Narix The Narix are carnivorous mammals resembling felines, standing about 190 cm on average. They have three fingers plus an opposable thumb and three toes, both with short claws. Their skin color ranges from fallow to russet. Narix body is built for short-term fast movement. Their muscle tissue is dense, providing not only protection, but also superb strength. A much bigger problem than their inability to keep up intensive physical activity for a long time is their oversensitivity to pain, to the point of Narix usually passing out from pain in case of injury. Their sight and hearing are their primary senses, in contrast with their pathetic sense of smell. Average life expectancy is around 180 years. Description of government: The Republic is ruled by the Council of Nine, three members from each continent representing its general policy, military and industry/agriculture. Representatives of each continent are elected by said continent’s inhabitants every two years. The number of terms is not limited.
Besides their homeworld, the Narix have only permanently settled Ignis, the largest moon of their homeworld, using it as a military training ground. Description of military: Narix military is divided into multiple branches. Each branch has its own commanders, but all answer to the military members of the council and share the same ranks. The Narix aim to break through the opponent's defence by short, fast, powerful attacks and then dislocate the defenders, using speed and surprise to encircle them aiming to unbalance the enemy by making it difficult for it to respond. Should the offensive be halted due to enemy resistance or lack of supplies, the Narix will fall back and dig in until they can renew their attacks. Extra care is taken when fighting in inhabited areas to minimise non-combatant casualties on all sides. Large-scale planetary bombardment and WMDs are a last-resort option. Technological Overview:
For large-demand areas, such as cities, ships and stations, Narix use nuclear powered supercritical water reactors (SCWR) due to their compact and simple design and fast startup. Smaller demands are handled by solar, water or wind power.
Narix use Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) engines for both main engines and maneuvering/braking thrusters. It uses radio waves to ionize and heat argon gas, and magnetic fields to accelerate the resulting plasma to generate thrust. The engines can switch between various settings, balancing thrust and specific impulse based on present needs of said ship.
Hydrogen is used for atmospheric engines as well as boosters for reaching orbit. Both classes of Narix starfighters are capable of atmospheric flight, although they might suffer from drag or low lift based on loadout and environmental factors.
Narix use telescopes, Hi-res video and IR cameras for passive detection. Radar or lidar for active detection and target acquisition.
Narix deemed stealth in space, namely hiding the ship’s heat signature against the coldness of space, next to impossible, therefore their spacecraft do not posses stealth characteristics. Craft capable of atmospheric use, such as fighters and dropships, are equipped to avoid and/or confuse radar, IR visual and visual detection.
Narix use traveling-wave tube transmitters. While not necessary, comm buoys are sometimes deployed to improve quality and reduce lag of the transmission. Usage of subspace for long-range communications is fairly new to them, occasionally presenting them with problems.
Narix fighters use a combination of railguns coupled with guided or dumb fire missiles. Smaller capital ships are equipped with railguns, as are Narix troops, armored vehicles and sea-faring vessels. Larger spaceships use torpedo launchers in addition to them.
Due to lack of Sulfur, gunpowder isn’t too widespread. Thus, the Narix army uses railguns in all fields. Due to their sensitivity to pain and low long-term physical endurance, Narix infantrymen and marines wear armored suits that allow them to withstand things that would normally cause incapacitating amounts of pain. The suit’s hydraulic exoskeleton can be used to augument their strenght and prevent joint injury. Most suits can be sealed and equipped with an air supply and a thruster pack for limited EVA capability.
Although technically not faster than light, the term caught on regardless among the public and was later adopted by the military as well. Two types of jumps are possible.
Intrasystem jumps can occur between two points in a star system. The presence of an intense gravitational field is required, prohibiting travel beyond the boundaries of a star system. It takes mere seconds to get from one end of a star system to the other. Narix vessels are incapable of intrasystem jumps within 10 000 meters of an intersystem jump point (‘node’).
Intersystem jumps are possible between naturally occurring ‘corridors’. The vast majority of said corridors are extremely unstable, forming and dissipating in nanoseconds. Other nodes have a longer lifespan, existing for centuries or millennia before collapsing. Getting from system to system can take hours, even days, depending on the distance. The Narix have yet to find a way to stabilise such nodes.
The jump drives need to cool down before being used again. Narix ships can jump in rapid succession, but this leads to damage to the drives themselves as well as the ship’s power grid. The ‘recharge’ time lasts from seconds for the smallest ships to several minutes for the large ones.
Cultural Overview: The Narix military isn’t just an armed force, it‘s an important part of Narix society. All Narix must serve in the military for five years after finishing school. Many of their past times also have something to do with military, from games to sports. One of the largest sporting events of the year are two one week long competitions between various units, from infantry through armored to space. Contrary to that, religion is almost nonexistent now with the exception of various cults and small-scale religions on the edge of society. The most radical ones are actively sought and eliminated by the military. The Narix mature at 16 years of age. All Narix must serve in the Narix military for 3 years after finishing school. One, ages six to sixteen, is mandatory. Further education is optional. History: First written records begun the Age of Dark. The Narix race was held back by religion and a caste system. It ended shortly after the arrival of the 4th moon, succeeded by the Age of Light, An age of both advancements in technology and frequent territorial wars. The Age of Empires didn’t see the end, but merely a decrease of wars. During this age, Naris was ruled by many states, both large and small. This age was ended by the Unification War, a thirteen-year conflict, preceded by political unification of multiple states under the Republic of Aersia, lead by Victus Marius Maxtis at the time. Though the popular leader didn’t live to see the end of the war, his successor finished what he started. The drawn-out war between the Union and the last remaining states was ended by the first deployment of a space-faring warship, the NC-01 Maxtis missile cruiser, bringing the Unified Age. The NS Maxtis was repurposed as an orbital weapons platform following the Exile Rebellion. It now lies in geostationary orbit above the Exile Island. Other: Although the Narix have reached space some time ago, they’ve spent all of that time making sure their home system of Nidus is as protected as possible, thus, with the exception of jump drive tests, they have yet to go beyond the boundaries of their home system.
Tempted to apply as a species of bug-trees where the 'land' on their world are essentially living islands. Able to merge their consciousness with the land, a terrible plague gutted their society at its height and has destroyed much of their ancestral knowledge.
Their overall tech-level is stagnant, but their governments - the 'Four Courts' - possess a small handful of hyper advanced relics.
In other words, aspect for aspect they're less advanced than most, but their leadership get dibs on a small but finite number of Really Awesome Things. Or to put it another way...
Joe-Average Bug Tree is a medieval peasant who uses various biological 'suits' to harvest the land and grow the islands in the hopes of eventually covering the surface of their globe and reclaim the damage caused by the plague. Superstitious and hungry, it works for its masters to protect its family and offer service to the pantheon and its ancestors. The Courtly Masters, meanwhile, are the descendants of those untouched by the plague, still containing the genetic markers needed to control the remaining technology and thus 'chosen by the gods' to rule over the galaxy...
The ground forces are some combination of soldiers from Blame! and Attack on Titan; vehicles are organic tree armour and war-beasts; space-ships are few and far between but powerful and self-regenerative, literally growing as seed pods from a series of massive Star Trees engineered during the golden age. When the going gets real tough, the Courtly Masters merge their consciousness with the army, becoming a temporary hive-mind over every tree that isn't a person.
Tempted to apply as a species of bug-trees where the 'land' on their world are essentially living islands. Able to merge their consciousness with the land, a terrible plague gutted their society at its height and has destroyed much of their ancestral knowledge.
Their overall tech-level is stagnant, but their governments - the 'Four Courts' - possess a small handful of hyper advanced relics.
In other words, aspect for aspect they're less advanced than most, but their leadership get dibs on a small but finite number of Really Awesome Things. Or to put it another way...
Joe-Average Bug Tree is a medieval peasant who uses various biological 'suits' to harvest the land and grow the islands in the hopes of eventually covering the surface of their globe and reclaim the damage caused by the plague. Superstitious and hungry, it works for its masters to protect its family and offer service to the pantheon and its ancestors. The Courtly Masters, meanwhile, are the descendants of those untouched by the plague, still containing the genetic markers needed to control the remaining technology and thus 'chosen by the gods' to rule over the galaxy...
The ground forces are some combination of soldiers from Blame! and Attack on Titan; vehicles are organic tree armour and war-beasts; space-ships are few and far between but powerful and self-regenerative, literally growing as seed pods from a series of massive Star Trees engineered during the golden age. When the going gets real tough, the Courtly Masters merge their consciousness with the army, becoming a temporary hive-mind over every tree that isn't a person.
Just so everyone knows, I'm pretty sure I won't be joining the Discord until I am sure that the RP is and has been committed to and we're making it a practice to actively post and not sit around posturing and positioning each other ad-nauseum to the point any areas of conflict or story points we have are all worked out in the pre-IC establishment.
Just so everyone knows, I'm pretty sure I won't be joining the Discord until I am sure that the RP is and has been committed to and we're making it a practice to actively post and not sit around posturing and positioning each other ad-nauseum to the point any areas of conflict or story points we have are all worked out in the pre-IC establishment.
Feel free to begin posting in the IC. For those of you who haven't finished your apps or been accepted, dont worry, we will continue accepting well after the IC has finished.
Will there be only one IC thread or is there a possibility to get different sub-threads? The RPs I know of generally created one thread for each named region, so pardon me if I'm still a little confused ^^
The Ziani race are an offshoot of baseline humanity-a result of targeted, deliberate and extensive-not to mention extreme-genetic modification. This biomodification regime and the resulting cultural divergence has led to numerous changes in the Ziani-enough that they could more easily be called more post human than human. First and foremost, the Ziani are a single-sex race, there is no biologically female Zian in existence. Biological reproduction is thus, an impossibility for the Ziani and the species instead relies entirely upon vat-grown children to propagate itself. The male sex makes up the entirety of the species with no evident exceptions. Aside from this rather radical departure from the human norm, there are numerous other departures from baseline humanity. In general, the Ziani have a higher metabolism than the human race, resulting in lesser amounts of fat and increases in dietary needs and general appetite. They also display a much wider variety of hair and eye and color when compared to humanity proper-unexpected side effects due to extensive, reckless genetic tampering. Due to the somewhat unique situation the Ziani race finds itself in, homosexuality is the norm amongst the Ziani, both on a biological and social level. The presence of other orientations is, at best, academic.
The Ziani brain has also been modified, extensively, when compared to the average human. Key regions of the frontal lobe have been modified and the primitive reptile mind has a much stronger metaphorical say in how a Zian might behave. In battle, this manifests as a enhanced aggressive response, and allows a Zian to tap into massive reserves of strength and energy that a normal human being has difficulty accessing. These modifications also ensure that a Zian will still be combat capable even if undergoing a systemwide shock. Combat and competence therein is, thanks to these modifications, quite literally instinct in the case of the Ziani. Outside of battle however these modifications result in a high level of emotion and little way to control it naturally. Furthermore, the Ziani are also very social as a race even when compared to humanity-and for good reason for if they are left isolated and alone, a Zian will experience and overall depression in their higher reasoning centers that could well lead to uncontrollable aggression if not treated with a strict regimen of drugs or reintroduction into a social environment.
Yet more differences from baseline humanity consist of a few large tweaks in Ziani biology that are of use in combat and other high-stress situations. For example, the Ziani take a greater amount of time to get tired or worn out. Their reaction time is also higher than the human baseline due to a number of refinements that allow them to maintain a higher level of alertness than the average specimen of mankind. Among the refinements that allowed this is an increase in the amount of adrenaline the body produces and an increase in tolerance to these same chemicals to eliminate, or at least, mitigate, the negative effects of the modifications. This was not entirely successful, as a result of the increased levels of alertness brought on by the change, the Ziani have a strong tendency towards paranoia. The Ziani also feel pain less acutely due to the changes in adrenal production, this can be both an advantage and disadvantage. They stay combat effective for a greater amount of time, when compared to your basic human, but by the same token they might not notice they have acquired a potentially fatal wound until it is far too late. Even normal wounds are more prone to infection, due to the simple fact it takes the Ziani more time to notice them.
In contrast to the typical range of human heights, the Ziani tend to rest between 6'0 and 7'0, with only some outliers. Perhaps one Ziani in a pack will be slightly below 6'0 or over 7'0.
The Ziani nervous system has also been modified to further enhance their reaction time, in simple terms, this has been done by increasing the diameter of the axon in nerves, along with a corresponding increase in myelin around the axonal membrane to keep currents from leaking out of the nervous system. The result is a general increase nerve conduction velocity, and thus reaction time in combat and in general. The Ziani are also capable of staving off the negative effects of various types of combat drugs, to the point they rarely experience negative effects at all, while the positive effects are actually somewhat enhanced. This has required numerous changes in how the Ziani process chemicals, in a few cases the changes required are so extreme that chemicals or agents that would do no harm to a human may well be near-fatal to a Ziani-and vice versa. On average however the manifestations of these changes is more benign. The average Zian has difficulty digesting foodstuffs treated with Yellow Dye Number Five for example.
The Ziani also boast modifications that result in an increased production of mast cells, helping to ensure rapid healing. The side effect of these modifications ensure the Ziani experience an increased chance of severe allergies, many with the potential to be quite harmful to the body. In clear terms, these allergies have a good chance of inducing catastrophic and fatal anaphylactic shock. Respiratory allergies in particular tend to have a greater effect on them, many members of the race require breathing aids and heavy-duty anti-allergy medication as a result-the entire race is effectively strung out on drugs or consigned to environmental suits on many worlds in effect. The bone structure of the Ziani has also sports some modifications, instead of relying on calcium, the Ziani rely upon one of it’s sister elements, strontium. While these modifications help to ensure that the bones of the Ziani are hardy and very difficult to break even under extreme pressure, these modifications also restrict them to fairly rigid diet, and any developing Zian that is not able to partake in this diet will have a very weak bone structure.
Another set of genetic enhancements have resulted in an estimated general lifespan greater then that of humanity in general. These modifications have effectively eliminated traditional old age, but have introduced another set of problems-as the years march on, these modifications became more and more unstable-and without warning, perfectly healthy Ziani keel over dead when their biomods suddenly destabilize. Even if this does not happen, a slow path of destabilization and instability is currently inevitable. Eliminating this instability is regarded as the next great goal of Zian genetics.
The Ziani eye has also undergone modification, blood flows differently then it would in a human eye. The various capillaries in the occipital frontal lobe develop in a more efficient manner when compared to the baseline. In many cases the blood of flow is even reversed-allowing for a greater amount of blood to reach beneath the rods and cones of the eye. These modifications result in a significant increase in visual acuity and general perception. The Ziani growth hormone also differs from its human counterpart, being largely more efficient. In addition to the normal duties of such a hormone, it also targets fast and slow twitch muscle fibers for specific enhancement, resulting in a general and significant increase in muscle mass when compared to the human baseline. Additionally, the Ziani growth hormone also targets the strontium-based bone structure of the Ziani via it’s osteoblasts, resulting in further enhancement to the strength of the Zian bone structure and a boost in the rate of bone tissue formation. Ziani muscular structure also differs from those of humanity. The connective fibers of a Ziani muscle tend to be more dense than the human norm, with many of appearing to bend or contort over each other, increasing the strength of the connecting tendons and decreasing overall recovery time.
There are also a few more evident flaws in the Ziani genome, as such extensive genetic tampering doesn’t come without a cost. Ziani are incapable of perceiving certain colors, or of processing words written in said color. The Ziani race also suffers from a few thousand genetic flaws, being built around the male sex without regard for it’s female counterpart, that render any attempt to artificially create a genetically female Ziani a failure-a fatal one. The clearer memories they possess, as a result of their higher levels of alertness, tends to result in more numerous and severe cases of PTSD and stress in general. As a result of this, the race as a whole has a higher level of stress then humanity, with a resulting increase in suicide rates. They also suffer numerous stress-related ailments, both of greater severity and number then the human norm. The Ziani also suffer from a form of race-wide insomnia, due to the changes to their mind that their higher reaction times required. Finally, Ziani, are by nature, a very aggressive species.
Description of government: The Ziani government is less a government and more of a military that has semi-accidentally became a government and more or less run with the notion out of a lack of more viable ideas. The military is the heart and soul of the nation-the different departments and their heads, along with generals and admirals (amongst the most influential figures in the nation) wield a great amount of authority over the culture and direction of the Empire of the Rising Sun. Wielding the easy power and authority that can only be found in military chains of command. The one exception to this is the Emperor-a figure of divine importance to the Ziani, held to be of a geneline born to command during the mythical days of their creation as a race. The Emperor, in theory, is the head of state.
In practice he is a powerless figurehead, and the real power lies with the Shogun, the head of the military, to whom all other military figures owe utmost loyalty. The Shogun wields total authority over the military, and thus the Empire. The selection of Shogun is thus a careful, deliberate thing. When a shogun dies, a new one is chosen from amongst the ranks of a military often a general or an admiral. The selection process is best understood as a series of delicate negotiations between important and influential figures and the merit of the individual in question. At times, it can drag for decades. Though there have been periods in Ziani history where one has forced their way into the position of Shogun, and ruled by the force of their backers-and their own arms.
Clans also play a part in Ziani government-being the primary way Ziani organize themselves outside of, and to an extent, within the military. Clans are led by a council of their most experienced veterans, and oldest members, who elect, in a mirror to the process by which a Shogun is chosen, a Daimyo who will lead the clan for the extent of their lifespan or until such a time they step down. Clans can and do specialize in fields beyond the military-some farm, some produce weapons, some even hone their skills at dance, others produce anime. Oftentimes, parts of a large clan focus on entirely different matters-though all provide soldiers too the military. It is the clans that give Ziani culture a zest and a life beyond the military. In doing so, they provide a critical service-and one necessary for a species so long lived as a Ziani, and so prone to stress. They provide food, certainly, and other essentials. But they also provide a means, through social bonds and entertainment produced, to manage the levels of stress amongst the Ziani.
Essential economic functions are handled by the government-food is grown by clans, yes, but it is distributed and quotas are set by the government. Other essential services-medical care and the like are managed solely by the military, with little to no input by the clans. Luxury services however, operate on a completely different model. The military has little to no dominion over this strange quasi-economy. The sole involvement is has is distributing a byzantine amount of “ration cards” types used to purchase different luxuries-anything from finely engineered tea, to a finely carved statue are covered by a type of card. And the number of card types that exist is truly staggering-resulting in a hard to understand, byzantine, and inefficient economy. One that bares all the hallmarks of a military ration system whilst, at the same time, trying to be more. The essentials are managed with efficiency-but anything beyond them requires time and patience to learn. And even then, proves to be inefficient.
Description of military:
The armed forces of the Empire of the Rising Sun are made up of four main forces-the Imperial Navy, which handles interstellar actions and void combat, the Imperial Army which is charged with the defense of Imperial planets, the invasion of planets and the garrisoning of Imperial facilities, the Imperial Windforce, charged with the organization of the Imperial Pilot Corps, and the mecha and fighter craft that it contains-these men are fetishized by Ziani culture, due to the death-defying feats they often engage in, and finally the Shinobi, a shadowy, specialized corps of commandos, spies and assassins who handle the less pristine aspects of warfare. Each on of these services relies upon the other, however, and each has their own departments and sub-departments that likewise require harmony to function effectively. The Shogun oversees the entirety of the military-and helps to ensure this harmony is present, by simple merit of his existence.
The one thing shared by all branches of the military is the fact that, to a huge degree, the Imperial Armed Forces are, in fact, the Ziani society. Everyone has served in, will serve in, or is serving in one branch of the armed forces. The Ziani are a race built for war-and their culture very much reflects this. A Ziani soldier, regardless of the branch, has a reserve of insane courage and determination that ensures retreat is, literally, not an option for them. By their honor system the only acceptable outcomes are victory or death-and while leeway might be given for tactical withdrawals to keep a fight going, a true retreat, fleeing from an enemy force, is anathema to them.
Ziani fleet doctrine is based around two main concepts-carriers and the swarms of fighters they can deploy, and on hard-hitting, tough vessels in general, with battleships being a particular focus. The ideal fleet for the Ziani consists of a dozen carriers and battleships and smaller, supporting vessels whose main purpose is the protection of their larger cousins-these vessels are intended less to win the battle on their own and more to ensure that the mainstays of the fleet, the tough brawling battleships and the super-carriers can do their work without being swarmed and destroyed by enemy vessels. Their entire system works along the basis that one might find in a pack of wolves or raptors-each ship has a function, and must rely on other packmembers to perform their own function. The bigger vessels pack quite a punch on their own, but rely on the coordinated defensive and offensive actions of their smaller cousins to use their immense power to full effect.
Ziani ground doctrines have versatility as their core-they are a well-balanced force on the ground, a trait that is added by the toughness and reliability of their most basic unit-the Ziani Samurai. Being built for war, their common infantry is quite effective at any task that might be given to it. Mobile, speedy tanks also feature-designed to help force the battlefront forwards, and to exploit holes that open up in enemy lines as the withering Ziani assault does it’s damage. Mobility and flexibility-having a tactic or a unit for any occasion is thus a staple of the Ziani on the ground...that along with an offensive minded mindset-they prefer to focus on huge, across the board attacks that hit the enemy everywhere at once, rather than a slow, grinding attack. The exact makeup and tactics of an army, however, depends on the general in command of it-different generals have different styles and tactics, and the power they wield lets them tailor their forces as they see fit.
The Imperial Windforce is a strange beast-operating alongside and at times within all other branches of the Imperial Armed Forces, but at the same time maintaining it’s own ranks, and it’s own commanders. In part, their curious independence is due to the absolute fame and respect they hold within Ziani society-pilots are held up as one of the most elite, most honorable and most...Ziani...of professions. The romance of a fighter pilot weaving through clouds or asteroid thickets, and of mecha dancing into an enemy armored formation, weapons blazing, are all powerful images in Ziani society. The common trait of the Windforce can be guessed by it’s name-fightercraft and mecha are both highly mobile, flexible and varied things, and all must work alongside other forces to be truly effective. As might be expected, the Imperial Windforce are one of the Empire’s golden sons, and are supplied in a manner to match.
The Shinobi are something of the odd man out amongst the Ziani military-equipped with stealth suits, supplied with elite cybernetic commandos and trained to fighter in a manner that does not come naturally to the Ziani, the Shinobi are the hidden hand of the Empire. They are the commandos and special forces-they range ahead of the valiant forces of the Empire, and sabotage enemy infrastructure. Sap moral with assassinations and silent, nightly massacres. They scout out enemy formations and facilities, providing the army with invaluable information. They blend into the environment of a planet, and when the army arrives, guide them through it’s hazards-guides and assassins, the Shinobi sport a mixed reputation amongst the Ziani, but the army would have difficulty functioning without them.
Technological Overview:
In the Empire of the Rising Sun, the archaic has met the advanced in some of the most unexpected ways possible. The best example of this is the katana, and other melee weapons. Things that would perhaps be considered grossly out of date in other space-faring cultures are something no Ziani warrior would dream of being without in the Empire of the Rising Sun. But these are no mere pieces of forged metal. Thanks to the technology of the Ziani-these blades are capable of many feats, depending on the preference of the wielder. One might be able to sheathe itself in plasma, another flame-and yet another arcs of deadly electricity. Their armor resembles that of primitive warriors-with banners even be added to it for ceremonial occasions, yet it remains capable of protecting the wearer from the harm a modern weapon might bring.
Ziani weapons technology beyond the katana is varied-with gauss weapons, kinetic-burst weaponry-a type of plasma weaponry that fuses both conventional kinetics with the advantages of plasma. It essentially it fires both a solid slug at great speeds and ensures the enemy burns quite nicely for a time afterwards. As might be expected nuclear fusion missiles and other explosive weapons also feature, with perhaps the most iconic being the swarm micro-missiles that some Ziani vehicles sport-swarms of small missiles that rely on sheer numbers to overwhelm and destroy the enemy. The mirror of this system also exists, as one might expect-while laser technology is not as prevalent within the empire as it might be in other civilizations-laser point defense systems, designed to counter both kinetic and missile based weaponry do feature in their designs.
Stealth technology also features in Ziani tactics-whilst they have not yet been able to successfully cloak a ship, hyper-advanced stealth suits which render the wearer completely invisible to the naked eye and many forms of sensors have been developed-and are used with great aplomb by the shinobi-commandos of the Imperial Army.
Ziani shielding technology is based around a series of energy generators-typically scattered across the hull of a vessel, with each generator making up part of an energy “blanket” that surrounds the vessel. While they do not yet have the technology to shield the individual soldier, their shields do sport some interesting features-rather then being a single field, the Ziani have elected to make use of a redundant style of various energy “folds” that make up a multi-layer blanket around the vessel. In effect, Ziani shields cannot be overcome with a single devastating strike, but must be worn down over time. Their armor technology is based around much the same concept-but it the nanocomposites sported by infantry and vehicles, or the honeycombed, layer armor of their ships, their defensive technology takes after their katana. Folded upon itself many times, and honed towards one purpose.
In terms of iconic weaponry however-the battlesuit and the mecha stand heads and shoulders above the rest. In addition to the normal vehicles one might expect of any army-tanks, APCs and the other conventional vehicles one might list of, the Ziani make use of immense mobile platforms cast in a humanoid shape as elite units. These mecha are the elite of any Ziani army, able to serve both as immense mobile infantry analogues and as armored vehicles-combining, in effect, some of the best of both worlds. Their smaller cousins, the battlesuits, perform much the same task, but with still greater mobility, with battlesuit corps serving as the equivalent to the elite “marine” units other forces might field.
Perhaps the oldest form of high technology the empire possesses however would be growth vats, the method by which the all-male Ziani propagate themselves. Using DNA from veterans and honored warriors, a new generation of Ziani are produced in these artificial wombs. This method of reproduction is not instant-and indeed, takes about as long as the average human pregnancy to complete, albeit with a much higher success rate due to the lack of a second biological body being involved and the constant monitoring and care the infants within receive. This mastery of the genetic extends to other fields as well-Ziani corps have been extensively modified, and the replacement of organs and limbs is common place. Still, modifying their own species remains a challenge-at this point, their genetic code is tangled to say the least. And unexpected side effects are legion when such attempts are made.
As might be expected then, cybernetics has also been a field of careful study amongst the Ziani-while nowhere near as common as genetic modification research, cybernetics has proven a handy stand in for modifications too complex for the tangled Ziani genetic code to stand. A grievously wounded warrior might be rebuilt from the ground up into a cybernetic commando of no small power-indeed, units of such warriors form the elite core of many Ziani commando wings. Another benefit of Ziani cybernetics is the invention of a man-machine interface-an interface that allows for a semi-direct connection between a Ziani brain and a machine-allowing for greatly enhanced reaction times and responsiveness from vehicles, battlesuits and mecha. Drones and robots are also in use-though they’re primarily regulated to construction tasks and other menial chores-and in military terms, as a swarming units used to weaken and test and enemy. Or to overwhelm them with pure numbers. Whichever comes first.
In terms of power generation-the Ziani rely on two forms of energy, Cold Fusion, as one might expect considering their missile technology and another, more enigmatic form of energy that they have only recently discovered. A form of energy they term “Harmony-Wave” energy. It centers around a particle newly discovered by Ziani science-a particle that travels at speeds well above that of light. By artificially slowing these particles down, the Ziani have been able to harness their energy potential to the power their Empire. While this requires fairly large facilities at present, this new frontier of energy generation is already bearing promising results-being much more powerful than the more common fusion processes upon which the Ziani had previously relied.
But perhaps the most important technological development for the Empire was Hyperspace technology. The discovery of another dimension, the aforementioned “Hyperspace” realm was key to the expansion of the Empire into interstellar space. By designing engines, projectors, that allowed their ships to “skim” this dimension, the Ziani were able to attain FTL speeds. Whilst this method is “slow” in that long routes often require resupply stations and docks for any given fleet or ship along it, it has allowed to the Ziani to colonize worlds that were previously entirely out of their reach. Of course, the strange nature of the hyperspace realm-in that it somehow still interacts with physical objects in our dimension, ensures that routes need to be carefully blazed and maintained to avert disaster. Running into an asteroid thicket is unpleasant both in realspace and hyperspace after all!
Cultural Overview:
Ziani culture is a culture of extremes-it can be extremely liberal or extremely conservative. With no middle ground.
Central to Ziani culture, to their beliefs, is the idea of a Divine Destiny. They view themselves as the heirs to a forgotten Empire, and view it as their duty and their destiny to rebuild it. To once more reach across the stars and command them, to conquer their enemies, to raise great cities on foreign worlds, and to see to it that the rays of the Rising Sun reach every corner of the Empire That Was. Their destiny demands no less-and they will brook no interference in the rising of a new sun.
Culturally, the Ziani are a race of warriors-quite literally. They are raised in packs or clans of forty, grown in laboratories from the combined DNA of veteran Ziani warriors. These young are assigned eight guardians (sometimes more) from mated pairs of Ziani veterans who will visit the facility they are being raised in and establish bonds with their young charges. At age four or five, the young pack will move in with their Guardians, and continue to be raised by them until they reach the age of twenty-at which point they are young adults in the eyes of the Ziani, and are expected to enter the military. As Ziani culture is very martial-with everyone expected to own a katana and be proficient in it, this transition is normally quite easy. Quite literally the entire race has served in, his serving in, and will serve in the Imperial Army. Most Ziani only enter noncombat roles upon attaining veterancy.
Proof of extreme valour and veterancy are, as one might expect, utterly prized by the Ziani. It's impossible for to advance far, socially, in their society without one or the other. Preferably both. But there is more to advancement then this-it's unthinkable for an officer to be unmated-to be mated once and to have lost that mate, yes, certainly-but to be unmated is seen as a sign of immaturity, and will likely preclude one from any advancement into the higher ranks of the Imperial Army. This can apply to standing in a clan as well-though clan standing is more informal and flexible in this regard. Standing in a clan of Ziani is determined more by shows of strength and personality rather then the more rigid systems of veterancy and social status that the Army prefers. Though this often becomes a moot point once a clan enters the army proper-becoming an officer, the head of a unit, is a mark of great prestige and honor. And more or less ensures strong standing in a clan.
There is a strong general connotation between social behavior and perceived maturity in Ziani society-after a Ziani matures, they stop physically aging at around the ages of twenty or thirty, and are instead judged by their behavior. Young Ziani are loose, green, and have not seen combat. An "old" Ziani is mated, a veteran and has, at the least, bloodied his blade. Even if one Ziani is two hundred, and the other forty-five, if the chronologically younger of the two is mated and the chronologically older is not, then the younger is regarded as the elder of the two.
Both “young” and “old” Ziani might be perceived as touchy-feely by other races. Kisses on the cheek, hugs, holding hands and the like are regarded as completely platonic in most circumstances by the Ziani-they’re not behaviors reserved for mated couples, though mated couples do display said behaviors towards each to such a degree that one is often forced to contemplate if there is ever a time they are *not* touching each other when able. Similarly, this behavior being displayed in public or even in meetings of high importance is completely acceptable. Petting, laying across the lap of another-all of these are fairly common sights in public. Culturally, for a race of warriors, the Ziani can seem strangely affectionate. Their hugs, certainly, can likely shatter the spines of weaker species. Due to velocity, if nothing else.
Sex in Ziani society is regarded in one of two ways-for young, unattached Ziani, sex is seen as a natural way to build bonds, and casual sexual liaisons are not only not discouraged, but encouraged between pack members to increase unit cohesion. Orgies are not uncommon, at this stage of existence. Once courtship begins however, both potential mates are expected to abstain from such activity completely. Courtship itself is long and complex, culminating in a series of duels between the two mates-that only cease when they have both cut the palm of the other during the same duel. The two then mix blood, and melt down their katana's and forge new blades from them. As the Katana represents the soul of a Ziani within their religion, this represents, quite literally, the blending of two souls.
Divorce, thus, does not exist in Ziani society. As two souls cannot be unwoven. Those who cheat on a spouse are regarded as having no honor and are more or less exiled or shamed into nonexistence. Wild bouts of sex are regarded as an activity for young adults-and the second one mates, one is regarded as an adult. The second one even considers mating with another Ziani even. The courtship process ensures that a Ziani is mature and ready for a mate-it is a targeted effort to make sure the two potential mates know each other on every possible level. That they have bared each other completely. This process takes the form of many chaperoned events-with the chaperon being an honored ceremony master. Elaborate plays are attended, tea ceremonies, and other things of that nature make up the early stages of the process.
Only when the ceremony master goes silent for many such events do the potential mates begin to duel-the object of these events is to ensure the potential mates know each other down to the depths of their person, their minds. Thus, when the ceremony master goes silent for so long, it is a sign that this has been achieved-he sees no more questions that need to be asked, and the couple has earned the right to guide themselves. The duels that begin then, is so the partners might know their souls. Only when that is achieved, and their blood mied, might their souls be joined.
The bonds of the pack and the clan persist for a Ziani's entire life-the pack, the clan, serves as a unit in the military together. Ziani often take mates from their packs, and they regard each other as something an outsider might call family, with the guardians serving as a combination of parent and teacher. Ziani bonds are strong-and not easily broken. A pack member would die for another one of their pack without hesitation. Honor demands it. For Ziani culture teaches that there is only two outcomes of a battle-victory or death. Ziani do not surrender. They die. And even in hopeless situations, will continue to attack until they or their enemy are dead. This focus on honor also gives them a certain distaste for underhanded tactics-they prefer to meet their foes in battle if possible.
There is a continuity of clans-the clans of a pack's Guardians is adopted as the clan of the pack itself, and many clans pride themselves on their long histories of service to the Empire, with the oldest going back to before the founding of the Empire proper, further then even the long memory of Ziani history can reach. Clans can be formed by many events-a part of an older clan might achieve a high degree of fame and honor on the battlefield, and become it's own clan. A new clan might be founded by a collection of veterans-the means vary, but a great deed or famous hero is almost always attached to them.
Ziani have a deep and abiding cultural hatred of slavers and dishonorable foes however-they do not treat such enemies as fellow warriors, but as little more then targets for a slaughter. Were they faced with a slaving foe, once a world had been conquered the slaves would be liberated and made Imperial Citizens. All involved, even remotely, in the system of slavery would be rounded up and beheaded. One after another, and their skulls used to construct a monument to their sins-a warning to all who would trade in flesh, or indulge in tactics that only animals would use. Empires that the Ziani might occupy that do not indulge in such practices would likely be more or less assimilated whole, with their culture intact. Though only those who served in the Imperial Army would be regarded as proper citizens.
Religiously, the Ziani might be best described as atheistic spiritualists. They have no truck with talk of gods or devils and are even somewhat hostile to such ideas as a culture-viewing them as irrational and dangerous. But, somewhat hypocritically, they believe heavily in the idea of spirits-the spirits of their clan-ancestors and guardians have shrines dedicated to them in every Ziani household or barracks. Even inanimate objects are thought to be able to develop spirits-vehicles and ships of a certain age in particular often sport decorations and banners dedicated to the spirit of the vessel, for example. Even old houses are thought to acquire a spirit, a will of their own. Souls feature heavily in Ziani spiritualism as well-a part of warrior’s soul is held in his katana, after it is forged, for example. And it is thought to be held there long after the warrior himself has passed.
The Ziani tend to be very slow to change and to accept change-as a whole, the race is socially conservative and very aggressive about maintaining their traditions and way of life-an alien who accepts their traditions is treated as one of their own. One who rejects them will always be regarded as something of an outsider.
History:
Much of Ziani history is lost to the mists of time and the fog of fading memory. What little information remains of that time paints a picture that continues to affect-and even rule over, Ziani society.The Ziani were once of another species and they were taken, and modified, forged into the perfect soldiers. The perfect weapons, and they were tasked with guarding an Empire, with building it, with ensuring it’s enlightened ways would ever rule over the stars. Then...then this empire came crashing down.
Little is remembered of this time. Only nightmare images, and cultural scare-stories remain...
And on that day they'll tell you That life hummed on with no clue The warning signs were all dismissed or shouted down So it goes The kings all failed to tell us The madmen failed to sell us On what would then befall the only life we know
The paranoia gripped us The rain turned engines to rust The panic set in like a cancer to our hearts Spreading through We bet on finite genius Or prayed for gods to save us But there was no antidote Disease tore us apart We left bodies in the fields So numb that we forgot how to feel...
...The fall was chaotic, and it was total, according to Ziani lore. But the Ziani survived, upon their jungle-choked homeworld, Saigonoseiiki. Here, the Ziani were left to develop in isolation, the technology of the Empire that birthed them having been shattered, and the knowledge to build it lost, during the cataclysm that was the Fall. A military shorn of the state that built it, the centuries, the relentless march of eons that followed, were a harsh time for the Ziani. Unable to reach for the stars-barely able to maintain the technology needed to propagate themselves, the ages that followed were marked by warring clans, lost knowledge, and the ever-encroaching and virulent wildlife of Saigonoseiiki.
The annals of this time of troubles are as confused and contradicting as they are long and bloody. But what is known is that, eventually, the Clans were brought to heel. The old ways re-asserted, methods of organization lost during the fall were re-acquired. And the Ziani became an army once more, rather than a mess of feuding clans. This re-unification was not easy, like many things in Ziani history, it was long and bloody. This period, however, ushered in an eon of technological advancement and expansion across the planet. Lost cities were re-claimed, more and more of the vats and bio-facilities the Ziani relied upon for reproduction came online-to the point that the young outnumbered the old by several orders of magnitude.
Conflicts still occurred-but over the title of Shogun, rather than over the politics of feuding clans. And even then, these conflicts, these coups, tapered off to non existence as society, as the newly-christened Empire of the Rising Sun stabilized. Gradually, oh so gradually, their homeworld was, if not tamed, then subdued. Civilization thrived, and the pace of technological expansion increased. The happy hum of machinery and the pounding beat of the factory, and the marching feet of a race of warriors were the sounds of this age. An age that ended in the most glorious fashion possible. The Empire of the Rising Sun rose to touch the stars, spacecraft were invented. First the moons of their world sported the banners of the Empire. Then bases.
Then it was off to the races, with the discovery of FTL technology, the Divine Destiny seemed closer than ever. Colonies were established on several out-of-system worlds. Hyperlanes dotted with space stations became a nexus of trade and exchange that seemed able to, when combined with their colonies, propel to the Empire to new heights. But...perhaps it is the nature of the Ziani, or the curse of their species. This age of prosperity would soon give way to another age, an age written in blood. One of their colony worlds. Sabakunohana suddenly fell silent. A military expedition soon determined why.
A race of brutal, hive-minded insectoids, guided by some sort of ghastly over-intelligence whose nature remains a mystery to this day, had awoken beneath the surface of the ill-fated colony. When they struck, the defenses of the colony, formidable though they were, were overwhelmed. Lines of communication were cut, and the colony devoured or in some cases, reduced to embittered holdouts, cut off from the Empire. The war that followed, the counterstrike that came, was as brutal as it was predictable. Two decades of brutal, grinding war, where the teeming numbers and lightning quick reproduction style of the hive were met with the warrior spirit and the technology of the Ziani.
The results are plain to see. Great monuments to the sins of the hive still stand in the reclaimed colonial cities of Sabakunohana to this day. Nothing else remains of the hive. Their destruction is total. Now, realizing that space is as untamed as their homeworld was, during their age of long darkness, the Ziani have turned a cautious, well-armed eye to further stars…
The sun will rise. The Empire will be reborn.
Nothing will stand in the way of the divine destiny.
Will there be only one IC thread or is there a possibility to get different sub-threads? The RPs I know of generally created one thread for each named region, so pardon me if I'm still a little confused ^^
By my understanding, there will be one IC thread for the entire RPG. If we go by how things are normally handled on guild, and I'm not aware of any plans for deviation!
Mo'emro'l Ifa'ef esh Wusdafu (People's Union of Wusdafu)
Species An image of a Tougpasa in the antisol territories of the Great Republic, circa 40 YBU. Of special note are her small ears compared to other Tougpasa, an adaptation to the cold climate of the antisol lands.
The Tougpasa are a humanoid species, generally of slightly shorter stature than humanity due to the high gravity of their homeworld of Wusdafu. It is tidally locked to its sun, a red dwarf star dubbed Shav'nefo (which unsurprisingly translates to "sun"), and as a result only has a thin strip of land that would be human-habitable. At it's Solward and Antisol poles it is completely uninhabitable, and winds constantly blow from one side of the world to the other. The Shav'nefo system itself is approximately 20 light years from Sol.
Ironically, the hells on either side of the world give way to a near paradise at the Solar equator in the middle. A lush rainforest covers the landscape, with most plants having massive leaves to soak up as much of the rare sunlight as possible. The constant, planetary-scale hurricane caused by the nature of the planet gives rise to an almost constant rain within the so-called twilight rainforest. The impact of this environment upon Tougpasa evolution is obvious.
First of all, it is seen in their most prominent feature that sets them apart from other humanoids. The Tougpasa have large, pointed, furry, cat-like ears on the top of their head. They have impressive control over said ears, with countless muscles being dedicated to rotating and turning them to track a sound. Furthermore, their ears have the most nerve endings out of any place on their bodies. This gives them an uncanny ability to hear in their generally rather soundproof native habitat. They also function as heat radiators for Solward inhabitants (the Tougpasa developed better heat dissipation techniques since the Antisol side of the planet is devoid of conventional plant life, and thus only very sparsely populated). It is worth noting that there is a Tougpasa race with smaller, furrier ears that originated on the Antisol side of the planet. The large ears of the majority of the Tougpasa, after all, would have been a liability in an environment which demands maximum heat retention.
Second is their eyesight, which has evolved similar to that of a Terran cat's. Their eyes contain a tapetum lucidum-a reflective layer that allows them to see easily at night and in dark areas, with the side effect of making their eyes seem to glow in the dark. This is an adaptation to the heavily wooded rainforests of Wusdafu, as most trees have gigantic leaves in order to soak up as much sunlight as possible, making the ground extremely dark closer to the Antisol side (since less sunlight can reach it). This combined with their hearing has made the Tougpasa excellent hunters, and later on excellent warriors. Also complementing their fighting ability are tails, which allow them to better maintain balance and prevent falling (which is dangerous in Wusdafu's high gravity).
The most obvious difference between the Tougpasa and most other species is that they do not sleep. Having evolved on a planet without day or night, only constant twilight, the species of Wusdafu did not need to go inactive in the dangerous night. As a result of this slack of sleep the Tougpasa have an incredible memory, as their brains must process and memorize information without a period of inactivity. An entire extra lobe of the Tougpasa brain is dedicated to, more or less, daydreaming that allows them to commit things to memory while awake with the same effectiveness (and perhaps more) as humans do while sleeping. These "daydreams" are closer to the dreams humans have but don't remember during sleep, rather than a human daydream, as the individual isn't aware of them at any point.
Within their body, they have a variety of different adaptations to their homeworld that aren't immediately noticeable. First of all are their bones, which are notably larger than those of a human due to the high gravity of Wusdafu. Their muscles, too, are of a higher density but not physically larger (which tends to make the Tougpasa seem to be impossibly strong on lower gravity planets). Their lungs are also larger than their human counterparts, as is their heart, in order to allow their bodies to more effectively circulate air and blood in high gravity.
Finally, Tougpasa reproduction is somewhat strange compared to human reproduction. An only child for a Touspasa is almost unheard of, and the gestation period is almost half that of a human. The tradeoffs, however, are obvious. A pregnant female flat out cannot fend for themselves, and as hunter-gatherers the Tougpasa would stop in the same general area for the entirety of mating season (and then some) to ensure that all children would be born healthy. The body of a Tougpasa female will always favor itself over her child during gestation, and a shortage of nutrients would harm the growth of the baby in favor of keeping the mother alive. As a result, miscarriages were extremely common. To combat this, the Tougpasa actually have two separate mating seasons every (long) year. If there is a famine in one, then the second may have better conditions.
Description of government The PUW's government is split into two distinct parts in order to ensure functionality and liberty. One part is the so-called Military Sector, which is governed by a council of military leaders and elected (military) industry representatives in tandem with a single individual hand-picked by both the council and the last person to hold the position. The Military Sector handles, as the name implies, all military activities. Beyond that, however, it manages military industry (with a stricter hand than the Civilian Sector handles civilian industry) as well as diplomatic relations. As such, it was considered the "true government" by most other powers on Wusdafu before unification.
However, to the citizens of the PUW, the Civilian Sector is the true government. It handles the bulk of the work a single government would, seeing to both domestic policy and all industry not directly connected to the military. Using the Union's (notably primitive in design for its capabilities) computer network, all civilians are able to vote directly on issues in their local area. All Union territory is broken up into regional areas, generally based on former state and ethnic borders. Each region has laws set by direct vote from the citizens, and any citizen can propose a new law (which would then be reviewed by a small team of regional "Directors" to ensure it is both realistic and incapable of undermining the Union's core values. Each individual workplace can organize itself as it sees fit, but is given a strict monthly production quota based upon the needs of the Union as a whole. These quotas are set by a series of supercomputers, all connected to each other and a central computer that calculates the necessary resource requirements of the entire Union and doles them out to the most fit regions. This system of supercomputers, dubbed the Cybernetic Gestalt, is the closest thing to a governing body the Civilian Sector has beyond its own people.
Description of military The Union military is split up into three separate main forces: the Army, the Air Force, and the Space Force. Wusdafu's lack of any large bodies of water beyond a few lakes has prevented a true Navy from being organized at any point in history, and vessels that patrol rivers and lakes are organized under the Army.
The Union Army had the distinction of being the first military force to be created by the Union during the Sillan Revolution in 100 YBU. Beginning as a simple guerilla force, the Union Army became the victors of the Twilight War (85-0 YBU). Since then, it has acted as the fist of the Union's people in wars across the entire Shav'nefo system.
It is organized in numerous different units, all of which are uniform in number. With the exception of a fireteam (five men) and a section (25 men), all Union units are sized in multiples of ten. After fireteam comes a squad of two fireteams (ten men), a section of two squads plus five specialists (25 men), a platoon of two sections (50 men), a company of two platoons (100 men), a cohort of five companies (500 men), a battalion of two cohorts (1,000 men), a brigade of five battalions (5,000 men), a division of two brigades (10,000 men), a corps of five divisions (50,000 men).
A corps is generally the standard deployment of the Union Army, and was the standard response of the Union to any small nation that was deemed either a threat or an opportunity. In larger scale, symmetrical wars, corps are organized into fronts that can be anywhere from two to ten corps large.
The workhorse of the Union's infantry is the Type 33 Modular Pattern Infantry Rifle (DMAS-33). As the name implies, it is a modular rifle designed to be capable of being modified for use in any environment or situation on the fly. It features full auto, semi auto, and burst fire modes and accepts both a short magazine (as pictured) a longer, curved magazine, and even a drum magazine. Between missions, it is possible to extend the barrel, easily attach or detach a scope, modify the stock (for rural vs. urban combat purposes), and even switch out the receiver entirely to allow for a more or less powerful bullet to be used. It is, essentially, various different rifles that all go by the same name. A rarely used bullpup version also exists.
The Union's Type 51 Anti-Material Phased Plasma Rail Rifle (UDMMSS-51) is a type of weapon first deployed in the Second Unification War (31-23 YBU), an anti-material rifle designed to be used against power armor. Unlike previous electromagnetic rail rifle designs (which were designed to pierce armored vehicles), the UDMMS-51 was designed to have semi-automatic fire capacity and an almost nonexistent charge time. It fires shells filled with an argon/hydrogen/nitrogen gas mixture that is ionized into plasma when fired. Upon impact, the plasma and the shell punch through the targeted power armor and into the person inside. A higher powered version (the UDMMSS-51-A) exists, and is used against vehicles that are better protected than power armor suits.
The pride and joy of the Army's infantry is the Type 49 Armored Mobility Enhancement Suit (UDOL-49). It is truly a behemoth, being a massive hulk of metal armor designed to protect the wearer from small arms fire, shrapnel, and even some explosives. Many parts of its design are simply for intimidation, as the "eyes" are not actually in the same location as the pilot's eyes. The head, and entire suit itself, is significantly larger so as to allow the pilot's head and hears to fit within the helmet without restricting movement (thus why there are not earholes as seen in normal helmets). The UDOL-49 uses a special modification of the UDMMSS-51 (the UDMMSS-51-B) that is capable of semi-auto, full-auto, and burst fire along with more or less just being an upscaled version of the original weapon. UDOL suits are as a result often deployed against enemy armored vehicles, as the UDMMSS-51-B is more than capable of piercing even the armor of a main battle tank.
As the lightest of the Union's armored vehicles, the DKRGB-21 (Type 21 Multi-Shot Light Tank Destroyer) is one of the fastest vehicles at the Union's disposal. Though it won't block anything more than light small arms fire, it's six coilguns can pack a heavy punch against an enemy tank. Ironically, they are also extremely effective against infantry forces, as their coilguns can easily pierce most walls and their quick-firing nature allows any building full of enemy troops to be peppered with HE shells. As a result, the DKRGB-21 is still deployed in battle against infantry forces despite the extreme age of the design.
The FMDKG-55 (Type 55 Nuclear Powered Main Battle Tank) is the workhorse of the Union's armored forces. Powered by a nuclear reactor, the gigantic tank rarely requires refueling and produces a truly massive amount of power for its weapons systems. The excess is used to power its twin defensive systems: the Shockwave Dissipation System (KBL) and the Plasma Arc Projector (MUM). The former creates a shell of ionized air around the tank to dissipate shockwaves from nearby explosions before they reach the tank itself, and the latter creates arcs of high-energy plasma across the hull of the tank to zap incoming shrapnel and projectiles out of the air. The main gun is a high-velocity railgun that, in some cases, can be used as light artillery against faraway troop formations. Secondary weapons include two automatic coilgun turrets and a top-mounted UDMMSS-51-B turret.
The Gisgro Tank is named after a snail-like animal native to Wusdafu that forms an extremely thick protective shell that was highly sought after in ancient times due to its total immunity to arrows. The Gisgro Tank has good reason to be named after such a creature. It is a slow, lumbering beast that is designed for the sole purpose of surviving a strategic nuclear attack. It's sloped armor allows it to survive just about anything short of an artillery strike, and even then said strike must be capable of penetrating it's heavy armor. It's main weapon is a significantly downsized (for space reasons) version of the railgun used on the FMDKG-55, and as a result has reduced effectiveness against most heavier vehicles. It also lacks anti-infantry capabilities. The only way for any force to defeat the Gisgro without calling in some form of vertical strike is to either take out its treads (best done with mines or a well-placed rocket shot) or use a directed energy weapon which ignores the sloping of its armor entirely. The Gisgro exists, however, not to dominate the battlefield but to act as the last arm of the Union were it to be obliterated in a nuclear attack. It is rarely deployed due to its expense, but some of the more unconventional generals like to make heavy use of it.
The Kurralagu SPG is a self-propelled artillery piece designed to be used to attack enemy troop formations, encampments, and command posts from well out of range. It's a simple vehicle: very big engine, very big railgun. It is notably capable of firing two specialized shells, a heavy armor-piercing shell that can pierce the armor of an Air Force destroyer and a cluster munition shell that can devastate a large clump of troops with ease.
Finally, there is the Konodej Strategic Railgun. This truly massive "vehicle" is only kept moving through the usage of negative mass ballast which prevents it from sinking into unstable ground. It is the slowest vehicle built by the Union, and as a result is transported by rail whenever possible. Once it has set up to fire, however, it is the most powerful weapon on the battlefield. It fires the same shells used in the cannons of Air Force battleships, and generally carries nuclear shells. Since it cannot track anything that moves faster than a slug, it is used exclusively as a siege weapon. In some cases, it is even deployed in lieu of a strategic bombing run.
The Air Force of the Union is the descendant of air forces that have fought in the skies of Wusdafu since the invention of the sail. Kept aloft by negative mass ballast, Union airships do battle in much the same way as warships did on earth during the Second World War. Big guns and lots of armor are the Union doctrine. Technological advancements have led to massive upgrades being doled out to the Union Air Force, the two most important of which are the railgun and plasma arc system. Railguns have allowed vessels to engage in traditional artillery battles at missile range, which greatly increases the effectiveness of battleship classes against modern destroyers. Plasma arc systems like those seen on the FMDKG-55 provide Union airships with protection previously unimaginable, stopping no trivial percentage of even the largest shells from hitting their target.
In modern times, the Union Air Force functions as a planetary guard. Were a Union world to be invaded, enemy spacecraft would be forced to contend with warships specifically designed with the purpose of atmospheric combat against heavily armored opponents. They also commonly serve to support ground troops in assaults, lending their heavy artillery (and sometimes nuclear shells) to suppress and kill enemy forces.
Finally, the pride of the entire Union, the Space Force.
The O'upro fighter craft has an unconventional appearance compared to other Union spacecraft. As a small parasite vessel, it wasn't built in orbital docks like the majority of Union ships and as a result its designers chose to give an almost artistic quality to it. In creating it, the design team made every effort to make it as beautiful as it is effective. Its four wings each carry a coilgun that uses depleted uranium rounds, similar to those used by ground attack aircraft by the air force. In addition, each wing also has a point at which a conventional missile can be mounted. The nosecone of the craft (which provides extra armor for the otherwise exposed cockpit) can also be removed to mount a heavy torch missile for the purpose of hitting capital ships. The O'upro, though an odd design, has won the hearts of many a Union pilot.
Next in line is the Dwerfas-Class Kinetistar, a fragile vessel (as evidence by a large part of it literally being trusses), but in no way a pushover ship. It is the embodiment of the glass cannon, and carries the single largest railgun manufactured by the Union. It's fragile design, only slightly remedied by its plasma arc system, makes for a fast ship that can easily reposition itself on the outskirts of battle to fire inwards with one of the most powerful weapons used by the Union. Aside from simple kinetic kill vehicles, its main gun can also load nuclear shells in order to tear apart even the largest capital ships if they aren't careful.
The Tfapng-class Lancer is an oddity. It, like the Dwerfas, is fairly fragile (though it has a significantly better plasma arc system), but it delivers its payload in a much less conventional way. It accelerates directly towards the enemy, fires its nuclear tipped shells, and then turns around for another pass. Approximately half of each shell's velocity comes from the vessel's speed itself, giving it the designation of Lancer.
The Glus-class Mothership is yet another primary damage dealer of the Space Force, but is also it's greatest defense. It carries a great number of kirklin mines (pictured below), the primary purpose of which is to intercept incoming missiles by ramming them. Their secondary purpose, however, is to ram enemy spacecraft using numerous explosive payloads attached to poles. Though a line mine won't do much damage to another vessel at all, a swarm can be fairly effective. In addition, it is the carrier of "torch missiles": gigantic missiles (with only four or so being loaded on any Glus-class) that ram enemy ships at near-relativistic speeds and detonate a nuclear payload. They are designed to be able to chase an enemy vessel between multiple planetary orbits, meaning that the only way to truly be safe from one is to shoot it down or outrun it across the entire system. As a result of their extreme expense, these missiles are only deployed against the most formidable of enemy ships.
Finally, there is the Presch-class Parasite Carrier. This ship is the largest, most heavily armored vessel in the entirety of the Space Force. It carries countless O'upro parasite fighters into battle, and even packs a punch all of its own with twelve Air Force railgun turrets. This class is the true backbone of the Union space fleet, being more of a Battlestar than a simple carrier. Dispatching one to planetary orbit is a clear sign of the Union's dedication to any given issue, and with it's impressive armament of its own it can truly wreak havoc on a strategic scale. It is, at its core, a vessel that can do whatever is asked of it. The designers provided it with a sturdy enough structure and enough negative mass ballast that it can enter a planetary atmosphere and do battle with aerial forces within. Were the Union to undertake an interstellar expedition to uncharted territory, this would be the first ship to make landfall.
Technological Overview
The Tougpasa are, in comparison to most other spacefaring species, rather primitive. Their technological development was strange from the beginning, as their homeworld of Wusdafu has streams of negative mass flowing underground. Though it is unknown if these streams somehow occurred naturally, or are the result of previous inhabitation by an advanced species, their presence caused the Tougpasa to develop along an unexpected path. Indeed, artifacts from ancient times show that tribal hunters would wear backpacks filled with the liquid negative mass to allow them to leap through the trees of the rainforest to catch their prey.
As a result, the Tougpasa make widespread usage of negative mass in their technology. Since the invention of the sail they have launched airships kept aloft by it, and today they use it to lift massive aerial battleships as well as spacecraft. It has also found domestic uses (such as in most Union cars) as well as more military uses in the creation of antigravity harnesses for soldiers based upon those same ancient "lifting packs".
Aside from the fairly advanced nature of their negative mass-based technology, the Tougpasa are behind the times in most other areas. This is easily visible in their spacecraft, which contain obvious large habitation wheels, general structures reminiscent of early human spacecraft, and often nuclear pulse drives. Their infantry still make heavy use of firearms, and only anti-material weapons (or the newest heavy anti-infantry ones) use electromagnetism. They have no passive shielding technology whatsoever, relying on active defenses such as the Shockwave Dissipation System and Plasma Arc Projectors to prevent damage.
The field in with the Tougpasa is least advanced (or perhaps the field which evolved the strangest, depending on who you ask) is electronics. Most households have computers on par with those seen in the human 1990's, but they are not self-contained units. Instead, they are simply terminals connected to a central computer in the regional capital that is housed in a gigantic skyscraper. This is largely because Tougpasa computer development halted in 20 YBU, with all available resources being poured towards the war effort. As a result, the Union equivalent of a personal computer is a hot, whirring mess of cables the size of an entire city apartment. The vast majority of citizens understandably choose to just use a terminal connection, but some eccentrics still use self-contained units.
For power generation, the Union uses exclusively fission reactors. They have mastered and miniaturized this technology, to the point that it is used in everything from starships to cars. Fusion, on the other hand, is still very much out of reach. Union scientists and engineers have yet to produce a practical fusion reactor, though a few experimental designs are in development.
Cultural Overview Tougpasa culture is heavily influenced by the environment of their homeworld, with them adopting a philosophy based upon the scorching heat and freezing cold of the Solward and Antisolar poles respectively. The fusion of two opposites-dark and light, cold and heat-creates a synthesis: the Twilight zone of the planet. This basic view is applies to countless things throughout Tougpasa culture, including history. The general idea is that a flawed state (cold and dark) is fused with a less flawed state (light and heat) to create a favorable synthesis. It is a simple idea: thesis, plus antithesis, equals synthesis.
This lends itself well to cooperation. Two opposing strategies can more often than not be fused together to create a significantly better synthesis strategy, and as a result much of Tougpasa decision making rests on what could be considered compromises. This often leads Tougpasa strategists to propose strange and unorthodox strategies, as they take two other propositions and create a third one to deal with the flaws of each.
Tougpasa religion is more or less a collection of tales involving the Latch Mo'emro, or Sky People. They were supposedly earless, humanoid beings that visited the Tougpasa in ancient times. According to the texts, they gave the Tougpasa various magical gifts. Great bows that could pierce walls, chariots propelled forward on the ground, water, and sky by magic, and countless other gifts. They laid out a series of ten laws, all of which the Tougpasa are said to have followed dutifully.
However, the Latch Mo'emro were engaged in a heavenly war with the Latch Bodefl (or Sky Demons). There are many stories of Latch Mo'emro heroes, and even Tougpasa warriors fighting the Latch Bodefl. In the end, however, it is said that the heavenly war reached Wusdafu. The dead bodies of Latch Mo'emro and Latch Bodefl alike rained down upon the world for a full year, their blood seeping into the ground and poisoning the water. With the defeat of the Latch Mo'emro, their magical gifts ceased to function and disappeared forever.
The texts say, however, that one day the Latch Mo'emro will return and the Tougpasa will once again be called upon to fight the Latch Bodefl by their side.
History Tougpasa history begins in the rainforests of Wusdafu, where they lived as hunter gatherers. The first evidence of Tougpasa society and technology can be found in the massive trees of the rainforest, some of which were hollowed out by early Tougpasa to be used as dwellings. Primitive tools can also be found, which give insight as to how these societies lived. Long, hooked poles were used to pick the abundant fruits of the same trees. Interestingly, this also seems to be the first example of Tougpasa agriculture, as large leather sacks suggest that they actively watered the same trees during droughts.
Later on, there is evidence of early inhabitation of the savanna area closer to the sun. At around the same time, the Tougpasa began to actively plant and raise domesticated plants. In the rainforest, they would chop off the leaves of the larger trees to plant ones of the same species for their fruit, but intentionally keep them small so as to manage them easier. In the savanna, Tougpasa settlers domesticated various grasses in the area. One of which closely resembles the various species of Terran rice, and in modern times has become a staple of the Tougpasa diet.
The savanna was the first place in which the Tougpasa constructed buildings themselves, and an ancient civilization arose along one of the major rivers in the region. At some point, for unknown reasons, its influence exploded across Wusdafu. Coinage from it has been found at both the Solward and Antisolar poles of the planet, which suggests that they were significantly milder at some point in Wusdafu's history. Ruins from that civilization, dubbed the Shaslag Efol (first ones) can be found all across the planet. The few remaining cities show clearly that they were highly advanced for their time, with roads being laid out in grids, made wide enough for carts, and being built mostly only on sturdy ground. Older ruins have clear palaces and such, but after the massive population boom such things vanished entirely.
At some point during the reign of the Shaslag Efol, however, a catastrophe befell Wusdafu. A truly massive hail of asteroids (speculated to have been made up of upwards of a thousand individual objects) slammed into the planet at almost exactly the same time. A resulting cloud of dust stamped out countless farms, wiping the Shaslag Efol out entirely and knocking the Tougpasa back into being hunter-gatherers. The usage of negative mass in its first purpose (greater mobility when hunting) appears around this time, which suggests that the asteroids seeded the planet with negative mass.
Artifacts recovered from the time period include the first spears, which were held as one would hold a rifle and used to repel charges or stab prey in a jumping attack. The appearance of animal domestication (re-domestication, that is) would eventually cause such weapons to be replaced with larger spears, as a spear held like a rifle against the shoulder has little ability to absorb the shock of a mounted soldier.
The population numbers of the Tougpasa gradually recovered, and another civilization rose up in the rainforest in tandem with one in the savanna. These two civilizations formed the Tougpasa equivalent of Earth's classical era, with plenty of interaction across trade lanes spanning the planet's habitable zone. Sadly enough, both civilizations met their fall in a second catastrophic meteor shower, just like the first one. This time, however, it was less of a near-extinction and more of a massive societal disruption. Both civilizations broke up into various different warring states, which is the beginning of well-recorded history.
In the rainforest, one of these small states, the Kingdom of Ksagu'af developed the lateen sail. This innovation soon led to the creation of the first controllable airship on Wusdafu, which was initially used as a reconnaissance vessel for the Kingdom's armies. Around the same time, small states in the savanna invented gunpowder. Eventually, the two innovations were combined to create the first true aerial battleship.
The challenges posed by the savanna has long made the savanna nations less prosperous than those in the rainforest, but that all changed when the Lepf Empire unified the majority of the savanna territories under its rule. With a highly centralized government, the Lepf Empire put a great deal of emphasis on increasing the prosperity of its relatively barren territory. This led to new irrigation methods, wind and water mills becoming widespread, and finally among the greatest events in Tougpasa history.
The industrial revolution.
The usage of coal to power machinery came about in 274 YBU in the Lepf Empire, and caused a population explosion previously unseen since the times of the Shaslag Efol. This technology eventually reached the rainforest, and soon afterwards the entire (habitable) planet was more or less on par technologically. This presented a unique problem, as on Earth natural barriers caused some civilizations to be highly advanced while others were still in the stone age. On Wusdafu, all civilizations advanced at more or less the same rate.
As humanity saw in Europe, there is only one outcome to having multiple different industrialized nations all vying for territory.
The Great War began. All of Wusdafu erupted into a chaotic war, with three massive alliances pitted against each other in an effort to expand their own influence. Every side, however, was provided weapons and supplies by the same corporations. Those corporations, owned largely by families that had once been feudal lords, fit the human mold of an Illuminati quite well. Union historians, in fact, have uncovered that it was those families that actively lobbied for the entry of countless nations into the Great War. Not to make money, but to keep their positions safe.
Before the war, unrest was rising across the world. With the feudal lords of old now in charge of the industries that, in humanity's history, became controlled by merchants, the peasants had begun to seriously oppose their rulers. The ideology of Levellerism-an evolved, communistic form of the obscure ideals that on Earth began the enlightenment-exploded throughout the world. The best way to combat unrest, of course, is to give those in unrest a bigger problem. The elites of Tougpasa society did this by starting a war that killed thirty million, all to harness that "rally around the flag effect".
In the end, it failed miserably as the savanna nation of Silla fell to Levellerist revolutionaries in 100 YBU. The revolutionary government absorbed the former vassals of Silla, and in 93 YBU it supported a string of revolutions in other nearby savanna countries that were soon absorbed into the new, levellerist Union. In 85 YBU, the ancien regimes of Wusdafu formed an alliance and collectively declared war on the Union. They had expected the war to be a quick, easy assault. As is obvious by the fact that it ended 85 years later, they were wrong.
The first assault was met with fierce resistance and turned back by Union forces, which had been well prepared for such a war. In fact, the Union government is now known to have been planning their own attack. Those plans, unsurprisingly, were used as the basis to a massive counterattack in the early days of 84 YBU. This elastic back and forth in the early years of the war was common, until things had solidified into a single, contiguous front spanning the entire solward border of the twilight (occuring in roughly 82 YBU). The Union, as of then, had secured various major victories that had brought the savanna under their control.
In contrast to Earth's first world war (which was similar in that it had giant fronts, with each side focusing heavily on defense), the "Twilight War" as it would be called went on for decades. This, of course, was the result of the Tougpasa's ability to reproduce quickly. Even though millions fell on the frontlines, millions could be called up from both sides to replace them. Years turned into decades as the war raged on, with a yearly armistice for one of the mating seasons not helping bring an end to it all at all.
Though all of society had been changed from the presence of a seemingly eternal war, it didn't stop it from evolving in different directions. In Union territories all thoughts were focused on defeating the enemy to secure freedom to all Tougpasa, and all technology developed to do so. Computers came about as codebreakers, rockets came about as missiles, and every building was designed to withstand bombardment and act as a possible fortress were the enemy to reach a Union city.
In the opposing lands, however, things took a very different turn as they had to fight an enemy both without and within. Rising popularity of levellerism meant that the Alliance had to keep its own populace in control. They did so by focusing a good portion of their resources on entertainment, to keep their people preoccupied. And when they weren't preoccupied, they would be enraged at the Union. In the later stages of the war (20-0 YBU) the Alliance had to focus all effort on the war, becoming what could best be described as a fascist, cyberpunk hellhole by human terms.
The war finally came to a close in 0 YBU, with the combination of a massive civilian uprising and a truly colossal Union push doing the Alliance in for good. The current date is 60 YAU (years after unification), and the Union is more prosperous than ever before. The ancient jump gate found in orbit of Wusdafu's moon has connected them with the closest nearby system, allowing them to begin their expansion before even inventing FTL.
The invention of the negative mass space manipulation drive, which works on the same principle as the human warp drive, the Union is finally ready to venture into the furthest reaches of deep space. And in doing so, further the will of its the people.
I'm thinking of joining this as it's still new and I have nothing better to do. Also because Duck sent me a link while I was playing a game so I'll humor him by creating a nation based on what he interrupted. Has anyone here played Hyperdimension Neptunia? My nation will not be serious at all for the most part and probably lower tech than most others though I'll give them newly discovered FTL so they can actually do stuff. I'll also make the nation consist of mostly-humans whose only real difference is elongated lifespans. I'll start writing up a nation sheet soon.
I wrote this faster than I thought I would. I guess that's what happens when you blatantly ripoff the setting and characters of the game series you've been playing for the last few months. Anyway here you go. Let me know if anything needs clarifying or if I need to change something. Worth noting, I don't plan on this nation being serious at all and I plan to use it comedically so if anyone wants some non serious insanity send a scout expedition my way.
Name of Nation: Coalition of Gamindustri
CPUs - The leaders of Gamindustri, these so called Goddesses fall under one of two categories: those that were formerly human before consuming a CPU memory and gaining their powers and those who were born through the power of another CPU. CPUs get their power from the faith their people have in them and as such are stronger the more they are loved. They do not age as a result of their status, but they can be slain just as any normal person can once their power becomes depleted either through large conflict or a loss of faith. CPUs have the ability to transform into HDD mode where their connection with their power is stronger and they gain access to it in full. This transformation changes them both physically and mentally as their personalities will shift depending on the CPU while in HDD form. This form can only sustain itself for a short time however and greatly tires the user if they are not careful. While in HDD form the user has increased strength, speed, and endurance as well as limited flight. At current there are 8 CPUs active in Gamindustri.
Humans in Gamindustri are for all intents and purposes exactly the same as a normal human. Other minor races are present but have no real impact. Gamindustri is welcoming of any species willing to serve one of the CPUs.
Gamindustri is ruled by the CPUs whose job is to protect their followers and lead their nation into prosperity. The current Council of Gamindustri consists of four independent nations working together. The nations themselves each control a singular planet in their home system which serves as their homeland. These nations are as follows:
Under the control of their CPUs Purple Heart and Purple Sister, otherwise known as Neptune and Nepgear, Planeptune is known as the Land of Purple Progress and is the most friendly of the four nations present in Gamindustri and boasts the highest tech level of all four nations. Despite this, their leader Neptune is incredibly lazy and generally fails to take any situation seriously, leaving her nation's oracle Histoire, a tiny fairy-like creature floating on a book containing a comprehensive list of Gamindustri's history, to the majority of the work running the nation. Despite her flaws, Neptune has a strong sense of justice and will protect her friends as best she can when she is needed.
Under the control of CPU White Heart Blanc and her White Sisters Rom and Ram, Lowee is known as the Land of White Serenity. Lowee prides itself on being a fun place for people of all ages and enjoys year round snowfall on their planet. Their leader Blanc is normally level-headed and calm, preferring to remain by herself and read or write books. If she gets angry however, Blanc becomes incredibly aggressive and will not back down to any perceived insult. In a fight she tends to enter a berserker rage and pummels her opponent into submission.
Under the control of CPU Black Heart Noire and her Black Sister Uni, Lastation is known as the Land of Black Regality. Lastation citizens are known for their hard work ethics and the nation has been making the most progress in terms of military power and invention of all the nations. Combined with the technology of Planeptune, Lastation provides the majority of the Gamindustri military. Their leader Noire is headstrong and prideful, but also isolated due to her position as leader and her hard work prevents her from making any friends. As such she has trouble meeting new people and has no friends apart from the other CPUs.
Under the control of their sole CPU Green Heart Vert, Leanbox is known as the land of Verdant Pastures. Leanbox considers itself the most regal of the four nations and is the richest from a monetary standpoint. It's leader Vert considers herself the most mature of the CPUs and is an avid video game junkie. Unless there is some important threat, she can usually be found playing MMOs in her room.
The Gamindustri military is made up of the combined militaries of its four nations. Each is generally led by their CPU themselves. Lastation has the most extensive military and receives aid from the other three nations in most cases. The military consists in large part of bulky robotic soldiers whose main job is simply to destroy the enemy armies as the CPUs deal with anything too powerful for the mechs to deal with. Their weapons range from high-explosive shells to mech-sized Melee weapons to high power energy weapons seen in most Planeptunian weapons. The army also consists of normal soldiers wearing the colors of the nation they fight for.
Gamindustri has used a series of large teleportation devices located in the Basilicoms of each nation to travel between the four planets serving as their homeworlds since ancient times. Nobody knows exactly where these devices came from originally, but thanks to some reverse engineering Planeptunian scientists were able to develop space travel for the nations of Gamindustri as well as the basics for a warp drive based FTL system. While space travel has become somewhat common as a means of transport between the nations that doesn't rely on the teleporters, these warp drives have only recently finished development. It is possible for the CPUs to travel between dimensions through the help of Planeptune's oracle Histoire connecting to other Histoires in other dimensions.this takes a large amount of share energy from the CPUs themselves to perform however and isn't commonly used. This knowledge was used to assist in the creation of the warp drives and it is only recently that testing finished and Gamindustri is ready to explore other systems and search for more nations to meet.
(I'm going to be brief and explain some important points, but the history of Gamindustri shouldn't be necessary knowledge and I'd rather not spoil any more of the games than I have to in case others want to play them. That said I'm editing all of the stuff from the games and combining the different stories somewhat)
Gamindustri was originally a primitive lawless group of planets, the home of an ancient advanced civilization which was destroyed and whose ruins can be seen among the nature of the four planets. The first CPU sought to create a new nation where the people wouldn't have to fear the wild monsters and where they wouldn't have to worry about starvation. Thus the nation of Tari was founded in what would eventually be known as Planeptune. Tari was successful for a time before its CPU became mad with power and a rebellion arose against her. Her strength fell as faith in her was lost and in the end Tari destroyed itself. Eventually a new CPU was born and Lowee was founded. It remained the only nation for a long time before slowly other CPUs were born and founded the Planeptune, Lastation, and Leanbox in that order. After a long period of wars between the four, the current CPUs Neptune, Blanc, Noire, and Vert were forced to unite against the Deity of Sin Arfoire who sought all of their destruction. Following this event was the birth of the four CPU Sisters Nepgear, Rom, Ram, and Uni. Now working together, Gamindustri seeks to meet new allies among the stars.
