Sometimes things happen in the session and it falls upon the GMs (in this case me) to explain it with lore. In this case, Diafault got dangerously close to dying last session. The GMs and the players are squeamish about the cloning thing, they’re not ok with it. So we came to an understanding about how that’s avoided in our universe, Overture. Cloning is definitely still a thing that happens in-universe, by the way, it’s just rarely necessary in Overture for Lore Reasons… which I shall now detail. Introducing…
Lore Post: Overture Civil Duel Culture
The earliest settlers of Overture were all from the same sleeper ship who colonized the same planet and grew and developed together. These first arrivals really established a lot of the foundation for the overarching culture of Overture. One of which was their concept of Civil Duel Culture. In the early days of establishing a presence on Athena there was a lot of fighting and a few too many people died from it. So they invented Civil Duel Culture which is very simple: You may fight all you want but do not kill, do not permanently cripple, and leave no permanent physical damage to the best of your ability. If you were found/judged/suspected to have intentionally ignored these very simple demands you would be investigated and if found guilty Shitlisted. Someone who is Shitlisted for violating Civil Duel Culture will no longer be hired for jobs, no longer be served at businesses, no longer be granted housing, and driven from the community. If they did extensive harm they may be fined to compensate the injured or the injured’s survivors and, in only the most severe of circumstances, executed themselves. Being Shitlisted is a guaranteed Bad Time and once Civil Duel Culture was established precedent things got a lot more amenable on Athena and Civil Duel Culture became a foundational principle of overall Overture Culture. As more colonists moved in and the Athenians and the new arrivals spread across the system (and as technology advanced) Civil Duel Culture was quickly attached to Mech Culture. Under Overture Civil Duel Culture if you kill or otherwise permanently physically damage a pilot while meching you’re Shitlisted and now nobody will serve you at businesses, nobody will hire you for jobs, nobody will provide you housing, the printers that print mech parts do not work for you any more, etc. So once a mech shuts down from excessive damage, like Diafault’s did, continuing to attack that mech would have gotten any pilot who did so Shitlisted. This is why the raiders started targeting different targets and did not finish Diafault off as pretty much everyone inhabiting Overture is really squeamish about thumbing their noses at Civil Duel Culture since doing so is a guaranteed Bad Time.
Additionally considerations for Civil Duel Culture is built into mechs by the corporations. It is hard coded into all mechs to ensure they will not automatically lock on to or swing at/fire on mechs that are in critical condition and it’s virtually impossible to override or bypass those hard-coded protocols. So if a pilot desires to strike a mech in critical condition they must do so manually . No “oops my computer did it” excuses. On top of this, in the unfortunate circumstance that a mech lands a lucky critical hit that just explodes another mech outright every mech in Overture comes equipped with an ejection seat pre-installed in the mech. This seat is activated automatically the moment the mech takes enough damage that it might explode or otherwise kill the pilot. This automatic eject also cannot be easily bypassed, overridden, or removed. So only the most YOLO of pilots have bypassed their mandatory ejection seats. Targeting or otherwise injuring an ejected pilot is, of course, a violation of Civil Duel Culture.
What Do You Do If You Are Shitlisted?
If you are Shitlisted you have two options. Enter Deliverance’s Rehabilitation Program and, after seven years of intense therapy and various other rehabilitative services, you will graduate the program with a clean record. This is a one-time fix so if you breach Civil Duel Culture again you’re shit outta luck and Deliverance does not take kindly to recidivists. Your other option is to make your way over to Pillar, a planet in Common Front territory, and try and make connection with The Cool Zone. The Cool Zone are a faction of anti-corporation, pro-worker, unionized rabble rousers who will give shelter and support to raiders, pirates, and other ne’er-do-wells (including Shitlisters) so long as they are making Good Trouble and causing the corporations misery. But if you’re too murder-happy even the Cool Zoners won’t harbor you and your only option is Deliverance’s Rehabilitation Program.
In closing, it is incredibly difficult to outright die or be permanently taken out by physical injury in Overture in most cases unless you want to be. You have to either seek it out intentionally, be extremely unlucky, or have made some really nasty enemies.