Technology

This article lists the known technological pecularities of the Case Amber universe should they differ from our own. In general, technological and aesthetic progress began to diverge in the 1950s.

Power Armor and Alternatives

Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, militaries began exploring the use of power armor to increase the survivability of infantry, reducing the size of weapons teams, and providing NBC protection during dismounted combat. However, power armor is expensive, is challenging to mechanize or motorize, has extensive power requirements that necessitate the deployment of dedicated power generation units at low-levels, and in some cases cause ground pressure issues in soft or muddy terrain.

In general power armor troops are used in a limited fashion, sometimes as support to other more numerous types of units like light or mechanized infantry. Power armor-equipped units are generally much smaller due to cost and logistics restrictions, and sometimes the need to mechanize them in vehicles specialized in carrying a limited number of suits. For example, British power armor infantry units when mechanized are carried in the Boarhound Powered Infantry Carrier (PIC) which can only carry 6 pieces of armor whereas a standard light infantry section consists of 10 personnel. Power generation and maintenance requirements also limit unit size and range of action, as a Rifle Company with 100 suits generally requires at least 200 batteries and in-house charging. For example, the British tend to attach a REME Power Section to each powered infantry Rifle Company to provide first-line recharging to the platoons and carry spare batteries. At the battalion-level, the Quartermaster Platoon has its own Power Section which contains more substantial power generation equipment and "mobile power stations" which can each link 12 stationary powered infantrymen occupying defensive positions to a lorry-mounted generator via 90-foot long cables.

Further, because of the ground pressure of an infantryman clad in power armor is greater than your average infantryman (although depending on the model not extremely more) power armor can be limited from operating in soft, muddy or snowy terrain. Additionally, models with exposed joints or electrical components can become inoperable in fine sand or water as shallow as knee deep. For this reason, some countries have written out doctrinal limitations, including:

• Restricting power armor use to urban terrain, where ground pressure is not a concern, the heavily canalized nature of cities favors increased infantry protection, and the ability to carry heavy weapons is at a premium due to the abundance of hard cover.
• Restricting power armor use to hard packed terrain in general during fair weather, or in defensive positions against superior enemy forces where little movement is required.

Alternatively, some countries have decided to not adopt power armor but have introduced equivalent solutions, including:

• One-man armored vehicles with tracks or at least 6 wheels and a mounted heavy weapon
• Tracked, wheeled, quadripedal, or bipedal robots, either controlled by a human operator or featuring limited autonomy. Models with limited autonomy are normally restricted to simple maneuvers within range a platoon HQ's short range radios and targets that can be automatically tracked and verified by their onboard software and optics. The advantage of robots over power armor is they can be minimally armored should a military choose to, allowing for weight and size to be kept to human or near-human proportions in the case of bipedal solutions.

Space Elevators

Space elevators are a relatively common technology to reduce the long-term costs of getting stuff into orbit. In Case Amber, having a space elevator is one of the key benchmarks of a great power. Countries with space elevators on Earth include but are not limited to the United States (it has two, one of which named GNASE in Michigan is made available to Canada), Western Union (shared by the UK, France, and Belgium), Soviet Union, Constellation of Southern African States, India, and Japan. The United States is the only nation to have built a space elevator on the Moon (the Ravern L1 Elevator named in Now Hear This, which runs from the Lunar South Pole to the L₁ Lagrange point. This elevator is made available to the bordering lunar territories of the United Kingdom, France, and Australia via train lines.

Conventional rocket spacelaunch still remains, particularly for military loads and for nations that do not have unlimited access to a space elevator or some other non-rocket means of spacelaunch. Other nations (mostly middle powers) of have constructed cheaper non-rocket spacelaunch systems, like launch loops or space guns.