Meanwhile, I'm slowly developing my explorer into the protagonist of her own noir detective film.
Also, @Shorticus, I think our two nations should meet up. The Coalition is at a turning point - it's grown too large to just assume "reasonable" and be done with it, and isn't sure whether it should shrink, dissolve, or change its internal structure. I feel like the Namilee would shake things up sufficiently.
Here's some rough images of a map. They're very much not finished, obviously, but it should be enough for people to mark some territorial claims, either by MS Paint or rough coordinates (or however Hael wants to handle that). Alternatively, I suppose we could go with an actual map with stars in it, but then it's harder to specify which stars you want. Here, we can just mark off blobs and be done with it.
Also, I'm open to suggestions for what the final maps should look like.
50 solar systems 16 inhabited planets 178 Billion people
Species Breakdown: Cthons: 30% Humans: 25% Various (includes outcasts from most other races): 44.9% Nebuloids: 0.1%
Species:
Cthons are the native species of Ingress. They're 1m tall with stumpy vestigal wings that slowly rot away as they age, until fully grown Cthons have what amounts to bony protrusions with bits of slime stretching between them. They have two compound eyes and a bulbous head that ends in thousands of tentacles near their mouth. The tentacles range in thickness from hair-sized to arm-sized; the hair-sized ones are new, and arm-sized ones slough off as they age. They use their mouth-tentacles for eating as well as fine manipulation, such as writing. Despite appearances, their mouth-tentacles are not slimy at all. Their body ends in five sets of three tentacles each. Four sets are generally twisted together to facilitate movement, while the fifth is used for manipulation.
Cthons have no sense of smell, and intake air through pores on their lower tentacles. They taste with their mouth tentacles, and given their propensity toward paperwork, this has made several brands of flavored pens quite popular.
In short, Cthons are mini-Cthulhus.
The myriad tentacles that each Cthon has has conditioned them to have a propensity toward organization and bureaucratic work. It has been theorized that the plethora of committees on Ingress is due to an evolutionary imperative, and that red tape is inevitable in any organization that they create.
Cthons are sexually dimorphic, with females tending to be blue in color, while males are green. Other differences have to do subtle differences in mouth-tentacle size distribution, something which few other species can immediately recognize.
Nebuloids are giant molecular clouds of interstellar gas and dust that live for billions of years at a time. They measure in lightyears across. Their motives, morality, and nature are generally unclear, save for the Nebuloid communique received by the Committee on Foreign Relations over the hypernet. The coalition built a requisite diplomatic station near one of the Nebuloids with a very large radio antenna, should they choose to communicate again. They haven't.
Request for membership in "Coalition". Home coordinates: [a string of coordinates pointing to a stellar nursery]. Desist from travel through these coordinates.
Xenodiplomats hypothesize that the Nebuloids are attempting to complete their life cycle by collapsing into several stars, but warp drives have been interfering with this process in some inscrutable manner. The coalition has dedicated a portion of its military to maintain a blockade around the area, setting up detection nets and border patrols.
System of Government:
-The coalition's central government rules with a bureaucratic fist... over the capital planet, Ingress. Its influence over the rest of its territory is debatable. Each member planet, system, station, or migrant fleet has varying degrees of loyalty to the central government, and effectively comprise separate states with distinct forms of government.
Nonetheless, grand, sweeping edicts percolate out of the central bureaucracy's millions of committees, and are mysteriously followed by the member states through what appears to be natural causes. Laws and edicts declared by the central government usually just happen to line up with what the various member states had adopted as law already.
Of course, such a system is doomed to colossal waste, inefficiency, and failure. This is why the Committee on Committee Effectiveness exists. Its function is to analyze the mass amounts of information in the central government, decide which laws are actually important and reasonable, and then dispatch adjustment teams to ensure the members states' compliance.
Of course, nobody in the C.C.E. has any real idea what its like in each of the member states, so it finally falls to the adjustment team chiefs to carry out their (often seemingly unreasonable) orders by any legal means at their disposal. The real power in the coalition, ultimately, lies with the chiefs. Chief of an adjustment team is possibly the most respected position someone can have. They walk a careful line, having gained just enough power to actually get things done but not so much that there's 18 regulatory committees carefully examining their actions. Furthermore, the amount absurd hoops that chiefs must jump through to reach their position eliminates all but the most competent, determined, and lucky beings from their ranks.
Individual member states, meanwhile, stay a part of the coalition for two main reasons. First, they feel no real pressure to leave. Why should they? The Coalition is pretty reasonable in terms of governance, and they get guaranteed freedom of trade, movement, and military protection all from "claiming" to be a part of it. Secondly, many planets and stations want nothing whatsoever to do with military production, yet the quadrant is filled with empires with some form of aggressive agenda or another. The coalition guarantees a common defense, but otherwise generally leave the member states to their own devices.
The Coalition is facing a problem, however. As its grown and expanded, the central bureaucracy kept pace to the point where it's composed of thousands of committees and subcommittees handling overly-specific tasks. The government is a giant morass of meetings. Furthermore, as the Coalition has expanded, the concept of what is "reasonable" to one species is different to the "reasonableness" of another species. The Coalition is at a tipping point; either it needs to change its internal structure, shrink, or dissolve into anarchy.
History:
Several thousand years ago, the Cthons were a vassal state to some empire or another, chiefly being used as a distant mining colony. Eventually the empire began to break apart due to internal stresses. The Cthons, fed up with the last two-hundred years of warfare and regime-changes, quietly declared independence until the rest of the empire could get its act together and behave in a more reasonable fashion. The empire did not get its act together, and instead collapsed and regressed to an earlier technological era. By then, the miners had established more permanent, self-sustaining infrastructure, and had no real need for the empire anyway.
Throughout the hundreds of years that followed, gradually more and more drifters, outcasts, and unwanted people from other civilizations allied themselves with the Cthons in a loose agreement of military protection. The Cthons, being natural bureaucrats, couldn't help but formalize this agreement with reams of paperwork. As more wars and persecution happened, more refugees and fiercely independent movements joined the Cthons until the Coalition itself was born.
One of the earlier states to join was a segment of drifters from a lost fleet of ships. The drifters separated when the fleet (known as the Memoria Fleet) passed through Coalition space. The outcasts were varied in their reasons for leaving. One group settled on a verdant forest continent of the planet V'Rile, hoping to finally stop drifting from star to star. A disparate group of ships (now known as the miniFleet) broke off to pursue a life of piracy. Finally, two larger ships broke off the fleet and took up residency at Margot Junkyard - one ship was crewed by exiles that banded together and buggered off rather than be executed, while the other was crewed by Captain Laschiv, who was rather violently against the Admiralty. A host of smaller ships also ended up in the Coalition, waiting for the Memoria Fleet to make contact again. This group has become known for superb ship crews.
Later, as a last-ditch effort against the Ascendency, an Atlas Parliament sleeper ship arrived in Coalition space and claimed the rest of the planet of V'Rile, leaving the Memoria Outcasts to their own isolated continent. The Atlas Parliament is in a perpetual state of emergency - at least, until such time as when they can retake their homeworld from the religious psychopaths that usurped the true government. Therefore their Prime Minister is granted absolute authority, with the houses of Parliament acting as "trusted advisors". Meanwhile, the Atlas Parliament has made a name for themselves as mercenaries, and has consistently contributed the majority of military vessels for the Astry.
To everyone's surprise, a system of rogue X'Cor next asked for membership. These X'Cor had fled their homeworld generations ago, wary at the signs of xenophobicism and imperialism that their brothers were embracing. The X'Cor Contingency inhabits the asteroids and airless moons of the Yeltz system. They are a race of honorable warrior-poets, actively pursuing the arts to maintain a healthy mental balance. In their society, honor is important above all else, and for them, their brethren have no honor. They have made a living as popular painters and musicians, as well as (of course) terrifying hand-to-hand opponents.
The documents of Coalition, signed by the Committee of Coalition, provide each member state with guaranteed military protection, so long as each state follows the laws and doctrines that pertain to it from the relevant committees within the central government. These committees generally just pass laws that are common sense, or at least are things the member states have already been doing. This was all in keeping with the unofficial motto of "Reasonableness". Of course, member states do their best to ensure that they have sway with the committees that govern themselves. In actual functionality, the central government is mostly powerless. The Committee on Committee Efficiency has resorted to picking and choosing what particular crises it actually cares about - the ones wherein its member states are actually being unreasonable - and sending in Adjustment Teams to smooth over the problems through whatever means is most appropriate.
The Coalition is facing a problem, however. As it has grown and expanded, the central bureaucracy kept pace. Now it's to the point where the central government is composed of thousands of committees and subcommittees handling overly-specific tasks. The government is one giant morass of meetings. Furthermore, as the Coalition has expanded, the concept of what is "reasonable" to one species is different to the "reasonableness" of another species. The Coalition is at a tipping point; either it needs to change its internal structure, shrink, or dissolve into anarchy.
Culture:
The coalition comprises of disaffected peoples from all over the quadrant, united with the singular desire for to be left to their own, reasonable devices. The exact nature of that desire varies from the extremely isolationist Nebuloids to the charitable quadrant-wide aid organization White Star.
This has attracted utopists, cultists, anarchists, capitalists, communists, deviants, countercultures, and shady businessmen of all types. Coalition members are hardy people - miners, junkyard workers, station keepers, freighter captains, rumrunners, pirates, mercenaries, and drug lords. There are two types of Coalition citizens - the cynical ones and the idealists. The cynical tend to see the central government as ineffective, the Adjustment Teams as autocratic, the military as not unified, and think that if you want anything done - you have to do it yourself. The idealists marvel at the effectiveness of the emergent chaos of the government, applaud the ability of the Coalition to absorb any culture that wishes to join, revel in the systemic freedoms guaranteed to member states, and find refuge in a portion of the galaxy that isn't trying to kill itself (or commit genocide, or discriminate based on silly things, or blow up planets, or go to war) every hundred years.
As for the Coalition's views on the rest of the galaxy, it's generally along the lines of an exasperated sigh and an eye-roll: "You guys are at war again? Really!"
Of course, the Coalition doesn't particularly care what the rest of the galaxy does. If they finally shape up and start being reasonable, then the Coalition would happily invite major civilizations to join itself. Quite probably, its member states would break off and rejoin whichever civilization they're most interested in at the time.
The exiles picked up from other nations, however, taints the Coalition's stereotypes somewhat. For instance, the Ascendency is stereotypically viewed as a bunch of evil religious autocrats. Of course, these stereotypes are combatted by the everyday contact made via trade with these civilizations.
Important people, places, and organizations:
The capital planet of the Coalition, or so it claims. Half of the economy is taken up by various types of bureaucratic work; the other half is devoted to support organizations and staff. While it can at times take eight forms and a map to the sector ZZ8 cafeteria to eat an apple, at other times the sheer quantity of information allows people to make surprisingly informed decisions. Everyone is a member of at least one committee.
A hive of scum and villianry.
A planet where capitalism has run rampant. It's in the same system as Ragnarok station.
V'Rile is a world occupied by the Outcasts on one continent - Memoria Fleet members who settled down, utilizing their ships as shelter - and the Atlas Parliament on the other five.
Originally debris from some space battle or another, people took to living inside the capital ships. Gradually this evolved into a moon-sized cloud of junked ships orbiting a star with people living in them.
Not a very nice planet to be - Teach is ruled by those who can take the most through force. If you're ever in need of a mercenary or pirate, Teach is where you'll find them.
A system of broken planets, asteroid belts, and four gas giants with difficult-to-settle moons. The X'Cor Contingency calls it their home.
A Communist planet originally founded by environmental refugees. The net carbon footprint of the planet is, by law, zero.
the closest thing to people in actual power over the entire Coalition. vaguely resembles a cross between a shadow government and a group of beings bravely fighting bureaucratic inefficiency, trying to figure out what the heck is even going on on Ingress.
A charitable aid organization, facilitating disaster-relief, medical and economic recovery, and spiritual obligations to any sentient being in throughout the quadrant, provided local governments allow them through.
Ranging from just the Chief to over thirty people, adjustment teams are the people that actually get things done, whip member planets back into line, and enforce edicts in reasonable ways. Their methods range from diplomatic chats over greasy hot dogs to establishing arms-dealing monopolies, depending on where they get sent within the Coalition and which edicts they were tasked with enforcing. They are responsible to the C.C.E. and their own Internal Affairs alone.
A group of wandering pirates broken off from the Memoria Fleet as it passed through at one point.
When Clarke Systems gained financial supremacy in the Vall System, it left a host of smaller companies in its wake. As Isaac Clarke consolidated his power into a self-declared monarchy, certain former competitors started funding anti-Clarke sabotage. This eventually developed into the extensive criminal organization known as the Syndicate.
Military size:
10.7 Billion military personnel - 6%
Medium. The military is mostly defensive - when you attack the Coalition, it tends to motivate the disparate factions, mercenaries, and pirates to contribute toward the Astry. Meanwhile, offensive operations tend to go against the founding intentions of the documents of coalition.
Military details:
The Astry Committee is the most efficient committee in the Coalition. In sharp contrast to the general pseudo-anarchic freedoms experienced throughout the rest of the Coalition, T.A.C. is organized in a strict, rank-based system with a supreme commander nominated from within but approved by the member states on a four-year basis.
Each member state is not required to contribute toward the Astry barring active war, but any military organization fielded is ultimately controlled by T.A.C.. The end result is a heavy reliance on each successive level of Astry officer to translate the supreme commander's will into actionable orders for their command.
Domestic Relations Committee -Astry Officer Corps --Local Militaries
Supreme Commmander - reports to the Domestic Relations Committee, translates Coalition will into military action, ultimate leader of all armed forces of all militaries in the Coalition. -Sector Commander - Responsible for military actions within a particular sector of Coalition space. -Offensive Commander - (wartime only) Responsible for military actions within a sector of non-Coalition space --Group Commander - Responsible for a group of local militaries. Theoretically knows the strengths and weaknesses of their local militaries and how best to wield them synergistically. ---Local Advisor - Responsible for interfacing between a specific local military and the group commander. Well-acquainted with the local military's strengths and weaknesses, and given great leeway to ensure orders are carried out. Local advisor training requires extensive xenodiplomatic and xenocultural training so that they may best understand how to ensure orders are effectively carried out. No amount of theory, however, is worth the second phase of training, which consists of an almost-unregulated apprenticeship to the previous local advisor.
Weapons tech:
Weaponry is very disparate, which leads to supply issues for the Astry. If the local state government can't provide for a supply chain to keep its particular brand of weaponry active, then the central government won't have much better luck. Generally, however, plasma weaponry tends to dominate most ships. There are a few directed energy laser weapons - mostly used for point defense - and many love good, old-fashioned bullets and explosive missiles.
In short, very little innovation, a very broad field of weaponry, and no unexpectedly powerful doomsday devices.
General Technology:
Cybernetics - "wetware" - is fairly common. Citizens can have computers implanted beneath their skin, integrated with their nervous system, so that thoughts or touch can bring up a graphical user interface superimposed upon standard optic nerve signals. Only the truly rich can afford touchless screens; most citizens opt for subcutaneous buttons or movement detectors. The quality and infection rate of implants depends on how shady of a dealer you obtain them from.
Going along with the cybernetics is an inevitable proliferation of "smart drugs" - injections with at least partial software implementation. There are uppers, downers, drugs that enhance senses, drugs that dull senses, ones that simulate drunkenness, happiness, bliss, pain, complete neutrality, and even some "combat cocktails" - drugs designed to make the user feel unstoppable, trigger adrenaline, and dull pain receptors. Some are relatively harmless - the equivalent of cigarettes or alcohol - while others are nearly instantly deadly.
Along with cybernetic implants comes a great deal of innovation with clothing and tattoos. Active tattoos - moving tattoos - are a common sight. Some go for full-body active tattoos wired into their implants, enabling them to appear to be wearing whatever skintight clothing they wish. Despite active camoflage being the holy grail of military research, nobody has managed to crack the problem of lag between input and display. Reactive clothing, meanwhile, has become all the rage - fabrics that distort and twist as the wearer moves, fabrics that change color based on environmental or user inputs (imagine one pair of shoes that go with any outfit!), and truly one-size-fits-all clothing are all made possible through reactive clothing. The more inventive the inputs for an outfit, the more trendy the outfit tends to be.
Aside from wetware, the Coalition isn't particularly innovative with technology. They aren't wildly behind the rest of the galaxy, but Coalition creations are few and far between. The Coalition being what it is, all of these technologies are available for purchase at the closest freeport to you - of course, it depends on whether or not you trust the vendors. Most of the military-grade wetware, however, is much more difficult to obtain.
Economy:
Thanks to its support of rampant capitalism, communism, or whatever economic model most interests its member states, the Coalition is a haven for black market activities, megacorporations, and unreasonably wealthy royal families. On the other hand, the central government and Adjustment Teams are quite effective at stopping unreasonable activities - such as rampant murder, unwilling slave trade, and taxation, depending on the local citizenry's views on all of the above.
If you know where to go, you can buy pretty much anything you like (including wetware and reactive fabrics). Just don't try to take it by force where that sort of thing isn't a standard negotiating tactic.
Spaceships:
Coalition ships tend to be one of three things: a cobbled-together junker vessel that should not be flying, a sleek craft fielded by the ultra-rich, or a modified craft bought from some other empire.
Examples:
A particularly awkward mess of a ship flown by General Ghivez Ro'Tep, the Razgiz is equipped with eight missile launchers, active shielding, and twenty plasma cannons. It's also slow, ponderously difficult to turn, and has rather large, protruding heat fins. It's 800m long and 852m tall, with a crew of 324.
The Missile Storm was purpose-built to be a damage-dealing frigate. Unfortunately, the Astry subcommittee of Financial Affairs scrapped the project, forcing the local government of Braktonne to improvise. This has lead to some interesting compromises - such as the Missile Storm's absurd offensive power when compared to its defensive measures. It has 62 missile launchers - 10 of which are approved for fusion weaponry, and 30 of which are an experimental rapid-fire variant. However, it has only cursory ablative armor for defense - that and her engines. The Missile Storm is 345m long with a crew of 75.
"Built" in the middle of the Margot Junkyard cloud, Captain R'leigh is proud of his nimble little fighter. At any given time either the engines work, or the weapons. Not both. Crew of one, with four forward-facing lasers and a turreted slug-thrower, the OhGodTheEnginesWhy is 11m long.
The Ingots is King Isaac Clarke's personal corvette. Made with the finest propulsion and weapons technology NAR ingots can buy, the ship has no viewports. Instead, it relies on sensory input directly linked to the pilot's wetwear. It's armed with two heavy plasma cannons (retractable), 4 All-Points Defense anti-projectile lasers, and a single mass driver stowed beneath the hull that fires depleted uranium rounds. Crew of 20 (minimum of two), 40m long.
Softridge can best be described as pirates-turned-corporate. The company specializes in military-grade hardware sold to the elite echelons of society. If you ever find yourself in need of a vessel capable of holding its own in an active battlespace, but still looks sexy when you pull up to the gala, the PDV is what you need. Crew of one, armament is a single plasma cannon. Comes with ablative armor, active shielding, and damned fast maneuvering thrusters. Length of 9m.
Helena is a 22-year-old female human with top-of-the-line wetware. She has long black hair, and if she actually tries, she can look quite elegant. Most of the time, however, she shoves her hair underneath a fedora and wears a trenchcoat. Things are just simpler that way. She has a few scars, and a few active tattoos - most noticeably an up-to-date model of her home system, Vall, on her side just beneath her ribcage.
History:
Helena is the firstborn daughter of King Adam Clarke, an industrialist whose wealth grew to the point of owning an entire star system. He became king simply by decreeing it - nobody had the wealth to do anything about it, and anybody who didn't like it could leave the Vall system. Of course, there's a fair amount of people who didn't like it but didn't have enough money to leave. Her childhood, up to the age of ten, was spent in her daddy's adoring, fawning arms. They were generally inseparable until Helena learned what a horrible, corrupt sort of person her father was. She requested to go to a boarding school, and her father sent her off to the best school in Vall. No expense was spared.
For her sixteenth birthday, her father gave her a space station - Ragnarok station. It was his way of preparing her to rule. She let the station continue to run under its own local governance, wanting nothing to do with it. For her 19th birthday, her father bought her a space yacht. Helena took it out once, on a booze-filled maiden voyage, and then told the extremely well-paid crew to find themselves whatever work they pleased. They became smugglers and racers with the front of a charter cruise line.
After graduation, Helena started her quest to try and right the wrongs in her father's corrupt state. She toured the system, going from one haunt to the next, trying to leave people just a little bit better off. It made no difference, and her quest gradually dissolved into her becoming a woman-for-hire - a fixer for things that needed fixing, a detective for things that needed finding, and occasionally an aid worker. Now, she mostly drifts from one job to another on Ragnorak station, lost in her quest to right just a few wrongs.
Weapons:
Helena's ray-gun, held by its previous owner. He had it coming.
Helena's primary armament is a Bailey 10-shot ray gun, powered by battery packs. It has no stun setting. The gun is incredibly simple in its design, and despite being 100 years old, it is still very reliable (if no longer made of original parts).
Beyond her gun, Helena throws a pretty good punch and kick. Her time amongst the underbelly of society has taught her to handle herself in a fight, and furthermore taught her how to survive a fight: avoid them in the first place. She tends to start fights.
Personality:
Helena is cynical, fatalist, and frustratingly persistent. Once she actually decides to do something, she does her best to follow through with it. She can also be greedy, petty, ruthless, and has her share of vices - alcohol, rezsticks, the occasional line of mokchaw, and far too many sexual partners. At this point, she's accepted the inevitable - no matter what she does, she'll end up sinking farther into vices. Occasional flashes of sobriety and a desire to make herself into something better usually end up crushed by harsh reality, but she'll at least give them a shot, for a little while.
Skills:
Contacts - if there's a shady place where Helena is going, chances are that she knows someone there, or at least knows someone who knows someone. Hand to Hand Combat - Helena has been taught the harsh lessons of combat from street fights, bar brawls, and a few months of ameteur boxing. Sleuthiness - Having worked as a private detective for a good portion of her life, Helena is pretty good at following clues and solving crimes. "Unlimited" Financial Backing - So long as she can reveal her identity, Helena has access to a trust fund capable of buying at least one planet (and a good portion of it is devoted to earning even more money). Brute Force - Helena works out.
Starship:
Crew: Captain, Bosun, Engineer, Sensors & Gunner, Astrogation & Comms, Deckhand, Chief Steward, Steward/Bartender, Executive Chef, Sous Chef Passengers: Helena, Chief Adjuster Xam, Felix Twig Length: 92m Armament: 2x high-energy laser emitters, 1 plasma discharge cannon Defenses: Active Shielding, Reflec-armor Propulsion: High-burn maneuvering thrusters, Twin turbo quark 700 TWR sublight engines, 1 Clarke Industries-brand series iv warp drive, capable of 4.99 ly/day.
In other words, the Father's Delight was designed to be fast and highly maneuverable.
The Father's Delight is a luxury yacht purchased for Helena's 21st birthday by her father. I hope I'm not assuming too much when I figure your explorer will need a spaceship to get around. Describe it, or face the ban-hammer
Strengths and Weaknesses:
Strengths: +blending in to the lower classes or the higher classes - social mobility +brute force methods to solve problems
Weaknesses: -Vices - Helena may be an alcoholic; she's certainly addicted to rezsticks, and she's also been known to use men like a most people use Kleenex -Cynicism - sometimes Helena's general distrust of everything is good, but most of the time it just isolates her. -Depression - She really hates herself for basically everything she ever does.
The view from the C.C.E. chamber extended downhill to the outlying sectors of Janusty, the jewel city of Ingress, itself the jewel of the coalition. Janusty had long since amalgamated into one massive building, divided up into sectors for convenience. Maglevs arced from one sector to another atop spindly bridges. Tufts of giant cranes sprouted from Sector CTN, one of the currently-designated sectors up for annual maintenance.
One long conference table dominated the center of the room. A holoprojector cluttered up the far end, breaking the chamber's neat lines. C.C.E. members sat with serious scowls on their faces.
"It's decided, then," said Solit, the current committee chair. "Bring him in."
Adjustment Chief Xan Bay entered the chamber and stood stiffly at the foot of the table. His uniform bulged subtly in strange places, errant wrinkles ruining the theoretically crisp effect. One of the junior members stood up and handed Xan a small slip of paper. Xan read it, internally grimacing.
They wanted him to go back to Random and force them to comply with the new basic technology edict. The citizenry on Random abhorred technology on principle.
Externally, however, he dutifully nodded and placed the scrap into the laser-shredder. The junior member thumbed Xan's wrist computer, proving that Xan had been on authorized committee business. Xan left the sector 001 Committee offices, thumbing himself out at the security desk.
He pulled up his wrist computer and joined the virtual queue for the train to DPT sector. People waiting around the station were peacefully involved in their own affairs; one was even reading an actual, physical newspaper. A janibot silently mopped a corner of the already-sparkling platform floor. Xan queud up some music from his wrist computer and put in his wireless headphones.
A technology edict on Random. Storming Mrav, this assignment wouldn't be easy.
I was working on fleshing out the Coalition and my explorer more. I came up with this:
The Coalition was made up of society's rats. Vermin, swarming around from bar to bar, each looking for their next hit, one alien trying to scam the big one off of another. Rejects and losers fluttered from one haphazard, junked-together station or government to the next, all regulated by a planet-sized bureaucracy. I thumbed away 50 credits to my dealer - a shabby Kazzlehorf who'd never once given credence to the thought that his product might be subpar. A drone hovered at the Kazzlehorf's shoulder, wires sagging from its housing.
The rezstick was a refreshing contrast to the blasted up life support vents that spewed an acrid haze. My implants were humming with ice from the rezstick. It wouldn't be long now; I just had to get to the right bar.
Ragnorak Station was my city, and I don't mean that figuratively. When your father is the King of a solar system, you get space stations for your sixteenth birthday. What a waste. I didn't know how to run the station then, and still don't have anything to do with it now.
A Xim shoved its way past me toward the bar. The damned bug had to have been new around here; it hadn't caught the virulent cynicism and apathy that came with the Coalition. It was glaring at me, like I was personally responsible for the blasted-up war between our species. I followed its wake into Mitchell's.
Johnny - or rather, JN.E - was working the bar. It nodded its servoes at me as I took up my usual roost, handing me an Atomic Fizzler. I sipped the high-octane fruit concotion as I scanned the room for my next victim. My veins were buzzing; the rezstick was starting to do its thing.
When I first saw him, I knew we were meant to be. He wore the open vest of an ice miner, just enough for me to see his chiseled abs and grizzly face. I circled the rim of my drink with my finger, not breaking eye contact. He strutted up to the bar, leaning next to me, his hot breath on my face.
"What's an angel like you doing in a place like this?" he asked. "I own it," I replied. "Pleased to finally meet you, Mitchell," he said. "It's Helena." That's when the rezstick finally tore open my mind. Drops of bliss slipped off my forehead into the void of space beneath our feet. I was leading him back to my room - a room - at some hourly motel. I was ordering us champagne, he was laughing, laughing, laughing. The barman came to ask for my drink, Johnny was a real boy now, and we were in a room with a sagging bed and peeling wallpaper. Yellowed vidscreens shouted at me to buy more Yamatchi products as a laughing Kazzlehorf proudly proclaimed that Kazzlehorf had the best deathsticks....
Meanwhile, the Coalition of Reasonable Peoples is in a corner like all,
@Arawak Would you think that some Kazzlehorf's escaped your empire and decided to go live in the Coalition? I'm picturing random Kazzlehorfs wandering around as perfectly average citizens and it's amusing.
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PrinceAlexus
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