Base on Wheels: Difference between revisions

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[[File:~~city_of_london~~.jpg|link=Mortal Engines|frame|Yo dawg...]]

[[File:city of london.jpg|link=Mortal Engines|frame|Yo dawg...]]

One of the craziest ways a villain can keep their base hidden is to keep it moving constantly around the country. Of course, there's no way your typical [[Elaborate Underground Base]] will fit into the average mobile home, (unless it's [[Bigger on the Inside|bigger on the inside than the outside]]) but rather than compromise and throw away the [[Shark Pool]], the villain will put his base in an overly large truck or train.

Typically, this vehicle is armour plated and two or three lanes wide, and as a result can just careen straight down the middle of the road/railway [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|ignoring low bridges, other cars and especially the dreaded toll booth]] ~~-- there~~'s almost always a scene of the toll-booth and a few other [[Every Car Is a Pinto|cars exploding spectacularly]] as they drive through. The vehicles are also much faster than their real-life ~~equivalents -- the~~ lorries that carry fully-furnished buildings can barely make twenty five miles per hour, on straight, clear roads with police escorts. This of course gets even sillier if the villain does ''not'' scrimp on the size of his mobile base, resulting in mountain-sized machinery zipping about.

Typically, this vehicle is armour plated and two or three lanes wide, and as a result can just careen straight down the middle of the road/railway [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|ignoring low bridges, other cars and especially the dreaded toll booth]]—there's almost always a scene of the toll-booth and a few other [[Every Car Is a Pinto|cars exploding spectacularly]] as they drive through. The vehicles are also much faster than their real-life equivalents—the lorries that carry fully-furnished buildings can barely make twenty five miles per hour, on straight, clear roads with police escorts. This of course gets even sillier if the villain does ''not'' scrimp on the size of his mobile base, resulting in mountain-sized machinery zipping about.

There have also been cases of armoured trains in real life; during the Second World War both the Russians and the Germans used heavily armoured locomotives and wagons, sometimes even using spare tank turrets to give additional firepower, and artillery trains have been used as late as the war in Croatia in the 1990s. See also the [[Military Mashup Machine]] known as the Land Battleship, which is usually one of these, too.

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*** In fact, the Zanscare Empire from ''[[Victory Gundam]]'' has several giant motorcycle ships, and

one of their plans is the Earth Sweep Operation, which involves metaphorically bulldozing the planet with these ships and their mecha teams.

** The After War Timeline has too many to easily list though of special note though are the [http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/x/trieste.htm "Trieste"] class ''Amphibious Land battleship'' which unable to decide if it wanted to be a [[Cool Ship]] or [[Base on Wheels]] just split the difference, and the [http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/x/bandaal.htm "Bandaal"] class ''mobile land fortress''!

** The After War Timeline has too many to easily list though of special note though are the [http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/x/trieste.htm "Trieste"] class ''Amphibious Land battleship'' which unable to decide if it wanted to be a [[Cool Ship]] or Base on Wheels just split the difference, and the [http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/x/bandaal.htm "Bandaal"] class ''mobile land fortress''!

** The SEED Timeline meanwhile brings us the [http://www.mahq.net/mecha/gundam/seed/lesseps.htm "Lesseps"] class.

** [[SD Gundam Force]] gives us ''Tenchijo'', a castle on giant tank treads. And on each tower is a different weapon; a giant hammer, mace, claw, and spinning blades.

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* Half the premise of Philip Reeve's ''[[Mortal Engines]]''.

* ''[[The Thrawn Trilogy]]'' - A non-villainous example [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nomad_City is] Nomad City from the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]]. It's a very large old ship carried by a large number of captured [[Spider Tank|AT-ATs]], so it's sort of a base on legs. The reason why it needs to move is that it's a mining station on a slow-turning planet very close to its hot sun, so it must always remain on the night side or would melt - as eventually happens once it is immobilized by an attack.

** The [[X Wing Series]] has Ysanne Isard's ''Lusankya'', a ''very'' [[Cool Starship]]. It's a Super Star Destroyer, sister ship to ''Executor'', but until it rises from where it's been buried under a city, the New Republic knows it only as a rumored secret prison where captured Rebels are [[Being Tortured Makes You Evil|tortured]] and turned into [[Manchurian Agent~~|Manchurian Agents~~]]. It's big enough to do that and have a largish prison, whose population has no clue that they're not in a cave somewhere. After pulling free of the surface and causing mass death in the process, ''Lusankya'' becomes a sort of Base On Engines.

** The [[X Wing Series]] has Ysanne Isard's ''Lusankya'', a ''very'' [[Cool Starship]]. It's a Super Star Destroyer, sister ship to ''Executor'', but until it rises from where it's been buried under a city, the New Republic knows it only as a rumored secret prison where captured Rebels are [[Being Tortured Makes You Evil|tortured]] and turned into [[Manchurian Agent]]s. It's big enough to do that and have a largish prison, whose population has no clue that they're not in a cave somewhere. After pulling free of the surface and causing mass death in the process, ''Lusankya'' becomes a sort of Base On Engines.

** {{spoiler|The city is actually Coruscant, the capital of the New Republic, and a City Planet, and the Lusankya was actually buried ''upside down''!}}

* Patrick Tilley's ''Amtrak Wars'' novels, set a long time [[After the End]], feature the Amtrak Federation, fighting an expansionist war out of Texas using giant "wagon-trains" that act as bases for troops and aircraft carriers for fleets of microlights. They're called the Amtrak Federation because they live in underground cities that were originally nuclear bunkers, connected by the "rail garrison" trains mentioned above, running on the Amtrak rail network. [[Truth in Television]]: The wagon trains are based on the [[wikipedia:Overland train|Overland Train concept]] tested by the U.S. Army.

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* Kenner's ''Megaforce'' toyline was based around gigantic vehicles, with almost all of them qualifying for [[Base on Wheels]] status. The biggest examples were the V-Rocs Thorhammer, a massive wheeled ballistic missile launcher with a skyscraper-sized missile, and the Triax Goliath, a crawler that could unfold into an entire frontline base.

* Kenner's ''Megaforce'' toyline was based around gigantic vehicles, with almost all of them qualifying for Base on Wheels status. The biggest examples were the V-Rocs Thorhammer, a massive wheeled ballistic missile launcher with a skyscraper-sized missile, and the Triax Goliath, a crawler that could unfold into an entire frontline base.

* During the late 80s and early 90s, ''[[G.I. Joe]]'' had a whole series of these; probably the most well-known was the Defiant space shuttle launch complex, and there was also the Rolling Thunder mobile ballistic missile launcher and GI Joe's aptly named Mobile Command Centre.

** [[G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra]] also got a mobile version of the Pit (the Joes' underground base) in the toyline and videogame.

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** And probably, as this is the Fallout universe after all, a nuclear reactor powering all this. Of course, this 'verse has [[Every Car Is a Pinto|nuke reactors powering]] ''[[Every Car Is a Pinto|cars]]'', so that's not necessarily that remarkable.

* ''[[Front Mission]]'' has the Chinese Tianlei Mobile Fortress. Yes, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]], housing many wanzers, helis, and home to the enigmatic Imaginary Number special forces. Depending on your scenario, you either try to take it down, or defend it.

** [[Gaiden Game]] ''Gun Hazard'' features Galeon, a pretty much textbook example of the [[Base on Wheels]]. It's also bigger inside than it is outside. Galeon hurtles around the desert at a pretty impressive pace given it's size (presumably relying on the frequent sandstorms to cover it's tracks) and is protected by numerous gun turrets. It also houses a small army of enemy wanzers, of course.

** [[Gaiden Game]] ''Gun Hazard'' features Galeon, a pretty much textbook example of the Base on Wheels. It's also bigger inside than it is outside. Galeon hurtles around the desert at a pretty impressive pace given it's size (presumably relying on the frequent sandstorms to cover it's tracks) and is protected by numerous gun turrets. It also houses a small army of enemy wanzers, of course.

* The British faction in [[Company of Heroes]] has mobile [[H Qs]] (Bedfords with extra seats for the commanders). They can be moved anywhere, sometimes even at an incredible speed, but in return, the British cannot promote civilian buildings to [[H Qs]] unlike every other faction.

* Featured in the ''Halo 3'' multiplayer map "Sandtrap" are two vehicles officially called "''Behemoth''-class Troop Tansport", colloquially known as "Elephants". While small examples of the Base On Wheels trope, they are the largest pilotable vehicles in the game. They also on default map settings come equipped with two detachable Gatling gun turrets and one fixed turret. They can also hold up to three ATV or two "Warthog" jeeps. In the universe of the game, they were designed for troop transport and vehicle recovery and feature large cranes, and an upper and lower deck. Though, in a few fan-made multiplayer modes, they are used as mobile flag-bases in Capture the Flag games.

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* ''[[Transformers]]''

** Metroplex, the Transformer who doubles as ''a massive mobile city''.

** Also, Trypticon, who is less a Base On Wheels and more a Base On Legs, as he transforms from a city into a giant robot dinosaur. <ref>There are actually several city-robots in the original ''Transformers'' continuity, although no more have shown up since.</ref>

** Also, Trypticon, who is less a Base On Wheels and more a Base On Legs, as he transforms from a city into a giant robot dinosaur.<ref>There are actually several city-robots in the original ''Transformers'' continuity, although no more have shown up since.</ref>

** Megatron's constant energy-stealing in ''[[Transformers: Robots in Disguise]]'' wasn't so he could power his doomsday base so he could destroy the Autobots, but simply so he could keep it moving around so the Autobots wouldn't find it. One wonders why he bothered with it in the first place.

* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Wakfu]]'' has one. Guess what it's shaped like. Come on, guess what [[Time Stands Still|the time guy]]'s fortress is shaped [[media:1504-~~01_6741~~.jpg|like]].

* The [[Big Bad]] of ''[[Wakfu]]'' has one. Guess what it's shaped like. Come on, guess what [[Time Stands Still|the time guy]]'s fortress is shaped [[media:1504-01 6741.jpg|like]].

== Real Life ==

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* [[Those Wacky Nazis]] had plans to create versions of their heavy railway guns that ran on tank treads; the one the came closest to actually happening involved the 210-ton Krupp K5 guns, of which there were 25 by the end of the war. The plan was to replace the two rail cars with modified King Tiger hulls. Far more ridiculous was a similar plan to make a self-propelled variant of the 1,400-ton Schwerer Gustav ultragun, which was supposedly on the drawing boards when Albert Speer found out and made the engineers involved go and work on something sensible.

* On a smaller scale, Hitler's first headquarters was a train. It was fifteen cars long and required two engines working in tandem. Part of the reason Hitler initially opted for a train was that if France decided to attack the German border during the invasion of Poland, they could quickly transfer the command staff to the west.

* Perhaps the ultimate [[Base on Wheels]] would have been the "Midgard-Schlange," a proposal made by German designers in the 1930s for a 60,000 ton armoured train the better part of two thousand feet long, which would run on tank treads and could drill underground or run on the bottom of the sea. It would supposedly have been used to drill under fortifications and set huge explosive charges to destroy them. The project never seems to have passed the "asking for funding" stage, though it says a lot about Nazi Germany that this was due to lack of resources and manpower rather than, say, because it was an ''utterly fucking ridiculous'' idea.

* Perhaps the ultimate Base on Wheels would have been the "Midgard-Schlange," a proposal made by German designers in the 1930s for a 60,000 ton armoured train the better part of two thousand feet long, which would run on tank treads and could drill underground or run on the bottom of the sea. It would supposedly have been used to drill under fortifications and set huge explosive charges to destroy them. The project never seems to have passed the "asking for funding" stage, though it says a lot about Nazi Germany that this was due to lack of resources and manpower rather than, say, because it was an ''utterly fucking ridiculous'' idea.

* Armoured trains were used by the Russians and Germans during the Second World War to deter vehicles and infantry from attacking vital rail lines; they had purpose-built armoured wagons and sometimes armoured locomotives, and their armament included machine guns, AA guns in armoured enclosures, artillery guns, and even surplus tank turrets. The armoured trains only got bigger, stronger and meaner as the war went on; perhaps the ultimate example was when the Allies found three Panzerjäger-Triebwagen wagons (51-53) in a German factory after the war ended, each essentially being a heavily armoured mobile bunker equipped with a pair of Panzer IV turrets.

* While the missile train in ''[[Goldeneye]]'' might have been over the top, the concept of a missile train is one based on [[Real Life]]: