Why the CS need to mark female officers?

[Burren]

I was reading through Coalition War Campaign and ran across the entry for CA-3 Light "Dead Boy" Armor (pg. 100) where it says that this style of armor can be adorned with a plume to mark wilderness scouts and female officers. Why would the CS want to single out female officers? While the CS does acknowledge different kinds of units and officers with different styles of body armor (like spikes for psionics) it would seem to me that the CS would want the female officers to blend in with the rest of their male counterparts. An innocuous detail, I suppose, but just something that piqued my curiosity.

[guardiandashi]

I was reading through Coalition War Campaign and ran across the entry for CA-3 Light "Dead Boy" Armor (pg. 100) where it says that this style of armor can be adorned with a plume to mark wilderness scouts and female officers. Why would the CS want to single out female officers? While the CS does acknowledge different kinds of units and officers with different styles of body armor (like spikes for psionics) it would seem to me that the CS would want the female officers to blend in with the rest of their male counterparts. An innocuous detail, I suppose, but just something that piqued my curiosity.

I think its basically saying that the armor can accept similar markings as the other suits. so a female officer wearing the CA-3 will have a helmet that matches that of a male officer in a different suit of armor.

[say652]

Scouts are also marked with the topknot. I think it looks cool

[glitterboy2098]

Palladium has a bad habit of gender specific armor stylings. i think it is a carry over from the robotech RPG, which also had gender specific stylings. (and the 2nd edition doubled down on, making the female armor weaker and less protective. huh????)

[drewkitty ~..~]

Because when it is a female line officer, it lets you know to not play the usual 'boys game' with them. (male entitlement misogyny) Cause they will kick your sorry butt and leave the body and an casually of enemy fire or training accident.

[mercedogre]

because of CIS male entitlement misogyny......lol jk, actually i think its an option left for the female officer to decide if she wants it or not, never said the female officers were forced to use it

[ShadowLogan]

I was reading through Coalition War Campaign and ran across the entry for CA-3 Light "Dead Boy" Armor (pg. 100) where it says that this style of armor can be adorned with a plume to mark wilderness scouts and female officers. Why would the CS want to single out female officers? While the CS does acknowledge different kinds of units and officers with different styles of body armor (like spikes for psionics) it would seem to me that the CS would want the female officers to blend in with the rest of their male counterparts. An innocuous detail, I suppose, but just something that piqued my curiosity.

Some of it I suspect is the same as the Glittergirl mindset. (ie "guys you just got smacked down by a girl")

Some of it might also be to avoid singling out the Wilderness Scouts or Female Officers. (ie "is that a WS or a chick?")

Some of it might also be psychological on several levels (guys protecting the girls, glittergirl, possible source of enemy distraction, etc).

[J_cobbers]

My bet is no real "in game" reason other than that when the art was produced the top knot was on there as a "hey this looks cool" factor. Either that or for very mild fan-service, kinda like the original South American Glitter Girl PA, and the Free Quebec GiGi are very 'curvy' Power Armors to the point that they defy real world body types and proportions.

[kaid]

Honestly it is probably a PR move by the CS. Like the Nazi they are styled after they paid a lot of attention to the look of their troops. The nazi even hired a film maker to help design their uniforms to make them look as impressive and menacing as possible.

[Zer0 Kay]

Palladium has a bad habit of gender specific armor stylings. i think it is a carry over from the robotech RPG, which also had gender specific stylings. (and the 2nd edition doubled down on, making the female armor weaker and less protective. huh????)

Why would an on average smaller suit of armor have the same protection?
I would have guessed they'd mark the female officers because the CS still considers the reproductive aspect of the female half more valuable than what the male contributes... but that should be more reason to hide it so the enemy doesn't take the opportunity. The EBA should have HUD the marks fellow soldiers with name and maybe even a generalized medical readout that looks like a health bar. If they find the identification important that should be where they do it.

[guardiandashi]

Palladium has a bad habit of gender specific armor stylings. i think it is a carry over from the robotech RPG, which also had gender specific stylings. (and the 2nd edition doubled down on, making the female armor weaker and less protective. huh????)

Why would an on average smaller suit of armor have the same protection?
I would have guessed they'd mark the female officers because the CS still considers the reproductive aspect of the female half more valuable than what the male contributes... but that should be more reason to hide it so the enemy doesn't take the opportunity. The EBA should have HUD the marks fellow soldiers with name and maybe even a generalized medical readout that looks like a health bar. If they find the identification important that should be where they do it.

its going to maybe sound silly but I actually could see the coalition going all imperial on their troops. by this I mean they have 2 sizes of armor, Big, and bigger. what I mean is that regardless of how tall you "really are" when you put on your armor you stand 6'8" (for example) or 8' if naturally taller. and for the people who are only say 5' or so yes they are wearing a light exo and "extensions" on your limbs to bring you into line with the "standard height" policies. either that or commonly assign people to units based on skill, abilities, and physical size.

now to be honest one thing I remember reading in many modern military sci-fi novels I have read is because of the tendency for "snipers" to target "officers" is to put things like non reflective and essentially color matching insignia on uniforms and combat gear.

things like:
https://www.google.com/search?q=low+con ... lt316fM%3A

basically make it so there are few/no visible differences between low and high ranking personnel for "enemies" to pick up on. having simple easy to note iconography on a ubiquitous "HUD", or enhanced reality display would IMO make a lot of sense. especially if you have "special sensor" units mixed in with the forces like the coalition often does (aka psi stalkers, and dog boys) if some of the dog boys are tasked with "tagging" targets such as that person "smells" like they have lots of PPE or have been around drugs, or just don't smell "normal" they then note it in the free flow tac net that they should have IE as long as someone has eyes on a target (person/animal) everyone should have a "tag" that their onboard computers maintain. if everyone looses track of them, the computers also would likely maintain a "fuzzy" possible location based on observed movement profiles.

[ShadowLogan]

Palladium has a bad habit of gender specific armor stylings. i think it is a carry over from the robotech RPG, which also had gender specific stylings. (and the 2nd edition doubled down on, making the female armor weaker and less protective. huh????)

Why would an on average smaller suit of armor have the same protection?
I would have guessed they'd mark the female officers because the CS still considers the reproductive aspect of the female half more valuable than what the male contributes... but that should be more reason to hide it so the enemy doesn't take the opportunity. The EBA should have HUD the marks fellow soldiers with name and maybe even a generalized medical readout that looks like a health bar. If they find the identification important that should be where they do it.

A smaller suit should not have the same level of protection. The problem though is: suits don't come in "sizes" like clothes, they aren't even listed that way for height (at best you get human-size and giant-size, or light/medium/heavy type). A 6ft 5" person in CVR-3 should have more protection than a 5ft 6" person in CVR-3 (to use the RT example), but by the rules they don't if they are both wearing the same type of CVR-3 (F or M in 2E).

I'd also point out that when it comes to the way Palladium does stats, smaller things tend to have better protection for the mass if not in terms of straight MDC totals, at least in terms of MDC per unit of mass (a CVR-3F gets 60% more MDC per unit of mass than a CVR-3M in 2E, they get ~12-20x more MDC per unit of mass than the heavier VR-052 cyclone sticking to RT, in Rifts CS general Deadboy EBAs offer more protection than any SAMAS model I know of it terms of MDC per unit of mass, though the SAMAS technically have more MDC and are heavier).

[glitterboy2098]

Palladium has a bad habit of gender specific armor stylings. i think it is a carry over from the robotech RPG, which also had gender specific stylings. (and the 2nd edition doubled down on, making the female armor weaker and less protective. huh????)

Why would an on average smaller suit of armor have the same protection?
I would have guessed they'd mark the female officers because the CS still considers the reproductive aspect of the female half more valuable than what the male contributes... but that should be more reason to hide it so the enemy doesn't take the opportunity. The EBA should have HUD the marks fellow soldiers with name and maybe even a generalized medical readout that looks like a health bar. If they find the identification important that should be where they do it.

A smaller suit should not have the same level of protection. The problem though is: suits don't come in "sizes" like clothes, they aren't even listed that way for height (at best you get human-size and giant-size, or light/medium/heavy type). A 6ft 5" person in CVR-3 should have more protection than a 5ft 6" person in CVR-3 (to use the RT example), but by the rules they don't if they are both wearing the same type of CVR-3 (F or M in 2E).

yep. Lancer is wearing CVR-3"M" that is smaller than Rook's CVR-3"F", yet lancer's suit provides greater protection. the same level of protection that Lunk gets, who is basically wearing something the size of a armor mode cyclone as body armor.

personally i've been ignoring the claim they are the same design in two stylings, and instead running it where they are two different armor types. the "F" model being an older design and not quite as heavily armored, the "M" being the newer version with increased protection. both have gender specific chest plates available, and multiple sizes.

this is really how the RPG should have handled it, since in the show Rook's armor and cyclone is supposed to have been salvaged from one of the earlier earth reclamation fleets, while Lancer and Scott's armor and cyclones came from later fleets. with Rand and Lunk both getting theirs through salvage of said later fleets.

[Alrik Vas]

Scouts have a top knot. Female armor was clearly made to have a pony tail. They wanted a girly look, they went with it.

In real application, I'd do away with almost anything that marks someone as an officer or specialist.

[ShadowLogan]

Palladium has a bad habit of gender specific armor stylings. i think it is a carry over from the robotech RPG, which also had gender specific stylings. (and the 2nd edition doubled down on, making the female armor weaker and less protective. huh????)

Why would an on average smaller suit of armor have the same protection?
I would have guessed they'd mark the female officers because the CS still considers the reproductive aspect of the female half more valuable than what the male contributes... but that should be more reason to hide it so the enemy doesn't take the opportunity. The EBA should have HUD the marks fellow soldiers with name and maybe even a generalized medical readout that looks like a health bar. If they find the identification important that should be where they do it.

A smaller suit should not have the same level of protection. The problem though is: suits don't come in "sizes" like clothes, they aren't even listed that way for height (at best you get human-size and giant-size, or light/medium/heavy type). A 6ft 5" person in CVR-3 should have more protection than a 5ft 6" person in CVR-3 (to use the RT example), but by the rules they don't if they are both wearing the same type of CVR-3 (F or M in 2E).

yep. Lancer is wearing CVR-3"M" that is smaller than Rook's CVR-3"F", yet lancer's suit provides greater protection. the same level of protection that Lunk gets, who is basically wearing something the size of a armor mode cyclone as body armor.

personally i've been ignoring the claim they are the same design in two stylings, and instead running it where they are two different armor types. the "F" model being an older design and not quite as heavily armored, the "M" being the newer version with increased protection. both have gender specific chest plates available, and multiple sizes.

this is really how the RPG should have handled it, since in the show Rook's armor and cyclone is supposed to have been salvaged from one of the earlier earth reclamation fleets, while Lancer and Scott's armor and cyclones came from later fleets. with Rand and Lunk both getting theirs through salvage of said later fleets.

Personally I just replace them being designated for male/female users and treat it as Heavy/Light armor designations with alternate comfortable chest pieces. It avoids having to explain why Dana, Mia, Janice Em mkI, Sue all use it in the 2040s.

[Tiree]

Personally I just replace them being designated for male/female users and treat it as Heavy/Light armor designations with alternate comfortable chest pieces. It avoids having to explain why Dana, Mia, Janice Em mkI, Sue all use it in the 2040s.

This is exactly what I do. Makes more sense, and works for a variety of reasons.

[glitterboy2098]

Personally I just replace them being designated for male/female users and treat it as Heavy/Light armor designations with alternate comfortable chest pieces. It avoids having to explain why Dana, Mia, Janice Em mkI, Sue all use it in the 2040s.

This is exactly what I do. Makes more sense, and works for a variety of reasons.

basically how i do it too, i just fluff the 'light' armor as an older model to help explain where rook got it.

[Pepsi Jedi]

My bet is no real "in game" reason other than that when the art was produced the top knot was on there as a "hey this looks cool" factor. Either that or for very mild fan-service, kinda like the original South American Glitter Girl PA, and the Free Quebec GiGi are very 'curvy' Power Armors to the point that they defy real world body types and proportions.

It's exactly this. The art came in and they tossed out a 5 minute stat block for it. Nothing more. Nothing deeper. Nothing 'dastardly'. (Beyond RPG geeks not having a female in the office to go "Um guys?")

Looking for deeper meaning is fine and all but remember this is Palladium. There's no real editing or oversite. "It sounds/looks cool" is the only reasoning that's ever tested. In this case, the artist that did most of the stuff for CDC did a suit of female armor and boom it was given a hand wave and stats as it hit the book.

Now people can choose to explain it in their universe if they wish. If so there's a number of reasons you 'can' go with. All the way down to "Hey it's sexy and sometimes people want to look sexy" all the way up to "Complex psychological intimidation/enragement factor of opposing enemy forces" (I.E. **** off people getting their butts kicked 'by a girl'.)

But in all honesty it's nothing deeper than "The artist drew a suit of 'female' armor/ RPG players like the 'chainmail bikini' and this is the rifts version of that".

[Axelmania]

Wasn't there a CS model female officer in a recruitment poster for one of the swimsuit edition Rifters? Maybe the CS has more gender separation than we see in today's military.

To use Star Trek as an example, if we look at the form of dress in the chronologically earliest ST Enterprise it is pretty modern-ish in Archer's era with basically equal dress code, but then in the Kirk era the women went around wearing skirts as if they were living in the 1960s, and then in TNG/DS9/Voyager in the Picard>Sisko>Janeway era it goes back to an Enterprise/Archer form of modern egalitarian fashion.

Perhaps due to being on the brink of war with the Klingons the Federation embraced gender dichotomy to keep up morale and breeding and then embraces gender-equal uniforms during comparitive peacetime. The CS could be the same in that it embraces female markings now and can worry about uniform equality once the world is reclaimed for humanity.

[glitterboy2098]

actually we see women in trouser variant uniforms in TOS, which indicates that the skirt was an option, not a requirement. much like how IRL at the time, the miniskirt was seen as the latest popular fashion alternative to long skirts or trousers. (and a symbiol of female empowerment. which sadly didn't last )

in TNG we see skirt variant uniforms as well, including a 'skant' version that was half skirt, half short pants.. of note is that we also see men in the 'skant' variant as well as women, meaning that all the uniform variants were unisex in design.

so in neither timeframe did the federation have the kind of gender dichotomy you imply.

[Axelmania]

Some level of dichotomy existed, Jadzia Dax commented on it when donning the skirt when they traveled back in time. I guess it was just optional as you say, a fashion of the times. Perhaps encouraged but not required?

[glitterboy2098]

Given jadzia's personality, i suspect she'd have found a way to play up the sexuality of any uniform, they way she did with the TNG era stuff she normally wore.

nor do i suspect that the skirt was 'encouraged' by some outside entity. much more probable, given both the screen evidence and Roddenberry's vision of the setting, the skirt variant was like the miniskirt of the time the show was airing.. just the popular look for the female portion of the population.

none of this applies to the CS's singling out of female officers though.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Given jadzia's personality, i suspect she'd have found a way to play up the sexuality of any uniform, they way she did with the TNG era stuff she normally wore.

nor do i suspect that the skirt was 'encouraged' by some outside entity. much more probable, given both the screen evidence and Roddenberry's vision of the setting, the skirt variant was like the miniskirt of the time the show was airing.. just the popular look for the female portion of the population.

none of this applies to the CS's singling out of female officers though.

Glitter's right.

[Axelmania]

post-Kirk to explain the lower incidence of skirts in Starfleet uniform I guess it either could have fell out of fashion or Starfleet dress codes could have gotten more restrictive/uniform.

If Jadzia was prone to dressing up then wouldn't she have done so in present-day DS9? Waiting until time travel to do so may mean it isn't allowed under present regulations.

[Mlp7029]

Why do females in the US military have skirted dress Uniforms? I considered the female officer helmet to be the equivalent of the skirt option in a uniform. An option an individual officer can exercise if desired. This a game that draws much of its inspiration from genres that target young males with impractical costuming for female characters.

[glitterboy2098]

Why do females in the US military have skirted dress Uniforms? I considered the female officer helmet to be the equivalent of the skirt option in a uniform. An option an individual officer can exercise if desired. This a game that draws much of its inspiration from genres that target young males with impractical costuming for female characters.

actually the current US army dress uniform (IIRC) has slacks or skirt as an option for female personnel. and in any case, that is the dress uniform. the female troops aren't going into battle wearing skirts, Interceptor armor, and MOLLE gear. yet the CS decided to make the dress uniforms unisex, and the combat armor gender specific. which is weird.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Gotta admit he's got a point though.

~~~

I still think it has absolutely nothing to do with anything past "The artist drew it, and ie looked cool!"

[Axelmania]

Does anyone remember which page/book introduced this? I don't rmemebe in RMB and do remember it in CWC but not sure if it was sthe first spot.

[Pepsi Jedi]

There's no "female" CS armor in the RMB.

One would think that it would appear in world book 11, as that's when the new armor rolled out.

BUT.. If you look, it actually makes it's first (uncredited) Appearance in WB 10 Juicer Uprising. Page 43. You can see the narrower hips and the pony tail, on a CS troop, one of many fighting a juicer.

Thing is.. that pic is out of place, as the 'new style' armor didn't roll out till CS War Campaign. WB 11

A little internet research places them both hitting shelves in March of 96. So it may be a sort of simultaneous release of the books that overlap. If you go by spine numbers it was first featred in WB10, uncredited, and specificly in WB 11. But as the armor appearing in WB 10 wasn't "out" till WB 11..... It's a toss up.

[glitterboy2098]

actually some of the new style gear first appeared in the "Rifts index & adventures" books 1, from 1996, where a 'mysterious' group of 'skeleton raiders' using unknown equipment was one of the plot points (the CS testing out it's new hardware in the field)

while the sample stats didn't have names or designations, the book did have artwork using the WB11 stylings scattered throughout. oddly enough, it was mostly art that was not reprinted in WB11.

[Axelmania]

Wouldn't narrow hips indicate it's a male suit?

[mercedogre]

Wouldn't narrow hips indicate it's a male suit?

NO, the codpiece does

[ShadowLogan]

Here is the "real" reason the CS ends up marking their female officers:
That plume is their actual hair, conditions on Rifts Earth for some reason cause female CS officers to super grown hair to a certain size in the armor (take off the helmet you wouldn't notice though), so much so that they have to move the hair out or it gets in the way!

-jk/not serious

[Pepsi Jedi]

actually some of the new style gear first appeared in the "Rifts index & adventures" books 1, from 1996, where a 'mysterious' group of 'skeleton raiders' using unknown equipment was one of the plot points (the CS testing out it's new hardware in the field)

while the sample stats didn't have names or designations, the book did have artwork using the WB11 stylings scattered throughout. oddly enough, it was mostly art that was not reprinted in WB11.

That came out in August 96, which would place it after WB 10 and 11 wouldn't it?

[say652]

I marked the scout in my game with a plume. Partial borg wears heavy Deadboy and the other guy wears standard ca4. My players opinion "We look badass"