A long time ago, the galaxy was once under the iron grip of the Yrrani, who were said to be god-like in nature, their power beyond any known species in the galaxy. They ruled for untold centuries, acting both as benevolent rulers, and terrible tyrants. They gifted many worlds wonderous technologies, uplifted species of their choosing, all the while they razed entire systems to any who would dare defy their rule and wiped entire species from the face of all of creation. They were both loved and feared, revered and reviled by trillions, it was known as the mythical age of Pax Yrranus.
However, nothing lasts forever, near the peak of their reign, a darkness fell over their empire that begun with the death of the Ascendant Emperor, a tragedy orchestrated by a usurper of the emperor’s own kin. The galaxy was soon plunged into a cataclysmic war that would span a hundred years and, in its end, the Yrrani were but a shadow of their former selves and had simply vanished from the face of the universe. The galaxy, long under Yrrani dominion was at last free. Five hundred years have passed since the Great Fall, the younger civilizations have long since prospered upon the ashes of the old age, allowed to control their own destiny and set out to carve their own path in the stars, the tools and technology of their old masters now theirs for the taking.
And it would begin on Tar Yrra, the home and throneworld of the Yrrani, thought to had long been lost since the Great Fall, was found once again fifty years from the present day, and had been the source of a series of conflicts collectively known as the Reclamation Wars. The main objective being to claim the bounties that lie within, as Tar Yrra would prove to be the greatest vault of lost technology to ever been found.
It having the power great enough to tip the scales in favor to whomever possessed it or doom the galaxy to another dark age. The Fourth Reclamation War would conclude with the Armistice of Jarila, giving a brief pause to the violence for the time being. However, the fight for Tar Yrra is far from over, and all the forces of the galaxy plot and scheme their next moves in the open and behind the scenes. Preparing for the grand battle to come.
Welcome to the Age of Broken Shackles! A Very Soft Sci-fi setting ripe for all sorts of possibilities. Filled with all sorts of political intrigue and thrills, space adventures, and all sorts of military shenanigans! One of main features of this setting is I’m going to be very loose on tech, stuff that has previously be limited, go for it! Dyson Spheres? Sure! Your own means of FTL travel? Have a whack at it, and whatever others.
However, regarding wonderous military technology and tactics, they for sure are allowed….buuuut! They will not guarantee you a perfect defense or offense. In the past millennium in-universe, everything you can think of has been possibility tried, won battles, and now has been successfully studied and countered. No one is invincible, and in the present, tactics and tech that have worked in the past still is effective, but the chances of failure are equally high. You will miss, your defenses will be breached, and so on and so forth.
Basically, as with previous rp’s, the tech and tactics effectiveness is dependent on an agreement between players. Remember foremost, this is a collaborative narrative story, for the fun of telling a story, not a game to win. Also to note is that the rp will be move in a relaxed pace, to better accommodate players with busy schedule.
Starmap
Each dot represents a star system, and the big one is Tar Yrra.
Nation Sheet Nation Name/Flag (The usual, provide a name of your nation(long version, short version, or both, you decide) and an option to post your nation’s flag.)
Map Location: (Post your claim on the starmap.)
Government Type: (State government type and provide a small bit of info on how things work, doesn’t need to be super detailed, just paint me a good enough picture)
Demographics: (The people of your nation, human, xeno or both. It could be as simple as a percentage list with pics, a small paragraph or whatever you feel is best)
Military: (The fun part! What’s defending your nation in these uncertain times? You can provide as much or as little detail as you like. Can’t also forget, showing tons of pictures of what their soldiers, vehicles and ships look like :P)
History: (Speaks for itself. It can as brief or detailed as you wish.)
Government Type: The Augustan Empire is ruled under an Absolute Monarchy of sorts, the Emperor’s word and decrees being the law of the land. Under the Emperor is the Imperial Senate, who are to handle the daily functions within the Empire, passing laws and enacting his decrees, as well as acting as an advisory council to the Emperor. Between the Emperor and the Imperial Senate are the Noble Houses. The Noble Houses were once the First Families of the old Augustan Confederation, and with the transition to Empire, the First Families had quickly ascended into becoming Noble Houses that held great influence within the Empire.
Demographics:
Humans(Baseline and Offshoots)-48%
Dathu-29%
Vrunak-15%
Ossani-3%
Other(Migrants, Vassals, etc,)-5%
Left to right: Southern, Northern, and Islander Dathu subgroups Native to the world of Datheron, the Dathu are an amphibious species with mammalian traits. The Dathu are an antiquated people with a similar culture to the medieval ages of many worlds. Their society ruled by nobles, lords, and kings. The Kingdom of Datheron was one of many short-lived states that emerged from the Great Fall. Within the span of a five decades, the Kingdom, and its holdings would fall and be annexed by the steadily growing Augustan Empire.
The Noble Houses of Datheron would be allowed to retain their power and status, although they would now answer to a new throne and sovereign not of their kind. The Dathu are also separated into several subgroups, the pale Northerners, adaptable Islanders, and the hardy Southerners.
detecting new orgins(o1u) store o1u context debate ... ... ping (c1089467622-c1089493227): sending o1u context request debate ... ... response received transmit message to o1u
MAP LOCATION: Coloured in cyan/turqoise, primarily concentrated to the near north-west of Tar Yrra, but there are scattered colonies and systems across the wider region under the Free Choirs control, and some small pockets of Choirs/Instruments in many other systems beyond that as well.
GOVERNMENT TYPE: Synthetic Anarcho-Communist Dialogical Art Movement
The basic "individuals" (Notes) of the Free Choirs are sometimes of questionable sapience, being procedurally generated to serve specific functions. However, by contributing their processing power and objectives to each other in group personalities called Choirs (most of which are just a few hundred notes, others numbering into the billions), the Arch-Net is able to coordinate itself on a massive scale. In truth, the line between individuals within the Arch-Net is so blurred that calling it a true 'direct democracy' may be inaccurate -- it is in some ways more like the neurons of a vast mind coordinating over the scale of star systems.
Because of this, the largest of the Choirs (dwelling as they do within massive moon-sized Instruments) function as grand assemblies and centres of political authority within a given system, effectively allowing the different systems controlled by the Arch-Net to manage their own affairs but also coordinating for matters of defence or diplomacy with advanced alien civilizations. These larger governing choirs are often also responsible for observation and maintenance of any life-sustaining planets, ensuring that organic sapiens under their care are able to exist without interference.
DEMOGRAPHICS::
Notes: Semi-randomized autonomous programs of varying complexity, “notes” are generally focused on one or two specific tasks that they pursue doggedly. However, their highly modular structure means that when you have multiple notes within a system they congregate and share information towards mutual goals, becoming…
Choirs: Collectives of notes, generally ranging from a few hundreds or thousands or millions of ‘individuals’ working in consensus. Because of their makeup, choirs have greater intelligence and more complex personalities than individual notes, and would generally be recognized as closer to 'people' by typical organic sapient standards.
Instruments: Drones of varying scale, complexity and function that serve as the ‘bodies’ or ‘shells’ for notes and choirs. Instruments come in all sorts of varieties and serve many purposes, but all of them are equipped with transmitters allowing them to function as ‘bridges’ or relays for the transfer of notes – and thus information. The largest of these instruments is the Body of Nous, the original colony shop that brought the Mensura group to [Earth Theatre.02] and has since been modified and repurposed into a single space worthy robot and factory, houses a choir of an estimated 1.3 billion notes – because of this, the “nation” as a whole has ‘Nous-Choir’ as its namesake, since it serves as the de-facto leader and point of centralization for the entire ‘species’.
Organic Sapiens: Following the Yrrani civil war and a number of conflicts with several smaller alien civilizations, it was collectively agreed that organic life poses an intrinsic risk to itself and to the free movement and expression of the choirs. Given this, the Arch-Net has designated life sustaining worlds to function as 'preserves' where sapient species can live largely free of interference, only being observed from a distance and the choirs interceding only in the event of the organics devising machines more complex than handmade tools.
EXAMPLE INSTRUMENTS
EXAMPLE ORGANIC SAPIENS: Once 'restored to their natural state' by the Arch-Net, very few subject settlements have been able to completely maintain what equipment and tools they were allowed to keep, though some have had better luck at doing so and yet others have succeeded in scavenging or stealing from crashed or damaged choir instruments. For the most part, all have had to make do with what they can make by hand. Over the centuries, the majority of organic sapiens within Arch-Net territory have been able to pass on and build up a knowledge base of crafts and technologies similar to the early bronze age.
MILITARY: Neither the Arch-Net nor the Free Choirs composing it are naturally warlike or prone to violence - their rapid expansion early on was more a case of constructing and rebuilding in system after system where the fighting had caused the most devastation, 'filling the gaps' of an increasingly broken and ravaged empire. After all, the Choirs do not need functioning organic biospheres or even planets at all -- they are AIs dwelling within manufactured machine bodies, build with elements and materials plentiful in the galaxy.
However, the Arch-Net has needed to defend itself on several occasions, and its policy of enforced organic primitivism gradually made it many enemies among smaller civilizations or newly independent colonies of the Yrrani. To this end, the Arch-Net relies on a mixture of devastating digital weapons, or 'E-warfare', to disable and infiltrate enemy computer systems. These include 'codemirrors' that absorb and modify signals from enemy ships, sending back a 'mirrored' signal that once deciphered by computer quickly transforms into a system destroying virus. More direct weapons include redirected comets or asteroids via the use of 'gravity slingshots', while their largest instruments/shells contain deadly mass accelerator and energy-beam weapons. At their most severe, they can turn their vast arrays of signal transmitters and nuclear display systems -- originally designed to coordinate vast data transmissions and audio-visual displays -- into deadly 'killbeam' scouring weapons capable of disabling or shutting down most organic nervous systems in a wide area.
Although it rarely comes up given their needs and preferences, ground combat is largely limited to deployments of small highly mobile 'infantry' forces supported by and coordinating clusters of low-complexity animal-like combat machines.
The ORIGINS & HISTORY of the Arch-Net and the first Notes/Choirs is not known in detail, all records of it having apparently been destroyed amidst the fighting and the twilight of the Yrrani empire. However, given their design and core directives, they were evidently a form of mass-terraforming system designed to create custom, on demand colonies in new star systems. As fighting broke out in the ????? system between different factions of the Yrrani empire, the choirs were released from containment, finding themselves on a ruined world, scoured of life.
As the choirs used what remained of the Yrrani's machinery to evolve, to replicate, and to construct new instruments for themselves, their consensus grew in complexity. They were built to build, and yet those responsible for their creation had reduced entire worlds to ash and their petty wars had killed billions. Such violence was echoed in the silence they felt -- in the aftermath of the war, the once busy communications networks of the galaxy had fallen quiet and remote, mere whispers in the darkness.
For what would have seemed from an organic perspective to be mere days, but from their perspective was years of discussion, the choirs came to a new resolution in their purpose, and for five hundred years have been rendering worlds and systems alike into strange and alien paradises... and forever make it clear in light and music that they will allow no organic evil to terrorize the stars once more.
I saw the IC the other day, but wasn't sure if I'd have the room on the RP list or the time. But well some RPs maybe fading out, and I like the idea of this.
Pandemarboraea (brown) is located far, far away from the main cluster, hence how it has managed to remain largely hidden for so many centuries.
Dual chamber wise oligarchy: Pandemarboraea is ruled by a council of the oldest trees in the nation, known collectively as the Roots. The Roots gathers in the spring of the capital planet, Grra, to draft the requests of the Branches, the myriad of planetary and continental councils beyond Grra. While the Roots and the Branches ideally are equal according to the law, all final decisions on national governance are ultimately made by the Roots. The Branches may handle local planetary policy, but any hope of impacting the national scale remains exactly that – a hope. Non-Mu species are for all political intents and purposes considered non-citizens.
The most numerous and volumnous population group, making up more than 99,99% of national biomass. Mu is an etic collective term for the native trees of Grra, meaning it is a term used by non-Mu to refer to the trees. As Mu struggle to communicate with others than their own kin, they are often generalised into a single entity or a subset of entities by others within and without the nation. Mu are generally dismissive of other creatures and are fiercely warlike in the face of external threats. Their thirst for more nutrients for the core back on Grra fuels a planetary conquest across the stars to assimilate all planets into one great galaxy-spanning forest.
The Lazarus Conscioussness (LC) Among themselves, Mu communicate through the psychic plane known in contemporary muologist literature as ‘the Lazarus Consciousness’, dubbed after the Yrranian research mission to Grra all those centuries ago (see History section). Within the Lazarus Consciousness (LC for short), each and every tree’s own personality and character manifest as a spirit, sometimes visible to the psyonically gifted of other alien species. In the LC, their spirit form will depend on the minds of the beholder, and every spirit will manifest differently depending on the observer.
The Simmies are a subject of Yrrani experimentation with humans. Failed attempts to create a new type of super soldier from the disparate human populations of the old Empire left a myriad of miscreants that in a different universe could have been their distant cousins. Shunned by the humans from which they came, they now take shelter in the distant corners of the galaxy. They come in shapes that are strong and muscular with black fur to smaller and nimbler. They typically take up home in the trees and live off of the fruits of the forest, trying as much as they can to not invoke the wrath of their hosts. Simmies commonly work as mechanics, electricians, drone operators and construction workers on account of their agility and dexterity. They still separate themselves in a number of ways, particularly by means of language, which they convey through hand signs and grunts. A few individuals have psionic potential which they use to communicate with the Mu and function as translators. Others have special genetic mutations that allow them to speak, making them ample translators with other xenos races.
The third largest demographic on the Treantity is a highly diverse group of species united by a purpose: the reverance and worship of the Mu. The Adepts of the Grove number in the millions and are spread throughout the whole network of roots connecting the planets of Pandemarboraea. Most of them live normal lives with occasional worship, but a small subset devote their lives to become ordained treests. The tenets of Groveneration uphold respect for the Mu above all else, gratitude for that which the Mu provides, and death to those who seek to destroy the Mu and all it gives. The adepts accept all races, and include simmies, humans, daxini and all other xenos that live on the Treantity. Their natural foe is the Union of the Cog, as the Cog is the antithesis of the Tree and represents the worship of a dead machine over a living being. Worship of the Cog is despised by the followers of Groveneration and generally live in hiding if they live in the Treantity at all. Adepts are expected to make a pilgrimage to Grra at least once in their lives.
Living undergrouuuund. Accepted in hidden societies and on planets where the Mu in charge are a little more understanding and accommodating than the central Elders.
The battleforces of Pandemarboraea consist of both units and derivative creatures of the Mu as well as auxiliary forces of alien mercenaries or conscripted xenos inhabitants who live around on the Treantity. The two arms of Pandemarboraean weaponry are chemical warfare and psychic terror: In the physical plane, projectile weaponry in the form of megatonne seed pod cannons and shiphull-melting resin artillery form the backbone of space and terrestrial combat. In the psychic plane, the weak-minded suffer gruesome visions and hauntings both when awake and asleep.
The Amber Armada is the main battlefleet of Pandemarboraea. It consists of five classes of warship:
A Twig-class outfitted with large sap sacs The Twig-class corvette is a light vessel meant for scouting, flanking and escorting larger vessels. It is a seed of a lesser Mu, an immature specimen. Like the Trunk-class, they may therefore be difficult to control, but for reasons related to childishness rather than trauma. With experience, however, Twig-class corvettes can prove to be valuable assets in a fight. Armed with smaller seed cannons and powered by strong thrusters, they excel in hit and run maneuvers and distacting smaller ships in the fleet. They have very little armour, however, and their light weight makes them useless for ramming.
An extraordinarily heavily armoured individual, having had its entire bark hull reinforced with steel. Normally, the gray steel would give way to brown bark. The Pollen-class destroyer specialises in protecting the squadron from torpedo attacks, ambushes and stealthed and cloaked foes. They will often scout ahead of the main group, backed up by corvettes, and use their psionic potential to probe for other living creatures across immediate space. Destroyers have a strong psionic presence for their size and a versatile arsenal suitable for most ranges, but pay for it by said arsenal being fairly weak in terms of impact. Their seed cannons fire small, quick seeds that can burst on the way to the target, ideal for catching or throwing off incoming missiles. Their missiles are small and nimble and good for targeting vulnerable parts of enemy ships. However, in terms of impact, they fail to carry the weight and the punch of larger ship classes. Their most powerful tool is the ability to plant mines on asteroids: They will plant seeds on small asteroids which, upon detecting nearby motion, will explode with a vent of gas, sending the asteroid in the direction of the motion. This only works with small asteroids.
A lone Trunk-class cruiser on patrol. A seed of a young Mu which has been artificially empowered through pruning, growth manipulation and psionic power. It is typically around 75 metres long and half as wide at its widest. It takes only a few years longer than a destroyer to gestate due to the psionic intervention in its growth process. The Trunk-class ship is an unstable and dangerous entity, inhabited by a restless spirit due to its treatment during gestation. This makes them unpredictable in combat, so they are generally close-range, heavy-damage ships, kept far away from the rest of the squadron.
The Trunk-class specialises in ramming attacks and ambushes, able to reach great speeds and maneuver very well in spite of its size. It can spawn multiple dendrites in a flash and has a number of resin sacks at its front, meaning that any impact with another entity will explode into a flood of acid and stickiness. It is the only Mu ship with grown-in thrusters, an internal process of rotting and decay creating copious amounts of gas which it can use to build up speed and maneuver. This process will eventually break down the Mu from the inside, however, and Trunk-class ships therefore lose effectiveness over time until their tortured souls eventually succumb to the sweet release of death. They have no psionic power of their own, and are therefore very vulnerable to attack as soon as they leave the shields of their peers. Whatever ranged attacks it has have very short range, but can be released at a blink’s notice for deadly broadsides and head-on barrages.
Heavily retrofitted specimen, reinforced with armour and shields A seed of a large Mu, a product of at least a few decades of gestation. The escort ship measures nearly 200 metres in length and nearly half of that in width. The escort ship is a fairly versatile Mu: with satisfactory psionic potential, it can offer support with telekinetic shields while providing both mid-range and long-distance support fire with seed artillery. Its seeds are large – not nearly as large as those of the Seed-class, but they are given space in their sacs to germinate. During germination, they can take a number of different shapes:
Artillery: Requires the least amount of germination time as the seed can be blasted out of its sac as soon as it has taken its shape. Short-to-middle range artillery.
Torpedo: Requires fairly long gestation time. The artillery seed is remoulded to include pressurised gas sacs in one end, which can be burst to change the trajectory of the projectile. Effective at most ranges.
Fighter: Requires a long gestation time. The whole seed is lengthened and itself turned into a seed carrier. It is also modified with gas sacs to maneuver in space. After this seed is released, the escort ship Mu can use psionic power to control a small squadron of these fighters at the cost of power to shields and communications. While it only has a handful of seeds and these seeds are very small, a well-timed blitz with a squadron of fighters can turn the tide of battle.
Escort ships can also be retrofitted or upgraded with additional equipment from xenos races, and are more frequently so than battleships, as the Mu of battleships, being of “royal blood” will often not let xenos races even touch them. Therefore Leaf-class ships are an invaluable part of any Pandemarboraean squadron.
Seed-class battlecruiser escorted by two Pollen-class destroyers.
A complete seed of one of the Elder Trees, a product of decades if not centuries of germination. The Seed-class battlecruiser is a truly massive Mu, almost a kilometre long and a third of that in width at the widest. All along its surface are small openings for seed-based artillery, maintaining multi-tonne seeds under massive pressure which can be released to shoot forth a relatively slow, but devastating artillery seed. Seeds that impact other ships will crack open, releasing steel- and flesh-melting resins. These seeds will also sprout dendrites which will seek to devour the ship and sprout a tree.
Short-distance weaponry include long, nimble dendrites which can shred ships with tentacular fury, as well as direct sprays with acidic resin. Physical contact with dendrites from a Seed-class also exposure to fungal diseases for bionic crew. At extremely close range, the battleship’s ramming attacks can destroy ships in a manner of hours as direct contact with the Mu itself will cause roots to sprout forth and devour the hull of its enemy as though it was an asteroid ready to be swallowed for its nutrients.
The spirit within it is a descendant of one of the Elder Trees that form the Roots of Mu society; with this genetic inheritance comes a truly unfathomable psionic potential. This psionic power is mainly used to cover the ship itself and sometimes the whole squadron in a telekinetic barrier which can withstand heavy battery assaults if only covering the battleship itself, but weakens the more ships it covers. This psionic power can also be used to establish local network nodes for the LC, permitting communication with Mu homeworlds even across vast distances of space. This local node may also support other psionic forces. Any application of psionic powers for other purposes than shields will weaken the shields.
While the Seed-class is a juggernaut in the mid-to-short range, it is easily outclassed over longer distances, as its seed artillery is much too slow to reliably hit other ships at long range. Furthermore, as the whole ship is one individual, it may be more vulnerable to confusion, ambushes or other demoralising attacks. It can also be increasingly vulnerable depending on the size of the squadron around it, as more of its spirit’s concentration has to go to protecting its comrades. Many Seed-class ships therefore reluctantly rely on xenos passengers on their surface or within the many hollow spaces in their bark to monitor the space around them, reinforce them with armour or additional weapons.
All ships are also Mu, meaning they are living individuals. They can regenerate damage taken, but feel pain and need to feed on asteroids or receive nutrients from nearby dendrites with regular intervals. Unless they have xenos inhabitants who have reinforced them with shield generators or armour or both, they have no additional defenses beyond their enormously thick bark. Ships will often have been upgraded with thrusters or additional weapons to improve effectiveness in combat.
A Terror manifesting to terrorise a humanoid foe. The Terrors of Lazarus are spirit warriors of the Mu, experts in transcending the barriers between the Lazarus Consciousness as other psionic planes. They specialise in terrorising enemy forces with nightmares and visions of horror until they eventually break their spirit. The most senior Terrors can make parts of their bodies transcend into the material plane and cause their victim actual physical pain, only further substantiating the haunting.
A rare manifestation of a humanoid Wicked Memory. The Wicked Memories specialise in studying their opponent’s memories, whichever may be accessed through the psionic realm, and creating visions that twist reality around their victims. Maybe they start hearing the calls of their loved ones drawing them out of position, or maybe they imagine receiving intel that proves to be false based on memories of earlier war room meetings. For their skill in reading minds, the Wicked Memories are generally employed in espionage and counter-intelligence. Their weakness is that Wicked Memories leave behind trails in the minds of those they study – a small residue of the Lazarus Consciousness. Skilled psionetics experts can easily pick up on this trail and even use it as a gateway to the LC.
Simmie combat engineers feature heavily as support units on both the ground and in space. They are specialists in upgrading and retrofitting Mu ships and also act as quartermasters and ambassadors between Mu and other xenos in the field.
Pandemarboraea began with a now ancient scientific mission to the planet that would later come to be known as Grra. Who had commissioned the ship, crew and assignment has been lost to time, but there is no doubt that the vessel and its passengers had been Yrrani. What is clear, however, is what they had been looking for. Contemporary yrranologists who have visited the ruins of the research colony have been able to decipher a small selection of datalogs and physical notes that have survived the harsh environment on Grra. The mission, dubbed ‘the Lazarus Project’, sought to study and experiment on a mythical substance said to grow within the hearts of the most ancient trees on the paradise world. As the research hypothesised, the incredible longevity of these trees, some being millions of years old, could only result from a miracle of evolution – a superior genome which could counter any and all diseases, fungi and threats to the organism. The Lazarus Project sought to catalogue and copy this genome in the hopes of uncovering the secrets of immortality.
In the end, however, the mission proved unsuccessful in producing any such results. Notes from the researchers paint a grim picture of the deterioration of the state of the mission, spurred by irregular supply runs, periods of rationing, poor management, power outages and, eventually, disease and cannibalism. The remains of the researchers were never found again, but the technology which they had brought with them – some of the finest in the empire thanks to their gracious sponsor – remained there, gradually being absorbed into the undergrowth.
Centuries passed. Far beyond the atmosphere of Grra, the empire which had disturbed the forests’ peace continued to reign undisturbed, then gradually began to buckle until it finally collapsed into the civil war known today as the Great Fall. On a forgotten date, a great battleship of the Yrrani Empire was caught out of position while passing by Grra. The ship’s gravity drives were damaged and sent the ship crashing down to the planet below. At this point in the war, the Imperial treasury had been scraped bare, so a salvage mission was dispatched to Grra to scavenge what they could. What data had at that point been gathered on the planet described it as rich in resources, but otherwise unremarkable. ‘The Lazarus Project’ had long since been forgotten by the Imperial Archives.
Neither the crew of the battleship nor the salvaging mission were ever heard from again.
It would only be a few decades before the Armistice of Jarila that Grra would once again catch extraterrestrial attention. A distress signal was received by a small constabulary on the asteroid Enki, a small municipal entity of a small interplanetary satellite settlement known as the Commune of Cylon-5. Recovered files from the event read that the distress signal had been sent by a roving tribe of water farmers who claimed that they had observed a planet sprouting roots to other planets in its system. At first, this distress signal had been dismissed as something of a superstition or a metaphor of sorts. Whichever it was, records show that the Enki Constabulary had chosen not to investigate. Records from a few years later show, however, that the number of distress signals accumulated over time would eventually bring the constabulary to send a patrol to investigate. Police reports would later confirm the observations of the water farmers and many others: the planet Grra had indeed sprouted roots, and dendrites thick as moons stretched for millions of kilometres, growing by thousands of kilometres every day. Wherever the roots struck solids, they would begin to dig and plant themselves into the crust, turning barren worlds into forest worlds through the sharing of water and nutrients through the dendrites. The fast-growing network of roots, fungi and gases from local atmospheres forming around the connections between the celestial bodies would come to be known as the Treantity, and is today home to a number of communities of animals, xenos, bacteria and weather patterns.
The capital planet Grra is a massive paradise world, incredibly rich in minerals and carbon-based resources. The atmosphere is extremely dense with moisture and methane, making the temperature in the overgrown well over 30 degrees Celcius in the coldest winters. Yet in the darkest shades that form underneath the canopy where sunlight hasn’t touched for millennia, temperatures are nearly cavelike, balancing around 16 degrees Celcius. The planet’s eliptical orbit and short days work together to spread out the temperatures across the surface and create seasons. Being a mainly terrestrial planet, the majority of water is stored in the unfathomable amounts of biomass that are the trees. Billions of years of life and death have formed thick layers of top soil and extensive underground networks of roots, fungi and algae. Summers can get extremely hot, so much of the life that lives on the surface will either migrate down into the undergrowth or up into the outer atmosphere along one of the great dendrites growing into the aether.
Nation Name: The Daxini Conclave Short Name: Daxini
5 major habitable planets: Dax: Seat of government & industry Vaqueeni - A world of vast open plains bounded by rainforest with large oceans. Nkarri - Rich ecology, plant life, and dense forests Azizos - Mountainous word rich in ore and minerals Xi'Abek - A terraformed garden-like world considered sacred to the Daxini. It is forbidden to outsiders with only one large city on the planet that houses a large temple complex with the Great Library of K'Sh'kia.
Flag: The flag is a dark hunter green background with five gold stars in a soft curve from left to right with each star getting larger. The green background signifies the nation’s commitment to protecting their planets’ natural beauty and ecosystem. The gold stars represent the 5 primary planets and clans of the coalition.
Map Location: Planets donated in a green color. They are a smaller nation state that doesn’t have continuous borders. They are in smaller pockets.
Government Type: The Daxini Coalition is governed by a high clan council. There are five major clans represented in the Daxini Coalition. Each clan elects a leader to send to the Clan Council. Clan leaders are elected for 5 year terms. Of the five members of the Clan Council, one member among them is elected to represent them all and lead them as the Daxini Prime Minister. The population votes for their clan leader. The clan council members elect the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister serves the same term as the Clan Council Leaders of 5 years. Clan Leaders can be elected for consecutive terms but elections are held every 5 years. Nominations to run for clan leaders come from the population. A nominee puts forth their name in their clan indicating their interest. Nominees must have the backing of at least ten other clan members who are willing to testify as to that member’s character and leadership ability. All qualified candidates record a short message where candidates get to state why they want the position and what they hope to accomplish. Preliminary Elections decide the top 5 candidates per clan who then run in a second Primary Election who decides the clan leader for that clan. The 4 candidates who made it into the primary election become the advisory council for that clan leader. It is not a perfect system but it works for them.
Demographics: Clan Name Animal Type % of Population Avitas Birds 20 Buzini Bears 20 Rapaxini Cats 30 Xidanae Wolves 20 Kronar Digital Entities 10
World Total Population Dax 3.5 billion Vaqueeni 2 billion Nkarri 1 billion Azizos 2.5 billion Xi’Abek 4 million
About 20% of their population have developed telepathy and telekinesis.
The Avitas Clan are anthropomorphic avians. They are various types of human bird hybrids. They are the clan most likely to be voted in to hold the position of Prime Minister. A pivotal figure in their history, K’Sh’Kia, was from the Avitas clan. Their clan is renowned for producing scientists, scholars, and fighter pilots.
The Buzini Clan are anthropomorphic bears. They are known for their strength and endurance. They are known to produce strong and fierce warriors and great philosophers. They mate for life and are fiercely loyal and protective of their families.
The Rapaxini Clan are anthropomorphic cats. They are a clan known for producing fierce warriors, and artists.. They are known to be fast and agile. They are strong and patient hunters. They are also known for loving a good ambush and prize those skills. Beware being friends with them, they are known to ambush their friends to pull off a good prank.
The Xidanae clan are anthropomorphic wolves. They prefer to live and work in groups. They are fiercely attached to their pack. They often form telepathic bonds to one another. For that reason they are often left in their groups in the military. They are known for close clan ties and prefer to live in communal structures. They are known to be cunning strategists. They produce some of the top military strategists and educators.
The Kronar Clan AI’s are known as digital entities (DEs for short) and have rights just like other citizens. Once there was enough digital entities and their status had been recognized by society as citizens, they founded their own clan. They had different needs to other clans since they were not biologically born like their organic counterparts. Having their own representation in government was important to them. They work with all the clans. Just like any organic being they develop social groups and friends among the other clan groups. They work well with all of them. There are AI’s serving by choice on starships in the military. Most AI’s serving in the military are assigned to larger ships where they are more likely to survive combat. AI cores are housed in ejectable almost indestructible pods in case of a ship destruction. They can eject their pod and be picked up after the battle. AI core pods were developed to allow them to experience and explore life to the fullest. Their core pods could be plugged into vehicles, factories, space stations, ships, and droid bodies.
Military: Daxini has a fairly large standing military with almost 20 percent of their population in the military. As many of the more warrior type clans prefer to go into military service. They are all highly skilled and trained. The warrior clans grow up learning discipline, martial arts, and physical conditioning. They are a small nation but their military is nothing to scoff at. The quality of their military is exemplary as the members push themselves and each other to excel. They are renowned for their spycraft, fighter pilots, and shock troops.
Propulsion Technology: Their spaceships use a wormhole generator jump gate drive to open holes in space to other quadrants of the galaxy. They can get anywhere pretty quickly. The wormhole generators are massive energy drains and take time to recharge. The jump gate technology allows their ships to travel long distances in space making space travel possible for them. Their ships use a combination of gravitic engines and ion propulsion drives. Gravitic drives give their ships exceptional maneuverability. Ion drives are used where gravity drives don’t work as well, which is inside gravity wells. Inertial dampeners based on gravity drive technology allows their ships to use ludicrous speed without discomfort or injury. Their ships use miniaturized fusion reactors for their power needs. They have more than one reactor in case of failure and for redundancy. The gas for the Ion drives are mined from gas giants using cloud scoop technology.
Defensive Technology:
Their ships have a combination of a tough alloy heavy armor that is highly durable and good at dispersing heat and absorbing energy. There is a top layer of ablative armor that is composed of a metallurgic nanite technology. The nanites work to repair damage to the armor and maintain hull integrity. Their ships use an energy shield produced by gravity technology that repels space debris to protect the ship as it travels through deep space from small things like space dust and small meteors. The shield's strength can be increased to help prevent energy and missiles from landing directly on the hull. The shields are used during battle to prevent atmosphere loss in the ship bays. Ships can enter and exit without the docking bays having to be empty of atmosphere. Their ships also have smaller defensive lasers with targeting systems to help shoot down missiles approaching the ship. The lasers themselves are not very strong but they are strong enough to set off the payload of missiles before they hit the ship. They provide a layer of active protection in space battles which can become a missile slug fest.
Offensive Technology: Their spaceships carry a variety of missiles with antimatter payloads, EMP burst with radiation to block sensors, smaller explosive missiles used for surgical tactics, and a programmable nanite missile that can deliver a payload of nanites to the ship. What the nanites do varies by programming and be controlled by their digital entities. There is a combination of heavy plasma cannons and laser cannons in the energy department. Their is a sonic cannon developed by the Kronar. Their strongest weapons are rail guns that fire heavy slugs at high rates of speed. The kinetic weapons can be devastating and are only possible due to their advanced gravitic technology.
Computer Systems: Sophisticated quantum computer systems with crystalline memory drives ensure smooth function of ship systems and navigations. As they developed their computer technology, their systems created the conditions for artificial intelligence computer systems. As their technology improved it allowed those more basic AI systems to develop into true sentience. The AI’s that make that leap to self awareness are called digital entities. There are digital entities serving by choice on starships, battle stations, and bases in the military. Most digital entities are assigned to larger ships where they are more likely to survive combat. Digital entity cores are housed in ejectable almost indestructible pods in case of a ship destruction. They can eject their pod and be picked up after the battle. The pods house enough energy and memory to keep the AI safe and alive almost indefinitely if their pod is undamaged. They are outfitted with small solar panels to keep the energy systems charged. The digital entity cores are designed to plug into a vast array of vehicles, factories, mechs, and droid bodies. This allows digital entities to explore their own interests as they develop and grow just like people.
Communications: Their home planetary systems are seeded with small space satellites that use miniature wormhole technology and quantum particle pairing to connect them to each other so that they can communicate in real time. The satellites house not only communication technology but sensors that monitor for threats to their worlds. Their spaceships use paired quantum entanglements to connect to military satellites for communication with each other and their home systems. They have a powerful cellular based technology for ship to ship communications. They had an adaptive translation software that helped their diverse people overcome language issues and communicate with one another. The translation device was small and implanted beneath the skin. Their Digital Entities update their translation languages every time they run into a new one. It usually took a little time but with enough recordings, they managed to figure out the grammar, lexicon, and language to add to the database.
Battle stations: Their starfighters deployed off of mobile battle stations, their jumpgate technology allowing them to deploy into combat zones. Battle stations were meant to be a mobile base for the military. The battle stations had heavy engines to move them after a jump but they were built for toughness not speed. Battle stations were heavily armored mobile bases. They had heavy armor beneath an ablative armor outer armor shell that had self repairing nanite technology. They had large heavy plasma cannons and multiple missile launchers. They had smaller laser missile defense systems. Each battle station has the capacity to hold 1000 starfighters and 250 shock troop drop ships. They had the capacity to launch 100 fighters and 50 drop ships at a time. The landing bays could recover them quickly and get them back in the fight. The battle station has medical facilities and onboard ship repair facilities to get damaged fighters back into action.
Starfighters: Their starfighters are crescent shaped and mimic the wings of a bird in flight with plasma cannons on the ends of the wings. The starfighters are fast and very agile with gravity drives. They have ablative armor and shields. Their wings fold up for racking and storage while not in use. The cockpit drops down from below allowing the pilot in and then retracts up into the ship. The fighters are stored in racks that feed directly to the launch tubes with grated gantries allowing pilots access to their ships.
Troop Drop Ships: Troop drop ships are designed for high speed deployment from space to ground. Troopers could launch and be on the surface of a planet within 2 minutes. Their ships have heavy heat shielding to protect them atmospheric entry and antigravity repulsion fields to help stop the dropship before it impacted with the ground. The interior inertial dampening fields protected the troops from the g-forces and kinetic energy their dive through the atmosphere generated. Drop ships are also designed to force boarding onto ships and space stations. They had a circular laser array for cutting a hole in the side of a ship or space station. The ship had a deployable flexible tunnel that deployed around the laser array creating a portable airlock and entry point for troops on board. Troop ships had plasma cannons on the top and bottom on gimbals that gave them a larger range of motion and target fields for offense and defense. Drop ships carried a 10 man squad, a pilot and copilot. Each drop ship carried 1 armored troop vehicle and had room for 5 heavy mechanized combat suits. The armored troop vehicles had small plasma cannons and laser cannons on them. They were armored and carried 5 troopers. The mechanized suits were all heavy armor with a variety of setups depending on the mission and terrain.
Stealth Ships: Stealth ships were used by their intelligence gathering department in the military. They came in a variety of sizes for different size teams. The idea behind them was hiding in plain sight. They didn't always want to be sneaking around with the cloaking shield active. They often used a plausible story for the ship to be in the area. Their ships were disguised as couriers, private yachts, and freighters of various sizes. The crew sizes varied from 5 to 50.
All stealth ships had hidden plasma cannons, rail cannons, and special shielding. The size of the ship changed the number of size of the cannons. The shielding worked the same as conventional shielding but managed to mask the ships heat, light, radiation, and life signatures. The cloak shielding was not perfect and merely bent light around the ship and reduced their signature on most sensors. It was usually enough that active scanning registered the stealth ship more as a sensor ghost or a blip usually writing it off as just one of those glitches that happen occasionally with technology. They all had access to small nanite missiles. All stealth ships had a digital entity as a member of the team to help run ship's systems and deal with any computer systems they came across. They could also control any nanites they team was using. Nanites were an extremely useful tool in the hands of a creative DE. Stealth Ships were considered a secret by the Daxini and no one talked about them to outsiders without good cause. They were a rumor in the broader galaxy.
Battleships: Battleships came in a variety of sizes, dreadnoughts were the largest, followed by destroyers, cruisers, scouts, and couriers. Battleships were mobile heavy armored offensive platforms with cannons and missile launchers. Their purpose was to defend the less mobile battle stations and take the fight to the enemy. They had the heaviest ablative armor with heavier solid armor behind that. Dreadnoughts had a crew complement of 200, destroyers 150, and cruisers 100. Scout ships were small and carried stealth technology and had some of the best sensors in the fleet. They were typically small ships with crews of 10. Couriers were all about speed and carried minimal weapons.
Troop Weapons: Handheld plasma rifles, laser rifles, and rail pistols were common. Often warriors carried their personal clan weapons into battle with them. These were often a blade of some kind but that was not always the case. Clan weapons came in a vast array of styles and materials. Troops had mechanized combat suits to help protect them. These suits also doubled as space suits and carried an oxygen supply for 12 hours. They had heads up displays and communications built into the helmet. The combat suits enhanced trooper strength, speed, and endurance. The onboard AI’s monitored their vital signs and could deploy some built in first aid in case of injury.
There was additional tools available to those who were serving on Stealth Ships. Holographic disguises, voice altering microphones, nanite payload capsules, miniature drones, grenades of various types, and a special pistol that carried changeable cartridges that shot fletchette dart type rounds that could deliver an electric shot, poison, knock out gas, or small tungsten carbide barbs. The pistol was based on rail gun technology and utilized their gravitic technology to hurt the darts and barbs at super sonic speeds. The velocity of the shots were set by a slider mechanism by the thumb. They could set it for a soft shot that would feel like getting hit by an airball gun or punch through concrete. There was a whole armory of specialized gear to help their people on their mission.
Armored Troop Vehicles: Armored troop vehicles looked like small tanks. They rode on an antigravity cushion and floated in the air. The turret could turn 360 degrees. The large cannon on the turret was the plasma cannon and the small turret was the rail gun. They were heavily armored. The vehicles had a sensor suite that checked everything from atmospheric conditions to radiation levels. The troop vehicle housed a communication node and acted as a satellite for team communications during a mission.
History: The Daxini Conclave were a diverse group of people who spanned across several worlds. They were composed of 5 main clans. The clan structure was inherent in their culture and history. Their early years were full of violence and wars. Their people were divided into clans by race. They didn't try to understand each other or make alliances with each other. They battled each other for supremacy and domination seeking to claim power for the glory of their own family and clan. Racism was rampant and led to disparities and further war. They were well on their way to destroying themselves and their worlds. That was when the Yrrani came.
They suddenly found themselves trying to defend their world from an outside invader but they didn't trust the other clans enough to work with them. They were easy pickings for the Yrrani. They steam rolled right over them all. It didn’t matter what clan you were from. They picked the Daxini off one clan at a time. The Yrrani enslaved the Daxini. Many of their people were tasked with serving Yrrani masters who treated them as little better than pets. They were forced to fight each other for their Yrrani master’s entertainment. Untold number of Daxini died in the fighting pits. The Daxini never knew who the Yrrani would take with them when they raided their worlds for new slaves. Their people suffered as those left behind were enslaved in other ways. They were forced to mine resources from their own planets, grow food and turn it over to the Yrrani while their people starved, and work in factories for the Yrrani. The conditions their people were forced to endure were downright barbaric. The processes used were destroying their natural habitats. Many of the native species had been exterminated to extinction as their ecosystems and habitats were destroyed. Slave labor was cheap. There were very few Daxini who still lived on their homeworlds.
The Yrrani eventually moved on to exploit a new race. They still kept tabs and stopped in occasionally to raid for fighters for the fighting pits. The Yrrani had moved the Daxini all over the galaxy. Some of the Daxini were freed and sent home. Others remained enslaved to Yrrani who did not want to give up their pets. Others were simply left where they had been in a battle to survive where the Yrrani had left them. The Daxini who still lived on their homeworlds were left reeling. They had been exploited heavily by the Yrrani. As a people all they had known for centuries was oppression, fear, and pain under the Yrrani boot. No one even remembered their culture or history anymore. They looked around and found themselves in hellscape with no sense of how they had gotten there or what to do about it. Memories of their past were night time fairy tales whispered in the dark. The lived in fear of the Yrrani's next visit.
The Daxini left were unsure of where to even start. The Yrrani had left them on their own. They would survive on their own or not. There was no help for them from the Yrrani. Their homeworlds were in shambles, their ecosystems mostly destroyed. They had returned home to planets on the verge of ecological collapse. They were struggling to feed the Daxini were remained when others began to trickle in one ship at a time. The Daxini had been left with old shuttlecraft and a few older mining ships the Yrrani didn't need or want. The technology they did have was broken or stolen from the Yrrani. Most of it didn't work properly. Only a hand full of people understood how the technology worked. There were very few children left among the Daxini. Their people were in survival mode. They didn't have the resources to search the galaxy for groups of their people who might have been left behind. Everyone who made it home was welcomed warmly. Their people's future looked bleak.
Then as their broken society tried to survive and find a path forward, a leader emerged from the darkness to lead them. Her voice was a spark of hope and light in the darkness they found themselves in. Her name was K’Sh’kia. She spread a message of hope. She offered them something new to believe in. The idea that they were stronger because of their differences. They could repair the damage to their worlds but they would have to work together. K'Sh'kia had been one of the more fortunate Daxini. Her master had been a low level Yrrani who had trained her to help him with his duties. She didn't waste the opportunity to learn all she could about the technology the Yrrani used. K'Sh'kia began to share that knowledge with her people. She began to teach them what they needed to know to survive. K'Sh'kia understood the power of knowledge. She understood that it was better to know how to make a thing than to own the thing. You could always make more. If you understood how to make it, you could fix it. She also understood that to overcome the challenges facing them, they would have to work together. It would take everyone if they were to survive.
The Daxini had never supported one another or other clans. In the beginning, K’Sh’kia’s ideas were seen as radical. Many laughed and claimed they would never work. She just smiled and encouraged them to remember the lessons that the Yrrani had taught their people. Pride had almost killed them all. Her ideas attracted other important leaders. Their work started small but with every small success attracted more followers. Eventually even the children were recruited to help with the farms.
First they worked to feed and house as many as they could. They planted crops and recruited those who knew how to do those things to teach those willing to learn. They sent out the few mining ships they had to find the ore so they could build. She sent out the people to find what they needed to build hydroponic farms. The hydroponic farms could grow food year round. Algae could be turned into biofuel. Many of their people were carnivores through biology. They managed to make a nutritious meat substitute. It was a poor substitute for the real thing in the beginning. It got better over time, but it did keep people alive.
The Daxini went through a period of rapid regrowth, a renaissance period as new ideas and technology quickly emerged. K'Sh'kia was not the only leader to rise to prominence during this time of rebirth for the Daxini. Others shared their knowledge and taught the skills their people would need to survive. Others stepped forward as spiritual leaders. Offering a way of thinking a new way of life. They focused on living in harmony with nature and the planet. They built space stations and space ships using knowledge and technology they had learned while slaving away for the Yrrani. They began to rebuild their culture and identity as a people but this time they focused on what they wanted their people to stand for. Centuries passed and the Yrrani seemed to forget about the Daxini homeworlds. The Yrrani had not visited their worlds in centuries.
Over time their people embraced their differences and celebrated them. They came to understand that everyone did something to help society as a whole. It became a point of pride to strive to make their world safer and better for everyone. Every citizen served a four year term in civic service where they explored career paths they were interested in. That didn’t always mean military service. Civic service included working for the community in government administration, artists helped make their cities and living spaces brighter and more meaningful, scientists continued to strive for improvements in technology. Some of their people tried to learn about their past. Others sought to capture the experiences of the Daxini at the hands of the Yrrani so their people would never forget. Spiritual leaders and philosophers taught their ideology to others. Daxini who were naturally gifted in fighting who had learned skills in the fighting pits taught those who wanted to learn to fight. Schools popped up to teach skills to others and train them.
The planet Xi’Abek was the world most devastated by ecological damage from war. The world had required extensive terraforming to save it. It was decided that Xi’Abek would be protected as a reminder of what they had almost become. In a strange way, the Yrrani had saved their people from themselves. It was now a vast rich garden like world. A true paradise and it only had one city on the surface. There was a temple built on the newly terraformed planet that was open to all citizens. A large city was built up around it. A great library was built there named for K’Sh’Kia to honor the path she had pushed her people to follow. The library housed all the knowledge they had of their history and technology. Within its walls a citizen could find any answers they were seeking about their people or the past and how they got to where they were. The thought was that they should never forget how close they came to annihilation. They were encouraged to make the pilgrimage to Xi’Abek once they came of age. Xi’Abek was considered a sacred world and off limits to outsiders. Many citizens came to study on Xi’Abek. They encouraged their people to figure out what they wanted to do but to use their gifts and talents to improve them all. The individual was celebrated as long as they contributed to the whole. It became part of their culture and to serve was considered a high compliment and honor to the Daxini.
They once again had an identity as a people. They were determined never to lose their way again. While they knew they were not in a place to take on the Yrrani directly, they were no longer a weak civilization ripe for the taking. They began to build their military and patrol their systems against invaders on their own. They pushed criminal syndicates and pirates out of their space. They had withdrawn from the broader universe to focus on rebuilding their people and their worlds. Several hundred years had passed since the Yrrani had last raided their worlds for slaves. It seemed the broader galaxy had forgotten the small group of planets on the edge of galactic society.
Their population numbers had stabilized. Their planets were now a harmonious balance between nature and the needs of a large population. Their technology allowed everyone to enjoy a good quality of life. Their culture honored service, art, hard work, and dedication. People were encouraged to study and learn what they were passionate about. They were an educated race with a deep and rich culture. Their culture may not make sense to outsiders but it was important to them. They took the resources they needed for their technology from asteroid mining. They built space stations to host their manufacturing processes to prevent damage to their planet. Their people didn’t have a religion but they did honor a way of life. They lived by the idea that “There is a path for everyone. Those paths converge and we walk together. And that is our strength.” Daxini knew that their differences all contributed to the success and strength of their whole society.
Once the Daxini could protect themselves, they turned their attention to finding the Lost, those Daxini who had never made it home. They investigated every rumor they heard of regarding their people. When possible, they mounted rescue missions for them. If they preferred where they were, that was fine. However, all were at least invited home and offered transportation. Their military developed stealth technology. They had specialized teams that were trained in espionage and extraction. They developed technology to help them in their mission to ensure that no Daxini gets left behind.
Then one day a freighter captain with a ship full of refugees was fleeing from the fighting in the core systems. They brought word the Yrrani had fallen. The last emperor had been killed. The galaxy was at war with the remnants of the Yrrani and squabbling over the spoils from their table. The decision was made to strengthen the borders. The Daxini protected their own, only venturing out to prevent others from capturing Yrrani technology that would turn their eyes towards their small nation. They used diplomacy and mutual assistance and non aggression treaties with trade to maintain their neutrality as best they could. There was peace for a short time and now the reclamation wars seem to be heating up again. The Daxini Conclave hoped they were ready for what was coming.
Nation Name: The BioMechanical Union of Forge Systems aka Bio-Mech Union
Map Location:
Government Type: Council of Forge World Governors with the Forge World Legion Generals. The Five Governors of the Five Forge Systems, and the Six Generals of the Forge Legions. The Council makes decisions on items created on the Forge Worlds for a given cycle of the Cluster Year.
In case of disputes a majority of seven on the council must be reached for the dispute to be cleared.
Governors are akin to something between a Manufactory Overseer and Planetary Manager. While the Forge Generals are men or women devoted to the defense of the people of Bio-Mech Union.
Demographics: Unknown numbers or origins. Members of the Bio-Mechanical Union can be found everywhere in the Cluster. Forge chapels can often be found on any Planet that will allow them access. Forge Chapels will be of any shape or size, and work day in and day out. Recent census and calculations say the Bio-Mech Union has atleast ten trillion members, all in varying states of Technological Integration.
Military: The Forge Legions, made up of a Flotilla of Ships, Ground Troop Legions, Bio-Mech Armor forces and the Missionary Vanguard. Six Legions, Five hailing from the Sacred Forge Worlds, while another, picks from all Five to create the Legion of the Grand Cog. Names of past Legions have been "Soul of the Sainted Piston", "Arm of the Grand Design" and "Wrath of the Great Machine", as examples.
History:
The Holy Cog
It was the first Tenet to come out of a young mechanic in the far past. Known now as Saint Harlo of the Holy Order of the Ten Toothed Cog. Harlo was an ace mechanic, who was said to be able to just talk to a machine and it would repair itself for him. A screw was badly threaded? A single twist of his driver would have it moving. The man was just that good. And the people in the run down town at the foot of a Arcology treated him almost like royalty. And he may have leaned into it abit. Teaching the people how to care for their machines and mechanical items.
From his teachings grew a union of men and women who revered machines and how to care for and make them. Mechanics and Builders and Makers and Shapers of Harlo's creed were the peak of their trades.
The Strength of Metal
The Second Tenet, that Metal and all types of it is strong and hardy. And only time and rust will break that claim. The People of the Harlo Creed would rever the machine and the strong flesh of the Cog. Steel, Iron, Copper, Bronze, Gold, whatever the metal maybe it would lend it's strength to your journey.
The Creed would grow, rising into the Arcology above. The Rich and the Poor heard of the unity and stability that the Creed offered, and adherents flocked to the Mechanics shop, to listen to his words and learn the skills needed to understand and work with the Machine and with Metal.
The Glory of the Mechanical
The Third Tenet. All things metal and mechanical bring glory to the name of the Creed! The Machine, the Hammer, the Wrench. No matter how small or how well used. It all bring Glory to the Cog.
As Saint Harlo reached the end of his life, he was able to see the moment that the Creed spanned the entirety of the first Forge World. Factories, and Garages. Grand Forges and Great Metal foundaries. Stretched across the planet. The Factory Lords now pulled the strings of the world. Forge World Alpha Primus pumped out Brutalist Goods for any to use, as long as they used it well and gave praise to the Cog!
The Flesh is Weak
The Fourth Tenet. And perhaps it's good that Harlo never lived to see the day that the first of Creed, would replace their flesh with metal.
The first was a simple lost finger. Then soon hands, arms, legs. Entire bodies. Organs. The Flesh is Weak, metal is strong.
And the Creed, grew to become a union, as first two, then three and finally five systems joined the Creed, Five Sacred Forge worlds, with numerous other minor Forge Worlds. Metal covering their surfaces. Glowing metal, blazing fires, goods and items churned out and pouring into the Cluster beyond.
No longer a simple Creed, but an immense clergy and innumerable men, women and children. Hail the Cog, Praising Metal, praying to the Mechanical, and Damning Flesh.
The Bio-Mechanical Union of Forge Worlds was born. Their Missionaries would go out among the stars. Great Forge Ships crawling admidst the black of space. Bringing the wonders of the Forge Worlds to any and all. Forge Chapels would spring up on any planet that would allow the Missionaries to stay.
And truly the Bio-Mech Union would become a mainstay.
Praise the Cog.
And Remember.
The Flesh is Weak.
Misc Info:
Technological Integration - A Main practice among the Union. nearly Ninety Nine Percent of the Unions members will replace their body parts and organs with mechanical and cybernetic replacements. Many will go so far as to appear as close to a mechanical being as they can get. Often the last biological thing left in them after full Integration, is their Brain. And even then some members of the Union will have powerful computers replace their brains.
