This cartoon was provided
by
Stuart Ainslie
for the front page of the
Edmund
Cooper Yahoo Group
Expendables Role Playing Games
Artist:
Bradley K MacDevitt |
Artist:
Pamela Shanteau |
In 1987, Stellar Games
produced an RPG game based on Edmunds
Expendables
Books. The aim of the game was to 'prove' planets.
Review pulled off the web:
"Expendables are
skilled convicts serving out their sentences by
performing highly dangerous missions in return
for the Galactic
Republic coummuting their sentence. The unfortunate truth is that
Expendables rarely survive
long enough to
benefit from this commution,
but those who choose this course do so because the short life of
an
Expendable is of better quality than any length of life in prison and
for the chance at an early parole (if they
survive that
long).
Very few petty
criminals ever take on the role of an
Expendable because the chance at freedom and likelihood of
death when
compared to their total sentence is not worth it; instead, most
Expendables are hardened criminals
looking at
extensive sentences that
would otherwise be served out in brutal prison camps for a lifetime or
more.
Expendables take
five-year service comittments to the program.
1 in 10 does not survive that time. At the end of
their service,
should
they survive, their record is cleared and their time is considered
served. They are allowed to
return to society
as a full citizen of the
Galactic Republic and are given a soldier's pension. Expendables who
die
in the line of
duty can expect any immediate family to be
adequately compensated for services rendered.
It should be noted
that of those criminals who survive the
service, few return to criminal activity. Most are hired by
the
Republic to serve as part of crack military or intelligence teams."
Apparently
Stellar Games' "Expendables" idea was copied by Starchild
Inc.,
who in 1988 produced their own variation called "Justifiers" -
(to
'prove' is the same as to 'justify' in the thesaurus). The characters
were made anthropomorphic, but in all other respects, the game was the
same:
Review pulled off the web:
"You're a "Beta",
a Beta Class Humanoid
Lifeform.
Part human and part
animal. The property of the Corporation that spawned you.
Your job: Justification
and Pacification of new worlds. Find exploitable resources and
eliminate dangerous indigenous lifeforms.
Your goal: SURVIVE! Stay
alive until you can buy your way to freedom. Till then your one of
the... Justifiers."
They even had Exos:
Could Kwango do a tango
in this?
Nitto Konrad Exo
In 1984, Nitto, a model company from Japan,
produced models for the German Market in a set called "Maschinen
Kreiger". As part of this set, they produced an exo model called
the 'Konrad'. Since the Expendables remains big in Japan and Germany,
this appears to be based on EC's work rather than Heinlein's "Starship
Troopers" as are their other 'Power-Armour' Kits.
In Kanji, translation is phonetic, so Conrad will become Konrad when translated from Japanese back into German.
Nitto's Website is here
The
Konrad Exo was originally priced at 1,200 which works out at around £8.50
Recently the moulds were sold to
Rainbow Ten who make other Power-Armour things like BANDAI. They are at present
examining the moulds with a view to re-releasing the kits.
Book and Magazine Collector
July 2006 No. 270
Containg an article on Edmund Cooper by his son Shaun
