Rations of Terra Nova

Given the prevalence of advanced, portable field kitchens and the use of landships as mobile supply bases, field rations carried by individual soldiers are considered more of a temporary, supplementary measure by Terra Novan militaries. This has resulted in their quality and composition tending to vary wildly based on the producer. Aside from a disastrous attempt at Interpolar standardization during the War of the Alliance with the Ration Unit, Daily (RUD), the Leagues have largely stuck to the own idiosyncratic attempts at achieving optimal nutrition.

UMFA, NLAF, Norguard:

Most Northern militaries used a standardized field ration originally designed for Norguard. Produced by Mainzfood, the Consumption-Ready Meal (CRM) or “Crumb” consists of four separate boxes containing a day’s selection of meat, carbohydrate, vegetable, and dessert. The boxes have a wide variety of possible options and are combined randomly for greater variety. The quality of the included meals varies wildly, though soldiers generally agree that the macaroni with meat sauce is the best and the cheese omelet is the worst. Each Northern soldier is also issued with a rubbery Emergency Sustenance Bar that can theoretically provide them with enough energy for another day, though this remains hypothetical as nobody has ever been proven to eat an entire bar without vomiting it back up.

WFP:

Of all the Terra Nova’s militaries, the WFPA likely has the best rations (note that this is separate from the question of what military has access to the best food, the answer to which is inarguably the SRA). Instead of the standard CRM, the WFPA uses a variety of different ration types depending on the situation. The E-Ration is the most common and popular. Superficially similar to the CRM, each E-Ration contains a full day’s set of four meals based on a set of preselected menus that have been optimized for taste and nutritional value. While tasty, the E-Ration is also quite heavy, and soldiers like paratroopers who can’t make allowances for extra weight instead carry the lighter N-Ration. Relatively similar in concept to the E-Ration, the N-Ration comes in a bag rather than a box and is made up of light, calorie-dense foods. It is not nutritionally balanced and it is not intended to be the sole source of food over a long period of time, though in practice these guidelines never seem to be followed in the field. Partially out of this concern and partially out of a tradition of military masochism, the WFPA also uses the I-Ration, an emergency survival pack issued to troops expected to be without resupply for long periods of time. The I-Ration consists entirely of nutrient bars and energy gel, which, while not good-tasting by any means, is probably the most successful execution of the concept on Terra Nova given that soldiers have been observed to actually eat it.

SRA:

Despite being universally acknowledged as the military with the best food on Terra Nova, the SRA’s ration packs are roundly considered to be just “okay”. The extremely high quality of food from SRA field kitchens means that almost any prepackaged meal will be viewed as a significant step down, so the Quartermasters Corps designed the Repas Prêt-a-Manger (RPM) with a priority of sufficiency (I.E. minimizing costs) over excellence. The RPM is based around a varying entree but otherwise always contains canned meat and cheese, dried fruit, crackers, chocolate, and cawfee. Though the food itself is never bad (aside from the infamously inedible sniffer & lima beans entree, ubiquitously known as “renifleurs et connards”), the monotony of the menu tends to be grating for Republicans used to variety. That said, MILICIA members will always attempt to get their hands on RPMs whenever the opportunity presents itself.

MILICIA :

The Supplementary Field Ration (SFR) is the only packaged food given to regular MILICIA soldiers. The SFR is little more than a plastic bag containing boiled vegetables, a ground meat patty, a hard biscuit, and an amphetamine tablet. The total caloric content of the SFR is less than the average soldier burns per day; as the name implies it is intended to act as a supplement to food raided from civilian storages rather than providing a complete meal on its own. MILICIA units with good performance are rewarded with an additional chocolate bar in their rations, and the best ones gain access to RPMs.

Peacekeepers:

Since Peacekeepers are expected to either be stationary or on extended deployments, their standard rationing unit is based around a scale of four days rather than one. Krellen Foods supplies the Peacekeepers with two different types of ration packs, at a ratio of three Alpha Rations to one Beta Ration. The Alpha Ration consists primarily of rice along with canned meat and vegetables, while the Beta Ration is entirely hard biscuits. They are notable only for being bland even by the standards of military food. One of the Alpha Rations is often replaced by a Special Ration, which is a completely random assortment of food that adds up to a roughly similar caloric value. It is an open secret that Special Rations are simply unsold (and usually expired) Krellen commercial products offloaded onto the Peacekeepers as a way of fulfilling contractual obligations, but soldiers generally appreciate the breaks from the monotony.

HAPF:

The HAPF’s original Meals Ready To Eat (MRTE) were undoubtedly the most sophisticated rations on Terra Nova at the time. Each MRTE package contained an entire meal of dehydrated food that was specially treated with vitamins and drugs. Instead of being standardized or random, units would be issued MRTE, pertaining to their specific assignment: for example, units on long treks would receive high-protein meals and stimulants, while squads expecting imminent combat would be given sugary food and drugs to increase reaction speed. When the Southern Republic annexed the Alliance MRTE production continued, but the strict quality control they were subject to disappeared. Corners were cut on the chemical treatment process, and many packs were treated with insufficient drug quantities or in some cases the wrong drug entirely. What soldiers cared about more was that they also now didn’t taste nearly as good.

ESE:

The Emirates have no standard rations, and each Emir is in charge of feeding their own troops. For those that bother to do this, the usual foodstuff is bricks of jhong hardtack. Generous Emirs may occasionally include strips of dried jherat meat. The most elite units are sometimes given second-hand rations purchased from foreign military suppliers. SFRs are hoarded jealously, and the RPM is treated as a nigh-mythical holy grail of food.

PRDF:

The PRDF’s original 32 Hour Ration consisted entirely of nutrient bars and vitamin supplement drinks, and were widely loathed by their users, to the point where the RUD was put back into production as a stopgap measure. With the arrival of Humanist refugees after the Twin Falcon Virus, Paxton switched over to manufacturing their own MREs based on the HAPF’s. While ignoring the mission-based assignment scheme in favor a single rotation of general-purpose meals updated from the older RUD (to the point of retaining the generally loathed barnaby and hopper loaf) and replacing the drug treatment with simple vitamin reinforcement, the resulting ReadyMeals were good enough to not only serve the PRDF but to be exported to the other leagues to backfill losses in their own ration supplies caused by attrition from the CEF invasion.

PAK, NSDF:

Originally, NuCoal’s military rations consisted entirely of surplus RUDs from the War of the Alliance. As stocks dwindled and older rations expired this became untenable, and with NuCoal lacking significant food-packing industry at scale the PAK and NSDF had to turn to outside suppliers, buying E and N rations from the WFP and Alpha and Beta rations from the Mekong Dominion. Given the gulf in quality between the options, a ration “black market” grew up almost overnight, as soldiers looked for a way to offload their Dominion rations in order to get their hands on the superior WFP ones. This practice has continued until the present, and has been made even more complicated by the introduction of resold ReadyMeals to the mix.

CEF:

The primary food of the NEC is Textured Synthetic Glycine Concentrate (TSGC), commonly called “tossguck” and even more commonly called “birdshit”. This vaguely soy-like substance contains all the necessary nutrients for human survival, and essentially nothing else. GRELs rations consist solely of unflavored TSGC, often in liquid form. Colonial auxiliaries are supplied flavored TSGC cakes separated into different “meals”. Utopians and Capricians can more or less tolerate this diet, but Edenites tend to react with extreme disgust. CEF soldiers from Earth also eat flavored TSGC, but this is supplemented by vegetable flakes and MelonMeat. Even this enhanced ration is considered by most to be only slightly better than starvation, and CEF troops will always try to get their hands on local food instead if possible.