Here we are: [hider=General Info and Location] Name: The Varn Corporation Capital System: Varn Direction From Galactic Core: 45 degrees South East [/hider] [hider=Species] Dominant Species: [hider2= Varnians:] A very, very rare sight in the Varn Corporation, they exclusively hold upper management or shareholder roles in the society, living as the economic and social overlords over the other species. They are roughly humanoid, at a slender 8 foot tall, with dark grey skin, narrow slit-like nostrils and are completely hairless. The majority of the population of the Varn Corporation have ever seen a Varn, they are very private and secretive outside of their race, mostly communicating through holograms or enforcer-like lieutenants. They seemingly live for ever, easily outlasting every other species in the Corporation with some rumoured to have lived for more than two millennium, albeit in unrestricted comfort. [/hider2] Sub-Factions/Species [hider2=Grom:] Considered the ‘second-species’ in the Varn Corporation, the Grom tend to occupy most roles in a specialised military or serving as the lieutenants of their shadowy Varn overlords. Whilst they have had a turbulent history of attempted rebellions and uprising, all of which were put down in bloody campaigns that left the species decimated for the majority of the last millennium, with their race being fractured and eventually reunited by the current Supreme Marshal Glokel, a Grom nearing death which could send them tumbling back into disarray again. The Grom are generally bulky, seven foot tall humanoids with alabaster white skin, black eyes and generally tidy gatherings of hair. [/hider2] [hider2=Slugarth:] An avian-like race, they are considered the guardians of knowledge and the champions of science for the Varn Corporation. The Slugarth Academy is a monstrous construction on the capital planet of Turoq, it is the headquarters to the R&D department of the Corporation and is staffed mainly by Slugarths. They generally occupy roles trending down from scientists down to accountants, teachers and bureaucrats, well suiting their domesticated personality as a result of thousands of years of economic oppression by the Varn. They often find themselves the target of Trayneens due to differences in cultural aggression but often find an ally in the Grom. [/hider2] [hider2=Trayneens:] The lowest race of the Varn Corporation, they are the labor force and most populous race of the Varn Corporation. Generally considered more stupid, they are afforded less rights and treated worse than their status of fourth-rate citizens deserves. The only way for a Trayyneen to gain any sense of worth or respect in the Corporation is to join the Varn Expeditionary Force (VEF), the wing of the Varn Armed Forces (VAF) that is recklessly thrown against any enemies or rivals they may have. The most respected of the Trayneen positions is the Desolation Legion, a division which is the cream of the Trayneen soldiers but suffers catastrophic losses in just about every conflict they are involved in. The Trayneens are a reptilian breed, standing at 5 feet, with green to brown scaly skin and small, forked tongues with sharp, pointed teeth. They tend to closely rival themselves against the Slugarths yet find little support from any other race. [/hider2] [hider2=Robots:] In order to enforce the rule of the Varn, as solution to their oft silent existence, a large quantity of robots are employed through the Corporation. They stand in a number of roles ranging from simple industrial robots, to complex battle robots and droids that form the majority of the VAF forces. Wide ranges of AI exist in these robots too, albeit the Varn have restricted themselves from building a fully sentient robotic brain until a proper way of restricting and maintaining control can be achieved. [/hider2] [/hider] [hider=Politics, Power & Economy] [hider2=Government Type/Operation/Description:] The Varn Corporation is run like any corporation; to create the greatest profit margin and to ensure stability in their dominions. The Varn rule the worlds with an iron fist, living above the crowded and polluted words below them. They live on huge orbital paradise-like stations that no non-Varnian will ever reach, only descending on the rarest of occasions to the worlds below them for extreme emergencies. The races below them, socially and economically oppressed, stare up with wonder at their overlords with little capability to change their current position, all they do is follow the decisions set by the board themselves, which filter through ranks of management in order to achieve their goals. The corporation is run top-down with little opportunity for those who lay below to rise up save for the blessed few with the outstanding merit to senior management. However no non-Varnian has ever sat on the board of the Corporation, with every other species having been haughtily looked down upon as little more than savages to their cultured ways. Much of the focus is on year-upon-year profitability along with steadily expanding their influence as far as they can possibly reach. As such much of the lower levels suffer, while those in the middle levels exist in a modicum of comfort. Holding true to their fiscal conservation, the board had historically set aside little budget for an armed force, believing that the coin was mightier than the sword. They performed brutal acts of economic worlds, enslaving them but crippling local manufacturing until the denizens were completely dependent on Varn factories for products. This has been their way of business for thousands of years until a conflict with the ultra-aggressive Trayneens demonstrated the need for a military wing. A massive build-up occurred in which largely automated legions were thrown at the Trayneens, eventually beating the once-proud warriors into submission. After their costly war, many of the Trayneen thinkers and scientists were pressed ganged into improving the military wing of the Varn Corporation, creating the Varn Defense Force in the meantime. [/hider2] [hider2=Economic System/Prosperity] The majority of the Varn Corporation is run on a strong mining sector, massive orbital shipyards which pump out swathes of commercial ships but could easily be repurposed to produce a new military fleet, should the need arise. Much of the manufacturing and mining sector occurs in an orbital radius, using massive automated facilities to create goods on a scale which is nearly unmatchable. Very little of their system is capable of producing large amounts of food and organic materials for the corporation has led to them importing massive quantities of these materials from their trading partners. Recently, the board has passed down a decision to begin to slacken the quantity imported by designating suitable planets as organic production only and researching methods to repurpose some of their polluted, dead planets. [/hider2] Empire Size: (Population estimate) 40-100 billion Empire Power: Multi-stellar Power – Full control over multiple solar systems Type Of Power: Scientific Economic [/hider] [hider=Technological Overview:] [hider2= Monolithic Orbital Factories:] The Varn Corporation after centuries of inefficient planetary base production developed the future of production with these orbital monstrosities that are almost exclusively automated and capable of producing a variety of manufactured material at a rate that dwarfs that anything recorded before the construction of such factories. There are a wide range of differences between the newer and older factories, especially in efficiency and production rate due to the constant investment in capital improvement over time. Whilst the vast majority are based in commercial production, including the Varn Shipyards which are well-known for some of the highest-quality mass production commercial ships available on the market. This is mainly achieved through the relatively thin barriers to commercialising the military technologies developed by the VDF due to a tendency for every department of the corporation needing to pay its way to the company. A few military production facilities do exist but these are mostly older models, relics from the necessities of previous wars whose deathly touch has not passed over the Varn Corporation for nearly two centuries. These factories mostly lay desolate these days, maintained at a bare minimum in order to attempt to keep them in some sort of working order should war break out once again. [/hider2] [hider2= Advanced Space Construction:] Part and parcel of operating orbital factories is learning how to manipulate the gravity fields and satellite motion in order to keep those massive structures in orbit and avoiding keeping them from plummeting out of the stars. This has been achieved by a number of co-operative devices that supplement the natural gravitational pull of the planetary body with an electromagnetic field that repels that of the planetary body in order to check any potential of falling out of orbit. Other structure, such as the famous shipyards of Tyrum; an industrial planet that is so polluted and smog-laden that it is no longer suitable for organic life, have been designed to ring the planet as to fill the orbital path of a satellite. The structures they create are not only huge but only well defended, with shielding and turrets to defend from the pirates raids often encountered in the fringe planets but this attention to defence is continued through all their worlds. The best example of this is the extensive defensive structures that fill the space above Varn, built to fulfil the vow that never again would enemy ships fire again on the planetary surface. [/hider2] [hider2= [hider2=TULOK Point Defence Laser System (TPDLS):] The true pinnacle of Varn engineering, this system was developed by the last of the public Varnians before their ascent into a god-like appearance and has formed the bulk of the worth of the VDF in their recent wars. It was first deployed to counter the swarms of missiles that were launched by the Trayneens in the brutal Liberation War, a propaganda title used by the Varn Corporation after they won the right to name the war by right of victor. In the early days, the VDF ships had been utterly overwhelmed by the lightning attacks of the Trayneen Navy which had deployed overwhelming firepower in a matter of seconds before disappearing again. The Varn answer to this problem was to deploy a defensive laser system that could detonate the missiles before the missiles were ever close enough to detonate and damage the ships. It was a brilliant success and the overwhelming public persona that was born around the Tulok Five lead to a swathe of investment and research allocation which increased it potential a thousandfold. It's use was expanded from simple high-power laser projection to include capabilities such as miniature black hole generation devices, cannibalised from their FTL drive in order to transport nuclear devices far away from their original targets and a plethora of reactants and depressants which have been developed in order to counter the weaponry of every race known to them, such as an intense, targeted electromagnetic beam to disable rail gun projectiles. Research is currently being undertaken in order to try and take the defensive system to an offensive capability, by targeting and disabling key weaponry on enemy ships before they can even be fired but progress has been slow and fraught with difficulty. The overwhelming weakness of the more advanced TULOK systems in their extreme energy use which requires a separate reactor to run at full capacity for a medium size ship but the technology proves its worth many times over. The vast majority have also been purposed into being able to target small enemy craft such as fighters and bombers in order to help protect the large ships of the VDF fleets. The most advanced of the TULOK systems are only found on the Super-Dreadnoughts of the VDF, with flagship "Unbroken" possessing a system that constituted half of the cost of the enormous capital ship. However even this systems more advanced features are limited to being able to eliminate projectile types have been previously faced and studied by the Varn Corporation. [/hider2] [hider2=Holtzer Energy Thread Shield (HETS):] A complementary device to the TULOK system, it was developed by two of the famous TULOK Five who revolutionised the VDF, bringing them into the future of space warfare and the potential to match the more advanced warships of the world. The HETS device is advancement on the basic bubble shield of yesteryears technology by using a number of concentric energy ‘threads’ latticed to form a flexible, interconnected energy shield. The energy lattice deflects projectiles by an energy burst at the point of impact whereupon the shield energy is sucked along the threads into the burst, thus overwhelming the energy of the projectile. Its primary benefits are the flexibility to adapt to a number of projectiles and the ability to layer the energy webs on top of each to strengthen the overall shields and distribute the load over a number of generators. Whilst it has yet to be miniaturised to effectively work on anything smaller than a medium class ship, it represents a significant leap forward in the defensive capabilities of the larger ships of the Varn Corporation, with deployment on both VDF and commercial fleets. Giving total freedom here as I know this is where a lot people come into their element. If you’re unsure of tech levels, reference the FAQ and Basic Info below or just ask me. [/hider2] [hider2= Electro-Magnetic Enforced Suppresser (EMES):] This device is the most recent of the great Varn innovations and stands at the forefront of the future of the Varn offensive capabilities. A weapon that utilises a series of directed electromagnetic pulses to warp and damage targeted electro-magnetic fields of various sizes, strengths and types. It was theorized that it could be possible to utterly disintegrate a planet using such a device by ripping the planetary electromagnetic field apart but attempts to develop such a super weapon ended badly. In a tragic accident, a weapon bearing half the energy predicted that it would require misfired and destroyed an entire research space station and all progress with it. As such the project was placed on the backburner in order to focus on improving its current capabilities. Due to the nature of the device, it is highly unsuitable to be attached to existing ships, requiring a purpose built ship or platform. Currently it is highly expensive to produce such a suitable ship or platform and as such, the EMES device has seen very little deployment across the VDF fleet. [/hider2] [hider2= Organic and Non-Organic Decomposition and Automated Synthesizing Centre: (ONDASC)] The Corporation’s predictably industrial solution to the growing material and foodstuffs shortage, which has barely been sated by the recent allocations for protected material gathering worlds. These constructions resemble much of the orbital factories that fill the systems of the Corporation but they fill a much more important purpose to the Corporation. All manner of waste materials and garbage are transported into the ONDASCs where they are broken down into their basic elements and eventually reconstituted back into whatever manner of materials are required to be produced on the other end. Despite their advanced nature, they have a fairly limited range of products due to the enormous energy costs involved with the current cycle but significant investment has procured for improving the efficiency and range of this process. [/hider2] [/hider] [hider=Military Forces] [hider2=Varn-Class Dreadnoughts] Incredibly large and imposing ships, these are created to be the backbone of the VDF fleets by being overwhelmingly packed with defensive technology. Generally referred to as ‘Dreadnoughts’, they act as the launching pad for any military action and are placed as indomitable walls to take the brunt of enemy fire. They are used as the heads of the five corporation fleets, with the only recorded instance of two Varn-Class Dreadnoughts in action together being in the most desperate stage of the Trayneen war, the defence of Varn itself which broke the offensive power of their enemy. The Corporation has a standing number of 5 active Dreadnoughts due to their enormous maintenance cost and their sheer size proving more than enough for their usual mundane missions. Four of them are older model Varn-Class with technology a few years behind that of the flagship [i]Unbroken[/i] which carries the finest technological efficiencies ever built by a Varn shipyard. [/hider2] [hider2=Lionheart-Class Battlecruiser] A smaller, more modern and more efficient version of the Varn-Class Dreadnought, these ships represent a step away from adaption of the massive cargo-ship like design of the earlier Corporation ships. It has respectable offensive and defensive capabilities but limited transport facilities for starship fleets and ground forces. Whilst they were initially designed to act as support ships for the Varn-Class Dreadnoughts, they were repurposed to serve as capital ships for smaller ships operating in the fringes of Varn space. This lowered the costs of defending the outposts of the Corporation and reduced the strain on the massive dreadnoughts which received more lax patrol runs. Its transformation from support to capital ship represented a significant shift in doctrine to building a larger amount of smaller ships as compared to building great monstrosities. The secondary effect of the doctrine shift is that the Lionheart now stands as the mainstay of VDF, with many pushing for the decommissioning of the once-vaunted Varn-Class. [/hider2] [hider2= Lynchpin-Class Carrier] A recent addition to the fleet to try and counteract the decreased capacity of the Lionheart-Class as capital ships, the Lynchpin is an adapted cargoship which comes in two models, both of which carries little firepower but great shielding and a focus on either starship or ground forces. The Lynchpin-G transports the ground forces of the Corporation from planet to planet and as such generally forms the equivalent of the baggage train in the VDF fleet while the Lynchpin-S is used as a mobile starbase to launch hordes of fighters at the enemy forces. Notably the Lynchpin-G bears no TULOK systems, using the space instead for extra transport and cargo space. [/hider2] [hider2= Patrol-Class Frigate] Patrol-Class frigates form the bulk of a fleet and have an average offense and defence capability with the majority of cost going into creating a great number of these ships rather than a number of great frigates. All frigates carry a fairly basic TULOK system which defends mostly from missiles and enemy fighters. [/hider2] [hider2= Interceptor-Class Corvette] An almost startling exception to the defensive emphasis in Varn ship building, the Interceptor-Class are a primarily offensive light-medium ship which operates in and around the large ships of the VDF. They act in a mostly anti-fighter/bomber role, using speed and overwhelming firepower to defend the fleet. Due to their rather light shielding and designed purpose, it’s not unknown for the corvettes to be damaged or even destroyed by the TULOK system of a Lionheart-Class or Varn-Class ship. [/hider2] [hider2=Predator-Class Cruiser] A highly advanced, very expensive and rather small new addition to the fleet, the Predator class was ridiculed for the way it went over budget and a seemingly endless cacophony of issues. R&D took nearly twice the allocated time and tripled its budget, leaving the project hanging by a thread. It was an ambitious move to create the first all-electronic warfare spaceship known to the Varn Corporation. A ship that was capable of attacking the enemy with no physical danger but ripping through shields, mainframes and severing communications. All of this was based on the invention of the EMES device but due to the immense costs of building these ships they’re limited to deployment only in Fleet I, the showpiece fleet of the Corporation headed up by the [i]Unbroken[/i] [/hider2] [hider2=Ground Forces] The ground forces of the VAF are mainly composed of automated droids and ground vehicles in order to avoid disrupting the chain of human labour in their production line. The loss of machines ranks next to nothing with the loss of life, however a certain pride lay in the Desolation Legion, nearly 100,000 Trayneens and Groms which are used as the point of any invading force and the hinge for which a robotic army can be pivoted around. [/hider2] [/hider] [hider=History] The history of the Varn Corporation is one of commercial and social oppression; born out of a world that was at an almost perpetual state of war, the ability to explore and colonise the stars seemed to remove much of the bloodlust from the Varn race. Whilst they initially started their colonial expansion by establishing a number of outposts on moons and inhabitable planets, an easier way to expand soon became apparent. The Corporation would prey on under-developed worlds by backing one of the planet’s nations with more advanced weaponry in return for whatever valuable goods they could supply, at a heavily favourable price to the Varn. This method of expansion evolved into taking control of planets by wiping out local production before placing such extreme economic pressure on the targeted planet that they’d have to bow to the Corporation or face an eternity of economic downturns. The first race to be assimilated without being utterly enslaved into various labour chains was the Slugarth who attempted to resist the attempts only to be economically crushed. A few months after their attempts to overthrow the Corporation, the entire Slugarth Empire submitted to the will of the Varn Corporation. The Grom soon followed after, finding themselves at the same destructive crossroads as the Slugarths but they learned from the mistakes of the past and submitted without resistance. It was around the assimilation of the Grom, that a serious case of population stagnation and decline began for the Varn; they simply weren’t reproducing enough. Despite the best scientific efforts to reverse this trend, the Varn soon began to realise that even despite their long lifespans, they were a dying breed unless they could drastically change the way they exist. Thus the decision to retreat from planetary life to a utopian space station was born and from there the population decline slowed but still reduced the Varn race down to a fraction of what they once were. Just when it looked as if the race would be capable of recovering, the Trayneen war struck and struck a nigh-mortal blow to the Varn race. In the battle of Varn, despite the fact is was a Corporation victory, seven of the eight habitat space stations were destroyed along with the majority of the Varn population. All that was left was Varn Star IV, the smallest and least populated of the space stations. This tragic loss would drive the Varn on to annex and enslave the Trayneen species, taking every opportunity to seek revenge for their lost comrades. [/hider]