[center]NCQ5: Rebellion in a Howling Age[/center]
[center]Codex[/center]

The world of NCQ5 is based around the Ruling Companies, their colonies, and the pilots of the great warmachines that define the modern reality of warfare, NC's.

This 'Codex' will detail each Ruling Company, their holdings, and the technology behind Burrows, NC's, and everyday life. As stated in the OOC OP, this Codex will be worked on, and its current state is not necessarily complete.

[hider=Ruling Companies & their Burrows]
The rulers of the world, descended from the megacorporations that built the Burrows that roughly half of humanity resides in to this day, are the Ruling Companies. The Ruling Companies maintain their right-to-rule with a vast, engineered world-war that hasn't truly stopped for four hundred years. Each Ruling Company has a (by actual 2016 standards) large conventional army, and the 'Big Five' support and maintain Maverick, the front from which they manage their less loyal or just indecisive pilots.

The 'Big Five', in rough descending order of power, are Global Acquisitions, Invictus, Kriegwerks, Photonicks, and SPHERE. There are two smaller, but still notable Ruling Companies who aren't a part of Maverick, GalaTek and Griffin-X.

[hider=Universals of the Ruling Companies]
While each Ruling Company and their attached societies have their differences, every Ruling Company, even outside of the 'Big Five', can agree on a few things. First, the world-wide currency ICC, or InterCorporate Credit, is backed by each of the 'Big Five' and consists of small, solid rectangular slips of various metals, coming in 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 250, and 500 value varieties. One ICC is roughly analogous to 1 USD, for simplicity.

The Ruling Companies, or, more directly, their combined front-company Maverick also sees fit to maintain an internet analogue called the Hypernet. The Hypernet is ultimately descended from the internet and telephone networks, and shares many of their features. As well, Maverick sells and issues various 'Communicators', which the Ruling Companies also use. Communicators are general purpose units that have access to many means of communication, and can be considered as the NCQ equivalent of 'super-smart phones'. While the lowest rungs of society don't have access, and in some cases even knowledge of the HyperNet, anyone worth anything knows how to access and use it. Additionally, Communicators are standard equipment for every NC and military vehicle.

Maverick also monitors every known NC pilot, whether they're affiliated with Maverick, a Ruling Company directly, or something else. They're given an internal 'Ranking' that denotes just how effective or influential they are, which is available on Maverick's HyperNet page. NC pilot rankings are a matter of pride for many pilots.
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[hider=Global Acquisitions]

[hider=Military]

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[hider=Lifestyle]

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[hider=People of Note]

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[hider=Neural Combatants and You]
NC qualities, such as speed, agility, power, durability, endurance, stealth, and senses, are graded with a universal, letter-based grading system. Qualities range from 'S' to 'F', with minuses and pluses to further denote the specifics of the grade. The grades are commonly given all at once when taking about an NC, in the format of 'Offense, Defense, Speed, Agility, Combat Endurance, Durability, Stealth, Sensors, Other'. Individual weapons and systems can also have their own specific grades, when an NC gets one offensive grading, you can assume it's the strongest weapon they have being referenced.

For an example, an NC Graded 'S/F/C/C/A/A/D/D/S' has an extremely powerful main weapon, nonexistent defenses, mediocre speed and agility, great staying power and durability, bad stealth potential and sensors, but superbly useful utilities.

For further clarity, an 'S' rank explosive or kinetic device could be a tactical nuclear bomb, or an antimatter based explosive. A 'C' grade would be comparable to a main battle tank's cannon, and an 'E' grade is comparable to a standard infantry firearm. For simplicity's sake, any type of defense can defend against an attack of comparable power, as long as it was designed to defend against that type of attack. In other terms, a physical shield rated 'S' against physical attacks could defend against most any given physical 'S' grade attack, while a particle shield graded 'B' could defend against 'B' grade particle weapons. However, while an 'S' grade physical shield could defend against an 'S' grade physical attack, that doesn't necessarily mean it can withstand a thermal, particle-based, or chemical attack of similar caliber.
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