The Art of Zor (56k DIE)

[Zor]

The Barbarians of the West are backwards in many respects. Among the areas which this is praticularly evident is that of commerce. There was little in the line of banking beyond money lenders, limited investments and currency was limited to crude affairs involving precious metals, a practice which was abandoned by the Zhong in the first half of the warring states period in favor of state backed currency systems (leaving aside the roots of banknotes which go back to the begining of the Tsen dynasty nearly a thousand years ago). This state of backwardsness is one that the Zhong government intends to rectify.

In Zhong occupied Territory, various programs have been set up to take gold and silver coins out of circulation. A major issue early on was a tendancy of the locals not to honor the validity of Zhong currency and see it as worthless because it was not based on any metal. This was dealt with and a fair number of former shop owners, pubicans and merchants have spent several years building roads and mining coal for doing so, with such activity generally dying out in the first few years. Government Services and Factories run by Zhong Industrialists pay their employees in Zhong Currency. Then comes the phasing out of existing gold and silver coins. First through allowing stores to only accept Zhong Money, then demanding that taxes be payed in Zhong Currency, demanding that taxes be payed in Zhong Currency and eventually banning the use of pre Zhong money. The process is still ongoing in regions.

To facilitate the shift over from gold and silver to the Zhong Jiaozi, various offices have been set up for exchange. This is one of said offices, with a Young Clerk assisting an elf. The exchange rate varries from district to district, but as an incentive to get people swich over as quickly as possible it drops as time goes on. Behind her a is a police officer, occasionally incidents happen. Humans are generally the earliest to switch over while dwarves (especially Dwarves in former Dwarven territory) and elves hold out. Dark Elves hold out if they can, but as they enter Zhong society penniless into cities in which Zhong progress they rarely obtain any amount of gold coinage. Gold and silver are generally kept in stores and sold to jewlers and to various supernatural workers which have applications for said metals. A notable side effect of gold collection is that it has caused deflation among the western kingdoms and states, resulting in economic issues.

[Zor]

(Timeline 3177) Soyuz class Battleship: The Soyuz class Battleship is the core of the Soviet Union's wall of battle. First put into production in 2185, the Soyuz class was created in accordance to the specifications of Admiral of the Fleet Ariadna Olegnova Kochetkov (Order of Lenin) of the Workers' and Peasants Red Star Force in the aftermath of the Forth Soviet/European War (2176-78, ending in the treaty of Novaya Lunagrad, Strategic Soviet Victory, Tactical European victory) and her insistance on the need for flexible torpedo support and heavy beam weapons. The result was an unorthodox but effective battleship.

The Soyuz class battleship has several unusal features, most notably in it's turrets. These carry weapons that rival the IJSN's Yamato class battleship in firepower per shot and range, but flip their cannons over 180 degrees. One Turret can provide both broadsides with firepower. They also contain heavy torpedo launchers and Linier catapults, as well as a hundred vertical launch cells, giving the soyuz advantage in long range fights. It's turret configuration offers it plenty of forward and broadside firepower without compromising rear firepower and is heavily screened, armored and outfitted with a formidable point defense system. However, this comes at the price of acceleration and cost. The European Alliance can produce Nine Danmark class Battleships for every Seven Soyuz class battleship. It has a respectable complement of forty two MiG-65 Ferret fighters.

[Magister Militum]

It's certainty an impressive warship, Zor. I particularly like the rounded turrets. What makes up the beam weaponry, though?

[Zor]

It's certainty an impressive warship, Zor. I particularly like the rounded turrets. What makes up the beam weaponry, though?

Lasers, grasers or xasers, depending, varrying depending on nation.

Zor

[Zor]

Female Zero Graver: Zeo Gravers are the product of an ancient genetic engineering program initiated some 2,800 years ago by the ancient Terran nation of Zostrallea. Said program was ingaged to develop a catagory of humans omtimized for living and working in Zero Gravity. Standing (in a loose sense of the word) between 2.2 and 2.5 meters tall and gracile, Zero Gravers have hands on all four of their apendages, which they consider to be arms as well as a prehensile tail. Zero Gravers are adapted to deal with the hazards of space. They can also if need be decelerate their metabolism to conserve oxygen. They have a much higher resistance to radiation than baseline humans as well as more sensitive. Zero gravers can see a broader spectrum of UV light than Baselines can as well as having the ability to sense electromagnetic energy similar to sharks. Hand Eye co-ordination is something that Zero Gravers are better at then baselines and Zero Gravers have a natural inclination to be good with machines and a tendancy to obsessive compuslive behavior. To accomidate these abilities, Zero Gravers have brains 15% larger. To simpfly birthing there have been some re-adjustments to the vagina and the cervix. Only female Zero Gravers grow hair beyond eyelashes (which are very long on both genders) and this is about as long as it will grow naturally. Across Terran space, there are asteroid colonies populated by Zero Gravers and spacecraft befrit of gravaton coil networks (but with Innertial dampners) in which Zero Gravers ply their trade.

Culturally, their have been tensions between Zero Gravers and Baselines (along with other planet based species of sapients), largely due to the fact that said species occupy diferent enviroments. Zero Gravers generally require wheelchairs to operate inside gravity wells or in artficial gravity enviroments and find doing so to be extremely Awkward and often unpleasant. This has caused some fairly intense cultural divides to emerge. Zero Gravers often have completely diferent sets of slang to the rest of the people that they share systems with. These issues are generally not enough to cause violent conflict or sectionalism. One of the more unusual facits of Zero Graver/Baseline relationships is that both species tend to veiw each other as sexual annomalies. Baseline humans often tend to veiw the body hairless, slender but well muscled Zero gravers with at most short hair as being Androgynous. Zero Gravers on their other hand tend to see baseline women as being hyper feminine. Baseline men they either see as being feminine unless they are bald or grow facial hair.

[Zor]

(Steller Dominions) Manditaur: Manditaurs are a catagory of creatures native to the Rumaur Homeworld. Manditaurs are, like most of the dominant clade of macrofauna on the Rumaur Homeworld similar to terran vertibrates in rough body structure but have the Reproductive organs on the back of the creatures, have three eyes and nostrils and six apendages. Manditaurs are quadrapedal and are technically centauroid. The formost set of limbs have evolved to serve as an extra pair of Jaws, which is a major help in digestion of food. The "Neck" of any manditaur is actually an extension of the Torso. Most Manditaurs are herbivorous, although some (like the creature depicted above) are omnivores. This species is notable for it's convergent evolution with the Terran Pig, and has been domesticated by the Rumaur for similar purposes.

[Zor]

(Steller Dominions) A Drell: Native to the high gravity desert world of Tarla, the Drell are short (averaging 1 to 1.4 meters in height), squat and heavily built. Their bones are thick and stronger per gram than those of Terran creatures, they have dense muscle offering them about ten times the upper body strength of a human tissue and they have tough skin which can stand up to sandstorms. They are evolved from pack predators descended from mountain dwelling omnivores. Their mouth contains a set of twenty four sharklike triangular teeth as well as four long broad molars. An unarmed adult Drell is capable of easilly killing an adult human, either using its clawed hands or it's jaws which can chew off a human arm.

Drell societies is divided into numerous households, normally with about fifty individuals each. Said households have a broad number of individuals, which mate among each other during the generally fixed mating season (it is only not fixed due to the existance of a few drugs which sets off their cycle and even then it is considered monumentally rude (roughly as rude as a human running through a shopping mall completely befrit of non footwear clothing) among the drell to use it to do anything besides correcting complications with the cylce). Said households collectively raise children. Drell society has been discribed as a complex alliance of households.

Drell Reproduce sexually and lay eggs, but have next to no sexual dimorphism. To Drell baring a few minor cults which are now extinct, Gender is an irrelevent detail in any instance beyond mating and health conserns. They don't hide it, they generally just don't care about it. For this reason in Human/Drell Relations a complication has arisen in that Drell tend to look down on femininity. Which they see as being overwhelmingly a cultural mindset that Human Males (which had a near monopoly on strong indivuals) forced females into becomming due to their sexual desires.

[Zor]

BATTLEFLEET ART DECO!

No really fancy fluff here, just a space warship designed using some Art Deco aesthetics. Also its crew are all dressed in wingtip shoes, pinstripe suits, black leather gloves and (for officers) Fedoras.

[Shroom Man 777]

If you made it vertical, you could actually make it into a decent-looking skyscraper. Which is cool. Whereas you've got 40k having ridiculous gothic cathedrals in space, your 'verse has art deco skyscrapers instead. I wonder if they also have guys in coats and ties and fedoras in space, and tommy guns and other 30s-era jazz stuff. That would be a cool cultural aesthetic for the future. Speakeasies! Gangsters!

The spaceship must have a spire.

[Zor]

I wonder if they also have guys in coats and ties and fedoras in space,

I Specifically said that thats what the crew wears.

Zor

[Zor]

A Radial Symmetric Predator. Stalking the "Grass"lands of it's homeworld, searching for prey, packs of these creatures spring out and run down their prey using their heavy claws to slash at herd dwelling graizers, either against critical organs, damage tendons or cause bleeding, weakening their quarry and causing them to faulter to be put down. The cadaver is then cut to bits by claw and beak.

[Shroom Man 777]

I wonder if they also have guys in coats and ties and fedoras in space,

I Specifically said that thats what the crew wears.

Zor

Whoops. Pardon me.

Then that makes it very Gattaca, which is very good. I always loved that movie.

I wonder if that ugly space monster lives in a low-G planet. Somehow, radially symmetric creatures strike me as more befitting either undersea or low-grav life. I can imagine radially-symmetric predators chasing radially-symmetric prey by hopping - Neil Armstrong style - around the surface of some tiny moon world rife with ugly life forms. The predator catches its prey by literally hopping on to it and "locking on" its jaws, which are located in its ass region.

Think slow-motion spaceships docking, 2OOl style, or like the Moon Lander. But more vicious!

[Zor]

Capital building of the Fifth Western Province (formally Dellmoore). After Dellmoore's Liberation by Zhong Forces the Palace of the Former Kingdom was on order of the Emperor Himself demolished and a new structure was to replace it as a symbol of the ending of the Pre-Zhong Barbarism and the new order. The building which was to replace it was also a demonstration of the technological superiority of the Zhong, steel was used as a primary building material for structural purposes, of which it has been rumored a decent precentage was from recycled weapons and armor taken off dead Barbarian Warriors. Construction began eight years after the capture and it took two years and three months to complete. Now it is the Dominant feature in the skyline.

This structure serves as the work place for over a thousand Clerks and Bureaucrats as the nexus for the Administration of some fifteen million subjects of the Zhong Empire. It also houses a series of apartments for the higher level Bureaucrats at the higher levels, including a praticularly lavish one for the Mandarin. Security is fairly tight. For Defence, the building serves as a tomb for two distingished officers and a hundred ceramic soldiers stand on guard, alongside a force of organic and more flexible guards. On no less than eleven occasions, Drow assasins have attempted to break in and kill the Mandarin, none of them have been susessful at the latter goal. To get about this structure, a series of lifts are employed.

The building has been something of a tourist attraction as it is fairly modern. Every day one can find a few dozen interested amatuers and experts admiring it with telescopes and cameras, as well as state employed merchents which sell small books on it's architect, history, construction, ornamentation (much of which is too small to be apperciated with this picture) and a few notable facts as well as model kits and collectable ceramics with its image on it. Outside Zhong controlled territory, several people, most notably the King of Porgoria have openly stated a desire to level this building.

(Inspired by Early Skyscrapers)

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

Very nice Asian-style building you have there! I could not draw architecture as cool-looking like that!

[Zor]

Very nice Asian-style building you have there! I could not draw architecture as cool-looking like that!

Thanks, i took an architectural history course last year and my father is an architect. I still don't do much drawings of buildings.

Zor

[Zor]

(Pirate Lords) Walkerian Terrier class Scout Biped: the Terrier class Scout Biped is the primary combat vehicle of Walkersland's armed forces, with over three hundred of these vehicles being by the larger militias and the Walkerian Army with a service record across minor conflicts with southern archipelligo natives, clashes with pirates, mercenary actions and the occasional minor rebellion. Smaller and lighter than Venoan Carabinieri class runabouts, Terriers are able to reach speeds of up to 80 kilometers per hour and can turn much quicker although they only have about a third of the range of their Venoan counterparts. They are suffiently armored to stand up to most small arms, but Ursoid guns can sometimes get through their reletively light armor. In terms of armament, Terriers have a gatling gun operated from a cupola on the back (which also has a semaphore light) and a side mounted 40mm revolver cannon, which offers it a modest amount of firepower against light vehicles, but still they can not stand up against land ironclads or heavier walkers on even terms. Their primary uses are to deal with infantry, scouting and harasment. Terriers are easy to maintain, a force of four terrier walkers and their crews have been waging a guerilla campaign against Venoan Forces based on an island recently taken by the Republic for several months.

Note-Generally their "head" comparment is more or les level with the ground. The fact that it is not here is a fault of the artist.

[Zor]

(Steller Dominions) Imperial Terran VX-23 Deathcaster Assault Rifle (Navy Service), the standard service rifle of the Terran Imperium's Military. Fires 4.2mm explosive rounds at 4.2 km/s, a feet made possible through advanced recoil negation technology. To maximise accuracy, all Deathcasters have HUD linkup scopes. To prevent theft, Deathcasters are equiped with an active anti-theft device, if an unauthorized user attempts to fire a Deathcaster, a series of six needles will eject from the handle and release a powerful electric shock.

[Zor]

Biotank: A series of several living creatures genetically engineered as part of a social experiment conducted by a series of robots, relics of a species of advanced aliens involving abducted humans collected between 1000 and 1300 (Including Vikings, Crusader era europeans, Abbasids, Byzantines, Seljuks, Fuedal Japanese, Chinese, Aztecs and Inca) in a specially made artificial habitat in the sagittarius arm of the Galaxy. Said experiment involved establishing communities of said groups (protected from disease by nanites) at the same time (releasing them from cryo stasis at 15:37 (greenwich mean time) June 25th, 1307) and giving them access to a set of biological creatures and the means to genetically engineer new creatures using devices called protowombs scattered across the million square kilometers of the habitat. Said beasts ranged from more efficient lifestock to warbeasts such as this biotank.

Biotanks are actually composed of several symbiotic organisms. On is the legs and mouth of the beast, the other is the turret and holds the digestive system. Both have a neural link and are instinctively programmed to obey commands given from an operater inside. The weapons of biotanks include a cannon made out of high density carapace firing stone spheres, a bio-missile launcher, which fires off living missiles which have what amounts to a natural jet engine inside of them and carry an explosive payload (It can grow new missiles internally, but generally they really on externally grown missiles) and a flamethrower. Their arms and mouths are also useful for dealing with infantry in close quarters. Biotanks have a thick and highly durable carapace. For communication, they have the ability to detect radio waves using an Electroreceptive organ and broadcast over short distances.

There are many diferent types of creatures like biotanks about as well as other living war machines such as airborne war creatures (The habitation has a somewhat thicker atmosphere than earth), fast running beasts, transports and naval creatures that inhabit the seas. The habitat itself has over a million square kilometers of territory, which are constantly being fought over by the inhabitants over territory, theology, cultural reasons, longstanding grudges and as part of a complex arangement of alliances and hatreds.

[Zor]

Terran Sphere: Lord Admiral of the Fleet Dieter Menshov (18th Herzog Menshov) of the Seventeenth fleet in the capital City of the Planet Hansen, 2/12/2177 AT (4146 CE) shortly after the Planet's Conquest at his hands by the Novan Empire. Hansen was notable for being colonized by a group of people which beleived in strict gender segregation. As such, Hansenite society was tightly seperated, in which Men after puberty and women lived seperated by law save for a few facillities in which restricted face to face interaction was allowed, some law enforcement activity and the occasional disaster releif effort. A state of affairs which continued for nearly six hundred T-years before the Novan Empire invaded. The Seventeenth fleet had some 2,500 hyperspace capable warships (with some 500 troop ships under escort) against the Hensenian Defence Forces which had a total of a mere five hundred craft, with nearly half of that being corvettes and most of their fleet being horribly out of date. The local fleet quickly dispatched with minimal losses and planetary surrender was enforced shortly afterwards. As a reward for bringing in a new system to the Empire, over three hundred thousand square kilometers of Hensen's surface was given to the Menshov Household by the Newly Crowned Emperor Stephen-III.

After the Conquest, Programs were put into place for cultural normalization of the Hensenian People. The most notable of was the enforced De-segregation of the Planet's Population. All forms of Gender Segregation were stripped from the lawbooks overnight and anti-discrimination and affirmative action policies were put into effect to integrate the workforce, backed up by the Authority and Force of the Imperian Novan Army. To demonstrate the ending of Gender segregation, he organized a series of public campaigns to bring men and women together, most notable of these was the demolition of the walls which were built to divide male and female districts of cities using tanks and televised broadcasts of these events. Protest occured over this move, with protesters being processed together without regard for their beleifs on gender.

Information in regards to the Nobility of the Novan Empire

[speaker-to-trolls]

I'd love to see how the aliens justified the funding for that 'social experiment'. "Our hypothesis is that the mean coolness level of the universe will increase if we force Vikings to fight Mayans using Tyranid monsters as tanks" "OK, so what are the industrial applications of any discoveries you might make?" "...um"
Incidentally, that thing has very pointy feet, are you sure they'd be able to support its weight?

I like the scene with the Novan noble guy and the tank, I think the sense of perspective is pretty much right and I like the smudging showing the dust around the tanks treads.

[Zor]

I'd love to see how the aliens justified the funding for that 'social experiment'. "Our hypothesis is that the mean coolness level of the universe will increase if we force Vikings to fight Mayans using Tyranid monsters as tanks" "OK, so what are the industrial applications of any discoveries you might make?" "...um"
Incidentally, that thing has very pointy feet, are you sure they'd be able to support its weight?

Well this IS suposed to be a very advanced species that did it and the aim of this project was primarally to study how pre-industrial civilizations would act if they had this sort of animal husbandry at their disposal. Maybe they intended to watch events as they unfolded as a sort of reality TV series as a side goal.

I will say that maybe a diferent sort of feet would be a good move.

Zor

[Zor]

Novan Business/Formal wear, This style has been the standard pattern of formal wear for the Novan Empire since the mid 19th century AT. Both Skirts and trousers are available for women and boots are worn by both genders. Plain cloth and pinstripe are the most common patterns. Members of Noble Houses generally wear their family Mons. Hats are sometimes worn.

[Zor]

Kraken: Another biological war machine from the social experiment habitat. Along with the million square kilometers of land of the habitat is another million of ocean dividing three major land masses as well as island chains. The saltwater seas of the habitat are used for maritime trade, and beneith the surface thanks to Bio-engineered organisms, ranging from backpack based Gill organism allowing for prolonged activity underwater to larger manipulation creatures and eventually genetically engineered laborers adapted to living their entire life under water. The DNA patterns for most of these creatures were initially deposited in the protowombs nearby Japanese, English, Byzantine and Viking villages after the awakening.

Krakens are one of several military creatures and the one first provided to the Vikings designed for Naval Domiance. Krakens are fairly fast moving creatures which are operated by a crew of two operaters (although they can support up to five) inside a biological. Their primary armament are a pair of Bio-torpedo tubes, firing off fast moving aquajet propelled creatures that (like bio-missiles) have an explosive payload and are given instructions by the main brain of the creature. When those are exausted it can ram enemy ships using it's hardened front spike, use its tentacles and teeth, able to destroy boats in a single bite. Krakens are long range beasts, able to sustain a pair of human occupants for months, having a toilet organ and providing them milk from mammary glands. The effectiveness of Krakens allowed the Vikings to acheive unchallenged naval dominance over a third of the habitat's seas for a century until collected tissue samples allowed other civilizations to produce Krakens of their own. This allowed the Norsemen to spread themselves and establish colonies as well as deal several major blows to the Ambitions of the Abbasids, as three Krakens famously destroyed an armada of Dhows, whiping out over 1,500 Abbasid Warriors of their Drows. Never the less, Krakens are still vunerable to smaller faster marine war creatures.

[Zor]

(Steller Dominions) Imperial Terran Unconventional Warfare Corps Coat of Arms. Compared to the Star Navy, Marine Corps and Army the UWC is the smallest branch of the Imperial Terran Military with only fifteen million personnel. The purpose of the UWC is that of Intelligence, political monitoring and quiet precision actions. ITUWC agents have quietly removed millions of barbarian rebellions over the centuries. The armed section of the military are known as Oblivion Units, specially trained and equiped for rapid surgical strikes. They also employ a variety of devices from doll dust (Nanite designed and to enter the human body and interfear with the nervous systm in muscle tissue in the extremedies, named as such because people effected by it tend to collapse to the floor like dolls) to modified domestic servent robots to neuroprobing. For actions against people in Imperial Territory, the UWC is only brought in when things are volitile.

[Zor]

A Mecha armed with a 35mm Gatling Rifle and duel shoulder mounted missile launchers (each with four missiles, as well as sixteen additional missiles in a backpack mounted reserve. It's operated by a feedback system similar to the affair used by the AMP suits in Avatar.