Stern Algorithm

Apotheosis of the Leviathan (a mecha kaiju mashup RP)

Welcome to "Apotheosis of the Leviathan", an idea that is like a mix of Ultraman, Pacific Rim, and Godzilla, with a layer of Neon Genesis Evangelion's philosophical transhumanism. I have tried running this idea before under the names "The Central Dogma of Xenoarcheology" and "The Stars Cast Down Their Cold Gaze", but both ended prematurely, so I hope this one will stick.

To set the post quality and posting frequency expectations, I tend to be casual to advanced and expect similarly from my players. I am slow at posting and can take weeks to respond depending on how busy I am. Rules are the typical Guild rules. This RP will explore dark and mature themes, but since this is a public thread, obviously don't do anything that would set off the mods. If your characters develop relationships, fade to black. Even though there will be giant biological entities beating the tar out of each other (and yes, killing each other), please don't go into explicit detail regarding gore; enough to get the intensity and horror of violence across, but not enough to elicit nausea.

Anyways, I'm not the most professional GM and don't have everything laid out all nice and neat. If I need to, I'll add more rules and such as they come up. But anyways, onto the lore!

Glossary of Terms:

Glossary

• CETM - The Committee for Extraterrestrial Threat Management, created to combat the impending alien threat through the establishment of four projects. CETM is located in Tokyo University and much of its research staff are professors.
• Project Olympian - The CETM project utilizing Hyperians.
• Project Titan - The CETM project utilizing space monsters.
• Project Colossus - The CETM project utilizing giant piloted robots.
• Project Myrmidon - The CETM project utilizing existing military capabilities, intended to support the other projects.
• Space Monsters - Alternately known as 'kaiju', 'aliens', or simply 'monsters'. Refers to the gigantic extraterrestrial entities that have begun attacking Earth. Conventional force does little against them, and the repeated use of nuclear weapons is not a viable strategy.
• Hyperians - A species of seemingly benevolent space monsters. So far, two have been encountered, dubbed Hyper Man and Hyper Man X. The first Hyperian, Hyper Man, has defended Earth from space monsters for a while, giving humanity time to prepare our own defenses. Hyper Man X arrived later to continue Hyper Man's mission.
• The Central Dogma of Xenoarcheology - ██████████████████

Public Timeline of Major Events Concerning CETM:

Timeline

• 2095 C.E. - An enormous alien vessel is discovered, hidden deep within the Mariana Trench. Research on it begins immediately as mankind attempts to reverse engineer the technology and decipher the language. The aliens to which the vessel belongs are named 'Hyperians' by the researchers. A preliminary study reveals that Hyperians seek out budding civilizations in order to protect them from 'ravenous' threats, and that this vessel and its 'inhabitant' were sent to Earth thousands of years ago to protect us.
• 2100 C.E. - At the turn of the century, a sealed chamber within the vessel is finally opened. Inside, the inhabitant, Hyper Man, is discovered, having locked himself in stasis within the chamber alongside a 'space monster', the Vega Alien, to prevent its escape. Surprised at the chamber door opening, Hyper Man is dealt a mortal blow by the monster, who proceeds to leave the vessel and head eastward, wreaking havoc on the surface. Weakened, Hyper Man explains that he requires the life force of a 'pure-hearted' human in order to reinvigorate himself and finally end the Vega Alien once and for all. One of the children of the research team, Shigeru Kawakami, volunteers and merges with Hyper Man. Hyper Man leaves the vessel and destroys the Vega Alien but not before it has devastated two United States' cities, Los Angeles and San Diego.
• 2101 C.E. - In the aftermath of the first extraterrestrial incident, CETM is founded. With the knowledge and guidance of Hyper Man, the Hyperian Vessel is relocated to Tokyo, Japan.
• 2115 C.E. - In the intervening years, space monsters begin to attack regularly. Hyper Man explains that, during its escape, the Vega Alien destroyed the 'Civilization Dampener', a device in the Hyperian vessel that hides the presence of young civilizations from monsters, and that the device can no longer be repaired. Fortunately, the invading monsters are aware of Hyper Man's presence and are drawn to him, allowing humanity to choose where Hyper Man is to engage these creatures. With this knowledge, Tokyo is transformed into the fortress of Meta-Tokyo, the site of extraterrestrial research, the headquarters of CETM, and the battleground for all subsequent fights with space monsters.
• 2116 C.E. - The second Hyperian, Hyper Man X, arrives on Earth to check on the status of Hyper Man's mission. The Hyperians have a secret meeting in the vessel and Hyper Man X agrees to swap places with Hyper Man, allowing Hyper Man to return to their 'home' to recuperate.
• 2120 C.E., Present Day - Hyper Man X has protected Earth since, but CETM is finally ready to unveil the fruits of their research.

You will play as a member of CETM as part of one of the four projects. However, Project Olympian is off-limits to players as the Hyperian-Human merged character is privy to spoilery information. I don't expect you to have a fully-formed character idea from the get-go, so please discuss with me what you want, and I'll see how it fits within CETM.

I am leaving details of CETM and the branches somewhat open. As players join and their characters and ideas get incorporated, I will update this post.

Now for a preliminary CS (replace FFFFFF with your preferred color hex):

CS code

[center][h3][color=FFFFFF]Character Name[/color][/h3]
[img]Replace this with an image of your character. Anime is my preference, but you can use a live-action if you insist.[/img][/center]
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Name[/u][/b][/color]: Title/Rank Last Name, First Name
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Age[/u][/b][/color]: Age
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Gender[/u][/b][/color]: [color=ed1c24]G[/color][color=f26522]e[/color][color=fff200]n[/color][color=39b54a]d[/color][color=00aeef]e[/color][color=2e3192]r[/color][color=662d91]![/color]
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Project[/u][/b][/color]: [s]Olympian[/s]/Titan/Colossus/Myrmidon
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Occupation[/u][/b][/color]: Your role/position within CETM

[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Personality[/u][/b][/color]:[indent]An explanation of your personality. What are your thoughts on Hyper Man and kaiju? Thoughts on the other projects? Relationship with authority?[/indent]
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]History[/u][/b][/color]:[indent]An explanation of your history. Are you old enough to remember a world before Hyper Man and kaiju? How did you join CETM? How did you acquire your current role?[/indent]

[center][h3][color=FFFFFF]Kaiju/Mecha/Vehicle Name[/color][/h3]
[img]Replace this with an image of your kaiju/mecha/vehicle.[/img][/center]
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Kaiju/Mecha/Vehicle Name[/u][/b][/color]: Name
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Combat Focus[/u][/b][/color]: Short descriptor of your kaiju/mecha/vehicle's role in combat

[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Origin[/u][/b][/color]:[indent]This will require brainstorming with me as I determine how this mecha was developed or how this kaiju was captured and controlled. You can leave this blank for now or offer your initial suggestions.[/indent]
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Abilities[/u][/b][/color]:
[list][*][b]Ability 1 name[/b] - Description of Ability 1. This would be a wishlist of abilities/weapons you think your kaiju/mecha/vehicle would have
[*]
[*][/list]
[color=FFFFFF][b][u]Future developments[/u][/b][/color]:[indent][hider=Future]Here you can go into how you want your character to develop, how you want your kaiju to evolve, or how you want your mecha to be upgraded. At the beginning, the projects are very separate, but over time, they may start share research and work on joint operations. My intentions for this RP is also for there to be an undercurrent of transhumanism, so explore whether you character is a human purist or is willing to trade their humanity for power.[/hider][/indent]

What the CS looks like wihtout images cauase I'm lazy

Character Name

Name: Title/Rank Last Name, First Name
Age: Age
Gender: Gender!
Project: Olympian/Titan/Colossus/Myrmidon
Occupation: Your role/position within CETM

Personality:

An explanation of your personality. What are your thoughts on Hyper Man and kaiju? Thoughts on the other projects? Relationship with authority?

History:

An explanation of your history. Are you old enough to remember a world before Hyper Man and kaiju? How did you join CETM? How did you acquire your current role?

Kaiju/Mecha/Vehicle Name

Kaiju/Mecha/Vehicle Name: Name
Combat Focus: Short descriptor of your kaiju/mecha/vehicle's role in combat

Origin:

This will require brainstorming with me as I determine how this mecha was developed or how this kaiju was captured and controlled. You can leave this blank for now or offer your initial suggestions.

Abilities:

• Ability 1 name - Description of Ability 1. This would be a wishlist of abilities/weapons you think your kaiju/mecha/vehicle would have

Future developments:

Future

Here you can go into how you want your character to develop, how you want your kaiju to evolve, or how you want your mecha to be upgraded. At the beginning, the projects are very separate, but over time, they may start share research and work on joint operations. My intentions for this RP is also for there to be an undercurrent of transhumanism, so explore whether you character is a human purist or is willing to trade their humanity for power.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

<Snipped quote by Stern Algorithm>

The cool thing about gundam as an example is that they've been all over the spectrum between real and super robo, so you can kind of point at different places in the franchise for inspiration.

Like, maybe starting with something like Alaya-Vinjana, or psycommu controls; it's mostly a real robot, the thing that makes it special is how it integrates with the pilot, either psychically or perhaps through neural implants. Or maybe spiritually, if we wanna go that direction.

Then develop a "psycho frame" version, that's more integrated and lets the user project some amount of psychic power(or spiritual, or whatever!) through the robot.

And eventually end up with stuff that may as well be magic, like the GN particles in 00. They don't even pretend to explain the technology, GN particles just do whatever it is they need to. They're propulsion, letting the gundam just kind of float around instead of needing thrusters. It produces a field that can absorb attacks, and it can be projected into beam attacks. But also it fundamentally alters the pilots, and makes them evolve at a crazy rate(but there's also a "bad" version of the particles, that will cause DNA damage, but that's okay because the "good" GN particles can heal the damage too).

And if you wanna do combiners, maybe they literally just fuse together at that point. Go full super robo and just have a scientist do some techno babble on the side about how their constituent molecules harmonized briefly to allow the fusion, or something.

Idea

Maybe our robos use an otherworldly, semi-sentient power source that bonds with the pilot, and the furthering of that bond could be the entire impetus for the advancement of their power. Early in development, it's just viewed as a fancy, super advanced reactor, which is necessary for machines of this scale. The robot itself is more or less just a machine(the absolute bleeding edge of technology, bust still), but unbeknownst to the R&D team, the mysterious power sources that they used form bonds with their most frequent pilots, and soon they stop responding to anyone but their chosen pilot. Over time the engineers realize some of what's happening, and lean into it with their development, leading to further advancements.

@Gisk

OK, this is a good idea. Instead of flying through space unassisted, the Ultraman-like character has a gigantic spaceship that they used to travel to Earth. Much of mankind's recent technological advancements were made thanks to reverse-engineering this technology, so it stands to reason that the core of the mecha has this black box AI that no one really fully understands. I will elaborate more on the lore in the actual RP thread once I've written it up.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

Also, I think I'm going to close applications now since I think I've garnered enough interested players. I'm going to ping everyone here as a roll call:

@mattmanganon, @baraquiel, @The Irish Tree, @Gisk, you responded in this thread.

@Foster, you were in the 1x1 IC thread so I'm pinging you just in case.

@Dragonfly 9, @Vixere, you liked my opening post, so I'll take that as interest.

When I have the actual RP thread made, I'll ping everyone there.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

What kind of mechas were you thinking of for the third faction?

Just finished GaoGaiGar so I’m on a bit of a Super Robot track of mind but Real Robots are cool too!

@The Irish Tree

I'm also interested to know more about the mecha branch! I'm actually fine either way, I'm personally more familiar with real robo stuff, but I'm interested in super robo as well(and in fact think it would be fun to explore a new facet of the genre).

@Gisk

My initial idea was to start somewhere between real and super (like wherever Gundam sits on that scale) and escalate to super as the technology develops. This would also depend where the other branches are, power-wise, at the beginning of the RP, since I intend for branch 1 (ultra) to be the most developed (hence why it is tentatively off-limits), branch 2 (kaiju) and branch 3 (mecha) to be on the same footing, and branch 4 (military) to be the lowest, mostly for support, ie. launching giant-sized weapons from an aircraft carrier for the kaiju or mecha to use. If we get into combiners (and I'm sort of hoping we do), then branch 4 will begin to shine in this regard, by essentially being folded into branch 3 as standard combat vehicles get upgraded into mecha body parts.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

@Stern Algorithm Currently, im thinking of a hybrid type of creature of Mothra and Legion from Gamera, Attack Of Legion.

Pretty much a child who has symbiotically linked mentally with an enormous insect queen who can split into millions of smaller bugs. Of course, each bug that gets killed diminishes her power, so when she reforms, she's weaker.

@mattmanganon

OK, that's a pretty cool idea. However, the organization will take every measure to ensure that such an entity can be contained if necessary. I don't think this will matter for your character, but I should point out that there are no kaiju that are native to earth, even though I know that earth-native kaiju are pretty common in the various kaiju media. In this universe, all kaiju are from space. If this causes any hang-ups, we can brainstorm further.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

The big question I have is: "Are we using actual Canon Kaiju? Or the other kind?" because I have been on a Gamera kick recently and would probably prefer the former, but have some ideas either way.

@mattmanganon

This would be an original universe, so the 'Ultraman'-like savior would not actually be Ultraman, but I have no qualms if you want to do a "my OC is heavily inspired by X".

On that note, are you considering creating a member of the second branch? There could be multiple ways to go about this. You could have a genetically modified human who grows and transforms into a kaiju, a telepath who mind controls a kaiju, the kaiju can be remotely controlled (Tetsujin) or piloted (Eva-style) through the use of technological control mechanisms/limiters, or some other idea you can come up with.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

@mattmanganon @Foster

Alright, I've created a group RP thread.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

I have an idea that I've been wanting to try that is like a mix of Ultraman, Pacific Rim, and Godzilla, with a layer of Neon Genesis Evangelion's philosophical transhumanism.

In the wake of giant monster attacks and the appearance of an Ultraman-like savior, mankind has developed 4 branches of anti-monster defense. The first relies on the giant savior, the second on controlling and pitting monster against monster, the third on creating giant mecha, and the fourth on utilizing conventional military to provide support to the other three branches. The player characters would be members of one of the three branches, excluding the first branch, and will learn more about the organization in charge and the people in it, the origins of the monsters, and how far humans are willing to go to protect themselves. I would generally like palyers to spread out which branch they would like to be involved with, but this isn't a hard rule. I am also not letting players be part of the first branch, which involves the Ultraman-like savior, as this character would know more spoilery info, but I can relent on this if you convince me otherwise.

If this idea interests you, then below are my RP habits. I tend to be casual to advanced and expect similarly from my players. I am looking for or a small group of players (3-5). For this idea, I will basically be GMing and playing the NPCs. Given that this is a group RP, I expect each player to have a single character, but I may allow you to play multiple characters. I am slow at posting and can take weeks to respond depending on how busy I am. I intend to RP through a forum thread. I can open up a Discord server for OOC and collaboration if requested.

Yeah, that should be it ask if you have any questions.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

@Foster

Sadly, we won't be going into Gurren Lagann-levels of matryoshka doll mecha or mecha-ception. Are you expressing interest? If so, did you want to do a 1x1 or would you be interested in group RP, since I am floating the idea of making this a group RP.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

@mattmanganon

I could make this a group RP, but last time I tried, people couldn't even make their characters and dropped almost instantly for some reason. I figured in a 1x1 I could at least hope the one other person was dedicated. But if you can gather a group of trustworthy friends, I could totally do it.