(Made the above flag from scratch, do not want to go on that late night flag-making adventure again for a long, long time if I can help it. XD):
The Royal Federation of Nibiru
Government Form:
Federalized Constitutional Monarchy
(Has a well-centralized federal/central government with a bureaucracy of its own, which has a monarchy at the head/top of it that exists as both a distinct political position with notable powers and as the symbolic figurehead of the nation. The system is federalized, granting a certain level of autonomy and management to the different regions but keeping them firmly underneath the grip of the federal government in this case.
A lengthy examination and background-checking process is used to choose regional level and higher leadership by the central government, with sub-regional politics being democratically voted into place with its own checks in place to maintain a more locally representative and publicly supported ‘lower management’ of the nation that helps keep people happy. Further, the nation possesses a proper constitution as a backbone to support it and maintain the groundwork for how it functions. To change the constitution itself would require a notable and lengthy process.)
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***Humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) - Humans. Just humans.
***Dreslan - The same species of alien as the Yulzan/Yyasum, but broke off and away from the Yulzan/Yyasum in full. A sepratist group that has sought to differentiate themselves from their kin and has some distinct cultural differences as well as any lingering similarities to them that have yet remained otherwise.
***Galateans - A product of artificial cell technology, they were made as gynoid servitor artificial life forms by a certain company that made and sold them. However, they would evolve and achieve sentience in full. The first of their kind to be recognized in this, named Galatea, would give her namesake to the rest of her kind as the initially hot debate about them in the courts would result in judgement that they were indeed sentient and sapient beings that deserved proper rights. With some tweaking to ensure they could sustain a population of their own, as well as the addition of modifications in the majority so they could grow and die of old age despite not visibly aging in appearance after hitting maturity, the Galateans over the last 100 years have become equals and citizens of the very nation their progenitors had once been made to serve. ‘
They look like human beings entirely made of a silvery metal, though possess things like odd eye colors (violet purple, pink, crimson red, gold, silver, etc). They can control their bodies consciously as well, even shifting around their organs internally and limbs externally. They are not shapeshifters who can take on the appearance of other people or Galateans or such. Just cool artificial life humanoids who got sentient rights and such, etc.
Population:
4.5 billion
Planet Name and Description:
Nibiru
Nibiru is a world that is roughly .75 times the size of Old Earth, covered in a roughly similar 60-40% split between oceans and landmass respectively. Looking at it, the planet is a thing of beauty and lush life that is covered in myriad settlements and cities and so forth. It likewise has two moons named Ishtar and Enlil respectively. What one would not expect upon seeing the world as it is now, however, is that it began as a barren wasteland of a rock in space. It was terraformed over the course of the last three centuries, leading to the development of advanced terraforming technologies that have been applied elsewhere in the nation itself by current times as well. A major achievement indeed.
Other planets controlled by the nation are the larger dwarf planets of Marduk and An, a number of places settled within the asteroid belt of the system, and another planet similarly sized to Nibiru that is slightly larger and called Ninhursag. The naming scheme takes after ancient Sumeria on Old Earth, mostly as a simple but distinct means of symbolism referring to ‘the beginnings of humanity’ taking root once more among the stars. Poetic.
There is also the inter-asteroid-belt dwarf planet of New Terra, not named by the Royal Federation but rather the belligerent separatist state of the Terran Free Cities Union that lives in the system.
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The Royal Federation began as one colonization project among many, one whose end destination ended up being (perhaps predictably so to some minds) a barren world with two small moons. It would become initially home to a myriad of artificial domed cities, artificially replicating the conditions of Earth atmospherically within their systems as the population worked on making the rock into a habitable place over time. It was a hopeful thing, a motivation to create a new home from scratch rather than a mere means to try not to die. Yet with this alien world of Nibiru being the third planet from its own sun, the potential for doing this was most definitely not zero and not impossible. It would, however, take quite a long time to try to get things correct…including a fair amount of trouble and incidents and breakthroughs and setbacks along the way.
The need for resources for the terraforming project and simply making more domed cities for the growing population alone began to become high, among other initial infrastructure needs, and pushed the colony to reach beyond the bounds of their own world to accrue and try to secure more materials. Asteroid mining around their system’s own vast and dense asteroid belt, as well as taking root on other surrounding worlds, would emerge into prominence as these needs would need to be met. Likewise, myriad artificial habitats would be built on other worlds and certain larger asteroids to facilitate these measures, creating a ‘new frontier’ as the colonists struggled against the grain of their new home. At the same time, however, issues with maintaining control all over these secondary homes and habitats led to a slew of obvious issues. Wild West style chaos in the most fringe and hard-to-police areas, several smaller civil conflicts as some tried to take control over these external resource-acquisition areas, attempts to pirate resource vessels and hoard them to gain power and influence, varying levels of granted autonomy in the frontier areas leading to attempted separatist movements of various sorts, and other such events that one could imagine going on in that first one hundred years. There were even internal conflicts on the homeworld of Nibiru itself, in part over the years due to the frontier issues as well as debate about whether to continue terraforming or simply investing in improved artificial habitats and artificial habitat building technologies for the populace.
After a particular civil war on the homeworld, however, a new development would emerge. The defeated party of the dirty and at times horrific yet small conflict was not a new one, but a group who had been mostly stubbornly persistent environmental extremists who formed a short while after initial colonization was made and terraforming efforts began. The group thought the government was ruining an alien world and was going to ruin the system itself, feeling more than a bit strongly that humanity could not be trusted any longer with a ‘New Earth’ or ‘thriving planet’ ever again after what happened to Old Earth. These would flee into the system’s asteroid belt using stolen vessels and supplies and technologies they had brought with them. They would set themselves up within the center of the system’s asteroid belt in the east, taking a dwarf planet from the locals living there and setting up shop on it with impunity. Meanwhile, the government was busy taking care of far larger problems of recovery and continued stability…thus the loss of the distant dwarf planet station would be forced to the sidelines. This place would remain out of sight and mind of the remainder of humanity in the system, at least until contact was eventually made by the new “Terran Free Cities Union” many decades later as they attacked a group of mining vessels with crudely-made ‘space warships’ and a swarm of mixed automated and remote-controlled space vessels.
By the time the TFCU made itself known, however, the Royal Federation was already in the middle of another issue.
Having continued to seek to stabilize itself more after the short but shocking war against what would become the founders of the TFCU, the government took a greater centralized role as public opinions toward ensuring greater stability rose to an all-time high on the homeworld. Alongside the ever-moving progress toward consolidating power and developing technologies needed for the terraforming and maintenance of a nation, one that consisted of more than one planet, it would eventually and progressively solidify the Royal Federation as a proper nation that was united with its constituent parts. This would be followed with making contact with an alien fleet, nomads who had lost their home and been seeking a new one before coming to the same solar system the Royal Federation was settled in. Splitting from a greater fleet of their own kind prior, as had others of their kind before, this alien ship fleet came in with not an olive branch but with sound and fury. Weapons and battle-ready ships, things beyond the initial capabilities of humanity, swarmed in and assailed the defenders planetside across the board. Meanwhile, the TFCU remained isolated from the conflict by its own internal focuses and the Royal Federation essentially acting as a buffer between the alien invaders and themselves. It would be a time of initially tremendous struggle and loss, with the tides only beginning to turn as humanity and its new allies began to push them back. Bit by bit at first, step by step, inch by inch they fought for the new home they had and became eventually more united than before within the fires and desperations of war that had genuinely threatened to reduce them to dust and decaying corpses at first.
It was at this point where the battle had begun to turn and humanity was rising back up from the ashes of the lost that the TFCU made contact with their neighbor again, unaware of the ongoing war and seeking to assert its own dominance and claims as ‘the rightful power of the Gaia (Utu being the Royal Federation name for it and the TFCU calling it “Gaia”) System’ as it did back then and it continues to believe and seeks to enforce even through current times. It was a conflict that put human against human, but as the Royal Federation had begun development of better spacefaring military vessels the TFCU were in for a very rude awakening as their ‘greedy, exploitative, and inhumane’ enemy of choice (as they so called the Royal Federation) retaliated with a small fleet able to wipe out the majority of TFCU mockingly ‘militarized’ space ships with a terrifying ease. It would be enough to silence that second front for a couple of decades before new TFCU ships would come into the battle, even attempting to parlay with the Yulzan invaders to take on a ‘shared enemy’ after those two decades, all whilst the main battle and war kept going to push back and out the invading threat on the Royal Federation’s part. Enemy ships and technologies were scalped and studied, weapons were made, and the military continued to seek to shape itself into a stronger and mightier fighting force. And in time, the growing fury of the nation would turn itself upon the invaders as the invaders had once turned upon them, ultimately turning the invading fleet into a pile of scrap as the last of the enemy ships fighting the Royal Federation were finally destroyed as a major threat only twenty years ago. Any remainder beyond this were either defectors who had abandoned their cause, gradually becoming residents of the nation their kin still fought, or remnants barely clinging to life who found shelter with the TFCU out of sheer spite for the Royal Federation.
Since then, on and off conflict with the TFCU and the gradual reclamation and rebuilding of war torn areas along the way has been the main focus. The TFCU have made themselves more and more a threat, and with hosting the bare clinging remnants of the former invading enemy it has spurred on a sort of hot anger between the two that has not seemed to settle down at any point during this time period. As this ‘lukewarm war’ has continued on the border with the TFCU, however, the Gateways have reopened once more. The paths humanity took to leave their former home once again awoken from their slumber by some unknown source, thrumming with power as a technology long lost to those who were descended from Earth’s original inhabitants.
What will this future hold for the Royal Federation and its people? Only time will tell.
Culture and Society:
-Whilst a number of lesser events, as well as other holidays and celebrations, exist, there is one that is very much ubiquitous within the Royal Federation. It is a celebration of the day the colonists had arrived in the system, the first day that the potential for humanity’s survival was cemented into history in what is now their home. It would become a festival and celebration held in the spring, as it were, a ‘start of the year’ event with much pomp and pride and such things infused into it. It would also be a time period to remember the losses and tragedies that forced humans to flee their original home. Lessons to learn from the past, but not to live in the past. Local Dreslan have also taken to it as well, mostly as a time to celebrate the founding of their new home…a home that no longer wanders among the stars. A new home they fought for, bled for, and died for alongside other citizens to prove themselves different from the invading forces. A new start and rebirth for their people, named to differentiate themselves from their invading kin. So too do the Galateans celebrate this holiday, as it founded the nation from which their kind would arise from the dust and find a home and welcome arms alongside their fellow human and eventually Dreslan citizens.
-The use of composite mixed cybernetics/gene-modded tissues exists within this society, originating from both human research as well as the study and assimilation of Dreslan-originating technologies. Mostly these are applied in the medical sense for replacement organs/limbs/tissues designed with anti-bodily-rejection medical applications in mind combined with their more sophisticated capabilities of integrated technologies, leading to many medical patients and even veterans having some amount of this normally composite mix of technology integrated into their bodies. It is more advanced in capability and application than the medical arts of ‘implanting regrown modified tissues or installing basic cybernetics’ alone, though some prefer these over the other options as purely a matter of personal choice/preference. It is also a technology integrated into soldiers within the military, though in this case soldiers inherently get procedures when not in active duty to safely ‘deactivate and render these integrated bits dormant’ so their capabilities will be as normal as any other human (as a rule of thumb in the military, not something that can be done swiftly by some enemy on the battlefield and that is done as a big safety measure in a most mandatory sense).
Casual use is a lighter form of this composite cybernetics/gene-modded tissues technology, taking the form of ‘reversible’ aesthetic tweaks or implants that can be removed safely to properly restore the original tissues of the user. It is akin to the acquisition of tattoos in this society, albeit more advanced and akin to things like using colored contact lenses and putting on props like cat ears (which in this case interface wirelessly with the body and safely so). They aren’t actual serious modifications or permanent/dangerous/medical implants into the body. This of course doesn’t stop some criminals from trying to delve into and make the more dangerous and permanent and powerful stuff, but considering it is only present within the black market and is known even within the black market for being incredibly stupid dangerous it doesn’t get many but the most desperate and perhaps foolish customers in this particular area.
-Dreslan vs Yulzan. The differences between the two are mostly defined by the drift in appearance between the two that has arisen for over a century and by the former being a citizen race of the Royal Federation and the latter being despised by the general population of the nation. It took a long time to get this separation of the Dreslan from the Yulzan after they defected to the human side in rebellion against their own side, and a long road of discrimination ranging from hate to outright killings did occur along the ugly road it took to make peace and become considered ‘fully citizens and different from those other guys’. One big factor is how Dreslan mostly look like natural and non-super-modified members of their race, though they do engage in modifications and such here and there. However, they do not take to the great extremes of their other kinfolk for both their own inherent cultural and otherwise general reasons.
To locals, the difference between them and the Yulzan is something distinct. To others beyond the Dreslan people’s current nation of residence, that might not look so clear at all if they’ve interacted with the Yulzan. Even so, despite making notable separations between themselves and their kin for mostly personal reasons the Dreslan have kept up records and information on their history and past and even involvement with the rest of their kin back in the day as a means of remembrance and showing them how far they have come from ‘those olden days’. This isn’t to say the extreme anti-Yulzan activists would not go after a Dreslan, they still do since they remain the same species as the Yulzan in general after all, but compared to many decades ago the distinctions between the two have led to great support for the Dreslan people and a generally well and solid acceptance of them.
-Rumor has it that the original Galatean, the actual “Galatea” herself, exists and lives still. Despite the artificial development of lifespans for the race as a whole, Galatea is said to still be among the minority of “Ageless” Galateans who chose not to take on a lifespan as the majority of their kin did otherwise. Is this true? Others have only speculated and can only do so.
-Hydroponic Foods are so common and the technology so well-developed in fringe and frontier areas that they are a staple food there. Meanwhile, naturally-grown foods and livestock and crops have begun to more rapidly spread throughout the nation due to terraforming technology enabling it to be achieved in more and more places.
-One of the ‘new advents’ in terraforming-created species that has swept over the nation is the creation of a living actual “Cockentrice” that acts as a pig-chicken hybrid (or perhaps monstrosity depending on the particular outsider’s point of view). It has a unique texture that lies somewhere between chicken and pork, with a mild but pleasant meaty flavor and higher cholesterol than a chicken but distinctly less than any sort of natural pork.
Another similar development in new gene-warped livestock is the “Turducken”, forged from the genes of a duck, chicken, and turkey whilst having a large overall body and very savory blend of meat qualities from the component birds whose genes were used to make this living creature a reality. Just don’t anger one on the farm if you go to see what they look like.
-The ongoing on-and-off lukewarm war with the TFCU is a matter that has its varying opinions and has generated various responses to it. Many simply want the TFCU to leave them alone, the effects of the decades of war prior having made them wish the current conflict would just cease somehow. Many also want it stopped and erased from existence due to it taking in the last minute remnants of the invading Yulzan fleet and having tried to parley with the Yulzan during the former war. Etc, etc, etc.
So one must be careful when talking about the matter to the general public in this nation…or at least try to have some kind of tact about it. Hopefully.
-Royal Federation fashion in a general sense takes its ideas from both modern trends as well as o It has also seen influences from the strain and stretching of resources over the past centuries, shaping up how the wealthy dress versus something like the average citizen. However, despite the distinct split when it comes to higher-fashion versus what the average citizen wears there are lingering similarities that do remain.
Casual citizen-level clothing generally utilizes less and more utilitarian/adaptable fabrics for basic clothing. Clothing that utilizes a body-hugging fit and doesn't require as much fabric or material to produce. Things that grant a greater ease of movement and can be worn on the run, usually with looser-fitting clothing worn over the top of it like coats or baggy hoodies or oversized T-shirts secondarily. For example, short skirts/shorts or smaller dresses utilize a body-hugging fit. Yet unlike the 'tight clothing' fashions of Old Earth, which could be too tight or had to be rather well-fitted or so forth, the advanced flexible/adaptable fabrics used with with Royal Federation casual clothing fashions among the general populace are made to literally adjust to the wearer's size along with them in a natural and astonishingly very comfortable/breathable manner. Instead of a 'one size fits all' approach attempting to cover the market, it has become 'the clothing adjusts to the wearer's size' in the literal sense. Something like jeans or a T-shirt or such will never be too tight or overly loose. Whilst this was a clothing advancement that was developed by resource shortage and utility and so forth, it has seen growth into all sorts of clothing styles and has gone from merely a 'cheap, ubiquitous fabric' to gain stylized nuances and pop culture designs and so forth slapped on them among other adaptations to the changing times and generations and trends of the past. However, that utterly deceptive-looking body-hugging look and functionality has remained at its roots all the same. Further, baggy clothing is used secondarily, things such as baggy hoodies and oversized shirts and large jackets have become a trend in more recent times as both a fashion statement and as just a means of dressing even more comfortably. A bled of the baggy clothing comfort of the ancient human past, revived again and returned into relevance by quite a landslide.
Meanwhile, the more wealthy don clothing more inspired by upper-class fashions of the old European Royalty and some ideas from the Far East. One will see in wealthy women, for example, formal attire such as quipao/cheongsam and other tighter or deep-v style garb for women that has the same body-hugging look but incredible comfort the average/regular citizen enjoys. However, it will be accentuated usually with ornate embroidering on the edges of the sleeves and along the bottom hem and along the splits and deep-V's and so forth. Likewise, beyond the main body of this type of higher-class dresses wealthy women will have long, flowing skirts or trains built into these. Likewise men will have comfortable formal shirts of a similar body-hugging but utterly breathable look, but will pair it with comfortable formal coats and fancy ornately-embroidered capes and so forth added (among other bells and whistles) for formal occasions in turn. In terms of casual clothing for the wealthy, women and men take up the ideas of showing off their bodies with those splits or deep-V's or other such things combined with other parts of the clothing alternately being lengthened or done up with fancy additions and extra fabrics and such. Things like having wider ends on one's shirt sleeves, added tassels on the shoulders of a belly-exposing shirt, or other added lengths and/or fabric designs/embellishments that is a sign of being fancier and more expensive clothing. This habit for the wealthy in general began as a means of showing off being able to afford stretched fabric and clothing resources during hard times, at least in comparison to the average citizen and such.
Further, clothing for hot and cold situations still is made to fit those situations. At least as best as possible. Insulating layers would be added to the highly versatile super-fabrics of Royal Federation clothing for winter/cold-weather activity and travel. Likewise things such as long-sleeved and well-covering coats and such for cold weather have remained practical throughout all parts of society in a general sense, being fashioned or procured or frankly made during the worst of times however people could get their hands on them. Likewise, despite the description of the average citizen's base clothing being a 'body-hugging look', it is properly covering based on what style of clothing is being worn. Long-sleeved shirts are long. Short-sleeves are short. Etc, etc, etc. Likewise, alternate forms of the material for things like making swimsuits exists in turn. Baggy clothing is made differently as well, compared to basic clothing, using looser affordable fabrics that have become more so due to more recent fashion trends. Further, clothing such as cold-weather attire is made with proper coverage and insulation and thickness in mind. Things have improved in terms of clothing by current times over the worst of the past over one hundred years and such for sure, but the idea is that the root of it all has remained at the core despite far improved conditions and such leading inherently to different trends and so forth being able to bloom into existence over the shifting decades. Likewise, added embellishments or fabrics for expensive/wealthier clothing is usually made to blend with the 'core' of a given clothing item and use far more sophisticated and fancy and high-end fabrics/materials too expensive to get used for the average citizen's clothing.
-(To Be Added To Over Time, mostly as more things come to mind in terms of details)
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Governance and Politics:
For the most part the state exists as a very well centralized authority with the sub-federal branches scattered about its territory in an even distribution. Elections are only ever to provide representatives at a sub-regional level, but higher-level political positions starting at the regional level and higher are filled by getting political experience at lower levels alongside an education before taking the formalized “Federal Examination and Capabilities Test” (FECT) (imagine the imperial examinations the Chinese used to choose officials in ancient times as a similar concept to this). One goes into these with some general aim of where they want to go in the Federal Government, but must be open to a range of potential positions within the Federal Bureaucracy itself.
A candidate who took the exam then undergoes the mandatory proper background checks and proper investigations into them personally that are presented before the people for public consideration as well. Candidates are then weighted against each other and may be further questioned, if anything is still left to look into or ask about, and likewise any big issues the public might have with them are taken into account after the public consideration segment for candidates. The government then chooses who gets into what position, and things are laid out and go on from there.
When it comes to sub-regional elections, they are a generally democratic process with added background checks and some oversight added into the process. They are a means to ensure locally-accepted representation within sub-regional areas, as well as to generate a population of politically-experienced individuals that can eventually seek to join the federal government. In this sense the governmental system of the Royal Federation is a hybrid in and of itself, but in effect the federal government is still very much the primary power over the nation itself at the highest levels.
Technology Overview:
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Terraforming: An area they have learned about and finally mastered over 300 years of history, it all stemmed from the work done gradually on the homeworld of Nibiru. As time has gone on it has been further and further streamlined and advanced, to the point that new frontier colonies can be terraformed in a far far quicker timeframe. Likewise, outside of civilian uses ranging from making home gardens to settling new frontiers and so forth, the military also has weaponized terraforming technology to use, and a handful of now-declassified older records of a few of the past battles of the “New Hundred Years’ War” against the invading aliens show this technology to have had and realized some disturbing potential indeed. Albeit not without the proper situations and such to use it in of course.
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Artificial Cells/Biometal: Not the usage of existing organic tissues and cellular structures to create new life, but utilizing things such as metals and other usually inorganic substances to create artificial/synthetic life. A truly unique creation in this sense, formed by human hands for design and use in myriad areas of society. Artificial cells can self-replicate and self-lyse very rapidly, as well as convert other kinds of nonmetal and metal mass into needed parts and energy and components for survival as well. This has led to them becoming highly adaptable in their very nature.
Artificial Cells were originally developed as part of a scientific study aiming to try to create artificial life, something stemming from ideas and concepts as far back as the 21st century on Old Earth. A basic initial form was developed within the Royal Federation within the first 100 years, but was mostly seen as a scientific oddity and novelty aside from the big news it all made after the initial breakthrough at first. Yet after a shortage of many types of metals within the colony led to myriad desperate solutions to try to solve the blooming crisis, the ongoing project would find itself bit by bit rapidly starved of resources and forced to use less and less as the team tried to keep the artificial cells alive. It was a pattern that would eventually see a rapid decline until the end of the project was announced, this being as funding was wholly cut out in favor of ‘more practical’ needs for the lab. Yet despite this abandonment by the higher-ups, what might be a miracle would be discovered in the aftermath of this. As the members of the experiment’s team came back to put the project to rest, after a few weeks of not being able to get to the lab for various legal and personal reasons, they expected to find dead cells and equipment gathering dust. Resigned to wrapping things up and gathering what ‘data’ remained, the team were surprised to find legitimate surviving cells that had adapted surprisingly well to surviving in an environment deprived of what had seemed to before be the necessary nutrients and materials for them to survive.
The development led to a new petition for looking into these as a potential solution to the shortage, which they would in turn become with a large amount more tweaking and experiments and frankly outright reinvigorated investment into the project. In turn this data and results would itself come to revolutionize the idea of technology at a fundamental level. Machines, computers, tools, weapons, attack creatures, and so forth were made of or simply incorporated in one way or another this new adaptable, functional, and programmable 'biometal' (as it became formally named) would arise. Variants of biometal using other materials for various purposes would also arise as artificial cell research would explode in development and funding, used in various fields ranging from mass-resource production to medical technologies and surgeries to self-repairing buildings and even whole tools or weapons stored safely inside soldiers' own bodies for safekeeping in the literal sense.
***Note***: This technology has become a staple of Royal Federation society as a whole, but has not overtaken everything. Long ago such an idea as deemed 'too risky and experimental' at best. Rather, it has continued to grow and develop alongside advanced 'traditional' types of machines such as proper computers and hovercraft and so forth that have very much continued to persist and advance and proliferate.
However, ‘everything has a price’ as the ancient saying goes. Indeed, the emergence of the Galateans from this technology was a shocking reminder of how things can go ‘too far’. This also resulted in certain restrictions and uch being placed on the technology, especially in regards to the prevention of creating ‘more sentient artificial life artificially for illegal or exploitative means’. Of course criminals will do as they please, so long as it suits them…no matter how strong the push to stop them remains to this day.
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Power and Energy Technologies: Improved means of fission power are made use of, mostly advancing and streamlining processes originating from Old Earth and linearly advancing them as well as applying them in safer and more effective forms by current times. Likewise advancements in geothermal and solar power have seen combined use alongside nuclear power.
Nuclear waste has also found use in being safely recycled into creating advanced fission batteries, recyclable and powerful batteries that can help move vehicles and power devices alike depending on their size. These are the type of batteries used for Accelero-Coil, particle-acceleration, and microwave weapons, though there is like any battery the need for safety. Just as one would not crack open some ancient Old Earth battery to goof off with the contents, it is not advised to do so with the fission batteries for similar safety reasons. These are in use in both the military and civilian areas, as well as have varying designs depending on what they are meant to be used with/in.
Currently, work has been put into making wireless energy transmission systems. The most this amounts to by current times is a long-range large-scale form of doing this, mostly utilizing ‘transmitter beams’ aimed at the proper ‘energy receivers’ on the other end. Some medium-scale applications of this have been installed in areas over the years, but the technology has not yet reached some ‘totally wireless age’ by any stretch of the imagination.
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Communications Technology: Hard neural implants have been developed, allowing one to access various sorts of technology and communicate with them simply. This is not some hyper-integrated technology that allows someone to hack the human brain in reverse, the implant is a hard-kill measure against that due to its inherent design as an interface for the brain rather than a direct feed that can affect it like that. These implants utilize the quantum-entanglement technology that the Royal Federation has adopted on all levels ranging from large-scale military use all the way down to simple individuals and so forth. Devices and implants alike make use of this, as well as myriad technologies and such. Regulations aplenty also exist in this area after certain ‘brain-hacking’ incidents during the past decades of war and technological development made the dangers quite crystal clear and prominent in the eyes of society and the nation as a whole.
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Military Technologies:
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General Weapons and Tools - In terms of the most basic and plentiful standardized handheld infantry weapons, the use of physical bullets has remained a solid and ultimately necessarily affordable approach. The weapons utilize a mixture of very-low-amount/higher-potency advanced accelerants for bullets that is combined with a coilgun-style system in each weapon to help accelerate projectiles. Ammo clips double as batteries for these weapons due to altered design, making them dual-use and able to be synergized into a singular design. After all, what use would one have to fire bullets if there are no more in the clip? Most of these are rifled as well, outside of certain high-volume weapons such as machine guns and smgs and grenade launchers that utilize a smoothbore barrel due to the speeds and rate of fire involved that surpass any similar such weapons from Old Earth in the past. Due to their functions being a hybrid, the official terms for these weapons are “Accelero-Coil” weapons or “Coil-Supported Firearms”.
The next type of weapons that was developed would become more and more prevalent in the military, eventually seeing them in fully standardized use in the various branches alongside Accelerto-Coil weaponry. This would be particle-acceleration and microwave weapons, both of which would be powered by different ‘clip batteries’ whose design stemmed from the former development of those used for Accelero-Coil weapons. The former would only ever remain as pulsed energy weapons used in handheld forms by infantry and as smaller-scale vehicle-mounted weapons in a general sense, this due to effective ranges being limited in return for this powerful pulse-firing weapon delivering its energy throughout the target in a single large jolt. This has caused these particle-acceleration weapons to be best used as anti-armor and anti-personnel weapons against tougher foes, but with those specialized in larger and more potent anti-vehicle uses in particular (there is a difference) having the capability to make armor plates and chunks of enemy vehicles outright explode from the larger doses of energy transferred to them by these weapons (not to mention uses against regular soldiers and such…if one can master the size and weight of these particular anti-vehicle weapons). Microwave weapons have seen their uses ranging from area denial anti-riot police tools and pistols, becoming the ‘new tasers’ as it were that are restricted to safe non-lethal uses, all the way up to properly lethal microwave energy weapons that are used in anything from point defense to being mounted on smaller space fighter craft to try to hit and fry enemy fighter electronics and weapons and so forth in specifically close range combat.
Further, the use of radioactive nuclear weapons has seen its presence made known within the Royal Federation military for better or worse as well, one thing from the past that has not faded away at the very least. Whilst particle-acceleration weapons are the most ‘handheld’ and ‘small-scale’ this technology gets, as they do produce some radiation in targets they hit as a side effect and can produce it if destroyed (this has led to extensive developments in radiation-treatments and anti-radiation therapies for soldiers and such), the smallest an actual ‘nuclear weapon’ gets is a fission-based advanced variant of the ancient “Davy Crockett'' nuclear weapon from Old Earth. Soldier armor individually takes into account radiation as well, and the technology in this area remains limited in scope and scale when it comes to more general uses of it. This is because larger-scale nuclear weapons/bombs and such are higly restricted, and ‘require all proper authorizations and the correct approved situations for use, being fully excluded from most combat scenarios unless deemed utterly and wholly necessary in the ethical and strategic sense for applications of them to be approved in any potential situation’.
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Vehicles/Vehicle Armor/Equipment - Whilst the array of land, sea, and air vehicles take on advanced and futuristic shapes, they remain recognizable as what they are and generally do their jobs and frankly bear no real need to describe them in-depth.
Spacecraft take the shape of mostly cigar-like cylinder designs for any larger ships, and smaller fighter/bomber/etc spacecraft take on either this shape or alternate spherical designs. They are mounted with weapons and proper thrusters and armor plating and so forth for proper space combat at all levels, including multi-dimensional-analysis combat computers and highly trained crews. Frigates, Destroyers, Cruiser-Carriers, Battle Cruisers (a localized space ship existing in-between Heavy Cruisers and Battleships in size and such), and Dreadnoughts (larger than battleships) exist as their variety of larger ships, forming a comprehensive fleet the Royal Federation has had a long time to work on and develop and test both practically and in the lab. Civilian-level craft, meanwhile, take on primarily cylindrical designs making use of the 3d nature of movement in space but having a number of tweaks and twists to them alongside this depending on their particular uses.
In terms of air vehicles, sleek and futuristic aircraft are the norm for the Royal Federation military. Anything from sophisticated remote-controlled high-speed aircraft controlled from extreme distance, to advanced drone systems able to process data rapidly synergize with manually-piloted forces on the fly, to manually-piloted craft that have spherical 360 degree cockpits with advanced displays rather than the traditional glass canopies of Old Earth military aircraft, and other supporting crafts such as the current day equivalent of AWACS and other military transport and refueling vehicles made for air use. Helicopters also continue to exist, though the technology in this area has mostly been a linear advancement of technology to accommodate different battlegrounds and armaments to be strapped to them. A simpler thing than the faster aircraft, and most likely to look most easily recognizable to someone from Old Earth, though certain things such as the spherical 360 degree cockpits with advanced sensory arrays and no glass canopies/windows are incorporated into them as part of their general improvements at least.
When it comes to sea vehicles, they are ultimately the weakest possible area of the Royal Federation military due to being the least-common type of warzone in the last three centuries. Some sea battles have happened, but the most it amounts to for the Royal Federation navy is ‘some advanced submarines and ships with plenty of point-defense and armor and missiles’ in a simplistic manner. The size of the Royal Federation navy is the smallest and weakest of all the branches, and roughly half of it is outright devoted to things such as coast guard stations and so forth that assist in the civilian sector of things. The remainder is actual marines, naval ships/subs, and the like, which are spread out. Civilian craft and such also exist, yes.
Land vehicles mostly consist of hover-type vehicles, utilizing electromagnetic devices to levitate and thrusters to rapidly move over terrains and even move upward and using limited flight capabilities to a certain extent (lesser than proper aircraft but allowing them to overcome more terrains and so forth than any prior type of land vehicle from Old Earth at least). Wheeled vehicles are something that usually just exists in the civilian sector or as private vehicles for officers and so forth. Vehicles range from transports for troops or supplies, to things such as rapid land-attack craft, to armored hover-tanks that take on various roles, to even things like fast-moving hit-and-run larger-rocket launching craft that support land battles or can be equipped with a rack of anti-air missiles to help
***Vehicle Protection/Defenses - The need for radiation protection and thermal diffusion alongside the usual requirements of physical defense has led to a mostly mixed-approach layered-armor approach for battlefield military vehicles across the board. Adapted in one way or another to the type of vehicle and battlefield it is used in, this type of armor has been dubbed the ‘adaptable composite armoring system’ or ‘ACAS’. For all intents and purposes, this armor system is a flexible one that utilizes a composite armoring style and simply adaptable armor templates to protect military vehicles. Things like a basic hover jeep or non-frontline transport that lacks such armor, since they are not meant to head into the battlefield, can be equipped with ‘hanging composite armor’ to help protect it if it is in a dangerous enough area or close enough to a warzone or such. This ‘hanging armor’ is made to try to cover vital areas or at least give the vehicles more of a chance to survive, though it also allows for the use and quick removal or installment of more specialized types of armor such as dispersive anti-photonic armor plates or advanced reactive armor plates to be applied to combat vehicles depending on the battlefield and enemy force in question.
Further, things such as hard or soft kill kinds of point defense round out ideas for vehicle protection.
In general, the idea of vehicle defense has been streamlined and made adaptable, sacrificing greater specialized protection (a weakness of it) in return for basic hardiness and survivability, a more streamlined price and design to help on the production side of things, and the use of hanging armor and point defense to supplement.
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Generally speaking, the Royal Federation possesses the general division between branches of its military: Space, Air, Sea, and Land. When it comes to the strength and size of these, it can be most simply ‘ranked’ in order of strongest to weakest as: Space, Land, Air, Sea. Indeed, the emphasis of this was mostly driven by the need for powerful land and space forces to fully drive out and put a stop to the invading alien forces of the past. Air forces came inherently alongside land forces, and the general lack of ‘seas’ as major battlefields left the naval/marine forces dead last in terms of importance and emphasis and such outright. This arrangement of priorities for the military branches has been a general trend even through current times, twenty years after the war against the ‘greater enemy’ was finally decisively ended. Since then, however, the Royal Federation’s seasoned and veteran military has continued to accrue experience against the TFCU through current times.
In terms of general soldier outfitting, the average soldier will be equipped depending on the branch and battlefield. Land troops will possess a sort of physical-impact-dissipating advanced-kevlar-like-weave fiber used to make their battle attire, with extra thickness and density around vital areas on their body for some more distinct protection in those spots. Land troops will also see the use of tactical protective vests and helmets and vambraces for more advanced protection of both vital areas and the most vulnerable extremities specifically. Air pilots use the same basic underlying battle attire as Land troops, though without the added helmets and such outside of what gear is worn to pilot and help protect their bodies and to withstand G forces during aerial combat (and help their chances of survival somewhat in case of a crash or being shot down). Marine/Naval troops likewise use the same base battle attire, but might use similar extra armor as the Land troops if they are performing something like a beach landing. Space troops will wear the same basic battle attire on their ships, but will also constantly wear battle gear made to try to durably protect them in case of either a hull breach or boarding attempt (defending against one or performing one against an enemy ship either way).
Organization of the Royal Federation’s military is well drilled and regimented, with clear chains of command and duties and subordinate positions and unit size breakdowns to boot. Discipline and training are distinctly ‘above average’ when it comes to how tough and rigorous they are, forging a well-disciplined and well-trained force overall indeed. Combined with the augmentations and equipment they are given, they are a frightening fighting force to face for any potential foe.
There is also an elite type of troops within the Royal Federation Military called the “Warden Corps”, these acting as willingly hyper-modified and willingly slightly ‘mentally-tweaked’ lifetime soldiers who are capable of very superhuman feats like hefting/throwing large building-sized robots or chunks of debris and battling enemies effectively even in a near-death state. Among other things. They are made to be hard to kill, hard to keep down, and carrying unique and more potent equipment than their ‘standard’ military counterparts could viably handle and use. Given how elite they are, however, they are the smallest branch of the military but also the most potent and versatile. They are “the first and last line of defense for the nation and its people both”, as their sworn oath so dictates, and their presence is something spoken of in hushed whispers. They take on missions ranging from deep-backlines enemy intel work to blunt and brutish frontline combat and other things in-between, being the ‘best of the best’ in the nation’s troops in their own right and possessing equipment of the same top-quality nature (imagine 30mm handguns fired using one hand, among other things, that they can use in their arsenal). The process to become one is rigorous, intensive, and filled with so many personal investigations and evaluations and background checks of an in-depth nature that it would most likely seem very silly to an outside onlooker from elsewhere. Yet to the Wardens, every little thing must be accounted for and noted for potential candidates…and for good reasons they can say as well as for reasons they have long kept private and strictly classified.
When it comes to experience overall, the Royal Federation’s military has been improved and seasoned from over a century of war as well as frontier operations, anti-piracy work, and the like. Is it the strongest military in the universe? No, that’d not be in the spirit of good NRP fun to say that. Is it cool and big and strong and has cool sci-fi tech and toys? Heck yes.
Additional Info: (Nothing that I can think of, at least yet.)
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