you've been asleep for seventy fifteen years, cap kon.

I actually thought that Castle was born in... 212 SA? By virtue of taking the current year and subtracting it by his biological age. That is until I realized that I hadn't taken cryosleep into account, which means he was born at least in say, 197 SA (taking the 15-year journey to Proxima Centauri into account)? We'll be generous and give him say... 5 years of cyrosleep experience (traveling around the outer planets extensively, but rarely ever making long voyages to Earth or the other inner planets)? That would mean he was born in 192 SA.

Roughly.

Now assuming that the age of service on Titan is eighteen for simplicity, then that would mean Holden was military since 210 SA. I listed him with decades of military experience, and he was only really retired for at most, a couple of years before going back to serve on the Pandora, so, taking that with the year of exit of 249 SA, with up to 2 years taken off to reflect early retirement, then that'd mean Castle has served for 37-39 years in the SDF (though that's closer to 32-34 years, if you don't count cryosleep years; they do count as Active Time Served though, as per the Van Winkle Laws).

Damn. Now I remember why I just decided to slap on "chronologically older" on the age section instead of thinking of it too hard.

So to answer your question... Assuming Castle was active until 247 SA or early 249 SA, then yes. He would've probably been participating in the hunt for the Outer-Orbital Legion (on the assumption that planetary militaries aided in the search), at least within the area around Saturn. Depending on when the hunt ended though, he may have either seen all of it, or only the initial half, before his retirement (though knowing his propensity to not quit in the middle of a job, he may have seen it all).

That being said, his glory years were during the height of the Saturn Insurrections, in the late 220s / early 230s? With the hunt for the Outer-Orbital Legion being so close to the end of his service, I doubt he would've tangled with the Legion personally unless they've skirmished near the area around Saturn. The potential of Fox having seen the Ajax or even having faced it before is certainly there, though.

takeoff sequence to come when i am less clearly braindead than i have been for the past 48 hours

with god as my witness, i will bludgeon you all with Ace Combat vibes, just wait

How much military involvement do you think the Outer Orbital Legion hunt saw? If we're talking at least partial involvement beyond dedicated pirate-hunting taskforces, accounting for cryo time Adam actually might have seen some combat against OOL forces.

Edit: I foresee the editing of some numbers on character sheets in the near future.

I'd imagine it was at the very least pretty involved for outer colonies, that asteroid belt is probably an annoying bitch for the UN to send relief through

Pretty much. If the Legion is the main faction of pirates past the belt in recent years, then they've likely tangled with the Saturn Defense Force, and Holden, as a result. If the pirates are arming the insurrectionists through arms dealing, or are otherwise collaborating with them, then I'd expect the SDF would make taking down the OOL a priority of theirs. Granted, insurgent activity has died down in recent years, so that might not have happened, but it's certainly a possibility.

It was a BIG deal. The Outer-Orbital Legion was a legitimate mercenary organization, and a massive one at that. It took two years of active investigation by an international criminal investigation task-force to connect all the dots, as it were.

When the joint task force made their move, they were able to seize effectively all of the Legion's inner-system assets, it was everything else the Legion had scattered throughout the rest of star system that was the problem. When they realized what had happened, the Legion grabbed everything they had and ran like hell.

This is what resulted in the six month system wide fleet-hunt. The-Powers-That-Be mobilized every asset that they possibly could in order to capture the Legion. As a result, all the major powers had patrols and/or task forces hunting for the Legion. So while a lot of people were activated for the hunt, at most maybe a third of them actually saw any action.

As of 245 SA The Legion was no more. Any members who hadn't been caught were either doing their best slip back into regular society unnoticed or had become backwater pirates of little importance.

I think that fleshes out the details, any remaining questions?

Interesting. As a PMC, your bio stated that their crimes were 'extortion, bribery, human trafficking, and tax evasion'. They must've done it on a pretty huge scale if it meant that pretty much every military organization had mobilized to get these guys.

Yep. There was almost certainly more than what was listed, but I felt like that covered the highlights nicely. Also the fact that the majority of the Legion chose to run and fight rather than surrender is what resulted in the massive military response. Nobody wants several small "fleets" of paramilitary forces turned bandits and outlaws running around in their proverbial backyard.

The amount of housecleaning that was required as a result of all the bribery also contributed to the desire properly hunt them down. You don't want to let a problem like that slip back into the woodwork. That, and letting a system-wide trafficking ring go unpunished tends to be really bad PR.

Very true. In that case, once the extent of their crimes had been revealed, I'm sure Castle was helping out as much as he could. As far as Castle was concerned, these guys were pirates and terrorists.

It was a BIG deal. The Outer-Orbital Legion was a legitimate mercenary organization, and a massive one at that. It took two years of active investigation by an international criminal investigation task-force to connect all the dots, as it were.

When the joint task force made their move, they were able to seize effectively all of the Legion's inner-system assets, it was everything else the Legion had scattered throughout the rest of star system that was the problem. When they realized what had happened, the Legion grabbed everything they had and ran like hell.

This is what resulted in the six month system wide fleet-hunt. The-Powers-That-Be mobilized every asset that they possibly could in order to capture the Legion. As a result, all the major powers had patrols and/or task forces hunting for the Legion. So while a lot of people were activated for the hunt, at most maybe a third of them actually saw any action.

As of 245 SA The Legion was no more. Any members who hadn't been caught were either doing their best slip back into regular society unnoticed or had become backwater pirates of little importance.

I think that fleshes out the details, any remaining questions?

In that case, Adam was active, and was probably mobilized for the hunt. Mars isn't going to sit around and not use their shiny new military toys, since them seeing use justifies the spending. Probably saw action, considering his promotion to a variant model Orbital.

Yep. There was almost certainly more than what was listed, but I felt like that covered the highlights nicely. Also the fact that the majority of the Legion chose to run and fight rather than surrender is what resulted in the massive military response. Nobody wants several small "fleets" of paramilitary forces turned bandits and outlaws running around in their proverbial backyard.

The amount of housecleaning that was required as a result of all the bribery also contributed to the desire properly hunt them down. You don't want to let a problem like that slip back into the woodwork. That, and letting a system-wide trafficking ring go unpunished tends to be really bad PR.

Kinda seems like it went from 0-100 real quick, but a refusal to comply with the law while you're packing a small nation's worth of heat isn't the brightest idea. I'm more surprised their low-end grunts didn't surrender though.

I know Zakharin would have been involve in hunting the legion.

I've got a couple questions. Does a heat shield look like an actual shield, or does it look like a second (or third) layer of armor to deflect heat on atmospheric entry? Where do the boosters go? Arms and legs?

Also, what do the catapults look like? Are there multiple of them and we can go whenever, or do we need to form lines and fire ourselves at the planet one at a time?

Do we write up what the LZ looks like? Or are there geographical features already planned?

I've got a couple questions. Does a heat shield look like an actual shield, or does it look like a second (or third) layer of armor to deflect heat on atmospheric entry? Where do the boosters go? Arms and legs?

Also, what do the catapults look like? Are there multiple of them and we can go whenever, or do we need to form lines and fire ourselves at the planet one at a time?

Do we write up what the LZ looks like? Or are there geographical features already planned?

The heat shield is an actual, expanding shield kind of like Gundam's ballute pack. It's not so much of an issue for Orbitals that can enter under their own power but it's a lot harder to control reentry speed for those that can't, so they get a heat shield. The boosters can go back, legs, wherever there's feasibly a hardpoint.

There are at least two catapults. There might be more, but to be honest I haven't had time to finalize my description for Pyxis yet. But there's at least two.

As for the LZ, you're welcome to go right up to entering the atmosphere I'll get an establishing post written after everybody (or almost everybody, if someone's taking a while) has launched.

<Snipped quote by Hawthorne>

The heat shield is an actual, expanding shield kind of like Gundam's ballute pack. It's not so much of an issue for Orbitals that can enter under their own power but it's a lot harder to control reentry speed for those that can't, so they get a heat shield. The boosters can go back, legs, wherever there's feasibly a hardpoint.

There are at least two catapults. There might be more, but to be honest I haven't had time to finalize my description for Pyxis yet. But there's at least two.

As for the LZ, you're welcome to go right up to entering the atmosphere I'll get an establishing post written after everybody (or almost everybody, if someone's taking a while) has launched.

Very helpful, thanks! I'll see if I can't squeeze out a reply soon.

I kind of vaguely went with the “Aircraft Carrier EMALS compatible with orbital boots” re: catapult description

Fantastic info, though if a flight-capable orbital descends without a shield by slowing itself, that does mean they have to drop early or risk arriving late.

also: working on a post now.

i'm sure we can fudge stuff a bit for convenience's sake. flight-capable orbitals would also probably stay relatively in airspace anyway, they don't necessarily have to make the trip all the way down to the surface.

All accusations of "showing off" are strictly unfounded, he'd do it if there wasn't a soul around either