ASTA

The Prophecy

Del-korm society mostly revolves around violence. Biologically, they're incapable of registering fear as a legitimate emotion, which is perhaps the chief reason behind the del-korm's low life expectancy (of which is a mere thirty-five years). Honed for contending with massive prehistoric bison and mammoth-like creatures, del-korm bodies are wrapped in dense, thick muscle, gifting them with unnatural physical strength and surreal toughness. A heightened sense of smell, keen night vision and excellent hearing encompass their main senses, thought they are also able to use the world's natural magnetic field to calculate their current location and maneuver across the land.

They place uncompromising emphasis on deeds and actions, and scorn empty threats, cowardice and boasts unsupported with tangible evidence. In their land, one does not open their mouth to word threats without first being adequately prepared to put those same threatening-words to action.

Honor in combat is not held in high regard when it comes to warfare, as war is considered a competition where the principal objective is to emerge victorious, which often requires ‘unorthodox’ or ‘taboo’ tactics to be utilized. Some of these methods include killing a wounded creature, feigning a retreat and/or wounds, consuming young, ambushing someone or something without giving them a fair chance to resist, or creating insidious traps to lure unsuspecting prey to its demise are all considered viable parts of military stratagem in Malkor-Kurz.

Cities, roads or other signs of advanced infrastructure do not exist. Instead, del-korm make their homes in forests, caves and burrows, while others might instead choose to sleep outside on the ground.

Marriage is an alien concept to the del-korm, who believe that ‘owning’ someone is wrong. Instead, Companionships are used, which are informal partnerships shared between del-korm of any sex, and are typically centered around a ‘deal’ or ‘understanding’ made between both parties. To provide an example, one del-korm may offer to share his or her home with another in exchange for food, mating privileges or access to the partner’s cache of psychoactive mushrooms. Del-korm in a companionship are not bound by a contract or by harsh punishment should one of them opt to leave their partner, and there is no set limit to how many partners one individual is allowed to take. Because (most) del-korm do not feel strong sexual or romantic attraction for one another, violent altercations over 'unfaithful behavior' rarely break out.

Leaders do not exist in any shape or form within the del-korm species; to them, government inhibits the intrinsic right to freedom and choice that all living things are born with, while it is widely assumed that all creatures are masters of their own fate. However, del-korm do tend to group themselves into clan-like organizations called 'krill', where they are unified by extensive companionships made up of hundreds or even thousands of individuals. Krill membership is not permanent, and hopping from krill to krill is rather common (especially if your antics constantly anger everyone around you to the point where staying in a specific krill endangers your life).

Malkor-Kurz is a place where reputation is perhaps the most vital part of an individual del-korm’s existence. It is a currency in a sense—one that increases and decreases in value as a person conducts themselves in the land.

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This is all watered-down information (indeed, to discuss everything on the del-korm species would require five or so pages). The land of Malkor-Kurz is something that I’ve been working on for about a year now, and it’s rather hard for me to summarize its contents without leaving out important parts. The above text may come off as confusing, so if clarification is needed, merely ask me and I will tell you.

The Prophecy

Is this still open? I have a character mind.

Tales from the Riverrealm [IC]

Abandoning a thread just because someone has discovered discrepancies in your roleplay's framework really isn't the way to go.

Various Scifi Weaponry and Destructive Potential

I have a reply typed up, but what material are you proposing could be used to 'stop' a laser beam? What 'part' of the laser are you going to use to achieve this effect?

Atheism 2.0 - Atheism using Religions perks.

Many members in my immediate family are religious. Most of them are of the Christian faith, while a very small number are Jehovah's Witnesses. After speaking with these persons about their unique past deeds, experiences and struggles, I came to know that each one of them used religion as a potent tool to help them through a number of demanding challenges in their lives. Some of them used their religion to ease the burden brought on by a chaotic and abusive household, while others utilized their new-found dependence on God to lift them from a life ruled by crime. I guess you could say it was a coping mechanism--something the human mind can use to make life emotionally and psychologically bearable.

This positive use of religion is hardly unique; history is plentiful with examples related to those I've listed and more, which is why I cannot exactly bring religion under heavy fire, nor pass it up as meaningless nonsense that is destined to be replaced by science.

However, this does not mean it is free from criticism, for while I adore religion for what good it has done for us as a species, I absolutely abhor it for the suffering and calamity it has caused for others that choose to (or to not) subscribe to its teachings. Things like the blatant disregard for supposed 'cursed' or 'tainted' peoples (such as homosexuals, transgender persons or even those of different racial backgrounds), or the wars brought on by religion's dogmatic teachings and incorrect accusations of another group (the numerous holy wars scattered throughout history, like the Crusades for example).

Various Scifi Weaponry and Destructive Potential

mdk said
spaceweapon threads get inexplicably abrasive on RPG. It's almost a social phenomenon.

Ha!

But it sure does make for good entertainment!

:3

Would anyone be intrested in a realistic Races RP?

I'd take part in this, but the 'realistic' premise you're championing got thrown out the window when you immediately assumed all of the species would follow the tried-and-true human progression model (whether it's technological, societal or something else), yet the species seem to be set-up to be as alien as possible. They come off as human "cookie-cutter cut-outs", honestly.

Various Scifi Weaponry and Destructive Potential

Brovo said
Or you know. Equal and opposite reaction. Whatever material you make the laser gun out of that can sustain that heat at its most potent and concentrated (the gun barrel) you just... Coat your ships in. And now enemy lasers are useless.

Huh, well I guess swords, maces and war hammers became useless when suits of plate mail fashioned from the same materials these weapons were created from started appearing on the field, right?

Aa spinal weapon

I'm going to let you figure out the tactical flaws in fielding a spinal-mounted DEW in a three-dimensional environment.

Go back to school and learn how lasers REALLY work.

The irony is crushing.

Various Scifi Weaponry and Destructive Potential

Brovo said
Lasers? You know how terrible those would be in space as weapons? The law of conservation of energy would utterly render them useless at anything beyond "knife fight" range in space. Because every second it travelled, it would lose significant chunks of power to dissipation. Yes, it moves at the speed of light. No, that still isn't fast enough in space. you were to engage in space, it would only be against planets, because planets are the only things that can't really dodge whatever you fire at them. Even then, a planet probably has vastly more defences to wage against an incoming fleet than the fleet could muster against it.Space battles in space, if we are talking hard sci-fi, just would not happen.Soft sci-fi, it could go in any direction, though.

They wouldn't be terrible in space, since hard sci-fi military ships wouldn't be the lumbering armor-clad WWII-knock off vessels most sci-fi portrays them as. They'd be light, so as to conserve delta-v during maneuvers---and to make it easier to accelerate, decelerate and alter their trajectory--- which means they'd have less mass for a laser to burn through. A sufficiently-powerful laser would easily burn through a ship's hull, compromising it and potentially dooming the crew inside. As for the speed, the thought of effortlessly dodging laser fire with a slow-than-light vessel (that obeys the laws of physics) is pretty much inherent to soft sci-fi where antimatter weapons, warp drives and phasers are the norm, as any ship packing laser weapons is going to have them mounted in fully-traversable turrets. While a space warship may be able to dodge one laser, the other 30 that are taking shots at it create an absurdly-large arch of inter-locking fire that simply cannot be avoided.

And not only that, but as space lacks an atmosphere, lasers become even more dangerous, as there is nothing in their immediate path (or surroundings) to degrade or scatter their beams.

Various Scifi Weaponry and Destructive Potential

Keyguyperson said
Exactly, the railgun weapon is completely impossible (unless you equip every projectile with an FTL drive). Honestly, in a far future setting where corvette class ships have the power to violate the laws of physics simply using the "MOAR POWAH" philosophy, we would see nuclear bombs as primitive devices. Antimatter weapons would rule the battlefield, a single bomb taking out an entire continent. There would be railguns that fire projectiles that contain antimatter within them, taking out starships with a single hit. To take out the shields though? Just good old railguns (provided the shields are at least somewhat similar to literally every other sci-fi energy shield). Just a thought here, what if the shields took the mass of physical attacks and the energy of, well, energy attacks and used that to power the system? There wouldn't be any "Shields at 20%!" the shield core would simply short out after a sufficient number of attacks were thrown at it. You could even take it a step further and have the attacks used to power the entire ship, so when the shield goes down, the entire vessel is disabled or destroyed, depending on how dramatic you want it to be. Going with that would give you an excuse to use projectile weapons over energy weapons, as mass converts to absolutely ludicrous amounts of energy. That's why we won't get teleporters for millions of years, converting a human body into energy would probably blow up the entire planet.Also, it would be nice if you would keep me updated, I am most certainly interested in this!

Antimatter weapons require reliable containment methods to keep them from killing whatever it is that is carrying them. If these containment methods fail (either from an error in their design or by the malicious strike of a foe's accurate laser fire), which will probably be an electromagnetic field, then the antimatter reacts with matter, explodes and probably causes a chain reaction to occur within the vessel that is carrying them. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want a single weapon like that on-board my multi-billion dollar war vessel, let alone 30 of them.

Fusion or fission munitions, specifically shaped charges (lhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) provide longer range as well as a safer alternative, since a fusion or fission missile isn't going to violently explode if a random projectile comes to say hello. They're also cheaper, and thus could be spammed more. Not saying AM weaponry is useless, but they're far from the god-tier weapons sci-fi likes to portray them as.

For space engagements, I'd ditch the railguns. While useful at close range (and in other roles), they're badly gimped by space's sheer vastness. I'd go with an x-ray laser or gamma ray laser, or a charged/neutral particle accelerator weapon, for long-range engagements.