Late to the party, but better late than never. I'd love love love to see some hard critical lore written down on DUST 514, and it was always my dream to work with a team like Mercury from the start of this title to help lay down the foundation of what constitutes the daily lives and abilities of our soldiers. (Which by this point is a pipe dream, I doubt Mercury ever even looks at the dust forums... Though if they did I just want to let you know that I would still very very much like to help in any capacity that I can.)

The major issue this far in has been that due to a lack of critical input the DUST community has had to make our own sort of universe for our characters to inhabit. Things like the separation between combat and leisure clones, how CRUs work, even the chemical make-up of our cloned bodies and functionality of our weapons have been largely invented and shared between the people who haunt the IGS forum.

So far we can only suspect that CCP takes a moderate interest in what roleplayers do based on the extremely limited tongue-in-cheek additions to suit names, but I'm afraid that for CCP to ever bring in regulars from the EVE Mercury team to write down some concrete DUST lore they'd have to do a lot of research about what the roleplay community can AGREE ON before they end up writing something that contradicts or even breaks the storyline of a lot of characters in new Eden like myself, Denak, and True.

The hard truth is that's probably impossible to do since (due to the lack of concrete lore) agreed upon lore shared by DUST mercenaries is never posted on a recorded medium. None of this written any encyclopedia for us to share and reference. It's just based on shared fanfiction that occasionally crosses paths or coincides. Unless CCP spent the time making sure we have EVERY experienced DUST roleplayer sitting in place communicating with Mercury to law down concrete material, then it will be extremely hard to make a universe that fits our characters without having the EVE side capsuleers having the run of our stories. (Bad idea.)

Honestly, and I really can't stress this point enough, DUST 514 needs to have our own volunteer version of Mercury that works closely with Mercury and the CPM to create an accurate representation of immortal soldiers in New Eden. Whether that is based on some sort of writing contest or just based on community consensus, I really can't say.

NANOMACHINES, SON!


So we should just maintain the status quo and be accepting of this total lack of solid information? Even though the entire point of this thread is to explore ways of filling in these blanks? Even though a volunteer DUST lore team working with CCP Mercury is a very rational (and most importantly free) option to help create better lore and immersion?

Sorry, but I can't accept that. I really do think that New Eden deserves better, and I know plenty of people that would be overjoyed to help make what I suggest a reality.

I would lose immersion in a film about vietnam war if the American soldiers all had AK-47s and not M-16s

It does break my immersion using my caldari flying scotsman as is with an assault rifle and scrambler pistol
Just change the description to say it was designed by Mercs to fit a specific situation, It is NOT what a Caldari soldier would use