Forgotten Flotilla

**Dev. Status** | Conceptual

*"Come and listen you fellows, so young and so fine*

*And seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines*

*It will form as a habit and seep in your soul*

*Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal*

*It's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew*

*Where danger is double and pleasures are few*

*Where the rain never falls and the sun never shines*

*It's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine"*

- *"Dark as a Dungeon" by Merle Travis. Space Patrol members shake when they hear the tune.*
The **Forgotten Flotilla**, also known as the **Flotilla** or the **Forgotten**, is a fan-made minor creation originated by ProudAmerikan.
Lost space miners come home to roost, the Forgotten are relentless scavengers that use battlefield wreckage to fuel their abilities and upgrade themselves in battle, and are unique for being stationed and deployed from orbit, crashing down almost anywhere on the field as desired via drop pod.

## Background

### The Ascending Ones

 File:FlotillaLogoOriginal.png   Space, it is said, is the final frontier for mankind. And indeed, during the 1960s Space began to resemble the frontier more and more: a nigh-lawless place outside of all but a few small pockets of governmental control, through which dominant world powers exerted their influence on less-powerful indigenous forces below. The Allies, the Soviets, the Chinese, the Syndicate...all groups with a significant amount of spacial presence, and all groups to whom which space represented not just the future of hope and peace, but the future of warfare as well. And for those powers who had not managed to compete well or at all in the Space Race, the presence of these powers in orbit signified an uncomfortable truth: without space power of their own, they would be helpless against any future attack or expansion from the major powers. It is that truth that has spurred so many groups into space agencies of their own: rocket launches in Africa or South America are now almost as common as in the United States or Eurasia and satellites made in Papua New Guinea compete for space with those from Chile, South Africa, and Thailand. It is not uncommon for new governments and dictators to announce national space agencies as one of the first changes in the new regime. More and more, the people of the worlds look to the stars for equality.

But the United Technate does not. Aside from two satellites launched into orbit, it has been noted by infiltrators from the Federation to the KGB that their AET (Agencia Espacial Tecnocrática) program is small, largely underfunded, and bereft of all but a skeleton crew of scientists and workers. In a world where even the AfriSpace Agency has ambitious (if yet unrealized) plans for orbital satellites and a future space station of its own, the United Technate appears to have little interest or thought in exploring the heavens. Nations with positive relations tend to justify this as the Technate focusing on more important economy-stabilizing measures over limited-payoff space research, while others chalk it up to petty ignorance and an excitable few claim outrageous claims of secret 'stargates' and underground labs hidden in mountains to other worlds. In truth, however, the AET had once tried to enter into the Space Race in 1964 with a grand and ambitious plan that, if successful, would have cemented their place in the Space Race.

They failed.

### The Lost Fleet

Project Heavenly Bountry was ambitious, far-seeking, and enormous in scope. It was also completely ludicrous: the kind of project that only the Soviets could hope to approach in 1969, never mind 1964. On paper, the project was already insane: no less than twenty four-stage rockets with enough room to house twenty five people and supplies to last them a month launched in sync at launch sites all over the new Technate, each one designed to be launched into orbit and converted into orbiting micro-stations that could, the running thought went, be used for both mining derelict artificial satellites and as staging points for further expeditions into the solar system. And when all possible factors were taken into account, such a project's feasibility rapidly reached impossible levels: the AET had never successfully launched so much as a single space plane or shuttle before, only some animals in satellites at best. Their diagrams and charts were based on smuggled or obsolete information recovered from the Soviets. They were going to carry *twenty five* people each, AND supplies, AND be capable of expansion for future bases. They were going to launched all at once, with a single central command overseeing multiple bases. The United Technate was fresh from a civil war and this was going to take a huge chunk out of their budget that could be used for other purposes.

It was pure idiocy, and yet Project Heavenly Bounty kept receiving the go-ahead signal. It was a symbol of what the United Technate desired at the time: a quick-fix that looked easy on paper from the eyes of a non-specialist, a science fiction that would fast-track the future into coming here sooner, an impressive feat that would bring about great publicity. For all the wrong reasons it continued: the rockets were assembled, the future espaconauts (almost none of them military personnel or aviation specialists to boot) congregated, money was allocated, and everything came together.

On a bright and sunny day in June, 1964, Project Heavenly Bounty reached its climax. Twenty rockets filled the launch sites, base command crawling with hundreds of personnel and researchers praying for something more than abject failure, espaconauts geared up to go. The launches were authorized one last time. The areas were locked down and secured.

And then the rockets slowly, ponderously blasted off from the pads, one after another. They shuddered slightly, but they kept on ascending. From Curaçao, from Santiago Ixcuintla, from Cozumel they launched, over five hundred people within facing upwards towards the sky. From the command centers, a buzzing started to fill the room: one observer would say later that it was the verge of cheering.

The first rocket to be lost had a problem with its wiring that resulted in the immolation of its propellant, and burst into flames before crashing shortly after lift off. Two rockets had their trajectories intersect each other and collided en route, disintegrating both. The fourth encountered problems with its insulation and froze those inside to death, the fifth had a faulty fuel cap and ended up slamming into the Pacific ocean, and a sixth slammed into an orbiting Soviet satellite as it breached the atmosphere. A seventh rocket managed to reach orbit but ended up overshooting its target, and lost contact with the rest after hitting space debris and spinning out into deep space. Of the thirteen ships that had reached orbit, over half of them were suffering from internal though non-immediate problems of their own: and what was worse, the damage suffered on their flights was enough to cut off all communication back down to the ground.

It was the worst accident in the history of space flight: an estimated 150 people killed and the rest missing in action, millions of dollars worth of destruction, an unimaginable scandal of hubristic failure. For one of the first times in its history, the United Technate took immediate action to suppress as much of it as they could. The AET was immediately gutted and all but shut down, over 95% percent of its personnel fired or transferred to other institutions. Those who had provided the documents were quietly incarcerated in show trials, imprisoned in their homes for the sake of sending a message to someone even if the Technate didn't know who someone was. All reports and witnesses of the disaster were silenced or quieted, and the incident itself was all but covered up: the cover story being passed off as missile tests and the records marked for declassification only when every single operative member of the AET at the time was dead.

And that was the end of the Technate's research into space.

### The Forgotten, Remembered

While the United Technate did their best to cover up the sordidness of Project Heavenly Bounty, the espaconauts aboard the surviving rockets struggled in vain to hail ground control. As time passed and no response was heard, they realized that for better or for worse they were separated from Earth. Slowly, they began to pull themselves together from the initial panic and chaos that had resulted in that first terrible disaster, and started to assess the situation and what could be done.

The ships groped out into the darkness of space and, bit by bit, reconnected with each other. Using what power they could supply they maneuvered themselves together, stripping out parts of their ships to make impromptu cables and consolidating so as to take stock of who was left and what was to be done in the dangerous and highly lethal environment they were now stuck in. Once the thirteen remaining space ships had made contact with each other and surveyed the situation, together they came to a consensus: they were to wait for the United Technate to reestablish contact, but until such time they would carry out their duties and search for what space junk, natural satellites, or nearby asteroids there were to mine and strip for materials.

They would carry on these duties for four more years.

By 1969, the fleet of salvaged ships, meteoroid bases, and re-purposed space stations that made up the Flotilla was a far different group than that which had taken off so long ago. Years of exposure to solar radiation and the dangers of space could warp the mind as easily as it could ruin the flesh, and the men and women that had convened together in order to preserve their mission now lived for nothing but the mission. Rumors and superstition began to run among the orbital forces of the Allies and Soviets, rumors of ghost ships that approached without warning to break apart Athena satellites in a matter of hours and observational space stations found filled with corpses and looted of their contents. When the Atomic Chinese built their massive fleet, they found themselves beset by void devils who stole their shipments, their materials, and most of all their cloning vats; even the Ecumene scouting ships, when they dared slip in and out of the debris field that surrounded the Earth, would swap stories of seemingly dead space junk suddenly come to life behind them and slip away into more dangerous areas faster than the scouts could track them.

For the espaconauts, addled by years of exposure and radioactivity, it was all the same: more materials to be mined, more resources to be rendered down, salvaged for parts or stored away until they could once more contact ground control and deliver their bounty to the Technate. In their minds the Earth below still waited for them, still tried day after day to re-establish contact with their espaconauts, would be overjoyed to hear of their survival and even more pleased at the riches they had waiting for them. Their numbers were few in number, but they could scavenge more than machinery and metal: seemingly "lost" cosmonauts could find themselves rescued and pressed into service for the new Flotilla, and recovered cloning machines allowed the espaconauts to bolster their numbers with large numbers of engineered 'children'. Life was nothing but tracking, deployment, mining, and occasionally self-defense from what were to them equally ghosts.

But when the seventh rocket registered itself on their radars, hope flared brighter ever than ever. Trailing the dust of distant asteroids, bearing technology never before seen by the Flotilla, and carrying a bounty of salvage in strange ships and materials, the Seventh Rocket was...changed. Its occupants embraced the rest of the Forgotten as long lost sisters, leaving behind a thin patina of ichor as they did so. They brought news of far off locales, from Jupiter where strange forces watched in silence and from distant Pluto, where a solitary ship watched the watchers. They brought wonders never before seen by the Espaconauts: devices that could ionize the air over a massive plane, tiny biomechanical *things* with serrated edges, and pieces of spongy tissue that evoked feelings of headiness in those who approached it. And, most exciting of all, they brought something else back with them: a functioning relay communications channel back to Earth. The next step for the Flotilla was obvious.

On August 10th, 1969, the Technocratic Combine's first introduction to the Flotilla came in two forms: a massive amount of space debris including two Syndicate satellites, pieces of an Athena satellite, and half of a Soviet observation station sent crashing down onto the Cozumel Launch Site just as a nearby Allied naval fleet was passing by on their way to Argentina, and a garbled message broadcast to every channel the Flotilla could reach and transmit to:

"Proj...ct Hea...nly Bounty is...success...Floti....oming home...Space is...Technate's now..."

## Special Gameplay

**Drop from Orbit! -** Because the Forgotten are stationed in atmospheric orbit and space, they do not deploy onto the battlefield directly. Instead, once built they are shown on the screen as droppable and, when selected, can be placed anywhere on the battlefield you have line of sight to. Over the course of several seconds a combat drop lander will then drop onto the battlefield, depositing the unit while also dealing a bit of damage to anything in the nearby area when it lands!

**Salvage -** The Forgotten have mastered the arts of using whatever is at hand in order to perform “meatball engineering” in order to survive, and primarily rely on downed units in order to upgrade themselves and use their special abilities. All Forgotten units start with a number of empty Salvage Charges, which they can fill by Salvaging (via right-click) infantry corpses, vehicle wrecks, aircraft crashes, and even structural rubble. Units expend Charges to provide certain potent buffs or effects on other units (friendly or enemy) in the field; alternately, when a unit has filled all its Charges (5/10/15 per upgrade level respectively) it may upgrade itself to become stronger and better in combat.

Infantry corpses fill 1 Charge, vehicle wrecks, aircraft crashes, and turret rubble fill 3, and building rubble fills 5.

**Mining Buggies -** As the Forgotten were never originally intended to engage in space combat, their ground vehicles are composed of retrofitted mining buggies and rovers. All Forgotten ground vehicles start off unable to move or fire unless infantry are next to it, at which point they become able to move and fire as normal. They may also be garrisoned by a single infantry each, at which point they turn into fast-moving but unarmed versions of themselves.

## El Perdido

*"We...are...the...tilla...Since...strophe...lose...many...our...loss...men...survive...worst...space...and*

**(\*garbled static\*)**

*but...some...twis...racle...lived...sorted...scavenge...*
*now...vation...come...topia...reach...stars...succ...triumph...turn...let...back...in...let...us...back...in...*"

***(\*garbled static\*)***

- Transcript from an unknown radio frequency heard by an operator in Chihuahua. Investigation is still ongoing regarding this broadcast.

### Deathmatch Reinforcements

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