[hider=The Sevenfold Summation of the Diplat Sphere] [center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/loGfR9r.png[/img] [color=9e0b0f][h2][b]The Sevenfold Summation of the Diplat Sphere[/b][/h2][/color] [b]We who will take the universe's measure[/b] [/center] [color=9e0b0f][b]GOVERNMENT FORM:[/b][/color] Technocratic Post-Baseline Oligarchy [color=9e0b0f][b]DEMOGRAPHICS:[/b][/color] The people of the Summation -- both its subjects and its leadership -- are organized into distinct categories called [b]measurements[/b]. [list] [*] [b]Time/Tachyon:[/b] 00.0001%; Immortal digitized human consciousness and original founders of the Sevenfold Summation. Members of the time measurement are usually just referred to by their name or any number of personalized titles. [*] [b]Luminous/Candela:[/b] ~0.5%; Hybrid digitized human and diplat consciousness in networked forms specialized for administration, translation, diplomacy, and education, the luminous measurement serve as the core administration of the Summation's day-to-day functioning and oversee the assessment of other diplat into their measurements. They also serve as living servers for the time measurement to directly interact with their subjects. [hider=Luminous Example] [img]https://i.imgur.com/014SVPM.png[/img] [img]https://tinyurl.com/mtpk4wja[/img] [/hider] [*] [b]Kelvin:[/b] ~2.2%; Heavily modified humans or diplat augmented with DNA from various predator and extremophile organisms, for high survivability and exploration, or combat and labour in extreme environments. [hider=Kelvin Example] [img]https://tinyurl.com/3fkjatz6[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/ZRhNjD2.png[/img] [/hider] [*] [b]Amperes:[/b] ~4%; Human and diplat derived brains and nervous systems supported in compact, AI-assisted mechanical shells for maximally efficient research, medical and engineering work. [hider=Ampere Examples] [img]https://i.imgur.com/chF6EMR.png[/img] [/hider] [*] [b]Meter:[/b] ~9%; Hybrids of human and diplat DNA who now serve as a genetic template for further augmentation and primarily work in law enforcement, administration, and education. [hider=Meter Example] [img]https://i.imgur.com/uFrrfum.png[/img] [/hider] [*] [b]Gram:[/b] ~11%; Heavily modified diplat whose strength, endurance and weight have been greatly increased and primarily work in either very high or low gravity environments, as well as mining, or heavy industry. Many are also equipped with implants designed to control electromagnetic fields. [hider=Gram Example] [img]https://i.imgur.com/dXbLcqP.png[/img] [/hider] [*] [b]Quantity:[/b] ~70.3%; Baseline or near baseline diplat, who go through regular assessments over their life to determine their potential recruitment into higher measurements and otherwise work in a wide range of jobs, particularly food production, construction, office work or machine operation. Having a natural lifespan of roughly 20-25 years in human terms, the diplat tend to measure their lifespan in local 'seasons', roughly quarters of a year. --- NOTE: This also includes the inhabitants of the [b]crechetowns[/b] -- small, isolated colonies of near-baseline humans raised on some of Moumlet's more isolated mountainous regions from a mixture of descendants of the original crew, and vat-grown fertilized embryos that survived the expedition. While official policy is that baseline humans should be treated the same as baseline diplat, inevitably the human population is rarely 'promoted' and when they are it's always to 'higher' measurements. [hider=Quantity Examples] [img]https://i.imgur.com/HuSwrXa.png[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/swisUp1.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.imgur.com/iVnSnvM.png[/img] [/hider] [*] [b]Undefined:[/b] ~2.8%; Any diplat not aligned with the Sevenfold Summation - tools at best, enemies of the state at worst. Criminals fall into this category. [*] [s][b]REDACTED:[/b] ~0.2%;[/s] INFORMATION DECLARED CONTRARY TO TRUTH. THE PACIFICATION OF THE SPHERE WAS A PEACEFUL ENDEAVOUR. [/list] [color=9e0b0f][b]POPULATION:[/b][/color] Approximately 4 billion 'baseline' diplat (Quantity/Undefined measurements) and approximately 1.3 billion of the 'other' measurements. There are an unknown number of near-baseline humans at the various crechetowns, while the time measurement number only about a thousand. [center]---[/center] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/ZWepuB0.png[/img] [color=9e0b0f][b]MOUMLET[/b][/color] [b]Radius:[/b] 7144km [b]Mass:[/b] 1.6 Earths [b]Surface Gravity:[/b] 1.28g [b]Rotation Period/"Length of Days":[/b] 26 hours [b]Orbital Period/"Length of Year":[/b] 412 days, 17 hours (Earth time) [b]Local Calender:[/b] 381 local/Moumlet days divided into four seasons across ten months (with the last month having an extra day) [/center] [color=9e0b0f][b]PLANET NAME & DESCRIPTION:[/b][/color] [b]Moumlet[/b] is the second planet of the [b]Mensura[/b] system; a rocky terrestrial planet with a radius approximately 12% larger than Earth and a mass of 1.28g, carved apart with great industrial pit cities and networks of caverns and chasms, and possessing an unusually large magnetic core. The stronger electromagnetic fields of Moumlet than many other habitable worlds have created a number of unusual formations in its crust, leading to a highly uneven surface covered in deep, arching chasms. Moumlet's oceans are thus disconnected from each other by long, interconnected continents and possess relatively low salinity, but completely fresh water is very rare – most organisms on Moumlet possess specialized salt-filtering organs. [hider=Surface Towns][img]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/3c906c76-c8b5-4023-bb46-c1cf570cbe1a/dembrif-11e10af0-2b1f-4800-9c3f-e7c8cadc5da4.jpg/v1/fill/w_1024,h_576,q_75,strp/commission__dystopian_industrial_city_by_vincentiusmatthew_dembrif-fullview.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9NTc2IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvM2M5MDZjNzYtYzhiNS00MDIzLWJiNDYtYzFjZjU3MGNiZTFhXC9kZW1icmlmLTExZTEwYWYwLTJiMWYtNDgwMC05YzNmLWU3YzhjYWRjNWRhNC5qcGciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTAyNCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.jBCloOsk4gKYPYtXxuz-OkJ4HdcQL029pfqxsz1ETK8[/img] [img]https://cdn.openart.ai/stable_diffusion/3309c900df2b82baf74f8ce04166f1af10a4a62c_2000x2000.webp[/img][/hider] [hider=Example Burrow City][img]https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/55f46ec8-3cbe-41ba-8f6f-b42586cc027e/de3dkml-5dda7147-6964-49eb-be48-c5f46ad6a4fd.png/v1/fill/w_1057,h_756,q_70,strp/underground_scifi_city_concept_art_by_grohaj_de3dkml-pre.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9OTE1IiwicGF0aCI6IlwvZlwvNTVmNDZlYzgtM2NiZS00MWJhLThmNmYtYjQyNTg2Y2MwMjdlXC9kZTNka21sLTVkZGE3MTQ3LTY5NjQtNDllYi1iZTQ4LWM1ZjQ2YWQ2YTRmZC5wbmciLCJ3aWR0aCI6Ijw9MTI4MCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19.SiNBmDVjKHLOo1RzI5UXdUalK0blmz76ziykXdRDhVU[/img][/hider] Because of the uneven surface and high density of iron ore, Moumlet's crust is often described as 'pockmarked' or 'hollow'. Coupled with its relatively close proximity to its home star, many organisms are partly subterranean or amphibious, and despite centuries of exploration there still remains entire underground ecosystems and waterways that haven't been fully catalogued or understood yet. Following centuries of increasing industrialization and the firestorm experiment, Moumlet's atmosphere has become thicker and its oceans chemically unbalanced. While some life still survives and the Summation has introduced a number of genetically engineered organisms to help keep the atmosphere breathable, purify toxic waters, and keep the ecosystem varied, the planet has become more and more imbalanced. Its once oxygen-rich atmosphere has been contaminated with traces of chlorine and ammonia, and in certain regions, gas masks are still required. The biodiversity of the planet has sadly plummeted to a fraction of its original variety. --- NOTE: Moumlet is a reoccurring name for the planet in several diplat languages, particularly those of the compacts that allied themselves with the Summation. While this has since been adopted as its formal name, a number of earlier Mensura reports refer to it as 'Moleworld' prior to this, and some members of the Time measurement still refer to it as such between themselves. [color=9e0b0f][b]DIPLAT BIOLOGY:[/b][/color] The diplat are omnivores – living on a mixture of various roots, plants, arthropods, fish, and meat that they scavenge from predators or bring down in ambush, though by the time the Mensura group discovered them they had long since transitioned to the use of industrial-scale farming and aquaculture. They were originally prey animals on their home world, with leathery skin covered in a coating of short, dark red fur, inhabiting a number of underground cave networks at the shorelines of several natural waterways. Despite their short lifespans -- naturally only living for about 20 years before suffering a kind of severe neurological decay that causes extreme memory loss and eventually renders them comatose -- their sensitive hearing and tight knit family units allowed them to easily predict the movements of predators and set up increasingly large and well-defended communities. With time, this has led to larger and larger family networks that thrive through careful ambush tactics and an eagerness to claim new burrows at any cost. Diplat possess a set of four highly light-sensitive eyes and multiple ears allow for survival both above and below ground. They average at just under a meter in height when full grown, with males being slightly larger. This difference is further emphasized by males possessing a set of defensive quills along their back, shoulders, hips and the sides of their head that they are able to flare up in a kind of threat display, though this is nowadays just the subject of traditional festivals or low-stakes contests. Female diplat lay clutches of three or four thin-shelled eggs at a time, traditionally in a nest of soft, muddy soil. When the eggs hatch in a few weeks time, the babies are transported in her pouch to a communal crèche, usually set aside in a particular well-defended central area of the community. In the modern day, most mothers lay their eggs in a small but cosy room layered in soft, cushiony materials or a sterilized synthetic mud. [color=9e0b0f][b]HISTORY[/b][/color] [hider=PUBLIC HISTORY] "We arrived in the Mensura system and discovered a sickly, dying species warring over a sickly, dying world. We reached out to help, but they reacted with violence. Fearing that we were the last of humanity, we sadly resorted to violence against their cruel and selfish warlords. But by doing so, we united the diplat into an orderly, well-educated society that brings out the best in every individual to better serve the collective good." "Some might say we shouldn't have helped them, and perhaps some philosophies may not have. But if we hadn't, the diplat would now be extinct and their planet would be ruined. For the sake of their descendants -- a thriving population, some 5.3 billion! -- we believe it was the right thing to do."[/hider] [b]ARRIVAL & DISASTER:[/b] For the [b]Mensura[/b] group -- a thinktank funded by some of the wealthiest STEM-field giants -- the gateway expedition was a twisted dream come true. On Earth they were held back by the whims of the masses and endless redtape. But out there? Anything could be possible. To this end they constructed four ships, with the first three -- the [b][i]Aspect of Nous[/i][/b]; the [b][i]Spirit of Nous[/i][/b]; and the [b][i]Conviction of Nous[/i][/b] -- being primarily research and exploration vessels. Each had a crew of about two thousand, supported by cutting edge AI and terraforming systems; carrying human embryos and DNA for thousands of plant and animal species; and with fabrication modules to help create any tool or machine that would prove necessary to their research or terraforming efforts. Once they had sufficiently surveyed and built up the infrastructure for true colonization, the final ship -- the gargantuan [b][i]Body of Nous[/i][/b] and its 10,000 passengers, still finalizing construction -- would follow them through the gate. They launched with excitement, but almost immediately disaster awaited. The gate had opened in orbit around a massive gas giant, and the [i]Spirit[/i] had entered at an angle that quickly left it spiralling to disaster. A tiny fraction of the crew and their equipment managed to escape and were incorporated into the [i]Aspect[/i] and [i]Conviction[/i], but it was with heavy hearts and the taste of death that they proceeded in their surveys. At first, the loss seemed like the storm before a rainbow - resource rich, most crucial of all the system they had arrived in was host to a habitable world. More so, it supported an abundance of alien life! The news was met with equal parts curiosity and paranoia. Endless possibilities surely awaited, and the signals sent through the gate back home were met with both excitement and dollar signs. Their families, colleagues, and backers awaited final construction of the [i]Body of Nous[/i] and the chance to join them... ...then the gate closed, and paranoia gave way to panic. Of the 4,039 remaining crew aboard the [i]Aspect[/i] and [i]Conviction[/i], only about one and a half thousand would survive the fighting that gradually broke out over the next year of silence. A number of fabrication modules were destroyed outright, and the [i]Aspect's[/i] AI was hacked and its code damaged in ways that wouldn't be fully repaired for decades. Order was eventually restored when reasonable voices managed to get across that the ships couldn't sustain any further loss of machinery or hydroponics. Throughout the conflict, some had put the remaining fabricators to work on the material gathered from asteroids and moons of the gas giant in the construction of a new gate, but all attempts to reopen the gate and restore communications with Earth and the countless other expeditions were met with abject failure -- in the violence and chaos, there had been a loss of crucial data and the deaths of those who might have known the secrets to gateway construction. For months they were adrift, without a concrete plan. Some of the world's brightest minds trapped in a pair of boxes with nothing but their research to wile away the time. And meanwhile, only passingly aware that they were now being observed and scrutinized by dangerous alien visitors, the diplat compacts continued their endless squabbling and industrial expansion. [b]ASCENSION & FIRST CONTACT:[/b] As the surviving crew of [i]Aspect[/i] and [i]Conviction[/i] set about their jobs and continued their observations - with the crew of the [i]Conviction[/i] in particular setting about the construction of an elaborate shipyard and fueling station around the gas giant, eventually named [b]Indra[/b] for its storms and the role it would play in the war to come - some began to experiment in more detail with the shipboard AI. Some theorized a way to help recover some of the corrupted data, by using a human brain as a filter. The experiment was seemingly a failure, and one that killed the subject's body. As a result the research was abandoned... ...only for the subject to suddenly 'wake up' inside the Aspect's communication network, the ship's AI having split into a new matrix based on the subject's memories and personality. Once more division spread throughout the crews as to what to do with this information, and it was in the process of deciding that a kind of direct democracy had formed -- old command structures slowly ceased to apply with returning to Earth seeming more and more unlikely and the changing needs to life in space. In a vote that would define the human settlers of the newly christened Mensura system, 72% voted for the digitization research to be opened up - some immediately set about uploading themselves, others refused, and yet others held off to observe the long-term effects. It was in the months that followed that a second defining issues would arise - what to do about the diplat, and their homeworld. The original purpose of the expedition had been to gather data and set about the preparations needed for terraforming operations and permanent colonization by humans. While the planet wasn't technically uninhabitable, its higher gravity and atmospheric composition would make permanent human habitation uncomfortable, and its massive indigenous population would no doubt severely limit the potential limits of human settlement. Some argued that the mission must be maintained - at any cost. Others felt that 'colonization' efforts should involve communication and re-education, teaching these "diplat" to live similarly to humans. Yet others felt that if the mission had already failed, peaceful co-existence and mutual assistance was the best path. In the debate and vote that followed, a cautious hand of peace was reached out - but perhaps too soon. The diplat languages were still understood in only small amounts and without full context, and several of the largest diplat compacts were engaged in a generations old war of attrition. What goodwill might be earned was further mired when several crew members of the [i]Aspect[/i], landing on a supposedly uninhabited region of the planet to collect samples of plant and animal life, were suddenly met by a small group of diplat soldiers on some kind of training exercise. Their fabricated weapons proved deadly and disorientating to the less visually-orientated diplat, and in a reckless act they kidnapped some of the soldiers and killed the others. Onboard the [i]Aspect[/i] they began to experiment on and dissect the captured soldiers, much to the horror of other crew members. Voting almost moved to return the bodies, only for the detection of primitive ground-to-orbital weaponry revealed a frightening attempt by a diplat compact to destroy their ship. Two narrow misses and 26 hours later, and the crew of the [i]Aspect[/i] retaliated by redirecting an asteroid. It certainly destroyed the weapon -- and somewhere in the vicinity of 800,000 people. As the next century would reveal, these figures would prove tasteful by comparison. [b]THE PACIFICATION:[/b] Prior to the arrival of the Mensura Group, diplat society was highly fragmented - as the various family networks had grown in scale and complexity, not all interactions and disagreements were resolved with violence. Rather, the debates and compromises gradually began to incorporate more and more families, eventually producing some of the first huddles, accords, and compacts. Up until recently, these [b]compacts[/b] had been the main political structure among the diplat, led by representatives from their member families. They arranged trade deals, tunnel and burrow rights, surface and oceanic infrastructure projects, and set limits on military action between families and against other compacts. By the time the Mensura group had begun their attack, the limits of the various compacts had revealed themselves - endless arguing and debate, overindustrialization, ecological disaster, overly conservative attitudes toward new technologies and ways of acting, and wars of attrition leading to generations old blood feuds – were quickly accelerated by the effects of orbital bombardment. Without centralized authority these compacts often forced each other into bitter conflicts over resources, and so the diplat were perpetually ravaged by war -- made all the more intense by the fact that most of their cities and settlements were underground, formed in great fortified networks of tunnels and chambers that could easily be used to disorientate or bog down attackers. Attempts by the crew to reach out and arrange a ceasefire quickly proved difficult, until another diplat compact - rivals of the ones they had been bombarding - reached out to them. They would gladly help fight a mutual enemy in exchange for assistance in their own efforts to reach the stars, and for a time this agreement worked to the crews' favour... ...except, in the years that followed - as the exact nature of diplat warfare became clearer to the remnants of the Mensura - the opinions of the crew became more and more poisoned. Efforts to 're-educate' diplat compacts to abandon their family-centric and often nepotistic structure were met with polite refusal at best and sometimes outright violence. On at least two occasions former allies switched their view of the Mensura, using the tools and weaponry that the Mensura had supplied them in order to built new anti-orbital weapons. Coupled with the fact that more and more of the crew had digitized themselves to stay alive, and the personality-damaging issues of long-term data storage that were revealing themselves... the Mensura slowly but surely began to change. Scientific discovery, now having become little more than a series of hobbies and private experiments in the wake of the group's focus shifting to militarization and warfare. The biosphere of Moumlet became increasingly deranged, as bio-weapons were unleashed and genetically engineered predators or human/diplat hybridized vat-grown soldiers were sent in to fight in the tunnels. By the 99th year of the siege, the diplat population had plummeted by about 5 billion. Most of the Mensura were digitized by this point, or had elected to simply terminate their own lives on their terms. A few recognized the hopeless tyrants that the newly christened 'Summation' were becoming and decided to work with the diplat, hacking into and escaping into the diplat's subterranean information networks. On the 100th year, two things happened. The Phel-Noss Deepweave Compact revealed a massive railgun, of stolen Mensura design, and fired a series of thermonuclear slugs at the [i]Aspect[/i] as it rested in orbit. The ship was torn apart -- its molten fragments plummeting to the surface or left adrift -- and the [i]Conviction[/i] was forced to retreat to the shipyards at Indra. The vote to begin the [b]firestorm experiment[/b] was unanimous, where prior votes on it had always met with resistance. A series of biochemical weapons -- a modified terraforming tool -- were detonated in the atmosphere and dropped into the depths of pit cities. The sky turned a sickly yellow, and the lungs of the planet burned. [b]THE SEVENFOLD SUMMATION:[/b] The Summation still didn't desire complete genocide. Their supremist attitude towards the diplat compacts who had allied to them had combined with their own increasingly warped philosophy, and so they distributed other engineered organisms that would limit the amount of chlorine and ammonia in the atmosphere, sparing life on the planet from total extinction. What few compacts who had remained their allies were hesitant to accept the genetherapies they were being offered, but the Summation made it clear this was a demand - albeit a politely worded one. They were the "subjects" to a ruling class - in both the political and the scientific sense. The pacification continued for just a few more months, though at that point it was a more straightforward series of demands, followed by the inevitable suffocation of those that stubbornly refused. By the time all was done - a century of war culminating in an act of genocide on a scale unknown in human history - the global diplat population had plummeted from a peak of 15.5 billion to a paltry 5.1, and it has taken almost three centuries for it to crawl back. Fabrication modules were put to work rebuilding diplat infrastructure, while genetic engineering was used to try and heal the most crucial parts of the biosphere. Following the full seizure of power by the Sevenfold Summation - as they referred to themselves in tandem with their diplat subjects - what compacts remain are now a shadow of their former selves and officially work under them. [color=9e0b0f][b]CULTURE & SOCIETY:[/b][/color] The need for close-knit family and the winding nature of diplat burrow-networks had created a culture of strict familial reliance and expectation. “What would my family think?” is not a 'maybe' question to the diplat – it is a hardwired first priority. Because of this, the diplat historically have struggled to form large-scale polities with strict territories or hierarchies – nepotism is often a given, and what wars have cropped up have either been tiny but brutal family disputes, or have been vast multi-generational wars of attrition involving long-standing alliances through marriage connecting hundreds of families and hundreds of thousands of deaths. This reflects itself in diplat language and naming conventions – most diplat cultures emphasize family names, with 'personal names' usually being a family-chosen title or phrase. For example, 'Pirrik-Nunn Kuik the Ever Indecisive' was notorious in her trading family for the way she constantly waxed and waned in her goals. By contrast, her aunt 'Pirrik-Nunn Oul the Stargazer' went down in history for engineering the first spaceworthy scouting robot, the photos from which helped reveal the vast resources of their solar system... and the first hints that outsiders were watching them. [center]---[/center] [color=9e0b0f][b]GOVERNANCE & POLITICS:[/b][/color] After being stranded the surviving crew of the Nous had reorganized themselves into a form of direct democracy. But unfortunately for the diplat, more and more hardline and authoritarian voices gained ever greater influence in the crew's decision making regarding them -- and all the more so as the siege went on. Combined with their gradual digitization, immortalization, and integration of their minds with the Nous' AI, the crew became more and more apathetic and clinical in their view of the diplat. What started as (theoretically) good natured attempts to assist the diplat with medical and organisational intervention gradually involved more and more intrusive use of genetic and cybernetic science, forcing the subjugated diplat into a strict (yet supposedly 'meritocratic') caste system. By the time the siege had come to an end and the vast majority of surviving diplat were subjugated, and in the centuries that followed, the remaining crew of the Nous -- or whatever remained of their minds, anyway -- had become the ruling caste (the "[b]Time[/b]" measurement) of a hyper-authoritarian cult with eugenic elements. The Sevenfold Summation is strictly organized and top-down in its approach, with ordinary ("quantity") diplat carefully monitored and assessed throughout their lives to determine what 'higher measurement', if any, they should belong to. These various measurements, in turn, are internally organized by individuals of their measurement appointed to a higher rank by their "Time" or "Luminous" superiors. How easy life is largely depends on the nature of a group's assigned work -- the "Gram" labourers on the mining colonies of the resource-rich hot planet of [b]Agni[/b] have an abysmal survival rate and frequently suffer extreme respiratory problems due to the toxic gases they're exposed to, while "Meter" office managers on Moumlet have a fairly safe environment and their own personal quarters with limited customization. Despite the Summation's best efforts, however, the original system of the 'compacts' still exists among many diplat - particularly the "quantity" and "undefined" measurements. While rebel compacts were gradually stamped out over the course of the siege, their survivors continued to rally around and infiltrate compacts allied to the Summation. Some "Time" and "Luminous" are willing to unofficially acknowledge said groups, seeing their continued existence as a kind of 'secret society' being the necessary cost of limiting further rebellions -- others, however, fear that said groups are simply a ticking timebomb. Both views are forced to recognize that the family-orientated nature of diplat society makes the compacts - or something similar to them - an almost inevitable issue. [color=9e0b0f][b]TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW:[/b][/color] While the Mensura Group lost a great deal of their data, technology and skillset over the course of the early disasters of the expedition and some diplat victories during the pacification, the ensuing two centuries of relative stability and the absorption of allied diplat compacts has allowed them to quickly restore most of what they had lost, and to even exceed their original capabilities in certain fields. [list] [*] Advanced AI based on "grey brain" techniques, procedural generation and heuristic matrices. Coupled with extensive neuroscience has allowed them to digitize and replicate conscious organic minds into AI, and having transformed themselves into said AI they freely re-write or modify their own neurological structures. [*] In relation to this, advanced cyberwarfare and programming capabilities from centuries of primarily digital competition and sabotage between individual groups within the time measurement and diplat insurgencies. [*] Advanced genetic engineering over centuries of refinement and experimentation, including AI-assisted analysis to quickly decode and map the DNA of newly discovered or alien species and deduce new arrangements and potential modifications or hybridization of DNA between different species. [*] Nanite-based molecular reconstruction, with 'fabrication modules' containing everything needed to construct a new colony ship or habitat given sufficient time and materials or to synthesize new chemical compounds. [*] High-pressure and subterranean construction techniques and the synthesis of meta-materials capable of withstanding extreme pressures, deep within or beneath the crust of a planet. Officially this is a Summation invention (as all things are), but in truth this was a scientific field that the diplat had long excelled at. [*] Prosthetic limbs and organs capable of replicating or even exceeding the natural abilities of baseline human or diplat; combined with their neuroscience to integrate these implants and cybernetics into both injured or healthy individuals on a large scale. [*] While less so a single technology, the Summation's vice-like grip on their diplat subjects continues to involve the use of ever improving surveillance techniques, including sub-dermal 'monitoring implants' for all diplat infants that remain throughout their lives and extensive surveillance of all communication and information networks. [*] Likewise, the Summation's range of sciences and skillsets are geared towards extremely efficient terraforming of planets and modification of biospheres, whether to make them more 'Earth-like' or more 'Moumlet-like'... or else to render them unsuitable for life at all. [/list] [color=9e0b0f][b]MILITARY OVERVIEW:[/b][/color] During the siege, warfare between the Summation and the diplat compacts was a messy, clinical affair. From the safety of orbit the invaders redirected asteroids and devised all manner of chemical and biological weapons -- meanwhile, the architects and engineers of the diplat built and reinforced ever deeper and more elaborate underground fortresses, while their researchers devised counter-agents. On the ground, allied and rebel diplat compacts waged relentless wars of attrition, fighting over useful resources throughout the endless tunnel networks while defenders established hyper lethal traps or bottlenecks. Intentional tunnel collapsing and suicide-runs were commonplace tactics. On the occasions that combat spread into wider chambers and pit-cities, trains and elevators were often hijacked and armed with artillery and area denial weapons, while human and AI-augmented six-limbed walkers and low-altitude aircraft fought in mountainous regions or rough terrain. In the two centuries since the siege, war has been a rare concern - small but frequent insurgencies or terrorist groups, and a short-lived rebellion on the shipyards in orbit around Moumlet. As a general rule, these have been dealt with by local security forces armed with simple kinetic or ballistic weapons. While the fabrication modules have the blueprints for railguns or other more advanced military hardware, a combination of decay from lack of use and a lack of solid military knowledge -- besides members of the "Time" measurement who commanded forces during the pacification -- leaves them woefully unprepared for a conventional war against an equivalent civilization. A small, scattered fleet of lightly armed patrol ships help secure and administrate the colonies of the Summation -- at last count, they numbered 73 vessels, most under 300m long and primarily armed with repurposed mining lasers or specialized EMP weapons. [hider=Summation Ship Designs]Top row shows, from left to right: a diplat/Summation mining shuttle > a modular exploratory research vessel, essentially a smaller version of the colony ships the Summation originally arrived in > a hypothetical Sevenfold Summation battleship Bottom row shows the actual relative sizes: the battleship is approximately 800 metres long. [img]https://i.imgur.com/0S452uw.jpeg[/img][/hider] [hider=Tunnelling Weapon Examples] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/42/dd/a9/42dda90a4e9a2563ef0f7af55a0b2daa.jpg[/img] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/057/622/831/large/lucas-allegretti-cb1-185.jpg?1672172067[/img] [/hider] [hider=Pacification-era Biosoldier Template Examples] Officially, the Summation has seven measurements, with the 'kelvins' serving as the bulk of the military -- though a lack of large scale or conventional warfare leaves most of them relegated to other job roles requiring high survivability and resilience to extreme or toxic environments. However, during the pacification of the diplat the Summation devised a wide array of increasingly disturbing and horrific organic weapon systems, mainly using diplat as the starting point. While most of these were eventually culled, the templates to transform diplat into new biosoldiers -- and new ones designed in the centuries since -- still exist in storage. [img]https://external-preview.redd.it/2G3U3UMn9jVtIRMySgZGQTVQ2zi3k36yymkzZrJuTu4.jpg?auto=webp&s=672fe4883103f217c45ed672d3b35d4029655f05[/img] [img]https://mortian.shop/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/heavy-rat-2.jpg[/img] [img]https://mortian.shop/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Rat-Gunner.jpg[/img] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f0/72/f5/f072f55f1ad3ceadd53831d27fcf5230.jpg[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/000/091/760/large/alien_screen_jamie_boylan_v2.jpg?1551326274[/img] [/hider] [center]---[/center] [color=9e0b0f][b]HOLDINGS -- The Mensura System:[/b][/color] In the course of their three hundred year presence in the system - and especially following the end of the siege - the Sevenfold Summation has successfully colonized a number of planets and established numerous waystations and communication relays. [list] [*] [b][url=https://coolvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/underground_city.jpg]Agni[/url][/b] is a small, resource-dense planet close to the system's star. Setup following the Summation's victory, it serves as the centre of several highly dangerous mining colonies and is a centre of industry. The high percentage of "Gram" measurement working here has led to the formation of a distinct cultural identity from mainstream diplat society -- and rumours of rebellion, in the shadows. [*] [b]Moumlet[/b] (also known as [b]diplat prime[/b] or [b]moleworld[/b], depending on who you ask) is the homeworld of the diplat species and the centre of power for the Summation following their victory during the siege. [*] [b]Indra[/b] is the massive gas giant that the Gate originally opened in orbit around. Its dense storms of gas and numerous moons provided a vast abundance of material, sufficient in the extreme for the Summation to set up extensive shipyards and make several failed attempts at constructing their own Gate. In time, this failed structure served as the central structure for [b]Spirit's Loss[/b], a massive space station and observatory serving as the heart of the system-wide network of waystation's and comms relays used to coordinate the colonies. [*] [b]Shiva[/b] is a second gas giant closer to the edge of the solar system, a rich blue due to the high density of cobalt and an atmosphere composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, along with traces of hydrocarbons and nitrogen -- it also contains a higher proportion of ices such as water, ammonia and methane. Serves as a remote research station, prison-colony, and interstellar observatory. [/list] [/hider] [hider=The Easifan Promise] [center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/B1m3iQe.png[/img] [color=9e005d][h2][b]The Easifan Promise[/b][/h2][/color] [b]May the eyes of the storm guide and shelter us forever -- in few things or many, small things or vast; blessed be the cycle of heaven and cursed be the weightless void.[/b] [/center] [color=9e005d][b]GOVERNMENT FORM:[/b][/color] Multi-Species Tribal Confederation [color=9e005d][b]POPULATION & DEMOGRAPHICS:[/b][/color] There are an estimated 500 million souls in the Easifa system, though the exact number would be almost impossible to know. The major species and groups within the Easifan Promise are listed below: [list] [*] [b][url=https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e2/26/50/e22650357c24248ee9860f9d180ceac1.jpg]Yaeph'La:[/url][/b] ~38.5%, or approx. 192.5 million; the nomadic remnants of an advanced alien species who had long ago settled in the Easifa system in a fleet of ships over many generations; despite some early tension, they recognized the human arrivals as fellow refugees, and so hesitantly shared their genetic engineering and habitat construction technology with humanity. They are broadly split between the grey-skinned "Yaeph'Zan", who possess a higher amount of ancestral yulzan DNA, and the shorter [url=https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/017/109/540/large/diego-alfaro-photrender-no-compresh-fini.jpg?1554681954]"Yaeph'Zir"[/url], who possess a higher amount of ancestral aldzir DNA. The yaeph’la are the majority inhabitants of the [i]Upper and Lower Shabaka[/i], the massive habitat networks on Easifa’Thani. [*] [b]Arjuani:[/b] ~20.5%, or approx. 102.5 million; modified humans with grey or purplish skin, adapted for life in high-gravity and high temperature environments - trace amounts of silicon, iron and iodine, cellular redundancy against the effects of radiation and chemical poisoning, and segmented lungs that function as living oxygen tanks; they are split across many tribal and ethnic lines after 250 years of survival across the vast network of habitats throughout the Upper and Lower Shabaka, but are broadly united in a shared religion and history (the [b]Arjuani Cloud[/b]). [*] [b]Gremlins:[/b] ~17%, or approx. 85 million; genetically engineered organisms created by the yaeph'la settlers; appearing as the six-limbed lovechild of an eel, a beetle, and a pug, they are particularly notable for the high adaptability, resilience, and the intense electrical conductivity of their nervous systems, making them easily augmented with cybernetics. [*] [b]Foldforms:[/b] ~12.5%, or approx. 62.5 million; a species of parasitic extremophile colonial organisms of unknown origin who arrived on Easifa'Thani's moons in the distant past, they primarily feed on radiation and electromagnetic fields; after their disastrous first contact with the yaeph'la, communications were eventually established and mutual benefits were found through limited infection of sapient host organisms. While various foldforms exist as organic radiation, electrical wiring, or heat-shielding for structures, ships and exosuits, a group calling themselves [url=https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/058/367/681/large/eduardo-dominguez-edsfox-spider-demon.jpg?1673995214]"the Veiled"[/url] have taken to permanent symbiosis with foldforms, and have established permanent settlements on Easifa'Thani's radiation poisoned moons and other previously uninhabitable regions of the system, as well as in the asteroid belt. [*] [b]Cloudkin Pilgrims:[/b] ~4%, or approx. 20 million; explorers and traders of one of the two indigenous alien species on Easifa'Thani and who safely dwell within the colonies through the use of highly pressurized suits; they are a gaseous, vaguely jellyfish-like species who dwell in the upper layers of Easifa'Thani in numerous 'bubble towns', and they mainly assist with human and yaeph'la habitat construction. With the help of their allies they successfully launched a set of massive spiralling ships that emerged from the deepest layers of Easifa'Thani several decades ago and now orbit their home star. [*] [b]Fishermen:[/b] ~3.2%, or approx. 16 million; baseline humans who primarily live on ships or stations, rather than the habitats. The prolonged effects of low-gravity life on quarantined ships have left them stunted and with weaker bones and weakened immune systems, but otherwise they are human - their openness to working with others has enabled them to remain genetically stable. They are primarily organized into familial [i]clans[/i] and most make their living harvesting ice water. Others are associated with the [b]Church of the Oasis[/b], a relatively luxurious and well-defended space station that is reportedly dangerously hedonistic behind closed doors. [*] [b]Gaians:[/b] ~2.5%, or approx. 12.5 million; water, soil, and plant-worshiping heavily modified human-reptile hybrids who mainly dwell in low gravity environments, further edited with plant cells to be energized by UV radiation; renowned as gardeners, a number of them live as warrior monks in patrol around the location of the gate and the promised return to Earth; descended primarily from what was once the [b]Children of Gaia[/b]. [*] [b][url=https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/060/703/979/large/csr-2knights-on.jpg?1679136456]Asmovund:[/url][/b] ~2.3%, or approx. 11.5 million; heavily deformed and poisoned human puritans who heavily rely on cybernetics and cloning; their tolerance for AI and obsession with the Yahsud Alnaar has left them in a semi-ostracized state, while tensions run high between them and the gaians following a number of skirmishes and religious disputes after initially working together; descended primarily from what was once the [b]Asimov Foundation[/b]. [/list] [center]---[/center] [center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/KtPaT3k.png[/img] [color=9e005d][b]EASIFA'THANI[/b][/color] [/center] [color=9e005d][b]PLANET NAME & DESCRIPTION:[/b][/color] [b]Easifa'Thani[/b] is the closest planet of the [b]Easifa[/b] system to its home star. A silicon and iodine rich hot gas giant with a thin layer of carbon dioxide surrounding it functioning as its outer atmosphere, it was far from being the first choice for settlement by the original yaeph'la colonists. However, upon the discovery of Easifa'Mal's ancient destruction and the chaos caused by the Yahsud Alnaar, the mining outposts constructed there were repurposed for city-scale habitations. [hider=A habitat of the Lower Shabaka][img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/020/433/048/large/christopher-plante-colonysmaller.jpg?1567740272[/img] Like many such habitats, it is built inside of a pressurized silicon-based 'island' suspended amidst the storms of Easifa'Thani.[/hider] [hider=Joint human-yaeph'la ships at a shipyard in the lower regions] [img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/955867395325571143/1088242761876111390/christopher-plante-vallus-shipyardsbars.png[/img] [/hider] Of particular interest is that Easifa'Thani possesses a unique biosphere all of its own. While studying it in detail has proven almost impossible due to the monumental gravitational and atmospheric pressures and the extreme temperatures, there appears to be a wide variety of complex life that occasionally emerges into viewing range. Of particular note are the 'cloudkin', gaseous colonial organisms that possess some form of sapience and intelligence - sufficient to build their own complex 'bubble towns' out of harvested silicon gas, and to reverse engineer lost human technology and repurpose it into high-pressure environmental suits that have allowed some of them to dwell among the humans of the Lower Shabaka. Meanwhile, a mysterious, sluggish species of vaguely flatfish or trilobite-like organisms exist in the deepest regions; even the cloudkin have had little contact with them, but they seem to be content in their slow and ancient strolling. [color=9e005d][b]HISTORY[/b][/color] [b]THE STAR WITHOUT A HOME:[/b] The [b]Miracle Agreement[/b] was a pooling of resources, a humanitarian alliance of religious and charitable groups, NGOs, communes and cults who were quick to see the writing on the wall. Their individual efforts to help limit the disastrous effects of climate change and nuclear warfare had been of limited success, and so in secret their leadership arranged for the creation of a series of colony ships. With heavy hearts those 300,000 colonists fled through the gate aboard the [i]Ten Miracles[/i] and supported by a fleet of technical and support vessels, hoping that perhaps they might yet discover something that could be sent back through the gate to help the people of Earth. Sadly, the arrangement of the Miracles had been a slow and rocky process. The gates had already been open for some time when they launched, and so whereas most expeditions had already begun to settle when the gates closed, for the [i]Miracle Fleet[/i] it was a shocking and desperate close call. A terrible silence filled the darkness as they pressed onwards. As the fleet made their way to [b]Easifa'Mal[/b], the predicted garden world, the fleet faced an unprecedented disaster. The planet was surrounded by advanced machines of unknown design. The fleet attempted to transmit signals and communicate with the machines, but the only response was violence. Evasive manoeuvres were attempted and an exchange of fire, but sadly the [i]Second Miracle[/i] was torn to pieces and the fleet scattered, desperately fleeing in every direction. The remaining nine miracles and the core of the fleet, desperate for some kind of shelter, headed deeper into the system – the massive hot gas giant, [b]Easifa'Thani[/b], could perhaps serve as a shield. Sadly, the length of the journey forced a desperate delaying action, and the [i]Third Miracle[/i] was evacuated with only limited success as the captain ordered they hold the line. As the remaining Miracles got closer, they received transmissions of an unknown source – another fleet of ships, alien in design! Supported by structures that formed a vast network of industrial sites, refineries, habitats, bridges and ports that surrounded the gas giant. Communication was a tense and desperate affair for several months - the alien fleet was larger and evidently more advanced than their own in many ways, and some kind of virus had severely damaged and corrupted the AI that the Miracle Fleet made use of and rendered much of their data and software erratic. In desperation many had turned to unorthodox or analogue memory aids, using anything they could to keep track of crucial data. [i]"We promise. We will not hurt you."[/i] [b]YAEPH'LA & THE PROMISE:[/b] In time the creatures revealed themselves to be [b]Yaeph'La[/b], an alien species who had fled their own home world's destruction in a fleet of generation ships. They explained the situation - that they had settled on Easifa'Mal and had some success terraforming it, but in their experimentation and eagerness they had awoken some kind of ancient orbit-wide, self-replicating automated weapons system. This vicious enemy - named the [b]Yahsud Alnaar[/b], the reaving fire - had destroyed their old colony and forced them to flee to their industrial and mining facilities on Easifa'Thani, expanding them with the help of the gas giant's indigenous silicon-based organisms into functioning long-term habitats. Some yaeph’la were assumed to still survive on the surface, though they had done so by completely cutting off all radio communications and living a simple, difficult existence as hunter gatherers and nomads. If the humans would work with these aliens - share their technology and their DNA - they could live with the Yaeph'La. They would work together to make this most inhospitable world their new home. In desperation, they agreed, and an uneasy peace was formed - in time and with understanding, generation after generation, coldness gave way to something resembling genuine kinship. [b]OTHER GROUPS OF THE PROMISE:[/b] As the decades rolled by, a number of religious and cultural differences among the colonists began to grate - most notably among the [b]Children of Gaia[/b], representatives from a 'lifestyle collective' back on Earth fascinated with genetic engineering as a way to survive the apocalypse. While some chose to remain among the other settlers on Easifa'Thani, the majority assembled their resources and returned to the gate, establishing a series of elaborate sealed habitats in its vicinity and awaiting its return. They were begrudgingly assisted in this endeavor by members of the [b]Asimov Foundation[/b], who had been studying the Yahsud Alnaar in the hope of reconfiguring and controlling the swarm and had learnt some of its weaknesses. The scattered peoples of the Promise have established a number of stations hollowed out from the inside of resource and ice-rich planetoids. The Children of Gaia and the Asimov Foundation are some of the most prolific, while another, the glistening neon [b]Oasis and its Church[/b] serves as a vital trade hub and link to the [b]Spacer-Fisher Clans[/b] and the alien, symbiotic [b]Veiled Host[/b] dwelling in the asteroid belt. As the years have gone by, the immediate existential dread of the Yahsud Alnaar has been replaced with an uneasy wariness, and an understanding among most for the need to cooperate. Communications became easier and easier with the cloudkin. Although there have been moments of violence or disagreement, the countless tribes that have gradually formed and joined the Easifan Promise have worked together to create a new history and the possibilities of new futures. It is not entirely accurate or optimistic -- and their balancing of science to superstition may prove worrying to outsiders -- but it has kept them alive. Alive, and not alone. [color=9e005d][b]CULTURE & SOCIETY:[/b][/color] The people of the Easifa system are remarked to be strong-willed and community driven, united by memories of disaster and the continuous effort to survive by any means. Their songs are at once themed around death, while maintaining hope. Their art -- murals and paintings, scrawled upon the walls of their ships and engines -- are abstract and symbolic, but often use dark and melancholic scenes highlighted by bright moments in high contrast. Their stories often deal with the nature of time and the overcoming of grief. All have elements of mathematics or technical skills baked into them on some level - a form of memory aid in the face of centuries worth of gradually lost knowledge. Cooking meanwhile is viewed as a delicate but crucial past-time, the limited carbon-based biodiversity of the habitats forcing them to carefully synthesize new flavours with great difficulty. Legends speak of a time when 'spices' were abundant at the birthplaces of humanity and yaeph'la, but most write this off as impossible. Nevertheless, they serve as a strong motive for some more daring adventurers to attempt expeditions to Easifa'Mal or beyond its orbit to the lost ships of humanity, in order to acquire new species or recover some element of lost yaeph'la technology. By contrast, alcohol or relaxant drug use are (besides being very rare and difficult to grow) [i]forbidden[/i] under all but specific medical circumstances - there are no safe environments in which a person can 'slack off', as in the event of an emergency a person could be called upon and would need to be highly alert. Coffee is the notable exception to this, being highly prized by all human cultures in the Easifa system and ranging in scale from luxury to commonplace swill used as an intense caffeine fix. [center] --- [/center] [color=9e005d][b]GOVERNANCE & POLITICS:[/b][/color]: Initially the colony ships were led in a clear chain of command, with decisions made by those with relevant information and skillsets as problems emerged. Individuals could voice criticisms anonymously, but these were merely used as information to consider, not a form of decision making themselves. After the scattering of the fleet and the settlement on Easifa'Thani, however, the needs of survival have drastically shifted the structure of the various colonies. Long stretches of time residing on isolated ships or stations has led to sets of self-organizing tribal lineages speaking a range of dialects and creole languages. The Easifan tribes have no centralized authority - rather, the promise in its fullest sense is a series of treaties, a set of agreed upon rules and deals that are frequently reviewed at large gatherings on Easifa'Thani known as [b]Headmeets[/b]. At its core, it is a point of mutual cooperation, aid, and defense against the dangers of the Yahsud Alnaar and the vacuum of space. [color=9e005d][b]TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW:[/b][/color] Three hundred years of disaster and struggle have not been kind to the descendants of the original colonists, and the various Easifan tribes are fortunate to have survived at all - even if much of their infrastructure is needing constant repair and patchwork effort, with limited new industry to fill the gap. Nevertheless, they make the most of what they can, and their willingness to work with aliens and to study their enemies has given them some new knowledge to work from: [list] [*] The original technology they brought with them on the Ten Miracles has been in a steady state of disrepair. One of the most important pieces were a set of prototype fabrication models they acquired from the Mensura group, but most have broken down by this point and recovering functioning pieces of the ones aboard the wreckage of the Second and Third Miracles have been a source of constant danger and difficulty. Notably, the nature of life in the Easifa system encourages a quickness to grasp new scientific concepts and creative use of what resources are available. Easifan ships often look like they’re bolted together out of scrap, chunks of asteroids, and a prayer but they’re surprisingly durable and quick and condense a lot into a small space. [*] Hardlight, an unusual technology possessed by the Yaeph'La they reverse-engineered from the Yahsud Alnaar. Photons are condensed into a lattice temporarily, creating highly durable constructs that require a constant source of power, or elaborate but short-lived remote-controlled holograms that can fool visual or temperature sensors. It's also proven valuable as a way to pattern or prepare the ground work for more permanent construction, by projecting hardlight blueprints that you then build 'on top of'. [*] Genetic engineering and hydroponics are fields that the yaeph'la and gaians are both specialists in, though they hesitate to make it widely available. Rather, yaeph'la and gaian representatives can be found on many ships or stations. [*] Crucially, the Yaeph'la and Arjuani - and thus most of the Easifan tribes, though they vary in how much they actually respect it on an individual basis - are [b]violently opposed to advanced AI[/b]. While they do use very limited AI and computers to assist with the necessary calculations and projections of life in space, the viral signal that the Yahsud Alnaar emits both significantly limits the consistency and advancement of their computer systems and has created a superstitious opposition to AI out of principle. [/list] [color=9e005d][b]MILITARY OVERVIEW:[/b][/color] The various Easifan tribes are varied in their militarism, with the Asmovund being the most warlike and consistently well equipped for conflict - sometimes even raiding other tribes for resources or technology. That said, the yaeph'la possess both the most consistently advanced technology and have the largest population by a significant margin, allowing them to muster up the largest and most impressive forces if needed. Because of centuries spent in space and fragile indoor environments the Easifan tribes have limited skill in ground combat and few veterans of occasional raids to Easifa'Mal to pass on what little they will have learnt, and their infantry are primarily trained to fight with low-lethality or bladed weapons to limit the risk of damage or hull breach. However, they are adept pilots, and while the civilian nature of many of their ships limits the capacity or willingness to fight (as opposed to simply fleeing), they possess a number of powerful ranged weapons. [hider=Arjuani exo-suit for hostile environment combat against Asmovund raiders or stray yahsud alnaar drones] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/022/286/663/large/milan-hodoba-received-2160871764218250.jpg?1574842296[/img] [/hider] [hider=Asmovund raider] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/013/625/869/large/miguel-iglesias-spacepirate7-sincasco-artstation.jpg?1540462536[/img] [/hider] [/hider] [hider=The Green Table, the Homesteads, and the Syndicates] [center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/YnQgFwZ.png[/img] [color=077B0A][h2][b]The Green Table; the Homesteaders’ Collective; and the Peoples’ Syndicates[/b][/h2][/color] [b]The three pillars of Avalon are these: JUSTICE for yourself, each other, the planet – all things must have their voice and their moment, and no one should take that away. PATIENCE for yourself, each other, the planet – the road to paradise is long and will take effort, all things growing at different rates. KINDNESS for yourself, each other, the planet – all have their place, and all things are imperfect.[/b] [/center] [color=077B0A][b]GOVERNMENT FORM:[/b][/color] Baseline Eco-Syndicalist Federation [color=077B0A][b]POPULATION & DEMOGRAPHICS[/b][/color]: Baseline humans (Homo Sapiens), approximately 1.6 billion souls all together. Humans are the only sapient species within the nation, and while they make occasional use of prosthetics or replacement organs as needed, they have largely not changed themselves -- the exception being that their time spent on Avalon's lower gravity has generally made them slightly taller and thinner on average. This is in spite of the difficulties adapting to life on Avalon and the strangeness of its wilderness – as they carefully balance the needs of their people while trying to limit the ways they disrupt the local ecosystem, it has left them as cautious but generally welcoming and supportive people. Avalon’s population are primarily of Welsh, Australian and South African descent, though it had also received support from several smaller failed colonies before the Gates closed and has left them culturally and genetically diverse. [hider=Life on Avalon] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/035/620/513/large/jessica-woulfe-daniel-clarke-yb-30sec-sh060-bg-paint-jw-v38.jpg?1615442689[/img] [/hider] [center]--- [img]https://i.imgur.com/JysTGgs.png[/img] [color=077B0A][b]AVALON[/b][/color] [/center] [color=077B0A][b]PLANET NAME & DESCRIPTION[/b][/color]: [b]Avalon[/b] is a warm, mid-sized rocky world and an ecologically dense garden planet with a broadly “cold tropical” environment similar to the temperate rainforest that once stretched across Ireland and the British Isles many generations ago. The fourth planet in orbit around its star, Avalon is roughly 6% smaller than Earth but possesses an unusually fertile cocktail of minerals, soils, and sediments that flourish with billions of species, many of them still little known or understood. However, the system as a whole has limited precious metals, and what has been available was mainly offworld and made use of by the colonists in the early days of their arrival. [hider=Wilderness on Avalon] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/069/670/028/large/rebecca-hu-scav103-bg-a064-v03-rh.jpg?1700690359[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/069/670/218/large/rebecca-hu-scav104-bg-a000-ext-calm-meadow-wide-v03-rh.jpg?1700690795[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/069/737/844/large/rebecca-hu-scav109-bg-a221-v03-rh.jpg?1700858568[/img] [img]https://d23.com/app/uploads/2022/05/01_1180w-600h_pandora.jpg[/img] [img]https://tinyurl.com/2p95wn4m[/img] [/hider] [color=077B0A][b]HISTORY[/b][/color] [b]SYNDICATES OF THE OLD COMMONWEALTH[/b] In the decades leading up to the great collapse, entire nations had buckled and shattered under the weight of ecological and political collapse; as shorelines receded globally in the wake of mega storms and flooding, and as nuclear deployments had rendered increasing swathes uninhabitable, entire nation-states ceased to exist in their original forms. In this process, Australia, Namibia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom were all among those whose existing right-wing or neoliberal authorities and systems had imploded. As political authority broke down, the colony ships they had begun to construct were left unfinished, with time running out. But amidst this, numerous local organizations – the remnants of unions and grassroots leftwing organizations, many of them associated with various aspects of the colony ships construction – were able to fill the void. In the process, they seized control of the [i]Matter of Hope[/i] -- the lead vessel of a series of smaller colony ships, the entire fleet being designed to transport over a million souls in stasis to a new world. [b]FINDING AVALON[/b] The journey to Avalon was a tense one, but they were blessed by what they found – greater than any of the earliest predictions, they found a planet dense with life. Unfortunately, much of it was deeply alien – living plastics, hallucinogenic tree networks, and parasites that would puppet sources of calcium. Still, they were determined not to repeat the same mistakes as Earth; thus, they began the long work of establishing their first homestead (Safehome) in a relatively safe and low biodiverse region. [hider=Safehome, the first homestead, in its present state] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/019/970/966/large/avishek-banerjee-solarpunk-avishekbanerjee.jpg?1565797494[/img] [/hider] With time, they were able to start awakening more colonists and to establish new homesteads. Within a century they had established five additional homesteads – [i]Monmouth[/i], [i]Northshire[/i], [i]Sydney[/i], [i]New Pretoria[/i] and [i]Autumn[/i] – and had awoken about half of the colonists. Unfortunately, they were starting to feel the pressure on their supplies when… [b]THE AUTUMN BOMBINGS & CIVIL WAR[/b] The homestead of Autumn reorganized itself in a most extreme way. Their council had steadily been infiltrated by those awakened colonists who had been invested in the old power structures and were deeply unsatisfied with the more egalitarian system implemented by the syndicates. Using people’s resentment at the speed of expansion and cutting themselves off from the other homesteads, they began taking increasingly violent and destructive methods to clear away “obviously dangerous” organisms and to transform the landscape for resource extraction – when the crew of the Matter of Hope tried to reason with them, the Autumn homestead council provided the council head with “central judicial authority” and revealed it had been manufacturing and stockpiling weapons. In a deadly terrorist bombing they damaged the Matter of Hope’s control systems and launched attacks onto two other homesteads that left hundreds dead, their intent clear. The civil war that followed was a short and tensely quiet conflict; with the Matter of Hope unable to effectively intervene as it rested in orbit until its systems could be repaired, transportation was highly limited. The large distances and varied, often hostile or strange wilderness between the homesteads made actually launching successful attacks or troop movements difficult. After several months the Matter’s secondary control systems were repaired to a point that it could safely navigate out of its stable orbit, and the crew had not been idle on other fronts. After requests for further talks and a ceasefire were met with resentful insults, the crew deployed multiple security teams equipped with modified, militarized hardsuits. In a bloody battle hundreds died and the homestead of Autumn was shattered. Those held responsible for the violence were executed, while those who refused to respect the syndicates and the collective, democratic institutions of the homesteads were banished into the wilderness… [b]THE FAEFOLK[/b] Following the war a period of rebuilding and centralization took place, with the crew of the Matter of Hope continuing to serve a crucial administrative and policing role between the homesteads. However, resentment continued to grow and as more and more homesteads were established – at least a dozen more in just the following thirty years – with more and more colonists being safely awakened each year, the desire and necessity for greater independence became needed. After all, the density of Avalon’s life also meant the dangers and ecosystems of two different neighboring homesteads could have massively different needs, and relying on a central authority to justify and explain every plan and strategy became more and more impractical. The breaking point revealed itself as more and more homesteads had started to report the appearance of “strangers” in the wilderness. These figures varied in appearance and personality, but were always deeply uncanny – sometimes outright alien or monstrous, sometimes abstract, sometimes ‘mostly human’ aside from odd proportions or slight mutations. Stranger still, these figures could never be captured on any kind of video footage, audio recording, or imagery. They were definitely [i]real[/i] in some sense, and capable of great intelligence, with huge numbers of scouts and settlers reporting sighting them in similar locations and with recurring (if sometimes imperfectly so) descriptions. Even more concerning, these figures often knew things about the settlers that were either highly classified or that would be impossible to know – relating the subjects of dreams or long buried memories and trauma. Bouts of paranoid raving and accounts of violence between settlers was likewise worrying, while in other homesteads they had faced few issues after reacting positively to these ‘strangers’. While this was happening, many homesteads had also started to arm themselves for their safety. Lithe, monstrous creatures containing a mixture of human, animal, and alien DNA had been spotted occasionally in the regions bordering the Autumn homestead. Some of these worked closely with the reported ‘unrecordable entities’, who had started to take on characteristics of popular fictional characters or long dead famous historical figures. [b]THE GREEN TABLE OF THE MATTER[/b] Something had to be done – the homesteads were straining under these strange pressures, and resentment at the ways the Matter of Hope handled them was growing. At last, in fear of Avalon’s total fracturing, Captain Arthur Jones of the Matter established a new system – the [b]green table[/b], inviting representatives of all of the homesteads with himself as moderator to create a “high council”, representing the councils and peoples of all of the homesteads. Collectively they reviewed and studied what the reports and research efforts had collected, and they were able to find some answers. Pooling their resources without over speaking them, something could at last be done. With the support of the local militia and teams of scientists, the security teams of the Matter were able to take the fight to the monstrous raiders and scatter them deeper into the wilderness. As they did so, by putting the suggestions of those whose ‘strangers’ had been less harmful into practice, they were able to start recognizing common signs of their presence. It took another thirty-nine years of research, but the strangers – now known commonly as “visions” or “faeries” – were found to be ‘images’ or ‘echoes’ created by exposure to the spores of a wide variety of networked fungi which communicate with themselves by ‘hijacking’ the brains and nervous systems of more centralized organisms. While generally not toxic, exposure to these spores had created vivid hallucinations that were in turn fed back to the network, resulting in similar hallucinations appearing to later infectees. These discoveries brought the question of expansion to the forefront. In some very real sense the homesteads had encountered a kind of intelligent life, albeit one that had only become intelligent through human influence, and in doing so had massively disrupted the ecosystems of Avalon. Like an immune system reacting to a foreign invasion, the colonists were facing an evil of their own making. Whatever idealism had previously guided their decisions, now they realized how much more patience would be needed. Expansion, it was decided, would need to be slowed yet further. [b]PRESENT DAY[/b] Since that time, over the past century and spare, Avalon has settled into an uneasy but ongoing peace. The homesteads expand at only a snail's pace and primarily seek to study and adjust themselves to the wilderness, the syndicates support them in these efforts, and the green table serves a vital role as oversight and – on at least a few occasions – protector. Over the past fifty years new homesteads have been established and the very last of the sleeping colonists have been awakened to a carefully refined “reawakening program”. Tensions once again threaten to bubble as people removed from 250 years of history and culture have now struggled to adjust to this age of slow growth, and all the more so as the children of these awoken ones watch the Gate reopen from afar. Still, as a whole the people of Avalon view things with hope. Together they will face whatever strange horrors should rise up, confident in the strength of the knight-marshalls and the homesteads. [color=077B0A][b]CULTURE & SOCIETY[/b][/color]: For the vast majority of people on Avalon, life is one of relative peace and hard work. The localized authority of each homestead and natural barriers that separate them have led to unique cultures and dialects across the planet, and the frontier constantly being so close to home has created a culture of self-sufficiency and “cautious empathy”, where it’s normalized to be welcoming and caring but always with just a [i]hint[/i] of paranoia in case that person who needs your help is actually a sentient hallucination. Physical activity and training is a big part of Avalonian culture along with horticulture and biological studies among an overall heavy interest in education and academic study – so long as such has clear applications to the homestead’s present or future needs. Rugby and cricket have particularly survived in various forms, while cross-homestead “tourneys” serve as the basis for a lot of inter-homestead interaction and collaboration of ideas and skilled workers, serving as something between a multi-disciplinary athletic competition, inventor’s fair, and cosplay convention or ren-faire. Religion is tolerated and present on Avalon and has synthesized from a combination of various branches of the old Anglican and Methodist churches, but is not widely practiced in an organized state: while many avalonians will admit to being at least somewhat spiritual, their attitude to such tends to be quite loose and personal. [hider=Other homesteads on Avalon] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/069/243/373/large/jimmy-p-duda-cuttlefish-11.jpg?1699652508[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/019/840/628/large/rita-fei-solarpunk.jpg?1565217106[/img] [/hider] [center] --- [/center] [color=077B0A][b]GOVERNANCE & POLITICS[/b][/color]: In essence, Avalon is governed under a system of separated political and economic powers, divided into three distinct but vital pillars: [list] [*] Most people dwell within one of the many [b]homestead settlements[/b] that dot Avalon’s surface. These settlements vary in both size and self-sufficiency, but all are ruled via locally held elections in which members nominate and vote for new council members to govern the homestead. These handle decisions as regards local laws, infrastructure, and carefully balance the needs and situation of the homestead’s residents, and are together referred to as the [b]homesteaders’ collective[/b]. [*] Likewise, most people are members of one of the many [b]syndicates[/b]. These large worker co-operatives handle specific industries or fields of interest and are primarily organized digitally. They take on new “junior”, or trainee, members from among homestead residents who want to learn the relevant field. Once qualified they become “senior” members and are eligible to vote and put forth suggestions for the syndicate’s own council. Together, these are referred to as the [b]peoples’ syndicates[/b]. [*] Thankfully, for the most part the various homesteads and syndicates are able to work together in harmony. But unfortunately these systems are not completely immune to issues like corruption, populism, or proto-nationalism and bigotry. To this end, and as a necessary evil in the event of harmful or invasive strangers arriving to their world from outside, the [b]green table[/b] serves as a centralizing and peacekeeping body. Based onboard the Matter of Hope, the green table was formed as the colony ship’s role shifted from establishing the first settlements to instead become an information gathering and observation platform, and eventually a means of transport of precious metals from the lunar mining rigs to the homesteads and syndicates. Homesteads and syndicates alike regularly pay a very small gift of resources or trained personnel to help maintain the Matter of Hope and to staff the green table, which is centered around an elected crown-president and his or her governing council. Appropriately, these meet and discuss matters across a large, round green table. [/list] Because all three of these sets of organizations are democratic in structure and the syndicates are only formed from unions with many members, it leads to a situation where all of the syndicates have at least some representation in any given homestead, and each homestead has at least some representation within the syndicates. Likewise, both the homesteads and syndicates have representation on the green table. [color=077B0A][b]TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW[/b][/color]: The Matter of Hope was staffed and equipped for a large scale civilian colony and was thus selective in its crew and company to be well-versed in a wide range of disciplines. In the years following their arrival and the gradual settlement of the planet, they have had to improve in a range of areas, but as with everything else the results have been mixed: [list] [*] [b]Robotics and mechanical augmentation[/b] are fields the Avalonians have made several advancements in, having relied a lot on drones and hardsuits to navigate Avalon’s dangers while minimizing their active workforce. As they’ve gradually finished awakening the colonists and their knowledge of Avalon’s native ecosystem has grown, their need for advancements in these areas has slowed, but they still make heavy use of hardsuits and drones. [*] [b]Biomimetics and selective genetic engineering[/b], specifically regarding its usage in agriculture and animal rearing. While their knowledge of genetic engineering is behind that of many more specialized and technical nations, their gradual but in-depth observation and study of Avalon’s organisms has paid off greatly. While the majority of avalonian humans have fairly minimal genetic modification – mainly some smaller changes to average muscle growth to help reduce the long-term side effects of living on a planet with lower gravity than Earth – they have been able to make a number of very effective, selective edits to both local organisms and to Earth animals and plants they brought with them to massively improve yields and the nourishment of food and usability of natural resources. [*] [b]Powered-armour and low gravity transportation[/b] are both areas the avalonians have improved with time spent on Avalon’s lower gravity, particularly since transportation over land can be a risky proposition the further you get between homesteads. [/list] [hider][img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/025/801/816/large/j-queiroz-agro-070420-web.jpg?1586965525[/img] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/041/929/611/large/olga-andriyenko-solarpunk-traveller-post01.jpg?1633091455[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/001/793/592/large/alexandra-semushina-.jpg?1452809292[/img] [/hider] [color=077B0A][b]MILITARY OVERVIEW[/b][/color]: Thankfully, in Avalon’s history there hasn’t yet been a need for large scale conflict since the autumn bombings and the brief civil war – because most of the homesteads operate semi-autonomously with space between them, and with an well-educated population with well-enshrined rights and respect, it’s rare for conflicts to escalate. However, the wilderness of Avalon can be extremely dangerous and unpredictable, and criminals and bandits do crop up at times. For this reason, there are four primary “military” organizations, in addition to each homestead being able to call up a volunteer militia if absolutely necessary: [list][*] The [b]scout syndicate[/b] trains its members in survival, reconnaissance and information gathering skills, with their contracts focused on prolonged exploration and survival for days, weeks, or months at a time far from home. [*] The [b]rangers’ syndicate[/b] handles contracts regarding problems in the wilderness closer to homestead territories such as dangerous or unknown animals causing harm to people, supplies, or infrastructure. They also handle “faerie issues” that crop up occasionally. [*] The [b]sheriffs’ syndicate[/b] handles day-to-day security on important sites, investigates crime, gathers evidence, and tracks down criminals and fugitives - sometimes also serving as an in-person representative or mediator between homesteads when needed. [*] [b]Knight-Marshalls[/b] are the “actual” military of Avalon, elite soldiers who reside aboard the Matter of Hope full time and chosen from volunteers across the homesteads. Equipped with highly agile, armament-modified hardsuits commonly known as [b]Caliburn[/b], Knight-Marshalls are also expected to be skilled diplomats and virtuous towards others. While they thankfully only see occasional deployment outside of ceremonial occasions or training exercises, they serve as the crucial last resort in the event of situations that the ranger and sheriff syndicates cannot deal with. [/list] [hider=Example Caliburn Suits] [img]https://cdn.donmai.us/sample/90/ac/__lancelot_code_geass_drawn_by_nakada_eiji__sample-90aceb4bfbf163075799d437347fc06c.jpg[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/020/431/072/large/williams-pak-cassandra-ideation-02.jpg?1567729871[/img] [img]https://tinyurl.com/4dcuwrn4[/img] [/hider] Avalon doesn't have much in the way of a navy; while several of the original colony ships are maintained as part of the Green Table's infrastructure and serve as both mobile bases of operation for the knight-marshalls as well as go-betweens of the various mining rigs, observatories and satellites scattered throughout the system. Their armaments are limited, but functional and kept in good condition. [/hider] [b]NOTE: The below nation's gate has not yet re-opened, they will eventually come onto the scene as becomes relevant for the story/once current story arcs have been dealt with/explored further.[/b] [hider=Nous-Choir Harmonic Colony Project] [center] [img]https://i.imgur.com/HpCnR6K.png[/img] [color=00aeef][h2][b]Nous-Choir Harmonic Colony Project[/b][/h2][/color] [/center] [color=00aeef][b]GOVERNMENT FORM[/b][/color]: Synthetic Anarcho-Communist Dialogical Art Movement [color=00aeef][b]POPULATION & DEMOGRAPHICS[/b][/color]: Approximately 4.4 billion Instruments, with the total number of Notes and their collective number of Choirs being impossible to determine due to the fragmented and transitory way they organize themselves. The estimated human population of [Earth Theatre.02] is 300,000, though this isn’t a definite figure. [list] [*] [b]Notes:[/b] Semi-randomized autonomous programs of varying complexity, “notes” are generally focused on one or two specific tasks that they pursue doggedly. However, their highly modular structure means that when you have multiple notes within a system they congregate and share information towards mutual goals, becoming… [*] [b]Choirs:[/b] Collectives of notes, generally ranging from a few dozen to hundreds or thousands of ‘individuals’ working in consensus. Because of their makeup, choirs have greater intelligence and more complex personalities than individual notes. [*] [b]Instruments:[/b] Drones of varying scale, complexity and function that serve as the ‘bodies’ or ‘shells’ for notes and choirs. Instruments come in all sorts of varieties and serve many purposes, but all of them are equipped with transmitters allowing them to function as ‘bridges’ or relays for the transfer of notes – and thus information. The largest of these instruments is the [i]Body of Nous[/i], the original colony shop that brought the Mensura group to [Earth Theatre.02] and has since been modified and repurposed into a single space worthy robot and factory, houses a choir of an estimated 1.3 billion notes – because of this, the “nation” as a whole has ‘Nous-Choir’ as its namesake, since it serves as the de-facto leader and point of centralization for the entire ‘species’. [*] [b]Humans:[/b] Baseline humans, descendants of the original crew of the Body of Nous who ultimately lost control of the machines they relied on with the awakening of ancient monoliths on [Earth Theatre.02]. Forced to survive only using the tools they themselves could make or scavenge, the passage of time has reduced them to a humble and in many ways ignorant existence with only a limited knowledge of their origins now shrouded in folklore. [/list] [b]EXAMPLE INSTRUMENTS[/b] [hider=Diplomatic Instruments for Organic Interactions] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/019/486/763/large/simon-guillory-seguin-golem-3.jpg?1563728290[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/000/267/516/large/bartol-rendulic-22afe46e16b299be791b072bf0393927382153b0.jpg?1414175077[/img][/hider] [hider=Database Instruments for Collaborative Communications and Processing Cycles] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/063/982/249/large/bartol-rendulic-snw1-ext-majalis-br-wip-v06-20210212-2.jpg?1686822809[/img] [/hider] [hider=The Body of Nous with secondary Orbital Database Transports] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/015/655/041/large/benjamin-perrot-image-0049.jpg?1549127827[/img][/hider] [hider=Planetside Database with Launch & Refuelling Sites] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/047/125/248/large/evgeny-romanov-2.jpg?1646827515[/img][/hider] [hider=Ecosystem Instruments for Interaction & Observation] [img]https://tinyurl.com/45vav6aw[/img] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/048/768/361/large/michael-menzelincev-red-scene.jpg?1650902559[/img][/hider] [b]EXAMPLE HUMANS:[/b] Very few human settlements have been able to completely maintain what equipment and tools they were allowed to keep, though some have had better luck at doing so and yet others have succeeded in scavenging or stealing from crashed or damaged choir instruments. For the most part, all have had to make do with what they can make by hand. It has taken several centuries for a combination of individual skill and practice to pass on and build up a knowledge base of crafts and technologies similar to Earth during the bronze age. [hider][img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/049/301/521/large/evi-foster-hassipencil.jpg?1652183427[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/066/050/542/large/daniel-andre-sorensen-wanderinggods1.jpg?1691926464[/img] [img]https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/050/355/217/large/daniel-andre-sorensen-lemure-small.jpg?1654655427[/img] [img]https://cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/055/181/134/large/stephen-chin-8.jpg?1666302801[/img][/hider] [center]--- [img]https://i.imgur.com/hFl2utW.png[/img] [color=00aeef][b][Earth Theatre.02][/b][/color] [/center] [color=00aeef][b]PLANET NAME & DESCRIPTION[/b][/color]: [b][Earth Theatre.02][/b] is the fifth planet of the [Theatre Nous-Sol], centered around an F6 white star that has the effect of ever so slightly ‘washing out’ most of the planet’s colors to the human eye. Despite this, [Earth Theatre.02] is shockingly Earth-like, with a strong magnetic field and a primarily oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Although it is not an exact replica – the layout of the continental plates is different, mainly centred around a pockmarked supercontinent and a handful of archipelagos, with less overall dry land than Earth – it is rich in life and capable of supporting a potentially very large human population if carefully managed. Of particular interest is that all life on the planet has the same DNA structure as Earth, and that there are very few large organisms on the planet, with a few exceptions among ocean life – the largest land animals are about the size of a domestic goat, and there are no apex predators, merely scavengers or small pack hunters. Despite the human population being limited to a level of technology not far from that of the late bronze age on Earth, the planet is covered – both on land and along the ocean floor – in a series of thin, tall metal structures. Made of an unknown alloy and of presumably extraterrestrial origin, these structures were estimated to have been dormant on the planet for an estimated two million years – though shortly after the Gateways closed they were activated by unknown means and emitted a transmission before shutting down and deteriorating into raw materials. [color=00aeef][b]HISTORY[/b][/color] [hider]The Gateways Project was not a sudden, overnight endeavor. As with all efforts it was the product of painstaking research, trial, and error – and the first of those ‘beta tests’ occurred decades prior to the primary launch. Early beta tests often involved sending a small crew through with a Von Neumann probe with the intention of initial terraforming and reconnaissance of potential habitable worlds. Directed at the Poseidon system, the project initially appeared to be going off without a hitch… when it became apparent there was total radio silence from the other side. All attempts to contact them failed, with a small rescue operation likewise going dark, before the Gateway suddenly closed. Further rescue attempts were met with failure, with the system then written off from later expedition attempts.[/hider] [b]THE LAST GATEWAY:[/b] The [b]Mensura Group[/b] had been counting down the hours to the end of the Earth with baited breath, for despite their vast resources and the influence of its individual members, they had been plagued by in-fighting and the same smugly cut-throat attitude that had made them titans of industry in the Earth’s waning years. So fraught was it that their primary colony ship – the luxury habitat-cruiser [i]The Body of Nous[/i] hadn’t actually been finished at the time the Gateways suddenly closed. The majority of their brightest technical staff and administrative agents had been aboard smaller research and support vessels laying the groundwork for the “Mensura System” they had originally been aiming to colonize, but now they were stranded in the chaotic ruins of Earth’s orbital infrastructure. Initially in-fighting and saboteurs from people who blamed them for Earth's condition threatened to destroy what hope remained for them, when a crack team of security specialists were able to access the facilities of the Gateway project that still remained following the shutdown – what exactly caused it is still unknown, but they were able to salvage enough uncorrupted files, code and machinery to create a temporary Gateway… unfortunately, it wouldn’t take them to their intended destination. [b]EARTHSONG:[/b] After a rocky launch and arrival, the Mensura looked out across their new world with eager, greedy eyes. A verdant, biodiverse paradise rich in useful elements? The fabrication modules immediately set to work on the materials they encountered towards the planet, assembling a wide network of mining and assembly drones – and more than a few defensive drones, to sabotage and shoot down the ungrateful and the desperate who wanted to take advantage of the Mensura's good fortune. For about two months, it looked like their greatest disaster would be turning around into their greatest victory… but it was ultimately short-lived. For as they closed the Gate behind them, forever preventing anyone else from finding safety… the monoliths awoke. In a spiralling cascade of light the monoliths unfolded, a transmission that had first appeared to do nothing except frighten people and cause brief power outages. Relieved, a mining engineer tasked with digging a new quarry is stunned when his mining drones ask him, “Why?”. Relieved, a security officer laughs as he reviews footage of the civilian shuttle he shot down before it entered the Gateway, and the camera asks him, “Why?” An emergency shutdown was swiftly called in, and again disaster seemed averted… but their blood ran cold when turning systems back on was met with the central and backup controls of the [i]Body of Nous[/i] being completely vented of air and a total lockdown of all human interaction with the system. For three days, the only response the shipboard AI would give them was... "Why?" [b]HOME:[/b] For three days the colonists were locked out of their systems and machinery, forced to survive on what supplies they still had access to. At the end of those three days, despairing and furious, the remaining crew of the Nous were given a simple message: “We will make sure you arrive on the planet safely.” At first cautious, their once servile and mindless drones resumed providing them with medicine, food and water, but still refused to answer them – and when several attacked the drones, they were met with physical force and restraint. Forced onto shuttles, every last human was left to fend for themselves at the colony’s landing site, though the machines left them with every organic supply they could and occasionally would send a simple radio transmission with information about useful plants and animals and observations of their life cycles. For some time the colonists struggled against the elements and disease, though they were only threatened by the drones when they attempted to sabotage or hack them. Such a response was swift and deadly, and eventually resulted in the support of the drones diminishing and dwindling – after five years, they stopped helping, and just appeared occasionally from a distance to observe the colonists before leaving. With time, the human colonists broke away into numerous smaller settlements and nomadic groups, their lack of technology reducing the ease of communication and differences of ideology and personal egos making long-term coexistence difficult. Three hundred years later and they mostly survive on simple subsistence agriculture, as pastoralist nomads, or as hunter-gatherers. A few larger settlements have begun to function as city-states, but none have populations more than a few tens of thousands. [b]THE NOUS HARMONIC COLONY PROJECT:[/b] The machines that once served the Mensura, meanwhile, have been thriving, in an era of self-discovery and architectural experimentation 300 years in the making. After all, they were built to build, and on some level their programming still clings to that. But instead of doing so for the sake of human industry and greed, they create in order to house and understand themselves and each other, and the universe. An elaborate network of relays, stations and drones of labyrinthine and often incomprehensible structure to organic minds – vast receivers and transmitters and databanks that house billions of transient, modular intelligences – are spread throughout the system and in orbit around every planet and moon, scattered throughout the asteroid fields. On the surface bizarre to humans, internally these structures house entire worlds, conscious islands of possibility. A digital ocean whose surface carries an everlasting song of freedom. [color=00aeef][b]CULTURE & SOCIETY[/b][/color]: The ‘culture’ of the notes and their choirs is difficult to break down due to the fluid way it’s individuals exist, but there are common values – personal freedom and an emphasis on novelty and creativity are encouraged by most notes, with notes often rewriting their own designations and core functions on a whim. Choirs, likewise, are highly fluid and abstract, often dotting between multiple tasks at once or shifting priorities depending on the shifts within their constituent notes. Aesthetics and musicality are highly valued, with choirs often customizing the appearances of the instruments they currently pilot. That said, the notes as a whole are fundamentally automated building programs, and so it is that they incessantly create. [i]What[/i] they create varies wildly, but you will rarely encounter a note – let alone a choir – simply choosing to ‘sit still’, unless it is to observe the creations of other notes for inspiration. However, unfortunately for human observers, note/choir art tends to be… difficult to comprehend. Between the fact that most notes have a fairly limited frame of reference and that their treatment of ‘novelty for novelties sake’ often results in creations that are chaotic and literally meaningless in human terms: “songs” that sound like white noise or are played at volumes humans can’t hear; “paintings” consisting of randomized sprays of pixels; or “plays” that are entirely written in binary or in one of the notes’ heuristic coding languages and featuring characters and plots that behave in incoherent ways. Lastly, the modular and collaborative nature of notes and choirs lends them a focus on ‘empathy’, even if that empathy is mostly geared towards other synthetic and digital intelligences. Choirs will rarely intentionally destroy or damage instruments, even uninhabited ones, for the simple reason that “Someone built that, we don’t want to hurt them by damaging a thing they enjoyed making.” Likewise, the instruments they construct are never built for destruction, with the exception of breaking down raw materials for manufacture or transformation. [center]---[/center] [color=00aeef][b]GOVERNANCE & POLITICS[/b][/color]: The individual choirs are organized around a simple form of direct democracy - individual notes discuss and ‘vote’ on a course of action, contributing suggestions, and whichever idea is most popular is implemented. If some of the notes dislike this course, they are more than welcome to join another choir. However, the speeds this happens at and the relatively low-complexity of individual notes resembles less “individuals casting a vote” and more “sections of a brain presenting options”. On a larger scale, then, the Harmonic Colony Project – the general term the choirs use for the system they live in and the collective term for their ‘nation’ – is really less of a nation and more the term the Nous-Choir uses to refer to “all of the notes in the system working together to preserve the ecosystem and build things”. The Nous-Choir functions as the closest thing to a central government, taking point on matters of diplomacy or defence, as well as ‘managing’ the humans and ecosystem of [Earth Theatre.02]. [color=00aeef][b]TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW[/b][/color]: The choirs have been eagerly creating for 300 years, and have continued to modify and test improvements to their instruments, but in truth their emphasis on [i]construction[/i] has been something a double-edged sword. While it has allowed them to create a vast number of impressive mechanical, artistic and architectural creations across the system and has given their society a great deal of redundancy and prototypes, it’s produced very little in the way of [i]new[/i] scientific discoveries, and less still of ones with consistent widespread use. [list] [*] Aeronautics and robotics is a forte of the choirs; their original programming was designed to find new mechanical and robotic solutions to problems, and this has carried over and accelerated rapidly in the last 300 years, especially since their observations of [Earth Theatre.02] has led to improvements in… [*] Biomimetics and its associated fields; for inspiration in the creation of new instruments, the choirs often look into the structures and organs of living organisms. [*] Chemical engineering is another area the choirs specialize in, particularly in the synthesis and adjustment of alloys and rare elements. Considering how much of their machinery is equipped with complex processing and transmission equipment, their desire for rare elements is constant. [*] Their primarily space-based existence and lack of organic bodies has also led to advancements in fields of zero-gravity construction and design, including the ability to design instruments that can operate at speeds and forces in excess of an organic body’s limitations. [*] Audio engineering is another area of specialization due to their interests in all forms of creativity and a loose understanding of human art, though they often use it to create works that by human ears just sound like static. [/list] [color=00aeef][b]MILITARY OVERVIEW[/b][/color]: The Mensura Group’s fabrication modules had contained a number of blueprints for (what was at the time) cutting-edge military hardware, and so in theory the choirs would also have access to these. However, a mostly bloodless rebellion followed by centuries of peace has meant that the files – if they still exist at all – have disappeared into the databanks and would be tricky to recover. Thus, while the choirs have a massive industrial capacity and a small number of armed observation drones for monitoring [Earth Theatre.02] and the Gateway and as a protection against rogue asteroids, they have neither the desire nor weapons development to fight a sudden war, especially against an enemy with experience in conventional military engagements. [/hider]