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1/1/2300: "Black January" [Sci-fi, Cyberpunk NRP set in the Solar System] Page 3
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Polymorpheus
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TheSovereignGrave Went months not realizing his Avatar was broken
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<Snipped quote by TheSovereignGrave>
My government, before the coup, was one of the many faux-social democracies that are extant.
The clique is inspired by John Brown and his sons to a degree-throwbacks to the old communist governments of Vietnam and Cuba, passing the torch down from generation to generation. Brown and his sons swore an oath to oppose slavery-and it got them Harper's Ferry and the USA a civil war.
Here, an oath kept between families for generations, got the nation a military coup. They've been waiting for this for awhile. The crash gave them the push they needed.
I haven't thought up all of he history for mine yet, but at the moment I think the big issue from the crash is gonna be unrest from economic problems. The whole 'leisure class' doesn't really exist since they'd be a drain on the cities' resources, so most people live pretty comfortably. Well, they did until the economic crash. Which is not going to make them happy.
1x Like
<Snipped quote by Ophidian>
I haven't thought up all of he history for mine yet, but at the moment I think the big issue from the crash is gonna be unrest from economic problems. The whole 'leisure class' doesn't really exist since they'd be a drain on the cities' resources, so most people live pretty comfortably. Well, they did until the economic crash. Which is not going to make them happy.
Bright side, the crash gives humanity a fighting chance against the mega-corps for the first time in...
Awhile.
1x Like
<Snipped quote by TheSovereignGrave>
Bright side, the crash gives humanity a fighting chance against the mega-corps for the first time in...
Awhile.
Yeah great, go beat up on the MegaCon that gave you spaceflight and interplanetary colonies and epic amounts of anime and nekos in the first place you luddites. :P
@Keyguyperson How is warfare conducted in this game? Or at least the baseline norm of "traditional" warfare? Because I was imagining Northstar warships being built around a trifecta of lasers, missiles, and attack drones armed with antimatter warheads and using them in giant slugging matches. How do you imagine space warfare?
1x Laugh
<Snipped quote by Ophidian>
Yeah great, go beat up on the MegaCon that gave you spaceflight and interplanetary colonies and epic amounts of anime and nekos in the first place you luddites. :P
And slavery, and an oppressed underclass....and basically a world that's literally worse then hell because in hell everyone might deserve it?
:p
TheSovereignGrave Went months not realizing his Avatar was broken
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<Snipped quote by Ophidian>
Yeah great, go beat up on the MegaCon that gave you spaceflight and interplanetary colonies and epic amounts of anime and nekos in the first place you luddites. :P
Well, I wasn't looking for anybody's permission but I appreciate it! Vive la Révolution!
1x Laugh
OP
Keyguyperson Welcome to Cyberhell
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6 mos ago
<Snipped quote by Ophidian>
Yeah great, go beat up on the MegaCon that gave you spaceflight and interplanetary colonies and epic amounts of anime and nekos in the first place you luddites. :P
@Keyguyperson How is warfare conducted in this game? Or at least the baseline norm of "traditional" warfare? Because I was imagining Northstar warships being built around a trifecta of lasers, missiles, and attack drones armed with antimatter warheads and using them in giant slugging matches. How do you imagine space warfare?
Space warfare will probably revolve mainly around extreme range railgun and missile exchanges, since a smart shell or missile can redirect mid flight in order to actually hit the enemy ship if it tries to dodge. In closer (as in, a range where you don't need to worry about the speed of light anymore) engagements lasers would be used to great effect. A fairly standard tactic would be to engage in a long-range artillery and missile exchange to disable enemy laser weapons, then move in to shred them at close range with lasers. Things would be fairly line battle like, which the obvious dodging and evasive maneuvers at long range. Drones would probably be pretty useful, since they could close the distance far quicker.
(also screw you we can make our own anime)
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FrostedCaramel
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2 days ago
Hello there, I'm quite interested in this.
I'm a huge of fan of Hard Sci-fi and the Expanse so just reading the intro already had me drawing the few similarities then I got to your mention of the Expanse and had a little moment of happiness.
I'm going to preface with the fact that I am bothered by some of your choices, especially considering the attempt at hard sci-fi but overall I'm not too concerned, I can overlook those and just add... I don't know... Regulations on my nations end to correct any deficiencies.
At the moment I'm between a few ideas but as this rolls on I'll make a solid choice.
I'm a huge of fan of Hard Sci-fi and the Expanse so just reading the intro already had me drawing the few similarities then I got to your mention of the Expanse and had a little moment of happiness.
I'm going to preface with the fact that I am bothered by some of your choices, especially considering the attempt at hard sci-fi but overall I'm not too concerned, I can overlook those and just add... I don't know... Regulations on my nations end to correct any deficiencies.
At the moment I'm between a few ideas but as this rolls on I'll make a solid choice.
<Snipped quote by Skylar>
Space warfare will probably revolve mainly around extreme range railgun and missile exchanges, since a smart shell or missile can redirect mid flight in order to actually hit the enemy ship if it tries to dodge. In closer (as in, a range where you don't need to worry about the speed of light anymore) engagements lasers would be used to great effect. A fairly standard tactic would be to engage in a long-range artillery and missile exchange to disable enemy laser weapons, then move in to shred them at close range with lasers. Things would be fairly line battle like, which the obvious dodging and evasive maneuvers at long range. Drones would probably be pretty useful, since they could close the distance far quicker.
Very Honor Harrington. I can definitely work with this, thanks.
(also screw you we can make our own anime)
<Snipped quote by Skylar>
And slavery, and an oppressed underclass....and basically a world that's literally worse then hell because in hell everyone might deserve it?
:p
<Snipped quote by Skylar>
Well, I wasn't looking for anybody's permission but I appreciate it! Vive la Révolution!
Ha ha. I will most certainly start grinding all of you even further into the dirt for thinking of rising against your betters. Being a MegaCon that can crank out robot catgirls isn't just for show afterall. Amazing how well kemonomimi-AI can be adapted to 4D maneuvering.
(So am I shaping up to be a big villain nation to most of you? I'm actually kinda liking the idea of playing the bad guy or evil megacorp for a change, rather a novel experience to me. If anyone wants to collab on past Northstar problems in the game's history, I'm open to it. I'm not playing to win, I'm here to play a story. Give me a good runup, and I'd be willing to take hits for story's sake.)
2x Like
I'm up for this. Could definitely play a coalition of african governments mass-producing weapons in former rainforests and the Sahara desert.
ArenaSnow Devourer of Souls
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Seen
4 yrs ago
I'm very rarely interested in sci-fi roleplays, and even when I am I need to give them a long look. But this one did catch on at first glance, so I'll be watching and seeing if I can invest in it.
I do have a few concepts for a massive media entity...
I do have a few concepts for a massive media entity...
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
Very Honor Harrington. I can definitely work with this, thanks.
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
<Snipped quote by Ophidian>
<Snipped quote by TheSovereignGrave>
Ha ha. I will most certainly start grinding all of you even further into the dirt for thinking of rising against your betters. Being a MegaCon that can crank out robot catgirls isn't just for show afterall. Amazing how well kemonomimi-AI can be adapted to 4D maneuvering.
(So am I shaping up to be a big villain nation to most of you? I'm actually kinda liking the idea of playing the bad guy or evil megacorp for a change, rather a novel experience to me. If anyone wants to collab on past Northstar problems in the game's history, I'm open to it. I'm not playing to win, I'm here to play a story. Give me a good runup, and I'd be willing to take hits for story's sake.)
We should hash out some plotlines!
Maybe the Nekos, etc, that I'm planning a plotline with are made by a local Northstar subsidiary based out of the Free Cities?
OP
Keyguyperson Welcome to Cyberhell
Member
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6 mos ago
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
So, I'm assuming an outer system research facility that experiments with societies mainly populated by AI is out of the question?
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
Even if they use rockets for secondary propulsion, a pulse drive's catastrophic failure can seriously mess up stations it's docked to.
As for space elevators, all it takes is a single laser cutting the orbiting end to cause a global disaster. I'd rather go with something more distributed, like a bunch of orbital tethers that regain momentum and spin with solar sails and rocket boosters.
I get that you're making helium-3 the main fuel source of the 24th century, but is it really so bad for a company that specializes in space travel to diversify its products?
No, but I don't feel like a space travel company could be of any major importance if it ONLY dealt in aluminum oxide. People would be doing business with it, but it isn't something megacorp worthy on its own. And please stop trying to argue that parts of the setting are stupid and wrong, because I'm not going to change them because one person specifically wants to sell aluminum oxide. If a lot of people said they, say, didn't want space elevators then I might be willing to change things. As-is pulse drives probably aren't going to be used except by older ships.
(I'd also like to point out that if the tether of an elevator was cut, the orbital anchor wouldn't fall and destroy New York. Because it's in orbit. Space elevators aren't 230 mile high skyscrapers, they're space stations with a danging nanotube cord that's hooked to some platform on Earth.)
The research outpost is possible, since any AI could be programmed to reproduce (or you could just throw in new members periodically or something), but if they had a large power base alone or could reproduce then the other powers would probably be pretty pissed if they found out.
I'm very rarely interested in sci-fi roleplays, and even when I am I need to give them a long look. But this one did catch on at first glance, so I'll be watching and seeing if I can invest in it.
I do have a few concepts for a massive media entity...
We could use some pop-culture to add a bit of flavor!
Hello there, I'm quite interested in this.
I'm a huge of fan of Hard Sci-fi and the Expanse so just reading the intro already had me drawing the few similarities then I got to your mention of the Expanse and had a little moment of happiness.
I'm going to preface with the fact that I am bothered by some of your choices, especially considering the attempt at hard sci-fi but overall I'm not too concerned, I can overlook those and just add... I don't know... Regulations on my nations end to correct any deficiencies.
At the moment I'm between a few ideas but as this rolls on I'll make a solid choice.
Nice to know you're considering it, it's a bit too far in the future for me to really let it be 100% hard. If you have any input on setting details, I'd love to hear it. Especially since the OOC is going to be up in the near future.
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
Very Honor Harrington. I can definitely work with this, thanks.
<Snipped quote by Keyguyperson>
<Snipped quote by Ophidian>
<Snipped quote by TheSovereignGrave>
Ha ha. I will most certainly start grinding all of you even further into the dirt for thinking of rising against your betters. Being a MegaCon that can crank out robot catgirls isn't just for show afterall. Amazing how well kemonomimi-AI can be adapted to 4D maneuvering.
(So am I shaping up to be a big villain nation to most of you? I'm actually kinda liking the idea of playing the bad guy or evil megacorp for a change, rather a novel experience to me. If anyone wants to collab on past Northstar problems in the game's history, I'm open to it. I'm not playing to win, I'm here to play a story. Give me a good runup, and I'd be willing to take hits for story's sake.)
Well, my Catgirl Commie needs to have been made by SOMEONE. And it's great that you're shaping up to be the villain, if everyone's willing to let it happen it might be worth it to up your influence just so things don't degenerate into "Well the Allied Federation Resistance Goody Two-Shoes Guy fleet outnumbers yours by like twenty times so that's the end of this RP I guess".
I'm up for this. Could definitely play a coalition of african governments mass-producing weapons in former rainforests and the Sahara desert.
Good, we could use a more lively Earth!
Lucidnonsense
Member
Seen
1 yr ago
I'm thinking of playing happy space-men who spend most of life in space, most of them are cyborgs or AI. they live lives that we might consider "spartan" due to resource shortages but they make heavy use of VR so the fact that they don't own any physical objects doesnt matter to them.
ArenaSnow Devourer of Souls
Banned
Seen
4 yrs ago
I could always be a secondary ally for Skylar's faction to offset the power balance.
Polymorpheus
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4 yrs ago
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FrostedCaramel
Member
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2 days ago
@Keyguyperson what are your thoughts on a megacorp that specializes in ship building, I'm pretty sure it's what I'm going to do but I'd like an idea on what a good market share would be for one. China as of 2015 had 35% of the world market share by orders if that helps with anything. I was figuring Something in the mid-to-upper 20% range would work for a megacorp in a universe dependent on ships.
Last I'd just like to ask what the capabilities of ships are when it comes to stealth (Absorbent coatings, heat-sinks, etc).
Last I'd just like to ask what the capabilities of ships are when it comes to stealth (Absorbent coatings, heat-sinks, etc).
Alright, breaking ground on the Northstar Megacorporation state. Of corporate rule, ruthless Alpha-Complex style underclass lifestyles and caste systems, RTS-gamers turned to LARP'ers/part-time field commanders, Soviet Russia Deep-Battle style space fleet doctrine, and nekos and VR-idols everywhere to make everyone happy! (Or else) Still tinkering with history, not quite sure where to start just yet, and probably going to be making a lot of edits when the actual OOC starts and other people begin putting up their NS's. But here is where I begin.
@Keyguyperson Yeah, an increase in my nation size might be called for for parity with the do-gooders. But rest assured I also am aware that size and strategic depth is a two-edge sword, and that also means I have A LOT to garrison and protect across the solar system even before going on interplanetary adventures. Won't be throwing around giant fleets and battleships willy-nilly. Measured escalation is NS-SecFor's way of dealing with problems and it's going to take a lot of effort to get them to concentrate forces outside of home stations because that means uncovering something somewhere else.
Not to mention, Black January is noted as a stock market crash. And given social position is determined by stock in Northstar.......
Faction Name:
Northstar Mega Conglomerate State. A.K.A. “Northstar MegaCon”
Faction Government:
Corporate state, ruled by a Board of Directors and all it's citizens determined by how much company stock they own.
Territory/Claims:
Northstar is a megacorporate-state headquartered in Fairhaven station in the asteroid belt with tens of thousands of space habitats, outposts, ports, and trading houses across the belt colonies and inner planets bearing the Northstar brand. It is estimated Northstar owns direct sovereign domain over 15% of the asteroid belt’s habitats and space stations, with “soft” influence over another 25% of habitats and mining colonies associated or dependent upon Northstar to varying extents and allied to it’s corporate agenda as subsidiaries, loyal allies, proxy-combatants, or debt-holdings (slave-states in all but name).
Culture:
History:
[WIP]
Today, Northstar is a sprawling megacorporate nation-state. While nominally built around exports of security contracts, merchant shipping tonnage, education, multimedia, androids, and manufacturing starships and space habitats, they are effectively a self-sustaining nation state unto themselves. And their absolute dependence on anyone else is waning with every year.
Technology:
Military:
Space Forces Details
@Keyguyperson Yeah, an increase in my nation size might be called for for parity with the do-gooders. But rest assured I also am aware that size and strategic depth is a two-edge sword, and that also means I have A LOT to garrison and protect across the solar system even before going on interplanetary adventures. Won't be throwing around giant fleets and battleships willy-nilly. Measured escalation is NS-SecFor's way of dealing with problems and it's going to take a lot of effort to get them to concentrate forces outside of home stations because that means uncovering something somewhere else.
Not to mention, Black January is noted as a stock market crash. And given social position is determined by stock in Northstar.......
Faction Name:
Northstar Mega Conglomerate State. A.K.A. “Northstar MegaCon”
Faction Government:
Corporate state, ruled by a Board of Directors and all it's citizens determined by how much company stock they own.
Territory/Claims:
Northstar is a megacorporate-state headquartered in Fairhaven station in the asteroid belt with tens of thousands of space habitats, outposts, ports, and trading houses across the belt colonies and inner planets bearing the Northstar brand. It is estimated Northstar owns direct sovereign domain over 15% of the asteroid belt’s habitats and space stations, with “soft” influence over another 25% of habitats and mining colonies associated or dependent upon Northstar to varying extents and allied to it’s corporate agenda as subsidiaries, loyal allies, proxy-combatants, or debt-holdings (slave-states in all but name).
Culture:
Northstar’s internal worker-culture retains holdovers of previous Pan-Oceania corporate (America, EU, Australian, Japanese, etc) influence, but is largely home-habitat grown corporate culture in it’s own right as well. In Northstar, everyone has a definite value as tracked by the amount of debt they owe to the MegaCon or their respective subsidiary division, and how much and what kinds of stock they own within the MegaCon representing their contribution and degree of ownership. These factors and what ratio they are in determine a person’s place and status with the system-spanning MegaCon. Most underclass citizen-employees have single-digit or double-digit stocks at most. Middle-class have thousands. And of course the executive tiers have many millions or billions of stocks in their name and under their thumbs. Those without stock value are little more than company property, and those without stock and high debt can sink to being property of even a near-broke underclass citizen-worker (often referred to as "furniture")
Northstar’s underclass citizen-workers are organized into three loose tiers based on stock, debt, and position.
“Specialists”- Underclass that somehow after decades of hard labor achieve a measure of stock value, pay off most of their mandatory debt, and specialized career success can escape part of their menial labor to achieve comfort on some level in this day and age. While still committed to hard work, people with money can at least buy a cheap last-gen android assistant or leverage rank into getting less arduous work gigs. Very, very few worker-citizens can rise to this rank, but Northstar doesn’t actively obstruct careerists and lets those who can succeed despite the class strife of the solar-age rise.
“Worker”- The vast majority of Northstar’s worker-citizens are people with little to their name but their debts from mandatory basic education, med-treatments needed to grow up in low-g to company near-Earth standards, and a single stock declaring their citizenship within Northstar and the right to advance up the corporate ladder. The micro-career ladder of the workers is a microcosm of the Northstar system as a whole. A struggle for a apartment built out of a shipping container you only have to share with four others, to get someone else to run the waste-management gig this week so you can attend a skill-seminar, to afford a subscription to Millie-Taki’s latest multimedia collection, to fight to pay off the debt interest and avoid falling down the social ladder, to maybe one day meeting a pretty partner and having a kid. Billions of workers live, struggle, toil, rise, and fall every year. Such is life within the MegaCon.
“Drones” "Furniture" "Tools"- Those with no stock do not even own themselves, consigned by crushing debt and misfortune to be little more than corporate property even below Android workers (who technically are company stock incarnate). While this also includes immigrants to Northstar who must earn their first unit of stock, at least they aren’t burdened by debt like worker-citizens that fall down the corporate ladder and unlikely to get back up. Debt blocks opportunities, education, and is a stigma of irresponsibility. Enough debt to be a drone is enough to be a slave to the company for the rest of your immortal life if you aren’t mulched on the high-danger job.
A couple of non-standard “perks” of being a Northstar worker-employee are mandatory growth treatments for low-g maturity and longevity (which are folded into a citizen's mandatory debt just for being born into Northstar) and the enshrined and ironclad-enforced right for all worker-citizens to have basic access to the medialink network for free, with persocomps and VR displays offered for almost nothing to ensure workers get to partake in the “free” media, anime, and games of Northstar, and potential access to higher levels with the right subscriptions. This serves to both guarantee underclass participation in the highly addictive consumerism of Northstar entertainment and anime, while also tranquilizing them from their hard daily toil for the company without actually obtaining the true worth of their labor. Bread and circuses in the 24th century, and Northstar has plenty of both to offer to its highly consumerist internal culture.
Middle-class citizen-workers, sub-executives, and talents live in penthouse suites with a wide range of luxuries and attended to by a minimum of two android servants, with most of their life spent in the VR strata of Northstar’s networks in extensive immersive VR simulations for their play, shopping, and most social interaction. While Northstar doesn’t give a flat basic living stipend, the dividends and automated stock portfolios the middle class have enable them to self-fund their own luxury in perpetuity, while leaving some wiggle room of status within the class for the illusion of upwards or downwards movement. Unusually for most modern factions, a sizable percentage of the middle-class do “work” in an indirect sense, taking up part-time teleoperations gigs folded into VR simulations akin to a 21st-century Farmville or civ-dictator simulator. While still a minority, its nonetheless a shot in the arm for Northstar's bottom line outside of the usual cultural, entertainment, and philiosophical products of the idle middle-class.
The trillionare and quadrillionare ultra-elite of Northstar’s Executive, Director, and Founder positions are said to live lives of unimaginable luxury. Some live in personal space-palaces attended to by armies of android servants, hidden in the void between worlds. Others live within the highest strata of the Quantum network, utilizing entire asteroid planetoids as quantum server farms to live centuries as gods in private VR pocket-universes for every minute in realspace. But not all of the Directors have departed from the real world, with the Board of Directors being a definite and real presence within the MegaCon and far from an idle circle of rulers.
AI android servants are a commonplace sight in Northstar habitats, from public utility workers to embodied office-worker level AI’s, to the harems and small armies of servants accumulated by the upper class and the legions used by SecFor. Most Northstar worker-citizens have gotten used to these animal-eared demihumans, but plenty within and without Northstar detest the “kitties” “kawii-kis” “furries” for taking job opportunities and possibly beginning to crowd out regular humans on Northstar stations. Most kemonomimi function as conventional working middle-class, doing office-work and skilled labor while roleplaying a facimilie of regular consumerist life. Why these androids are allowed to act so.....human is a judgement only known to the Founder that first made them. But Northstar isn't terribly concerned with an AI-revolt given their corporate loyalty programming and practical benefits to Northstar AI's sticking to the systems by their own choice (if they are even capable of realizing such a choice exists) clearly having worked for centuries.
Northstar’s underclass citizen-workers are organized into three loose tiers based on stock, debt, and position.
“Specialists”- Underclass that somehow after decades of hard labor achieve a measure of stock value, pay off most of their mandatory debt, and specialized career success can escape part of their menial labor to achieve comfort on some level in this day and age. While still committed to hard work, people with money can at least buy a cheap last-gen android assistant or leverage rank into getting less arduous work gigs. Very, very few worker-citizens can rise to this rank, but Northstar doesn’t actively obstruct careerists and lets those who can succeed despite the class strife of the solar-age rise.
“Worker”- The vast majority of Northstar’s worker-citizens are people with little to their name but their debts from mandatory basic education, med-treatments needed to grow up in low-g to company near-Earth standards, and a single stock declaring their citizenship within Northstar and the right to advance up the corporate ladder. The micro-career ladder of the workers is a microcosm of the Northstar system as a whole. A struggle for a apartment built out of a shipping container you only have to share with four others, to get someone else to run the waste-management gig this week so you can attend a skill-seminar, to afford a subscription to Millie-Taki’s latest multimedia collection, to fight to pay off the debt interest and avoid falling down the social ladder, to maybe one day meeting a pretty partner and having a kid. Billions of workers live, struggle, toil, rise, and fall every year. Such is life within the MegaCon.
“Drones” "Furniture" "Tools"- Those with no stock do not even own themselves, consigned by crushing debt and misfortune to be little more than corporate property even below Android workers (who technically are company stock incarnate). While this also includes immigrants to Northstar who must earn their first unit of stock, at least they aren’t burdened by debt like worker-citizens that fall down the corporate ladder and unlikely to get back up. Debt blocks opportunities, education, and is a stigma of irresponsibility. Enough debt to be a drone is enough to be a slave to the company for the rest of your immortal life if you aren’t mulched on the high-danger job.
A couple of non-standard “perks” of being a Northstar worker-employee are mandatory growth treatments for low-g maturity and longevity (which are folded into a citizen's mandatory debt just for being born into Northstar) and the enshrined and ironclad-enforced right for all worker-citizens to have basic access to the medialink network for free, with persocomps and VR displays offered for almost nothing to ensure workers get to partake in the “free” media, anime, and games of Northstar, and potential access to higher levels with the right subscriptions. This serves to both guarantee underclass participation in the highly addictive consumerism of Northstar entertainment and anime, while also tranquilizing them from their hard daily toil for the company without actually obtaining the true worth of their labor. Bread and circuses in the 24th century, and Northstar has plenty of both to offer to its highly consumerist internal culture.
Middle-class citizen-workers, sub-executives, and talents live in penthouse suites with a wide range of luxuries and attended to by a minimum of two android servants, with most of their life spent in the VR strata of Northstar’s networks in extensive immersive VR simulations for their play, shopping, and most social interaction. While Northstar doesn’t give a flat basic living stipend, the dividends and automated stock portfolios the middle class have enable them to self-fund their own luxury in perpetuity, while leaving some wiggle room of status within the class for the illusion of upwards or downwards movement. Unusually for most modern factions, a sizable percentage of the middle-class do “work” in an indirect sense, taking up part-time teleoperations gigs folded into VR simulations akin to a 21st-century Farmville or civ-dictator simulator. While still a minority, its nonetheless a shot in the arm for Northstar's bottom line outside of the usual cultural, entertainment, and philiosophical products of the idle middle-class.
The trillionare and quadrillionare ultra-elite of Northstar’s Executive, Director, and Founder positions are said to live lives of unimaginable luxury. Some live in personal space-palaces attended to by armies of android servants, hidden in the void between worlds. Others live within the highest strata of the Quantum network, utilizing entire asteroid planetoids as quantum server farms to live centuries as gods in private VR pocket-universes for every minute in realspace. But not all of the Directors have departed from the real world, with the Board of Directors being a definite and real presence within the MegaCon and far from an idle circle of rulers.
AI android servants are a commonplace sight in Northstar habitats, from public utility workers to embodied office-worker level AI’s, to the harems and small armies of servants accumulated by the upper class and the legions used by SecFor. Most Northstar worker-citizens have gotten used to these animal-eared demihumans, but plenty within and without Northstar detest the “kitties” “kawii-kis” “furries” for taking job opportunities and possibly beginning to crowd out regular humans on Northstar stations. Most kemonomimi function as conventional working middle-class, doing office-work and skilled labor while roleplaying a facimilie of regular consumerist life. Why these androids are allowed to act so.....human is a judgement only known to the Founder that first made them. But Northstar isn't terribly concerned with an AI-revolt given their corporate loyalty programming and practical benefits to Northstar AI's sticking to the systems by their own choice (if they are even capable of realizing such a choice exists) clearly having worked for centuries.
History:
[WIP]
Today, Northstar is a sprawling megacorporate nation-state. While nominally built around exports of security contracts, merchant shipping tonnage, education, multimedia, androids, and manufacturing starships and space habitats, they are effectively a self-sustaining nation state unto themselves. And their absolute dependence on anyone else is waning with every year.
Technology:
Citadel Stations: Northstar’s latest and greatest of space habitat designs, the Citadel-class habitat is a rotating space city in the stars, produced with the latest cutting-edge technology and evolution of human psychology within tight spaces in mind. Some are configured as industrial platforms, others as luxury stations devoted solely to producing a self-contained VR universe for their inhabitants, plus a usual run of labor platforms that can hold a unprecedented number of underclass with a across the board improvement in creature comforts and standards of living for even the lowest common worker. Several quantum-servers hosting construction recruitment websites crashed less than a day after declaration of their entry to mass-production from the sheer number of applicants from across the system, eager to buy their way into a Northstar Station under the immigrant-labor programs allowing old and new worker-citizens to earn a place with sufficient labor to offset their entry fees and berthing.
Despite the publicity of their construction, outside observers note the proportion of labor being drafted to build them is disproportionately low compared to the number of stations spotted being built. Some of them very well off the traveled trade lanes and without any external labor, with no questions answered of what they are for or why there are active SecFor patrols guarding all routes in and out of their build zones with shoot-on-sight orders.
Kemonomimi Android Lines: Northstar makes extensive use of complex robotics and automation from industrial robots to domestic servants to near-wholly automated starships. But their most visible product lineage are Kemonomimi domestic androids. Designed to be adaptive yet obedient task-centered AI servants, Northstar labs can custom-tailor these AI’s to suit the desires of their buyers in appearance, personality, skillset, and degree of independence with unrivalled precision. To distinguish androids from humans, Northstar primarily styles their product lines as Kemonomimi (humanoids with animal features and anime styling for deliberately not-quite human look in a attractive way), a early design choice that has led to enduring success across the solar system even as other android servant trends ebb and flow (cat-types remain a perennial favorite, followed by dog-types). Most Northstar middle-management and office-worker level AI’s are embodied in kemonomimi to keep them personable and grounded in human-like psychology, and they are exported by the millions to stations and factions that desire obedient underclass servants.
Unlike many other factions, Northstar has few qualms of mass-producing robots and AI androids of distinctly sub-human quality en masse for civilian, industrial, or military purposes. It is rumored that several newer habitats and shipyards recently built have their underclass replaced with compliant android labor in increasing percentages. While the Board of Directors haven’t begun actively phasing out human labor on their existing habitats, they have fewer reasons to keep using humans on their newer stations.
Military Kemonomimi: Combat-grade kemonomimi for Northstar SecFor are a far different breed than the cute, sexy, and obedient civilian models. Underneath the skin is kineticweave armor, diamondate skeletons, combat-reflex programming, micro-quantum computer cores running adaptive combat programming, weapons integrated into limbs. Company-level command units have built-in quantum communicators, enabling them to be remote-controlled by off-site tacticians (Specialized AI or human) to provide higher coordination than their individual task-intelligence systems.
Units expected to go into the heaviest of fighting or special ops work drop the pretense of being pretty humanoids, adopting more beastial forms like werewolves, multi-limbed spiders, mechanized dogs with built-in weaponry, or wholly robotic walking tank weapon platforms. Shedding human inefficiencies for combat lethality.
Northstar also exports military kemonomimi to other factions and corporations, either with SecFor on private military contractor agreements or downgraded last-gen export models bought outright. As the per-unit cost of android troops drops below the upkeep of human infantry, its a hard question of how much of a place humans will have on the battlespace in the next century.
Despite the publicity of their construction, outside observers note the proportion of labor being drafted to build them is disproportionately low compared to the number of stations spotted being built. Some of them very well off the traveled trade lanes and without any external labor, with no questions answered of what they are for or why there are active SecFor patrols guarding all routes in and out of their build zones with shoot-on-sight orders.
Kemonomimi Android Lines: Northstar makes extensive use of complex robotics and automation from industrial robots to domestic servants to near-wholly automated starships. But their most visible product lineage are Kemonomimi domestic androids. Designed to be adaptive yet obedient task-centered AI servants, Northstar labs can custom-tailor these AI’s to suit the desires of their buyers in appearance, personality, skillset, and degree of independence with unrivalled precision. To distinguish androids from humans, Northstar primarily styles their product lines as Kemonomimi (humanoids with animal features and anime styling for deliberately not-quite human look in a attractive way), a early design choice that has led to enduring success across the solar system even as other android servant trends ebb and flow (cat-types remain a perennial favorite, followed by dog-types). Most Northstar middle-management and office-worker level AI’s are embodied in kemonomimi to keep them personable and grounded in human-like psychology, and they are exported by the millions to stations and factions that desire obedient underclass servants.
Unlike many other factions, Northstar has few qualms of mass-producing robots and AI androids of distinctly sub-human quality en masse for civilian, industrial, or military purposes. It is rumored that several newer habitats and shipyards recently built have their underclass replaced with compliant android labor in increasing percentages. While the Board of Directors haven’t begun actively phasing out human labor on their existing habitats, they have fewer reasons to keep using humans on their newer stations.
Military Kemonomimi: Combat-grade kemonomimi for Northstar SecFor are a far different breed than the cute, sexy, and obedient civilian models. Underneath the skin is kineticweave armor, diamondate skeletons, combat-reflex programming, micro-quantum computer cores running adaptive combat programming, weapons integrated into limbs. Company-level command units have built-in quantum communicators, enabling them to be remote-controlled by off-site tacticians (Specialized AI or human) to provide higher coordination than their individual task-intelligence systems.
Units expected to go into the heaviest of fighting or special ops work drop the pretense of being pretty humanoids, adopting more beastial forms like werewolves, multi-limbed spiders, mechanized dogs with built-in weaponry, or wholly robotic walking tank weapon platforms. Shedding human inefficiencies for combat lethality.
Northstar also exports military kemonomimi to other factions and corporations, either with SecFor on private military contractor agreements or downgraded last-gen export models bought outright. As the per-unit cost of android troops drops below the upkeep of human infantry, its a hard question of how much of a place humans will have on the battlespace in the next century.
Dog-o-War: Short, petite dog-types rarely standing above 4”6. Designed as cheap, disposable, and low-impact cannon fodder for cramped habitats and slum-fighting, DoW’s are always used and deployed en-masse to put down threats with submachineguns or micro-lasers. Not terribly smart nor tactically adaptive, but numbers and the immunity to vacuum and zero-g make them useful in their own right.
Grunts: A catchall for a general range of standard infantry units based on any kind of K-type. Besides the body underneath being synthflesh covered mechanisms and warbot, they are equivalent to human troops in armament, armor, and operational role. While perhaps lacking in initiative and creativity, numbers and reduced logistical upkeep compared to human troops is a fair tradeoff in Northstar’s point of view.
Bodarks: Elite Werewolf-types specialized in special forces work, large and powerful 6”2 machines with wolf-faces while wielding powered armor loaded with a wide range of armor and operations loadouts (corridor-assault, stealth, zero-g maneuver, etc). Northstar bends many of it’s own AI regulation protocols to make these beasts the most lethal killing machines they can be, giving them a considerable capacity for adaptation and creativity, but also requiring careful handling to keep them from the same instabilities human spec-ops are prone to when abused.
MAWLR: Centaur-types built around a mechanical lower body of four heavy legs and a upper body loaded with heavy artillery ordinance, laser cannons, missile launchers, or all-around coverage of machineguns. While situations that warrant such a walking tank are rare, and they are unable to traverse most human-sized internal tunnels and corridors, Northstar retains a considerable cadre for rock-hopping campaigns, planetary assaults, or clearing hanger bays for landing troops while immune to most small-arms. Why Northstar feels the need to also give them a external humanoid torso and head is a mystery for the ages, because they are totally redundant.
Grunts: A catchall for a general range of standard infantry units based on any kind of K-type. Besides the body underneath being synthflesh covered mechanisms and warbot, they are equivalent to human troops in armament, armor, and operational role. While perhaps lacking in initiative and creativity, numbers and reduced logistical upkeep compared to human troops is a fair tradeoff in Northstar’s point of view.
Bodarks: Elite Werewolf-types specialized in special forces work, large and powerful 6”2 machines with wolf-faces while wielding powered armor loaded with a wide range of armor and operations loadouts (corridor-assault, stealth, zero-g maneuver, etc). Northstar bends many of it’s own AI regulation protocols to make these beasts the most lethal killing machines they can be, giving them a considerable capacity for adaptation and creativity, but also requiring careful handling to keep them from the same instabilities human spec-ops are prone to when abused.
MAWLR: Centaur-types built around a mechanical lower body of four heavy legs and a upper body loaded with heavy artillery ordinance, laser cannons, missile launchers, or all-around coverage of machineguns. While situations that warrant such a walking tank are rare, and they are unable to traverse most human-sized internal tunnels and corridors, Northstar retains a considerable cadre for rock-hopping campaigns, planetary assaults, or clearing hanger bays for landing troops while immune to most small-arms. Why Northstar feels the need to also give them a external humanoid torso and head is a mystery for the ages, because they are totally redundant.
Military:
Northstar Security Force (“SecFor”) was originally just a customs and patrol task force, little more than corporate rent-a-cops. As Northstar expanded and interplanetary piracy took off, rent-a-cops became a full police force, then a gendarme as worker riots and warfare became possible, which then morphed into a security fleet for hire as other factions found themselves unable to survive and raise a military from scratch to defend themselves. Security and anti-piracy patrols for client-states would morph into military defense agreements for member-habitats effectively Northstar in all but name and logo.
Today SecFor is a dominating military force in the solar system. While not the strongest per-ship and crewman, nor the most cutting-edge or loaded with the most exotic hardware, nor the most tactically brilliant or inspired, it is both among the largest space forces in the solar system and the strongest in logistical support power. Both of which more than make up for a litany of flaws.
Part of Northstar’s incredible depth in numbers stems from extensive automation and usage of kemonomimi androids whenever recruitment incentives fall short of quota, a not uncommon occurrence as manufacturing of new starships has surpassed the training pipeline. Where a human needs years of training and on the job experience to become skilled at their job, kemonomimi androids can download skills and abilities as needed and go through hundreds of simulated drills within minutes with enough Q-comp support.
An unusual asset of Northstar Security is the ability to mobilize a sizable percentage of their otherwise unproductive middle-class as part-time quantum-comm teleoperations tacticians for robotic soldiers. A joint technological-logistical-societal breakthrough under the umbrella meme of “War as a Hobby”, Northstar’s available tactical command assets can be bolstered exponentially with the right incentives and marketing. The greater the challenge or enemy, the more thrill-seekers at the ready to remote control attack drones over QEC’s. While not the same as professional tacticians or full-time troops on site, being detached from death, fear, and morality of troops makes for potent equalizers and/or distractions to help real soldiers or perform raids. Its also led to instances of usage of excessive force and a few atrocities to rebelling workers by gamers detached from the real world, but Northstar waves them off as the usual risks when events escalate to open warfare and primarily the fault of the enemy to force them to escalate to such levels.
Admittedly, Northstar’s numbers and multitude of ways to bolster their manpower and command abilities are deceiving in a sense. SecFor is stretched out thinly across half the solar system, and even the mightiest of warmachines operates a careful edifice of deployment and limited assets available at any given flashpoint. A mighty battleship fleet doesn’t matter much when it’s on the wrong side of the solar system. Yet strategic breadth and depth matter as well, and while Northstar might lose skirmishes and battles, nobody has come close to really waging full-scale war against Northstar as a whole or being able to inflict lasting crippling strikes against such a decentralized logistical infrastructure.
Today SecFor is a dominating military force in the solar system. While not the strongest per-ship and crewman, nor the most cutting-edge or loaded with the most exotic hardware, nor the most tactically brilliant or inspired, it is both among the largest space forces in the solar system and the strongest in logistical support power. Both of which more than make up for a litany of flaws.
Part of Northstar’s incredible depth in numbers stems from extensive automation and usage of kemonomimi androids whenever recruitment incentives fall short of quota, a not uncommon occurrence as manufacturing of new starships has surpassed the training pipeline. Where a human needs years of training and on the job experience to become skilled at their job, kemonomimi androids can download skills and abilities as needed and go through hundreds of simulated drills within minutes with enough Q-comp support.
An unusual asset of Northstar Security is the ability to mobilize a sizable percentage of their otherwise unproductive middle-class as part-time quantum-comm teleoperations tacticians for robotic soldiers. A joint technological-logistical-societal breakthrough under the umbrella meme of “War as a Hobby”, Northstar’s available tactical command assets can be bolstered exponentially with the right incentives and marketing. The greater the challenge or enemy, the more thrill-seekers at the ready to remote control attack drones over QEC’s. While not the same as professional tacticians or full-time troops on site, being detached from death, fear, and morality of troops makes for potent equalizers and/or distractions to help real soldiers or perform raids. Its also led to instances of usage of excessive force and a few atrocities to rebelling workers by gamers detached from the real world, but Northstar waves them off as the usual risks when events escalate to open warfare and primarily the fault of the enemy to force them to escalate to such levels.
Admittedly, Northstar’s numbers and multitude of ways to bolster their manpower and command abilities are deceiving in a sense. SecFor is stretched out thinly across half the solar system, and even the mightiest of warmachines operates a careful edifice of deployment and limited assets available at any given flashpoint. A mighty battleship fleet doesn’t matter much when it’s on the wrong side of the solar system. Yet strategic breadth and depth matter as well, and while Northstar might lose skirmishes and battles, nobody has come close to really waging full-scale war against Northstar as a whole or being able to inflict lasting crippling strikes against such a decentralized logistical infrastructure.
Space Forces Details
Northstar’s logistical strength means their forces can be more loose with ammunition expenditure than other powers. Not only can battleships fire off hundreds of nuclear torpedoes, thousands of smart railgun grounds, and tank heavy damage without concern to the corporate bottom-line, there will most certainly be ammunition, fuel, and repair ships tailing behind every Northstar task-force to resupply on-site.
Another example is the extensive use of attack drones, self-guided remote-controlled or AI driven warships operating at speeds and g-forces that would kill humans loaded with railguns and antimatter munitions. Relatively cheap and expendable compared to real starships, particularly in expensive personnel training bills, they are used and expended with ease by any ship with a external hardpoint or hanger. While easy prey for a starship’s precision weapons or point-defense arrays, they don’t need to live long to bring antimatter torpedoes to bear from a dozen different angles a regular starship couldn’t, and that can decide the course of a battle easily.
Northstar’s prized battleships and fleet carriers aren’t as active as the multimedia machine makes them out to be, as they are usually kept in secure dock and their crews in constant simulator drills, leaving the bulk of patrol work to corvettes, escorts, and cruisers. Even for a MegaCon, the expense of outfitting and supplying them across interplanetary distances isn’t something even they easily stomach or do on a whim. But when the situation warrants heavy metal, Northstar isn’t one for half-measures, considering any situation that warrants a battleship should be put down by three with a full-court press support and escort train. So far Northstar has only had to go all-out against another solar-power this way seven times, four times ending without a shot fired and three times ending with the utter destruction of the opposition. This does however leave SecFor’s battleship corps relying more on sims than actual experience though. Destroyer and cruiser crews handle most of the heavy lifting.
Northstar also possesses considerable reserve forces within their massive civilian trade fleet in form of Auxila: civilian ships with underlying military-grade reactors, engines, and hull characteristics. In peacetime freighters haul cargo, passenger liners provide comfort and luxury to travelers, couriers run hardcopy messages and executives, and mining ships serve as bases for mining drones. In times of sufficiently serious war however, a sizable fraction of the merchant fleet can be returned to shipyards and be refitted within a few weeks with destroyer-grade weaponry, supplemental defenses, and onboard complements of military kemonomimi androids. While nowhere near as hardy as real warships, they can mount and support the same railguns, missiles, and attack drone complements of real destroyers and can operate behind the main line of warships to add more guns to the firing line, or perform independent raiding ops under remote quantum-link control. Unfortunately, this also means a quarter of Northstar trade ships are also ideal grabs for wannabe pirates with a shadow-port ready to do refit work and can crack the software and hardware limiters on their dormant military-grade parts.
Another example is the extensive use of attack drones, self-guided remote-controlled or AI driven warships operating at speeds and g-forces that would kill humans loaded with railguns and antimatter munitions. Relatively cheap and expendable compared to real starships, particularly in expensive personnel training bills, they are used and expended with ease by any ship with a external hardpoint or hanger. While easy prey for a starship’s precision weapons or point-defense arrays, they don’t need to live long to bring antimatter torpedoes to bear from a dozen different angles a regular starship couldn’t, and that can decide the course of a battle easily.
Northstar’s prized battleships and fleet carriers aren’t as active as the multimedia machine makes them out to be, as they are usually kept in secure dock and their crews in constant simulator drills, leaving the bulk of patrol work to corvettes, escorts, and cruisers. Even for a MegaCon, the expense of outfitting and supplying them across interplanetary distances isn’t something even they easily stomach or do on a whim. But when the situation warrants heavy metal, Northstar isn’t one for half-measures, considering any situation that warrants a battleship should be put down by three with a full-court press support and escort train. So far Northstar has only had to go all-out against another solar-power this way seven times, four times ending without a shot fired and three times ending with the utter destruction of the opposition. This does however leave SecFor’s battleship corps relying more on sims than actual experience though. Destroyer and cruiser crews handle most of the heavy lifting.
Northstar also possesses considerable reserve forces within their massive civilian trade fleet in form of Auxila: civilian ships with underlying military-grade reactors, engines, and hull characteristics. In peacetime freighters haul cargo, passenger liners provide comfort and luxury to travelers, couriers run hardcopy messages and executives, and mining ships serve as bases for mining drones. In times of sufficiently serious war however, a sizable fraction of the merchant fleet can be returned to shipyards and be refitted within a few weeks with destroyer-grade weaponry, supplemental defenses, and onboard complements of military kemonomimi androids. While nowhere near as hardy as real warships, they can mount and support the same railguns, missiles, and attack drone complements of real destroyers and can operate behind the main line of warships to add more guns to the firing line, or perform independent raiding ops under remote quantum-link control. Unfortunately, this also means a quarter of Northstar trade ships are also ideal grabs for wannabe pirates with a shadow-port ready to do refit work and can crack the software and hardware limiters on their dormant military-grade parts.
Polymorpheus
Member
Seen
4 yrs ago
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FrostedCaramel
Member
Seen
2 days ago
@Skylar so my Corp is shaping up to be one of the major players in the shipbuilding industry. They're a bit more ethical than North Star (Okay a lot more ethical) but it doesn't mean that they wouldn't have mutual interests. The way I've set them up they have small slips or yards on most stations and asteroids big enough to house them as well as free floating yards in and past the belt, which would mean it's very likely that our two companies would interact out of necessity.
Your company needs a way to keep its ships flying, my company needs ships to fix to stay in business. We both need to turn a profit.
So what I'm asking is if you would mind having some sort of a business relation with my Corp, not an alliance or anything but just allowing me to have holdings on your stations (but not all of them). Strictly business.
Also we build ships so come to me if you need 'em.
Your company needs a way to keep its ships flying, my company needs ships to fix to stay in business. We both need to turn a profit.
So what I'm asking is if you would mind having some sort of a business relation with my Corp, not an alliance or anything but just allowing me to have holdings on your stations (but not all of them). Strictly business.
Also we build ships so come to me if you need 'em.
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