Essence of theTactical Squad

This essence carries the taste of gunpowder, blood, and a jolt of adrenaline a moment after consumption.

• You gain the ability to get an aerial overhead view of an area, along with an ability to see down at individual levels of a building, an overhead view as if the roof and any above floors were missing when you focus on a particular level. You can quickly perceive neutral, friendly, and hostile actors present in a square area roughly 2 miles by 2 miles in size, rising up as high as necessary to reach the tallest rooftop in that area if needed.

  • You must be within this same area, though you can remain at the very edge of said area and retain connection. Removing yourself from the area will cause this awareness to collapse immediately.

  • Once you’ve had some practice, you will be able to step outside of the viewed zone, but will still need to remain relatively close to its border. This distance can be expanded further along over time, but it will take at least 1 week of active use to activate this from within half a mile outside of the zone, and will increase by roughly half a mile every 2 weeks since, reaching a limit of 10 miles away, leaving your maximum range a zone 10 to 12 miles away from your location. This is a soft-cap, and you may find a way to overcome it, eventually, but it will not be fast, nor easy.

• You gain the ability to summon a small squad of vat-grown soldiers, completely loyal and following your commands. They start off with basic training and instincts, but as they survive longer they will get better at it, and learn to improvise to carry out your orders better.

  • Any soldiers of yours that are killed are replaced by fresh vat-grown soldiers the next day, but they start fresh and need to learn the ropes. Thankfully any surviving experienced soldiers can help accelerate their growth up to roughly three-quarters their own level of expertise, after which they will have to catch up at a normal pace.

• You begin with being able to summon up to 3 such soldiers at once, and can hold a total of ‘12’ of them in your mental barracks, rotating between them as you see fit. With practice and using this ability more often, you will eventually be able to increase squad size, one by one, for a soft cap of 10 squad members after a year of frequent use, or 2-4 years of occasional use of this power. You barracks will likewise improve over time to hold a total of 40 soldiers at ready.

  • Each of these soldiers can be assigned the particular weapon type they specialize in during creation, or at the latest when they are first summoned. They cannot change this weapon type without undergoing a return to the vat, and this process will take 72 hours, and will wipe away any experience they have at handling their old weapon type, but will not grant anything beyond the basics with a new weapon type, so it is generally ill-advised to try and re-specialize a vat-grown soldier afterwards.

  • Optionally, you can choose how each of your vat-grown soldiers looks when they are first created. You can alter these looks later by assigning a soldier to undergo such a change, which will return them to a vat to alter said looks, but this will make them unavailable for 48 hours, and may result in small temporary deterioration in their skills, needing to relearn muscle memory and adjust to changes in physique.

• When summoned, you can issue your soldiers commands using the mental map you have of the area, the overhead view, and run simulations of possible outcomes, including estimations of how enemy forces might react, up to 5 seconds into the future. When you are satisfied, you can issue mental orders that will be immediately carried out. While planning your moves and doing simulations to test these possibilities, time stands still to everyone else, allowing you to plan your moves carefully. You can also allow the squads to move with rough outline of a plan and only focus to issue specific orders when they are close to their enemies.

  • These soldiers can arrive close to you (roughly 30 meters or 100 feet away at most), or alternatively at your chosen spot at the edge of said zone, within 100 feet of the said edge.

    • Optionally, you can summon the squad to deploy from a transport helicopter which will rapidly approach the deployment area from the edge of the zone, seemingly appearing as a mirage that quickly gains color and tangibility before becoming fully real just seconds later. Deploying the squad this way allows you to drop them down at any designated position outside, but is liable to draw attention to them. The helicopter is unarmed and will not stay around, only dropping off the squad and then quickly departing once more, fading away on reaching the edge of the zone.

• These soldiers are trained with a specific weapon, in addition to a combat knife and a pistol as a side-arm, and are most efficient with their own weapon. They always appear in full tactical gear including body-armor, and sufficient ammunition for active combat.

  • These options include assault rifle, combat shotgun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, grenade launcher, and tactical shield bearers who often carry their sidearm in their other hand at the ready.

• Optionally, these soldiers will also receive basic training in one additional field besides their weapons. Reconnaissance, assault training (including an optional switch from their combat knife to a large machete, fire-ax, or similar close-quarters weapon of choice. Optionally, a combat shovel), demolitions, engineering, first-aid, or vehicle operator training.

  • These start off relatively mundane, but can increase with experience to special-forces level, and potentially even borderline supernatural level. They will receive any additional gear that they may require to carry out related duties, though with limited supplies replenished upon being summoned from the barracks.

• Any injuries that are not lethal as long as a soldier received first aid within a few minutes time, and could survive if they reached hospital within half an hour will be treated at the barracks, and soldiers so injured will remain inactive in recovery for a period of time up to 24 hours, depending on the severity of the injury. Any lost limbs or similar injuries that can be survived from will require 48 hours of recovery, but the soldier will be restored in a vat during their recovery period.

  • Lethal damage, in particular damage to the brain will likely result in a vat-grown soldier dying and passing on, freeing a spot in the barracks that can be filled in by a fresh vat-grown soldier soon after.

    • Optionally, if you possess any means of resurrection at your disposal, you can temporarily sacrifice this ability to revive a fallen Soldier this way, regaining full control and access to said resurrection ability within 36 hours, but once this option has been used on a squad member once, they cannot be brought back this way again.

      • You may, optionally, allow such soldiers to transfer from active duty to training and drill-sergeant position at the barracks, no longer possible to summon for combat duty, but possible to call upon to provide their insight and experience on matters. They will gain officer uniform, and retain their side-arm and close-quarters weapon.

• You remain in mental contact with all squad members and can direct them at ease, either giving exact, specific orders that are conveyed and understood immediately through mental connection, or issuing commands in a mental voice as if speaking to them normally albeit unheard by others and at any distance, leaving exact details to them.

  • Your vat-grown soldiers will likewise remain in mental contact with one another, if one of them gets attacked, the others will immediately know, and can coordinate silently and swiftly to execute flanking attacks or plan an execute new maneuvers on the fly. They will give priority to your directions and orders, but in absence of more exact orders, they will act according to what they know and what their training teaches them.

    • This means that more experienced veterans and elite soldiers will have a much higher chance of surviving and success at their mission than fresh rookies would, and that heroic or epic soldiers could achieve action-movie level bullshit with their tricks and surprises with the right circumstances and guidance from your oversight on the area. They still benefit greatly from the awareness that your overhead view of things will grant to them.