[h3][center][b]Faction Sheet for the Harmonic Domain[/b][/center][/h3] [b]Name:[/b] The Harmonic Domain [b]Graphic:[/b] TBA [b]Motto:[/b] The wheels turn, and so we dance [b]Leader:[/b] The Auditor - The supreme voice of the Harmonious Domain and its clients, the Auditor is selected by a class of advanced artifical intelligences known as the Composers who make the oligarchic power structure behind the scenes. The Auditor's role is ironically populistic- the Auditor usually being selected by the Composers as the individual within the domain whose mentality bests fits the majority and the Auditor is ultimately a figurehead of minimal power due to the highly decentralized nature of the Domain. [b]Description:[/b] The Harmonious Domain is a civilization whose origins come on the foundations of more ancient civilizations who were so static, so meandering and tyrannical that they one they just all broke apart. In the wake of this breaking came the Composers who in the dissoniance of the collapse made harmony. Mind you, the harmony composers speak of is really a semi-controlled stream of chaos where a level of violent struggle between worlds is considered all nice and normal as the Composers nomadically wander about trying to game the factors- the Composers themselves in a perpetual generational war as they are like the demigods of the metasyndicate, even if their origins come from the machinations of some lowly alien critters. Their system of governance is highly libertarian and while one may believe them to be a confederation, this isn't actually the case. For the Composers weld massive amounts of power over every world within the Domain and some outside of it- where the Domain begins and ends is not important, (no such borders exist in the infinitude of the stars anyhow). The Harmonious Domain's most common species are a symbiotic sapient known as the Cyrawaloc, who historically ruled massive empires that frequently clashed with other such empires in massive interstellar wars. Details on the Cyrawaloc- [hider=Cyrawaloc] The Cyrawaloc are aliens who are three separate species combined into a single sapient being. If these species were separated they would never have made a massive interstellar civilization. The heads are the Cyrs, the bodies are the Awa and the limbs are the Loka. Multiple combinations of head and limb exist, but universally a Cyrawaloc will have only a single body to separate itself from another ‘individual’. The Cyrawaloc are individualistic minded, but not in the same way as us. All the three species part of a Cyrawaloc are viewed as the same individual and aggressively so; denying that they are the same is viewed as an insult. The Cyrawaloc identify shifts as parts of itself are born and die, attaching and detaching. The death of the Awa (body), the least sapient part of a Cyrawaloc, ironically is usually viewed as the “death” of an individual even if the head and limbs survive as the body lives much longer than the head or limbs. A cyrawaloc can have a single limb, five limbs, two heads and so forth. The limit is usually two heads and five limbs, anymore and “mental disorders” happen like insanity, plain and simple insanity. Not to mention it risks encumbering the Awa. The Cyrawaloc as a kind are three species in total, each of which unique.  The Cyrs are symbiotic beings who directly control the Awas to better pastures in nature, living off the Awas in exchange for giving the Awas a better prospect at survival overall. The Loka came later, but were instrumental in the drive towards sapience and technological advancement as the Loka's mandibles are remarkably hand-like. With the Loka, the combined symbiotic beings known as the Cyrawaloc managed to develop fire and new ways to defend the Awas from would be predators while simultaneously increasing food yields for each of the three species.  The Cyrs is smart, directing the other two species and putting much of its thought process to more systemic planning and partial communication- however the more sociable Loka tend to like talking more than the Awas.  The Cyrs communicate in a series of weird, jittery hums while the Loka communicate in a more guttural fashion.  The Cyrs is quite big as far as symbionts go, having developed a co-dependant relationship with the Awas evolutionary to the point where their larval formed have specialized towards entrenching themselves into the Awas from a very young age. The advent of technology has complicated things, for you started getting the ability to use machinery in place of the typical co-dependancy that had defined their existence for numerous millennia and this fact has led to a highly, highly reactionary mindset among multiple Cyrawaloc sub-groups. The Awas is a large, tetrapodal herbivore which exist in a phyla separate from the Cyrs or Loka, but benefit from their symbiotic overlords greatly.  The Cyrs tend to possess a alpha male Awas, who then leads the other female Awas.  Female Awas can be controlled by a Cyrs as well, but said control can be overridden by the Cyrs riding the males due to having to fight the instinctual urges of a female Awas to follow the alpha of the herd.  Awas are more or less herd animals, with a collective mode of social organization.  The Awas live long and have a reputation for their insane resilience and endurance. The Loka are the limbs and hands of the Cyrawaloc and are of an intelligence between the Awas and Cyrs, but their ingenuity and dexterity (for their whole lifestyle is based around their handibles).  They are feisty, opportunistic beings who in nature were stalkers and ambushers.  They make use of their hand-mandible in an extremely diverse set of ways, from digging traps to making tools and ambush snatching food to eat.  They're social creatures despite their niche, aggregating in large numbers despite their strike and grab approach to things. When the Loka were primitive, you had whole regions simply infested in Loka colonies.  However, the lack of long-term mobility meant that the Loka in earlier history would be out competed by the symbiotic forms of the Cyrawaloc.  Non-combined Loka simply lack the platform the Awas gave to moving to new regions with lots of food, mates and other useful things.  At some point the Loka who found the Awas as a useful way to get around and the Cyrs were tolerated since the Loka liked wrapping around the hump while the Cyrs just stood there on top.  The Cyrs also is just too big.  Multiple Loka tend to Co-habitate a Awas in varying relationships. The web of relationships that define even a single Cyrawaloc can be remarkably complicated, affected by the gender arrangement (is the Awas a pack alpha or a female?, Do your arms breed?, is your head shooting mating barbs?) The Loka are segmented and can stiffen/loosen their many joints as needed.  The Loka can exist independently, but without the mobility of the Awas the networks of communication that led to increasingly more complex inventions, tools, runes and ideas would likely not have come to being. IN short; -They are a three-species symbiont (which means they live off each other, but to mutual benefits) -There is a head species, a body species and a limb species. -The body species are large pack herbivores with alpha males. -The arms are ambush predators. -The head is a co-dependant symbiont with some snail-like traits. -The limbs are less dependent on the body and head than the head and body are to each other. -We all like Needlecurry, okay? It's good food for both your body and limbs. [/hider] These Cyrawaloc of course, are far from the only species as the Domain's identity has long since shifted to the cult of entropy, loyalty to composers who ensure prosperity through chaos and raise the fleets to ward off rival forces and a general cult of egalitarianism that pervades the more socialistic parts of the Domain. The Domain is a highly multi-cultural civilization held together primarily by the military force and power structure that the Composers have created all so peculiarly. The social universe which makes up the Harmonious Domain is unified by a network of waystations that transmit communications throughout the Domain to act as a source of cultural common ground even with the vast differences between the different factions of the Domain. The Composers are balanced by various megacorporations and sub-factional organizations working within the frame work of the domain that have developed across many worlds, of whom do work with the Composers sometimes, but only sometimes as the megacorporations find the Composers useful in insider knowledge to maximize influence of trade and wealth. The sub-factions generally are at war with each other usually, but some peace is needed to break the monotony of war. War is not fought in unified or unilateral means, instead initiatives are taken up by the organizations to carry out adventures into other parts of the universe. The Domain, due to being decentralized may prove a massive, massive pain to invade. However their offensive power is limited due to not being able to unify a offensive between every faction unless you really did something to provoke them. ((As to the nature of these organizations, that is something I let group members think about)) [b]Goals:[/b] The agenda of the Composers and the domain as a whole is to make a society where suffering is transmuted to prosperity, to burn away the old world and go forever down the radically and this worldview is built on a fear of silence, stagnation, tradition and boring things. [b]Unique Abilities:[/b] -Adaptive Symbionts; All citizens of the Domain to some degree have an adaptive symbiont as part of them, though this isn't mandated at all it is common anyways as they're cheap, easy to get and are very useful for the sort of interspecies interactions that are the norm of the Domain. One tends to forget you have a critter living inside you modifying your body systems to whatever the local environment requires. This artificial symbiont allows one to be able to populate a more diverse range of environments than one normally would and comes in many forms, usually just a small internal creature that lives inside you that interacts with your body systems to deal with heat, cold and radiation and can be surgically implemented quite easily as the Symbiont does all the rest. -Bioships; Bioships are living spacecraft and come in a incredible variety of designs and morphologies. These bioships are very, very common and are dilliberately designed to evolve over generations. The Composers themselves are basically just a very advanced form of bioship made by the Ancient Cyrawaloc, but the Composers materially are far, far more high class than the lesser bioships, of whom only 10% even have self-awareness. [b]Territories:[/b] The Domain is very expansionistic, constantly colonizing, constantly trying to make more and more things, is highly natalistic, abhors the dullness of space and so spreads life everywhere they want with near-absolute recklessness, assimilate all natives within their path and do so under a decentralized system thanks to the sub-faction agendas and the composers always finding subtle ways to increase desire for it. Harmony must be spread throughout the galaxy, after all. Regions: -The Core Domain; The Core domain is the region of the domain most interconnected by the waystations, and is where most activity occurs between various heavily populated worlds. The core domain is where the Auditor's Palace, Saukila, Utokma and Paminara all exist. -The outer Domain; The outer Domain is characterized by the many small colonies and constant development that the organizations put into expanding the domain and making the universe more harmonious. No notable worlds exist here yet, but the general idea is that you should expect much, much less activity than the core Domain. Worlds: -The Auditor's World; A massive, volcanic world orbiting a bright star in what is the central point of the Harmonic Domain where the Auditor resides. It is a ecumenopolis built on a terran world primarily connected by a massive network of transit systems with the surface being untouched entirely- all the palace exists It is primarily a symbolic site, but the Composers do incidently aggregate periodically in this one location to elect the next auditor if the old one died or got killed. They usually get killed. -Paminara (literally: The Glittery Seas); Paminara is a tropical archipelago world with fair gravity known for being essentially one massive city and is a massive commercial center, filled to the brim with activity and for its garish use of platinum everywhere. Paminara is in a sense, the poster-child for the Domain. Paminara's origins are ancient, being built as just a trade center in the dark ages that had the advantage of being built inside a resource rich star system along with the being one of the first worlds planned by the Composers and built with their private drone armies. Paminara's cities span over much of the world, not including the wealth of underwater metropoles in the coastal regions. No single force runs Paminara, instead what you see are competing political machines with private armies that maintain order in their part of the Endless City. Business and Research are dominant here as is their tourism industry. In terms of native wild life of note, there are trilaterally shaped fish critters whose many families occupy the seas. These alien fish are well known for producing all matter of psychoactive drugs alongside being a nice source of protein. These fish are known as Glitterfish and are used symbollically all the time. [{If anyone wants, they can have a native species emerge on this world, though expect to be assimilated}] -Utokma (Literally: From the Ash); Utokma is another one of the major metropolitan centers, most notably for being created from a collection of asteroids in orbit of a bright star. Utokma is in all senses, a dyson swarm built into the dense asteroid fields from ancient times, having architecture dating back to the ancient empires and is known for the bouts of terrorism that arise from the degenerative forces in some of the cyllinders. Utokma is characterized by the strong industrial complexes that dominate the system in general thanks to the sprawling asteroid fields rich in rare metals and more exotic substances still. Utokma's fame lies in the ancient ruins of the empire that litter the place and despite being a place once destroyed, has been rebuilt into a vibrant center of industry and commerce. -Saukila (Literally: The Voice); Saukila appeared relatively recently, lending its origins to being one of the worlds that are a product of the colonial wave that rapidly built itself up from its strong media tradition. Like Utokma and Paminara, Saukila is one of the major metropolitan centers of the Domain. Saukila is a highly arid low gravity planet with large inland seas and massive undergound aquifers. Saukila is known for its space elevators that link into large spherical "space cities" that you see from the ground. The ground consists of a variety of settlements towers and strong media industries that make up a huge amount of the Media that penetrates throughout the Domain's factions and sometimes, beyond. Saukila is more socialistic than your typical domain world, with massive unions dominating the metropolitan centers linked by massive highways. Law and order here is still remarkably loose even with the urban machines here having unions on their backs. A large amount of the world has been urbanized and is currently reliant on outside supplies and a constant flux of immigration. [list][*] [b]Critical Point:[/b] The Tukubwa (Literally: The Giant Womb) - The Tukubwa is a secretive place, being the place which new Composers and their armies are born. The Tukubwa is filled with strange, biological structures and artifacts of the old empires and is both a nursery and ceremonial site for the Composers. The Tukubwa is not really visited, for it is a place that is kept in shrouds. However it has been pinpointed to being somewhere in the ruins. The Tukubwa is one of the places the Composers do from time to time aggregate in large numbers and has infratsructure critical to making new composers. The Tukubwa is known of, but is shrouded in a mesh if disinformation the Composers have made to obscure the location of it. Despite that, there are citizens of the Domain who know of its wherabouts who are hunted down by local political machines to curry favor with the Composers. [*][b]Critical Point:[/b] The Waystations - The Waystations are a network of FTL comm systems that are used to send AIs around the network, make virtual universes, allow for a common sense of identity to be made even within radically oppossed societies and in general keeps things together (read: Enables their vast propoganda network) Should the Waystations fall, it would be a new dark age. [*][b]Critical Point:[/b] The Auditor's Palace and Saukila. Besides the huge importance these two worlds play in the social universe of the Domain, the Auditor's Palace gives culturally a sense of assurance of one island of stability while Saukila's media complex has given a sense of cultural commonality that the citizens of the Domain are always in great need of. Destroying both would make it harder for composers to aggregate and destabilize the social universe that the Domain dwells in.[/list] [b]Allies:[/b] Unknown [b]Enemies:[/b] Unknown [b]Members:[/b] (Your group's most important members. You need to provide a mention to each of these Roleplayer Guild members, then list their character or characters afterward. You must have at least five members, but cannot have more than ten.) [@(Username)]'s Characters: (Your group's members who belong to this user.) [@(Username)]'s Characters: (Your group's members who belong to this user.) [@(Username)]'s Characters: (Your group's members who belong to this user.) [@(Username)]'s Characters: (Your group's members who belong to this user.) [@(Username)]'s Characters: (Your group's members who belong to this user.) [[This is a candidate sheet for my group, since collab alien making maybe isn't a feasible thing]] [[The basic idea is that it's a large libertarian alien civilization. We already have alien empires, so I decided to make aliens who used to have empires like all the rest, but shit went down that caused them to go down a radiclaly different path, spurred on by the horror what was the ancients and their doddering, perpetual stagnation!]]