STGOD 4 OOC Thread

[Hotfoot]

Do it anyway.

Certainly you would be able to detect the energy spike, and he wouldnt get through the ships shields with a transporter.

I may have to, but I'm willing to give him a chance to explain himself, because as everyone knows, I'm such a nice guy.

Suffice to say that if I don't find his reasoning...acceptable, SENTINEL will have another dance card soon enough.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Dont give him a chance
Fuck him up

[Hotfoot]

Okay, fucking him up now, due to popular opinion.

It's time to Tango.

Edit: And now, you see why you don't mess with the Consortium. Next time, do your homework. I had scads and scads and scads of pre-declared security measures. You don't just get to walk in and walk out untouched. So you just lost every ship you sent to the Trade Fair, all your personnel, and and I took them all alive and intact.

Oh, and in case you had any thoughts about keeping what's in their precious little heads a secret, forget it. First off, I have teeps. Secondly, I'm currently allied with the grand pimp daddy of teeps in this STGOD. I'm sure the Veithans wouldn't mind sending over a Prime to interrogate these prisoners if I asked nicely.

Enjoy!

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

I mentioned earlier that I would be posting the order of battle for a new nation... However, due to work and procrastination on my part the OOB never materialized. Thus I will now force myself to produce the document ASAP.

Part 1 - Introduction

1.1 Biology

The Shikima are a species of xenomorphic cthulhoids, with multiple prehensile appendages emerging from a central body core which houses the internal organs and other vitals in an armored cage. The colorings tend to be drab, though the occasional brightly coloured Shikima has been born. These are usually lauded as H'Entai*, which will be covered later. Each "tentacle" is tremendously strong and quick despite being boneless, and tipped with a tough, ridged pad, and the entire body is covered in a thick, fibrous coating that can secrete either a short-lived adhesive or a powerful lubricant.. Shikima can ooze along the ground in this way, or they can swing from handhold to handhold with surprising speed. However, while most Shikima have a higher damage threshold than most humanoids, even glancing hits to the body core tend to cause enough damage to render the wounds inflicted terminal.

Shikima are all psychic to some degree, though for the most part this potential mainfests itself as short-ranged telempathy. As a result, most Shikima can share thoughts in a primitive form of hive-mind called a "cell" when in a small group, making them very good at small-scale guerilla warfare and localized research teams. There are some "Mentalists" among them who focus on developing their powers of mind, though these are few and far between and typically serve to coordinate the efforts of many cells of Shikima at once.

1.2 Culture

The most distinctive feature about Shikima culture is that they have no sense of personal space in public life. While there are certainly areas of their lives where only a trusted companion will be allowed, for the most part the Shikima do everything together, for example eating and bathing. No distinction is made between the sexes beyond the honorifics they are addressed by. The Shikima are a very communal species in this respect, though when confronted by other species, they are naturally suspicious and guarded, though not exactly xenophobic.

Some Shikima seem to worship a being known to them as the "Ih'Vilsah Dist'Ik B'a'Stad", which roughly translates as "Great Uplifter of the Supreme Self". He is said to be the being that spurred the psychic change in the Shikima that raised them from a non-sentient hive-mind to full sapience, and all brightly coloured Shikima are hailed as being of his line. Religious fanaticism on His behalf is strongly discouraged, though, and civil authorities have the right to arrest/detain without trial any overzealous proselytizers that, and any religion.

1.3 External relations

The Shikima are considered replusive by most human standards, given that they emit a somewhat unpleasant odour, and the Shikima seem to strike a chord that resonates off a primal loathing in the human hind-brain.

They have also earned the unfair reputation of "tentacle demons" due to their... unique appearance and greeting habits, which are eerily reminiscent of a certain class of deviant human entertainment called "tentacle porn". As a result, the typical human reaction upon seeing them ranges from amusement, to disgust, to fear, and sometimes to violence.

However, the Shikima are hardly the mindless monsters of rapine and sodomy they are made out to be. In fact, they are quite adaptive and divergent thinkers, with a good grasp of three-dimensional space thanks to their aquatic origins. Of course, this avails them little in dealings with most humans, being that the xenophobic drive in humanity is still strong. As a result, Shikima interact very rarely with humanity at large, preferring the company of other xenomorphs liek themselves.

(More to follow)

[Thirdfain]

Ah, shucks. Too bad I'll be gone, or I'd be able to gobble up a slice of your nation when the bangbus came around...

[Hotfoot]

Ah, shucks. Too bad I'll be gone, or I'd be able to gobble up a slice of your nation when the bangbus came around...

Aw, don't feel bad. We'll wave to you as we pass by Ouster space in the Bangbus on the way to Beowulf...

[Rogue 9]

Am I the only one who'se a little shocked about how quickly newly-starting nations immediatly sign on to the local alliance, rather than perhaps playing the game a bit and getting a feel for the place?

Hey, that ain't our problem. Let the power brokerage commence! Wait, did I say that?

[Hotfoot]

Rogue 9, your military ships would be at rally points, away from the fair itself. Don't worry, they're close enough that if trouble was brewing, you'd get back before the trouble got to the fair, but I'm sure you understand that we are keeping security in mind, and don't want to have to deal with the obvious potential danger military ships in the midst of so many civilian freighters and the like could have.

Just a little heads up

[Rogue 9]

Oops. Well, most of those were personnel transports anyway; I'm selling big hardware that I couldn't bring easily. I imagine they'd get out of the way since space is so congested in there.

[Hotfoot]

Oops. Well, most of those were personnel transports anyway; I'm selling big hardware that I couldn't bring easily. I imagine they'd get out of the way since space is so congested in there.

Fair enough, so long as the warships are at the designated points, it's all good.

[Rogue 9]

He was told that religion had survived, but blasmphemy?

Erm... It was the Covenant of God that got the first bang bus, in case you've forgotten. Did he really not know about that?

[Thirdfain]

Ladies, Gentlemen, on that exciting note I bid you adieu!

Please refrain from invading my country in my absence, but if it becomes absolutly necessary, I trust Marcao to fight the good fight. Yeah, Marcao, it's all you.


Well, see you fine people all in august!

[Darksider]

Dammit!

I was going to do more Covert ops on Hudson.

[Hotfoot]

Erm... It was the Covenant of God that got the first bang bus, in case you've forgotten. Did he really not know about that?

Oh, I know, but this is his first contact with a fundie. The vast majority of the Consortium is atheist, and this is the first large scale interaction they are having with the galaxy at large.

[Hotfoot]

ooc- Hotfoot, wiring up the restroom completely would more likely weird the other patrons out, rather than provide the feeling of security...

Only if they knew about it, or if the cameras were specifically set up to record "naughty bits". Too bad, so sad. My version of the events stand, dumbass.

And honestly, do you think I would be so stupid as to try teleporting out, when I can merely have my man change his identity?

Gee, and my security teams have NEVER dealt with shapeshifters before.

Read my fucking OOB, dumbass.

[Beowulf]

ooc- Hotfoot, wiring up the restroom completely would more likely weird the other patrons out, rather than provide the feeling of security...

Only if they knew about it, or if the cameras were specifically set up to record "naughty bits". Too bad, so sad. My version of the events stand, dumbass.

And honestly, do you think I would be so stupid as to try teleporting out, when I can merely have my man change his identity?

Gee, and my security teams have NEVER dealt with shapeshifters before.

Read my fucking OOB, dumbass.

Gee, maybe I'm letting your version of events stand? Notice how I actually respond to your post? Dumbass.

Good luck telling my guys from the completely human. The ability to shapeshift comes from magic. The guy's genotype corresponds to his phenotype. In otherwords, his DNA changes when he changes shape.

And must you end every paragraph with the word "dumbass"? It makes you seem like well... a dumbass.

[Hotfoot]

Gee, maybe I'm letting your version of events stand? Notice how I actually respond to your post? Dumbass.

While conveniently getting away scot free. I don't think so. Your ass is mine.

Good luck telling my guys from the completely human. The ability to shapeshift comes from magic.

I have Quantek, which is equivilent to magic. Moreover, I have Quantek sensors watching the trade fair. Once again, read my OOB. You just fucked with a nation that is most well suited for handing you your ass, and you walked in unprepared.

The guy's genotype corresponds to his phenotype. In otherwords, his DNA changes when he changes shape.

Oh really? Guess what? I don't care. I was actively watching everything your guy did. I'd pick it up, and I'd certainly pick up any uses of Magic on board the Dream Forge. You don't think that I considered the possibility of an Angry Mage coming back and making a scene in a Fair I'm holding in former Arcane Space?

And must you end every paragraph with the word "dumbass"? It makes you seem like well... a dumbass.

Ah, yes, how very scathing. I am hurt, ever so much.

Forgive me, but your dumbassery can make me think of little more than what a tremendous fucking dumbass you are, thinking that breaching all of my predeclared security would be so incredibly easy.

[Beowulf]

You still don't know who they really are, or where they're from. All you know is that one of them is a shapeshifting mage, who, by the way, can't do anything magical except the shapechanging. And you're picking him up because he inquired about fairly commonly available cloning technology? Something called over reacting is what this is known as. You really didn't have any reason whatsoever to be suspicious of him, besides the fact that he refused to state who he was representing.

(note: at least two powers can clone people. And it's not as if it's really a secret technology)

[InnocentBystander]

(note: at least two powers can clone people. And it's not as if it's really a secret technology)

Cloning technology is common, I think it's quite possible that most nations have "methods" of determining if a subject is cloned or not, after careful inspection of course. And, when I say cloning, I do mean test-tube style.

On another note, Hotfoot does have "magic sensors", any use of magic would be picked up, I'm sure.

[Hotfoot]

You still don't know who they really are, or where they're from. All you know is that one of them is a shapeshifting mage, who, by the way, can't do anything magical except the shapechanging.

I have telepaths. I can and will scan him and the rest of them to find out more.

Your Ansible tech, as I've noted, narrows down the suspect list by a considerable amount.

And you're picking him up because he inquired about fairly commonly available cloning technology? Something called over reacting is what this is known as. You really didn't have any reason whatsoever to be suspicious of him, besides the fact that he refused to state who he was representing.

Which is more than enough cause. First of all, it's a public trade fair. Not stating who you represent, combined with asking for cloning tech from a power which knows full well the potential military usage of clones, and then denying that clones could be used for military or hostile purposes.

Well, the lady doth protest too much. It was a security flag, which called my attention to you. What got you busted was your little stunt in the bathroom, which I sure as hell would know about.

Too bad, so sad.

(note: at least two powers can clone people. And it's not as if it's really a secret technology)

Nope, but going about aquiring it in such a fucking braindead fashion is sure to gather some attention.

[InnocentBystander]

I'd like to point out that cloning technology isn't so developed that you can have a microcloning plant in your basement. It is and undertaking that only a government of some size would have the capacity to fund. It requires huge amounts of research before you can even begin to clone people. It's not such a simple process. That would be like me trying to buy uranium oxide because I want to make my own fission reactor.

[Evil Sadistic Bastard]

Part 2: Ship Classes/Types and Order Of Battle

2.1 Shikima Combat Doctrine

Shikima combat philosophy revolves around overwhelming the enemy with massive numbers of combatants, and delivering the maximum firepower to a target. Combined with their already formidable industrial capacity, this has led to a space military composed largely of strike craft and motherships, with almost no vessels in between. As a result, a Shikima military offensive moves in stops and starts, and is vulnerable to sudden or long-range attacks, as was demonstrated in the four-day Battle of Discordia, where a storm of long-ranged missiles combined with a precision jump into the middle of the Shikima battle order managed to pierce the massive fighter screens of three Mothership-class vessels and destroy them, breaking the back of the Shikima military effort once and for all.

2.2 Shikima Vessel types

2.2.1 Shikima Mothership Class

These massive vessels, over 4 km from end to end, are gigantic armored spheres measuring well in excess of 800 meters across, studded with ten tentacular arms, each a mile long, giving them the appearance of octopi sheathed in articulated plate armor. Each mothership is essentially a mobile starbase - the arms contain docking bays, repair and refueling facilities for fighters and huge automated factories for the high-speed production of new fighter craft. A Mothership can easily contain over a thousand fighters at any one time, not including the Fuel Pod and Multi-Beam Frigates it will sometmes have with it.

While Motherships rely primarily on their fighter complement for defense, they have heavy weaponry of their own. Each of the ten tentacles houses a Tracking Tracer Cannon (TTC), the designation for the high-powered continuous plasma beams contained by controlled magnetic fields and which can be curved at range to strike evading targets. The central body contains six TTCs, in a hexagonal formation around a gigantic armored vent. This vent is employed when the Mothership is in danger of being destroyed, and it expels a huge plume of antimatter as it hurls theMothership away at high speeds, much like how an Earth-bound squid would eject a cloud of ink to speed it away and to confuse any potential attackers. During this evasion mode, ALL activity on the mothership stops as internal plasma is fed into fusion torches to further expedite the Mothership's escape. Until sufficient plasma reserves are regenerated from fuel stocks, the only defenses the Mothership has are its fighters, it array of point-defense Splinter Cannons, and its hyperdrive. It is just as well that no Shikima ships mount shields, because there would be no pwoer to make this emergency escape and power them at the same time.

Known Mothership-class vessels are listed below.

SMS-01 "Prince of Desolation"
SMS-02 "Dawning Sun Indomitable"
SMS-03 "Dam of the Eristrufa"
SMS-04 "Harbinger of Black Nigritude"
SMS-05 (Name Unknown)
SMS-06 (Name Unknown)

All save SMS-02 were destroyed in various battles on the way to the Shikima homeworld. The location of SMS-02 is still unknown.

2.2.2 Frigate Class Vessels

As mentioned earlier, Shikima use few capital-class vessels in their war effort, and virtually no vessels above frigate class apart from their motherships. Even the existing frigates they have are designed to fill niches, the true flexibility coming from their fighter force.

2.2.2.1 Support Frigate ("Fuel Pod")

The somewhat odd moniker given to these vessels is not entirely inaccurate. Shikima vessels of the support frigate class have duties largely analogous to forward ambulatory refueling stations, with one frigate servicing up to sixteen fighters at once, the round-robin system of repairing/refueling/rearming making sure that the ten docking ports are adequate for the task. Support frigates have only one Splinter Cannon for self-defense, so they are usually kept far back from the major fighting. The Shikima fighters are incredibly fast, so the long distances kept do not interfere much in operations.

Frigates are just barely small enough to mount an inertial stabilizer, and so the turreted cannon can traverse a much larger arc than expected. Still, that weapon is little more than a popgun compared to most of its adversaries' weapons.

2.2.2.2 Multi-Beam Frigate ("Scorcher")

The Multi-Beam Frigate is another unusual Shikima vessel. It possesses four fixed non-tracking Tracer Cannons mounted co-axially in a cruciform pattern firing forward, which is ordinarily not a very good thing, except that the Scorcher also possess a highly efficient inertial nullifier, allowing it to spin in all directions with startling speed to rake opposing fighter formations out of the sky with its Tracer Cannons. In addition, the Tracer Cannons can fire slightly off-center, the effect being that a Scorcher can focus all four beams onto a central target one hundred meters away. The inertial nullifier also means that it moves quite fast for a ship of its class, though certainly not as fast compared to the infamous Shikima fighters.

2.2.3 Shikima Strike Craft

Fighters are the heart and soul of any attack made by the Shikima. Their efforts at miniaturizing technology to fit into smaller packages have meant that their fighters are among the deadliest in the galaxy, which also accounts for their very frequent use. The base fighter chassis used by the Shikima is the Swarmer, essentially a blocky pod with an antimatter slurry tactical drive at the back and modular weapons systems mounts.

Swarmers all have miniature inertial nullifiers on board, as well as their powerful engines and weapons, but this comes at a price. Even the long-legged Scout Swarmers have an operational time of little more than ten minutes, and the Assault Swarmers have an operational period of six to seven minutes. Ergo, most Shikima attacks are hit-and-run affairs, and destroying the Fuel Pods generally means that the squadron cocnerned is effectively dead.

2.2.3.1 Light/Scout Swarmers

Light Swarmers are designed for pure speed and manoeuverability. To that end, they mount only a pair of Splinter guns, as well as larger stores of antimatter fuel and improved engines for extra speed and range. The fast-firing guns perform very well against fighters, though not so well against larger targets like corvettes or frigates.

2.2.3.2 Heavy/Assault Swarmers

Assault Swarmers, like the Scout Swarmers, mount dual Splinter guns. However, they also have a deadly trick up their sleeves - a spinal-mount plasma bomb launcher, firing highly damaging and finely controllable plasma blasts from the Swarmer's own engines. However, the tradeoff is that Assault swarmers are slower than Scout Swarmers, though even that is not a very big issue given the inherent speed of the Swarmer design and the nature of the targets it will face.

The plasma bomb launcher can also be programmed to release airbursts plasma charges, meaning a very nasty surprise for fighters about to take off from a carrier's hull. However, the plasma bomb still takes a while to reform, so skill and discretion is advised.

2.2.3.3 Super Swarmers

THis very new class of fighter has only been seen recently, but combat reports indicate it is terrifyingly efficient. The major distinguishing factor of Super Swarmers is that they mount twin low-power Tracer Cannons with supplementary independent pwoer sources and have extended fuel capacity for longer operations, as well as speed and maneuverability somewhere between the Light and Heavy Swarmers. Fortunately it is very rare, usually only found in the ahnds of elite pilots, because the Tracer Cannons, even in fighter-borne form, can destroy a heavy corvette with one second of sustained firing.

2.2.3.4 Suicide Swarmers

Virtually indistinguishable from Light Swarmers, which are in turn almost identical to Heavy Swarmers, Suicide Swarmers join an attack force for an attack. The difference when a target is sighted is where they differ. Sucide Swarmers imemdiately break formation and hit the big red button on their consoles once they have determined a weakness, and a small high-impulse engine deploys out of the back of the speeding vessel. In a short-lived burst of force, the engine is used to catapult the Swarmer forward at significant fractions of the speed of light, and the computer detonates the antimatter stores on board the doomed craft just as it impacts.

[Beowulf]

Clones, in and of themselves are not weapons. Certainly you could train them to be soldiers or the like, but they themselves are not weapons. To put it another way, a study has been done which concluded that there is no industry that the military does not use. Everything is Dual-use. And you must admit that there are civilian applications for clones. You yourself utilize clones for your body replacement, as does the Gladsheim.

And you can be sure that there are people there who refuse to say where they're from. It's public.

Go ahead, use telepaths. The crews know almost nothing or nothing. My minion doesn't know very much, having been raised in Asgard space. His passport is quite genuine, by the way. Oh, and pretty soon you'll have a dead body on your hands, along with a diplomatic incident.

The ansible tech narrows it down quite a bit, I'll grant you, but you'd logically start looking at known space powers, before you start on thinking about unknown ones.

[InnocentBystander]

Clones, in and of themselves are not weapons. Certainly you could train them to be soldiers or the like, but they themselves are not weapons. To put it another way, a study has been done which concluded that there is no industry that the military does not use. Everything is Dual-use. And you must admit that there are civilian applications for clones. You yourself utilize clones for your body replacement, as does the Gladsheim.

The point I'd like to make is that cloning requires a good deal of time and money before it can be exploited; the only organizations that could afford such things are super-corporations and sizeable governments. Everyone at the fair has been checked in, their identities and affiliations known. Is your person supposed to be an official asgard representative? Or at least posing as one? If so Hotfoot would try and confirm that with the Asgard.

[Hotfoot]

Clones, in and of themselves are not weapons. Certainly you could train them to be soldiers or the like, but they themselves are not weapons. To put it another way, a study has been done which concluded that there is no industry that the military does not use. Everything is Dual-use. And you must admit that there are civilian applications for clones. You yourself utilize clones for your body replacement, as does the Gladsheim.

Yes, and also for body replacement of soldiers. Just face it, you tried to be sneaky and all you did was call attention to yourself in the process.

And you can be sure that there are people there who refuse to say where they're from. It's public.

Um, hello? To get in, you would have had to registered your ships and your party, even if it's bogus registration. If you're lying, DON'T STOP LYING. Saying you can't say who this is for is a clear red flag in a situation such as this.

Go ahead, use telepaths. The crews know almost nothing or nothing. My minion doesn't know very much, having been raised in Asgard space. His passport is quite genuine, by the way. Oh, and pretty soon you'll have a dead body on your hands, along with a diplomatic incident.

Doubtful. Your agent would have been thoroughly scanned while he was unconcious. Suicide pills would have been removed, along with any self destruct devices he might have had with him. We're keeping him very much alive, thank you very much.

The ansible tech narrows it down quite a bit, I'll grant you, but you'd logically start looking at known space powers, before you start on thinking about unknown ones.

I guess you didn't look at my list of Allies, did you? You really should have done your homework before you walked into this situation, because right now, you're getting clusterfucked.

Edit: Check the OOBs, both old and new. Only three powers have ansibles declared, and I'm firmly allied with two of them. Guess that leaves you, sparky.

Next time, if you're going to try and pretend to be Asguard, don't use tech they don't have. It kind of ruins the deception.