Proposed STGOD Setting.

[Dahak]

They did not know how they have come to be. And they did not know where they have come from. They knew they could not have originated on their now-home planet, for it was unlikely to have brought their species to life.
The gargantuan mountains of vast planetary covering mountain ranges could not possibly have brought them to life. They knew. Yet they always wondered where and if the mythical homeworld still existed.
Many seers had tried to find it in the mists of things long past, but failed. Some even suspected that they were made by the Gods themselves, but few gave in to this superstition. And in all their travels to other planets - always careful not to be detected - they have not seen a species quite like them.
They took it in stride, though, and while it was still the most popular topic of debate in some circles, they lived with the knowledge (or lack thereof).

High Grand Mage Hieran Da'shu tore his eyes lose from Mount Yierach and turned to his visitor.
<<You have felt it, too, didn't you?>> his mind whispered to him.
<<Yes, I did.>> he answered him gravely. <<There is movement and excitement we feel in the void...>>
"We cannot hide forever it seems, my dear Loran," the High Grand Mage said finally in his deep voice. "But we must be prepared for this new situation. Maybe, just maybe, it will all be well and good for us all. Or maybe we will all die in glorious battles. The future is unclear and I cannot divine the truth from the mists..."
"Yes, my Lord, I know. But when the time comes, we will face our fate, as we always have."

Yes, he thought, we always have... The people of Falau'un had been through a violent history most would like to forget. And few did, today. But he has seen it all. The extermination of the non-magic folks, the hatred and bloodshed as the Houses of magic turned against each other. The violence of the Grand Unification... Millions upon millions had died until the Falau'un finally found peace with each other, until they formed the Great Council. Now, they had peace within themselves and had spread on many planets, but he was afraid of what might happen if new species, new elements where brought into the equation...

***OOC: Surprise, I decided myself on a totally different species
Consider them space elves, with magic (Though not Aly-D&D-magic only style. I consider it a fusion of magic and technology...). Very tall, elven-like, and telepathic. They are xenophobic, have a streak for violence and war, but can also be quite nice and friendly.

[Glimmervoid]

OOC: Well this is my thought process so far http://artpad.art.com/?irbzm11gfdu0 and silver is what my race call knowledge.

And they looked down on us, the forgers, and filled our hearts and minds with the burning of a silver flame, a love, a passion to gather knowledge. They placed us in the great Library and our race knew peace, from across there star empire the forgers brought us the blessed silver and we stored it, sorted it, horded it and worshiped it. Many were the marvels we discovered lost to the mists of time or hidden away and never explored. Through us our creators grew great, there ships strong and they were able to conquer more worlds and bring us more knowledge.

But it could not last, the age of silver fell and steel took its place. The empire of our creators fought long on many fronts, there ships danced among the stars with other giants but it all came to naught for not even with the knowledge of our great library could we save them and with there last breath before they were destroyer they commanded us to flee.

Taking with us only the most valuable of the silver we fled the great library, in ships of all sizes, from the great warships of the library guard to the pleasure boats of our forgers, we ran. Once safe our people joined in a great convoy as we search for a new world to call home. After many years of searching we found a planet and we named it the lesser library, for the knowledge witch we saved was nothing compared to what we lost.

Our people spread across this new world and built many marvels, we farmed to feed ourselves, built shelter to keep of the cold and began adding to the silver. The great citadels of Gar’mi and Tor’loc were built in this time, whose spires seemed to reach the sky and of course we build great libraries, our new world could never be the planet wide city dedicated to knowledge that the great library had been, but what we did achieve was wanders.

And so our people survived and prospered and grew beyond the simple life our creators had envisioned and now we are ready, ready to leave the lesser library to gather knowledge. To create the greater library anew.

– A summary of Age of Our people by Higher Seeker Bardon.

[Companion Cube]

Is anyone going to be enraged if I dick around with the Pfhor a bit and make them the remnants of a large empire, taking their first steps through newly-rediscovered hyperspace to find a new inhabitable system?

EDIT:

Imminent hyperspace transition
origin: temp. headquarters, Lh'owon 3 trailing trojan
destin: all vessels
ref: imminent hyperspace transition
stamp: broadcast

Aggregate Vacuum Construction Units report completion of outer hull shield projectors and neutrino radiators. Life support, navigation, weapon and propulsion systems register normal operation.

FTL transport K'Fiva ready to depart Lh'owon system. Hyperspace terminus is the Gd'Nar system, 92LY distant. Upon arrival, Expeditionary Force vessels will detach and assemble at in-system rendezvous points 7b.oo and 2c.of. FTL probe drones have verified one compatible world in orbit around Gd'Nar, and two gas giants with suitable He3 and ring systems.

Lwhn3.hab2.term112

search criteria: "Pfhor history" & "post collapse"
search results: 43 items

The Pfhor Empire, built on the blood of dozens of client races and the commitment of the Pfhor Conditioned Ranks, finally imploded following the disaster that was the greater galactic collapse, the end of intergalactic civilisation. Scant details remain of this period, and the participation of the Pfhor Navy or Armed Forces in the conflict has been expunged or accidentally lost from the historical databanks of the time. Previous records are heavily coloured by the propaganda of the ruling junta of the time, and should be viewed as such. As the entire (known) surviving Pfhor population consists of individuals invitrogestated Post-Collapse, there are no personal accounts or clues as to the deletion of so many exobytes of media and documentary evidence.

What is clear, however, is that the Pfhor Empire, split into its constituent planets following the Collapse, fell victim to widespread anarchy and rebellion among the indentured species, with the Drinniol, S'Pht and Nakh carving their own planetary fiefdoms in the ensuing chaos. Archaological examinations of starship wreckage and intact records within old Imperial garrison facilities on Lh'owon desribe the last days of the garrison there in macabre detail, telling of the S'Pht uprising which resulted in the outpost's defensive fleet destroying itself in a fratricidal battle, culminating in the fleet's flagship colliding with the garrison command's HQ. Subsequent logs concern the welfare of the surviving military personnel as supplies and ammunition ran low and the native semisentients continued their encroachments...(more)

search criteria: "Lh'owon Provisional Government"
search results: 1503 items

Exact details are unclear, but at some point during the dismantling of the Empire, a colony ship was launched from the homeworld, Pfhor Prime, to the remote outpost of Lh'owon, located within a system of the same name which possessed strategic importance in the intergalactic politics of the time. This ship carried only the gene-stock of the Pfhor, along with samples of the necessary animal, plant, and bacterial life to establish colonies and habitats both on Lh'owon 3's inhospitable desert surface and in space. For reasons unknown but much speculated upon, the vessel's hyperdrive was a one-shot device, designed to disable itself on arrival in-system. The personality construct was unable to elaborate further upon the reason for the journey, the pertinent memory banks having been wiped prior to the ship's launch.

With the gestation and growth-acceleration of the first generation complete, the new Pfhor were flash-educated by the starship's onboard personality construct, and settled into the traditional caste system, as laid down in the Unification over five thousand years ago...(more)

search criteria: "Pre-Collapse religion" & "Caste system" OR "Great Mother" & "Hindmost Creche"
search results: 842 items

(page down)

(page down)

(back)...divided the Pfhor into the two Castes: the Gifted and the Unheard. These social groupings were further divided into four sub-castes each; Tacted, Complected, Command and Imperial, and Aggregate, Attentive, Willful, and Handed, respectively. Centuries of segregation between the two social groupings, and to a lesser extent within the sub-castes, produced what are now recognised as distinct morphological differences up to two thousands years ago. At that time, the three-eyed Unheards became easily distinguishable from the (at that point) commonly seven-eyed Gifted. These attributes, the first noticeable signs of a gradual process of sympatric speciation among the Pfhor populace, were hailed as signs of the Gods' favour...(more)

term112.out

[Glimmervoid]

SirNitram is the age of stone, age of iron, age of silver,age of steel system unique to your people or is it some kind of galactic standard?

[Duckie]

And is there any standard on how long those ages took? I wrote the Khar Imperium as having about 1100 years between the Silver Age and the New Age, but other posts seem to have it from times immemorable to within memory of politicians.

Reading over those rules, there's nothing by the way of the concept of Missile Swarms. I had planned for the Khar to have Carriers as giant missile batteries that fire lots of fighter-sized missiles protected by line ships... would that make them Warships with +X vs Fighters or something? Write the Missiles as Fighters and just pretend they don't have pilots?

I suppose a "Medium power" as I requested would be Regional, but I'd never say no to something bigger .

[Vanas]

A work in progress:
25 years previously
"Trade is the rope that bound the scattered worlds of this Empire together, not the iron fist of the Royal Navy. Remember this, but it is the Navy that your thoughts should always be with. Traders may be rebuked by some worlds, others may turn against the Empire, and you must rely on the Navy to quell rebellion, bring light to the savages beyond our borders and to defend our borders against any threats." Those were the words of her father, King-Emperor George XI. He was already regarded as the greatest king since records were restored, and had forged the young Helen a proud, prosperous empire.
The homeworld was a nightmare of industry, skies lightning pummelled and dark with smoke and dirt flung up by a crash-modernisation programme that was brought in when the first extra-imperial signals were heard over the interstellar network. The idea that other empires and even species still existed throught the galaxy had been put forwards many times over the centuries, but there was never any proof. All the survey ships had found were barbarians living on bombed-out worlds or seemingly habitable planets that had simply been sterilised. After the signal, the finest scientists in the Empire were deciphering the language used and attempting to divine the origin, while a new generation of ships were being forged from the debris of the ancient empire who's throneworld this once was. Dreadnoughts of steel and adamantine would be the Royal Navy of Queen-Empress Helen's future, and they would be glorious.

OOC: Did that make sense? Regardless, I need to come up with a name. Not that just 'The Empire' isn't bad. But yeah. Space Victorians, as steampunk spaceships are always amusing. The urge to call the interstellar network 'Interstellar-Wireless' was impressive, but hints that they did once use wires. Now that'd be impressive engineering.
As a technological aside, does anyone mind if I bring along field drives? I don't want to disrupt the lines of my ships with big rocket nozzles.

[Thirdfain]

Christ on a cracker, I'M doing steampunk neobritish. Well, I guess I'm going less British than you, so it's mmkay.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

I'm very wary about this, since I always end up not having time and failing to actually put my self into STGODs that I'm interested in or end up ignoring them like a right cock, but I know considering my foreseeable future that I'll be able to keep up a commitment to this. May as well write up some exposition for my guys, then. I believe they will be neo-feudal octopus-like monsters, low power level.

[SirNitram]

SirNitram is the age of stone, age of iron, age of silver,age of steel system unique to your people or is it some kind of galactic standard?

It's the way my people use it, but it's quite possible other folks would use it. At very least they'd know it.

As for how long? A long time. Probably no solid estimates. A thousand years for each of the latter works, but so could ten thousand years. I kept my history vague for that reason.

[Vanas]

Christ on a cracker, I'M doing steampunk neobritish. Well, I guess I'm going less British than you, so it's mmkay.

We can ally and create a vast empire of steampunkyness! Or get into a neo-colonial war over some pointless scrap of rock in the Spinwards-West Passage, I guess.

[Thirdfain]

Christ on a cracker, I'M doing steampunk neobritish. Well, I guess I'm going less British than you, so it's mmkay.

We can ally and create a vast empire of steampunkyness! Or get into a neo-colonial war over some pointless scrap of rock in the Spinwards-West Passage, I guess.

... Or I could burn neo-London to the ground and turn your people into serfs. I mean, whatever works, eh?

[weemadando]

So - this is a blank slate STGOD setting?

In that case, seeing as I have a bit of time, I could run as a mod/deus ex machina type character if you need one.

[Losonti Tokash]

Christ, if that's the level of writing expected as the norm I'm way out of my league.

[Raxmei]

By the time the warfleets exhausted their wrath there was precious little left of civilization. Worlds were burned, refugees shot down as they fled, and even their killers were destroyed in the struggle. The destruction was as thorough as humanly possible, and so we should be grateful for human fallibility.

There were a few scattered survivors. Out of instinct they gathered together for companionship and the faint hope of recovery. By some means now lost to the mists of time the fleets of previous enemies united with those who they had just finished slaughtering. As individual vessels had come together so too did these disparate collections. This was fortunate, for even with all working together the toll of ages was harsh and the remaining splendors of antiquity fell into ruin. Much was lost, but enough was saved to let this rabble go on living, and eventually to grow to some comfort in its new existence. Our leaders never got around to giving our new nation a name. Just like so many other parts of our new society, the gap was filled with a makeshift that simply happened to stick. We still call ourselves the Armistice.


Today is Armistice Day, the day set aside to honor the ceasefire that allowed civilization to survive its near destruction. Armistice Day has meaning now more than ever, for now we can observe not just we who have it but also those who have not. The galaxy which has so recently been reopened is a wild and perilous one. Preparations for war are now necessary. The peace which we hold dear must be defended at all costs.

You can help the effort by investing in Defense Bonds. To support the troops just message bonds#ADP,mil or follow the instructions on our net site anet:public-broadcasting,gov\support\defence,idp\. Without the hard work and vigilance of the brave soldiers of the Armistice Defence Force our country could soon be overrun and this service would be forced to stop supplying your homes with quality shows. We will return to scheduled programming after a brief word from star actor Huyer Ughes...

[Vanas]

... Or I could burn neo-London to the ground and turn your people into serfs. I mean, whatever works, eh?

Dashed unsporting, I say. Quite uncouth.
Plus you'd really bugger the economy.

[Captain tycho]

Fuck neobritish, I want my space cowboys/homesteaders!

Git tha' partacle cann'n online, billy!

[Vanas]

Space Cowboys? One simple cure. "We'll fire them to the Moon!"

More on topic, Are we going for the full galaxy, or the star cluster idea? I didn't catch that.

[Vicious]

Fuck neobritish, I want my space cowboys/homesteaders!

Git tha' partacle cann'n online, billy!

Maybe your Space Homesteaders can hook up with my Space Teamsters and form the Intergalactic Hillybilly Union 108!

[Duckie]

You could always surrender your arms and submit to the Species-ist Birdmen. Then we would all have peace and prosperity.

[DesertFly]

"Yes, yes, fight amongst yourselves." First Intelligencer Narru was pleased. The viewscreen he sat before contained the two halves of a confrontation between two empires that were slowly edging towards war. Satisfied with the direction the talks were taking, he switched off the screen and leaned back into the expensive chair he had just had installed. At least, it would have been expensive had he bought it. Its previous owners, though, no longer had a need for it, and he was only too happy to take it off their hands.
N
arru was happy with the news that recent reports had been bringing to his desk. By all accounts, the galaxy was beginning to grow again. Life and empires and ambitions were all on the rise. Soon, there would be too many jobs for the Concordance to undertake. Soon, they would no longer have to take every opportunity that some minor power tossed their way. They would no longer have to live, starving, from raid to raid. Soon, empires would grow, and with them, the Concordance.

It was beginning to look like a very good day indeed.


OOC P.S. If, once this gets going, you need assasinations, thefts, intelligence, sabotage, all will be available for a nominal fee....if we like you.

[Academia Nut]

To the outside world looking in, a small piece of junk floated through the void barely warmer than the background radiation of the universe. With a little closer examination one would realize that it was artificial in nature, but then again the passage of time had done little to clean up the detritus of the galaxy burning wars, so it seemed little out of place. In any case it was far too cold to represent a danger.

On the other side of the black resin hull, things still lived, barely. Humanoid shapes clad in vacuum gear slept patiently, their suits and their natures keeping them safe against the cold and the ravages of time. While technically dead, a simple signal could rouse them from their slumber. When the barely active computer that ran the ship noticed something unusual, it sent that very signal to wake its masters.

Two hours after the process began, the captain and the head engineer were awake enough to know that their computer had not erred in its decision. Silent thoughts streamed through the wires that connected them into the ship.

"I have never seen anything like this before. Could the exiles have come up with something new while we slept?" The captain inquired.

"No, our posting here has only been for a few decades. If those are truly the exiles then it would have taken them centuries, if not millennia, to become so truly stupid. What we see before us lacks all forms of subtlety," the engineer stated, contemptuous of what his data feeds were telling him.

"If they are not exiles then I my orders do not cover what to do. Tell me, what do we see before us so that I can know how to handle it," the captain asked.

Considering for a moment the engineer replied, "There are ancient tales of a time when we were the exiles, driven to the edge of the stars by forces beyond our power to resist. Those that drove us away also forced upon us the Curse. Of course, what our ancient foes did not expect was for us to learn the arts of subtlety and stealth out here in the cold, or to master the Curse and make it a strength rather than a weakness."

"So what we see before us is an enemy of our forefathers? Shall we take some small piece of vengence or follow the wisdom of our elders and stay our hand in favour of stealth?" The captain asked, his thoughts taking on a hint the eagerness for battles yet to come.

"What I see certainly bears resemblance to the arrogance of those that tried to freeze us to death, but it does not seem as powerful as the old tales tell. Then again the old tales say that we were not the only ones to suffer, for the stars were rife with factions and feuding clans, moreso than our own people. Perhaps this is from one of the lesser clans," the engineer mused.

The captain considered this new information for a moment before stating, "There is one thing better than piracy in this life. Do you know what that is Master Engineer?"

"Piracy is to take that which is your enemy's and make it yours through honourable combat. I can think of little better," the engineer replied.

Taking a philosophical tone, the captain replies, "While fighting and dying in battle so that the survivors can take the metal, women, and flesh of the fallen is a divine pleasure for the senses, there is one improvement to be made. While the pirate takes that which is his enemy's, the corsair directly takes from one enemy while having another pay him to do it. Let us bloat ourselves upon the warring of our foes and grow strong while they weaken themselves with senseless fighting, so that one day we might reclaim the warm heart of the stars."

His body revived enough to allow for muscle action, the engineer smiles within his helmet and says, "Truly you have the heart of a hero good captain. But how will we know who to fight when. We know nothing of that which lies beyond our own borders."

"That ship outside, for all its arrogance, is not a vessel of war. It is perhaps a scout or a merchant looking for a vein of metal within the rocks that circle this sun. Such a craft would have maps within, would it not? If we make it the first appetizer in our grand feast, we can get a taste of where in the buffet the best cuts of meat wait," the captain says confidently.

"And if it is the scout of some grand armada capable of sweeping us away?" The engineer cautions.

"We will only know that if we devour the minds of the crew and the ship, and if some grand armada is coming then we shall follow the wisdom of the ancients and hide in the black depths where we were born. Do you engineers not say that 'the first bolt cannot be placed without a blueprint'? We require information, and that ship is where we shall find it," the captain urges.

There is a short silence before the engineer says, "The risk to us is minimal, so I give permission for you to engage the ship in combat. I am waking the crew now."

The captain smiles, for he can already taste the body temperature flesh of his enemies sliding down his throat, the only cooking done by shredder guns that tear apart matter at an atomic level, leaving only ash and fast ions behind. As the ancient adage says, "Today is a good day for death."

OOC: Presenting the Halo Stars Corsairs, a collection of former refugees driven far off into the fringes of the galaxy long ago. With their territory suffering from an absolute dearth of habitable worlds and heavy elements, they have had to make do, resulting in a quasi-religious association with technology. With poor radiation shielding and their best sources of energy being ancient, malfunctioning reactors they no longer understand the theory behind, they began to suffer debilitating mutations early on, resulting in some interesting adaptation.

As a smallish nation specializing in stealth and surprise over heavy arms and armour, they make an excellent tool for anyone who wants to attack the shipping of a rival nation while avoiding outright war, or as guerilla raider mercenaries in the event of full scale conflict. Their word is their bond and no amount of bribery or counter-offers will turn them away from their chosen allies... while the contract is still good anyway.

[DesertFly]

I see your pirates to my ninjas and raise you zombies:

Deep within the massive station that serves as a home for the Concordance are many storerooms to hold their ill-gotten goods. Most of these storerooms are dark -- and why shouldn't they be? Light requires energy, energy requires fuel, and fuel requires money. But the creatures stirring in one of the rooms aren't complaining about the lack of light. To them, light is merely a hazard, a chance to be detected and eliminated. In this respect, they are much like the unsuspecting people they are about to be unleashed on.

The storeroom is nearly silent, with only the hum of distant machinery intruding on the warm, still air. A sharp hiss breaks the quiet as a pressurized storage container is forced open by a rotting hand. The decaying figure inside pulls itself out of the box where it has slept for so long, a box that was recently "liberated" during a raid on the remains of an outpost of a long dead empire.

There are not many thoughts running through the brain of the reanimated corpse that is now shuffling, with many others who were also hidden in boxes, toward the door. Their only objective is to hide, and to feed. The unlucky mechanic who discovers them will shortly be joining them, as will several dozen more people as the plague moves through the station. Eventually, teams of heavily armed men will flush most the corpses back into a sealed storeroom, where they will be contained for possible further use. They may even be studied, though to most there it is apparent that the creatures are the result of an experiment that went horribly wrong, probably in an attempt to create new weapons or a super-soldier.

Occasionally, an outbreak will occur on the station, and a few isolated individuals will die mysterious deaths, but those are quickly contained. Now, it is much more common for a world that rejected the Concordance's offer for trade to shortly thereafter discover a mysterious plague spreading through their population....

[Vicious]

Within the drifting Cetaryn Coalesence, Illidao Minos watched as construction crews were busy assembling the docking facilities, cargo holds, medical facilities and other essentials that the newly formed trader-nation would require. In addition to the expected construction, four large objects were being installed along the only charted path into the asteroid field. These objects, aquired at great expense and in absolute secrecy, were the key to the base's operations.

Behind Illidao, the doors whisked open as his deputy, Reitard Kenyes, entered the command center. "Reports from the yard foreman, sir", Kenyes said, eying the growing lattice-like structure that spanned the space outside the viewport like some great spiderweb. Illidao took the reports, still staring out at the entrancing vista. "Thank you, Reitard", Illidao said absentmindedly. After a moment, he spoke again, "Isn't it amazing? In these few short months, we've completed nearly 30% of this facility, and more vessels and crews are coming in every day." He paused, distracted by the pyrotechnic display given off by an arc-welder putting the finishing touches on an exterior tunnel. "This dream is becoming real." He paused, then continued, "Please, excuse me Reitard. I wish to be alone right now." Reitard left the room, leaving Illidao to contemplate the debris-cluttered view outside the window, and beyond, the endless starfilled void.

OOC: As more filler, the Cetaryn Coalesence is actually the remains of the planet Cetar, a world destroyed in the previous wars. Rather than dispersing into a wide belt like normal, however, the rubble of Cetar remained within the planet's orbit, and setteled into a relatively stable, extremely dense asteroid field. There is only one charted path through the field, and this serves as both entrance and exit to the base. As to the base, it is being constructed primarily in several large, hollowed out asteroids that had been used by pirates as launching bases. Abandoned years ago, the traders of the newly-formed Cetaryn Republic have taken them over and are currently expanding them to serve as a permanent home and trading station. As to the four mysterious object, I'll leave those to your imaginations

EDIT: "Reitard" is pronounced "Riteard", not "Retard" in case anyone was wondering.

[Glimmervoid]

You could always surrender your arms and submit to the Species-ist Birdmen. Then we would all have peace and prosperity.

No no all your planets will be conquered by me and your knowledge added to the new great library. No one can with stand the wrath of the 2-3 foot high fuzz balls.

[Agent Fisher]

You know, on second thought, I am dropping out of this one. Peace out.