[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/a44UhzQ.png[/img][/center]

[hr][center][b]| [i]OVERVIEW[/i] |[/b][/center][hr]

[INDENT]The year is 2677 and humanity carries on. Five hundred years ago, a nuclear war devastated human civilization after conflict arose due to advancing technologies and international conflicts that rose into a third World War. However, humanity survived impending nuclear holocaust by taking refuge in underground cities they had constructed called “Burrows”. However, with the onset of the death of the old world; federal governments withered as control switched hands to the corporations that had built these Burrows. By 2340, the fallout had begun to fade to hospitable levels and scouts from their Burrows would begin to be sent out to see if the surface could truly be reclaimed. Three-hundred and thirty-seven years has passed since those scouts reported back and humanity began to take back the ruins that laid on the surface.

Before the nuclear war that devastated humanity, people lived well with plenty of freedom… but now in the 27[sup]th[/sup] Century This isn’t so. The average man has become indebted to the unfeeling corporate government; basically a slave to the interests of CEO’s and their board of directors. The “big” ruling companies that expanded from the Burrows are five in number: Volkov, Fairbanks, Denver-Vegas, Red Star, and Paragon. 

These Ruling Companies began to squabble over resources, land, and recovered technology; much like the nations of the “old world”. The most prized weapons of war were unique variations of mechanized bipedal tanks called “Neural Combatants”, twenty-meter tall walking goliaths of steel and deeply embedded nervous tissue. Able to interface with “neural plugs”, an implant only able to be used by people with a mysterious special trait, it allows them to control the gigantic machines as well as their own body.

Not much has changed since the corporate expansions began.

Our story takes us to the region formerly known as Alaska, where a local independent settlement called New Anchorage called in a favor with Fairbanks, the weakest ruling company but… the most eager to send help. Through this the independent settlement acquired powerful weapons of war...and Fairbanks? Fairbanks gained [i]power[/i] and [i]influence[/i] as they recognized Volkov’s dangerous expansion a threat; an assessment… that was [i]correct.[/i] New Anchorage used these weapons to protect their interests with a team of volunteers (and one boxed crook). Not to mention accomplishing mercenary contracts to help their financial situation. On a few occasions, they interfered in situations which they should not, which resulted in one, or perhaps two secretive groups gaining an unhealthy interest in them.

The township that came before New Anchorage (yet was ran by the same fellows) was attacked by one of these groups in the dead of night, the militant team protecting them to best of their abilities before being bailed out by a mysterious individual who never told them their name. Leaving with a notification of a debt, New Anchorage’s rebuilding was assisted then by the strongest Ruling Company, Volkov, which re-settled the town where it stands now; a fact that infuriated executives in Fairbanks who made it clear to New Anchorage that they had made an enemy they shouldn’t have. 

Nonetheless, New Anchorage continued mercenary operations. One mercenary contract turned into an ambush from another group, their NC’s in the fight named after chess-pieces of all things. Strangely Volkov removed “support” after this battle, and operations commander, Sophia, deserted for reasons unclear. Since this occurrence a new commander has been sent in to oversee operations.

This new commander, Michael ‘Tecumseh’ Graham, has commissioned another recruitment drive to replace casualties and desertions. Graham personally sifts through the chaff to find promising subjects, as New Anchorage is yet again left to fend for itself without a corporate sponsor. Graham has dreams for New Anchorage, wanting to turn them into a new player on the world stage. With his will of steel, he intends to whip the people of New Anchorage into shape, and forges a military junta out of what used to be a slowly failing independent settlement.

All the while, the secretive organizations that eye New Anchorage, plot surreptitiously in the shadows of the Ruling Companies...[/INDENT]

[hr][center][b]| [i]INFORMATION[/i] |[/b][/center][hr]

[INDENT][b][u]Information about Mech’s and NC’s[/u][/b]
[list]Neural Combatants are large, heavily armed and armored war machines that use the principles of main battle tanks, combat aircraft, and infantry all together to create a highly advanced and effective ‘super-machine’. NC’s are controlled primarily by the thoughts of the user, more specifically a ‘Neural Net’ serves as the main computer and operator of the machine, which is controlled by an individual using a ‘Neural Plug’ usually implanted in the base of the neck.

Although very complex machines when put together, they can be pulled apart and modified surprisingly easily. Large changes to an NC do however cause ‘phantom pain’ to the pilot when plugged back in, due to the neural plug ‘expecting’ a different physical makeup, interpreting the changes as battle damage before getting used to it.

NC’s are commonly made out of six parts; The propulsion unit, more simply known as the legs, which contain the primary non-flight method of movement and commonly fuel tanks, and in some cases lighter weapons. The arms carry the heaviest non-specialist armaments in most cases, alongside targeting equipment. The head of an NC contains the obvious, such as (simple) radar and the most powerful sensory equipment, alongside mapping software. The chest holds the neural net itself, covering the cockpit, and the primary micro-fusion generator.

The fusion generator itself directly powers the thruster array situated around the chest of your standard NC, yet other vernier setups are common, such as ‘wing’ arrays. Legs also hold additional thrusters or even additional power setups often enough as well, if it’s deemed necessary by the NC’s pilot or architect.

Additional, more powerful radars or sensory equipment mounted external from the main body parts are also fairly abundant. In total, NC’s can carry up to eight weapon systems or optional equipment packages, although ‘filling out every slot’ is amusingly expensive and needless to most NC pilots. The most common points to mount are each hand, the shoulders, two miniature weapons in the head, two on the hips, and two on the back.

In the end, though, the effectiveness of an NC depends on the synchronization score of the neural net with the pilot. Both ends of the spectrum offer advantages and disadvantages, with the lowest, 50% synchronization, giving higher pain tolerance and minimal mental strain to changing your NC’s physical makeup. The other end enhances the ability to sense with the NC’s sensors and move it just as, if not more, fluidly than your own body. The downside of having a high synchro score, include strange sensations and being able to feel pain far more vividly, while those at the low end have to fight to move their NC’s limbs and not being able to ‘feel’ as clearly.
[/list]

[b][u]Major Companies[/u][/b]
[list][b]Denver-Vegas Incorporated:[/b]
“D.V.” Controls the vast majority of the Americas, all the way to what used to be Argentina to Minnesota. They are characterized by heavy, durable constructions that are relatively overbuilt compared to most other Ruling Companies’, due to a mild obsession with perseverance and personal safety. Uniquely, they openly allow Independents in their territory to have their own small militias, finding it strange and, most surprisingly, ‘immoral’ to not let people attempt to defend themselves. Due to this, their territories are fairly safe from raiders and mutated wildlife.

Military wise, they reflect the sturdyness and resolve of their constructions with massive ‘land-battleship’ style tanks and around-the-clock ground convoys, ready at a moment’s notice to take things away from Fairbanks or defend against Paragon incursions. Whatever sort of military construction they build, it’s large, hard to destroy, and uses simple weapons that focuses on stopping power.

Their NC’s, for example, are at the higher end of the mass scale, with thick slabs of armor and using giant artillery guns with revolving cylinders alongside simplified rapid-fire rifles that use caseless ammunition. Less often, yet still notable, are specialized hunter-killer NC’s that focus on firing swarm after swarm of high-maneuverability, vertically launched HEAT micromissiles. What you’ll never see them use, though, are directed energy weapons.

[b]Fairbanks LTD:[/b]
Fairbanks rules over the most northern third of the Americas, with a few holdings in Greenland. Due to their predicament of being sandwiched in between three other Ruling Companies, Fairbanks is always on edge and attempts a new ‘wonder-weapon’ concept every few months. They’ll do whatever it takes to win, and try to make sure that Independents are on their side at least.

Their NC’s are few and far between, making standardization a difficult prospect at best.

[b]Paragon Industrial & Nuclear:[/b]
Paragon is centered on the western half of Europe, having dominion over what used to be Britain, Germany, Italy, and many others. The pre-war ruins they have access to are surprisingly undamaged, giving them an edge when it comes to archeological expeditions. Also due to this, they have the most pre-war technical know-how, making, plasma and particle weapons quite common for example. While life under their rule is strict and often short, you’d never die due to a near-medieval medical concern like dysentery or scurvy. In the upper echelons, there are even rumours of vat-grown replacement organs or immortality super-serums.

Their NC’s are sleek, and barely resemble actual human beings. Their legs and arms are little more than moving counterbalances, and feather-like heatsinks dominate the standard Paragon NC’s back. This gives them both a strange, alien look alongside a mythical or religious one. This helps the symbolism of being able to fire ‘lightning bolts’ of plasma.

[b]Red Star Shelter Solutions:[/b]
Red Star controls the majority of Asia, Japan, and a small portion of Africa. They are a proud, yet dominating collective where the people at the bottom rung are usually happy with their lot in life, either through brainwashing or peer pressure. The individual doesn’t exist, not even as strongly as it should be in the highest portions of the command structure. Below the lowest executive nobility and military officers, they are effectively a communist ‘state’. 

They are highly interested in Neural Nets’ very nature, and if any strides are being made in the Neural portion of NC’s, they are the most likely source. Their pilots have superb connection with their NC’s, which have the highest number of melee weapons in any Ruling Companies’ NC forces. Their Neural Combatants resemble ancient warriors or demons the most, for the fear factor.

[b]Volkov Nuclear Security Systems:[/b]
Volkov Security. The very strongest of the Ruling Companies, nothing goes on without them interfering in some form, either behind the shadows or in the open if necessary. They make certain that everything in their territory is used, and they have control of the world in their sights at all times. Everyone in their conglomerate is worked to the breaking point, and those who fail to deliver are discarded in cruel experimentation or plainly shot in the brainpan before being replaced. The board of directors are constantly infighting, seeking to please their mysterious C.E.O., who has been controlling them from outside any Burrow or installation, apparently in a hidden and secure area away from prying eyes. Nobody knows where exactly he is, but he makes sure his direct inferiors know who’s in charge.

Their NC’s and other military material are all highly specialized machines, making an overview moot. However they’re constructed, they have one ultimate goal in mind and are built to be as best suited for that purpose as possible.[/list]

[b][u]Minor Organizations and Groups[/u][/b]
[list][b]New Anchorage[/b]
[/list]

[/INDENT]

[hr][center][b]| [i]PARTS & WEAPONS[/i] |[/b][/center][hr]
[hider=Weapon Systems][b]Core Weapons[/b]
[list]Volkov Hayha Long Range Rifle: A high powered Marksmans’ rifle, able to pierce most forms of heavy NC armor, if the hit isn’t a glancing blow due to curved or sloped defenses.

Volkov Michail Assault Rifle: A medium-strength assault rifle, focusing on per-shot armor piercing capabilities and rate of fire instead of accuracy. Best used at short-to-medium range as a defensive armament. Easily modifiable, and very reliable. Some say it’s based off of a ubiquitous design from before the war, which it shares the other half of a name with.

Volkov žatka Cannon: A huge caliber weapon comparable to a ‘lighter’ battleship gun, it has only three shots per magazine before needing a lengthy reload process, yet it’s one of the few weapons which can kill an NC in one, lucky shot. Not to mention being overkill against regular vehicles, and being the perfect weapon against buildings.

Vulkan Heavy Laser: a massive, rotating laser turret that requires being mounted on the back, it can cut an NC in half cleanly, yet requires a full minute of charging to allow 3 seconds of firing. Perfect against heavy targets like naval battleships or entrenched positions.

Diversant Precision Laser: An arm-mounted laser sniper rifle equivalent, it features pinpoint accuracy, and can be fired in high-focus mode to take out specific systems of an armored target, or can melt a light enemy wholesale if unfocused. It can be connected directly to an NC’s power generation, or use detachable battery packs.

Volkov  Medved Heavy Missile Launcher: A seven-tube circular missile system, it can fire medium-sized all purpose missiles of various configurations, such as high-explosive, anti-armor, or even plasma warhead toting munitions. It’s very light, yet it has no autoloaders or additional capacity.

Volk Pack Missile Launcher: A 4 tube ‘box’ launcher, with each tube connected to a ‘magazine’ able to load four additional missiles. In total, this allows this launcher to handle 20 small missiles. However, it’s quite heavy, and can only handle smaller seekers.

Uragan Gatling Cannon: An eight-barreled rotary cannon, with an insane rate of fire and superb armor-piercing capabilities. A standard weapon for Volkov NC’s, due to the designs’ raw power and relative simplicity. It can accept alternative ammunition, such as light explosive bullets or tiny flak shells.[/list][/hider]
[hider=External Systems][b]Shield Systems[/b]
[list]Volkov Vozmezdie Reactive Shield: A large shield frame adorned with explosively reactive plates, it has three layers of reactive armor, effectively making the user invincible to up to three attacks from explosive armaments. It can also be manually detonated, perhaps as a diversion or a weapon itself. It can only be used on an NC’s arm.

AEGIS-1: A highly experimental design that uses magnetic fields to manipulate plasma to create an energy shield. Very effective at stopping both kinetic and energy attacks, yet rare and complicated to maintain. It’s one of the few Volkov designs almost entirely based off of pre-war technology.[/list][/hider]
[hider=Armor and Hull Material]
[b]Armor[/b]
[list]Mariinsky Light Armor Plating: A light armor system defined by superb mobility, being little more then coverings for the servomotors and machinery. Very cheap, in any case.

Spetnaz Medium Recon Armor: A frightful, angular set of armor pieces, these are perfect for stealth operations due to the same appearance, the jagged and simple edges making it break up RADAR waves very easily by nature. It’s minimally restrictive, yet it isn’t too actually protective for the somewhat high weight.

Pekhota Medium Assault Armor: A boxy collection of hull parts, well-sloped to help protect against projectile impacts and featuring crumple zones to help against blunt impacts common in close range scuffles. A nice blend of melee and ranged protection, it is the ‘standard’ armor for Volkov units, as close to standard you can get.

Kamchatka Heavy Ablative Plating: This collective of armor pieces is focused on defense from energy based weapons, a simple frame of nearly organic looking armor with plenty of in-built radiator ‘fins’ on the shoulder, leg, and head pieces to diffuse heat. The primary defense though is a thick coat of ablative armor, similar to thermal diffusion tiles on strange pre-war vehicles called ‘space shuttles’.

Oeral Heavy Kinetic Plating: With a focus on protecting the NC against high caliber weapons at long range, Volkov mounts these thick plates of armor on their artillery units meant to fight against Denver-Vegas. While projectiles won’t bounce off of at a flat angle, the rounded edges make glancing hits commonplace. However, it is also nearly impossible to hide on radar due to the same curviness.[/list][/hider]


[hider=Internal Systems]
[b]Power Systems[/b]
[list]Siberia low-heat core: A Volkov design meant to be used for stealth operations by specialist infiltration units. It is very fuel efficient and the thick ‘tub’ of heat-resistant material surrounding it makes IR sensors ineffective. However, in lighter NC’s it actually requires a complicated extension to the chest compartment, due to it being a space-hogging design. Not to mention it being quite weighty due to the same heat-resistant container.

Tsjernobyl high-yield core: A very powerful yet reasonably small energy generator, it is however quite fragile, and if the NC is ludicrously energy hungry it could burn through fuel at a rate that it would be an issue during combat. Still, with the low size of the unit and high output, it’d be quite useful as a backup, ‘combat-only’ generator.

Matryoshka Dual-Type Generator: A unique, pre-war based design, it can be described as two independent mini-reactors operating in a carefully controlled duet, able to give off a surprisingly high, yet not amazing amount of power. It is very accepting of combat damage as well, being able to continue operating (at half efficiency) even if one of the two sub-units are damaged. Overall, the only ‘average’ reactor in Volkov service.

[b]Fire Control Systems[/b]

Molniya Long Range Ballistics system: A specialist system meant for long-range sniping, that comes with a very accurate range-finding and even independent target tracking and aiming systems, which allows the surprising ability to accurately hit multiple targets with completely different weapons at the same time. However, it’s near useless at CQC, and the influx of information can be maddening for some pilots.
Smerch Mid-Range Missile Computer: A targeting computer better suited for guiding missiles or other mid-range armaments. It is commonly used by assault NC’s and, the obvious, missile-based NC’s.[/list]

[b]Thruster Systems[/b]
[list]Ptitsa General Purpose Thruster: The only real standardized piece of equipment in Volkov NC’s aside from the Neural Net and cockpits themselves, the Ptitsa type thruster is fitted with thrust-vectoring capability and the rare ability to change the size and shape of their nozzles with special motors. Due to this, they’re perfect for most purposes aside from interception and ultra-high-altitude maneuvers.

Buran Interception aerospikes: ‘Linear Aerospike’ type engines, these are specialized for very high speed interceptions at any height, the non-standard design of the nozzles making them very fuel efficient and powerful at both low and high altitudes. However, due to the weight of the units themselves and minimal gimbal potential, maneuverability and acceleration are less than ideal.[/list]

[b]Cockpits[/b]
[list]Volkov All-Purpose Cockpit: Diverging yet again from what they usually do, Volkov only has one cockpit that all of their NC’s are fitted with. A spherical unit encased in a durable ‘black box’ container, it features gyroscopic technology and hydraulic ‘G dampeners’, meaning that the pilot is almost always ‘upright’ and only the most insane maneuvers have a chance to cause injury. The cockpit is able to be fitted with panoramic internal screens connected to the NC’s optical equipment, allowing the pilot to still see to a certain extent if the connections between the Neural Net and ‘Eyes’ are damaged.[/list]

[/hider]


[INDENT]
[hider=Denver Vegas NC Parts]
[hider=Weapon systems]
NC-1A1 Assault cannon: A large caliber semi-automatic cannon and mainstay of Denver Vegas’ arsenal. The NC-1 assault cannon is a versatile arm-mounted assault weapon. It can be loaded with a wide variety of payloads, from massive slugs intended to punch through heavily armored targets to incendiary munitions for anti-personnel purposes.

NC-1A1b Long-range support cannon: A variation on the popular NC-1A1 high-caliber cannon characterized by a higher muzzle velocity and caliber at the cost of firing speed. As this unit is intended to be fitted to light support platforms, its ammo supply has also been significantly downsized to decrease its overall bulk.

NC-1A1c Gatling cannon: An upsized variant of the NC-1A1 cannon featuring high ROF gatling barrels and superior ammo capacity. However, its bulk and massive recoil makes it almost a necessity to mount it on heavier platforms.

NC-3A Gyrojet revolver launcher: A missile launcher that makes use of DV’s patented gyrojet missile design. This weapon fires compact but lethal dumbfire missiles that accelerate to near-bullet speeds at around medium range. Its simple design makes it very easy to deploy. Experienced DV pilots are said to be able to draw and fire the weapon in mere seconds.[/hider]
[/hider][/INDENT]
[hr][center][b]| [i]RULES / APPLY[/i] |[/b][/center][hr]

[INDENT]Here's the rules on characters and NC's: (last rules, I swear.)
You can have up to two characters, an NC pilot and a close friend/lover/anything else. 
[hider=Character][b]Name[/b]
[b]Appearance[/b]
[b]Age[/b]
[b]Personality[/b] 
[b]Backstory[/b]
[b]Weakest Skills[/b]
[b]Strongest Skills[/b]
[b]Notes[/b]
[b]Text Color[/b][/hider]
[hider=NC][b]Code-name:[/b]
[b]Appearance:[/b]
[b]Body Type:[/b](Bipedal, Hover, Tank-Tread, .etc)
[b]Type of NC:[/b](General-Purpose, Interception, Assault, .etc)
[b]Equipment & Armaments:[/b][/hider](Offensive Implements and additional equipment)
[/INDENT]

Character Types needed:
Field-Captain: Taken, Stein Kalfox
Long-ranged Specialist: Not Taken
Utility: Taken, Joe Verona
Support: Not Taken
Assault: Taken, Elizabeth Jackspar
Heavy: Not Taken