[center][h1]Crisis of the Confederacy[/h1][h3]- = + = - = + = - = + = - = + = -[/h3] [indent][indent]It is 2259 AD, and the Stellar Confederation is dying. Decades of mismanagement, political instability and economic collapse was capped off by the destruction of the Human homeworld, Earth. On March 15th, 2159, the very nation-states that birthed the dozens of planets of the Confederacy, had obliterated themselves, taking the seat of Confederate Parliament with them. Now, billions of souls across the stars look to what remains and all ask one single question: [i]"What happens next?"[/i][/indent][/indent][h3]- = + = - = + = - = + = - = + = -[/h3][/center] [hider=Stellar Confederacy] The Stellar Confederacy is the interstellar assembly of all the colonized human worlds lead by the Confederate Parliament. Each world is largely free to do as they wish so long as they contribute towards whatever major infrastructure project there are and send soldiers to be part of the Confederate military. This has lead to many different planets developing despite all being nominally unified under one banner. To join the Confederate Parliament, a planet must be independent, abide by interstellar laws and meet the requirements laid out by the Colonial Concord with demands a certain population and development level. Under ideal circumstances, the Confederate Parliament is responsible for projects and initiatives too great for any one single planet or sector to preform alone. Such as major infrastructure development, anti-piracy duties and large scale humanitarian efforts. Historically, the Confederacy was created when space-travel still largely required the sponsorship of Earth's nation states but as some of the colonies become more powerful than the nations that birthed the, tensions arose. These worlds had the power to rival their home countries but were still subordinate to them which lead to a brief conflict known as the Unity War which lead to the creation of the Confederacy. Although no longer seen as the economic or industrial heart of humanity, it remained an important cultural and political heart as well as the benchmark to which all other planets compared themselves too. Recently however in a controversial move, corporations were granted seats on the Confederate Parliament which many believe was a representation of how far the Confederacy had fallen into politicking and gridlock as well as a sign of things to come. [/hider] [hider=Lead up Events] In 2194, the first megacorporaitons were granted seats on the Confederate Parliament and quickly they began to throw around their new influence. With many of these corporations playing key roles in the galactic economy or the military-industrial complex, more and more resources were being dedicated towards corporate spaces and their goals. The Confederate military soon stopped patrolling "unproductive" areas of space and instead focused on protecting the major industrial and wealthy worlds. This resulted in pirates becoming more and more brash, plundering unprotected trade lanes and even holding some small worlds hostage. Each sector and planet had to build up their own independent militaries just to protect themselves. This slowing of commerce would lead to the economic collapse in 2238, otherwise known as Black New Year. Worlds who had relied on trade or assistance from parliament soon fell into disarray as poverty numbers skyrocketed. Next to no help was given due to the Confederate Parliament becoming gridlocked and stonewalled in any effort as clueless politicians who hadn't even set foot on their represented worlds in decades didn't know the extent of the situation on the ground. Refugees, fleeing collapsing worlds or new found "pirate lords" flooded into neighboring planets, straining what resources they had. As violence grew out of desperation, many planets were forced to take drastic measures to keep the peace, some going as far as "aggressively acquiring" materials and resources from their neighbors. Old rivalries and bad blood came to the surface again as every planet blamed the next for their woes and everyone pointed a finger at the megacorps on the Parliament. On Earth the same thing happened between nations but now even more tension between them. And then finally, on March 15, 2259, a single nuclear missile launched was detected. In the blink of an eye, the entire human race stood silent as millions of years of history and evolution was burned away in nuclear fire on their beloved homeworld. [/hider] [hider=Additional Notes] FTL in this setting is done by using a [b]Slipspace Driver[/b] or sometimes called a [b]Rift Engine[/b]. It rips holes between t points in space and creates a tunnel between them. Although travelling through a rift takes at max a few hours, creating the hole can take longer depending on distance and the size of the ship. These tunnels are the only safe way of traversing through FTL, requiring skilled piloting skills and AI assistance to stay within the margin and prevent too great of a drift. For this reason, special stations called Rift Stations are often constructed in the most valuable or important systems. These stations are capable of supporting a fully or partially opened Rift, greatly reducing travel time while also decreasing the processing and skill requirements for ships to go through safely. [hider=Additional Information] Slipspace Drivers work by ripping a hole in reality between two points and dragging the ship through. Both the entrance and exit holes are detectable by scanners while they are being made. Because of this, smaller ships will often precede larger ships to create a safe beach head or to find a safe place for the larger ships to exit slipslace as they require more time to create a large enough hole. A large portion of humanity uses a variation of the Hao-Narana Slipspace Driver which requires specialized FTL fuel and are known to be something of a black box. Common crew tales tell of technicians mysteriously disappearing while trying to manually adjust or fix a Driver. After a large enough hole is created, it is important for the vessel to stay within the slipspace tunnel created. Although ships are capable of withstanding limited amounts of "drift", FTL Drift is nevertheless regarded as an extreme yet common hazard. Thus skilled navigators, helmsmen and pilots are always in high demand who even then require the assistance of AI to try and stay within the margin. Anything under a 1.0 drift is considered acceptable with 0.75 considered average and the record being 0.51. Anything above a 1.0 is considered extremely dangerous with a 2.0 considered suicidal and more than likely to cause the ship to be broken up in slipspace. It is unknown what slipspace can do to an exposed human body but it is presumed to be unpleasant. For this reason, FTL is often a trade between safety and speed as the longer a rift takes to charge up, the bigger the slipspace tunnel and thus the wider the margin of error is. However given that an FTL rift can take hours or even days to charge up, consuming huge amounts of energy and FTL fuel, most ships will fly with as slim a margin as the pilots feel comfortable with. Ships charging up their Slipspace Drivers are often extremely vulnerable as many systems such as weapons, thrusters and even communications might have to be shut down in order to provide the Driver with enough energy. "Emergency Jumps" are possible but only as a last resort where the ship will attempt to only create half of the Rift and instead try to link with an existing Rift. This rushed process is filled with dangerous as at best the ship will arrive at a Rift Station damaged from small margin and FTL tunnel or at worse, actually collide with another ship mid-FTL as the two attempt to exit out of the same rift.[/hider] [hr] The Sol System is currently guarded by the remains of the Confederate Guard who refused access to anyone else they deem a threat. This quarintine has also meant that the lynch pin of the Rift Routes is cut off meaning planets will have to find ways around it, try to get on the Guard's good side or make their own Slipspace Anchors, something that normally requires the pooled resources of the Confederacy to create. [hr] Warships in general are pretty limited as the Confederate military only used it to deal with pirates, as such pure military vessels are limited to destroyers, frigates and corvettes. Rumors talk of prototype light cruiser carriers but none were officially introduced into service prior to the self-destruction of Earth. Most warships are going to be converted civilian craft: pleasure yachts, research vessels, cargo haulers and industrial ships. Most vessels above a certain size start with at least anti-asteroid guns. [hr] Timeline wise, humanity first started getting interested in space again in the 2030's which kicked off a new space age. 2040's had the first permeant Lunar colony that would develop into the Lunar Gate and the 2050's was capped with the discovery of FTL and the Hao-Jorgan Slipspace Driver which would begin an age of colonization. [hr] Sentient AI and artificial Synthetics exist in this setting along side with "dumb" AI and robots. These sentient AI are common in military and industrial applications, especially on board starships where their immense processing power is of great assistance during FTL travel. The Confederation considered them as sentient and thus possessing "human" rights, a decision that not everyone agrees with. Despite this however, AI still have a limited life cycle and can develop Rampancy, otherwise known as Date Cancer. While technically possible to "cure" this affliction, it more often than not leads to complete memory wiping and skill resetting of an AI. [hider=Additional Information] Increasingly advanced AI have been around for at least a generation although sentient AI are not widely available on the commercial market. These AI make use of holograms to project their figures in real space with such technology being widespread across humanity. Synths are just as capable of self learning and are given [url=https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/callofduty/images/5/5b/Ethan_concept_1_IW.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20170119200703]humanoid but not true human bodies[/url]. Synths are most commonly used in extraterrestrial operations where their mechanical frames operate better than organic bodies while also requiring less upkeep. Military use of such advanced Synths is limited due to the relatively high cost of their self learning Pandora AI Cores; military use of less advanced but still sophisticated AI is however common as are the Synth's lower tech cousins the Droids. Rampancy and Data Cancer is a technical limitation of self learning where an AI will think themselves to death and overloading themselves. If untreated, AI will tend to develop superiority complexes over organics and display increasingly irrational and illogical behaviors ranging from purposely messing with calculations to stringing together nonsensical sentences. It is for this reason that Confederate policy is for AI undergoing Rampancy to either be disposed of or to have their memories wiped. This wipe is basically a factory reset where the Ai will loose any relationships, skills or shortcuts it may have developed in its previous life. Although advancements in AI research have managed to increasing the period of time before Rampancy develops to about a decade, no cure has been found for it. While not an uncommon sight, organics still vastly outnumber mechanics and there are no cases of colonies made up of entirely AI or Synths although they have been known to occupy positions of power and management over organics (typically then supervised themselves by another oraganic). [/hider] [hr] On aliens, humanity has found a few sentient alien societies while going about their journey but have yet to encounter any space-capable aliens. These aliens species when found on settled worlds are treated very differently depending on who and where they are found. Some have integrated into the more advanced human societies while others are treated as slave labor or even zoo animals or worse. The legal representation of aliens has been a constant point of contention in the Parliament since they were first found and no overall ruling has been made by them. [hr] Magic and psionics do not exist outside of faiths that preach it in some way. Harry Potter isn't going to ODST drop and blast some dude with a fireball and Gandalf isn't going to march around in a mech suit and lift several tons of concrete with the power of his megachad galaxy sized brain. [hr] Some planets are lumped into sectors, typically for one of two reasons. One is that the planets or systems individually cannot fulfill the requirements of the Colonial Concord so they pool their resources together so they can get a seat. The second is that its sometimes the result of large scale colonization efforts that have this purpose in mind so are built from the ground up to be a collective unit. [hr] "X thing wouldn't logically happen"/"Y thing couldn't work based on what we know". Look, I'm not smart enough to list you realistic physics behind FTL or how some things happened exactly but I'm running this as "if its plausible and cool it can be considered". No Dyson spheres or Death Stars though. [/hider] [hider=Making an NS] You NS can follow any format but this should be brief. Anyone who looks at your NS should be able to read it without requiring a cup of tea and an armchair; [b]you do not get extra points for long and fancy entries, its more important that information is easily read and understandable.[/b] If you do want to add in more lore about cultural details and whatever hyperadvanced technology you've discovered and what kind of alloy is used in your Galaxy-class super destroyer, [b]put it in a hider when you are done with the actual app.[/b] There are four broad strokes of playable factions/styles in this RP. Each has their own inherent pros and cons. These aren't set in stone but can provide foundation if you need it. [list][*][b]Independent [/b]- A planet or system that is now trying to navigate its way through the crisis. They are the "vanilla" faction type. They are usually fairly stable and unified (assuming they've survived the fallout of Black New Year) but often have limited resources and authority outside of whatever system they own. [*][b]Movement [/b]- Rebels or revolutionaries depending on who you ask who've taken advantage of the instability to take power and propel themselves into the lime light. Ranging from the political to the religious to the desperate, movements lack recognition or authority but are a resourceful bunch with a lot of exprience operating with little resources meaning that they've suffered the least from Black New Year. [*][b]Ex-Confederate[/b] - The military and government of the old order who have the most control over all of confederate space on paper. In reality, each official or officer is stuck in their own sector of space with rivalries and low quality leaders found among them due to the confederacy's nepotism in its waning years. They start out with more planets and systems under their control and military resources at their disposal, a hold over from their former mandates. But many are finding their own planets may no longer support the old ways and have begun infighting among themselves over who has what jurisdiction. [*][b]Megacorp [/b]- Viewed by many to be directly responsible for the collapse and crisis ever since they were allowed on the Confederate Parliament. They little support from among their own worlds and hit hardest by Black New Year but have consolidated their own power well with stockpiles and personal mercenaries a common sight for all of them. Their biggest advantage however are their branch offices and subsidiaries that exist across the confederacy acting as a network of informants and esponage. [/list] [hider=Required Categories] [list][*][b]Name/Flag/Faction[/b] [*][b]Location [/b](Map WIP) [*][b]Summary:[/b] This should include what your faction is all about; guiding principles, ultimate goals, current issues, etc. [*][b]Resources:[/b] This should include major industries, specializations, development and civil and military resources. Planets should be listed here. [*][b]Administration:[/b] This should include your government and leadership. POV Figures should be listed here. [*][b]Strengths/Weaknesses:[/b] An outline of what advantages and disadvantages your faction currently has. This can be changed later on with changing conditions. Whatever you put on here should have an actual effect in game that can't be swept under the rug. [*][b]History:[/b] History bullet points about the background of their origin and major events. You don't get credit for having five pages of history here, keep that in a hider. [/list][/hider] If want a more complex code guide for your summary and pros/cons to make things look pretty, feel free to use this. You don't have to unless you really want to. Remember to delete the .'s in the hr brackets. [hider=Fancy Code] [table=bordered][row][cell][center] [u]Overview - PLANET[/u] Description Lorium Ipsum [/center][/cell][/row][/table] [table=bordered][row][cell] [center][color=00a651][u]Strengths[/u][/color][/center] [list][*][color=00a651]Advantage[/color] - Description [*][color=00a651]Advantage[/color] - Description [*][color=00a651]Advantage[/color] - Description [/list] [.hr][.hr] [center][u][color=9e0b0f]Weaknesses[/color][/u][/center] [list][*][color=9e0b0f]Disadvantage[/color] - Description [*][color=9e0b0f]Disadvantage[/color] - Description [*][color=9e0b0f]Disadvantage[/color] - Description [/list][/cell][/row][/table][/hider] [/hider] [b]Galaxy Map[/b] [img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/6b862820-58ac-4ffb-a427-63933066cfba.png[/img] White = Sigma Pink = Mao Mao Confederate space map to come along with pros and cons suggestions. [url=https://discord.gg/dtWwgKKa46]Discord Here![/url]