[hider=Overview of Technology (WIP)] [color=papayawhip] [center][h1][color=slategray][sub]⚙[/sub]⚙[/color][color=steelblue][b]Technologic Overview[/b][/color][color=slategray]⚙[sub]⚙[/sub][/color][/h1][color=gold][sup]By Firecracker_[/sup][/color][/center] [color=slategray][sub]⚙[/sub]⚙[/color][u][color=steelblue]P O W E R [/color][/u] In order to power an enclosed space such as the Ark, modern power sources such as solar or coal quickly became too costly or inefficient to support the power needs of a condensed, contained society. Halfway human engineered, halfway a convenient discovery, [color=orangered]Core Shards[/color] have become the answer to the need for stable, compact, and plentiful energy. Orange shards are mostly civilian use, found in any range of sizes, in any range of personal objects. Small shards are used in conjunction with small batteries to power consumer electronics, as the Orange Shards can multiply electrical currents, or use their own unique energies to power things. Larger, more expensive shards are used to power civilian vehicles and houses, or large industrial shards can be used to power entire neighborhoods. Ultimately, Orange shards, while rather quickly depleted, are cheap and easy to produce, and can output impressive amounts of energy before being replaced. Their variety of uses and availability have made them the primary power source of the Ark. [color=slategray][sub]⚙[/sub]⚙[/color][u][color=steelblue]A U T O M O T I V E [/color][/u] Vehicles have changed, first with the introduction of mag rails, and then with the introduction of Core Shards. Engines revolve less and less around combustion motors, and most civilian and military vehicles use engines powered completely by Blue Cord Shards, which last longer, but release energy in a slower, more controlled flow, most of the time too constrictive to power larger electrical systems. The next innovations are the dual action wheels that nearly every vehicle carries now. The first option still uses the classic rubber tire to traverse most landscapes, but now with the introduction of Mag Rails, the rim and inner wheel of vehicles contain powerful magnets to give them accessibility to use the high speed, high power [i]Mag Rails[/i]. Some vehicles, instead, opt to have their magnets located down the middle of the vehicle, with the wheels completely retracting when on the Mag Rail. For the richer and more well-to-do, the choice of hovercraft, which, well, hover a few feet off the ground, is always available. Usable on just about any terrain, Mag Rails or Road alike, the rather high price, expensive upkeep and fueling, and slightly higher learning curve are the only things keeping the hovercraft from being the most prominent mode of transportation on the Ark. Cars and Trucks are not the sole forms of transportation that are allowed on Mag Rails, though. Mag Rails have been made accessible for human use as well. There are a wide variety of ways for people to ride the Rails, but most fall under two categories: Shoes with Built-In Magnets activated by button push, or ‘heel click”, or attachable shin plates that allow humans to link to the magnets in the Mag Rail. In the center of all this wheel and foot traffic, though, are the Mag Trains, large, speeding bullet trains, capable of carrying large amounts of people or cargo alike. Thanks to the conversion to Mag Rails, Trains have once again become the go-to mode of transporting anything imaginable, anywhere imaginable, all across the Ark. People can also travel in large numbers around the Ark using the Mag Trains, but this isn’t usually seen as much, and passenger Mag Trains aren’t nearly as common as their Cargo variant cousins. The checkpoints and tight security around each Ark sector keep large scale human migration under control, but there are always ways people find around these checkpoints. [color=slategray][sub]⚙[/sub]⚙[/color][u][color=steelblue]S E C U R I T Y [/color][/u] Checkpoints are littered all over each of the Ark’s 800 feet high walls, covering innumerous land and elevated Mag Rail based entrances between the 6 different sectors, including in and out of the Core. At each checkpoint, a series of cameras scan things like the citizens face, their vehicle’s license plates, and their I.D Cards, which the citizens presents at the gate. These measures insure that all vehicle credentials are valid, the citizen isn’t a wanted criminal or has restricted access to certain Sectors. I.D scans also provide information about different weapon licenses that the citizens holds, or special area access passes they may have been given. Essentially, these security checkpoints are very thorough and effective at catching criminals. Ark Identification Cards, or AIC’s, are one of the founding blocks that Ark’s infrastructure and society are built on. A card, at face value, doesn’t look much different from an ID as we know, except perhaps it’s clearer picture and words. What the AIC does have over a modern ID is the chip inside it, which grants access to database information of any person in Ark, at any time. The chip is specifically designed to be read by only government computers, and can tell you anything you want to know about someone. Birthplace, Criminal History, Occupation, Eye Color, any piece of solid information, you will find it. Fake I.D’s are the real marvels, though. They are hard to find, and even harder to find one that actually works, but, it’s possible. It’s as simple as sticking your name and face on a card that has someone else’s chip, but, as previously mentioned, this chips are specially designed for government use and are notoriously hard to backwards engineer. Most of the time, the only place 90one can hope to find a functioning fake is a place simply referred to as The Underground. In the Underground, one can find any sort of high quality fakes or re-engineers of any of the staple pieces of technology that you can find in Ark, such as a variety of personal computers, or cybernetics limbs. Amongst the cheap cybernetics and fake computers, exotic and illegal weapons can also be found around The Underground. [color=slategray][sub]⚙[/sub]⚙[/color][u][color=steelblue]C Y B E R N E T I C S [/color][/u] These categories also apply to the various types of cybernetics and augmentations available across the Ark. [color=LimeGreen]Civilian[/color] augmentations are usually, good, proper robotic limbs, with the full functionality of organic ones. Usually, they are built to survive the rugged lives that civilians can expect to live, and have a few added features such as built in PDA’s, medical information screens, or special requests, if legal and plausible. Still, better money can buy better augments. [color=RoyalBlue]Military[/color] augments, however, tend to be built with the tasks and dangers of military life in mind. Bulletproof circuitry, vastly stronger than organic arms, some even have weapons built in, anywhere from security batons or back up pistols. Medical ones can also be found, being able to contain medical supplies and needle systems in the fingers, for fast dispensing of life saving chemicals such as adrenaline and morphine.[color=FFA07A]Illicit[/color] cybernetics are some of the rarest and most expensive pieces of equipment on the market, but you get what you pay for. [color=FFA07A]Illicit[/color] cybernetcs are top of line, jam-packed of all sorts of weapons or utility tools, some even being able to transform into utterly deadly weapons, computer hacking devices, or whatever your mind can imagine. Most [color=FFA07A]Illicit[/color] cybernetics are custom-built to order, and the few pre-built ones are exceedingly difficult to find, and expensive to buy. If your limbs can do something that might be considered illegal, or made to be deadlier than military augments, they are most likely [color=FFA07A]Illicit[/color]. [color=slategray][sub]⚙[/sub]⚙[/color][u][color=steelblue]P E R S O N A L C O M P U T E R S [/color][/u] While some may choose to have their personal computers contained in their cybernetic limbs, most people choose to have theirs on their wrists. Personal, wrist size computers are the standard these days, and if you don’t have one, you are disconnected from the world. Nearly every citizen of the Ark has a personal computer of some sort, whether it be an advanced [url=https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/52/04/86/520486378c9aedc609e25fa494265974.jpg]holographic wrist computers[/url], or the simple [url=http://i.imgur.com/247ttwP.png] Phoenix Smart watches[/url]. There are many thousands of choices to choose from when it comes to your personal taste of wrist computers, from cutting edge HD holographic sets, or standard definition screens. These personal computers have any assortment of features, but some of the most common are things like wireless communication with any other each user, or a highly detailed navigational maps. Some other less common ones mark dangerous parts of the Ark according to reported crime the day before, or a smart, voice activated day manager. For any features that are lacking, there is a large market for software and hardware, both legal or not. [color=slategray][sub]⚙[/sub]⚙[/color][u][color=steelblue]W E A P O N R Y [/color][/u] To defend oneself in this world of underground crime, Ark Citizens, Criminals, and Military alike have taken up a large assortment of weapons, which have become quite advanced and varied in the years leading up to the Ark’s establishment. In the Ark, one can choose from a wide assortment of different weapon systems. In order from least to most power, there are: ballistics, laser, kinetic bolts, and gauss. In this day and age where natural resources have become more scarce and need to be used more wisely, instead of gunpowder and primers, conventional rounds now use powdered Core Shards to provide the necessary combustion to fire the bullets. The powder inside the bullet is ignited by a quick burst of energy from an installed core rod, about the size of a battery. This Core Rod is standard for ballistics weapons, and takes the place of many of the more intricate and more difficult to maintain gas powered weapon systems of yesterday. Most Core Rods are [color=red]Red[/color], as they allow for more powerful, volitile and sometimes combustive energy releases. Laser weapons utilize their slightly larger core rods in a much different way. The energy from the Core Rod is released into a White Core Lens, either to be focused or scattered into a laser-like stream of energy, which can burn through armor and skin alike. The Cores last for a shorter time compared to other weapons systems, but there are no other munitions usually required with these systems, so they are one of the lightest to carry out in a firefight.Unfortunately, though, laser weapons do leave something to be desired in durability and accuracy, so they are usually utilized in close range engagements, such as in the back alleys of the Ark. Kinetic Energy bolt weapons are some of the scarier and harder hitting weapons found around the Ark. In these weapons systems, the energy is used directly from the core. Gauss weapons are probably the weapon systems that have benefitted the most from the widespread use of core shards. Gauss systems were able to be made small enough for the average person to use, and still get devastating results. The core shards allow for a clean, simple and easily built and maintained way of activating the magnets in Gauss weapons, thus leading to an extraordinarily powerful that packs quite the punch. Most gauss rifles either a magazine of shaped rounds to fire, or use large metal pucks to shave shards of metal off of and then to fire them at the enemies. These weapons are capable of punching through light vehicle armor, let alone standard body armor. Weapons in the Ark fall mainly under three categories: [color=FFA07A]Illicit[/color], [color=LimeGreen]Civilian[/color], or [color=4169E1]Military[/color], each with their own collection of sub-categories. [color=LimeGreen]Civilian[/color] weapons are the most common and easiest to acquire, needing only a permit to own. They usually consist of weaker conventional bullet weapons, such as handguns, lower caliber rifles, and basic shotguns. [color=4169E1]Military[/color] are, as the name suggests, weapons only allowed for use by the military. These can consist of a mixture of conventional and energy weapons, including high-caliber handguns and revolvers, automatic sub-machine guns and assault rifles, high-tech shotguns, and other heavy weapons. [color=FFA07A]Illicit[/color] are the rarest, hardest to obtain, and sometimes, the most powerful weapons to acquire. These kinds of weapons are always illegal, no matter what credentials or licenses someone has, and consist of experimental, prototype, or banned weaponry deemed too dangerous for regular ownership. [color=slategray][sub]⚙[/sub]⚙[/color][u][color=steelblue]F U T U R E C A T A L O G U E [/color][/u] [hider=Calvin Industries AMR] [img]http://i.imgur.com/uqDUhSu.png[/img] [color=limegreen]Class:[/color] Military [color=limegreen]Rounds:[/color] 1 Metal Puck, Rounds shaved off as Fired. Various rounds per mag [color=limegreen]Impact:[/color] Ultra [color=limegreen]Shot:[/color] Gauss Propelled Rounds [color=limegreen]Mode:[/color] Semi-Automatic [color=limegreen]R.O.F:[/color] Slow [color=limegreen]Shard:[/color] [color=BlueViolet]Purple[/color] [/hider] Next two weapons http://img11.deviantart.net/fd7f/i/2013/034/1/d/pistol_concept_by_proxygreen-d5sfsbt.jpg http://conceptartworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Weapon_Concept_Art_Andreas_von_Cotta.jpg [/color][/hider]