@Crusader Lord Zapdos actually had a similar thing where they wanted to play a psychic character too. While I personally have no problems if we have two, I can imagine that maybe it would make the character feel less special. If you two wish to figure that out, please do so.
Also I do apologize to everyone. I am just sorting out some PMs regarding this game. I should be able to pass judgement on some sheets tonight once I am done.
I have no problems at all on my end if both of us are psychics! Would be interesting to see Clarissa react to having another psychic onboard, etc! :O
@ZapdosI'm chill with it if you are! Or, er, if you are not then I can reconsider for sure. No problem. Just wanted to touch base on that.
@Remram Aaaand here is an app for you! I ported over my app from the other RP I was in. I usually don't reuse characters, but I think Clarissa here deserves chances to become the very best like no one ever was if nothing else! :P
Ahem, but if her being psychic isn't ok, or any other such things, just let me know! I don't want to trample on any toes or make problems, and can make another character if needed instead! Etc, etc.
o7
Clarissa Ryte
~Hometown/General Theme~
~Inner Self Theme~
Appearance: A slender but maturing girl whose expression is usually presented as stoic in front of others, Clarissa has long light-purple hair and a pair of piercing purple eyes in turn to match. Outside of the public eye she can be found to smile more often around her Buneary and family, her smile can be seen to be generally small but rather distinct looking compared to her ‘usual’ self. She has a braid on the left side of her head that is secured with a purple ribbon, given to her by her grandmother, and generally keeps it on her person at all times. As well. In terms of height she is 5’8”, and her weight is 132 pounds.
Age: 16
Gender: Female
Personality: A person whose psychic powers put a strain on her from a young age, pushing her to learn to control them as well as learn to restrain herself to an extent that has shaped her personally. What became the end result was someone who outwardly enforces a well-trained stoic expression on her face, a true ‘poker face’, who might be mistaken as ‘unfeeling’ in the process. Yet despite rarely showing outward expressions of emotion in a public setting at all, behind closed doors and with loved ones and friends and trusted confidants she is more comfortable letting herself express what she is feeling. Indeed, especially since her powers began developing and she began to train with them Clarissa can be an empathetic and kind person indeed….though this, due to her powers, can be both a good thing as well as a burden that wears on her mentally to boot. Generally she will try to be polite to others, though growing up in Orre she was raised to always keep an eye out on and an ear open to the world around her respectively. This mindset of awareness has been drilled in such that to her it's as natural as breathing air, as well as becoming a personal habit in the vein of drilling herself in trying to maintain a sense of self-restraint.
Beyond this, she does have a general ‘spark’ of curiosity in her that drives her to want to learn about things or look into them. The sort of mindset someone like a field researcher or archaeologist or such might enjoy, or perhaps even befitting of a scientist like her father at that. So despite her ‘strong self-restraint’ in the personal sense, she is more liable to poke her head into something that catches her eye well enough than not depending on the particular situation and case in which something does so. In that vein, getting to be paid and looking into things in her new region of residence is certainly a bonus in her mind.
Trainer Class: Wanderer
Hometown: Pyrite Town, Orre Region
Background: Clarissa Ryte was born to Milo Ryte, a man working at the Pokemon HQ Lab in Orre but whose family lived back in The Under before it was lost, and a mother who had come from Agate Village and met her father in Pyrite Town while visiting to look for different herbs across Orre. Despite living in a version of Pyrite Town that didn’t have CIPHER involved, Clarissa was raised to be aware and wary of the sketchy types and rougher sorts that still definitely called Orre home locally and otherwise. It was a life lived always keeping one eye open, and taking occasional trips to visit her maternal grandmother in Agate Village or paternal grandparents who had moved to Phenac a few times a year. There were also many times she went to watch Colosseum fights and such at Pyrite Colosseum with her mother and/or father, being both a way to get entertainment locally as well as get to see more Pokemon outside of the battles held in Duel Square. On occasion she’d stop by the local fortune teller with her mother, perhaps, or watch TV to see whatever shows were on or whatever the ONBS was saying in the latest news stories.
Living in the Orre Region, she wasn’t exposed to a Pokemon-rich region and most often saw them when it came to watching Pokemon battles or people going about with their own Pokemon. The region itself was, after all, a notable wasteland without much in it to sustain Pokemon save for three curious areas called Pokespots where some ‘native’ pokemon had begun to appear and live in. With her father involved in helping the Pokemon HQ Lab in leading the legal and non-criminal importation of Pokemon to Orre, he would also on infrequent occasions get to go to Gateon Port and bring her back some kind of souvenir or trinkets the ships had picked up from some other far-away region. Beyond this, however, her father was often gone due to work most of the time and her mother was the one who was most at home.
At the age of five, however, a young Clarissa would find herself suddenly struck with what seemed like a debilitating condition that made her collapse in the middle of town as she went shopping with her mother. She kept mumbling about voices in her head and feeling all sorts of things even after she would wake up later, but after getting medically checked up the doctors could not find out what was wrong…until she started talking about things they’d been only ever thinking about and never said aloud. Eventually it would be confirmed that she’d begun to develop psychic powers of some sort, which in turn would lead to an attempt to grasp the situation by her parents as they tried to find out how to assist her. It wasn’t exactly an easy thing to raise a child with actual ESP in a region without so much as a school for such things.
Where the most help would end up coming from, though, would be Clarissa’s grandmother and the peaceful serenity that was Agate Town. With herbs to help the frequent headaches a younger Clarissa would get from her powers, and training to try to restrain and control herself as well as tapping into some old contacts from her trainer days who had such powers to come help, Clarissa’s grandmother would help her and even take her on walks to see the Celibi-honoring Relic Stone the village held so dear. It was also here that something of an event would help spark her curiosity to become a trainer would truly occur, back when a twelve year old Clarissa would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night after yet another day of training with a friend of her grandmother.
Feeling drawn to somewhere, the girl would wander to the Relic Stone and see it letting off little sparks of green light…like fireflies even. Yet she could feel a presence there, flitting about around her. Watching her, even, curious and yet keeping its distance. As the girl reached out to touch the Relic Stone, running a hand gently down it, the presence would suddenly appear behind her. Despite falling to the ground from the sudden spook, the younger girl was shocked to see the legendary pokemon Celebi staring right back at her as it flew lower to the ground to get a better look at her. For a moment, the girl would reach up hesitantly, with the smaller legendary pokemon reaching back to touch her hand in turn, before eventually moving back and disappearing as quickly as it had arrived again in a small flash of light.
Upon telling her grandmother, and her dirty pajamas telling some evidence of the encounter as she wandered back out of the Relic Forest in the early morning hours, it was certainly an event that struck her grandmother as unique. Of it she was told that it was ‘a blessing, a sign that [she was] meant for something great’, though the impression of it all left a sense of wonder in the girl that didn’t seem to fully fade away even as she got older.
Indeed, as she got older, and more of a handle on herself and her powers, Clarissa would become more as she has become by current times. Restrained. Reserved. Putting up a wall and a front to help her create a basis for controlling herself. Etc. It didn’t make her many potential local friends, though, but eventually to try to cheer her up she went with her father and mother to one of his visits to Gateon Port. Supposedly a new shipment of Pokemon had arrived, and he hoped to get her a pokemon of her own to keep her company. Only just having turned fourteen at the time, Clarissa came along with her parents hoping that having a pokemon would help her learn to better express herself. It would also be at this time that Clarissa would, as they walked by the Machine Shop, be struck with the feelings of something that was…suffering. It was in pain. It wanted to live. It felt….alone. All of these were something that felt, even if for a moment, all too familiar to how she’d felt all those years ago.
Without batting an eye the girl darted away down a side alley, her parents in very worried and hot pursuit, only for her to find a Buneary that seemed wounded and starving for food. It was weak, and only getting weaker, and as she took it up into her arms it seemed to look slowly up at her in the process. It was after this that Clarissa’s parents, as they arrived and watched her turn around with this hurt pokemon in her arms, would later look back on as the ‘moment that [they] realized there was some kind of connection she had to this little, injured pokemon from afar’. Clarissa would ask to bring home the little Buneary, after her and her parents raced it get it to a Pokemon Center in time, and then help care for and bring the little Buneary back to health the rest of the way after taking it to the nearest Pokemon Center in a hurry, and would want to bring it home afterward.
From here, it was a year of bonding and growing with her new Buneary that seemed to bring them both out of a ‘funk’ they had each been in. Allowed them to see more of how each other was, coming out of their shells, and ultimately leading to her Buneary getting a nickname from her and entering a Pokeball as she decided she wanted to become a proper Pokemon Trainer. Soon after this, however, Clarissa’s father would find a change in jobs and her parents would move along with her to Grand Glory City in the Evig Region so her father could work a new position he’d been hired on for at a certain Professor’s lab. Plus moving to a generally safer region, one full of many more Pokemon, was something that Clarissa’s parents felt would be healthier for her than reaching adulthood in Orre.
And so they moved to the city, and her father took up work at a different Pokemon lab and began his work there. As for Clarissa, however, it was….still going to be an adjustment. But she had her beloved Buneary with her, and he had his beloved trainer in turn. Fast-forward another year later, and her father would bring her to work one day upon request of his boss. It was here the girl was talked to for a bit by the Professor, before eventually being made the offer to take up a Pokedex and go out into the Evig Region! It was something that would enable the start of her own ambition to become a trainer, it would help her better familiarize herself with her new home, and, well it was an opportunity that she and a certain Buneary could seize with their own two hands! What could go wrong?
Kind of Pokémon you like: Pokemon she can empathize with, or form some sort of bond or connection to. Ones that in perhaps some way can be or are relatable to her and, yet individuals of their own who can grow alongside her and vice-versa of course. That is what matters most in the end for her.
Yet one cannot deny either that she seems drawn more toward little ‘oddities’ of Pokemon as well, whether common ones or uncommon ones alike, with a personality that seem out of the way or are ‘outcasts’ or that can be found in little holes in the wall or cast-out places in a sense. Things like her Buneary that made his way far from home on its own adventure, coming from far away, or a Murkrow or some peculiar ghost type like a Mimikyu that lives out of an abandoned factory in the ramshackle part of town and the shadows. Things like an ancient Pokemon brought back from a fossil from long ago, such as a Lilleep or Kabuto, a mischievous prankster of a personality who enjoys a bit of fun here but for whom such a personality might seem a bit ‘out of place’, or something that lives in the surrounding hills such as an Absol-....w-wait a second here! There might be a pattern!
It might be, in part that is, Clarissa accidentally has a sort of natural penchant for the sort of Pokemon that seem very ‘shady’, ‘cunning’, ‘tough’, and even potentially ‘mafia-like’ in some sense. Perhaps it is her upbringing in Orre and so forth that has shaped her like this, whether consciously or unconsciously, to this end? In any case, it is a neat little ‘quirk’ about her all the same when it comes to the types of Pokemon she likes.
Quirks/Talents/Aspirations/Other:
She works to both become stronger herself (as a trainer and psychic and person) and train with her Pokemon to help them become stronger as well. In a sense, doing for her Pokemon what her grandmother and grandmother’s friends did for her. Become better. Learn. Become stronger. Pursue that path forward, and chase the sun over that horizon!
One way or another, she is going to forge her own path forward. Beat gyms? Definitely Collect and find Pokemon? Of course. Something else too, perhaps? She would have to see, but it certainly wasn’t out of the question.
She enjoys spicy types of food generally, though her starting compatriot seems to have something of a greater tolerance for spiciness than herself, though she also has a soft spot for sweets which she prefers to have for special occasions primarily. When one friend of her grandmother sent some peculiar spiced chocolate from Paldea, it was an exciting prospect and she enjoyed it in the end!
In general she isn’t picky about food. A hot meal is a hot meal, and even if she isn’t a glutton she will appreciate it. She also, though, does enjoy trying new foods. She has the basics of cooking down in a general enough sense to survive and subsist at the very least as well.
Items:
1x Potion
Pokédollars: 500p
Sir Lopsalot
Appearance: He also has a notably prominent, and once horrific (long ago), scar going over (vertically) his left eye (luckily the eye itself is ok), but that’s all.
Species: Buneary
Gender: ♂
Type: Normal
Personality:
Nature: Adamant
Characteristic: Alert to Sounds
Sir Lopsalot is quite an adamant and outgoing little bunny, and is a loyal pokemon that will stand his ground even if faced with overwhelming odds for the sake of the things and individuals he cares about. He likewise generally seems to carry a certain sense of pride for a Buneary, even in the face of defeat trying to hold his head up high….though when defeated he does tend to sulk a little bit in frustration or such. In general can usually be relied upon to be generally courteous and polite to others, unless they are not nice to his trainer (or he perceives them as being such or potentially such) in which case he will take issue with them personally. His behavior reminded his trainer of a ‘little knight, like the ones from tales and bedtime stories’, and thus he got his cute little name as a result and seems to take pride in that nickname as well.
At the same time, he is alert to sounds and his trainer’s demeanor and usually keeps an ‘ear open’ as the saying goes. If his trainer is resting he usually wants to be there keeping a watch on their surroundings. Whether this watchman-like behavior is just out of a sense of care and loyalty, or perhaps due to other things that happened in the life of this Buneary before Sir Lopsalot met his trainer, mostly remains a mystery to his trainer as of current times. He also quite enjoys a good meal, especially after a hard-won victory in fighting or after some good training!
Quirks/Talents/Aspirations/Other:
To Become The Strongest! (He Shall Become The One Punch Bunny/One Kick Bunny!)
Sir Lopsalot wishes to become stronger and a very mighty bunny indeed, but also seems to want to see other places and things and pokemon and people as well. It is also a curiosity, in this latter case, that he seems to share with his more reserved trainer in turn.
He enjoys spicy foods and spicy flavors.
He thinks dancing is kind of cool, due to a human stranger he saw on the streets of Gateon Port one day in the past who had really big and weird spherical hair colored like a pokeball for some reason. This remains true, as much as he is embarrassed about liking it or dancing in front of most anyone (but his ‘secret theme’ is tied to this specific quirk).
Level: 5
Moves:
Splash
Pound
Defense Curl
Power-Up Punch
Ability: Limber - Prevents the Pokemon from becoming paralyzed.
Held Item: (None, at least yet)
Sir Lopsalot was a rather adamant and stubborn bunny back home, the sort who got into little fights here and there and even tried to go on adventures beyond the scope of home. At the same time, after a particularly bad and stormy day its mother failed to come back to the den and disappeared without a trace. While several of its siblings stuck together, Sir Lopsalot included, it eventually came down to the little bunny trying to protect them all as time went on and dangers as well as other wild Pokemon began to close in on where they lived in Sinnoh. Eventually the small band of Buneary moved off to eventually re-settle on route 218 near Canalave City before eventually disbanding and dispersing after being chased by an angry local Floatzel they stumbled across who chased them off all over in different directions before returning to its den.
Ending up in Canalave itself, Sir Lopsalot would eventually scavenge for food and find his way to and onto a strange foreign ship docked in the harbor. A sister ship of the former S.S. Libra, this was a Pokemon-importing ship that was just finishing restocking food for its Pokemon cargo onboard. Said cargo of Pokemon, as it were, were bound to be brought back to the wasteland of the Orre Region, which had rather few native Pokemon at all compared to most everywhere else. It would be here that Sir Lopsalot would sneak his way down and make friends with a small group of Wooper onboard the vessel and end up accidentally stuck on the ship as it left port while he was onboard. It would be a long journey of hiding from crew and trying to sneak food with the help of its new friends, but in the end Sir Lopsalot would make it to Gateon Port proper before being finally discovered trying to sneak some leftovers from the kitchen to his new friends one morning.
Trying to seize or capture the illegal stowaway, the sailors tried to battle it and the little bunny had a scrap with them as it tried to escape. This is where it got its scar. To this end it would at least manage to escape, though, making it into the port town and coming to live there for a few days as it scavenged for food behind the Krabby Club and tried to remain hidden. It was only when a local girl and her parents passed into Gateon Port a few days later that the poor Buneary was finally found, and something about the girl seemed to draw the bunny’s curiosity as she picked it up off the ground. It had been driven away from its little hovel near the Krabby Club by a trainer, only to struggle to find more food to eat and nearly wasting away in a nearby alley behind the local Machine Parts Shop.
Due to being psychic, the girl had felt its emotions and ran to find the poor Buneary with her parents in hot pursuit behind her. Finding the poor thing, the girl took it up in her arms and convinced her parents to help her get it to the nearest Pokemon Center. Even in her arms the Buneary felt something unique about the human girl, and in the ginger care in which she carried him despite her haste, and after it was cared for at the Pokemon Center the girl wanted to take it with her. Take him…home. At first the male Buneary would be mostly quiet and reserved at first, even as the girl brought it food and tried to make it a little bed in her room and everything, all before eventually starting to open up to her more in turn to her. At first it was a happy reaction when she’d come to see him resting in his little sheet-lined box that was his bed, then turned into the bunny following her around, to eventually accepting a nickname of his own as a new name. Bit by bit he began acting once more as he once did back home with his siblings, and she in turn seemed to open back up to him as well. A year later, and with both having grown and changed already since then, Sir Lopsalot would decide to even go into a Pokeball of his own as her Pokemon by the time the girl and her family moved away to the Evig Region.
What adventures would await them? He didn’t know, but he looked forward to it all the same.
~This Adamant Bunny Is Also A Little Bit Secretly Silly!~
@Remram Hey, how long ago was Cipher driven out of Orre and Evig in this setting? Just to double-check. (And also, if I import my other OC, her father was working at Orre's Pokemon lab. So could he have been hired in at the Professor's lab perhaps, which is when this OC's father perhaps could have moved his family to Evig? Just to check that potnetial bit as well as I debate things on my end.)
I am here! And am debating either trying to translate over my Orre esper girl with the one punch bunny a male Buneary from the RP I was once in, or whipping up something else for this.
You've got me curious. Was in a Pokemon RP in the past and it sadly died off, but ironically was playing a character who came from Orre proper in that one. Idk if I could do that here too, or if you've enough people for the RP already, but did at least want to submit my interest at least! :O
Euryale System, Sarpedon, Capital City Of Hesperia, Outer City Industrial Region, ???
He wore a long, hunter green, and long-sleeved formal jacket over the top of his underlying clothes, with three bars of differing colors (and one that had a pair of gold stars upon it at that) arranged neatly on the upper left side of the chest. It was secured down the center with a strip of hunter green cloth, with a light gold trim neatly found along all of its edges, upon which five large, light gold colored buttons were gleaming and visible and each bore the sun-like insignia found upon the republic's flag as they kept the jacket closed and secure upon his torso. A similar minute flair of lighter-hued gold was likewise to be found upon the (in this case) simple and otherwise unadorned hanging epaulettes on hous shoulders, with a similar shade and border of light golden trim on the ends of his sleeves as well before they ended in a pair of hands covered in formal black dress-uniform gloves. A formal military hat/cap was worn upon his head, being a similar hunter green color, with a red stripe around the midsection of it that had a noticeable but thin light blue border on top and below it. In the center of the hat's midsection was a round light golden circle of metal attached to the hat with the sun-styled insignia of the GER's flag also emblazoned upon its shining front as well, and underneath the formal black brim with light golden laurel leaves on either side of it would shield the eyes of its current wearer from the lights above his head as he walked down the short hallway.
Of all places to be sent to in order to bring word by his superiors, a particularly outfitted Autdoll Corporation R&D Facility wasn't the first place he had imagined. At the same time, however, it acted as one of the two 'offices' of the legendary "First Seat" of the Oligarchs proper. Man was said to be an eccentric sort of person, had founded the company even, but had stepped back from its formal operations after taking his seat among the Oligarchs. Still stuck around to tinker with ideas and parts and such, however, from the sounds of it. He could understand needing a hobby, he had tinkered with old bots himself growing up before joining the military and sometimes these days with his kids, but at the same time that wasn't the part that made him feel slightly odd about things. Indeed, it was the supposed age of the one the Senior Master Seargant was coming to visit, as ordered, that brought him some level of curiuosity and questioning in the first place.
It was said the man was centuries old, though his lack of most forms of public appearance in a general sense made it feel strange and thus made his age in turn somewhat more doubtable (facts aside) in comparison to those among his other six 'compatriots' who seemed to enjoy the limelight and attention from the public or put themselves out there more at least. Sure the first three were known as "The Immortals" for rather good reasons, and he had met the Second Seat before while hearing about the Third Seat from a friend, but not many got to say they reported to the First himself. But given the situation, and his understanding that the First was a scientist of sorts, Senior Master Seargant York felt it made a fair bit of sense that the First had become involved in this matter. Apparently by unanimous decision among the Oligarchs, given his particularly legendary age and potential to help grasp this rather old-world problem they now had on their hands, he was dipping into a couple of matters.
The Olgiarchs had certainly picked uip involvement in current events overall, though, in a general sense. The Fourth had come to help organize the defensive array from the start, as well as drum up morale and coordinate potential diplomatic efforts with the First on this matter overall, while likewise the Third was involved in the matter of "possible foreign technological analysis" and similar things and the First was to be involved in that as well. It made him wonder, even for a moment, if the old and longstanding faint rumor that the First himself was perhaps some kind of A.I. or something of the like was true. Like, some kind of pre-Gateways sapient secret A.I. project that had been installed into the colony ship and provided support across the centuries or something. Hmm.
Even so, York's arrival at the facility had seen him welcomed by the presence of the black and grays-splotched combat uniforms of the Oligarchic Guards upon arrival at the front security gate alongside the usual security guards protecting the grounds. It meant one thing for sure, and that was that the First (or any of the Oligarchs) was most certainly here. He'd been vetted through after a proper scanner trip in his car, which had confirmed both his authenticity as 'the real him' and if anything dangerous was in the vehicle. Etc. Standard high security procedures, in this case done by portable scaners not normal to the facility it seemed. He was familiar with their presence at military facilities in the more permanent sense and likewise in big-political-figure-involved venues where such security was set up proper for events or such as well. Etc.
Now, however, two of the Oligarchic Guards were escorting him (after picking him up on the ground floor) down a long, blue-floor-tiled and white-walled hall on the fourth floor while heading toward the proper head office space of the R&D Facility. Side offices of this 'management level' of the building were seemingly either closed, due to a lack of presence there or use currently, or were in some state of being used by the staff and managers as the flutter of formal work attire and bodies (and the odd repair person or janitor/janitor bot) moved about their routines. Yet the presence of pairs of the same Oligarchic Guards dotted every so often down the hall wasn't a surprise either in this case, though it seemed to be ignored as part of the background by most in this case. Was their presence that normalized here? He raised an eyebrow for a moment, catching the eye of a frantic-looking lab-coat-wearing woman looking in his direction, before a soft sigh escaped his lips and he turned his attention back forward. He seemed to get a glance or two from those moving about more than any of the stationed guards did at that.
Though for things to be running like this with a big figure such as one of the Seven Oligarchs being here? It still felt odd to him all the same. Peculiar, even. But given what he had been told of the First before being sent here, it was making more and more sense now as he was being escorted along. The guy was eccentric, driven in his work and tinkering, and while called an 'oddball' for his hobby of pitching in with the company he himself had founded but left formally was also noted as being 'one of the smartest people in history' to him by his superiors.
*zzt*
A faint noise at the edge of his hearing. The sound of welding something, all the way up here? Perhaps he was just hearing a bit of repair work from a nearby office. But, ah, perhaps not now that he looked ahead of he and his two escorts (one in front and walking behind him) as they approached the end of the hall. The silent Oligarchic Guard in front of him stopped in front of two large double-doors that lied before them, before which two more Oligarchic Guards seemed to man them. The one to the left looked at him, then at his escort, and put a hand to an obvious earpiece before lowering it again to rest on the side of the firearm in his hands. The two door guards would then reach over to the door handles, pulling the polished wooden double doors open in a seemingly drilled and synchronous manner.
York, internally swallowing a mild mental moment of nervousness while keeping his best poker face on, looked in side as the guard in front of him stepped aside and gestured for him to enter the office. He nodded in return, before stepping properly inside.
The head office itself was a rather spacious room with a very high-up roof at that, with fancy wide cylindrical lights with a bloated spherical midsection hanging from equally-spaced spots of the white ceiling to light up the room rather comfortably overall. Meanwhile the smoothly-designed floor in turn was lined with a comfortable but perhaps trip-resistant and likely fireproof red carpeting, velvety in its color, while the walls were lined with smooth wooden bookshelves and said bookshelves had a few small amenities like decorative (real or fake he didn't know)plants of green or more bluish colors and so forth interspersed between to break it up a bit and more of the same white wall color the facility seemed to like sporting in the managerial areas sitting above them. A polished wooden rectangular table with six formal chairs sat in an open spot to his left visibly as well, one which seemed as if it was made to host small meetings in the head office proper with its likely built-in office conference holoprojector at the center ready to be used in calls or for presentations or such like things. Meanwhile to his own right a smaller round polished wooden table sat with a singular but seemingly much more plush and comfy chair at it, as if made to sit and enjoy a nice lunch during one's break or while doing overnight work on some fancy mobile office-use holocomputer.
The impressivness of the furniture, light, and other such qualities aside, most of all, at the back of the room, underneath three incredibly talls windows with pulled-back velvet-red curtains to let the golden light of day in, was the biggest thing. A huge and more widely rounded-shaped office desk, made of the same shade of polished wood as the tables and other chairs and bookshelves it seemed, with ornate golden trim on its edges and along certain spots for flair. Yet on its top surface he could glimpse the occasional scratch or such to his left (to the right of whoever was sitting at it) from tools or such like. Otherwise a more advanced-looking holocomputer sat more to his right (the left of whoever was sitting at the desk) already active and turned on and ready for use....or already having been in use perhaps. Meanwhile in the center of the large, the more widely rotund-shaped desk had a chair in front of it for guests to sit in and behind the desk-....yes. This was the person he'd been sent to report to formally for this matter. Or rather, had been requested to come report about in-person in this case?
While he felt usually the messaging and encrypted channels were the normal, he would make a salute as what seemed to be a man in a spinning chair at the center of this huge desk turned around to look at him.
"Wir freuen uns, Sie bei uns zu haben! At ease, mein dear fellow, und please come sit und relax for but a moment for our business today. Und it iz a beautiful day indeed too, ja?"
York would lower his salute once more, stepping ever tight and formal in his movements yet still despite accepting the invitation to sit in the chair before the man. When he sat, then, the man offered him a handshake, one which York would reciprocate in turn...hmm. Tight and strong handshake the man had to be sure. Something he'd not expect of, well, a non-military person he supposed.
Even so, this was the spitting picture of the First that he'd been shown to let him know who he would be speaking to in this case. His short, blonde hair was certainly combed well enough it seemed, and he looked human outright for the most part despite his rather pale skintone. However, behind the somewhat uniquely-designed glasses on his face, his eyes seemed to radiate the same sense of inviting yet business-worthy calm and collection that seemed to act as if nothing was wrong and things were always on-schedule or to-plan. A presence that in part made him feel somewhat more comfortable on its own, even down to a pleased-looking but formal little smile on his face, aside from....er, well, those eyes of his.
Those eyes of his were unnaturally yellow, and something about them otherwise seemed to carry....something uncanny in them, he felt, that both felt familiar and yet left him unable to pin down the particular memory. As if those eyes of his were running more calculations than the latest supercomputer and could likewise stare into your soul, or hell even the void, and not blink or bat an eye even once at it as if it was a matter of any consequence. Could look a demon back in the eye with those, perhaps, and intimidate it into compliance if need-be. Yes. That felt like the right way to describe it to some extent in the moment here. But the initial cordial question about the day was enough along with those eyes of his to leave York feeling a small lump in his throat even while oddly almost relaxing a bit at the same time.
"I-It is, sir, though I've heard rain is expcted here and around the capital tonight."
The right side of the First's mouth seemed to perk up mildly for a moment, perhaps in amusement, before he spoke again and leaned back somewhat in his chair to a normal position.
"Ja, you are right. Zumtimes zhe sun comes up, shinink brightly and warm before zhe storms arrive both vith regards for zhe weather....un een life as vell for zhat matter, hmm? At zhe same time, zhe opposite can also be true, no?
Ah, but where are mein manners? I vill not keep zhu here long, Herr York, but may I also ask if zhu are hungry after your early and sudden flight here from off-world?"
"I am fine, sir, but-"
A mild grumble from his stomach would interrupt his words all the same, leading to York clearing his mouth as the First's smile grew even a tiny bit more than before.
"Ah, I vill send zhu vith a snack und drink for zhe flight back. I insist~" the First said, tone somewhat teasing yet pleasant even as he would suddenly nod to a guard out of view and York heard the resulting sound of the office doors opening and closing in quick sucession, "Do not vurry about it. Now zhen, to business. I vanted to hear zhis matter in person, so zhey sent someone to tell me vhen zhe arrangements were ready. Zhat is zhe message you have brought to me, yes?"
York gulped, before nodding back at the First in turn. Hadn't even had a chance to try to deny the gift, but...well he hadn't even been able to eat yet before coming here. Such was the nature of bringing this message.
"Yes sir, the arrangements you speak of are complete. The widened defensive array you requested is fully in place under the direct observation of the Fourth, and he wished me to tell you that the diplomatic vessels are also prepared with the additional analysts, particular Old Earth linguists you requested, and sensors you requested go aboard them. The envoys are being shuttled to their prepared military vessels as we speak, and the start of the diplomatic missions should begin in earnest soon thereafter. Project Gaia is also on schedule to be loaded onto the ESS McNamara, as you requested, as it helps escort the Sol diplomatic vessel in addition to the rest of its escort.
And...ahem, he passed on the message to tell you, and I quote, 'The favor I owed you is now most graciously repayed, but Three isn't very happy about the change in sensors but giving him the monkeys' probe after neutering it is keeping him from doing more than griping more about it at least.' End quote."
The First would chuckle for a bit once he finished speaking, before letting out a small but satisfied sigh of his own and leaning farther back in the chair in a more casual and relaxed manner now.
"Wunderbar! Zhat clunky old cog should be satisfied vith zhings for now...zhose sensors he vanted vould be seen as too 'invasive' perhaps in zhe diplomatic sense. Zhe ones on zhem now should suffice until vee understand zhe greater political situation.
Ah, but iz zhat all, Master Seargant?"
"Yes sir."
The First would sit back forward once more, taking back on a more formal posture before extending another hand to shake York's own.
"Ausgezeichnet. Zhen zhat vill conclude our business. Thank you for comink, Herr York, und your snack und drink should be waitink and ready to go vhen you return to zhe entrance of zhis building. Und if zhe Fourth asks you anyzhing about zhis visit, zhen would you tell him vun thing for me?"
"Sir?"
"Tell him zhe suprise for zhe Second for zhe next meeting should be arriving at heez doorstep by zhe end of zhe week. Nothink too extreme, but he can call me back himself if he vishes to know more.
The Greater Euryalean Republic (The GER/“The Republic”)
"E Pluribus Unum" (Aka: "Out of Many, One")
Government Form: Semi-Oligarchic Democratic Republic
((No other idea how to describe it so simply otherwise for now, if you find a better way please let me know!))
Population:7.7 billion
((General Very Rough Population Growth Timescale ‘Idea’ - 150 years ago: 5.4 billion, 350 years ago: 2.5 billion, ~425 years ago: Some Millions At Maximum; Improved as technology and survivability and sustainability for the colony overall improved, which led in part to a boom in growth. Wars did lessen this to some extent at times, among other things, etc, but 500 years is a long time indeed.))
What is humanity?: Humanity? What is man humanity, but a miserable pile of secrets the ability to connect, empathize, and build alongside others through the good and the bad and the ugly? To be able to fight for survival against a hostile nature that seeks to kill you, to mete out survival even when you're against the ropes and despite your own mistakes, and to seek out a future even when all seems to be at its bleakest?
In the mundane and far less poetic sense, however, for the GER the matter is a simple one for defining humanity. It is being born as one of the human species biologically, born to human species parents.....whether it be Homo sapiens sapiens or a new subspecies or aliens or otherwise. Sapient rights, however, are things that most certainly also exist under GER law as well in general.
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Planet/System Name and Description:
Star/System Name - Euryale
Planet Name - Euryale IV/Sarpedon
Living on the fourth planet, in the ‘habitable zone’ of the star Euryale, the GER was begun on the terraformed planet of Euryale IV, aka “Sarpedon” as it would come to be called. A planet of size 1.37 times the size of the Earth, it was among the earliest ‘near-habitable’ worlds to be discovered during the scramble to create the Gateway and escape the dying earth. Discovery of the star and its system was credited to the Greek astronomer Sebastian Kiritikos, using self-replicating von Neumann probes and early Gateway tech, who was working with the United Nations and other cooperating groups and companies to find habitable stars and potentially human-habitable worlds, who named it after one of the gorgon sisters of ancient mythology. Likewise the names of the planets of the star’s system would be initially named in a more standard fashion, though the name of “Sarpedon” would be given to Euryale IV (named after the legendary isle the gorgons lived upon) after it was finally altered for human habitation over the course of fifty years as part of a Gateways-related terraforming-investigating project dubbed “Project Prometheus”. This project was to be used to gather data and more of an understanding of terraforming to be used for other colonial settlements moving forward, hence why the colony ship sent to the Euryale system was among the very first. Its atmosphere and such aspects were already ‘closer to Earth than most’ potential colonial worlds that had been discovered earlier on, though its terraforming into a fully-habitable and human-ready home would take decades of work to get done in the first place, a process not helped by the last decade and few odd years seeing humanity forced to settle there prematurely as the final parts of the process were being done due to the historically still-infamous event of the “Anesidoran Massacre”.
It is a generally warmer planet than Earth to an extent despite being labeled as a ‘miraculous Earth-like planet’ by current times, sporting a larger (but not all-encompassing for the planet certainly either) band of warmer and humid climates across a wider band of its landmass due to its wide equatorial band length. This is in part due to a somewhat thicker atmosphere and atmospheric pressure being minutely over 1 atm/atmospheres, which has led to the greater retention of heat from the system’s sun. Increased rainfall and humidity are notable factors as well as a result of these things, as well as a more frequent occurrence of storms that has led to local construction and settlement methods being designed with such things being much more in mind (using rounded shapes or easier to build multi-sided octagonal homes, applying improved material sciences for more resilient materials, etc). At the same time, however, there are still proper more temperate climes the closer one gets to its proper northern and southern polar regions despite these bands being distinctly narrower than those on ‘Old Earth’ used to be. Likewise features such as tall mountains and sprawling valleys, and similar things to Old Earth geography, do still exist as do things such as deserts and such like to some extent or another.
The planet’s water-to-land ratio features 74% water to 26% land overall. Further, unlike the notable deeper blue color of the ocean waters, the planet’s plantlife sports in the majority shades of bluish-greens, like how green was most common on Earth, with some rarer vivid or deeper greens and some blues in the rarest of cases. Autumnal colors remain similar to those of Earth, with varieties such as reds, yellows, and oranges, with even purples for that matter depending on the plantlife involved. Meanwhile bodies of water appear to be a more vibrant blue compared to the waters of ‘Old Earth’ proper. This is all due to the nature of the yellowish-white F-class star of the system proper, of which Euryale IV (and the one habitable moon of the neighboring large gas giant of Euryale V, which also benefits from tidal forces to warm it due to its position) falls into. Earth-based species, as in those adapted somewhat to the new planet’s environment through genetic modification or the use of special fertilizers or composed soils, have also found general success on the face of Sapedon proper over the past several centuries of humanity’s settlement and development on the planet proper.
The planet’s atmosphere sports a by now distinctly far more ‘Earth-like’ mix than some potentially habitable exoplanets in general, at least, though genetic vaccines and certain medical procedures would come to be deployed eventually both initially and in the long-term to combat the initial struggle of humanity to mete out survival in the still-minorly-alien atmosphere. Meanwhile the remaining native animal and plant life of the planet has in ways been seen as a closer reflection to a number of Earth-like species, though much more ‘alien’ examples have also arisen throughout the ages and epochs of the planet’s development and evolution based on archaeological data of the planet’s past. Some bear more notable similarities to things such as traditional mammals or the like, while others take on more unique shapes or niches or even fully alien sorts of designs. Life on this planet is also carbon-based and uses a closely-related form of genetics and genetic sequences in its organic life, however, and while similar-ish to that of Earth it nominally and normally shouldn’t have interactions with life that grew elsewhere on a whole other world according to older Old Earth sciences. Yet some tinkering with genetic engineering has sought to ‘bridge’ the gaps between Sarpedon and imported Earth lifeforms to some extent or another here and there, and efforts to help adapt humanity to the alien planet and their new lives had also taken place using genetic engineering, which in part also fed into the use and implementation of these technologies on a wider scale in society over the centuries in the long-run.
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Humanity also lives on the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V, at least in anchored or stabilized upper atmospheric habitats. Here many things are processed using the heat and pressure farther down in the gas giant, within human reach at least, and hydrogen and helium are harvested and processed in vast quantities to produce fuel and fuel cells to boot. Said habitats are closed off from the outside, aside from places such as localized spaceports and such, with pressurized thick walls and durable make from neighboring planetary or asteroid-mined metals. Notable air circulation systems, other critical atmospheric and hydroponics systems, and the like also exist within the webs of interconnected ‘towns’ and in much rarer cases ‘cities’ these habitats form inherently by design. Everything is close together due to dangers in attempting to enable ‘personal transit’ or such things, and running monorails and public transport are of the most common note aside from the very wealthiest living on Euryale V who can afford an otherwise outright nigh unheard of equivalent of a ‘personal transit vehicle’ while living down there.
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Life was found to be support-able on the one habitable moon of Euryale V, the third of its three moons in fact, which was first given the moniker and name of “Anesidora” due to seeming to be a ‘gift’ to humanity in that it was notably more habitable for humans than Sarpedon initially was by a fairly good margin. Yet the attempt to settle its surface would become a failure, in the early decades of human colonization in the Euryale system that is, in part due to post-Earth environmental extremism inherited from the dying world (even if understandably in historical hindsight to enough of an extent) and the many works of humanity done along the way to try to escape its crumbling cradle. By current times, only weaker maladapted humans and “biologically adapted” modified humans exist on the moon as a slave caste to local Vah’neh tribes. This has led to a diaspora of this minority into further and further tribes beyond where humanity had tried to settle, though this spread has been centuries in the making due to the effects of long-term occasional tribal warfare and/or peacetime trade dealings. However, a legend of the ‘Evil Sky/Star People’ does exist within some local legends through current times, an oral tradition warped from the original historical facts to some extent but that has remained nonetheless in the cultural memory of those tribes who did actually encounter humanity so long ago (and has been kept due to the theorized memory banks of the biological supercomputer/local deity known in the general common local tongue, kept in circulation by the entity to allow tribes to understand each other as it is assumed, as “Vah” or “The Mother”).
Demographics:
((Note: As a general rule of thumb, major species that populate the GER get a proper hider section to themselves. Minority species, who number far less so than the major ones in comparison, get put in the “Other Species” tab for simplicity’s sake at the point in time of writing this on my end. Even the most populous species of non-humans, the Livelli, still number secondarily to humanity by a pretty big long-shot despite having boomed with their genetic modification and resettlement alongside humans within the last one hundred years.))
Humans. Homo sapiens sapiens.The fled children of the dying Earth. The people of Sarpedon who, as citizens of the GER, call themselves “Sarpedans”. Aside from gene therapy programs intended to help adapt humanity to the world of Sarpedon proper, and work to fix some mistakes in these therapies over the centuries, humanity by and large within the GER hasn’t wildly differed from its original baseline otherwise for most.
This is, however, aside from a nominal population of those who get ‘stylistic’ biomods, like color-changing skin or hair color changes/eye color changes, cat ears, the tail of a chameleon, shark teeth, etc. They don’t count as a separate species, though those who have gone ‘mod mad’ or ‘gone wild’ (as people in the GER would call it) have gone to such extremes but not been formally classified as such ‘extreme modifications’ are against the law of the GER itself. Even so, with rare cases of children born to such extremely-modded individuals it stands as a theory that some of these could be, by current times, divergent enough to label as a subspecies or such potentially….though there isn’t a large enough evidence base for this, or potentially enough individuals to study to confirm such, etc.
Known in their own tongue as the Livelloúli, nicknamed the “Livelli”, they are a vaguely mammal-and-insect-like humanoid alien species that originated from a hot and more humid homeworld called “Sórgy Alknúoz”. A world emerging around third from their home sun, a sun known as “Arétim” in their tongue (assumed to be, based on comparative star carts, what humans before fleeing Earth would find and broadly called Teucer-42), it was a planet featuring a larger equatorial region than many that, ultimately, was in the end only part of the ‘continental-ish tropical-ish world’ they called home (temperate regions, notable polar regions, oceans and island, etc, also exist there with varied climes, but notably more hot/humid climate bands around it than Earth had). It also boasted a similar, roughly-speaking based on limited information brought along by the Livelli, size to Earth it is assumed by current times within the GER.
Their societies in primitive times were noted as having a higher occurrence of even more fierce competition for territory, though as civilization advanced this trend would begin to slowly shift away, ultimately this ‘aspect’ would never fully disappear either. Further, it can be said in generally broad strokes that their societies emerged to become about as individualistic as those of many human cultures, to give a baseline comparison, though unity as a species and under things like cultural, ethnic, and national identities would also develop among them. By the time they developed what humanity would likely dub roughly equivalent to the “late 21st century/early 22nd century”, however, the race would face a global crisis that would place the species on the brink of potential extinction.
A “great calamity” was detected approaching from afar, though instead of a meteor as some thought it turned out to be a nomadic Glorg fleet. A fleet that not only would fail to make peaceful first contact, or seek to settle anywhere in the system permanently, but would invade and subjugate the Livelli homeworld before sacking the home system of resources for several centuries. From here, this stubbornly-nomadic Glorg fleet in particular would take the newly-enslaved species and keep them in the slave holds of their mother vessels for untold millennia to come as they continued onward using super-fast travel over long-term centuries to move between systems as they’d seemingly always done. While cultural memories and such were kept among those enslaved along with some other aspects within their limited ‘freedom’ in the holds to maintain such things, and some history was kept recorded from all of this mess, much was also lost and they too evolved and grew with the generations over time.
….Yet this was happening right there and then despite all of that, and they at least had to 'try' to do something about it without more of their own dying over it.
By the time the Glorg attacked humanity, the Livelli had lived as slaves for longer than anyone could hope to remember among even their eldest members by far. Yet it was during humanity’s fight back against the Glorg that the Livelli, the ‘liveliest’ of the existing slave species, would take a gamble on fighting back once the fight came to the Glorg mother vessels. It mostly began with a gamble to communicate with humanity and try to bargain a deal for freedom in return for inside information, as risky as it was to gamble if humanity would be of assistance or not to their cause, though in the end an escaped cluster of Livelli slaves, some hacked robotics, and few turned Glorg heads on the wrong day after a distraction or two was put into play would allow something to be worked out and would give humans a first and valuable insight into Glorg mother vessel functions from the inside. Then, when the battles finally came to the first of two mother vessels of the Glorg to fall, for the Livelli inside willing to fight it would also involve a fair amount of rebellious violence simultaneously as the humans boarded the vessel by force that would get many of their kind killed in the process, a good many in fact, before freedom for many of them was finally achieved. Yet where for those on the first mother vessel they became lucky, for the other two mother vessels it led to punishment and distrust even more so of their Livelli populations. Enough so that forced sterilizations of some, cullings of others, and the like were done as ‘safety precautions’ but would be stopped on the second mother vessel when it eventually fell and left its gruesome evidence behind. Humanity was no stranger to such atrocities among its own, most certainly so, but in this circumstance the freeing of the Livelli and coordination with the escaped slaves to free their kin became a major point of publicity in the war in part.
By the time what Livelli on those vessels could be freed were freed, though, the grounds for assistance in grasping their own biology and settling alongside humanity would be laid as a reward for assistance given in the war against the invading Glorg. Yet circumstances of the invasions, slave-soldiers employed against the mother-vessel-boarding humans, and such events along the way would help ensure that the Livelli (at the cost of some others held as slaves by the Glorg) were the most successful and (by current times) prosperous alien populace to join the GER in this manner.
Females are known to have a feminine-type body layout with a ‘grasping’ prehensile tail, while males instead are known to have slimmer and longer wings and have a ‘pointy’ singular piece at the end of their tail that is said to possess a rather small and vestigial venom sac no longer connected to it with a venom inside known to cause lingering disorientation, nausea, and dizziness in those affected by it. The birth rate of females is generally higher than that of males by a distinct percentage in comparison to human birth rates for the sexes. Births take the form of laying a 'sac', which itself is cared for until the young properly emerges from within the protective incubating sac they are 'born' in 2-5 days later (sometimes needing medical help to do so). As a note, water births are thought generally by Livelli to be 'more comfortable' for females as a practice to some extent as well (some humans use water births as well, which was a pleasant surprise to them culturally somewhat) even if not necessarily all Livelli women prefer it.
((Also yes, words in their language are just reversed greek-language words for future reference.))
History:
The USS Elpis was among the first colony ships sent out into the stars to colonize the stars, with many hired or ‘acquired’ scientists and the like onboard who were brought in for their areas of expertise. This was because the colony ship was being equipped with an array of experimental terraforming technologies and inventions, things that humanity hadn’t had much time to test as of yet but which had been tested enough that it was felt safe to put into practical use. The idea was that this colony in particular would help practically establish a baseline for terraforming other worlds, in this case a world as ‘Earthlike’ as could be found to be earlier on in efforts to find new homes for humanity. This was done using Von Neumann probes and earlier versions of the Gateway technology beforehand alongside earth-bound observations via space telescopes and such things. Thus before the sudden and unexpected closure of the Gateways, and with the ‘redundancy’ of the habitable moon found in the system in case things went south with the plan, the USS Elpis would carry the contents of what was known as “Project Prometheus” (or find another name for it) into the Euryale System.
Upon entering the Euryale system, the USS Elpis would begin setting up terraforming operations at an already semi-habitable Euryale IV as soon as possible, establishing an initial base of operations in its orbit while moving to the habitable moon of Euryale V (this moon being called Anesidora) and beginning work to purpose resources from it and establish a ‘temporary colony’ that could be used to support the terraforming efforts and lighten the burden on sustaining the colony ship’s population. This moon colony was deemed ‘temporary’ for the time being, however, due to something that was kept mostly under wraps back on Earth in the time period….the existence of seemingly Stone-Age natives who lived on its surface in various places and climes. Thus it was hoped that the terraforming efforts would bear fruit and avoid the need to fully settle on the moon of Anesidora, but if push came to shove, well, humanity had little choice in the matter and even less time to think about it all if they wished to survive. In such a case, coexistence or otherwise were on the table for those in the Euryale System.
Some frozen ice, personnel, and machines as well as materials would be imported from Earth to support the initial terraforming efforts after seeing some initial ‘positive successes’ that seemed to be following the planned terraforming process on Euryale IV. However, this would also be the last bit of contact from Earth, and sending data back to it about things, before ultimately the Gateways would end up closing suddenly and without warning. It was enough to get Euryale IV propelled from the ‘setup’ phase of terraforming to close to the ‘acceleration’ phase planned to augment the process to go from many decades to thousands of years to bring it down to ‘a manageable timeframe’ using a combination of methods and researched & developed ideas invested notably into Project Prometheus.
Initial work on the temporary Anesidora colony was also underway at this stage, further exploratory probes being used to gather samples of lifeforms and such from the surface while work to clear an area ‘farthest from native presence but suitable enough for settlement’ had already begun in earnest. People needed basic oxygen masks to navigate the planet’s surface, but otherwise didn’t have to use other systems to survive in its comparatively lower-gravity environment at the very least. The central area of the colony would establish administration, a spaceport, and act as the center of on-moon resource gathering operations that began to be dotted about within a certain radius of this ‘central colony command’ area that acted as a base of operations. This area had a tall, reinforced concrete wall placed around certain key facilities, and used both ‘sonic fences’ and such technologies to help drive off hostile or aggressive local fauna both ground-based and even flying-capable from the perimeter of the area and established resource-gathering operations in a safer manner.
Yet the lower-gravity environment and seemingly rapidly-increasing/growing hostility of some local fauna and flora on Anesidora, while subject to much study and analysis at the labs located in the central colonial command area, were taken into account alongside other such factors when deciding to make the Anesidora colony a ‘temporary’ one unless no other viable option was present. It was a practical set of factors leading to the decision, though it did bear the weight of its own problems. Among these problems was trying to maintain order and a balance between people living on the colony ship and who got to go down on-planet emerged as a matter of concern, ranging from shuttle stowaways trying to sneak down, some volunteer workers having to be vetted and have an eye kept on them to avoid attempts to ‘jump ship’ or them just refusing to work once on the surface, and even some trying to bring contraband back up to the colony ship were among the potential but at least on the more minor side of things for the time being.
A few years later with the sudden and unexpected closure of the Gateways, and given the flow of information and such between the colonials of the Euryale System and Earth proper that had been going on prior due to the seeming importance of Project Prometheus’ data and current progress, there was some amount of panic in the aftermath and complications to be certain (at minimum with regards to the terraforming project). Yet with the seemingly positive ‘initial successes’ of the planned 50-year terraforming project, and initial successes on Anesidora despite certain ‘worrying factors’ being only seen as minor at the time, things seemed to be on track for the colony and some additional workforce and such materials that could be frankly be spared (given the colony’s terraforming was an experiment meant to gather data to help with others fleeing Earth) had been pulled in for the terraforming work beforehand in return for the workers being promised a part in the colony proper once things were done. The rather Earthlike but not-quite-fully-habitable-for-humans world of Euryale IV itself was big enough, at the very least, to make sense with this.
Yet with the loss of Sol-provided materials, work would shift to leveraging and producing more potential resources from Anesidora proper (and otherwise in the Euryale system) for potential reprocessing or having outright more straightforward use in the terraforming project proper. This would generate some….concerns among a number of colonial refugees, and could be marked generally as the ‘start’ of some yet-to-be-understood events leading some people with the fresh wounds of losing Earth and the environmental trains of thought from that late-Earth time period to begin turning against the efforts of humanity on the moon of Anesidora.
Roughly fifteen years into the efforts on Euryale IV and Anesidora alike, human expansion of habitable settlements on the surface of Anesidora was ultimately halted in lieu of ‘excessive environmental hostility’. Despite high levels of research into the wildlife and makeup of Anesidora as well as generally seeking to uncover the reasons as to why, it was deemed ‘unsafe for further human settlement to continue to expand outwards, given the increasingly dangerous nature of doing so’ even as resource-harvesting operations continued to try to expand out of necessity for both the settlers and even more so for the terraforming project. However, what is not being told to the general public (though some rumors have begun to speculate) is that some people are seeming to work at sabotaging the efforts of human expansion on Anesidora in general and this has also contributed in part to the stop of building new human settlements as well. The colonial administration has been working to investigate this particular bit alongside other matters of peculiar hostility on Anesidora surface from the flora and fauna alike, but given the existence of such efforts (including more notably violent ones) still in the public memory from the late period of the Earth before the colony ship was launched the administration worries about starting a potential panic. These investigations do not have as much resources as other efforts, though, due to the pressed importance of the situation on Euryale IV and so forth.
Announcements are also made to try to indicate that ‘once humanity has wrought a new home, work will be done to help rehabilitate Aneidora’s surface as infrastructure is sent over to Euryale IV and only a scientific outpost is left behind’ in hopes of stemming some of the human-against-human sabotage. Some do not think the Euryale IV terraforming will work out, however, and others have already begun new lives and begun to be attached to their new home to boot. Some minor verbal protest and grumbling against ‘making a new home just to abandon ship’ begins among some of the new human settlers on Anesidora who have had the last decade to decade and a half to get on-moon and begin new lives themselves despite the dangers. Some who stay on the colony ship do so out of fear for the on-moon dangers of wildlife and such as well or worry about the terraforming being successful, for that matter, who in the end want the terraforming more so to succeed than a number of those on Anesidora. These are just general and ‘growing’ trends among these populations, however, to not speak on the more minute complexities of thought and opinion going on with the colonists of the Euryale system in this time period.
In the end, the expansion of founding settlements and building them out that was able to be made on the moon’s surface allowed the ‘rough’ balancing of population levels between the moon and the colony ship to a ‘functional enough’ extent according to the colonial administration. Not that everyone seemed to think so, though the dangers in more attempted expansion, themselves a source of controversy, would begin to be put behind the colonists in favor of more ‘static and stalwart’ needs for defense against the by now much more aggressive fauna and flora. This would range from the use of aforementioned ‘sonic fences’ as passive defenses all the way up to static turret-based defenses and regular patrols used on the perimeter and in handling the increasing amount of (and part of the reason for stopping expansion outwardly) ‘invasive’ cases of aggressive native fauna and flora into human-inhabited areas.
About twenty three years into the ongoing efforts in Euryale IV, and work has slowed more and more for about half a decade and half on the terraforming project (in some part from some colonial leaders’ decisions), though it hasn’t stopped, with fears of it failing and stopping arising the minds of a number of people in the wake of this news being discovered. Despite reassurances of ‘trying to get around some minor roadblocks in the process’ by the latest newly-elected colonial administration, who have been putting in cycles of elections and such and been likewise trying to build up what settlements they could put down on Anesidora before they had to stop for safety and other such reasons, some have already begun to murmur or argue about shifting efforts to Anesidora fully while a more polarized opposition argues for focusing less on Anesidora and more on the terraforming. Human sabotage has risen to higher levels than before as well, and knowledge has gone public out of necessity now, though this has caused a higher level of investment on the part of most of the elected colonial administrations of the past ten years (with others putting effort elsewhere or trying to appease one political polar side or another in the interim).
It was also around this time that a native alien tribe, thought to be migratory or nomadic at first, made first contact with humanity on Anesidora. Natives were noted in the first human observations as having long, prehensile earlobes, humanlike facial and head/body structure, being distinctly taller than humans in height and more ‘lanky’ or lean in their build, and deeper blue-ish green skin. Many found them to be ‘beautiful’ in their aesthetics and appearance, and two years later the language barrier would eventually be broken with some effort and struggle. This would in turn lead to the beginnings of some gaining a ‘fascination’ with the natives, and efforts to set up a ‘cultural outreach center’ were made to try to arrange a ‘neutral, natural place for the exchange of information and understanding’ among other things. These came about from both a scientific perspective, but also had the value of ‘entertainment’ for colonists and to keep them more occupied as terraforming efforts continued onwards. It is eventually found that the species of natives calls themselves the “Vah’neh”, in their tongue meaning “The Children (neh) of the Mother (Vah)”. Nearby abnormal fauna and flora hostility seems to be lessened when the natives are nearby as well, though it would not be for years more until this trend would be properly looked into by human scientists and researchers as well.
Likewise a group calling themselves “The Resistance” makes themselves known (finally known?) anonymously to the public on Anesidora and the colony ship, claiming to be “the cure to the human infection of the cosmos, and the source to the ‘sabotage’ your lying, greedy leaders talked about” and to “fight against the plunder and {insert a sensitive term I am not using here} of the Vah’neh” until humanity fully leaves “this world and its people alone….for good”. It also leaves an anonymous manifesto in pamphlets across many of the moon’s settlements.
About thirty three years into the settlement and terraforming efforts in the Euryale system, human and Vah’neh relations seems to be on a generally amicable track with much in the way of seeking to understand the natives at the very least. However, a number of human ideas and technologies are often rejected by the natives, with learning having begun to slow down more and more so with regards to teaching human ideas (aside from the common human tongue of English for purposes of communication). Some of those involved at the exchange center worry about the future in this regard, though work has been ordered to ‘help maintain a peace’ as best as possible. Some natives have also been less than happy with humanity’s efforts on Anesidora’s surface, which moon in their native tongue they call “Vah’ruh” or “The Body of the Mother” in their tongue. Indeed, according to local beliefs the moon itself is ‘alive’, and a titanic lifeform that looks like a tree is referred to as “Vah” or “The Mother” proper and sits at the center of local belief and religious practices. Vah has long guided them, taught them precepts that have helped them prosper and flourish in their in ways seemingly-paradisical home, though these precepts are noted as ‘being rather specific and peculiar’ by their nature. It is also found that other fruiting bodies across the moon are extensions of Vah, and are treated with a similar respect and fervor by other tribes.
At times the native tribes do fight and war amongst each other, whether for pride or hunting grounds or the like, though they are often exhorted to ‘be at peace’ with each other ‘unless found absolutely necessary’ by Vah (not that it is perfect among them, but still). Further, more specific cultural investigation of the tribe of natives that first made contact with humanity finds in the process that a more common trait for tribes in this area of the moon is for warriors to get ‘first choice’ of a wife among the women of the tribe. Information from the contacted tribe also indicates that tribes in the local area at times have their warriors take ‘war wives’ in addition to a chosen spouse, ones who act like secondary slave-concubines or workers for more prestigious warriors and chiefs (who are themselves once warriors). In other ways, however, the local tribes seem to practice a sort of ‘respect’ for the planet around them despite the peculiar and now-noted natural tendency of the flora and fauna to not be extra-hostile toward them as compared to humans. They also seem to work to use a peculiar means to ‘connect’ to local fauna and flora with their very long (and prehensile as it turns out) earlobes that helps them to tame creatures both flying and ground-based for their use in travel and war. Yet they also seem to reject the idea of farming, seeming to prefer a close second by either migrating or taking care of natural groves of certain trees or plants to protect them as food sources alongside the very common use of hunting. This hunter-gatherer lifestyle seems to be ubiquitous given the seemingly much more united and widespread religious beliefs of the natives across tribes, from what humanity would manage to gather in attempting to positively contact and investigate tribes elsewhere with small research detachments as well, though certain local customs and ideas vary likewise by region to region across the oddly well-proportioned environs of the surface of Anesidora (as to their skin tones to some extent or another).
Humans as a note must still wear oxygen masks initially, though adjusted locals can simply use new rebreather-type masks to survive on the surface. New generations have been born on Anesidora’s surface as well, and many have begun to become more entrenched into their lunar home for a certainty with these passing and moving generations. Older members of the first generation of new colonists on-moon and on the colony ship remain, however, and some people suspect the natives rather than embrace them while accusing them behind closed doors or in public of being ‘saboteurs’ as well after the eventual and perhaps inevitable public reveal of human sabotage in the Anesidora colony by the colonial administration by this point in time out of necessity before a number of leaks could potentially hit more than just the tabloids and whispered rumors among people. It doesn’t help things overall to enough of an extent for sure.
Thirty six years into the colonial efforts in the Euryale System, and the planned terraforming project is making noticeably greater strides once more. Many celebrate this matter, yet others in the meantime have begun to make it a matter of contention. A great many on Anesidora do not wish to leave the only homes they’ve ever known, others bear concerns or worries for what is being done to the moon, some want to give up on the terraforming on Anesidora altogether on polarized sides to some extent or another, and many continue to press for any progress they can be told about for the terraforming in hopes of finally getting to settle on Euryale IV. However, with all of this comes a rise in new sabotage in human resource-harvesting facilities and the settlements on Anesidora, some of these having evidence of native involvement and others yet still even more human involvement. It spurs on a witch hunt among some of the moon-surface-dwelling humans, as progress seemed to be going against the human saboteurs for a time and been in some decline before this happened, and around this time an initial decline in natives participating in the cultural exchange is going on seemingly due to sentiments among the natives’ leaders back in the primary tribe humanity has been in contact with. Other contacted groups seem to exhibit some form of increased negativity toward humanity as well, and several minor research groups sent to learn of them and communicate with them are either forced to or are recalled to the main human settlement region on Anesidora after a while of this.
Yet near the end of this particular year, the “Pasedena Incident” occurs, several weeks after a group of native youths (appearing to be young warriors) taunting and in ways damaging and sabotaging the land clearance being made for a new mining operation in a nearby valley. Despite the use of sonic fences to drive off the wildlife, the youths seemed unbothered by it and were mostly tolerated but kept at a distance at first. Mostly their actions seemed to be those of ‘stupid kids’, but began to escalate even as those on the site were brought more security and ordered to ‘refrain from starting violence’ at most costs. Attempts to scare or drive off the kids without harming them has also escalated, and yet most recently a translator was brought in to try to talk to them after most things had failed to work on them otherwise. Yet the day when the translator came out and tried to talk to them over a megaphone, one youth threw a rock at the translator. The rock managed to not hit near the translator, as some humans would later claim it was intended to do to, but hit the translator in the head. While evacuating the profusely bleeding and now-unconscious translator, security on the site of the mining operation (meant to provide minerals to the terraforming efforts easier and faster so than using drones for space mining at this venture) were finally cleared to use handheld sonic and microwave crowd-control weapons to drive off the youths more acutely now as the aggression of the situation has acutely escalated. In response most covered their ears or jumped back, and two of them each fired an arrow in the direction of the security. One arrow flew afar and hit the building meant to house workers safely aboveground outside of work hours, and another hit an uninvolved personnel member farther back who was observing the situation. At this stage, live rounds were now fired and three youths of the group of seven were killed and another one was dealt mortal wounds but was seemingly able to be carried away with his fleeing groupmates. The translator would also then die quickly of his wounds before the end of the escalated situation, however, after having been taken into the medical quarters of the operation to try to stabilize him so a called-in medical VTOL could come take him to a settlement hospital.
This incident sparks more than a little controversy on the human side, some claiming humanity ‘was the aggressor and started this, they were just stupid kids’ and others that ‘the kids started it, even if they were just kids they killed two people and could have killed others’ and other such statements. Some media outlets spread the outrage on either side like wildfire to get attention and growth in popularity, those working closer to the natives try to juggle the sudden escalation in negative relations, officials attempt to fumble out statements, and two days later the same land clearance work site is hit with a full-on raid from tribal warriors and is burnt mostly down. Further, the attendance at the cultural exchange center plummets drastically to boot.
Heading into the next year, and despite attempts to smooth things over or appease the locals, escalation of native sabotage or night raids against human operations and human-related sabotage operations escalate worryingly rapidly to boot as do human reprisals to try to stem the tide of aggression. Local flora and fauna also begins to get even more aggressive to humanity, more so than it had stalled out at being for quite some time at this venture around the main human area of settlement and operation. The Resistance ups its operations despite over a decade of trying to root out the organisation after it went public, with mixed successes, a stark and an increasingly rather dark reflection now of some events witnessed on the dying Earth before humanity’s flight. The organization releases yet another announcement to the world, though the first major one in a decade, stating that: “We will continue to fight with the wronged people and environment of this world to cleanse it of humanity’s sins, indeed, even to stop them from repeating all over again in the future to come very soon. Flee your homes, for you will not be spared unless you abandon this place. We have warned you.”
….One week later, then, despite intensified anti-terrorist efforts, and with a new public panic going into swing, a new time period that would become known as simply the “Bloody Month” or “Anesidoran Massacre” begins. Two of the five leading members of the Colonial Administration are assassinated. Several facilities are bombed or attacked by natives. Sonic fences in many areas are destroyed or fail, despite security efforts being made to protect them, and the turret-based defenses and such of the only spaceport are hijacked and turned on the inhabitants and nearby craft or are let down to allow a wave of hostile fauna and flora in. It feels anything but ‘random’, as if the moon itself and the natives and the terrorists and everything were coordinated in one ‘great push’ that sent things into a hellscape. As if it was meant to take as many human lives as possible at that.
Some fought back, and would mete out their own survival. Others were overwhelmed. Some caught saboteurs in time on that day, yet others couldn’t stop them all. But it was enough to turn the Anesidora colony into a frenzy, one of widespread death and destruction in the days to come. Initial shuttles of refugees contained several hidden bombs or saboteurs onboard, who while (most) intercepted after a ‘tattletale’ told on them mid-transit saved the colony ship from being truly destroyed or crippled at the very least and kept the Euryale IV terraforming outposts safe from harm in the end. From here pockets of resistance sought to find any remaining space-capable shuttles to escape on, aerial craft were torn out of the skies by hijacked defenses or tribal/animal attack, and many places lost contact altogether as communications were likewise targeted in many cases. Some claims of ‘freakish monsters’ among the wildlife and natives and the like was also brought back in this time period, yet in the end only so much could be done to try to save those on the planet’s surface….and many were lost in the process during this time period, one which seemed to be a nightmare without end until humanity (with what people and resources and such could be salvaged or rescued) stopped coming down to the planet’s surface.
Some claimed they could have saved many more, yet others still quaked at the horrors they had seen and claimed otherwise, but in the end it was all the same….death. The deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of people, and major trauma brought back with those who came up to the colony ship successfully. There was terror. There was fear. There was anger. Yet in the end, Anesidora fell and the remainder were forced into now-overcrowded conditions aboard the colony ship that only remained partly sustainable for the short-term as it was. Movement of people to the still-terraforming Euryale IV was made in turn, after some time spent in debate and sorting out the aftermath, before things could worsen even further. It wasn’t pretty, and most feared it, but in the end it was deemed that it ‘had to be done’ as the remaining members of the Colonial Administration (including one rescued from Anesidora) took up emergency powers and pushed such things into action. Whether it was a tenable situation on the ship or not in the long-term, however, it was deemed necessary at the time and in the heat of those tentative days and weeks to come.
Humanity would be barely able to subsist on the terraformed planet as it was, but it was at least ‘possible’ if nothing else according to those working on the terraforming project. Thus for the next thirteen years, humanity sought to make home anew on Euryale IV….a planet now named “Sarpedon” by this time. A planet that had by now been stabilized with enough of an Earthlike atmosphere that minimal oxygen masks were needed, even if health issues abounded due to a lack of said masks in supply due to the sudden nature of the situation at hand. So too began work to ‘modify people to better suit the planet’ as the terraforming likewise continued, even as efforts to ensure humanity’s survival in this way rushed into application to try to compensate. For thirteen years, humanity was forced onto a back foot and to rebuild in many ways. For thirteen years, until the planet was finally rendered ‘fully human habitable’ in atmosphere, air, and such like factors in final and the project was deemed a ‘success’, people struggled with the trauma of Anesidora’s loss and sought to move forward.
From this time period, humanity would go about another one hundred and thirty five years in total without outside disturbances. One hundred and thirty five years to let anger and trauma fade into cultural memory, and to ultimately begin to spread more rapidly across a far wider, less absurdly hostile, and much more plentiful (in resources and space) world. It was also in this time the original Colonial Administration would be forced to grow into a larger and fuller government, albeit one that would struggle to keep up with the spread of people after sporadic incentives across the past century or so of the past to “settle new frontier” had gone somewhat out of control in ways. It was a time of growth, a time of generations who had known a better world than their forebears, and a time where new technologies and old alike were growing toward the future as settled cities and such has by now sprung up much greater earnest as the population growth was encouraged to explode to help spread humanity across the surface of Sarpedon.
Yet at the same time, prosperity teetered on a knife’s edge in other ways as the government struggled, accusations of new or longstanding corruption, and work toward keeping control was pushed to a whole new low as the first wave of ‘something horrible’ entered the atmosphere and crashed into the surface of Sarpedon. These ‘something horrible’ would grow like mutant trees, but turned into organic-matter-reprocessing and monster-producing terraformers in their own right. Things that attacked humanity on sight, and which sought to undo its work in making a new home for itself. Things that drove the collapse of the last, creeping vestiges of the old Colonial Administration into being and threatened to plunge the colony into chaos. Many breakaway groups and states that were arising before this, or movements even that had been forming under the ‘colonial heartland’ held underneath the dying administration’s thumb just barely so, turned to work with each other against the threat or fought for their own survival alike. Yet it would be a time of shaped by trauma, and each new year around a certain time more of these ‘flesh pods’ crashed in, began to grow, and set up shop producing horrors to further tear humanity apart.
In this era known as the “Decades of Chaos” (more like seventy five years), humanity would struggle to stay united and likewise to hold back the threat. Desperation drove the inhumane into being in many ways, and elsewhere the fight for survival drove ideas of greater humanity and humanity unity into those who lived through it. It was a time period filled with human wars and wars against ‘the enemy’ alike, and what was once splinter states and freedom movements would eventually grow or fall alike across the board until the most ‘successful’ of these would eventually emerge to produce the polity known as “The Greater Sarpedan Republic” (GSR) that would come to unite humanity’s territories on Sarpedon in that time under one banner in the end through peace and force alike.
Initially a successful successor state born from the original colonial heartland, the GSR would rise as a power both humane yet inhumane, powerful and united yet filled with inequalities and the occasional rebellion aplenty, and so forth. It was, however, the ultimately successful and growing survivor born from the harsh times it came from. And, two hundred and sixty years after the arrival of humanity into the Euryale system, this survivor would begin to further claw back its homeworld from the likes of the threat it faced. Year by year, decade by decade, even over the coming two hundred and forty years to come working to drive back “the enemy”, clawing in new territory from it that was untouched, and even clawing under its wing new territory long torn asunder by “the enemy” and seeking to ultimately ‘rehabilitate’ much of what had come before as terraforming and land-rehabilitating technologies had to return to the forefront and continued to grow more so in this time period. Sometimes they stopped expanding for a while, even, and even turned back to the return of humanity into space as it sought to trace back the source of “the enemy” and its origins as well as to begin one more taking up the resources of the Euryale system under its wing. Yet likewise much was lost in keeping unity as well as was gained along the way, for the idea grew among those in charge to maintain order. To have one state, one nation, and one government. Even this as it was forced to grow, adapt, change, and at times nearly collapsed before changing into its next form on occasion.
Eventually habitats under the banner of the GSR would be suspended in the upper atmosphere of Euryale V proper as well, using the gas giant to harvest and process resources to the nation’s benefit. So too would arise orbital cannon defenses, at first being somewhat limited in number due to technological constraints but crucially meant only to shoot down as many arriving “pods” sent at Sarpedon as possible during a certain time of year. The tracing back of the “enemy” to the cruel but beautiful moon of Anesidora would likewise be made, and initially satellites and new remote research stations would be set up to try to give warning for the orbital cannons (and planet itself) of pods while also seeking to analyze the moon and just what was going on down there. Small vessels carrying sample-and-observation-gathering drones were found to be far less noticed on the moon by attacking/aggressive wildlife that seemed to focus on taking any arriving human vessels down, and found great use in working alongside planetary efforts to better grasp Anesidora as well as in retroengineering and gaining understanding of what “the enemy” was sending at humanity on Sarpedon proper and how.
….It was that titanic, unnatural, blasted ‘tree’ of an organism that was growing them, seeming to use biological methods to propel the ‘pods’ out of orbit and to get caught in Sarpedon’s atmosphere. It was like a giant bioweapon cranking out more bioweapons, but the natives down below (and the discovery of bio-augmented stone age human slave-classes among some tribes near humanity’s former settlement) were too primitive to ever create or control such things. So what was it? Attempts from the past to understand what was salvaged from Anesidora in the far past, alongside the past centuries of battle against the pods and their engineered monstrosities, and finally the new studies undertaken about Anesidora from a distance would eventually dig up enough of a truth….one that the public was not to be told about for until it was fully understood to be ‘actually, really true’ and could be properly dealt with. The truth that the organism sending out the pods, the thing that had been tormenting them for untold decades, and whose lingering effects did so even now yet still, was itself a titanic biological supercomputer whose reach and myriad secondary nodes stretched across the whole of Anesidora. That this organism’s flesh was infused into every living thing on the moon, as if to monitor and potentially exert control over it. That this organisms’ “Sacred Rules” that alongside reinforced traditions kept the natives stuck in a Stone Age society rather willingly by this point in time in a world seemingly curated for their kind….and which had been responding to humanity like it was a literal infection in reality this whole time.
What could be done, though? Some wished to respond quickly, but much had to be kept hidden and top-secret from the public about the truth due to the scope and scale of the enemy. Decades of knowledge had to be taken in. Studies had to be done. And, frankly, another problem came to the doorstep of the GSR even after it had changed its name to the “Greater Euryalean Republic” to reflect its new beyond-Sarpedon-spanning nature. For such was the nature of the arrival of the titanic yet fast generation ships of the “Glorg”.
A species that had spent untold generations wandering the cosmos like ‘comic leeches’ without bothering to settle on a world for any longer than it took to take what it had to offer them, any unfortunate enough to come across them and other races hostile or friendly alike would easily be able to call them the ‘most annoying alien species in the universe’. Literally. A species that seemingly set up ‘shop’ at the edge of the system while sending its main populated vessels forward to ‘subjugate the aliens’ of the Euryale system, primarily meaning humanity and its operations, tentative initial contact would lead rapidly to outright warfare with a second alien species in the Euryale system. One that had taken over four hundred years to arrive and sat back before taking action at a lazy leisure. One that would lead to decades of struggle anew that humanity was pushed back onto a back foot once more by, at times had territory taken from by, and yet which humanity would in the end drive back and respond with in heated, aggressive, and lethal reprisal.
Roughly sixty years ago, after a few decades spent in on-and-off war, the Glorg would eventually be driven back fully and then some. Two out of the three Glorg ‘mother vessels’ would be destroyed without mercy, and scrapped for analysis, while the last would be forced to surrender before being crippled and pushed out beyond the very farthest edges of the Euryale system to flee (but become a source of minor pirate activities persistently for some time to come). Forcibly-settled Glorg populations in human territory would be driven back from where they had tried to ‘clear out’ all humans from their own cities and towns and habitats to take them over (as if humans were pests). And thus humanity would continue to endure. Continue to survive. And so too would it return to studying the, somehow kept secure, foothold around Euryale V’s moon Anesidora. For the enemy hadn’t stopped, and neither would they. Indeed, it was about time to return to work on how to eradicate the flow threats that had been coming all the way from Anesidora…once and for all.
Though in truth, they’d also have to handle the Gateways opening once more as of that very thing being the latest event to shake the GER in current times.
Culture and Society: (How do they live? Anything from ritual cannibals, to a surveillance state dystopia, to an integrated hivemind.)
Robotics is an advanced current-day technology that has been brought down to the level of affordability for even the lower end of the middle-class by this point in time, though it also sees its limits and uses despite the highly sophisticated programming and engineering developments that it has taken centuries to make ‘common’ enough and streamlined enough for costs and people. Cleaning, performing dangerous industrial work, helping doing yard care work alongside humans, acting as household assistants, etc. They are also employed in use in the military, such as in combat robots or drones, as a supplement to work alongside temporarily-modified-and-equipment-augmented human soldiers rather than to ever outright replace them for a number of reasons (thinking capabilities, discerning and navigating situations on a human level in the field when dealing with other humans, etc, etc).
While many of these robots take on simply practical shapes, those that work closest with people take on increasingly human-type appearances and looks and styles and mannerisms. And, using bio/genetically-engineered artificial flesh, can do so to frankly a very much an outright lifelike degree without reservation (legally ‘segments of properly and fully non-sapient, non-sentient flesh cannot be deemed as human beings). Robotics of this grade also see use alongside human employees within the commercial/civilian sector by businesses in ‘business grade models’ respectively, as well as in: Helping care for kids, acting as a second set of hands in a household, acting as a babysitter or elderly caregiver, and maybe in some rarer cases even acting as a friendly companion for a lonely or socially isolated child or elderly, etc, etc.
There is a rather longstanding legal ban on general human cloning and ‘engineered biological human servitors’ or such things within the GER, a hard ban that has been enforced at gunpoint in the past after the law was first passed in the wake of these things being ‘achieved’ by humankind on Sarpedon. The only known produced human clone, made from and by the researcher who made the breakthrough, was also confiscated from his ‘makers’ and adopted out anonymously to a childless couple while the research on making him was seized and those involved were essentially locked up for life and put under surveillance.
Extreme genetic/biological modifications of the self that lead to or generate extreme medical/other problems and warped physiologies/psychologies are most widely seen by GER culture as a notable spoken and unspoken taboo for myriad reasons in the vast and greater majority by far. And….there are many reasons for this, both due to practical issues over the centuries and otherwise.
While some religions and such discourage the use for ‘anything but medical necessities for one’s health and proper safe job employment’ and such otherwise, which is its own cultural matter and is a similar matter to the use of augmented mechanical prosthetics and replacements of those kinds, no matter the background or religiosity this extent of modification and body warping is drawn in the sand where it ultimately ‘crosses the line’ and creates conditions for individuals where ‘things get dangerous muddied and intertwined’ within the body. These things can’t be easily, or always cheaply at that, reversed or cured or the like. Indeed they very readily lead to vast and deep medical complications and even unique or rare sorts of medical issues, and even psychological conditions and mental diseases ranging from ‘an addiction to getting gene/bio-mods’ all the way up to ‘becoming an inhuman monster or losing one’s empathy’ in some capacity or another. It is a dangerous matter, and as a comparison think of people who ‘become cyberpsychos’ in the Cyberpunk universe as a similar enough parallel, yet there also is a fringe subset of modded people (called “Biomod Transhumanists”; street names are more like: “Frankensteins”/“Bogies”/“Mod-Monsters”/etc) that seek to do such on purpose and call the act ‘true transhumanism’ and seek to embrace this extreme and often are associated with illegal and riskier non-aesthetic biomodding/genetic modification operations (nicknamed ‘meatmen’ or ‘bio-chop shops’) where they usually have to get their ‘extreme’ modding jobs done at.
Nicknames for this condition include, but are not limited to: ‘Going mod-mad’, being ‘mod addicted’, ‘going full monster’, or ‘going animal’, among other potential lingo and terms for this general concept.
Even those who survive this condition, in the case they wish to reverse the process and can get the sponsor or money to get medical help toward reversing it all, then, will likely have permanent problems or other issues even if they are ‘cured’ to more or less of an extent. And that is if they could get everything ‘removed’, and some part of their modifications had to be kept in for medical safety and usually patient-life-endangering reasons.
Note that not everyone is super visibly modded in society, though, as all non-medical and casual mods are aesthetic (by law) visible stuff in the majority of those who get mods for non-medical reasons (medical ones are non-visible mostly, aside from something like a replaced limb/segment of skin or such). Just like how everyone doesn’t have a tattoo, or everyone has piercings or maybe only has one for some reason. Etc. Visible biomods are seen in a similar light to piercings and tattoos and such in society in general, really, even if it has taken 500 years to get the technology to the point that such things can be much more readily and easily removed/added to people in mainstream society by the current day and age within the GER.
While some who support or speak from within the “Biomod Transhumanist” movement proclaim it as an ‘expression of true freedom and personal choice alone that the law should not repress’, and that all who partake of these modifications do so willingly, it also cannot be denied that there are a number of cases to the contrary as well. Within some groups who take to this particular transhumanist ideology there has been ‘forced modding’ on unwilling or ‘lied to, misled, young, or otherwise tricked subjects’ who now suffer from the consequences of what was done to them as well. There are those among this far-flung (overall) fringe group who are certainly cognizant and stable enough to be around and/or be capable of communication with normal human beings, to enough of an extent depending on a case-by-case basis, which has been the basis for current day practice of not arresting them all or treating them all like alien animals within national law.
However, there are seemingly just as many stories of those from this group who are no more than wandering monsters or enclaves of even greater extremism with warped if not inhuman perspectives and biologies and the like who have attacked or caused incidents with normal humans of criminal natures that are frankly treated as outright criminal cases due to the unknown as well as unfortunately widely-known dangers of their existence. They mostly end up being deemed ‘walking bioweapons’, willingly made or not, that most often get killed for purposes of safety (and protecting people) or might otherwise be contained for medical study in some cases to try to better grasp these things to help victims.
The reason for biomods being used for self-expression far more widely than cybernetics or advanced mechanical prosthetics boils down to the laws of the GER, which has designated by current times that “the removal of healthy natural flesh and tissues and/or organs from the human body for replacement with mechanical or cybernetically-augmenting parts, for reasons of self-expression or any such behaviors not deemed medically necessary, is deemed to be, in the eyes of the law, a form of self-harm and illegal as well as destructive and/or self-destructive behavior punishable by law” by current times.
This came in a lawsuit where, in the earlier days of such cybernetics and advanced prostheses being developed they were originally mandated to be ‘medical only technologies’ where it required a proper medical reason and rhyme to get such things installed. Some companies began seeking to find ways to commercialize the technology to the wider public in turn after this, and sought to drum up public support for their aims as well, though the ethical debate over the matter would only intensify in the wake of this. To ‘get ahold’ of such prostheses or cybernetics, some individuals would cut off limbs or damage themselves, either on their own or in some cases with illegal ‘medical assistance’, to try to get access to these sorts of implants or prosthetics more rapidly. Indeed at the time it was the cause of a spree of these cases, caused by rumors online that many bought into that they could perform such frauds to ‘get past the system and laws’, and this in turn required deliberation in turn.
The legal case in particular that set things in motion proper as they are currently was a man, one Gustav Arnolds, who got denied a cybernetic prosthetic by one company after what had seemed to be an ‘accident’ causing the loss of his arm turned out to be part of a foolish and ill-fated plan to get a ‘cool cybernetic arm’. As stupid as the case was, the man sued over the denial and claimed he ‘needed it to function in a job and subsist, and that the company was ‘causing him undue levels of suffering and trauma’ by denying him something. During this case some would even argue that “he can do with his organic limbs and body as he wishes, and if he wants to replace his parts with augments he has the right to”, though in the end the judge and chosen jury would make the call that “what Mr. Arnolds did was no more than destructive and mental-health-worrying self-harm in the desire to get an advanced mechanical prosthetic for non-medically-necessary reasons, and thus it has been found that the prosecution’s ill-fated scheme to this end renders his right and attempts to claim and purchase an advanced prosthetic limb to be null and void”. This would require clarifications at the federal level thereafter, which sought to ‘set the boundaries clearly’, and would in turn be the legal decision leading to certain regulations being placed on such ‘cybernetically-augmented equipment’ that it “has to not require the removal of healthy tissues or organs from patients” and that it take the form of externally-worn equipment and devices in any general-use or non-medically-regulated forms.
Combined with the eventual rise of casual biomods into the scene, where lessons learned from the past led those seeking to get these regulated in favor of sought to make them ‘easy and safe for patients and for trained applicants of this technology to remove outside of a medical environment’, it would manage to pass the legal bar of standards despite being a ‘slower burn’ to develop into the state it exists in by current times. This being said, it would still be regulated in the casual sense quite notably in other ways, mostly to “avoid people trying to become super-soldiers” and such goals like “getting casual super strength to go kill a man” or such things. Aesthetics and such were the primary focus in this vein of things in the casual market thereafter, at least outside of medical scenarios where one might get medical biomods for health reasons but could also get non-medical/casual ones for use otherwise. However, in the case one got both kinds of biomods they would have to ‘get safe approval by their doctor’ in certain cases depending on what casual biomod(s) they sought to have installed.
It is safe to say that with the emergence of casual biomods in the vast majority, though, some have also in the much smaller minority still sought to use legal and illegal cybernetics and prostheses to ‘go against the bio-tide’ and express themselves in that way. However, this has been met with becoming even farther outliers than some who use ‘excessive’ amounts of casual biomods. That and there also is the existence of illegal biomods and such out there to boot. Etc. Though there are certainly augmentation-based biomods and the like used in the military and in some more limited ways by the police, though these are packaged and streamlined deals that are made for easier whole-package removal for those retiring or leaving the force (including mandatory therapy sessions and medical care for some time to adjust them to the non-augmented body/life more smoothly as required by law; are also used by military alongside things like unpowered exoskeletons or such too, etc).
Advanced artificial intelligence is used within the GER to secondarily assist in most areas, ranging from customer service to industrial facilities/factories to areas such as research and development to boot. Certain rights of humans to work have been cemented in the workplace as well, however, ranging from the ancient issues of art theft used to train A.I. and seeking to create a sort of ‘good balance’ between the two areas has seemingly been reached in a general sense. Admittedly some issues, such as A.I.’s use within customer service areas and such, do still fluctuate from time to time even still. However, how did this ‘balance’ manage to come to be?
To put it simply, centuries of struggle back and forth from anti-A.I. advocation to the extreme and the alternative of overusing A.I. within human society has led to this point after literal centuries of struggle. Ranging from the initial use of A.I. and robotics where humans couldn’t operate things, to the zealous regulation of human deployment in areas where humans could be used instead, to the eventual wild swings back and forth within government and industry alike (itself a hotbed of some industrial lobbying and its eventual strict high regulating to boot when it came to this issue, among others) of policy on and off over the centuries.
Yet it would be the horrible results of these swinging policies and good ideas and lessons learned along the way that would shape things. From unemployment and rioting and such from former workers, to the disastrous failure of critical systems and loss or near loss of several floating cities, to the mismanagement and loss of large sums of money and resources to hacking and such, to even the misuse and destruction caused by automated and obsessively non-automated systems like during and outside of times of war, etc. This alongside the practical refinement and development of these technologies would see it and robotics alike eventually reach a place of ‘moderation’ that they have today in GER society.
((More To Be Added Eventually))
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Governance and Politics:
((The General Rules of Thumb Are:
1 ) The “Oligarchs” are basically that, the top elite authorities whose number of ‘seats’ is limited hard at ‘seven’ by their own founding rules. They have top authority, legal immunity, and frankly a ton of wealth and benefits while also being the heads of Executive power otherwise to boot. They began as founding heads of the GSR that, coming from across certain closely-placed parts of the failed Colonial Administration’s territory, essentially forged a power and faction of their own in the process. While several of their seats are filled by a successor, appointed or semi-elected among their own or by hereditary means or so forth, the top three (or four, depends on what I end up writing in the long-term) are known as the ‘Three Immortals’ for supposedly being immortal in some capacity or another. In any case, their ‘seats’ are meant to distribute a ‘differing array of skills and technocratic variance’ but ‘be united in the same meritocratic aims of preserving and leading the GER and its citizens, including humanity, forward into the future’.
2 ) The National Legislature, led by the President of the Legislature and such, and other lower parts of the government basically run the ‘day to day’ in general, report back to the “Oligarchs”, and act as an ‘adaptable republican sub-system’ meant to adapt to changing times and ideas and general populations at large within the GER to attain a ‘level of long-term stability and avoid ancient oligarchic personality cults, destructive dictatorial whims, and so forth’ ruining things according to the “Oligarchs” and the national constitution (yes, the GER has a constitution at base to boot).
3 ) To Be Added ))
The government is a strict entity in its authority, and has a unitary style of central government at the top, and yet moderates itself through the use of democratic processes and a rigorous judicial system from the bottom-up. There is a separation of levels of government to a certain extent, mostly into levels, with lower levels as defined by the central government at: Continental (to a uniquely certain/special/limited extent), provincial, regional, state, district, and local levels respectively. Unitary authorities exist at each level as conduits of the central government, as do "Representative Councils” at each level that hold limited powers within the limits of laws passed by the central government to pass regulations and such. City/Town Councils, District Councils, State Councils, Regional Councils, and even Provincial Councils exist in particular to this end. Continental level is skipped, however, as the administrators at that level are basically just certain delegated ‘Central Government members’. Meanwhile the National Legislature ((split into the Upper House of the Legislature, in which each province has two representatives: one being a people-elected representative from each province, and the other being a singular expert or skilled person or figure from varying fields and walks that is chosen and appointed by the Upper House Appointment Committee; and the Lower House of the Legislature, which hosts a population-proportional representation from each region)) exists at the highest national level as part of the central government to “inform, represent, bring matters to light, and work on the discussion, planning, and passing of laws” at the highest level. At the head is the President of the Legislature (PoL), who is internally elected within the legislature proper from either house and presides over it both formally-speaking. The PotL also has a Cabinet of Executives who help manage parts of the nation internally (as is the purpose of the Central Government itself) and are chosen by the PotL.
Beyond this, the judicial system has various levels to distribute the burden and catalyze the escalation of cases from each lower level where it is appropriate. Candidates at the lowest City/Town level come from graduates from legal/judicial schools, and those who serve at this level for at least one term of four years become the candidate pool for the District level. Those at the District level who serve at least one term become candidates for the State level. Etc, etc. Candidates at each level are put through background checks and interviews once elected, and if found to be ‘unfit for office’ or corrupt or such disqualifying things then a second vote is held among the remaining candidates once the situation is aired out for the public’s knowledge. A similar system of careful vetting, as done by a politically neutral body formed for such according to law, is used to vet elected and appointed candidates within the central government at various levels to boot.
The general practice for democratic voting is that all adults, those 18 and older by law, are able to vote in general elections at the increasingly large local, district, state, regional, provincial, and national levels respectively. The general idea is that you can’t vote on who is mayor or such in a place you don’t live as well, naturally/inherently, of course. However, there is some hybridization with liquid/representative democracy as well in this case. Normally citizens have the foundational right to vote on who to represent them as with a representative democracy, but in this case citizens can also sign away or hand over votes to another akin to a liquid democracy to use on their behalf. Simply put, people can invest their vote into the personage of a representative to vote on their behalf. Representatives can be as small-scale as someone’s lazy adult kid giving his vote to his mom or dad to use on his behalf, as big as a bunch of such parents or citizens investing their accrued votes into a common singular representative on a larger scale, etc, etc.
However, each citizen also has a just as fundamental right to ‘rescind’ their vote from a representative to reclaim it if or as they wish, and the use of votes as ‘currency’ to hand them over to others in legal or commercial or such exchanges (and contracts in general) has been strictly forbidden…..and not without reason either. Albeit there are regulations are in place to prevent mass vote-pulling for trolling or such bad-spirited reasons, such as trying to ‘pull out the rug’ from underneath a vote-invested representative’s feet to troll or humiliate them, though it doesn't illegalize mass vote withdrawing in all cases such as if public opinion turns against a candidate your representative is voting for, etc, and you change your mind).
Also, a sitting politician/representative or someone in the running for a political position (defined in law so I don’t have to try to go into deep legal details) cannot be used as a Voting Representative by others and loses that position and power and so forth if they do enter such a position or go into the running for one. Those who work for or are related to a sitting politician directly, such as staff, janitors, sons or daughters, and the like, cannot be used as Voting Representatives either. All Voting Representatives are also barred from accepting pay to become one or participate as one (this issue always comes up here and there in the courts, but the law is generally actually enforced). Voting Representatives at larger levels, as well as lawsuits regarding them, are vetted through and recorded by or are handled by the appropriate unitary authority and elected council or the proper judicial court level respectively.
So not only are possible political candidates seeking to gain political positions, but some supporting them might go on their own sub-campaigns for the candidate seeking to accrue votes to use to vote for them. Double the political campaigns, and sometimes these sub-campaigners work against each other to accrue votes. The central government oversees election cases or lawsuits at various levels, and in some areas there are committees that help vet such
Votes can be handed over on three levels. The first is the ‘one use basis’, such as for a singular presidential or mayoral race and what most major candidate sub-campaigns will seek for. The next is a ‘limited time basis’, which cannot exceed one or two years due to federal law and in minor part depending on the local region one is in. Then there is ‘on a semi-permanent basis’, meaning that the chosen voting representative has the handed-over vote(s) until or unless those who gave them their vote(s) decide otherwise. This of course comes with its own storm of regulations and court cases by current times to boot.
….Meanwhile, while the day to day is handled by the overt government, the actual behind-the-scenes oligarchy basically controls government systems in the background, with behind-the-scenes institutions from top to bottom to help support and reinforce this by current times with how far their reach has come to stretch in reality. It doesn’t micromanage everything from top to bottom normally, the flexibility and such gives people room and representation enough to satiate them and allow things to run well enough in general, but it does step in and exert authority where and when it sees fit and when its interests are either endangered or when its members wish for something to be done. Their ability to control things is at all levels in reality indeed, even if they don’t always abuse it all of the time.
Still, it is by far in current times seen as a crazy but lingering conspiracy theory that a ‘secret cabal controls the nation itself’, and even more so with the sub-rumor that ‘its members are all immortals’ and such things (they are actually in most cases ‘effectively immortal’ in some scientifically-wrought way or another, funny enough, but this bit of the conspiracy theory is seen as the most ridiculous as well). The ‘true synarchy’ behind closed doors also has a titanic amount of wealth and the like individually, but even they have created a sort of code of ethics and such to try to regulate themselves internally to boot.
((Note: At some point the “Oligrachs” almost went for a genuine Synarchic approach, but decided against it after deliberations on the matter.
Further, the reach of the “Oligarchs” should not be understated. The Central Government overall runs things, with the National Legislature and judicial areas having their own areas and definitions, all to run the day to day while the “Oligarchs” (as their nickname has become to the point its basically official) run their business and oversee things, etc. But they have subordinates reaching down into these bodies rather than being isolated from them, etc, which is something the general public doesn’t fully know either due to how smoothly (overall that is) things have been run in the past ~260 years despite three internal rebellions or such having happened by current times within the GSR and later GER proper in total.))
Technology Overview:
Limited Graviton/Gravity Technologies - A breakthrough in human scientific understanding that, ultimately, was developed with the intent to allow humans to settle more widely and oddly across the surface of the planet of Sarpedon in some ways. Harnessing the power of the graviton, it allowed the anchoring of buildings using ‘gravity tethers’ (for ocean cities or suspended larger buildings/habitations) and has enabled the use of artificial gravity devices on spacecraft, habitats in the atmosphere of Euryale V, and general space stations. This being noted, however, this technology has become limited to these implementations (and due to RP rules) due to how bulky and rough the nature of this technology is.
Nanotechnologies - Ranging from advanced nanomaterials able to recover from or withstand terrible storms, to nanoengineered factories capable of producing incredibly hardy and resilient materials and specs using a combination of organic and inorganic processes, to the likes of electrically-resistant and resilient medical nanomachines, to nano-scale art exhibits, to even nano-scale synthetic fabrics beyond the reach of human hands, to the safe installation of new cybernetics and removal of them alike, etc, these things emerged mostly as human civilization on Sarpedon would begin to reach beyond its infancy after a number of macroengineering questions had to be answered. It is a form of technology that has become an in-depth subject explored and still to this day being tinkered with within GER society.
Robotics (and Artificial Intelligence) - While humans have retained a by now more grounded place in the workplace despite the presence of robotics, this technology has still transformed things much over the years alongside the issues and development of advanced artificial intelligence. Ranging from deep-sea or voidbound mining drones with rugged exteriors, meant to handle rough and dangerous environments of the seas and space, all the way down to household human-like or such robotics used to assist parents, act as elderly caregivers, or even just be time-spending supplementary companions to keep even a minority of people who buy them for such reasons more socially engaged and happier in the household. They are implemented in various industries ranging from production and refineries, both on-planet for Euryale IV and in the myriad industrial habitats of Euryale V, in commercial industries as in-store assistants in some cases, in areas of business targeted at all sorts of ages, and even within the military for use alongside living, breathing soldiers.
Among the most famous companies to produce household robotics are “Vaul Technological Enterprises”, “Raijin Robotics”, and the last of the “Big Three” names in robotics being the “AutoDoll Corporation”. Yet, historically at least, the most notable of these three companies is the lattermost one: The AutoDoll Corporation. Founded roughly four hundred and eighty three years ago by a well-to-do German-born polymath and first generation colonist, Dr. Heinrich Nachtnebel, the AutoDoll Corporation has remained a generally consistent name in the realm of robotics and secondarily in artificial intelligence (at first) for most of its history. Being one of the oldest extant companies within the GER, it has passed from hand to hand and generally stayed a profitable and lasting presence within the industry that even today still has an existing civilian market and a number of military contracts with the government. While seen by some as an ‘old hand’ that has been around a long time, or being past its glory days, it is also a presence that remains far from being ‘gone’ and continues to regain occasional relevancy here and there after having managed to adapt to the times.
Knowledge of Robotics is also employed for the use and deployment of "Specialized Single-Pilot Vehicles" (SSPV), which range from 14-foot-tall humanoid-like "Urban Combat Police-Piloted Vehicles" (UCPPV) that are deployed in small numbers in serious urban police or “Military-Grade Specialized Single-Pilot Vehicles” that are deployed in military scenarios in rough/dense/wild terrains like forests, to ball-like underwater submersibles with attached robotics arms and mounted tools for underwater work, to similarly-shaped ball-like space-piloted vehicles for work in a vacuum and bearing their own array of arms and tools and specialized features, and even civilian-grade SSPV's akin to the UCPPV that are used in logging and construction and even certain forms of hazardous work environments. For the most part SSPVs of any kind are not for frontline combat in every situation, especially on open terrain, but in what such roles exist for them is something they've been able to be specialized for or adapted to from their original civilian-grade models. Because that is how these vehicles arose, beginning as rough and hardy ‘enough’ civilian work tools and load-moving suits for industry before eventually spreading out from there in their potential uses elsewhere once the technology eventually came down to being well-understood enough. Some have even been integrated for use with cybernetics for finer-tuned control on the part of an operator(s), which seems to be another more recent development in the last few decades for SSPV technology in general.
It is of note that SSPV military variants and police variants, while of a higher grade in a number of ways, aren’t made to be tanks either. They mostly take on anti-personnel-type roles alongside other ground units, and can be used to assist in even anti-SSPV roles and configurations as well.
Robotics has also played a part in the development of cybernetics and mechanical prostheses, ranging from internally-implanted medically-approved-for-health-reasons-only devices to the civilian-grade externally-worn and commercially/etc available forms under the law. (Etc.) ((Note: Some cybernetics or prostheses are actually medically-implanted ones that, under law, are medically required for safety on the habitats of Euryale V or certain extreme environment scenarios, though this also requires recipients of such medically-regulated ones to sign waivers and
As for artificial intelligence as a whole, the line between incredibly smart and human-mimicking models and still-sophisticated but decidedly less-humanlike ones has become less blurred and more well-defined over the centuries than some as far back as the early 21st century would have perhaps assumed. While the making and programming of them has certainly not been free of the occasional idea or debate if ‘A.I. has become sentient and sapient’, and incidents of activism or online rumors over certain individual or ‘viral’ situations regarding A.I. have occurred without a doubt along the way, current-day law and regulations have placed a number of tight restrictions on ‘certain aspects and capabilities’ of A.I. after having finally breached past the era of ‘overly enthusiastic widespread A.I. usage’ and its myriad and seemingly inevitable problems along the way. Albeit this was a long, troublesome, and also-inevitably dangerous road of understanding and development that saw many current-day laws written in the depths of tragedy and at times in blood and sweat and tears otherwise.
Another development in this area (or is related to it therein) has also been made more recently, that of “Artificial/Synthetic Brains” (and separate but related artificial/synthetic neurons, which is as much of a mention as they’ll get for now). These are not pure organic brains, but are machines made to imitate the human brain as closely as possible. Mostly used in studies both medical, economic, computational, and in certain realms even commercial uses to some extent or another by current times while seeking to push the technology forwards. Yet simultaneously they have also come under scrutiny and been placed under legal limitations in their designs for similar reasons as A.I. both from an economic and likewise a safety-related as well as ethical point(s) of view, some of these measures being pre-emptive and others yet to be decided either legally or in the development of this technology.
Genetic/Bio-Engineering Technology - Mastery over the genome and an understanding of genetics has been achieved on Sarpedon over the past five centuries, the beginnings of this being wrought in the work before colonization and afterward to adapt the human body to the more alien conditions of Euryale IV/Sarpedon proper. It can also be linked to a number of leading members of the field of genetics and bioengineering and their own involvement in these things as far back as the GER’s records (and those on the old colony ship) go. Research into the field to save and preserve Old Earth species, work to understand the genetics and biology of Sarpedon, surgeries developed long ago on the cutting edge for the rich and wealthy, plagues both familiar and on rare occasion oddly alien, the danger of and development of bioweapons and long-term presence of “the enemy”, and similar things have also contributed their own bits and pieces across the myriad decades until current day to create the local understanding and mastery over this ‘craft’ in a manner of speaking. This and the at times sporadic or gradual march of technological development helped to facilitate the improvements in the sciences behind this technology to boot.
In a manner akin to getting a tattoo or piercing, people get ‘biomods’ as a means of self-expression. Anything from cat-eared streamer girls on college campuses, to a gang of men with shark-like sharp teeth, to teenagers getting eye and body mods to ‘stand out’ or something of the sort, the use of biomods has taken the place of something like cybernetics in the causal sense due to the ‘father ahead’ developments of Genetic/Bio-Engineering technologies compared to cybernetics and cybernetic/mechanical prostheses within the GER.
((Note: In some medical cases, a mechanical prosthetic or cybernetic implant might be deemed safer for use than a biomod, or perhaps be deemed ‘more effective’ than a simple regrown replacement part/tissue/limb/organ for someone (usually due to old age or such factors though).))
Fusion Technology/Fission Technology/Batteries - The GER has developed improved, self-sustaining fusion technologies, as well as the likes of fission and fusion batteries/cells/engines in increasingly compact sizes and improved outputs. While mentioned in another tech category in the above parts, it is worth a mention here on its own regardless at the very least. In part, however, fuel for some of these things is derived naturally, safely, and sustainably from local seawater to boot before being further refined or processed to required specifications. Other fuel production is taken, derived, and developed in facilities suspended in the atmosphere of the neighboring gas giant of Euryale V. Modern practices are more sustainable for these things, in part due to development and time and in part at least some level of hard-learned long-term and more recent environmental-consciousness that has affected the generations that have been born and living on Sarpedon in some way or another (even if not directly these days) since the fall of “Old Earth”.
This being said, the development of power-generating/holding technologies has historically on Sarpedon been an influencing factor in 'downscaling' or 'upsizing' some other technologies along the way. Among the technologies that came into fruition with the ‘downsizing’ of power sources on Sarpedon is the development of advanced hovercraft/ground-based ionocraft (and likewise thrusters and such related technologies) making use of electrohydrodynamic thrust for rapid and quiet on-planet ground-level transportation, which have been able to be developed far enough for both the civilian and military markets to make use of them in one way or another (including finding them to be vehicles used on the roads to boot). (A nice little historical note to end on with this as well for fun!)
Cryonics/Cryogenics - Cryonics, derived from technologies salvaged from Glorg mother vessels, is an extant technology within the GER and is both a technology as well as an area of study and debate to boot. Cryonic super-cooling liquid ‘throwers’ and ‘grenades’ and such were experimentally developed for use in warfare and ultimately have been worked out to the point they have seen practical as well as by now historically successful use within the GER’s military through current times, and cryo-tech has seen use in medical procedures to help ‘kill’ certain tissues or exterior cancerous growths, deaden potential sensations of pain in certain medical trials in the most current times, or to yet other extents have been employed to valuably help keep patients alive through ‘ambulance cryo-pods’ employed for only critical-enough cases/patients thus far in GER society. Meanwhile actual serious cryo-pods have not really caught on in the practical sense, and have been outlawed for ‘the storage of dead bodies NOT for immediate transport to a funeral home or hospital and/or non-medical long-term storage of living individuals’.
((Note: Use of Glorg salvage also helped ‘speed up’ other areas of human innovation in ways as well through study and retroengineering work, but much was also lost in the eventual boarding and later destruction of two of the three Glorg mother vessels in turn or remains under-research because it still can’t currently be understood or got filed away due to other pressing matters/concerns going on. Etc.))
Terraforming/Terraforming Technologies - (To Be Filled Out, Eventually)
(Placeholder/To Be Written Or Added….At Some Point) -
(Placeholder/To Be Written Or Added….At Some Point) -
(Placeholder/To Be Written Or Added….At Some Point) -
((Extra: Technology Q&A Section (To Be Added Onto As Needed) -
Q: Wasn’t Gravity-Based Stuff Banned?
A: Yes, and I ran what I have here this time by Tort before putting it into this app as well to be safe. No tractor beams, or other wonky stuff like handheld gravity guns and such, just simple gravity tethers to suspend stuff and enough to do artificial gravity stuff in space proper. I just wanted to put it in the app to feel like I was fleshing things out properly and likewise IC rudimentarily justifying why (beyond it being an RP rule) that there isn’t more grav tech stuff in my nation.))
Military Overview:
((General Military Info Area:
Infantry/soldiers generally use a mixture of Kinetic and Particle Beam weaponry, both in anti-personnel and anti-vehicle roles, while Kinetic, Missile/Explosive, and Particle Beam weapons in a general sense are used for combat vehicles across various theaters ranging from ground all the way to combat-oriented spacecraft. This includes the use of advanced Close-In-Weapon type systems and “Point Defense” for various military craft/vessels as well where fitting.
Kinetic primary weapons for infantry mostly take the form of easier-to-maintain coilgun-type designs on average, capable of firing a range of ammunition types and in semi/full auto and even underwater or in bad weather type scenarios, while something like a sniper rifle or a revolver-type pistol (only really in serious use within SWAT-grade police organizations in this latter case in particular, though civilian-grade and ones sold as ‘outdated surplus’ for being older designs do exist in the market as well) would be made with a railgun-type design to fire ferromagnetic projectiles. However, it is of note that these technologies took a rather long time to manifest as ‘viable’ infantry weapons within the Euryale system. Technology began with late-Earth firearms technologies, though between the loss of Anesidora and other intervening years of struggle beyond began with the same level of military technology until gradually ramped-up threats led to a serious need to ‘make’ stronger and likewise more versatile arms work in the field. Etc. Things like advanced cluster munitions and such are also employed by current times in warfare, mostly due to improved designs and greatly improved reliability for submunitions compared to the technology of centuries past, to try to overwhelm the range of point-defense and CIWS type weapon systems or attack larger or smaller groups of enemy infantry/organisms depending on the situation.
Meanwhile, rail weapons tend to standardly form the bulk of larger-scale hard-hitting weapons mounted on vehicles/vessels for anti-vehicle use alongside larger-sized particle beam weapons. Larger-scale coilgun-type weapons are most often used in rapid-fire weapons at those scalings in turn, including gatling-type arrangements of such larger coilgun-type weapons developed to accommodate the inherent change in firing mechanism and heat management.
((Note: Chemical-propellant weapons are not alien to the GER, but these days are mostly collectors items or among the available but in ways limited civilian-grade arms that are allowed to be sold by law. All gun/arms ownership comes with thorough background checks and require ‘non-dangerous mental health’ to own that have become a by now mostly-streamlined but crucial part of renewing one’s gun permit in the first place.))
Particle beam weapons are Neutral Particle Beam Weapons (NPBWs) geared at delivering the maximum amount of energy to a target, with adjustable settings for “soft/low-power mode” for lower-grade targets or situations. Mostly used against armored vehicles and monstrous bioweapons at higher settings, and lower-grade settings against smaller and less bulky/armored targets. These weapons burn through flesh when hitting living tissues, as well as destroy enemy armor and vehicle/craft electronics, and depending on the power setting one turns the weapon to it can have various such effects. While hardened armor and so-called ‘adaptive armor’ (made using phase changing or smart materials) for some vehicles (or carapace for some “enemy” bioweapons) was ultimately used to protect against these weapons in turn, this would be combatted with a larger-scaled weapon in turn or alternatively use a kinetic or missile-based weapon in turn. Etc.
Orbital Defense Satellites are only located around Sarpedon/Euryale IV, the moon of Anesidora, and Euryale V defensively, though upon the opening of the Gateways more will be deployed and made to heavily guard a wide perimeter around the Euryale System’s gateway proper alongside patrols and a spaced-out series of defensive space stations.
Improvements in Nanotechnology have led to the development of modern military exoskeletons/exosuits being by far unpowered/passive by nature, rather than risking a powered one making a ‘wrong move’ and tearing off someone’s limbs or worse (etc). This does not mean these modern exoskeletons/exosuits are themselves useless or weak in comparison, however, as their unpowered design has also left more room to add defensive protection/survival aspects to it (such as further protection against biological and chemical weapons). However, despite this they can and do often still have powered tech integrated into them (etc) for use in the field. Just the base exoskeleton/exosuit itself isn’t powered is all, but things thrown in there for use out in the field or that are attached to them externally can be powered.
Nanotechnology in a general sense is also well-incorporated into general building/vehicle materials and other equipment for the military as well. This includes radiation shielding and EMP shielding, among others, by the current day and age that have been enabled in part by advancements in general nanotechnology (including materials sciences in this regard).
In-depth anti-bioweapon/anti-organic defenses/treatments are also a part of GER military capabilities at its core by current times, with actual ‘offensive’ weapons being rendered a moot point given the GER’s biotechnological and bio/genetic engineering capabilities. The most horrendous it gets with an ‘offensive’ weapon are canisters of chemically-or-EM-propelled pathogen designed in particular to target and kill “enemy”-specific exotic biomatter (an emergency weapon or crowd-control against a newly-found ‘pod’ since pods can adapt their creations to be immune over time, thus even this weapon is limited in scope). However, widespread immunizations to such have become commonplace over the centuries for….various and extent practical reasons as well, to be most blunt about the matter. Things such as anti-biological agents to boot, where fitting or declared safe for use, though such things as these and general bioweapons are outright normally not used against human beings due to this form of usage being illegal by law (and seen as a taboo/inhumane outright) and coming in such a case with very lethal consequences for breaking those laws.
In fact, ridiculous things to locals such as ‘engineered monster creatures’ are a point of strong feelings within the GER, such that they are not only banned but are considered organically-based war crimes (among other things) and are punished very, very severely…and are destroyed with impunity.
(Leaving Room For More To Be Added Later)
))
(Basic Soldier [Example])
(Exoskeleton Soldier [Light Exoskeleton/Exosuit; General Example, Not For Ground-Based Only])
(Exoskeleton Soldier [Heavy Exoskeleton/Exosuit; General Example, Not For Ground-Based Only])
(Multi-Role-Capable Military Hovercraft [Missile Loadout])
(Rail Hovertank)
(Track-Based MLRS-Type Vehicle)
(Latest-Generation Military MG-SSPV; Is Used In Very Limited Numbers In The Field Currently)
(Current Gen Military MG-SSPV; In Widespread Usage)
(Orbital Defense Satellite; Uses A Particle Beam Cannon To Intercept Incoming Pods And/Or Help Blast Space Debris During The GER’s Regular Space-Cleanup Missions)
(Outdated/Pirate Boarding Craft)
(Outdated/Pirate Attack Craft)
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Additional Info: (Anything else you want to include that there isn't a spot for up there.)
A section to be filled out IC, both as they are revealed (primarily) and as I actually write them up (which will likely not be all at once) and such. They will be passed by the GMs to make sure they're ok to toss in behind the scenes as I actually manage to write up and finish each one, but won't be publicly tossed into the app until they are used or revealed IC to enough of an extent (to keep some sort of mystique about them around, at least maybe).
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The Glorg, a species whose popular ‘national anthem’ sounds like a cheesy pop song (the famous/infamous chorus line of it: “D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Don’t Touch Mah…..GLU-THURG-NA-THAAAAANG (Gluthurgnathang), and who have cloned the original singer and put each clone through the same sort of trauma and life that the original lived (a ‘mimicry of the original’s life’) to try to forcibly shape them into the ‘same person’ (and publicized their growth and life events each time as well as ‘corrected’ the process if the clone tried to deviate) untold thousands and thousands of times over and then some. All to allow the original singer to ‘keep singing for the people’ no matter how old the song became and how long it had been and even if the unfortunate clone found out the truth. This to the point that the ‘latest’ one to be made before the war against humanity in the Euryale system, who learned the truth of his life and was kept from ‘doing certain things’ to ‘escape’, was so traumatized and angry against his own ‘people’ that he helped betray them to humanity in the end just to be free of them.
An aggressive species whose visible members are low to high upper-class in the comparative sense, with a feast and party-loving culture that celebrates many events both mundane and major alike with decadence. A species whose lower members were mostly left to die off and breed on their own in cramped ‘slave holds’ on their vast generation ships, alongside two other species they enslaved along the way, as slave-servitors and hard laborers to perform public works and so forth that their own robotics (which fully dominate industry) weren’t designed for. Meanwhile the likes of input-given automatic systems for appointed military commanders to use to command robotic forces, and upper-crust-designed robotics and drones now working alongside slave-soldiers in their military forces as soldiers by and large.
A species that is more than willing to displace others and slaughter other populations that they see as ‘lowly slave fodder or pests’ simply for their own whims and wills, while despite leaving their slaves to their own devices only in their hold areas will everywhere else go about lecturing others about how to think and what to do and will act as if these things should be expected in their presence without having to tell you about them. A species that would so very often enforce its at times obtuse or species-specific ways onto subjects around them, and have long treated those who broke such even unknowingly with great offense and even punishment at times. A species whose media is spun to entertain and amuse or generate rage in their masses to succeed, and which has cared not for the destruction of the world or places around itself as done by its own hand but proclaims humanity and others to be ‘dirty savages’ for dirtying their own homeworlds and the like ‘as if they just don’t care’.
A species of hypocrites, and yet even then containing its own nuances internally along the way despite looking in from outwards painting them as a stereotype. Somehow. Some treat their ‘servitors’ far better in a minority in some places in their mother vessels and such, or argue for them here and then, while others treat them poorer than the robots and get a kick out of it on the other end of the spectrum. Some are more sober and serious than the party-loving stereotype or are known for in their wider public, with some being genetically-bred intellects whose talents are fostered in their education system where they are found before being used for the ‘less fun’ but usually still-important jobs in society that require such. They actively focus on reusing resources and recycling them from their wanton waste, whether in making at least ‘edible medicated-nutrition chow’ for their slaves to sustain them (if quality drops too much the slaves begin to die off ‘too much’ and this is the only time they’ll correct things in that regard on their side), and do take meticulous care of the ‘natural areas’ they possess in their mother vessels with a level of actual, genuine care for these spaces and fostering the growth of them in new terraformed areas elsewhere as well.
In some of their extent sub-cultures even go about possessing actual closeted or hidden religious beliefs, this despite the zealous atheism of their state overall pushing them to the fringes and brink, making them outcasts or criminals if discovered by law. Yet despite their stance on faith they hold to their stance on atheism with a very religious type of pomp, ceremony, and zeal without any self-realization of the irony, and hold to the ‘preservation of our original culture’ as a stringent matter that legally in certain respects is not allowed to ‘deviate’ in society (such as certain greetings and ceremonies, and the holding of wider public debates about matters in public forums, and not genetically augmenting their species to ‘change them from the original form and being’, etc) but which has changed still in other ways they hold as ‘not so important’ (and ignore changes in for their own benefit, such as evolving technologies and their growing decadence, abuse of medical technologies to extend lifespans and live better than their slaves despite indulging in many vices, and praise-generating formalities used to stroke egos and make them look more important than they are in some cases at that). Even their food reflects both a mainstream obsession with ‘strange hydroponic farming techniques’ among their upper-class population, while certain circles take their own twists on food ranging from more ‘simple and staple’ types of cuisine of supposed historical nature to even those who prefer sour and spicy types of foods or prefer sweet-seasoned and fermented sorts of flavors (etc) in this circle or group of their kind or that one across their mother vessels.
Despite everything, they have depth of some kind or another to them, and yet their society became so reliant on conquest it didn’t know (or at times didn’t want to know even with a chance given to them) how to do otherwise. They’ve gone about plundering from asteroid belts and such within other systems, and build new ships to carry more of their growing population from time to time. Then once in a ‘very long time to be sure’ they have stopped in a particular system here and there to build new ‘mother vessels’ over a few generations to house the populations of many smaller vessels once the number of them grows too large.
There are several ‘mother fleets’ of their vessels in the universe, having been forged for untold tens of thousands of years, and if two by some miracle make contact with each other it usually leads to the trading of some ‘cool or unique looking’ slave species (if any) and a lot of partying before the system they met in likely gets stripped down to the bone before they part once more in different directions (eventually). Yet the mother fleet that arrived in the Euryale system, with two of three of their mother vessels being destroyed and the last being crippled in a number of ways, is basically trying to subsist at the very edges of the Euryale system as occasional pirates and taking time to lick their wounds and repair/rebuild their remaining vessel with the aim of traveling off again (eventually) away from the system.
((Note: Females are taller than males and have shorter trunks with a rougher skin texture (visibly and to touch), and males’ trunks are longer than those of females with a smoother skin texture.))
Earlobes - Tying one’s prehensile earlobes back behind the head is a sign of seriousness and aggression in Vah’neh society. It is a thing done by warriors heading into battles or hunts or raids and such, or in defiance of a leader seen ‘not fit for leadership’ only by warriors unless you want to get killed or scarred for it depending on the situation, but it comes with just as notable consequences in social interactions. Earlobes not tied back are a sign of comfort and ease, in enough of a social sense to be basically ubiquitous among the spread-out tribes, and yet also take on the potential connotations of ‘not seeing someone as a threat’. Cutting one’s earlobes off is a form of horrific isolation and mutilation, done only to ‘traitors to the sacred laws of Vah’ (which include very specific anti-tech anti-mining type rules and such among them) and ‘severe blood traitors’ which can be familial or considered such in a wider marriage-based or tribal nature at large depending on the circumstances and so forth.
Further, these prehensile earlobes are basically used like a Na’vi’s tail from the James Cameron Avatar movie, in that one can bond with animals and Vah/Not!Eywa with them to boot, akin to having a usb for a tail and the world being made out of computers in a metaphorical way. Not that this makes anything but taming animals and ‘sharing minds’ (a highly intimate experience with its own set of connotations, ranging from romantic or sexual to familial in nature depending on the more varied sub-culture of a particular tribe) with other Vah’neh. This doesn’t mean nature just kowtows to them or such, though, as while they avoid Vah’s “immune response” as humanity experienced firsthand….yeah nature will kill you, diseases do still happen, etc. They have much easier lives on Anesidora for certain, compared to any primitive humans in ancient Earth history, but it won’t be perfect in every way for them either and troubles are still there to enough of an extent.
Inspiration - Yes, they are an edited knockoff of the Na'vi from James Cameron's Avatar, though I forgot to add more details about how they look and such beyond what has been said as of yet. Ugh. But no, they aren't meant to be totally shallow or strawmen despite starting out in my head as that. They are meant eventually to be (even if I have to develop them in iteration) more fleshed out and their own thing. And have it where they and humans are both in the right and act like a-holes alike given the situation and so forth. Did I do this well? Maybe not, maybe better than I thought, either way the goal was to try to even them out on both sides. But in this case Not!Eywa is basically an arse, to put it simply, and a threat because it makes for more action and drama and another difference to try to separate them from the Na'vi and Cameron's work personally. (@_@)
The roleplay is still active and alive, of course. But we've had some clear drops/ghosts and some people whose status is ambiguous in regards to this roleplay. So, if you're still here, please reply to this message below. I want to see if I need/want to bring more people into the fold to make up the numbers since I'll be working the inactives into NPCs if they don't show up and I don't want the roleplay to stall for posts if a chunk of the cast becomes NPCs.
Location: Wolkwitz Auditorium, Merryweather Institute
"Do you mind if we sit with you?" Sarah politely asked, motioning to the empty seats beside the two of them.
While she'd been following along with her roommate to get to the auditorium thus far, at the same time the white-haired Primalist felt a certain sense of peculiarity about Sarah's choice of....people to sit next to. Not that it was much a matter to think of, but it was something to be certain.
The first was a girl with likewise oddly-colored hair, whether it was as natural as Elena's own was since her awakening was an unknoown, but given the girl's matching odd eye color she was getting a sense of deja-vu to her own post-awakening situation. Yet the rest seemed to speak volumes in an initial sense, given, between the 'hip'-looking glasses, the tied-up hair, visible undercut, and even the piercings spoke to a "modern 'rebel without a cause'" archetype of sorts perhaps. Or a hipster. Or some form of anti-social sort, perchance? Hmm. But that was all simply poitential anecdotes wrought by an observation of one's appearance, which gave her little to work with and less to assume aside from the basic knowledge that this girl was, as with everyone else there, a Primalist. But there was one other beyond this girl sitting there as well.
A giant of a boy, likely nearly one foot taller than herself to be blunt, whose towering height was certainly among his first most-noticeable visible traits to her eyes. Second was that left eye of his-....or rather stark lack of said eye thereof that was replaced with a scar that looked far less than 'pleasant to have recieved'. Third-so was his right arm, itself placed in a proper sling, and the way about him that seemd to shout 'rough' combined with everything else. Further,, his eyes seemed somewhat 'tired' in way that felt melancholy or depressing, frankly, and beyond this it was easy to ascertain the burnt stench of a cigarette on his person that he didn't seem to be wanting to hide at all to her initial perception. Perhaps someone who grew up in a bad place? Rough life, maybe? Hmm. Again this was only enough evidence to make initial guesses at the nature of this person, but she felt she could rule out 'a very happy ray of sunshine all of the time' out about this person for a surety.
In any case, she didn't want to seem as if she was simply staring at these two peers of theirs like they were oddities at some olden-day carnival exhibit. It was a....'distasteful' sort of approach that would be to make others feel like. Sure she may have raised an eyebrow mildly for a moment, but would return to a 'usual' professionalism of sorts rapid again thereafter as she tried to keep a polite equivalent of a 'poker face' on for the time being. However, one hand did briefly rest closer to her right hip in a more casual manner, admittedly, as her thoughts went briefly back to her stomach. She wanted to get this whole affair over with here well enough, and then at least in a basic manner satiate her stomach and curiosity about the school's cafeteria and how such facilities were. Because it would be good to know if certain times of day and meals they made were of better or lesser quality, though knowing how big the school was it was perhaps certain that it wouldn't be five-star dining of course. Not that she was looking for such at this school as much as she just wanted to get a feel of the food there, mass-produced, frozen and thawed, or potentially more handmade or not as it could/might be.
She meanwhile had a few things stashed for using in the kitchenette back in her and Sarah's room if need-be, or if she simply felt like it, though at this point in time they had remained concealed in her things due to the prior day's tiredness after her arrival there. But part of her couldn't help but imagine trying to sprout up some edible portabella mushrooms and some others to cook with. A nice mixture provided by her, admittedly still vexatiously strange by their nature, new powers that would save potentially a bit on food costs and so forth. Wait. Did they even have a spot to buy ingredients around here? Blast it all, she needed to check that out as well! Or perhaps there was another here who could conjure dairy or something for some in-room cheese ripening at a more rapid pace? Hmm...
Meanwhile, she'd simply give an assenting nod and maybe a breif wave with her free left hand to support what Sarah was asking if they looked to her at all. Nothing much, just enough to get the cordiality out of the way among peers.
Unironically my guys have bio-modded/genetically-modified soldiers, which reminds me of Spartans.....wait. All we need now is some precursor station and the Not!Flood. Lol. XD
Xaltwind
Savo
Tortoise
AtomicNut
Sigma
Spiffy
Ariamis
Animal
Neziul
Shifter_Master
