What Is A Lancer? | LANCER

Hi hello, what truly is a Lancer? Mech pilot, gadgeteer mechanic, chosen like magic, or just really good training and gumption? Now for a good chunk of you reading this you might already know, but the details settled within general mech pilots ripple out to their Lancer elites as well. So we've got a little more to work with outside of just being the player characters. For those of you who have asked this question and wondered as to what separates a Lancer from just another pilot (which is buried at the end of the core book), or were curious as to how the neural bridge might fit into all of this you've got a video. So lets chat about who you are in the Orion Arm of 5000u~.

Chapters
00:00 - ?
00:04 - INTRO
00:46 - LANCERS
02:04 - MECH PILOTS
03:26 - WHY THEM
04:04 - MY LANCERS
06:14 - POTENTIAL
06:57 - OUTRO CHAT

If this is your first time here, hi.

[Ech_The_Sentient]

TLDR: Lancers are the kind of crackheads with hundreds of hours in armored core 6 PvP

[Daile]

"... a miserable little pile of secrets"

[BillNyeTheBountyGuy]

A Lancer isn't the most augmented, the most skilled, or the best bred. A Lancer is the guy who see's his Overcharge at 1D6+4 with 5 Heat Cap and goes 'Never not lucky.'

[jonathanrobinson]

My lancer was a young farmhand who ran way to save his "friend" from being recycled.
His friend is a mech for farmwork that is also a Balor.

[Hobomice]

What Is A Lancer? The Title Is Named After John Lancer. John Lancer Was So Strong That He Beat Harrison The First In An Arm Wrestle. John Lancer Was So Skilled SSC Reads His Diary To Learn More About Mech. John Lancer Was So Smart He Beat RA At Chess.

[specialagentdustyponcho]

If I understand this correctly, some lancers are born with the special sauce, some have it injected into them. Just about anyone can be trained to operate a mech, but only a rare few who have "The Juice" can *be* the mech.

[doctorj]

I like that just like DnD, you as the Lancer pilot are the best of the best that LL 0 is the spark just before the inferno and you show the galaxy why they call you Lancer.

[NayrAnur]

I imagine a promising trainee after getting a neural bridge installed would be like that scene in How to Train Your Dragon where Hiccup and Toothless tested out their mechanical tail without the cheat sheet.

[PandorasFolly]

Had a lancer who was genuinely just "some guy" working doing accounting on a ship when it got yo ho ho'd. While running The mech literally picked him up and put him in the cockpit. Theeb Wiffle became a lancer pilot that day and learned this mech was actually a horus licenses Baylor

[marlutteyestrelt]

I just realized... LANCERs are just the science fiction equivalent to ICONs. Legendary heroes that can change the very course of history and war by their sheer might and skill alone. The best of the best, in their respective field. Its only that LANCER has a more mercenary connotation than the mythic ICON.

[some_rando_w_internet]

My interpretation of what a Lancer is is very similar to the WoD statement on what a Hunter is.

Anyone can pilot a mech, with enough training. Anyone can shoot well, can fight well, and do all the things Lancers can. But with Lancers, there's something extra. A psychological spark, something metaphysical, something manifesting from their Will, that allows them to be better. To take the odds of broken parts, of damaged weapons, and pull victory from the jaws of defeat.

Lancers are Lancers because they believe they are Lancers.

[jojonila]

Absolutely adore the way you go about explaining things! Ive never had anything feel so organic? The "coworker who info-dumps at you while its slow" immersion is my favorite

[franciscoadasilvajr]

To me, the Lancers are like the Hunters in Hunter x Hunter
Yes, anyone in HxH can learn nen, or be an assassin, or even a bodyguard, etc; as well as "anyone can pilot a mech" in Lancer
But both the Lancer and the Hunters have this weight of being credited AS Lancers/Hunters. They are not "just" an body guard, a assassin or a mech pilot, they are "THE", they have the ID to prove it

[Grizabeebles]

In narrative play, a "normal" D&D encounter is a single DC 10 skill check for a Lancer.

Let that sink in.

[Valerion]

This reminded me of my first pilot whose backstory involved getting the memories of Hercynian crysis from an experimental unstable cascading NHP blasted into his mind (and making a miniature meta vault in his head with other paracausal shenanigans as a result). The guy became a mad scientist after that and stole that and one other NHP from the lab he worked in (they were his friends at this point and he was the only one being truly compassionate towards them (the unstable NHP blasted the memories into him because they realized that he can understand their pain)). He was also VERY into Hercynia, Egregorians and everything related to them (he was there and got an empath talent as a result and he had the aforementioned memories of the crysis). He also REALLY liked locus tea (so much that he had multiple locus stashes on our base) One of the lancers in the group coincidentally was an egregorian and he weirded them out REAL HARD. During the campaign he also connected to an NHP casket and got paracausality which is supposed to be a flaw but he was already used to his mind being under paracausal effects so we thematically played it out as a mechanic of looking into the other timeline where he did something and getting information he wasn't supposed to have (It's simple! Just remember something that didn't happen :D) ooor if he failed a roll his mind got lost in the space-time and had to be bailed out by his NHP friends while he was radiating a white noise of possible futures pasts and presents because he couldn't control his brain and was an empath (high risk high reward type stuff). In the epilogue he managed to make his body evolve similar to egregorians but since his egregorian friend was 100% against using egregorian DNA that way he decided to make his own strain of evolution using the knowledge about egregorian evolution simply as a reference. He also made the second NHP friend into a swarm of nanites (Technophile 3). He was a crazy mfer and i love him.

[GLaDOS_V]

"What is a Lancer?"
Dats a Mecboi Innit ?
-WH40k Ork

[remor]

The way I like to think about it, even if the official lore may disagree to some extent, is that the players aren't lancers from the very start. That is a title they have to work towards, earn to be called that. Just like how your D&D group are adventurers at the start, later called heroes by the world around them as they succeed on their quests, here you start out as just another pilot, still yet to prove yourself a battlefield defining hidden gem.

Being a Lancer in that context means more than simply being a pilot of exceptional skill and at the reigns of a fancy, custom mech.
It means you have a track record of outstanding accomplishments. You are more than mere firepower, armor and gadgetry. You are respected by friends and foes alike as the one to turn tides, no matter how one-sided a situation may look.
It means any prior plans are at threat of being upended, the predicted course of local history is set to be rewritten and previously known impossibilities are made mere uncertainties, all simply because you have dropped onto the scene. When you have that kind of a presence, that is when they will call you vanguard, cavalry, Lancer.

[drakeford]

I've actually borrowed pretty heavily from Gundam (specifically Iron Blooded Orphans) on this matter.

Anyone can pilot a mech, but the difference between a pilot and a Lancer is the complete neural link. All mechs use neural scanning and predictive algorithms to aid a pilot, but only someone who has undergone the techno-medical procedures necessary to fully sync with their mech- to, in essence, become their mech- is a Lancer.

I don’t close the door on the possibility that someone unmodified could fight on that level, but they would have to be an absolute monster.

[Bonjamin]

The real Lancer was the friends we made along the way

[xenocross]

The funniest part of that last line is that my players, despite what their captain assigns them, seem to frequently be an oncoming train