Member
Tortoise
Enigmatik
Megsychan
Izurich
Venus
AlteredTundra
TimemasterHeavy WIP for the Nine Dragon Crescent
They call us lawless. They call us criminals. They blame us, point fingers and wave guns like we are tyrants. At least our people have full bellies and are protected from mindless death by the Guizi.
Government Form:
Socialist Authoritarian Criminal Syndicate
Population:
7,500,000,000~
What is humanity?:
Humanity is chaos. Teetering on the edge between heroism and villainy, between peace and war, between ascension and extinction. United, we are dragons who pierce the cosmos despite our enemies. Divided, we are rabble unfit to even gaze upon the stars.
The great head of the Nine Dragon Syndicate, Luo Minh
Planet/System Name and Description:
It was supposed to be beautiful. They had toiled for years, across family generations for some. They were the gears in the machine that kept the complicated clockwork of the Gateways going. They were supposed to be rewarded for their efforts, given a world of unparalleled beauty.
Instead, they were given the CX0985 system. A barren, planet-less solar system made up of a dwarf star named Son (a mistake in the translation between humans in early contact) and vast belts of resource-full asteroids. Along with the largest den of scum and villainy then known to man.
Crescent.
A once spherical space station which has been partly destroyed to give the permanent visage of a crescent moon. Built by an unknown precursor race and maintained by rusting, lifeless automatons which meandered about the station with no care for its inhabitants. Separating the living from choking in the void are thick metal walls made up of dense alloys. Strong, sturdy and much better than the makeshift metal repairs that the inhabitants of the station provided. Importantly, they were good conductors for heat and so efficient that the masses of the station needn’t worry about boiling to death in a metal cage.
Instead, they would have to deal with the decrepit hydroponics systems, oxygen support, the lack of extensive plumbing in converted living spaces, failing nuclear reactors dotted around the station, both radioactive and non-radioactive waste along with disease outbreaks. Indeed, Crescent was never designed to hold so many people.
Despite this, there is a dedicated population of robotic workers found within Crescent which are barely keeping up with the maintenance of the station. To interfere with them would mean death by the locals. There are the smaller “youkai”, orbs of glistening metal which seemingly sprout tools and materials needed from its own for, able to interface with anything and everything part of the station. Their animal-like intelligence and nanomachine-based technology has gathered the interest of many a scientist although studies have yielded nothing other than “this ball of metal is made out of something that makes no sense.” Other than these protected youkai, there are the large, lumbering “oni” which navigate the larger maintenance corridors. Big enough to loom over three story buildings, these more familiar boxy walking automatons check on the larger systems in the station such as the fusion reactors and the waste management systems. Unfortunately, there are only so many of these oni and such biological workers must be used to maintain those overworked systems.
The vast cavernous spaces which, if the records are true, are supposed to be “leisure” spaces became the site of built up shanty towns which extended to the ceiling. The actual “living quarters” are divided into so many living spaces for so many people that it is hard to distinguish where one room ended and another began. But at least you had a shared toilet. Maintenance areas such as the life support are kept clear when the larger “walker” automatons are present but are quickly filled up once their work was done, quickly built and deconstructed camps of people following in their wake. It is hard to walk through the hydroponics and water filtration areas without tripping on a sleeping body. The crematorium has more than just the dead and the cargo and shipyards are so overpopulated that people are often just press-ganged into working based on whether they are in the designated project zone. Even the reactor rooms are filled to the brim, RadAway aplenty to keep the mutations away (though these do not always work as the mutants display with pride).
The “cities” within the station are multi-layered, interconnected labyrinths with seemingly no rhyme or reason to its organisation. They are split between the nine wards or “dragons” of the station, sections split by large vault doors which are there to restrict large hull breaches to that section. The cities reminiscent to a combination of Chongqing and Kowloon though the pan-Asian and alien populace lend their own unique flavours in this cultural hotpot. Dark, dim lighting and networks of crisscrossing wires connect the city, with a unique cyberspace system connecting the whole station.
There is no zoning within the cities, a mish-mash of commercial, industrial and residential locations all coalescing together in one interconnected lump. Navigation is near impossible for newcomers as you often need to go through a kilometre of walking to get to a point which is seemingly right above you though the locals either get around this problem by plasma-cutting holes in the ceilings and floors or by navigating crevices which seem to lead to nowhere. Indeed, it is the locals who must lead you through the dark corridors lest you find yourself lost.
But beyond the dark atmosphere, the station still has a liveliness that only a densely populated space station can give. While one may listen to the chattering voices, smell the violently contrasting odours and feel the constant vibrations in fear, locals see it as a way of connection. There is no isolation here and everyone must work together as a community to keep their meagre lives going. Sharing food, water and other commodities are common as to turn away someone means your greater karma will suffer. Everyone lives with all kinds of people; segregation is impossible, and outright discrimination is frowned upon (although only a fool would allow a Daga into their home without securing their valuables). Petty crime is rampant but murder is rare, with other serious crimes mostly facilitated by the Nine Dragons themselves or the sneaky criminal gangs that live under their shadow. This is where this station thrives. In the connections between its people, in the sense of community and hope that grew from such a dim and dark place.
Which makes what those Guizi are doing to sections of Crescent more horrendous.
Demographics:
Homo Sapiens Sapiens: ~64%
Hatanxing: ~10%
Thằn lằn: ~7%
Daga: ~4%
Kuo Yu: ~4%
Gaja Men: ~2%
Metall Odam: ~1%
Miscellaneous other species: ~8%
History:
Culture and Society: (How do they live? Anything from ritual cannibals, to a surveillance state dystopia, to an integrated hivemind.)
Governance and Politics: (Like the government form field, but more room for detail. If your Colony has changed in such a way that it doesn't even have a government or politics anymore, this is also a good place to talk about that.)
Technology Overview: (What have your people invented? Or have they forgotten anything?)
Military Overview: (This is the space to talk about any offensive capabilities you have. Given that most of these Colonies have been essentially stranded by themselves for five centuries, I don't imagine anyone has a large "conquer other planets" level fleet yet. But maybe your Colony has been in civil war for a hundred years, and has built up an impressive military in that time. Or maybe they even had to fend off a genuine alien invasion.)
Additional Info: (Anything else you want to include that there isn't a spot for up there.)
The Commune of the Nine Dragon Crescent
They call us lawless. They call us criminals. They blame us, point fingers and wave guns like we are tyrants. At least our people have full bellies and are protected from mindless death by the Guizi.
Government Form:
Socialist Authoritarian Criminal Syndicate
Population:
7,500,000,000~
What is humanity?:
Humanity is chaos. Teetering on the edge between heroism and villainy, between peace and war, between ascension and extinction. United, we are dragons who pierce the cosmos despite our enemies. Divided, we are rabble unfit to even gaze upon the stars.
The great head of the Nine Dragon Syndicate, Luo Minh
Planet/System Name and Description:
“We were promised a world and clean living. We were given rocks and the largest shithouse in the galaxy. Putang ina, mabaho naman dito.”
It was supposed to be beautiful. They had toiled for years, across family generations for some. They were the gears in the machine that kept the complicated clockwork of the Gateways going. They were supposed to be rewarded for their efforts, given a world of unparalleled beauty.
Instead, they were given the CX0985 system. A barren, planet-less solar system made up of a dwarf star named Son (a mistake in the translation between humans in early contact) and vast belts of resource-full asteroids. Along with the largest den of scum and villainy then known to man.
Crescent.
A once spherical space station which has been partly destroyed to give the permanent visage of a crescent moon. Built by an unknown precursor race and maintained by rusting, lifeless automatons which meandered about the station with no care for its inhabitants. Separating the living from choking in the void are thick metal walls made up of dense alloys. Strong, sturdy and much better than the makeshift metal repairs that the inhabitants of the station provided. Importantly, they were good conductors for heat and so efficient that the masses of the station needn’t worry about boiling to death in a metal cage.
Instead, they would have to deal with the decrepit hydroponics systems, oxygen support, the lack of extensive plumbing in converted living spaces, failing nuclear reactors dotted around the station, both radioactive and non-radioactive waste along with disease outbreaks. Indeed, Crescent was never designed to hold so many people.
Despite this, there is a dedicated population of robotic workers found within Crescent which are barely keeping up with the maintenance of the station. To interfere with them would mean death by the locals. There are the smaller “youkai”, orbs of glistening metal which seemingly sprout tools and materials needed from its own for, able to interface with anything and everything part of the station. Their animal-like intelligence and nanomachine-based technology has gathered the interest of many a scientist although studies have yielded nothing other than “this ball of metal is made out of something that makes no sense.” Other than these protected youkai, there are the large, lumbering “oni” which navigate the larger maintenance corridors. Big enough to loom over three story buildings, these more familiar boxy walking automatons check on the larger systems in the station such as the fusion reactors and the waste management systems. Unfortunately, there are only so many of these oni and such biological workers must be used to maintain those overworked systems.
The vast cavernous spaces which, if the records are true, are supposed to be “leisure” spaces became the site of built up shanty towns which extended to the ceiling. The actual “living quarters” are divided into so many living spaces for so many people that it is hard to distinguish where one room ended and another began. But at least you had a shared toilet. Maintenance areas such as the life support are kept clear when the larger “walker” automatons are present but are quickly filled up once their work was done, quickly built and deconstructed camps of people following in their wake. It is hard to walk through the hydroponics and water filtration areas without tripping on a sleeping body. The crematorium has more than just the dead and the cargo and shipyards are so overpopulated that people are often just press-ganged into working based on whether they are in the designated project zone. Even the reactor rooms are filled to the brim, RadAway aplenty to keep the mutations away (though these do not always work as the mutants display with pride).
The “cities” within the station are multi-layered, interconnected labyrinths with seemingly no rhyme or reason to its organisation. They are split between the nine wards or “dragons” of the station, sections split by large vault doors which are there to restrict large hull breaches to that section. The cities reminiscent to a combination of Chongqing and Kowloon though the pan-Asian and alien populace lend their own unique flavours in this cultural hotpot. Dark, dim lighting and networks of crisscrossing wires connect the city, with a unique cyberspace system connecting the whole station.
There is no zoning within the cities, a mish-mash of commercial, industrial and residential locations all coalescing together in one interconnected lump. Navigation is near impossible for newcomers as you often need to go through a kilometre of walking to get to a point which is seemingly right above you though the locals either get around this problem by plasma-cutting holes in the ceilings and floors or by navigating crevices which seem to lead to nowhere. Indeed, it is the locals who must lead you through the dark corridors lest you find yourself lost.
But beyond the dark atmosphere, the station still has a liveliness that only a densely populated space station can give. While one may listen to the chattering voices, smell the violently contrasting odours and feel the constant vibrations in fear, locals see it as a way of connection. There is no isolation here and everyone must work together as a community to keep their meagre lives going. Sharing food, water and other commodities are common as to turn away someone means your greater karma will suffer. Everyone lives with all kinds of people; segregation is impossible, and outright discrimination is frowned upon (although only a fool would allow a Daga into their home without securing their valuables). Petty crime is rampant but murder is rare, with other serious crimes mostly facilitated by the Nine Dragons themselves or the sneaky criminal gangs that live under their shadow. This is where this station thrives. In the connections between its people, in the sense of community and hope that grew from such a dim and dark place.
Which makes what those Guizi are doing to sections of Crescent more horrendous.
Demographics:
Homo Sapiens Sapiens: ~64%
Hatanxing: ~10%
Thằn lằn: ~7%
Daga: ~4%
Kuo Yu: ~4%
Gaja Men: ~2%
Metall Odam: ~1%
Miscellaneous other species: ~8%
History:
“Workers of the world, unite! Assist the masses escaping to the stars and you will be rewarded! A ticket to a new home, a new life, one where you are in control of your destiny!”
One cannot talk about Crescent without first mentioning the Endless War which plague the stars around it. A clashing of cosmic titans, with what seem to be unparalleled industry and technology, at constant war over countless light years. It has been this way for hundreds of thousands of years, with every system touched leading to another drop of peoples fleeing to Crescent. Yet, despite the winding accounts created of this war, either from the oral traditions of long-lived Gaja Men or the data banks of rusting Metall Odams, not much is known of this war and why it is fought.
The two Endless powers that be, known together as the Guizi or as the Screechers and the Voiceless, had been at war long before humanity had even crawled out of its primordial caves. The Endless War is fought with unimaginable ferocity with each side giving the other no quarter. Planets are struck bombarded till their crusts are molten, the empty voids filled with scrap metal, spent shells and bubbling superheated plasma. No one has ever seen a member of their respective species at all, if they still exist. Their wars are fought between merciless automatons possessing artificial intelligences that the Odell Men, the only other AI known to Crescent who could interface with these beings, could only describe them as “savage” and “mindless.” In whatever form they are found, from the smaller automatons armed with personnel-level weaponry to the autonomous ebon ships whose visage strikes fear into whoever beholds them, the Guizi will attempt to destroy the other with no regard to the surrounding environment or to their own continued existence.
Near indistinguishable, Guizi can only be differentiated by the sounds, or lack thereof, that they create. The Screechers do as they are named, creating constant screams of bloodlust from every available voice box. The Voiceless, in contrast, are every bit eerie, silent and creepy. Their forms are similar in most other ways, no colour standard among their number. It is speculated that they may have been created by the creators of the same species however no one has bothered trying to ask. It is hard to talk with a burning hole in your brain/s after all. And it has been this way, for millennium, for near countless thousands of years, for as long as anyone can remember.
The history of Crescent intertwines with this war, extending far into the past by the Gaja Men’s reckoning. Not even these near-timeless inhabitants are aware of the true extent of Crescent’s history, only knowing from long-extinct species that the station used to be spherical before a “cleanse” grew out of control and a section of the space station was blown to kingdom come.
What is known is that Crescent, in all its “recent iterations”, has been a hive for scum and the downtrodden. Placed in a systems-wide struggle between two major military powers, it has long been the place for refugees, criminals and other undesirables to escape from the constant fighting which plagued the stars around it. It is said that the asteroid belts floating around Son are the remnants of long blown apart planets, blown apart before any currently living species had even step foot on the space station. But through this all, as a testament to the engineering and science of the precursors, the station has stood strong as a bastion and a refuge. Waves of species, from all over this cluster of space, have come to this place either as power-seeking criminals, outcasts or refugees of the unspeakable war raging around them.
Yet, as much as it seen as haven and home for many, it is not untouched by the war around it. Cleanses, brutal expulsion of the station’s inhabitants, are conducted at a period of every 550 years. Near everyone is slaughtered by one of the two cosmic powers with calculating efficiency. As far as anyone can reckon, these are done to prevent the emergence of a potential third power in this supposed demilitarised zone held between the Screechers and the Voiceless. Yet why they leave some portions of the population intact remains a mystery. Regardless, beings still flock to this “supposed” haven by years-long, sometimes decade-to-century-long voyages in whatever colony ship they could cobble together either by luck, for adventure or to escape.
It is by the nature of these cleanses that the demographics of Crescent have come to be. Humans, the latest arrivals and still untouched by the Endless War, make up the majority of the station’s inhabitants by pure luck. However, their alien neighbours cannot say the same.
The two Endless powers that be, known together as the Guizi or as the Screechers and the Voiceless, had been at war long before humanity had even crawled out of its primordial caves. The Endless War is fought with unimaginable ferocity with each side giving the other no quarter. Planets are struck bombarded till their crusts are molten, the empty voids filled with scrap metal, spent shells and bubbling superheated plasma. No one has ever seen a member of their respective species at all, if they still exist. Their wars are fought between merciless automatons possessing artificial intelligences that the Odell Men, the only other AI known to Crescent who could interface with these beings, could only describe them as “savage” and “mindless.” In whatever form they are found, from the smaller automatons armed with personnel-level weaponry to the autonomous ebon ships whose visage strikes fear into whoever beholds them, the Guizi will attempt to destroy the other with no regard to the surrounding environment or to their own continued existence.
Near indistinguishable, Guizi can only be differentiated by the sounds, or lack thereof, that they create. The Screechers do as they are named, creating constant screams of bloodlust from every available voice box. The Voiceless, in contrast, are every bit eerie, silent and creepy. Their forms are similar in most other ways, no colour standard among their number. It is speculated that they may have been created by the creators of the same species however no one has bothered trying to ask. It is hard to talk with a burning hole in your brain/s after all. And it has been this way, for millennium, for near countless thousands of years, for as long as anyone can remember.
The history of Crescent intertwines with this war, extending far into the past by the Gaja Men’s reckoning. Not even these near-timeless inhabitants are aware of the true extent of Crescent’s history, only knowing from long-extinct species that the station used to be spherical before a “cleanse” grew out of control and a section of the space station was blown to kingdom come.
What is known is that Crescent, in all its “recent iterations”, has been a hive for scum and the downtrodden. Placed in a systems-wide struggle between two major military powers, it has long been the place for refugees, criminals and other undesirables to escape from the constant fighting which plagued the stars around it. It is said that the asteroid belts floating around Son are the remnants of long blown apart planets, blown apart before any currently living species had even step foot on the space station. But through this all, as a testament to the engineering and science of the precursors, the station has stood strong as a bastion and a refuge. Waves of species, from all over this cluster of space, have come to this place either as power-seeking criminals, outcasts or refugees of the unspeakable war raging around them.
Yet, as much as it seen as haven and home for many, it is not untouched by the war around it. Cleanses, brutal expulsion of the station’s inhabitants, are conducted at a period of every 550 years. Near everyone is slaughtered by one of the two cosmic powers with calculating efficiency. As far as anyone can reckon, these are done to prevent the emergence of a potential third power in this supposed demilitarised zone held between the Screechers and the Voiceless. Yet why they leave some portions of the population intact remains a mystery. Regardless, beings still flock to this “supposed” haven by years-long, sometimes decade-to-century-long voyages in whatever colony ship they could cobble together either by luck, for adventure or to escape.
It is by the nature of these cleanses that the demographics of Crescent have come to be. Humans, the latest arrivals and still untouched by the Endless War, make up the majority of the station’s inhabitants by pure luck. However, their alien neighbours cannot say the same.
Culture and Society: (How do they live? Anything from ritual cannibals, to a surveillance state dystopia, to an integrated hivemind.)
Governance and Politics: (Like the government form field, but more room for detail. If your Colony has changed in such a way that it doesn't even have a government or politics anymore, this is also a good place to talk about that.)
Technology Overview: (What have your people invented? Or have they forgotten anything?)
Military Overview: (This is the space to talk about any offensive capabilities you have. Given that most of these Colonies have been essentially stranded by themselves for five centuries, I don't imagine anyone has a large "conquer other planets" level fleet yet. But maybe your Colony has been in civil war for a hundred years, and has built up an impressive military in that time. Or maybe they even had to fend off a genuine alien invasion.)
Additional Info: (Anything else you want to include that there isn't a spot for up there.)
