STGOD 2k8 background thread

[Rogue 9]

Looks good, though it feels a little small unless those are really big missile tubes and truly gigantic beam lenses. (If the depressions along the side are supposed to be something else, disregard the last.) I was speaking of a battleship class.

[Darkevilme]

Hmm yes well, what do you envision when you write beam emmitter anyway?

[Tanasinn]

As the most fleshed out superior alien race i hereby declare pre-emptive war on Tanasinn's meritocracy just to save time later.

You subhuman dogs can bring it on! Mankind shall roll over you like a speedbump on its path to greater glory!

[Darkevilme]

@ Tanasinn:
Or get eaten trying.

Also, for the dogs comment the children will be eaten first.

[Rogue 9]

Well, a lens about like that, but damn. For the lens to be that big in comparison to the ship, the mechanism for actually making the beam would have to take up most of the interior. Actually I'd want them to be able to swivel, so perhaps some sort of ball mount would do the trick. Though they shouldn't be a two hundred meters across or whatever the scale of that was; I was thinking of an approximately 2 km long vessel.

[Darkevilme]

Is this more acceptable rogue?

[Rogue 9]

Better. Three spinal-mount railguns is a nice touch, actually; I think I'll go with that. Thanks.

[Academia Nut]

Does anyone else think it wrong that I'm developing fictional pharmacologies for some of the more exotic drugs the Konige consume? And an entire chemistry based reasoning for why Valkyries are an entirely female force?

Incidentally though, I may have figured out the origins of the Konige, and if anyone else wants to use the Awesome, PM me and I'll give a bit of an explanation. Shared history and all that means that the Konige can't have been the only people to have figured it out, even if its called different names and the Konige are one of the few groups to have completely embraced the Awesome.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Does anyone else think it wrong that I'm developing fictional pharmacologies for some of the more exotic drugs the Konige consume? And an entire chemistry based reasoning for why Valkyries are an entirely female force?

Incidentally though, I may have figured out the origins of the Konige, and if anyone else wants to use the Awesome, PM me and I'll give a bit of an explanation. Shared history and all that means that the Konige can't have been the only people to have figured it out, even if its called different names and the Konige are one of the few groups to have completely embraced the Awesome.

Attention to detail, no matter how neurotic it may appear to outsiders, is always a good thing.

I'll gladly take you up on that offer. The Haruhiists are descended in some part from the Konige, after all; it would stand to reason that at least a few of them can still use the Awesome, even if they refer to it as "data manipulation," "ESPer capability," or simply "the will of Miss Suzumiya."

[Darkevilme]

How does The Awesome relate to more conventional psionics like forsay the Chamaran psi amps and emmitter towers version of psionics?

[Covenant]

I've been thinking up doing a technical writeup of The Awesome as an overriding psionic force that operates reflexively amongst humans, instead of via conscious effort--so that the way to achieve an effect via The Awesome it is necessary to provoke a subconscious reaction or expectation that, via the Awesome, is performed. This makes it nearly entirely based on perception and instinct, and thus would effect people's perceptions as well as it pushed back against them. The drug use of the Konige would probably be related to both mitigating the negative effects of this push-and-shove at the instinct and subconscious level and also to push themselves into altered states of consciousness that make their perceptions more pliable and suggestable.

Also, since the Awesome operates non-consciously, your goal is not just to trick yourself, but to provoke unconscious reactions in others. Dropping out of the sky with nobody around to see you fall may not be sufficent to trigger the Awesome's gestalt psychic field to save you from it, but if you did it in the midst of a battle, the mixed perceptions and expectations of the combined people could create such a strong reaction of "that's so awesome and terrifying" that it functions even without their desire for it to. It would be possible to do something your opponent thought was so awesome that his own presence in the Awesome destroyed him--so the real threat to a user of The Awesome is not someone who is stronger, but someone who knows how to do a truly awesome thing, like burst out of the ground atop a 100 foot speaker and start hammering on your electric guitar-equipped giant angel robot just as thunder cracks along the sky. Like a listener anticipating the next most strident chord and knowing what it should be, he would anticipate his own destruction at a most basic, instinctual level and be consumed as reality bent itself through force of The Awesome to make that a reality.

The Awesome is, therefore, different than an /active/ psychic field in that it operates against and with everyone in the mix. Humanity may feel that the Awesome, or die Ungeheuerlichkeit as it may be translated, is a distinctly human form of psionic manifestation that not only reveals a darker, more monstrous nature of humanity but also holds the hope of unifying us into one single unstoppable recursively potent uber-being, connected by our web of Awesome. An eventual Awesome Singularity may have been the end goal of this.

So the Awesome is not emitted or amplified--to amplify the effects of awesome, you'd want to play music to your troops to inspire them, deploy war machines that look terrifying more than necessarily do their job right, and promote the most charismatic leaders to the top of the ranks so that the common soldier's tug on die Ungeheuerlichkeit forces reality to bend in Humanity's favor.

I'm sure psionics exist in more mundane senses amongst all species, and that only with great care do most Humans play the Awesome (I suggest we call a Psion 'a Player' since attempting to manipulate the Awesome is like attempting to play an instrument, where it's the reverberations of your movements, and the movements of your team, that create the effects you want--if at all, and because it has a good rock music/game player metaphor) and only a few like the Konige embrace it fully--and pay it's full price.

[Academia Nut]

Oh..... yeah....

[/Kool-Aid Man]

That's a better description of the Awesome than I had ever managed to really formulate Covenant, and I think today I managed to figure out what unlocked subconscious control in the Konige amongst those who can use it.

Basically, they were some of the first human settlers and were thus far more vulnerable to alien environments than any other group in history. On their new world there was an organism that produced a powerful neurotoxin, but for humans it behaved as a potent stimulant and hallucinogen and unlocked hidden potential. If developing fetuses were exposed to this chemical, it could cause permanent alteration to the brain and they could connect more deeply with the Awesome than any human ever before, but at the price of a severely altered view of the world from normal humans.

Over time, mutations arose that neutralized the toxins affects, but as a side effect also have a genetic factor for contact with the Awesome. As more and more individuals like this arose the entire population became something of a resonator field, amplifying the effects and creating an environment where the mutations for Awesome control could arise spontaneously simply because something like that is Awesome. Drugs to expand the mind and allow for finer control over the Awesome became common while the original toxin was isolated and controlled due to its far more unpleasant side effects, especially for men due to hormonal interaction.

When the burgeoning Empire found out, they were both horrified and incredibly curious. They tried to control the population but failed horribly as they were simply unfamiliar with the true extent of the Awesome and the way it could bend reality so unexpectantly. They torched the world, but a sizeable fraction of the population got away and used the fact that FTL is Awesome to run far, far away. By the time the Empire found them, they had developed fully into the Konige but experimentation in the meantime to understand some of the fundamentals of the Awesome allowed for them to be held at bay. The Empire decided to simply keep the Konige at the edge of their space rather than attempt extermination because the Konige made a good boogeyman, they were curious as to where the Awesome could lead for the future of humanity, and they were somewhat worried whether or not a campaign of extermination might result in the Konige percieving it as a Ragnarok-type scenario and thus potentially trigger an unfavourable Awesome Singularity before they had full understanding.

The original toxin has since been lost for the most part. The Konige use an artificial version in select roles as a combat drug, and the Haruhiists probably retained the knowledge after splitting off from the Konige. The gestalt effects might also explain why Haruhi exists in the first place, in that due to the extreme popularity of Haruhi it latched onto an individual at random and flipped a switch, allowing for immortality and the generation of some bizarre circumstances. The Empire probably had labs with samples of the original alien organism that generated the toxin for study, and perhaps there may have been a black market for it before the Cataclysm.

More on this when I finish the ground combat part of my fluff.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ok, the following is some fluff I have done up that is meant to lay the foundation for my StarNation as well as flesh out a bit more of the Timeline of the Imperium. Please review and let me know if this contridicts wiht anything currently on the bored:
============================================
The roots of what would become the Kushawni Imperial Province date back to the Third Great Expansion of the Imperium. The Imperium was flush with fat and wealthy star nations and the inner core worlds we’re feeling the need to expand their power base. Enter the robust, bombastic and very eccentric Emperor Kuzko. His flare for the dramatic and sense of grand scale would shape the Imperium for the next several hundred years.

Several of the more powerful core worlds began urging for a new wave of migration into the outer rim. The Imperiums coffers were flush with cash and everyone wanted to use the riches as an excuse to further their own agendas, and Kuzko was all to eager to indulge them.

The military was the first to receive a rich bounty from the new Emperor. For years it had been pushing for whole new line of Warship, Battleships and Dreadnaughts that we’re more massive then anything yet constructed. While it had lobbied for what had been termed “Battlespheres” , until Kuzko, the wildly oversized ships had always been turned down in the Imperiums budget. Now however the funds would be used on a constructions project on a scale that had never before been seen. The largest and most titanic shipyards all across the Imperium we’re ramped up into full production as the OK was given for the new line of massive “Battlesphere” battleships and Dreadnoughts. At the same time however, the drive for expanding the Imperium was put into an equal state of production.

As dreadnaughts up to 10-km long we’re being produced, plans we’re drawn up for colony Spheres up to 100km from end to end. Designed to create a fully functionally nation in the span of a decade or two instead of over a hundred years. The very first of these massive ships was labelled as Teknotron-1 It drew colonists from the more over populated worlds. Ones eager to get rid of some of the more undesirable or “Overly Liberal” members of their society. Also many powerful families went along with huge amounts of wealth, eager to find a new place that they could expand their own personal power bases. The ship itself was a marvel of engineering. Containing manufacturing facilities to produce it’s own defence force along the way as well as a incredibly powerful AI that ran many of the ships more complicated functions.

The construction of the ship went ahead along with at least six others planned. The great ship was filled with a sea of humanity; resources for a new Nation and the knowledge that every conceivable obstacle met would be overcome by the will of humanity. However, even as the massive vessel set forth to the very Rim of the Galaxy, events at Terra were transpiring that would ensure it would be the only such ship produced.

While the new battlefleet was being launched, people began counting up the cost of the vast sums of money that had been spent. Corruption was being uncovered on a scale as large as the new battleships being put into service. Huge sums of money simply vanished into the coffers of Core World business and many of the smaller nations that had been heavily taxed during this time began to call for blood. Many small nations refused to pay taxes until the corruption was cleared up, others demanded a halt to the massive new construction projects.

The Empeor, rather then lay a finger to his personal pride, the Great Grand new Warfleet of the Imperium, decided to placate some of the dissenters by axing production of the new Colony ships. That five years into the first ships launch, all contact had been lost, had already done much to sour many’s view of such massive ships. Yet their removing from production was largely a superficial fix, and did little to stem any of the immense corruption that continued to fester within the Core Worlds. By the time signs of a true Economic Depression we’re arriving, it was largely too late to stop the slide.

The next great ‘collapse’ of the Imperium had started and it would not end till the approach of an enemy that would see it’s eventual doom.

[Darkevilme]

I haven't pinned down the exact nature of Chamaran psionics other than the following effects and conditions.

The Chamaran's have had latent but nearly unnoticed psionic potential since achieving sentience.

Chamaran's have since boosted this using retroviral genetic engineering courses on their population while aboard the motherships.

However effects useful outside of laboratory conditions still require technological focusing amplifiers.

Due to favouritism in the way the retrovirus was administered there is variance in the psychic potential of individuals across the population, with those from higher ranked clans in general having higher psychic power.

Amplifiers take many forms containing the psi amp circuits and most only perform a specific purpose such as the telekinetic bands on Samurai that focus their psychokinetic energies upon their body, amplifying movement to improve speed, agility and strength.

Multi use psi amps are available though more expensive and less sensitive to the user due to the way the circuits work. This means that users without a psychic potential above a certain threshold cannot use a multi purpose psi amp.

Also on the subject of the Awesome, this means that its effect on non humans is greatly lessened correct?

So if a Konige Rucker and a Chamaran samurai meet and there arent enough humans to create a powerful gestalt field what happens? The Rucker gets torn open mid riff?

I also gather that the reason the Konige duel in academia nuts little story was so destructive is due to the audience and the fact that Konige are more affected by and amplify Awesome by a greater degree.((mostly referring to the audience, without an audience of Konige i doubt it would of been nearly as Awesome.))

[Rogue 9]

Important question: It was determined that the Empire arose after slow-ass colony ships left Earth but before said colony ships arrived at their destinations. What was the political situation on Earth like before the rise of the Empire, specifically when the bulk of the colony ships were launched?

Specifically: Were there still individual nations, or was there a unified world government? In either situation, was the government/governments mostly oppressive, or fairly liberated? If there were individual nations, which ones launched colony ships, and what was the political situation for the colony ships' home nations? I think this is important to those of us playing early colonial human powers.

[Covenant]

Also on the subject of the Awesome, this means that its effect on non humans is greatly lessened correct?

It's be of null advantage--you'd be unable to defend yourself or attack via Awesome, nor extra weak to Awesome attacks that'd blow you away. It's like a battle of the bands between Iron Maiden and, say, Devo. While the special psionic nature of Awesome doesn't hamper your psionics, they also can't use the awesome back on the Konige. At best they would be able to do something awesome and have The Awesome snap back on the Konige or whomever else, but that would require actual angelic choirs, electric guitars, mile-high indestructable robots and so on, whereas the Awesome itself can make these things possible for the Konige--so long as they make sure it's sweet.

So if a Konige Rucker and a Chamaran samurai meet and there arent enough humans to create a powerful gestalt field what happens? The Rucker gets torn open mid riff?

He still thinks that that he's awesome, so there's more than his own strength--it's his own strength multiplied by how awesome he thinks he is. Unlike a 2-man Rucker Duel (or should I say Ruck), you can't really expect to make him think you're awesome, which is how those duels would usually go.

I also gather that the reason the Konige duel in academia nuts little story was so destructive is due to the audience and the fact that Konige are more affected by and amplify Awesome by a greater degree.((mostly referring to the audience, without an audience of Konige i doubt it would of been nearly as Awesome.))

Yeah, it's like that old Kongie adage:

"If you kick over a tree in a forest, and there's nobody around to see it, is it awesome?" Second-hand awesome is barely awesome.

An excellent example would be Leonidas' shirtless 300 battling the Persians, who had previously attempted to be Awesome through weight of numbers, the size of Xerses' amps, and all the wierd shit in his army. But faced with "This Is Sparta!" at the beginning of the campaign, a Spartan on a hill doing voiceover, and just the sheer badassadry of the war, the Awesome turned against Leonidas, because it is a fickle bitch.

There's no way to suckerpunch The Awesome though, except making the Konige fight without an audience and without thinking they themselves are more awesome. This would be an uphill battle, though theoretically not impossible. The most likely outcome is that they'd need to start going sober, which would definately make their life a lot less Awesome, and thus a lot less dangerous to outside influences.

[Rogue 9]

Note to self: Make sure all my troops believe it would be awesome if the enemy were to self-destruct. Shouldn't be too hard.

[Covenant]

Note to self: Make sure all my troops believe it would be awesome if the enemy were to self-destruct. Shouldn't be too hard.

Sorry, it's gotta be subconscious. You can't will it to happen!

[SirNitram]

Space Romans are inherently Awesome. Therefore, I should be marginally protected.

Enclave understanding of psi/magic/quantek is decent, but apart from integration into their defensive systems, don't expect much. The Cult Of Unity is largely noncombatant, so they weren't in on the expedition. I may, depending on the layout of points, buy a Transcendent; basically, one of the Cult whose left behind his crude flesh and cyber-augments in favor of encoding his Self into the universe, and have him settle down over a world.

[Darkevilme]

Okay, sounds fair, they have awesome and Chamaran's have psycher tech and due to Chamaran's lacking Affinity to Awesome it balances out.

The duel between a Chamaran Samurai, i need to make up a female equivalent for warrior knight, and a Rucker should be an interesting narrative then. The Samurai having psychokinetic amplifiers, personal deflector screen, reactive armour skinsuit and a psiblade versus a guitar hero.

[Spyder]

Important question: It was determined that the Empire arose after slow-ass colony ships left Earth but before said colony ships arrived at their destinations. What was the political situation on Earth like before the rise of the Empire, specifically when the bulk of the colony ships were launched?

Specifically: Were there still individual nations, or was there a unified world government? In either situation, was the government/governments mostly oppressive, or fairly liberated? If there were individual nations, which ones launched colony ships, and what was the political situation for the colony ships' home nations? I think this is important to those of us playing early colonial human powers.

It might get easier to work this stuff out if we cobble a timeline together.

If anyone interested just wants to copy/paste the following and add their bits to it, adding events in roughly the order they happened in relation to the events already listed (this will get easier after a few more entries have gone in.) Once we've got a little more detail we can have a play with the order of events so it all makes sense, get a draft timeline together that we can all agree on. All purely optional, if we just get a list of a few important events it'll make it easier for people to plan their powers around them.

Note: Try to stick to events which may have an impact on the history of other powers. If you're not sure add it anyway, we'll be editing this later.

Earlier Times:

Pre Final War:
Increasing numbers of Imperial Academy of Science mebers arrested for heresy.

Commencement of the Final War:
Academy plot to overthrow Emperor fails due to Enclave invading
Enclave Invades

Early Final War:
Academy becomes an enemy of the Empire, members captured executed/exiled
Academy springs 'heretics' from Imperial prison colony during Empire/Enclave battle.
Academy Vanguard formed.

Mid Final War:

Late Final War:

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

[NOTE: Additions I've made appear in italics.]

Earlier Times:
The Haruhi and Sasaki Heresies.

Pre Final War:
Increasing numbers of Imperial Academy of Science members arrested for heresy.

Commencement of the Final War:
Academy plot to overthrow Emperor fails due to Enclave invading.
Enclave invades.

Early Final War:
Academy becomes an enemy of the Empire, members captured/executed/exiled.
Academy springs "heretics" from Imperial prison colony during Empire/Enclave battle.
Academy Vanguard formed.
Haruhi's offer of open military assistance is rejected by the Empire.

Mid Final War:
Sasaki convinces the Canopy Domain to lend a battle fleet to openly assist Enclave operations.
Haruhi authorizes the lending of covert assistance to nearby Imperial worlds in need of it.

Late Final War:

[Noble Ire]

Earlier Times:
The Haruhi and Sasaki Heresies.

Pre Final War:
Increasing numbers of Imperial Academy of Science members arrested for heresy.

Commencement of the Final War: Academy plot to overthrow Emperor fails due to Enclave invading.
Enclave invades.

Early Final War:
Academy becomes an enemy of the Empire, members captured/executed/exiled.
Academy springs "heretics" from Imperial prison colony during Empire/Enclave battle.
Academy Vanguard formed.
Haruhi's offer of open military assistance is rejected by the Empire.

Mid Final War:
Sasaki convinces the Canopy Domain to lend a battle fleet to openly assist Enclave operations.
Haruhi authorizes the lending of covert assistance to nearby Imperial worlds in need of it.

Late Final War:
The Eighth Dictate reorganizes into the Consolidated Dominion of Gemude to combat the growing threat of organized marauders from the wilds of space, effectively declaring independence and triggering a wave of open separatist movements across the mid-range colonies.

[Spyder]

Oh yeah, feel free to add a "Post Final War" section if that fits better.

[Shinn Langley Soryu]

Earlier Times:
The Haruhi and Sasaki Heresies.

Pre Final War:
Increasing numbers of Imperial Academy of Science members arrested for heresy.

Commencement of the Final War: Academy plot to overthrow Emperor fails due to Enclave invading.
Enclave invades.

Early Final War:
Academy becomes an enemy of the Empire, members captured/executed/exiled.
Academy springs "heretics" from Imperial prison colony during Empire/Enclave battle.
Academy Vanguard formed.
Haruhi's offer of open military assistance is rejected by the Empire.

Mid Final War:
Sasaki convinces the Canopy Domain to lend a battle fleet to openly assist Enclave operations.
Haruhi authorizes the lending of covert assistance to nearby Imperial worlds in need of it.

Late Final War:
The Eighth Dictate reorganizes into the Consolidated Dominion of Gemude to combat the growing threat of organized marauders from the wilds of space, effectively declaring independence and triggering a wave of open separatist movements across the mid-range colonies.
Haruhi seizes several outer colonies under the cover of "peacekeeping and military assistance purposes," taking full advantage of the chaos provided by the Empire/Enclave conflict and the separatist movements in the middle colonies.

Post Final War: