Dragonruby

[SCI-FI] The Stars Above

Very last post of the first page.

[SCI-FI] The Stars Above

The bridge of the TRNS Audeamus was dim, the red emergency lights overhead the only thing illuminating the room, save for the console screens of the crew at their various positions. As lead ship in the expedition fleet currently burrowing its way to a neighboring star, the Audeamus was tasked with operating their ripper drive, the other half-dozen ships following just a little ways behind. Each ship measured at roughly three-fourths of a kilometer and were crewed by hundreds, and each blazed a trail forth through the strange tides of rip space.

Rear Admiral Anthony Erling drummed his fingers quietly along the side of his pantsleg, right above his knee, as he stood overlooking the bridge. It wasn't like him to be so nervous. The man had always prided himself in his temperment and his ability to remain calm under fire, even when he was only a commander, tasked with captaincy of a single ship rather than a small fleet. He'd proven himself countless times in the Reunification Wars, and such achievements were why he'd found himself as the one-star Admiral he was now. But even his nerves had a breaking point, and he'd like to believe that the task that lied before him would break even the most stalwart and foolhardy of men.

It was undoubtedly true that Admiral Erling had plenty of reasons to be nervous, even before knowing the true intentions of the mission at hand. For one, the usual task of leading an expedition fleet would normally fall to an officer one, or perhaps even two grades lower than him if needs required, and with a task group half as large. In fact, every ship under Admiral Erling's command was a fair bit better armed than than the usual aging or stripped down expedition ships that would be tasked with the personal surveying of new star systems. The gathered seven vessels were instead ships pulled straight from a carrier fleet, and were all proper war vessels, with their home carrier sitting light years behind them now at the other end of the rip lane, waiting for any sign or signal of something going wrong and send word back to Terra Nova where the Admirality ruled from.

Officially, the larger task group was due to the fact that the star system they were jumping into had a quite a few more planetary bodies and usual, and additional ships were tasked to aid in survey and study, however every single crew member had been informed of their true purpose. In actuality, the neighboring colony had been picking up unusual thermal signatures for some time now from this star system, and while it had originally been ignored and even forgotten in the chaos of the civil war, ever since things had begun to stabalize, a great deal of attention is being paid to these unusual emissions as the potential of first contact with alien life was high based upon estimates and studies done by various research organizations. With such terrifying knowledge in mind, a great deal of deliberation went into the decision making process of how exactly to go forwards.

Eventually, it was decided that it was better to be the initiators of this possible first contact, rather than be stuck on the back foot, and every precaution was taken in order to assure the safety of Terran Remnant assets behind them.

"We'll be reaching the lagrange point in one minute and counting, Admiral." Petty Officer Burkhe's professional tone broke through Admiral Erling's private thoughts, and he turned his head ever so slightly to glance in the man's direction.

"Very well. Relay the message to the other ships, and the rest of the crew." He thought for a moment. Perhaps now would be the time for a few words, some speech or uplifting sayings to calm the nerves of those here with him. In the end, he decided against it. What words did he have for such a situation. He'd never been the kind of man to try and have the history books write about, and if it turned out that all the studies and research had been wrong, well... He'd look like a damn fool, wouldn't he? No, better not to say anything at all.

"Breaking real space in ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One..." There was a soft shudder as the ship broke out of the rip lane, their arrival foretold by a strange bending of the space around it, growing and expanding and stretching, before reality itself seemed to puncture, an angry red vortex tore itself open in the vaccum seeming almost like an enraged red scar upon the very face of reality.

"Bring all sensors online. Retrograde thrusters, fullstop." Admiral Erling commanded clearly, doing his best to hide his nerves under a loud and commanding voice.

"Brace for fullstop." Another one of the bridge crew called, making sure to call it over the ship intercomm system, and Admiral Erling gripped his hands tightly against the railing in front of him.

Terran Remnant escort vessels could be thought of as living spaces with engines strapped onto both the front and back, pairs of smaller maneuver thrusters strapped onto the sides in order to help with turning. This design was made to allow for quicker stops, and even full reversals of momentum much quicker than normal to aid in quick returns through temporary rip lanes in combat, meaning most Terran Remnant ships relied on broadside weapons as the fore and aft of the ship were taken up by the massive engines.

The fore engine was usually wrapped in armor plating that slid away, as it did now, in order to reveal the series of thrusters past the armored cacoon, all of which burned to life and slowed the ship down until it coasted gently into stillness. It wasn't quite as comfortable for the crew within, as the sudden change in g-forces made the entire hull shake and shudder, and those not properly braced found themselves stumbling.

The other six ships followed suit, all of them coming to a stop in a small cluster just in front of the rip lane as cameras came online and projected a three-sixty degree view of the system around them. What they saw was shocking, and quickly quiet murmuring filled the bridge, as Admiral Erling licked his dry lips and stood a little taller as he sucked in a deep breath to ready himself...

@missingaxis

[SCI-FI] The Stars Above

@Palamon My guys would probably be pretty stoked that they're not the only humans in the galaxy. Might be a little disappointed in how stagnant the Ederians have become though, but for sure. Looking forward to them meeting.

[SCI-FI] The Stars Above

Went back and fixed a bunch of little spelling mistakes. That's what I get for writing it out in notepad first. No objections from me on everyone else's sheets though.

[SCI-FI] The Stars Above

Terran Remnants

Faction Name:
Terran Remnants or the Praetorian Admirality

Faction Type:
Military Republic/Junta

Species:
Humans

Scale & Territory:
The Terran Remnants once owned around eight seperate star systems, but have since been splintered by civil war, and even the original governing body of the Remnants has since been subsumed by a new ruling party. Still, owing to their control of Terra Nova, the planetary capital, the new Praetorian Admirality sets themselves up as the succesors of the Terran Remnants, even going so far as to use their name.

Hexes: 0912, 1011, 1012, 1013, 1112, 1113, 1114, 1115

Culture:
The Terran Remnants see themselves as the successors to humanity's legacy, even though their knowledge of the old humans are spotty at best, and they seek to reclaim the stars and find the cradle of mankind once more.The Terran Remnants are a fairly open and accepting people, and unify themselves along the common goal of seeing humanity spread among the stars once more, however their once openly optimistic and perhaps naive worldviews have since been tempered by the civil wars of recent history.

The Praetorian Admirality is the successor of the old civilian government of the Terran Remnants, the military having stepped in to fill the gap and to restore stability as well as unite the Terran Remnants disparate factions. Run by a board of the Terran Remnants highest admirals and generals, the Admirality's military now doubles as a police force, though they have remained largely fair in their dealings with the civilian populace, abiding by the articles and constitutions that they swore to protect when they first entered service. It seems highly unlikely that the Admirality will let go of power, even now that the turmoil of civil war has begun to subside, though the common opinion of the idea is a vaguely disconcerted acceptance, as the Admirality has done a well enough job of preventing a bad situation from getting worse.

History:
The Terran Remnants will often subsume the entirety of human history as a part of their own, but in truth, they do not know exactly how long it has been since their awakening and humanity's fall. The very first Terran Remnants were clones, created by an ancient station in orbit above a planet with near perfect conditions for human life. Basilica Station, as it was known, was hypothesized to be built for a situation of last resort, where humanity had fallen or was doomed. Of course, it is not known for certain exactly what the conditions were for Basilica Station to be activated, all that is really known is that it was, and upon receiving whatever signal to trigger it, Basilica Station fell from orbit in a slow and controlled descent. Upon landing, ancient cloning banks within churned out new human life, implanted within them was the knowledge and memories of an great and possibly ancient human empire that spanned the stars, supplemented by information held in data banks onboard the station.

Basilica Station, however, was old, ancient even, built perhaps hundreds or maybe even thousands of years ago, and time had weathered it. Its simple AI functions could only last for so long, made to help govern and organize the new humans until they could stand on their own, and its data banks had been corrupted, leaving behind spotty and only partial information.

The new humans were forced to guide themselves as Basilica Station failed, and built their own government based upon the various governments of old Earth, and dubbing themselves the Terran Remnants. Armed with the technologies given to them through Basilica Station, the Terran Remnants exploded outwards in a massive wave of expansion, liberally using cloning technologies to buff out their population levels.

The Terran Remnants were naive, however. Seeing themselves as more learned and capable than their predecessors, they left themselves open to the many follies that they learned about of humanity's past. Poorly designed government and laws, as well as the explosive growth of the Terran Remnants, left it rife with internal corruption and pitfalls, and soon it was a mire of redtape, paperwork, and bureaucratic incompetence. The system could not hold, and eventually it all fell apart, with various systems splintering off and declaring their own independence and various riots and rebellions springing up in the streets. It was only when the military stepped in that order was restored, and the Praetorian Admirality has been in control ever since, and are now mopping up the last of the resistance efforts.

Technology:
The technology of the Terran Remnants is... Perhaps anachronistic. Much of their technology comes from the ancient banks of Basilica Station, and even with much of its information corrupted, it still provided a rather decent base for the burgeoning Terran Remnants. They have access to a number of technologies of which they have the means and capabilities of reproducing, without true understanding of all of the principles behind their design, such as their capacity for artificial gravity onboard their ships with minimal additional systems, or fusion and anti-matter generators and even cloning. Other, even more bare bones fields of research, have required dedicated effort to bring them to even the standards of the 21st century.

For FTL, the Terran Remnants use what is dubbed a 'ripper drive', capable of forming semi-permanent holes in space-time that slowly 'heal' over time. These ripper drives consume a vast amount of power and emit massive amounts of radiation that require a great deal of effort to be put into shielding these specific portions of a ship, but their benefit lies in their ability to create what are essentially roads between stars, allowing for regular vessels without any form of FTL to travel between these 'rip lanes'. A bureau of government exists solely to care for and maintain these civilian FTL lanes, known as the Department of Interstellar Maintenance.

Military versions of the ripper drive exist, but are more crude if anything. Designed to create less stable rip lanes, these much more temporary holes through space-time would be extremely dangerous for most vessels to travel through if it wasn't for the truly immense amount of power that the military ripper drives consumed in order to keep them from collapsing on themselves, and even then travel over great distances is better done through civilian lanes as rapid and consecutive use of military ripper drives can lead to catastrophic containment failures. Much more useful for the hit-and-run tactics favored by the military of the Terran Remnants, even these military ripper drives still leave blatant signs of where the rip lane originates and terminates. It is possible to run using a ripper drive, but almost impossible to hide. Most Terran Remnant fleets will travel with both military and civilian ripper drives, though the creation of a new civilian rip lane is only done with either express permission or in absolute necessity.

Military Forces:
The space forces of the Terran Remnant are carrier based, with fleets of escorts surrounding a single mothership. In terms of combat, the Terran Remnant fleets prefer hit-and-run tactics, tearing open temporary rip lanes between themselves and the enemy fleet and sending through escort ships and waves of drones and piloted fighters to harass and destroy the enemy before quickly fleeing back through the rip lane before it shuts. Terran Remnant drones operate in 'swarms', directed by a single manned fighter. Each drone has basic AI functions built into it, but most directions are handled by the manned fighter, which usually devolves into setting a operational 'stance' for the drones or prioritizing specific targets. These orders go into much greater depth if the pilot is given time to specifically organize or even program these orders, and many Terran Remnant fighter pilots pride themselves at being skilled programmers as well. While older Terran Remnant fighters are single-seaters due to space required for computing power as well as life support, more advanced fighters are designed as two-seaters, with one man taking on the role as primary pilot and the second being the 'swarmlord' and commanding the drones.

In terms of ground combat, the Terran Remnants still primarily use ballistic weapons, and full body armor that is generally sealed against vacuum and integrated with a number of tactical networks when available for their infantry. Similarly to their space forces, they emphasize maneuver warfare, and their special forces embody this especially. 'Jumpjets' are often issued out to special forces infantry, which allow for greatly increased lateral mobility, which comes as a great boon in urban combat scenarios, and a great deal of focus is put into learning how to control's one movement and momentum, meaning a well trained operative can become like a blur on a battlefield.

Sci-Fi Nation Roleplay - What would it take to hold your interest

Right, well... Blatant thread de-railing aside... I'd be interested in a sci-fi game like this. It's been a while since I've done something nation-RP based, let alone sci-fi, so it'd be more something for me to stretch my creative muscles, so to speak. Probably won't be coming up with the most original thing out there, but I'm pretty open to most things and don't have much holding me back in terms of expectations.

Yasuragiha: The Blades of Peace

Posting to show interest as well if you'd have me. I'll throw up a character sheet soon-ish, hopefully by tomorrow.

Valkyria Chronicles: Lions of the South

Character Sheet

Name: Marcus Cryan
Gender: Male
Age: 18
Appearance: Marcus is a rather thin looking man, more wiry than skinny and standing at a flat 6'0". He bears no scars, and his skin is soft and smooth, an obvious sign of his higher birth, though recent events have begun to leave him rather bedraggled, marred by dirt and grime, and leaving him rather tired looking. Even so, he bears a handsome sort of face, with green eyes that stare out brightly, tussled red hair that just seems to fall into place naturally, and a soft smile that just makes someone want to trust him.


Rank: PFC
Class: Lancer

Weapons and Equipment: EW1-Era Officer’s Revoler, EW1-Era Combat Knife

Personality: Marcus was, once, a rather excitable young child, with his head in the clouds, full of dreams to follow in his father’s footsteps as a soldier within Gallia’s military. That couldn’t be any further from the truth now, after the death of his father, he is a coward at heart. With the war going on, survival is perhaps the single largest priority on Marcus’ mind, and the stress of his family, the war, and numerous other things have left him rather high-strung. He views himself as rather contemptible for his cowardice, but he does little to try and change himself.

Bio: The Cryan family has a long lineage of military service, dating back to the start of the family’s rise to nobility, as a low born elevated to a higher status for their notable service in battle. Raised in a family with such a tradition, Marcus was expected to serve in Gallia’s military just like his older brother and father, who served as an officer during the First Europan War. Marcus grew up listening to storybook heroes and tales of the war from his father, and young Marcus longed to follow in his father’s footsteps.

His father would pass onto him at a young age his old officer’s revolver, and Marcus would often practice firing it under his father’s tutelage, becoming a rather decent shot in the process. His brother, meanwhile, would often pull a few strings to allow Marcus to visit military bases he was stationed at and watch the soldiers practice at the firing range, where he grew to fall in love with the Lance, and he even got to fire one once or twice. The combination of long lost heroes that the Lance evoked images of, and the knightly image together with the massive explosions made a weapon that no child could hate, and this favoritism was noted.

Marcus had only just turned eighteen when he learned of his father’s death, defending Gallia in one of the initial Imperial attacks. Rather than instill a drive for revenge or hatred, his father’s death instead shattered the illusion that his father had been invincible. After hearing so many war stories, and tales of heroes facing down impossible odds, Marcus had built his father up to be something beyond human, and his death hit him hard. Marcus instead grew to be afraid, fearing the death that so easily claimed his father. With combat drawing nearer and nearer to his home, Marcus would eventually flee, running off into some dark night, the only reason why he hadn’t been a member of the military already was due to the fact that he had been preparing to head off to some military academy to become an officer like his father.

Marcus ran, and ran, and ran, leaving his home far behind, and has been on the road for quite a while now, traveling with numerous other refugees and keeping his name as secret as he could, knowing that what he had done was close to desertion. It would eventually reach his ears that his home had indeed fallen, and it was unknown what members of his family had survived, if any. He only hopes that, if he is recognized, he will simply be considered a survivor of the attack, and that he never has to see a family member ever again, both for fear of his life, and for the shame he feels.

RP Sample: Just a paragraph or two about a day in the normal pre-war life of your character, nothing fancy.

Other: Jann Walker’s a pretty cool dude.

Character's done except for RP Sample. I'll get that done soon enough, just figured I'd post the character itself up first.

Valkyria Chronicles: Lions of the South [Open]

I'd be interested.

Strike Witches RP, take... something or other.

Well, I suppose I'll just chalk this one up to differing opinions then. I won't try to put too much effort into changing your mind, so I'll just leave this topic alone.