Interlude II: The Empire of the Sun

In an earlier post, I drew attention to a Gamma World article that appeared in the pages of the Polyhedron RPGA 'zine. The article described an attack against a major Radioactivist base by a giant fighting machine called an "Aquabot." The nature and origin of the Aquabot are left a mystery, though it is heavily implied that its appearance heralds the introduction of something else into the Gamma World setting.

That something else is revealed in issue #101 of Dragon (September 1985), in two connected articles. The first is entitled "Out of the Sun ..." by James M. Ward and Roger Raupp, whose names are also attached to the earlier Polyhedron article. This article details more "man-machines" like the Aquabot, such as the AATAAV (Airborne All-Terrain Armored Attack Vehicle), along with their game statistics. 

The second article, by Roger E. Moore, is entitled "The Empire of the Sun" and is, in my opinion, the more significant of the two, particularly from the point of view of the setting of Gamma World. This article describes the titular Empire of the Sun as "not so much a cryptic alliance as a true nation, one of the few in existence in the Dark Years." The Empire controls the island of Honshu but has bases across the Pacific Ocean and the coasts of eastern Asia and western North America.

Prior to the appearance of this article, the setting of Gamma World was seemingly devoid of large polities or states. There's the Barony of Horn in Legion of Gold, but it's a very small scale, localized thing. Likewise, there are hints here and there that some of the cryptic alliances (about which I'll talk at greater length in another post) maintain large, city-like strongholds, from which they send out their forces. However, none of these could really be called a state or nation. Thus, the Empire of the Sun is a genuinely new thing within the setting, as is the fact that it appears to be engaging in a campaign of conquest across the post-apocalyptic Earth.

Just as interesting is the fact that the Empire owes its existence to pre-apocalypse military personnel of the Asian Coalition, who "were hustled into suspended animation chambers in a major undersea base off the coast of Honshu, and thus survived the cataclysm." These soldiers "were revived in 2431 and since then have slowly spread across the Pacific Ocean, scouting out the remains of the world." Even more interesting is the goals of the Empire: "to bring order out of the chaos of the world, using the most efficient means possible." 

One can quibble about the wisdom of introducing anime-style mecha into the setting of Gamma World. I must confess that, even at the time this article first appeared, I had some qualms about it. Conversely, the idea of pre-apocalypse humans being reawakened a century later and seeking to restore order to a world gone mad is really quite compelling, but then I've I like the idea behind The Morrow Project, so what do I know? Regardless, "The Empire of the Sun" is, I believe, an important and often overlooked addition to Gamma World, one that strongly suggests its setting is potentially much more dynamic and larger in scope than the popular conception of it.