Battle Born (1990)

(User Summary for Revised Second Edition, compiled from several chapters):

One thousand years in the future, the Tetra-League (an alliance between humans and three alien races) is torn by internal rivalry and threatened by external forces too numerous to mention. Tetra-League citizens are free from the burden of aging, thanks to mortality reduction drugs, but they are also free from the burden of choice; a weapon known as the Pacification Virus rendered them unable to commit acts of aggression or confrontation. Many citizens cannot even fend for themselves, and must live in sprawling facilities tended by robot caretakers. The virus mutated quickly, and now passes from mother to child. Everyone is infected. There is no cure. But some are spared....

Players take the roles of Immunes, those one-in-a-million Tetra-League citizens who are unaffected by the Pacification Virus. Some Immunes serve (willingly or otherwise) as soldiers in the Battle Born, a branch of MACE, the Tetra-League's "Military Assault and Combat Expedition" force (or, as the squads are fond of saying, "Most Anyone Conscious and Expendable"). A Battle Born trooper wears special powered armor called an "EE" Suit, which is so effective it can destroy just about anything, except someone else in an EE Suit. This gives rise to a problem - soldiers that want to survive must learn to use their armor in ways that go beyond the suit’s design....

This book includes sections on character generation, skills and equipment, advancement, psionics, starships, ship-to-ship combat, introductory encounters, background material for the Era Ten campaign setting, and optional "Quick-and-Dirty" systems designed to make running mass-combat planetary actions and orbital assaults easier and more enjoyable. Rules expansions and additional material can be found in the Guardians of Sol RPG, the pages of Space Gamer Magazine, and on Better Games' Web site.

Battle Born can be played alone, or as a supplement to enhance any Sci-Fi game system.