Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Flagg
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Flagg Strange. This outcome I did not foresee.

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@GreivousKhan

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Sure, though in lieu of handwavium maybe Cognition Engines brute force a sort of 'bridge' to see into the void. The Cognition Engine would then be needed immediately in order to stabilize the 'bridge' but due to the nature of machine learning only some of the time would the Engine arrive at an optimal solution before the bridge destabilizes and destroys it. Thus making Cognition Engines would be very expensive as you'd have no guarantee you'd get any functional machines out of a given batch and each machine would be quite the investment just to lose the vast majority of them to chance. AI, being sapient, had a sort of affinity for the void that made the process far less dangerous.

So a Vacare is just the far cheaper and less costly option. Those who manufacture Cognition Engines do so explicitly to avoid relying on Vacare and accept the random nature of the manufacturing process and the cost of losing so many expensive VI machines. Just a thought, mostly had because I couldn't think of a name for whatever unobtanium we would have needed haha.


One possibility is that Cognition Engines use literal, vat grown brains as part of their cognitioning. Perhaps cloning and vat-growing psychics to harvest their brains is the expensive bit? this seems sinister enough for the vibe @Polybius seems to be going for in this setting. And I always like gruesome.
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Hidden 7 yrs ago 7 yrs ago Post by Isotope
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@FlaggThat works too!

Either way I'm happy.
Hidden 7 yrs ago 7 yrs ago Post by Flagg
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Flagg Strange. This outcome I did not foresee.

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@FlaggThat works too!

Either way I'm happy.


I meant that the brains would be needed to create the bridge? I like the idea of essentially cog engines being individually made and impossible to mass-manufacture because any number of attempts to make them will fail due to limits in machine/brain learning.

EDIT: there could also be a very different types of cog engines that function differently. Pure machine ones, ones that use brains, ones that eat up magical handwavium, etc, each with their own pluses and minuses, but the basic premise of 'expensive machine that navigates hyperlanes' remains the same.
Hidden 7 yrs ago 7 yrs ago Post by Isotope
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Ohhh ahhhh.

So Cognition Engines would require a psychic brain that's hijacked as a sort of antenna to see into the void? Maybe the reason they are expensive is that they require a mature brain and the cloning process doesn't always reproduce a Vacare's psychic potential? We could say accelerating the growth of a clone would exponentially increase the chance the clone lacks psychic potential. So any number of the brains, probably a majority, would be useless. You'd first have to make the Cognition Engine, then wait for a cloned brain to reach natural maturity in a minimum of eighteen years. You could have hundreds of clones going at any time but even then only some of the brains would be useful and if you try to speed the process up none of them are.

I like it. Clever @Flagg.

EDIT: Also totally possible. We're basically just discussing the fluff at the moment anyway, we have the FTL system more or less down if @Polybius agrees.
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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Polybius
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Huh? Eh? Oh.

Yes. Fluff. Carry on.

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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Drunken Conquistador
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Are there any actors outside the Empire and its factions? Some lingering alien empires threatening the borders, extragalactic raiders? My idea was to play as an autonomous border province, established to keep that section of the Imperial border border safe.
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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by GreivousKhan
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@Flagg Shoot you know that was basically my idea yesterday and I wanted to bring it up today. Glad you saved me the trouble. Seems grimdark enough for what the theme of the RP will match up with.

I vote for it.
Hidden 7 yrs ago 7 yrs ago Post by Drunken Conquistador
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So that's my faction idea. The plot arcs I have in mind for them mostly deal with internal power struggles among nobles and fighting threats on the "frontier". So, what do you guys think? Does it fit with the setting?
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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Isotope
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I think it's good, after all the preface says:

Welcome to These Dark Stars, a roleplay taking place during a crucial time in Imperial history. Players will take control of powerful men and women and the factions they lead in the struggle for the fate of the Empire. Here, science and sorcery mix. Humans are the predominant species in the galaxy and alien hordes threaten the frontier provinces.


Seems to fit like a glove.

BTW Poly, IC next week?
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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Flagg
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So that's my faction idea. The plot arcs I have in mind for them mostly deal with internal power struggles among nobles and fighting threats on the "frontier". So, what do you guys think? Does it fit with the setting?


Love it. Our factions have overlapping motivations and ambitions, so I look forward to the House Kesselbrood/Rankov joint scheming and/or rivalry. The Kesselbroods will be sending out feelers to other Great Houses who might be interested in ending the Imperial experiment and returning to a patchwork confederation of Great Lords, so it'll be interesting to see how receptive the Rankovs are.

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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Drunken Conquistador
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<Snipped quote by Drunken Conquistador>

Love it. Our factions have overlapping motivations and ambitions, so I look forward to the House Kesselbrood/Rankov joint scheming and/or rivalry. The Kesselbroods will be sending out feelers to other Great Houses who might be interested in ending the Imperial experiment and returning to a patchwork confederation of Great Lords, so it'll be interesting to see how receptive the Rankovs are.


You will have to remember that the legitimacy of the Rankovs stem from their appointment to the Exarchate BY the Empire. Before they were only one of the many houses of Virezhir, and not even one of the largest ones. Over time they built up their power internally, but you've still got prestigious houses with links to their predecessors.

And just as the Rankovs are trying to loosen the Imperial yoke, some of their vassals wish to do the same for them.
Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Flagg
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<Snipped quote by Flagg>

You will have to remember that the legitimacy of the Rankovs stem from their appointment to the Exarchate BY the Empire. Before they were only one of the many houses of Virezhir, and not even one of the largest ones. Over time they built up their power internally, but you've still got prestigious houses with links to their predecessors.

And just as the Rankovs are trying to loosen the Imperial yoke, some of their vassals wish to do the same for them.


Adds a great storyline if the Kesselbroods are backing/appealing to one of Rankov's restive vassals. Likewise the Kesselbroods need to deal with a parliament and aristocratic vassals, both of which contain strong pro-imperial parties.
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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Polybius
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@Isotope Yep. Still hashing out a thread. Picking through the nation sheets and pulling naming conventions, places, things etc. out that caught my eye and would logically spread throughout the empire, the VACARE CABAL just sounds so damn good and sinister...
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Happy to work on history with anyone- loving everything so far!
Hidden 7 yrs ago 7 yrs ago Post by Pepperm1nts
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I'm sure the IC will touch up on it, but it's worth asking: Did the Emperor leave any heirs behind? This is an important detail in any story dealing with the sudden death of a monarch. I'm still trying to think up ideas and it'd help to know.
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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Polybius
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I'm sure the IC will touch up on it, but it's worth asking: Did the Emperor leave any heirs behind? This is an important detail in any story dealing with the sudden death of a monarch. I'm still trying to think up ideas and it'd help to know.


Yep. The plan is to have no clear successor and a bureaucracy sort of bungling things. The imperial family will be in hiding and seeking asylum and safety with powerful houses only to be taken hostage or murdered. As for the imperial authority, specifically the tip commanders, maybe a coup in the core worlds? I'm not quite sure how to handle all of the npc factions myself. Any thoughts?

IC will be up Monday PM EST at the latest.
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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Drunken Conquistador
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<Snipped quote by Pepperm1nts>

Yep. The plan is to have no clear successor and a bureaucracy sort of bungling things. The imperial family will be in hiding and seeking asylum and safety with powerful houses only to be taken hostage or murdered. As for the imperial authority, specifically the tip commanders, maybe a coup in the core worlds? I'm not quite sure how to handle all of the npc factions myself. Any thoughts?

IC will be up Monday PM EST at the latest.


How united is the IB? Depending on whether or not the entire body has a single agenda we could see groups backing different factions, their diverging agendas causing a rupture in the organization.

How large is the Imperial Family? If there are too many of them, we could have half a dozen or so claimants popping up across the void, wherever they might find any support.

We could use the military coup as spark that lit the pownder. The Emperor died, things are getting out of hand, a cabal of high ranking officers in the capital decide to seize control of the state apparatus to "save the Empire". Except the coup does not goes as planned. The capital is theirs, but loyalists managed to smuggle at least some of the Imperial Family out. And in the confusion, many of their other targets escaped. They got a puppet child on the throne, but any notion of Unity os dead.

Elsewhere, we could mimic Rome and have any half popular commander declaring himself Emperor.

Add separatists, Xenos and religious chaos, and we've got our overeaching plot
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Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Isotope
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@Drunken Conquistador's plot idea sounds like a winner.

Dozens of pretenders? A traitorous junta? Count me in.
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Hidden 7 yrs ago 7 yrs ago Post by GreivousKhan
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Kingdom/Faction Name: Order of The Exalted Suns
Ruling Body: Sire Temijen Blackwall, Rex of Drayathea
Home System: Praag
-Drayathea is a rocky mountainous carbon like terrestrial planet famed for it rich mineral deposits and grand plateaus.
-Jiarus is a colony dominated by heavy jungle vegetation, overshadowed by high mountains and deserts in the lower lands. Home to the dedicated training grounds of the order. though classified as sanctified temple world.
-Snafalia satellite moon of Drayathea and a major agri-world that manages to feed most of the system.
-Fortress of Praag, while not a planet Praag is a massive starport and space citadel that orbits near the system's center. It acts as the man headquarters of the Exalted Suns.


Primary Resource: Lonsdaleite is the main export of the system, a kind of martial harder than diamond but as malleable as steel. Other types of ore are also a major export of Drayathea. Along with a host of finished products like starships and consumer goods from the factories on Drayathea or the shipyards of Praag respectively. However, the most sought-after resources are the so-called knights of null. Men and women able to combat vacare by denying some of their extraordinary abilities.

Armed Forces
(Leave this blank)



Edit: Did someone ask for religious chaos?

DUES VULT! Hopefully, this faction idea will work, I see no one has touched on the religious sphere much yet. I have some interesting plot arcs in mind that can be benign or as scary as we need.
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