There are Eoghan ESPers, but there is a drastic correlation between power and shortened lifespan. As such only a few are used in the government, and they all happen to be rather weak. A portion of the remaining ESPers work inside of cults and are not always stable. (Cthulhu)
On the other hand there happen to be very few cyborg enhancements that are common, with the most common one being artificial pathways in the brain that allow for synesthesia that is programmed to assist in learning and enhancing stimuli reflex.
An SDNW Proposal
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Agent Sorchus
- Jedi Master
- Posts: 1143
- Joined: 2008-08-16 09:01pm
Re: An SDNW Proposal
the engines cannae take any more cap'n
warp 9 to shroomland ~Dalton
warp 9 to shroomland ~Dalton
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Moby Halcyon
- Youngling
- Posts: 78
- Joined: 2009-10-22 05:28pm
- Location: Orlando, Florida
Re: An SDNW Proposal
It's been forever since I've done hardcore article building. All that's left is the military building math, I guess.
The Cevaucian Ascendency
Species: Nahktar, Human
Alternate Names: The Union, CAU, The Circuit, MetaCon
Official Languages: French-Saxon, Treyal
Official Currency: The Union standard credit (Ω)
Overview
Ironically, the Cevaucian Union was born out of an alliance of human crime rings in the lawless frontier of the deep core, a century before the ultimate formation of the Union. Warring clans found it simpler to put their tools towards a common purpose than to pursue mutually destructive practices. As polities began to coalesce in the galactic core, mounting pressure from the increasingly organized core powers led to a gradual shift in Cevaucian policy, a ‘legitimization’ if you will. Instead of illegal and dangerous cybercomps, instead of stealthy and quick drug frigates, the Circuit began producing cheap and readily accessible civilian cyber-upgrades, as well as dependable and massive cargo freighters.
Swift prosperity and expanding profits allowed the Conglomerate to soon spread from the home system of Cevaucia to two other systems. Rapidly capitalizing on the genuine lack of serious competition, the Conglomerate invested in the now famous Vanas Shipyards in the Diegon system. Nearly thirty years were spent constructing the ten-mile wide base, partially hewing the center out of an asteroid while constructing on site the shipyard’s famed spiral arms.
It was the Union’s economic supremacy in the local sector that led it into a clash with the Ark, the powerful remnants of a shattered rimward imperium, operated by the fearsome reptilian Nahktar. Mineral exploration swiftly led to contact and conflict with the fiercely territorial Ark nomadic warfleets. Destructive fires of war atomized entire systems, with the war eventually tipping toward’s the Ark’s favor when a lightning strike captured the Diegon system and deprived the Union of its signature logistic advantage.
The battle lines swiftly changed when rogue elements in both governments formed a pact to overthrow their respective regimes and form a dictatorial alliance. This rapid reversal of the playing field forced loyalist factions from both parties together for a climactic battle over the local Kaeleron Singularity. The rebel forces were eventually routed with the timely intervention of multiple fleets liberated from the relatively unguarded Vanas Shipyards by loyalist strike teams.
Over the remnants of the swirling wreckage of the accretion disc, the loyalist factions of the Ark and the Union signed the Falvacion-Trego pact, bringing into existence the modern Cevaucian Ascendency. Integration, obviously, was a long and painful process between the two formerly opposed polities, with multiple language, social, and linguistic barriers to overcome. Fittingly, the new Ascendancy found common ground on the subject of shipcrafting, allowing the two races to reemerge into the galactic eye as respected source of civilian and commercial spacecraft known for their well-built value.
Two decades later, the Ascendancy stands poised to reclaim its peaceful niche in the galactic economy, though not all is peaceful in the Circuit, as it is known to civilian spacers (for its well traveled FTL lanes). Multiple dissident factions, descendant of the original rebels, prowl through the intelligence echelons of the CAU’s Cadre for Tactical Intelligence (CTI), perpetually maneuvering events to engineer an eventual resurgence of the neo-fascist ideology. Long-lived Nahktar statebeings, wise with centuries of experience in the art of machinations, engage in a secretive cold war in the halls of power for dominance in Ascendancy politics. Chief among these guile operatives is Trego, Ark warmaster ascendant to Supreme Commander of A-Sec (the organized Cevaucian armed forces). Engaged in an uneasy pact with embattled CTI Director Leonardo Bateau – besieged by predatory rebels – and Forum Chairman Alton Nureno – a soft-spoken and ruthless power broker – Trego serves as with the trio as the face of the Cevaucian Ascendancy.
Structure
The Ascendancy maintains three councils of twelve (plus one chairman) for the various facets of Cevaucian government. The first commission – the Ring of Trade (RingTra) - provides oversight over the overall business affairs of the conglomerate, much like the board of directors. The overall control of intersystem economic relations rests with the board, as well as the massive CAU technological development apparatus. In order to maintain the galactic edge in cybernetics technology, CMC R&D is closely linked to CTI, the CAU’s crack intelligence network, taking the adage to heart that spycraft is not entirely about military affairs.
The second council on the “High Circuit” stands as the Ring of Prosperity (RingPros), with its vested interest in the governance of all those beings who call the worlds under Cevaucian control home. Contrary to the popular image of the faceless super-corporation, the Ring of Prosperity stands as a guardian of civil rights and welfare. While those who are employed directly by the company would logical receive the very best benefits (being the highest tier of citizens), those ‘basic’ civilians who are not on CAU payrolls are still protected under the Cevaucian Domestic Charter. Since the Conglomerate obviously cannot produce every product and provide every service, an incredibly diverse field of smaller corps provide the consumer bedrock of the Cevaucian middle class (under the belief that, with so much minor competition, no one single group will gain too much power).
Standing between the two Rings is the Adjudication (RingAdj), the CMC equivalent of internal affairs – essentially a tree of judicial courts. From the required civil courts to the supreme Arbitrat, the Adjudication mediates all disputes in the Conglomerate. Ascension through the any section of the ranks of the Conglomerate bureaucracy is strictly merit-based, a tradition of annual competence exams that ironically dates back to the days of the Triads, Crime Families, and Treyal Yakuza and who oversight now falls to the Adjudication (even it itself is not exempt from the analyses).
Representation is vested in a massive Forum, with each planet or habitat afforded a pair of representatives. While long conflict has existed over the overrepresentation of smaller populaces and what indeed constitutes a habitat, the Forum has been relatively stable over its existence, forming an crisp, if formal relationship with the Ring of Prosperity. Chairman Alton Nureno, heir to the insanely powerful NurenTek clan and current Chairman of RingPros has presided over the most prosperous era in Cevaucian history, thanks in no small part to his ruthless coalition-forging and shark-like trawling for every single vote.
Economy
The “MetaCon,” as it is known verse-wide, is the nationalized conglomerate that supervises and operates the famed Vanas Shipyards of the Cevault system. Built upon well-crafted commercial shipping manufacturing, MetaCon constructs ships and virtually anything associated with them – civilian navigation suites, computer ‘virtual intelligences” that manage almost every other facet of starship operation. Life support, navshields, computer firewalls, communication transponders, sensor arrays, and maintenance drone management.
The other major industry of the CAU is cybernetics crafting. While MetaCon shipbuilding is known for its value, the assorted firms of NeticTech and McDonnell Martin have gained a reputation oversector-wide for extremely high-end cybernetics. Operating on the very bleeding edge of the technological curve, ‘netics crafters often secure military contracts for special forces units or gengineered supersoldiers, as well as high-level brass and specialized extreme-environment agents.
Culture
CAU is, to say the least, extremely metropolitan at its core, where Union and Ark species have intermingled over the course of a century and cooperated in economic and political ventures. The fringe worlds – well, not so much. Since Ark and Union territory still roughly remains homogenous towards opposite ends of the Circuit, racial harmony is less well-founded and tensions still run high. Rogue warlords run along the predatory fringe of former Ark territory, either remnants of the organized rebellion, or hardline generals that refuse to accept peace with such a bitter former enemy.
As a whole, however, CAU culture can be taken to run parallel to the galactic norm, even if it runs particularly liberal. MetaCon tends to encourage free thinking in order to foster innovation in the development process, a decades-old undercurrent that has grown to form a fierce, if subtle independent streak in the average CAU citizen. Nahktar culture, in regards to human, tends to be more group-and-family oriented, perhaps due to the strong nonverbal-nature of Nahktar communication. This has led to the development of Treyal as a trade language between humanity and the Nahktar, a rough lingua franca between French-Saxon and Trahk, the ancestral Nahktar tongue.
Perhaps fittingly considering the Union’s origins in organized crime, the CAU is possessed of a large and well-developed criminal underbelly. The Nahktar-operated Zrmahk Syndicate is primary known as a protection racket on frontier Ark worlds – legitimately providing protection, mind, given the prevalence of pirates, raiders, rebels, and other malcontents. The co-species Transfer acts as the primary mover of illegitimate goods in the sector, from narcotics to weapons – but never sentient trafficking. Meanwhile, operating in splinters cells ubiquitously on every planet, the pro-human Sun Triad offshoot provides information brokering through the sheer nature of the Triad’s permeation through every low and mid-level CAU operation.
Dramatis Personae
Director Leonardo J Bateau, ISMC General (Ret), head of the Cadre for Tactical Intelligence
“Here's something that lots of people don't know. After the long, boring, needlessly vast ceremony where they pinned enough medals on my chest to make the seams creak, a few important people took me into a small room. There, they put a large gun to my head, and asked me quite pointedly to never open my mouth to anyone about pretty much anything. At the time, I was not afraid. I could count the number of times I had been actually afraid on two fingers. I was, and I suppose still am, a Carnage Marine. Six men and a firearm floating an inch from the back of my skull is certainly not enough to frighten me. Not after the shit that went down around Kaeleron. It helped that at the time, I was effectively immortal. I politely told them that they should try this same trick with Trego. They more politely asked me to become a general.
I thought about that for a long time. I didn’t leave the room, even after they had. I considered what they had said: Leaders were needed. Strong leaders that the people could rely upon. It makes a fair amount of sense really; I had recently been party to the saving of the galaxy, and it had been televised, after a fashion. I agreed with their sentiments. I also liked the idea of being a general – it was unusual for a Carnage Marine to actually get that sort of brass. They swore me in as one of the first generals of the New Unified Army.”
An old soldier turned spymaster; Bateau originally served in the Union Military as a Carnage Pilot – an operator of heavy powered armor. Recruited into the suicidal final strike against the Ark, Bateau served as team leader when complications found the original leader – Colonel Jack Easly – missing if not killed in action. Playing a pivotal role in engaging the embattled Ark Conclave – their legislative council – Bateau struck a deal with Trego and led loyalist forces to victory at the Battle of Kaeleron. From their, Bateau was integral in rebuilding the Ascendancy military into a cohesive fighting force.
Retired as a general, Bateau operates the Cadre for Tactical Intelligence with a tight hand, weaving dozens of black ops missions and undercover agents with direct supervision. Bateau is rarely found without the company of a squad of Meisters – handpicked elite ESPer operatives whose authority are unquestioned in their two-man actions.
As a person, Bateau has seen too many of his friends die around him to truly retain his own Carnage Marine egocentricity – the well-known “immortality complex” that affects a combat-high mech pilot. An outward projection of flippancy covers an intensely serious and calculating individual, having matured with the mantle of authority.
Trego, Supreme Commander of Ascendancy Security
“You’d think people would stop trusting me. I betrayed Agnar, my predecessor, back during the war. But no, the humans saw that as proof I was technically on their side. I maneuvered Kehksol, the leader of the Ark, into relinquishing power in the aftermath of Kaeleron. Said the humans wouldn’t be too happy with the guy who was pursuing a war not unlike genocide still walking around in reconstruction era. This was technically true, same as Agnar being a mad dog that had to be put down. But yeah. I just got tired of seeing people dying en masse. Wanted to do some good in the world before I went out.
…You sure they got that? Tired of those bastards bugging my office. I miss the old days where you could just walk up an punch your problems into submission. Nothing better than that one time where we boarded Easly’s, no Mccorl’s flagship and rumbled over the course of something like seven decks. You see him again, ask him how he got that scar. Tell him Uncle Trego is looking to brawl again for old time’s sake. Oh wait, he’s an AI now. Guess that shoulda served him right for playing the hero.”
An Ark Warmaster serving under Supreme Warmaster Agnar’s command at the time of the breakout of the Union/Ark war, Trego became known for his civilized tactics in the process of subjugation of human space. While Agnar was well-renowned for his savage butchery in regards of evacuees and refugees, Trego conducted his conquests as territory-based affair, acting swiftly and decisively, easily outmaneuvering his opponents while simultaneously allowing civilians to be egressed from the plane of battle. Frequent arguments with Agnar over the war’s conduction reached Union intelligence, and agents under then-Major Easly brokered an uneasy repartee with Trego during the Battle of New Avalon that ultimately led to the assassination of Agnar by Trego’s hand, with the latter’s ascendency to Supreme Ark Warmaster.
It was only after his famed duel with Colonel Easly that Trego covertly defected to the Union. IN the wake of the rise of the Tyrax battle cyborg as the leader of the Ark-led rebellion, Trego joined with Bateau and Easly’s team to capture or kill the Ark Conclave. Instead deciding the sway to the imperiled Conclave to their side, Trego’s team returned to Kaeleron with a pair of fleets behind their backs, essentially winning the battle.
Bateau, on Trego after the battle:
“Of all my friends, or the collection of beings I don’t quite consider enemies, the only other one to continue in the armed forces was Trego. His rank was even more impressive: Supreme Commander of the New Unified Army When it came down to it, that was the only possible move. Trego already had an innate understanding of the management of such a vast, varied force as the NUA: before his essential defection, he was an Ark Warmaster. Not even Grand Admiral Mccorl could ever have claimed to have nearly a tenth of the authority that he wielded. More than that, he was clever, dedicated and very good at his job. It was also a bad move, because Trego was not just a clever commander, he was also a clever politician. The NUA was almost certainly guaranteed success. So was Trego.”
Alton Nureno, Chairman of RingPros // The Integral Tyrax
“Kill one and a hundred shall replace me! I am the Tyrax. Your subjugation is inevitable, your defeat is assured. It’s not over yet! Not by a long shot!”
“Here are those quarterly reports you wanted, sir.”
“Why, thank you Serena. Send in the French delegation, please.”
Originally created as the ultimate combat platform for the Ark, the Tyrax combined Union AI technology with the networking of the Ark to serve as the future of Ark warfare. An incredibly hard to kill organism in its own right, the Tyrax typically operated a dozen three-meter killforms at a time – each commanding some sector of the Ark war machine, Able to network on any level with the infrastructure of the units it commanded, the Tyrax eventually overstepped its bounds and began rampant with the entrusted power, its creators unwittingly creating the rebel movement in their quest to distill Ark warmastery. The Tyrax was seemingly killed during the Battle of Kaeleron by the 303rd Storm Commandos – its killforms first systematically destroyed and then its core program corrupted, confined, and composted.
The loyalist faction never learned the Tyrax always – always – had a plan B. In secret, the Tyrax had long pursued and finally perfected an old and abandoned Ark project. The Tyrax, in short, had managed to implant himself in a human body. While, at the end of the battle, Easly uploaded himself as an AI, the Tyrax downloaded himself into a human statesman – Cevaucian diplomat Alton Nureno - ready to take a direct hand in reconstruction, so as to guide it in a direction the suited him. Extensive files in human psychology and a machine’s outlook enabled the Tyrax to be a merciless power broker with more success at gaining power than ever through a military strategy. All along, however, the Tyrax has been feeding information to the rebels on the fringes – and throughout – the Ascendency, probing his newfound empire’s weaknesses and loading essential positions with his own agents. Despite a tenuous alliance with his former enemies – Trego, Bateau, and Easly – the Tyrax, as Nureno, has managed to string along his allies for this long and is waiting for the right moment to strike.
Ghost Easly/Virgil, Chief AI of CAU and WHITEKNIGHT of CTI
“No, you’ll find I don’t even die right, mate. Got shot in the face, got cybernetics. Got blown in half, joined minds with an AI. Got my processors blown up, downloaded into the CommNet. I don’t even know why you guys keep trying to kill me, to be honest.”
An elite combat pilot during the war, Easly distinguished himself through high-risk/high-reward missions that regularly yielded weeks of reprieve for weary Union forces. His moment of truth came when he assembled a Storm Commando (the then top black ops unit of the Union) team comprised of soldiers from ever discipline of the military (and, well, Trego, whom Easly had a long history with – Trego had blown off half of Easly’s head in a way of accepting the defection offer, a wound Easly replaced with ground-breaking cybernetics) to deal with the Ark Conclave, behind enemy lines, once and for all. The fateful mission led to the recruitment of the Conclave to the loyalist side. During the running battle with the rampant Tyrax, Easly was killing on board the loyalist flagship, but managed to use his cybernetics to merge with the vessel’s AI – a prototype “networker” AI named Virgil, tasked with organized the loyalist fleet at the highest level. With only seconds left until the flagship blew up, Easly/Virgil managed to corrupt the systems of the Tyrax, allowing it to be ‘killed’ by Ian Smith, before Easly managed to transfer off-ship.
Living quietly undercover as Virgil, “Ghost Easly,” as he was later termed, assisted quietly with the reconstruction effort, putting his vast organizational skills to use integrating the incompatible Union and Ark systems. It was only during the terrorist crisis of New Cal that Ghost Easly revealed himself to Bateau. Assisting in the resolution of the crisis, Easly was secretly made the WHITEKNIGHT of CTI by Bateau and Trego, trawling the entirety of the CAU CommNet for intelligence. Transformed from a hotshot fighter jock from the Cevault system to the logistical bedrock of the Ascendancy, Easly may have lost some of his wide-eyed idealism in the process, but the knowledge that no real threat can stop him has made him a powerful covert crusader for justice in CAU affairs.
Ian T Smith, BLACKNIGHT of CTI, ISMC Major (Ret)
“Oh, to be handed straight lines like that more often. I am Major Ian Smith, ISMC (ret), former Storm Commando of the 303rd, current BLACKNIGHT of CTI, and – as of two days ago – the leader of the Resistance on New Cal. Come with me if you want to live.”
The fourth surviving member of Easly’s 303rd Storm Commando team that played the pivotal role in the ending the Ark/Union war, Ian Smith is perhaps best noted for his lack of a high-flying past prior to the end of the war. A simple Marine Captain, Smith gained notoriety for his simple durability – whereas Easly was killed (and later resurrected as an AI) fighting the Tyrax, and Bateau lost an arm, Smith was the one to finally kill the Tyrax. In the midst of evacuating Admiral Mccorl and the rest of the loyalist leadership from a doomed supercarrier, Smith was shot twice, stabbed, dropped off a half-kilometer drop, and still managed to drive his APC containing the Admiralty the length of the ship to a hangar bay before finally being shot again. Over the course of this hour-long chase, Smith killed not one but three Tyrax models. As a man who constantly swore the military was the last place he needed to be, Smith ironically proved to be one of the deadliest soldiers in the Ascedency.
Coming out of retirement a decade later during the famed terrorist takeover of New Cal, Smith accepted the mantle of CTI BLACKNIGHT – a position removed from the chain of command and the laws of the Ascendency, capable of pursuing whatever course of action he deemed necessary to preserve the fragile peace. The combat arm of the two CTI KNIGHTS, Smith is supplied intelligence through the WHITEKNIGHT, Ghost Easly, the AI imprint of his former commander. Sardonic and taciturn, Smith views his life so far one long obstacle to a nice retirement – despite his irrepressible need to play the hero.
Atmos Karras, CTI Meister, A-Sec Senior Captain // Wall, CTI Mesiter, Nahktar Cyborg Specialist
“Oh, I see how it is. People think, because I’m an ESPer, that it’s fun to send me to clear out the section of the base where an entire platoon of Carnage mechs are gearing up. Hardy har. ‘Oh, Atmos, you clearly can do this, am I right?’ ‘Oh no, Bateau, you’re just doing that because I flipped a bus onto your speeder during the last warlord takedown and now those mech are going to punch me in the face.’ Hope you guys enjoy your kicks.”
“Jesus, Karras, all you do is whine.”
“Cause I know I got you on my side. I’m not exactly out of practice either. Took out that sniper from the Transfer last week, didn’t I?”
“Oooh, so impressive. Let me lean in here and share a secret with you. I eat Carnage Marines for breakfast.”
The most senior of the CTI Meister teams, the two-man wrecking force of Karras and Wall easily gained fame dismantling the entire southern quadrant division of the Transfer in less than two months of bloody, fast-paced blitzes, infiltrations, and assaults. While Karras was discovered by Bateau during an investigation of a Sun Triad ring trafficking ESPer war orphans, Wall was a former reb who managed to hold off an entire division for a week during the Siege of Lockheed X before being eviscerated in close-quarters combat when Bateau took to the field personally. Technically dead, Wall was rebuilt into the ultimate cybernetic Nahktar killing machine and offered a chance a redemption through service as a Meister. Wall, now finding himself as an outcast in mainstream Nahktar society due to his overtech, had no choice but to accept the bargain.
A trained sniper, Karras is nonetheless flippant (giving rise to the popular A-Sec meme “Atmos Karras is a dick”), compared to Wall’s contemplative and religious personality. The public face of CTI, the team often places Bateau in the heat of a media firestorm, but few can argue with the results of the pair’s hyperkinetic style.
Katherine Mccorl, Admiral of the 10th Defense Fleet (“Black Fleet”)
“Leave the theatrics to Trego. That’s why he’s in command. I’m just doing what I’ve always been doing: protecting lives, one hypernuclear bombardment at a time.”
The leader of the primary advance fleet of the A-Sec Navy, Mccorl currently operates as the primary field commander of A-Sec forces and Trego’s second in the command structure. The youngest of the Union Admiralty, Mccorl found herself leading the shattered Union military in the midnight hours of the Ark/Union war after a decapitating strike from the Tyrax destroyed the 2nd Expeditionary Fleet. With little choice but to accept the team-up offered by Easly, Bateau, and Trego, Mccorl worked with Trego to defeat the combined rebel forces at Kaeleron. A career military officer, Mccorl with compassionate for her subordinates and other referred to as the “Mother” of the Navy. Still, Mccorl is no-nonsense in combat – to the point that her meme that her “Mother” moniker was short for “Motherfucker” was second only to the famed over-the-top tales of Karras and Wall’s exploits.
Foreign Policy
In regards to its policy of reconstruction, the Ascendency is extremely open in its economic arrangements, constantly seeking economic deals with nearby polities – as it views an economic alliance as a near-guarantee of allied peace. In relation to its ever-growing status, the Ascendency maintains a robust military, yet maintains an even more fearsome diplomatic corps, preferring the exhaustion of all nonviolent solutions before lighting up the main guns.
Astrogeography
RingCor: 11
The central core of Ascendency space revolves around the Cevault system, with the Vanas shipyards. Administration is found on Concordis, a positively massive O’Neill cylinder orbiting the shipyards. Not far way is the Regency sector, the old home sector of the Ark people. With political power shifting to the Cevault system, Regency finds itself still a cultural powerhouse, but is suffering overpopulation effects as cybernetics manufacturers move their business to the middle colonies.
• Cevault (Home Sector):3
o Sector Population: 75 Billion +1
o Sector Planets: New California (New Cal), the Vanas Megastructure (including Concordis, the capital), Falvacion, Cevault
o Sector GDP: $20,000 +2
o Stargate and H-Junction Present
• Regency (Core Sector):8
o Sector Population: 65 Billion +1
o Sector Planets: The Ark (megastructure in orbit around Zrmahk Gas Giant), Zrmahk II, Zrmahk IV, Zrmahk X, Varen
o Sector GDP: $14,000 +1
o Stargate Present +1
RingMid: 9
The middle colonies represent the breadbasket of the Ascendency. Cross-economic spread has been encouraged to avoid the human and Nahktar-dominated sectors from producing only what are required for their species, so as to overcome cultural barriers. Economic diversity is the name of RingMid’s game, providing home for the Circuit’s cybernetics industries, as well as lesser shipyards and the typical service-oriented MegaCorps that has operational centers in the Circuit.
• Locklear (Human-Dominated Midrange Sector): 4
o Sector Population: 30 Billion
o Sector Planets: Locklear X, Duox, Muddy Water, Far End, New Wales
o Sector GDP: $7,000
o Stargate Present +1
• Adjutant (Nahktar-Dominated MidRange): 5
o Sector Population: 30 Billion
o Sector Planets: Sahad, Il Samak, Scorpia, Prince’s End
o Sector GDP:$8,000
o H-Junction Present + 2
RingFring: 5
The Far Fringe, as it is known, houses complete opposites: hard-bitten mining outposts, exploratory colonies, and rebel-held compounds. Both human-centric and nahk-centric interests combat each other daily, even above the prowling fleets that prey upon the unlucky shipper. The shadowy customer at the edge of a bar may be an undercover Meister, a rebel mercenary, or the Triad kingpin simply observing his charges. Comparisons to the old earth wild west are not entirely inaccurate, with the only law being a ship on shore leave or a CTI Corsair. Removed from the hustle of economy or the interaction of the galactic stage, the area provides the perfect haven for the remnants of the rebellion organized and covered by the Integral Tyrax.
• Eriad (Mining-oriented Colony Sector): 1
o Sector Population: 10 Billion
o Sector Planets: Farface, Black Sheep, Grunt, Fool’s Gold
o Sector GDP: $2,000
• Inner Fringe (Colony Sector): 1
o Sector Population: 10 Billion
o Sector Planets: Jackson, Li, Keng, Neuquen
o Sector GDP: 2,000
• Omega (Rebel-held Colony Sector): 3
o Sector Population: 25 Billion +1
o Sector Planets: Rogue, Raith, Red Shoal, Butcher
o Sector GDP:$ 7,000 +1
o Warp Gate Present + 1
Total GDP: $60,000
Total Population: 225 Billion
Military: Ascendency Security (A-Sec)
A-Sec tends to operate in a decentralized manner, not unlike the original Ark set-up of fleet-bearing Warmasters. Each Fleet Commander holds the chains of an entire fleet – be it Defense, Advance, or Expeditionary – with the associated Marine detachment. Each planet, upon this, has its own militia, ranging from the sheriff-led Space Posses of RingFring to the elite paramilitary organizations of RingCor (VanSec of the Cevault system is practically a fleet in its own right, while the Regency’s Rear Arbitrats operate not unlike the Meisters, just with less ESPer and more tactical one-person orbital strikes).
Advance fleets tend to be the ultimate authority in RingFring sectors. Rarely traveling beyond Ascendancy borders, Advance fleets act as the guardians of Circuit space, simultaneously administrating Far Fringe worlds, standing watch against rebel incursions, and maintaining the A-Sec Avalonian Line of Defense Stations. AdFleets tend to favor a Marine contingent and a division of Carnage mechs over a dedicated fighter presence.
Defense fleets are inaccurately named, since they have full range of the Ascendency and beyond its borders. Highly mobile and adaptable, Defense fleets acts the main juggernauts of the A-Sec war machine, given vast discretionary powers in combat. Personalities tend to manifest themselves here above all, with Trego’s anvil and flanking hammer strategy contrasting against Mccorl’s environmental traps (using asteroid fields and nuclear bombs to create giant shrapnel fields, for example).
Expeditionary fleets take the Defense fleet strategy and morph it into a tighter, smaller package. ExpFleets are used as lethal applicants in any internal crisis, backup for Advance fleets in rebel clashes, diplomatic caravans, humanitarian convoys, and actual exploratory groups. Given the wide-ranging mission profiles of ExpFleets, its personnel tend to be more colorful than the more standard D-Fleets or the traditionally conservative AdFleets. ExpFleets tend to favor fighter, shuttle, and gunboat contingents over a dedicated Marine detachment, however, ExpFleets tend to be known for their smaller, but more elite security groundpounders, trained in starship boarding and ground recon/infiltration.
The Cevaucian Ascendency
Species: Nahktar, Human
Alternate Names: The Union, CAU, The Circuit, MetaCon
Official Languages: French-Saxon, Treyal
Official Currency: The Union standard credit (Ω)
Overview
Ironically, the Cevaucian Union was born out of an alliance of human crime rings in the lawless frontier of the deep core, a century before the ultimate formation of the Union. Warring clans found it simpler to put their tools towards a common purpose than to pursue mutually destructive practices. As polities began to coalesce in the galactic core, mounting pressure from the increasingly organized core powers led to a gradual shift in Cevaucian policy, a ‘legitimization’ if you will. Instead of illegal and dangerous cybercomps, instead of stealthy and quick drug frigates, the Circuit began producing cheap and readily accessible civilian cyber-upgrades, as well as dependable and massive cargo freighters.
Swift prosperity and expanding profits allowed the Conglomerate to soon spread from the home system of Cevaucia to two other systems. Rapidly capitalizing on the genuine lack of serious competition, the Conglomerate invested in the now famous Vanas Shipyards in the Diegon system. Nearly thirty years were spent constructing the ten-mile wide base, partially hewing the center out of an asteroid while constructing on site the shipyard’s famed spiral arms.
It was the Union’s economic supremacy in the local sector that led it into a clash with the Ark, the powerful remnants of a shattered rimward imperium, operated by the fearsome reptilian Nahktar. Mineral exploration swiftly led to contact and conflict with the fiercely territorial Ark nomadic warfleets. Destructive fires of war atomized entire systems, with the war eventually tipping toward’s the Ark’s favor when a lightning strike captured the Diegon system and deprived the Union of its signature logistic advantage.
The battle lines swiftly changed when rogue elements in both governments formed a pact to overthrow their respective regimes and form a dictatorial alliance. This rapid reversal of the playing field forced loyalist factions from both parties together for a climactic battle over the local Kaeleron Singularity. The rebel forces were eventually routed with the timely intervention of multiple fleets liberated from the relatively unguarded Vanas Shipyards by loyalist strike teams.
Over the remnants of the swirling wreckage of the accretion disc, the loyalist factions of the Ark and the Union signed the Falvacion-Trego pact, bringing into existence the modern Cevaucian Ascendency. Integration, obviously, was a long and painful process between the two formerly opposed polities, with multiple language, social, and linguistic barriers to overcome. Fittingly, the new Ascendancy found common ground on the subject of shipcrafting, allowing the two races to reemerge into the galactic eye as respected source of civilian and commercial spacecraft known for their well-built value.
Two decades later, the Ascendancy stands poised to reclaim its peaceful niche in the galactic economy, though not all is peaceful in the Circuit, as it is known to civilian spacers (for its well traveled FTL lanes). Multiple dissident factions, descendant of the original rebels, prowl through the intelligence echelons of the CAU’s Cadre for Tactical Intelligence (CTI), perpetually maneuvering events to engineer an eventual resurgence of the neo-fascist ideology. Long-lived Nahktar statebeings, wise with centuries of experience in the art of machinations, engage in a secretive cold war in the halls of power for dominance in Ascendancy politics. Chief among these guile operatives is Trego, Ark warmaster ascendant to Supreme Commander of A-Sec (the organized Cevaucian armed forces). Engaged in an uneasy pact with embattled CTI Director Leonardo Bateau – besieged by predatory rebels – and Forum Chairman Alton Nureno – a soft-spoken and ruthless power broker – Trego serves as with the trio as the face of the Cevaucian Ascendancy.
Structure
The Ascendancy maintains three councils of twelve (plus one chairman) for the various facets of Cevaucian government. The first commission – the Ring of Trade (RingTra) - provides oversight over the overall business affairs of the conglomerate, much like the board of directors. The overall control of intersystem economic relations rests with the board, as well as the massive CAU technological development apparatus. In order to maintain the galactic edge in cybernetics technology, CMC R&D is closely linked to CTI, the CAU’s crack intelligence network, taking the adage to heart that spycraft is not entirely about military affairs.
The second council on the “High Circuit” stands as the Ring of Prosperity (RingPros), with its vested interest in the governance of all those beings who call the worlds under Cevaucian control home. Contrary to the popular image of the faceless super-corporation, the Ring of Prosperity stands as a guardian of civil rights and welfare. While those who are employed directly by the company would logical receive the very best benefits (being the highest tier of citizens), those ‘basic’ civilians who are not on CAU payrolls are still protected under the Cevaucian Domestic Charter. Since the Conglomerate obviously cannot produce every product and provide every service, an incredibly diverse field of smaller corps provide the consumer bedrock of the Cevaucian middle class (under the belief that, with so much minor competition, no one single group will gain too much power).
Standing between the two Rings is the Adjudication (RingAdj), the CMC equivalent of internal affairs – essentially a tree of judicial courts. From the required civil courts to the supreme Arbitrat, the Adjudication mediates all disputes in the Conglomerate. Ascension through the any section of the ranks of the Conglomerate bureaucracy is strictly merit-based, a tradition of annual competence exams that ironically dates back to the days of the Triads, Crime Families, and Treyal Yakuza and who oversight now falls to the Adjudication (even it itself is not exempt from the analyses).
Representation is vested in a massive Forum, with each planet or habitat afforded a pair of representatives. While long conflict has existed over the overrepresentation of smaller populaces and what indeed constitutes a habitat, the Forum has been relatively stable over its existence, forming an crisp, if formal relationship with the Ring of Prosperity. Chairman Alton Nureno, heir to the insanely powerful NurenTek clan and current Chairman of RingPros has presided over the most prosperous era in Cevaucian history, thanks in no small part to his ruthless coalition-forging and shark-like trawling for every single vote.
Economy
The “MetaCon,” as it is known verse-wide, is the nationalized conglomerate that supervises and operates the famed Vanas Shipyards of the Cevault system. Built upon well-crafted commercial shipping manufacturing, MetaCon constructs ships and virtually anything associated with them – civilian navigation suites, computer ‘virtual intelligences” that manage almost every other facet of starship operation. Life support, navshields, computer firewalls, communication transponders, sensor arrays, and maintenance drone management.
The other major industry of the CAU is cybernetics crafting. While MetaCon shipbuilding is known for its value, the assorted firms of NeticTech and McDonnell Martin have gained a reputation oversector-wide for extremely high-end cybernetics. Operating on the very bleeding edge of the technological curve, ‘netics crafters often secure military contracts for special forces units or gengineered supersoldiers, as well as high-level brass and specialized extreme-environment agents.
Culture
CAU is, to say the least, extremely metropolitan at its core, where Union and Ark species have intermingled over the course of a century and cooperated in economic and political ventures. The fringe worlds – well, not so much. Since Ark and Union territory still roughly remains homogenous towards opposite ends of the Circuit, racial harmony is less well-founded and tensions still run high. Rogue warlords run along the predatory fringe of former Ark territory, either remnants of the organized rebellion, or hardline generals that refuse to accept peace with such a bitter former enemy.
As a whole, however, CAU culture can be taken to run parallel to the galactic norm, even if it runs particularly liberal. MetaCon tends to encourage free thinking in order to foster innovation in the development process, a decades-old undercurrent that has grown to form a fierce, if subtle independent streak in the average CAU citizen. Nahktar culture, in regards to human, tends to be more group-and-family oriented, perhaps due to the strong nonverbal-nature of Nahktar communication. This has led to the development of Treyal as a trade language between humanity and the Nahktar, a rough lingua franca between French-Saxon and Trahk, the ancestral Nahktar tongue.
Perhaps fittingly considering the Union’s origins in organized crime, the CAU is possessed of a large and well-developed criminal underbelly. The Nahktar-operated Zrmahk Syndicate is primary known as a protection racket on frontier Ark worlds – legitimately providing protection, mind, given the prevalence of pirates, raiders, rebels, and other malcontents. The co-species Transfer acts as the primary mover of illegitimate goods in the sector, from narcotics to weapons – but never sentient trafficking. Meanwhile, operating in splinters cells ubiquitously on every planet, the pro-human Sun Triad offshoot provides information brokering through the sheer nature of the Triad’s permeation through every low and mid-level CAU operation.
Dramatis Personae
Director Leonardo J Bateau, ISMC General (Ret), head of the Cadre for Tactical Intelligence
“Here's something that lots of people don't know. After the long, boring, needlessly vast ceremony where they pinned enough medals on my chest to make the seams creak, a few important people took me into a small room. There, they put a large gun to my head, and asked me quite pointedly to never open my mouth to anyone about pretty much anything. At the time, I was not afraid. I could count the number of times I had been actually afraid on two fingers. I was, and I suppose still am, a Carnage Marine. Six men and a firearm floating an inch from the back of my skull is certainly not enough to frighten me. Not after the shit that went down around Kaeleron. It helped that at the time, I was effectively immortal. I politely told them that they should try this same trick with Trego. They more politely asked me to become a general.
I thought about that for a long time. I didn’t leave the room, even after they had. I considered what they had said: Leaders were needed. Strong leaders that the people could rely upon. It makes a fair amount of sense really; I had recently been party to the saving of the galaxy, and it had been televised, after a fashion. I agreed with their sentiments. I also liked the idea of being a general – it was unusual for a Carnage Marine to actually get that sort of brass. They swore me in as one of the first generals of the New Unified Army.”
An old soldier turned spymaster; Bateau originally served in the Union Military as a Carnage Pilot – an operator of heavy powered armor. Recruited into the suicidal final strike against the Ark, Bateau served as team leader when complications found the original leader – Colonel Jack Easly – missing if not killed in action. Playing a pivotal role in engaging the embattled Ark Conclave – their legislative council – Bateau struck a deal with Trego and led loyalist forces to victory at the Battle of Kaeleron. From their, Bateau was integral in rebuilding the Ascendancy military into a cohesive fighting force.
Retired as a general, Bateau operates the Cadre for Tactical Intelligence with a tight hand, weaving dozens of black ops missions and undercover agents with direct supervision. Bateau is rarely found without the company of a squad of Meisters – handpicked elite ESPer operatives whose authority are unquestioned in their two-man actions.
As a person, Bateau has seen too many of his friends die around him to truly retain his own Carnage Marine egocentricity – the well-known “immortality complex” that affects a combat-high mech pilot. An outward projection of flippancy covers an intensely serious and calculating individual, having matured with the mantle of authority.
Trego, Supreme Commander of Ascendancy Security
“You’d think people would stop trusting me. I betrayed Agnar, my predecessor, back during the war. But no, the humans saw that as proof I was technically on their side. I maneuvered Kehksol, the leader of the Ark, into relinquishing power in the aftermath of Kaeleron. Said the humans wouldn’t be too happy with the guy who was pursuing a war not unlike genocide still walking around in reconstruction era. This was technically true, same as Agnar being a mad dog that had to be put down. But yeah. I just got tired of seeing people dying en masse. Wanted to do some good in the world before I went out.
…You sure they got that? Tired of those bastards bugging my office. I miss the old days where you could just walk up an punch your problems into submission. Nothing better than that one time where we boarded Easly’s, no Mccorl’s flagship and rumbled over the course of something like seven decks. You see him again, ask him how he got that scar. Tell him Uncle Trego is looking to brawl again for old time’s sake. Oh wait, he’s an AI now. Guess that shoulda served him right for playing the hero.”
An Ark Warmaster serving under Supreme Warmaster Agnar’s command at the time of the breakout of the Union/Ark war, Trego became known for his civilized tactics in the process of subjugation of human space. While Agnar was well-renowned for his savage butchery in regards of evacuees and refugees, Trego conducted his conquests as territory-based affair, acting swiftly and decisively, easily outmaneuvering his opponents while simultaneously allowing civilians to be egressed from the plane of battle. Frequent arguments with Agnar over the war’s conduction reached Union intelligence, and agents under then-Major Easly brokered an uneasy repartee with Trego during the Battle of New Avalon that ultimately led to the assassination of Agnar by Trego’s hand, with the latter’s ascendency to Supreme Ark Warmaster.
It was only after his famed duel with Colonel Easly that Trego covertly defected to the Union. IN the wake of the rise of the Tyrax battle cyborg as the leader of the Ark-led rebellion, Trego joined with Bateau and Easly’s team to capture or kill the Ark Conclave. Instead deciding the sway to the imperiled Conclave to their side, Trego’s team returned to Kaeleron with a pair of fleets behind their backs, essentially winning the battle.
Bateau, on Trego after the battle:
“Of all my friends, or the collection of beings I don’t quite consider enemies, the only other one to continue in the armed forces was Trego. His rank was even more impressive: Supreme Commander of the New Unified Army When it came down to it, that was the only possible move. Trego already had an innate understanding of the management of such a vast, varied force as the NUA: before his essential defection, he was an Ark Warmaster. Not even Grand Admiral Mccorl could ever have claimed to have nearly a tenth of the authority that he wielded. More than that, he was clever, dedicated and very good at his job. It was also a bad move, because Trego was not just a clever commander, he was also a clever politician. The NUA was almost certainly guaranteed success. So was Trego.”
Alton Nureno, Chairman of RingPros // The Integral Tyrax
“Kill one and a hundred shall replace me! I am the Tyrax. Your subjugation is inevitable, your defeat is assured. It’s not over yet! Not by a long shot!”
“Here are those quarterly reports you wanted, sir.”
“Why, thank you Serena. Send in the French delegation, please.”
Originally created as the ultimate combat platform for the Ark, the Tyrax combined Union AI technology with the networking of the Ark to serve as the future of Ark warfare. An incredibly hard to kill organism in its own right, the Tyrax typically operated a dozen three-meter killforms at a time – each commanding some sector of the Ark war machine, Able to network on any level with the infrastructure of the units it commanded, the Tyrax eventually overstepped its bounds and began rampant with the entrusted power, its creators unwittingly creating the rebel movement in their quest to distill Ark warmastery. The Tyrax was seemingly killed during the Battle of Kaeleron by the 303rd Storm Commandos – its killforms first systematically destroyed and then its core program corrupted, confined, and composted.
The loyalist faction never learned the Tyrax always – always – had a plan B. In secret, the Tyrax had long pursued and finally perfected an old and abandoned Ark project. The Tyrax, in short, had managed to implant himself in a human body. While, at the end of the battle, Easly uploaded himself as an AI, the Tyrax downloaded himself into a human statesman – Cevaucian diplomat Alton Nureno - ready to take a direct hand in reconstruction, so as to guide it in a direction the suited him. Extensive files in human psychology and a machine’s outlook enabled the Tyrax to be a merciless power broker with more success at gaining power than ever through a military strategy. All along, however, the Tyrax has been feeding information to the rebels on the fringes – and throughout – the Ascendency, probing his newfound empire’s weaknesses and loading essential positions with his own agents. Despite a tenuous alliance with his former enemies – Trego, Bateau, and Easly – the Tyrax, as Nureno, has managed to string along his allies for this long and is waiting for the right moment to strike.
Ghost Easly/Virgil, Chief AI of CAU and WHITEKNIGHT of CTI
“No, you’ll find I don’t even die right, mate. Got shot in the face, got cybernetics. Got blown in half, joined minds with an AI. Got my processors blown up, downloaded into the CommNet. I don’t even know why you guys keep trying to kill me, to be honest.”
An elite combat pilot during the war, Easly distinguished himself through high-risk/high-reward missions that regularly yielded weeks of reprieve for weary Union forces. His moment of truth came when he assembled a Storm Commando (the then top black ops unit of the Union) team comprised of soldiers from ever discipline of the military (and, well, Trego, whom Easly had a long history with – Trego had blown off half of Easly’s head in a way of accepting the defection offer, a wound Easly replaced with ground-breaking cybernetics) to deal with the Ark Conclave, behind enemy lines, once and for all. The fateful mission led to the recruitment of the Conclave to the loyalist side. During the running battle with the rampant Tyrax, Easly was killing on board the loyalist flagship, but managed to use his cybernetics to merge with the vessel’s AI – a prototype “networker” AI named Virgil, tasked with organized the loyalist fleet at the highest level. With only seconds left until the flagship blew up, Easly/Virgil managed to corrupt the systems of the Tyrax, allowing it to be ‘killed’ by Ian Smith, before Easly managed to transfer off-ship.
Living quietly undercover as Virgil, “Ghost Easly,” as he was later termed, assisted quietly with the reconstruction effort, putting his vast organizational skills to use integrating the incompatible Union and Ark systems. It was only during the terrorist crisis of New Cal that Ghost Easly revealed himself to Bateau. Assisting in the resolution of the crisis, Easly was secretly made the WHITEKNIGHT of CTI by Bateau and Trego, trawling the entirety of the CAU CommNet for intelligence. Transformed from a hotshot fighter jock from the Cevault system to the logistical bedrock of the Ascendancy, Easly may have lost some of his wide-eyed idealism in the process, but the knowledge that no real threat can stop him has made him a powerful covert crusader for justice in CAU affairs.
Ian T Smith, BLACKNIGHT of CTI, ISMC Major (Ret)
“Oh, to be handed straight lines like that more often. I am Major Ian Smith, ISMC (ret), former Storm Commando of the 303rd, current BLACKNIGHT of CTI, and – as of two days ago – the leader of the Resistance on New Cal. Come with me if you want to live.”
The fourth surviving member of Easly’s 303rd Storm Commando team that played the pivotal role in the ending the Ark/Union war, Ian Smith is perhaps best noted for his lack of a high-flying past prior to the end of the war. A simple Marine Captain, Smith gained notoriety for his simple durability – whereas Easly was killed (and later resurrected as an AI) fighting the Tyrax, and Bateau lost an arm, Smith was the one to finally kill the Tyrax. In the midst of evacuating Admiral Mccorl and the rest of the loyalist leadership from a doomed supercarrier, Smith was shot twice, stabbed, dropped off a half-kilometer drop, and still managed to drive his APC containing the Admiralty the length of the ship to a hangar bay before finally being shot again. Over the course of this hour-long chase, Smith killed not one but three Tyrax models. As a man who constantly swore the military was the last place he needed to be, Smith ironically proved to be one of the deadliest soldiers in the Ascedency.
Coming out of retirement a decade later during the famed terrorist takeover of New Cal, Smith accepted the mantle of CTI BLACKNIGHT – a position removed from the chain of command and the laws of the Ascendency, capable of pursuing whatever course of action he deemed necessary to preserve the fragile peace. The combat arm of the two CTI KNIGHTS, Smith is supplied intelligence through the WHITEKNIGHT, Ghost Easly, the AI imprint of his former commander. Sardonic and taciturn, Smith views his life so far one long obstacle to a nice retirement – despite his irrepressible need to play the hero.
Atmos Karras, CTI Meister, A-Sec Senior Captain // Wall, CTI Mesiter, Nahktar Cyborg Specialist
“Oh, I see how it is. People think, because I’m an ESPer, that it’s fun to send me to clear out the section of the base where an entire platoon of Carnage mechs are gearing up. Hardy har. ‘Oh, Atmos, you clearly can do this, am I right?’ ‘Oh no, Bateau, you’re just doing that because I flipped a bus onto your speeder during the last warlord takedown and now those mech are going to punch me in the face.’ Hope you guys enjoy your kicks.”
“Jesus, Karras, all you do is whine.”
“Cause I know I got you on my side. I’m not exactly out of practice either. Took out that sniper from the Transfer last week, didn’t I?”
“Oooh, so impressive. Let me lean in here and share a secret with you. I eat Carnage Marines for breakfast.”
The most senior of the CTI Meister teams, the two-man wrecking force of Karras and Wall easily gained fame dismantling the entire southern quadrant division of the Transfer in less than two months of bloody, fast-paced blitzes, infiltrations, and assaults. While Karras was discovered by Bateau during an investigation of a Sun Triad ring trafficking ESPer war orphans, Wall was a former reb who managed to hold off an entire division for a week during the Siege of Lockheed X before being eviscerated in close-quarters combat when Bateau took to the field personally. Technically dead, Wall was rebuilt into the ultimate cybernetic Nahktar killing machine and offered a chance a redemption through service as a Meister. Wall, now finding himself as an outcast in mainstream Nahktar society due to his overtech, had no choice but to accept the bargain.
A trained sniper, Karras is nonetheless flippant (giving rise to the popular A-Sec meme “Atmos Karras is a dick”), compared to Wall’s contemplative and religious personality. The public face of CTI, the team often places Bateau in the heat of a media firestorm, but few can argue with the results of the pair’s hyperkinetic style.
Katherine Mccorl, Admiral of the 10th Defense Fleet (“Black Fleet”)
“Leave the theatrics to Trego. That’s why he’s in command. I’m just doing what I’ve always been doing: protecting lives, one hypernuclear bombardment at a time.”
The leader of the primary advance fleet of the A-Sec Navy, Mccorl currently operates as the primary field commander of A-Sec forces and Trego’s second in the command structure. The youngest of the Union Admiralty, Mccorl found herself leading the shattered Union military in the midnight hours of the Ark/Union war after a decapitating strike from the Tyrax destroyed the 2nd Expeditionary Fleet. With little choice but to accept the team-up offered by Easly, Bateau, and Trego, Mccorl worked with Trego to defeat the combined rebel forces at Kaeleron. A career military officer, Mccorl with compassionate for her subordinates and other referred to as the “Mother” of the Navy. Still, Mccorl is no-nonsense in combat – to the point that her meme that her “Mother” moniker was short for “Motherfucker” was second only to the famed over-the-top tales of Karras and Wall’s exploits.
Foreign Policy
In regards to its policy of reconstruction, the Ascendency is extremely open in its economic arrangements, constantly seeking economic deals with nearby polities – as it views an economic alliance as a near-guarantee of allied peace. In relation to its ever-growing status, the Ascendency maintains a robust military, yet maintains an even more fearsome diplomatic corps, preferring the exhaustion of all nonviolent solutions before lighting up the main guns.
Astrogeography
RingCor: 11
The central core of Ascendency space revolves around the Cevault system, with the Vanas shipyards. Administration is found on Concordis, a positively massive O’Neill cylinder orbiting the shipyards. Not far way is the Regency sector, the old home sector of the Ark people. With political power shifting to the Cevault system, Regency finds itself still a cultural powerhouse, but is suffering overpopulation effects as cybernetics manufacturers move their business to the middle colonies.
• Cevault (Home Sector):3
o Sector Population: 75 Billion +1
o Sector Planets: New California (New Cal), the Vanas Megastructure (including Concordis, the capital), Falvacion, Cevault
o Sector GDP: $20,000 +2
o Stargate and H-Junction Present
• Regency (Core Sector):8
o Sector Population: 65 Billion +1
o Sector Planets: The Ark (megastructure in orbit around Zrmahk Gas Giant), Zrmahk II, Zrmahk IV, Zrmahk X, Varen
o Sector GDP: $14,000 +1
o Stargate Present +1
RingMid: 9
The middle colonies represent the breadbasket of the Ascendency. Cross-economic spread has been encouraged to avoid the human and Nahktar-dominated sectors from producing only what are required for their species, so as to overcome cultural barriers. Economic diversity is the name of RingMid’s game, providing home for the Circuit’s cybernetics industries, as well as lesser shipyards and the typical service-oriented MegaCorps that has operational centers in the Circuit.
• Locklear (Human-Dominated Midrange Sector): 4
o Sector Population: 30 Billion
o Sector Planets: Locklear X, Duox, Muddy Water, Far End, New Wales
o Sector GDP: $7,000
o Stargate Present +1
• Adjutant (Nahktar-Dominated MidRange): 5
o Sector Population: 30 Billion
o Sector Planets: Sahad, Il Samak, Scorpia, Prince’s End
o Sector GDP:$8,000
o H-Junction Present + 2
RingFring: 5
The Far Fringe, as it is known, houses complete opposites: hard-bitten mining outposts, exploratory colonies, and rebel-held compounds. Both human-centric and nahk-centric interests combat each other daily, even above the prowling fleets that prey upon the unlucky shipper. The shadowy customer at the edge of a bar may be an undercover Meister, a rebel mercenary, or the Triad kingpin simply observing his charges. Comparisons to the old earth wild west are not entirely inaccurate, with the only law being a ship on shore leave or a CTI Corsair. Removed from the hustle of economy or the interaction of the galactic stage, the area provides the perfect haven for the remnants of the rebellion organized and covered by the Integral Tyrax.
• Eriad (Mining-oriented Colony Sector): 1
o Sector Population: 10 Billion
o Sector Planets: Farface, Black Sheep, Grunt, Fool’s Gold
o Sector GDP: $2,000
• Inner Fringe (Colony Sector): 1
o Sector Population: 10 Billion
o Sector Planets: Jackson, Li, Keng, Neuquen
o Sector GDP: 2,000
• Omega (Rebel-held Colony Sector): 3
o Sector Population: 25 Billion +1
o Sector Planets: Rogue, Raith, Red Shoal, Butcher
o Sector GDP:$ 7,000 +1
o Warp Gate Present + 1
Total GDP: $60,000
Total Population: 225 Billion
Military: Ascendency Security (A-Sec)
A-Sec tends to operate in a decentralized manner, not unlike the original Ark set-up of fleet-bearing Warmasters. Each Fleet Commander holds the chains of an entire fleet – be it Defense, Advance, or Expeditionary – with the associated Marine detachment. Each planet, upon this, has its own militia, ranging from the sheriff-led Space Posses of RingFring to the elite paramilitary organizations of RingCor (VanSec of the Cevault system is practically a fleet in its own right, while the Regency’s Rear Arbitrats operate not unlike the Meisters, just with less ESPer and more tactical one-person orbital strikes).
Advance fleets tend to be the ultimate authority in RingFring sectors. Rarely traveling beyond Ascendancy borders, Advance fleets act as the guardians of Circuit space, simultaneously administrating Far Fringe worlds, standing watch against rebel incursions, and maintaining the A-Sec Avalonian Line of Defense Stations. AdFleets tend to favor a Marine contingent and a division of Carnage mechs over a dedicated fighter presence.
Defense fleets are inaccurately named, since they have full range of the Ascendency and beyond its borders. Highly mobile and adaptable, Defense fleets acts the main juggernauts of the A-Sec war machine, given vast discretionary powers in combat. Personalities tend to manifest themselves here above all, with Trego’s anvil and flanking hammer strategy contrasting against Mccorl’s environmental traps (using asteroid fields and nuclear bombs to create giant shrapnel fields, for example).
Expeditionary fleets take the Defense fleet strategy and morph it into a tighter, smaller package. ExpFleets are used as lethal applicants in any internal crisis, backup for Advance fleets in rebel clashes, diplomatic caravans, humanitarian convoys, and actual exploratory groups. Given the wide-ranging mission profiles of ExpFleets, its personnel tend to be more colorful than the more standard D-Fleets or the traditionally conservative AdFleets. ExpFleets tend to favor fighter, shuttle, and gunboat contingents over a dedicated Marine detachment, however, ExpFleets tend to be known for their smaller, but more elite security groundpounders, trained in starship boarding and ground recon/infiltration.
Last edited by Moby Halcyon on 2010-06-06 10:43pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Can I say something about destiny? Screw destiny! If this evil thing comes we'll fight it, and we'll keep fighting it until we whoop it. 'Cause destiny is just another word for inevitable and nothing's inevitable as long as you stand up, look it in the eye, and say 'You're evitable!'"
—Fred, Angel
—Fred, Angel
Re: An SDNW Proposal
A problem.
I assume you're spending one NCP on pop and one on GDP? Well, your Pop would be 65 Billion then.
• Regency (Core Sector):8
o Sector Population: 45 Billion
o Sector Planets: The Ark (megastructure in orbit around Zrmahk Gas Giant), Zrmahk II, Zrmahk IV, Zrmahk X, Varen
o Sector GDP: $14,000
o Stargate Present +1
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Shoot some with darts? Seriously? You've got to be kidding me. "Let's just shoot a Roomba with a dart and try to hack it, or we'll take apart the motor to the vacuum and hack it through there!" Yeah, sorry, things do not work that way any more than you could hack the human brain by taking control of how a person moves their big toe. Obviously if you have it at your disposal the best they could do is self-destruct, but shooting some darts to hack it? That's just stupid.Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:There are obviously always physical means of infiltrating a robot. SHoot some darts with the necessary computer AI viruses, or some means to forcibly establish an out link to the open, and allow for hacking by an AI.
No one ever said that AI hacking routes are limited by mere existing connections. Every wire in a system itself allows a connection to be infiltrated because it leads to the system bus and thus the rest of the system.
Steel, on nBSG's finale: "I'd liken it to having a really great time with these girls, you go back to their place, think its going to get even better- suddenly there are dicks everywhere and you realise you were in a ladyboy bar all evening."
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Sea Skimmer
- Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
- Posts: 37390
- Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
- Location: Passchendaele City, HAB
Re: An SDNW Proposal
No it isn't. You can hack an electronics system through induction. In fact this could totally nullify any attempt at defense against hacking, since you could directly seize control of the hardware and erase the memory if you wanted. This is no more preposterous, indeed perhaps less so, then Ghost in the Shell level cybernetics are in the first place.Kuroji wrote: Shoot some with darts? Seriously? You've got to be kidding me. "Let's just shoot a Roomba with a dart and try to hack it, or we'll take apart the motor to the vacuum and hack it through there!" Yeah, sorry, things do not work that way any more than you could hack the human brain by taking control of how a person moves their big toe. Obviously if you have it at your disposal the best they could do is self-destruct, but shooting some darts to hack it? That's just stupid.
Also... good luck EMP shielding stuff that has to integrate with a living being.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
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Moby Halcyon
- Youngling
- Posts: 78
- Joined: 2009-10-22 05:28pm
- Location: Orlando, Florida
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Thanks for the catch. I knew I'd end up getting something wrong.Steve wrote:I assume you're spending one NCP on pop and one on GDP? Well, your Pop would be 65 Billion then.
"Can I say something about destiny? Screw destiny! If this evil thing comes we'll fight it, and we'll keep fighting it until we whoop it. 'Cause destiny is just another word for inevitable and nothing's inevitable as long as you stand up, look it in the eye, and say 'You're evitable!'"
—Fred, Angel
—Fred, Angel
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Wiki page for ESP stuff. I've set up a format for the article, people can fill it in if they have an idea. Please give a sub-heading (Heading 3) for an entry on your nation's policies on ESPers. If listing organizations, please place them in the appropriate category. You can choose to give a short descriptive blurb or simply link to an article on the organization in question.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
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Norade
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2424
- Joined: 2005-09-23 11:33pm
- Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada
- Contact:
Re: An SDNW Proposal
So your dart is either going to contain enough energy to overload the system, or a powerful enough AI to hack it? How is that not wank again?Sea Skimmer wrote:No it isn't. You can hack an electronics system through induction. In fact this could totally nullify any attempt at defense against hacking, since you could directly seize control of the hardware and erase the memory if you wanted. This is no more preposterous, indeed perhaps less so, then Ghost in the Shell level cybernetics are in the first place.Kuroji wrote: Shoot some with darts? Seriously? You've got to be kidding me. "Let's just shoot a Roomba with a dart and try to hack it, or we'll take apart the motor to the vacuum and hack it through there!" Yeah, sorry, things do not work that way any more than you could hack the human brain by taking control of how a person moves their big toe. Obviously if you have it at your disposal the best they could do is self-destruct, but shooting some darts to hack it? That's just stupid.
Also... good luck EMP shielding stuff that has to integrate with a living being.
On another note, have we nailed down a general speed for hyperspace? I know we move at the speed of plot in game, but some hard numbers would be helpful for me write ups.
School requires more work than I remember it taking...
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Sea Skimmer
- Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
- Posts: 37390
- Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
- Location: Passchendaele City, HAB
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Exactly how much energy do you think you can run through a living body before you fucking burn the flesh of the user? You sure would burn the hell out of someone if you put anything like modern computer power levels through them, so any cybernetic system will have to be very low power and very low voltage. This would also help avoid a minor short circuit killing the person outright.Norade wrote: So your dart is either going to contain enough energy to overload the system, or a powerful enough AI to hack it? How is that not wank again?
As for packing in an AI, you obviously didn't even fucking read the post that Fingolfin Noldor posted in the first place when he suggested it would be a remote link. I should not fucking have to explain this. People hack networks wirelessly all the damn time in real life. Its not like you need to show up, and plug in a supercomputer in the same fucking room to make that work. You just need a data link. The natural defense against that is having no link, but if someone added one physically then you have a problem. The only wank going on is the assumption that you could have cybernetics which do anything useful at all which are hack proof and totally immune to someone physically tampering with the system.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
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Norade
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2424
- Joined: 2005-09-23 11:33pm
- Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada
- Contact:
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Sorry, I wasn't really paying that much attention to things and was more thinking of trying to hack a totally or near totally inorganic system that wouldn't burst into flame with higher voltages.Sea Skimmer wrote:Exactly how much energy do you think you can run through a living body before you fucking burn the flesh of the user? You sure would burn the hell out of someone if you put anything like modern computer power levels through them, so any cybernetic system will have to be very low power and very low voltage. This would also help avoid a minor short circuit killing the person outright.Norade wrote: So your dart is either going to contain enough energy to overload the system, or a powerful enough AI to hack it? How is that not wank again?
As for packing in an AI, you obviously didn't even fucking read the post that Fingolfin Noldor posted in the first place when he suggested it would be a remote link. I should not fucking have to explain this. People hack networks wirelessly all the damn time in real life. Its not like you need to show up, and plug in a supercomputer in the same fucking room to make that work. You just need a data link. The natural defense against that is having no link, but if someone added one physically then you have a problem. The only wank going on is the assumption that you could have cybernetics which do anything useful at all which are hack proof and totally immune to someone physically tampering with the system.
As for a dart, that uses wireless signals, wouldn't mots militaries faced with such a threat have jammers to help against this? I'm not to knowledgeable on the subject but it seems that you may be able to drown out any outgoing signals from any dart small enough to be commonly used. Signals going to such a system would likely be impossible to jam at a per soldiers level, but such jamming may be achieved by a vehicle mounted unit deployed in larger scale battles.
School requires more work than I remember it taking...
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Sea Skimmer
- Yankee Capitalist Air Pirate
- Posts: 37390
- Joined: 2002-07-03 11:49pm
- Location: Passchendaele City, HAB
Re: An SDNW Proposal
You can't jam everything, or else you have nothing left to use yourself. This is made all the more troublesome by the fact that to increase bandwidth and range, communications even today are moving towards ultra wideband systems in which just about the entire radio spectrum is used at once. But I don't think this idea was ever being suggested for battlefield use in the first place. If you could get close enough to shoot a dart, then just put a bullet in the guy can move on. It'd be more of something for sabotage or criminal activities.Norade wrote: As for a dart, that uses wireless signals, wouldn't mots militaries faced with such a threat have jammers to help against this? I'm not to knowledgeable on the subject but it seems that you may be able to drown out any outgoing signals from any dart small enough to be commonly used. Signals going to such a system would likely be impossible to jam at a per soldiers level, but such jamming may be achieved by a vehicle mounted unit deployed in larger scale battles.
"This cult of special forces is as sensible as to form a Royal Corps of Tree Climbers and say that no soldier who does not wear its green hat with a bunch of oak leaves stuck in it should be expected to climb a tree"
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
— Field Marshal William Slim 1956
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Norade
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2424
- Joined: 2005-09-23 11:33pm
- Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada
- Contact:
Re: An SDNW Proposal
You might not always be able to jam, but then again in some cases you would, so it would be a game where one side doesn't always have the auto win in hand. For example a network of laser point to point comm systems in a rich drug lord's house with a large jammer in the basement. They communicate via laser which can't really be jammed, and while a dart could use a laser that would mean you need line of sight to use it, if the dart uses anything else it can be jammed while near enough to the house and maybe even in some vehicles like modified limos. Of course this is all what if's, but hacking darts aren't a magic I win button nor are jamming and anti-hacking systems.Sea Skimmer wrote:You can't jam everything, or else you have nothing left to use yourself. This is made all the more troublesome by the fact that to increase bandwidth and range, communications even today are moving towards ultra wideband systems in which just about the entire radio spectrum is used at once. But I don't think this idea was ever being suggested for battlefield use in the first place. If you could get close enough to shoot a dart, then just put a bullet in the guy can move on. It'd be more of something for sabotage or criminal activities.Norade wrote: As for a dart, that uses wireless signals, wouldn't mots militaries faced with such a threat have jammers to help against this? I'm not to knowledgeable on the subject but it seems that you may be able to drown out any outgoing signals from any dart small enough to be commonly used. Signals going to such a system would likely be impossible to jam at a per soldiers level, but such jamming may be achieved by a vehicle mounted unit deployed in larger scale battles.
School requires more work than I remember it taking...
Re: An SDNW Proposal
So you're completely ignoring the possibility that, you know, maybe they aren't designed to use networks. Fine. But is your dart going to always impact at the right location to access a data bus as opposed to something that just tells an arm to move? Or are you just going to overcome that by pumping more voltage into this dart with the remote AI hacking through it? And are you really going to be able to get enough bandwidth for this AI to hack outside of a controlled environment?
It's not a bad idea in certain aspects but as a battlefield weapon it screams wank, it really does. And that's how it sounded when it was initially proposed.
It's not a bad idea in certain aspects but as a battlefield weapon it screams wank, it really does. And that's how it sounded when it was initially proposed.
Steel, on nBSG's finale: "I'd liken it to having a really great time with these girls, you go back to their place, think its going to get even better- suddenly there are dicks everywhere and you realise you were in a ladyboy bar all evening."
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Norade
- Jedi Council Member
- Posts: 2424
- Joined: 2005-09-23 11:33pm
- Location: Kelowna, BC, Canada
- Contact:
Re: An SDNW Proposal
I agree, maybe as a special operations tool, or for policing augmented citizens it might work, but it really won't do jack fuck against an army.
School requires more work than I remember it taking...
Re: An SDNW Proposal
You could also devise countermeasures to those if you work with a complete robotic body: from simple thick clothing down to running an electric current through the outer shell to fry the dart or oh yeah just pull it out 
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Silly transhumanists.... 
Honestly, doesn't matter what system you use so long as I don't see wankery.
Honestly, doesn't matter what system you use so long as I don't see wankery.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
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Coyote
- Rabid Monkey
- Posts: 12464
- Joined: 2002-08-23 01:20am
- Location: The glorious Sun-Barge! Isis, Isis, Ra,Ra,Ra!
- Contact:
Re: An SDNW Proposal
As for ESP and Psi type stuff, or the "Force", or whatever, my universe doesn't have it. At all. I've always disliked stories with that sort of thing since it ends up with a race of super-uber types that control everyone else's destiny with their silly personal wars (I always thought Star Wars would actually be far more interesting without the Force and crap).
I always saw my people as just really resistent to that sort of thing and resilient to the effects. Not necessarily immune, I mean, sure a Jedi could probably do the Mind Trick on the average mook but he would find it takes more effort and more focused concentration to do it. And a person from my 'verse could withstand the eroding mental effect sof stuff like Chaos for awhile longer before succumbing (if I understand it right, I never deal with WH40K). Of course the flipside to this is that my people have 100% zero ability to do this stuff. I have no psykers of any sort, hence we have an enhanced resistance to it as a sort of counterbalance. I really just want to avoid that silliness as much as possible.
I always saw my people as just really resistent to that sort of thing and resilient to the effects. Not necessarily immune, I mean, sure a Jedi could probably do the Mind Trick on the average mook but he would find it takes more effort and more focused concentration to do it. And a person from my 'verse could withstand the eroding mental effect sof stuff like Chaos for awhile longer before succumbing (if I understand it right, I never deal with WH40K). Of course the flipside to this is that my people have 100% zero ability to do this stuff. I have no psykers of any sort, hence we have an enhanced resistance to it as a sort of counterbalance. I really just want to avoid that silliness as much as possible.
Something about Libertarianism always bothered me. Then one day, I realized what it was:
Libertarian philosophy can be boiled down to the phrase, "Work Will Make You Free."
In Libertarianism, there is no Government, so the Bosses are free to exploit the Workers.
In Communism, there is no Government, so the Workers are free to exploit the Bosses.
So in Libertarianism, man exploits man, but in Communism, its the other way around!
If all you want to do is have some harmless, mindless fun, go H3RE INST3ADZ0RZ!!
Grrr! Fight my Brute, you pansy!
Libertarian philosophy can be boiled down to the phrase, "Work Will Make You Free."
In Libertarianism, there is no Government, so the Bosses are free to exploit the Workers.
In Communism, there is no Government, so the Workers are free to exploit the Bosses.
So in Libertarianism, man exploits man, but in Communism, its the other way around!
If all you want to do is have some harmless, mindless fun, go H3RE INST3ADZ0RZ!!
Grrr! Fight my Brute, you pansy!
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Go robot, then
Technology can probably do it way better, anyway
Technology can probably do it way better, anyway
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
Re: An SDNW Proposal
But there is a race of super-uber types controlling this galaxy's destiny. They're called Moderators.Coyote wrote:As for ESP and Psi type stuff, or the "Force", or whatever, my universe doesn't have it. At all. I've always disliked stories with that sort of thing since it ends up with a race of super-uber types that control everyone else's destiny with their silly personal wars (I always thought Star Wars would actually be far more interesting without the Force and crap).
And I'm their leader, biznatch! 
On a serious note, I don't want Exar Kun and Palpatine-level baddies running around. There'll be no using ESP/"The Force" to move entire starships or stuff.
”A Radical is a man with both feet planted firmly in the air.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
"No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism." - Sir Winston L. S. Churchill, Princips Britannia
American Conservatism is about the exercise of personal responsibility without state interference in the lives of the citizenry..... unless, of course, it involves using the bludgeon of state power to suppress things Conservatives do not like.
DONALD J. TRUMP IS A SEDITIOUS TRAITOR AND MUST BE IMPEACHED
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Flameblade
- Youngling
- Posts: 137
- Joined: 2007-02-02 12:08pm
- Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Re: An SDNW Proposal
What if it's less one guy moving the ship and more in the style of old-fashioned galleys?Steve wrote:On a serious note, I don't want Exar Kun and Palpatine-level baddies running around. There'll be no using ESP/"The Force" to move entire starships or stuff.
"Saying science is retarded on the internet is like dissing oxygen out loud." --- Rye
The plural of anecdote is not data and the plural of datum is not proof.
The act of burning up in the Earth's atmosphere is simply your body's effort to dispute the Earth's insistence that you travel at the same speed. The ground is the Earth's closing argument.
The plural of anecdote is not data and the plural of datum is not proof.
The act of burning up in the Earth's atmosphere is simply your body's effort to dispute the Earth's insistence that you travel at the same speed. The ground is the Earth's closing argument.
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Then it's called "The most inefficient space propulsion system ever"?Flameblade wrote: What if it's less one guy moving the ship and more in the style of old-fashioned galleys?
It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.
- NEIL ARMSTRONG, MISSION COMMANDER, APOLLO 11
Signature dedicated to the greatest achievement of mankind.
MILDLY DERANGED PHYSICIST does not mind BREAKING the SOUND BARRIER, because it is INSURED. - Simon_Jester considering the problems of hypersonic flight for Team L.A.M.E.
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Flameblade
- Youngling
- Posts: 137
- Joined: 2007-02-02 12:08pm
- Location: Phoenix, Arizona
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Well yeahPeZook wrote:Then it's called "The most inefficient space propulsion system ever"?Flameblade wrote: What if it's less one guy moving the ship and more in the style of old-fashioned galleys?
. I'm planning on my nation being heavily psionic, so I thought I should ask, even if just to keep my narrative options open."Saying science is retarded on the internet is like dissing oxygen out loud." --- Rye
The plural of anecdote is not data and the plural of datum is not proof.
The act of burning up in the Earth's atmosphere is simply your body's effort to dispute the Earth's insistence that you travel at the same speed. The ground is the Earth's closing argument.
The plural of anecdote is not data and the plural of datum is not proof.
The act of burning up in the Earth's atmosphere is simply your body's effort to dispute the Earth's insistence that you travel at the same speed. The ground is the Earth's closing argument.
Re: An SDNW Proposal
You mean like, crews of psykers moving the ship through hyperspace with their minds? That'd be... pretty eccentric, to say the least.Flameblade wrote:What if it's less one guy moving the ship and more in the style of old-fashioned galleys?
Also, you're lucky Shroom's on hiatus for a month, or else he'd be here raving about the Sky Galleons of Cortez raining fire upon blasphoritous Mayaztecans monoliths right about now
.
SDN World 3: The Sultanate of Egypt
SDN World 4: The United Solarian Sovereignty
SDN World 5: San Dorado
There'll be a bodycount, we're gonna watch it rise
The folks at CNN, they won't believe their eyes
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Fingolfin_Noldor
- Emperor's Hand
- Posts: 11834
- Joined: 2006-05-15 10:36am
- Location: At the Helm of the HAB Star Dreadnaught Star Fist
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Oh there are ways to bypass even physical limitations like say optical fibers and such, especially considering we would expect that certain technologies such as microrobots are possible.Kuroji wrote:So you're completely ignoring the possibility that, you know, maybe they aren't designed to use networks. Fine. But is your dart going to always impact at the right location to access a data bus as opposed to something that just tells an arm to move? Or are you just going to overcome that by pumping more voltage into this dart with the remote AI hacking through it? And are you really going to be able to get enough bandwidth for this AI to hack outside of a controlled environment?
It's not a bad idea in certain aspects but as a battlefield weapon it screams wank, it really does. And that's how it sounded when it was initially proposed.
And just a nice tip, at our current technological level, it's actually possible to hack a Quantum network. Splice the optical fiber, and then insert a photon emitter, and saturate the detector, and viola, you can write in whatever you want.
Your spirit, diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up, no matter what threats you face... and whatever wreckage you leave behind you.
Kreia
Re: An SDNW Proposal
Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:Oh there are ways to bypass even physical limitations like say optical fibers and such, especially considering we would expect that certain technologies such as microrobots are possible.
And just a nice tip, at our current technological level, it's actually possible to hack a Quantum network. Splice the optical fiber, and then insert a photon emitter, and saturate the detector, and viola, you can write in whatever you want.
I truly have no words to respond to this level of assumption, which incidentally does not address my post at all. I'm just going to go back to building the navy. Go throw some darts at them.
Steel, on nBSG's finale: "I'd liken it to having a really great time with these girls, you go back to their place, think its going to get even better- suddenly there are dicks everywhere and you realise you were in a ladyboy bar all evening."