So, Follower's revision took this to like 99% completion, I just wanted to make a few tweaks and add in a bit more about psionics. For easier reading and avoiding retreading old ground for the third time, I just bolded the new additions.
Tex Talks Battletech Episode ST: The Spectre – the Last Word in Spec Ops
Alright, class, today's lesson is a bit different from our usual. But considering how much of an earth-shattering impact the knowledge these sons of bitches existed had on the Inner Sphere, I felt it was worth discussing them. Both what we know about them, and the waves they made when they were discovered.
When the Terrans came to the Inner Sphere, they brought with them a host of revolutionary new technologies – even several decades on, the Inner Sphere still hasn't actually caught up to what they had when they arrived, despite oceans of C-Bills being invested into them.
But these technologies were… 'normal', you could say. Better computers, better armor, better weapons – their industries, too, could be considered within the realm of possibility. Their flying buildings aren't far removed from a Dropship, after all, and while mindboggling fast their ability to build war materiel is still something you could envision from a more technologically advanced people.
Everything we have, but better. That was what the Terrans were – but people thought that was it.
When records of the Zerg and Protoss started to proliferate, we learned that the galaxy was bigger and weirder than we'd first imagined – but these were aliens. You kind of expected the unexpected in a way. Psychic magic powers? Sure, why not, that's an alien thing they can do.
Except it's not just aliens. Because a tiny, tiny fraction of humanity can do the same. And unlike us, the Terrans managed to incorporate them into their war machine.
Class, say hi to the Spectre. The single scariest motherfuckers you will ever meet, and the people who completely upended the battefield ecosystem because to these guys? Whether you're a Capellan conscript on foot with granddad's rifle, or the reincarnation of the goddamn Black Watch in a pristine Marauder doesn't matter.
They'll just blow your head up with their minds no matter where you are. If they don't feel like turning your entire Mech into a pretzel or splitting it in half instead.
Chapter 1: Why don't we have these guys?
So, before we go into the impact knowing about the Spectres had on the Inner Sphere, we should first go over a bit about the differences in the Sphere and the Koprulu Sector.
See, when the initiative that tossed those initial colonists that would become the Terrans out into the galaxy seemingly failed, it was back to the drawing board for FTL research and development. The entire field seemed to be a sunk-cost, until the Deimos Project – backed by the Terran Alliance, and based off of the theories of long-dead professors Thomas Kearny and Takayoshi Fuchida – developed the KF Drive.
With the ability to leap across the vast gulf of space, and in time, thirty light years in the blink of an eye, it instantly opened up an endless ocean of possibilities for human growth and expansion. We were no longer stuck on Earth alone – now, we could explore the stars.
Thus, began the first great Exodus.
The First Exodus from Earth saw an explosion of colonists, ranging from the government and corporate sponsored, to intrepid individuals and private organizations leaping into the Great Unknown. The KF Drive's benefits were unquestionable – nobody could ignore it. It could not be left on the table, and when its only side effects were a period of mild sickness and disorientation after a jump, it was adopted wholesale. From that point on, while it would see refinements, tweaks, and variations, the Kearny-Fucihda drive would shape the course of Human history, creating the proto-nations that would become the Inner Sphere, and the Periphery.
The fact that a tiny select few of the population suffered particularly acute bouts of sickness – all the way up to vomiting, seizures, or otherwise becoming completely incapacitated – was a small price to pay. The few unfortunate enough to be afflicted by TDS could be treated, and if you were lucky, rumor had that those in the Terran Hegemony could use gene-therapy to cure it permanently. And in the worst case scenario, those could just stay on one world – still plenty to do there after all. A solid chunk of human history saw plenty of people living full lives on Earth alone.
But the Terrans – those wayward colonists – survived and missed out on the KF Drive. The Terrans were stuck with their old, prototype colony ships, with their experimental FTL engines. The Terrans had to make do with what they had, and what they had was a completely separate form of FTL, one that to this day is kept under unbelievable secrecy because of its potency. A form of FTL that – amongst other advantages once it was refined – didn't cause Transit Disorientation Syndrome.
This, if they had any knowledge TDS even existed in the first place, probably would have seemed like a minor benefit at best.
Oh, how wrong they were.
Because as it turned out, TDS is a sign of neurological development in humans – for our less educated, it means that their brains are a bit different. And in these differences lay the foundation for developing goddamn psychic powers.
Now, I do say 'foundation' – TDS affects anywhere between 9 to 15% of the population, and the Terrans do *not* have such a huge fraction of their people having psychic powers. But, you can think of it as the first step on that road.
A society that is built upon the KF Drive will struggle to ever get off the ground in regards to developing psionic potential. A society that isn't, won't.
Ain't that a bitch. A thousand years after the fact and those two professors are getting their reps smeared again.
Chapter 2: Exploiting Psionics in Terrans
There are plenty of people who might suggest that assigning someone to the ghost program is akin to cruel and unusual punishment.
- Malcolm Kelerchian, Ghost 'recruitment officer' and master of understatement.
Before we begin, I have to give a disclaimer. Much of my knowledge on this subject is sourced from a multiude of sources, such as after-action reports, illicit copies of Battleroms from the black market, the drunken ramblings of veteran officers and the occasional intelligence officer, and of course, the Terrans themselves. So going forward, just keep in mind I've done my best to verify my knowledge, but like the nicest things about the Terrans, they kept a lot of secrets closet to the neosteel armored chest.
Now, where were we.
Right, TDS. So we don't exactly know when, where, who, or how, but at some point, the Terrans realized that there was a tiny but growing number in their population with these weird, strange, psychic powers - might not have been much, but it was something new and with immense potential if it could be researched properly.
The problem was that during this time period, the Terrans had divided themselves into three camps – the fairly nice and reasonable Umojans, the money-hungry Kel-Morians, and lastly the Confederacy. And their means of research and development… well, it broke a few eggs to say the least. And when it came to making use of psionic individuals… a lot more eggs got broken.
Every infant in the Confederacy had to be tested for psionics – within nine months of birth. If they hit an appreciable number of the scale, then the new parents would lose their kid as the Confederates grabbed them – to be taken to a 'special school', where they'd 'die in an accident'.
The first one, if you squint, wasn't really a lie – and the second one unfortunately became a reality for many, many children.
Thus began the Terran Confederacy's Ghost Program. That's also what they called their psionic operatives if it wasn't clear, and the damn name couldn't have been more spot on if they tried.
Chapter 3: Ghosts, the not-so-friendly cousin of Casper
"The way of the warrior is the path of shadow. The gift of the warrior is to perceive that which cannot be seen. The spirit of the warrior is to strike in a single moment. The destiny of the warrior is balance in all things. And when balance is lost, all that is left, is the reckoning..."
-Mantra taught to Ghost candidates
The Terrans are understandably tight-lipped on this – they don't want the Great Houses getting psionic agents of their own by learning from the research notes of what would become known as the 'Ghost' Program, and they also don't want the atrocities that would result from the Great Houses trying to get psionic agents as well.
Because make no mistake, everything about 'Ghosts' – the precursor agents to the Spectres – sounds like it came out of a goddamn horror show. I'm going to be honest with you, class. I don't know how or why I managed to get some of the details of just what they did to make a Ghost, but it made me drink enough to make an Elemental sick. I should know, my ex-wife blacked out before I did after reading it.
The lucky entrants to the 'Academy' would come in as infants – no memories of freedom or independence. The unlucky ones, the ones caught when they were already somewhat grown up…. Well. Somehow, 'resoc-tech' isn't the end-all be-all of that technology.
Details on actual training are scarce, and what little I know was disturbing, but it could involve shit like preteens and adolescents having to kill a man with a gun already to their heads before he pulled the trigger, or putting them up against hardened veterans with combat knives. They'd have to use their powers to kill, or they'd die.
I'm sure some of you are wondering just how dangerous these Ghosts could actually be? Well for one thing, they were considered the actual boogeymen of the Sector before the Great War, and even during and after, that fear never has gone away. The public wasn't exactly aware of the Ghost Program when its first graduates moved onto field trials you see, with assassinations and infiltrations chalked up to regular elite operatives, minus the psionic abilities. But as word spread, every assassination inside and outside the Confederacy was chalked up to a Ghost being behind the trigger, the blade, or the accident.
According to the Terrans, the Terran Dominion Emperor's father and his family, minus the obvious son, were assassinated by a team of Ghosts, even going so far as to take the man's head, before disappearing into the night.
But that's just the start of how dangerous they were. Creating child soldiers with telekinetic abilities who could crush a man's skull just by thinking really, really hard is just a recipe for disaster. Doesn't matter just how much you indoctrinate them, because at some point they might start thinking about popping heads or other body parts just because they were mad, or they might think it was funny. Trauma can do that to people.
So what did the Confederacy do? Did they provide all the luxuries and comforts to keep them as happy as Amaris at Golden Corral? With enough therapy and care to make a clanner pour their heart out? Nope.
They shoved as many limiters on them as they could without turning them into a vegetable. Aggression inhibitor implants that actually stopped them from targeting their superior officers, so they could avoid any, probably well-deserved, psionic-fragging. Probably couldn't say the same for any of the rank and file though. Chemical and psychological conditioning to weaken the powers of any extra powerful Ghosts, showing the Confederates actually had the brain cells to not make something more powerful than they could control for once. And of course, the neuro-adjuster implants and mind-wipes. These were exactly what they sounded like, letting the Confederacy play with their operatives' minds like putty. Brain chemistry, aggression, behavioral patterns, they could even actually rewire a person's mind if used correctly.
Then, after one of their Ghosts actually managed to break free, they took it a step further. Surprisingly, being made into a child-soldier and committing some of the worst crimes imaginable doesn't make a soldier loyal to the cause. Who knew? So what else could they do? Memory wipes. They actually figured out how to permanently wipe the memories of their operatives, keeping them loyal to the cause. Can't want to betray your country if you don't even remember why you started thinking about it, after all.
Now before any of you start getting into a panic, our Terrans don't have this tech with them at all, or any information on it other than that it existed and what it did. And they've made damn sure everyone knows it.
No one really knows just how many Ghosts the Confederacy managed to produce before it fell to the Zerg, thanks to the Sons of Korhal. Even before then they raided the facility and destroyed it, cutting off the flow of new Confederate Ghosts.
But because history is circular, one of the first things Mengsk did was to rebuild the Academy under his new 'Dominion' – because he wasn't about to let such a potent weapon go unused. And neither would the other Terran factions.
None of them would ever be as bad as the Confederates, at least – the Dominion actually told parents what would happen to their kids and gave them a choice, although giving your kid away to a special school for gifted children was… heavily, encouraged. Kids could even write to their parents and get letters back – at least until their mind were wiped, because Mengsk is a bastard.
The Umojans, being far more reasonable, treat their Ghosts – which they call 'Shadowguards' – with a lot more humanity. Rather than using forceful controls like mind wipes and 'neural inhibitors', more on that never, the Umojans simply use strict screening protocols and encourage their people to act with integrity.
Turns out encouraging real loyalty, combined with the Umojans having even better technology than most Terrans, meant that pound for pound a Shadowguard was probably the most dangerous psionic agent the Terrans had… until the creation of the Spectre anyway, though I don't believe the two 'types' have ever actually fought.
Chapter 4: Project Shadowblade
Spectres. Tell me: Have you ever seen a spectre? No? Because they don't exist.
- Gabriel Tosh, Spectre, in an interview with a very brave, very unfortunate reporter
Now, I'll preface this by saying that we don't actually know a lot about the specifics details behind all this. Even today, most of this information is kept classified – and like everything else, Terran encryption systems are in another league.
What we do know is this: The Dominion wanted to make better Ghosts, and found out that there were ways to increase a Ghost's psionic powers, which are normally pretty constant throughout their lives, just a matter of it being dormant or not. They bundled the various research initiatives up underneath a big project, codenamed 'Shadowblade', and began to produce these new, next-generation Ghosts, which they dubbed Spectres.
Now this next part supposedly comes straight from the horse's mouth; allegedly one of the Raider's own Spectres gave up some of the details of just how things went wrong. Mengsk, showing just how and why he became Emperor, decided he didn't like his new toys. Apparently the thought of the Spectres kept him up at night and ordered the entire thing terminated by hypersonic slugs. Guess he didn't want a Dominion rendition of Frankenstein's Monster happening.
Unlike with the mad doctor, Mengsk's plan actually worked pretty well. Out of everyone who was involved, nearly all of them ended up either dead or captured, with only a few actually escaping. The ones who were captured were thrown into New Folsom; a lava planet turned into a prison world and kept under maximum security.
We don't have any details what the remnants got up to after that, aside from doing their best to kick the Dominion's teeth in every chance they got. At some point, they decided to throw in with Raynor's Raiders because they could both get behind kicking in Mengsk's teeth. Fun for the whole family.
Now the Spectres manage the Raider's spec-ops work – a lot of these dudes were once Ghosts as well, and they haven't forgotten all that training. Or the grudges.
Chapter 5: Infantry Battlemechs
Pathetic Freebirth – you face the might of Star Captain-
- Last words of Clan Wolf Star Captain Gerhard Hoffman, before his Mad Cat's cockpit was crushed like a tin can with him still inside.
Spectres exist as one giant middle-finger to MechWarriors everywhere. Infantry can fuck up Battlemechs – they dig in, hide, launch ambushes with fixed guns and SRM's. They work as a team, isolating and destroying the usually far fewer Battlemechs stomping towards them. Covert ops troops can kill MechWarriors at base after having snuck in. This is how infantry are meant to fight BattleMechs.
Spectres didn't get that memo. They'll happily take BattleMech's head-on, either killing the MechWarrior inside directly or just tearing it apart with their minds if they want to make it clear who's the real top dog on the battlefield.
I'll be going over their equipment, their training, and what they can do with their psionics in this section, because speaking frankly I don't know where one ends and the other begins.
I need to emphasize this: The Terrans generally have manpower issues. It plagued them in the Koprulu sector, and it plagued them here – and for a polity that struggles to find warm bodies to give guns to, generally it makes sure that each body has a lot of gear instead. It's why standard kit for Terran marines is a suit of goddamn power armor and an infantry-scale gauss machinegun.
So imagine being a polity already strapped for bodies, and for your covert operatives adding on the second qualifier of an extremely rare genetic quirk, and also being nice about it so you can't just draft them.
Yeah. For the Raiders, finding Spectre candidates is like going hunting for unicorns – and, because they're so damn rare, they make sure that each and every one of these bastards is equipped to the absolute best extent the Terrans can manage. These guys get the most advanced technology and equipment available to a faction who considers power armor to be disposable and cheap.
And this is after the fact that when the Confederacy, and later the Dominion, decided to kit their operatives with the best tech they could.
These guys are meant to be covert operatives, so despite them probably wanting to, they couldn't really justify giving Spectres power armor – instead, they get what are referred to as 'Hostile Environment Suits'. Originally meant for civilian wear in hostile environments like in toxic swamps or near volcanoes, the name went unchanged when Ghosts and Spectres got a militarized, updated version of this. Only now 'hostile environment' refers to an environment full of hostiles, who will probably soon cease to be hostile. Or alive.
The exact details of this suit remain a mystery, but what's known is that despite being more like Reaper armor than CMC – i.e. being basically a bodysuit with some armored plates slapped on, these suits are damn good. There aren't many reports of these guys actually taking fire because they're first and foremost espionage agents with the tools to sneak on by, but think of it this way: These suits are designed that was fighting on battlefields where sustained, on-target, ideally massed C-14 fire wasn't just a possibility, but damn near guaranteed if you were spotted.
Meanwhile, while a Spectre certainly can kill you with their mind or their fists, what they normally use is just a plain-old gun. Of course, these are the Terrans so it's not a simple sniper-rifle they carry or are lacking in options.
If you're lucky when there's a Spectre operating on the same continent as you are, they'll be armed with the AGR-14 rifle. Yes, this is the same rifle that the Lyran Commonwealth has sitting above the throne, and yes, it's the most commonly available gauss rifle that isn't the C-14 seen amongst the Terrans. It's a gauss rifle firing similar rounds that the C-14 uses, except these aren't hypersonic, just supersonic. As far as we know, these rifles are the same as the ones that occasionally show up on the black market, except the ammunition that the Spectres use are different, seeing as they can actually snipe with the things from a good couple hundred meters and damage battlemechs.
If you're unlucky, then you can expect to Spectres to be carrying a C-14. Yes, the same C-14 Impaler firing hypersonic slugs that the Terran Marines use in their CMC. Don't ask me how the hell they can carry the damn things, let alone fire the damn things without getting knocked on their ass. All I know is there's been confirmed reports of Spectres suspected to be on planet, and the only evidence left behind being a pile of C-14 casings.
And if Murphy decided that he really doesn't like, you can expect Spectres to have a C-10 Mark VI canister rifle. Before anyone begins asking questions, yes, the rumors you heard are most likely accurate. Now just what exactly is a C-10 Canister rifle? It's a 25mm rifle, capable of firing a variety of ammo types, and equipped with what I can only call a micro-TAG. That's right, the Terrans took a goddamn man-portable Class-2 Autocannon and turned it into a rifle.
And it's more dangerous that you would think. They're usually loaded with high-explosive anti-personnel rounds, which in this case means capable of penetrating CMC-300 armor. Considering how much softer the average infantryman was in the Inner Sphere, and the fact that even now the Terran CMC-300 is a gold standard, you can imagine just what this meant for Inner Sphere.
Even Light Battlemechs need to be careful not to get their cockpits popped if there's a Spectre armed with one of these bad boys somewhere.
And before you think range might be your saving grace, a Ghost can be laydown precision accurate fire, whether they're sniping at target, or cutting loose with full-auto. If that wasn't enough, the Spectres have something called a 'Lockdown' round. This round has become the utter nightmare fuel for every tanker, pilot, and mechwarrior in the Sphere, Periphery, and even the Clans. Why? Because no matter what it hits, the lockdown round shuts down everything but the life-support for a short while. It doesn't matter what you're in, if someone forcibly turns you into a sitting duck, unable to even ditch your ride as everyone focuses on the nice, stationary, and defenseless target. That's just the type of the iceberg. If I were to try and list all the theorized and known ammunition the Terrans had for this gun, that'd be a whole lecture in and of itself.
Keeping in mind what they expected to be up against, you can imagine what this thing does to normal Inner Sphere infantrymen.
Used to be, once upon a time, that these things were as rare as a Star League cache among the Terrans. Turns out, even they have stuff that's really hard and expensive for them to make. Nowadays, it's a dice roll just what a Spectre has decided to ruin someone's day with.
Oh, and remember how I said it had a micro-TAG? I lied. It's a lot scarier than a TAG. See, a TAG gives off a nice big signal when its painting a target, letting everyone know the general direction its coming from. The only sign that a Spectre is painting you as a target for anything from artillery to missiles, drop-pods, and if rumors are true, nukes, is a tiny little red dot. Yeah, according to rumor, if the Terrans want something very, very dead, they can literally put a nuclear missile on the forehead of the poor bastard who pissed them off. Good luck spotting that when the bullets, lasers, and missiles are flying on the battlefield, or in general. And the Spectres always have one of these micro-TAGs, no matter what they might have decided to carry. Least, that's what's assumed.
But that's guns and armor. Stuff that, while better than anything infantry-grade the Inner Sphere ever saw, still knew how to deal with. Now for the problems that took everyone by surprise.
Understandably, the specifics of what Spectres can do with their psionics is kept tightly classified – and considering the nature of the power, each Spectre probably also has their own unique tricks and techniques. That said, we do know that they've got some universal tricks that every Spectre can pull off. What are they? Well, let's go down the list.
First, their bread and butter – their Cloak. Every Spectre can turn invisible, and stay that way – if there's a timer then we don't know about it, because there are stories of these bastards popping up out of nowhere in terrain that had been considered secure for weeks on end. Standard scans don't do jack shit to catch them – there's no visual indicator once the system's active, not even something like a heat haze in the air, and it's just as strong as the Cloak systems the Terrans put on their Wraith's and Banshee's. If it's not equal to a Bloodhound, it doesn't matter – this is why so many of the Great Houses are investing in physical barriers rather than more modern security systems.
Spectres may not be caught out by any form of infra-red sensor, but a locked door is still gonna stop them. Until they break it down, but whether breaking or opening – that's something you notice.
And of course they can stay Cloaked while moving or shooting, too – from the war stories I've gathered, if there's an enemy Ghost or whatever in the area and there's no detection available, standard procedure is to pull literally every unit back to the nearest detector. And the Inner Sphere learned why – there are stories of Spectres wiping out entire regiments of poor bloody infantry on their own with rifles, knives, and their bare hands. More on that later.
Next, what they call an 'ultrasonic pulse' – it's a low-level… thing, that basically mindfucks you for a bit, like getting your brain flashbanged. It doesn't last that long, but it can disable entire squads – plenty of time for a Spectre to just run away if they've gotten in hot water. Or to just run in, maybe with friends, and send them to meet their maker.
And Battlemechs aren't immune, either – normally they can only catch one or two Mechs at a time because Battlemechs tend not to clump up that tightly, but suddenly losing consciousness is a great way to turn into a sitting duck on the battlefield, or take a bad fall and damage your machine because you got hit while moving.
Doesn't sound that long? Well, here's a little exercise - sit back and count off two seconds. It doesn't sound like a long time, right? But it feels longer when you actually count out two full seconds - well, imagine having to do that in the middle of a battlefield. High-power lasers, autocannon shells, and whatever flavor of fuck the Terrans are shooting today whirling all around.
And you, noble MechWarrior, just caught everyone's attention because you stopped moving.
Yeah, doesn't sound so harmless then, does it? And keep in mind - if you're unlucky enough to be on a battlefield with more than one of these lunatics, they can just keep hammering you with pulses, locking you down for much, much longer.
Lastly, their flashiest power – Psionic Lash. This is what most MechWarriors are most scared of, because infantry shouldn't be able to tear apart Battlemechs like confetti. But like I said, nobody told the Spectre that – there is no subtlety or finesse to this power, it's not got broad tactical applications you can use.
What this is a sledgehammer of psionic force being used to take a single target, and fucking delete it. Any one not in something in well armored, like a tank, is gonna get turned into the past tense in a very flashy slap. Anyone inside something armored, like a tank or a BattleMech, is still going to be in for a world of hurt. If it's on the light sider of things, you might just get cored outright - or lose a leg, because Spectres will aim this shit for what's most likely to disable your ride. If you're in something heavy, you're still not completely safe because they'll try to aim for things that'll severely impact your battlefield performance - like, say, destroying or shearing off one of the missile racks of a Longbow.
Rule of thumb; the heavier your ride, the better off you'll come out from it. But even if you're in an Assault Mech, don't think you're completely safe.
But I suppose when they aren't in that mood, they just kill people with their bare hands instead – I don't know if it's the suit, genetic engineering, psionics, or a combination of all three, but Spectres are physically tough enough to throw around CMC-armored soldiers around like ragdolls.
Yeah. CMC Armor, which is heavy enough to go head-to-head with Elemental Battle Armor, gets thrown around – their users killed through the armor because the Spectre decided to introduce their fist through the helmet.
I've never heard of Elementals ever catching out a Spectre and getting into melee, but something tells me that the first Clanner to try that's gonna be in for a hell of a surprise.
Don't think that Spectres and Elementals haven't ever clashed, before, though - they have, and it's always ended one way. I think Spectres like putting the genetically-modified psychotic supersoldiers of Kerensky in their place when they get the opportunity - seriously, some of the stories I've heard are downright sadistic.
Chapter 6: Oh wait, there's more.
How the hell does this shit fall under 'psychic powers'!? How the hell do you mind-control *machines*!?
- Anonymous quote from a researcher at NAIS at the Davion's burgeoning field of Psionic research, learning about technopathy for the first time
Oh yeah, there's more to this. Because what we just covered? That's just the 'core' of what all Spectre can do - like how you expect all MechWarriors to at least have the basics of moving and firing weapons that aren't attached to a BattleMech's hands down. Yeah, Spectres will often have additional powers on top of what we covered, psionic talents that they've honed to the point of nightmarish to... deal, with their enemies in ways that make you long for the days when all you had to worry about was getting shot.
Whether it's making you go batshit berserk and shooting anything in sight, including your friends, mind-controlling you directly, making your head explode like a grape inside a microwave, remote-controlling the Demolisher behind you no matter how what the driver has to say about it... the list goes on.
Remember, they don't *need* to see you, to kill you. When a trained Spectre decides they want you dead via the power of their mind, it doesn't matter if you're in Battle Armor, a BattleMech, or you're buckass naked - all being in a BattleMech does, is give them more options to ruin your day. And perhaps the day of anybody around you.
Spectres will train their talents, both their standard kit and any more unique powers they might have, to the point they can become calling cards of sorts - while they don't always go out of their way to make their mark, sometimes it'll be pretty obvious even without them deciding to show off a bit. See, for a long while, nobody knew what the fuck was going on. People were pointing fingers at the Terrans because it's always the Terrans when some new terrifying bullshit hits the field, but the remains being left behind meant people had no goddamn clue how these people were dying, or how these bases were being broken into. Even looking at recovered footage from security cams didn't give much in the way of answers - people's heads would randomly explode, squads of alert troops would suddenly get dazed and stunned out of nowhere, soldiers and warriors would suddenly shoot each other in the back, fortified doors would be forced open... even once the secret of Spectres came out, nobody knew what sort of technology the Terrans were using.
When it came out that it wasn't technology, but something innate to the soldier, a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief - even the Terrans couldn't make weird, wall-ignoring weapons that blew up heads and puppeted people. They had to roll the generic lottery and hope to get lucky, like everyone else. With all the shit they can mass produce, any limitations on what they could mass-produce was considered a godsend.
Some others, though, had all new panic attacks, because it means you cannot disarm a Spectre. Ever. They can always do this shit, and no equipment you take away is going to change that. And since they keep their personnel records so tightly bound, nobody knows what a given Spectre might look like under that armor - so if they were to, say, show up at some nice international function with nobody the wiser... you can imagine the chaos that could happen.
This audio recording is from when one of their most feared agents decided to play with her food a bit, and quite firmly establish the pecking order as to which genetically-abnormal supersoldiers were the best. It's also one of the first instances where it was proven that it was the soldier, not a weapon, that was pulling this shit.
"~Песенку тебе я спою, Баюшкины баю, баю~"
"Star Captain... I can not... not feel my..."
"... he has lost consciousness, Star Captain. Our armor... why does it not... why does it not protect us from this frost?"
"So cold... damn them... where are you, Freebirth witch!? Show yourself!"
"~Глазки закрываютсяm, Песенку тебе я спою~"
"She mocks us...!"
"My... my breath..."
*Crash*
"Damn... get back to your feet... Warrior! This... this cold... will not..."
*Crash*
"~Глазки закрываются~"
*Sound of footsteps crunching on thin ice*
"You...! Freebirth... pure... pure arrogance, if you... if you think... die!"
*Small laser fires*
"...
impossible..."
"... no. Not impossible. You are merely ignorant."
"How... what manner of trickery... is this? The battle armor of the Clans... should be more than proof... against any cold...!"
"It would not have mattered what you wore. The outcome would have been the same either way."
"This is... not possible... the... the chosen of Kerensky... cannot...cannot..."
"Go to sleep, little jaguar. Your companions will join you soon enough."
"..."
Yeah. Normally, a special agent being famous isn't exactly a good thing. But MechWarriors tend to be... somewhat superstitious, and a scary reputation can be a weapon all on its own. It's why this particular Spectre decided to make a small show of it - slowly killing those Clanners rather than just flash-freezing them instantly. Her actual name is still unknown because again, the Terrans keep their personnel records really damn secure, but that's given rise to a number of different reporting names throughout the Sphere because it took a while for people to realize that this was all one woman. The Kuritans call her 'Yuki-Onna', while in Capellan space she's known as 'Winter's Scar'. I think the Lyrans call her the 'Yeti Princess' thanks to her having an attached group of arctic warfare specialists, while the FedSuns call her 'Frostnova'.
The Free World's League, meanwhile, can't decide on what to have for lunch, let alone decide on a callsign.
Turns out, when you make it known you can encase entire Forward Operating Bases in ice, give everyone inside the old arctic dunk, and can do shit straight out of a fucking fairy tale, you get the more 'poetic' names.
Like I said, superstitious.
That's not to say that any old Psionic can pull off head-explosions or mind-fucks from a dozen grid-squares away, though. It takes a lot of training to do that kind of thing from what I've heard Terrans say. Unfortunately for anyone on the wrong side of the Terrans, the Spectre's are in fact given that training.
Chapter 7: Discipline, Discipline, Discipline
"Remember this moment. Remember this feeling. Remember this pain. If you make it through the end of this training, there is nothing short of death that will impede you! You will power through the exhaustion that is tireless services. You will fight through the pain that is selfless sacrifice. You will remember this when facing insurmountable odds. And when that time comes, you will laugh, you will roar, you will scream, and above all, you will overcome! For we are the Royal Blackwatch! Defenders of the First Lord, the Cameron Dynasty, and the Star League!"
-Creed shared by Royal Blackwatch Drill Instructors with new recruits.
Remember how I mentioned that some of them carry around a C-14, and some are armed with the rifle-sized autocannon that is the C-10 Mark VI with no issue? Well with the Spectres, that's because of their training, and it is something that made everyone's intelligence operatives feel a little bit…inadequate.
To be fair, it's not normal that field agents would be carrying the equivalent of a support machine gun in the field with them, whether they were operating solo or part of a team.
Our boys and girls of the sphere shouldn't feel ashamed they can't casually carry something the size of a support weapon the entirety of a deployment though, since much like everything else in Koprulu, Spectres had to train for a much different of circumstances.
In the sphere, field agents could expect to be deployed in hostile territory, but primarily either on relatively short-term deployments as they came in through a pirate point, or infiltrating aboard a civilian or disguised dropship. In the former, they would have expected to been on the field for a very short period of time, as once their dropship was discovered, all bets were off and thus speed was the priority with little to no expectation of engaging anything heavier than an infantryman. In the case of the latter, they would have very little more to bring any kind of ordinance with them, so they would have been limited to what could be hidden away. In the rare instances heavier ordinance was a necessity, efforts would likely be made to secure them locally.
Not so with the Spectres. Considering in Koprulu every infantryman is issued a CMC-300, or heavier armor, and detectors that could actually tell everyone the exact centimeter where one was, it was a damned requirement. Once you start taking account into the Zerg, with their variety and numbers, or the Protoss, with their energy shields, and it starts making sense just why they invested oceans of money into their equipment and training.
What exactly does this training entail? Well, for simplicity's sake, I'm going to compare it to the one organization I know had similar training. The goddamn Royal Blackwatch. Yeah, that's right, from what the Terrans have decided to share, from the physical training to technical, the Spectres train their recruits into the ground, before digging them out and throwing them into a ruck-run.
They train them to be absolute bad asses to the last man and woman, to be able to carry out their mission, whether it be deep behind enemy lines or right on the front lines for days at a time. Every Spectre is allegedly trained in hacking any system they might come across, operate any vehicle they might find, and how to kill just anything that comes into range. According to rumor, their standard expected of Spectres is to breach a military maximum-security prison and single-handedly throw open the and allow friendlies to annihilate whatever is in their path.
I have not personally ever found any reports of a Spectre having been discovered while on mission, but rumors abound of the few instances one was. And in each instance, it was as though the Blackwatch had come back to the Inner Sphere, with inordinate amounts of manpower just to kill one Spectre. Again though, this is just rumor.
Makes sense though, that the Great Houses would do their best to suppress any instance of where Spectres were found if true. Not exactly good for morale if your troops knew there were invisible psychic soldiers who could murder them and all their buddies before anyone managed to hit them.
And if this was terrifying, it was worse for those in power, and those charged to protect them.
Chapter 8: It's a Bad Time to be a Security Chief in the Sphere
How the hell do we even fight these people? Everything else the Terrans do is obvious and up-front, but these sons of bitches are damn near impossible to combat. If it's not permanent invisibility it's some flavor of psychic bullshit that lets them bypass all our defenses – or just kill them outright. By this point, we may as well just assume the Terrans already know everything we do, whether technology or strategic aims, because they have the tools to find out.
- Unnamed Davion garrison commander in the early days after the big reveal
To say that the existence of Spectres had an impact on the Inner Sphere, would be an understatement.
All the Great Houses and other major factions, like a certain militant telecoms company, have their own covert operatives and branches – ROM, Maskirovka, DMI, and so on and so forth. These people have all been given the best equipment and training the Great Houses can muster so they can sneak into enemy territory, find out what they can, do what damage they can if so desired, and hopefully exfiltrate alive so all that training and equipment doesn't go to waste.
To the Spectres, all of these intelligence agencies might as well be screaming gorilla's waving their arms around, because they have the tools to let one Spectre do the job of an entire team easily.
All of the security methods the Great Houses used to try and counter each other's cloak-and-dagger shenanigans were suddenly woefully inadequate – the Terrans, if they so wished, could have assassinated Hanse Davion or old Mad Max, or any of the other leaders, and there'd be nothing they could do to stop it. They could stay invisible however long they needed, just waiting for an opportunity, and an opportunity in this case just meant 'you are now in range for a psionic lash'. Windows proofed against autocannon fire, ferrocrete walls, none of that matters – if a Spectre gets close enough, in a distance measured in dozens, if not hundreds of meters, then they can kill you.
Or, if not kill, maybe just pluck secrets right out of your head.
I imagine that for some time, the leaders of the Great Houses, their nobles, and others in positions of power were as paranoid as Amaris was with the Ghosts of the Blackwatch. Who can blame them?
And while Spectres can't just use Jumpships – trust me, TDS hits them really goddamn hard – people sometimes forget that the Terrans can just deploy a stealth dropship with a warp drive instead.
The revelation that these bastards existed took some time to get going because understandably, people were skeptical. Once they did, though… hoo boy. The Inner Sphere might not have been that united… ever, to be honest. It probably wouldn't have taken much for the Terrans to get into a shooting war against the entirety of the Inner Sphere because the Great Houses were so goddamn concerned they were willing to take the nuclear option just to take Spectres off the table.
Of course because it's the Inner Sphere, no such cooperation ever took place – it helped that the Terrans in general are very… defensive. They'd much rather defend what they have, or their friends, rather than go on conquest shenanigans like the House Lords would – but, the Great Houses had some difficulty understanding that and while a shooting was was avoided… well, they tried other options.
Let's just say that the Spectres fucking earned their paychecks with the number of agents from other agencies they buried on Dumassas, who were doing anything from trying to sabotage Terran facilities and starports to trying to smuggle nukes onto the world. If Jumpships weren't so slow and obvious compared to Warp Drives, they might have succeeded. As it was, starports saw increased security and detection, inbound ships checked before they made landfall, and every attempt to break the security net around Terran space failed. If this had been attempted before the CMI, they might have had more success. I think I speak for everyone when I say it was a good thing that they never did succeed, considering the CMI just how scary the Terrans could be when they decide to send a message. Because when you've got telepaths on your roster, it's a hell of a lot easier and more reliable to discover spies if you're willing to enforce some mandatory security measures.
In the aftermath? Well, let's just say that losing so many personnel in their intelligence arms saw the Great Houses instead try to focus on defense. Entire palaces and fortresses were completely renovated to try and account for invisible psychic super-assassins – one hell of a gold rush for anyone in that industry, let me tell you. Funnily enough, a lot of the most 'effective' systems turned out to be fairly cheap and low-tech – stuff like locked doors, as I mentioned earlier, strip curtains with basic sensors attached sending pings whenever they moved, that sort of thing. Though I heard that the Lyrans tried to throw money at the problem and just carpet everything they had with Bloodhound probes, seizing the entire first production in fact, in a nice big security center – not sure how well that's working out.
On the other side of the table, every Great House has been trying to get its own psionic programs up and running… but with focusing on individuals who suffer from TDS being only step one on a long road, so as far as I'm aware they're mostly just fucking around in the dark.
Probably isn't stopping the Kuritans or Capellans from running some pretty fucked up experiments though.
Considering this is mostly in the biological sphere though, I think that the Magistracy has actually been making the best progress, in their new tradition of being some of the best at catching up to the Terrans – but if anyone's made any progress at all, they aren't sharing.
So what does this mean for us? Well, oddly enough, not much – Spectres and the like are generally focused on the big powers, where their talents are actually needed. It's gonna be pretty rare that you have to worry about dealing with one, and they're usually not going to be found on a battlefield to begin with. They have more important shit to be doing.
And any battlefield where Spectres are going to be found in any number, people are going to have far greater and louder concerns demanding their attention at gunpoint.
Mostly, it means more contracts in the ever-chaotic Inner Sphere, as every Great House tries to steal each other's research and blow up the others.
The Terrans – making jobs ever since they arrived.
Class Dismissed.