Respect of a Galaxy: A Nation Roleplay

[Duchess]

Are you using the British or American billion?

[Darkmatter]

Alvearium*
Alveari

Nation Name: Alvearium Democracy*

Specie(s):Alveari

Physical Description: The Alveari have six limbs as is common with life of their general make up throughout the galaxy, such as insects on earth. However, unlike their terrestrial counterparts, Alveari motor about on four legs with a set of arms protruding from the upper body. Each arm ends in three separate pincers creating a hand-like effect. The Alveari appear most like a woodlouse, if compared to ancient earth life, with half its carapace horizontal and the other half reared upright, standing about four and half feet tall. Its upper limbs are visibly larger than the four legs which support its frame. A multitude of vestigal limbs can be seen along the front and under sides of an Alveari carapace. Due to the fact the Alveari engineer and produce themselves, each individual is purposed and maximised for efficiency. Recently, for the purpose of integration and interaction with other races of the galaxy, the Alveari have begun to colour code themselves so outsiders can identify them more easily. The typical worker class units remain the evolutionary staple of a greyish purple. War based units are given a red tinged carapace. Merchant units blue and diplomatic units have a white colouring, a universal sign of peace.*
The head of the Alveari have a somewhat humanoid appearance but remain mostly insectoid. A mouth filled with suprisingly square teeth being the most human characteristic. Above this are four rows of six eyes, these four rows group in two pairs, flanking left and right of the facial area. Atop the Alveari's head protrude two small antenna, their link to the hive, although military, merchant and diplomacy oriented individuals have these removed for*artificial ones to deal with the large distance between themselves and the hive at a given time.*

Psyche: The Alveari are one. A single entity comprised of billions of individuals. Although each has the ability and right to original and free thought, all are also simultaneously a part of the collective, a perpetual connection which they call 'Licet'. Although originally evolved for combat and resource gathering, since the deposition of the Queen the democracy has focused its aim on diplomacy and trade. Individuals have been engineered to fulfil these purposes. Both if these concepts, were completely alien to the Alveari. Diplomacy and Economics didn't exist in their society or history. With recent shift of focus of the species from survival, reproduction and all-out harvesting to simply maintaining the current population and ceasing all military activities, diplomacy and trade missions have become vital parts of their political agenda. Each piece of information garnered by individuals feeds into the Licet as a whole, and thus diplomatic ability quickly increased as each individual was able to contribute their collective opinion and extrapolation of each bit of information received from the outside.*
Each individual is a reasonable, and moral unit capable of decent amounts of logic and deduction. As a collective, the Licet is a super-intelligence. Morality is a knew concept to the Alveari, only as old as the Anomalous and thus they are still learning 'right' and 'wrong'; a difficult task seeing as how each of the other sentient species have their own opinions on it. Above all, the Alvearium Democracy seeks co-operation and participation now that it is fully consciously aware of its galactic community.*
Culture in the classical sense doesn't exist in Alveari society. All creative thought is instantly shared with all other individuals via the Licet and this expression is a void concept.*

Racial Advantage
Desirable Goods*
The Alveari Father Pods are an incredibly sought after technology among certain galactic powers and offer, along with the knowledge of the Licet, excellent bargaining tools both for merchants and diplomats.*

Swarm
Also a result of the Father pods, Swarm allows the Alveari an almost indefinite supply of troops during wartime, all fully optimised for combat.*

Racial Disadvantage: *
Animosity
Despite their best efforts, many other species look down upon, fear and in some cases outright despise the Alveari and refuse to negotiate with them on any level. This is due to their past ferocity and also envy at their replication technology.*

Swarm*
Swarm also has a major disadvantage, as it only applies to soldiers and not ships which the Alveari are slower than most to make as they require great intricacy due to their spherical and cylindrical nature. They have not built a new hive or seeded in over a 300 Standard years. As well, the Alveari, being relatively new to galactic warfare and diplomacy rely mostly on their only tactic which served them terrestrially; Attritional Warfare.*


Stars: The Alveari are a migrant race. They inhabit mobile hive ships each the equivalent size of Mars. These ships are purpose built as homes, work and power stations, and bases of military and diplomatic operation. In total there are a five hundred of these hive ships. Each containing circa a billion individuals. These hive ships offer a large concentration of the collective thought, Licet. The Ships tend to stay in proximity to each other, within the same star cluster or cloud of possible, in order to maintain a strong and unified Licet overall.*

Population: Approx 500 Billion.*

Short History:
The Alveari evolved from a basic insect life on an indeterminate planet orbiting a very small blue giant, roughly 195 AU from said star. The planet was small and mostly tropical climatic wise. Insect life teemed in the rainforest which covered much of the planet. As insects became larger, unlike earth, this evolutionary step worked. This was mostly due to the emergence of somewhat sentient mammalians and thus larger size meant better effectiveness against these new competitors. Overtime due to increased size and overwhelming numbers, a specific, centipedal-type life form more or less eliminated most mammalian competition and became the appex predator of its planet. A hive-based, Queen controlled being these were the early markings of what would become Alveari. This life form prospered as its intellect level increased. Along with its insect characteristics of durability and sheer numbers this increase in intelligence lead to it soon overtaking the planet and beginning rudimentary agriculture, enclosing its prey and rearing it. However, this increase in intelligence only came from the Queens, each only birthing its successor when it was near death. Therefore, a planet wide population remained under monarchal control and any intelligence increase in the workers and soldiers was marginal. Thousands of years later, after reaching post-industrialisation, the collective now known as the Alveari, was still under the influence of a Queen, essentially just being the will of the Queen with workers mindlessly carrying out orders. As resources began to dwindle on their own planet, the Queen looked elsewhere for metals and fuel. A nearby planet and its moon offered liquid helium and heavy metals respectively. The Queen began harvesting these heavenly bodies as well as stripping its own planet for what was left. With a population of over sixty billion the Alveri stood no chance on the home world. The Queen built a massive ship, spherical, a mobile space station and took a billion workers aboard. The others remained, obeying without question as they had no will of their own. Setting forth for other star systems, the first hive ship used the helium resource of the neighbouring planet to propel itself out of the blue giants gravity.*
Setting forth, the Queen soon died and her successor formulated a method of indefinite survival; the harvesting of other planets for resources to create new hive ships. Around the time of the two hundredth hive ships construction, the genesis of modern Alveari society begun. Somewhere in the original hiveship, an individual had been born with a specific genetic mutation. Though all were born of the queen, this mutation only sprung up in the maturity of the individual. It was a mental defect which allowed the individual to create free thought and original idea. Due to the very nature of the Liset, the Queen could not root out the source of this thought as it simply become as much a part of the collective as her own. The individual, titled the Anomalous by modern Alveari, continued its life and presumably at some stage mated with the Queen producing a thousand more individuals with the defect, the power of free thought. Over time, the number grew exponentially until a majority of Alveari were of original idea and free thought. They fed into the Liset as much as the Queen and chose to depose her. The Alveari were a logical race, now that they had reason and saw that the rampage of harvesting was a terrible deed and the Queen needed to be eliminated. Once she was all remaining drones with no freedom of thought died naturally. The free thinkers set about, with their collective intelligence, creating machines capable of replicating their own DNA, and more advanced technology based on one of the fundamental forces of the universe, electromagnetism, so as to ensure the survival a of their species. Once built, a machine was installed in each Hive Ship which now numbered at five hundred. Engineers were assigned to operate and maintain what were called the Father Pods and to repopulate the ships to their billion individual capacity. From the original uprising free thinkers the most suitable individual was used a genetic blue print for each of the five type of individual; worker, engineer, military, trade and diplomacy.*
Although each individual would be considered quite dim by human standards, the Licet is a super-intelligence. Also most interaction with other species occurs far from the Licet limiting the capacity of diplomats.*
While maintaining a decent military force, the Alvearium Democracy wishes to intergrate with other galactic nations through trade and diplomacy. This has proved difficult due to extreme prejudice which is still abundant from their pre-liberation days.*
All decisions are made instantly and simultaneously as a collective by the Licet. Art and culture in a traditional*

The first contact that the Alvearium had with another space-faring species, was with the Ordered Dominions of the Jak approximately two hundred years ago under the reign of the Monarchy. The fleet entered the perimeter of Dominion space almost undetected, mostly due to their high speed and the simple fact that the Jak had never thought such a fleet could travel anywhere near their territory. The forward hiveship was first spotted roughly 160AU from the world of Arcadia. The Dominion wished to first see if they could determine what this object was. Preliminary far-range mapping put it at perfect symmetrical and spherical as well as spinning with a constant speed whilst travelling forward. These two facts, while not conclusively, almost definitely proved it was an artificial produced object.*
Speculation was rife across Arcadia for days with cynics saying a sentient-made object could barely be of that size or move at its estimated approach speed, let alone both.*
A scouting ship named, Intrepid was sent to investigate with orders from scientific, military and political leaders. While initially travelling at FTL, once reaching a decent viewable distance, Intrepid slowed to a far more conventional speed and began orbiting the hiveship using its own gravity. For three days the ship orbited conducting more rigorous and thorough exams, the whole time the hiveship moving quickly through the system.*
On the fourth day orders were received to attempt a docking/landing aboard the object. Immediately upon Intrepid's attempt to close distance a round was fired from the twenty kilometre barrel of a Seeder's railgun. Intrepid was obliterated in a single shot. The Seeder and its five partner ships aboard the hive hence departed forth for Arcadia itself, joined mid-journey by twenty others from the nearest four hives. The fleet reached Arcadia approximately four minutes after last communication from the Intrepid was received. Although enough time to send a general alert, it wasn't enough time scramble a defence fleet; not that they had expected twenty five, thirty kilometre ships to appear in orbit minutes later.*
The Seeders' attack relied on speed and surprise. Countless rounds impacted major military posts and urban centres all across the planet of Arcadia, leaving it in ruins. The Seeders proceeded to burrow into the planet's crust and begin mining valuable minerals and resources. Soldier individuals were sent from each ship to guard the perimeter of the mining operation killing off any of the Dominions' species that approached. Although the Alveari had encountered sentients in there pillage across the stars they had never until this point encountered another space faring race and didn't think that Arcadia could belong to a larger empire, a concept completely alien to them. It did however, become immediately apparent when three days later a fleet of a dozen dreadnoughts and nearly a hundred destroyers, battleships and corvettes arrived to fight back the Seeders. Disengaging from their mining operation at once, the seeders took flight, the Queen confident that size and firepower would win the day against numbers. However, it soon became apparent that the Jak-built dreadnoughts nearly matched a seeder in terms of forward-firepower and that the smaller ships vastly outclassed in manoeuvrability stakes. Only two shots were fired by seeders, to destroy one of the Jak dreadnoughts before escape became the modus operandi. The Dominions' fleet pursued relentless in the three minute return to the hive, managing to shoot down seven seeders along the way, the Alveari only managing to take out a dozen destroyers through the launch of spore ships.*
By the time the remaining eighteen seeders reached the group of hives they too, had been shot and were limping home. One vessel in particular was only moving on backup power and was being artificially guided into dock. The Jak Admiral Knosf made the executive decision not to shoot this vessel down. A corvette was dispatched to fly alongside the struggling seeder; a ghost ship with and crew dead or dying. A manoeuvre of tactical and practical genius followed as in the split second the forward hive's EM barrier went down to allow the docking of the disabled seeder, the jack corvette darted through the hive's defence.*
Blasting through the crust the corvette met little resistance further on; the Alveari Queen never expecting anything to breach the outer layers, had neglected on internal defence in hive designs. The corvette headed straight for the four hundred kilometre thick helium reaction facility and detonated its antimatter bomb. Knosf had at this stage withdrawn his forces back to the crippled Arcadia. The ensuing reaction of matter and antimatter in the helium reactor vaporised all five hiveships on the perimeter of Arcadia's system.*
The Alveari had killed a millions and made a sizeable dent in the Jak's navy but at the cost of five of their own planet ships, twenty all-purpose ships and five billion individuals. While the Queen believed she could no doubt win a war of attrition with the Jak she knew it would be a Pyrrhic victory. Retreating further along the arm the Queen fled as quick as her engines would carry them.*

Contact between the two has been limited since the change and foundation of the Alvearium Democracy many still live on both sides who lived through the brief war. The consensus of the Licet is that it is willing to open trade negotiations on the condition that 'Detonation Day' is removed as a national holiday in Arcadia and neighbouring systems.*

The last act of the monarchy was the invasion of the Tholan system for its resources bringing the Licet into contact with the Nakhon nation. This was centuries ago and the Nahkon weren't able to cope. However, the moment at which the number of freethinkers was greater than drones happened during this conflict. The queen was overthrown and the hiveships disappeared into the outer area of the Perseus arm.*

Approximately, ninety galactic standard years ago the newly formed Alvearium Democracy entered the perimeter of the Kelphic systems. Returning to occupied space they had hoped to establish a firm foundation and consolidate a new image of their species, as a diplomatic, logical people. However, although broadcasting messages of peace, the fleet was immediately assaulted by pirated who thought them empty floating shells. The Licet had been split into three groups of roughly equal size, and the foremost fleet was assaulted. The pirates boarding vessels and artillery was met with and deflected by the hiveships oscillating EM barriers. Seeders were deployed and and large scale conflict began between over a hundred seeders and three hundred smaller pirate-manned vessels with dozens of pirate captains all seeking their share of the haul. Within minutes the Cartel had a full briefing and intervene, stepping between the two forces. Battle lines were drawn and communication between the Alvearium Democracy and the Cartel begun. The Licet has become somewhat of a protectorate of the Cartel; all five hundred hive ships are orbiting two stars within Cartel space, quite close tithe business centre: a blue giant supporting over three hundred ships and a red giant supporting the remainder. The Alveari are allowed to remain indefinitely and access to resources, in return for use of the 2,500 strong fleet of seeded ships for transport and extraction and occasionally to move products through quarantined space.*

Military: Every hiveship is protected by a pulsating magnetic field that changes frequency three times per second repelling almost any matter based projectile.*The surface of a hiveship is uninhabited and is mostly just sparse save for the signal towers producing the barrier. The crust, the first twenty kilometres or so, holds the ships bays, docks, food production facilities, and energy reservoirs. The core of the ship houses the massive helium based reactor which fuels the ships barriers and engines as well as story energy that is used by the production facilities, seeders and all of everyday electrical purpose. The space in between, the proverbial mantle, is where the living quarters and recretational areas are. Much of this is hollow with massive struts and walkways creating a criss-crossed pattern of metal, while also allowing for the open space to simulate the open sky of the homeworld. They are primarily not purposes for war, instead housing the Alveari nation and acting as a home, hub and base. They are propelled by Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters which are powered by a helium fuelled reactor at the core. The helium is also used as the necessary gaseous fuel that is ionised and then ejected through exhausts using the Lorentz Effect resulting from the plasma state and surrounding magnetic field. Mankind has often mistaken these propulsion systems for Hall Drives. They allow a Hive ship to travel at 65% of c. One must consider that each hive ship was constructed to replicate more of itself and thus had to have the sufficient storage capacity to house the materials. Once the Queen was disposed this become redundant and much of each hive ship is now empty.* Each hive ship has five seeders, large capital ship/dreadnaughts containing 200,000 soldiers each. A seeder is a cylindrical craft roughly thirty kilometres in length with an equivalent circumference The front end of each is adorned with various large scale probes, drills and excavation lasers as well as a centre mounted railgun. Being front facing only, the guns are a secondary form of combat. The major form is the launching of burrowing spore ships specially designed to travel in short spaces extremely quickly and gouge into the side of enemy dreadnaughts and cruisers so as to allow boarding by well equipped soldier individuals. The seeder is propelled by the same type MPD drive albeit downscaled and less numerous as a hive ship, but allowing for FTL considering its far inferior mass. Seeders, although purposed for war and excavation, since the formation of the Alvearium Democracy have been used for trade and diplomacy as well as no other blue print exists and the Licet deems it inefficient to spend resources designing or indeed producing new, unnecessary ships .

*Each seeders in turn, is guarded by several hundred swarmers which continuously patrol the perimeter when in combat acting as defence, fighter and interceptor craft. A swarmer is manned by two individuals, a pilot and a weapons master. These craft are thirty metres in length and six metres tall, they are the only known craft of the Alveari resembling the craft of more traditional humanoid species.*

GOVERNMENT*
The Alveari has no traditional political structure. Instead all decisions are made through the Licet. They call themselves a democracy as this is the best equivalent in the language of other sentient species. In reality the Licet refers both to the collective conscious of the Alveari and the bond which links them too. Although originally very similar to many other insect hives in the galaxy, communicating via pheromones and vibrations. However, as their sized increased and hives became larger and larger, eventually creating a planet-wide single hive, more effective and long range methods were required to maintain the primitive Liset. Now aboard hive ships, the Licet is at its strongest with concentrations of individuals greater than what it had been on the homeworld. This is the main reason hiveships try to remain within a certain distance of each other, to keep the Licet strong. With free thought the Licet came under great strain; without the direction of the Queen and the infinite amount of new information being generated by freethinkers, the Licet become very unstable. It was this break from the queen and new found intelligence which also provided the solution. Each hiveship was fitted thousand of amplifying stations. Contrary to the popular belief of other races who have knowledge of hiveships, these stations do not store and reproduce signals, just literally amplify them. The Licet has thus, become the sum of its parts and is fed new information continuously. The Licet is a part of every individual and every individual is a part of the Licet. Free thought and idea are encouraged in Alveari society as the deeper intellect of the individual adds to the amassed intelligence of the race as a whole. Decisions can be made extremely quickly, often in a matter of minutes. Whether a simple maintenance issue with a seeder, or a decision carrying with for the future of the entire species, every individuals forming opinion is immediately known to all others through the collective opinion of the Licet.*
Each individual is tasked with a specific job. These include: food production, waste disposal, water management and various other everyday activities to keep the hive running. The hiveship itself is maintained exclusively by engineers. Aboard a seeder only soldiers and engineers will be found as they never stray too far from their hive. Thus their is no ranking structure or class system in Alveari society, are equal parts of the same whole.*
An original thought entered the mind of one individual, a decade previous, to take a day of rest and meditation. This idea was quickly and almost unanimously approved and thus started the weekly official day of recuperation for the Alveari. This time is spent developing bonds between small groups of individuals via discussing the Licet or specific individual free thoughts, and playing mind based games which require focusing on the others mind and thus serving to strengthen the Licet as a whole, and the moral kinship between individual thinkers.*

VIP's
As previously stated all individuals are equal. Still only one individual can occupy a given post. As individuals engineers are always treated with respect. Diplomats and merchants are the individuals with which outsiders convene. These individuals are optimised by engineers, through DNA and technology, to perform their task of represent the Alvearium Democracy and Licet.*

Some of the most well known are;
Pacem Cimex - Diplomat*
Vespar Venditabant - Merchant
Formica Legatus - Diplomat*
Blatta Mercator - Merchant.*

The Maths and Physics of The Alvearium Democracy *

Average habitable zones of Blue Giants ~200AU-650AU
Habitable Zone*


Average mass of sustainable satellite orbiting a Hiveship at 500km ~ 1950 Kg
Satellite Mass

Energy Required For Hiveship To Travel At 65% C.*
Energy
Equivalent to entire solar output for a year, slightly less than full solar gravitational bonding force and equal to 9•7499x10(power of 23) Nuclear power plants.*


[B]Other:/B


REFERENCES FOR ARTIFICIAL PLANETS*
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_(The_Culture)#_

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere#_

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globus_Cassus

[Duchess]

Nation Name: The Ordered Dominions of the Jak

Name: Jak

The Jak are a humanoid race, but a physically unpreposessing one, with only the tallest of them breaking five feet. and with very little raw strength in their bodies. Their lithe physique and millennia of adaptation to space's unique challenges has given them an eerie grace in their rapid movements. There appears to have been some sort of insect in the distant evolutionary history of the Jak; pearl-gray scales of a chitin-like material shimmer at their shoulders, wrists, feet and the top of their heads, before petering out into unprotected skin - it is hypothesised that once these scales covered the entirety of a Jak's body, but millennia of evolution have seen this trait recede further and further.

The most striking feature of any Jak, however, is their luminosity; their silvery skin glows palely, the result of symbiotic bioluminescent bacteria. Several more defined areas, progressing in abstract swirls up their arms and down around their legs, concentrate these bacteria and the Jak are able to consciously and subconsciously influence the colour and intensity of these areas - they commonly signal the prevailing emotion of the Jak in question, but can be overridden with training and concentration to confuse others as well as communicate privately.

The Jak also have tails, chitin-armoured in teardrop-shaped scales, originating at the base of their backs and split into anywhere from four to nine smaller sub-tails that continually move gently. As they move, the chitin-scales shift and expose a brilliant core of more bioluminescent bacteria, creating a distracting and intricate light-show that may have originally helped the prehistoric Jak to confuse predators and prey alike.

The tails of the Jak are also a secondary sexual characteristic. Both male and female Jak are possessed of a series of orifices, commonly called links, into which the tips of their tails can be inserted, the continual motion stimulating a series of specialised receptors causing massive release of endorphins. On females, these occur in two parallel lines beneath the mammary glands, and on the males, they occur in the same parallel formation, but on their backs. For this reason, the tails of the females are longer than those of the male.

All Jak start out life with four of these links; when they mate with a partner with more than four tails, chemical receptors in the links detect the minute chemical differences between each tail and stimulate totipotent stem cells, lying dormant, to duplicate and differentiate into more links. The pharmaceutical giant, Seneca Pharmaceuticals, developed Farsight, originally a precise melange of chemicals and now a specific, carefully-tailored programme for Jak bio-nanites, that artificially stimulates the rapid formation of the full nine links. Farsight is almost universally used, especially in the promiscuous but infertile first millennium.

Unless regular dosing/programme maintenance of Farsight is maintained, or a partner with nine tails is mated with repeatedly, the surplus links rapidly undergo senescence, leaving only the baseline of four. In Jak culture, it is considered a sign of serious commitment for a Jak to enter a relationship at the baseline, since it can take several years of frequent mating for any extra links to form fully.

Despite being a vanishingly small minority of an already-small population, nine-tailed Jak are, unsurprisingly, prominent in Jak erotica - and highly sought-after as mating partners in consequence. It was once believed that the greater the number of filled links, the healthier and stronger the offspring would be, however, scientific studies have shown this effect to be psychologically-based (in the minds of the parents) rather than with any biological basis.

Jak are oviparous, in the true scientific sense of the word, and only lay one egg at a time, as a general rule. Twins are exceptionally rare, and put quite a strain on the mother's body; triplets are only possible with specialised medical intervention due to the number of resources required by each egg. Even with current Jak medical technology, quadruplets and higher invariably kill the mother, unless the eggs are aborted.

Once the eggs have been laid, they are placed in highly sophisticated, armoured capsule-cradles, which ensure the eggs are protected and safe during their two-year gestation period. They also provide a safe and stable emergence environment, and immediately perform the plethora of modification operations and nanite injections every Jak recieves from birth, before releasing the newborn into the arms of its parents.

The Jak rely on light; it is a central part of their culture, and more fundamentally, a part of themselves. As such, their almond-shaped eyes, located above their mouth and nose in a symmetrical pair, can sense a much greater spectrum of light than the human standard, and are lined with many more rod and cone cells to make the most of any photon that enters them. As such, a Jak's eyes always appear pitch-black. Several nictating membranes take the place of eyelids, both protecting the delicate eyes and providing natural filters for certain light wavelengths.

A Jak's teeth are very sharp and curved, analogous to those found in Earth anglerfish, and perfect for cleaving flesh from bone in an instant. Whilst historically carnivores, modern Jak enjoy a much more balanced omnivorous diet, and are generally known to be fond of sweet, sugary foods. The higher up in Jak hierarchy an individual is, the brighter they glow - a subconscious reflex - and so the more energy-rich foods they eat. They do not have any external ear structures; instead, a series of small holes curl up the sides of their heart-shaped faces and serve the same purpose

They have two hands, each with seven triple-jointed fingers that are extraordinarily dextrous, whilst their feet have four chitinous talons perfect for gripping - whether that be tree branches or deckplates.

It is important to note that the Jak are heavily augmented, with nano and bionanotech prevalent inside them, allowing for fast healing, enhanced perception and much more.

The Jak are a patient race; crises and events which seemed to have such urgency one year are, a decade or century later, all but forgotten, as a general rule. Their technical immortality gives them a 'long view' mentality, a careful weighing-up of all matters taken in the bigger picture. This is not to say that they are static and unchanging, however, or that any deal with another race will take centuries to conclude; their minds do not work at a snail's pace, after all. They are prone to flights of whimsy and wanderlust, however – a substantial portion of their race is always on the move, exploring.

The Jak Empire (officially the Ordered Dominions of the Jak) is unusual in that the 'master race' so to speak, is a vanishingly small minority, relatively speaking. Many other species call the Dominions home - as the Jak expanded their empire and came into contact with other, less-advanced species, their planets and sectors of space were designated protectorates, guarded by the Jak from on high. The Jak themselves hold the vital mechanisms keeping the empire together, however; the slipspace gates that link any system to any other with a gate, and the Stellar Service as a whole - both the Bright Fleet and the military installations in most systems. The Jak are technically immortal, however their average lifespan hovers around five millennia - the average time for a Jak to become 'tired of life'. At this stage, Jak tend to either commit ritual suicide, or simply die from trying ever more extreme new experiences - backpacking across the selenium wastes of Tersarus Four the hard way, for example. This, combined with a low birthrate, keeps Jak numbers relatively small. Many members of the subsidiary species in the Empire have never even seen a Jak in the flesh, as it were.

Light is not precisely holy in the Dominions, but it is certainly appreciated; the few systems which are exclusively or have a majority of Jak in them tend to have great numbers of habitats, orbital cities, megascale engineering projects and other such structures in close orbit around the local star, and the night skies of their planets are either full of stars or night never truly falls in the first place. The title of Luminary is one used throughout the Dominions by junior Jak to senior. Sight is, after all, the most important of all the senses to a Jak; the greatest instinctual fear they have is of being blinded.

Indeed, despite disaster genes and their bionanotech augmentations which can rapidly restore destroyed eyes, a blinded Jak more often than not goes insane before sight can be restored. It should be noted that a simple darkened room (to the human eye) is not dark at all to a Jak; instead, a completely shielded box is necessary for them to percieve true darkness, an experience almost completely alien to them.

The Jak are also very curious about, and interested in, other species' cultures, when they encounter them, going to great lengths to avoid destroying buildings or areas of great significance culturally, should it come to conflict. They love games and artwork, poetry and riddles, all the convoluted meanings of language and its subtle nuances; Jak often do things simply for the beauty of their creation, rather than any other motive.

The Jak people prize intelligence well above physical strength - being able to move a baulk of metal with your own hands is all very well, but inventing a manipulator device to do it more quickly and safely is much better.

Family is very important to the Jak; they are arranged into great Houses, or clans, of related groups with similar interests and genetic makeup, each with their own Dominion in the greater empire as a whole. Any crime which disrupts the family is considered heinous - whether that be incest or fratricide, for example - and the punishments are dire.

Organized - The Jak have many systems and protocols for almost any situation, developed and refined over millennia. Whether it be an outbreak of refinia fever in the swamplands of Chora, an incident with a Wanderer cruiser or the commencement of the next Great Expansion, you may be assured that the Jak have a plan for it. This organization means that the Jak can respond quickly and effectively in most defensive situations, especially given their orbital defences around Dominion planets, but action outside of their sphere of influence requires much greater planning, meaning that things are slowed down somewhat.

Intelligent - The Jak rely absolutely on their intelligence. With negligible physical strength, a trait present ever since antiquity, the Jak have had to rely on alternative strategies in order to survive and thrive. This trait has led to the steady advancement of their technology and has even preserved their society from the immortality catastrophe of total stagnation.

Diplomatic - With so few Jak in the galaxy, diplomacy has always been the Dominions' preferred method of expansion, and of dealing with other races, whether that be those inside the Dominions or those far outside their own sphere of influence. It is for this reason that the leaders of other races are accorded high status in the Jak empire and have their own Ministries to effectively manage and govern themselves, with only the lightest touch of Jak oversight. Their long lives also mean they develop deep relationships, especially with shorter-lived species, since a long string of flicker-life ambassadors can deal with just one singular Jak, which, in the long run, helps that Jak develop a very deep understanding of the other species, something which he or she can turn to their advantage.

Physically weak - the Jak are small creatures, and historically relied on surprise, agility and superior intelligence rather than brute strength to become the dominant species on Home. With the advent of industrialisation, labour-saving devices, energy fields, AI and so forth, physical strength has receded further in importance; indeed, Jak are nearly helpless without their energy and gravity field manipulator augments.

Few and far between - the Jak race is not numerous, although it is at its most populous point ever, brought about by advances in medical technology and the abundant riches and living space that the sea of stars offers. To make up for this, they use AI extensively, but the loss of even a single Jak is a powerful blow.

Government Type: Monarchy, of sorts - the Jak maintain a royal family on their greatest stronghold, the Glitter Band, in orbit around the Home star itself. However, the powers of said family, while theoretically vast, are always circumscribed by the Parliament of Stars, the Dominions' main political organ, and more effectively but less obviously by the Exigent Gathering, a council comprised of the heads of the most powerful Jak Houses in the Dominions. These oligarchs advise the monarch regnant on all matters too serious to be dealt with by the Watchers (Jak lords and ladies in command of a region in the greater empire, appointed by Parliament) or the Parliament of Stars' legion of Ministers. The Exigent Gathering hasn't met for four Jak lifetimes; the ordered pace of life in the Dominions is ably managed by the Parliament and the imperial throne is a ceremonial figurehead.

Parliament of Stars:

1.) Ministry of Order

The Ministry concerned with internal affairs of the Dominions as a whole. As such, its main functions involve the deployment and maintenance of the policing cruisers and drones that keep both spaceways and planets clear of renegades and criminals, the regulation and arbitration of inter-Dominion disputes and, most crucially, it is proxies of the Ministry of Order who can grant or revoke permissions for space access by the Jak client species.

The Minister of Order is currently Reflection of Truth, Caphrael Jak en Luminis.

2.) Ministry of Chaos

The Ministry of Chaos is the Dominions' department of foreign affairs. The Ministry is the liaison and ultimate master of the Jak Wanderer cruisers which regularly leave the Dominions, and has authority over all Jak interactions with non-client species and incidents occurring in non-Jak space. Under its auspices shelter the Jak Diplomatic Service and their Rubicon cruisers. The Ministry has close ties with the Ministry of Defence, in case the Bright Fleet must sally forth to protect one of its own.

The Minister of Chaos is Touch of Radiance, also known as Orphael Jak eir Aria.

3.) Imperial Board of Trade

The principal economic organ of the Dominions and with complete control over the Imperial Bank, the Imperial Board of Trade is a trade regulation body and Treasury department rolled into one; fitting since most of the money comes from inter and intra-Dominion trade. The Board is made up of specialist economists, delegates from subject species and the heads of several important corporations; their job is to keep prices reasonable and trade strong.

The Chairman of the Board is currently Light chasing Zenith, also known as Setael Jak eir Golgen.

4.) Ministry of Ilex Affairs

This Ministry serves as the liaison office between Jak overlords and the Ilex race as a whole. The Ministerial position is usually a sinecure for the Jak who holds dominion over the Ilex homeworld, Morningstar; day-to-day operations of the Ministry are handled by the leader of the Ilex race themselves, the First among Felines (translated title.)

The Minister is currently Song of Desire, Natael Jak en Morningstar.

The First is currently Sandira N'Kannhei.

6.) Ministry of Kilrethii Affairs

This Ministry serves as the liaison office between Jak overlords and the Kilrethii race as a whole. The Ministerial position is usually a sinecure for the Jak who holds dominion over the Kilrethii homeworld, Tartarus; day-to-day operations of the Ministry are handled by the leader of the Kilrethii race themselves, the Tangential (translated title.)

Given House Sibiri's current, unique position, the sinecure has been broken. The Minister is currently Breath of Warmth, Venael Jak eir Osier.

The Tangential is currently Forged-Entire-Contract-To-All-States-Kilrethii (Touch of selenium scent of burning basalt over lake of liquid nickel). Most, including the Jak, call it Fectask, except on special occasions.

6.) Ministry of Qujoray Affairs

This Ministry serves as the liaison office between Jak overlords and the Qujoray race as a whole. The Ministerial position is usually a sinecure for the Jak who holds dominion over the Qujoray homeworld, Luminis; day-to-day operations of the Ministry are handled by the leader of the Qujoray race themselves, the Pearl of Stars (translated title.)

Given that Reflection of Truth is already serving as Minister of Order, the position is currently held by one of his relatives, Mirror waking Sea, also known as Menael Jak en Lenten.

The Pearl is currently Shalassis venEth.

7.) Ministry of Culture

The Ministry of Culture is charged with the maintenance and funding of current and future endeavours in the fields of art and beauty, maintaining sites of great significance, sublime appearances, fine museums and all the other paraphernalia of a civilised society. The Ministry has a large budget and funds many projects all throughout Jak space; it may grant temporary space-access licenses to artists, allowing their works to be exhibited to a wider audience. The Ministry is also in charge of filtering and deciphering the masses of extra-Jak communications that flood through the Dominions - and in times of war, the Ministry decides which sites on the targeted planets are significant enough to be saved, if possible.

The Minister is Expectation of Dominion, Tarahael Jak eir Chora.

8.) Ministry of Justice

The Ministry of Justice, unsurprisingly, deals with judicial matters pertaining to the Dominions. They run the courts, provide training for lawyers and judges, form the Ethical Awareness Board of the Bright Fleet, codify the byzantine laws of the empire and ensure the smooth running of the Justiciary as a whole. They are also involved in the Jak decision to expand and/or go to war, providing the ethical and legal argument. It is for this reason that prominent Judges are often honoured by naming ships after them.

The current Minister is Measure of Mercy, Qurael Jak eir Aurora.

9.) Ministry of Defence

This Ministry naturally oversees the military capacity of the Jak Dominions, providing oversight for the Stellar Service Admiralty, the Fleet Review Board, the Artificial Personnel Board and numerous other oversight organizations which ensure that standards are maintained across the entirety of the Bright Fleet through the centuries and millennia. Generally, the Admiral of the Bright Home, the AI gestalt of the Bright Home, the AI commander of the Jak ground forces and a representative from Tartarus all hold high-ranking advisory positions within the Ministry, allowing the Minister to receive a wide variety of input and advice on any action she chooses to take.

The current Minister is Mandate of Dominion, former Admiral of the Bright Seventh, Chairwoman of the Fleet Review Board, long-standing member of the Expansionist party and a somewhat controversial figure.

10.) Ministry of Health

The Ministry of Health is responsible for 'Ensuring an enviable level of care and quality of life for all members of all species in the Dominions.' In this role, it does everything from provide the specialist egg containment units for Jak births through to cutting-edge medical training for Kilrethii doctors. It is heavily involved in medical research of all kinds and has strong links with the Ministries of Defence, Justice, Kilrethii, Qujoray and Ilex Affairs. It is hypothesised that the bioweapons division of House Corona operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Health.

The current Minister is Shimmer chasing Perfection, Hanael Jak eir Aurora.

The Ordered Dominions incorporate forty-six stellar systems into their fold, organized as follows:


1.) Home, the First Kingdom - A small cluster of 5 systems near the galactic core and the private preserve of the Jak and their royal family, the first systems settled by them, millennia ago.

The planet Home itself was made a preserve several Jak lifetimes ago, a site of pilgrimage that many adolescent Jak make, to see the cradle from whence their race sprang aeons ago in all its natural splendour. The star is now surrounded by a vast ringworld, the Star-Lit Gateway in the Jak tongue, or, more commonly, to those outsiders permitted to see it, the Glitter Band. This is a vast habitat, hundreds of times the surface area of the ancient home planet and simulating perfectly the conditions there, and houses the governmental centre of the entire empire, the enormous Parliament of Stars and the equally grand Diamond Palace, surrounded by a vast and studied idyll, an Eden-esque park sprawling for hundreds of miles, riotous with the finest flora and fauna drawn from across all the Dominions.

The populace here are almost entirely Jak; other client races as a whole are permitted only as visitors, with only their leaders and ambassadors from other nations being exempt and allowed to reside on the Gateway.

Home is lit by a blazing blue giant by day, and a shimmering red and gold nebula at night that is filled with coruscating points of light - the nearby Hadesfire, one of the few cradles of star-formation near the galactic core.

Population: 10 billion Jak.

Others: Negligible.

2.) The Bight of Fire, Tartarus (12 systems)

Under the rule of House Sibiri, the Bight of Fire is one of the larger and more vital Dominions, and also one of the more fractious; well aware of its importance to the greater empire, Tartarus is not averse to using that influence to further House Sibiri's own, often inscrutable, ends. The Bight is a vast swathe of barren but resource-rich worlds and many binary stars that can be mined for exotic minerals and power; as such, this Dominion is the location of much of the Jak shipyards for both the Bright Fleet and the civilian merchant marine. Planetary-scale construction arrays house powerful gestalt AI entities, directing the vast construction projects underway in their areas of control, while orbiting megacities house the Bight's small population of sapients; mostly Jak and hardy Kilrethiis.

The capital world of the Bight of Fire is Tartarus, the homeworld of the Kilrethii race, a silicon-based species utilising selenium and rare earth elements to form natural solar collectors on their bodies, providing sufficient energy for locomotion and, later, sentience. Kilrethii weigh a minimum of five tons and are very slow-moving; their main use to the empire is in the processing speeds their minds can reach when sufficiently energized, and, more frivolously, in the exquisite sculptures their artisans painstakingly create entirely without mechanical aids. The Kilrethii were assimilated into the Dominions during its first great expansion as the Jak began to impose their order on the unruly stars around their birthplace. At the time, they were undergoing a Renaissance of sorts, brought about by the advent of spaceflight and the mass-production of solar power stations in orbit around Tartarus, accelerating their metabolic and synaptic processes with the abundance of energy suddenly available.

The Jak convinced them to join the Dominions as a protectorate with a mixture of diplomacy - offering the newly-perfected Dyson swarm designs - and threats; orbital diplomacy from a Jak dreadnaught and the destruction of every solar power station in the system, and now, many Jak and Kilrethii lifetimes later, the Kilrethii are loyal citizens of the Dominions and widespread throughout Jak space.

Jak Population: 1 billion

Kilrethii Population: 125 billion

Ilex Population: 7.2 billion

Tartarus:



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3.) The Castle of Dreams, Sontaire (7 systems)

Party capital of Dominion space, under the velvet claw of House Hellebore, the Castle of Dreams is a long string of systems weaving between spectacular nebulae that shift and change continually, a vibrant lightshow that's never the same twice and always spellbinding. The planet Sensalis has alcohol oceans and waves that defy belief, thanks to its string of five moons, whilst the gas giant Aria's dramatic floating islands are a place of pilgrimage for many; from the nomadic Jak who find peace amid the drifting clouds and the spectacular thunderstorms and aurorae, to the Qujoray who dance in the shimmering cities and delight in hedonistic excess of all kinds; everything is permitted in the Castle of Dreams, after all.

The shimmering, half-there capital world of the Dominion is decadent Sontaire, a sprawling ecumenopoleis where any pleasure can be had - for the right price. Many Jak go to Sontaire to die, to spend their final days in perfect, unfettered joy before committing suicide and being interred in the Whispers of the Veil - the Acropolis - the funeral moon of the Dominion. Much of the technology on Sontaire is biologically-based, from the fanciful spires and domes of the buildings to the erotobots and even the free AI denizens. It is thought that the Half-there Shadows - the Dominions' Secret Service - are based here, the dark heart of shining Sontaire, those who arrange 'accidents' for those who cross the borders into Jak space without invitation or become a threat to the civilised serenity of the empire.

Jak population: 3.2 billion

Kilrethii Population: 11 billion

Qujoray Population: 42 billion

Ilex Population: 26 billion

4.) The Hope Eternal, Arcadia (6 systems)

Wrapped in the blue-green arms of the Serpent's Tail nebula, the Hope Eternal is a cradle of life. Garden worlds abound here, some natural but most extensively terraformed into paradises for the species under the velvet claw of the Jak. The Hope Eternal has a vast and stable population, and as such is one of the major Jak merchant hubs; the Arcadian Stock Exchange is the baseline for the entire Dominions' economic assessment. Megafreighters clog the spacelanes, carrying teratons of goods from one end of the empire to another, maintaining the Jak and their client races in the comfort to which they have become accustomed.

Traffic in the capital system of the Dominion has increased so much that the Jak are in the process of constructing a second void gate to cope with the flow of ships.

Arcadia itself is an agricultural world, covered in vast automated farms; it is the string of seven pearly moons around it that hold the majority of the system's population, in great cities that reach five miles high into the thin atmospheres and burrow another three miles down into the lunar surface, making the most of the space available.

Jak Population: 3 billion

Kilrethii Population: 500 million

Qujoray Population: 102 billion

Ilex Population: 115 billion

Arcadia

5.) The Waking Sea, Morningstar (6 systems)

Treacherous and cutthroat best describe the spaceways of the Waking Sea. Unusual stellar phenomenae abound, ruining sensors and navigational plots in the outer reaches of the Dominion, making this the most dangerous region in the entire empire. The centre, however, is an oasis of calm; six systems shimmer in perfect peace, undisturbed by the maelstrom all around them. Given the abundance of scientifically-interesting phenomenae all around the Waking Sea, the Dominion is home to a vast array of scientific instruments, stations and institutions, seeking to better understand the universe. Indeed, it was in the Waking Sea that the primary power system for the Jak was invented.

The capital planet, Morningstar, is the homeworld of the Ilex, a felinoid race that had been hemmed in by the barrier the stellar activity all around their systems until the Jak, with their superior drive systems, broke through into the calm eye of the storm. A long period of acclimation and mutual diplomacy then ensued between the two species, finally folding the Ilex worlds into the Dominions in the last Great Expansion.

Morningstar is ruled from on high by Song of Desire, also known as Natael Jak en Morningstar, the current head of House Corona.

Jak Population: 500 million

Ilex Population: 72 billion

Kilrethii Population: 250 million

Qujoray Population: 1.2 billion

6.) Star-Scattered Sky, Luminis (9 systems)

Hugging close to the Dead Zone that wraps the galactic core, the Star-Scattered Sky boasts spectacular starscapes and a few natural garden worlds. More importantly, for the Jak, the Dominion holds enormous asteroid belts rich in mineral resources, as well as several potentially-lucrative moons and planets. Gas mining and transmutation are already the primary industries of the Dominion, exporting vast amounts to the other parts of the empire. The Star-Scattered Sky is also the location of the Qujoray homeworld, an oceanic planet several times larger than Home. When first discovered, the Qujoray species was in a primitive state, with only a few small undersea communities.

The discovery of a species that had not already achieved limited spaceflight was one which sent ripples through the highest echelons of the Jak empire, and debates raged for several centuries over the best method of approach.

Eventually, it was decided that vault-like caches of information, replete with AI guardians who would adapt Rosetta Stones, of sorts, to the nascent Qujoray language in order to enable translation of Jak script, would be laid down on the planet, each one revealing progressively more about the Jak and requiring an increasing level of technological sophistication to break into. Overhead, development of stealthed orbital structures that would one day form the Jak cities and weapons platforms finally commenced, hidden from primitive sight.

The text of the earliest cache, now the site of the Qujoray's capital city, reads as follows:

'We are Jak. Not gods. Not angels. Guardians, instead. We stand at the edge of your cradle, where the blue of the sky meets the dark shores of the sea of stars, and we are watchful. Fear not our gaze, and lift your senses to the heavens. We are patient; we will wait for you.'

The Star-Scattered Sky is ruled by Reflection of Truth, the current head of House Aurora.

Jak Population: 2.2 billion

Kilrethii Population: 3.1 billion

Qujoray Population: 51 billion

Ilex Population: 26 billion

Important Planets:

Imperial Home - The ancient homeworld of the Jak themselves, poised on the edge of the Dead Zone of the galactic core. It has an oxygen-rich atmosphere - wavering between fifty-five and sixty percent - and abundant plant cover now that the ancient Jak cities have been carefully abandoned and reconstructed in the orbital megastructure of the Star-Lit Gateway. Most species from Home have some form of bioluminescence, much like the Jak, turning the nightside of the planet into the most intricate filigree imaginable, a natural rainbowed lightshow making Home glow like a jewel, set in the ring of the Gateway. The capital, Rigour, is found on the ringworld.

Tartarus - A planet wracked with vulcanism, wrapped in sulphurous atmosphere and with continents covered in selenium wastes, Tartarus is one of the more unpleasant planets in the Jak empire - although to the native Kilrethii it is paradise. They are perfectly adapted to the harsh conditions, converting selenium and rare earths into solar energy systems and tapping into the abundant geothermal energies present. Tartarus is one of the main hubs for industry in the Dominions; delicate manufacturing plants extend across the planetary surface, and further microgravity manufactoria for everything from beanstalk space elevator cables to Lofstrom loop control systems clutter low orbit.

Concorrant - A serene gas giant located in the central system of the Bight of Fire, House Sibiri have converted it into a planetary-scale construction facility, making it the de facto, if not de jure capital of the entire Bight. A webwork of floating cities, vast manufacturing plants, shipyards and warehouses fill the 1G habitable zone, supplied with raw materials and food from the many spaceports and the equatorial ring of space elevators. Below the 1G zone hang the power plants, revolutionary TDPD (Temperature Difference Pressure Difference) reactors strung near the planetary core, and gas miners that trawl the rare elements present at the crushing depths. Time on the construction arrays is a publically-traded commodity, and brings in vast revenues for House Sibiri from the corporations - and sometimes the mega-rich of the galaxy - which hire it out. Further, Sibiri machinists and artisans like to think of themselves as the finest in the galaxy and any custom ship, if within the bounds of science, can be built by them. Concorrant dominates its system completely; moons and planets are disassembled for resources, the asteroid belts have been seeded with self-replicating mining colonies and black hole mining operations crowd the upper orbits of its sister gas giants, providing both heavy elements and vast amounts of energy.

Arcadia: Capital world of the Hope Eternal, Arcadia is a rich planet. Farms cover its surface, growing teratons of food for Concorrant and other industrial worlds, whilst the fine champagne and brandy from its sprawling vinyards are considered some of the finest produced. Arcadia - and its string of seven urban moons - are heavily protected as vital supply worlds for the Dominions, and also due to the large population of Jak in orbit. It is one end of the Artery route that supplies the Concorrant system with the food it needs to survive.

Overall Population of the Dominions:

Population of Jak: 19.9 billion

Population of Ilex: 246 billion

Population of Qujoray: 198.2 billion

Population of Kilrethii: 138.85 billion

Total Population: 603.95 billion

The history of the Ordered Dominions is one of repeated expansion and consolidation as the Jak slowly seek to bring order out of the unformed chaos of the rest of the galaxy and preserve the living stars. On a regular, although slow, cycle, the elegant ships of the Bright Fleet assemble all along the borders of Jak space and leap into the unknown surrounds, colonising or conquering each system in turn, terraforming planets, laying down industrial infrastructure and all the other paraphernalia of a civilised system as well as the orbiting megacities and weapons platforms for the Jak who both guard and preserve the planets and species beneath them. The Jak are wary of giving independent space travel to the masses; only the most influential and deserving of the client races ever receive permission to own a starship, and even then, only the client species' leaders have the right to use the void gates strung throughout the empire.

Through this method, keeping the masses in enviable comfort - but generally planet-bound through use of orbital platforms - Dominion worlds are studded with orbital weapons platforms, planetary shield generators, backup AI stations and so forth - as well as memetic engineering - and further reserving the fastest and most efficient method of travel almost exclusively for the Jak themselves, the Ordered Dominions have held themselves firm and unyielding where many other polities have collapsed.

After a certain expansion point has been reached - usually half again the size of the original Dominions, the Bright Fleet halts its expansion drive and fortifies the new border, whilst behind them come all the legions of the civilian Corps of Engineers, armed with von Neumann drones, sophisticated AI guardians, asteroid miners and much else, setting about linking in the newly-acquired territories with the greater empire and bringing designated planets up to Basic Home/Tartarus/Morningstar/Luminis Standard, ready for colonisation by the various subject species.

Despite the size of the Dominions, the proportion of Jak in the military is quite small; their low numbers and aversion to allowing any client race a major role in their navy keeping it so. Consequently, the Jak employ artificial intelligences extensively in all their vessels, paring back the physical crewmembers to the bare minimum tradition and ethics demands. Jak ships are elegant and beautifully-decorated - due to their hardiness on the field of battle - and also large; the Jak as a whole are a rather private race and those who choose to go into the Bright Fleet are even more so.

The main strength of a Jak ship lies in its survivability, rather than its weapons systems, relying on its layered shields and multiple types of armour, its dedicated AIs that can shift power in an instant to where it's most needed - whether that be a failing shield or a toiling gun battery, to ensure that it outlasts its opponents.

The Jak doctrine is one of Astra dominus - this is how they maintain control of their subject planets and how they conquer new ones. Space superiority is everything.

Troop Numbers: 450,000,000 active troops, a further 300,000,000 in reserve.

Ship Number: 225 ship points, split into:-

100 capital ships - the dreadnaughts, carriers and battleships of the Bright Fleet.

165 screens - All the different flavours of cruiser, various frigates and destroyers.

525 strike craft - ranging from bomber corvettes through to interceptors.

HMS Shadowplay (and descendants)



Class Name: Shadowplay

Category: Dreadnaught - the largest line-of-battle vessel that the Jak field, the lynchpin of their fleets and the pinnacle of their technological prowess. They are the Dominions' lances, spearheading the Bright Fleet's advance into hostile territories or acting as fortress lynchpins in the defenses of the empire.

General Description: The Shadowplay-class dreadnaughts are iconic; their elegant, ornate forms recognized far and wide. Elaborate etchings and engravings, showing the deeds of these honourable vessels, cover every scrap of the silvery hulls, complementing the shimmering blue of its running lights.

Many of these vessels are centuries old, but continually updated and refitted with the very latest in Jak technology. Neural AI nets wend their way through the enormous vessels, carrying the many sophisticated artifical intelligences necessary to manage all the myriad functions of the ship, from the physical defence systems - triple redundancy defence nets comprising pulse meson-laser cannons, oxygen-tipped concussion bombs, energy flak launchers, antimatter bomblet catapults, EMP pulse generators, wide-aperture beam cannons and countermissiles, all designed to provide a near-impregnable counter to incoming missiles and fighters. These active measures are then bolstered by the armour of these ships, a highly-advanced metallopolymer biweave base layer and many alloy armours layered together with a highly-reflective crystal matrix that provides excellent protection against most energy weapons, resulting in a superbly armoured vessel, capable of scavenging and self-repair, all aimed at preserving functionality and - crucially - the precious living crew.

Powerful energy and gravity shields add a further layer of defense to the vessel, a set of six complete arrays of hex-cellular Rizon Systems 'Aegis'-class shields, each with their own dedicated cavitron reactor pair and AI coordinator, able to dynamically redirect and reinforce portions of the shields, thus dramatically reducing power requirements and allowing them to take more shots before collapsing.

The mainstay of a Shadowplay-class dreadnaught's offensive firepower is a set of sixteen 'Helios'-class ion-helix beam projectors capable of cracking a planet, eight mounted as bow chasers at the fore of the craft and another eight mounted in rear-facing turrets, protecting the engines.

The secondary weapon system of these dreadnaughts is its prodigious batteries of magnetically-accelerated pulse-plasma cannons, groups of thirty-five triple-barrel turrets arrayed across the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the vessel. These are usually hidden from sight, cradled in safe hardpoint cocoons under the armour plating of the vessel and so protected from the inimical environs of space.

Finally, dreadnaughts mount eighteen powerful Lorelei eight and twenty-two ring missile launchers in a spinal configuration, with nine running along the dorsal axis of the ship and nine along the ventral axis.

It is the combination of Helios beams and the missile launchers, with their highly variable payloads, that are the true terror of these gargantuan vessels - whilst the other weapons of the ship can ruin the planet, these missiles can carry the specialty of the Jak House Corona, bioweapons bred on the myriad of research stations and laboratories of that House which can scythe a planetary surface clear of hostile life, a tabula rasa for recolonization.

Hangar Complement: Two wings of close-range drone defence fighters.

Special Equipment: Harmony dreadnaughts boast a wide range of special equipment, allowing them to be outfitted for a variety of roles. A vast array of planetary-bombardment ordnance is usually carried, dependent on the kind of civilising the Jak wish to carry out, from kinetic harpoons through to multi-megaton TX-10 antimatter warheads, sterilizer bombs, atmospheric deprivation weapons and more. The main usage of a Shadowplay dreadnaught, however, is as Fleet Command - the myriad systems and powerful AI-linked officers of the class provide massive fleet support, allowing for pinpoint coordination of tactics and firepower. These vessels are usually commanded by Admirals of the Bright Fleet, experts at fleet-level actions.

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HMS [i]Spirit of Covenant[i] (and descendants)

Class Name: Covenant

Category: Carrier - This enormous vessel, stretching over fifty kilometres in length, is the absolute largest vessel - aside from the gargantuan civilian megafreighters - that the Jak produce, requiring most of a moon's resources to construct. Consequently, they are ruinously expensive and very well-protected.

General Description: Sweeping, classical lines and intricate decoration break up the sheer bulk of the Jak carrier ship, the deceptively fanciful exterior belying the supremely functional ship that it, in truth, is. Enormous fabrication plants deep in the belly of this vessel are capable of churning out replacement fighters, bombers and even gunboats at tremendous rates, provided the resources are available, and the repair facilities are equally elaborate - and effective, utilising vast vats of nano and bionano constructors and liquified metal and nutrient premix to rapidly restore damaged vessels to full working order. This also means that the carrier is fully capable of repairing itself and acting as a maintenance platform for a fleet or battlegroup.

Its defences, naturally, are prodigious, to protect the enormous investment in time, resources and personnel that each carrier represents; since the carrier is not intended for front-lines combat, weapon space was sacrificed in favour of more defensive measures - monofilament expansion web launchers, cluster bomblet catapults, high-frequency laser interceptors and so forth - thicker armour layers, and greater shielding capacity.

The carrier can hold off attackers for some time, due to the combination of defensive measures and the rapidly-reloading twenty-two ring missile launchers it sports as its supporting fire capability, but it is not intended to be in the vanguard of any assault. Its main offensive firepower comes from the large complement of Archangel heavy fighters, Shimmer light fighters and Whisperer gunboats that it holds, and the complex fleet AI that can coordinate a vast number of vessels.

Special Equipment: The Covenantclass carrier can be refitted for a more direct battle role, with its engines overhauled, extra weapons fitted and shields reinforced at the expense of gunboat manufacturing capability, allowing these vessels to operate as assault carriers alongside the vanguard of the fleet.

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HMS [i]Tenefuge[i] (and descendants)

Class Name: Tenefuge

Category: Heavy Cruiser (battlecruiser) - usually deployed in hunter-killer packs of three; useful in conjunction with the dreadnaughts for punching through a defensive line.

General Description: A new design, and something of a departure from the standard Jak doctrine, Harbinger-class cruisers sacrifice some of their armour for an expansion of their engines as well as further weapons systems. This unusual design makes them deadly; those few who fought the Jak and survived expect their ships to be slow, and are often taken off-guard by the deceptive speed of the Harbinger-class cruisers, as well as the substantial forward firepower occasioned by a battery of 24 powerful Starfire Lance energy projectors in gimballed mounts, with twelve on the dorsal side and twelve on the ventral side. Seventy triple-barrel magnetically-accelerated plasma cannon, arranged into two batteries of thirty-five each, complete the direct-fire armament of the Harbinger cruiser. A spinal array of six Lorelei sixteen-ring missile launchers provide long-range indirect fire support.

The shift in focus from armour to weapons and engines with the Harbinger-class has meant that, in order to maintain standards of protection and get the design past the Fleet Review Board, the technicians had to implement a great deal more shielding than is common on a heavy cruiser, with six fully-independent arrays and their dedicated AIs defending the relatively delicate ship. Their energy-efficiency and the picosecond-scale reaction time of the AI systems are state-of-the-art, allowing them to last far longer than simple shield-to-power ratios would suggest. Their point-defence nets are also reasonably powerful, but there simply isn't space for triple-redundancy nets or some of the weightier methods of deterrence -the ship must instead rely on its regenerative shields, its speed and powerful main weapons to strike quickly and get the job done.

Survivability - and lethality - is further enhanced by the fact that these cruisers tend to travel in hunter-killer packs of three, allowing each one to compensate for any weaknesses or blind spots in the other two.

Hangar Complement: Two wings of drone space-superiority fighters.

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HMS [i]Song of Carillion[i] (and descendants)

Class Name: Carillion

Category: Cruiser (Long-range) - designed to flood an engagement with multiple-vectored beams and MIRV antimatter warheads, Carillion-class cruisers excel at pummelling enemy battleships into submission from afar, remaining safe from their adversaries' primary armament.

General Description: Much more blocky and utilitarian than the majority of Jak designs, the Carillion cruiser is a rare sight, only brought out of Stellar Service dockyards in numbers when war is really having a ball. The majority of their systems are aimed towards massive forward bombardment, with a powerful array of fifty Lorelei twenty-two ring missile launchers - and the manufacturing facilities to supply them - surrounding a cluster of seven long-range Helios beam emitters.

The rest of the vessel is occupied with an enormous engine block - enabling rapid repositioning and evasive manoeuvres - and a point-defence system to shoot down incoming return ordnance. Powerful shields round off the Carillion, giving it a decent measure of survivability - enough for it to jump into an engagement, loose its payload at the optimum point - and then escape to another firing position before enemies can track it.

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HMS Devil in the Details (and descendants)

Class Name: Devilment

Category: Cruiser (Line-of-battle)

General Description:


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HMS Chance and Circumstance (and descendants)

Class Name: Chance

Category: Cruiser (police interdictor)

General Description:


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HMS Heart of Sagacity (and descendants)

Class Name: Sagacity

Category: Gunship

General Description:


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HMS Hadesfire (and descendants)

Class Name: Hadesfire

Category: Bomber

General Description:


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HMS Archangel (and descendants)

Class Name: Archangel

Category: Heavy Fighter

General Description:


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HMS Whisperer (and descendants)

Class Name: Whisperer

Category: Light Fighter

General Description:


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HMSS Deity (and many descendants)

Category: Orbital Weapons Platform

Class Name: Global Orbital Defense Platform

General Description: Forming the majority of orbital installations around any Dominion world are these, the Global Orbital Defence platforms that are the primary means of active defensive measures for planetary authorities. Provided with enormous amounts of power by binerators (in the Bight of Fire) and/or planetary cavitron reactor complexes, the platforms can sustain continual fire of all energy beam weapons for seventy-five seconds before having to switch to volley fire due to heat-dissipation requirements. The main weapon is a set of two dreadnaught-rated 'Helios' beam cannon, paired with six subsidiary cruiser-rated beam projectors and rounded off with a bank of eight twenty-two-ring missile launchers.

The platforms are not stationary, and can move through orbit to reinforce areas where the defence net is growing thin, due to platform losses, or to provide enormous firepower in a small area. They can also manoeuvre to fire on the planet below - which was their original purpose, to keep newly-acquired worlds suitably docile. They are heavily armoured to protect the considerable investment in time and resources that each platform represents, and have suitably lethal point-defence nets.

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HMSS Aegis (and many descendants)

Category: Orbital Defence Platform

Class Name: Aegis

General Description: Enormous complexes whose sole purpose is to provide a planetary shield, protecting the population below from stray (or intentional) weapons fire. These complex, interleaving barriers of energy are sufficient to vaporize anything that hits them - although given the vast and complex energies involved in maintaining the enormous screens, it takes time to recharge, even given the power generation systems available to the Jak. The Aegis stations also provide a second, more subtle effect; when the shields are raised, vessels not of Jak origin attempting to lift off from the planet will also be obliterated, although this fact is not widely known. Aegis and GOD platforms are usually arranged in orbit in star formations, with the Aegis in the middle. The stations are heavily armoured and have excellent point-defence nets, but possess no weaponry.

Aegis stations are paired with automated bunkers on the planetary surface that provide a secondary shield in the event of all Aegis stations being destroyed in orbit.

TBC

Economic Organizations:

1.) The Imperial Bank

2.) Concorrant Industries

3.) Luminary Systems

4.) Lorelei Locomotion

5.) Starward Corporation

WIP.

1.) Anticipation of Victory, known to other species as Keelah Jak en Home - current Emperor of the Jak. He is quite young, as his species goes, only recently out of the regency, and known to be very fond of games. His first act as Emperor was to declare the latest Expansion over, so the Dominions are now consolidating their hold over the new (to a Jak, anyway) systems and are opening up a fresh wave of diplomatic negotiations with the species beyond their influence.

2.) The Queen Tyrannic - current head of House Sibiri, forsworn from Home and the Diamond Palace by the current Emperor's mother. Autocratic and arrogant describe the Queen Tyrannic perfectly; it led to a series of serious rifts between Tartarus and Rigour, culminating in the collapse of the latest Expansion as the shipyards and mines of Tartarus were shut down, and the subsequent banishment from Home of the entire House Sibiri. Currently, there exists a state of slightly strained tension between the Bight of Fire and Home, eased from near-war by the actions of Anticipation of Victory in the centuries since the end of the regency.

3.) Shadow chasing Midnight, known to other species as Mael Jak en Arcadia, daughter of the Queen Tyrannic and an ambassador for the Jak. She is young, but very skilled, and is known to be very good at games of strategy and chance alike. Kharolle, the most popular game among the Jak, is a particular specialty. She has nine tails, and wishes she didn't.

4.) Breath of Winter, known to other species as Raphael Jak en Sontaire, current head of House Hellebore.

5.) Song of Desire, known to other species as Natael Jak en Morningstar, current head of House Corona.

6.) Player of Games, known to other species as Vananth Jak eir Hellebore, current head of the Jak Stellar Service and, by extension, the Home Fleet. Vananth generally commands from the rarefied atmosphere of the Stellar Service Admiralty in Rigour, but in emergencies (or for wargames), he loads himself into the flag dreadnaught Red Gauntlet.

7.) Echo of Thought, known to other species as Argentine Jak eir Sontaire, the current head of the Jak Secret Service. Very little is known about this elusive Jak, and still less about his operatives - although some assert that the long-range Wanderer cruisers that soar in long parabolas out of Jak space, looking for new worlds and species - are a part of this shadowy branch of Jak government. It is unknown whether he reports to the Crown or the Parliament of Stars.

8.) Reflection of Truth, known to other species as Caphrael Jak en Luminis, the current head of House Aurora and Minister of Order in the Parliament of Stars, one of the most powerful Jak in the entire Dominions. Worlds change at his command, planetary Lords and Ladies hand down his directives to billions of sentient beings and he is a powerful ally, as well as a merciless enemy.

9.) Clarity in Song, known to other species as Renael Jak en Concorrant, the planetary Lord of Concorrant and the chairman of the board of directors of Concorrant Industries.

10.) Mirror hunting Discord, known to other species as Tarona Jak eir Aria, current Admiral of the First Fleet. She commands from a palatial bridge suite aboard the enormous Jak flag dreadnaught HMS Arc of Twilight, the vaunted lance of the First Fleet. Flights of instinctual whimsy and occasional bursts of strategic brilliance complement the more standardised, methodical and thorough Jak battle doctrine, making the First Fleet the veritable sword of the Jak, when diplomacy fails.

Generations of spacefaring have led to enhancements in many areas of Jak physiology, and atrophy in others. Never very physically strong to begin with, the advent of technology has rendered that particular trait almost completely obsolete. The Jak use gravity and energy field manipulation to do almost everything; it moves heavy objects, forms the lifts and bridges in their cities and buildings and ships, and makes the construction of their vast deep-space engineering projects possible.

Their understanding of gravity, and mastery of energy in all its forms extends over into their power, shielding and propulsion systems; cavitronics, or the science of black holes, powers their ships - by feeding split-second mass packets into the hungry maw of an artificial black hole, massive amounts of power - and heavy elements - can be extracted from the accretion disk. Serried ranks of paired generators ensure a continual supply of power without producing a black hole the fields can't contain - as they get too heavy, the generators cease feeding in mass and the hole evaporates.

On a larger scale, Hawking's Knots provide industrial levels of power for the many deep-space engineering projects and the planetary construction arrays in the Bight of Fire, and on an even grander level, binary plasma generators, positioned on the plasma stream between binary stars, use powerful electromagnetic fields to channel the flows into generators, producing enormous amounts of power for Jak activities - such as providing power for the defensive installations around Dominion planets.

Their weaponry, too, uses energy in the main rather than kinetic force, from powerful banks of plasma turrets and rapid-fire lasers to enormous mirror-beam cannon mounted on their largest vessels, capable of cutting a deadly swath through a rank of enemy vessels or burning away the crust of a planet and setting light to its atmosphere. That is not to say that the Jak use energy weapons exclusively; missiles and mines tend to carry substantial antimatter payloads, but the elegant Jak vessels are known for burning ships from stem to stern with a lance of energy rather than putting a kinetic round through them.

Superluminal travel is occasioned by two main methods, both linked. Jak vessels take advantage of the enormous power available to them as a consequence of their unique energy-generation system to envelop their ships in a void bubble, a shaped patch of normal space wrapped in uniquely-energized shields to withstand the immense pressures of wormhole travel, occasioned by the gravity projectors each ship uses to generate a shaped tear in space-time. This means that Jak can travel at extremely high relative speed and in perfect comfort and safety. The second method is only usable within the Jak Dominions themselves, and relies on the aforementioned technology. In significant systems, the Jak build vast void gates, gargantuan space stations containing hundreds of cavitron pair reactors, all for the singular purpose of holding a wormhole open against the gravitational forces of the system and to balance the ingoing and outgoing mass, keeping the whole thing stable. This wormhole links to a stable, safe region outside normal space, and through this method, each system with a void gate is linked to every other. Sophisticated AI programs manage the actual moments of transition, so all the Jak experience is a flicker as they enter one gate and exit another, never experiencing the traversal of the wormhole nexus.

Needless to say, void gates are heavily defended, both by static defences mounted on the station hull as well as by immediate reinforcements from the gate itself. Should all seem lost, void gates have a variety of self-destruct mechanisms to prevent them from falling into enemy hands.

[Darkmatter]

Awesome Duchess. Really awesome. I intend to keep adding to the Alveari but that detail for an original post is refreshing to see.

[Darkmatter]

Also I know that there are 500 hive ships and that's way over planet limit but each only has a fraction of the allowed population.
And also it accounts for 2500 seeders but as it says they are used all purpose; for trade, diplomacy, resource gathering and war. 2500 is not representative of war fleet.

EDIT: Just noticed a few grammatical and syntactic errors in my nation sheet. I will fix them in the morning. Good night all.

[Rocket]

Oh-ho-ho this looks nice. Still open for new recruits?

[Anjwalker]

Certainly Rocket.

I'm glad to see such great sheets already. On suggestion from Automatic, I'm going to implement a limiter on the number of heavily populated worlds a faction may have.

Also, disadvantages and advantages do apply to Humans.

---------- Post added at 11:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 PM ----------

Also; I didn't know there were two types of billion? I assume mine is British, as I'm Australian.

[Darkmatter]

I'll assume I'm accepted so.

And there is the SI billion, nine zereos, a thousand million.
And a rarely used European one which defines a billion as a million million. A trillion in SI units is 12 zereos, in the other European form it is a billion billion. I'm Irish and I've only ever used the SI.

[Automatic]

Let us all converge in the chat! and then type /join #galaxy

A place for us to boast and convince one another how we will destroy everyone else.

[Lord Monbodo]

Do you view a billion as a thousand million, or a million million?

Anyway, my NS is almost complete. Just need to finish the military info.