Soldiers

Soldiers represent the initiative takers of the Nanon. Willing to take risk without being foolhardy, Soldiers champion causes and individuals alike. Soldiers, firefighters, police officers, activists; the Panemat recognizes the hearts of heroes when it encounters them.

Nickname:  Grunts

Narot:  The majority of Soldiers are found in either The Arm or Aegis as these narots are by far the most active and decisive. Some soldiers, particularly those who were part of special forces gravitate towards The Shadowmen while even fewer, usually older soldiers, find themselves seeking a spiritual path with Enigma or political endeavors with the Immortals.

Appearance:  Soldiers have a variety of appearances. Soldiers who were in the military in life but were discharge before the Panemat tend to continue to wear whatever they wore in their old life. Occasionally they experience a renewed vigor for the military life-style and will dress in their old fatigues or dress blues. Soldiers that had not been discharged prior to their Panemat seldom chose to remain soldiers either not reenlisting or going AWOL. Soldiers that go AWOL try to disguise themselves as anything but soldiers to avoid arrest. These situations are rare of course as there are few injuries that one can sustain that would warrant cybernetic implants and not force a medical discharge.

Safe Houses:  Soldiers prefer safe houses that are defensible: obscured buildings with a clear field of view of the surrounding terrain from within; multiple access points and escape routes; clean, independent water supply and ration stores. The paranoia that some Soldiers felt before the Panemat is often amplified after so security and location become critical where size becomes more of a luxury once the necessary internal components are realized.

Background: <span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif""> Soldiers, as with most Nanon, were in life just what their zhizn’ indicates. Some exceptions do exist, however.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Gamers that spend hours involved in multiplayer first person shooters may have developed sufficient neural pathways that the Panemat would result in the cyborg becoming a Soldier. While they may not have the physique of most soldiers, they do have some of the know-how, albeit in an un-tempered, inexperienced state.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Activists and community leaders may be selected to be Nanon soldiers, not for their physique or military minds but for their heart, their dedication and conviction to a cause.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Character Creation: <span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif""> The knee-jerk reaction to making a Soldier is to make Physicals your primary Attributes, Mentals your secondary and Socials your tertiary but stop and think a moment. Being a soldier isn’t just about being strong physically, it is about being strong as a whole person. It is about more than taking orders, it is about knowing when to give orders and what orders to give. Every good soldier will find themselves in a position where other soldiers are looking to them to lead them, to give them orders and to make the hard decisions. Knowing how to lead as well as being able to lead are just as important as being willing to be led.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Favored Attributes: <span style="font-family: "TimesNewRoman","serif"">Stamina or Resolve

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Zhizn’ Applications: <span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif""> NVision, Meromity, Stochastia

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Weakness: <span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif""> Soldiers can grow impatient and listless sitting around the barracks doing nothing. Going off base to bars can break-up the monotony, but will eventually result in trouble and there are only so many nights you can stay home alone polishing your gun.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Soldiers need to remain active doing something, anything. Any Soldier that remains inactive or idle for any amount of time becomes frustrated and anxious as the Call of the Machine spurs them on to activity. This depression is caused by a Soldier’s failure to use all of their downtime actions causing them to receive a -1 to all Call draws for every unused action until they fill their lives with more activity. Multiple downtimes with unspent actions will not stack but the highest penalty accrued will remain until the penalty is erased completely, regardless of the number of unspent downtime actions during the most recent downtime. The Soldier also loses their 10 again while they suffer from the above depression.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">In addition, this depressed state can be triggered by critical defeats and massive losses. Anytime the Soldier loses a friend when the Soldier could have saved them or when the Soldier was responsible for their well-being, or when the Soldier loses a tactically important asset (Safe House) the Soldier must make a Call roll to not fall into the depression. See rules for Call rolls on p. XX.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Organization: <span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">As with all zhizn’, the Soldiers do not have a clearly structured hierarchy or ranking system. It is also difficult to evaluate strangers and sort through rumors to guess at the true value of another Soldier. As a result, Soldiers tend to develop their own perceptions of organization starting with themselves and determining their value based upon their relationship to other Soldiers. In short no Soldier knows who is in-charge of the zhizn’, but of the Soldiers that they have met, they know who should be ranked higher than them and who should be ranked lower. Unfortunately this system is based on the importance of various characteristics as decided by the individual so the system does not lend itself neatly to compiling shared information to create a true power structure.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">On the up side, it affords individual soldiers the opportunity to evaluate others as they are met instead of relying on reputations that are often unreliable. This assignment of relative rank on a case-by-case basis may seem cumbersome but until such a times someone tries to bring order to the sprawling network or Nanon Soldiers, it will have to do. In addition, the inconsistent hierarchy protects soldiers from outside infiltration. Should a Nanon Soldier be captured and interrogated for information regarding their power structure, the information provided will only be accurate from the perspective of that individual Soldier, thus yielding unreliable intel.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Combinations: <span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif""> The Arm – Samus Aran, Major Motoko Kusanagi; Aegis – Colonel Steve Austin, Cyblade, Wolverine; Immortals – Darth Vader; The Shadowmen – 8 Man; Enigma – Hellsing

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align: justify;text-indent:.25in;line-height:normal"><span style="font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif"">Concepts: <span style="font-size:11.0pt; line-height:115%;font-family:"TimesNewRoman","serif";mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language:EN-US;mso-fareast-language: EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA"> Formally disabled Veteran, AWOL private, Halo grandmaster, Civil Rights activist, retired General