[OOC] On The Brink of Instability (and we're off!)

[Unfortunately]

"This life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant."
–Venerable Bede

The age of strife is returning.

Historically, it has always been that way. Thousands of years ago, as many as dozens of wars a day were fought across the globe in the name of conquest, riches, ideals and gods. Thousands, if not millions, suffer and die from their consequences in the span of a single year. Only as recently as the 1900's, the decade of the Great Wars, have they died out. While insurgencies and terror still haunt some parts of the world, the nations of the world have been peaceful, or so they claim.

That won't last long.

The year is 2103 CE.

Although much of the planet's resources have already been exhausted and nature has started to intensify its wrath after countless years of over-exploitation, technological advances have allowed humanity to adapt and continue thriving. This was not without consequences; in the years near the end of coal and oil and before the development of new generation techniques, nations struggled for control over the remaining black gold. Sociopolitical movements, global crises, economic issues, and hysteria regarding an impending apocalyptic war have brought down even the greater nations, but some have managed to survive, some have banded together to create bigger states, and some have resorted to occupy their lesser neighbors in the name of progress.

Difficult decisions are in their hands; choices that will decide their possibility of emerging as a significant global power and choices that will decide whether the war people long feared will come true.

---

World Map

Current State of the World (updated occasionally)

-Fossil fuels are currently a luxury and are close to inexistence.
-Raw materials are still in abundance for nations that managed to make space mining a prolific industry.
-On Earth, raw materials have moderately been exhausted, but recycling efforts may keep them available.
-An outbreak of internal wars around the globe has destabilized most nations.
-Cybernetics are a growing industry.
-Human cloning and eugenic services are developed and may or may not be available depending on a nation's ethic.
-Little international groups remain, and some may have developed into full-fledged nations.
-The Moon has quite many colonies from some advanced nations, but they either have lost a central government or have been adopted by a new nation.
-Some colonies on Mars has been built, with same situations as that on the Moon.
-Space engines currently take weeks to transport a ship from Earth to any other location on the Solar System, other than the Moon.

Rules and Guidelines (IMPORTANT MECHANICS ARE ALSO HERE, PLEASE READ)

1. Typical RPGuild and roleplay rules. Be cool like Fonz, don't godmod, don't metagame, blah blah.
2. To avoid instant Russias, starting territorial limits will be based on a land area about the size of this circle, compared to the map. You can't fit a circle on most lands though, so this will be only a reference; the shape of your territory will be whatever you want, but keep in mind I'll check.


3. Always keep track of your military count for the GMs to make sure you don't suddenly pull out 6 gorillion tanks out of your ass.
4. Be realistic. Not too much, but keep it close. Don't terraform Jupiter in 6 months or do something similar, for God's sake. Likewise, don't be able to hold your 6 gorillion tanks without having repercussions on your economy. Guess what though, nuclear explosion-powered engines are actually viable. The More You Know^TM.
5. We beg you not to randomly disappear. If you feel like leaving, tell us.
6. Don't speedpost unless it's on a dialogue in a formal meeting.
7. Don't bullshit something you didn't post IC or didn't indicate on a sheet, e.g you say you captured a colony on the Moon but nothing is said on a single IC post of yours.
8. Keep track of where your capital, your major cities and other vital facilities are on the map. Use a symbol or something for the capitals, and dots for cities, and whatever for others. Also keep track on your colonies outside Earth.
10. Don't suddenly claim a huge chunk of land, it should happen gradually.
11. New things will be added as time passes by, based on your suggestions (do give one every now and then) and other matters.
12. gl;hf

Sheet Skeleton

Feel free to add something decorative like flags or other shit, as long as the essence of the template remains.
Nation Name:
Map Location: (Use Paint.)
Government Info:
Military Overview:
Economic Overview:
Cultural Description:
Technological Overview:
Colonies: (if there are any)
History:
Other:

I'll probably build and improve this post further, but for now this is good.

[Nerevarine]

Here's a WIP

Euskadi

The Kingdom of Euskal Herria

Map Location:


Government Info:
Euskadi is an executive constitutional monarchy. The Monarch of Euskadi resides in Iruña (formerly known as Pamplona), along with the Basque parliment. While the Parliament elect their own Prime Minister as the head of the Legislative Branch of power, the Monarch is able to veto their descisions. Such vetos must be overturned by the Judicial Division of the Basque Government. Bilbo serves as the Judicial and Military Capital of Euskadi.

Military Overview:
The Basque Military is centered around the city of Bilbo, in the North of the Country. Nearby are various military bases and naval centers. They also have a significant presence across the Pyrenees in former France and on the borderlands of former Spain.

The Basque Military is a decently armed force, descended from the armed terrorists of the ETA and defectors from the Spanish and French militaries. The Basque Military is all around a very average European armed force.

Economic Overview:
The Basque Economy has begun to flourish in the throws of independence. They boast one of the strongest economies in the world, a significant departure from their neighbors. Euskadi is small, but wealthy; seeking economic power as opposed to military force. The very strong industrial sector of the Basque Nation is giving way to newer technologies, and helping the nation to break free of traditional fuels such as oil or coal.

Cultural Description:

Technological Overview:
Colonies: None at the Moment
History:
Other:

[Unfortunately]

>anti-hotlink hosting site
>not Imgur or other shit like that

[Nerevarine]

Fixed the problem with the flag, is all good now

[Willy Vereb]

Anyways, check out the OP of the Age of Rebirth 2 thread to see some of the tech you can use during this one.

In addendum to that I talk a bit about plausible space propulsions.

1.) Nuclear thrusters
The ship uses the heat of nuclear energy and some kind of ablative material to produce thurst.
There are two methods.
A.) Orion Drive and its derivatives
Using small nuclear bombs and detonate them in succession to gain thurst. The smaller the bomb, the more frequent you can use it and with better containment.
Primitive space warships may literally detonate nukes behind themselves and accelerate in erratic pulses. This method is anything but subtle and strains the ship considerably.
More sophisticated methods use tiny pellets of micro fusion explosives initiated by burning antimatter filled fulerenes. This method is likely the more widespread. It's pretty much like chemical rockets in terms of mechanism except much more effective.
More compact warships may use these.

Drawbacks are less efficiency compared to the other type (little to no "gears" to switch) and that your propellant is basically a huge stash of thermonuclear bombs. Battle damage could have catastrophic consequences.

B.) Torchships
You have a gigantic thermonuclear reactor which heats up your propellant and use that as your propulsion. Basically the space equivalent of nuclear subs.
Advantages for torchsips is that you can mix various propellants, adjust the output or perform other methods in order to alter the exhaust velocity of your propellant. Lower exhaust velocity means more thrust at the same energy expense. On the other hand exhaust velocities limit your maximum theoretical Delta-V in space.
So yeah, if done right a rector-powered thruster can be much more fuel efficient than the above. On the other hand the said reactor would occupy a considerably portion of the ship, reducing the useful mass. Long story short it generally only worths to do at large scales.
Another obvious advantages of Torchships is that you can use your crazy reactor output to power big weapons.
A theoretical 1000-ton torchship would require a reactor with roughly 45 GW output. Now imagine your space battleship pumping even fraction of this energy to a laser.
Yeah, a direct hit could bring nasty results.
On the other hand building these ships would be ridiculously expensive (basically combine a super-large aircraft carrier with all the space shuttle programs and add the building of a huge nuclear power plant to it). Even the most powerful nations shouldn't be able to possess more than a few 1000-ton range space battleships.
On the other hand since it requires less anti-matter and generally more efficient this ship could travel to places more economically than Type-A.
Potentially you can build mini-torchships too, but like I said with the limited usable mass their utility is rather dubious.

Alright, but while these things are impressive in general nuclear propulsion would be limited to military use.
That is because these ships would be so damn powerful that their misuse as weapons is inevitable.
Type 1A is basically carries nukes as propellant. It's a flying weapon of mass destruction.
Type 1B has enough reactor output to power all kinds of terrible weapons also with some tempering the reactor itself can be turned into a bomb of mass destruction.
You just don't want these to be anywhere around civilians.

So what for the rest?
Well, there's a nice method which circumwents the issue.

2.) Laser Propulsion
Laser propulsion basically means that you burn the propellant by external means. You raise the ship into orbit either by rockets, space elevators or even the laser apparatus itself.
After that a hi-power but somewhat low intensity array of lasers would burn your propellant.
This method would eliminate the need for expensive power generation systems and thanks to the comparatively cheap ground-based fusion powerplants the cost of operating the lasers should be fairly economical, too.

The laser arrays themselves would be gigantic (think of a city-sized plant and laser emitters reaching kilometers deep into the ground) and strictly owned by the government. Not all countries would be capable of building such gigantic laser arrays but for this reason they can be easily lent to other nations (thus generating pretty fat stacks of revenue for the owner).

The above reasons make each of these laser array systems the treasure of the respective nation. They are the most heavily guarded part of the entire country. In addition if necessary these laser arrays can be tuned and altered for defensive purposes. Their powerful lasers can be focused to destroy incoming ballistic missiles or even deter enemy spaceships. This is another big reason why these gigantic installations are so precious.

Smaller laser arrays are possible to build of course and these can be used to propel smaller lightcrafts (that's the typical name of these spaceships, remember it). And like the main array these can similarly offer some aid in defense.

After hearing the effectiveness of these lasers you may wonder, why not use these to propel warships?
Well, first off a ship restricted to follow a laser beam is hardly maneuverable. This is the biggest reason.
Second, the laser beam can be intercepted thus cutting off power from the warship.
Third, lightcrafts are designed different from warships and have some qualities which aren't desirable for them.
Fourth, it's unlikely that any nation has enough laser projectors to cover all parts of space and power their warships on patrol.
So while it's efficient there are several issues for it being used for war.
On the other hand this method may be viable for smaller vessels controlled by Torchships.
Think of a space battleship shooting compact torpedoes or drone fighters while both controlling and powering them via laser transmissions.
This is a potential and much cheaper alternative to using Type 1A methods (albeit this makes the smallcrafts more predictable).
So yeah, that could work.

Alright, this would be it for now.
Basically you have 3 distinct futuristic propulsion methods with their set of advantages and drawbacks.
I could get much deeper into the details but in general this sorts of knowledge would be enough.
I may make a similar post about the basics of hard sci-fi space warfare on a later date.

[Unfortunately]

These lands are mine. Halved France to distance my state from Nerevarine's.

[Willy Vereb]

These lands are mine. Halved France to distance my state from Nerevarine's.

@Unfortunately

I can't see anything.
Did you forget to link your picture?

BTW, I am taking Carpathia and all countries near it.
As for colonies the Carpathian Union holds the settlements and mining establishments in the Von Neuman crater on the Moon.
Some mining establishments in the asteroid field and Jupiter also exists.

[Legion02]

I'd like to reserve the island of Sardinia if that's okay with everyone. Oh and @Willy Vereb, would it happen you know a website where I can get a good overview of the moon at its named regions? I want to get a Helium-3 colony on the moon.

[Unfortunately]

i fucked up.

[Willy Vereb]

I'd like to reserve the island of Sardinia if that's okay with everyone. Oh and @Willy Vereb, would it happen you know a website where I can get a good overview of the moon at its named regions? I want to get a Helium-3 colony on the moon.

@Legion02

Both Google and Wikipedia can help you massively in that, no need for anything else. Pardon me for responding this late but our mention didn't show up as an alert.
Anyways, I think it'd be a bit too much to ask people to pick places which are well-suited for mining. I mean given the limited Moon landings not even scientists working with the space program should know this exactly.

Oh and AFAIK if you want "cheap" Helium-3 you gotta visit the Jupiter.
That's why I have a small installation over there with the Carpathian Union.

[Unfortunately]

Don't know whether to decide for a shrunken unified EU or a Fourth Reich.

The picture shows Brussels as the capital, so that's the EU one.

Personally i find the Fourth Reich a more interesting option, but damn if it would trigger anybody.

[Nerevarine]

Fourth Reich is overdone in my opinion

[Unfortunately]

Considering Britain, too.

[Willy Vereb]

Don't know whether to decide for a shrunken unified EU or a Fourth Reich.

The picture shows Brussels as the capital, so that's the EU one.

Personally i find the Fourth Reich a more interesting option, but damn if it would trigger anybody.

@Unfortunately

You may also try to think of a less typical idea. Both the EU and Fourth Reich are overdone, IMO
Given that you mostly control Germanic territories you could establish something with that theme. A Neo-Barbaric nation could be fun, too.

[Nerevarine]

<Snipped quote by Unfortunately>You may also try to think of a less typical idea. Both the EU and Fourth Reich are overdone, IMO
Given that you mostly control Germanic territories you could establish something with that theme. A Neo-Barbaric nation could be fun, too.

@Willy Vereb

Neo-Frankish Empire would be interesting too

[Unfortunately]

Celts?

Eh, this is based off historical events though, so there are going to be some countries derived from unions and existing states. But sociopolitical movements might have restored old empires and even created original nations , such as donut steeltopia. Hell, considering that some people got stuck on the Moon when they got cut off from their home territory, there'll be Lunarian nations marching to threaten colonies' asses.

Nevertheless, a Celtic state sounds decent. Could get rid of Poland and relocate the removed territory to Switzerland and a bit of Italy, considering it's in the way of Willy's nation.

I'll consider moving my nation to China instead, because apparently all the attention seems to be going to Europe. Because almost the same culture has occupied that region, there's no historical empires to base on but China itself.

[Legion02]

<Snipped quote by Legion02>Both Google and Wikipedia can help you massively in that, no need for anything else. Pardon me for responding this late but our mention didn't show up as an alert.
Anyways, I think it'd be a bit too much to ask people to pick places which are well-suited for mining. I mean given the limited Moon landings not even scientists working with the space program should know this exactly.

Oh and AFAIK if you want "cheap" Helium-3 you gotta visit the Jupiter.
That's why I have a small installation over there with the Carpathian Union.

@Willy Vereb

I didn't know Jupiter had an abundance of helium-3, thank you! Though concidering the size and available manpower my faction has, I doubt it would be able to make a fully functional colony so far away. So I'll be sticking with the moon for now.

[Unfortunately]

Waiting for more to join before we can start.

[Antediluvixen]

Is this still alive and accepting? I might be interested.

[Lauder]

The Confederacy of Sawl

Government Info:
The Confederation is held together by a dictatorship backed by a strong military to keep everyone oppressed enough to make sure they don't attack the dictator but still be happy with their lives. The current dictator is a man named Elijah Zaro whom finds time to address his people's happiness but refuses for them to have political or civil rights.

Military Overview:
All Sawlians are required to serve at least one year of military service in their lifetime once they have reached the age of eighteen. The military utilizes more technology than anything making them weak if some sort of electromagnetic pulse went off. They navy is comprised of many battleships and submarines which are constantly patrolling the waters and warding off any intruders with a warning before shooting.

Economic Overview:
The economy is run by many private businesses which have a set amount of money that they must pay yearly, depending on how well the business is doing and how large the industry is. Most notably they have Arms manufacturing, Automobile manufacturing, and raw material extraction. However, their newest business would be Space Exploration and Colonization.

Cultural Description:
Everybody is equal in the eyes of Sawl and many people can worship and do what they want so long as it doesn't endanger anybody. They are renowned for their national park which contains many different types of animals. All people of Sawl must be polite in order to keep appeal to others who dare visit their countries.

Technological Overview:
Sawl has very advanced weaponry but is still within kinetics on their infantry, they have handheld rail guns that are designed to destroy tanks. Many of their citizens are into science and so the rate of scientific advancement is astounding. they have more advanced space flight technology as they have taken the time to develop better technology to get from planet to planet. Newly built space ships now have weapons equipped to do damage from orbit or to engage in dogfights in space.

Colonies:
While currently having no colonies they plan on expanding to the moon or Mars, as well as terraform Venus.

History:
Sawl had started up as a single business which rapidly grew into a monopoly in Madagascar, having many political ties with the government. They were seemingly peaceful up until the monopoly started a civil war within Madagascar and split it up into different states, all of which fought each other. Eventually Sawl won, they rebuilt and established their mark as a power on the planet. Now they aim to extend their power to the stars.

Other:
N/A