Ah shit, I had a clone army in mind. Beat me to the punch!
I'm still trying to get a nation concept crystallized, but I do have in mind some kind of Dunesque internecine house conflicts.
Quick question @Hael, how possible/common is the notion of "mind uploading", cyborgs, etc. etc.? Another notion I had was a race whose "true form" is not really known due to the widespread of bodyswapping/body modification, kind of like the Changelings from Deep Space Nine.
15% Various, held as thralls, soldiers, converts, servants, contractors, etc.
100 billion
30 systems
10 inhabited worlds
Species
The Mur-Po
A quasi-humanoid species, noted above all for the number of their appendages and abstract physiognomy. The Mur-Po, in general, have between 3 or 4 pairs of arms, terminating in hands bearing seven fingers with opposable thumbs; however, some Mur-Po have been known to bear up to seven or eight pairs of arms, and, in some cases, between two and three pairs of legs. The Mur-Po have long, drawn faces, often heavily tattooed and modified with implants and facial scarring, pupil-less eyes accented with epicanthic folds, forked jawlines, and thin, long noses. Many Mur-Po, particularly from the Hunay caste, wear masks (often bearing cultural markers) due to low melanin levels, skin which burns easily in the high polar sunlight of the Mur-Po’s homeworld.
The Mur-Po are sexually trimorphic, roughly corresponding to male, female, and neuter. Reproduction is sexual, but that which bears children is the neuter sex; the male and female sexual organs are now largely vestigial, although anterior to the evolution of the neuter it is thought that they were used in reproduction in the male/female dipode. The neuter sex is equipped with both sexual organs, and are generally maintained in sexual slavery/prostitution in order to fulfill their role as a reproductive element. They have evolved (artificially), to bear between five and six pairs of limbs, thus being the most sexually appealing.
As they are not mammalian, the Mur-Po do not have mammary glands. They are warm-blooded creatures, having evolved to survive the polar desert of their home world.
Generally, a Mur-Po will live between one hundred to two hundred years, although due to the duress of the neuters they have a much lower life expectancy, between thirty to fifty years.
System of Government
The government of the Ascendancy is a hierocracy, governed by the despotism of the priestly caste known as the Twelve and ruled by the Grand Hierophant Jo-Sul, who has, through cybernetic implants (purported to be divine intervention), has abided for nearly a thousand years. The Ascendancy is inherently founded in its religious nature.
History
The Mur-Po Ascendancy evolved from a series of religiously motivated wars carried out on the planet Inur. According to myth, the Concordat was espoused by the Blind-Wander-King, an exiled son of the Lunar House, who, as his name might imply, was blinded and doomed to wander the polar dunes.
However, in his wanderings, he was spoken to by the voice of the lunar goddess Hanapa and her Forest Court of 3,000 client gods, urging him to bring down perdition on the decadent city of Makhina. The Blind-Wander-King traveled the vast continent of Ulam, petitioning the aid of lordlings through blinding displays of mysticism.
Finally, with a host prepared, the Blind-Wander-King achieved his ambitions, smiting the Lunar House, pulling down the stones of the Lunar Fastness, and massacring the unbelievers. Before the eyes of the Mur-Po faithful, he ascended to godhood--or so it is claimed--and assumed the aspect of the King-Made-God. From then, his followers waged campaigns of conquest to bring the rest of the Mur-Po race to heel, though not without great difficulty. The conquests of Inur lasted well over six hundred years on-and-off, and the planet was split between the detentes of the Ascendancy and their mortal enemies the Atlas Parliament and their auxiliaries, each totalitarian in their own ways.
In its quintessence, it was a war of ideas. To achieve their stated aims, each side researched and employed new technologies, and their societies evolved in a limbo of perpetual war. Rigid castes were developed, in order to foment obedience and fealty to the Grand Design. In the laboratories of artificial evolution, a neuter sex was developed in order to fuel the war effort, a perpetual supplier of soldiers. The holocaust wrought upon the planet Inur was such that even the Grand Hierophant was reduced to ululation.
In the end, the war was taken to the stars. A brutal struggle was waged for the habitation of the twin moons of Yuhano and Huy, with vast capital fleets dazzling the cosmos with thermonuclear radiance. The crucible of the conflict arrived with the 3rd Lunar Siege of Huy, in which, for the first time, il-ship (a prototypical bioship utilizing the long-haul cargoships used to transport goods from the surface of Inur to the moons and sparsely colonized dwarf planets and fort-moons) and no-drive technology was employed. The il-ship (named Acquiescence) obliterated the AP fleet, and, in its blind lunacy, committed suicide by means of collision with Yuhano.
Its impact shattered the moon into three vast pieces, all of which were caught in Inur's gravity well. Those of the eight-armed caste and higher were given the recourse to quit the planet while they could. The rest, well over a third of Mur-Po species, was left to the hecatomb and a silent grave.
But the war was won. What was left of the AP fled the system as refugees, without a home to return to, to prostitute themselves as mercenaries or scavenge the leavings of empires. Yet the duress was not yet at an end for the Ascendancy. The loss of both Yuhano and Inur initiated a great disillusionment with the Concordat, despite the ideological fanaticism inculcated from birth. A civil war convulsed the jungles of Huy and even on the blasted surface of Inur; however, the rebels too were eliminated, induced to the gravest of tortures, and, perhaps worse, damnation.
The Grand Hierophant, the Twelve, and the Mur-Po Ascendancy rested on the laurels of victory. But nigh eight-hundred years of continuous conflict and fervor had bereft them of the recourse to reap the triumph they had sown; furthermore, the Mur-Po was left without a home, confined to a small moon and a smattering of dwarf planets of no consequence. Stagnation loomed, and violence broke out intermittently. The Mur-Po are imbued from their first moments in the catechisms of holy combat. The Ascendancy was faced with a choice: unite the Mur-Po once again in hallowed conquest, or face balkanization.
And so, one hundred and thirty years ago, Grand Hierophant Jo-Sul declared the Campaign. A red hued conquest in the name of Hanapa and her 3,000 Courtiers. To castigate the unfaithful, to bring them to their knees. To overrun their lands and carve a new home with fire and smoke and blood. A conquest, as of yet, without end.
SORRY, I'm gonna get a post up today if it's the last thing I do lol.
Also just a forewarning for next week, I will be in Morocco from Wednesday to Sunday without a laptop (goddamn Ryanair baggage rules) so I won't be active. But I will try and get "Diaries of a Mad Wheat Farmer" up soon
Very interested, muthsera. I've always wondered what it would be like had domestic animals evolved in the Americas---it's really fascinating how much it would have changed history.
Thinking of playing either a Mesoamerican or Canadian civ
Just need to start working on my NS, have been kind of busy these last two days but the idea is already in my head so I just have to set finger to keyboard
@LexiconI mean, it depends on how smoothly you pull it off. You could either do it underhandedly or talk to Dunlad about it directly. That would probably be the best way to propitiate him and gain a definitive ally in him (not that he isn't already, but moreso ya dig). Maybe we could write an IC post about the Maire and Odo thing and also elaborate further on the alliance proposal to Clan Andal? I am, however, going to postpone the marriage offer with Andal to next season, because I think that's what Dunlad would do. The tula is fucked at the moment; the least thing he'd want to do is to leave. Dunlad's a good-intentioned and wordworking, but dull and unambitious man. He's not for brilliant gambits, but for sticking with what he knows and what he's seen has worked. Would our reputation hamper a marriage proposal I wonder? The other clan (V something, can't be arsed to looked) seemed to be interested in getting to know us.
Member
