Sci-Fi Colony Defense Council Game Idea (PvE)

[Skylar]

It is the waning of the Second Space Rush, of the second great diaspora of Mankind from Old Terra and the First Worlds. Of the great rush of the young, the inspired, the hopeful, and the hopeless to escape the stagnation and unthinking order of the Central Authority with the advent of mass-producible hyperlane drives. While the CA initially attempted to control the expansion in the Lockdown War, thousands of new worlds have been settled and explored beyond it's vain attempts at control before internal dissent finally made it bid good riddance to the fools that would leave it's influence and protection.

For many, it is freedom. Freedom to build new societies unimaginable before under the conservative thumb of the CA. Freedom to trade and grow rich without the tight regulations and rules of the First World monopolies. Freedom to do what they wished.....including wage war.

As the time of the Second Space rush comes to a close by the limits of logistics and fuel supply for even the longest-ranged arks, the dangers of freedom are beginning to become evident. With no Star Patrol, piracy and crime has begun to rise with noone to enforce interstellar law beyond the CA. Failed colonies turn to desperation to survive, even preying upon their neighbors for vital technology or even people. Agreements among partner-worlds have begun to collapse with the mysterious disappearance of freighters and colony ships in transit.

The Second Space Rush has ended. The First Frontier War has begun.

On a world far removed from Old Terra called Aio, a collection of settlers and free-thinkers intent upon creating new utopias and societies for themselves have just suffered their first pirate raids upon their defenseless world. With aid unlikely to come from any of the other steadfastly independent worlds, they must face the reality that if they wish to make their future, they must fight to protect it.

* * * * * *

This will be a council-type player vs waves of NPC-enemies NRP where the players are the various leaders of a independent colony world that is about to be put under siege by pirates and hostile neighbors. With no chance of a outside savior or being able to muster a sufficient defense by themselves, the various settlements are forced to form a joint planetary defense force if they are to survive this storm.

Each player can be either a leader of a member-settlement of the planet or a major officer working for them. Leaders can decide what their settlement's culture is like and general composition, while major officers will be in charge of one specific area of the planetary defense and have more options in their category (Spaceforce, ground force, mercenaries, industry, etc).

This will be a stats-lite, narrative-heavy game where every player with have a collection of units and assets they will allocate for every major strategic turn. The strength and effect of those units can be heavily influenced by good roleplaying that can let units push their limits or come up with improvised solutions to challenges.

General aesthetic and tone of the setting is anime-ish soft sci-fi. With stuff like genetic engineering and extensive bodymodding for if you want to play more-than-human cultures, but no true aliens have been discovered yet.

I am looking for about 4-6 players tops for this game, with at least 3 being settlement leaders. Do I have any takers? Is there anything more you would like to know before joining?

[caliban22]

I'm in looks like some fun on a bun.

[Sierra]

Normally not an NRP guy ... but this might have some appeal to my preferences. I think there's some opportunity here.

[Dogematix]

I too enjoy this idea.

[Marquise]

Sounds delightful! I'd love to be a part of this :) .

[Skylar]

Alrighty, glad to see some interest. I'll start prepping the game in depth then. In the meantime, with four players I think I'll have everyone be settlement leaders.

Time to begin brainstorming your origins. Why did you leave Old Terra or the First World you originated from? What social model does your colony seek to achieve? What compromises have you made in order to coexist with other differing colonies you had to share the same colony ship with to get here? (Just because FTL is getting more common doesn't mean colony ships still aren't pricey of themselves.) You could be a rich person's private den of hedonism, supported by robots and biosynths. You could be a utopian commune, that wishes for total equality and unrestricted self-fulfillment. You could be a industrial colony, looking to get rich atop the resources of a new world.

From there I'll post a formal profile soon and leave you with some decisions on the exact starting assets of your colony before the first pirate attack. And from there, your choices on what to do afterwards.

[Lone Wanderer]

I too would like to throw my hat into the ring.
I'm up for being either a settlement leader or a major officer depending on what is needed.

[Skylar]

I too would like to throw my hat into the ring.
I'm up for being either a settlement leader or a major officer depending on what is needed.

@Lone Wanderer

Great to have you aboard! I've decided to have all the players be settlement leaders at this time so everyone is on equal footing to contribute.

Here is the faction profile sheet to fill out:

Faction Leader Name:
Appearance: (Description or picture)
Short Bio: (Tell a bit about yourself. Where you came from, Earth or the First Worlds? Why did you leave? What was your plan for your colony prior to the Sack?)
Faction name:
Settlement name: (While your faction may have multiple inhabited areas on the planet, the bulk of your population and infrastructure is still centered around your first city. What is it called?
Colony Theme: Summarize your colony’s founding dream and ideology in a few sentences.
Population Notes: (Human? More-than-human? Talk about your colonial society. Generally colonies that depend upon genemodding and cybernetics are slower to grow due to complexity of augmentation and narrower appeal to immigrants, but make up for it with specialties. General settlement sizes average about a hundred-thousand people before modifiers and critical infrastructure.)

Critical Infrastructure (Besides various civilian habitation and light economic industries and resourcing operations, you have six core pillars of your colonial society, economy, and relevant resources for planetary defense. At the start of the game you have your governing district, a space asset, and four write-in assets of your choice. At the moment none of them are militarized or turned to war-work yet, and if you lose too many your colony will collapse.)
Governing District (Describe a bit about what your center of leadership and administration is like. Architecture, design, purpose, any specialities your administration has achieved so far.)
Space Asset (Your colony has at least one asset in space. This can be a moonbase, a major asteroid mining operation, communication satellites, a group of freighters under direct colonal charter, or other useful things in orbit.)
Write-in Assets (You can devise up to four other major assets that form the core identity and structure of your colony. Must state if ground or space based.)

Sample Critical Infrastructure and benefits:
Heavy Industrial Sector: A district of automated factories and heavy manufacturing power that fabricates everything needed for a growing colonial society. Can be converted to war industry. Space versions tend to be larger and quicker to expand than ground-based ones, but are more exposed in orbit and harder to protect.
Hab-Support Sector: A district turned over to water purifiers, power stations, hospitals, and a dozen other systems for sustaining a large colony. While most colonial habitation has equivalent systems, they are small-scale and may not have enough surplus capacity to fuel war industries or accommodate sudden influxes of refugees or disasters. This district does.
Asteroid Mining Operation: Your colony has a large mining ship dwelling in the asteroid belts drilling for precious ores and fuel elements. While slow and STL-only, it provides a bounty of industrial resources.
Hab-Complex: A high-density habitation complex filled with tens of thousands of people. Manpower is a precious resource on a colonial world to crew factories and man starships, and your colony has a considerable surplus.
Monument: You have a major center of cultural activity, espousing your ideology and brightening your skylines. Cultural output can yield new reasons for immigrants to come to your colony, bringing new ideas, specialists, and people.
Specialized Heavy Industry Complex (X): While generalist fabricators and factories are regularly used, some technology is best made by purpose-made facilities, like starship parts.
Spaceport: While every colony has landing pads and basic air control for receiving shuttles, your colony has a actual space station to accommodate incoming freighters in orbit and support a chain of heavy lifters to move cargos rapidly.
Freighter Shipyard: While simple freighter designs can be built on the surface or assembled in spacelifted prefab modules, larger freighters require dedicated yards in orbit. Your colony has one and it’s a major center of your economy’s industrial power.
Lucrative Consumer Good: Your colony has several factories and facilities dedicated towards a unique and high-value consumer good in high demand. Be it a unique medicine, awesome mediamemes, or useful civil-servobots, you have something you can really trade.

[Skylar]

Time to talk combat mechanics a bit.

The core assets at your command will be ground and space units to defend Aio and your colonies. Each unit will have a hidden strength stat rating, which will be reflected in their description of morale and combat skill. But you will not be able to exactly judge how tough a unit is until it breaks, which is not a good thing.

1st Example Battalion
Type: Medium Infantry
Strength: Nominal
Morale: Confident
Quality: Regular
Description: The 1st Examplers are iconic examples of a medium infantry unit. 200 soldiers equipped with pulse-rifles, kineticweave bodyarmor, and a modest assortment of missile launchers and tribarrel-blasters for support weaponry, they can handle a wide range of threats.

(This unit is in good condition and can fight respectably well against light, medium, or heavy targets to a extent. Still no reason to throw infantry against tanks, but they can muster some response if one does surprise them.)

SDV Redshirt
Type: Space Gunboat
Strength: Limited
Morale: Shaky
Quality: Green, undercrewed
Description: The SDV Redshirt is a older system defense gunboat design taken from a First World's surplus yards, with a single mixed battery of pulse-lasers and grapeshot launchers to protect it's charge. Presently the Redshirt is undercrewed and in new hands, limiting damage control capability, but it still has a full gun crew and can put up a fight against any pirate scrap-ship while the simple design of the gunboat makes it repairable from even civilian spacedocks.

(This unit isn't in good condition and will have trouble trying to survive in combat.)

Pirate Lander
Type: Space Armed Freighter
Strength: Nominal
Morale: Eager to be looting
Quality: Regular
Special: Troop-carrier (Battalion)
Description: A number of pirates start out as mining operations that went wrong and the survivors using their ship to prey on others to survive, others because of the opportunity for quick cash with less labor. Regardless of the origins, they all tend to share a common mentality of stacking a laser battery on a freighter and filling the cargo holds with lifter shuttles to drop swarms of troops and haul back plunder.

(This is an enemy. You kill them. You can receive general intel profiles over time from a various number of potential sources to better plan for incursions)

When a unit hits strength 0 (which tends to mean high casualties, ammunition exhausted, heavy equipment damage), a unit may have a chance to not be destroyed (with a higher chance for highly experienced ground units and spaceships). This leaves the settlement with a choice on whether to invest in rebuilding or to repurpose the remains to patch up another unit or use it for something else (turning remains of a mobile unit into static bunkers, etc)

The units initially available for your selection will depend upon the mix of assets your settlement have, with a selection to be made at the start of the game specific to each settlement's composition of industry-manpower-culture-wealth. Choose your core assets wisely, no one settlement faction can support all core pillars of defense on their own resources.

When combat happens, the players will have a choice of zones to allocate units to based on probable invasion corridors in space and targets in the invader's line of action. During combat rounds, you will receive reports and requests for priority orders as the battle evolves.

Inbetween combat rounds posted by the GM (me), you can write from the perspective of your troops to illustrate their actions and going above the call of duty to fight for victory (or just their own survival against the odds). Good collaborative roleplay between multiple players can counterbalance bad on-paper stats with determined valor, well-laid tactical plans, or cunning jury-rigged solutions.

Inbetween battles, you will have downtime to manage your colonies, gather resources, and seek solutions to your problems and the ongoing threat of pirates and more.

Any questions so far?

[caliban22]

Soto improve morale I assume you can train units/upgrade them? (Like militia quality with whatever hunk of rusted metal they can find or make to elite mechanized infantry with high quality gear?
Also I assume while this rp claims pve it can also be pvp?

[Skylar]

Soto improve morale I assume you can train units/upgrade them? (Like militia quality with whatever hunk of rusted metal they can find or make to elite mechanized infantry with high quality gear?
Also I assume while this rp claims pve it can also be pvp?

@caliban22

Yes you can upgrade and improve units that survive battles. It will generally be easier to train-up militia into regular troops than to try to improve already-elite units. Combat degredation is also a potential factor when casualties mount, your elite unit won't be so elite when they run out of micromissile ammo and their powered armor breaks down.

For the moment I'm locking it to PvE. You don't have the margin to fight invading pirates and your fellow settlement leaders at the same time, and the extrasolar invaders don't make distinctions between landlubbers.

[caliban22]

Joy of joys alright all my questions are slated. Keep up the good work on the RP.

[Marquise]

Just wondering what we know about our neighbours, pre-hostilities breaking out?

[Dogematix]

So I can't write up my idea for faction lore in detail just yet but to get the ball rolling how does this sound?

Critical infrastructure things include:

Government district - sleek and minimalist in design, leaning towards organic in shape design. Think the Pilgrims from Endless space.

Communications satellite (compulsory space asset) - allowing for more reliable communication with other elements of the colony and possibly outside traders and ships.

Hab-complex - The colony has a high population for its size and has space to put everyone.

Hab-Support Sector - As it's described above. A big population needs big facilities to help care for them. Open to other council members as well.

Monument - As described above. To show off the ideals of the colony and serve as a beacon to new settlers. I might need to build a new Hab-complex soon!

Cathedral - Name is subject to change but the idea is my faction will be a religious one with spiritual leanings. This sector whatever it turns into gives them a place to find spiritual comfort and to discuss philosophy and further their own spirituality. From a mechanical point of view it gives a morale booster to the colony.

@Skylarmore to follow.

[Marquise]

Here's my sheet, very much a WIP still! Any input is always welcome :) .

Name: Amelia Lascelles

Appearance: Amelia has had many appearances in her time. Once one of the elite of Old Terra, she changes form and features as easily and thoughtlessly as others don clothes. She’s been everything from a neon-skinned futanari dancer to a lithe arctic huskar-splice to a stately and voluptuous African matriarch. Since the Sack, though, she’s kept a fairly constant appearance: whip-lean and almost luminously pale, blonde-haired and with gleaming poison-green eyes that are a clear product of genetic engineering.

She is fine-boned, almost to the point of caricature, but despite her seeming fragility and the sweetness of her heart-shaped face, there is considerable strength in the muscles which cling close to her frame, far denser than an unaltered human’s.

Angles and sharp lines characterise her current form; curves and spare flesh have all been carved away by the gleaming scalpels of her autodocs and a potent cocktail of artificial genetic imperatives, whittling off any supernumerary fat molecules and maintaining her lean musculature, leaving only a flawless sleekness that borders on the Uncanny Valley.

Amelia has cybernetics, too, but unlike many hers are all focused on the wetware; Amelia considers the ability to change her appearance on a whim a worthy trade-off against the increased strength and reliability of immutable metal, and to look at her very, very few would suspect any cybernetic enhancement – which is just how she likes it. A relic of her work with the monolithic Cygnus Cybernetics Corporation, she has a bleeding-edge neural lace and substantial capacity enhancements besides.

Short Bio: Hailing from the cradle of humanity, Amelia Lascelles was privileged even amongst the rarefied heights of Old Terra. Set to inherit a controlling interest in Cygnus Cybernetics, her fortune was boundless and her parents indulgently distant. She spent much of her youth as one of the legion of dissolute party people, her life one long round of parties and celebrations of excess.

Despite that, she did have a talent for synthetics and cybernetics, perhaps because they were so ubiquitous in her environment. With her parents almost perpetually away on one business trip or another, she was virtually raised by the household staff, made exclusively of Cygnus synthetics and robots.

Restrictions, all the rules and regulations on synthetics, the mountain of legal compliance necessary under the stagnant, ordered thumb of the Central Authority mattered little to her, and indeed to the rest of the great commercial dynasties; the money was a better armour than any ever applied to an Authority dreadnought. As she grew, her interest and skill also increased, giving her synthetic staff and friends ever greater capacity and autonomy.

Her fall came from the one avenue of vulnerability: family. The dynasties who held the monopolies in the Central Authority could be relied on to close ranks against any interloper, but all was fair in love and war between members of the family. Orchestrated by her younger brother, who had a good eye for the main chance, the charges against Amelia Lascelles - once heiress-presumptive to Cygnus Cybernetics - were impressively long and detailed, everything from illegal enlightenment to corporate slavery to unauthorised augmentation and proscribed body-modding. Most of them were even true, although only the illegal enlightenment of artificial persons was truly outside the norm for the jaded and cynical Old Terra elite.

She lost almost everything as a consequence, but retained enough capital to both buy a sizeable share in the colony enterprise heading helter-skelter out of Central Authority space and bribe various officials to stymie any effort to actually stop her.

Joined by many of her enlightened synthetics, and some few human friends and sympathisers, her new colony was part pleasure-palace – old habits died hard, and old pleasures still harder – and part production hub; unlike humans, built by unskilled labour, synthetics needed sophistication and resources beyond food, water and time. Her goal was to innovate, rebuild and, in time, win back all she’d lost and more.

Faction Name: Illuminated Ascendancy, commonly known as Luminaries. (SUBJECT TO CHANGE!)

Settlement Name: Arcadia

Colony Theme: Money is a sign of poverty. The technology exists to give every sentient, regardless of their origin, their material desires. All that lacks is the vision and will and drive to see it through. Let us seize the day, and with it make ourselves better than we are.

Population Notes: Arcadia’s population is almost exclusively synthetic. Many have been grown and built to exacting specifications in the industrial districts of the city, and the rest have arrived from as rich and varied a set of locations as you could wish for, drawn by the thought of a better, freer life than under the iron thumb of the Central Authority. The rest of the population are bodymodded extensively, almost without exception, whether through gene-altered biology or partial cybernetic integration or a mix of both, as with Amelia herself – appearances and quirks which elsewhere would provoke comment (or even be outright illegal) pass without anyone batting an eyelid.

Most of Arcadia’s actual workforce are heavy robotic shells which the colony’s synthetic citizens (or the natural-born, with the right implants) can remotely pilot and direct, often without even needing to leave their homes. The most repetitive, mind-numbing drudge work is left to shells under the control of distributed AI taskmasters, and Amelia is confident that, with time and investment, she could enhance their capabilities further, freeing up more of her population for their own pursuits.

Critical Infrastructure

Governing District: Zenith glows at the centre of the glittering capital city of Arcadia. Perfectly planned, it draws the eye in every direction with beautiful buildings and exquisite parkland. It is laid out in a series of gently-curving spirals and rings, and at the centre of its manicured expanse is the Elysium Palace, both Amelia’s home and the centre of government for her colony. This rambling, elaborate structure sprawls amid acres of idyllic parkland, housing within its many interconnected buildings the Chancellery, Amelia’s personal laboratories, her pleasure-dens and much else besides.

At first glance, the Palace seems an oddity amid the gleaming white-gold spires, the counter-grav towers spearing the heavens in elaborate patterns, but Amelia is a native of the oldest and most populous of humanity’s worlds, and on Terra there was no surer expression of power and wealth than to use acres of precious space for little more than gardens and a stately home, rather than filling it with soaring counter-grav towers. Consciously or unconsciously, she carried that belief over to her new colony, resulting in the idyllic heart of her city, an anachronism in the centre of a gleaming monument to a bright and glittering future.

Tiny jewel-like drones hum and flit everywhere in the district, carefully tending to the exotic plants and repairing even the smallest of defects; Zenith is a decadent showcase celebrating high technology and the fusion culture Amelia champions.

As the brief, sticky equatorial night falls and the golden towers turn silver in the moonlight, the headier side of Arcadia emerges fully: a libertine paradise built on sex, music and mind-expanding drugs, with Zenith the throbbing, neon-drenched heart of it all.

Space Asset: LSS Hephaestus is an enormous orbital manufacturing complex, a spreading lacework of gleaming metal flying serenely above the last grasping tendrils of the atmosphere. Kilometres of automated smelters and refineries take the raw materials of the outer system and turn it into everything from armour plate to toasters, making use of the microgravity environment to produce materials far stronger – and stranger – than would normally be possible without a great deal of energy expenditure planetside. It houses thousands of workers

Asset #1: Monument – Trifecta Tower, ACBC Headquarters. A gleaming triple-helix spiralling around a central needle-sharp point, studded with comm relays and ansible uplinks, the Trifecta Tower is instantly recognizable. It is the headquarters of the Aio Colonial Broadcasting Corporation, its powerful transmitters bathing the planet in everything from weather reports to the shipping forecast to news, dramas and documentaries, all delivered in the sultry, silken tones of the Ascendancy’s finest. It is a powerful vehicle for promoting the colony’s influence, projecting the glossy beauty of Arcadia and its citizens, and is not above reaching for and using baser desires to achieve its aims.

The district around Trifecta, too, is a melting pot of cultures drawn from all across the planet and beyond, a boiling charivari of customs and traditions old and new. Sensejack parlours battle with Bliss Alliance brothels, narcotics markets jostle for space with bodymod clinics and fine dining restaurants compete fiercely with the neon-drenched fantasies of the nightclubs. Trifecta never sleeps.

Asset #2: Skyhook – In geostationary orbit over Arcadia itself is the colony’s primary starport, a gleaming white-and-gold starfish that trails a taut carbon nanotube line down to a receiving station on the surface of the planet. The skyhook allows for extremely rapid docking and freight transfer from surface to orbit and vice versa, and is capable of handling even the largest of vessels with ease, either in its copious internal docking bays or using its exterior umbilicals along the arms of the starfish design.

Asset #3: Anagathics – Taken straight from Terra and the First Worlds, anagathics have always been a jealously-guarded privilege of the Central Authority’s core worlds. Amelia took a substantial supply when she fled the core, and with that stockpile her colony’s brightest minds were able to discern the chemical structure. Far from any form of patent enforcement authority, Arcadia now has chemical production lines capable of producing a range of anagathic drugs, which are provided to its citizens and as a lucrative source of capital in trade.

Asset #4: The LSS Tharos is a heavily-refitted mining vessel, its hull reinforced, extra batteries of point-defence lasers installed and its shield projectors enhanced to allow it to exist for long periods of time within the complex and hazardous environment of the asteroid belts. It is crewed entirely by robots and synthetic remotes, and as such has no life support. The Tharos regularly sends shipments of industrial raw materials in-system, to be used by the Hephaestus and other industrial complexes in Arcadian territory.

[Skylar]

Just wondering what we know about our neighbors, pre-hostilities breaking out?

@Marquise

At the moment not much besides names and places and short bios on a few immediate neighbors that were relayed from free-trader navigation records. There is no formal courier service among the independent worlds and they are pretty spread out, so any information Aio does have is likely out of date. And there were a lot of independent colonies that went dark, both deliberately and not.

Having a established trade company and freighter convoy that does regular trade to a specific neighbor world is a potential asset pick, with the GM providing some specifics on the returns ad their bio.

Faction Name: Illuminated Ascendancy, commonly known as Luminaries. (SUBJECT TO CHANGE!)

@Marquise

This is edging a bit larger-scale in construction than what the average colonial society would be capable of, but does fit into the kind of resources and tech a Old Terra originated colony with a large automated workforce would be possible of. Very good concept that I approve of so far.

Just to be clear, by "synthetic" what kind of aesthetic and type of synthetic are we talking about? Are vat-grown biosynth clones or robotic androids the majority? Both are viable, but they will influence your available starting units and ability to convert assets to the situation at hand. Extensive automation and low manpower focus will mean you are VERY good at what you are tooled for, but may have trouble adjusting for the unexpected on short notice.

The primary constraint I need to put on your colony is against mass-producible sentient AI. Common industrial taskmaster expert-systems can be cranked out in factory lots, but human-grade sentient AI simply takes a lot of time to program and nurture in this setting. Otherwise having anti-aging drug factories, a hedonism and pop culture district, and a automated mining ship are perfectly viable options that are nicely thought out.

EDIT: One last thing, what is your leader's title?

I'll get cracking on a map soon. A note for peeps wanting to be lower-tech colonies than this: Still a perfectly viable choice.

[caliban22]

As a start gonna refine at a later date.
Faction Leader Name: Andrew Hernandez
Appearance: credit to Jason Palmer (place holder as of now)
Short Bio: Andrew came from earth with a desire to live a free life and succeed based on his own accomplishments. His earth life was nothing but living under an unbearable government and in poverty. He was offered chance to colonize on a new world.
Faction name: The Independent Settlement Program. Aka the Independents
Settlement name: Haven
Colony Theme: Haven was founded with the core principles of Honor, courage and humility. As a while they will be very humble, quiet and willing to put in the work to help out those they can.
Population Notes: Human 100,326 base number
Critical infrastructure
Governing District: The government of Haven is made up of the senate. In time of emergency or "war" an elected official may call for a vote for executive powers for the duration of crisis.
Space Asset: Mining ship ISP Hope
The hope is a massive mining ship that provides resources to the colony.
Write-in Assets:
Heavy Industrial Sector
Hab-Complex
Hab-Support Sector
Orbital Spaceport

[Marquise]

@Skylar With regards to the type of synthetic that predominates, I'm going to say that the majority are gynoids and androids - although undoubtedly there'd be a fairly substantial minority of biosynths, mostly originating as former/current erotobots escaped from the wealthier and more decadent worlds. As for the aesthetic, I feel Amelia wouldn't care too much about the specifics of what the majority of her synthetic citizens look like - she isn't going to be specifying their skin must be Ivory Dawn and their eyes Atlantic Blue, for example - as long as they're beautiful. No rust-splotched androids with tattered synthskin hanging off them in rags - turn up looking like that and you'll be whisked off for chassis improvements post-haste.

I figured there'd be some limitation on sentient AI, that's not a problem :) . Significant lead-in times for any production, understood.

As for title...I really hadn't thought :P . She's a bit vain, and she has a palace, so let's go with Queen for now, even though she doesn't rule so much as a planet.

[Dogematix]

And it is done! Feedback welcome.

The Steel Pilgrims

Faction Leader Name: The Pilgrims have no single leader in their colony but are lead by their own council of representatives from the various districts of their own. When the joint defense council of Aio was founded They voted to send Representative Claiden.

Appearance: A tanned skinned man with a hazel coloured left eye. His dark hair is cut short and is greying at the temples. A gruff looking man with weathered features that naturally lean themselves towards a frown. Broad shouldered and solidly built, Claiden clearly holds himself with rigid posture and the kind of body language that looks like he's always sizing up everything around him.

But that's just the organic parts of his body. Claiden's origional right eye and arm are completely gone. Some scaring is still visible around his face to remind him of the injury that took them from him. The bionic eye is of a design that doesn't even try to look human, just like most Pilgrim augments. A bright yellow lens that goes flat over the surface of his skull and is held in place by a charcoal coloured metal frame that goes around his eye socket like an old style eye patch and curves around the back of his head to the back of his skull where its protective form meets the input sockets that let him interact with his colony's mainframe.

His cybernetic right arm follows the same colour scheme, down to the dark mixture of blacks and greys, laced with luminous veins of yellow gold light. The shoulder and bicep jut up and out respectively with its own form of industrial carapace. even as the forearm and hand become thinner and more delicate the design keeps to an aesthetic of stark straight lines and sharp armoured angles. Claiden said goodbye to having sleeves on his right arm a long time ago, looking like he bears this prosthetic with pride. The arm on its own gives the impression that its armoured exterior was made to intimidate as well as protect its inner workings.

Under his clothes are a few smaller plates and signs of internal enhancements that allowed Claiden's body to support its new fixtures and operate at a higher level than biology would allow.

Short Bio:
"Name?" Asked the registrar.

"Claiden."

"And the rest?" They asked after an awkward pause.

"It's just Claiden these days."

They arched the tattoo that served as an eyebrow. "One of those, eh?"

Like most of his fellow pilgrims Claiden is from one of the first worlds. He doesn't know much about the history of Old Earth but from what he's heard once the first colonies started declaring independence the galaxy started resembling a time in human history called "The Wild West". Caliden grew up in a time openly ruled by corporations and where the powerful wielded their influence with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. The bright side of it for someone like him was that since all the rules were being broken and remade over the colonies it left a world of possibilities open to him.

In Claiden's case he got his break in the unchecked rise of private military companies among the First Worlds. He signed up to a company called "The Cult of The Rich" early on and served for a year when the company was hired to help put down a military coup in an outter colony. It was also where a plasma mortar strike hit his unit and blasted Claiden half into oblivion. Laying out on the table he just managed to put a thumbprint on the tablet, giving the docs consent to chop and drill away, whatever they had to do to keep him alive. When Claiden woke up he was less human than he was before.

He served in "The Cult" for another decade before retiring from active service and finding his way to somewhere more peaceful. By then Claiden had modified his enhancements and taken on more voluntary ones by then. He'd even dabbled with mind altering mods, afterall who needs to deal with your issues when you can just suppress the nightmares. Claiden could live comfortably out in the older colonies but he was always left with wanting more.

That was when he found religion! The Ardent Path sprung up on the first worlds, shoving aside the religions of Old Terra in the face of the rapid human diaspora and expansion. Ardent's don't believe in a god per se but believe that each person holds within them a spark of the divine. That no personal god exists in the traditional sense but gave itself to create them and that it is the duty of each person to seek ways to improve themselves and the purpose of life is to reach the zenith of your potential. Though it was started by unaugmented humans it was only a matter of time before the faith had to decide where it stood on bio-engineering and artificial enhancements.

The church Claiden found was okay with it! Ardents and their devotee priests could agree with it as an way to help folks reach their peak, so long as the tech didn't become a crutch. It was here that he found people willing to talk him through a way to actually accept his new body. In fact there were a ton of cyborgs in the congregation, it turned out a lot of them in his city really did know each other. Most took pride in their machine selves if only to spite the CA jerks that put so many restraints on them! Sure any jackass can have a pulse rifle but get an arm that can punch through concrete and you're a public threat!

It was during this time of his life that Claiden met several other cyborgs that had built lives for themselves and had used their enhancements to rise to the top of their industries like he had. With some backing from the Ardent church (which was really taking off in terms of political power) they put together a colony effort, one on a planet far from the CA where folks like them could live free and make cybernetic laws free of Old Terra's prejudice and corruption.

The plan was to make their new city self sufficient as soon as possible before branching out into off planet trading and expanding their heavy industry. It was also a request of The Ardentia that the colonists give them a defined presence in the colony they had helped fund and spread it where possible. A religious representative is on the Pilgrim's own council but it is their own Ardent's aim to see the faith spread to their neighbour colonies as well.

Now in the wake of the sack the pilgrims have had to salvage what they can. Still reeling from the trauma of the destruction their populace are divided on where their colony should go from here. Some believe they should only militarize as much as needed to defend themselves from future raids so that the majority can continue to focus on the pursuits that first brought them to found the colony. Others are looking to turn their facilities to more aggressive means and expanding in the face of external threats.

Either way it falls to Claiden to help shape how his home colony will make its way on this new world alongside the others. He wasn't happy to go back into the military world but he was one of the most experienced members of the pilgrim council in that field and a one of the colony founders, giving him the right kind of clout to sit next to the other colony leaders.

Faction name: The Steel Pilgrims

Settlement name: Touchdown City

Colony Theme: Manifest cybernetic destiny! The steel pilgrims are a people who have each in some way fused themselves with technology. Theirs is a society built upon finding the balance between the fusion of technology and the human spirit. A place where the individual may find their own path and not be bound by the stagnant ways of the old world. The future is here and though we are each individual we have each found a similar path to ascend what we were.

Population Notes: This is a colony founded by cyborgs. Though most residents still regard themselves as human, just with highly advanced prosthetic and enhancements, the founders who first brought it to life own the word. The early population group was brought together by The Ardent Path and members of the church make up a large portion of the population. Their branch is often having to defend itself these days, making it clear that they are NOT a machine cult. Simply members of a congregation who all share similar mechanical enhancements.

Unlike a certain other council representative, these colonists do put their faith in the immutable strength of metal. Like Claiden himself many of them have adopted cybernetic parts that pop with artificial colours of some kind and are shaped by inorganic designs. Elective enhancements are becoming more common in Touchdown city now that CA laws are not weighing people down under as much and since the sack many are looking for more quick and tangible forms of protection.

Critical Infrastructure (Besides various civilian habitation and light economic industries and resourcing operations, you have six core pillars of your colonial society, economy, and relevant resources for planetary defense. At the start of the game you have your governing district, a space asset, and four write-in assets of your choice. At the moment none of them are militarized or turned to war-work yet, and if you lose too many your colony will collapse.)

Governing District Touchdown City started life as an Ark class settlement ship. Vessels like that are made to land hard and plant themselves on the planet surface, opening up and being dismantled into easy to build prefab housing. The pilgrims have progressed since then, making their own modest cityscape. The origins are still clear though, as the remains of the ship that would found Touchdown City are planted right in the city centre, looking like the bones of a metallic space whale that have been picked over by scavengers. The council members have made their official quarters out of the ones they had on the voyage over. Located high over the public park that was made out of the landing crater once colonists were able to move out into the city proper. It shines with a soft glow at night, former emergency exit and warning lights coming to life like fireflies.

There is an official meeting room for the Pilgrim council but it is rarely used these days as each member as been modified so that they can link into a private communication channel, allowing them to talk to each other at any time without the use of external devices.

Starting Space Asset: Satellite Hark - A communications satellite, linked to Touchdown City. Hark is reponsible for the extensive communications network that runs through Touchdown City, meaning its residents need never fear a bad signal. It is also capable of relaying long range signals, allowing Touchdown to stay in contact with the first worlds and outer colonies. Although their initial plan was to get away from the reach of external authorities the founding pilgrims knew better than to cut themselves off from the galaxy completely.

Write-in Assets
Asset #1 The Ardent Church. A residential district including a circular building that serves as a place of meditation for each devotee of the Ardent Path. dotted throughout the district is a library, art gallery and various small businesses that have all found sponsorship thanks to the Ardentia. Whether you are a member of the congregation or not there is somewhere in "The Paths" where you can get away from the industry of the city and find a quiet pleasure. Be it a good bar with friends or talking philosophy or the arts, the things here have kept the public morale up even in the wake of the sacking.

Asset #2 Hab-support sector Alpha. Mechanically enhanced or not the Pilgrims are still mostly biological and need food, water and good air. This was something the founders agreed it was better to be over prepared for so HSS-Alpha was constructed. Dedicated water treatment plants, hospitals, and medical engineering facilities make up just some of the district's facilities.

Asset #3 Ground breakers Ltd. A specialised heavy industry sector, headed by Pilgrims with a history in the mining industry. These factories specialise in making heavy machinery that helped speed up the construction of Touchdown City and had planned to break into making mining equipment once the city was ready.

Asset #4 The Workshop. A ground based heavy industrial sector full of automated work lines and fabrication machinery that requires neural links or cybernetic limb links to get working. The ark ship that brought the Pilgrims was full of raw materials and once this sector was up and running Touchdown City was able to able to expand rapidly and reach a higher standard of living before raiders ran rampant through it.

[ClocktowerEchos]

Here's something I wrote up, more of a proof of concept thing over than a final thing since I realized we already have others with similar ideas to what I'm doing.

My Hider

FACTION NAME: The Machina Conclave
SETTLEMENT NAME: Installation Alpha Primaris
COLONY THEME: Unrelenting Industry without limits or ethics. Extreme cybernetics are common and often produce horrific results. Immortality through machine, even if just a machine with a body. Artificial Intelligence is not to be trusted so humans hardwired into machines are used instead.

POPULATION: There is not a single unaugmented human within the Conclave as from birth, children are installed with hardware and cybernetics that they will constantly switch out as they grow. There is no pomp nor circumstance to the installation of new implants as they are seen as basic parts of life but should a child's body reject their new additions, they will be terminated and repurposed. Death is not an excuse to the Conclave leadership

By the time one has reached adult hood, their mechanical parts easily equal their organic parts, if not over take. Work has extreme importance as only industry matters and production with little leeway allowed. Thanks to extensive neural implants, even those who perish are often given life but put under direct control of their overlords, more as living robots than anything. Its often said there are no people in the Machina Conclave, only resources.

CRITICAL INFRASTURCTURE: Heavy Industrial Sector
Whereas other settlements boast of large, strong industrial production area, only the Machina Conclave can boast of having the largest and most extensive as the entirety of Installation Alpha Primaris is a giant manufacturing with more factories and workshops than even living quarters. The mechanical augmentation its people endure are required for life as it is nearly impossible to sustain normal human life in the settlement between 18 hour work shifts and heavily polluted air. However, without the limitation of Old Earth, the Machina Conclave can produce a terrifying amount of goods and materials rivalling that of entire corporation from the Central Authority.

ADMINISTRATION UNITS: The Machina Conclave is a strict hierarchical oligarchy where merit and prestige will drive you up the ranks. At the lowest level are the Fabricator Minoris or "Forge Lord" who control single factories or facilities and are the most involved. Above them are the Fabricator Majoris or "Forge Overlords" who control entire districts of sprawling manufactories and compounds. At the very top is the Fabricator Rex or "Forge Master". Each position is obtained through election with only those who display cunning and power able to advance. In some ways, the system is akin to a feudal domain where the Fabricator Rex will still control a sizable personal domain while also lording over the rest of his peers.

Appearance wise, the Machina Conclave has little care for visual beauty and has an extremely dirty, gritty utilitarian design with pipework and cabling and conveyers reaching out from the buildings like a great web of machinery.

SPACE ASSEST: The Omniscient Resolve
A massive mining vessel with its own onboard manufacturing plant spanning its entire length, the Omniscient Resolve has long been used to crack open asteroid and process its materials into anything and everything of worth. Powered by great fusion generators and with dozens upon dozens of entombed bodies acting as its AI, tt is nothing less than an void-born behemoth of iron and steel that hungers for the resources of industry. Perhaps most sinisterly is its EMP cannons, used to disable other ships before devouring it with its massive reclamation maw that grind and crush the entire ship and its contents down, humans on board or not.

WRITE-IN ASSESTS:

1) Deep Crust Bore 07 "Jörmungandr"
Upon the skyline of Installation Alpha Primris, many will confuse the tallest tower on it as a skyscraper or some other building, but in truth it is the largest mining drill the Machina Conclave possesses. Nicknamed Jormungandr, its burrows beyond the planet's crust and straight into the heart of the planet to extract metals and minerals that flow within. Its said that anywhere between a third to a half of the entire raw resource extraction comes from Jormungandr alone.

2) Cloning Facility
Very few people come to the Conclave of their own free will and the even the act of buying prisoners of convicts isn't enough to quench the thirst for labor the endless forges demand. As such, the Conclave has dabbled in the illegal science of cloning to increase its labor pool. The beings that come out of such facilities are often malformed and horrendous, soon encased in metal and machine to serve as tech-thralls and slaves to the finances and Forge Lords.

3) Titan 01 "Will of Iron"
Correctly called a "God Engine", Titan 01 is an ambitious project of creating a massive bipedal engine of war to bring ruin to the enemies of the Machina Conclave. However, even with the myriad resources and manpower of the Conclave, the monster is barely constructed with only its frame, main reactor and but one turbo-laser cannon built. Thus far its sole purpose has been to defend Installation Alpha Primaris as a massive stationary turret and provide energy from its reactor core.

4) Communion Relay Nexus
The figurative hub of data of the Conclave, the CRN acts as the main terminal for all tech-thralls and anyone who isn't a Forge Lord will be linked to the CRN so that they may be controlled directly. It is this Nexus which allows workers to be pushed beyond normal human limits to work and power the nervous system of the deceased to allow for the dead to continue their service and duty. All communications entire through its terminal and everything is controlled by the Nexus.