AlienBastard

The Gods are Crazy

The Prime Temple of Lezajskona

The domes, arch ways and engraved feathers of the temple dominate over the sprawl of urban towns and peasant houses where tool makers, bakers and artisans work in solitude from the public. Impressive in its size and stature, the temple is among the few structures that rise out from the sprawling fortress of a city that is Lezajskona; one could see the main castle from this temple, and see that the castle stands out like a mountain of stone and ramparts. Further out is the lake itself, sea-like in its vastness. Looking the other way is the great wall which surrounds it all, and the constant conflicting architecture built upon by thousands of years of consistent building by multiple dynasties dating back millennia of time.

The temple itself by comparison is quite new, being only six hundred years old. Yet it seems naturally part of this fortress city and its sprawl of roads, aqueducts and villas. The urban sprawl is to some level filthy, and densely populated; nearly a million people live in this fortress of a city, in completely stark contrast to the spread out countryside with its villages and occasional castle that marks the vast majority of Thernopolesian society.

A tan skinned, well groomed but wrinkly middle aged man in rainbow robes runs into the ornate archways of the temple, speeding past the tiled floors echoing his foot steps throughout the spacious chambers. Four heavily armored knights take notice, and proceed to march in his way before turning to the man’s direction, stopping in their places in a monolithic wall of polished steel.

“Halt. Who be you?” one of the knights, speaking from the thin horizontal slit in his helmet asks.

The man in the garish rainbow robes pushes off the hood with his hands, revealing a grey haired, stone face of a man with olive eyes and a rather thick nose. He stares at the knights for a second with some distress before stating “I be Arch Decider Baro Agy, you need move out of the way. Fates of your children depend on it.”

Three of the knights, wise in their ways step out of the way of Baro, but one of the knights stays in his place, and asks Baro “Why is it, that a honored man such as you wears the robe of a plain Decider?”

All Baro tells the knight, is “Business. Knights such as yourself need not know more.”

The last of the four knights, not wanting to waste the Arch Decider’s time further lumbers in his heavy, plated armor out of the way joining to the left side of chamber with his fellow left side assigned knight.

The big door is opened by a knight on the right side of the chamber, and as the door slowly cranked open Agy walked quietly through. Behind Agy, the large doors quickly closed shut, the slamming of the door echoing through the entry chamber.

The hallway leading to the main chamber slowly curves in on itself, leading to a small door that is locked. Baro gets out his social key, unlocks the much smaller door and enters the core of the temple; a surprisingly humble, candle lit wooden box of a room with a few holes leading up to the top of the temple for air. It is almost dungeon-like, despite the refined wood used and the quality of the table's craft. On top of the table is a hide, stained in wine juice due to not being washed recently.

Sitting on two of the stools are a short man, and a tall man. They, like Baro are of the Great Decider caste. Baro proceeds to take a seat at one of the stools around the circular table, and begins to converse.

"No one else here, correct?" Baro asks the other two Great Deciders, who look at Baro funny due to the peculiar robes he is wearing. Ignoring the oddity, the shorter of the two others simply states "Only us."

Seeing the obvious, Baro tells the other two "Good. I want to discuss something."

"Is it your fetish of wearing lesser robes?" the taller of two wryly asks Baro.

"It is not of fetishes, it is of the problem." Baro reiterates.

"Which problem?" the taller one asks.

"The king one."

The king one, the taller one thinks to himself for a bit. The taller one, like Baro has his suspicions of the king. Yet, he simply asks Baro "The king will pass, why worry?"

"He will run this city into the lake before he leaves the throne."

"Are you suggesting somehow removing king who was legitimately picked by the other twelve Great Deciders? Even with the wealth gotten from the Ezons?"

The question Baro received did not do much to deter Baro from his beliefs, if anything they affirmed them. In his self-righteous thought Baro tells the taller of the two other Great Deciers, "There is no legitimacy in bribery."

A awkward silence filled the room, but the taller of the two other Arch Deciders starts to tacitly see what Baro is going on about. The shorter one gets out a bottle of wine and simply states "Let us talk of less political things instead."

How about a Alien Contact Space Opera RP?

I think it's just one more person showing interest than the quota is fulfilled.

However even if not one person expresses interest by April 1st, I probably will go forward in making the RP since a 7/8 is still a high B anyhow.

I will spend efforts today [since it's 2 AM where I am] refining the shorter TL and outlining plot events along with detailing aspects of the [REDACTED].

I also pretty much should say that the GC's distribution of wealth is not as lopsided as it may seem- Sol is not really wealthier than the inner colonies and the outer colonies are only behind since they're still developing. The global aristocracy has no equivalent in current GC society, as capitalism as we know it tends to be practice at a local level on some worlds only. There is multiple powerful organizations, but they aren't corporate in nature. They'd be more like guilds than corporations.

Space Battles, Space Warship design & Tactics

Maintaining a interstellar empire would require a different way of handling logistics.

My theory is that instead of sending out one ship for a trip at a time, you have to keep a constant stream of ships "checking" on vassal systems. One ship every two months is sent off to the vassal star system to occupy it. Ships make return trips, and as one ship leaves the people subjugated would see another ship come by.

Of course that would mean A LOT of spaceships, but seeing how much material there is in space I have no doubt it could be pulled off. By having a constant line of ships going to a vassal star system would could maintain a interstellar empire of up to a couple dozen star systems.

And as for time and age… Well, there's hibernation, video games and simply changing people's perception of time combined with longer natural life spans. Or hell why even assume the humans haven't become mind uploaded immortal beings by than? I can think of tons of potential technologies used to make the issue of "time" moot for the travelers.

The people on the planets on the other hand, I have no clue. I don't think technology will constantly innovate rapidly, in fact I speculate it could stagnate in the interstellar age.

Kadaeux said
Stealth is impossible in space. Not difficult. Not challenging. Not an engineering problem. Impossible.http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.phpSkip straight to "there ain't no stealth in space, do not pass Alpha Centauri, do not collect 200 Spacebucks." :p

Thankfully the sheer vastness of space, the inability to bend light and presumed advancements in intercepting projectile attacks means stealth isn't that necessary anyways.

Keep moving, keep firing, and always change direction seems to be the way you play the space game. Stop too long and the enemy gets the edge.

But I don't really know, I just speculate based on what arguments I hear and listen to those that sound most convincing.

The PRC special; chatterbox

Well this has not gone as hoped.

The Empire or The Stormcloaks? Skyrim. Which Are You? and Why?

Empire since it don't matter who wins the civil war the elves will kill everyone in the end.

How about a Alien Contact Space Opera RP?

I edited the detailed history to make more sense of what happened in how the UGO overtook mars as the dominant power.

dreamshell said
And hey, where's the AI that's gained self-awareness?

They're in there, technological capabilities mentions that self aware AIs have been made, but generally it is seen as a crime to "give a machines a soul". Of course it still has happened, but the fate of the AIs generally involve either having them take a human identity through making them believe they are a mind uploaded human by altering their memories or euthanization.

How about a Alien Contact Space Opera RP?

dreamshell said
Well, I'm not crazy about the name 'World Governing Entity.' Something catchier like... "Unigov" (a colloquialism) or UGO (United Global Order), maybe? Whatever, small beans, I guess, but I can be a stickler about trivial nonsense. =PI'm a bit curious how a desolate, war-torn, resource-poor Earth would be able to come out the victor in a war against a technocratic, resource-rich Mars, save perhaps by a combo of some sort of "space race" scenario to claim the rest of what the Solar System has left to offer and just outright seizing Martian vassals and pillaging their goodies. Is that the way of things?I also fail to see why Mars would even bother with Earth during its own golden age, but as I don't see any mention of it in the truncated sheet, maybe you've dropped that.I'm wondering if the Grand Coalition would evolve into a less greedy-by-necessity society driven by desperate conquest and consumption and more of a market-based one that values trade and innovation, especially as humanity ventures beyond its home system and reaps the benefits of others.And hey, where's the AI that's gained self-awareness? Can't have a space opera without at least one. ;)Anyway, mostly dig it. Like 90-95% of it. ;)

UGO could work better.

The GC is pretty much evolving to what you said; they're in many ways by 2512 already like that. The interstellar civil war was pretty much a wake up call that colonies nee greater autonomy even if the GC still has the ideal of keeping all of mankind united [a venture far easier said than done].

As for the martian invasion part, yeah it probably wouldn't have been for resources. The motive is much more due to trying to stop earth from rebuilding and becoming a serious rival, something they failed to avert as they acted too late. What they didn't take into account was the consolidating of large blocs that formed in the wake of the mass death that actually did a pretty good job at rebuilding things enough to launch spaceships to the moon and spread out from there. The invasion caused the formation of the UGO, which probably would engage in what you said against mars through the later parts of the 23rd century.

Though the big winning factor for the UGO would have to be the invention of the jump drive, which after a mere few years of having made the UGO rapidly dominate the solar system. By the time mars made their own jump drive ship, the UGO already was setting up interstellar colonies. Eventually mars just assimilated into the GC, which only happened in the year 2357.

How about a Alien Contact Space Opera RP?

I wonder if anyone noticed the years on the two Tls I have contradict each other.

How about a Alien Contact Space Opera RP?

You asked for it:

Here

A Brief History of the Human Race, 21st century to 26th century.

Three… The Global Age 1991-2147

After the cold war ended the big problem humans had to deal with involved economic dick measuring, terrorism and the fear of nuclear armageddon. Despite the three preceding things the global era was a time of much needed relative peace, with the only major war being the War of Armageddon that erupted in East Europe where only a several million people died; nothing to worry of on a global scale.

However that war did lead to the aristocracies, for corporations started being seen as a path to a more peaceful world. A big mistake overall.

Towards the end of the 21st century corporate aristocracies dominated the globe. The mega corps gobbled up much of the world’s valuable resources and colonization of the solar system and believed that interplanetary colonization was needed to secure resources in the asteroid belt.

Along with the colonization efforts spearheaded by corporations that didn’t see the earth as enough, other efforts were carried out to control earth’s weather in order to keep a predictable weather cycle and put an end to famine and starvation- a thankless task in a world with 13 billion mouths to feed.

Terrorism and rogue states became a major issue- and these organizations, working under the front of “war corps” became amazingly powerful under the aristocracy's noses, causing chaos for decades to come.

But their most notable “achievement” would be the war corp named ‘Happy Blue Skies Inc’ getting ahold of a pocket nuke blew up the arctic weather control facility causing what is known as the mass death. The mass death happened in 2147, causing 45% of the human population to die off making for the worst catastrophe in human history… For now.

With the descent of earth into chaos, colonies in the asteroid belt and mars became effectively self-sustaining* and independent.

*in Mar’s case, at least- Mercury as a colony starved to death without its shipments, Triton barely held on and the asteroid belt became effectively vassals for mars. The moon fell apart due to the mass death effecting the moon as bad as earth, if not worse. More info in the “Interplanetary” section.

And with that, the interplanetary age begun from the ashes of earth.

Tech known to exist in this time:
-Cybernetic Implants
-Subluminal space travel to other planets
-Basic genetic modifications
-Dumb AIs
-Coilguns/Railguns
-Weather control [of the crude, imprecise sort]
-3D holograms

Culture:

Not too much culturally has changed, except for a trend of homogenization as a result of globalization. The world later in the 21st century became rather multipolar leading to a multitude of cultural blends depending on immigration and trade.

The Global aristocracy accelerated the homogenization trends, streamlining culture into a stagnant mess of recycled products and stories. “Canned dramas”- movies that explicitly used the same script but modified the setting released monthly- were rather popular in these times to give an example at how crap culture got as independent flicks were shutdown on the crime of violating the five billion copyrights. Space travel was pushed heavily by the mega corps in advertisements and holo movies.

Two… Interplanetary Age 2147-2301

Freed from the shackles of Earth, the colonies isolated from Terran contact developed away from the global system, mars undergoing multiple waves of radical revolution against the aristocracy that tried to flee earth to mars leading to a technocratic system of engineers that focused primarily on engineering the trade to the asteroid belt and generally ruled in a way that was seen as beneficial to all mars. Mars would start to flourish as trade to other colonies gave it serious hegemony over lesser colonies that were not as self-sustaining or capable of making interplanetary space craft.

On earth, by the year 2240 multiple large factions formed that always had tensions, but never went to war. However, mars in the year 2245 invaded earth in order to make keep what the technocracy saw as a potential dnager to them; but this invasion would fail as a result of earth's factions joining into a single government known as the UGO [United Global Order]. Better yet, Earth started making spaceships much more than before.

The UGO would fight in a five year interplanetary war the martians off, and unify earth into a single world-state. After this unification in the year 2250, the Earth and Mrs engaged in a rivalry that mars, due to their vassals turning against them would slowly lose out on. However, for osme time it was hard to tell who would acutally take over the solar system or even if one of the worlds actually would. The conflict between mars and earth was very much a warm conflict as the UGO contested Mercury, the Asteroid belt, and the Jovian colonies against mars.

Triton meanwhile kept isolated from much of the outside world, not being dragged into any other conflict and became a very spiritualistic theocracy whose religion still spreads in the year 2512.

Earth ultimately would win the warm conflict for the solar system as a savant on Earth known as Maxx Bassa figured out how to apply jump theory taken from martian science to the physical world and break the "light barrier" by essentially "ignoring" all the empty space. A method that got the first colony craft to Proxima Centauri in months- and by 2512, weeks.

In doing so, Mars had no answer for a force that could rapidly go from one planet to another and colonies worlds outside the solar system. As while mars had the theory, they didn't bother experimenting with a physical application for the drive. This was something earth did. While mars eventually got their own Jump Drives, by the time they did most of the solar system was united and the Grand Coalition as the UGO started calling itself already begun colonizing outside the solar system.

Tech known to exist in this time:

-Sophisticated space travel
-Gas mines [some on jupiter were made in the year 2214]
-Hibernation for humans
-sophistication of technology seen in the global age
-Everything from global age in some shape or form
-Interstellar colony ships
-Faster than light travel [at the end, of course]
-Internet you can interface with your mind [Neural net]

Culture;

Copyright claims were rendered null due to the dark age and the World Governing Entity never bothered bringing them back, meaning this RP by the interplanetary age could be sold in stores as a FPS game without getting sued by Actisoft which ceased existing around 2148 anyhow.

Culture due to interplanetary isolation led to very distinct cultures appearing on mars, the asteroid belt and triton in general. Mars became a cesspool of technocratic imperialists while the asteroid belt was split into a mess of mining clans willing to fight in space if it means expanding where they have the right to mine. Triton for the most part was cut off from everything else while managing to be self-sustaining enough to keep afloat its population. Triton also became a theocracy and by 2512, a holy site.

After the failure to invade earth mars became very defensive fearing the worst from earth, knowing they just shook awake a sleeping giant...

One… Interstellar Age 2301-2512

The last two hundred and eleven years have been a age of unparalleled expansion and population explosions.

On earth when the mass death ended the human population went up the billions again, and the UGO went interstellar, changing its name to “The Grand Coalition” which effectively took control of the whole solar system in two decades. Mars proved the hardest nut to crack, staying defensive and armored of a world to the point where the Grand Coalition let Mars be independent.

Mars kept its independence until the year 2357, when mars was unable to get any resources leading to a civil collapse that provoked intervention on the part of the GC. However, the concept of martian technocracy did not die with mars- the ideals of technocracy would go on to sprout up in the interstellar colonies.

Interstellar colonization became the norm for the following two centuries, with the Grand Coalition’s benevolent fascism creating a sense of unity in humans somewhat like what nationalism did. However as the colonies developed, a new form of nationalism would appear in conflict with the species based pride the Grand Coalition tried propagating; planetary nationalism.

In essence, planetary nationalism comes from the idea that a interstellar governing entity like the Grand Coalition is not actually necessary to live in space. Some colony worlds considered themselves independent from the start, while others initially accepted the Grand Coalition’s authoritarian approach to running mankind.

Yet, the Grand Coalition eventually had to shift from its unitary ways as what is often considered the biggest civil war of all time broke out in the year 2421 after one of the peacekeeping brigades carelessly massacred an entire world to put down a particularly nasty revolt. The massacre was the casus belli for large growing movements of varying sorts of make their own alliance of worlds and declared independence from the Grand Coalition causing the interstellar civil war.

The interstellar civil war lasted fourteen years with the Grand Coalition barely winning and some colony systems actually successfully seceding [later becoming rogue colonies]. While the Grand Coalition won, the Alliance of Worlds for Independence still operated in secret, waiting for the right time to strike. The Alliance of Worlds for Independence is officially labeled a terrorist organization by the Grand Coalition for their atrocities and use of terror to achieve their objectives of secession- not like peaceful protest was working.

When peace was declared in 2435 the damage done from the interstellar civil war between the secessionists/planetary nationalist worlds and pro-Coalition worlds caused around a 150 million deaths, but only killed 1% of all humans.

The long civil war resulted in the Grand Coalition liberalizing in order to avoid further revolt by turning away from its unitary ways. However the grand Coalition still was federal in nature despite the increased autonomy and occasional set of colonies not part of the Grand coalition; the folk running the grand coalition not bothering to invade them unless they do something that provokes it.

The next seventy years were relatively peaceful, but civil unrest became a frequent issue as secessionists, technocrats and planetary nationalists caused insurrection and corruption, a issue that existed before, became more called out on. However, things started cooling down.

The last fifty years or so have been a time of relative peace among humans with less overbearingness from the Grand Coalition, more exploration and colonies carried out by the decade.

Twenty years ago, you know the story.

But now, a new force opens its presence to humanity.

Tech known to exist;

[See technological cpaabilities]

Culture;

[There’s another sheet for this]

Contact, present day

Now the fun begins.

However the final OP I intend to use this due to being much shorter and more to the point:

The timeline

A Brief History of the Human Race, 21st century to 26th century.

Three… The Global Age 1991-2147

[21st century] A century of relative peace was what made the 21st century despite fears of a third war.

[2042-2147 est.] Colonization of half the solar system and control of the weather through technology was achieved. Many technologies invented.

[2070-2147 est.] Global aristocracies said to have dominated the globe in these times.

[2147] A unknown terror organization destroyed the weather machine that kept the world fed, causing massive famine that led to an outbreak of wars, plagues and other such horrors to dominate the globe, leading to a century long dark age with robots and futuristic weapons.

Two… Interplanetary Age 2147-2301

[2187-2250] While earth suffered mars became the dominant power in the solar system. Mars was ruled by engineers who saw it justified to exploit other colonies for resources.

[2225] The century long dark age ended around this point.

[2240] Mars tries invading earth for Terran resources like plants, and to hopefully eliminate a potential threat. They failed [marking the end of martian domination], and the world governing entity would overtake mars as the dominant power in the solar system.

[2245] World Governing Entity was founded to keep stability for the world and keep another apocalypse from happening.

[2290] After 40 years of dedicated research by world governing entity organizations using mercury as a test base, FTL is invented.

One… Interstellar Age 2301-2512

[2305] The world governing entity underwent heavy reforms in they way they ran things as of becoming a interstellar society. They adopted a new name, the Grand Coalition. For they see the combination of every human to make a “grand coalition” whose purpose is to ensure the continued survival of mankind in an uncaring universe through necessary action.

The Grand Coalition started launching a wave of colonization to many stars using colonial spacecraft that go faster than light.

[24th century] Relative peace, most time spent colonizing but tensions in developing worlds increase over time over the authoritarian ways of the earlier Grand Coalition. Insurrection becomes a common issue on some colonies.

[2342] World with alien animals is found; alien life is confirmed to exist, however intelligent alien life has thankfully yet to be found.

[2421-2435] Civil war breaks out after tensions between extremist secessionists and grand coalition loyalists goes out of control.

The Grand Coalition suffers much internal damage after the interstellar civil war caused by planetary nationalists. Despite winning the Grand Coalition relaxes its authority on some levels leading to greater overall autonomy for colonized worlds despite continued domination by the Grand Coalition.

A couple systems are known to have gone completely independent in the chaos and have heavily militarized themselves after the civil war. These "runaway" colonies as of 2512 are still not recognized as independent.

[2435 - now] Second wave of colonial expansion happens. Insurrection levels are relatively low in comparison to pre -interstellar civil war times.

[2492] An Organization known as the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs is founded after a outer colony claims to have made contact with an alien race.

[2500] Military development for experimental weaponry goes into overdrive for inexplicable reasons.

Blast Off!

[2512] Alien contact is officially confirmed by the Grand Coalition, direct contact awaits.

Probably not as insanely long as some history sheets go [just check out the wikipedia's human history sheet].

I intentionally left out a lot of names so that the historical figures can be made up by people.

How about a Alien Contact Space Opera RP?

Zaikaze said
So I'm guessing there's no magic since it's sci-fi? I'd assume there'd be advanced technology. Do you have any specific ideas in mind as to the limits/general outline of the tech, or would we sort of just make it up as we go along?

No magic since I don't see much reason for it; the advanced technology I feel already fits most the niches magic has to offer. After all, how different is a mage who shoots lightning that much different from a electrolaser?

Here's the technological capabilities sheet for humans/the grand coalition:

Technological capabilities

-Weather manipulation; remote controlled tornados, guns that shoot ball lightning [or plasma weapons], electrolasers, bombs that make earthquakes happen and changing the temperature in a region are all things at mankind’s disposal. Much of these technologies thankfully are used not for destruction, but for making weather cycles that are predictable and averting natural disasters.

-Artificial Intelligence; Computers and AI is a very controversial subject in the grand coalition. The Coalition’s official stance is that is a crime to force a machine designed for hard labor to be aware of itself, as it would cause suffering for the machine. Yet this has not stopped AIs from existing, being mostly made underground under the idea that giving machines a spirit will make them more devout.

-Magnetic weaponry; Gauss weapons, railguns, mass drivers- you name it, humans got it.

-Space travel; Humans are able to make space craft that jump through the massive expanse of space through the vacuum being compressed and the effectively ship bungee jumped through the void.

-Cybernetics; Humans can be given implants that carry out many purposes. Synthetic arms and body parts are common place.

-Stimulants; Stimulants greatly enhance performance of the user for temporary periods of time. Such drugs have varying levels of legality, of course.

-Energy barriers; Energy barriers and personal shielding do exist.

-Biotech; Humans in war use bio suits when in combat to enhance their strength and speed, and replace almost all organs with ease- exception being much of the brain. They can replace brain cells and cure alzheimer's, but if a human loses their brain they’re still dead.

-Exosuits; As with the aforementioned “biosuits”, humans have power armor and it’s very common place in the military of the future as most humans tend to take more complex roles in the battle field.

-Mind Uploading; Mind uploading is limited and makes a copy of someone’s mind, does not “transmit” one’s mind. As a result mind uploading is usually for preserving records. Mind uploaded people can use robots as avatars, however.

-Experimental weaponry; Rumors have it, somewhere where no being would ever dare look the GC has been cooking up antimatter bombs and particle beams.

Feel free to suggest any technologies you feel would be logical for the GC to have but is lacking from here.

The specific technologies, like spaceship types, toys, weapons, luxury vehicles and so on are open to be made up as we go along.

As you could imagine, the aliens are going to be more advanced than what i've shown.

I have a couple other sheets for outlining Grand Coalition society and a short timeline. I also had a history sheet but was advised against using it due to having too many irrelevant events.