Stern Algorithm

Apotheosis of the Leviathan (a mecha kaiju mashup RP)

I'm sorry that I'm a bit late in expressing interest, but if you're still doing this I'd like to join. Would a kaiju character that has a human form be an acceptable character choice?

@wikkit

No worries, I think there may be fewer players than I initially counted, so there should be room to join.

As for a human form kaiju, I suppose it depends on what you mean. The intention is that all player characters are humans. If your character is part of the Titan Project, then your character has some means of controlling a kaiju. Some examples include:

• You could control the kaiju like a video game, using a controller with rudimentary commands, and using the cameras deployed during an operation or mounted on the kaiju to get a third-person or first-person view of the battle (Classic mecha Gigantor AKA Tetsujin 28 is controlled this way).
• You can have a VR headset with a haptic control suit (ie. you're wearing a suit that senses your motions and relays those motions as commands for the kaiju to mimic, while the kaiju has implants like cameras and microphones so you can see and hear what the kaiju sees and hears).
• You can be a developing telepath who mentally controls a sedated kaiju.
• You can be Ultraman-like (or Incredible Hulk-like) in that your body physically grows and mutates to take on the form of a kaiju because you were experimented on and given kaiju DNA.

As for the kaiju itself, it can have a humanoid shape (stand upright, bipedal, two arms, round head, etc.), but cannot look completely human. The Hyperians are, by Earth definitions, humanoid kaiju.

Apotheosis of the Leviathan (a mecha kaiju mashup RP)

Sounds good to me. What style visually are you thinking the mechs should sort of follow? I figured that the Hyper mecha should be bulky, but wasn't sure if that should go the route of "classic rounded" robots or something a bit more modern but with armor and big punchies.

@The Irish Tree

Yeah, aesthetically, I was thinking the Hyper mecha would be more bulky and the Talos mecha more sleek, but I'm not going to insist too strongly on the actual look, since finding the perfect faceclaim, especially for a machine, can be very difficult.

Apotheosis of the Leviathan (a mecha kaiju mashup RP)

I take it the mecha have been in development, and the pilots have been testing them and running simulations, but they haven't been revealed and haven't been tried in combat yet. Is that right? Or maybe the older one has been in service, and the new one is about to be deployed.

Also, do you have a preference for how the mecha fight, what kind of weapons they use, or what style of mech they are?

@Gisk

The Hyper core mecha will have fought a handful of kaiju with mixed results since mecha technology would have been fairly new at the beginning. Sometimes Hyper Man would have had to swoop in to finish the job.

But the Talos core mecha is much newer and hasn't seen combat yet.

At least that's my idea for now, I'm flexible.

As for combat preference, my initial idea (again, flexible) is that the Hyper core is initially designed for space travel, and the Hyperian's are masters at manipulating energy fields. Their ships need to designate what is 'self' and what is 'other' in order to figure out what to transport long distance when folding space. Whatever is designated as 'self' is covered in a protective field to shield it from the rigors of hyperspace travel. So I was thinking that the Hyper core covers the entire mecha in a protective field, making it good at essentially punching and kicking. But the Hyper core is very stingy at relinquishing energy for other uses. So ranged weapons for the Hyper core mecha would need to use conventional weapons (ie. things launched using their own energy/fuel, so munitions and explosives).

The Talos core then would lack this ability to coat its mech in a protective field, but is designed purely for outputting massive amounts of power instead. This makes it physically less sturdy, but able to take advantage of the latest in human-developed energy weapons, so lasers, bean swords, etc.

You would have a bruiser and DPS build, essentially.

Apotheosis of the Leviathan (a mecha kaiju mashup RP)

@The Irish Tree@Stern Algorithm

Are we trying to make a unified vision of how the mecha for Project Colossus work? I know we were talking about the reactor core having some kind of intelligence, but I wasn't certain if that's meant to be universal.

@Gisk

<Snipped quote by Gisk>

I imagine that maybe different organizations while unified under Colossus got the same tech, they'd build different kinds of machines. I'm not picky about it, since if we're starting off as semi-real robot pilots then the mechs will start as clunkers anyhow.

@The Irish Tree

Going off of the alien core idea, to reiterate from the timeline, two Hyperians have visited Earth, dubbed Hyper Man and Hyper Man X. Hyper Man arrived ages ago to monitor humanity, but during the first extraterrestrial incident 20 years ago, his ship was damaged beyond repair. The ship's core, dubbed the Hyper Core, was removed by humans for study and the first giant mecha was built around it, this is the prototype unit. Hyper Man X arrived 4 years ago, relieving the original Hyper Man of his duty and allowing him to return home on X's ship. Study and reverse engineering of the Hyper Core allowed humans to finally create a replica, dubbed the Talos Core, and a second giant mecha was built around it. So there are two mecha, the first has an advanced alien reactor but the mecha itself is older, and the second has an untested, man-made core, but the mecha itself is slightly more advanced than the first. So going off of this dynamic, one of you would be the veteran pilot using the older mech and one the newbie using the newer mech.

That's the basic idea I have for now anyways.

Apotheosis of the Leviathan (a mecha kaiju mashup RP)

Pinging all players who have explicitly or implicitly expressed interest: @mattmanganon, @baraquiel, @The Irish Tree, @Gisk, @Foster, @Dragonfly 9, @Vixere.

Mecha Kaiju Mashup

OOC is up.

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.