@Tortoise@Enigmatik So, unless I have forgotten something after days of working on this, my app for the GER should be done and ready to review!
If I need to fix or clarify anything, just let me know! Am happy to oblige and work things out, discuss here or over Discord DMs or on the server proper, etc.
"Are they-...they're...of course they're racing on school lawnmowers. And of course one of them used their element to shape the 'racetrack'. It's creative, I'll give them that, but I'm not being goaded into placing bets."
A P P E A R A N C E:
By most accounts, Elena is a conventionally attractive teenage girl with soft, lighter skin that has been treated rather well in her overall high-class upbringing and life thus far. Her silky, and naturally very rare to possess, platinum blonde hair has likewise recieved the same good and high-class treatment her skin has recieved in her personal cleaning and self-care routine (and use of 'proper product for caring for one's self' as she'd say in her own words). Yet where once was a pair of soft blue eyes has become a pair of golden, stunning eyes since the day of her awakening as a primalist without so much as her parents or relatives having any explanation as to 'why' that happened to her. Or in her own words:
"Wait, my eyes changed color?! Why didn't anyone say-"
Beyond this she stands at the modest enough height of 5'6", though still taller than some other girls in her age group admittedly, without the use of shoes. Meanwhile, in terms of personal 'ornaments' or jewelry she often indulges in simple hair pins, small tie-offs to put in her hair (see her picture for an example), earrings (see picture for an example) of some sorts, and even 'cute' wristwatches as she puts it. Her clothes are sought on her part to be 'fashionable', and yet simpler, comfortable, and practical by design all the same without being 'too loud' as she says it. Indeed, one could say easily on looks alone that she is 'some rich kid born to rich parents' despite her circumstances in having to transfer to Merryweather and live on campus there.
B I O G R A P H Y:
A wealthy girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth to well-off American parents, ones on both sides steeped in generations of investments and involvement in companies that made them rather upper-class by nature in the long-term. On top of her mother being an American actress of French descent and a family involved in US politics, and her Swiss-descended father’s involvement higher up in one of the largest international pharmaceutical companies in the world, she has two older siblings and one younger sibling to boot. Family dinners, public events, luxurious vacations, fancy parties, servants and maids being dotted about, and the like colored her life from the ground up as well, with any sort of need she might have seemingly at arm’s reach to enough of an extent. On the other hand, her parents are also ardent philanthropists who donated to many charitable organizations and are at least generally moderate pro-primalist in their views despite being regular mundane humans.
For the most part, Elena wasn’t very focused on the matter of primalists. She went through her history classes like others did, lived life like many other kids around her seemed to, and in her own words: “Can’t think of too much outside of that.” For the most part she seemed just happy to chill out and do what she wanted, though it was when chafing with her parents over her grades at school and just ‘not wanting to put in the effort’ alongside struggles in ‘learning a work ethic’ that they threw her a notable curveball at the ripe age of 9. Elena would have to learn a proper work ethic the ‘hard way’ by learning a practical life skill, and improve her grades in school, or else she was being cut off from quite a bit of the things she had enjoyed thus far in life and forced into catch-up tutoring (which she was already on the path toward really needing at this point in time). To this end, she was given one day to look over potential options from a list her parents gave her, and then to choose one of those things. Then, thinking it would be a simple enough idea she could do minimal work with, she chose ‘cooking’ as a practical skill believing at the time it would be the easiest thing to do….
….And she was soon proven very, VERY, wrong in her youthful and naive initial assumptions.
Her parents went about hiring a strict and disciplined professional chef they knew personally, of all people, to drill her, in their own words to the man: “Like she’s a nobody learning to be a short-order cook at a restaurant for her life.” Withheld from servants, withheld from most luxuries, and withheld from anything but school and other ‘important things’ by her parents, Elena was put into what her younger self would feel was a ‘personal hell on steroids’. At first she tried to refuse to do anything, but found sooner than later that she’d be going hungry more often than not if she couldn’t even so much as prepare something basic to eat for herself. No fancy vacations. No getting what she wanted at arm’s reach anymore. No amount of not accepting ‘no’ would do anything. Her parents, who would self-admittedly confess later on about having ‘coddled her more than her siblings’, would even seek out medical advice for how to handle her in their distress. Elena tried to protest back along the way to be sure, and her teacher and parents gradually pushed back firmly but surprisingly patiently back as they tried to steer her in a better direction.
Yet it would take one day, in late September, that young Elena would hit her ‘breaking point’ only just over seven months after turning nine and six months after beginning her cooking training and new life regimen. Arguing with her parents after school, things had become heated and her father had eventually erupted in the heat of the moment with something horrible. Something ultimately which was enough to send the young girl running from the room in tears. She would then abruptly deem herself a ‘true failure’ and just outright drop things and run off later that day, all after trying to cook a sauce her cooking teacher was trying to get her to learn that week. It was enough to get her teacher to go talk to her (both still mortified and fearful after earlier) parents about things, concerned about her not very ok and odd behavior, where he learned what had occurred earlier. Then, later, he would approach a stomach-growing, hungry, and red-eyed Elena in her room, walking in with something on a plate and sitting down next to her as she tried to ignore him.
After gently rubbing her back and humming a soft tune, enough to get her to calm down somewhat more, her teacher would encourage her to take a bite of something to eat at least. Broken and tired enough, young Elena would take the offering silently after sitting back up and would take a few bites. He would ask her how the food tasted, only for her to respond that ‘she liked how it tasted, and that the sauce on it was good’. With a smile, he would reveal it was the same sauce she’d been making earlier during their lesson put on some chicken he’d made. Her sauce. Something she had made, successfully, herself. All that despite running off earlier and deeming her efforts and self a failure without even tasting her own creation. It was, ultimately, a humble spark that emerged within her mind that evening, even that night after she went to bed and tried to get sleep.
She had made something good. She…..she’d made something to eat that was actually ‘good’ for once. Successfully. Despite everything. With her own two hands.
The next day, she seemed to listen more to her cooking teacher than she had before. Even if just a little bit. The next day, one of her teachers at school noted that she seemed to listen a bit better than she had before, if nothing else, than she had before. The next week, after some days of practice, her teacher would invite her to her family home’s kitchen to help prepare a practiced dinner for her parents and siblings. It was something she felt unsteady about, even a bit scared of to be sure, and yet in the end she would accept the invitation to assist her cooking teacher. Her teacher would, after hearing how the meal was, bring her out, still in her little chef uniform made for her, after revealing to her family that she’d made their humble dinner herself that evening with him assisting on the side. Her father, for his part, would beckon her closer before pulling her into a hug….before beginning to cry. Then she began to cry too. Through half-sobbed apologies, through a bit more listening, and a warm, hot meal, parent(s) and child began to fix things. It was just one step, not some overnight sudden transformation that came at the drop of a hat, but it was one step of many that began to go in the right direction for once.
Paying more attention to cooking turned into paying more attention in classes. Listening more to her teachers led to a greater understanding of herself and what she was doing. Gaining more understanding of herself came alongside a greater sense of self-discipline, if nothing else, that seemed to be reflected in her growing and changing mindset about the world to some extent. Day by day. Week by week. Month by month. Year by year. A young, struggling child would turn into a blooming, beautiful flower in the eyes of her parents. An aspiring chef who found a passion in her former punishment. A young woman who began to branch out more than she might have done otherwise in life without some form of intervention.
The proud girl never truly went away, in the end, but something else began to bubble up near the end of high school. Odd dreams outside of the normal, even by her standards. Mushrooms growing on dead logs, as if footage was being fast-forwarded. Zooming in on the nectar in a flow, down to the microscopic level, and seeing myriad yeast wiggling about and growing on it. Bad food in a garbage can, zoomed in to see black and white fuzz of different sorts growing all over it. The wall of a dilapidated building’s inside, with black mold peeping from around the corner as it grew and spread. The way each dream came and went over those many nights was….surreal, as if she was watching nature documentaries or seeing it all for herself personally with her own two eyes. She began to look up some of these things she was seeing, looking into them with a peculiar and sudden curiosity, which for the most part was put off as just a harmless curiosity or a desire to learn of some sort by those about her at first.
The dreams became more and more frequent, then, and an odd sensation began to build within her. Like something was ready to….explode! Or…blossom? Bear fruit? It was hard to tell, but phrases such as those felt fitting about it all. Then, one day as she was leaving school, she felt a sudden urge to run to the bathroom as a lurch came up into her stomach. From here she would dip aside in a hurry, worried about if she ate something bad, and would zoom into the nearest bathroom and stall before-
*BWOOMF*
....Well, that was one bathroom the school was going to need to clean from head to toe for at least a few days.
Fortunately she’d been the only one inside of said bathroom at the time, but by the time firefighters and ambulances arrived the bathroom Elena had run into was overrun utterly with myriad forms of fungal growth….and the air was thick with spores to the point of needing gas masks. From here she was ultimately fished out, ironically enough, by a fire primalist firefighter who worked on the local force. She was then scrubbed from head to toe and disinfected at the hospital, as were several others who had been near to the bathroom, and then sent back into the arms of her frankly more than a bit worried parents at the hospital. Safe to say, from here it was apparent where she’d need to be going next. Arrangements were made, talks between her and her parents and teacher were held behind closed doors, money exchanged hands to help her now-former school clean up and such, a primalist relative on her mother’s side of the family came to talk to her, and she was prepared to go to her ‘new school’ in good enough time.
What would the future bring? Well, Elena had no clue. Sure she had an older first cousin on her father’s side she knew well enough who’d become a fire primalist, one Thomas William Jäger, who was two or three years ahead of her and already there at Merryweather at least. But….but….of all the things she could have had as an ‘element’, why was fungus hers, hmm?! It was so very inelegant! Really?! Someone of her upbringing, and after everything, getting stuck with that as her element as a primalist?! Even metall would have been preferable if nothing else! Wind! Lighting! Water! Fire! Something! It was absurd!!! She’d still read more about fungi, sure, she did want to try to get more of an idea of what she could maybe do or something….but it didn’t make her any more happy about the results though.
P E R S O N A L I T Y:
Someone whose sense of the world inclines her to boldly, proudly, and certianly "state what she thinks, without reservation, if she feels like it" without any sort of hesitation or holding back. It isn't that she can't hold her tongue or even hold back, but that she will simply speak her mind as she sees fit in various places and situations. This being said, she is also someone whose at least more self-disciplined than not nature leads to quite a tenacity when dedicating herself to a task or situation or course of action before her. Naturally this at times can lead to a bit of stubbornness though, especially if she's riled up or her hot head peeks out in earnest, and the more she's riled up or worked up over something the harder it becomes to bite her own tongue and stop. Yet, without a doubt, she is one who will without a word seek to earnestly learn from failures, both big and small, and will try more than a little bit to grit her teeth and 'get back up again' with is one getting up as many times as she feels nessecary to 'keep moving forward' or the like. Giving up something half-heartedly is not her peronsal 'mantra' as she'd describe it, though sometimes knowing when to quit can be a struggle.
Despite these things, in a 'professional' situation or setting she can hold a rather 'profesional' expression and demeanor about her. This even if she was bickering with someone a mere few minutes ago! That 'mode' she can put herself in is something in part related to her ability to focus on things, and even focusing on multi-tasking several things at once for that matter, that she has both had ground into her in life so far and has seemingly sought to foster as a 'skill' both as one who has lived among the upper class and personally for herself as well. Things such as posture, having a 'stuff upper lip', and her shoulders up straight and back properly aligned are other aspects of how she seeks to carry herself on the average at the very least to boot.
In terms of passion, one might think that clothing and fashion are her 'things' in the sterotypical sense. Yet in truth her passion for cooking and learning have become rather fierce within her, and are matters she takes seriously enough mentally even if outwardly she might be mouthing off with a classmate she's chafing with at the time or isn't in the best of moods. She considers food a 'fine art' as much as 'something practical', and her former cooking teacher's way of teaching and drilling fine cooking and professional methods into her has certeainly come to shape her in the kitchen rather much so. She doesn't look down on 'simpler food' either, however, nor is she someone to call a nessecary meal 'peasant food' simply because it isn't gilded in gold or something absurdly high-class and fancy either. Indeed, she also isn't a stranger to the idea and concepts of 'hard work' and 'proper work ethic', nor in getting her hands dirty to get something done, something that might be found among the most surprising bits of her by those who make assumptions about her personally.
At the end of the day, however, she is also still a teenager just like the rest of her peers.
A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:
Cooking - Despite her youth, her dedication to cooking as a pasttime and personal hobby is something she has put more than a small amount of work into in the last seven years and some odd months before coming to Merryweather. She was drilled by a professional high-class chef of some renown and good repute, though usually refrains of using his name as a 'means to brag or anything' in her own words. However, from making the 'four mother sauces' to improvising recipies on the fly, she has a surprisingly high level of skill in this area for a mere teenager of all things. You ask her to replicate a general recipe by taste, she can generally do it right back. You ask her to cook a steak to a specific level of 'done-ness', and she can do it. You ask her to roll up her sleeves to go pick ingredients from a field to find good ones to use for a meal, and then to prep and cook them? She can frankly do just that.
It is also her main hobby for stress-relief when getting notably stressed, so if one sees her in the kitchen after a bad day....yeah. It can certianly be a sign of things. ((Note: She isn't sudenly the 'best chef on the planet' or something, though she can produce some form of five-star-quality food, but is just really good at this hobby and passion of hers.))
Exersize/Fitness - From swimming to running, she has learned a 'healthy regimen' that takes up the early mornings for her or alternatively takes up the evenings after classes and such are done. A generally healthy regimen of fitness is something she believes in, and is something that has given her some solid stamina and a general advantage over othher potentially unathletic peers at the very least. Naturally in practice this isn't allowing her to sucdenly do parkour or such athletic feats she hasn't trained in, though, which is also something to take note of.
Learning - Taking notes. Listening to instructions. Asking questions when they pop up into her mind. Etc. And given her acquisition of 'straight A's' in her prior schooling that started since around the ages of 10-11 years old, she's become tgenerally quite the dedicated student as well.
Learner's Permit - Requires and adult in the car for her to do anything legally, sure, but she can at least do some basic driving correctly 'enough' to function in a basic manner. Just don't ever think to make her a getaway driver for...well, anyone. Ever. Please. The car's durability will not hold up to her lack of overall driving skills. Just see what happened before in her Driver's Ed class prior to coming to Merryweather.
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:
Her mother’s maiden name is Merryweather, and her mother’s family is known to have been involved in US politics on and off for some time. ((Note: Will remove if the GM wishes, thought it’d be some fun flavor to toss into the mix if nothing else.))
Her now-former cooking teacher is a father to three, and is better with handling kids than some might think despite his strictness and disciplined approach to cooking and such. He also told Elena that whenever she graduates from Merryweather, eventually, he promised to continue teaching her cooking if she so desired. His kids even wrote Elena a letter to read before heading off to her new school…..she now refuses to comment on what she did after she read it (aka: she cried, and will get angry if you ever try to prod her about it for sure).
Starting partway into middle school and going into high school, at least as far as she got into middle school before all of 'this' happend, her cooking teacher took her a fair few times to work hands-on at a soup kitchen of all places. It was something he and her parents thought 'would help ground her in reality' a bit more,and something he'd done when he was younger and training to become a chef many years ago as well. Since then, Elena has donated part of her allotted 'personal allowance' money to those one or two local soup kitchens she was taken to help keep them running.
A Secret Hobby Of Hers: Enjoys gaming with a headset on occasion on console, even using a voice changer to avoid being outed online. Would be the one to have a nickname like "HereticPurger69" in a WH40k type game and talking smack over the headset at times in general, though, which is a side she doesn't like to show to other real people. Also got into some games due to her older brother, Mark, and highly competitive in them due to him nor her other siblings just letting her win a game.
Enjoys long, soaking, hot baths. She finds them relaxing at the end of the day/night.
Most definitely is WIP for now, but here's what I have so far:
((Edit 1/11/25: Everything but a few name bits I need to eventually think up for stuff in the history section, and basically need to get everything for the Military Overview section to boot. But the rest of it is "Done" by this point (I think, unless I missed something).))
((Edit 1/21/25: The app should be done! I'll let the GMs know over Discord. Will fix anything I need to, as this has been a long work to finish yet. XD))
The Greater Euryalean Republic (The GER/“The Republic”)
"E Pluribus Unum" (Aka: "Out of Many, One")
Government Form: Democratic Republic
(Secretly/In Reality: Synarchism/Synarchic Oligarchy - As in “a secret cabal is in charge behind it all”, not as in the original meaning of synarchy/synarchism.)
Population: 7.7 billion
((General Very Rough Population Growth Timescale - 150 years ago: 5.4 billion, 350 years ago: 2.5 billion, ~425 years ago: Some Millions At Maximum; Improved as technology and survivability and sustainability for the colony overall improved, which led in part to a boom in growth. Wars did lessen this to some extent at times, among other things, etc, but 500 years is a long time indeed.))
What Is Humanity?:
Humanity? What is humanity, but the ability to connect, empathize, and build alongside others through the good and the bad and the ugly? To be able to fight for survivial against a hostile nature that seeks to kill you, to mete out survival even when you're against the ropes and despite your own mistakes, and to seek out a future even when all seems to be at its bleakest?
In the mundane and far less poetic sense, however, for the GER the matter is a simple one for defining humanity. It is being born as one of the human species biologically, born to human species parents.....whether it be Homo sapiens sapiens or a new subspecies otherwise. Sapient rights for humans and citizen Livelli, however, are things that most certainly exist under GER law as well.
*******
Planet/System Name and Description:
Star/System Name - Euryale
Planet Name - Euryale IV/Sarpedon
Living on the fourth planet, in the ‘habitable zone’ of the star Euryale, the GER was begun on the planet of Euryale IV, aka “Sarpedon” as it would come to be called. A planet of size 1.37 times the size of the Earth, it was among the earliest ‘habitable’ worlds to be discovered during the scramble to create the Gateway and escape the dying earth. Discovery of the star and its system was credited to the Greek astronomer Sebastian Kiritikos, who was working with the United Nations and other cooperating groups and companies to find habitable stars and potentially human-habitable worlds, who named it after one of the gorgon sisters of ancient mythology. Likewise the names of the planets of the star’s system would be initially named in a more standard fashion, though the name of “Sarpedon” would be given to Euryale IV (named after the legendary isle the gorgons lived upon) after it was found to be the one habitable (and especially after it was eventually found to be oceanic) world after the use of self-replicating von Neumann probes to further investigate the system’s potential habitability.
Sporting vast, warm oceans over 88% of its surface, with myriad bits of landmass and islands scattered across its surface, the planet of Sarpedon does possess frozen, icy poles in the far north and far south as well as milder bands of variance from the mostly warm and tropical-types of weather closer to the poles respectively. Unlike the notable deeper blue color of the ocean waters, the planet’s plantlife sports shades of reds, as well as yellows and even oranges, in what humanity would recognize as ‘autumnal’ colors due to the color and nature of the system’s long-living red dwarf sun. Red is a color for plantlife as commonly as plantlife on the Earth can be found in shades of greens, essentially, though it isn’t limited to that. Indeed, Earth-transplanted plants or ones adapted to the new planet’s terrain have been found to be able to survive (even if less efficiently) underneath the sun. Some adapted Earth plant species have also been wrought to have red-pigmented chlorophyll for survival, which has seen them come to generally thrive as well.
The planet’s atmosphere sports a distinctly more ‘Earth-like’ mix than some potentially habitable exoplanets in general, though genetic vaccines would come to be deployed eventually both initially and in the long-term to combat the initial struggle of humanity to mete out survival in an alien atmosphere and help people get treatments to counteract long-term health issues associated lien atmosphere. By current times, though it took several centuries of work and some ups and downs in tinkering with things to get there in the end, humanity has since come to mete out a comfortable existence within the atmosphere of Sarpedon, with such long-term health issues being only visible in a small slice of the most vulnerable populations for the most part.
Meanwhile the animal life of the planet has mostly come to be that of an aquatic or water-living sort, though local ‘equivalents’ to avians, reptiles, arthropods, and mammals have even been discovered despite the limited landmass of the planet otherwise. These and other forms of life have been the subjects of study and experiments on the part of human scientists for generations in turn, leading to the acquisition of some understanding for how life came to be on the planet’s surface despite the struggle to dig up old fossil layers deeper underground due to the limited amount of landmasses of the planet.
Humanity also lives on the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V, at least in graviton-tech-enabled upper atmospheric habitats. Here many things are processed using the heat and pressure farther down in the gas giant, within human reach at least, and hydrogen is harvested and processed in vast quantities to produce hydrogen fuel and fuel cells to boot. Said habitats are closed off from the outside, aside from places such as spaceports and such, with thick walls and durable make from neighboring planetary or asteroid-mined metals. Notable air circulation systems, other critical atmospheric and hydroponics systems, and the like also exist within the webs of interconnected ‘towns’ and in much rarer cases ‘cities’ these habitats form inherently by design. Everything is close together due to dangers in attempting to enable ‘personal transit’ or such things, and running monorails and public transport are of the most common note aside from the very wealthiest living on Euryale V who can afford an otherwise unheard of ‘personal transit vehicle’ while living down there.
Demographics:
Humans. Homo sapiens sapiens.The fled children of the dying Earth. The people of Sarpedon who, as citizens of the GER, call themselves “Sarpedans”. Aside from gene therapy programs intended to help adapt humanity to the world of Sarpedon proper, and work to fix some mistakes in these therapies over the centuries, humanity by and large within the GER hasn’t wildly differed from its original baseline otherwise for most.
This is, however, aside from a nominal population of those who get ‘stylistic’ modifications, like color-changing skin or hair color changes/eye color changes, etc, and the one and only notable actual human subgroup that could be considered as ‘different’ distinctly from normal human anatomy exists among some of the remaining nomadic fleets. This group of note in particular are the “Homo sapiens sapiens branchiae”, whose genetic modifications were less regulated in past centuries than was managed or upheld in most static settlements. Historically this even greater lack of regulation is also the origins of why some nomadic fleets, and a portion of the static population descended from nomadic fleets in turn, have higher occurrences of certain genetic issues compared to the wider population of humans at large in the greater majority. Yet these ‘gill-bearing humans’, or ‘fish people’ as some call them (the latter term itself being seen as a more offensive term), have three key traits that have ‘settled out’ from past modifications that make them stand out.
One, they can actually breathe underwater and in air uniquely even in salt water or freshwater alike. Two, they have distinctly more ‘pointed’ ears. Three, they have three angular but peculiar darker-colored skin stripes on their skin (minor at best, but distinct) on the sides of their ribs that are vaguely reminiscent of gills, and which in certain rare cases of these people have a slight ruffle or naturally-warped shape to boot.
Known in their own tongue as the Livelloúli, nicknamed the “Livelli”, they are a vaguely mammal-and-insect-like humanoid alien species that originated from a hot and more humid homeworld called “Sórgy Alknúoz”. A world emerging around third from their home sun, a sun known as “Arétim” in their tongue (assumed to be, based on comparative star carts, what humans before fleeing Earth would find and broadly called Teucer-42), it was a planet featuring a larger equatorial region than many that, ultimately, was in the end only part of the ‘continental-ish tropical-ish world’ they called home (temperate regions, notable polar regions, oceans and island, etc, also exist there with varied climes, but notably more hot/humid climate bands around it than Earth had). It also boasted a similar, roughly-speaking based on limited information brought along by the Livelli, size to Earth it is assumed by current times within the GER.
Their societies in primitive times were noted as having a higher occurrence of even more fierce competition for territory, though as civilization advanced this trend would begin to slowly shift away ultimately this ‘aspect’ would never fully disappear either. Further, it can be said in generally broad strokes that their societies emerged to become about as individualistic as those of many human cultures, to give a baseline comparison, though unity as a species and under things like cultural, ethnic, and national identities would also develop among them. By the time they developed what humanity would likely dub roughly equivalent to the “late 21st century/early 22nd century”, however, the race would face a global crisis that would place the species on the brink of potential extinction.
A “great calamity” was detected approaching from afar. A rogue planet was headed toward and into their solar system, to put it simply, and to many the chance of it ever hitting their homeworld was either ‘too close for comfort’ or ‘impossible’ at worst. It was a celestial event seen as ridiculously rare to imagine happening to occur in the direction of their home, to have a rogue planet even pass into it, and yet something seemed….off. Not everyone was ok with things, and as the rogue planet entered their solar system three different plans were enacted. The first was the plan of ‘no plan’, as it was seen as not being a potential danger. The second was a number of local nations scrambling to create a way to ‘ensure it doesn’t hit us’ using a number of large warheads. The third plan was one to ‘escape the planet and get out’, using similar ideas to those of humanity as it had escaped its own dying homeworld.
In the end, the rogue planet wouldn’t hit their homeworld….but the disruption of local gravity would plunge a neighboring rocky world closer to the sun to crash into their homeworld instead. Meanwhile, a “Catapault” (as it was translated) would act like a one-way Gateway to send four Livelli colony ships across the stars like a giant slingshot. The fourth and last of these, as it were, would be present just long enough before being ‘launched’ to elsewhere to see some ships attempting to flee into space as the neighboring planet was just about to hit their homeworld. In the end, this ship that would arrive close to the Euryale System would, ultimately, manage to get at least some footage and data from the disastrous impact right before being shot away into the stars. It is assumed humanity had more time to react to its own flight than the Livelli had, based on Livelli data at least, but to even capture the moment of a planetary impact was…..just as ridiculous, and frankly terrifying to the fourth ship’s colonists, as it could have been.
Losing the tech used to send them out among the stars, the Livelli technology wasn’t as precise as humanity’s ended up being in the comparative sense. It would take several hundred years, and turning the colony ship into an impromptu generation ship out of necessity, before it would finally approach and arrive at the destination of Euryale III/Sarpedon where it had intended to go first. Within that time, humanity would arrive, colonize the planet, and then be in for a rude awakening as the Livelli colony ship realized the situation from afar as they continued to make their gradual approach. It was a matter of debate among them, heated for that matter, as they had hoped to mete out survival on what the humans came to call "Sarpedon" as well. Some wished to wipe them off of the planet to replace them. Some advocated for conquest. Others that they should look for another place to survive. Others argued they had nowhere else to go either, and that humanity had seemingly only 'just' settled on the planet comparatively. In the end, study of these 'aliens' was voted barely into effect as the choice by the colony ship's leaders. arrived only to have already realized a long while ago that they weren’t the first to get to the planet. It was an infinitesimal, tiny, minute, microscopic, and frankly glactically-absurd chance of two species coming into contact with each other, even more so that they’d both lose homeworlds and try to settle on the same planet with varying levels of success….in a star system far, far, far away from anything they’d ever known.
….Yet this was happening right there and then despite all of that, and they at least had to 'try' to do something about it without more of their own dying over it.
In the end, the choice of a peaceful first contact would manage to work out on both sides, by some universal miracle, in the end. Most Livelli would move to settle where humans were, despite having to submit to goernance in the process after much debate and at times heated negotiation, finding the conditions surprisngly habitable enough for themselves in comparison to the data they had on their own old homeworld and such. It would, however, take decades yet for 'integration' to gradually work its way into things even then. Some Livelli didn’t like this, and would flee away to try to stake their own claim living in space somewhere in the Euryale system. Many others simply wanted to leave the ship and ‘finally have a home to call our own’. It was never a perfect scenario, or a perfect result, but it was what it was and is by current day what it is.
Females are known to have a feminine-type body layout with a ‘grasping’ prehensile tail, while males instead are known to have slimmer and longer wings and have a ‘pointy’ singular piece at the end of their tail that is said to possess a rather small and vestigial venom sac no longer connected to it with a venom inside known to cause lingering disorientation, nausea, and dizziness in those affected by it. The birth rate of females is genearlly higher than that of males by a distinct percentage in comparison to human birth rates for the sexes. Births take the form of laying a 'sac', which itself is cared for until the young properly emerges from within the protective incubating sac they are 'born' in 2-5 days later (sometimes needing medical help to do so). As a note, water births are thought generally by Livelli to be 'more comfortable' for females as a practice to some extent as well (some humans use water births as well, which was a pleasant surprise to them culturally somewhat) even if not nessecarily all Livelli women prefer it.
((Also yes, words in their language are just reversed greek-language words for future reference.))
History:
A dying world, a crumbling cradle, a mortally mauled and mangled mother, one that was giving out its last heaves and labored breaths while its children were forced to find a way to flee else they too would succumb to the seemingly cold and vast emptiness of death. Such was the situation for humanity on Earth. A species, frankly, that upon learning the news of its dying mother world was pushed into a struggle to mete out suirvival among the stars. Peoples, enemies and allies and otherwise alike, being forced to flee the only home they had ever known as many things seemed to fall by the wayside and unlikely others banded together as the fight and struggle for survival took paramount importance in the minds of a good many. Many, who had no choice of where and when and to whom they were born, sought to scramble for survival first and foremost as even the basest of Earth life had always done since time immemorial. What choice had they for all the choices of their ancestors, and those of others? All they could do was to seek a future among the stars. Meanwhile others continued to bewail the fate of their home, taking out the anger of generations of activists and environmentally-concerned folks on a burning world as they now even more so laid blame at the feet and hands of all those who lived upon its surface yet still in this time period without discrimination. Whatever the case was, whatever decency was cast aside or came togther amidst it all among the throngs of humans on the planet humanity once called home, the ultimate fate of many fortunate souls was to board the colony ships and use the science-wrought concept of the Gateways off to stars and worlds far-flung and scattered across the Milky Way.
Such was how the colony ship USS Galatea, a colony ship wrought in the now-former United States of America, ended up at the home of a star named "Euryale". Among the very earliest colony ships sent off through the Gateways, even as the planet scrambled yet still for survival for some years to come, it emerged in part due to the support of a number of 'philanthropic donations' that in part helped fund and provide for the construction of the vessel itself. While the government had the primary hand in things, and many general citizens were brought aboard, it was still not a deniable fact that many affluent patrons also were aboard the vessel along with their resources to boot. Such was the price of escape for the majority of others on that colony ship, a price they and many others were willing to accept in order to get a new life on another world. Indeed, however, many more prices would have to be accepted for any of the whole of them to survive yet still once they arrived at the fourth planet away from Euryale: "Sarpedon". Named for the oceanic island home of the mythical Gorgons, its name was a fitting one given the oceanic nature of the planet itself. Only somewhat bigger than the Earth, and with a comparable enough ecosystem that the use of gene therapies and assistive technologies seemed viable for those aiming to settle it, the planet did struggle with its share of storms and lack of habitable landmass among other such things. Hence the colony ship had come equipped in this case with the tools and manufacturing power and even voidbound drones to mine from the highly plentiful asteroid belt of the system that lied beyond the reach of its fifth planet (and Sarpedon's neighbor), Euryale V, to help it gather and process and shape materials needed for attempting survival on the planet's surface.
However, settlement on the surface of Sarpedon, even just the habitable landmass, was a matter of struggle from the start for humanity all the same. First came the land settlements, and several deep-sea mining operations set up at the bottom of the ocean in due time. Many came down in built sea vessels as well, to escape the crampeed conditions of the colony ship, and sought to survive on the surfance once some means of gene therapy and food processing and/or portable hydroponics could begin production alongside the emergence of new on-planet harbors alongside the first static settlements. In time would also come the breakthrough of graviton-harnessing technology, then, and after the first thirty years on Sarpedon static settlements at sea were made possible enough for those in the crowding cities and towns on the land. For roughly the first one hundred and twenty some-odd years on Sarpedon, this would be the general status quo as many fleets initially also needed to trade with the static settlements in order to get certain supplies and such they needed....or attempting to raid them and other fleets for needed supplies otherwise due to the supremacy of the nomadic fleets. It was the mark of a time period that would become known as the "Era of Ships", for it was they who ruled the waves and those who sought to live more static lives that struggled to keep up. It was a time where many sought to strike out independent on the seas, and where many others sought to tame the seas and bring a greater order to the world. It was a 'second great age of piracy', as some would say, and just as much a 'great age of exploration' despite the colinial government's attempts to consolidate and maintain control over what it could.
Yet as humanity would advance its technologies, and its methods, the gradual slow-burn of static settlement growth would continue on at a steady march. Bit by bit, more of the oceanic world would begin to be more and more sucessfully inhabited by static and growing towns and cities on the surface of the ocean alongside those settlements already and initially wrought on the limited amount of land humanity could find. Bit by bit, the fleets would begin to find less and less room to move about in certain areas. Some fleets reacted to it with violence, others by ignoring it, and others yet still were far from the 'problems' of the 'idle dwellers' and such like. Generally around one hundred and thirty years after the settlement of the planet, then Sarpedon would reach a point as several settled regions of the planet would seek to strike out on their own, some more peacefully and others much less so. Some had support from allied fleets, others saw the fleets as a scourge after many years of exposure to pirates and those violently responding to the supposed encroachment of 'idle city dwellers' into 'fleet territories' and the impressions these had left on people. Generally dubbed the "Five States Period"/"New Imperialistic Era", this era of settlement and growth on Sarpedon was marked with the fall of the initial colonial government and attempts to rebuild thereafter that left the planet's leadership fragmented and apart. Among the largest of these sucessor states to the initial colony would be the "New Hesperian Republic" (NHR) (who sought to unite the planet), the future founder of the GER itself, "The United People's Republic of the Calafian Peoples"(UPRCP) (who sought to unite the planet eventually), the "Acadian Comonwealth" (AC), the "Democratic Principality of Neo-York" (DPNY), and finally the "Greater Freedonian Federation" (GFF), who either sought to survive, to stay out of larger conflicts, or otherwise vied for control over territory and the expansion of it over the planet's surface with each other and the 'naval nomads' of the seas.
Time would pass in general, with wars and rumors of wars and storms aplenty as humanity sought to expand its reach across the planet even further. By this point, it seemed almost inevitable to many that some sort of fragmented bunch of nation states akin to those on the former Earth would be the fate of the planet as a whole. Or, at least, what it would settle into in the end at the beginning of thse next roughly sixty years. Sixty years of wars between these primary major states. Sixty years of trade and expansion and exploration. Sixty years of strife and struggle with fleets as their 'room' to roam across the planet began to shrink. and also as eventually the five states began to number less than that rather close to the end of this time period. This diminishing of five states, known as the "Unification Wars", began with the (mostly) peaceful assimilation of a crippled Acadian Commonlwealth by the Vinland Republic shortly after a recent war between the two, mostly where the former had attacked the latter but the latter had been left with the collapse of the former's government (the war had ultimately been to try to secure public support, naturally, on the AC's part) and ultimately narrowly voted for annexation after some debate. Having been one of the two 'lone wolf' nations diplomatically as of this point in time, with the AC having been the other, it was a jarring event for many that came both as a surprise and marked the NHR as a 'greater threat' in the eyes of the remaining three. With the alliance of the UPRCP and the DPNY having been among the events leading to the struggling now-former AC to try to fight a war it thought it could use to stabilize itself, it left the matters of an increasingly uneven balance of power that some felt needed 'rebalancing' as the coming years saw the NHR working to annex and stabilize its new territory. Thus the two allied powers attacked the GFF, former ally of the AC before the AC had collapsed into a dictatorship after a civil war that kicked off over food shortages, after failing to pressure it into their alliance to (in theory) oppose the NHR with them. The GFF had wanted to 'remain neutral' for the most part, and outside of wars so it could maintain trade with the other powers, though now this war, seen as a 'way to oppose and cripple the NHR before it could stabilize its new territory' and such by removing a potential ally for it, would in turn lead to even more of a mess. While the defending GFF would hold its own somewhat at the beginning, due to its larger naval fleets and some allied nomads in its service, the NHR would make closed-door offers of assistance after seeing an opportunnity to garner a potential ally to oppose the seemingly domination-aspiring alliance of the other two powers (as its propoganda claimed at least). As the GFF began to lose the war, however, the NHR would 'under murky circumstances' supposedly intercept a message from a group within the GFF asking for war assistance to avoid being 'carved up by the UPRCP and DPNY". Not that the war by the two powers, intended to put up a puppet government to side with them in a war against the NHR, seemed to give off nothing short of those impressions in ways. Others say the supposed message was 'mere propganda', but with the turning of the war in the GFF and growing opinions within some of the GFF and the wider public of the NHR to work together, it would see the involvement of the post-AC-integration NHR starting with the infamous surprise attack against the DPNY's military HQ using long-range bombers and attempts to misdirect the DPNY to think an attack was coming from elsewhere.
Ultimately, and without delving anymore into the long and drawn-out problem this end-of-time-period mess of wars would lead to, a cascade of events and further conflicts beyond this would lead to the eventual assimilation of the GFF, annexation of new territories from the war-torn DPNY and UPRCP, the devastated DPNY to surrender, a war-torn NHR coming out on top, combat both on-planet and in space occuring, and the ending defeat of a gradually destabilizing UPRCP. From here the state of things was thrown into a flux, and rebuilding began as too did talks post-war. Ultimately the NHR headed the forming of a union of the remaining three states, and many participating nomadic fleets 'invited to participate' and who chose to do so, who would come together with anti-war post-war sentiments and diplomatic finagaling lead to the "Constitution of Union". This brought the habitats of Euryale V, many nomadic fleets, and the remaining static states together into a 'new planetary union, a just union, and a more perfect union founded for the peace and prosperity of all Sarpedans' with its own list of rights and such clauses added to it. Thus, 306 years prior to the current day, the "Greater Euryalean Republic"/GER would emerge. The peaceful transitions of power for the first several presidents of this new democratic republic would likewise form the needed pattern for moving forward, a rather important foundational matter that would lead to a generally stablizing and cementing system of governance in the centuries to come. At the same time, though, since organizing the GER's founding a number of forces were coaslecing behind the scenes as well. Coaslescing power. Organizing hidden sub-organizations and redundancies. The works. Yet at the same time, with time and work to promote the new GER and 'ensure proper legal justice for all' and the eventual boom of a post-union economic bounceback it did help things start back on a good enough 'foot' at the very least (as well as post-union lesser conflicts or diplomatic pressures being used against nomadic fleets who railed against all of this).
One hundred years later, or roughly 206 years from current day, the mounting and booming growth and building of new habitats on Euryale V would see three attempts in a ten year period to 'become independent' from the GER. While these pockets of habitats would eventually be put down in their rebellions, ones launched against 'the unrighteous subjugation of our people' living in the habitats and the 'emergence of unequal treatment under the law' would see the GER institute a number of reforms in the aftermath....as well as begin programs such as the 'rotating worker program' where those living in orbit or on Sarpedon would be used to supplemenmt the post-conflicts greater need for labor on Euryale V's habitats. Yet in the wake of this, not only to improve habitat-citizens' living standards and right, but a new push for a greater 'united national identity' underneath one banner and one state seemed to emerge. One where the peoples on Sarpedon and the growing number also living in space or on the habitats of Euryale V had a voice and more of each others' backs than before, and where the ache of the past and education of new generations about the unity of their ancestors who had all 'hailed from one nation, united, and seeking justice for all' helped further coalesce the GER into what it is today (for better and for worse). One cannot accredit this solely to some 'shadow government', nor nessecarily did every 'move' that brought things fortunately along a path of greater stability and prosperity come from the elected government of the people that was visible in the open or made for all of the 'right' reasons either. Both for good and for bad, though, the emergence of improved technologies and mining in the Euryale System's large asteroid belt in the coming decades would see the emergence of spacebound piracy and the eventual furthering of the GER's economic expansion and development go even further beyond Sarpedon itself.
Fourty six years later, the GER would be challenged by the arrival of a peculiar ship in the Euryale System. A very large ship that was certinaly not of human design, was detected well before its arrival, and which certainly was debateable in if it was 'friendly' or not. It was mostly a surprise, of all things, and would place the government and many people on edge as knowledge about it began to be disseminated. Many feared if humans could even understand aliens....much more if they could understand humans in turn to boot. But had they been around a while? Had they been watching for a while? What was going on? Perhaps evidence of their presence had been known to some extent prior, but now it was just being noticed all over again? No one knew for sure, but one thing was for sure when the very large alien vessel attmpted to send out a signal of some sort. A signal that....contained some form of....English?! Broken English, but it was an attempt at speaking a human language even if the sound of the voice giving it wasn't human. Turns out the aliens were the first to observe, learn, and then ultimately make 'first contact' with humanity in this scenario in what would, after five more years or trying to work things out and then leading into some generally tense at times negotiations, result in connection and eventually the beginning of some form of coexistence on and off of the planet between humanity and another species for the first time (as far as anyone in the Euryale system was aware). It would also result in more conflict in the greater long-term, however, as over the following decades the newly-expanded GER would have to juggle both a series of on-and-off wars with a dissentiny minority among the new alien arrivals who 'desired to rule themselves and Sarpedon' (due to their people having also scouted out the planet for a potential colony and habitation long ago) and the by-now rare bit of internal strife born from those of both species who weren't exactly 'happy' with each other internally yet still.
By current day, the GER has overall settled down into a normal of sorts. There is work against pirates from the system's farthest fringes, and the rare proper conflict every odd decade with dissenting Livelli also kept sitting at the system's furtherst edges. Peace and general prosperity have come to reign by and large by current times, and despite everything in the last 306 years the GER has held on and grown into a successful state in its own right. Yet...how will the opening of the Gateways change things? Will the rest of humanity prove to have found a hopeful future for itself across the Milky Way, and perhaps be willing to work together or at least be amicable in this new 'international' situation for them all, or will the darkness beyond the Gateways be so all-consuming that it swallows up all in its path? Only time will tell...
Culture and Society:
The ocean is an integral part of life for humanity on Sarpedon as a whole, ranging from necessary deep-sea mining operations under the waves, to the transport of goods over the planet’s surface, and so forth. While most by far have by current times come to live within what land-based cities/towns and ocean-surface gravity-tethered ‘ocean cities’ have been muttered across the planet’s surface, though, many also still live in the ways that many did when first moving down to the planet from the colony ship: Fleets. In particular, roving fleets of ships centered around harnessing the ocean’s bounty and moving from place to place to trade for needed supplies and to seek out their own survival. These ‘naval nomads’ or ‘Shippies’, these being among the terms to describe them, a minority overall within current day GER, and historically were competing with others for room to settle and live and grow.
Originally these nomadic fleets were the majority, though as overcrowded places and those still living on the colony ship eked out and developed new technology and ways to better settle traditional settlements on the planet’s surface things would begin to shift against these fleets. Many took up the abandonment of the wandering lifestyle for the greater safety and stability of static settlements willingly, though as time went on some conflict would inevitably emerge more and more between the territory claimed or used by these nomadic fleets and the static settlements themselves. Occasional conflicts would erupt, with the nomads normally holding the defensive advantage of mobility and the static settlements being sitting ducks. The semi-independent or even fully-independent nature of these fleets also made it hard to keep a hand on them and to organize a national government as time went on, especially as the ramping up of static settlements and their more readily surviving populations continued on the up and up, and nomadic fleet involvement in piracy and such would further seem to taint their image as a ‘danger that needed to be reduced’ at the very least. While not all these fleets did such things, however, it would be those ill-examples who would come to shape the overall mental image for a long time in the public mindset of the wider settled population of Sarpedon.
While some static settlement areas did seek independence at times, leading to what are known as the “Five Wars of Unification” in the current day GER, the ‘fight against nomads’ would continue on for longer than this and would in part prove a pressure that helped unite some of the static settlements of the planet together. This happened as more fleets began to see viable territory to move about in shrink, with increased contact both good and bad alike being had as the pressure mounted. Some of these fleets would adapt and transition into becoming transport companies, moving goods and such professionally and integrating in that manner into the emerging nation-states and then later into the greater planetwide nation that was coming gradually more and more into fruition as the centuries passed. Others would be forced to abandon their vessels and settle down in static settlements, some after having much of their fleet wiped out or being left with nowhere to go. Some fleets would be sunk for ‘involvement in piracy and militant activities’ who got desperate, pressured into, or even in some cases greedy or cocky enough to indulge in such conflict-generating activities and lifestyles.
In the end, however, the modern fate of these groups would be settled when the GER would pass some laws known as the ‘Nomadic Protection Acts’. These would allow for the designation of some stretches of ocean for the moving and living of such fleets, among the minority that still existed freely enough on the seas and regulated contact with the rest of the nation, though the fate of these fleets beyond this has been varied. Some have maintained total independence and sought to keep such, staying away from static settlements and their operations. Some have set up trade and business with the rest of the nation, or even taken up as semi-independent transporters to make ends meet. Soom took the deal of getting solidified voting rights as well, albeit in exchange for paying some form of taxes as a form of semi-integration while retaining some level of independence yet still.
Such fleets in the current day, as a reflection of sorts of the past, have had some level of unique cultures develop within them over the generations. Ranging from the strict and hierarchical, to those with more democratic forms of governance and formal forms of organization internally, to some that operate more fast, loose, and openly, to even those who cooperate more xenophobically or xenophilically, their wide-ranging nature is one of the unique cultural features of the GER for sure. Yet it is also of note that, while modern people mostly only see these groups who actually interact or have presence in the modern world, in past centuries (before planetary unification occurred), not all of these fleets were ‘good’ and positive interactions. Many were indeed pirates, dictatorships, and other forms of ‘not very good’ by modern GER standards, and more wildly varied with even more nuances to be had in their interaction. So while many lost their heritage and way of life in wrongful ways, and many were peaceful to boot, many others were not at the same time. Such is the diversity of the human condition and ways of life, in a sense, reflected even in the history of these nomadic fleets.
Methods for processing and altering local wildlife into usable food for humanity have been long sought and wrought into existence by current times, with even some gene therapies having been developed to assist in this manner where-applicable. Ranging from primordial-looking creatures reminiscent of things like horseshoe crabs and the Cambrian anomalocaris or hallucigenia, to things akin to sharks and fish and corals, to even birds and mammals and reptiles also existing in what little natural (and now even on artificial in many places) landmass there is statistically on the planet, to even the existing plantlife, humanity has sought to harness what it can even if it isn’t the ‘humans are eating literally everything’ trope that some people like to joke about within modern GER societies at large.
From large groups of swarm-moving but sweet-fleshed “Grilled Kongacrabs” (groups of native social crab/crusctacean-like lifeforms that, to ward off predators when traveling, travel in a ‘konga line’-like column and move in a manner that looks similar to a dangerous eel-like predator or such to imitate its movement while on the ocean floor) that that are easy to raise in even bad-quality waters, to the fatty breast of “Sarpedon Gulls”, to even the acquired taste of air-dried and salty-sea-preserved “Lesser Reef Sarpedan Shark”, the range of native life turned into foods even goes as far as some forms of plants either by now naturally edible to the genetically-moodified human population or even as far as these lifeforms being modified or processed to be edible for human consumption. Even a few ‘new spices’ have emerged in some part, even if as a minority of the overall variety of imported and grown human spices still being cultivated, sold, and used today, such as the semi-umami and spicy “Uddi Seeds” and the salty-sour flavor of the swelled-looking “Ruber Fruit”. New, intermingling, and even in some enclaves or individual cases historically-recognizable forms of cuisine using native components have emerged among humans on Sarpedon indeed as well in all of this for a certainty.
However, the artificial production of soil and use of hydroponics for transplanted Earth crops and creatures is generally the more widespread form of cultivating and raising them for the most part as food and for sustenance. It also forms the backbone of the continued integration of Old Earth species and foods into daily life, which still forms a significant (roughly 50% by now) portion of human food consumption on the planet. It has also led to a peculiar high-class form of ‘hydroponic eating’ over the long-term as well, where oddly-grown or unique or even only hydroponically-viable genetically-engineered crops and livestock are produced specifically for all sorts of wild, fanciful, fashionable, strange, and even frankly trippy forms of dishes to be prepared and served to willing patrons and customers. While the very wealthy started this trend within the last 100 years, and still the highest-grade restaurants in current times sell such fare in the minority in favor of new ‘pure Earth’ trends in cuisine among the most elite these days, the idea of ‘unique hydroponic cuisine’ has taken off more among middle and lower classes, with ‘hipster’ restaurants and such smaller and larger ‘trendy’ operations alike taking these once only higher-class hydroponic and cooking techniques and applying them in their new wider-ranging availability while exposing this cuisine to the wider population in current days.
It is of note, however, that those living on the suspended atmospheric habitats of the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V, however, only get to subsist on hydroponically-grown food. The higher-class among them do get fancier foods, or heaven forbid only the wealthiest of the wealthy there get an actual ‘garden’ to grow something in in some expensive suspended habitat home, which for them usually consists of more hardy and mass-produced foods that have grown from ‘only there to sustain life regularly’ in quality to ‘a proper and more widespread variety’ that has improved alongside their quality of life since planetary unification and the gradual interconnection of things within the GER ever since.
With Earth-based or other general adapted animal and plantlife brought over by humanity and the Livelli, the risk of ‘rampant invasive species issues’ hasn’t really arisen as much thus far in the past centuries. Mostly these things have been limited to hydroponic operations for good reason, as the makeup of natural waters and such on Sarpedon isn’t the same as those such Earth-based species were normally able to survive in. While some instances of ‘invasive species’ problems have still emerged in some areas, many others are mostly unable to survive in the waters and environs of Sarpedon for the same reasons humanity couldn’t just eat and digest the lifeforms and matter of the planet normally right out of the gate without assistive genetic adaptations and such: They weren’t built for living on Sarpedon.
Yet artificial landmasses like the floating cities of the GER have also proven to be homes for both transplanted/adapted life and some forms of terrestrial or coastal native life as well in the long-term, a matter that has intrigued scientists who hope to understand if this will cause any more significant problems in the longer-term in recent decades. Even with genetic insertions into their code to help them survive when planted in public places in the case of decorative plants, for example, it isn’t a guarantee of survival always either. However, it has been enough to ensure that transplanted Earth species have at least meted out a survival of sorts beyond the grasp of their dying homeworld alongside humanity in this case in general.
It could be said that, in a generalistic sense, mainstream GER society has by current times come to look at things in a smaller-scale and finer-toothed manner than it once did in most places. The make of things. To see what things are made of or what effect they have. To demand quality out of foods both ‘naturally grown’ and hydroponic and so forth alike, and yet also to do as humanity ever has and look at the minutiae of the past and their significance or lack thereof in human history (and in the face of near-human-extinction as the planet their ancestors lived upon was dying). Even doctors for gene therapies will use advanced technology to analyze untold strands of DNA, seeking to help remedy legacy problems in local bloodlines that in some cases reach back as far as “Old Earth” or humanity’s struggle to adapt to a new world using gene therapy and the like. This isn’t to say everyone is obsessed with minute details to a fault and so forth in all societies across the planet, however, but rather is to note how the notable prevalence of nanotechnology is also a sort of reflection on overall modern/mainstream GER society.
Advanced artificial intelligence is used within the GER to secondarily assist in areas, ranging from customer service to factories to areas such as research and development to boot. Certain rights of humans to work have been cemented in the workplace as well, however, ranging from the ancient issues of art theft used to train A.I. and seeking to create a sort of ‘good balance’ between the two areas has seemingly been reached in a general sense. Admittedly some issues, such as A.I.’s use within customer service areas and such, do still fluctuate from time to time even still. However, how did this ‘balance’ manage to come to be?
To put it simply, centuries of struggle back and forth from anti-A.I. advocation to the extreme and the alternative of overusing A.I. within human society has led to this point after literal centuries of struggle. Ranging from the initial use of A.I. and robotics where humans couldn’t operate things, to the zealous regulation of human deployment in areas where humans could be used instead, to the eventual wild swings back and forth within government and industry alike (itself a hotbed of some industrial lobbying and its eventual strict high regulating to boot when it came to this issue, among others) of policy on and off over the centuries.
Yet it would be the horrible results of these swinging policies and good ideas and lessons learned along the way that would shape things. From unemployment and rioting and such from former workers, to the disastrous failure of critical systems and loss or near loss of several floating cities, to the mismanagement and loss of large sums of money and resources to hacking and such, to even the misuse and destruction caused by automated and obsessively non-automated systems like during and outside of times of war, etc. This alongside the practical refinement and development of these technologies would see it and robotics alike eventually reach a place of ‘moderation’ that they have today in GER society.
It is of note to say that the initial presence of more extreme and violent environmental and such groups/parties has notably dwindled from the initial decades of settling and living on Sarpedon. Initially a more notable presence due to the dying and loss of Earth, and not wishing to repeat the same mistakes on a new world, they would be part of the struggles of humanity as it sought to survive and thrive on a new world. Not that such organized groups do not exist in a general sense yet still after all of this time, outside of more extreme and violent ones, but the less-violent ones seem to compose more the majority in current times as well.
Much of how the habitats of Euryale V have come to work was built on history, in part, as well as on more than a small amount of bodies and deaths along the way. Yet the thriving industry of the half-rotating and half-permanent residents has continued to push it along, whether in making fuel for vessels or to ship back to Sarpedon itself and so forth. While about three independence movements have occurred within the history of those living in the habitats of Euryale V when all of its residents and workers were permanent, though, its inherent need to connect with Sarpedon for other necessary resources, improvements in life quality and treatment under the law and in effect in the long-term to enough of an extent, and the booming growth of the ‘rotating workers’ and frankly even ‘commuters’ coming to work on the habitats of Euryale V in recent decades have been among the factors that led to coming into line with the mainstream of the GER as well as seen it grow into the strong sector of the nation it exists as currently.
A small minority handful of old-timers, who saw the very vestige tails of when the habitats were only manned by permanent residents year round or were influenced by the ‘old timers’ of their age, and those influenced by them in the younger generations seem to imagine the potential for an ‘independent Euryale V’ in current times at best. This where in the minds of even most permanent residents by far and the rotating/commuting workers these days they are citizens of the GER first and foremost with all of the benefits and rights. Some claim the rotating nature of roughly half the workers on the habitats of Euryale V was to ‘prevent secession’, though others point to evidence of ill-health effects to those who stayed too long and a lack of raw manpower to fill the facilities and produce what they needed as the local economy grew but the population wasn’t able to go about growing fast enough to match. (Etc.)
((To Be Added….Eventually))
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Governance and Politics:
The general practice for democratic voting is that all adults, those 18 and older by law, are able to vote in general elections at the escalatingly large local, district, regional, provincial, and national levels respectively. The general idea is that you can’t vote on who is mayor or such in a place you don’t live as well, naturally/inherently, of course.
There is some hybridization with liquid/representative democracy as well in this case. Normally citizens have the foundational right to vote on who to represent them as with a representative democracy, but in this case citizens can also sign away or hand over votes to another akin to a liquid democracy to use on their behalf. Simply put, people can invest their vote into the personage of a representative to vote on their behalf. Representatives can be as small-scale as someone’s lazy adult kid giving his vote to his mom or dad to use on his behalf, as big as a bunch of such parents investing their accrued votes into a common singular representative on a larger scale, etc. However, each citizen also has a just as fundamental right to ‘rescind’ their vote from a representative to reclaim it if or as they wish, and the use of votes as ‘currency’ to hand them over to others in legal or commercial or such exchanges (and contracts in general) has been strictly forbidden…..and not without reason either. Albeit there are regulations are in place to prevent mass vote-pulling for trolling or such bad-spirited reasons, such as trying to ‘pull out the rug’ from underneath a vote-invested representative’s feet to troll or humiliate them, though it doesn't illegalize mass vote withdrawing in all cases such as if public opinion turns against a candidate your representative is voting for, etc, and you change your mind).
Representatives are those who exist in those political positions, aka: Mayor, President, District Judge, etc. Voting Representatives, then, are those who are invested with votes by others to use on behalf of others. Different things fundamentally. Also, a sitting politician/representative or someone in the running for a political position (defined in law so I don’t have to try to go into deep legal details) cannot be used as a Voting Representative by others and loses that position and power and so forth if they do enter such a position or go into the running for one. Those who work for a sitting politician directly, such as staff, janitors, and the like, cannot be used as Voting Representatives either. All Voting Representatives are also barred from accepting pay to become one or participate as one (this issue always comes up here and there in the courts, but the law is generally actually enforced).
So not only are candidates seeking to gain political positions, but some supporting them might go on their own sub-campaigns for the candidate seeking to accrue votes to use to vote for them. Double the political campaigns, and sometimes these sub-campaigners work against each other to accrue votes.
Votes can be handed over on three levels. The first is the ‘one use basis’, such as for a singular presidential or mayoral race and what most major candidate sub-campaigns will seek for. The next is a ‘limited time basis’, which cannot exceed one or two years due to federal law and in minor part depending on the local region one is in. Then there is ‘on a semi-permanent basis’, meaning that the chosen voting representative has the handed-over vote(s) until or unless those who gave them their vote(s) decide otherwise. This of course comes with its own storm of regulations and court cases by current times to boot.
At the very top, however, the government is still generally unitary-ish by nature in how laws and such are enforced from the top-down. Federal law is everyone’s law, with certain nuances and regulations left to lower-levels of the governmental system to be flexible on and decide for themselves.
Free-roaming ‘naval nomads’, who were among the first groups to settle on Sarpedon due to space constraints before the floating cities became a thing, also have certain rights to travel and do activities within certain restrictions or regions to “allow them to maintain their culture and centuries-old way of life, which is itself also a piece of valuable GER cultural history and heritage”....though this at times comes up in news, with some either wanting to push for ‘more’ or arguing that these fleets ‘should be further restricted’ due to issues both prejudicial and genuine alike that have arisen with regards to this (in this case defined in a rather generalized way) group/culture/etc. Such groups also get their vote in for things, but with the added caveats of things like ‘have to have been living in the region for "x" months or years still to cast a vote in those elections’ and time being provided for them to arrive at a floating city in general or such governmental non-military facility to be able to allow their people to cast votes for major elections and such (etc).
….Meanwhile, the actual behind-the-scenes oligarchy basically controls government systems in the background, with behind-the-scenes institutions from top to bottom to help support and reinforce this by current times with how far their reach has come to stretch in reality. It doesn’t micro-manage everything from top to bottom normally, the flexibility and such gives people room and representation enough to satiate them and allow things to run well enough in general, but it does step in and exert authority where and when it sees fit and when its interests are either in danger or when its members wish for something to be done. Their ability to control things is at all levels in reality indeed, even if they don’t always abuse it all of the time.
Still, it is by far in current times seen as a crazy but lingering conspiracy theory that a ‘secret cabal controls the nation itself’, and even more so with the sub-rumor that ‘its members are all immortals’ and such things (they are actually in most cases ‘effectively immortal’ in some scientifically-wrought way or another, funny enough, but this bit of the conspiracy theory is seen as the most ridiculous as well). The ‘true synarchy’ behind closed doors also has a titanic amount of wealth and the like individually, but even they have created a sort of code of ethics and such to try to regulate themselves internally to boot.
((Note: At some point the underlying synarchic oligarchy did, in fact, attempt to have members focus entirely on certain areas of things in a manner similar to the original definition of a synarchy/synarchism. It didn’t really pan out too well, but the general idea of each being invested or skilled or involved in a different area/areas to complement each other did roughly stick and become codified among them to some extent in the end at least.))
Technology Overview:
Graviton/Gravity Technologies - A breakthrough in human scientific understanding that, ultimately, was developed with the intent to allow humans to settle more widely across the surface of the planet of Sarpedon beyond the few ‘islands’ scattered in groupings across its surface. Harnessing the power of the graviton, it allowed the ‘anchoring chain-tethers’ to be formed to anchor floating ocean-surface cities to the ocean floor. It enabled in part for the development of atmospheric cities and refineries in the upper atmosphere of the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V to be developed for fuel and resource production/processing/refining. It led to the creation of the ‘graviton hand tool’ for use by workers piloting SSPVs (see the bottom of the Robotics section) who are moving even large and oversized workloads without the need for even heavier and bulkier machinery in the workplace (limited handheld individual humans versions exist). It is also used to produce artificial gravity aboard spacefaring vessels without the need for ‘gravity producing spinning’ formats for vessels and stations alike, and is used for onboard ship tractor-beam-type technologies employed in both policing, rescue, and mining operations in particular. However, the size of the produced artifical gravity field made by such handheld or vehicle-mounted devices is limited in turn by the size/scale of the device and power source in particular, meaning that even handheld human-level versions still have limits in output but are still rather useful tools in the field that can move things larger than notably heavier than the human body could carry on its own.
An overall revolutionary technology, it has found its way into generalized and more widespread use within GER society over the past centuries as the technology went from ‘rough but practically developed for human survival’ to eventually becoming another tool in the toolbelt of humanity proper. It has gone from an expensive, rough technology to eventually something that has seen far finer and more nuanced applications at a much more affordable price for the average person by a longshot. Though there is really no getting any smaller than the likes of the simpler ‘hand tool’, however, due to power issues/concerns and such downsizing makes it far more expensive and such all over again.
Nanotechnologies - Ranging from advanced nanomaterials able to recover from or withstand terrible storms, to nanoengineered factories capable of producing virtually if not actually atomically-precise materials and specs using a combination of organic and inorganic processes, to the likes of electrically-resistant and resilient medical nanomachines, to nano-scale art exhibits, to even nano-scale synthetic fabrics beyond the reach of human hands, these things emerged mostly as human civilization on Sarpedon would begin to reach beyond its infancy after a number of macroengineering questions had to be answered.
Robotics (and Artificial Intelligence) - While humans have retained a place in the workplace despite the presence of robotics, though this has transformed much over the years alongside the issues and development of advanced artificial intelligence, robotics have also taken root in many areas. Ranging from deep-sea or voidbound mining drones with rugged exteriors, meant to handle rough and dangerous environments of the seas and space, all the way down to household human-like or such robotics used to assist parents, act as elderly caregivers, or even just be time-spending supplementary companions to keep even a minority of people who buy them for such reasons more socially engaged and happier in the household. They are implemented in various industries ranging from production and refineries, both on-planet and in the myriad industrial habitats of Euryale V, in commercial industries as in-store assistants in some cases, in areas of business targeted at all sorts of ages, and even within the military for use alongside living, breathing soldiers.
Among the most famous companies to produce household robotics are “Vaul Technological Enterprises”, “Raijin Robotics”, and the last of the “Big Three” names in robotics being the “AutoDoll Corporation”. Yet, historically at least, the most notable of these three companies is the lattermost one: The AutoDoll Corporation. Founded roughly four hundred and eighty three years ago by a well-to-do German-born polymath and first generation colonist, Dr. Heinrich Nachtnebel, the AutoDoll Corporation has remained a generally consistent name in the realm of robotics and secondarily in artificial intelligence (at first) for most of its history. Being one of the oldest extant companies within the GER, it has passed from hand to hand and generally stayed a profitable and lasting presence within the industry that even today still has an existing civilian market and a number of military contracts with the government. While seen by some as an ‘old hand’ that has been around a long time, or being past its glory days, it is also a presence that remains far from being ‘gone’ and continues to regain occasional relevancy here and there after having managed to adapt to the times.
Knowledge of Robotics is also employed for the use and deployment of "Specialized Single-Pilot Vehicles" (SSPV), which range from -14-foot-tall humanoid-like "Urban Combat Piloted Vehicles" (UCPV) that are deployed in small numbers serious urban policing scenarios or are used in small numbers within the ranks of the military and proper Military Police in similarly dense (like a forest) and/or urban terrains (where they excel at anti-personnel situations by and large for the most part), to ball-like underwater submersibles with attached robotics arms and mounted tools for underwater work, similarly-shaped ball-like space-piloted vehicles for work in a vacuum and bearing their own array of arms and tools and specialized features, and even civilian-grade SSPV's akin to the UCPV that are used in logging and construction and even certain forms of hazardous work environments. For the most part SSPVs of any kind are not for frontline combat in every situation, but in what such roles exist for them is something they've been able to be adapted to.
Ideas for even larger sized, ones employing graviton technology similar to the various atmospheric entry/exit-capable spacecraft of civilian and military make (most are military-owned for reasons), have been proposed as a means to further upscale SSPVs into something with more theoretical potential to use in warfare or construction and such areas. This would be, as noted by one scholar of history, to seem more akin to 'old mecha anime' as a concept. While seen as a potentially useful area of implementation in some ways, the cost, concerns, and frankly comparable inefficiency of such designs versus specialized vehicles were among the main flaws/factors pointed out in this concept by both the military and several others approached with this idea in the past.
((Note: Despite the advent of graviton-harnessing technologies for even individual use, which has made moving things a lot easier, it hasn't made SSPVs obsolete either. SSPVs still have been deemed safer for a number of tasks/scenarios/environments in comparison, especially where distinctly more larger-scale graviton-harnessing devices can only be mounted to and powered on an SSPV or even larger vessels for even larger-scale jobs. (Etc).))
Energy/Photnic Shielding/Plasma Shielding/Hard Light Technologies - Shields were a technology developed from older ideas, mainly those of a ‘plasma bubble’ all the way down to ‘suspending photons in place’ hard-light technologies, originally it was only feasible for use with city-grade shielding where it was first developed to protect cities from horrendous local storms as they developed on the surface of Sarpedon proper. One of the major challenges even after rudimentary gravitron-manipulating technology was made manifest in a practical sense, and ‘anchored cities’ could be placed on the ocean’s surface, originally designs such as tall but not all-covering metal ‘storm shields’ to protect from surging waves and buildings had to be designed to be made ‘water and air tight’ and ‘movement stabilizing’ for safety reasons outright due to these rather practical and pressing issues.
Initially the comparative cheapness of plasma shielding technology was seen as a viable option, though it also proved somewhat unreliable against driving ‘titanic waves’ despite providing additional protection against lighting strikes that was sorely needed at the time. Photonic shielding technology, aka ‘hard light’, would see a drop in development and research as a result, though it would over the coming century and a quarter see occasional returns to the field or bursts of understanding in its development and creation. It was simply seen as and practically expensive to maintain when the colony was trying to develop and grow as it was for a while, though ultimately the breakthrough of the first ‘viable’ photonic shield generator was developed and ultimately allowed onto the market. It was a struggle for it to stay on the market, due to the prevalence of supporting plasma shielding industries and the general usefulness they seemed to still have, but using the same ‘half shield’ design paired with a high metal ‘wave wall’ in the same vein allowed the initial photonic shield generator to show its useful colors. It protected from the wind and rain notably better than the plasma shielding, but the power draw and size of the needed photon suspending projectors for cities was certainly higher than that of the former technology as it had become more streamlined and diverse in its applications over the years.
Initially developed in a ‘straight line’ or ‘pane’ form, photonic shielding was not flexible whereas plasma shielding was developed eventually to be able to curve and ‘bend’ more easily to shape in comparison. Yet with the advent of more advances in fusion reactor technology that had been accruing over the decades, and the increased flow of hydrogen fuel and such from the new atmospheric facilities suspended above the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V the tide would begin to turn as photonic shield generators began to gain the support they sorely needed to become more practical in effect. More powerful generators and a steadier stream of fuel allowed more cities to use them, and despite being slowed by lobbying from businesses tied to the plasma shielding industry and some regulations the photonic generators were seen as more ‘effective’ in a general sense. Eventual development of the self-contained, self-sustaining fusion reactor, and its own improvements, would further cut down fuel costs compared to the plasma generators outright in due course. As it became a more widespread technology for city protection, more began to tinker with designs for photonic shield generators more often as the field began to expand.
More nuanced and complex, and rugged due to improved nanomaterials, designs for the generators and the projectors for photonic shielding would then lead in turn to more flexible and wildly-varying designs. This came from the discoveries of one “Mia Eloise MacNamara”, whose work was meant to develop hard light projectors more for the entertainment industry than anything, whose work would shape this field of photonic shielding for good as photonic shields began to replace the old, resource-heavier, repair-intensive, and aging technology of deployed metal ‘wave walls’ used to just protect the lower half of cities from all but the tallest of waves since the first emergence of the floating cities on Sarpedon proper. Able to shield the whole of a city, and minimizing other costs as power and hard light technologies grew, plasma shielding became more limited to smaller and general planetary vehicles due to size constraints compared to photonic shield generators giving it an edge and its long-term existence making it still a cheaper option to boot at this level. While the development of advanced fission and eventually fusion batteries would over a century later lead to improvements in photonic shielding technologies that pushed their design into stronger, smaller, and even more compact designs, plasma shielding would continue to see some improvements minorly here and there and would linger in areas even until current times as the ‘older, more easily affordable’ technology to its now dominant photonic cousin.
These days, ranging from shields to entertainment hardlight holograms and such, this technology has seen about as much refinement and 'shrinkage' in its development and use that graviton/gravity-based technologies have as others related technolgies (like generating power and making better batteries) have also progressed along.
Fusion Technology/Fission Technology/Batteries - The GER has developed improved, self-sustaining fusion technologies, as well as the likes of fission and fusion batteries/cells in increasingly compact sizes and improved outputs. While mentioned in another tech category in the above parts, it is worth a mention here on its own regardless at the very least. In part, however, fuel for some of these things is derived naturally, safely, and sustainably from local seawater to boot or from refineries. Other fuel production is taken, derived, and developed in facilities suspended in the atmosphere of the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V. Modern practices are more sustainable for these things, in part due to development and time and in part at least some level of hard-learned long-term and more recent environmental-consciousness that has affected the generations that have been born and living on Sarpedon in some way or another (even if not directly these days) since the fall of “Old Earth”.
This being said, the development of power-generating/holding technologies has historically on Sarpedon been an influencing factor in 'downscaling' or 'upsizing' some other technologies along the way. (A nice little historical note to end on with this as well for fun!)
(Placeholder/To Be Written Or Added….At Some Point) -
(Placeholder/To Be Written Or Added….At Some Point) -
((Extra: Technology Q&A Section (To Be Added Onto As Needed) -
Q: Why does the GER not have lightspeed travel/FTL capabilities due to what tech they have already?
A: One, it is against the rules of the NRP. Two, it is IC because of practicality. Who needs to FTL travel all over, when a neighboring gas giant, large asteroid belt in your own home system, and so forth provide what you need already? To the GER, such tech isn’t needed for development and growth on its end, and with the reopening of the Gateways this need is further cut down on by virtue of being a fitting choke point for anyone coming to their home system and allowing them communications and travel to other places.))
Military Overview:
(Basic Soldier [Example])
(Exoskeleton Soldier [Light Exoskeleton; General Example, Not For Ground-Based Only])
(Exoskeleton Soldier [Heavy Exoskeleton; General Example, Not For Ground-Based Only])
(Marine-Capable Multi-Role-Capable Military Hovercraft [Missile Loadout])
Additional Info: (Anything else you want to include that there isn't a spot for up there.)
A condition that occurs when one overuses medical nanomachines.
With the normal human usage of drugs or such in its past, it should come as no surprise that even the likes of advanced nanotechnologies have ultimately seen some sort of abuse or another. However, the reason for abusing the use of medical nanomachines ranges depending on the general reason for their abuse in particular. Among the most well-known reasons derived from such abusers are:
One (Nervous Nanoaddiction): Use of medical nanomachines to stimulate either peripheral or central nervous systems alike, usually for reasons such as simulating a ‘high’, increase or amplify bodily sensations, or even to simulate the use of various drugs on the body without having possession of the actual substances themselves.
In particular this category of addict abuses the use of nervous-tissue-related nanomachines, which are thought to have been smuggled out of improperly disposed of ‘neural nanotherapy’ machines. While this has led to more regulations and such being passed with regards to such machines and their nanomachine contents, such as making contained nanomachines exist on a ‘timer’ before artificially destroying themselves or safely degrading to become non-functional or even to be unable to multiply outside of their special containment units, this new trend has continued in part seemingly due to ‘dealers’ getting ahold of the older medical nanomachines that could still be ‘multiplied’ in containment outside of their designated machines. Evidence in autopsies and more recent medical cases indicates that attempts to modify and propagate these older-generation medical nanomachines, seeking to augment or specialize them for use by ‘customers’, has also arisen as security measures and safety features applied to hospitals and treatment facilities planetwide has steadily come into more and more potent effect.
Some of the latest ‘versions’ of these illegal street-level addiction-generating nanomachines also seek to ‘simulate experiences’ for users, though this minor niche has seemingly remained such due to the difficulty in producing such higher-grade machines outside of more notable or wealthy operations. These especially are prone to inducing ‘temporary’ schizophrenia as well as a frankly more permanent version more often than the usual form of these nanomachines does, as well as ‘phantom sensations’ afflicting one or more of the senses being a more distinctly common symptom among those afflicted in this minority of cases.
Victims of this particular sub-variant of Nanoaddiction who abuse such nanomachines, especially the more dangerous modified variants that have been emerging in current times, can suffer from the following symptoms (is a non-exhaustive list, however): Permanent neural damage, brain death, loss of sensation in limbs or parts of the body, irritability, loss of control of bodily functions and/or limbs, paralysis (partial or full), coma, movement and coordination problems, loss of taste, loss of smell, loss of hearing, loss of sensations of touch, seizures, neural degeneration, infections, mental health disorders such as (but not limited to) schizophrenia/depression/hallucinations/memory loss, tremors, muscle rigidity, body temperature varying wildly, loss of mental functions or certain faculties, etc.
This is the ‘newest’ and most ‘modern’ category of Nanoaddiction, one that has arisen within the past ten years and is seeing notable regulation and teaching against due to its nature in particular. Some have even been noted as abusing these to try to help with existing nervous-system-related conditions or mental illnesses, though while some addicts have claimed this to ‘work’ to some extent this nanoaddiction also has the very present and gamble-intense risk of worsening any sort of mental or nervous conditions. (A small fraction might see ‘actual help’ to some limited extent very luckily and at best, outside of very wealthy nanoaddicts who maybe can pay for higher-grade product/work outright, but over seventy percent of cases abusing medical nanomachines for such purposes see worsening issues either in a gradual or rapidly-escalating manner.)
Two (Somatic Nanoaddiction): Use of medical nanomachines to enhance appearance, alter body shape by targeting fat deposits, altering hair or skin color, creating ‘somatic displays’ like color-shifting skin and ‘somatic light shows’ on the cheap outside of legal/safe nanotattooing practices, alter skin texture, and even in rarer cases to try to hide bruises or ‘fix up the body’ from visible forms of damage or skin conditions. Etc.
The most common form of nanoaddiction and seemingly the ‘safest’ form by comparison, note that it is still not a safe practice whatsoever, that has been discovered within the last few decades. It is notable for being the most surface-level as it affects appearance and such, however, though ‘harder’ types of nanoaddiction have surfaced since this one ‘paved the way’ as the first recognized and identified form of nanoaddiction. Initially found in teenage girls when it first hit the news media, this form of nanoaddiction is usually harder to detect than others due to the limited scale of its effects in many (but not all) cases of their abuse.
Common symptoms found in such nanomachine abusers and victims include (but are not limited to): Cracks and ‘fissures’ in the skin (of various patterns/forms), skin/somatic degradation, induced patches of vitiligo, loss or sudden gaining of skin pigment contrary to one’s natural skin color (not limited to normal colors either sometimes, like pink or other oddities), infections, damage to underlying muscle or such tissues (in the worst cases), sudden skin ruptures (worse than mere cracks and fissures) or loss of patches of skin off of affected areas, loss of one’s sense of touch (localized or widespread, etc), and (as with most other cases) managing to trigger an immune response within the body.
Three (Metamorphic Nanoaddiction): Use of nanomachines to alter one’s muscular, skeletal, and general internal tissues including even the likes of organs and the respiratory or renal/digestive systems. Often enough it is also combined with the use of Somatic-altering nanomachines, though not always.
To gain physical strength. To become taller. To alter one’s body shape and size. To destroy fat cells/pockets within the body and lose weight. To become someone else. To become more durable and resilient against bodily harm and damage. These are but a few of the reasons that Metamorphic Nanoaddicts abuse these machines, and the emergence of this form of nanoaddiction was a sharp escalation comparatively to the initially-discovered ‘somatic’ type, often being combined with it in initial cases. Originally misconstrued and misunderstood as ‘somatic nanoaddicts having abused too much’ on a more severe level, after some time the true nature of this condition would come to the surface and eventually be classified as its own related category of nanoaddiction. While its prevalence has never been explosively huge, not exploding onto the scene as much as Nervous Nanoaddiction has frankly done so in recent years to the terrifying realization of many, it has maintained a steady rate despite the percentage of medically-reported and discovered cases having dropped in part due to the explosively growing emergence of Nervous Nanoaddiction compared to this or the somatic forms.
It is also often abused, in the worst cases with both somatic and nervous nanomachines as of late, to try to perform more ‘extreme’ bodily alterations to boot.
This form of nanoaddiction has the by far widest variety of potential symptoms and resulting conditions/afflictions, ranging from the degradation of skeletal or muscular tissues, to the development of gangrene, to the death more or less rapidly of organs, to one’s muscles literally exploding, to the same rather common trademark ‘skin cracks/fissures’ seen in somatic nanoaddiction (even in cases where normally or only non-somatic nanomachines are being abused) that have come to define this condition historically and in the public eye by current times. Hence one of the more common nicknames for the overall condition of nanoaddiction is ‘Nanofissures’.
A section to be filled out IC, both as they are revealed (primarily) and as I actually write them up (which will likely not be all at once) and such. They will be passed by the GMs to make sure they're ok to toss in behind the scenes as I actually manage to write up and finish each one, but won't be publicly tossed into the app until they are used or revealed IC to enough of an extent (to keep some sort of mystique about them around, at least maybe).
@Carlyle Well, here is my finished submission! Been a while since I wrote and submitted up a cahracter like this, and had to get the rust out of my mental gears to get this all going to boot, lol. But hopefully she'd a good candidate for acceptance and adding to the cast! Just let me know if anything needs fixing or clarification for her app and such too!
((If she doesn't make the cut in the end, though, then hey all is still chill. ))
Elena Charlotte Jäger
Fungi/Fungus◼ February 14th ( 16 ) ◼ Female
"Are they-...they're...of course they're racing on school lawnmowers. And of course one of them used their element to shape the 'racetrack'. It's creative, I'll give them that, but I'm not being goaded into placing bets."
A P P E A R A N C E:
By most accounts, Elena is a conventionally attractive teenage girl with soft, lighter skin that has been treated rather well in her overall high-class upbringing and life thus far. Her silky, and naturally very rare to possess, platinum blonde hair has likewise recieved the same good and high-class treatment her skin has recieved in her personal cleaning and self-care routine (and use of 'proper product for caring for one's self' as she'd say in her own words). Yet where once was a pair of soft blue eyes has become a pair of golden, stunning eyes since the day of her awakening as a primalist without so much as her parents or relatives having any explanation as to 'why' that happened to her. Or in her own words:
"Wait, my eyes changed color?! Why didn't anyone say-"
Beyond this she stands at the modest enough height of 5'6", though still taller than some other girls in her age group admittedly, without the use of shoes. Meanwhile, in terms of personal 'ornaments' or jewelry she often indulges in simple hair pins, small tie-offs to put in her hair (see her picture for an example), earrings (see picture for an example) of some sorts, and even 'cute' wristwatches as she puts it. Her clothes are sought on her part to be 'fashionable', and yet simpler, comfortable, and practical by design all the same without being 'too loud' as she says it. Indeed, one could say easily on looks alone that she is 'some rich kid born to rich parents' despite her circumstances in having to transfer to Merryweather and live on campus there.
B I O G R A P H Y:
A wealthy girl born with a silver spoon in her mouth to well-off American parents, ones on both sides steeped in generations of investments and involvement in companies that made them rather upper-class by nature in the long-term. On top of her mother being an American actress of French descent and a family involved in US politics, and her Swiss-descended father’s involvement higher up in one of the largest international pharmaceutical companies in the world, she has two older siblings and one younger sibling to boot. Family dinners, public events, luxurious vacations, fancy parties, servants and maids being dotted about, and the like colored her life from the ground up as well, with any sort of need she might have seemingly at arm’s reach to enough of an extent. On the other hand, her parents are also ardent philanthropists who donated to many charitable organizations and are at least generally moderate pro-primalist in their views despite being regular mundane humans.
For the most part, Elena wasn’t very focused on the matter of primalists. She went through her history classes like others did, lived life like many other kids around her seemed to, and in her own words: “Can’t think of too much outside of that.” For the most part she seemed just happy to chill out and do what she wanted, though it was when chafing with her parents over her grades at school and just ‘not wanting to put in the effort’ alongside struggles in ‘learning a work ethic’ that they threw her a notable curveball at the ripe age of 9. Elena would have to learn a proper work ethic the ‘hard way’ by learning a practical life skill, and improve her grades in school, or else she was being cut off from quite a bit of the things she had enjoyed thus far in life and forced into catch-up tutoring (which she was already on the path toward really needing at this point in time). To this end, she was given one day to look over potential options from a list her parents gave her, and then to choose one of those things. Then, thinking it would be a simple enough idea she could do minimal work with, she chose ‘cooking’ as a practical skill believing at the time it would be the easiest thing to do….
….And she was soon proven very, VERY, wrong in her youthful and naive initial assumptions.
Her parents went about hiring a strict and disciplined professional chef they knew personally, of all people, to drill her, in their own words to the man: “Like she’s a nobody learning to be a short-order cook at a restaurant for her life.” Withheld from servants, withheld from most luxuries, and withheld from anything but school and other ‘important things’ by her parents, Elena was put into what her younger self would feel was a ‘personal hell on steroids’. At first she tried to refuse to do anything, but found sooner than later that she’d be going hungry more often than not if she couldn’t even so much as prepare something basic to eat for herself. No fancy vacations. No getting what she wanted at arm’s reach anymore. No amount of not accepting ‘no’ would do anything. Her parents, who would self-admittedly confess later on about having ‘coddled her more than her siblings’, would even seek out medical advice for how to handle her in their distress. Elena tried to protest back along the way to be sure, and her teacher and parents gradually pushed back firmly but surprisingly patiently back as they tried to steer her in a better direction.
Yet it would take one day, in late September, that young Elena would hit her ‘breaking point’ only just over seven months after turning nine and six months after beginning her cooking training and new life regimen. Arguing with her parents after school, things had become heated and her father had eventually erupted in the heat of the moment with something horrible. Something ultimately which was enough to send the young girl running from the room in tears. She would then abruptly deem herself a ‘true failure’ and just outright drop things and run off later that day, all after trying to cook a sauce her cooking teacher was trying to get her to learn that week. It was enough to get her teacher to go talk to her (both still mortified and fearful after earlier) parents about things, concerned about her not very ok and odd behavior, where he learned what had occurred earlier. Then, later, he would approach a stomach-growing, hungry, and red-eyed Elena in her room, walking in with something on a plate and sitting down next to her as she tried to ignore him.
After gently rubbing her back and humming a soft tune, enough to get her to calm down somewhat more, her teacher would encourage her to take a bite of something to eat at least. Broken and tired enough, young Elena would take the offering silently after sitting back up and would take a few bites. He would ask her how the food tasted, only for her to respond that ‘she liked how it tasted, and that the sauce on it was good’. With a smile, he would reveal it was the same sauce she’d been making earlier during their lesson put on some chicken he’d made. Her sauce. Something she had made, successfully, herself. All that despite running off earlier and deeming her efforts and self a failure without even tasting her own creation. It was, ultimately, a humble spark that emerged within her mind that evening, even that night after she went to bed and tried to get sleep.
She had made something good. She…..she’d made something to eat that was actually ‘good’ for once. Successfully. Despite everything. With her own two hands.
The next day, she seemed to listen more to her cooking teacher than she had before. Even if just a little bit. The next day, one of her teachers at school noted that she seemed to listen a bit better than she had before, if nothing else, than she had before. The next week, after some days of practice, her teacher would invite her to her family home’s kitchen to help prepare a practiced dinner for her parents and siblings. It was something she felt unsteady about, even a bit scared of to be sure, and yet in the end she would accept the invitation to assist her cooking teacher. Her teacher would, after hearing how the meal was, bring her out, still in her little chef uniform made for her, after revealing to her family that she’d made their humble dinner herself that evening with him assisting on the side. Her father, for his part, would beckon her closer before pulling her into a hug….before beginning to cry. Then she began to cry too. Through half-sobbed apologies, through a bit more listening, and a warm, hot meal, parent(s) and child began to fix things. It was just one step, not some overnight sudden transformation that came at the drop of a hat, but it was one step of many that began to go in the right direction for once.
Paying more attention to cooking turned into paying more attention in classes. Listening more to her teachers led to a greater understanding of herself and what she was doing. Gaining more understanding of herself came alongside a greater sense of self-discipline, if nothing else, that seemed to be reflected in her growing and changing mindset about the world to some extent. Day by day. Week by week. Month by month. Year by year. A young, struggling child would turn into a blooming, beautiful flower in the eyes of her parents. An aspiring chef who found a passion in her former punishment. A young woman who began to branch out more than she might have done otherwise in life without some form of intervention.
The proud girl never truly went away, in the end, but something else began to bubble up near the end of high school. Odd dreams outside of the normal, even by her standards. Mushrooms growing on dead logs, as if footage was being fast-forwarded. Zooming in on the nectar in a flow, down to the microscopic level, and seeing myriad yeast wiggling about and growing on it. Bad food in a garbage can, zoomed in to see black and white fuzz of different sorts growing all over it. The wall of a dilapidated building’s inside, with black mold peeping from around the corner as it grew and spread. The way each dream came and went over those many nights was….surreal, as if she was watching nature documentaries or seeing it all for herself personally with her own two eyes. She began to look up some of these things she was seeing, looking into them with a peculiar and sudden curiosity, which for the most part was put off as just a harmless curiosity or a desire to learn of some sort by those about her at first.
The dreams became more and more frequent, then, and an odd sensation began to build within her. Like something was ready to….explode! Or…blossom? Bear fruit? It was hard to tell, but phrases such as those felt fitting about it all. Then, one day as she was leaving school, she felt a sudden urge to run to the bathroom as a lurch came up into her stomach. From here she would dip aside in a hurry, worried about if she ate something bad, and would zoom into the nearest bathroom and stall before-
*BWOOMF*
....Well, that was one bathroom the school was going to need to clean from head to toe for at least a few days.
Fortunately she’d been the only one inside of said bathroom at the time, but by the time firefighters and ambulances arrived the bathroom Elena had run into was overrun utterly with myriad forms of fungal growth….and the air was thick with spores to the point of needing gas masks. From here she was ultimately fished out, ironically enough, by a fire primalist firefighter who worked on the local force. She was then scrubbed from head to toe and disinfected at the hospital, as were several others who had been near to the bathroom, and then sent back into the arms of her frankly more than a bit worried parents at the hospital. Safe to say, from here it was apparent where she’d need to be going next. Arrangements were made, talks between her and her parents and teacher were held behind closed doors, money exchanged hands to help her now-former school clean up and such, a primalist relative on her mother’s side of the family came to talk to her, and she was prepared to go to her ‘new school’ in good enough time.
What would the future bring? Well, Elena had no clue. Sure she had an older first cousin on her father’s side she knew well enough who’d become a fire primalist, one Thomas William Jäger, who was two or three years ahead of her and already there at Merryweather at least. But….but….of all the things she could have had as an ‘element’, why was fungus hers, hmm?! It was so very inelegant! Really?! Someone of her upbringing, and after everything, getting stuck with that as her element as a primalist?! Even metall would have been preferable if nothing else! Wind! Lighting! Water! Fire! Something! It was absurd!!! She’d still read more about fungi, sure, she did want to try to get more of an idea of what she could maybe do or something….but it didn’t make her any more happy about the results though.
P E R S O N A L I T Y:
Someone whose sense of the world inclines her to boldly, proudly, and certianly "state what she thinks, without reservation, if she feels like it" without any sort of hesitation or holding back. It isn't that she can't hold her tongue or even hold back, but that she will simply speak her mind as she sees fit in various places and situations. This being said, she is also someone whose at least more self-disciplined than not nature leads to quite a tenacity when dedicating herself to a task or situation or course of action before her. Naturally this at times can lead to a bit of stubbornness though, especially if she's riled up or her hot head peeks out in earnest, and the more she's riled up or worked up over something the harder it becomes to bite her own tongue and stop. Yet, without a doubt, she is one who will without a word seek to earnestly learn from failures, both big and small, and will try more than a little bit to grit her teeth and 'get back up again' with is one getting up as many times as she feels nessecary to 'keep moving forward' or the like. Giving up something half-heartedly is not her peronsal 'mantra' as she'd describe it, though sometimes knowing when to quit can be a struggle.
Despite these things, in a 'professional' situation or setting she can hold a rather 'profesional' expression and demeanor about her. This even if she was bickering with someone a mere few minutes ago! That 'mode' she can put herself in is something in part related to her ability to focus on things, and even focusing on multi-tasking several things at once for that matter, that she has both had ground into her in life so far and has seemingly sought to foster as a 'skill' both as one who has lived among the upper class and personally for herself as well. Things such as posture, having a 'stuff upper lip', and her shoulders up straight and back properly aligned are other aspects of how she seeks to carry herself on the average at the very least to boot.
In terms of passion, one might think that clothing and fashion are her 'things' in the sterotypical sense. Yet in truth her passion for cooking and learning have become rather fierce within her, and are matters she takes seriously enough mentally even if outwardly she might be mouthing off with a classmate she's chafing with at the time or isn't in the best of moods. She considers food a 'fine art' as much as 'something practical', and her former cooking teacher's way of teaching and drilling fine cooking and professional methods into her has certeainly come to shape her in the kitchen rather much so. She doesn't look down on 'simpler food' either, however, nor is she someone to call a nessecary meal 'peasant food' simply because it isn't gilded in gold or something absurdly high-class and fancy either. Indeed, she also isn't a stranger to the idea and concepts of 'hard work' and 'proper work ethic', nor in getting her hands dirty to get something done, something that might be found among the most surprising bits of her by those who make assumptions about her personally.
At the end of the day, however, she is also still a teenager just like the rest of her peers.
A B I L I T I E S / S K I L L S:
Cooking - Despite her youth, her dedication to cooking as a pasttime and personal hobby is something she has put more than a small amount of work into in the last seven years and some odd months before coming to Merryweather. She was drilled by a professional high-class chef of some renown and good repute, though usually refrains of using his name as a 'means to brag or anything' in her own words. However, from making the 'four mother sauces' to improvising recipies on the fly, she has a surprisingly high level of skill in this area for a mere teenager of all things. You ask her to replicate a general recipe by taste, she can generally do it right back. You ask her to cook a steak to a specific level of 'done-ness', and she can do it. You ask her to roll up her sleeves to go pick ingredients from a field to find good ones to use for a meal, and then to prep and cook them? She can frankly do just that.
It is also her main hobby for stress-relief when getting notably stressed, so if one sees her in the kitchen after a bad day....yeah. It can certianly be a sign of things. ((Note: She isn't sudenly the 'best chef on the planet' or something, though she can produce some form of five-star-quality food, but is just really good at this hobby and passion of hers.))
Exersize/Fitness - From swimming to running, she has learned a 'healthy regimen' that takes up the early mornings for her or alternatively takes up the evenings after classes and such are done. A generally healthy regimen of fitness is something she believes in, and is something that has given her some solid stamina and a general advantage over othher potentially unathletic peers at the very least. Naturally in practice this isn't allowing her to sucdenly do parkour or such athletic feats she hasn't trained in, though, which is also something to take note of.
Learning - Taking notes. Listening to instructions. Asking questions when they pop up into her mind. Etc. And given her acquisition of 'straight A's' in her prior schooling that started since around the ages of 10-11 years old, she's become tgenerally quite the dedicated student as well.
Learner's Permit - Requires and adult in the car for her to do anything legally, sure, but she can at least do some basic driving correctly 'enough' to function in a basic manner. Just don't ever think to make her a getaway driver for...well, anyone. Ever. Please. The car's durability will not hold up to her lack of overall driving skills. Just see what happened before in her Driver's Ed class prior to coming to Merryweather.
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:
Her mother’s maiden name is Merryweather, and her mother’s family is known to have been involved in US politics on and off for some time. ((Note: Will remove if the GM wishes, thought it’d be some fun flavor to toss into the mix if nothing else.))
Her now-former cooking teacher is a father to three, and is better with handling kids than some might think despite his strictness and disciplined approach to cooking and such. He also told Elena that whenever she graduates from Merryweather, eventually, he promised to continue teaching her cooking if she so desired. His kids even wrote Elena a letter to read before heading off to her new school…..she now refuses to comment on what she did after she read it (aka: she cried, and will get angry if you ever try to prod her about it for sure).
Starting partway into middle school and going into high school, at least as far as she got into middle school before all of 'this' happend, her cooking teacher took her a fair few times to work hands-on at a soup kitchen of all places. It was something he and her parents thought 'would help ground her in reality' a bit more,and something he'd done when he was younger and training to become a chef many years ago as well. Since then, Elena has donated part of her allotted 'personal allowance' money to those one or two local soup kitchens she was taken to help keep them running.
A Secret Hobby Of Hers: Enjoys gaming with a headset on occasion on console, even using a voice changer to avoid being outed online. Would be the one to have a nickname like "HereticPurger69" in a WH40k type game and talking smack over the headset at times in general, though, which is a side she doesn't like to show to other real people. Also got into some games due to her older brother, Mark, and highly competitive in them due to him nor her other siblings just letting her win a game.
Enjoys long, soaking, hot baths. She finds them relaxing at the end of the day/night.
@Carlyle Just out of curiosity, and to double checck, I have a few questions (potentially of a dumb or more obvious nature on my part, but I like to check to be super sure on things sometimes overthinking powers, activate!) about potential elements:
1 ) How specific and how general can an element be? It seems something like 'Storm' is a bit too composite, but what about something peculiar like 'mud' (would it fall under Earth? Water? Neither) for example?
2 ) Likewise, could someone get stuck with a hyper-niche element under a more general category, such as some poor soul getting revealed with something obtuse like a "Cesium" or "Mercury" element instead of just more general Metal or Earth? Or is it more limited to general sub-categories of an element like a 'stone' element or 'ice/snow' and such?
3 ) And what about something also peculiar like "Plasma", as another example of a potential element idea, would that be a bit too finicky or non-natural for purposes of being an element or such? Would it just be lumped in with Lightning or Fire or such?
I have a vague character forming in my head but I don't know which 'element' to give them. She was a rich spoiled girl brought up in a very religious household. When her magic manifested, they didn't take it well.
Let's see, we have lightning, plants, water, snow, fire, wind, and maybe light
Stone wouldn't be a bad power to have, even if there's no thematic link. Shadow would tie in even better with the character I have in my head but that might be stretching it.
Yes; I mentioned in the interest check that I'm not limiting it to the big four. Just as long as it is something "natural" related since in some magic systems they start to include things like "light and darkness" as elements, and that's not something I'd consider an element in this setting.
Tempted to join this RP myself, and been looking around in my head for a good idea, though I saw the GM say this on the first OOC page after reading back a bit (even if not everything yet). (Also hi!)
Two people sat in the room, each on opposite sides of the desk, in simple but comfortable padded chairs of a sort. All the while silence hung about the room like a great and draping curtain, the tension somewhat palpable as one stared back at the other without a word. In the background, a bladeless fan pushed air along to cool the warm room....warm? Wait, was it normally warm in here, or was it just herse-
"Agent Malone, I'm waiting for your explanation. Have all the time in the world, even, to do this."
The director's words cut through the air like a chilly breeze, sending a mild tremor down the back of one rather tensed up Agent Malone and snapping her out of her thoughts. Spacing out wasn't going to save her here, but she-.....well, it was-.....drat. For her part, though, it was apparent that Agent Malone was now trying to think of what to say, but part of her didn't want to let some of those words escape her mouth. What could she say to the person in front of her that would even hope to remedy the matter or such? Hmm? What did she want her to say about the whole matter? Some part of her didn't regret a thing, and yet after the whole affair and 'that' being returned to its place in Containment Level B all the way back at Site Alpha it was more than a bit mortifying all the same.
"I-...u-u-umm..."
Her voice felt shaky, like a child caught where they ought not to have been looking. Her muscles felt tenser than they ever had before, more than her first mission had ever made her feel for that matter. A cold sweat was beginning to form on her upper back as well, as if she'd just jumped out of a lake before coming here. Maybe it was just her who felt rather warm in this room, as across from her the visibly dissapointed visage of Director Clark was looking her down without seemingly batting an eye. Golden blonde hair, that pair of stern green eyes, the rather light-hued human skintone, the business uniform, everything about her felt hard to look at right now despite the human-like appearance she wore. The woman was....she'd seen she was human, heard she was before joining up yes, but right now she felt less like a human and more like a terrifying wall of force. Truly it was more scary to be in front of and looked at by her, really, than the monster that accompanied her as an assistant than anything else. Like that gaze pierced into her very soul.
At the same time, though, she knew that the longer she said nothing coherent the longer this would be drawn out. Ok...well, she could do this. It was all so very stupid, in hindsight, but here went something!
"....Marina...she was pretty shaken up by it, b-but she was holding it all in. Being on 'that' duty and all, but she was afraid she'd be fired for sticking to it and holding on with that assignment. It was only two weeks, right? But she wasn't doing well, and Kael's prodding at her wasn't doing anything to help it. I-I-I got angry, of course, but and when Kael dared me to do something about it I....we....well....we....we began to come up with a plan.
He h-had the security clearance, Marina h-h-had watch duty then, and I planned to be walking by when Kael was on duty."
"Go on."
Agent Malone gulped a bit of air and saliva, trying to wet her throat as it suddenly felt so very dry. She tried to slow her breathing, just as they'd been told to practice in the field, bit by bit. In and out. In and out. In the nose, out of the mouth. Good. That was good.
"H-He said he had a ship that'd shoot the box into the sun....a-a-and I didn't think about if he was telling the truth at the time. Or...o-or at all, about any of this. Once M-Marina handed it off to me, and Kael got me to the anti-psionic box he'd prepped so I could put it in, I-I walked off back to Marina."
"Mhmm. That lines up with what the security system observed last week, and what we were able to dig up thus far about the incident, so if nothing else I congradulate you on telling the truth about your involvement in yesterday's incident in the end. However, the fact remains that you participated in moving a contained anomaly off-site, where your coworker attempted to make a profit on selling it. Yes it was a mere Class A Anomaly as far as you knew, but that's far from an excuse."
"I-I didn't k-k-know he was doing tha-!"
Director Clark held up her prosthetic right hand, and Malone's mouth suddenly shut.
"Yes, after your voluntary psionic examination and reporting to your superior about the incident a few hours later we know that for certain already. Marina, however, was told about this. Would you have gone through if you knew it was being sold for a profit? It seems not, or at least that Kael and your friend didn't trust you enough to let you in on that little detail."
Malone's stomach sank, as if someone had dropped a heavy stone inside of it, as her jaw locked up and froze in place midway into trying to speak back again. Yet as words and questions began to race through her head, as some part of her wanted to shout back that Marina would-
"Would never do that in her lifetime? It would seem to be so from a first impression, but sometime people like to hide what they're really thinking behind it all. Behind the face of a newer agent who couldn't handle Anomaly 642 duty, she was working with Kael on selling it before trying to book it from the facility soon after alongside him. It's why we caught the two of them as they tried to leave Site Alpha in the first place after she left you to 'go have some time alone' to calm down later."
"B-"
"You know I'm psionic, yes, Miss Malone? But that aside the question is written on your face more than anything. Yes, we knew what was going on that day....and the whole time to be frank. Yet given you're the only one of the three involved to submit to a psionic examination, as well as voluntarily speak with me in my office here after giving a testimonial, you've already proven a fair amount of sincerity. You didn't try to run, even, which I must say was a smart move on your part as well.
However, why do you think we assign some agents to Site A for their trial period? To test them. Sure the initial missions, the trianing, and the like are all there, but in the end we want to test your mettle, capabilities, and more. Your ability to work with others. Your honesty and character. Your ability to handle the 'safest' level of anomalies as well as sudden curveballs....though that one is admittedly actually a Class B we throw in there from time to time as a somewhat harder test. Pretend its a new find that the site has to contain for a while until a proper cell can be prepared for it or something like that."
"...."
"Is it cruel? To some extent most people would say that, especially given that one's nature. However, in this line of work you must be able to adapt in case of 'sudden escalation' beyond your normal standards as the training session tried to drill into you and your peers at Site A. This job isn't easy, neither is it fair, and our role is to handle things that most can't as best as we can. Not everyone can handle everything, regardless of that, but the general rule of thumb still stands.
Your coworker wasn't as devastated as she made herself out to be, and she used that to manipulate you into 'helping' it seems she and Kael were in contact before joining up with the agency to boot as we've been inclined to believe at this venture. It doesn't nessecarily mean torture either, but that is why we weed out new agents like this in one way or another. If someone who can't handle it gets out there, and messes things up, the problems goes well beyond just your own potential danger or suffering. It involves a lot more than that many times oover, and if we fail or try to hit above our weight class then it could spell disaster for far too many people in the end."
Malone sat listening, her hands coming into her lap and nearly clutching her knees until the knuckles turned white. All this time, Marina had-...and she'd-...it was a disgrace. Even the sudden disappearance of her new work 'friend' seemed to have been some part of a plan, perhaps, and her going a few hours later to tell on herself and the others had been useless enough if even the Director had known what was going on anyways before it all went down! That stupid, stupid teapo-
"It is 'stupid', yes, but you handled that duty well enough, tried to formally inform others put on watch over that anomaly when they came in after your turn, and even your superior wrote some positive notes about you in his initial reports about the new trainees at Site A. But your former coworkers didn't make it far after he got the box anyways, not even to the parking lot before waiting security staff apprehended them and the box.
However, we cannot overlook your transgression all the same. Site A may be rigged to weed rookies out, and to capture such ill-intented 'recruits' red-handed, but trying to hand away and get rid of a contained anomaly recklessly cannot be ignored. It is a whole breach of protocol, a violation of your work contract, and the like. In short, by all right I should have you hauled of to do time in an angency cell for this and have you dead to rights on it."
"However, given your honesty and straightforwardness in the matter, and being able to recognize you were in the wrong, the only reason you aren't in a cell right now is because I said so. Because you were brought to me on my orders. And why? Because with the noted factor of your emotional manipulation by the other two, I wanted to see if you were even salvageable after this whole affair."
The Director leaned forward onto the wooden desk in front of her, the light tap of her prosthetic right arm's elbow on it audible, looking more into the eyes of the still-tense but now somewhat-confused new agent.
"I will make it abundantly clear that I am making you one offer, and one offer only, because of your actions after the fact and your willing cooperation with us on this and what sort of stuff we've not turned up in investigating your background and history more in-depth after this along the way. So you have two choices in this matter:
One, you will stay here in a security cell for tonight, and then report to the Mass Transit Shuttle Center at 3am tomorrow morning, sharp. From here you will be taken by an escort back to the training center at Site Gamma elsewhere. Formally from this point on you are suspended if you choose this option, and there at the center you will remain under close observation and undergo a more than tough remediation program meant to harden your resolve, allow you to better grasp your emotions, and give you more resilience and awareness against these sorts of situations. You will then undergo a thourough psionic examination after completing this remediation program, and then your status will only then be debated once more as to whether to return you to rookie-level duty, to imprison you, or to release you from employmeny in the D.A.I.B. altogether and so forth.
Two, you will give me your verbal resignation and will then immediately report down the hall to the Information Protection Department's main office. There, for full disclosure, you will submit to a psionic erasure of specific lowest-level classified information before reporting to security. From there, you will be escorted off the premises, fitted with a nanomonitor, and placed safely in a humane and monitored prison cell for the time being until we can get you a good court date scheduled and so forth.
Do I make myself clear?"
She, she wasn't going to prison right now?! Er, well not unless she-...and...ah. No, it made enough sense she supposed. It was much more than she thought she'd get after being called to come in and speak with the actual Director, of all things, but it was 'something' at least. Yes. And in that vein Malone's eyes would open wider for a moment before her own left hand came up suddenly, jerking up into a formal salute of sorts.
"M-Mam' yes mam'! Thank you for the chance you've given me mam'!"
"Good. Now then, report to the security office down on the next floor. They'll be expecting you."
"Yes mam'!"
The rookie agent would scramble up from her seat, giving a hasty bow to Director Clark before quickly moving to open the door and leaving the room. The Director could even hear her footsteps as they moved across the floor outside of her carpeted office, deliberate as much as they were a mixture of excited and still tension-filled from the whole affair. As soon as those footsteps were out of earshot, however, the overly-large door to her office would once again open. This time, however, something else would walk in altogether.
It wore a fully face-covering mask along with a simple hat of archaic make, walking on a myriad of clawed feet-hands emerging from a main body hidden underneath its black cloak. Its flesh and claw-ended appendages were a dark as the deep blackness of the night, or perhaps even the void of space, and yet Director Clark had felt its presence concealed in the waiting room of her office as it had arrived back there in the middle of her talking to Agent Malone all the same. While most felt it was an anomaly that was 'hard to read', and obviously so in a number of ways, the psionic director felt she'd a certain 'knack' for reading its mood and demeanor underneath it all. One could call it simply 'inuition' at this point, not even needing to glean things like emotions from afar that were on the surface of its mind by now, but all the same its presence tugged up the corners of the human woman's mouth just a bit.
"I take it you brought my message to them, then?"
"....Yessss"
A voice hissed and rumbled at the same time from underneath the beaked mask of the anomaly before her now.
"Perfect, and my other request-?"
A clawed hand came out from behind the door, carrying with it the smell and appearance of a fine cup of tea just the way she liked it. Just hot enough for a tiny wisp of steam to still be trailing off of the top of the cup at that. Without skipping a beat, the clawed appendage gently and gingerly handed the plate the cup of tea was on to the Director, who placed it down in front of her before taking a slow and careful sip. At this point, the edges of her mouth began to crawl up even farther into what some would call a proper 'smile' perhaps. Hah. Her, smiling at a time like this? That was the punch line in reality.
Still, she'd handled a lot worse than this new agent's unwitting participation in a scheme to make bank and run. Especially after all the years she'd had to whip the agency as it was today into shape. Those with ill intentions were always something to keep an eye out for, and they'd learned that well enough even as far back as the old Empire. Still...
"Ah, I needed that today. Now then, did any other news come in while I was in my meeting here?"
A clawed appendage reached into the unseeable void of the anomaly's main body, before coming out with a piece of neat and crisp paper in hand. A rather primitive method of communication, paper and pen or pencil, but it certainly was a method useful in certain ways that wasn't expected by most. Made even better for destroying communicaides she didn't want left around to boot after they're use was through with. Even so, upon taking the offered piece of paper the Director's smile would fade into her usual stoic manner as her eyes ran over the paper in her hands. Then her eyes ran over the words again. Then again. Again. Then once more again for good measure before neatly folding the paper after a pause and placing it securely in a pocket on the front of her shirt, abruptly if not a littlr jarringly gulping down the hot tea, and standing up swiftly from her desk before pushing the chair back in.
The clawed anomaly moved back from the door automatically, to give her room as the Director nearly stormed out in a formal but notable haste, but kept its head lowered down to look at her from the side before moving to follow alongside her all the same.
"Did they say if this news hit the media yet?"
"....Ssssaid it wiiill laaaater toniiiiiight, yesssss."
"Good. Now please take a message from me to Chhief Yavis down in the Archives. Tell him to get all the hands he has down there today to dig up everything we have on this 'Ghost Region', compile it into an encrypted holodrive, and to book it to HQ's shuttle terminal ASAP to meet me there in-person because he's coming along for this. Then go tell our mutual friend I'll be there in thirty minutes in the usual spot, tops."
Without a word, though with a light tip of its hat, the anomaly would seemingly vanish in an instant. Or had it even been there? Slipped into the shadows, perhaps? No one could tell for sure much of the time, but Director Clark didn't skip a beat in any case. Sure she'd need to let Administrator Burke know she'd be gone on 'Class M' business that had popped up just now, but this...yes, this was no small matter if she was getting a paper and pen message like this from 'that' person and by the appendages of her assistant. And the topic? She'd at least seen the term in passing before when perusing some of the most secure archives they had at HQ itself, sitting in things imported from the old Empire proper, though she'd have to use the holodrive to try to get a gist of things before arriving at their location. Wouldn't have much time to brush up, but that's why she was having Chief Yavis come along. He had a good way of analysis, and they'd need that if the topic was this urgent and the timeframe they had was this horribly short.
Yet something didn't sit right about this in her mind, even as the gears of her memory clocked and whirred along. Anything that old, that top secret, and that tightly-maintained in the records even by the Empire's standards was not a good sign. She just hoped it didn't pertain to Tar Yrra directly, though that matter was a four-wars-deep mess of its own already for that matter. Any more heaped on 'that' pile might set off the burnt-down charcoal and tinder that was the whole blasted galaxy again at this rate for all they knew.
However, for now, she and Chief Yavis had a 'meeting with royalty' to get to.
Constitutional Monarchy ((The Current Sitting Monarch: King Yrist Xannus Gorluin Aelamis; Heir Apparent (ala Primogeniture): Princess Ilyndra Ashwryn Yrralisa Aelamis))
Demographics:
They ruled for untold centuries, acting both as benevolent rulers, and terrible tyrants. They gifted many worlds wonderous technologies, uplifted species of their choosing, all the while they razed entire systems to any who would dare defy their rule and wiped entire species from the face of all of creation. They were both loved and feared, revered and reviled by trillions-....
The makers of a two millenia-long imperium that managed to last for longer than many aspiring nations have hoped to, the Yrrani are a humanoid species that possesses a number of traits. Longevity, general physiological resilience, a more widespread latent psionic aptitude, unnatural beauty as well as graceful aging, and generally keen minds. It is unknown if the Yrrani of today are the same as their oldest forebears, though, or if centuries of imperium, populating the stars, and obvious matters such as the use of advanced medicines and genetic modifications to themselves have taken their toll in the long-term. It is, for the most part, assumed that it is all a mixed bag after so long as seemingly original records of the Yrrani’s rise either disappeared or went missing by the time of the fall of the Yrrani Empire itself.
What is known somewhat is that some Yrrani perhaps do still hold to the idea of restoring the Empire, even as their race declines and has mostly disappeared throughout the cosmos, though many others perhaps do not as well. It is, to use a human saying, a ‘mixed bag’ that one can’t simply assume a unified answer for across the span of a dying and storied race such as the Yrrani.
Meanwhile, within the UID in particular (at least) this species’s presence at first was mostly of a ‘mixed bag’ that were imported by the Sickly Emperor and otherwise before this point by chance during development of Project Reservoir over the decades and as workers were brought in for the project and its aims. The end result is a centuries of a mixed-bag group of Yrrani, ones whose descendants have rebranded under the term of “Yrrani-Idkar” or mostly just as “Idkar” as a new and growing derivative cultural/ethnic identity of sorts has evolved over time among their majority due to initial forced intermingling before and initially after the fall of the Yrrani Empire. This term itself is also derived from the name of the UID’s capital world of Tar Idkar.
To most of these, at least within the UID, even the term “Yrrani” has been switched out for the initially informal and eventually legally-defined use of “Idkar” as their designator and species identity in line with cutting ties to the past. At the very least, the “Idkar” of the UID have managed to not only avoid dying out but also have continued to grow in population once more. However, among the Idkar population aspirations of imperium have in the end died with use of the ‘Yrrani’ moniker among the vast majority here within the past six centuries. Some consider this a mere political change among the UID’s Idkar over the last six centuries, to cut ties with the old Empire further in some capacity after fearing reprisals from neighbors, while others see it as simply another designated cultural or other such subgroup naturally developing within an overall species over the past six centuries. A minority of older cultural enclaves have also managed to remain after the centuries as well, though are usually found on certain worlds or such as a consequence of past migrations, who was imported from where and to which place in the pre-fall Empire within the boundaries of Project Reservoir, or later attempts to ‘preserve their past’ in some capacity or such like thought processes. Etc.
It cannot be understated that the effect of Project Reservoir was, whether in ways intentionally and other unintentionally, a force that led to the development of the “Idkar” proper. Though it seems that, by importing a number of groups in, those running Project Reservoir purposefully in part sought to make use of many ‘non-mainstream’ Yrrani groups and sects who would be more loyal to the project than to the system at large of the Yrrani Empire. This would help provide a means for keeping the project ‘more secure’, it seems, given the circumstances of things. However, this is a modern theory based on some evidence and decades of calculation and investigation of the past by the government of the UID. After so long, and all that has happened in the galaxy, it is perhaps safe to say that the ‘gritty details of the truth’ have likely been lost to time to enough of an extent.
((Other Extant Yrrani Subgroup Minorities within the UID:
1 ) Yrrani-Twei
))
((Note 1: If you want to have a Yrrani subgroup of yours feature in an enclave within the UID, just if you want to (don’t have to I mean), then let me know! :D))
((Note 2: Old Yrrani used to spell words with apostrophes, putting emphasis on certain syllables or such to emphasize the meaning of a word’s component parts culturally and linguistically. Yet as the Kingdom and later Empire of the Yrrani grew among the stars, the Yrrani language was ultimately streamlined to cast them off in the long-term to make it easier to use. Hence why the word for “new hope” or “Idkar” would be “Id’kar” (Id = new; kar = hope) in Old Yrrani compared to the version the galaxy came to know or remember by current times. This loss in linguistic emphasis and breakdown, perhaps, can also be seen as some loss of identity or roots to the Yrrani as they grew beyond their homeworld to boot.
This can be especially noted as certain things like “Yrri” (Yr = parent/origin; Ri = the ‘masculine’ syllable in Old Yrrani) and “Yrra” ( Yr = parent/origin; Ra = Feminine syllable in Old Yrrani) became known more as a title for an Emperor/Empress or planet to take on rather than their actual literal meanings of “Father” and “Mother” respectively (EX: Tar Yrra = “The Mother” or “our mother world”). This occurred as the Yrrani language became mainstream, as well as when it interacted with other races and became streamlined in the long-term for teaching and communication purposes. Such a small change seems to many to be a ‘nothing’, though to others the lack of emphasis in linguistics as facilitated by galactic expansion and streamlining of the language was seen as a loss of origins/identity/their roots to others. Further, one cannot ignore the changes to the language in addition as some of the most populous foreign species’ terms/language leaked in….as well as when some terms and words gained new definitions and uses over time (like how irl “Caesar” and “Augustus” became titles and symbols of being a ruler in the wider world, in and of themselves, instead of being mere Latin names).))
((Note 3: Emperors/Empresses in the Empire gained certain personal titles as a consequence of reputation or their actions, and even due to events that occurred during their reign, such as the “Austere Emperor”, the “Wrathful Empress”, the “Chaste Emperor/Empress”, etc.))
Humans. Terrans. Homo sapiens sapiens. It is unknown where this particular two-legged humanoid (or ‘yrranoid’ as the Yrrani would call it way back when) species frankly originated from, its original homeworld having gone long forgotten and lost to the ages in the minds of its descendants. Humans have spread across the galaxy about as much as the Yrrani did back during the heights of the Yrrani Empire, spreading much like some kind of ‘pest’ as some might note, with varying skin colorations and appearances of their own to boot. Yet despite lacking many of the space seeming advantages as Yrrani as a species, to make the comparison, humanity has made up for it in ingenuity and sheer determination to explore, understand, and forge new homes across the cosmos. Versatile and originating from a higher-gravity world much as the Yrrani did, though, this also led humanity to be both rugged enough to go onward…
….Though as a small aside, after ‘a few incidents’ humans in certain far-fringe places would develop a ‘stereotype’ in some far-flung places prior to the Empire’s fall of ‘being crazy experimental idiots who come up with stupidly crazy ideas when bored’. Among these are ideas such as ‘taping knives to a floor-cleaning robot and naming it something silly like Stabby or Kevin’ and the classic example of ‘strapping a warp core to a makeshift rocket and firing it into a space station to blow it up as a desperate attempt to dissuade and invasion force from landing’. Among their other feats are ‘finding new and creative ways to either blow themselves or others up’ and, not to forget a goodie but an oldie, voluntarily going ‘hey let’s see if doing X thing kills us’ and either finding out the hard way or somehow rebounding from it to tell their tale to any sapient ear that they can hold captive with the story.
(Also this is a joke part, please don't take it seriously, lol.)
Standing apart from simply individuals of other species who use cybernetics or have prosthetics, this group’s members identify themselves apart from their ‘original species’ and instead identify together with other ‘augmented’. While originally classified as a mere cultural or ethnic identity of members from still-differing species, they are tentatively listed as a ‘demographic’ of their own at the very least by current times after decades of debate and discussion over the matter within the UID government. They are a group that, for the most part, venerates technology and the augmentation of their flesh and began with missionaries of “The Holy Cog” which entered UID space. In particular the Augmented of the UID, the second smallest demographic minority of the UID, originated in their ways and such from the teachings of one missionary simply known under the identity of “Sister Mechila” or ‘Saint Mechila” to some.
Mechila was an ardent missionary of The Holy Cog, and her humble Forge Ship was a curious arrival within UID space. Her teachings were taken in by few, and many were wary of her and her teachings for a number of reasons. However, she sought to bring the strength and certainty of metal to the weakness of flesh, and in her pursuit of truth would come into conflict with some lower UID authorities over the matter of potential loyalties and her place of origin. This led to her eventual arrest and court trial after some accused her, though in a peculiar turn of events the expected declaration of her being ‘guilty’ would fall through after coming to the highest court in the UID. This was followed with some discussion behind closed doors, before finally Mechila was released and allowed to return to where she’d set up. She had refused to raise a violent hand the entire time, even as she’d been arrested telling some of the more nervous or potentially violent new followers to stand down, news of the case hitting the public at large would lead to her gaining a new swell of followers.
The faith of the Holy Cog would come to define the culture of most Augmented, aka they emerged from those who joined to the faith, though certain legal issues would seem to be solved in the aftermath of Saint Mechila and her example. An anti-extremist, she preached only taking in the willing to their ranks and promoting goodwill to their non-Augmented neighbors without trying to be coercive. Nay, they were to simply lend strength to their neighbors and to lawfully and gladly support the nation that was their home in sickness or in health.
While some have sought to take heavily-augmented people in some cases to identify among the formal “Augmented” demographic, there are still notable differences between most of those who do not follow the faith and get augmented to more or less of a degree and those who follow the faith. Sometimes a little conflict historically has sparked here and there between the Augmented and non-faithful augmentees or ex-members and even non-machine-augmented, though work toward ensuring a lasting peace has seen things improve overall in this regard quite a bit since the arrival of Sister Mechila 250 years ago. By current times the faith of the Holy Cog and the Augmented demographic are simply another part of life and the citizenry of the UID as a whole.
Known in their own tongue as the Livelloúli, nicknamed the “Livelli”, the translation of this term into galactic common is Aretposina. Females are known to have a feminine-type body layout with a ‘grasping’ prehensile tail, while males instead are known to have slimmer and longer wings and have a ‘pointy’ singular piece at the end of their tail that is said to possess a rather small and vestigial venom sac no longer connected to it with a venom inside known to cause lingering disorientation, nausea, and dizziness in those affected by it. Their societies in primitive times were noted as having a higher occurrence of fierce competition for territory, though as civilization advanced, wars occurred, and trends began to emerge, this particular anecdote would never fully vanish individually even if at the national level it would diminish to a notable extent as the species advanced and developed in its home. Further, it can be said in generally broad strokes that their societies emerged to become about as individualistic as those of some human cultures, to give a baseline comparison, though unity as a species and under things like cultural, ethnic, and national identities would also develop in their pre-contact era to boot.
Living and dwelling on the supposedly and reputedly sunny and warm world of Terser III (as named by the Yrrani; is known as “Noia” in their tongue and their home star as “Arétim”), in reality a stereotypic reputation that came from their homeworld having a larger equatorial region than many that, ultimately, was in the end only part of the ‘continental world’ they called home and where the species came to live (temperate regions, notable polar regions, oceans and island, etc, also exist there with varied climes). On their own, they would globally see their greatest powers progress to roughly a state of advancement defined formerly by the Yrrani of the time as the “Basic Industrial Era” (OOC: Like a WW1-era US + Europe type of technology levels) before eventually being encountered by the Yrrani Empire (this Yrrani definition of advancement would change quite a bit centuries later, among other things).
When first encountered by a growing but young Yrrani Empire, as this came shortly after changing from being called the “Yrrani Kingdom” even, they were seen as a potential species either way to enslave and subjugate or uplift alongside themselves instead in a more xenophilic manner. As such a good many were enslaved during this contentious time period, with females most often used as servants and males as soldiers or laborers as a rough general trend, though a good many others were instead uplifted by the Yrrani. The species would ultimately end up in a cycle of flux between these states in the many coming centuries, though within the Late Period of the Yrrani Empire it would see more of their kind end up enslaved rather than staying free in a general sense. Many would also be imported into Project Reservoir as workers, with the Sickly Emperor later importing many purchased and freed slaves as well as some amount of free Livelli as part of an attempt to ‘preserve the species of the Empire from what was to come’ in his eyes.
This, as it were, turned out to be the best call on said Emperor’s part, ensuring the future UID would both possess the largest extant and growing Livelli population as well as eventually have some reason to claim the species’ actual homeworld into its territory as the new nation grew from the ashes of the former Yrrani Empire. Due to this, a number of the last few extant bits of Livelli cultures left have been preserved at the very least (or in some part if nothing else) in the long-term as well as a consequence. However, the intermingling descendants of those who were exposed to Yrrani culture and otherwise along with the centuries of back and forth treatment by the old Empire do form the seeming majority.
((Also yes, words in their language are just reversed greek-language words for future reference.))
With many having taken flight after the conquests of the Augustan Empire, the members of this ‘warrior race’ would struggle to initially adapt to the UID and were seen as potential threats due to their initial migrating numbers and the fact it seemed to many their majority seemed to be fighting the Augustans. It was a time period where the UID was seeking to avoid some contact, or at least just angering, their closer neighbors. To see those initial migrants as ‘people fleeing a battle they saw as losing’ was certainly to become the stereotype and initial impression many had, at least, though further investigation and decades to come would spell out more of the details of the matter. In reality, most of those who fled had been on the losing side of a civil war among the Vrunak before the Augustans even conquered the Vrunak proper. Most originated from a particular ethnic and racial (both in this case) Vrunak group called the “Nek” (backwards "Ken", or Japanese for "sword" according to good old Google Translate), a growing minority group which had been targeted for elimination after being on the losing side of said civil war, who fled in mass numbers for their lives and took residence in and migrated to UID territory as a desperate measure after some discussion in the shadows with UID authorities behind closed doors. While a small number would leave to carve their own home once the greater body of Vrunak seemed to be conquered and collapsed, though, the greater majority would end up staying after it having been some time since they’d migrated there.
Initially many of the more warlike type had found work in the UID military, or at least had been routed to there in some part as ‘trade’ for their migration to the UID in this case, though despite some levels of Vrunak discrimination seeming to inevitably emerge in the long-term they would make their contribution to UID society in ways by bringing in their love of arts and some more peculiar foods and seasoning choices (among other things). After several centuries, while the discrimination isn’t wholesale gone it has instead been vastly reduced to the point that the vast majority generally see UID Vrunak as ‘just other UID citizens who’ve lived and died here like we do’.
Left to right: Southern, Northern, and Islander Dathu Subgroups
Native to the world of Datheron, the Dathu are an amphibious species with mammalian traits. The Dathu are an antiquated people with a similar culture to the medieval ages of many worlds. Their society ruled by nobles, lords, and kings. The Kingdom of Datheron was one of many short-lived states that emerged from the Great Fall. Within the span of a five decades, the Kingdom, and its holdings would fall and be annexed by the steadily growing Augustan Empire.
The Noble Houses of Datheron would be allowed to retain their power and status, although they would now answer to a new throne and sovereign not of their kind. The Dathu are also separated into several subgroups, the pale Northerners, adaptable Islanders, and the hardy Southerners.
Daxini (various but distinctly non-digital ones), Mu (?), Simmies, etc.
((Aka: Any other species minorities that exist within the UID, basically, will be put here in this hider either in the brief listing above or otherwise.))
Military:
(I will get to this at some point, hopefully, but too tired as of current times to get this extra detail, among many, written out.
AKA: I got too lazy and tired to write these little general standard things or particular details down in everything, so they are going here as a result.
1 ) Explosive weapons used by vehicles are antimatter warheads.
2 ) The ‘standard defensive package’ for manned military craft includes general forms of: Armoring, thermal insulation/protection radiation shielding (for craft used in space at least), electrical protection, protective armoring, anti-psionic protective lining (more aptly called ‘psionic resistance lining’, as it provides resistance instead of immunity and is just meant to at least help protect non-psionic pilots from psionic attacks/intrusions on them on the battlefield), and usually a primary or emergency shield generator of some sort. Likewise the implementation of self-healing materials, or things like built-in nanofactories, are also integrated into most forms of military technology and material when it comes to vehicles and soldier combat armors and such.
3 ) While not formally noted in this package, normally manned craft are fitted to not be ‘overly reliant on wireless capabilities’, akin to older-style craft, with certain vehicle-tracking measures using a proper quantum entanglement instead of older standard types of digital or radio methods. While overall this is a seemingly ‘primitive’ means of operation, myriad developments of comms-jamming and systems-hacking in the past would lead the UID to this eventual conclusion and design choice for self-contained systems to prevent more widespread issues. Even so, they still use the latest advanced comms systems as communications are something that couldn’t be backtracked on without significant issues (thus anti-jammers and things like cybersecurity measures have seen development in this particular realm to try to help protect these for units in-combat and outside of it). Further, aside from the case of psionics-operated vehicles and their own means of encryption and control in tandem with other things, non-psionic vehicles of certain types often utilize quantum entanglements in certain specific niches to connect something like a mech’s weapon to the mech itself in a safer and quantum-encrypted manner.
Does this all make the vehicles of the UID immune to everything and indestructible and perfect? Well, no. It’s just them having sought to adapt to what technological issues that their military has faced in and outside of combat over the past centuries. While one can’t expect everything they have to be just wireless and hackable outright, they did make their vehicles self-contained mostly for good reasons, they aren’t suddenly perfect and unstoppable as a military force just because of these measures they’ve taken in military craft design.
4 ) Most handheld soldier weapons are electromagnetic-type weapons and some particle beam weapons on the average. A few rare cases of some vehicles or surplus old weapons might be the type that uses advanced caseless ballistic ammunition (such as the RMATAG-AUV) instead.
5 ) Soldiers normally get a standard loadout of: A primary weapon, a sidearm, a vibroknife of some sort, and two or three grenade-type explosive weapons. Those taking on other roles, or particular missions, can and will vary in equipment depending on the scenario.
6 ) Psi-Corps soldiers have additional equipment types they can draw upon for missions due to their more unique nature, including psionic-controlled drones for scouting, psionic ‘bits’ for additional combat power (like those on the psionic mechs, but infantry-scaled and under more limitations), psionic-targeting projectiles/weapons, anti-psionic jamming machines (requires a psionic to use it though), etc. Also in that vein, anti-psionic cuffs and devices for psionic prisoners are also a thing that exists in parallel with all of this to boot.
7 ) ((To be added in the future?))
Bipedal Warfare Offensive Mobile Platform (BW-OMP)
This relic of the past is in fact a 16 foot tall MECHS platform from the Late Period of the Imperial Military, being a smaller profile bipedal platform mounted with dual rocket pods. It was most often used for hit-and-run attacks, ambushes, offensive campaigns, or to counteract either very few well-armored or plentiful soft targets alike. Known for its peculiar running speed and only using some light armor and a small shield generator to protect itself, it was a supplement infantry and other ground combat vehicles, with barely enough defenses to protect it from small arms and help it run away from or at least try to survive encountering more heavily-armored threats. It was most often used in rural/rough terrain, or urban scenarios, but found itself rather scarcely used if ever used in wide open areas when it came to combat for good reasons….and even if used in such wide open places only in the company of plenty of protection and only in support of other units like infantry and ground combat vehicles or such.
These things are a dime-a-dozen design even a fringe territory mechanic could become familiar with and repair. Thus it comes as no surprise they have had their general use in even far-flung garrisons during the time of the Yrrani Empire, and saw extensive modding for use with other weapon types by some rebel forces even, in the last few centuries of the Yrrani Empire’s existence and beyond even heading into the centuries of the Great Fall. The UID only has some stocks of these as ‘ancient surplus’, and where at least another type of bipedal combat platform from back then has at least stayed useful enough to keep upgrading and trying to improve upon by the UID….well….these instead haven’t changed at all since before the fall of the Yrrani Empire. Still aren’t totally useless or harmless, rockets and guns modified onto them are deadly weapons, but they are certainly ‘pretty outdated’ to be sure. They are also much cheaper to manufacture and copy than some ‘modern’ weapons of war as well, really, making them versatile platforms for the poorest of wannabe factions and states to boot…..a ‘BWOMP’, as soldiers have long nicknamed it, it is indeed.
A shorter and smaller military MECHS platform that can either be piloted by a remote operator using a quantum entanglement, or alternatively be entirely automated with advanced A.I., to support ground based troops and general infantry. It could be armed with a number of different loadouts for urban or something like jungle warfare as well, though one should not think it to be some outright ‘tank-killer’ mech either. It still is a proper anti-infantry design for the most part, and while some ‘anti-tank’ weapons and defenses can be installed to protect it in such scenarios (shield generators and such) it wasn’t built to last forever against them either. Used to supplement numbers and alongside general infantry, especially in cases of local garrison and conscripts, this versatile weapons platform was standardized and upgraded slowly over several centuries after its initial development and before the Yrrani Empire’s eventual fall. In the Late Period of the empire it was employed by the Imperial Military alongside regular infantry on the ground in general even still to help supplement numbers and equipment in some places, though it became most infamous in being used to help put down riots and in urban scenarios during the Century of Strife and in the two centuries in particular before that.
While the technology has seen a general and basic improvement since then within the territory that came to form the UID proper, and upgraded some since its use in the Yrrani Empire, it is certainly not the most advanced of platforms nor does it look too much different either in terms of comparing the UID’s existing designs to their centuries-old ancestors. It is a generally effective platform even post-collapse rebels and ex-Imperial Military factions still implement, or which have been recycled into autonomous defense units for some former-fringe territories of the now-dead empire that were lucky enough to get their hands on some. While the UID is perhaps among the very few who continued to try to improve the technology of this type of ground combat unit, it is mostly by now on its way out with the more widespread introduction of the MMRMAP platform by current times.
Modern Bipedal Warfare Manned Multi-Role Mechanized Assault Platform (M-BW-MMRMAP)
A ground-based MECHS platform going beyond the remote operation and A.I. piloting of the MRMAP and integrating a proper cockpit. The design of its body is much sleeker, far more mobile, and has a smaller profile in combat scenarios. Its outer casing and parts are covered in layers of advanced next-generation armoring and underlying ceramic alloys and thermal as well as electrical insulation, with even a built-in shield generator and anti-psionic protective lining to boot! While some weapons, such as Anti-Tank missiles and electronic countermeasures, are mounted on or into the body it mostly carries the rest of its loadout by hand. Such hand-carried weapons can be magnetically attached to its exterior in specific locations as well. While it has less room for the somewhat larger loadouts of the MRMAP, which is in the process of being phased out, its defensive protection, maneuverability, and ability to ‘survive’ a couple of direct hits from shots made by modern hovertanks (if nothing else) in a worst-case scenario has more than made up for this in practical application. Due to its size, squads of these are often deployed either on their own or to support infantry, not being beholden to supporting others in a mix as its predecessor also has been stuck to.
An advanced A.I. assists the pilot to boot, as well as can pilot the unit autonomously in case the pilot is caught outside of or is forced to operate or perform actions outside of the unit. A compact field survival kit and such has also been installed into these, alongside a backup pistol, rifle, and some ammunition for the pilot if needed in the field, all alongside a manual emergency release in case of the worst. Further, as a self-contained unit using installed quantum entanglements to connect to and communicate with its handheld weapons (not made to be wirelessly connected to everything under the sun) only the comms might be subject to interference or such in a combat scenario for the most part. It can also use incredible strength to move obstacles and dig through rubble or such to boot.
While it is of note to say that the Imperial Military was working on something like this for some time for ground deployment, the MMRMAP is a UID exclusive design ‘seemingly’ using the latest in post-Imperial technology in its arsenal. ((There is also a notable psionic-piloted variant of this that is in use currently by the UID, the P-MMRMAP, as well. Plus there’s variants meant for support/engineering roles and moving supplies, etc, as the platform at this stage has been further pushed into some form of versatility in the field and off of it. It even exists as the basis for a much less powerful civilian-grade model/type used for construction, as well as a police-grade form, and such.))
All-Terrain Anti-Gravity Main Battle Tank MK5 (ATAG-MBT MK5)
A hardy mainline battle tank for ground-based warfare, capable of moving over the surface of water and other rough terrains just as smoothly as over the open field. In terms of weapons it is fitted with a 20mm tri-barrel minigun, 15-count rocket/missile pod, and a powerful 105mm coilgun-type main gun. It is fitted with powerful thrusters and a tow cable, and both the latest in current day vehicle combat armor and combat-capable shield generator technology. Robust design and material filters for the thrusters ensure that the vehicle can move about with a confident general ease in wet and dry, muddy or dusty, and other such combat environments in a general sense. General point defense and other aforementioned defensive measures grant the unit a fair amount of survivability when facing other main battle tanks and artillery and such on the battlefield. Holds a crew of four, has a general anti-psionic lining inside as other manned vehicles do within the UID in general, and contains a general nanite repair kit and a crew survival kit.
All-Terrain Anti-Gravity Rapid-Approach Plasma Light Tank MK5 (ATAGRA-PLT)
A light tank mounted with a primary plasma railgun, as well as boasting powerful thrusters, a smaller profile, and faster movement speeds than the ATAG-MBT MK5. While its thrusters are just as rugged in design, and its lighter armor is angled and designed for survival on the battlefield, its primary defensive means is a stronger shield generator. Need for a stronger power source has, however, cut down the vehicle’s firepower to just its main gun with regards to issues of the design’s power consumption. Built-in point defense remains effective and can be used as a secondary weapon to combat soft targets at a range in lieu of lacking other secondary armaments otherwise. Holds a crew of three, and likewise contains a general nanite repair kit and crew survival kit.
While the ATAG-MBT MK5 is designed for primary ground based combat, especially out in the open, the ATAGRA-PLT is designed for either deployment alongside the former or for hit-and-run attacks against enemy targets in even urban combat scenarios as it possesses general flight capabilities unlike the former. It can move about in tighter spaces, was made to be resistant to infantry-carried anti-vehicle weapons, and its speed allows rapid attack capabilities surpassing its larger ‘cousin’ of sorts. However, its primary weapon shouldn't be underestimated due to its lack of any other major weapons aside from the built-in secondary uses for its point defense module. This plasma railgun hits rather hard, able to severely damage and frankly take down more heavily armored vehicles even double its size as well as deal serious damage to some kinds of enemy fortifications, which combined with the vehicle’s maneuverability makes this primary weapon a rather potent surprise package for those it's pointed at.
An all-terrain form of military utility vehicle that was used in ground operations as far back as the Late Period of the Yrrani Empire (before its fall), these are among the more common Pre-War Vehicles to still find in use today due to how utterly common they used to be. Able to carry supplies on the exposed side racks as well as on top, or instead seat up to six soldiers in the exposed side racks and supplies on top, it was a feature of Imperial Military Ground Operations for over two hundred years for a reason. With only a commanding officer and up to two pilots able to be housed inside of the protected cockpit, it could only effectively carry a singular squad of fully-armed and ready soldiers into battle or would find use as a small but generally effective cargo-moving vehicle in and outside of combat scenarios. Also being mounted with laser weapons that didn’t require ‘restocking ammunition’ for it, this vehicle traded the use of energy shielding in turn for being fitted with heavier armor with mixed-weapons defensive protection. To some soldiers, the saying ‘it takes a licking and keeps on ticking’ is certainly a phrase that applies to this vehicle in practice, though just as often if it needed repairs it can more easily accommodate that as well due to how ‘standardized’ it was in its heyday. Also notable was this craft’s ability to move over even bodies of water and such things with some amount of effective speed.
The standardization and long service of this vehicle can be attributed to several factors, however, with the most notable being the shift inside the Yrrani Empire from a ‘conquering expansion-focused military’ in many regions to become more of a ‘defensive policing force’ meant to keep order and put down potential rebellions in most places it controlled. Hence designs such as the ATAG-HAUV and other such vehicles and weapons emerged in the myriad centuries after the Empire hit the furthest extent of its outward expansion. This didn’t mean high-grade military weapons and platforms didn’t remain in use, or that technology didn’t advance in the Imperial Military or somehow got worse, but that simply the Imperial Military had to also adjust to a reasonable extent with the shifting of the times as with any nation in the history of the galaxy. Even so, the widespread rumors that ‘the Late Imperial Military was more cheaply and pitifully armed than before’ tend to discount the realities of the situation the Empire and Imperial Military were in and the consequences of those realities therein.
Even after the Century of Strife, one can find these ex-Imperial vehicles in use all over the place, either partially intact or altered or scavenged together by former rebels, individual planets that once had garrisons on them, and so forth since the fall of the Yrrani Empire. Sure they are outdated in a number of ways, that is for sure, but they remain generally effective at the very least and have thus remained in use. Even the UID still naturally has some small amount of these in storage or lying about at that, though plans to do as others have done to modify or ‘retrofit’ these plentiful outdated models in case of wartime need have been discussed behind closed doors. One cannot also ignore the presence of the just as common ‘shoddy technicals’ wrought from the platform this vehicle provides, though these are most often seen in far-fringe, very poor, the rarer pirate-held, or even rather rural worlds depending on the place and part of the galaxy and former imperium of the Yrrani Empire one is in or comes from.
A rapidly moving armored troop transport meant to move about in urban and wilderness areas and such alike to bring supplies, crew-manned weapons, and a range of 6-16 troops onto the battlefield and off of it again. It deploys a combination of lighter armor and energy shielding to increase its carrying capacity and speed notably compared to models of APC/AUV seen in the Late Period of the Yrrani Empire. It utilizes a mounted and manned (can be optionally remote-operated) Heavy Dual-Mounted Ballistic Machine Gun (HDM-BMG) as a weapon, one capable of providing suppressive fire to troops exiting the vehicle as well as firing on enemy infantry and light-armored targets with a ‘primitive’ but still rather effective level of firepower. Harpoon-like anchors on the sides of the vehicle (3 on each side; 6 total) can hold the vehicle in place to stabilize it rather well if horrible enough if high winds or such environmental hazards necessitate their use as well, though on several occasions ‘creative use’ of these has been recorded in the field….with mixed results in such cases in particular.
The original designs for this line of UID-brand vehicles originated within the territory that would become the United Idkaran Dominion, being among its first ‘in-house-developed’ designs, with the first of its kind emerging into service roughly 255 years after the start of the “Century of Strife”. It differs from Late Period designs seen in the Imperial Military of the Yrrani Empire by the time of its collapse in several ways, both trading heavier armor and laser-based weaponry for improved size, speed, and improved capacity for troops. While ballistic ammunition was considered ‘more primitive’ even within the Late Empire, for the future UID this design was both far more feasibly economical to produce and likewise still proved rather effective in general combat scenarios both offensive and defensive alike. Fast-forward a few hundred years more to current times, and this basic premise of design for a general ground-based APC-capable utility vehicle would improve in both technological specs while not much changing in its layout and design barring some occasional experiments in design philosophy along the way.
Multi-Role Anti-Gravity High-Speed Mobile Weapons Platform (MRAGHS-MWP)
A mobile ground-based combat platform, capable of being mounted with a small range of weapons and other equipment or tools for assistance in planetary combat or military actions on-planet. Rocket pods, anti-aircraft weaponry, artillery guns, mortars, cranes, storage space, and so forth are among the versatile pieces that can be equipped to the vehicle, though it is primarily a combat-oriented vehicle most of the time. In that role it usually focuses on high speed movement to deliver payloads before moving onward to the next target or to avoid enemy retaliation. While it can be equipped and often is equipped with point defense and similar measures, including its hardy but light armor and stronger shield generator combination that helps make it so mobile in the first place, these are not always implemented due to the mobile nature of the platform in its usual modes of implementation.
Still of note that other more specialized designs for support vehicles are used within the UID, though for flexibility this platform can be used in a pinch or drawn-out planetary campaigns when other such equipment cannot be brought in or make it to the front lines. Etc.
A well-protected craft for transitioning between planetary environments and outer space, with powerful thrusters, VTOL capabilities, tough exterior armor, and a general array of defensive measures including (but not limited to) point defense, thermal insulation, radiation shielding (a standard in spacebound craft of the UID), emergency shield generator and an anti-psionic lining on the inside (etc).
Elite Ground Personnel Transport Vehicle (EGPTV)
A vehicle employed on-planet by Military Police and local Reserve Centers for military reserves, while a lesser-armed and armored version is employed by elite police forces on the local level. Can carry 12-18 personnel onboard. Wheels are self-sealing and made to be able to cross even rough terrain. Military-grade versions possess a limited version of a ‘gravitational core’ normally founds on larger MECHS platforms, which combined with the design of the wheels allows these vehicles to cross even vertical and other ‘impossible’ forms of terrain.
A versatile fighter craft mounted with particle beam cannons and a small, angular profile, its defense mostly comes from what armoring it has and a basic military grade shield generator. It is a craft meant to use its weapons to clear up smaller enemy craft, like ‘mechs’ and other fighter craft, as well as use its particle beam weapons to wear down enemy shields or put damage into enemy armor. Usually deployed in large numbers, or in smaller groups during ambushes, they usually are used in tandem with ‘mechs’ on their own side on the average (but not always).
Anti-Gravity Multi-Role Light Ship (AGMR-LS)
A lightly armored, lightly armed, and small crewed vessel with modular capabilities, allowing it to be outfitted to fill various roles on a smaller scale than a frigate. Useful in more confined and crowded combat space, though designed for a wide variety of situations with their potential loadouts, they are used to take down smaller enemy craft, remove mine threats, perform anti-piracy missions, assist in humanitarian and rescue operations, etc. While the likes of the Destroyer were crafted with the idea of combat as their primary scenario despite having multi-role capabilities, though, this type of vessel was made to both help screen the likes of Destroyers and larger craft as well as have a wide variety of applications individually beyond simply just combat.
Anti-Gravity Multi-Role Destroyer, aka “The Flash Drive Destroyer” (AGMR-D)
A modular destroyer with a range of capabilities, from anti-mine and stealth operations to being outfitted for general combat scenarios with options ranging from particle beam weapons, to missiles, to even electromagnetic cannonry in a general sense. However its sophisticated defensive suite, including the standard sorts of protective linings and armoring and a shield generator, aside, the ship’s cybersecurity is infamous for ‘frying’ devices deemed to be dangerous. Hence the unfortunate incident where more than a few soldiers were using a flash drive or such external device and had it immediately fried by the ship’s defense systems, along with damage to the hands or bodies of a few of these. While the issue was ultimately rectified with improvements made to the defense systems, the nicknames of “The Flash Drive Destroyer” or “USSB” that had been given to it had already become common lingo for this type of vessel.
Anti-Gravity Space Combat Battle Carrier MK5 (AGSC-BC MK5)
A combination of carrier and battleship, it both transports and carries a great many smaller craft (‘Mechs’ and Fighter Craft) and likewise boasts a range of high-grade shield generators as well as in-depth point defenses and armoring. These ‘moving fortresses’ were nicknamed such for good reasons indeed, and with their high defenses and variety of high-grade firepower (missiles, electromagnetic cannons, particle beams/lasers, etc) they are hard to take down and could remain out in the field for quite a long time due to the facilities built into them. Also known as the ‘flying cities’ of the UID, they are a mainstay in major space engagements and planetary assaults. Yet while capable of entering and exiting a planet’s atmosphere for special repairs or certain planetary landings alike, they most often remain in space proper and deploy vessels from there while defensively supporting the fleet in those circumstances on-average. One or two might support certain smaller-grade battles, depending on the mission, as well.
Anti-Gravity Space Combat and Orbital Bombardment Cruiser (AGSC-OB-C)
A curious case of older designs for a ‘dreadnaught’ of the Early Imperial Period that were eventually adapted into a modern design for a cruiser. Its armoring is superior to the Battle Carrier outright, but is second only to the Battle Carrier in shielding and point defense (of which it has quite a lot). This long-range and orbital-bombardment-capable, its weapons range from large missile weapons to particle beams to even rail weapons in particular that are capable of firing rounds large enough and strong enough to bombard a planet through its atmosphere in general. These vessels are known best for their superior long-range firepower and ability to provide more precision aiming as well as a ‘sheer volume of saturating fire’ to suppress or carve into enemy forces. A mainstay in major or large enough engagements and orbital bombardment, usually food smaller battles either they will not be present or be present in a small handful as heavy firepower and support for the main spacecraft involved in such a battle/engagement.
General-Purpose Military Cargo Vessel (GP-MCG)
A general purpose vessel used to carry cargo, both onto and off of planets as well as between locations in space. A larger sister to the G-PERCC, it is more often used for larger loads of cargo and troops and such while the G-PERCC is most often used for smaller loads. It is larger and more heavily armored and protected than its smaller relative as well, between its armoring, general defensive linings, and larger emergency shield generator.
((Summary: 19 meters tall. General spaceborne mech platform, which uses equipment carried into combat and a standardized design. Uses dense armor and a shield generator, as well as some anti-psionic lining, radiation shielding, electrical insulation, thermal shielding, and the like. Possesses a powerful set of thrusters for movement. Uses one of the MECHS forms of controlling the unit. Used for planetary landings on G-PERCC or other form of military planetary transition type craft. Carries handheld weapons, some of which can be magnetically attached to its legs or arms to be carried into battle as well, and can utilize a built-in concealed plasma sword for melee or cutting apart obstacles (sword is like a giant super plasma blade, which is contained and controlled by a magnetic field produced by the hilt). Plasma sword can be used in-atmosphere, but underwater or in a liquid medium that dissipates heat more or less effectively its effectiveness is lower and reduced. Possesses a ‘gravitational core’, or a device meant to manipulate and control the platform’s personal gravitational field and thus not only allowing it to move about freely in space (as well as counteract recoil to some extent) but also even move about just as freely and smoothly on a planet if so desired by the pilot.
Is gradually being phased out for the MK3.7, though both these and a shorter variant are seeing continued use in non-combat or engineering support roles and around space stations as well within the military. Further, even shorter and downgraded civilian-derivative models have been developed for use and been implemented with general success by this point in time as well. Some surpluses of the units have already begun to form as the MK3.7 has become more widespread and better understood/introduced.))
((Summary: 16 meters tall. General spaceborne mech combat platform, which uses equipment carried into combat and a standardized design. Uses dense armor and an improved shield generator, as well as improved anti-psionic lining, radiation shielding, electrical insulation, more advanced thermal shielding, and the like. Possesses a more nuanced and powerful set of thrusters for movement. Uses one of the MECHS forms of controlling the unit. Used for planetary landings on G-PERCC or other form of military planetary transition type craft. Carries handheld weapons, some of which can be magnetically attached to its legs or arms to be carried into battle as well, and can utilize a built-in concealed plasma sword for melee or cutting apart obstacles (sword is like a giant super plasma blade, which is contained and controlled by a magnetic field produced by the hilt). Plasma sword can be used in-atmosphere, but underwater or in a liquid medium that dissipates heat more or less effectively its effectiveness is lower and reduced. Possesses a ‘gravitational core’, or a device meant to manipulate and control the platform’s personal gravitational field and thus not only allowing it to move about freely in space (as well as counteract recoil to some extent) but also even move about just as freely and smoothly on a planet if so desired by the pilot. Can re-enter and exit the planet’s atmosphere safely on its own, compared to its previous/older version.
Has roughly replaced about 61% of existing MK3 platforms by the current point in time.))
((Summary: 19 meters tall. General spaceborne mech platform, which uses equipment carried into combat and a standardized design. Uses armor and a shield generator, as well as radiation shielding, electrical insulation, and the like. Possesses a powerful set of thrusters for movement. Uses one of the psionic-inclined MECHS forms of controlling the unit. Carries handheld weapons, some of which can be magnetically attached to its legs or arms to be carried into battle as well, and can utilize a built-in concealed plasma sword for melee or cutting apart obstacles (sword is like a giant super plasma blade, which is contained and controlled by a magnetic field produced by the hilt). Plasma sword can be used in-atmosphere, but underwater or in a liquid medium that dissipates heat more or less effectively its effectiveness is lower and reduced. Possesses a ‘gravitational core’, or a device meant to manipulate and control the platform’s personal gravitational field and thus not only allowing it to move about freely in space (as well as counteract recoil to some extent) but also even move about just as freely and smoothly on a planet if so desired by the pilot.
Uniquely made with tech and materials that amplifies pilot psionic capabilities and their range while in use. Is in the later stages of being phased out in favor of the MK3.5 Type-F, which is the latest design for a psionic mech from a special project to be developed and understood to the point of making a standardized format for the new platform. Doesn’t use anti-psionic lining due to the psionic pilot and their amplified strength in the unit being stronger than that (which otherwise as a rule is installed into all manned vehicles of the UID). Possesses psionic sensors on top of other mundane forms of detection. Among its usable weapon types, as with its successor, include psionically-guided missiles and psionically-guided antimatter-warhead ‘bullets’ among other things. In the case of the MK3, though, among its optional weapons was a unique one that took the form of a special ‘hub’ container attached to it. Said container contained psionically-controlled railgun-mounted drones that could be deployed to attack and return to their ‘mother unit’ to recharge….though these had to be simpler due to being a ‘weapon that can be attached and taken off off the unit’ and likewise due to this requirement had some issues and added vulnerabilities. As a concept, however, this optional weapon of the MK3 has been far improved in its successor as a built-in feature of sorts now.))
((Summary: 17 meters tall. General spaceborne mech platform, which uses equipment carried into combat and a standardized design. Uses armor and a shield generator, as well as radiation shielding, electrical insulation, and the like. Possesses a more nuanced and powerful set of thrusters for movement. Uses one of the psionic-inclined MECHS forms of controlling the unit. Carries handheld weapons, some of which can be magnetically attached to its legs or arms to be carried into battle as well, and can utilize a built-in concealed plasma sword for melee or cutting apart obstacles (sword is like a giant super plasma blade, which is contained and controlled by a magnetic field produced by the hilt). Plasma sword can be used in-atmosphere, but underwater or in a liquid medium that dissipates heat more or less effectively its effectiveness is lower and reduced. Possesses a ‘gravitational core’, or a device meant to manipulate and control the platform’s personal gravitational field and thus not only allowing it to move about freely in space (as well as counteract recoil to some extent) but also even move about just as freely and smoothly on a planet if so desired by the pilot. Can re-enter and exit the planet’s atmosphere safely on its own, compared to its previous/older version.
Uniquely made with tech and materials that amplifies pilot psionic capabilities and their range while in use. It also has a built-in weapon called the “Shard”, of which it carries six, which are psionically-controlled drone-type units with a powerful built-in particle beam weapon and thrusters attached. These small profile and highly maneuverable pieces of tech are uniquely tied to the mech and attuned to the pilot and each have their own built-in power source and gravitational core to boot. The unit, however, also can now have a weapon additionally attached to the center of its back….in the example pic’s case being a tri-rail railgun attached to the center of its back. Improved nuanced controls, power efficiency, psionic sensors, and speed/maneuverability are among its other improvements over the basic Mk3. Doesn’t use anti-psionic lining due to the psionic pilot and their amplified strength in the unit being stronger than that standard defensive-type material (which otherwise as a rule is installed into all manned vehicles of the UID).
Has replaced roughly 77% of existing MK3’s by the current point in time.))
((Note: Color scheme of units is/should be black by design, other colorations of the example pics will be designated as just being some form of ‘training unit type colors’ made to ensure visibility when practicing and such.))
((Note to Self: Describe what Project Annani is here in more detail. Was made to develop next-generation mecha with advanced technologies, working to create both effective weapons and new MECHS combat platforms in the long-term. Currently there’s a set of twelve next-generation mecha that have been tweaked, piloted, and tested rigorously in and outside of combat scenarios, etc.))
Basic UID Soldier/Infantry
Soldiers wear the standard ‘protective muscle suit’ over the uniform, which comes with an airtight integrated combat gas/anti-chemical rebreather, before donning lighter and tough-made exoskeletal-type combat armor over the top of this. Soldier uniforms also usually have a similar type of ‘package protection’ as the ‘standard defensive package’ integrated into manned vehicles (mostly). Meanwhile some aspects of the ‘standard defensive package’, such as armoring/kinetic protection, are either added redundancies in or are instead incorporated into an underlying self-repairing ‘combat muscle suit’ and the combat armor proper.
Exoskeleton UID Soldier/Infantry
Soldiers that utilize a heavier-duty integrated combat exoskeleton, one which is both useful in moving battlefield obstacles and such in the middle of combat as well as being suited to protecting soldiers against even more dangerous environmental scenarios. Forms of the suit for the Engineering Corps are also in existence for use in moving materials and performing similarly hard labor under potentially dangerous or rough conditions. The exosuit is, as with other technologies integrated into standard soldier combat equipment and armor(s), mostly self-contained aside from the usage of comms and in some cases interconnected quantum-encrypted channels between teammates created using several quantum entanglements.
Basic and Exoskeleton UID Ranger Corps (Respectively)
Basic UID Marine
Exoskeleton UID Marine
Basic UID Psi-Corps Soldier
Exoskeleton UID Psi-Corps Soldier
(Room left for potential later additions)
History:
For the UID, everything began with the rule of one inspired and genius ruler of the old Yrrani Empire: The “Tyrant Emperor” or “Genius Emperor” also known as “Emperor Yrran”. The third in the final dynasty of the Yrrani Empire, it was during Yrran’s hotly-debated reign that something known covertly as “Project Reservoir” began in secret underneath his rule. A long-term project known only to the few trusted hands around him at most, including the head of the Imperial Guardians and each future Emperor after they took the throne as a general rule of thumb, it was a project focused on ‘preserving the imperial family and Yrrani species’ in a future time period Yrran saw as, as noted in his own journal:
“[Ever] inevitably leading to the Empire’s eventual fall as things get bad again, and even worse so I believe, to the point that it cannot hope to be sustainable anymore. What I’ve wrought to curb this future and buy time for those yet to come has polarized many, and caused the loss of a great many lives, and yet in the end even it couldn’t go far enough in my mind. Yet, ultimately, it also goes to show that even the means by which I managed much of my desired reforms had to go through the means and hands of the very corruption within the Empire I wish I could do away with. Poetic, perhaps? Ah, such are my thoughts on the matter at least.
Project Reservoir, to return to the main point of this entry, is a move to ensure that something of my species survives beyond this future I have foreseen.….even though it will never again be the Empire itself. Nor do I belive what comes from this work of mine should be, for that matter, seeking back toward all of this and what it will be….even for the imperium and mistakes of their forebears. So it is my hope to progress this project and its effort along and structure things that, in the case some of my own descendants fall prey to the status quo of a drying system, those who come after myself may not tarnish it. This project is to forge a capsule taken out of time, out of the chaos of this crumbling Empire, to both preserve life and foster it toward a more enlightened future and path. Either way, it is a work of vanity by most definitions that shall be in the hands of the trusted few to perhaps ensure its viability and security.”
Some would say that Emperor Yrran had the gift of foresight by the time his reign ended, though the Imperial Palace never let out any official press or word about the matter. Others simply said he was a very observant and calculating individual, a shrewd mind that was undeniably a once-in-several-generations genius who had also gained quite the political acumen of his own by the time of his passing. Yet even the fourth longest-reigning emperor in the Yrrani Empire’s history, one way or another, would certainly leave a sort of legacy for the generations to come in a sense. His oldest son, eventually to be nicknamed the “Austere Emperor”, would then take the throne as his father had helped arrange for him.
Alongside his surviving but rather old mother, who still had enough of her wits and such about her, the Austere Emperor would take his father’s teachings to heart….though living in the shadow of his reputation and trying to live up to his father’s legacy in part helped make him an incredibly strict person at his core. Even so, when it came to the Empire and Project Reservoir he invested much into each and laid down further foundations for importing ‘the brightest minds’ and a great deal of technologies into systems designated for the project and its newly-designated capital of “Tar Yrri” as it was so named in his day. Certainly it was a great feat, and his did manage a few small reforms elsewhere within the Empire, but in the end he would find himself making a few too many enemies of his father’s old corrupt-side allies and pushing his own heir too hard in turn while also managing to alienate and ignore him somewhat at the same time. Such was the case of his heir’s upbringing, then, that said heir fell more and more towards the willing attention of the empire’s factions.
So it would be that the grandson of Yrran would, eventually, ascend to the throne as the “Party Emperor” or “Ignorant Emperor” in his own time. He became famous for turning a few ‘core worlds’ near the capital into ‘literal personal resorts and playthings of the nobility’ as he mostly often left rule and management of a number of affairs to the head of the Imperial Guardians or other corrupt politicians and factions below him. It was during his much more ‘hands off’ reign that he favored the corrupt parts of the Empire even more so rather than what his grandfather and father had done previously, allowing them to regrow back into old niches while the head of the Imperial Guardians (a leftover leader from his grandfather’s reign even) neglected to pass the secret of Project Reservoir on to him as a personal call and diverted resources into it. Then, once the Party Emperor passed the affairs onto his own just about as chaotic heir, who sought to pretend he was a soldier, the truth of the project would skip another generation of the throne by choice as the next head of the Imperial Guardians was put in place by his own predecessor due to the lackadaisical nature of running things at the time.
This was, at least, before the Party Emperor’s youngest granddaughter proved a more sober ruler than her two ancestors after a hard childhood and the either disinterest or deaths of the other in-line-for-the-throne relatives she had around her. Her rise to the throne was a mostly non-surprise to those who knew the goings-on behind the throne, and while it did involve some engineering and corruption it also came mostly as a response to the decline of some imperial matters underneath her own father that had alarmed more than a few of the Empire’s factions. An emperor that was easy to handle, as the Party Emperor had been, was acceptable. An emperor going off-the-rails and pissing off most factions in the opposite way as his own grandfather had? That was unacceptable enough. Yet most important was the sitting Empress being brought in on Project Reservoir and seeking to pick up the slack her predecessors had left with regards to it and ‘restoring some sense of sobriety’ to the Imperial Palace and throne in the eyes of a great many to boot. Yet, in the end, she would also leave her mark for the future in other ways.
Unlike most Emperors and Empresses, she simply had one husband and two children….a very abnormal phenomenon to be sure compared to the many children of those who had come before her. Both children ending up being sons, then, and with what power she had and would manage to get a grip back upon during her reign she would choose her sickly younger son to succeed her over the expectations of her more popular older son. Such came after a fair amount of a ‘family rift’ grew between her and her older son, and her hope was that her wiser younger son would at least be able to further Project Reservoir compared to his older brother who had flocked to winning attention and support within the political factions. She saw her oldest son as a risk to the project and plan, though while exiling and disowning her older son from the Empire’s borders she could tell it wasn’t going to be a very successful measure in the long run after she would eventually pass on herself. The factions were still vying, her younger son’s health was already sickly as it was, and in this vein she sought to embolden the Imperial Guardians and purge their ranks as she waxed on in years.
This sickly younger son would, then, become the last successfully sitting Emperor and be nicknamed the “Sickly Emperor” for his troubles. Sickly because he was often sick and weak of body, even if his mind was noted as being bright, and while able to hold some level of power with the help of the head of the Imperial Guardians would find himself even more politically isolated than before as the factions sought to exploit his weakness. His first wife would even sell out to the factions for their loyalty in the end, with his three oldest kids born to her being taken by three of the biggest factions at her behest to be ‘cared for and raised with the highest standards’ and secure political loyalties to her on their part. Yet unplanned by her was her sudden death due to complications during giving birth to her third child, leading to the Sickly Emperor getting a second wife and bearing two more children by her who were kept to be raised at the Imperial Palace proper this time. These remaining two children would be raised with much oversight by the Emperor himself, as well as be watched over by the bulk of the remaining loyal central and upper parts of Imperial Guardians (as parts of it had become increasingly corrupt at lower levels thus far). However, the matter of succession still was expected to fall to his oldest son, a boy who was distant from his father and had been both raised in opposition to him and instilled with the idea that the throne should have been given to him already and frankly earlier than normal due to his father’s sickly nature and ‘ill fit for a ruler’.
Meanwhile, the Sickly Emperor would take the older of the two children he had with his second wife to manipulate and raise her with the intent to forge her covertly into a ‘proper heir’....though an ‘heir to what’ at this rate he was beginning to wonder for himself. His oldest wouldn’t readily give up the throne for sure, and the amount of control and authority he had over matters had already been declining across the span of his reign behind closed doors as it was with him merely clinging tightly onto what he had left. Yet even then, with what authority and such he had left, he put all he had left into Project Reservoir that he could and sought to expand it as he, in his eyes: “Saw the end Yrran did, even as it was coming hastily toward us like a charging Vulderbeast.” Yet even with this in mind, it was natural that the “Sickly Emperor” also couldn’t prevent the return of his older brother during his reign as well, both invited back by some of the larger factions with ‘amnesty’ given him for ‘the actions of a mad and irrational mother and their injustices’. It was he who still seemed to have many ears bent toward him even since his exile, and the brewing of a storm between him and the Sickly Emperor’s oldest seemed to be brewing beneath the surface of Tar Yrra’s politics at that.
In the end, the Sickly Emperor would make a fateful decision upon realizing that he was going to die sooner than later from his personal physicians. He would send off the two of his children, his beloved second wife (who these two had been born to), and most of the remaining loyal parts of the Imperial Guardians and their central command (alongside some other loyal officials and such more covertly so) off on ‘a much needed vacation’ according to most sources as information was kept tight about their whereabouts for the most part. Not something strange, for the Emperors and Empresses or parts of their families to go on a tour somewhere or vacation, though it turned out to be a timely departure as four days later the Sickly Emperor’s oldest son approached him one evening with a pillow in his hands after coming to ‘talk to him one last time’ and ‘hoping to reconcile’. Naturally, the morning the fifth day after the others had left, the Emperor was found ‘tragically killed’ in his bed,with his oldest son coming out to publicly proclaim the suspects were his two half-siblings and father’s second wife who ‘had taken much and run off to hide from their ill deeds’ in his and his conspirators’ words. While he and his son hadn’t ever truly been close, though, the Ascendant Emperor would still claim to have ‘reconciled with my ill-minded father before this’ and frankly put on the usual lavish state funeral for his father and such as he moved to curry more support for his ascension to the throne. He would continue to grease palms, see plans to kill off those he had accused and the notable chunk of the Imperial Treasury that had disappeared mysteriously with them, and with the death several years ago of his formelry-exiled uncle from an accident he felt more secure than ever about being able to ‘dispose of’ his remaining female cousin (his uncle’s only child) who he saw as a lesser threat. All he needed to do, then, was worry about preparing for his ascension after the proper mourning period and publicity stunts to get more people on his side. That and grease the right palms and so forth….yes, his rise was a certainty. With a large portion of the remaining Imperial Guardians, mostly lower ranks, seemingly in his pocket he also felt that a potential assassination would be hard to pull off at best.
It was also during this time the Ascendant Emperor and his co-conspirators, as he prepared for taking the throne, would manage to uncover the existence of Project Reservoir in a sense as they sought information left behind of where the rest of the late imperial family had fled to in earnest. Simply coming across a message that couldn’t be deleted in time before the others had left, it referred to a ‘set of security systems’ they might have fled to. Mentions of a ‘safe haven’ and ‘project’ were also dug up in connection with this. While more work to follow their trail remained, however, the Ascendant Emperor sought to be enthroned before he dug any deeper or could ‘publicly’ make more of a move against his other family members. This was because he indeed was counting on his coronation to take power formally, and thus give him much more room to pursue them than he had in his current state. Yet overall it seemed, for the most part, as if nothing could go wrong much at this point. He had effective control of the palace, most of the remaining Imperial Guardians and many Senators and even some of the military in-pocket directly-speaking, and the like!
Yet it would be the Ascendant Emperor’s cousin, the one who could become the so-called “Usurper Empress”, who would come to prove that the Ascendant Emperor had far less of the empire secured for himself than he thought. His former cast-out uncle had been working hard since his exile, and especially during his return, to prepare a means to seize the throne for himself and his line. This, at least, had built up enough steam before the uncle’s own death had shifted the plan to putting his daughter on the throne as she came to lead it all out of the blue. Such it would be that, on the day of the Ascendant Emperor’s supposed coronation, before he could walk into the palace to be crowned his own cousin’s agents cut him down in broad daylight and her soldiers moved to take over the palace in a hurry while unofficially but publicly declaring her the ‘rightful Empress’ and seeking to assert such on her part. Cue, then, the chaos that ensued as the ‘illegitimate self-proclaimed usurper’ was enough of a reason for the other two oldest siblings of the late Sickly Emperor and their factions to make a move for the throne as a perfect reason for doing so simply sat in their laps from the looks of it. Likewise the Ascendant Emperor’s conspirators would resist or defect in the process, and then the chaos on Tar Yrra spread further as multiple moves and schemes erupted across the major political factions in a cascade effect. Indeed, the roiling depths of corruption within the Empire would finally catch alight into an open and cataclysmic civil war that would come to be known as the “Century of Strife”.
During this time, the knowledge the Ascendant Emperor and his people had been digging into would come to be acquired by the “Usurper Empress” and her own conspirators. Yet as the ongoing civil war as major factions and other players within the Empire turned on each other became a far more pressing issue than first imagined by any of the sides, it would crash into the near-extinction of the Yrrani species and saw the bloody death of the Empire itself in the end. Not a cry or a whimper, but an apocalyptic fall from grace that saw the Yrrani made extinct in many places as secessionists and empire-reclaiming hopefuls and beyond also rose up during this century. Yet even as the Usurper Empress seemed to eventually ‘disappear’,, and the homeworld went silent as its millenia-long-built-up Planetary Defense System was somehow turned on to boot, the information the Usurper Empress had inherited and gained somehow ‘leaked’ off of Tar Yrra and to elsewhere by unknown means and individuals. It would end up going from file to file and word of mouth to word of mouth, and a grand ‘telephone game’ would commence from there with regards to the information in the long run.
Truth about a cluster of systems a portion of the late Imperial Family of the last sitting Emperor might’ve gone to hide out to, then, would be frankly lost to the chaos of the times. It would instead turn into a misunderstanding of ‘safe haven’ in the long-run being ‘a cache or bunker for the Imperial Family that was hidden about somewhere’. This information turned into a ‘state secret’ in some places, who thought they knew the truth, while others saw the tale turned more widely into motivation for dozens and dozens of prospective scavengers and treasure hunters and wealth-rich seekers spreading out to find this ‘great prize’ hidden within the corpse of the collapsed Empire (and assumed to be in the old core of the empire somewhere). Yet none in the end would know the full truth….at least excluding those who had survived in the ‘safe haven’ wrought by Project Reservoir.
Indeed, the cluster of systems used for the project would come to be the more widely-applicable ‘safe haven’ its final contributor had sought to change it into. While this work in those final years was a move considered ‘last second’ in the overall scheme of things, it was successful enough to preserve the Yrrani species in some capacity at the very least as they disappeared from most of the wider galaxy at large. Further, the Yrrani were but only one among the several species that seemed to have been integrated into the project’s systems and worlds as humans and others had been brought in as a sort of ‘time capsule’ to, in the words of the Sickly Emperor: “Preserve the heritage of many, even as things cascade[d] down and eagerly toward an inevitable end around us. All so that a newer, brighter future may be sought in the eras to come.”
Indeed, the cluster of systems of Project Reservoir would work to ‘begin again’ by the time of the Great Fall as the daughter of the last sitting Emperor took up the mantle of rulership in the wake of the great century of death erupting into being within the wider galaxy beyond them. From the surface of the future capital of a kingdom, and the capital having also been renamed “Tar Idkar” by this point, these former remnants of the old Empire would begin down a path different from those who would rise up aspiring for or stuck looking back upon the glory days and history alike of the now-dead Empire. From them and their efforts, and the coming generations of new intermingling species fostered within the initial safe haven, a new constitutional monarchy rose gradually from the ashes of the old Empire. Yet the advanced technology of the new capital that had been built up for generations, and bright minds alike that had been brought there for just as long, would also work to transform the new post-Empire state in terms of prosperity and might alike. Thus the new “United Idkaran Dominion” would come into being over the long-term of those following centuries beyond the fall of the Empire.
Even so, this new safe haven emerging from its cocoon did also seek to avoid detection or being seen as a greater threat if possible. This came alongside distancing itself from the old Empire in title as well as name to boot. Such was part of the overall defensive policy of things in general for the UID, even as it would eventually begin to expand bit by bit in terms of territory eventually during the Great Fall. In the wake of this also came much in the way of seeking to repair the fires of the “Century of Strife” in places where peoples still clung on to life as it expanded, though monuments and memorials and such would also arise as former great battlefields and worlds devoid of sapient life were also come across. History was not something to become lost in, but was to be a teacher for those who were yet to come, though varying opinions would still arise about the old Empire in general within the UID regardless. Overall, however, the UID would seek a sort of neutral stance and observational approach to things when it came to neighbors despite the occasional conflict with others or seeking to purge pirates, among other things.
What the UID didn’t expect to happen, however, was the eventual rediscovery of Tar Yrra….intact of all things. The old capital. The jewel of the crown of the old Empire. A place that, in the end, many factions sought to fight over and failed to secure four times over. A place that, if captured, could lead to a new Empire rising or potentially the destruction of everything that had arisen since the end of the old Empire. That….that could be a problem, but one that couldn’t be simply solved with the ‘most direct route’ outright either perhaps. Further, to take that world, on anyone’s part, would also surely be seen inevitably by the rest of the galaxy as a huge grab for power for sure even if made with supposedly the ‘best intentions’.
Such was the severity of the matter and its risks that, even if barely at first, the UID government in the end barely chose to take a continued neutral status in the ensuing Reclamation Wars. Instead, then, it cast aside direct participation in favor of espionage, the analysis of battle wreckage and fights, and seeking to watch the actions of those involved rather than diving into the carnage themselves outright. Not all were happy with this within the UID, though many others were simply glad to avoid more wars, but regardless of public and politician opinions the UID would in the end become involved in some capacity at the end of the latest Reclamation War in a manner of speaking. It would volunteer to host peace talks and the armistice at the end of the latest Reclamation War. This came after calls for ending the latest conflict, which themselves were made by the multinational organization that had arisen within the wake of the fallen Empire: The (insert Space UN title here).
From here, and managing to keep to a policy of general neutrality through it all in the end, after the Fourth Reclamation War the UID would take part in the multinational ships and soldiers and stations protecting the buffer of the ‘neutral zone’ designated around Tar Yrra and its home system. Such would also be used as a partial excuse, really, to keep building up its own military in a general sense as it had already been doing. Yet not wanting others to take the old capital was certainly just one part of the reason to keep others from getting near that planet. With the autonomous Planetary Defense System of Tar Yrra having also been activated all those centuries around, it seemed, even entering the home system of the former Imperial Capital was a death sentence to most anything within sight of the literally titanic defense grid.
Even so, however, to the UID it was clear they couldn’t allow Tar Yrra to simply fall into the hands of just anyone….especially certain parties, from the looks and sounds of it, who had participated in the Reclamation Wars. Toss in, then, the UID’s own retained ‘secret knowledge’ of a number of some much greater dangers secretly stored down there on the surface of the old capital? It was more than mere weapons and technology that posed a danger, either to someone taking the old capital or otherwise, if they got off-world or were ‘released’ somehow. It could spell disaster for perhaps even the rest of the galaxy as a whole in some cases….
((Note: Some excerpts of history, and many of the rewrites made by me in an attempt to get this down into the app proper, were not included in this due to sheer length and sometimes being rambling.))
Other:
Back during the early days of the Empire, there was an organization that would arise within the government that was tasked with investigating and studying 'anomalous matters' within the Empire that had been coming to the attention of the government at various levels. Originally a contingent of the government that was tied to the authority of the military and certain universities in a ramshackle manner, mostly to arrange its creation in an era where its existence was new and not very well understood yet, it took on the name of the "Military Anomalous Investigation Bureau" (MAIB) and for years was under the military's primary jurisdiction with several notable universities and some government researchers semi-independently assisting under its purview at the time. While this model would at least function for a while, though, it would see occasional reform until eventually a series of events known as the "Containment Breaches of 799" would lead to several cascading disasters regarding the organization and its by-then struggling performancce. In the aftermath the orgnaization would be rebuilt from the ground up and ultimately be elevated by the "August Empress", Empress Yrissa, and made into an independent Empire-wide organization of its own after years of struggling to work effectively due to the odd nature of its existence. Taking on the name of the "Imperial Bureau of Anomalies" (IBA) at this time, it's effectivness would rise drastically in the coming centuries as its semi-independent nature and built-in authority would allow it to, in this case at least, function more efficiently and avoid much of the beauracracy of the growing and eventually declining Empire (though some officials or nobles attempted to change this one way or another at times, though one way or another these attempts would fail in the end as well by some chance or other means) and to do its primary job of 'keeping the citizenry of the Empire safe, while seeking to understand and contain anomalies that seem to defy known sciences or such like things'. Much of the time the organization went ignored unless a major anomaly or such arose to disrupt things, though further reform or reorganization was certainly not going to avoid happening either over the centuries of the Empire.
During the time of Emperor Yrran of the final dynasty of the Yrrani Empire, however, the organization would become more connected to the throne after he took matters of the organiszation's management partly into the throne's hands during the cascade of his reforms and the internal restructurings and purges alike. This also came at a time where several of the Empire's political factions were vying to, almost sucessfully, to carve up influence over the organization by once again trying to pass laws to place some of their politicians in authority over branches of the organization and its facilities in some part (etc). Essentially 'saving' the IBA at this time, Yrran's heir would follow in shielding the organization in turn while instead the head of the Imperial Guardians would be left to give imperial oversight of the organization both formally and at least effectively so under the reigns of the two emperors following this (even the Party Emperor and his child at least, if nothing else, didn't trust the factions that much despite his far more hands-off attitude or just didn't care about this connection enough to not delegate it off lazily, etc). By the time of the mother of the later "Sickly Emperor" rising to power and his reign thereafter, and resumption of the management of Project Reservoir by an actual sitting Emperor/Empress, the organization began to gradually relocate facilities and suchh covertly to the site of the project out of concern over 'misuse of contained anomalies', among other things admittedly, before the fall of the Empire. However, the HQ of the organization would be the slowest in this matter in some part, and with the death of the Sickly Emperor the aspiring Ascendant Emperor put soldiers stationed around the IBA's HQ in a silent but bold claim to ownership over it. This made attempting to move any further personnel or anomalies nigh impossible, though with the assassination of the aspiring Ascendant Emperor, and chaos of the "Century of Strife" that rose in the attempted coup of the Usurper Empress, the headquarters would be abandoned by most remaining personnel as a last-ditch effort to move things out in the wake of the new conflict seemed to be the most viable matter.
In the chaos of the planned evacuation, which had to be done in haste due to Imperial Factions on the homeworld looking on the organization as a potential 'asset' but were fighting each other first, the last known sitting Director of the IBA would die (and appoint a new one in his stead before dying, as those outside of the UID wouldn't know) before the rest of the evacuees went about fleeing on the few ships to escape Tar Yrra. This initial period, of the ultimately apocalyptic century-long civil war, was indeed their seemingly only chance to get out while they still could. To the credit of those who escaped, though, the ships that escaped would make it to the site of Project Reservoir before a lengthy process of being cross-examined before being allowed in. (However, the old HQ would be locked down....and who knows what soldiers or such tried to force their way in, or what horrors might've been unleashed or left behind along with everything else on Tar Yrra....and some of that needs to stay locked up,perhaps, etc.)
From here, the remnants of the IBA would eventually reform into the Dominion Anomaly Investigation Bureau (DAIB) as the UID itself also eventually coalesced into being from those that populated and controlled the systems of Project Reservoir. And here it has remained until this day.
Current Director of the DAIB: Klara V. Clark
((A hider to contain a list of anomalies contained, stored, or known about by the DAIB. Super WIP, it will be added to as ideas for anomalies pop up in my head or maybe people give me ideas too. Etc.))
Anomaly 642, the "Omnicidally Angry Teapot" - An anomaly that takes the form of a teapot seemingly carved in mostly one pieces out of some kind of jade-like alien mineral substance. It was originally located on the third moon of Argyll IV, after travelers passing close enough nearby to it began to report sometimes hearing an 'angry voice' shouting at them in their minds and the reports eventually were noted and tracked by the original IBA. The agent who pieced the reports together was originally seen as crazy for suggesting a connection to the moon, given the disparate and time-separated nature of these reports, but ties with a local legend in the Argyll system about 'the angry moon' among locals of the fringe system lined up with it as well. Tentatively a team was sent to investigate, and scans of the moon indicated the existence of a non-natural structure under the surface of the moon....even if a rather small, house-like one. Agents also began to exhibit hereforeto unknown levels of agression and frustration the closer they got to the site as well, eventually leading to several breaking out into a fight and the use of emergency sedatives to those affected. Upon arrival at the discovered site by the remaining three, who struggled to resist even worse so as they got there, a set of peculiar ruins were found that seemed as if they were carved into the depths of the uninhabitable moon itself in one contiguous piece using seemingly impossible engineering techniques (even by the standards of the Late Empire much much later). In the 'living room' there sat a humble teapot, despite the lower gravity of the moon, on a stone table carved up from the floor. Despite its unknown make and age, however, it seemed to be in perfect condition.
Upon inspection, however, agents were startled by a voice shouting "Boo, ya' pointy ears f*****, haha!". It would be confirmed in the mission debrief, and later after Anomaly 642's storage and formal containment, that it was a seemingly sapient and psionic teapot. Notable about it was its ever-grumpy attitude, and naturally even more notable was its seemingly omnidirectional hatred of all other life. Organic life? Yes. Sapient A.I. and machines? Still hates it. Synthetic or other forms of life? It never seems to skip a beat.
While initial containment of the anomaly sought to isolate the teapot and its psionic profanities and insults, however, it was found that without often enough interactions with sapient organisms it genrated an aura of 'negative emotions' that affected others far, far beyond its location as well as amplified the range of its psionic capabilities. Interaction with the anomaly would, however, seem to reset the range of its psionic abilities and remove the negative emotion aura. This makes logical sense as to why it seemed more legend than fact, and why all known reports on it were spread out so much. It was alone for so long, finally got enough range to interact with the rare passing spacecraft, and the process would be reset and begin anew.
Personnel have thus been assigned to be around it for two hours a day during its containment in order to keep the range and effects of the anomaly to a minimum, especially after anti-psionic material lining proved to be only able to slow its effects down in expanding beyond the containment chamber rather than stopping its effects from doing so. Over the years, though, attempts by some personnel to 'smash the stupid pot', 'vent the asshole into space', and otherwise dispose of it have been made....and every time the pot has been relocated and brought back to be contained again. More emotionally-resilient personnel have thus been assigned to be around it for the most part, though inevitably shifts will be switched around out of some nessecity or due to reassignments/transfers and someone less resilient will be assigned to it in the shifts. While most of these complain, they were also approached prior about the assignment and informed before going on-shift for the first time as per protocol as well. However, while attempts to rotate out personnel to avoid '642 burnout' (as the term has come to be) have been made, every long while someone still tries to dispose of this anomaly. Every time they do so, though, it somehow manages to send a death threat by some means to the sitting Director (even if it is far out of psionic range somehow) and a team is sent to take it back to containment before the troublesome personnel are pulled aside for counseling and potential punishment or medical assitance depending on the circumstances. Recorded in the anomaly's sending of death threats in this sort of scenario, it has used the means of (but is not limited to) the following: Email, messenger craft, drones, avian-carried physically-written messages (a seeming favorite method), notes appearing on the Director's office door out of thin air, and crashing a terrestrial vehicle into the DAIB HQ's front gates while the former organic or A.I. driver was unresponsive and left in a horrific state of depression. Thus it is assumed the psionic abilities of this anomaly are more than simply its aura and telepathic capabilities, but it seems to refuse to exhibit these during any sort of testing or otherwise aside from instances of someone trying to destroy or dispose of it.
@Sigma Weeks of gradual work and progress, and a couple of random nights binge writing until too late (three as of tonight, lol), and here is my app! But yes it has some WIP spots to fill out long-term, if that is able to or even happens, and you can probably tell where me getting details descriptions just stops or falls out after I nearly burnt myself out on this a few times over, but the main stuff required for it is completed.....finally. XD
If anything is amiss or needs changing/fixing, as ever I am happy to fix things and the like!
o7
Nation Name:
The United Idkarian Dominion
Flag:
Map Location:
Government Type:
Constitutional Monarchy ((The Current Sitting Monarch: King Yrist Xannus Gorluin Aelamis; Heir Apparent (ala Primogeniture): Princess Ilyndra Ashwryn Yrralisa Aelamis))
Demographics:
They ruled for untold centuries, acting both as benevolent rulers, and terrible tyrants. They gifted many worlds wonderous technologies, uplifted species of their choosing, all the while they razed entire systems to any who would dare defy their rule and wiped entire species from the face of all of creation. They were both loved and feared, revered and reviled by trillions-....
The makers of a two millenia-long imperium that managed to last for longer than many aspiring nations have hoped to, the Yrrani are a humanoid species that possesses a number of traits. Longevity, general physiological resilience, a more widespread latent psionic aptitude, unnatural beauty as well as graceful aging, and generally keen minds. It is unknown if the Yrrani of today are the same as their oldest forebears, though, or if centuries of imperium, populating the stars, and obvious matters such as the use of advanced medicines and genetic modifications to themselves have taken their toll in the long-term. It is, for the most part, assumed that it is all a mixed bag after so long as seemingly original records of the Yrrani’s rise either disappeared or went missing by the time of the fall of the Yrrani Empire itself.
What is known somewhat is that some Yrrani perhaps do still hold to the idea of restoring the Empire, even as their race declines and has mostly disappeared throughout the cosmos, though many others perhaps do not as well. It is, to use a human saying, a ‘mixed bag’ that one can’t simply assume a unified answer for across the span of a dying and storied race such as the Yrrani.
Meanwhile, within the UID in particular (at least) this species’s presence at first was mostly of a ‘mixed bag’ that were imported by the Sickly Emperor and otherwise before this point by chance during development of Project Reservoir over the decades and as workers were brought in for the project and its aims. The end result is a centuries of a mixed-bag group of Yrrani, ones whose descendants have rebranded under the term of “Yrrani-Idkar” or mostly just as “Idkar” as a new and growing derivative cultural/ethnic identity of sorts has evolved over time among their majority due to initial forced intermingling before and initially after the fall of the Yrrani Empire. This term itself is also derived from the name of the UID’s capital world of Tar Idkar.
To most of these, at least within the UID, even the term “Yrrani” has been switched out for the initially informal and eventually legally-defined use of “Idkar” as their designator and species identity in line with cutting ties to the past. At the very least, the “Idkar” of the UID have managed to not only avoid dying out but also have continued to grow in population once more. However, among the Idkar population aspirations of imperium have in the end died with use of the ‘Yrrani’ moniker among the vast majority here within the past six centuries. Some consider this a mere political change among the UID’s Idkar over the last six centuries, to cut ties with the old Empire further in some capacity after fearing reprisals from neighbors, while others see it as simply another designated cultural or other such subgroup naturally developing within an overall species over the past six centuries. A minority of older cultural enclaves have also managed to remain after the centuries as well, though are usually found on certain worlds or such as a consequence of past migrations, who was imported from where and to which place in the pre-fall Empire within the boundaries of Project Reservoir, or later attempts to ‘preserve their past’ in some capacity or such like thought processes. Etc.
It cannot be understated that the effect of Project Reservoir was, whether in ways intentionally and other unintentionally, a force that led to the development of the “Idkar” proper. Though it seems that, by importing a number of groups in, those running Project Reservoir purposefully in part sought to make use of many ‘non-mainstream’ Yrrani groups and sects who would be more loyal to the project than to the system at large of the Yrrani Empire. This would help provide a means for keeping the project ‘more secure’, it seems, given the circumstances of things. However, this is a modern theory based on some evidence and decades of calculation and investigation of the past by the government of the UID. After so long, and all that has happened in the galaxy, it is perhaps safe to say that the ‘gritty details of the truth’ have likely been lost to time to enough of an extent.
((Other Extant Yrrani Subgroup Minorities within the UID:
1 ) Yrrani-Twei
))
((Note 1: If you want to have a Yrrani subgroup of yours feature in an enclave within the UID, just if you want to (don’t have to I mean), then let me know! :D))
((Note 2: Old Yrrani used to spell words with apostrophes, putting emphasis on certain syllables or such to emphasize the meaning of a word’s component parts culturally and linguistically. Yet as the Kingdom and later Empire of the Yrrani grew among the stars, the Yrrani language was ultimately streamlined to cast them off in the long-term to make it easier to use. Hence why the word for “new hope” or “Idkar” would be “Id’kar” (Id = new; kar = hope) in Old Yrrani compared to the version the galaxy came to know or remember by current times. This loss in linguistic emphasis and breakdown, perhaps, can also be seen as some loss of identity or roots to the Yrrani as they grew beyond their homeworld to boot.
This can be especially noted as certain things like “Yrri” (Yr = parent/origin; Ri = the ‘masculine’ syllable in Old Yrrani) and “Yrra” ( Yr = parent/origin; Ra = Feminine syllable in Old Yrrani) became known more as a title for an Emperor/Empress or planet to take on rather than their actual literal meanings of “Father” and “Mother” respectively (EX: Tar Yrra = “The Mother” or “our mother world”). This occurred as the Yrrani language became mainstream, as well as when it interacted with other races and became streamlined in the long-term for teaching and communication purposes. Such a small change seems to many to be a ‘nothing’, though to others the lack of emphasis in linguistics as facilitated by galactic expansion and streamlining of the language was seen as a loss of origins/identity/their roots to others. Further, one cannot ignore the changes to the language in addition as some of the most populous foreign species’ terms/language leaked in….as well as when some terms and words gained new definitions and uses over time (like how irl “Caesar” and “Augustus” became titles and symbols of being a ruler in the wider world, in and of themselves, instead of being mere Latin names).))
((Note 3: Emperors/Empresses in the Empire gained certain personal titles as a consequence of reputation or their actions, and even due to events that occurred during their reign, such as the “Austere Emperor”, the “Wrathful Empress”, the “Chaste Emperor/Empress”, etc.))
Humans. Terrans. Homo sapiens sapiens. It is unknown where this particular two-legged humanoid (or ‘yrranoid’ as the Yrrani would call it way back when) species frankly originated from, its original homeworld having gone long forgotten and lost to the ages in the minds of its descendants. Humans have spread across the galaxy about as much as the Yrrani did back during the heights of the Yrrani Empire, spreading much like some kind of ‘pest’ as some might note, with varying skin colorations and appearances of their own to boot. Yet despite lacking many of the space seeming advantages as Yrrani as a species, to make the comparison, humanity has made up for it in ingenuity and sheer determination to explore, understand, and forge new homes across the cosmos. Versatile and originating from a higher-gravity world much as the Yrrani did, though, this also led humanity to be both rugged enough to go onward…
….Though as a small aside, after ‘a few incidents’ humans in certain far-fringe places would develop a ‘stereotype’ in some far-flung places prior to the Empire’s fall of ‘being crazy experimental idiots who come up with stupidly crazy ideas when bored’. Among these are ideas such as ‘taping knives to a floor-cleaning robot and naming it something silly like Stabby or Kevin’ and the classic example of ‘strapping a warp core to a makeshift rocket and firing it into a space station to blow it up as a desperate attempt to dissuade and invasion force from landing’. Among their other feats are ‘finding new and creative ways to either blow themselves or others up’ and, not to forget a goodie but an oldie, voluntarily going ‘hey let’s see if doing X thing kills us’ and either finding out the hard way or somehow rebounding from it to tell their tale to any sapient ear that they can hold captive with the story.
(Also this is a joke part, please don't take it seriously, lol.)
Standing apart from simply individuals of other species who use cybernetics or have prosthetics, this group’s members identify themselves apart from their ‘original species’ and instead identify together with other ‘augmented’. While originally classified as a mere cultural or ethnic identity of members from still-differing species, they are tentatively listed as a ‘demographic’ of their own at the very least by current times after decades of debate and discussion over the matter within the UID government. They are a group that, for the most part, venerates technology and the augmentation of their flesh and began with missionaries of “The Holy Cog” which entered UID space. In particular the Augmented of the UID, the second smallest demographic minority of the UID, originated in their ways and such from the teachings of one missionary simply known under the identity of “Sister Mechila” or ‘Saint Mechila” to some.
Mechila was an ardent missionary of The Holy Cog, and her humble Forge Ship was a curious arrival within UID space. Her teachings were taken in by few, and many were wary of her and her teachings for a number of reasons. However, she sought to bring the strength and certainty of metal to the weakness of flesh, and in her pursuit of truth would come into conflict with some lower UID authorities over the matter of potential loyalties and her place of origin. This led to her eventual arrest and court trial after some accused her, though in a peculiar turn of events the expected declaration of her being ‘guilty’ would fall through after coming to the highest court in the UID. This was followed with some discussion behind closed doors, before finally Mechila was released and allowed to return to where she’d set up. She had refused to raise a violent hand the entire time, even as she’d been arrested telling some of the more nervous or potentially violent new followers to stand down, news of the case hitting the public at large would lead to her gaining a new swell of followers.
The faith of the Holy Cog would come to define the culture of most Augmented, aka they emerged from those who joined to the faith, though certain legal issues would seem to be solved in the aftermath of Saint Mechila and her example. An anti-extremist, she preached only taking in the willing to their ranks and promoting goodwill to their non-Augmented neighbors without trying to be coercive. Nay, they were to simply lend strength to their neighbors and to lawfully and gladly support the nation that was their home in sickness or in health.
While some have sought to take heavily-augmented people in some cases to identify among the formal “Augmented” demographic, there are still notable differences between most of those who do not follow the faith and get augmented to more or less of a degree and those who follow the faith. Sometimes a little conflict historically has sparked here and there between the Augmented and non-faithful augmentees or ex-members and even non-machine-augmented, though work toward ensuring a lasting peace has seen things improve overall in this regard quite a bit since the arrival of Sister Mechila 250 years ago. By current times the faith of the Holy Cog and the Augmented demographic are simply another part of life and the citizenry of the UID as a whole.
Known in their own tongue as the Livelloúli, nicknamed the “Livelli”, the translation of this term into galactic common is Aretposina. Females are known to have a feminine-type body layout with a ‘grasping’ prehensile tail, while males instead are known to have slimmer and longer wings and have a ‘pointy’ singular piece at the end of their tail that is said to possess a rather small and vestigial venom sac no longer connected to it with a venom inside known to cause lingering disorientation, nausea, and dizziness in those affected by it. Their societies in primitive times were noted as having a higher occurrence of fierce competition for territory, though as civilization advanced, wars occurred, and trends began to emerge, this particular anecdote would never fully vanish individually even if at the national level it would diminish to a notable extent as the species advanced and developed in its home. Further, it can be said in generally broad strokes that their societies emerged to become about as individualistic as those of some human cultures, to give a baseline comparison, though unity as a species and under things like cultural, ethnic, and national identities would also develop in their pre-contact era to boot.
Living and dwelling on the supposedly and reputedly sunny and warm world of Terser III (as named by the Yrrani; is known as “Noia” in their tongue and their home star as “Arétim”), in reality a stereotypic reputation that came from their homeworld having a larger equatorial region than many that, ultimately, was in the end only part of the ‘continental world’ they called home and where the species came to live (temperate regions, notable polar regions, oceans and island, etc, also exist there with varied climes). On their own, they would globally see their greatest powers progress to roughly a state of advancement defined formerly by the Yrrani of the time as the “Basic Industrial Era” (OOC: Like a WW1-era US + Europe type of technology levels) before eventually being encountered by the Yrrani Empire (this Yrrani definition of advancement would change quite a bit centuries later, among other things).
When first encountered by a growing but young Yrrani Empire, as this came shortly after changing from being called the “Yrrani Kingdom” even, they were seen as a potential species either way to enslave and subjugate or uplift alongside themselves instead in a more xenophilic manner. As such a good many were enslaved during this contentious time period, with females most often used as servants and males as soldiers or laborers as a rough general trend, though a good many others were instead uplifted by the Yrrani. The species would ultimately end up in a cycle of flux between these states in the many coming centuries, though within the Late Period of the Yrrani Empire it would see more of their kind end up enslaved rather than staying free in a general sense. Many would also be imported into Project Reservoir as workers, with the Sickly Emperor later importing many purchased and freed slaves as well as some amount of free Livelli as part of an attempt to ‘preserve the species of the Empire from what was to come’ in his eyes.
This, as it were, turned out to be the best call on said Emperor’s part, ensuring the future UID would both possess the largest extant and growing Livelli population as well as eventually have some reason to claim the species’ actual homeworld into its territory as the new nation grew from the ashes of the former Yrrani Empire. Due to this, a number of the last few extant bits of Livelli cultures left have been preserved at the very least (or in some part if nothing else) in the long-term as well as a consequence. However, the intermingling descendants of those who were exposed to Yrrani culture and otherwise along with the centuries of back and forth treatment by the old Empire do form the seeming majority.
((Also yes, words in their language are just reversed greek-language words for future reference.))
With many having taken flight after the conquests of the Augustan Empire, the members of this ‘warrior race’ would struggle to initially adapt to the UID and were seen as potential threats due to their initial migrating numbers and the fact it seemed to many their majority seemed to be fighting the Augustans. It was a time period where the UID was seeking to avoid some contact, or at least just angering, their closer neighbors. To see those initial migrants as ‘people fleeing a battle they saw as losing’ was certainly to become the stereotype and initial impression many had, at least, though further investigation and decades to come would spell out more of the details of the matter. In reality, most of those who fled had been on the losing side of a civil war among the Vrunak before the Augustans even conquered the Vrunak proper. Most originated from a particular ethnic and racial (both in this case) Vrunak group called the “Nek” (backwards "Ken", or Japanese for "sword" according to good old Google Translate), a growing minority group which had been targeted for elimination after being on the losing side of said civil war, who fled in mass numbers for their lives and took residence in and migrated to UID territory as a desperate measure after some discussion in the shadows with UID authorities behind closed doors. While a small number would leave to carve their own home once the greater body of Vrunak seemed to be conquered and collapsed, though, the greater majority would end up staying after it having been some time since they’d migrated there.
Initially many of the more warlike type had found work in the UID military, or at least had been routed to there in some part as ‘trade’ for their migration to the UID in this case, though despite some levels of Vrunak discrimination seeming to inevitably emerge in the long-term they would make their contribution to UID society in ways by bringing in their love of arts and some more peculiar foods and seasoning choices (among other things). After several centuries, while the discrimination isn’t wholesale gone it has instead been vastly reduced to the point that the vast majority generally see UID Vrunak as ‘just other UID citizens who’ve lived and died here like we do’.
Left to right: Southern, Northern, and Islander Dathu Subgroups
Native to the world of Datheron, the Dathu are an amphibious species with mammalian traits. The Dathu are an antiquated people with a similar culture to the medieval ages of many worlds. Their society ruled by nobles, lords, and kings. The Kingdom of Datheron was one of many short-lived states that emerged from the Great Fall. Within the span of a five decades, the Kingdom, and its holdings would fall and be annexed by the steadily growing Augustan Empire.
The Noble Houses of Datheron would be allowed to retain their power and status, although they would now answer to a new throne and sovereign not of their kind. The Dathu are also separated into several subgroups, the pale Northerners, adaptable Islanders, and the hardy Southerners.
Daxini (various but distinctly non-digital ones), Mu (?), Simmies, etc.
((Aka: Any other species minorities that exist within the UID, basically, will be put here in this hider either in the brief listing above or otherwise.))
Military:
(I will get to this at some point, hopefully, but too tired as of current times to get this extra detail, among many, written out.
AKA: I got too lazy and tired to write these little general standard things or particular details down in everything, so they are going here as a result.
1 ) Explosive weapons used by vehicles are antimatter warheads.
2 ) The ‘standard defensive package’ for manned military craft includes general forms of: Armoring, thermal insulation/protection radiation shielding (for craft used in space at least), electrical protection, protective armoring, anti-psionic protective lining (more aptly called ‘psionic resistance lining’, as it provides resistance instead of immunity and is just meant to at least help protect non-psionic pilots from psionic attacks/intrusions on them on the battlefield), and usually a primary or emergency shield generator of some sort. Likewise the implementation of self-healing materials, or things like built-in nanofactories, are also integrated into most forms of military technology and material when it comes to vehicles and soldier combat armors and such.
3 ) While not formally noted in this package, normally manned craft are fitted to not be ‘overly reliant on wireless capabilities’, akin to older-style craft, with certain vehicle-tracking measures using a proper quantum entanglement instead of older standard types of digital or radio methods. While overall this is a seemingly ‘primitive’ means of operation, myriad developments of comms-jamming and systems-hacking in the past would lead the UID to this eventual conclusion and design choice for self-contained systems to prevent more widespread issues. Even so, they still use the latest advanced comms systems as communications are something that couldn’t be backtracked on without significant issues (thus anti-jammers and things like cybersecurity measures have seen development in this particular realm to try to help protect these for units in-combat and outside of it). Further, aside from the case of psionics-operated vehicles and their own means of encryption and control in tandem with other things, non-psionic vehicles of certain types often utilize quantum entanglements in certain specific niches to connect something like a mech’s weapon to the mech itself in a safer and quantum-encrypted manner.
Does this all make the vehicles of the UID immune to everything and indestructible and perfect? Well, no. It’s just them having sought to adapt to what technological issues that their military has faced in and outside of combat over the past centuries. While one can’t expect everything they have to be just wireless and hackable outright, they did make their vehicles self-contained mostly for good reasons, they aren’t suddenly perfect and unstoppable as a military force just because of these measures they’ve taken in military craft design.
4 ) Most handheld soldier weapons are electromagnetic-type weapons and some particle beam weapons on the average. A few rare cases of some vehicles or surplus old weapons might be the type that uses advanced caseless ballistic ammunition (such as the RMATAG-AUV) instead.
5 ) Soldiers normally get a standard loadout of: A primary weapon, a sidearm, a vibroknife of some sort, and two or three grenade-type explosive weapons. Those taking on other roles, or particular missions, can and will vary in equipment depending on the scenario.
6 ) Psi-Corps soldiers have additional equipment types they can draw upon for missions due to their more unique nature, including psionic-controlled drones for scouting, psionic ‘bits’ for additional combat power (like those on the psionic mechs, but infantry-scaled and under more limitations), psionic-targeting projectiles/weapons, anti-psionic jamming machines (requires a psionic to use it though), etc. Also in that vein, anti-psionic cuffs and devices for psionic prisoners are also a thing that exists in parallel with all of this to boot.
7 ) ((To be added in the future?))
Bipedal Warfare Offensive Mobile Platform (BW-OMP)
This relic of the past is in fact a 16 foot tall MECHS platform from the Late Period of the Imperial Military, being a smaller profile bipedal platform mounted with dual rocket pods. It was most often used for hit-and-run attacks, ambushes, offensive campaigns, or to counteract either very few well-armored or plentiful soft targets alike. Known for its peculiar running speed and only using some light armor and a small shield generator to protect itself, it was a supplement infantry and other ground combat vehicles, with barely enough defenses to protect it from small arms and help it run away from or at least try to survive encountering more heavily-armored threats. It was most often used in rural/rough terrain, or urban scenarios, but found itself rather scarcely used if ever used in wide open areas when it came to combat for good reasons….and even if used in such wide open places only in the company of plenty of protection and only in support of other units like infantry and ground combat vehicles or such.
These things are a dime-a-dozen design even a fringe territory mechanic could become familiar with and repair. Thus it comes as no surprise they have had their general use in even far-flung garrisons during the time of the Yrrani Empire, and saw extensive modding for use with other weapon types by some rebel forces even, in the last few centuries of the Yrrani Empire’s existence and beyond even heading into the centuries of the Great Fall. The UID only has some stocks of these as ‘ancient surplus’, and where at least another type of bipedal combat platform from back then has at least stayed useful enough to keep upgrading and trying to improve upon by the UID….well….these instead haven’t changed at all since before the fall of the Yrrani Empire. Still aren’t totally useless or harmless, rockets and guns modified onto them are deadly weapons, but they are certainly ‘pretty outdated’ to be sure. They are also much cheaper to manufacture and copy than some ‘modern’ weapons of war as well, really, making them versatile platforms for the poorest of wannabe factions and states to boot…..a ‘BWOMP’, as soldiers have long nicknamed it, it is indeed.
A shorter and smaller military MECHS platform that can either be piloted by a remote operator using a quantum entanglement, or alternatively be entirely automated with advanced A.I., to support ground based troops and general infantry. It could be armed with a number of different loadouts for urban or something like jungle warfare as well, though one should not think it to be some outright ‘tank-killer’ mech either. It still is a proper anti-infantry design for the most part, and while some ‘anti-tank’ weapons and defenses can be installed to protect it in such scenarios (shield generators and such) it wasn’t built to last forever against them either. Used to supplement numbers and alongside general infantry, especially in cases of local garrison and conscripts, this versatile weapons platform was standardized and upgraded slowly over several centuries after its initial development and before the Yrrani Empire’s eventual fall. In the Late Period of the empire it was employed by the Imperial Military alongside regular infantry on the ground in general even still to help supplement numbers and equipment in some places, though it became most infamous in being used to help put down riots and in urban scenarios during the Century of Strife and in the two centuries in particular before that.
While the technology has seen a general and basic improvement since then within the territory that came to form the UID proper, and upgraded some since its use in the Yrrani Empire, it is certainly not the most advanced of platforms nor does it look too much different either in terms of comparing the UID’s existing designs to their centuries-old ancestors. It is a generally effective platform even post-collapse rebels and ex-Imperial Military factions still implement, or which have been recycled into autonomous defense units for some former-fringe territories of the now-dead empire that were lucky enough to get their hands on some. While the UID is perhaps among the very few who continued to try to improve the technology of this type of ground combat unit, it is mostly by now on its way out with the more widespread introduction of the MMRMAP platform by current times.
Modern Bipedal Warfare Manned Multi-Role Mechanized Assault Platform (M-BW-MMRMAP)
A ground-based MECHS platform going beyond the remote operation and A.I. piloting of the MRMAP and integrating a proper cockpit. The design of its body is much sleeker, far more mobile, and has a smaller profile in combat scenarios. Its outer casing and parts are covered in layers of advanced next-generation armoring and underlying ceramic alloys and thermal as well as electrical insulation, with even a built-in shield generator and anti-psionic protective lining to boot! While some weapons, such as Anti-Tank missiles and electronic countermeasures, are mounted on or into the body it mostly carries the rest of its loadout by hand. Such hand-carried weapons can be magnetically attached to its exterior in specific locations as well. While it has less room for the somewhat larger loadouts of the MRMAP, which is in the process of being phased out, its defensive protection, maneuverability, and ability to ‘survive’ a couple of direct hits from shots made by modern hovertanks (if nothing else) in a worst-case scenario has more than made up for this in practical application. Due to its size, squads of these are often deployed either on their own or to support infantry, not being beholden to supporting others in a mix as its predecessor also has been stuck to.
An advanced A.I. assists the pilot to boot, as well as can pilot the unit autonomously in case the pilot is caught outside of or is forced to operate or perform actions outside of the unit. A compact field survival kit and such has also been installed into these, alongside a backup pistol, rifle, and some ammunition for the pilot if needed in the field, all alongside a manual emergency release in case of the worst. Further, as a self-contained unit using installed quantum entanglements to connect to and communicate with its handheld weapons (not made to be wirelessly connected to everything under the sun) only the comms might be subject to interference or such in a combat scenario for the most part. It can also use incredible strength to move obstacles and dig through rubble or such to boot.
While it is of note to say that the Imperial Military was working on something like this for some time for ground deployment, the MMRMAP is a UID exclusive design ‘seemingly’ using the latest in post-Imperial technology in its arsenal. ((There is also a notable psionic-piloted variant of this that is in use currently by the UID, the P-MMRMAP, as well. Plus there’s variants meant for support/engineering roles and moving supplies, etc, as the platform at this stage has been further pushed into some form of versatility in the field and off of it. It even exists as the basis for a much less powerful civilian-grade model/type used for construction, as well as a police-grade form, and such.))
All-Terrain Anti-Gravity Main Battle Tank MK5 (ATAG-MBT MK5)
A hardy mainline battle tank for ground-based warfare, capable of moving over the surface of water and other rough terrains just as smoothly as over the open field. In terms of weapons it is fitted with a 20mm tri-barrel minigun, 15-count rocket/missile pod, and a powerful 105mm coilgun-type main gun. It is fitted with powerful thrusters and a tow cable, and both the latest in current day vehicle combat armor and combat-capable shield generator technology. Robust design and material filters for the thrusters ensure that the vehicle can move about with a confident general ease in wet and dry, muddy or dusty, and other such combat environments in a general sense. General point defense and other aforementioned defensive measures grant the unit a fair amount of survivability when facing other main battle tanks and artillery and such on the battlefield. Holds a crew of four, has a general anti-psionic lining inside as other manned vehicles do within the UID in general, and contains a general nanite repair kit and a crew survival kit.
All-Terrain Anti-Gravity Rapid-Approach Plasma Light Tank MK5 (ATAGRA-PLT)
A light tank mounted with a primary plasma railgun, as well as boasting powerful thrusters, a smaller profile, and faster movement speeds than the ATAG-MBT MK5. While its thrusters are just as rugged in design, and its lighter armor is angled and designed for survival on the battlefield, its primary defensive means is a stronger shield generator. Need for a stronger power source has, however, cut down the vehicle’s firepower to just its main gun with regards to issues of the design’s power consumption. Built-in point defense remains effective and can be used as a secondary weapon to combat soft targets at a range in lieu of lacking other secondary armaments otherwise. Holds a crew of three, and likewise contains a general nanite repair kit and crew survival kit.
While the ATAG-MBT MK5 is designed for primary ground based combat, especially out in the open, the ATAGRA-PLT is designed for either deployment alongside the former or for hit-and-run attacks against enemy targets in even urban combat scenarios as it possesses general flight capabilities unlike the former. It can move about in tighter spaces, was made to be resistant to infantry-carried anti-vehicle weapons, and its speed allows rapid attack capabilities surpassing its larger ‘cousin’ of sorts. However, its primary weapon shouldn't be underestimated due to its lack of any other major weapons aside from the built-in secondary uses for its point defense module. This plasma railgun hits rather hard, able to severely damage and frankly take down more heavily armored vehicles even double its size as well as deal serious damage to some kinds of enemy fortifications, which combined with the vehicle’s maneuverability makes this primary weapon a rather potent surprise package for those it's pointed at.
An all-terrain form of military utility vehicle that was used in ground operations as far back as the Late Period of the Yrrani Empire (before its fall), these are among the more common Pre-War Vehicles to still find in use today due to how utterly common they used to be. Able to carry supplies on the exposed side racks as well as on top, or instead seat up to six soldiers in the exposed side racks and supplies on top, it was a feature of Imperial Military Ground Operations for over two hundred years for a reason. With only a commanding officer and up to two pilots able to be housed inside of the protected cockpit, it could only effectively carry a singular squad of fully-armed and ready soldiers into battle or would find use as a small but generally effective cargo-moving vehicle in and outside of combat scenarios. Also being mounted with laser weapons that didn’t require ‘restocking ammunition’ for it, this vehicle traded the use of energy shielding in turn for being fitted with heavier armor with mixed-weapons defensive protection. To some soldiers, the saying ‘it takes a licking and keeps on ticking’ is certainly a phrase that applies to this vehicle in practice, though just as often if it needed repairs it can more easily accommodate that as well due to how ‘standardized’ it was in its heyday. Also notable was this craft’s ability to move over even bodies of water and such things with some amount of effective speed.
The standardization and long service of this vehicle can be attributed to several factors, however, with the most notable being the shift inside the Yrrani Empire from a ‘conquering expansion-focused military’ in many regions to become more of a ‘defensive policing force’ meant to keep order and put down potential rebellions in most places it controlled. Hence designs such as the ATAG-HAUV and other such vehicles and weapons emerged in the myriad centuries after the Empire hit the furthest extent of its outward expansion. This didn’t mean high-grade military weapons and platforms didn’t remain in use, or that technology didn’t advance in the Imperial Military or somehow got worse, but that simply the Imperial Military had to also adjust to a reasonable extent with the shifting of the times as with any nation in the history of the galaxy. Even so, the widespread rumors that ‘the Late Imperial Military was more cheaply and pitifully armed than before’ tend to discount the realities of the situation the Empire and Imperial Military were in and the consequences of those realities therein.
Even after the Century of Strife, one can find these ex-Imperial vehicles in use all over the place, either partially intact or altered or scavenged together by former rebels, individual planets that once had garrisons on them, and so forth since the fall of the Yrrani Empire. Sure they are outdated in a number of ways, that is for sure, but they remain generally effective at the very least and have thus remained in use. Even the UID still naturally has some small amount of these in storage or lying about at that, though plans to do as others have done to modify or ‘retrofit’ these plentiful outdated models in case of wartime need have been discussed behind closed doors. One cannot also ignore the presence of the just as common ‘shoddy technicals’ wrought from the platform this vehicle provides, though these are most often seen in far-fringe, very poor, the rarer pirate-held, or even rather rural worlds depending on the place and part of the galaxy and former imperium of the Yrrani Empire one is in or comes from.
A rapidly moving armored troop transport meant to move about in urban and wilderness areas and such alike to bring supplies, crew-manned weapons, and a range of 6-16 troops onto the battlefield and off of it again. It deploys a combination of lighter armor and energy shielding to increase its carrying capacity and speed notably compared to models of APC/AUV seen in the Late Period of the Yrrani Empire. It utilizes a mounted and manned (can be optionally remote-operated) Heavy Dual-Mounted Ballistic Machine Gun (HDM-BMG) as a weapon, one capable of providing suppressive fire to troops exiting the vehicle as well as firing on enemy infantry and light-armored targets with a ‘primitive’ but still rather effective level of firepower. Harpoon-like anchors on the sides of the vehicle (3 on each side; 6 total) can hold the vehicle in place to stabilize it rather well if horrible enough if high winds or such environmental hazards necessitate their use as well, though on several occasions ‘creative use’ of these has been recorded in the field….with mixed results in such cases in particular.
The original designs for this line of UID-brand vehicles originated within the territory that would become the United Idkaran Dominion, being among its first ‘in-house-developed’ designs, with the first of its kind emerging into service roughly 255 years after the start of the “Century of Strife”. It differs from Late Period designs seen in the Imperial Military of the Yrrani Empire by the time of its collapse in several ways, both trading heavier armor and laser-based weaponry for improved size, speed, and improved capacity for troops. While ballistic ammunition was considered ‘more primitive’ even within the Late Empire, for the future UID this design was both far more feasibly economical to produce and likewise still proved rather effective in general combat scenarios both offensive and defensive alike. Fast-forward a few hundred years more to current times, and this basic premise of design for a general ground-based APC-capable utility vehicle would improve in both technological specs while not much changing in its layout and design barring some occasional experiments in design philosophy along the way.
Multi-Role Anti-Gravity High-Speed Mobile Weapons Platform (MRAGHS-MWP)
A mobile ground-based combat platform, capable of being mounted with a small range of weapons and other equipment or tools for assistance in planetary combat or military actions on-planet. Rocket pods, anti-aircraft weaponry, artillery guns, mortars, cranes, storage space, and so forth are among the versatile pieces that can be equipped to the vehicle, though it is primarily a combat-oriented vehicle most of the time. In that role it usually focuses on high speed movement to deliver payloads before moving onward to the next target or to avoid enemy retaliation. While it can be equipped and often is equipped with point defense and similar measures, including its hardy but light armor and stronger shield generator combination that helps make it so mobile in the first place, these are not always implemented due to the mobile nature of the platform in its usual modes of implementation.
Still of note that other more specialized designs for support vehicles are used within the UID, though for flexibility this platform can be used in a pinch or drawn-out planetary campaigns when other such equipment cannot be brought in or make it to the front lines. Etc.
A well-protected craft for transitioning between planetary environments and outer space, with powerful thrusters, VTOL capabilities, tough exterior armor, and a general array of defensive measures including (but not limited to) point defense, thermal insulation, radiation shielding (a standard in spacebound craft of the UID), emergency shield generator and an anti-psionic lining on the inside (etc).
Elite Ground Personnel Transport Vehicle (EGPTV)
A vehicle employed on-planet by Military Police and local Reserve Centers for military reserves, while a lesser-armed and armored version is employed by elite police forces on the local level. Can carry 12-18 personnel onboard. Wheels are self-sealing and made to be able to cross even rough terrain. Military-grade versions possess a limited version of a ‘gravitational core’ normally founds on larger MECHS platforms, which combined with the design of the wheels allows these vehicles to cross even vertical and other ‘impossible’ forms of terrain.
A versatile fighter craft mounted with particle beam cannons and a small, angular profile, its defense mostly comes from what armoring it has and a basic military grade shield generator. It is a craft meant to use its weapons to clear up smaller enemy craft, like ‘mechs’ and other fighter craft, as well as use its particle beam weapons to wear down enemy shields or put damage into enemy armor. Usually deployed in large numbers, or in smaller groups during ambushes, they usually are used in tandem with ‘mechs’ on their own side on the average (but not always).
Anti-Gravity Multi-Role Light Ship (AGMR-LS)
A lightly armored, lightly armed, and small crewed vessel with modular capabilities, allowing it to be outfitted to fill various roles on a smaller scale than a frigate. Useful in more confined and crowded combat space, though designed for a wide variety of situations with their potential loadouts, they are used to take down smaller enemy craft, remove mine threats, perform anti-piracy missions, assist in humanitarian and rescue operations, etc. While the likes of the Destroyer were crafted with the idea of combat as their primary scenario despite having multi-role capabilities, though, this type of vessel was made to both help screen the likes of Destroyers and larger craft as well as have a wide variety of applications individually beyond simply just combat.
Anti-Gravity Multi-Role Destroyer, aka “The Flash Drive Destroyer” (AGMR-D)
A modular destroyer with a range of capabilities, from anti-mine and stealth operations to being outfitted for general combat scenarios with options ranging from particle beam weapons, to missiles, to even electromagnetic cannonry in a general sense. However its sophisticated defensive suite, including the standard sorts of protective linings and armoring and a shield generator, aside, the ship’s cybersecurity is infamous for ‘frying’ devices deemed to be dangerous. Hence the unfortunate incident where more than a few soldiers were using a flash drive or such external device and had it immediately fried by the ship’s defense systems, along with damage to the hands or bodies of a few of these. While the issue was ultimately rectified with improvements made to the defense systems, the nicknames of “The Flash Drive Destroyer” or “USSB” that had been given to it had already become common lingo for this type of vessel.
Anti-Gravity Space Combat Battle Carrier MK5 (AGSC-BC MK5)
A combination of carrier and battleship, it both transports and carries a great many smaller craft (‘Mechs’ and Fighter Craft) and likewise boasts a range of high-grade shield generators as well as in-depth point defenses and armoring. These ‘moving fortresses’ were nicknamed such for good reasons indeed, and with their high defenses and variety of high-grade firepower (missiles, electromagnetic cannons, particle beams/lasers, etc) they are hard to take down and could remain out in the field for quite a long time due to the facilities built into them. Also known as the ‘flying cities’ of the UID, they are a mainstay in major space engagements and planetary assaults. Yet while capable of entering and exiting a planet’s atmosphere for special repairs or certain planetary landings alike, they most often remain in space proper and deploy vessels from there while defensively supporting the fleet in those circumstances on-average. One or two might support certain smaller-grade battles, depending on the mission, as well.
Anti-Gravity Space Combat and Orbital Bombardment Cruiser (AGSC-OB-C)
A curious case of older designs for a ‘dreadnaught’ of the Early Imperial Period that were eventually adapted into a modern design for a cruiser. Its armoring is superior to the Battle Carrier outright, but is second only to the Battle Carrier in shielding and point defense (of which it has quite a lot). This long-range and orbital-bombardment-capable, its weapons range from large missile weapons to particle beams to even rail weapons in particular that are capable of firing rounds large enough and strong enough to bombard a planet through its atmosphere in general. These vessels are known best for their superior long-range firepower and ability to provide more precision aiming as well as a ‘sheer volume of saturating fire’ to suppress or carve into enemy forces. A mainstay in major or large enough engagements and orbital bombardment, usually food smaller battles either they will not be present or be present in a small handful as heavy firepower and support for the main spacecraft involved in such a battle/engagement.
General-Purpose Military Cargo Vessel (GP-MCG)
A general purpose vessel used to carry cargo, both onto and off of planets as well as between locations in space. A larger sister to the G-PERCC, it is more often used for larger loads of cargo and troops and such while the G-PERCC is most often used for smaller loads. It is larger and more heavily armored and protected than its smaller relative as well, between its armoring, general defensive linings, and larger emergency shield generator.
((Summary: 19 meters tall. General spaceborne mech platform, which uses equipment carried into combat and a standardized design. Uses dense armor and a shield generator, as well as some anti-psionic lining, radiation shielding, electrical insulation, thermal shielding, and the like. Possesses a powerful set of thrusters for movement. Uses one of the MECHS forms of controlling the unit. Used for planetary landings on G-PERCC or other form of military planetary transition type craft. Carries handheld weapons, some of which can be magnetically attached to its legs or arms to be carried into battle as well, and can utilize a built-in concealed plasma sword for melee or cutting apart obstacles (sword is like a giant super plasma blade, which is contained and controlled by a magnetic field produced by the hilt). Plasma sword can be used in-atmosphere, but underwater or in a liquid medium that dissipates heat more or less effectively its effectiveness is lower and reduced. Possesses a ‘gravitational core’, or a device meant to manipulate and control the platform’s personal gravitational field and thus not only allowing it to move about freely in space (as well as counteract recoil to some extent) but also even move about just as freely and smoothly on a planet if so desired by the pilot.
Is gradually being phased out for the MK3.7, though both these and a shorter variant are seeing continued use in non-combat or engineering support roles and around space stations as well within the military. Further, even shorter and downgraded civilian-derivative models have been developed for use and been implemented with general success by this point in time as well. Some surpluses of the units have already begun to form as the MK3.7 has become more widespread and better understood/introduced.))
((Summary: 16 meters tall. General spaceborne mech combat platform, which uses equipment carried into combat and a standardized design. Uses dense armor and an improved shield generator, as well as improved anti-psionic lining, radiation shielding, electrical insulation, more advanced thermal shielding, and the like. Possesses a more nuanced and powerful set of thrusters for movement. Uses one of the MECHS forms of controlling the unit. Used for planetary landings on G-PERCC or other form of military planetary transition type craft. Carries handheld weapons, some of which can be magnetically attached to its legs or arms to be carried into battle as well, and can utilize a built-in concealed plasma sword for melee or cutting apart obstacles (sword is like a giant super plasma blade, which is contained and controlled by a magnetic field produced by the hilt). Plasma sword can be used in-atmosphere, but underwater or in a liquid medium that dissipates heat more or less effectively its effectiveness is lower and reduced. Possesses a ‘gravitational core’, or a device meant to manipulate and control the platform’s personal gravitational field and thus not only allowing it to move about freely in space (as well as counteract recoil to some extent) but also even move about just as freely and smoothly on a planet if so desired by the pilot. Can re-enter and exit the planet’s atmosphere safely on its own, compared to its previous/older version.
Has roughly replaced about 61% of existing MK3 platforms by the current point in time.))
((Summary: 19 meters tall. General spaceborne mech platform, which uses equipment carried into combat and a standardized design. Uses armor and a shield generator, as well as radiation shielding, electrical insulation, and the like. Possesses a powerful set of thrusters for movement. Uses one of the psionic-inclined MECHS forms of controlling the unit. Carries handheld weapons, some of which can be magnetically attached to its legs or arms to be carried into battle as well, and can utilize a built-in concealed plasma sword for melee or cutting apart obstacles (sword is like a giant super plasma blade, which is contained and controlled by a magnetic field produced by the hilt). Plasma sword can be used in-atmosphere, but underwater or in a liquid medium that dissipates heat more or less effectively its effectiveness is lower and reduced. Possesses a ‘gravitational core’, or a device meant to manipulate and control the platform’s personal gravitational field and thus not only allowing it to move about freely in space (as well as counteract recoil to some extent) but also even move about just as freely and smoothly on a planet if so desired by the pilot.
Uniquely made with tech and materials that amplifies pilot psionic capabilities and their range while in use. Is in the later stages of being phased out in favor of the MK3.5 Type-F, which is the latest design for a psionic mech from a special project to be developed and understood to the point of making a standardized format for the new platform. Doesn’t use anti-psionic lining due to the psionic pilot and their amplified strength in the unit being stronger than that (which otherwise as a rule is installed into all manned vehicles of the UID). Possesses psionic sensors on top of other mundane forms of detection. Among its usable weapon types, as with its successor, include psionically-guided missiles and psionically-guided antimatter-warhead ‘bullets’ among other things. In the case of the MK3, though, among its optional weapons was a unique one that took the form of a special ‘hub’ container attached to it. Said container contained psionically-controlled railgun-mounted drones that could be deployed to attack and return to their ‘mother unit’ to recharge….though these had to be simpler due to being a ‘weapon that can be attached and taken off off the unit’ and likewise due to this requirement had some issues and added vulnerabilities. As a concept, however, this optional weapon of the MK3 has been far improved in its successor as a built-in feature of sorts now.))
((Summary: 17 meters tall. General spaceborne mech platform, which uses equipment carried into combat and a standardized design. Uses armor and a shield generator, as well as radiation shielding, electrical insulation, and the like. Possesses a more nuanced and powerful set of thrusters for movement. Uses one of the psionic-inclined MECHS forms of controlling the unit. Carries handheld weapons, some of which can be magnetically attached to its legs or arms to be carried into battle as well, and can utilize a built-in concealed plasma sword for melee or cutting apart obstacles (sword is like a giant super plasma blade, which is contained and controlled by a magnetic field produced by the hilt). Plasma sword can be used in-atmosphere, but underwater or in a liquid medium that dissipates heat more or less effectively its effectiveness is lower and reduced. Possesses a ‘gravitational core’, or a device meant to manipulate and control the platform’s personal gravitational field and thus not only allowing it to move about freely in space (as well as counteract recoil to some extent) but also even move about just as freely and smoothly on a planet if so desired by the pilot. Can re-enter and exit the planet’s atmosphere safely on its own, compared to its previous/older version.
Uniquely made with tech and materials that amplifies pilot psionic capabilities and their range while in use. It also has a built-in weapon called the “Shard”, of which it carries six, which are psionically-controlled drone-type units with a powerful built-in particle beam weapon and thrusters attached. These small profile and highly maneuverable pieces of tech are uniquely tied to the mech and attuned to the pilot and each have their own built-in power source and gravitational core to boot. The unit, however, also can now have a weapon additionally attached to the center of its back….in the example pic’s case being a tri-rail railgun attached to the center of its back. Improved nuanced controls, power efficiency, psionic sensors, and speed/maneuverability are among its other improvements over the basic Mk3. Doesn’t use anti-psionic lining due to the psionic pilot and their amplified strength in the unit being stronger than that standard defensive-type material (which otherwise as a rule is installed into all manned vehicles of the UID).
Has replaced roughly 77% of existing MK3’s by the current point in time.))
((Note: Color scheme of units is/should be black by design, other colorations of the example pics will be designated as just being some form of ‘training unit type colors’ made to ensure visibility when practicing and such.))
((Note to Self: Describe what Project Annani is here in more detail. Was made to develop next-generation mecha with advanced technologies, working to create both effective weapons and new MECHS combat platforms in the long-term. Currently there’s a set of twelve next-generation mecha that have been tweaked, piloted, and tested rigorously in and outside of combat scenarios, etc.))
Basic UID Soldier/Infantry
Soldiers wear the standard ‘protective muscle suit’ over the uniform, which comes with an airtight integrated combat gas/anti-chemical rebreather, before donning lighter and tough-made exoskeletal-type combat armor over the top of this. Soldier uniforms also usually have a similar type of ‘package protection’ as the ‘standard defensive package’ integrated into manned vehicles (mostly). Meanwhile some aspects of the ‘standard defensive package’, such as armoring/kinetic protection, are either added redundancies in or are instead incorporated into an underlying self-repairing ‘combat muscle suit’ and the combat armor proper.
Exoskeleton UID Soldier/Infantry
Soldiers that utilize a heavier-duty integrated combat exoskeleton, one which is both useful in moving battlefield obstacles and such in the middle of combat as well as being suited to protecting soldiers against even more dangerous environmental scenarios. Forms of the suit for the Engineering Corps are also in existence for use in moving materials and performing similarly hard labor under potentially dangerous or rough conditions. The exosuit is, as with other technologies integrated into standard soldier combat equipment and armor(s), mostly self-contained aside from the usage of comms and in some cases interconnected quantum-encrypted channels between teammates created using several quantum entanglements.
Basic and Exoskeleton UID Ranger Corps (Respectively)
Basic UID Marine
Exoskeleton UID Marine
Basic UID Psi-Corps Soldier
Exoskeleton UID Psi-Corps Soldier
(Room left for potential later additions)
History:
For the UID, everything began with the rule of one inspired and genius ruler of the old Yrrani Empire: The “Tyrant Emperor” or “Genius Emperor” also known as “Emperor Yrran”. The third in the final dynasty of the Yrrani Empire, it was during Yrran’s hotly-debated reign that something known covertly as “Project Reservoir” began in secret underneath his rule. A long-term project known only to the few trusted hands around him at most, including the head of the Imperial Guardians and each future Emperor after they took the throne as a general rule of thumb, it was a project focused on ‘preserving the imperial family and Yrrani species’ in a future time period Yrran saw as, as noted in his own journal:
“[Ever] inevitably leading to the Empire’s eventual fall as things get bad again, and even worse so I believe, to the point that it cannot hope to be sustainable anymore. What I’ve wrought to curb this future and buy time for those yet to come has polarized many, and caused the loss of a great many lives, and yet in the end even it couldn’t go far enough in my mind. Yet, ultimately, it also goes to show that even the means by which I managed much of my desired reforms had to go through the means and hands of the very corruption within the Empire I wish I could do away with. Poetic, perhaps? Ah, such are my thoughts on the matter at least.
Project Reservoir, to return to the main point of this entry, is a move to ensure that something of my species survives beyond this future I have foreseen.….even though it will never again be the Empire itself. Nor do I belive what comes from this work of mine should be, for that matter, seeking back toward all of this and what it will be….even for the imperium and mistakes of their forebears. So it is my hope to progress this project and its effort along and structure things that, in the case some of my own descendants fall prey to the status quo of a drying system, those who come after myself may not tarnish it. This project is to forge a capsule taken out of time, out of the chaos of this crumbling Empire, to both preserve life and foster it toward a more enlightened future and path. Either way, it is a work of vanity by most definitions that shall be in the hands of the trusted few to perhaps ensure its viability and security.”
Some would say that Emperor Yrran had the gift of foresight by the time his reign ended, though the Imperial Palace never let out any official press or word about the matter. Others simply said he was a very observant and calculating individual, a shrewd mind that was undeniably a once-in-several-generations genius who had also gained quite the political acumen of his own by the time of his passing. Yet even the fourth longest-reigning emperor in the Yrrani Empire’s history, one way or another, would certainly leave a sort of legacy for the generations to come in a sense. His oldest son, eventually to be nicknamed the “Austere Emperor”, would then take the throne as his father had helped arrange for him.
Alongside his surviving but rather old mother, who still had enough of her wits and such about her, the Austere Emperor would take his father’s teachings to heart….though living in the shadow of his reputation and trying to live up to his father’s legacy in part helped make him an incredibly strict person at his core. Even so, when it came to the Empire and Project Reservoir he invested much into each and laid down further foundations for importing ‘the brightest minds’ and a great deal of technologies into systems designated for the project and its newly-designated capital of “Tar Yrri” as it was so named in his day. Certainly it was a great feat, and his did manage a few small reforms elsewhere within the Empire, but in the end he would find himself making a few too many enemies of his father’s old corrupt-side allies and pushing his own heir too hard in turn while also managing to alienate and ignore him somewhat at the same time. Such was the case of his heir’s upbringing, then, that said heir fell more and more towards the willing attention of the empire’s factions.
So it would be that the grandson of Yrran would, eventually, ascend to the throne as the “Party Emperor” or “Ignorant Emperor” in his own time. He became famous for turning a few ‘core worlds’ near the capital into ‘literal personal resorts and playthings of the nobility’ as he mostly often left rule and management of a number of affairs to the head of the Imperial Guardians or other corrupt politicians and factions below him. It was during his much more ‘hands off’ reign that he favored the corrupt parts of the Empire even more so rather than what his grandfather and father had done previously, allowing them to regrow back into old niches while the head of the Imperial Guardians (a leftover leader from his grandfather’s reign even) neglected to pass the secret of Project Reservoir on to him as a personal call and diverted resources into it. Then, once the Party Emperor passed the affairs onto his own just about as chaotic heir, who sought to pretend he was a soldier, the truth of the project would skip another generation of the throne by choice as the next head of the Imperial Guardians was put in place by his own predecessor due to the lackadaisical nature of running things at the time.
This was, at least, before the Party Emperor’s youngest granddaughter proved a more sober ruler than her two ancestors after a hard childhood and the either disinterest or deaths of the other in-line-for-the-throne relatives she had around her. Her rise to the throne was a mostly non-surprise to those who knew the goings-on behind the throne, and while it did involve some engineering and corruption it also came mostly as a response to the decline of some imperial matters underneath her own father that had alarmed more than a few of the Empire’s factions. An emperor that was easy to handle, as the Party Emperor had been, was acceptable. An emperor going off-the-rails and pissing off most factions in the opposite way as his own grandfather had? That was unacceptable enough. Yet most important was the sitting Empress being brought in on Project Reservoir and seeking to pick up the slack her predecessors had left with regards to it and ‘restoring some sense of sobriety’ to the Imperial Palace and throne in the eyes of a great many to boot. Yet, in the end, she would also leave her mark for the future in other ways.
Unlike most Emperors and Empresses, she simply had one husband and two children….a very abnormal phenomenon to be sure compared to the many children of those who had come before her. Both children ending up being sons, then, and with what power she had and would manage to get a grip back upon during her reign she would choose her sickly younger son to succeed her over the expectations of her more popular older son. Such came after a fair amount of a ‘family rift’ grew between her and her older son, and her hope was that her wiser younger son would at least be able to further Project Reservoir compared to his older brother who had flocked to winning attention and support within the political factions. She saw her oldest son as a risk to the project and plan, though while exiling and disowning her older son from the Empire’s borders she could tell it wasn’t going to be a very successful measure in the long run after she would eventually pass on herself. The factions were still vying, her younger son’s health was already sickly as it was, and in this vein she sought to embolden the Imperial Guardians and purge their ranks as she waxed on in years.
This sickly younger son would, then, become the last successfully sitting Emperor and be nicknamed the “Sickly Emperor” for his troubles. Sickly because he was often sick and weak of body, even if his mind was noted as being bright, and while able to hold some level of power with the help of the head of the Imperial Guardians would find himself even more politically isolated than before as the factions sought to exploit his weakness. His first wife would even sell out to the factions for their loyalty in the end, with his three oldest kids born to her being taken by three of the biggest factions at her behest to be ‘cared for and raised with the highest standards’ and secure political loyalties to her on their part. Yet unplanned by her was her sudden death due to complications during giving birth to her third child, leading to the Sickly Emperor getting a second wife and bearing two more children by her who were kept to be raised at the Imperial Palace proper this time. These remaining two children would be raised with much oversight by the Emperor himself, as well as be watched over by the bulk of the remaining loyal central and upper parts of Imperial Guardians (as parts of it had become increasingly corrupt at lower levels thus far). However, the matter of succession still was expected to fall to his oldest son, a boy who was distant from his father and had been both raised in opposition to him and instilled with the idea that the throne should have been given to him already and frankly earlier than normal due to his father’s sickly nature and ‘ill fit for a ruler’.
Meanwhile, the Sickly Emperor would take the older of the two children he had with his second wife to manipulate and raise her with the intent to forge her covertly into a ‘proper heir’....though an ‘heir to what’ at this rate he was beginning to wonder for himself. His oldest wouldn’t readily give up the throne for sure, and the amount of control and authority he had over matters had already been declining across the span of his reign behind closed doors as it was with him merely clinging tightly onto what he had left. Yet even then, with what authority and such he had left, he put all he had left into Project Reservoir that he could and sought to expand it as he, in his eyes: “Saw the end Yrran did, even as it was coming hastily toward us like a charging Vulderbeast.” Yet even with this in mind, it was natural that the “Sickly Emperor” also couldn’t prevent the return of his older brother during his reign as well, both invited back by some of the larger factions with ‘amnesty’ given him for ‘the actions of a mad and irrational mother and their injustices’. It was he who still seemed to have many ears bent toward him even since his exile, and the brewing of a storm between him and the Sickly Emperor’s oldest seemed to be brewing beneath the surface of Tar Yrra’s politics at that.
In the end, the Sickly Emperor would make a fateful decision upon realizing that he was going to die sooner than later from his personal physicians. He would send off the two of his children, his beloved second wife (who these two had been born to), and most of the remaining loyal parts of the Imperial Guardians and their central command (alongside some other loyal officials and such more covertly so) off on ‘a much needed vacation’ according to most sources as information was kept tight about their whereabouts for the most part. Not something strange, for the Emperors and Empresses or parts of their families to go on a tour somewhere or vacation, though it turned out to be a timely departure as four days later the Sickly Emperor’s oldest son approached him one evening with a pillow in his hands after coming to ‘talk to him one last time’ and ‘hoping to reconcile’. Naturally, the morning the fifth day after the others had left, the Emperor was found ‘tragically killed’ in his bed,with his oldest son coming out to publicly proclaim the suspects were his two half-siblings and father’s second wife who ‘had taken much and run off to hide from their ill deeds’ in his and his conspirators’ words. While he and his son hadn’t ever truly been close, though, the Ascendant Emperor would still claim to have ‘reconciled with my ill-minded father before this’ and frankly put on the usual lavish state funeral for his father and such as he moved to curry more support for his ascension to the throne. He would continue to grease palms, see plans to kill off those he had accused and the notable chunk of the Imperial Treasury that had disappeared mysteriously with them, and with the death several years ago of his formelry-exiled uncle from an accident he felt more secure than ever about being able to ‘dispose of’ his remaining female cousin (his uncle’s only child) who he saw as a lesser threat. All he needed to do, then, was worry about preparing for his ascension after the proper mourning period and publicity stunts to get more people on his side. That and grease the right palms and so forth….yes, his rise was a certainty. With a large portion of the remaining Imperial Guardians, mostly lower ranks, seemingly in his pocket he also felt that a potential assassination would be hard to pull off at best.
It was also during this time the Ascendant Emperor and his co-conspirators, as he prepared for taking the throne, would manage to uncover the existence of Project Reservoir in a sense as they sought information left behind of where the rest of the late imperial family had fled to in earnest. Simply coming across a message that couldn’t be deleted in time before the others had left, it referred to a ‘set of security systems’ they might have fled to. Mentions of a ‘safe haven’ and ‘project’ were also dug up in connection with this. While more work to follow their trail remained, however, the Ascendant Emperor sought to be enthroned before he dug any deeper or could ‘publicly’ make more of a move against his other family members. This was because he indeed was counting on his coronation to take power formally, and thus give him much more room to pursue them than he had in his current state. Yet overall it seemed, for the most part, as if nothing could go wrong much at this point. He had effective control of the palace, most of the remaining Imperial Guardians and many Senators and even some of the military in-pocket directly-speaking, and the like!
Yet it would be the Ascendant Emperor’s cousin, the one who could become the so-called “Usurper Empress”, who would come to prove that the Ascendant Emperor had far less of the empire secured for himself than he thought. His former cast-out uncle had been working hard since his exile, and especially during his return, to prepare a means to seize the throne for himself and his line. This, at least, had built up enough steam before the uncle’s own death had shifted the plan to putting his daughter on the throne as she came to lead it all out of the blue. Such it would be that, on the day of the Ascendant Emperor’s supposed coronation, before he could walk into the palace to be crowned his own cousin’s agents cut him down in broad daylight and her soldiers moved to take over the palace in a hurry while unofficially but publicly declaring her the ‘rightful Empress’ and seeking to assert such on her part. Cue, then, the chaos that ensued as the ‘illegitimate self-proclaimed usurper’ was enough of a reason for the other two oldest siblings of the late Sickly Emperor and their factions to make a move for the throne as a perfect reason for doing so simply sat in their laps from the looks of it. Likewise the Ascendant Emperor’s conspirators would resist or defect in the process, and then the chaos on Tar Yrra spread further as multiple moves and schemes erupted across the major political factions in a cascade effect. Indeed, the roiling depths of corruption within the Empire would finally catch alight into an open and cataclysmic civil war that would come to be known as the “Century of Strife”.
During this time, the knowledge the Ascendant Emperor and his people had been digging into would come to be acquired by the “Usurper Empress” and her own conspirators. Yet as the ongoing civil war as major factions and other players within the Empire turned on each other became a far more pressing issue than first imagined by any of the sides, it would crash into the near-extinction of the Yrrani species and saw the bloody death of the Empire itself in the end. Not a cry or a whimper, but an apocalyptic fall from grace that saw the Yrrani made extinct in many places as secessionists and empire-reclaiming hopefuls and beyond also rose up during this century. Yet even as the Usurper Empress seemed to eventually ‘disappear’,, and the homeworld went silent as its millenia-long-built-up Planetary Defense System was somehow turned on to boot, the information the Usurper Empress had inherited and gained somehow ‘leaked’ off of Tar Yrra and to elsewhere by unknown means and individuals. It would end up going from file to file and word of mouth to word of mouth, and a grand ‘telephone game’ would commence from there with regards to the information in the long run.
Truth about a cluster of systems a portion of the late Imperial Family of the last sitting Emperor might’ve gone to hide out to, then, would be frankly lost to the chaos of the times. It would instead turn into a misunderstanding of ‘safe haven’ in the long-run being ‘a cache or bunker for the Imperial Family that was hidden about somewhere’. This information turned into a ‘state secret’ in some places, who thought they knew the truth, while others saw the tale turned more widely into motivation for dozens and dozens of prospective scavengers and treasure hunters and wealth-rich seekers spreading out to find this ‘great prize’ hidden within the corpse of the collapsed Empire (and assumed to be in the old core of the empire somewhere). Yet none in the end would know the full truth….at least excluding those who had survived in the ‘safe haven’ wrought by Project Reservoir.
Indeed, the cluster of systems used for the project would come to be the more widely-applicable ‘safe haven’ its final contributor had sought to change it into. While this work in those final years was a move considered ‘last second’ in the overall scheme of things, it was successful enough to preserve the Yrrani species in some capacity at the very least as they disappeared from most of the wider galaxy at large. Further, the Yrrani were but only one among the several species that seemed to have been integrated into the project’s systems and worlds as humans and others had been brought in as a sort of ‘time capsule’ to, in the words of the Sickly Emperor: “Preserve the heritage of many, even as things cascade[d] down and eagerly toward an inevitable end around us. All so that a newer, brighter future may be sought in the eras to come.”
Indeed, the cluster of systems of Project Reservoir would work to ‘begin again’ by the time of the Great Fall as the daughter of the last sitting Emperor took up the mantle of rulership in the wake of the great century of death erupting into being within the wider galaxy beyond them. From the surface of the future capital of a kingdom, and the capital having also been renamed “Tar Idkar” by this point, these former remnants of the old Empire would begin down a path different from those who would rise up aspiring for or stuck looking back upon the glory days and history alike of the now-dead Empire. From them and their efforts, and the coming generations of new intermingling species fostered within the initial safe haven, a new constitutional monarchy rose gradually from the ashes of the old Empire. Yet the advanced technology of the new capital that had been built up for generations, and bright minds alike that had been brought there for just as long, would also work to transform the new post-Empire state in terms of prosperity and might alike. Thus the new “United Idkaran Dominion” would come into being over the long-term of those following centuries beyond the fall of the Empire.
Even so, this new safe haven emerging from its cocoon did also seek to avoid detection or being seen as a greater threat if possible. This came alongside distancing itself from the old Empire in title as well as name to boot. Such was part of the overall defensive policy of things in general for the UID, even as it would eventually begin to expand bit by bit in terms of territory eventually during the Great Fall. In the wake of this also came much in the way of seeking to repair the fires of the “Century of Strife” in places where peoples still clung on to life as it expanded, though monuments and memorials and such would also arise as former great battlefields and worlds devoid of sapient life were also come across. History was not something to become lost in, but was to be a teacher for those who were yet to come, though varying opinions would still arise about the old Empire in general within the UID regardless. Overall, however, the UID would seek a sort of neutral stance and observational approach to things when it came to neighbors despite the occasional conflict with others or seeking to purge pirates, among other things.
What the UID didn’t expect to happen, however, was the eventual rediscovery of Tar Yrra….intact of all things. The old capital. The jewel of the crown of the old Empire. A place that, in the end, many factions sought to fight over and failed to secure four times over. A place that, if captured, could lead to a new Empire rising or potentially the destruction of everything that had arisen since the end of the old Empire. That….that could be a problem, but one that couldn’t be simply solved with the ‘most direct route’ outright either perhaps. Further, to take that world, on anyone’s part, would also surely be seen inevitably by the rest of the galaxy as a huge grab for power for sure even if made with supposedly the ‘best intentions’.
Such was the severity of the matter and its risks that, even if barely at first, the UID government in the end barely chose to take a continued neutral status in the ensuing Reclamation Wars. Instead, then, it cast aside direct participation in favor of espionage, the analysis of battle wreckage and fights, and seeking to watch the actions of those involved rather than diving into the carnage themselves outright. Not all were happy with this within the UID, though many others were simply glad to avoid more wars, but regardless of public and politician opinions the UID would in the end become involved in some capacity at the end of the latest Reclamation War in a manner of speaking. It would volunteer to host peace talks and the armistice at the end of the latest Reclamation War. This came after calls for ending the latest conflict, which themselves were made by the multinational organization that had arisen within the wake of the fallen Empire: The (insert Space UN title here).
From here, and managing to keep to a policy of general neutrality through it all in the end, after the Fourth Reclamation War the UID would take part in the multinational ships and soldiers and stations protecting the buffer of the ‘neutral zone’ designated around Tar Yrra and its home system. Such would also be used as a partial excuse, really, to keep building up its own military in a general sense as it had already been doing. Yet not wanting others to take the old capital was certainly just one part of the reason to keep others from getting near that planet. With the autonomous Planetary Defense System of Tar Yrra having also been activated all those centuries around, it seemed, even entering the home system of the former Imperial Capital was a death sentence to most anything within sight of the literally titanic defense grid.
Even so, however, to the UID it was clear they couldn’t allow Tar Yrra to simply fall into the hands of just anyone….especially certain parties, from the looks and sounds of it, who had participated in the Reclamation Wars. Toss in, then, the UID’s own retained ‘secret knowledge’ of a number of some much greater dangers secretly stored down there on the surface of the old capital? It was more than mere weapons and technology that posed a danger, either to someone taking the old capital or otherwise, if they got off-world or were ‘released’ somehow. It could spell disaster for perhaps even the rest of the galaxy as a whole in some cases….
((Note: Some excerpts of history, and many of the rewrites made by me in an attempt to get this down into the app proper, were not included in this due to sheer length and sometimes being rambling.))
Other:
Back during the early days of the Empire, there was an organization that would arise within the government that was tasked with investigating and studying 'anomalous matters' within the Empire that had been coming to the attention of the government at various levels. Originally a contingent of the government that was tied to the authority of the military and certain universities in a ramshackle manner, mostly to arrange its creation in an era where its existence was new and not very well understood yet, it took on the name of the "Military Anomalous Investigation Bureau" (MAIB) and for years was under the military's primary jurisdiction with several notable universities and some government researchers semi-independently assisting under its purview at the time. While this model would at least function for a while, though, it would see occasional reform until eventually a series of events known as the "Containment Breaches of 799" would lead to several cascading disasters regarding the organization and its by-then struggling performancce. In the aftermath the orgnaization would be rebuilt from the ground up and ultimately be elevated by the "August Empress", Empress Yrissa, and made into an independent Empire-wide organization of its own after years of struggling to work effectively due to the odd nature of its existence. Taking on the name of the "Imperial Bureau of Anomalies" (IBA) at this time, it's effectivness would rise drastically in the coming centuries as its semi-independent nature and built-in authority would allow it to, in this case at least, function more efficiently and avoid much of the beauracracy of the growing and eventually declining Empire (though some officials or nobles attempted to change this one way or another at times, though one way or another these attempts would fail in the end as well by some chance or other means) and to do its primary job of 'keeping the citizenry of the Empire safe, while seeking to understand and contain anomalies that seem to defy known sciences or such like things'. Much of the time the organization went ignored unless a major anomaly or such arose to disrupt things, though further reform or reorganization was certainly not going to avoid happening either over the centuries of the Empire.
During the time of Emperor Yrran of the final dynasty of the Yrrani Empire, however, the organization would become more connected to the throne after he took matters of the organiszation's management partly into the throne's hands during the cascade of his reforms and the internal restructurings and purges alike. This also came at a time where several of the Empire's political factions were vying to, almost sucessfully, to carve up influence over the organization by once again trying to pass laws to place some of their politicians in authority over branches of the organization and its facilities in some part (etc). Essentially 'saving' the IBA at this time, Yrran's heir would follow in shielding the organization in turn while instead the head of the Imperial Guardians would be left to give imperial oversight of the organization both formally and at least effectively so under the reigns of the two emperors following this (even the Party Emperor and his child at least, if nothing else, didn't trust the factions that much despite his far more hands-off attitude or just didn't care about this connection enough to not delegate it off lazily, etc). By the time of the mother of the later "Sickly Emperor" rising to power and his reign thereafter, and resumption of the management of Project Reservoir by an actual sitting Emperor/Empress, the organization began to gradually relocate facilities and suchh covertly to the site of the project out of concern over 'misuse of contained anomalies', among other things admittedly, before the fall of the Empire. However, the HQ of the organization would be the slowest in this matter in some part, and with the death of the Sickly Emperor the aspiring Ascendant Emperor put soldiers stationed around the IBA's HQ in a silent but bold claim to ownership over it. This made attempting to move any further personnel or anomalies nigh impossible, though with the assassination of the aspiring Ascendant Emperor, and chaos of the "Century of Strife" that rose in the attempted coup of the Usurper Empress, the headquarters would be abandoned by most remaining personnel as a last-ditch effort to move things out in the wake of the new conflict seemed to be the most viable matter.
In the chaos of the planned evacuation, which had to be done in haste due to Imperial Factions on the homeworld looking on the organization as a potential 'asset' but were fighting each other first, the last known sitting Director of the IBA would die (and appoint a new one in his stead before dying, as those outside of the UID wouldn't know) before the rest of the evacuees went about fleeing on the few ships to escape Tar Yrra. This initial period, of the ultimately apocalyptic century-long civil war, was indeed their seemingly only chance to get out while they still could. To the credit of those who escaped, though, the ships that escaped would make it to the site of Project Reservoir before a lengthy process of being cross-examined before being allowed in. (However, the old HQ would be locked down....and who knows what soldiers or such tried to force their way in, or what horrors might've been unleashed or left behind along with everything else on Tar Yrra....and some of that needs to stay locked up,perhaps, etc.)
From here, the remnants of the IBA would eventually reform into the Dominion Anomaly Investigation Bureau (DAIB) as the UID itself also eventually coalesced into being from those that populated and controlled the systems of Project Reservoir. And here it has remained until this day.
Current Director of the DAIB:
((A hider to contain a list of anomalies contained, stored, or known about by the DAIB. Super WIP, it will be added to as ideas for anomalies pop up in my head or maybe people give me ideas too. Etc.))
Anomaly 642, the "Omnicidally Angry Teapot" - An anomaly that takes the form of a teapot seemingly carved in mostly one pieces out of some kind of jade-like alien mineral substance. It was originally located on the third moon of Argyll IV, after travelers passing close enough nearby to it began to report sometimes hearing an 'angry voice' shouting at them in their minds and the reports eventually were noted and tracked by the original IBA. The agent who pieced the reports together was originally seen as crazy for suggesting a connection to the moon, given the disparate and time-separated nature of these reports, but ties with a local legend in the Argyll system about 'the angry moon' among locals of the fringe system lined up with it as well. Tentatively a team was sent to investigate, and scans of the moon indicated the existence of a non-natural structure under the surface of the moon....even if a rather small, house-like one. Agents also began to exhibit hereforeto unknown levels of agression and frustration the closer they got to the site as well, eventually leading to several breaking out into a fight and the use of emergency sedatives to those affected. Upon arrival at the discovered site by the remaining three, who struggled to resist even worse so as they got there, a set of peculiar ruins were found that seemed as if they were carved into the depths of the uninhabitable moon itself in one contiguous piece using seemingly impossible engineering techniques (even by the standards of the Late Empire much much later). In the 'living room' there sat a humble teapot, despite the lower gravity of the moon, on a stone table carved up from the floor. Despite its unknown make and age, however, it seemed to be in perfect condition.
Upon inspection, however, agents were startled by a voice shouting "Boo, ya' pointy ears f*****, haha!". It would be confirmed in the mission debrief, and later after Anomaly 642's storage and formal containment, that it was a seemingly sapient and psionic teapot. Notable about it was its ever-grumpy attitude, and naturally even more notable was its seemingly omnidirectional hatred of all other life. Organic life? Yes. Sapient A.I. and machines? Still hates it. Synthetic or other forms of life? It never seems to skip a beat.
While initial containment of the anomaly sought to isolate the teapot and its psionic profanities and insults, however, it was found that without often enough interactions with sapient organisms it genrated an aura of 'negative emotions' that affected others far, far beyond its location as well as amplified the range of its psionic capabilities. Interaction with the anomaly would, however, seem to reset the range of its psionic abilities and remove the negative emotion aura. This makes logical sense as to why it seemed more legend than fact, and why all known reports on it were spread out so much. It was alone for so long, finally got enough range to interact with the rare passing spacecraft, and the process would be reset and begin anew.
Personnel have thus been assigned to be around it for two hours a day during its containment in order to keep the range and effects of the anomaly to a minimum, especially after anti-psionic material lining proved to be only able to slow its effects down in expanding beyond the containment chamber rather than stopping its effects from doing so. Over the years, though, attempts by some personnel to 'smash the stupid pot', 'vent the asshole into space', and otherwise dispose of it have been made....and every time the pot has been relocated and brought back to be contained again. More emotionally-resilient personnel have thus been assigned to be around it for the most part, though inevitably shifts will be switched around out of some nessecity or due to reassignments/transfers and someone less resilient will be assigned to it in the shifts. While most of these complain, they were also approached prior about the assignment and informed before going on-shift for the first time as per protocol as well. However, while attempts to rotate out personnel to avoid '642 burnout' (as the term has come to be) have been made, every long while someone still tries to dispose of this anomaly. Every time they do so, though, it somehow manages to send a death threat by some means to the sitting Director (even if it is far out of psionic range somehow) and a team is sent to take it back to containment before the troublesome personnel are pulled aside for counseling and potential punishment or medical assitance depending on the circumstances. Recorded in the anomaly's sending of death threats in this sort of scenario, it has used the means of (but is not limited to) the following: Email, messenger craft, drones, avian-carried physically-written messages (a seeming favorite method), notes appearing on the Director's office door out of thin air, and crashing a terrestrial vehicle into the DAIB HQ's front gates while the former organic or A.I. driver was unresponsive and left in a horrific state of depression. Thus it is assumed the psionic abilities of this anomaly are more than simply its aura and telepathic capabilities, but it seems to refuse to exhibit these during any sort of testing or otherwise aside from instances of someone trying to destroy or dispose of it.
Snowdrops
BurningCold
Danyel
Fallenreaper
Zapdos
Xaltwind
Spiffy
dwyer austin
The Otter
Dezuel
))
