating their actions with the firepower of the larger Alliance. This means maintaining lines of communication. Communication is complicated by the secretive, cell-like structure of most cells, but also by differing ideologies and approaches. A terroristic, criminal cell on the same planet as an idealistic and noble cell will almost certainly come to blows, each believing the other undermines the overall rebellion.

Examples Agendas include:

  • As the war wears on, food and power cells both grow scarce. Fortunately, the resistance cell has learned of a mysterious imperial shipment, one that is “off the books” and surely full of lucrative loot, if the resistance cell can locate them, ambush them and take their supplies. The resistance cell must do these three things in order and, once they’ve done that, figure out what to do with their ill-gotten gains!
  • A major imperial VIP is scheduled to arrive on the planet within the next week, and the resistance cells has received his itinerary. This represents an unparalleled chance to strike a blow for the rebellion! The cell is divided, though, on what to do with him. Some want to approach him and try to convert (or blackmail!) him to the cause, while others want to use the chance to embarrass him and the Empire, while, of course, the most bloodthirsty want to wait until he gives his grand speech, and then kill him. Nothing, they say, sends a message like blood.
  • The resistance cell’s exploits have reached the ears of those who run the Rebel Alliance, and they seek to ally with the resistance cell. Through middle men, they have arranged a meeting in a well-populated part of the local starport. The resistance cell needs to ensure that it isn’t a trap by Imperial Security, and then figure out a way to get in, negotiate a proper means of communication with the rebel agent, and then get out again without being detected.
  • A rival cell has really gone off the deep-end. They’ve begun murdering civilians and engaging in blatant crimes. The Galaxy in the hands of men like this would be worse than the Galaxy in the hands of the Emperor! The resistance cell needs to convince the rebellion to cut off all financial and logistical support to this rival cell, and then move against them or, of course, snitch on them to the Empire and let the Empire kill them off!
  • Someone snitched! The Empire draws a noose around the resistance cell! The cell must break down all operations, pick up and move. That requires them to burn contacts, ditch old equipment and find new matériel at their new base of operations. And, of course, they need to figure out who told, and silence him, one way or another.

Resistance Movements as opposition

The people who make up resistance cells make up their lack of military training with enthusiasm, but this is a poor substitute. Most resistance cells are BAD -0. Some survive long enough to learn enough espionage tricks to become real thorns in the side of the Empire, but even these lack the equipment and high level training to rise above BAD -2.

Insurgency Physical Security

Insurgents lack the resources to really put together truly secure sites, and even if they could, the Empire has more than enough firepower to destroy them. An insurgent base’s best defense is secrecy. If the Empire cannot find it, they cannot destroy it. The second key ingredient to a good insurgent base is mobility. If the base has been uncovered, the insurgents need to be able to scramble, leave and quickly build a new facility once they’re safe. All the mobility in the world won’t help you if you’re not aware of a sudden imperial raid. Thus, insurgents needs some form of security system, usually improvised! Finally, sometimes insurgents do need to fight when their bases come under attack, sometimes to give their allies the chance to escape, and sometimes to fend off minor attacks (such as attacks from local law enforcement, criminals or rival insurgencies)

Most urban insurgents prefer to hide in plain sight. They’ll build installations in a cell-member’s house, if he has space, or find some abandoned facility on the edge of a colony or deep in the bowels of some forgotten part of the colony’s infrastructure, or possibly lurking in some unused part of a sympathizer’s establishment, such as hiding out in the back of a night-club, or an unused floor of a corporate skyscraper. The poorest rely on off-the-shelf security measures like locked doors and look-outs who keep an eye on the installation (usually “playing children,” or shop-keepers across the street who can tap their wrist-comms and alert the base if necessary). The better funded insurgencies might build secret bases, disguising doors as walls, festooning the place with secret passageways and cunning security systems. This latter works best when the insurgency is an open secret among society, as the insurgents can then openly ask contractors to help them construct their base.

Rural insurgents tend to build far away from urban areas, favoring “shatter zones”, terrain that one cannot easily access via a spaceship landing or a hovercar, such as mountains, islands, swamps and jungles. There, the insurgents build fortification, both in the form of scattered “ambush” bunkers that surround a larger “fortress” where a commander or the insurgent leader makes camp. Security here tends to come in the form of patrols of roving, paramilitary insurgents, or in trip-wire traps that either set off plasma charges, or alert the wrist-communicator of all insurgents.

In both cases, insurgents always maintain close access to vehicles. An urban base will house a garage full of vehicles that always stay in a state of half-loaded readiness, and secret escape routes. Rural bases have large gates that can be opened quickly, or launchpads with dropships ready to take-off and transport insurgents elsewhere. Some rural insurgent bases will be little more than a temporary camp filled with vehicles and quick-fab fortifications. The insurgents will pick up and move week to week or day to day, to prevent their destruction from orbital fire.

All insurgent bases come with self-destruct features. They rig their equipment, hidey-holes and base exits with explosives. If they do get raided, once they have the all-clear, they’ll blow everything, destroying any evidence that the Empire might have used against them.

Insurgency Organizational Security

Most insurgencies protect themselves by forming clandestine cell structures. Each group of 5-8 insurgents work together as a squad or a cell, and answer to a single cell leader. This cell leader, and only the cell leader communicates with a higher-level officer, who only knows the identities of his cell-leaders and his direct team-members. This means that if the Empire uncovers the identity of a cell member, the worst he can do is betray the rest of his cell. Only the cell leader can betray someone higher up in the organization.

Insurgent cells compartmentalize more than just their organization structure, but also their information. Each cell knows what it needs to do in a particular operation and nothing else. A cell leader gets his orders from his officer, and transmits those to the cell. To get a total overview of what an insurgency movement intends, one must capture high-level officers, and low-level insurgents usually have no idea who those people are, much less their location.

How cautiously insurgencies operate varies from group to group. The weakest end don’t bother to use a clandestine cell structure at all, but behave more like a club or an army. They meet at some central, agreed-upon location and swap stories, relying on standard alliance procedures of introductions and the security of their buildings to keep them safe. Such insurgencies rarely last long against the heat of a determined Imperial special agent.

Other movements eschew centralization entirely. The “leader” creates a training bible and then distributes it to key allies. These agents diffuse themselves throughout the populace and recruit and train cell-members and then perform basic acts of terrorism, sabotage or propaganda without any orders from on high. These sorts of cells tend to frustrate the Empire the most, as the Empire keeps hunting for a larger organization when none exists. Some insurgencies like to use these as a “fifth column,” sowing the knowledge for rebellion into the Empire’s disgruntled populace, and once chaos has erupted, they move in witha paramilitary wing that isorganized! Anarchists love to use this trick, as do agents working for the Houses of the Old Federation.

Serving Resistance Movements

Resistance Ranks

6: General or “the Leader”
5: Commander
4: Agent or Team Leader or Captain
3: Officer or Lieutenant
2: Cell Leader or Sergeant
1: Fighter or Corporal
0: Volunteer or Sympathizer
Resistance movements lack the formal ranks of the military or intelligence organizations (though they will often ape those ranks) and have a form of Criminal Rank called “Rebel Rank”, worth 5 points per level. Despite their variety, most organized resistance movement that survives Imperial investigation has some form of cell structure, and cells tend to be consistent in form.
At the lowest level are “Volunteers,” civilians who have joined the resistance movement, but who have not yet fought for it. While many civilians are sympathetic, in broad terms, with the cause of a rebel cell, they might not know any details of actual rebel activity. A “Volunteer” does. They may be the kid sister or the best friend of a rebel fighter, or a wannabe who’s looking for his chance to really join the rebellion. These typically answer to a fighter within the cell, who give them small tasks they can do, and who will, in turn, act to help them if they find themselves in danger. These tend to blur the line between those who belong and those who merely sympathize.
Fighters are those who well and truly belong in a resistance cell. They dedicate themselves wholly to the cause, acting as front-line soldiers for the battles and attending meetings with a cell of 5-8 other members. Their cell leader will encourage them to cultivate contacts in the civilian world, “Volunteers,” who can be inducted more completely later, after they have proven themselves.
Each cell has a leader, to whom all members of the cell answers. Some resistance organizations get no larger than a single cell, but most belong to a larger organization, represented by an officer. The cell leader, and no on else in the cell, knows who this officer is, and thus only he knows what the cell orders are.
Resistance officers represent trained partisan leaders. They generally recruit cell leaders and help them organize their cells, or they handle other logistical or bureaucratic concerns (including quartermasters who ensure cells receive supplies, combat instructors who might teach cell members the basics of combat if necessary, and so on). For those who command cells, they maintain strict discipline to stay in touch with their cell leaders only, to protect their identity
A team leader commands a team of resistance officers. This gives him total operational control over an entire area; he can decide where supplies go, what each cell’s mission is (which he then gives to his officers); and so on. If an officer or cell leader dies, all cells have a “drop point” they can check to get additional information about their officer or their new cell leader, and the team leader usually decides what to do in such cases. Some resistance movements get no larger than this, but for those that have cells across an entire planet (or even a few planets!), Rank 4 can also represent free roaming rebel agents. Not every insurgency uses someone like this, as they represent a risk to the movement, but they act as elite, expert trouble shooter who can inspect resistance teams, send additional resources, train new recruits or provide his own high-level expertise to solve problems. They represent serious targets of opportunity for the Empire, but they tend to be deeply devoted and highly resourceful, making them very difficult men to track down.
At the highest levels, agents and team leaders answer to Commanders, who run and coordinate the rebellion at the behest of its ultimate leader. If a resistance movement needs to be mobilized into a rag-tag army, commanders march his new soldiers into battle. Resistance movements never gain the legitimacy or scope necessary for more than 6 ranks

The rank names given above represent generictitles. In the least formal organizations, while a clear hierarchy exists, no one within the movement actually usesrank titles. Some will use different rank titles, or only for specific rolls (such as calling certain logistical officers “Quartermasters,” or referring to Fighters as “Martyrs”). Those who prefer more formal ranks usually borrow titles from military, police or intelligence organizations.

Some insurgencies act more like irregular military organizations. Such insurgencies tend not to break down into cell structures like those described above, but rather classical military lines, having multiple rank 0 fighters in squads, three to five of which make up a platoon, and three to five of which make up a company, which is often lead by a Rank 5 “Commander.” Paramilitary organizations like this tend to exist far outside of the reach of the Empire, usually far from urban city centers.

Yet other organizations will blur the lines between these two. Resistance cells lurk in the city, acting as intelligence, recruiting assets, sabotaging infrastructure, and distracting the Empire while the remote, paramilitary arm takes advantage of their momentary weakness to strike in force.

Favors of Resistance Movements

Entry Clearance (Pulling Rank p 13): If a resistance movement has a secret base, it obviously refuses entry from just anyone. Convincing the resistance to let you visit, or to let you bring in a guest, could require Pulling Rank.

Bribe or Hush Money (Pulling Rank p 14):Rebel movements tend to be Poor, and so have 1/5th as much money as most organizations would. Nonetheless, if a resistance movement needs to scrape up money to pay off a crook, they can usually find the funds somewhere.

Cover-Up (Pulling Rank p 14): Resistance movements know how to hide, and that means they know how to hide bodies. They usually have the assets necessary to break into wherever evidence is held and spirit it away. They also have the propaganda skills to imply to everyone that the Empire is trumping up charges against someone, which means the populace can be convinced that a guilty man is, in fact, innocent.

False ID (Pulling Rank p 14):Resistance cells regularly need to ferry questionable people in and out of planets, and so excel at putting together whatever credentials someone needs. How long those credentials last is another matter.

Insertion/Extraction (Pulling Rank p 14):Resistance agents can bring you whatever you need (provided it isn’t expensive), or can even transport you via their more secretive routes, to get you to where you need to go!

Safe House (Pulling Rank 15): Every resistance movement worth discussing has secret strongholds, fall-back points and a sprinkling of safe-houses full of fake credentials, a little bit of cash and some stashed weapons, in case their agents need them.

Consultation and Specialists (Pulling Rank 15): The sort of people who make up an insurgency varies substantially from group to group. All Insurgencies can offer contacts with Skill 15-18 of Area Knowledge and Streetwise; depending on the organization, some can offer contacts with skill 15-18 in a few of Armoury, Chemistry, Computer Hacking, Electrician, Engineering (Combat), First Aid, Intelligence Analysis, Mechanic, Survival (Any), Tactics, Tracking or Urban Survival.

Cash (Pulling Rank 16): Rebel movements do have some money, if not much. They offer 1/5th of the typical values listed here (thus, for rank 0, they can afford $50)

Gear (Pulling Rank 16): Resistance movements also typically have blasters, explosives and hover cars, they just won’t be the best you’ve ever seen. Their equipment tends to be a rag-tag collection of stolen vehicles or patchwork weapons, but they’ll offer them up, if you ask.

Introduction (Pulling Rank 18): A resistance movement is exceptionally picky about who meets who. Pulling Rank might allow you to meet someone higher up, or even to get in touch with other resistance movements or the rebellion itself!

Muscle (Pulling Rank 19): Resistance movements can usually drum up some local strong-arms, often unarmed or armed with nothing heavier than blaster pistols, who can nonetheless help intimidate some locals.

The Cavalry (Pulling Rank 19): Some of the more military resistance movements have reasonably well-trained fighters at their disposal. After Pulling Rank, you can call upon a squad of 5 blaster-armed veteran fighters

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Propaganda: Given sufficient time (say, a week ahead of time, but it’s ultimately up to the GM), a local insurgency can spread a rumor campaign or illicit posters. Treat this as Compliments of the Boss: A successful request applies +1, a critical success applies +2, a failure applies -1 and a critical failure applies -2. This applies to appropriate influence rolls and to Communion reactions for path-based miracles for the appropriate path. This effect is temporary: usually no more than one adventure (usually lasting no longer than a week: for more permanent effects, buy some manner of Reputation), and only to a single world. The player needs to define the nature of the propaganda up front and it only applies as appropriate (for example, if you spread the idea that you are the reincarnation of a world’s savior, you cannot use it to impress off-worlders or the non-religious, or when you behave “out of character”).

Character Considerations

Requirements: Characters serving a Resistance Movement must have a minimum of Wealth (Poor) [-15], Rebel Rank 0 [0] and Secret (Rebel, Imprisonment) [-20]. Characters with Rebel Rank 1+ must have and Duty (12 or less or 15 or less, Extremely Hazardous) [-15 to -20].

An entire resistance movement as your enemy is worth -20 points, while having them as a Patron is worth 15 points.
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State of the Patreon: May

This month saw more pledges than I expected, and I’ve reached just over halfway to my next goal of artwork.  Hopefully, we’ll hit that milestone before the end of the year.

Last month, I had the most views ever for my blog (over 12k), and I completed the Empire, after two months of blogging on it.  I also have a son!  Hooray!  That likely means my pace of blogging will slow somewhat, an inevitable consequence, but I’d like to at least keep at it.  We’ll just have to see how it goes!

This month, I have the Rebel Alliance for you.  I say Alliance, not just because Star Wars uses that term, but because it represents a collection of disparate interests coming together to fight the Empire without a clear leader or a centralized government.  As such, it will have three parts, and this month, I focus on Rebel Insurgencies: the half-trained men and women who form “criminal” conspiracies to disrupt, protest and fight the Empire from within.

My plans for my Patreon might be a tad bit ambitious.  The theme this month is technology, as I’d like to revisit how technology works and how it has developed over the thousands of years in Psi-Wars.  The big ambition is to create a discussion of 5 distinct “eras” of technology and how they differ.  This will be a guide document for myself, for creating appropriate technology, vehicles, etc, as relics, or advanced items, etc.  I don’t know what the price of that series will be.  I originally intended $1+, but looking at what I have, I’m not sure how useful it will be without the $3+ material in your hands.  We’ll see! 

For the Dreamers ($1+), in the very least, I have a Blaster vs Force Sword playtest, which goes into greater depth into the strengths and weaknesses of both than I had in previous playtests, and I offer up a houserule to fix the problem.  This post, by the way, was brought to you by Patreon Jake Bernstein.

For the Fellow Travellers ($3+), in the very least, I have Dirty Ultra-Tech, a look at what improvised Psi-Wars weapons, armor and explosives might be.  This post was inspired by my work on insurgents, and also by High Tech, which has loads of information on how to do a lot of this stuff, which I’ve extrapolated to a rather cinematic version of TL 11^.  I also have the full Insurgency documents up right now!  Go check it out!

Finally, for my Companions ($5+), I’d like to make an insurgency with you!  I haven’t worked out the poll exactly yet, but my plan is to revisit the junk world of Grist, and work out what sort of anti-Imperial activity that world has; in addition to allowing you to create an insurgency together, I hope to use this to show how one goes about building an insurgency in Psi-Wars.

As always, I want to thank you, my dear Patrons, for making Psi-Wars possible, and for your feedback and involvement.  And for those of you who aren’t yet Patrons, I’d love to have you!

Support me on Patreon!

The Rebel Alliance: Overview

We know what the Empire looks like.  Now we need the other half of our war, the heroic resistance that struggles to free the Galaxy from the tyrannical grip of the Empire.  As before, we must look at the Rebellion through the lens of an organization, because what matters to our campaign more than anything is what the Rebellion can do for our players, what it might be like to work for the Rebellion, and what sort of stories the Rebellion might offer us.

As with the Empire, Star Wars doesn’t really define the details of the Rebellion except in the broadest outline, which gives me an opportunity to dive in deeper and pull on actual historical details for real-world rebellions.  We do know George Lucas drew on the romantic imagery of the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and that he glamorized the Viet Kong uprising against the “Imperial” Western Powers.  We can also draw parallels from nearly any rebellion or revolution we wish, including the Senatorial side of the Roman Civil War and the Confederate side of the American Civil War.  These were the losing sides of their respective rebellions and they’re not nearly as “justified by history” as George Lucas’s glamorized revolutions, which is good, as they remind us of the dark side of rebellion, and highlight a key point: that revolutions tend to fail more than the succeed.  If our rebellion is going to succeed, it’ll do so against the forces of history and with the help of our plucky, heroic player characters.

The Vision of Rebellion

James Dean might afford to be a Rebel without a Cause, but our Alliance, like any organization, needs a purpose.  That purpose, however, is pretty clear: bring down the Empire.  But even that isn’t enough, and this is where the sparseness of Star Wars begins to cause us problems, where we need to fill in the blanks.  Of course, the reason is that “the Empire is evil,” but we make moral compromises everyday, and real people live in real dictatorships without throwing firebombs (for that matter, people who live in democracies do throw firebombs).  In fact, even in Star Wars, most people don’t rebel, otherwise the Rebellion would be flooded with recruits.  So, what drives these unique people to rebel?  For what are they risking death?  And what do they see replacing the Empire once they are, presumably, victorious?

Righteousness


When dictatorship becomes a fact, revolution becomes a right
– Victor Hugo
 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing
-Edmund Burke

The core premise of Star Wars is that the Empire is Evil, and it goes out of its way to show us this, torturing innocent princesses, blowing away worlds full of civilians, murdering uncle Owen and aunt Beru and so on.  The Rebellion, by contrast, must be good.  In fact, it represents the good that happens when evil pushes us too far, when we can no longer keep our mouths shut, when we must speak up for justice and freedom and against those who deal in slaughter and corruption.  This is illustrated again and again, when characters (Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Jyn Erso) first turn their back on the Rebellion, only until their conscience demands that they risk their lives in service to the Rebellion.

This contrast between rebellion and empire is not accidental.  To rebel, one must draw a contrast between yourself and your enemy.  You have to make the case, first, that the current situation is bad, so bad that one must act and, second, that your organization represents the best and the only alternative to the current status quo.  You must point to the flaws of the Empire, such as totalitarianism, injustice and cruelty, and point out that you offer the opposite, the solution: freedom, justice and tolerance.

This means that the Rebellion lives and dies by legitimacy.  Should the Empire begin to appear righteous and just, or the Rebellion sinister and corrupt, then people will begin to wonder whythey risk their lives for this cause.  Furthermore, once someone’s righteous rage has been stirred, if it turns against you, it will fracture the delicate web forged by the Alliance.  In the films, the rebellion turns its back on Saw Gerrera, or he turns his back on them, and there’s a fracture between the two.  The films depict this as no major loss, but in reality, once your rebellion begins to fracture, it might be impossible to stop, or to get anything done.

This means the Alliance lies.  It must!  No organization is perfect.  Surely, the people who run the Alliance have personal ambition and character flaws, just as anyone else, because nobody is perfect, not even the airily majestic Mon Mathma.  Likewise, surely among the governors and admirals of the Empire, there walk good men who use Imperial power to right wrongs.  The Rebellion cannot let people know this.  It  must spin these acts, it must disavow “terrorists” like Saw Gerrera while still quietly employing men like Cassian Andor to kill for them. Meanwhile, it must spin the acts of the Empire in the worst possible light, lest people grow too comfortable with dictatorship.  The Rebellion needs the Empire to be tyrannical, because without that tyranny, none would serve the Rebellion.

Nostalgia

A hostility to modernity is shared by ideologies that have nothing else in common – a nostalgia for moral clarity, small-town intimacy, family values, primitive communism, ecological sustainability, communitarian solidarity, or harmonies with the rhythms of nature.-Steven Pinker 

A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.-William F. Buckley Jr.

George Lucas compares the Rebellion of Star Wars to the French Resistance in WW2, the American Revolution and the Viet Cong of the Vietnamese War.  However, in all of these wars, the rebels fought against foreign occupation (While the British technically ruled the American colonies, that government was far across the sea and had been hands-off until circumstances changed and suddenly it imposed its will on the populace).  The Rebellion of Star Wars, however, isn’t.  In fact, the official name in the setting for this conflict is the Galactic Civil War; this is a conflict between brothers, not against an outsider.

The point these two factions fight over is the course of their civilization.  While George Lucas’s personal politics might swing to the left, the heroic Rebels he depicts ulitmately hold more conservative opinions. The Empire, with all of its modernity and science and revolutionary change, represents progress, while the Rebellion represents resistance to that change.  The Rebellion celebrates the past, not the future.  It seeks to restore the Galaxy to its previous (and possibly fictitious) golden age.

For this reason, I compare it to the American and Roman Civil War; in both, we have a side that’s trying to preserve their previous way of life: the Senatorial forces of the Roman Civil War try to cling to the privilege of the Senate that has held sway in Rome for hundreds of years, while the American South tried to cling to the institution of slavery that gave its elites their power.  This latter almost certainly strikes most right-thinking people as repugnant, but this reaction highlights an important fact: my golden age might not be your golden age, and that we tend to glorify the past when we are not in it.  Moreover, these factions represented the elite, not the downtrodden, or their relative societies, who were being ousted by changes from an authoritarian pushing those changes onto them.  If you’re one of those “noble” elites, you naturally resist that change; if you’re among those downtrodden by those elites (the plebians of Rome, the slaves of the American South), you’ll embrace that change.

Consider the presence of “Princesses” and “Senators” among the ranks of the Rebellion.  Bail Organa thinks the Republic is worth restoring, but he was a senator in that Republic, so of course he does.  Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda also seek to restore the Republic, but the Jedi Council had direct access to the government and enormous privilege back in that era, so of course they do.  Those who run the Rebellion of Psi-Wars naturally follow suit: They represent the dispossessed elite of the former era, the era they call a golden age, and who use the resentment of the common man to restore that golden age for them.  Are they right to call it a golden age?  That depends on your perspective.

Power

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun
-Mao Zedong

In the end, once you’ve stripped the Rebellion of its moral pretense, you see beneath it a struggle of for who has the right to rule the Galaxy.  This war might well turn on moral principles (the American Civil War certainly did, as did the fight against Nazi Germany), but even the most moral force fighting a war ultimately must have political power when they win their war, and must have political power to win their war.
Wars cost money.  Wars cost lives.  People dedicate themselves to a cause like this because they wish to advance their own personal fortunes.  Even the most virtuous of men must sometimes surrender those virtues “for the greater good.”  Where do you get your funding from?  Perhaps the people you protect!  And you might engage in free trade, but the most lucrative trade is forbidden trade (trade that requires smuggling!) like drugs or slaves.  And if you already have military power, why not trade on that military power to expand your ability to wage war?  And then, soon, you’ve turned from revolutionaries into an organized criminal gang, which is often the fate of revolutions that neither succeed in their arms nor are completely stamped out.  What compromises is the Rebellion willing to make to get its job done?
Even virtues like “freedom, justice, tolerance” ultimately boil down to a promise that you will allow someone to pursue power.  Rebellions often begin when individuals see their power decreasing to the point where they are unable to fulfill their ambitions. Thus, unsurprisingly, many revolutions and rebellions, once complete, turn into dictatorships, because those at the top have more ambition than they let on.  The reforms they promise may well be a ploy to get you to follow them, to lift them up, so that they might become the next dictator.  The “Liberty, egalitarianism and brotherhood” of the French Revolution very quickly turned into murder and dictatorship.  The Empire itself rose as a rebellion against the previous golden age!  How is this new rebellion any better? On that question, much will turn.

Who Serves the Rebellion

Because of its goals, the rebellion tends to attract those who have strong moral fiber, but perhaps with more endurance and sophistication than moral characters who serve the Empire.  Imperial morality is easy, as they surrender their power to the dictator and ask him to fix the ills of the world.  A rebel sees something wrong with the world and is willing to fix it himself, even if it costs him his life.  This also means many in the rebellion have strong, independent streaks,which means they may need to be constantly convinced of the rightness of their cause, which means that all sides must carefully compromise, and it keeps potential corruption in check.
The rebellion also tends to attract the desperate.  From some, the Empire has taken everything.  They have no families left, or worse, they have only a few loved ones left, for whom they are willing to do anything.  They might even serve the Empire, if they thought that was an option, but the Empire’s intolerance has closed the door to that, so their only choice is to fight or die; those that die simply vanish from history; those that fight join the rebellion.  Or, at least, a rebellion.
What counts as “desperate” can come in degrees.  For some, being unable to fulfill one’s ambition is itself a fighting offense. These are the formerly powerful dispossessed, the nobles of the old order, or powers who are otherwise unable to gain traction in the current regime and wish to gain power.  This includes the exiled former rulers of the old Republic, and alien powers with whom the Empire refuses to deal.  From these, the Rebellion receives most of its funding.  Where did you think Starhawks came form?  Surely not from the peasants!
(A note on “The Republic.”  I feel I should stop using this term, as it feels too like Star Wars.  GURPS Space uses many different terms for governments, and I think Federation is probably the closest to what the old “Republic” was, in the classic sense of what a Federation was: a sharing of power between equal powers who share sovereignty with a central pwoer. These powers were the former Noble Houses spawned by the old Empire.  The masters of these Houses represent the powers that shared their power to create the state that ruled the Galaxy, and they represent the nexus around which the Rebellion has crystalized, so from here on out, I’ll refer to it as a Federation or, perhaps, a Concordium; I haven’t decided which I like better).

The Rebel Alliance as Organization

Star Wars refers to the Rebels as the “Rebel Alliance,” something I’ve continued.  I suspect that George Lucas meant to evoke the imagery of the “Allies” defeating Nazi Germany, but I use it for a different reason: I think the rebels aren’t really an organization, not in the sense that the Empire is, but rather a loosely knit group of organizations that form common cause against the Empire.  That is, the rebellion is literally an alliance between disparate groups, all aiming towards a common goal.
These groups are, broadly speaking:
Insurgencies: The people under the thumb of the Empire sometimes rise up to fight its tyranny of their own accord.  They lack funds and training, but make up for it in drive and passion.  These rag-tag bands of orphan-soldiers, bitter old men and wronged women come together to become guerrilla fighters, terrorists and organized resistance that sabotage the Empire and offer their services to the Rebellion.  They become its idealistic foot soldiers and its cannon fodder, not because of the Rebellion’s sinister motives, but the sheer facts of how resistance movements usually end.  They also often fission off, being too extreme for the Alliance, or not devoted enough to its cause.  Finally, this blanket term covers dozens or even hundreds of smaller resistance movements with little or no connection to one another except their shared goal of defeating the Empire, which means organizing them can be a little like herding cats.
The Noble Houses: The elites of the former Federation, now dispossessed.  They have a shadow of their former power, but that still represents real power.  They provide real leadership and they have the money and training necessary to engage in a genuine, “symmetrical” warfare.  This group is deeply traditional and increasingly clings to its status, which creates a tension for its need to connect to the dispossessed commoners who often serve them.  Worse, they have traditionally been rivals with one another, and have only set aside those rivalries to defeat the greater threat of the Emperor, but petty feuds can easily fuel tension between groups.  At their strongest, they use nobless oblige paired with the glamour and prestige of their former positions to impress upon others the need for their leadership; at their weakest, they acknowledge that their traditions gave rise to the Emperor, and that they must be willing to let go and accept new ways if the Galaxy is ever to be set right again.
Alien Powers: The Empire wants to Make the Galaxy Great Again, but only certain, privileged parts of the galaxy.  Many alien powers wanted to partake of the wealth and sophistication of the Federation, only to be shut out by the Empire.  These aliens have turned to the Alliance as a way of undoing this wrong.  These, too, provide material support for the rebellion, offering up soldiers and ships to the war effort, and coordinating with the Noble Houses and Resistance Movements to strike a blow against the Empire.  They represent the power that comes from tolerance, but they also represent external influences seeping into the galactic core, with their own ideals and their own ambitions.  Can we really trust all the alien powers willing to sign up to watch the one power that’s been keeping them in check fall?

Which aliens?  Well, that’ll have to wait until I’ve worked out aliens.  I suspect it’ll also depend on the GM and the players, as this is doubtlessly a set of shifting alliances!

Rebel Challenges

The Rebellion is a patchwork of allied organizations, and thus each head of the hydra is best tackled on its own, which I’ll do over the coming weeks.  Here, let’s look at the joints between them, how they connect with one another.  That is, how do these organizations meet up and plan together, and how to they decide, as a group, what to do? And how might a wicked Imperial agent break into the organization and uncover their machinations?
Generally, the Alliance is only as strong as its weakest links, and it has some pretty weak links.  It relies on civilian sympathy to provide its security, and it has serious financial problems.  Generally, fighting or infiltrating the rebellion is only BAD -0, though it might rise to BAD -2 on more professionally rebellious worlds.  Individual organizations might be more BAD!

Physical Security

This is generally provided by whatever sub-organization is hosting a meeting.

Informational Security

The Rebellion needs to be able to communicate plans across a scattered organization, with many of its agents behind enemy lines.  How does it prevent the Empire from unraveling its plans?
First, the Alliance relies primarily on human (or robot!) hands to transmit information.  Individuals, preferably individuals the Empire has no reason to investigate, such as senators, imperial ministers or complete nobodies on the street, carry whatever vital information directly to its destination, or even engage in a series of relays to make sure it reaches its destination.  This way, an individual would have to deliberately betray the Rebellion, or be visibly arrested, for the information to fall into enemy hands.
Should information fall into enemy hands, the Alliance codes the information, not with cryptography, but with steganography.  That is, the Alliance will send its vital plans for attacking the Empire in the form of a seemingly innocent shopping list or in a hologram of a friend.  To intercept the information, the Empire has to know who will have the information, in what form the message will take, and how to decode it.
Despite all of this, the Alliance always assumes that some messages are intercepted.  As a result, it further layers its informational security with redundancy, red herrings and compartmentalization.  First, the Alliance will send several copies of a message via multiple channels.  Second, some messages will be false, designed to trigger an imperial action of some kind that the Alliance can see (for example, that a meeting will take place at a particular location).  You can watch the results of imperial action, and if they act on a red herring, you know which channels have been compromised.  Finally, no message contains a complete message.  The final message is meant to be cobbled together at its final destination from several sources, or the final message doesn’t contain enough information to compromise an entire operation.  Thus, traitors cannot stop the message from getting through, they’ll be uncovered by red-herrings, and the Empire will only ever have a piece of the larger puzzle.  The trade-off is that a lot of messages need to be sent out to get a complete message to the target, which increases the chance of Imperial interception.
The downside to all of this is that it must be arranged in advance, which typically takes place when the alliance gets together to decide policy, or when agents meet with resistance cells.  Participants are expected to memorize the details pertinent to themselves, though sometimes they’ll be given bots with the appropriate instructions.  Should they be captured, they’re expected to commit suicide rather than divulge the details to the complex scheme, or the robots will self-wipe.  This does mean that if Imperial Agents collect enough high-level people from a rebel network, the alliance needs a considerable amount of time before it can revisit its codes and security procedures.
Finally, the Alliance consists of many people who have a deep understanding of Imperial infrastructures.  Rebels often co-opt or hack Imperial resources, like their data-net, to transmit and communicate right under Imperial noses.  The rule of thumb for the Alliance is “hidden in plain sight.”  They use standard channels, hacked channels, and innocuous steganography to make it virtually impossible to tell what is really a threat and what isn’t.  If this results in imperial officials going on a mad, paranoid rampage ripping up personal correspondences and confiscating entire shipments of hologram-lockets, all the better.

Organizational Security

As already stated, the rebellion relies on compartmentalization to secure its communication channels and its information.  “Nobody” knows enough to destroy the entire rebellion.  In practice, though, this applies more to resistance cells than to the Imperial Houses, which have removed themselves far enough from the Empire and are sufficiently well-defended that they can act as a nexus for decision making for the rebellion.  They tend to know more than most, explaining the Imperial ambition to wipe out those independent worlds.
Beyond that, the Alliance relies on bonds of trust and local sympathies.  The Alliance wants at least two other members of the Alliance to vouch for someone before he’s trusted with major secrets.  Usually, one needs to work ones way deeper into the organization before he’s exposed to anything vital (treat as Security Clearance).  Thus, one might join a resistance cell and fight several battles or perform missions without knowing any larger context before he’s introduced to a higher resistance figure or an external alliance member (such as a member of a house, or a senator) and given more secure (but less vital) missions as a test of loyalty, and once the rebel has confirmed his loyalty, then he might be inducted into upper ranks, introduced to more people, allowed to carry messages, and so on.  
Members of the alliance know each other personally.  They form networks of friendship and trust.  They make a point of socializing with one another, introducing each other to their family, and inducting them into their social circles.  To betray the alliance is to betray your friends and family.
This also explains how their recruitment works.  They generally blanket the area with propaganda (at least in the form of whisper campaigns, if media is heavily censored), and they make a point of seemingly anonymous magnanimity and friendship, only to reveal later the source of that generosity.  They might also ask for favors that only later turn out to be for the rebellion, thus indicting the unwitting accomplice, which is usually revealed at the same time as the source of the generosity, creating a carrot and stick situation (“We helped you, and also, you’ve already betrayed the Empire.  Why not work for us to take them down?”)  
For example, a senator might assist a security agent with personal problems, and then invite him over for dinner, introduce him to his children, help the agent’s children get a superior post in a ministry, offer a sympathetic ear when ever the agent discussed imperial corruption (even encourage such talk), and then ask for a small favor (smuggling a small knick-knack through customs that’s technically forbidden because it’s from an imperial-sponsored archaelogical dig, but it isn’t actually anything of real value, like a potsherd), and then reveal that the senator has been working for the rebellion the whole time, and that the potsherd contained a stenographic message, that most of the agent’s friends and family are also part of the alliance now, and that the agent is fed up with corruption within the Empire.  He could turn the Senator over to the authorities, but not without raising questions about his own involvement, and also, it would perpetuate the problems in the Empire.  Why not work to help bring about a better age?  If he agrees, of course, he’s only given low-risk missions, with the assumption that he may well be working undercover now, but the alliance continues to work him, to build trust and camaraderie and point out the flaws of the Empire, so that even if the agent quietly reported the contact to his superiors, he might change his mind and commit fully to the alliance.
This network extends throughout the whole civilian population.  Many sympathizers are nothing more than children or house wives or old men who keep their eyes open.  Their lack of importance makes them invisible to Imperial eyes, and they keep their eyes on imperial and alliance agents alike, ensuring that allied agents stay loyal and they watch for wavering imperial loyalty, or simply report on dangerous imperial activity, like a coming crack-down.  They also buddy up to rebels, offering them praise, asking for stories and treating them like heroes.  Rebels often feel like rock-stars because the rebellion treats them as such; it might help to think of the rebellion as a cross between an extended, if distant, family, and a cult.

Allied Agendas

The alliance wishes to destroy the Empire, and then transition to ruling the galaxy itself.  First, though, it needs to lay the groundwork for both that destruction and transition.  To do this, it needs to undermine the Empire, convince the Galaxy that its better off without the Empire, then it needs to convince the Galaxy that it’s better off with the Alliance at its head, that the Empire was an abberation and the Alliance restores the Galaxy to its former golden age. Then it needs the power necessary to destroy the Empire, and it needs to work out who will be in charge of what, to prevent a mad scramble for power at the last moment that will precipitate a new galactic civil war, or result in a new Emperor.

Subvert the Empire

First, the Alliance needs to undermine Imperial power and legitimacy.  It might:
  • Reveal (or concoct) evidence of warcrimes or corruption.
  • Sabotage Imperial infrastructure in such a way that it looks like Imperial incompetence and that inconvencies and/or causes the suffering of millions of civilians
  • Subvert major officials via bribery of blackmail
  • Destroy Imperial infrastructure dedicated to the building of military capability
  • Free prisoners

Gather Power and Legitimacy

The Alliance must do more than prove the Empire unfit for governance; it must prove its own fitness, and it must have the power necessary to unseat the Empire.  To this end, it might:
  • Destroy pirates threatening ignored worlds (providing law and order)
  • Provide (smuggle?) medical aid to ignored worlds
  • Secure an alliance with a foreign power, with a powerful house, or with a rich corporation
  • Steal wealth to finance its own ends (ideally Imperial finances, of course, but any finances will do in a pinch)
  • Spread a whisper campaign of the right to rule of the exiled noble houses, or otherwise use propaganda to convince people of the rightness and nobility of the Alliance.

Destroy the Empire

Once the Galaxy has been converted to the Allied cause, the Alliance must actually unseat the Empire.  To this end, it might:
  • Assassinate a powerful official
  • Sabotage and destroy a major military project
  • Ambush imperial forces and destroy them
  • Conquer an imperial world and declare its sovereignty, then negotiate for its induction into the Alliance “of its own free will.”

Ensure Smooth Transition

Once the Empire has been removed, a power vacuum will form, and the Alliance must step smoothly into that vacuum, “restoring” the old Federation.  To do that, it must:
  • Secure binding treaties with its allies
  • Arrange ahead of time which Allied leaders will have what positions (“Carve up the Empire”)
  • Spread propaganda depicting what the new Federation would already look like, to cement the idea in the minds of the people.