I’ve seen a lot of discussion on this subreddit that has revealed a lot of different ideas about what Union really is. I think a lot of this comes down to the lore generally being kind of fuzzy on the details, and not presented in a super easy-to-follow format in the core book. I’ve also been very surprised at how controversial (for lack of a better term) the Lancer setting is, with some people really not liking it. To each their own of course, but I really love the setting and perhaps the most important thing that makes it so great to me are the conflicts presented by having a real utopia, rather than Evil Space Empire #6391.

For those reasons, I’ve attempted to make an explanation of what Union is, supported by excerpts from the lore. Open to discussion, let me know if I’ve missed anything important!

1. Union IS a utopia. It is not a dystopia!

Contemporary pop culture is littered with so many dystopias (not tbat it’s a bad thing) that when something in a work of fiction tries to present itself as a utopia, the immediate and reasonable reaction is to assume they’re the opposite, or at minimum hiding some serious skeletons in the closet. Union, or more specifically the Third Committee, is different. SecComm had a LOT of skeletons in the closet, but the revolution that produced ThirdComm ripped them out into the open and brought justice to as many of those responsible as they could. Now, they are in the process of reckoning with what their predecessors left behind. They’re the real deal! 

Core book, pg. 337: “When writing Lancer, we wanted to create a setting where humanity is – in the narrative present – at once in a state of utopia and working to affect it.”

Note that the above quote isn’t lore, per say, but a direct statement from the writers that there is a state of utopia.

CB 342: “New Humanity enjoys the fruits of robust scientific, political, and cultural advancements, and has access to such a profound abundance of resources and clean automated labor that it has transcended capitalism altogether – a true utopia, won through struggle.”

I mean, that one seems pretty clear, right?

2. Union is NOT a perfect place with no conflict.

Another assumption I see crop up is that, because Union is actually utopia, that means it must be boring because all of its problems are fixed and therefore there is no conflict. And it’s not entirely untrue - there’s pretty limited reasons for violent conflict on the Core Worlds, but there is internal political conflict and a lot of violent conflict on the periphery. The political conflict is primarily rooted in the ideological remnants of SecComm, both in individual member states of Union, and within its main representative body, the Central Committee (CentComm). 

CB 356: “While some of the last states created by this expansion period organized under ThirdComm’s early drafts of the Utopian Pillars, most Diasporan states could not shake the compelling power afforded by their local forms of Second Committee ideology. Anthrochauvinism, it turned out, was broadly popular if people were not presented with, educated according to, and lifted up by less reactionary ideologies.”

It’s too long for an excerpt, but on page 348 of the core book you can also find the breakdown of political parties in CentComm. There’s wide array of viewpoints - the moderates (by virtue of shifting the Overton Window to literal ‘fully-automated luxury gay space communism’) who exercise a very light touch out of fear of accidentally following in SecComm’s footsteps; the radicals who think that more direct and forceful action is necessary to address violations of the Utopian Pillars; a conservative party primarily representing the interests of the Karrakin Trade Baronies; and a far-right party that’s basically just the political arm of Harrison Armory and is as anthrochauvenist as they can get away with. The greens are there too. 

Of course, if you want violent conflict, just go into the diaspora and you’ll find plenty, as the shockwaves of ThirdComm’s revolution spread beyond its borders and a thousand movements fight for self-determination. 

3. Union is not just a tiny minority of humanity

This is one that gets pretty fuzzy, because some of the statements about how many people are actually within that utopia seem to conflict a bit.

CB 366: “In 5016u, the galaxy is, for the most part, post-scarcity – that is, resources are not only plentiful but accessible at little-to-no cost for most people in the Galactic Core. Out among the Diasporan worlds, scarcity exists, but it is not evenly distributed. Some Diasporan worlds are nearly equivalent to Core worlds in terms of development and their adoption of the Utopian Pillars, while others still cling to markets, economies, and artificial scarcity.”

This sounds like the majority of the galaxy’s population might be in a post-scarcity society, though not necessarily within Union’s core worlds.

CB 342: “The golden age, for a plurality of humans, is real, predicated on the work of generations of people struggling in collective action to win a better future. The lives of those on the utopian capital worlds of the Galactic Core is stable, safe, and without want.”

Here it says plurality, so I guess that means not the majority, but the other types of groups aren’t defined. In any case, it’s not a small amount. I would assume that while the large majority of human-populated planets are not within Union, Union’s Core Worlds are the most developed and therefore probably most heavily populated in the galaxy. My super-educated guess then would be that between 30-40% of the galaxy’s population is living on Union core worlds, with enough living on non-Union post-scarcity planets to push the total to about the 50% mark, give or take a few percentage points. 

4. Union is not an empire, it is a hegemony

This one is also potentially fuzzy because it comes down to your particular definition of what an empire is, but the authorial intent at least is pretty clear. A lot of different entities get called empires, but the CB repeatedly refers to ThirdComm as a hegemony (helpful definition: Leadership; preponderant influence or authority; -- usually applied to the relation of a government or state to its neighbors or confederates).

CB 343: “Union was not always as egalitarian as it is now; for thousands of years prior to the establishment of the Third Committee, it was an empire in all but name. This was the age of the Second Committee – SecComm.”

This directly distinguishes the imperialistic SecComm from the new, different reality of ThirdComm.

CB 348: “The galaxy has once again become a polyglot, cosmopolitan network of thousands of worlds under Union’s hegemony – though some would call it empire with kid gloves, instead of jackboots.”

I did want to address this one, since it’s the only time in the core book that the word “empire” is used in relation to ThirdComm. It is worth noting that this is presented as an in-universe opinion, rather than a truth stated through third-person omniscient narration. Again, it’s intentionally fuzzy and depends on your definition. 

CB 347: “ThirdComm, recoiling from the naked aggression of its predecessor, places much more emphasis on hegemony – the exertion of cultural, political, and economic authority – relying on the soft powers of commerce, travel, and communication to bring the galaxy under Union’s control… ThirdComm’s agents implemented various naturalization processes and a new approach to building intergalactic solidarity through shared work: the Auxiliary Doctrine, which seeks to integrate the disparate cultures of the Diaspora into Union's ideological space through liberation struggles, cultural exchange and mixing, and a choice of civic or martial service.”

Despite being the closest thing to a galactic government, Union directly administers limited territory. Instead, there are figures somewhat ironically known as Administrators who act as representatives/liasons, utilizing Union’s immense soft power to push local governments towards compliance with the Three Utopian Pillars. Out of fear of becoming an empire, Union exercises a very light touch here, prioritizing the carrot over the stick. 

5. Union is reliant upon the Karrakin Trade Baronies, but it is not trying to enforce that status quo.

There’s an obvious and certainly intentional parallel with modern western nations and how their wealth comes downstream of colonialism. The Baronies are the champions of raw resource extraction, performed in very large part by serfs who are given little choice in the matter. Union’s reliance upon them is another legacy of SecComm, and unlike modern-day neocolonialism, ThirdComm is working to fix this, not reinforce it. 

CB 392: “The Baronies controls some of the largest single-party mining, harvesting, and natural resource endeavors in the galaxy – operations that certainly enable the prosperity of the Galactic Core.”

From Field Guide to the Karrakin Trade Baronies, pg. 80: The revolution ended with the conclusion of the Baronic–Armory peace negotiations; Union’s Third Committee was able to mediate a ceasefire between Sanjak and the Baronies’ more conservative houses that ensured a complete withdrawal of House Ludra’s forces, recognition of the revolutionaries’ demands for independence, and repatriation of many of House Ludra’s material goods. The Ungratefuls renamed Ludra’s World the Free Sanjak Commune and assumed administration.

Despite Union negotiating an end to direct hostilities that favored the Ungratefuls, the House of Stone maintains a harsh embargo that Union is working, albiet slowly, to lift.

FGKTB 81: “Union treads with the lightest touch possible, and negotiations have stalled in core space, where communications and real-time transit of ambassadors have taken decades in subjective time.”

FGKTB 81: “In Union space, the UIB [that is, the Union Intelligence Bureau] clandestinely runs funding, support, and supplies to groups that will help “leverage” the situation and break the impasse.”

From the Hecatocheires description: “Meanwhile, a deep cover DoJ/HR operation working with support from the House of Dust has been trying to unearth solid evidence directly tying the Hecatoncheires to Baronic authorities – a link that might be leveraged to rally the Republican cause and finally ease pressure on Sanjak.”

So while Union is sympathetic to the Ungrateful revolution, which sparked in the wake of ThirdComm’s own uprising, the influence of the Baronies and their general light-touch approach prevent them from intervening very directly.

Lastly,

6. Union is not doomed or hopeless - the dream can succeed.

This one really goes hand in hand with point #1, but I felt it made a good point to end on. There’s a lot of grimdark settings, and it can be easy to assume that Union is only being set up as a utopia so that all of the challenges it is up against can smash it down. There are a hell of a lot of them - massive corpro-states, reactionaries in the Baronies, whatever the hell is going on in the Aun Ascendency, and more besides, but Union is still the most powerful entity in the galaxy and only just getting back on its feet. 

It is seemingly inevitable that Union is on a collision course with its many ideological opponents, with open conflict ever just beyond the horizon. Union itself no doubt knows this best of all. The greatest test of their revolutionary experiment is yet to come, and the outcome is unclear. What is clear is that the battle will be hard fought, but it can be won. In the meantime, Union is not content merely to rest and rebuild; through the DoJ/HR, the Auxiliary Doctrine, and in countless other ways, the Third Committee is ever pushing the revolution forward. 

CB 344: “This dream has been fulfilled in some places, on some worlds; everywhere else, the realization of this project is Union’s central goal. Union is an incomplete project and human to its core. Despite every miracle of technology at its disposal, the fulfillment of this dream still requires people to make the right decisions, to be brave, to greet with compassion the myriad peoples so hurt by ThirdComm’s predecessors, and to build this grand project together”

I’ll end it with one more excerpt:

CB 356: “In 5016u, humanity is still plagued by war and oppression at the fringes of Core space. No matter how hard Union and its proxies work, ThirdComm’s mission is a titanic undertaking. To lift all of humanity into a post-capital, post-scarcity golden age is a project that is always practiced, never complete– even the wildest of gardens must be maintained if it is to be a garden. The consequences of the wars that founded Union, to say nothing of the revolution that founded the Third Committee, continue to ripple out from Cradle; time and distance both make the project one perpetually in the process of implementation.
“This does not mean Union’s project is without end, that iterative, non-linear progress is not worthwhile or that contradictory actions on the part of Union and its proxies undo all such progress; it simply means that there is always work to be done. For Union, utopia is not a static state. It is a status that is held, maintained, and improved upon – always.

"Pass The Torch" is a third-party Lancer campaign for LL0 through LL12. You can check out the demo to learn more.

For those who don’t know massif is printing some more digital rulebooks physically. This book contains long rim and Karrakin trade barronies. As a standalone piece it’s beautiful, it looks great, but lancer has an established art direction already and I feel like this cover doesn’t match that at all.

If you removed the title from the top I would have no idea this book is supposed to be part of the same game as the core book. I just can’t imagine the two being next to each other on a shelf.

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I'm new to Lancer and just had my first session. This is currently what I am piloting. Art done by me.

My mech's name is Paladius, by the way. (Based on the Pal in Palworld, yes)

Edit: The term support has a slightly different meaning in this subreddit so my bad. I believe the better term is utility. Specifically ranged utility that I find disappointing. So a controller in lancer terms.

By synergy I mean talent and skills you can take building off each other and enhancing what you can already do. I've been having lots of fun finding different ways to build DPS, tanks, and supports and one glaring issue I've noticed in supports is the lack of synergy in your options.

For example, if you decide to do a stealth assassin skirmisher build, you have many options that enhance what you already have. The talents skirmisher, hunter, infiltrator, pankrati help you dodge engagements, close gaps, increase hit rate and do more damage. Atlas license Jaeger Kunst can make you very mobile. Mourning Cloak let's you phase through terrain to get a better attack angle.

For grapple based builds, Juggernaut, Brawler, and Duelist help you punch harder and keep the enemy there. Blackbeard lets you tackle things bigger than you. Zheng you do more damage.

All these abilities you can make use of most turns and synergize well.

Now a controller support build that focuses on moving enemies around. Ranged. Goblin is a clear choice for this. In fact all the Horus frames are good options. The issue comes from the options not building on each other. You have so many ways to alter your invade but you can only invade so many times in a turn. That means most of your options will just sit there the majority of the time.

Don't get me wrong. Options are GOOD. But too many seem inefficient. There aren't many licenses for control that build on an already existing invade function. And there are no talents that would suit this build. The closest is hacker, which adds even more invade options to your giant list of invade options. I guess nuclear Cavalier if you want the extra heat. Most threads I've checked out tell people to get stuff like field analyst, spotter, or oracle, all of which are very generalized support and nothing that gets as specific as DPS builds have.

So tell me what am I missing? D:

There will be two hardcovers published by Dark Horse: Operation Fulcrum Dawn (which collects Operation Solstice Rain and Operation Winter Scar) and The Lancer Setting Guide Vol. 1 (which collects The Long Rim and The Karrakin Trade Baronies supplements).

What would in-universe HORUS memes look like? Are they non-HORUS members joking about the idea of HORUS like it’s the “dark web” or something, or are they actual HORUS memes showing up on regular people’s radars, just cryptically? (Examples encouraged)

Hello.

Me and my friend want to come back to playing ttrpgs after some break. I really fell in love with Lancer but never had an opportunity to run a full on campaign. THIS CHANGES TODAY!

DM me and we will talk, see if we like each other. I am now on vacations for 2 week and plan on starting it sometime after so l if you will stick around for that time then congrats, you'll have a group

I am DM with a long experience. I'd say I DMed for 6 years and learned a lot during that time. I'm confident in my skills.

Requirements:

• European, we live in CET timezone and we don't want to bother with scheduling across different timezones. You can be 1 hour forward or back but that's really it.

• Around our age. I'd say 20-26 but I'm loose. However if you're 40 with a family and kids we're probably not a match

• We're looking for people who socialize! So if you're extremely shy and quiet I don't know if we're the fit for you.

• LGBT friendly. That's a 100% must. We're lgbt, and will invite lgbt people so any sort of bigotry is despised here. Also no bigotry coming from inside the house, no LGB without the T stuff of any sorts.

• You have to have a mic. We will play on vc.

• You have to be able to speak english on a decent level. We both don't have english as our primary language so don't be scared too much.

GUYS, LADIES AND FOLKS. Please DM me a short introduction if you want to join. Also in your first message say Orange, so I know you've read it all

Gonna be running Lancer soon and probably for the foreseeable future so I’m printing up an arsenal! For starters, I wanted to make sure that when my players field a Barbarossa I could look them in the eye and go “that’s cute.”

Can’t wait to see the reactions!

(This model is the Fortress from La voie du crane’s NPC Bundle 5!)

Playtest rules for another Squadron! These are riot cops, anti-melee melee controller units.

Traits on the main page are pretty uniform for all Squadrons, boil down to "one unit in group is the Lead who actually takes turns, with the rest of the group following them like drones". In practice, I'm hoping it'll be straightforward for GM and give the players an interesting enemy to dismantle.

As someone who has about a dozen open tabs on Lancer pre release stuff open at any time, what exactly do we know about Aunic ftl?

I heard somewhere from speculation that it essentially functions using a ship-scale version of the EX Slipstream Module, and that criticaly it does not require the use of the blinkgate network.

What are your thoughts and theories on this topic?

Disregarding the Overkill Tag infinite damage shenanigans.

As the title says I wanna make a build solely focused on maximizing damage output through Improvised Attacks a.k.a. my fists.

I've looked at some frame abilities like the Nelson and Blackbeard and the Brawler talent seems like an obvious must-have.

I think the biggest hurdle to overcome is the fact that Improvised Attacks cost a Full Action which severely limits how much I can accomplish on each turn unless I Overcharge, but then I'd have to find some way of managing my heat better.

Any solid suggestions for frames/talents/systems/gear/etc.?

All help is appreciated!

I'm not a big fan of handling resources that don't refresh between combats in TTRPGs. I always struggle to tell when it's best to use them, and it feels bad to either use it early and not have it for a big fight or never use it and waste it. I

played a lycan for a quick two-parter activity and really enjoyed not having to worry about that, so I tried to look for more frames with the core power, but I don't see a good way to search for it. Any recs?

We're having our third session Saturday, and just hit LL1. I'm not sure how far we're going to make it, so I want to have some fun if we don't get to drive real mechs. I'm the spoiled youngest son of our PC noble family. So far, I've been playing a Chomolungma because it seems more interesting than the Everest, and sliding people around is cool. System 2 for Invade and SP. Gunslinger 1, Nuclear Cavalier 1, Field Analyst 1.

Now that we're LL1, I actually get some choices! I want to go maximum YOLO, partly because our big advantage as PCs seems to be Stress/Structure 4. I'm thinking Manticore 1 for Beckoner and Catalyst Pistol. One Catalyst/Thermal Pistol mount, one 2x Thermal Pistol mount. Gunslinger 3 and keep Field Analyst 1. Teleport into the edge, hit as many targets as possible, and watch gunslinger go BRRRRR.

The only thing I'm a little clunky on is how Gunslinger works with AoE attacks. Say I've got 3 enemies in Cone/Line 3 a pop off a Barrage. All 6 attacks from the dual Thermal Pistols hit:
2 Dam, GS 6->5
2 Dam, GS 5->4
2 Dam, GS 4->3

2 Dam, GS 3->2
2 Dam, GS 2->1->6
What happens now when the 6th attack hits? I think the last attack is 2 Dam again, and the GS die goes to 5? And the +2d6/AP applies to the next Thermal Pistol or Catalyst Pistol AoE (halving to ~1d6AP across all 3 shots?)

Anything else I should think about here? Obviously "be careful you're going to get wrekt." But other than general caution, anything else I should think about or pick up?

Related question: Is this any good?

Been learning Blender and made this just to pose for 2d art and to play with animations. Spoilered for arachnophobes. <3

I want pure melee chaos and damage, as little guns as possible for it to be an absolute beast

When building combats in Lancer, it is common knowledge that activations should be 1.5 times player count and total structure should be 2 times player count. It is also common knowledge that NPCs should generally have one optional system max.

So far as I can tell, this advice seems to indicate that encounters should be the same power level from LL0 to LL3, despite the fact that the PCs get dramatically more powerful over this time.

Am I missing something? What makes a combat designed for a LL0 party different from one designed for a LL3 party?