Supplemental Report: Nebula Confederation

==Description==
Supplemental Report: Nebula Confederation is a fan sourcebooks written & produced by long time Battletech player/fan, Maingunnery. 
The book focus on a report to the authorizes of the highly vaulted Interstellar Expeditions, from one their groups whom manages to leave the near impossible difficult California Nebular Occupation Zone. 
The group gives a detail report of recently discovered group space-going humans whom have developed new form of Faster-Than-Light Drive and begun to explore the Nebula.
The work was originally intended as April Fool PDF sourcebook, but was left incomplete. The book provides for a new setting & new technologies for player to utilize for their enjoyment. 
The book was revised and updated as a completed as PDF later, while this is been left up as early version of the final book: Interstellar Expeditions - Strange Tales from Nebular California (Nebula Confederation)
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==Writer's Description==
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==Canonicity==
The book is set in the original non-canon Welcome to the Nebula California RPG settings book.
While events before the book are fully canon, like the original book, this new setting runs parallel to the book's established world/settings.
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==Contents==
*The Nebula California (Report)
*Rim Alliance (Report)
*Manei Servus (Report)
===Introduction===
SUPPLEMENTAL REPORT: CALIFORIA NEBULA
How did we ever managed to leave?
In our line of work we sometimes encounter mysteries, the most perplexing one that I was a part in was the return of the CalNeb Expedition from the California Nebula. The logs showed that our JumpShips were unable to exit the Nebula, we were gradually losing equipment and people, after four years we gave up and prepared to settling down on Toreel, by force if necessary. 
However just before our ships jumped to Toreel, the situation went out of control. Not a lot of data survived about what occurred then, the only thing that we knew for sure is that a massive glowing anomaly appeared in front of our JumpShips, and that I gave the order to scatter across the Nebula.'
The next thing that I remember is being on a Long Range Shuttle heading for the planet Farhome, the location of our local base in the Rimward sector of the Deep Periphery. We were later shocked to find out that many more years had passed. Over the following months even more members of our expedition, missing and some who were presumed dead, found themselves back near Farhome, having no memories or physical evidence of what had happened since the anomaly.
Upon return to base, the expedition leadership were asked to explain the lost equipment, lives and ships. 
At the time I was only able to present my initial explorer's report from 3109, with no physical evidence to back it up. Logically we were then immediately arrested, thrown into the brig, and made to cooperate with psychiatric evaluation.
Several months of fruitless investigation later, they were forced to take us more seriously, this did mean that they had to resort to more extreme measures. This involved the surgical retrieval of emergency data implants from our tail-bones. These implants are made from materials that can't be distinguished from normal tissues, allowing us to secretly store data even when all our possessions and even our lives have been taken. Some of the data had been corrupted, but enough was recovered to begin with historical fact-checking and technical plausibility studies.
From the results we can now say that the Nebula California appears to be even stranger than previously indicated, with many more weird worlds, peoples and technologies.
We still don't have answers of who or what was responsible for our return, but we have now dedicated ourselves to documenting our new discoveries in these classified supplemental reports. 
This supplemental report I will detail the history and technology of the Nebula Confederation, and several related FTL capable nations. The Confederation rescued the crew of the Scout-class Marco Polo, including myself, after being stranded in deep space, which had been the consequence of multiple quick-charges of our K-F drive in an effort to evade the anomaly, that kept hounding our JumpShip after our first encounter with it. 
–Dr. Pankaj Rani, PhD, Senior Mission Director,
IE Deep Periphery Expedition CalNeb I, 3115
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===Factions===
====The Nebula California====
The following is a summation of our findings in system SLSC G2V.1499-25a , named the Progenitor System, which is part of the Nebula Confederation. There are eight planetary bodies orbiting the yellow G4 main-sequence star, it has four rocky terrestrials in the inner system, followed by an asteroid belt, and four gas giants in the outer system. 
It has to be noted that the Nebula Confederation is much larger than a single system, and that we didn't have access to the ship's sensors while in their capital system. All our data for this astronomy summery was based upon local civilian literature and ground-based observations.
A rare trait of this system is that it contains three inhabited planets with wildly different climates, however we could only make a stop at the middle planet which is named New Houston. The other worlds, named Hephaestus (2nd planet) and Ares (4th planet), require environmental precautions to survive their extreme climates. These factors are not an issue for the natives of either planet as they have been genetically modified to handle the hostile climates. These three worlds and their branches of humanity are the founders of the Nebula Confederation, which is a close association of several gen-mod human races. The primary tasks of this association are exploration, defense of the Confederation and quarantining the Nebula. The flag of the confederation also contains three stars to symbolize the founding members, with a circle around them and the nebula to indicate unity and protection.
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Contact Review
After rescuing us from the Marco Polo they took us to the lounge of their ship the Explorer-class Funny Guy for a meal and drink, allowing us to slowly regain our strength even as we had a pleasant conversation. During this they managed to get us to say a lot about ourselves, as though we had been previously trained to resist interrogation. We were interrogated in greater depth after we arrived to their fleet base orbiting the world of New Houston. They clearly wished to know everything that we had done locally in the Nebula, likely to determine if they had to intervene somewhere. After several weeks they were satisfied with their findings, we were given a short but free vacation on New Houston while we awaited the Diplomat-class Bald Eagle, so that we could join and help with their mission of finding other survivors of our expedition. During our interactions with various crews and civilians we quickly learned that the Nebula Confederation and other technologically similar civilizations originate from the Progenitor system, which is their home-system.
They divide the California Nebula into several zones. Alpha Zone is the Progenitor system and neighboring systems. The Beta Zone extends that border to anything in a radius of 25 light years from the Progenitor system. The Gamma zone covers the rest of the Nebula California, outside of the Nebula is regarded as the Delta Zone.
Historical Analysis
During our stay with the Nebula Confederation we observed many different gen-mods and learned a lot about the local history, culture, and technology behind this phenomenon. The people of the Nebula Confederation claimed that the Alpha Zone was initially colonized in the early 23nd century by the Progenitor Foundation, this has been deemed plausible by us as we have found historical records of an organization, in that time period, buying up a lot of aerospace and colonization equipment. According to the locals this Progenitor Foundation subscribed to the ideology that humanity should adapt to the local environment when colonizing other worlds. However to validate their beliefs, they sought to put their ideas to practice in as many different environments as possible. The distant location of the California Nebula, combined with the extreme density and variation of habitable environments, made it perfect for their needs. To get enough test subjects they discretely recruited the poor and desperate from heavily populated worlds such as Terra. These people were offered a free colonization package, at the cost of becoming a test subject for a heavy gen-mod. A lot of people accepted the offer and were smuggled to the Progenitor system where their gene-modding would take place. After a group was finished they would be brought to an environment for which their gene-mod was designed and help colonize it. After a century of hard work the system contained many separate ecosystems, each with their own true-breeding genetically modified populations. There were only two exceptions, first is the planet New Houston and second was the Forbidden Moon. The former is home to the control group of standard humans. The later was the location where the Progenitors lived and housed all of their proprietary activities.
In the early 24th century, the task of colonization of the entire Progenitor system and the perfection of the initial gene-mods were completed. Each population was thriving in their environments and building up their own industries. This signaled the start of the second phase of the Progenitor plan. This phase focused on worlds within 1 jump of the Progenitor system. This phase would be succeeded by the next phase in the 25th century, which aimed to colonize worlds in the Nebula that were more than a single jump away. 
However, implementing this phase re-tasked many of the JumpShips that were being used for local transport. Losing these would have been very bad for the local economies, but the Progenitors had anticipated this issue and provided DropShips that had been refitted with Skip Core
However, implementing this phase re-tasked many of the JumpShips that were being used for local transport. Losing these would have been very bad for the local economies, but the Progenitors had anticipated this issue and provided DropShips that had been refitted with Skip Cores.
However, implementing this phase re-tasked many of the JumpShips that were being used for local transport. Losing these would have been very bad for the local economies, but the Progenitors had anticipated this issue and provided DropShips that had been refitted with Skip Cores which allows a vessel to travel in the lowest bands of hyperspace, ke a stone skipping over water. These allowed for improved trade between the various populations in the system, but the short-comings of this technology also prevented the locals from interacting with populations that had been created in later stages. 
The activities of the Progenitor Foundation seemingly weren't discovered by any Intelligence Agencies until the early 28th century, when a group of Rim Worlds Republic spies posed as settlers to investigate the smuggling ring. These agents gathered information for several years before reporting their findings. The Rim Worlds Republic quickly saw the potential of creating warrior races and military skip drive vessels, and decided that they would need to take over. More infiltrators were send in, while heavier forces were slowly gathered at what is now know as RWR Outpost #11. The infiltrators tried to steer the political development of several key races to something more compatible and useful for the RWR. Their efforts had mixed results, some races embraced their influence while others dismissed them. Only one population became heavily polarized, which was the Vulcani race that live on the planet Hephaestus, which became polarized between the pacifists and imperialists. 
On April 1st of 2719, a Rim Worlds Republic WarShip squadron jumped into the Progenitor system using a pirate jump-point. This squadron consisted out of several obsolete WarShips taken from a SLDF mothball yard and a crewed M-5 Capital Drone, it is quite unclear how they managed to obtain the SDS Drone. The RWR WarShip squadron easily brushed aside any opposition, and within several hours reached the first gas giant to take up orbital bombardment positions over the Forbidden Moon, which was the central place from which the Progenitor Foundation operated in the Nebula California. With their ships in position, the RWR forces publicly ordered the Progenitors to surrender or to face seeing themselves and all of the resisting client races be turned into ash.
The Progenitors replied to their demands in a very unique way, by somehow having their moon performed a hyperspace jump, a side-effect of which was that all the orbiting WarShips were dragged along with the moon into hyperspace, never to be seen again.
[[[Note: We all have a very hard time believing this aspect of their history, even with our own testimonies of having seen videos of this event. Jumping an entire moon is ludicrous, especially while orbiting a gas giant, however these progenitors were experts in KF physics, so it is a remote possibility. Also from what we could gather both the Forbidden Moon and the WarShips are still missing, nobody knows where or when these will show up again. The possibility that another IE expedition could encounter it forces us to include this section in this report.]]]
In the meantime a Civil War had erupted on Hephaestus. The imperialist faction of the Vulcani had secretly developed military technology, militarized many of their Skip-capable DropShips, and were preparing to launch them to support the Rim Worlds Republic forces.
Seeing no other way to stop the imperialists the pacifists actively sabotaged as many of these ships as possible, severely delaying their contribution. The retaliation from the imperialists quickly escalated to use of WMDs, nearly ruining the already hostile planet. The ships that did managed to liftoff were chased away by a coordinated force from New Houston. With no hope of victory the surviving RWR forces and their affiliates, such as the Vulcani imperialists, retreated from the Progenitor system to the home of another local ally, to later form the Rim Alliance. 
In response the three main colonies in the Progenitor system, including surviving Vulcani pacifists, bundled their resources and the Nebula Confederation was founded, ended the Progenitor era and starting the Rim War.
Following the founding, each of the member states quickly invested into upgrading their navies from civilian Skip DropShips to more military designs using more advanced technologies. This included early parallels into sub-capital weapon development, the inclusion of powerful sensors and communication systems, and various weight-saving innovations. The availability of accurate sub-capital weaponry had a side effect of making orbital bombardment of combat formations, a culturally accepted practice. This also lead to the move away of heavy vehicle and 'Mech forces in favor of infantry and light vehicle forces, the latter combination having a far easier time in finding shelter or hiding from enemy sensors. Both sides are rumored to still have some 'Mechs, but these are either capable of extreme movement or some form of stealth.
While the Rim War era was mostly known for the constant conflict with the Rim Alliance there were also multiple encounters with the Superior Humans, who were described in the previous report. The Nebula Confederation tried to stay away from that Earth, but sometimes one of these Superior Humans will manage to leave their star system, usually ending with them either stranded in space or another planet. Peaceful contact has been attempted in all cases but they all proved to be either fanatics or under the delusion that they are gods. Unsurprisingly all of them were willing to kill to get what they want, which was usually a FTL capable ship. So far the Nebula Confederation was able to prevent them from achieving their objectives and thus stopped them from spreading beyond their original star system.
The continuous conflict between the Nebula Confederation and the Rim Alliance often switched between cold wars or intense border conflicts involving fleets of ships. Early on the Alliance had the technological advantage, while the Confederation had to rely on superior training and coordination, but in time the Nebula Confederation began to technologically out-pace the Rim Alliance, who decided to invest more in quantity. 
By the 31st century, the Rim Alliance had been clearly falling behind in both technological advancement and industrial development. This forced them to overwork their factories and workers to keep a numerical parity, the resulting series of industrial accidents crippled them even further, this left their leadership with two possible choices for the future; either order their ships to go out in a blaze of glory for a remote chance of a possible victory, or to sign a peace treaty with the Nebula Confederation to end the Rim War.
In the end, they choose to preserve themselves and signed a peace treaty, called the Prime Treaty, reducing the conflicts between them to rare raids from supposedly rogue Rim Alliance ships. The Prime Treaty also prevents predication of primitive cultures but does allow the Rim Alliance to attack non-signatures, provided that they are outside of the star system of origin. This has lead the Rim Alliance to prey upon isolated Star Empire or Rebel ships in the SLSC G4V.1499-07 Oort cloud providing them with a valuable source of refined materials, which reduces the stress on their industrial base, even while allowing them to productively vent their aggression.
For the Nebula Confederation itself, the signing of the Prime Treaty was greeted with great optimism leading to lower military investment and higher investment for diplomatic expansion and comfort. This trend is quite visible in the design of the Diplomat-class Skip DropShip, which is massive and luxurious, while being far from optimized for combat. 
The situation radically changed in the late 31st century as a new powerful enemy was encountered at the edge of the Nebula. They initially called this enemy the “Bjorg” this enemy proved itself to be incredibly hostile and powerful. Sadly the decades of peace had made them too soft to properly handle this conflict, causing a lot of internal problems before they could force themselves to fully focus on the new threat and start development of dedicated combat ships and other military platforms. 
Since that time there have been several increasingly more powerful incursions but the Nebula Confederation has managed to stop each one, however at a great cost. But there were boons to this conflict as well, for example from the recovered salvage they have manage to reverse-engineer a lot of advanced technology and in turn implement some of it in their own forces. 
Our hosts had been concerned about another matter that they weren't able to solve one critical issue on their own, as before encountering us, they had learned very little about the enemy's history or culture. Thankfully the members of our expedition have managed to provide them with the missing clues for figuring out those details. This included helping them to uncover the true name of this enemy, which is the “Manei Servus”, which seems to mean “Slaves of the Master”. This made it clear that the enemy are WOB remnants, something that we had suspected from the reported heavy cybernetic usage among the enemy forces.
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Present Analysis
Our our recovered notes we have concluded that our former hosts of the Nebula Confederation seemed capable enough to handle their local threats and might hopefully be capable to end the Manei Servus.
However we also have to consider the possible threat from the Confederation to the Inner Sphere. From a political and cultural angle the Nebula Confederation should be completely non-hostile to the Inner Sphere, however their unique technology could become a powerful military advantage if is any conflict, as their defensive and offensive capabilities make their large DropShips about equal to small WarShips. Gaining this technology for ourselves is highly unlikely as they seemed to have never told us how it exactly it all works, also we were unable to secure any samples, making it currently impossible for us to reverse engineer any of it.
If there is any conflict we would recommend to use WarShips with LF batteries. This is because their Skip-Core technology is slower than equally developed jump-drives, allowing a dedicated Inner Sphere force should be able to outrun or strategically outmaneuver them. However conflict should also be avoided as the Confederation is a strong stabilizing force which means that if something ever where to escape from the Nebula, we might need their help to stop it. 
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ENCYCLOPEDIA GALACTICA
STAR: SLSC G4V.1499-25a (NEW HOUSTON)
Location: Approximately center of California Nebula
Planetary Information:
Star Type (Recharge Time): G4V (185 hours)
Position in System: 3
Number of Satellites: 1
Surface Gravity: 0.97
Atm. Pressure: Standard (Breathable)
Equatorial Temperature: 30C (Medium)
Surface Water: 68 percent
Highest Native Life: Mammals
Population (3111): 2,000,000,000
====Rims Alliance====
The following is a summation of our findings of the historical antagonist of the Nebula Confederation, called the Rim Alliance. This section is based upon not fully recovered analyses that were preformed during our stay in the Confederation, and these were in turn based upon public available media and conversations with various locals. The amount of objective information that we had access to was quite slim, as a significant part of our information came from the Star Quest reenactment shows, as such the reliability of this section is suspect.
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Contact Review
Upon learning of the existence of the Rim Alliance and knowing that it would be unlikely that they would allow us to visit them, we attempted to find visitors from the Alliance among the local population. We managed to encounter several persons with clear heritage, most of these turned out to be exiles or highly shady individuals.
The latter in case being a group of three Earnogs, who were willing to talk in exchange of some gold, but their demeanor was extremely suspicious and honestly revolting.
Getting an exiled Kingnog to talk was more difficult, it took five bottles of green wine, a bar fight, and enduring a minor stab wound before he started stalking in earnest. His long tale contained some obvious dramatization but fitted well with other data that we had.
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Historical Analysis
Their failed coup in the Progenitor system forced RWR and their allies to retreat to the Kingnog home world there they regrouped and adapted. They joined their technologies together, any remaining normal humans took the gen-mods, imperialist Vulcani renamed themselves Vulnogs, and over several decades they together rebuild their military. With their military rebuild they began a long war of expansion and enslavement which is know as the Rim War. This war had many early successes but the Confederation always managed to push them back, thus most gains were made on other borders. The setbacks in this war fueled the inherent flaws in the Rim Alliance, increasing internal conflict and lowering cooperation. Among the ruling races this was mostly seen with the Vulnogs becoming increasingly isolationist and the Kingnogs punishing failure with death. This crippled their ability to technologically advance, thus they slowly lost their technological edge, forcing them to focus more on quantity and tactics. Eventually the war came to a grinding halt, forcing them to sign the Prime Treaty.
Following this event they allied themselves with the xenophobic Lava-Spiders in order to form an opposing power block. It is important to note that the Lava-Spiders might be actual aliens, with exception some of their technology there is nothing human about them, as they have six-limbs, exoskeletons, and non-Terran thermopile bio-chemistry.
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It has been several decades since the Rim Alliance has signed the Prime Treaty, this forced them to reinvented themselves with talk about honor and tradition, making them less likely to preemptively attack, but some might argue that they has merely reached a stable form in where their aggression is balanced out by formalized internal and external conflict. However their allies, the Lava-Spiders, have the habit of performing surgical strikes on specific objectives without regards of any agreements. and thus might be the biggest threat to the Inner Sphere if a way out of the Nebula is found.
Just as most skip-capable cultures, they have signed onto the Prime Treaty which restricts the interference with more “primitive” cultures, however this protection doesn't extend to anyone from the Inner Sphere. So in retrospect we were lucky that our group didn't encounter the Rim Alliance or any other hostile skip-capable culture, as we could have easily ended up enslaved or killed.
[[[Note: Early RWR propaganda in combination with the usage of gen-mod races created a very strict caste society, as they have made it easy to force individuals into specific roles. There are very few individuals that operate outside of their caste role or are genetic hybrids. Hybrids in particular are often forced to either become criminals or go into exile.
This warrior based caste system also caused them to be an alliance in name only, with large amount of internal conflict and distrust. In many ways they have a lot in common with the Clans, even organizing them into similar castes, however even with the parallels between them and the Clans, the latter tend to treat their non-warrior castes far better.
The castes of the Rim Alliance can be divided into three groups; ruler, worker and slave. The ruler castes are the Kingnog warrior caste that rule explicitly over the Rim Alliance by force, and the isolationist Vulnog advisor caste that seem to prefer exert their influence from the shadows. 
An important aspect of ruler castes is that they can can kill members of lower castes without any serious repercussion, which provides a source of constant terror. 
Worker races, such as the Earnogs, were often conquered in the early stages of the Rim War, and currently they are the tradesmen, merchants or slave overseers. Their status comes with privileges that the slave races don't get to enjoy such as limited right of ownership, being allowed to pilot Small Craft, and authority over slaves.
The slave races are often not even allowed on ships as passengers, but are transported in environmentally sealed containers as cargo. The bodies of killed slaves are treated with less dignity than empty shells, as they are sometimes used to feed on-board worms and pigs, which are in turn serve up as food.]]]
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====Manei Servus "Bjorg"====
The Republic of the Sphere is one of the big sponsors of Interstellar Expeditions and one of their big reasons for them to do so was our help in locating any remaining Word of Blake forces. Well it paid off for them, we found some, they seem to be trapped in the Nebula, but have in many ways become even more insane. 
The locals often call them “Bjorg”, which was derived from a partial name on the first encountered Manei Servus Ship, which we suspect was the Cruiser-class Bjorgen Kneckerburg, an old Hegemony WarShip.
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Contact Review
We didn't have any direct contact with the Servus, and we are kind of glad for that. On an academic level, we would have preferred to establish contact so that we would have objective data for our research. But dying or being enslaved is highly counterproductive. The closest we got to the Servus was during a battle that occurred during our search for other members of the expedition. In one system several converted Servus DropShips managed to get the drop on us. The encounter was masterfully handled by the Nebula Confederation squadron, resulting in the destruction of the Servus Ships, with no losses to the squadron.
After the battle we did observe some of the debris, the most shocking sight was when half a Servus corpse was floating by the window, from its eyes I could see that it was still alive but doomed to die a slow death in space. I had reported this to the crew and than appropriated some medication from the ship's doctor to sleep that tonight.
[[[Note: The Manei Servus cyborgs are nearly identical to the Manei Domini cyborgs, they even look the same, but there are two large differences. 
First is the network function in the communication implants that they all have, it allows the group mind to remote control the body as a puppet, as such it is also the first implant to be forced upon their victims. The remote control will continue until the group is sure that the will of the victim has been broken.
The second difference is a life-support implant that replaces the torso organs, this allows the cyborg to survive without any external life-support and be efficiently stored, provided that the internal battery has power. However this also means that when the internal battery of the implant is empty that the drone will quickly die.
The full details of how a person is converted into a Servus drone are quite gruesome, mutilating and enslaving both the minds and bodies of their victims. Only very few have ever been captured alive, less survive being converted back into a person. And those that do survive are mentally scarred for life.]]]
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Historical Analysis
Examination of historical events and time lines leads us to conclude that the World of Blake came to the Nebula California near the end of the Jihad. This is proven by local recorded encounters with Celestials 'Mechs and Spectral ASF, We think that their coming to the Nebula was not a planned long term plot but seemingly a desperate search for locating more resources. 
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Present Analysis
Thankfully for our present analysis, we had a lot of data from the Nebula Confederation which they base upon recovered materials and observed behavior. For instance, with the technologies that the Servus seem to have, they could have easily overrun the Nebula, but the bulk of their forces seem to remain on the borders, as if they are searching for a hole in the fence. This seems to indicate that they wish to leave the Nebula, to either swarm the Inner Sphere or join with other WOB remnants.
The technological reasons for their behavior seems to be centered around their rumored largest vessel, the Pillar-class YardShip. Based upon the provided data and rumors we suspect that it was originally a Faslane-class YardShip that has since been extensively modified. Although it has likely been updated in a large number of ways, it is still an Compact K-F Drive Warship, and just like with our JumpShips it can't leave the Nebula California. This ship can't be abandoned by them as it seems to perform several critical functions, such as manufacturing their standard equipment and being the central HPG hub for the group mind network. It is quite obvious that destroying this Pillar-class ship has an extremely high priority for both of the major powers, but it is extremely hard to hunt down, as it would require many ships to destroy, and it will jump out at the first sign of trouble.
 
Both the Nebula Confederation and Rim Alliance use heavily armed patrols and networks of observation probes to try and keep track of Servus movements. From the collected data they have concluded that the Servus have so far only shown interest in civilizations that can offer them both refined resources and subjects for cybernetic enslavement. This means that Toreel and Syberia are likely safe from predication, for they don't match this profile. Observations also indicate that the Servus have attempted raids on the Superior Humans, but as expected, never succeed. The Star Empire on the other hand seem to be easy prey, and are likely the source of some of the materials used in newer technology.
We can report that some good and bad news. The good news is that this group is trapped in the Nebula and the Nebula Confederation is dealing with them. But they have become more dangerous and they might still end up outside of the Nebula, as that was the case with the members of our own expedition. As such, local defenses at Farhome should be improved to meet the worst case scenario.
====Conclusion====
May God, help the fools that ignore this warning. 
While I am glad that some data remained of our little odyssey. That has made the humiliating memory of have the data implant being extracted from my rear a bit more tolerable.
In review we suffered nearly complete loss of all our equipment and ships, only our Small Craft and personal belongings remain. Also over half the expedition personnel is either missing, dead or has suffered an even worse fate. My recommendation is to discourage any more expeditions into the Nebula. And 'nothing interesting found' is not going to cut it anymore, just see what the mess that we found ourselves in. We should come out that we did lose much trying to explore this region, but the losses should be attributed to various anomalies or plagues. When that is in place enact an official quarantine zone around the Nebula. Instruct all expeditions or other traffic to not approach it.
This California Nebula region is an asylum from reality, one that is waiting to burst. And someday it will burst, so try to establish a line of communication with the Confederation, so that we can ask for their help if such a nightmare ever comes to pass.
This disaster has had severe effects on all of the survivors. Speaking for myself, I will never be able to look at the stars with the same curiosity ever again, therefore I will never go onto an expedition again, my remaining duty in this life is to get all the information out of the sacrifices that we have made.
–Dr. Pankaj Rani, PhD, Senior Mission Director,
IE Deep Periphery Expedition CalNeb I, 3115
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==Ships of Nebula California==
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===Nebula Confederation===
NEBULA CONFEDERATION TECHNOLOGICAL SPECIFICATIONS
During our stay with the Nebula Confederation we only got to see very few designs in person, which limited our opportunities to gather technical specifications. With other known designs we could only gather the most basic details. All these notable designs share one aspect, in that they tend to be aerospace designs that can use Skip-Drives. As one can expect, the Skip-Drive and other new technologies, had a significant impact on how the local battlefields look like, with combat doctrines centered around space combat, infantry combat, and precision orbital bombardment. 
A notable detail is that most races are severely limited in the number of designs that they utilize, this is likely caused by their limited industrial base, as they often rely on refitted equipment or obsolete equipment from the more powerful races
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*Fleet Review of the Nebula Confederation
*Micro-Shuttle X-O
*Runalot Small Craft
*Boxer Class Escort
*Founder Class Corvette
*Traveller Class Destroyer
*Explorer Class Heavy Cruiser
*Diplomat Class Transport
*Confederation Fleet Station
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===Rims Alliance===
RIM ALLIANCE TECHNOLOGICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Although they started their old conflict with a technological edge from reverse-engineering SLDF technology which gave them ERPPCs and lead to Chameleon Signature Armor, they have since lost their edge as the Confederation became the first to introduce new weapon systems and brand new hull-types.
The living conditions onboard Rim Alliance ships are very bad, with steerage quarters being seen as being above average. Also the only fresh food onboard their ships tend to be pigs and worms that feed on any biological waste, understandably many of their allies stick to their own rations.
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*Fleet Review of the Rims Alliance
*Merchant Class Small Craft
*Raider Class Frigate
*Weaver Class Destroyer
*Warrior Class Cruiser
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===Manei Servus "Bjorg"===
MANEI SERVUS “BJORG” TECHNOLOGICAL SPECIFICATIONS
The following descriptions are the most notable ships used by the Manei Servus, however they also use many captured ships that they have altered for their own usage. Those ships are easy to recognize by their patchwork armor reinforcements and other modifications that clearly ruin their atmospheric performance.
There are also a number of common traits in each notable Servus ship; either storage space or factory space for supplying Servus implants. Another trait is the large number of infantry bays to maximize their possible workforce, this is not a problem for the life-support systems of the ship as Servus implants have an independent life-support function.
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*Fleet Review of the Manei Servus "Bjorg"
*Brick Class Boarding Craft
*Ball Class Transport
*Cylinder Class Battleship
*Pillar Class Yardship
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===Naval Technologies===
*Skip-Drive FTL System
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Phased PPCs
This local modification allows for PPCs to have more flexibility, the new features of such PPCs are that it is then able to produce nearly any type of particle, the damage output can be dialed down to prevent excessive damage to a target, and with this modification a PPC is also capable of stunning conventional infantry from a distance by sending an electrical charge combined with a specific EM burst. This modification is possible with any type of PPCs, ranging from infantry weapons to Naval PPCs. 
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Chameleon Signature Armor
Early in the Rim War, the Rim Alliance reverse-engineered the Star League's null-signature system and found a way to apply it to capital-scale units. Like its predecessor this system mostly consists out of advanced electronic countermeasures and heat reservoirs. 
Rules: While this does not allow a ship to escape detection when using the planetary drive, it does allow a ship to enter and exit hyperspace without being detected, as well as rotate in space. While it is active no weapons can be used. The system also shuts down if any armor facing is depleted. 
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Sub-Capital Gauss
Sub-Capital Gauss Rifles, often referred by the locals as Torpedo Launchers, is another weapon system that was invented in response to Skip-Core technology. In the past most local ships relied on capital missiles with fusion warheads to bring down any shields, however these missiles took up a large amount of the available tonnage and were vulnerable to point-defenses. A solution was found by scaling down Naval Gauss Rifles to sub-capital scale, and developing torpedo ammunition as replacements to nuclear munitions and sensor probes. 
Gauss-Torpedo Ammunition
These Torpedoes are hollow Gauss projectiles with variable payloads. The payload options include fusion warheads, guided perpetrators, or sensor/communication probes. These lighter ammunition types frees up a lot of tonnage aboard a vessel, allowing them to be more effective and travel farther. 
Rules: All Torpedo munitions have a +1 to-hit penalty. Guided Torpedoes use a precise kinetic penetrator, that is guided to a target by either a TAG or remote sensors. This torpedo is a favorite for precision orbital bombardment. 
Fusion Torpedoes contain a tactical fusion warhead which is set to detonate if the armed torpedo comes into contact with a solid object or any type of shield effect. However this also prevents any internal detonations in a target. 
The Probe Torpedo is an all-environment standard sensor-communication platform, as powerful as that of an ASF or 'Mech.
==External Links==
Original post for Nebula Confederation's sourcebook
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Supplemental Report: California
Supplemental Report: California