A mix of all the above. Some are already dug in and rapidly burrowing underground cities while strip-mining other sections of the planet, others are still in transit or are floating without guidance because of running into cosmic anomalies or stray fire on the way out of the Meknik cluster.
Between flash-clone facilities, heavy industry, Meknik work ethic, and disregard for the environment, a Meknik colony doesn't need long to get running. So the potential for interactions is very broad.
Oh, cool. I see some interesting potential, since as I mentioned earlier there are certain systems that Ch'ak has 'claimed' and has beacons set up but hasn't utilized at all because there's a life-bearing world there and exploiting the system would be immoral. If one of these colonies happened to arrive in one of those systems (or even arrive in a dead system and wonder why the hell there's literally nothing there or one currently being stripped by World Eaters) it could be an interesting first contact between the Meknik and Ch'ak'ii.
They were meant to be deliberately lost. They were last-ditch holdout colonies meant to escape the seemingly apocalyptic war the Meknik's were in to form bastions and fleet bases to continue the war outside of the Meknik local cluster. Unfortunately, the war never went to the extreme the Meknik's thought it would, and a lot of their documentation and ultra-secure comm systems got blown up or destroyed to keep them out of enemy hands during the middle part of the Establishment War. So now they got 200+ colony missions unaccounted for, all of which were heavily armed and militarized.
But yes, this is a major fuck-up the Meknik's are really regretting and are trying to clean up. Should make for interesting times when contact is made.
Oooh, gotcha. That makes some kind of sense I suppose, though it's still one hell of a fuck-up. So, I do have one question, like would these colonies have already all "hit dirt" as it were? And have already set up and began operations? Or would there still be some likely heading to their destination?
Oh, and guess what @Hael. I finished my NS! Granted, I still gotta do my Explorer's sheet, but that shouldn't take too long. Huzzah!
So, who wants to trip over a lost Meknik colony world? A group of low-tech industrial dogs, who happen to have a lot of nuclear weapons and tend to strip-mine and exploit worlds they are on. Even precious habitable garden worlds or those with pre-FTL species.
The Union really has a lot of messes to clean up. The Lost Margin and the Dark Void Armories are two of them. Would be interesting to play around.
It could be interesting if these guys happen to stumble upon Ch'ak space. Well, not Ch'ak space itself but likely the deadzone full of empty (as in there aren't any celestial bodies left) systems or one of the few worlds with life that the Ch'ak'ii specifically 'claimed' because they're morally opposed to harvesting systems with native life. Could prove some interesting conflict, since the Ch'ak'ii would not like one of them popping into a protected system even before they realized the extent to which their mining operations would go.
But Jesus Christ, they manged to lose over 200 colonies? That should be a lesson in why you back up your files.
Here's a WIP/rough draft of what I'm working on. Should more or less give you an idea of what I'm going with.
The Cormyrean Confederation
Population and Demographics: The Cormyrean Confederation control a total of 22 star systems which are divided between the Core Systems and Rim Systems. The Core Systems are the Nalloth home system of Cormyral plus the first six star systems they colonized. They are, by far, the most heavily developed star systems owned by the Confederation and contain about 60% of the entire Nalloth population. The Rim systems are more recently colonized and possess far less population density and infrastructure as the Core systems.
Total Population: 144 Billion
Nalloth: 91% Synthetic Intelligences: 2% Other 7%
Species: Nalloth are a species of animal that exhibits traits of both mammals and reptiles. They possess six appendages, each of which can function as either a hand or foot equally well. They are covered in small scales that are used primarily for protection. These scales can change color and pattern over time in response to changes in the environment, acting as camouflage as well. Perhaps even more interesting how Nalloth seemingly switch between being warm and cold blooded. Typically they exhibit the traits of a warm blooded animal, but under certain circumstances, namely when food is scarce, a Nalloth can rely on the environment to regulate its body temperature. Heavily vascularized osteoderms not only allow a Nalloth to rapidly raise or decrease its body temperature, acting as a heat-exchanger, but also act as a sort of body armor. They possess four eyes, each of which rest on an eye stock that can swivel to look in any direction independently of the others. Nalloth are omnivores, preferring to use vegetation as a supplement to animal protein.
Their languages consists of a series of shrill whistles, whines, and grunts with small differences in pitch and tone having a small effect on the meaning of a 'word'. While a human might be capable of understanding a majority of the native Nalloth languages they cannot hope to speak it and many of its intricacies would be lost on them. Nalloth are incapable of speaking human, and most other species’, languages. They can, however, attempt to use whistles, whines, and grunts to mimic words found in other languages to varying degrees of success.
They have evolved to have very good reflexes, spatial awareness, and eyesight when all of their eyes are looking in the same direction. Having evolved in a jungle and mountain environment, Nalloth are excellent climbers and hunters. In comparison to humans they have superior reflexes and agility, but inferior physical strength. In terms of endurance and intelligence Nalloth and Humans are roughly equal.
System of Government: Unsurprisingly the Cormyrean Confederation is a union of sovereign countries that have come together to deal with issues such as defense and foreign relations. Power between the confederate government and independent countries is roughly balanced, but the confederate government’s power has been steadily growing since the Confederation was first formed and it is only a matter of time before the government is reformed into a federation.
Like many of the countries that are members of the Confederation, the confederate government has three branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. The executive branch is headed by the Tribune who is elected into office by a direct popular vote. The Tribune serves in five year terms and has no term limits, although by tradition Tribunes do not serve more than two terms consecutively. The executive branch is in charge of the Confederate Military and has the duty to enforce laws passed by the legislative branch.
The legislative branch is made up of an upper and lower house. The lower house is a democratically elected parliament and is referred to simply as Parliament or the Confederate Parliament. The Confederate Senate, which is the upper house, is made up of one senator from each member country of the Confederation. There is no explicit law stating how senators are picked, meaning each country has a slightly different way of picking its senator. Normally democratic countries allow their citizens to vote for their senator while the governments monarchies and dictatorships simply designate a senator on their people's’ “behalf”. The Senate has more power than Parliament, able to veto any bill passed by Parliament; however, the Parliament’s power has been growing and it is believed that in time it will surpass the Senate in political power.
The final branch is the judiciary. The judiciary, headed by the Confederacy’s High Judiciary, is in charge of confederate courts. They have the power of judicial review, thus can invalidate laws that they find are either unconstitutional or immoral. The High Judiciary can also impeach any member of the confederate government. Members of the High Judiciary are selected by Parliament and confirmed by both the Senate and Tribune.
The Cormyrean Confederation is dominated by a group of countries collectively referred to as the Big Five. The Big Five are the most powerful member countries of the Confederation and are Atrya (Federal Republic), Coibeyya (Parliamentary Republic/Theocratic State), Joiunga (Federal Republic), Ifliington (Federated Parliamentary Republic), and Sioelia (Constitutional Monarchy).
History:
The end of the Great War in 1523 AD (Sol Calender) would prove to be a milestone in the history of the Cormyrean Confederation, as the new democratic powers of the world, led by Atrya, proved to be victorious over the old monarchist powers. New forms of governments sprang up as the world order was changed to one centered on Atrya and its rival, Sostan. Over the next fifty years Atrya would prove to be the stronger of the two and becoming the hegemonic power of the world. Still quite powerful, controlling roughly a sixth of the world’s land, but isolated due to Atrya’s system of alliances, Sostan waged a war of desperation on its neighbors. Out of this war Ifliington, a fledgling regional power, would grow into one of the world’s most important countries. Provided with technology from Atrya, an Ifliington led coalition not only beat back Sostan, but began a mad dash to conquer as much of its territory as possible; Meanwhile Sioelia, a former great power that had been on the losing side of the Great War, marched on Sostan from the opposite direction. Atrya and the new Ifliington Commonwealth became fast allies even as Sioelia began to rebuild its once great naval empire. Elsewhere in the world Coibeyya turned to religion in order to incorporate its neighbors into its own growing empire.
The world soon found itself with three rapidly growing powers, the Ifliington Commonwealth, Coibeyya, and Sioelia, the last two of which very much desired an end to Atrya hegemonic power. Things wouldn’t come to a head, however, for another fifty years. The use of space for military control and communications as well as the movement of troops was now commonplace, for Atrya at least. Atrya had, up until this point, held a monopoly on the use of space for the military. A cunning plan on Sioelia’s part put all of this at risk. Sioelia spent ten years to secretly transport the materials needed to construct a base on the far side of the moon, using the existence of a civilian research base as a cover. It then used the base as a launching point for thousands of rocks, equipped with small rockets, to destroy most of Atrya’s satellites. Sioelia and its ally, Coibeyya, fought a fierce war against Atrya and Ifliington.
The war itself proved to be a milestone in Cormyrean history, as the concept of total war was thrown out the window. The countries of Sioelia and Coibeyya didn’t desire the destruction of Atrya; they only wished to be recognized as growing powers and realized that to fight a total war against Atrya and targeting its civilian facilities would force Atrya to fight to the bitter end. Atrya, on the other hand, had learned from the mistakes of the Great War and didn’t want to destroy Sioelia and Coibeyya, instead it only desired to contain them and maintain its hegemony over the world. The war would later be hailed as the “most civilized war in history”, with civilian casualties at a historic low. Ultimately the Atrya-Ifliington alliance proved to be victorious, affirming Atryan hegemony over the world and space. Atrya used its most recent victory to bar all other countries from space, except for the use of basic communications satellites. All of the resources of the Cormyral System were open for Atrya’s use, and the world’s hegemonic power quickly rushed to set up mining operations in the nearby asteroid belt. Meanwhile the developed countries of the world found themselves with a rapidly growing population problem.
Whereas in the previous hundred years the problem was halting the flow of immigrants, the problem was now the exact opposite as the populations in developed countries steadily dropped. Atrya turned to its neighbor, Iscxa, for immigrants. The other developed countries of the world turned to their neighbors as well. All except Sioelia and Coibeyya. Coibeyya itself was a developed country that had recently annexed numerous undeveloped and developing countries, meaning it had more people than it knew what to do with. Sioelia was hit particularly hard by declining population, losing an entire third of its population when its oldest members passed away; however, it was keen on maintaining its ethnic purity, thus turning to robotics as a means to solving its growing labor problem. Atrya and Sioelia became the world’s leaders when it came to robotics.
Fifty years later (1623 AD Sol Calender) Atrya and Sioelia’s labor issues were solved by advancements in robotics. All was not well for Atrya, however, as diplomatic issues between Iscxa and Atrya over immigrants came to a head. Atrya, with its labor problems solves, no longer had need of Iscxa immigrants and many in the country wanted to deport them. Iscxa, now fully developed, had no desire to have to deal with millions of refugees. Issues of historic Iscxa claims on Atrya territory added fuel to the fire. Eventually war broke out between the two countries. Despite Atrya’s vast technological advantage, Iscxa’s much greater population size proved to be almost too much for Atrya to overcome. Atrya eventually won the war, but the effort nearly broke it. Atrya could only watch as first Sioelia, and then Coibeyya and Ifliington rushed to develop space.
Atrya, Coibeyya, Ifliington, and Sioelia collectively became known as the Big Four. Micro-wars over colonies and mining sites became the norm as Atrya desperately tried to maintain its space holdings. As the Big Four built up their infrastructure in space, so too did tensions grow. War eventually erupted between Coibeyya and Sioelia over control of the most far flung colonies in Cormyral. Inevitably Atrya and Ifliington were pulled into what would later by called the Great Cormyrean War. Once enemies became allies as Atrya and Sioelia teamed up to battle Coibeyya. Ifliington officially remained unallied with both sides, but more often than not teamed up with Coibeyya to counter the Atrya-Sioelia alliance. At first the war was confined to space, but eventually it spread to the homeworld as most of the countries picked one side or the other. Through the use of shrewd politics, espionage, and the proper application of military power, one country by the name of Eiclein quickly grew into a power during the Great Cormyrean War.
Eventually the Atrya-Sioelia alliance won the war. Atrya maintained control over the asteroid belt and its colonies on the nearest planet while Sioelia became the dominant power in the outer edges of the Cormyrean System. Although battered and beaten, Ifliington and Coibeyya escaped the war with only modest losses, although they were expected to pay reparations. For its part Eiclein had managed to rapidly grow in power, becoming part of the now Big Five, but in doing so had managed to anger the other four members.
By this time the Big Five had long known that intelligent life existed beyond their system thanks to the radio waves they’d been picking up for years. The responses from the Big Five varied from country to country, but ultimately they decided to form an organization with which they would face whatever might lay outside of their home system, thus the Cormyrean Confederation was born. The apparent unification of the Cormyrean Confederation turned out to be little more than a farce as competition between the Big Five grew even more intense. Cormyral's most advanced countries raced to develop true extrastellar FTL technology and be the first to colonize worlds beyond their home system.
Naturally Atrya was the first to develop the capabilities needed to travel beyond their home system. A massive campaign of exploration was launched to find the best worlds and asteroid belts to claim. Several years later Sioelia developed its own extrastellar FTL systems and it too launched a campaign of exploration and colonization. Ten years passed before the next member of the Big Five, Ifliington, achieved extrastellar FTL; during this time Atrya had gained a firm grasp on two neighbor systems while Sioelia had control over a third. Ifliington rushed to claim its own star system before either Coibeyya or Eiclein could contest its claims. By the time Coibeyya and Eiclen did develop the necessary technology to colonize other star systems the closest such systems were already dominated by Atrya and Sioelia, and Ifliington to a lesser degree. Over the next few decades Coibeyya, Eiclen, and Ifliington would race to colonize what became known as the rim systems, a collection of ten star systems, while Atrya and Sioelia focused on developing the core systems. As the Big Five colonized space more and more some of them designed AI of immense power to aid in their efforts. Atrya, Sioelia, and Ifliington, as well as the periphery power Joiunga, all created their own AIs, each with a slightly different purpose and design philosophy.
For more than fifty years the Big Five searched for life beyond their homeworld, yet found no clues beyond radio signals that could be millions of years in age. Then, as some took sighs of relief while others felt despair over finding no evidence of other intelligent life still alive in their part of the galaxy, an exploration fleet from Coibeyya made first contact with another space faring civilization (1713 AD Sol Calendar). In no way was first contact peaceful. The Coibeyyan fleet was destroyed on sight, unable to put up much of a fight against the much more advanced and war-oriented alien fleet.
At first the leaders of the Big Five panicked and their responses to the alien threat were uncoordinated at best. Soon, however, they rallied together and formed a unified front against the aggressive aliens they had come to call the Xruusk.
The early stages of the war were primarily intended to delay the Xruusk and attempt to prevent them from finding an actual Nalloth colony. For five years the countries of the Cormyrean Confederation sent entire fleets to their death in order to simply delay the Xruusk. All the while they worked furiously to build up their military might and research what Xruusk technology they could bring home. In this the AI developed by Atrya, Sioelia, Ifliington, and Joiunga would prove to be invaluable. All the while Ifliington’s AI, called Aegis, become increasingly influential and eventually became the country’s Prime Minister while deceiving the public into believing it was actually a Nalloth.
At this time the Cormyrean Confederation was still weak and in many different ways. Militarily it was far inferior to the Xruusk. Politically it was at best a weak alliance made up of the Big Five. Culturally it was divided in a thousand different ways. This would be made painfully clear when Eiclein, along with a collection of smaller countries, waged war on Atrya despite the ever looming threat of Xruusk invasion. The Atryan-Eiclein would have been a long and bloody war had Ifliington’s AI not intervened.
Utilizing advanced memetic engineering, Ifliington’s AI a new religion and philosophy called the Starborn Faith. The Starborn Faith spread quickly throughout the Nalloth population and eventually led to the revolt and open rebellion of Eiclein’s colonies, bringing the Atryan-Eiclein war to a sudden end. Just as importantly, the Starborn Faith would prove to be a beacon that would lead to the unification of the various Nalloth cultures.
In 1720 AD Sol Calendar the Cormyrean Confederation found its second intelligent lifeform, one that was not only not hostile but less advanced than the Nalloth. The problem was that the atomic age civilization was located in the path of a Xruusk war fleet. The Nalloth found themselves with a horrible decision: allow these undeveloped aliens to die in order to by the Confederation some much needed time or risk losing an entire fleet in order to possibly just delay the civilization’s demise. The commanding officer of the nearest fleet, looking to the teachings of the Starborn Faith for an answer, chose to fight for the civilization. In the end they saved the civilization, although the price the fleet payed was great.
By this point the Cormyrean Confederation was becoming more and more powerful both militarily and as a political body. The Ifliington AI Aegis, still masquerading as a Nalloth, was elected to be the Confederation’s first Tribune, its head of government. Under Aegis’ rule the Xruusk were defeated, but not before their war fleets bulled their way into the Confederation’s Core Systems.
Following the end of the First Contact War in 1725 AD Sol Calendar, the Cormyrean Confederation entered a Golden Age of exploration and technological progress. Following the tenets of the Starborne Faith, the Cormyrean Confederation sought to avoid war with their fellow “children of the stars” even as they selectively uplifted developing civilizations and placed them under their protective wing.
At times the Confederation would be pacifist. At others they would actively wage wars on those who were a threat to the survival of other intelligent species. At all times the Confederation would serve to be a stabilizing entity in its region.
Culture: This is super-important. At least 6 paragraphs on culture. This includes religion and the such.
Important people, places, and organizations: This is self-explanatory.
Military size: For the typical species, a military cannot be larger than 7% of the total population. But if you have some special reason that it should be higher, I'll most likely allow it.
Military details: Describe the strength, organization, command-structure, and any other necessary details of your military. 3 paragraphs minimum.
Weapons tech: Go nuts!
General Technology: Really go nuts! For at least 3 paragraphs!
Economy: Are your people poor and starving? Rich and fat? Are you economically powerful enough to control other nations through wealth? Can you be controlled through wealth?
Spaceships: Please describe, in as much detail as possible, the sort of space vessel you use and how they operate. Don't forget to include the general size of these vessels, how many people they can carry, and what sort of weapons they use. This should be at least 4 paragraphs long.
That... That has to be one of the silliest images for an alien I've ever seen. And yet... That seems to make it realistic somehow.
Nah, you've been pretty smooth-sailing, as the Ch'ak are a fairly simple race: just build giant things.
Out of curiosity, what would the Ch'ak think of the current drama stirring? You know, Xim vs. Human/Commonwealth, while the Coalition is close to falling into anarchy and everyone is all jumpy xD
Well, if they had to pick a side it'd likely be that of the humans since they're one of the few other true democracies in the RP if I recall correctly. Though they wouldn't be too fond of the Commonwealth, simply because of the crap it pulls and it seems like it's essentially a system designed to uplift the upper classes on the broken backs of the poor and huddled masses. It should be an interesting time, since the current First Governor is making (or going to start making) a concerted effort to involve Ch'ak more in interstellar politics.
Oh, and I finished my ship list in case you wanted to take a look.
I actually really like that idea. It would be fun for one of our explorers to find Ch'ak for the first time and flip the fuck out at the giant building-planets
So yes, it's allowed.
Well the plan was for you all to at least know about Ch'ak, and for there to have been visitors in the past. Just, you know, infrequent ones. And there'd probably be rumours and the like about it and Ch'ak likely wouldn't know more than the basics about anyone else's nation (heck, they probably wouldn't even know about the Xim-Human war.
And they likely wouldn't recognize that anything was off at first with the worlds, other than them having a strangely regular orbit and all being pleasant life-sustaining worlds. Since they're not just bare metal; the Ch'ak'ii cover them in artificial dirt and rock and the like and seed them with flora and fauna native to Ka'ak. EDIT: Or at least that's what I planned anyway.
I don't think anyone was being hard on him. It's just that it was kinda sudden and without explanation. But hey, sometimes stuff does come up. Hell, I remember I once had to quit a couple of RPs I was in simply because it'd sort of gotten to the point that I was burnt out of RPing and it felt more like a chore than something I did for fun.
But on a different note. @Hael, since people don't seem to be plopping themselves near me or even really filling out the map would it be a problem if I sort of went with the idea that I thought of before? With the region surrounding Ch'ak sort of being relatively unexplored and not home to any major space-faring civilizations? With Ch'ak sort of being known of by the other major interstellar powers, but without much actual direct contact (not zero firsthand contact; it just being rather rare).
