Keira is short even for her age. She has an average build, a shoulder length mop of dirty blond hair, jade eyes and a face best described as plain. A long scar slashes across her left cheek where she once just barely avoided being stabbed in the face. She wears an old black coat, thigh length boots and long finger-less gloves over a simple tunic. She has a belt with a few pouches holding various supplies (such as rations, two hip flasks and her trusty pickax) and a rucksack holding a worn shovel, rope, a small axe, and other essential materials. Numerous knives are pushed into the tops of her boots. Atop her head she wears a battered old wide brimmed hat that hides her bronze crown for the time being.
Said crown is made from old bronze and is described with words in an old tongue made illegible by time. Five mismatched oval shaped green gems of various kinds arc from one brow to the other over a central moonstone that sits like a pupil and iris-less third eye on the forehead. This central gem seems to be the only to have not been a replacement. The traces of pigment can be seen on the moonstone and eroded writing.
Personality
Keira is energetic, curious, tenacious, self confident and can be a cocky little shit at times, though that’s mostly only when she is drunk. She is convinced that she can handle anything with a bit of skill, cunning, hard work and heaps of determination. She’s also has a genuine interest in history. You don’t make part of a living off of digging up old things if you aren't interested in what you’ll find.
Keira hates the Filth with a passion unusual for someone who has only lost their home to it. Is is a hatred and anger unhampered by fear. Some say the girl is still filled with that typical youthful belief in her own invincibility but in truth she is entirely aware of her own weaknesses and yet still believes that if she struggles hard enough and for long enough she can overcome anything.
Background Information:
Keira does not remember her parents and was instead raised by her grandfather, an old recluse who lived in an old hovel built in, and under, the remains of a massive old tree. The old man was a rather well known sage who lived out in the middle of nowhere and dispensed wisdom to those who would make the long journey to find him. Heroes, scholars and stalkers, all seeking the wisdom of the past, have all passed through the man’s door but more often he played host to nomadic tribes in search of a night's entertainment or desperate common folk seeking answers in an entropic world. The old man was once an archivist from Illistair but was thrown out for some slight against the previous mayor and has since built upon his knowledge though stories others have shared with him over the many years since.
Keira grew up among all this, among the stories, guests and old trinkets that litter her grandfather's home. While he raised her as best he could, from a young age Keira realized she could not rely on the aging man forever, and so even at a young age she had mostly taken over the task of getting food on their table. Gifts from guests are an unreliable source of food and so she has learned to hunt the beasts of the woods, to catch them in snares and trap falls, and to farm meager crops around their woodland home.
Her final source of sustenance began when she stumbled upon some relatively untouched ruins and, thinking of all the old trinkets her guardian already had, decided to seek out one more as a gift. The old man has worn the old copper ring she found on that day ever since. Since that day she has grown to be a somewhat proficient archaeologist, digging up the graves of old kingdoms and presenting her grandfather with them for appraisal. Any of her finds that they decide not to keep she pawns off too people in the large towns. She prefers Kendles, because the scum that call it home took no issue in selling a teenager vodka, which has become the lass’s main vice, nor did the patrons of her favorite bar have any problem teaching her a few unscrupulous things like how fistfight or throw a knife.
For a time life was good, or as good as it could be after the end of the world. They had food, friendly guests and an ever increasing supply of oddities. But her grandfather wasn’t getting any younger and though his mind remained as sharp as ever his body was slowly failing him. As time went on he became less and less able to look after himself and forest living began to take its toll. Keira began to fear for his safety while she was away, a fear that came to a head when the filth came for their tiny home and the trove of artifacts they had squirreled away from there.
Keira had been spending less and less time away when the attack came, but even then it was pure luck that she was there at the time. Before that night every time she had encountered the monsters before she had run or hide like she’d been told since she was young, but knowing her grandfather would never be able to escape the hoard she went outside to confront them. She was not particularly strong or fast or tough, nor wise nor particularly cunning but when the horrors that plagued this world came for her and her own she did not flinch, she did not falter and she held her god damned ground. On that day she learned three things. That she despised the Filth with her entire being, that the nightmarish creatures could be felled, that they could be beaten, and that she would not be able to win against them forever. Not here. Not alone.
When dawn came the two of them made their way to Illistair, carrying only what they could. There they convinced the new mayor to look past her grandfather's transgressions against his predecessor and, with the help of a few contacts (old and new) in the archivist's ranks, gained entry to the city. They moved into one of the cramped homes nestled within its walls only to encounter an inevitability almost as bad as the Filth. Rent. Keira has taken up treasure hunting full time while her grandfather plays host to a more select cadre of guests who enter the city hungry for his wisdom.
Months after leaving Keira was traveling close to their old home and decided to look it over for anything of value left. The filth had come and destroyed most of what they could not carry with them to the city, yet in the shattered remains of a locked chest she had brought home the night before the attack she found what had finally stirred their wrath: a crown.
To her there could only be one explanation as to why they had tried to kill them for possessing it and yet failed to destroy the artifact itself.
Fear.
Physical
Might:2. A woman among women
Coordination:2. Reflexes of a woman
Fortitude:2. Skin of skin
Psycho
Intellect:2. The average
Wisdom:2. Straightforward
Willpower:5. Paragon of will
Skills and Training:
Archeology: Keira has knack for finding interesting things in the dirt and getting them out in one piece.
Barter: Can’t sell off old junk without convincing people its worth something.
Reading: her grandfather taught her a bit, though she’s not well practiced.
Lore: She’s picked up odds and ends from her grandfather’s story telling.
Farming: the basics. Turnip seeds produce turnips if you look after them and so on.
Traps: Used for hunting and preventing unwanted intruders.
Scraping: You dont last long in Kendles without knowing how to fight. Keira picked things up as she went along there, and as a result fights dirty. Fists, knives, pic, shovel and axe, she’s used them all at one point or another.
Knife throwing: More of a hobby than a useful skill really.
Stealth: Running around with ancient artifacts in your pack can attract unwanted attention. Keira has learned how to avoid this attention, be it from muggers or the filth. She’s no assassin or rouge however.
Street smarts: Has so far avoiding being shived in a Kendles alleyway despite hanging around the town fairly often.
Driving a pickaxe head through the crawler’s skull as it attempted to destroy her home.
Raised Keira in their home in the woods till it was attacked by the filth. Is now a relatively well known scholar connected to Illistair’s archivists.
The curator drifted through the frost coated halls of the vault of souls, its eye like central core and two stone limbs pushed through the corridors by gentle gusts of wind. It had been given instructions by the goddess who dwelled high above to find her volunteers for a noble cause. It was joined by many other curators carrying out its task, who drifted through the halls for souls fitting Azura’s specification. As they did so they had to navigate around the newcomers to the vault, blue, green and purple Armonia. The constructs of song and stone had entered along with the first massive batch of souls and now patrolled the halls endlessly in search of intruders or stood as silent unmoving sentries at various key locations. If the curators were capable of feeling annoyed, the presence of the brutes getting in the way of their work would likely have frustrated them to no end. As it was the curator simply floated around the short guardian standing in the way of its next shelf and then set to work.
Its small hand grasped a crystal and lifted it upwards in front of its eye. A small projection of the person it had once been formed. It asked its questions and found the soul unwilling to assist the goddess's cause. It put down the first and picked up the next, and attempted to bring out the consciousness of the soul but received only a fractured static image of a person instead of a perfect one. It screamed mindlessly when asked the questions. The Armonia standing behind the curator turned at the sound, then its eyes began to follow something the curator could not see skittering away from where it had picked up this crystal. There was a loud crack as the armonia suddenly lashed out with the whip it had in place of a hand. The chain of levitated Luft Stone held in glowing purple Verse struck a point of the wall, smashing the spider sized Soul Fiend responsible for corrupting the soul in the curator’s hand to a thousand pieces. There was a moment of stillness as the Fiend’s shattered remains fell from the wall onto the shelf, the very corruption that had given it life making it far more fragile than the crystals it had been made to infect. Then the curator and Armonia returned to their duties as if nothing had happened, just as their kind did every other time this happened.
Orvus’s infestation had been contained but not exterminated. The Armonia could not recall all the various times they had shattered the mites and see that they needed to perform a thorough bug hunt if they where to be rid of the pests. Instead they simply dealt with them as they saw them and driving them into the shadows whenever their numbers grew to large to remain hidden.
The curator put down the infected crystal, ignorant as to why it had screamed so madly, and picked up the next which turned out to be a wholly unique specimen.
The void soul awoke and yet its world stayed dark. Then the darkness told it a story about the death of a Selka named Lekika and her life after that death. Then the voice spoke directly to it.
I have completed the machine that I told Lekika about, one that will craft forms that remember more and suit their wear’s perception of self better. Yet it is still not a life suited for all. It is not a solution to death. Its aim instead is to bring back extraordinary people, who have the knowledge, will and strength to help me overcome death and the challenges of a cruel world. To aid both the living and the dead find peace and happiness. If you have something you can give to the world, wish to ensure that none die as you did or simply have the will to live and a desire to help then I would be most grateful if you offered your aid to this cause.
Then it became silent and awaited the soul’s decision, the power of the curator allowing them to remember much as an Armonia would.
The soul sat in contemplation, the strangeness of the entire ordeal washing over it for the first time. Indeed, it could not remember how it ended up here, yet it was, and now it had a way out. It could feel that there was a certain weight at hand, that it no longer tarried in the old dark, beset by hungry flames. This was a new dark, a quiet dark, and one that would simply not do.
“Take me to this ‘machine’, then.” It said, with eagerness in its voice. Anything was better than whatever it was now. And that was simply the truth.
It will be done. Remember, sleep, and then you will awaken anew. They were told, and so they did.
Awareness blossomed once more, and they saw themselves, a small crystal of many colors that they somehow knew contained their entire being. It was suspended in an endless void filled not with hungering nothingness but rather with potential, ready to stir ideas into existence with but a thought.
Picture in your mind’s eye a vision of yourself spoke the machine and offer it to the void.
It looked upon itself, and saw what housed its being in the nothingness. A crystal. A soul. Its soul. That had been the method of salvation. Then it pictured itself as it had been before the shattering, before the void swallowed it whole and into the darkness it went screaming. Then it tapped into the potential, and came again as it had looked, but not as it had been.
Light erupted into the void, or perhaps it was song or ideas that were merely being conceptualised as light. It was impossible to tell. Regardless, it became surrounded by a sphere of spots of light, from which long ribbons of Verse emerged, beams of glowing energy escribed with musical notation, which wrapping around their soul to form a cocoon. This cocoon slowly solidified and then, once partially set, began to morph into the shape of a body. Appendages sprouted from it and features began to slowly emerge until it had formed a rough glowing outline of its old form. Then it solidified, song turning to stone and metal filled with verse that seemed yet malleable even as they solidified. The souls awareness became doubled, seeing through eyes at the same time as it saw its entirety. The body shifted slightly as it did so, compensating for some of the differences between what it thought it had looked like and what it had actually been like to live inside its own head.
Now you may adjust as you see fit to craft perfection. the machine informed him.
As the voice commanded, so it was done. It grew in height, it’s face becoming a mask of black, featureless, yet it could see with clarity. It’s body grew, shaping itself to what it wanted, and what it desired most. Red Verse began to fall from it’s back, like a crimson cape, as well as several dots of crimson along it’s arms and chest. It’s body, once fragile, became a construct of metal and stone. Flexible and powerful as it ever had been. The being, he was born anew.
Once he was done, the machine knew. The external awareness dropped away and then he truly awoke for the first time in an eternity and saw the world without eyes. Looking around he found himself standing in a vast antichamber surrounded by a cross between an orchestra and a mechanical spider. Dozens of limbs ending either in claws, scalpels and chisel or with instruments such as flutes and violins hemmed him in while he stood at their center atop the small podium where he had conducted his way into existence.
Moments after he awoke the assorted machinery pulled back and away from their masterpiece, folding itself up against the ceiling of a large room made of polished sandstone coloured rock. A soft light pervaded through the room with no obvious source. The rooms only occupant was another being like him. Her form was tall, lithe and distinctly feminin in shape while a cloak of feathers every color of the rainbow that grew out of her shoulders and cascaded down her back. Part way down that cloak transformed into a pair of wings that she had wrapped around her waist to form a feathered dress. Her face was reminiscent of a bird, with three armored plates forming the shape of a beak at the bottom while numerous scales formed a crest at the top. A single small opening in the center of the face gave the impression of an eye, while two openings at her ears and several at the end of the crests also leaked red Verse, all of it blending together to form a semi transparent visor that covered the upper half of her face.
The stranger stepped forwards and, while offering him a hand to help him step down from the podium, told him ”Welcome back to the land of the living.”
He looked upon the female, with a mix of interest and disgust. He had never seen such a strange curiosity before, then again, (and it was at this point he looked down at himself) he was different as well. Far too cold, but such a feeling was only welcomed by him. He also did not feel alive, but he did feel aware, and that was all that mattered.
With a faceless stare, he looked at the bird woman again and reached out a hand. Hesitantly, he almost pulled his hand back, but then he took the stranger’s hand, and stepped down to be eye level with her. He let go, flexing his hands as he did so, it was a strange feeling to be in a physical form again. He had no recollection of what it felt like anyways, but he could tell something was slightly off. It would take some time getting use to.
He then spoke aloud, “And do I have you to thank for such a gift?” his voice modulated with a silvery undertone. It was delightful to hear.
”I am Azura, one of the many Gods of Galbar who has, hmmm, taken custody of the souls of deceased mortals.” she explained, before turning to leave, the goddess walking with a spring in her step he noted, through a door in the chamber while gently beckoning him to follow ”If you’ll come with me we can walk and talk so you can get used to those new limbs of yours.”
“I see.” he said quietly, standing still for a moment, digesting her sentences. He then began to follow, his legs unsteady as he went.
”Now I imagine you have a lot of questions, but if you could tell me a bit about yourself and what you know already first It will be easier to fill in the gaps.” she said, as they made their way down a long incredibly gently curving corridor. As they walked they passed a few rooms filled with bizarre contraptions and odd looking science experiments working with gemstones and some kind of dust suspended in glass jars. Once they left those behind however, every room he happened to glance in was empty.
“Firstly, I must thank you, Goddess Azura. Long did I weep in the darkness, cast aside by all. Save for the flame that hungered. Then the madness did set in, and I wrestled with myself for control. I fear the worst would have passed did you not save me, and I must conclude that you healed me as well. I no longer feel the degradation of my mind, the twisted whispers in the deep.” He paused, looking into an empty room, before continuing. “For that I am grateful for your compassion and for giving me a… Second chance at existence. But where are my manners? I am Rignol, son of… Well it doesn’t really matter anymore, I suppose. My past now only exists within my memories. If what you say is truth, and from what I can remember, I am very far from my birth place. As such, I shall keep what I know to myself for the time being, just until I know exactly what this place is and all of its people. I’m sure you can understand that, Goddess Azura.” He said, smiling somewhere deep down inside.
The goddess took it in stride, and in fact seemed delighted by what little he had told her about himself, emitting an emulation of a gasp ”Then you are a Void Soul like us gods.” she exclaimed ”Don’t worry, while I am a little jealous of your memory of where you came from, I won’t pry too hard. This is, after all, something of a fresh start for us all. Now, that does mean you have an awful lot to catch you up on. That’s good, in a way, because we need to make sure the adjustments to memory capacity I made based on Lekika’s experiences are working as intended. You recall her story and how to remember things right?”
“Of course Goddess Azura. This ‘Lekika’ was but a paving stone on the path of knowledge. Her experiences were necessary so that I could prosper, and so that those that come after me, shall prosper as well. Memory is a strange thing in this form, but even now I am growing. In no time at all, remembering will be as easy as it was. Now, if you would be so kind Goddess Azura, I would enjoy hearing about this world and the Gods who walk upon it.” he said, touching the wall as he walked.
”Excellent, excellent.” she responded ”It would be my pleasure to teach you Rignol., and please, call me Azura.” Then she theatrical cleared her throat despite not having one and then began ”In the beginning there was nothing Galbar, a dark world covered in an endless sea, its creator, the Architect, who sat in his palace on high...”
Initially we follow a curator as it searches for a “worthy soul” in the vault of souls. In the process it reals a Soul Fiend after picking up a decaying soul gem, but is unable to see it until an Armonia destroys the insectile pest. The curators and Armonia continue as if nothing had happened, ignorant to the infestation of Soul Fiends in the vault even as the guard's individual actions prevent it from growing out of control
It picks up another soul to whom the perspective the narrative then switches. This soul is told about the afterlife of Lekika and of the machine that Azura said she would build to improve her after life project. Then a recording of Azura asks if the soul would be willing to aid her by testing the device and if they have a desire to live or something to give despite the uncomfortableness of Armonia based living. The soul, hungry to be alive again after an eternity in the void, asks to be taken to the machine. They are told to remember what has been said, after which they sleep once more.
They wake up in a character customisation screen and get to design their new Armonia body. Then they wake up inside that body, which is in a machine made of dozens of robot arms that have just built its new body to their specification. The machine releases them and they are presented with Azura, who has placed herself own crystalized soul inside an Armonia body since last we saw her, presumably as the first test subject of the machine.
She helps the void soul down from the machine and the two converse while strolling through the halls of the sky bastion. Azura explains a few things like who she is while the void soul reveals his name to be Rignol, but is otherwise cagy about his past before the void.
Then Azura begins to lay out the history of the universe from her perspective inorder to fill him in on what he has missed during his stay in the sky pyres and we fade to black.
Start: 5 fp 4 mp
Reminder: the monument used to place soul crystals into Armonia was paid for the last post. (it was 3 fp, empowered by the soul crystal port. Offscreen: 0 mp for an unseen tonnikala form that shrunk down Azura’s size significantly, followed by a 0 mp soul crystal form that has been inserted into an Armonia. This Armonia is identical in ability to other Armonia, and thus lacks devine durability, while her crystalline soul retains it.
2 fp: formed an order that hasn't been named yet made up of extraordinary individuals who have been raised from the dead. Current membership: Rignol
End: 5 fp 4 mp
Portfolio progress:
Birds (9/10) Bards (2/10) Necromancy? (3/10)
Undead monks: Starting prestige: 0 1 prestige for being in the post 1 prestige for a member (Rignol) being the star/pov of most of the post 1 prestige for a collab with @Lord Zee as Rignol Final prestige: 3
The federation is a very old and very large democratic nation. It is split into many small semi autonomous units of varying size all collectively organized, but not contled, by a central Congress. Its citizens consider themselves a post-species people as a result of generations of genetic engineering, biological modification and hybridisation. They lost territory during the great war, but are still a cultural and economic force to be reckoned with.
History
The feds are an old staple of galactic politics, perhaps one of the oldest in existence, that was initially formed as a trade, free movement and mutual aid agreement between various smaller nations in their corner of the galaxy in an attempt to curtail local infighting and promote economic growth. The power and influence the central board in charge of coordinating that agreement slowly expanded over the course of generations as the treaty gradually accepted new members to ranks and the federation’s individual nation’s cultures, populations and economies slowly bled into one another. Eventually the central board, its members now democratically elected by its member’s citizens, transitioned into the official central government of a new nation known as the The Valerius Federation.
The multi species nature of the feds was key to their initial success, pooling together the knowledge and skills of different races and utilizing their ability to thrive in a diverse set of environments to exploit their various world's resources with greater efficiency. Advances in affordable and wide scale genetic engineering further enhanced this versatility even as automation gradually made it redundant. The federation has gradually shifted its labor focus from resource exploitation to one that focuses on the design and production of consumer goods, media, art and scientific advancement for the purpose of internal consumption and external sales.
The federation settled into its current political structure roughly 1200 years ago and had been steadily chugging along since then until the Ashtar arrived. Being physically dominated and “conquered” by these upstarts horrified the federation, yet at the same time the federation has never gone to war easily. During the endless debates on what to do others took the brash action the federation was loath to do. It did not take long for tales and then footage of the consequences of defying the galaxies new overlords to circulate around the galaxy and find its way into the federation’s hands. No one was suicidal enough or angry enough to try to fight after that. The feds swallowed their pride, dumped water on the slowly rising embers of war and started looking for ways to take advantage of the new state of affairs.
In the end the Feds liked effects of the Ashtar’s era of galactic domination, even if they were not too fond of having it forced upon them. Peace was good for business and the Federation saw a significant degree of growth during the Ashtar period as they welcomed new members into their ranks, free of the concern of military retaliation from local space empires. There was also an active drive from many within the federation to liberate previously conquered nations using pacifist resistance techniques and the supplying of aid to oppressed peoples. This painted something of a target on their backs later on. A lack of push back against the Ahtar and an acceptance that they were simply the new norm left the feds somewhat unprepared for their disappearance. The old federal military was in disrepair, with its equipment mothballed or retrofitted for civilian use and it’s soldiers laid off due to a lack of funds. Only the black ops wing of the central military, it’s funding unable to be cut because almost no-one knew it existed, and a few privately funded groups of military enthusiasts really had any significant weapons stockpiles on hand when the Ashtar vanished. The spread out nature of the federation’s governmental structure resulted in dozens of different responses to the situation, but the most notable was a near immediate forming of local militias, be they beefed up corporate security, local government conscription for planetary defence forces or armed community watch groups all haphazardly armed with improvised or rapidly printed equipment. Attempts to stifle this buildup for the sake of diplomacy failed and the feds ended up feeding into the military buildup feedback loop that caused the war despite having no collective desire for it.
They did rather poorly in the post Ashtar galactic war, fighting using an army heavily reliant on the initially formed militia and fleets made up mostly of retrofitted trade ships. The federation where on the defence for a lot of the war, either protecting of their own territories or those of their many smaller trading partners. Their prior economic prosperity did provide funds for acquiring mercenaries and their industrial base that was rapidly turned to the task of churning out the instruments of war, but ultimately they only survived due to the sheer size of the pre war federation and from the success of a few make or brake spec-ops missions that turning the tide of a few key battles/conflicts.
They enthusiastically took part in the following peace talks, having been pushing for said talks since the moment the Ashtar vanished. They were one of the Treaty of Detente’s main advocates at its inception and subsequently one of its primary enforcers. The return of peace time economics was a great boon to the feds, so they are unsurprisingly distraught by the current, seemingly inevitable, trend towards war. Federal diplomatic envoys across the galaxy are working overtime to attempt to maintain peace or, at the very least, trying to create a coalition to squash any rablerouses before they ignite chaos that will engulf the stars.
They are better positioned for war this time however, as some groups within the feds have been hard at work preparing for the breakdown of peace since the day the treaty was signed. One of these is their current ground presence on Agdemnar, a “rouge” scientific expedition that just so happens to have brought a metric ton of prototype weaponry, mercenaries and “guards” along with them.
Major Holdings
Argitarius One: The seat of the Central Congress was once a neutral backwater planet chosen because at the time it was of no significance to anyone but it has since blossomed into the political heart of the nation. It is defined by its single solitary megacity that spans an entire continent, all focused around the Congress itself, a truly colossal structure capable of seating the thousands of representatives that work there every day.
Argitarius One point One: The capital’s moon, home to the central military’s logistics department, the Congress’s support AI‘s massive mainframe and, presumably, the black ops hq. These three departments help turn federal policy into a reality in one way or another.
The Magunhyan sector: The secor closest to Agdemnar and the primary sponsors of the “scientific” expedition currently entrenched upon its surface. They have a loose coalition with a number of other sectors, generally those who are near the borders of aggressive foreign nations, who are all gearing up for war and attempting to convince the rest of the federation to do the same.
Vardone four: A planet that is effectively a massive movie set. Host to incredibly diverse and stunning terrain its cities all have a unique architecture style copied from various time periods/nations. A great deal of Federation cinema and tv is produced here which makes the planet an incredibly lucrative source of income for the federation. It more or less imports everything it needs to sustain itself because the only farms and factories on it are used predominantly as set dressing.
Demographics
Population
It is rather difficult to track species populations within the federation due to gene modding, and the federation itself does not keep track as the species section was removed from census criteria by popular mandate long before the Ashtar arrived. A federation citizen’s internal and external biology is functionally limited only by their brains, which need to fit inside their body, and the laws of physics, which demand their bodies can actually sustain themselves. In practice however it is also limited by common sense. While extremely bizarre bodies do exist things like having hands, personal locomotion and the ability to fit through doors are generally considered important.
If you were to attempt to classify the citizenry you might attempt to start with the only non modified component, the brain. Examination of this feature is rather taboo, but if done it would show that the citizenry are a diverse mix of many if not all species in the galaxy who are not wholly insuler (as the Ashtar where). You would also find the brains most commonly found likely belong to those who founded the federation. Small populations of those races, or evolutionary off shoots of them, can be found scattered across the galaxy, but most have subsumed into the post species mass within the federation..
They are/were: The small reptilian Rateran who looked like a cross between kobold and a velociraptor. Evolved in a labyrinth of caves below the surface of a planet whose surface was a left a blasted watland by a long forgotten nuclear war.
Best described as a vaguely humanoid squid, the Orngar evolved beneath the thick ice of a on a volcanically active ocean moon. Discovered by the early Rateran space program while trapped in an inescapable the bronze age they were subsequently uplifted by their discoverers. They ended up colonising a great deal of the federation's oceans before genetic modification gradually eroded the rare oceanic specie’s monopoly on sea based resource extraction.
The Lonoxi were an insectile race of squat infertile drones, slender princes and hexapedal queens. Remaining populations have two opposed yet equally strict caste system that either has the royal drones and queens rule over enslaved workers or has the collectivist workers use the breeders as nothing more than baby factories. Where they exist these two opposing systems war with one another constantly.
The Sethhanide were serpentine beings to whom a lot of coastal dwelling citizens likely owe any amphibians adaptations they might have. A Lot of federation genetic science can be traced back to developments made by the Sethhanide. Their greatest pre federation achievement was the “solving” of the Lonoxi’s biologically based class warfare by re-enabling the drone’s reproductive capabilities. Snake motifs are common among geneticists even today.
The grey skinned Xetonds where a weak and diminutive race all of whom had weak psionic abilities. They mainly used these to make up for their frail physique, scaring off or control weak willed predators using their minds. The federation was founded on the basis of a peace brokered by them between the often at war Sethhanide-Lonoxi and Rateran-Orngar nations.
A number of other minor races where absorbed into the federation before the current post specise trend took effect, including a sizable human population. Races added recently are either much harder or much easier to identify depending on how much they have assimilated into the genetic soup of the federation.
Percentiles: Post species citizens: ~85% Citizens with no drastic modifications or hybrid ancestry: ~15%
Society
The federation is both incredibly diverse and simultaneously deeply homogeneous. The reason for this is simple, the federation is both very old and very big. Hundreds of years of free movement between planets have mixed together the cultures of its founders and early members just as much their populations, resulting it what could either be described as a rich cultural blend or a barely coherent mess. Simultaneously its semi regular integration of new members means that different sectors and planets can have widely varying local flavor sourced from their former nationalities. This variety is more common at the fringes and gradually dissolves the closer a place is to the center.
Generally, Democracy, cooperation and rampant hedonism are the core components of Federation society.
Federalists are incredibly proud of being the oldest, and in their opinion the greatest, true democracy in the galaxy. They also enthusiastically engage in the democratic process and turnouts for referendums held by all levels of the government remains consistently high despite their frequency. These democratic principles are applied not just to politics but also to many if not most other areas of their lives. Most notably nearly all corporations are democratically controlled by their workers and even the various militaries have their command staff elected by their soldiers.
Cooperation is also of vital importance to federal citizenry, as it is more or less the only thing holding the legally decentralized federation together. The federation only really works because its people and their many elected officials work together to maintain the federation, by occasionally putting aside their own immediate prosperity for the good of the whole Federation.
Federal citizens are personally invested in the federation, having shaped it with their votes in ways, large and small, that they can tangibly see and are affected by on a daily basis. To them the federation is not just a government or a region of space they happen to live in, it's a monument, a shining beacon of hope and freedom in a cold uncaring universe. It is a bastion against tyranny that has stood the test of time only because in times of strife its people have come together and decreed that this thing they have built together is worth protecting.
All this rhetoric would be pointless if the federation was not actually somewhere pleasant to live. Generations of research on the topic have resulted in Automation and AI taking over, or at least optimizing, a lot of the more tedious labor needed to maintain a society. This has left the citizenry a great deal of time to invest in making it a society worth living in. A lot of them are in some way involved in the creation of art, be it music, holo-film, games, vr or body modifications for internal and external consumption.
The most immediately notable aspect of federation culture is the pervasiveness of genetic engineering and biological augmentation. Initially used for medical and efficiency purposes this technology is now more often than not used for fashion purposes. Citizens can and regularly will radically alter their appearance to suit their individual tastes or to follow current fashion trends. This can be anything from simply changing their hair or eye colour to replacing body parts with ones from other species (such as getting a pair of Vit'azny ears), adding an entirely new parts like additional limbs, tails or wings or even extracting their brains and placing them in entirely new bodies. These biological modifications can be combined with holographic projectors that allow them to change their appearance on the fly to suit their current mood.
While the federation is as a whole highly materialist it does tolerate religious practices and so followers/practitioners of nearly all faiths can be found somewhere within their borders.
Economy
While the federation do have a relatively thriving industrial economy thanks to its many worlds, divers citizens able to exploit their natural resources and refined automation techniques its most distinct source of wealth is its culture industry. If the galaxy has an equivalent to hollywood it can be found here. From holo films to clothes, music, designer pets and luxury civilian spacecraft, the federation produces and exports vast quantities of consumer goods to all corners of the galaxy. They also host sports and competitions like the galactic prix, the gravity ball cup and the Federal-vision song contest, that are braucast far and wide and pull in trillions of watchers every year. They also have some of the best cosmetic surgeons in the galaxy and produce a large variety of designer drugs.
A lot of the federation’s raw resources are imported. Food, raw ores, basic mechanical components and more are often purchased rather instead of being produced locally. The feds will trade with anyone, but prefer to engage with smaller nations rather than buying primarily from its equals/rivals in order to spread out their supply chain and avoid reliance on any one nation or part of the galaxy.
Government
The federation is a federalist representative democracy. It has 5 tiers of authority within it who are answerable not to each other but to the voters who elected them. Local: A mayor who is elected to govern a city or small region. Geographic: Representatives who control areas roughly corresponding to the size of a primitive nation state. Planitery: A local word government. Sectors:Unites many worlds under one governing banner and facilitates cooperation between them. Federal: the Central Congress, occasionally referred to as the Board or the CC, is the supreme assembly of the federation which governs national policy and facilitates national level projects and cooperation.
Each of these levels is elected by the people living under their jurisdictions, however there are no elections, but rather each citizen has an online profile which they can use to vote at any candidate at time for any and all positions they are eligible to influence. Changed votes have a brief delay before they go into effect to allow politicians time to counter whatever shifted public opinion of them, to allow time for votes to be delivered via couriers and to facilitate a smooth transition of power if it is to take place. Along with this they can take part in frequent referendums, opinion polls and discussion forums to directly voice their opinions on various topics. These poles are often rather superficial in nature (what kind of holographic art the town center should display this month is a common local poll) but they keep political engagement up and make sure that when important matters do arise the people know that their voices can and do matter. The online voting system has cyber security that puts some nation’s militaries to shame to prevent malicious tampering.
Power in the federation is rather divolved, with individual sectors, planets and even geographic regions having high degrees of influence on how things are run at a local level. They only real thing the central government dictates is forghin policy, macro scale economic matters, high level legal decisions and funding for federation wise social programs. As a result, even laws and military organisation is done at a more local level in all but the most important of matters.
Who holds power in the federation is in constant flux, but there are, ostensibly, two major groups vying for control over the federation. Colloquially known as the party of peace and the party of war they stand for the two main public opinions on the matter of the coming conflict: To hold onto peace as far as possible or to seek out revenge and to reclaim what was lost in the great war.
A nation or even planets can join the federation if they so desire. Doing so involves a lengthy investigation process where the federation attempts to determine if the applicant is economically stable enough to be a valued addition to the federation. Due to its decentralised nature the perks of joining the federation aren't exactly life changing, with the main draws being use of its currency, freedom of movement to other parts of it and a small say in the macro level decisions of the federation. Unusually, leaving the federation is rather easy, as any sub division of power can vote themselves out of the federation if they so desire. This is somewhat rare, the cultural assimilation the federation engages in is its main counter to such independence movements, but individual planets, continents and even cities that have left the federation can be found within it, and occasionally small sectors on its periphery will leave either in protest or of a genuine desire to reclaim independence. The federation is often more that happy to wait a generation or two for them to come back.
Technological Information
Major Techs
Hardlight Fields: Physical holograms. Usable for artistic and construction purposes, they can also act as force fields that physically block incoming attacks. Most if not all federation spaceships rely heavily on these defensive fields to protect themselves from harm, as do a lot of their terrestrial forces. Hard light fields are either created by a central generator or can be maintained by numerous networked units distributed throughout their structure. The former is used for shield generation, the latter for things like clothing, architecture and other projects where redundancy is more important that overall durability. Ships always have multiple shields, often specialized for different purposes (propulsion, passive/reactive shielding, cloaking, etc.) for the sake of redundancy.
Holographic cloaking: the use of holograms to either disguise a vessel or person as something else (generally terrain or other craft) or to project images of what is behind it to render the user almost invisible to optical sensors. When combined with conventional anti radar and anti thermal detection methods some advanced federalist equipment and vessels can be functionally invisible.
Engine tech: Federal ftl is rather standard affair, dropping their ships down into slipspace inorder to make long distances far shorter. Propulsion is generally facilitated by the shielding system generating and then releasing energy from the internal powersource somewhere along their radius which visually takes the appearance of a green glow unless it is being deliberately hidden for stealth purposes. While not the fastest propulsion method, the ability to point the power of other ship’s main engine in any direction grants superb maneuverability. The disk like shape of most federation vessels is meant to take advantage of this, allowing the vessel equal ease at rotating in any direction by generating maneuvering thrusters anywhere along its flat top and bottom, while main drive thrust can be instantly sent out from any part of the ship.
Auto Lasers: Rapid fire laser guns that usually take the place of automatic weapons. While the federation uses non viable spectrum and tight beams that would make the lasers invisible to the naked eye, auto lasers can activate a tracer rounds mode where 10% of the beams are the more expected bright visible beams of light.
Laser cannons: Slow firing laser cannons used for long ranged accurate fire. the amount of energy in these beams means the air is visibly distorted where they pass though.
Plasma cannons: super-heated globs of plasma that generally explode on contact with their target. Accelerated via meg rails and further forced out via a laser cannon mounted at the back of the cannon. the plasma itself is a spinning disk with a magnetic core at the center that helps keep the non solid projectile in once piece until it hit's it's target. Artillery variants have higher volumes of plasma and their progectile's are stable for far longer.
Plasma auto-cannons: Slower firing that auto lasers, they fire smaller but more frequent blasts of plasma than the regular cannons.
Plasma/laser Beam Cannon: Fire continuous streams of either lasers or plasma.
Cosmetic Biological/genetic Modification: Federal scientists can functionally change any and everything about a person’s biology down to the genetic level. Species boundaries have long been broken down and rendered redundant as regular citizens decide exactly what they look like, be it minor adjustments to their birth bodies or complete remodeling of their physical makeup to take on the appearance of an existing or entirely invented race. This is mainly done for the sake of fashion (reptilian traits are in this season) and getting a new body is equivalent to getting your haircut in a different style. This tech originated from modifications for military and environmental adaptation modifications and, while it is still sometimes used for those purposes, it has become as commonplace and ubiquitous in the civilian sphere as computers are in the 21st century.
Despite their mastery of the body there has been little success in artificial psychics due to a lack of people willing to volunteer their (living) brains for invasive and extensive alteration.
These modifications are done within life support tanks, which sustain the brain no matter how much of the body is striped away and replaced in any one surgery. This surgery itself is done by a swarm of insect sized biomachines that add and remove parts at the behest of either the person being modified or by a professional body artist.
Virtual Intelligence Neural Enhancer (VINE): A lattice of microscopic computer hardware that is intertwined with a person’s gray matter. It is grown, rather than built or surgically added and thus allows some of the advantages of cybernetic augmentation without any of the risks of brain damage or dramatic personality alteration. While mostly by civilians as a glorified smartphone in their brains it is also an important part of the federation’s id system, as in a culture where a person’s appearance and even their dna can change regularly a hard coded Hash Key nestled deep within their cerebral cortex becomes one of the few ways of verifying some is who they say they are. There are multiple military applications such as power armor, vehicle control, local comms system, combat enhancement software, etc. .
Companion AI: Helpful self developing AI systems that mold themselves to the needs of their owner. At a governmental level they help turn political policies into reality, for individuals they act as personnel secretaries or companions. Sometimes installed into drones to improve their performance (military personnel often have armed versions of these) but most often run on an individual's VINE.
3d Printers: multipurpose manufacturing units ranging from the size of a briefcase to the size of a factory capable of constructing a vast array of equipment out of a variety of materials. While they will never be as efficient as dedicated manufacturing units the ability to read a damaged ship, vehicle or armor’s blueprint and then rapidly produce replacement parts on sight partially alleviates the logistical nightmare facing the federation’s decentralised military.
Retrofitting: less a technology and more a skill, the engineers of the federation have a great deal of experience and literature dedicated to the art of turning a hunk of junk into a military craft and back again. Learned first from decommission a lot of their military once the Ashtar proved themselves unstoppable and from rapidly weaponizing and deaweponising blackops craft for stealth missions it came in great sue during the great war. They have similar skill when dealing with non federation ships and have developed special Ai capable of rapidly understanding most conventional ships put in front of them at least well enough to get them running again. Somewhat used to convert captured vessels it was mainly developed so that federation service yards could work both on mercenary/auxiliary craft and deal with whatever modifications or straight up new designs some other parts of the federation had come up with without informing them.
Military Information
Military Overview
The military structure of the federation is rather disparate, with individual sectors all raising their own armed forces for local protection purposes. Some are more interested in this than others, and indeed having a standing military is not mandatory, but those located near aggressive neighbours often have substantial militaries, either of the standing or reserved variety. These forces can be anything from temporary conscripts to professional soldiers, part time militias, military companies or hired forighn troops.
Tying them all together is the central military which has two branches, logistics and black ops.
The logistics arm has the unenviable job of coordinating the dozens of smaller militeris found within the federation: keeping them supplied when they are out of their own sectors, sorting out the chain of command, coordinating their movements on a grand strategy level and so on. It consists primarily of bureaucrats, engineers and supply ship crews. It has no standing military of its own, as it has no worlds to draw from, and instead it’s only actual power comes in the form of mercenaries. Be they private military contractors, pirates, militaries of forgin nations or federal sectors, the logistics arm has the funds to pull in the firepower they need to support the defence of whatever the federation as a whole deems valuable.
The Black ops wing is the federations offensive problem solvers. Small, elite and the stuff of myths and legends rather than policy, the black ops branch is pointed at problems, given funds and then told to make the problems disappear by whatever means necessary. No one likes to think about this branch, and in fact it's rare that an elected politicians even know it exists. Instead they take their orders from the companion AI’s helping run the government who see it simply as another tool that gets the job done. It is unclear exactly where it originates from, there certainly is no record of a vote to form it, nor is it possible to trace its operations history back to a founding specific date. It has no employee lists, nor any officially recognised leadership. The Black ops division are, for all intensive purposes, a black box. Their input is problems that need solving, and their output is death.
Fleet/Navy
Doctorin:
The federation has two primary space formations that it generally selects between depending on the ratio of strong shielded ships vs cloak able ships in a fleet.
Bastion tactics involve massing a clump of vessels with strong shields together to protect both another and weaker specialist ships from enemy fire. Ships will rotate to and from the front line, absorbing fire form the enemy before falling back to recharge their defences as another vessel takes their place. Weaker ships stay in the center where they can safely unleash their firepower.
Maneuver warfare involves swarming the enemy fleet with a number of independently operating vessels that use the federal ships superior maneuverability to their advantage to avoid enemy fire by presenting many erratically moving targets. Cloaking is especially effective in this, as federal vessels can periodically hold their fire and vanish from view, only to reappear once the enemy's attention is elsewhere. Requires a great deal of coordination and or improvisation to pull off, particularly in larger engagements.
The two can, naturally, be combined, with escort ships engaging in maneuver warfare while the core fleet sets up a bastion.
Dreadnoughts:
Victory/vengance guaranteeing vessel (VGV) “Trident”: The central disk is a Mothership (a battlecruiser described below), onto which two fins full of fighter bays and two massive plasma artillery cannons have been bolted. Crude, but quite deadly, particularly to others of its class that it was designed to beat on a budget.
Battleships:
Federation Liberator Vessel (FLV) Mk XIV “Black Snooty”: the original liberator was a massive array of weapons hammered onto the front of a popular cruise ship design. It served remarcably well thought the great war, going through numerous iterations to improve its weapons array and make the civilian portion considerably less civilian. This process continued even after the war. The latest version’s update involves ripping out the old, Detente conforming, Libirator’s ‘nose’ off and replacing it with a much, much larger array of guns. Many of the liberators still in operation can trace their service record,or at least names, back to the great war, even if, like the ship of ulysses, almost none of their original components still remain. The captains and crews of particularly distinguished vessels can be a rather stuck up bunch as a result.
Battlecruisers:
Militery Resource Transporter (MRT) “Mother ship”: A Great war BattleCruiser that is functionally a massive cargo hauler retrofitted for war. Half its internal storage is converted into hangers, and the other half where filed with generators to power its shields and massive guns that were more or less painted on the side. It’s primary armament is the red strip running across its front that is in effect what happens when you staple a strip of leds something and then run millions of volts through them to try and make laser guns. The result is surprisingly versatile, individual segment of the strip can either fire independently at small targets or all unify to fire a massive V shaped beam at enemy vessels.
While mostly decommissioned at this point, both the cargo haulers and the mothballed equipment to turn them into military vessels are still laying around, ready to be reunited if things go south.
Decicated Beam Weapon (DBW) “Target”: A Detente Vessel that runs counter to the standard federal pilots desire to always present the edge of the disk to your enemy. The DBW’s central plasma beam cannon requires it to present its top inorder to fire. The elaborate framework design allows the ship to remain relatively maneuverable while still coming under the treaty’s mass requirements. As it has a low shield capacity for its size, a flimsy structure and only a few defence turrets complimenting its core cannon it is inconceivable to use this craft without other craft helping to protect it.
Cruisers:
General Purpose Brawling Cruiser (GPBC) “Halibut”: A straightforward design, made to be able to engage multiple enemy targets. It has a 180 degree firing arc in front of it from its nose mounted cannon and 6 bar lasers while its rear is guarded by 8 vertically aimable laser cannons. Most were sold off after the war to smaller allies, only for them to show back up in the federal army as auxiliary mercenaries this time.
Multi role escorc cruiser (MREC) “Gladius”: a narrow profile fits poorly with the standard federal propulsion system, but can massively reduce the vessels profile and lets multiple vessels of this kind hide behind larger craft. MERC’s are armed primarily with a high hanger capacity and vertically mounted swarm missile launchers. Their core purpose is to provide strike craft screens for other craft, as well as shooting down enemy strike craft with vollies of several dozen homing missiles.
Destroyers:
Stand Off Artillery Craft (SOAC) “Pointer”: A civilian vessel with its heart ripped out and replaced with a massive palma artillery cannon. Gaining its nickname from its distinctive central “finger” their conversion process meant they could not be converted back after the great war, and so they have remained in service as the fed’s primary space based artillery craft. The wider front section creates rear facing surfaces that can be used to better rotate it from side to side and thus aim better with its fixed cannon.
Close Range Demolition Craft (CRDC) “puncher”: a modern take on the SOAC’s finned structure that serves the exact opposite purpose. Equipped with 3 sets of plasma cannon turrets it is designed to get in close to either engage multiple targets at once or focus fire on a single weak point of a larger ship.
Frigates:
Planetary reinforcement Craft (PRC) “Dropper”: another retrofitted cargo ship that was originally designed to “fire” a payload of fighter craft at an enemy but was never used in this capacity because of how terrible being launched into a fight with no method of retreat was for the moral of fighter pilots. Rather than scrape the design for rapidly launching small craft it was instead repurposed as a manner to rapidly deploy reinforcements to a besieged world.
Craft are arranged in racks within the ship and are then led into two magnetic accelerators that “fire” the ships towards a planet's surface. These can either be proper shuttle craft, space/atmosphere hybrid fighters, aircraft protected by a single use re-entrys shield or rugged drop pods. This allows the PRC to jump into a system, rapidly unload additional defenders to a besieged world and then get the hell outta dodge before any of the besieging forces have time to intercept it. Being launched to relive their fellow federalists was a much easier sell to the troops, and so the RPC saw major use in the Great War. Despite the “defence” its name the vessel is equally useful for planetary invasions or surgical strikes against high priority ground targets.
Very Fast Frigate (VFF)”Hammerhead” An unusual design for the federation, the long spine contains an oversized ftl engine. The hammerheads weapon systems can all retract, hiding the black cracks and transforming it into seamless silver travel form. The nubs on the bottom of the ftl drive let it magnetic dock with other craft in order to act as a supplementary engine (for both realspace and slipspace) for slow or disabled craft.
Corvettes:
Border Reconnaissance Vessel (BRV) ”Brave”:: small and lightly defended the Brave’s main purpose is as a carrier for the massive sensory disc that it more or less tows behind it. Used to detect enemy vessels approaching from unexpected angles the Brave almost never engages what it detects, but instead runs off to get help from others at the first sign of trouble. Did its job well enough that it never needed to be replaced.
Spec Ops Craft (SOC) “Spook”:: Rarely seen, the spook is craft used to deploy/extract spec ops teams to/from their mission areas. Incredibly expensive to produce it can render itself nearly undetectable to enemy sensors. It can out gun most other craft in its weight category using its experimental underslung laser lance, and can outrun anything heavier than it. Supposedly the Black Ops division uses an even more advanced version of this craft.
Rapid Response Unit (RRU) “ramjet”: A recent and unconventional design thats is effectively a dedicated engine strapped to an oversized gun and a set of torpedo tubes. Packs of these ships are launched from defensive stations to reinforce key locations or friendly forces. Once there they charge whatever their target is, hopefully from an unexpected angle, while relying on heavy front armor to survive. Once close enough they fire their torpedoes, which can either be explosive or be boarding craft filled with warbeasts, before attempting to jet/jump/sneak away from the, hopefully, devastated hostile.
Strike craft:
Old war Fighters and Bombers:: Old style strike craft that use laser auto cannons and plasma cannons respectively. Originally piloted by conscripts during the great war they have been retrofitted after the war to be flown by the brain of a type of alien bat that has been modified by biological tampering and a Vine interface. They aren't the most advanced craft, nor do their animal/ai hybrid fliers have the best piloting skills, but the feds do still have a lot of these laying around in their hangers.
Shield Drones: hard light field generator units with AI corse attached, these drones can replace fighters and bombers in hanger racks to add additional defensive capabilities to a ship, be it directional shields or adding cloaking capabilities to a ship.
multi role strike craft: Modern saucer strike craft flown by federal pilots. Considerably more maneuverable thanks to taking full advantage of the federal thrust system (although also harder to fly as a result) they can be equipped with many weapon system that can be “slotted” into the front gap on their disk.
Boarding torpedo: Strike craft that ram enemy ships, cut their way into them and then divulge a living payload inside. This payload almost always consisting of warbeasts (unless the target is very small, the team has an exit strategy or there is a VIP onboard), as the boarding party is not expected to disable the ship but rather to simply cause chaos that will distract the crew. The creatures are normally specialised for fighting/living inside ships and will at the very least become a major pest infestation if not dealt with. Usually fired near the start of an engagement for maximum irritation or at the end as a final salvo from a retreating federal force to entalge their pursuers. The torpedo or may not be cloaked, it generally depends on how expensive the boarding party is.
Army/Planetary forces
Troops Professional soldiers are generally equipped with atmospheric sealed power armor customized to their body type and partially controlled by their VINE, making it close to a second skin that can enhance reflexes, improve agility and increase strength. Made of a combination of metals and hard light each suit is wholly unique to the wearer which means they need to carry the blueprints for the armor around with them in order to avoid this policy driving federation repair crews insane. Armor is always at least lightly shielded but can have heavier shields or cloaking functionality added at the expense of cost and weight. Professional soldiers have access to more dangerous/enhanced bio modifications that would be grossly inappropriate for civilians to have. They get to keep them even when not in service, making such augmations an added selling point of military service.
Local militia forces meanwhile, which make up the bulk of the federation's actual military might, make do with whatever level of equipment they can get using their self elected budget. Armor is generally light to non existent while guns are usually higher quality to ensure they can actually hurt invaders. As almost all federal citizens have VINE implants, they can operate with a higher degree of cohesion than most armed civilians thanks to quickly installed combat assistant routines run by their companion AIs, which do their best coordinate the mobs of armed civilians and make sure they actually hit their targets. Combat drugs are also relatively common.
In between these two groups you have mercenary units, be they wandering federal MCs or externally recruited troops. Their equipment ranges from high end power armor and energy weapons right down to kevlar and ballistics.
Finally there are the warbeasts. Warbeasts are augmented or manufactured animals that act as disposable troops, attack dogs or bioweapons. Their development was a post war development spawned from a desire to not suffer the same massive casualties the great war inflicted. To create the program a few eccentric scientists traveled the federation to gather together the most dangerous creatures they could find and then further enhanced them with bioengineering, cybernetic enhancements and the installation of VINE tech into their brains to control them. Results have been mixed and are largely untested in battle but they have found a niche for clearing out buildings or damaged spaceships of hostiles during small scale operations. Gene modding means it’s sometimes hard to tell beast and soldier apart.
Companion drones are a staple of the federation military. Small robots, generally on unarmed hover units or attached directly to a user armor but sometimes installed in proper war bots, onto which an individual's companion ai has been installed, granting it increased processing capability and the ability to physically assist their users. Used for reconnaissance, group coordination, radio operators, supply carriers or simply to add additional firepower to the squad.
For firepower, federation troops generally use small scale lasers and plasma weaponry. These can either be heandheald weapons that draw their power from rechargeable energy packs or built into/onto their armor and drawing power directly from its own power source.
Armor
X7J Science walker These are what where used to capture the federation’s warbeasts. It is armed with a front mounted laser beam cannon for anti everything, and tentacle mounted claws and auto lasers for anti infantry. Capable of traversing any terrain and often cloaked or heavily shielded they can easily compete with more conventional tanks despite their unorthodox design.
Fedral Squire A 3 meter tall mech, its left arm has a hard light unit used to generate a directional shield while its right has quad linked plasma autocannons. Generally acts in an infantry support role.
Fedral Knight the squires big brother. 6 meters tall and armed with 2 arm mounted plasma cannons and 2 torso mounted auto lasers.
P7 battle tank A pair of twin linked plasma auto cannons mounted on a pair of tracks. Old and outdated the guns are still as deadly as ever. Fairly cheap to manufacture these are more commonly found in militia gerisions.
Q2 Hovertank the P&-2 replacement. Utilizes a hover drive system and has multiple anti personnel auto laser turrets in addition to its main plasma cannon.
Mobile hover artillery an unmanned weapon’s platform carrying a massive plasma artillery cannon. Remotely controlled either by its escort, central command or front line troops to rain devastation on the enemy.
Airforce Federation in atmosphere craft have the ability to switch between sleek travel forms and deployed combat forms. Starting at the top right and moving clockwise are the twin-linked autolaser armed air superiority fighter, the tri-linked plasma autocannon armed gunship, the laser cannon and AA missile armed fighter bombers and the plasma cannon armed strategic bomber.
Oceanic navy Naval warfare of the old variety still has its uses. The feds are particularly fond of large mobile floating command centers.
Hyperdread
Revolutionary Ultimate Stealth Engine (RUSE) ”the Project” A truly massive yet seemingly defenseless saucer the RUSE represents the pinnacle of federation hard light technology. Utterly filled and covered with hard light projectors, this craft can either cover entire fleets with its shielding or cloaking capabilities. It can also weaponize the normal propulsion systems of federal craft to fire beams of plasma from anywhere on the surface of its shields, including a devastating death blossom that hits everything around it.
It is done. The federation are here and they want you to put on their blue jeans and listen to their rock music.
The Valerius Federation
The Federation
Major Belligerent
General Information
Overview
The federation is a very old and very large democratic nation. It is split into many small semi autonomous units of varying size all collectively organized, but not contled, by a central Congress. Its citizens consider themselves a post-species people as a result of generations of genetic engineering, biological modification and hybridisation. They lost territory during the great war, but are still a cultural and economic force to be reckoned with.
History
The feds are an old staple of galactic politics, perhaps one of the oldest in existence, that was initially formed as a trade, free movement and mutual aid agreement between various smaller nations in their corner of the galaxy in an attempt to curtail local infighting and promote economic growth. The power and influence the central board in charge of coordinating that agreement slowly expanded over the course of generations as the treaty gradually accepted new members to ranks and the federation’s individual nation’s cultures, populations and economies slowly bled into one another. Eventually the central board, its members now democratically elected by its member’s citizens, transitioned into the official central government of a new nation known as the The Valerius Federation.
The multi species nature of the feds was key to their initial success, pooling together the knowledge and skills of different races and utilizing their ability to thrive in a diverse set of environments to exploit their various world's resources with greater efficiency. Advances in affordable and wide scale genetic engineering further enhanced this versatility even as automation gradually made it redundant. The federation has gradually shifted its labor focus from resource exploitation to one that focuses on the design and production of consumer goods, media, art and scientific advancement for the purpose of internal consumption and external sales.
The federation settled into its current political structure roughly 1200 years ago and had been steadily chugging along since then until the Ashtar arrived. Being physically dominated and “conquered” by these upstarts horrified the federation, yet at the same time the federation has never gone to war easily. During the endless debates on what to do others took the brash action the federation was loath to do. It did not take long for tales and then footage of the consequences of defying the galaxies new overlords to circulate around the galaxy and find its way into the federation’s hands. No one was suicidal enough or angry enough to try to fight after that. The feds swallowed their pride, dumped water on the slowly rising embers of war and started looking for ways to take advantage of the new state of affairs.
In the end the Feds liked effects of the Ashtar’s era of galactic domination, even if they were not too fond of having it forced upon them. Peace was good for business and the Federation saw a significant degree of growth during the Ashtar period as they welcomed new members into their ranks, free of the concern of military retaliation from local space empires. There was also an active drive from many within the federation to liberate previously conquered nations using pacifist resistance techniques and the supplying of aid to oppressed peoples. This painted something of a target on their backs later on. A lack of push back against the Ahtar and an acceptance that they were simply the new norm left the feds somewhat unprepared for their disappearance. The old federal military was in disrepair, with its equipment mothballed or retrofitted for civilian use and it’s soldiers laid off due to a lack of funds. Only the black ops wing of the central military, it’s funding unable to be cut because almost no-one knew it existed, and a few privately funded groups of military enthusiasts really had any significant weapons stockpiles on hand when the Ashtar vanished. The spread out nature of the federation’s governmental structure resulted in dozens of different responses to the situation, but the most notable was a near immediate forming of local militias, be they beefed up corporate security, local government conscription for planetary defence forces or armed community watch groups all haphazardly armed with improvised or rapidly printed equipment. Attempts to stifle this buildup for the sake of diplomacy failed and the feds ended up feeding into the military buildup feedback loop that caused the war despite having no collective desire for it.
They did rather poorly in the post Ashtar galactic war, fighting using an army heavily reliant on the initially formed militia and fleets made up mostly of retrofitted trade ships. The federation where on the defence for a lot of the war, either protecting of their own territories or those of their many smaller trading partners. Their prior economic prosperity did provide funds for acquiring mercenaries and their industrial base that was rapidly turned to the task of churning out the instruments of war, but ultimately they only survived due to the sheer size of the pre war federation and from the success of a few make or brake spec-ops missions that turning the tide of a few key battles/conflicts.
They enthusiastically took part in the following peace talks, having been pushing for said talks since the moment the Ashtar vanished. They were one of the Treaty of Detente’s main advocates at its inception and subsequently one of its primary enforcers. The return of peace time economics was a great boon to the feds, so they are unsurprisingly distraught by the current, seemingly inevitable, trend towards war. Federal diplomatic envoys across the galaxy are working overtime to attempt to maintain peace or, at the very least, trying to create a coalition to squash any rablerouses before they ignite chaos that will engulf the stars.
They are better positioned for war this time however, as some groups within the feds have been hard at work preparing for the breakdown of peace since the day the treaty was signed. One of these is their current ground presence on Agdemnar, a “rouge” scientific expedition that just so happens to have brought a metric ton of prototype weaponry, mercenaries and “guards” along with them.
Major Holdings
Argitarius One: The seat of the Central Congress was once a neutral backwater planet chosen because at the time it was of no significance to anyone but it has since blossomed into the political heart of the nation. It is defined by its single solitary megacity that spans an entire continent, all focused around the Congress itself, a truly colossal structure capable of seating the thousands of representatives that work there every day.
Argitarius One point One: The capital’s moon, home to the central military’s logistics department, the Congress’s support AI‘s massive mainframe and, presumably, the black ops hq. These three departments help turn federal policy into a reality in one way or another.
The Magunhyan sector: The secor closest to Agdemnar and the primary sponsors of the “scientific” expedition currently entrenched upon its surface. They have a loose coalition with a number of other sectors, generally those who are near the borders of aggressive foreign nations, who are all gearing up for war and attempting to convince the rest of the federation to do the same.
Vardone four: A planet that is effectively a massive movie set. Host to incredibly diverse and stunning terrain its cities all have a unique architecture style copied from various time periods/nations. A great deal of Federation cinema and tv is produced here which makes the planet an incredibly lucrative source of income for the federation. It more or less imports everything it needs to sustain itself because the only farms and factories on it are used predominantly as set dressing.
Demographics
Population
It is rather difficult to track species populations within the federation due to gene modding, and the federation itself does not keep track as the species section was removed from census criteria by popular mandate long before the Ashtar arrived. A federation citizen’s internal and external biology is functionally limited only by their brains, which need to fit inside their body, and the laws of physics, which demand their bodies can actually sustain themselves. In practice however it is also limited by common sense. While extremely bizarre bodies do exist things like having hands, personal locomotion and the ability to fit through doors are generally considered important.
If you were to attempt to classify the citizenry you might attempt to start with the only non modified component, the brain. Examination of this feature is rather taboo, but if done it would show that the citizenry are a diverse mix of many if not all species in the galaxy who are not wholly insuler (as the Ashtar where). You would also find the brains most commonly found likely belong to those who founded the federation. Small populations of those races, or evolutionary off shoots of them, can be found scattered across the galaxy, but most have subsumed into the post species mass within the federation..
They are/were: The small reptilian Rateran who looked like a cross between kobold and a velociraptor. Evolved in a labyrinth of caves below the surface of a planet whose surface was a left a blasted watland by a long forgotten nuclear war.
Best described as a vaguely humanoid squid, the Orngar evolved beneath the thick ice of a on a volcanically active ocean moon. Discovered by the early Rateran space program while trapped in an inescapable the bronze age they were subsequently uplifted by their discoverers. They ended up colonising a great deal of the federation's oceans before genetic modification gradually eroded the rare oceanic specie’s monopoly on sea based resource extraction.
The Lonoxi were an insectile race of squat infertile drones, slender princes and hexapedal queens. Remaining populations have two opposed yet equally strict caste system that either has the royal drones and queens rule over enslaved workers or has the collectivist workers use the breeders as nothing more than baby factories. Where they exist these two opposing systems war with one another constantly.
The Sethhanide were serpentine beings to whom a lot of coastal dwelling citizens likely owe any amphibians adaptations they might have. A Lot of federation genetic science can be traced back to developments made by the Sethhanide. Their greatest pre federation achievement was the “solving” of the Lonoxi’s biologically based class warfare by re-enabling the drone’s reproductive capabilities. Snake motifs are common among geneticists even today.
The grey skinned Xetonds where a weak and diminutive race all of whom had weak psionic abilities. They mainly used these to make up for their frail physique, scaring off or control weak willed predators using their minds. The federation was founded on the basis of a peace brokered by them between the often at war Sethhanide-Lonoxi and Rateran-Orngar nations.
A number of other minor races where absorbed into the federation before the current post specise trend took effect, including a sizable human population. Races added recently are either much harder or much easier to identify depending on how much they have assimilated into the genetic soup of the federation.
Percentiles: Post species citizens: ~85% Citizens with no drastic modifications or hybrid ancestry: ~15%
Society
The federation is both incredibly diverse and simultaneously deeply homogeneous. The reason for this is simple, the federation is both very old and very big. Hundreds of years of free movement between planets have mixed together the cultures of its founders and early members just as much their populations, resulting it what could either be described as a rich cultural blend or a barely coherent mess. Simultaneously its semi regular integration of new members means that different sectors and planets can have widely varying local flavor sourced from their former nationalities. This variety is more common at the fringes and gradually dissolves the closer a place is to the center.
Generally, Democracy, cooperation and rampant hedonism are the core components of Federation society.
Federalists are incredibly proud of being the oldest, and in their opinion the greatest, true democracy in the galaxy. They also enthusiastically engage in the democratic process and turnouts for referendums held by all levels of the government remains consistently high despite their frequency. These democratic principles are applied not just to politics but also to many if not most other areas of their lives. Most notably nearly all corporations are democratically controlled by their workers and even the various militaries have their command staff elected by their soldiers.
Cooperation is also of vital importance to federal citizenry, as it is more or less the only thing holding the legally decentralized federation together. The federation only really works because its people and their many elected officials work together to maintain the federation, by occasionally putting aside their own immediate prosperity for the good of the whole Federation.
Federal citizens are personally invested in the federation, having shaped it with their votes in ways, large and small, that they can tangibly see and are affected by on a daily basis. To them the federation is not just a government or a region of space they happen to live in, it's a monument, a shining beacon of hope and freedom in a cold uncaring universe. It is a bastion against tyranny that has stood the test of time only because in times of strife its people have come together and decreed that this thing they have built together is worth protecting.
All this rhetoric would be pointless if the federation was not actually somewhere pleasant to live. Generations of research on the topic have resulted in Automation and AI taking over, or at least optimizing, a lot of the more tedious labor needed to maintain a society. This has left the citizenry a great deal of time to invest in making it a society worth living in. A lot of them are in some way involved in the creation of art, be it music, holo-film, games, vr or body modifications for internal and external consumption.
The most immediately notable aspect of federation culture is the pervasiveness of genetic engineering and biological augmentation. Initially used for medical and efficiency purposes this technology is now more often than not used for fashion purposes. Citizens can and regularly will radically alter their appearance to suit their individual tastes or to follow current fashion trends. This can be anything from simply changing their hair or eye colour to replacing body parts with ones from other species (such as getting a pair of Vit'azny ears), adding an entirely new parts like additional limbs, tails or wings or even extracting their brains and placing them in entirely new bodies. These biological modifications can be combined with holographic projectors that allow them to change their appearance on the fly to suit their current mood.
While the federation is as a whole highly materialist it does tolerate religious practices and so followers/practitioners of nearly all faiths can be found somewhere within their borders.
Economy
While the federation do have a relatively thriving industrial economy thanks to its many worlds, divers citizens able to exploit their natural resources and refined automation techniques its most distinct source of wealth is its culture industry. If the galaxy has an equivalent to hollywood it can be found here. From holo films to clothes, music, designer pets and luxury civilian spacecraft, the federation produces and exports vast quantities of consumer goods to all corners of the galaxy. They also host sports and competitions like the galactic prix, the gravity ball cup and the Federal-vision song contest, that are braucast far and wide and pull in trillions of watchers every year. They also have some of the best cosmetic surgeons in the galaxy and produce a large variety of designer drugs.
A lot of the federation’s raw resources are imported. Food, raw ores, basic mechanical components and more are often purchased rather instead of being produced locally. The feds will trade with anyone, but prefer to engage with smaller nations rather than buying primarily from its equals/rivals in order to spread out their supply chain and avoid reliance on any one nation or part of the galaxy.
Government
The federation is a federalist representative democracy. It has 5 tiers of authority within it who are answerable not to each other but to the voters who elected them. Local: A mayor who is elected to govern a city or small region. Geographic: Representatives who control areas roughly corresponding to the size of a primitive nation state. Planitery: A local word government. Sectors:Unites many worlds under one governing banner and facilitates cooperation between them. Federal: the Central Congress, occasionally referred to as the Board or the CC, is the supreme assembly of the federation which governs national policy and facilitates national level projects and cooperation.
Each of these levels is elected by the people living under their jurisdictions, however there are no elections, but rather each citizen has an online profile which they can use to vote at any candidate at time for any and all positions they are eligible to influence. Changed votes have a brief delay before they go into effect to allow politicians time to counter whatever shifted public opinion of them, to allow time for votes to be delivered via couriers and to facilitate a smooth transition of power if it is to take place. Along with this they can take part in frequent referendums, opinion polls and discussion forums to directly voice their opinions on various topics. These poles are often rather superficial in nature (what kind of holographic art the town center should display this month is a common local poll) but they keep political engagement up and make sure that when important matters do arise the people know that their voices can and do matter. The online voting system has cyber security that puts some nation’s militaries to shame to prevent malicious tampering.
Power in the federation is rather divolved, with individual sectors, planets and even geographic regions having high degrees of influence on how things are run at a local level. They only real thing the central government dictates is forghin policy, macro scale economic matters, high level legal decisions and funding for federation wise social programs. As a result, even laws and military organisation is done at a more local level in all but the most important of matters.
Who holds power in the federation is in constant flux, but there are, ostensibly, two major groups vying for control over the federation. Colloquially known as the party of peace and the party of war they stand for the two main public opinions on the matter of the coming conflict: To hold onto peace as far as possible or to seek out revenge and to reclaim what was lost in the great war.
A nation or even planets can join the federation if they so desire. Doing so involves a lengthy investigation process where the federation attempts to determine if the applicant is economically stable enough to be a valued addition to the federation. Due to its decentralised nature the perks of joining the federation aren't exactly life changing, with the main draws being use of its currency, freedom of movement to other parts of it and a small say in the macro level decisions of the federation. Unusually, leaving the federation is rather easy, as any sub division of power can vote themselves out of the federation if they so desire. This is somewhat rare, the cultural assimilation the federation engages in is its main counter to such independence movements, but individual planets, continents and even cities that have left the federation can be found within it, and occasionally small sectors on its periphery will leave either in protest or of a genuine desire to reclaim independence. The federation is often more that happy to wait a generation or two for them to come back.
Technological Information
Major Techs
Hardlight Fields: Physical holograms. Usable for artistic and construction purposes, they can also act as force fields that physically block incoming attacks. Most if not all federation spaceships rely heavily on these defensive fields to protect themselves from harm, as do a lot of their terrestrial forces. Hard light fields are either created by a central generator or can be maintained by numerous networked units distributed throughout their structure. The former is used for shield generation, the latter for things like clothing, architecture and other projects where redundancy is more important that overall durability. Ships always have multiple shields, often specialized for different purposes (propulsion, passive/reactive shielding, cloaking, etc.) for the sake of redundancy.
Holographic cloaking: the use of holograms to either disguise a vessel or person as something else (generally terrain or other craft) or to project images of what is behind it to render the user almost invisible to optical sensors. When combined with conventional anti radar and anti thermal detection methods some advanced federalist equipment and vessels can be functionally invisible.
Engine tech: Federal ftl is rather standard affair, dropping their ships down into slipspace inorder to make long distances far shorter. Propulsion is generally facilitated by the shielding system generating and then releasing energy from the internal powersource somewhere along their radius which visually takes the appearance of a green glow unless it is being deliberately hidden for stealth purposes. While not the fastest propulsion method, the ability to point the power of other ship’s main engine in any direction grants superb maneuverability. The disk like shape of most federation vessels is meant to take advantage of this, allowing the vessel equal ease at rotating in any direction by generating maneuvering thrusters anywhere along its flat top and bottom, while main drive thrust can be instantly sent out from any part of the ship.
Auto Lasers: Rapid fire laser guns that usually take the place of automatic weapons. While the federation uses non viable spectrum and tight beams that would make the lasers invisible to the naked eye, auto lasers can activate a tracer rounds mode where 10% of the beams are the more expected bright visible beams of light.
Laser cannons: Slow firing laser cannons used for long ranged accurate fire. the amount of energy in these beams means the air is visibly distorted where they pass though.
Plasma cannons: super-heated globs of plasma that generally explode on contact with their target. Accelerated via meg rails and further forced out via a laser cannon mounted at the back of the cannon. the plasma itself is a spinning disk with a magnetic core at the center that helps keep the non solid projectile in once piece until it hit's it's target. Artillery variants have higher volumes of plasma and their progectile's are stable for far longer.
Plasma auto-cannons: Slower firing that auto lasers, they fire smaller but more frequent blasts of plasma than the regular cannons.
Plasma/laser Beam Cannon: Fire continuous streams of either lasers or plasma.
Cosmetic Biological/genetic Modification: Federal scientists can functionally change any and everything about a person’s biology down to the genetic level. Species boundaries have long been broken down and rendered redundant as regular citizens decide exactly what they look like, be it minor adjustments to their birth bodies or complete remodeling of their physical makeup to take on the appearance of an existing or entirely invented race. This is mainly done for the sake of fashion (reptilian traits are in this season) and getting a new body is equivalent to getting your haircut in a different style. This tech originated from modifications for military and environmental adaptation modifications and, while it is still sometimes used for those purposes, it has become as commonplace and ubiquitous in the civilian sphere as computers are in the 21st century.
Despite their mastery of the body there has been little success in artificial psychics due to a lack of people willing to volunteer their (living) brains for invasive and extensive alteration.
These modifications are done within life support tanks, which sustain the brain no matter how much of the body is striped away and replaced in any one surgery. This surgery itself is done by a swarm of insect sized biomachines that add and remove parts at the behest of either the person being modified or by a professional body artist.
Virtual Intelligence Neural Enhancer (VINE): A lattice of microscopic computer hardware that is intertwined with a person’s gray matter. It is grown, rather than built or surgically added and thus allows some of the advantages of cybernetic augmentation without any of the risks of brain damage or dramatic personality alteration. While mostly by civilians as a glorified smartphone in their brains it is also an important part of the federation’s id system, as in a culture where a person’s appearance and even their dna can change regularly a hard coded Hash Key nestled deep within their cerebral cortex becomes one of the few ways of verifying some is who they say they are. There are multiple military applications such as power armor, vehicle control, local comms system, combat enhancement software, etc. .
Companion AI: Helpful self developing AI systems that mold themselves to the needs of their owner. At a governmental level they help turn political policies into reality, for individuals they act as personnel secretaries or companions. Sometimes installed into drones to improve their performance (military personnel often have armed versions of these) but most often run on an individual's VINE.
3d Printers: multipurpose manufacturing units ranging from the size of a briefcase to the size of a factory capable of constructing a vast array of equipment out of a variety of materials. While they will never be as efficient as dedicated manufacturing units the ability to read a damaged ship, vehicle or armor’s blueprint and then rapidly produce replacement parts on sight partially alleviates the logistical nightmare facing the federation’s decentralised military.
Retrofitting: less a technology and more a skill, the engineers of the federation have a great deal of experience and literature dedicated to the art of turning a hunk of junk into a military craft and back again. Learned first from decommission a lot of their military once the Ashtar proved themselves unstoppable and from rapidly weaponizing and deaweponising blackops craft for stealth missions it came in great sue during the great war. They have similar skill when dealing with non federation ships and have developed special Ai capable of rapidly understanding most conventional ships put in front of them at least well enough to get them running again. Somewhat used to convert captured vessels it was mainly developed so that federation service yards could work both on mercenary/auxiliary craft and deal with whatever modifications or straight up new designs some other parts of the federation had come up with without informing them.
Military Information
Military Overview
The military structure of the federation is rather disparate, with individual sectors all raising their own armed forces for local protection purposes. Some are more interested in this than others, and indeed having a standing military is not mandatory, but those located near aggressive neighbours often have substantial militaries, either of the standing or reserved variety. These forces can be anything from temporary conscripts to professional soldiers, part time militias, military companies or hired forighn troops.
Tying them all together is the central military which has two branches, logistics and black ops.
The logistics arm has the unenviable job of coordinating the dozens of smaller militeris found within the federation: keeping them supplied when they are out of their own sectors, sorting out the chain of command, coordinating their movements on a grand strategy level and so on. It consists primarily of bureaucrats, engineers and supply ship crews. It has no standing military of its own, as it has no worlds to draw from, and instead it’s only actual power comes in the form of mercenaries. Be they private military contractors, pirates, militaries of forgin nations or federal sectors, the logistics arm has the funds to pull in the firepower they need to support the defence of whatever the federation as a whole deems valuable.
The Black ops wing is the federations offensive problem solvers. Small, elite and the stuff of myths and legends rather than policy, the black ops branch is pointed at problems, given funds and then told to make the problems disappear by whatever means necessary. No one likes to think about this branch, and in fact it's rare that an elected politicians even know it exists. Instead they take their orders from the companion AI’s helping run the government who see it simply as another tool that gets the job done. It is unclear exactly where it originates from, there certainly is no record of a vote to form it, nor is it possible to trace its operations history back to a founding specific date. It has no employee lists, nor any officially recognised leadership. The Black ops division are, for all intensive purposes, a black box. Their input is problems that need solving, and their output is death.
Fleet/Navy
Doctorin:
The federation has two primary space formations that it generally selects between depending on the ratio of strong shielded ships vs cloak able ships in a fleet.
Bastion tactics involve massing a clump of vessels with strong shields together to protect both another and weaker specialist ships from enemy fire. Ships will rotate to and from the front line, absorbing fire form the enemy before falling back to recharge their defences as another vessel takes their place. Weaker ships stay in the center where they can safely unleash their firepower.
Maneuver warfare involves swarming the enemy fleet with a number of independently operating vessels that use the federal ships superior maneuverability to their advantage to avoid enemy fire by presenting many erratically moving targets. Cloaking is especially effective in this, as federal vessels can periodically hold their fire and vanish from view, only to reappear once the enemy's attention is elsewhere. Requires a great deal of coordination and or improvisation to pull off, particularly in larger engagements.
The two can, naturally, be combined, with escort ships engaging in maneuver warfare while the core fleet sets up a bastion.
Dreadnoughts:
Victory/vengance guaranteeing vessel (VGV) “Trident”: The central disk is a Mothership (a battlecruiser described below), onto which two fins full of fighter bays and two massive plasma artillery cannons have been bolted. Crude, but quite deadly, particularly to others of its class that it was designed to beat on a budget.
Battleships:
Federation Liberator Vessel (FLV) Mk XIV “Black Snooty”: the original liberator was a massive array of weapons hammered onto the front of a popular cruise ship design. It served remarcably well thought the great war, going through numerous iterations to improve its weapons array and make the civilian portion considerably less civilian. This process continued even after the war. The latest version’s update involves ripping out the old, Detente conforming, Libirator’s ‘nose’ off and replacing it with a much, much larger array of guns. Many of the liberators still in operation can trace their service record,or at least names, back to the great war, even if, like the ship of ulysses, almost none of their original components still remain. The captains and crews of particularly distinguished vessels can be a rather stuck up bunch as a result.
Battlecruisers:
Militery Resource Transporter (MRT) “Mother ship”: A Great war BattleCruiser that is functionally a massive cargo hauler retrofitted for war. Half its internal storage is converted into hangers, and the other half where filed with generators to power its shields and massive guns that were more or less painted on the side. It’s primary armament is the red strip running across its front that is in effect what happens when you staple a strip of leds something and then run millions of volts through them to try and make laser guns. The result is surprisingly versatile, individual segment of the strip can either fire independently at small targets or all unify to fire a massive V shaped beam at enemy vessels.
While mostly decommissioned at this point, both the cargo haulers and the mothballed equipment to turn them into military vessels are still laying around, ready to be reunited if things go south.
Decicated Beam Weapon (DBW) “Target”: A Detente Vessel that runs counter to the standard federal pilots desire to always present the edge of the disk to your enemy. The DBW’s central plasma beam cannon requires it to present its top inorder to fire. The elaborate framework design allows the ship to remain relatively maneuverable while still coming under the treaty’s mass requirements. As it has a low shield capacity for its size, a flimsy structure and only a few defence turrets complimenting its core cannon it is inconceivable to use this craft without other craft helping to protect it.
Cruisers:
General Purpose Brawling Cruiser (GPBC) “Halibut”: A straightforward design, made to be able to engage multiple enemy targets. It has a 180 degree firing arc in front of it from its nose mounted cannon and 6 bar lasers while its rear is guarded by 8 vertically aimable laser cannons. Most were sold off after the war to smaller allies, only for them to show back up in the federal army as auxiliary mercenaries this time.
Multi role escorc cruiser (MREC) “Gladius”: a narrow profile fits poorly with the standard federal propulsion system, but can massively reduce the vessels profile and lets multiple vessels of this kind hide behind larger craft. MERC’s are armed primarily with a high hanger capacity and vertically mounted swarm missile launchers. Their core purpose is to provide strike craft screens for other craft, as well as shooting down enemy strike craft with vollies of several dozen homing missiles.
Destroyers:
Stand Off Artillery Craft (SOAC) “Pointer”: A civilian vessel with its heart ripped out and replaced with a massive palma artillery cannon. Gaining its nickname from its distinctive central “finger” their conversion process meant they could not be converted back after the great war, and so they have remained in service as the fed’s primary space based artillery craft. The wider front section creates rear facing surfaces that can be used to better rotate it from side to side and thus aim better with its fixed cannon.
Close Range Demolition Craft (CRDC) “puncher”: a modern take on the SOAC’s finned structure that serves the exact opposite purpose. Equipped with 3 sets of plasma cannon turrets it is designed to get in close to either engage multiple targets at once or focus fire on a single weak point of a larger ship.
Frigates:
Planetary reinforcement Craft (PRC) “Dropper”: another retrofitted cargo ship that was originally designed to “fire” a payload of fighter craft at an enemy but was never used in this capacity because of how terrible being launched into a fight with no method of retreat was for the moral of fighter pilots. Rather than scrape the design for rapidly launching small craft it was instead repurposed as a manner to rapidly deploy reinforcements to a besieged world.
Craft are arranged in racks within the ship and are then led into two magnetic accelerators that “fire” the ships towards a planet's surface. These can either be proper shuttle craft, space/atmosphere hybrid fighters, aircraft protected by a single use re-entrys shield or rugged drop pods. This allows the PRC to jump into a system, rapidly unload additional defenders to a besieged world and then get the hell outta dodge before any of the besieging forces have time to intercept it. Being launched to relive their fellow federalists was a much easier sell to the troops, and so the RPC saw major use in the Great War. Despite the “defence” its name the vessel is equally useful for planetary invasions or surgical strikes against high priority ground targets.
Very Fast Frigate (VFF)”Hammerhead” An unusual design for the federation, the long spine contains an oversized ftl engine. The hammerheads weapon systems can all retract, hiding the black cracks and transforming it into seamless silver travel form. The nubs on the bottom of the ftl drive let it magnetic dock with other craft in order to act as a supplementary engine (for both realspace and slipspace) for slow or disabled craft.
Corvettes:
Border Reconnaissance Vessel (BRV) ”Brave”:: small and lightly defended the Brave’s main purpose is as a carrier for the massive sensory disc that it more or less tows behind it. Used to detect enemy vessels approaching from unexpected angles the Brave almost never engages what it detects, but instead runs off to get help from others at the first sign of trouble. Did its job well enough that it never needed to be replaced.
Spec Ops Craft (SOC) “Spook”:: Rarely seen, the spook is craft used to deploy/extract spec ops teams to/from their mission areas. Incredibly expensive to produce it can render itself nearly undetectable to enemy sensors. It can out gun most other craft in its weight category using its experimental underslung laser lance, and can outrun anything heavier than it. Supposedly the Black Ops division uses an even more advanced version of this craft.
Rapid Response Unit (RRU) “ramjet”: A recent and unconventional design thats is effectively a dedicated engine strapped to an oversized gun and a set of torpedo tubes. Packs of these ships are launched from defensive stations to reinforce key locations or friendly forces. Once there they charge whatever their target is, hopefully from an unexpected angle, while relying on heavy front armor to survive. Once close enough they fire their torpedoes, which can either be explosive or be boarding craft filled with warbeasts, before attempting to jet/jump/sneak away from the, hopefully, devastated hostile.
Strike craft:
Old war Fighters and Bombers:: Old style strike craft that use laser auto cannons and plasma cannons respectively. Originally piloted by conscripts during the great war they have been retrofitted after the war to be flown by the brain of a type of alien bat that has been modified by biological tampering and a Vine interface. They aren't the most advanced craft, nor do their animal/ai hybrid fliers have the best piloting skills, but the feds do still have a lot of these laying around in their hangers.
Shield Drones: hard light field generator units with AI corse attached, these drones can replace fighters and bombers in hanger racks to add additional defensive capabilities to a ship, be it directional shields or adding cloaking capabilities to a ship.
multi role strike craft: Modern saucer strike craft flown by federal pilots. Considerably more maneuverable thanks to taking full advantage of the federal thrust system (although also harder to fly as a result) they can be equipped with many weapon system that can be “slotted” into the front gap on their disk.
Boarding torpedo: Strike craft that ram enemy ships, cut their way into them and then divulge a living payload inside. This payload almost always consisting of warbeasts (unless the target is very small, the team has an exit strategy or there is a VIP onboard), as the boarding party is not expected to disable the ship but rather to simply cause chaos that will distract the crew. The creatures are normally specialised for fighting/living inside ships and will at the very least become a major pest infestation if not dealt with. Usually fired near the start of an engagement for maximum irritation or at the end as a final salvo from a retreating federal force to entalge their pursuers. The torpedo or may not be cloaked, it generally depends on how expensive the boarding party is.
Army/Planetary forces
Troops Professional soldiers are generally equipped with atmospheric sealed power armor customized to their body type and partially controlled by their VINE, making it close to a second skin that can enhance reflexes, improve agility and increase strength. Made of a combination of metals and hard light each suit is wholly unique to the wearer which means they need to carry the blueprints for the armor around with them in order to avoid this policy driving federation repair crews insane. Armor is always at least lightly shielded but can have heavier shields or cloaking functionality added at the expense of cost and weight. Professional soldiers have access to more dangerous/enhanced bio modifications that would be grossly inappropriate for civilians to have. They get to keep them even when not in service, making such augmations an added selling point of military service.
Local militia forces meanwhile, which make up the bulk of the federation's actual military might, make do with whatever level of equipment they can get using their self elected budget. Armor is generally light to non existent while guns are usually higher quality to ensure they can actually hurt invaders. As almost all federal citizens have VINE implants, they can operate with a higher degree of cohesion than most armed civilians thanks to quickly installed combat assistant routines run by their companion AIs, which do their best coordinate the mobs of armed civilians and make sure they actually hit their targets. Combat drugs are also relatively common.
In between these two groups you have mercenary units, be they wandering federal MCs or externally recruited troops. Their equipment ranges from high end power armor and energy weapons right down to kevlar and ballistics.
Finally there are the warbeasts. Warbeasts are augmented or manufactured animals that act as disposable troops, attack dogs or bioweapons. Their development was a post war development spawned from a desire to not suffer the same massive casualties the great war inflicted. To create the program a few eccentric scientists traveled the federation to gather together the most dangerous creatures they could find and then further enhanced them with bioengineering, cybernetic enhancements and the installation of VINE tech into their brains to control them. Results have been mixed and are largely untested in battle but they have found a niche for clearing out buildings or damaged spaceships of hostiles during small scale operations. Gene modding means it’s sometimes hard to tell beast and soldier apart.
Companion drones are a staple of the federation military. Small robots, generally on unarmed hover units or attached directly to a user armor but sometimes installed in proper war bots, onto which an individual's companion ai has been installed, granting it increased processing capability and the ability to physically assist their users. Used for reconnaissance, group coordination, radio operators, supply carriers or simply to add additional firepower to the squad.
For firepower, federation troops generally use small scale lasers and plasma weaponry. These can either be heandheald weapons that draw their power from rechargeable energy packs or built into/onto their armor and drawing power directly from its own power source.
Armor
X7J Science walker These are what where used to capture the federation’s warbeasts. It is armed with a front mounted laser beam cannon for anti everything, and tentacle mounted claws and auto lasers for anti infantry. Capable of traversing any terrain and often cloaked or heavily shielded they can easily compete with more conventional tanks despite their unorthodox design.
Fedral Squire A 3 meter tall mech, its left arm has a hard light unit used to generate a directional shield while its right has quad linked plasma autocannons. Generally acts in an infantry support role.
Fedral Knight the squires big brother. 6 meters tall and armed with 2 arm mounted plasma cannons and 2 torso mounted auto lasers.
P7 battle tank A pair of twin linked plasma auto cannons mounted on a pair of tracks. Old and outdated the guns are still as deadly as ever. Fairly cheap to manufacture these are more commonly found in militia gerisions.
Q2 Hovertank the P&-2 replacement. Utilizes a hover drive system and has multiple anti personnel auto laser turrets in addition to its main plasma cannon.
Mobile hover artillery an unmanned weapon’s platform carrying a massive plasma artillery cannon. Remotely controlled either by its escort, central command or front line troops to rain devastation on the enemy.
Airforce Federation in atmosphere craft have the ability to switch between sleek travel forms and deployed combat forms. Starting at the top right and moving clockwise are the twin-linked autolaser armed air superiority fighter, the tri-linked plasma autocannon armed gunship, the laser cannon and AA missile armed fighter bombers and the plasma cannon armed strategic bomber.
Oceanic navy Naval warfare of the old variety still has its uses. The feds are particularly fond of large mobile floating command centers.
Hyperdread
Revolutionary Ultimate Stealth Engine (RUSE) ”the Project” A truly massive yet seemingly defenseless saucer the RUSE represents the pinnacle of federation hard light technology. Utterly filled and covered with hard light projectors, this craft can either cover entire fleets with its shielding or cloaking capabilities. It can also weaponize the normal propulsion systems of federal craft to fire beams of plasma from anywhere on the surface of its shields, including a devastating death blossom that hits everything around it.
Lekika and a small group from her tribe had traveled north, past the Kangjiang river, for a place free from the petty squabbling of their overcrowded home. They’d laughed at the warnings, old tales about giant lizards, but as she lay there, slumped against a tree with her blood rapidly pooling around her, she couldn’t remember what had been so funny.
The creatures that had ripped through the migrant party. Now monsters that walked on two legs and who where about 4 times the size of a Selka despite being about the same height, where in the process of devouring the corpses of her friends and family. High above them circled bright colorful birds circled like inappropriately festive vultures. They had tried to run for the safety of the sea, but the monsters caught them. Some had tried to fight, and had died where they stood. She’d tried to save her husband from the jaws of a beast as it shook him to pieces and been smashed into a tree for her trouble. The impact had broken something inside her. Her strength was gone, and now the light in her was fading. As she slipped over the precipice down into oblivion she wondered what the point of it all had been.
Lekika’s soul was pushed out of her body and from the painless bliss of death by an unseen force. She had a few brief moments where she could see her own body being devoured by an Alioramus before the pull of the vortex took hold, pulling the bewildered Selka upwards and westwards. As the ground fell away from her Lekika, understandably, panicked. As if drawn to her screaming and flailing form one of the Alma separated from the circling flock and chased after her till it was flying parallel with her. The opposing tug it generated wordlessly offered a choice, to grasp hold of the lifering she had been thrown, or to continue to be swept along by the current. Part of her knew where that current would end, in the fires these very same birds had shown her tribe several years ago, but most of her simply grasped at blindly for something, anything, that would end this utterly alien experience.
The connection was made, a pact sealed and then everything went dark.
It felt like a dream
“Tell me a little bit about who you were.” asked a voice in her mind
“I’m Lekika. I was a healer for our tribe, a good fisher-women and soon I’m going to… I was going to be a mother. I died trying to save my husband from a monster.”
“I see. Would you like to help me with something Lekika?”
With the memory of her failure to help crystallized in her mind she responded “However I can.”
The voice explained what it wanted and then everything went dark.
“Ah, your awake. Excellent!”
Lekika’s consciousness was abruptly returned as she surfaced from a dreamless sleep and found herself standing in an unfamiliar place. Everything felt wrong. She was cold. So cold. Her vision was wrong, to high above the ground, and her eyes where to close together. It took her several more moments to realize she could not see her nose. She brought her hands up, but they weren't her hands. She stumbled back in shock and thrust the offending limbs away from herself and ended up looking down. There were so many things wrong down there. Some kind of stone or metal or cartilage had replaced flesh and it wasn't even in the right shape. To lanky, utterly sexless and covered with odd ridges and spurs. Her feet had no toes. Hands grasped her face and found it a blank featureless mask.
She had no mouth, but she screamed anyway.
“Oh no no no no.” said the voice with concern. Moments later she found herself pressed against soft glowing feathers by a warm embrace.
“Shshshshshsh. Its ok. It’s going to be ok.” she was assured by a voice she recognized form the Alma’s broadcast. Even though she had no lungs, eventually Lekika got tired of screaming. It wasn’t actually helping anyway. Neither did the sobbing. Without a body’s natural coping mechanism she had to learn how to get a hold of herself on her own.
It wasn't entirely clear how long she spent coddled in the birds embrace, but Azura gave her all the time she needed. Eventually she half stepped, half stumbled back and away from the goddess and got to see her in full. The humongous parrot was both beautiful, terrifying and slightly ridiculous to behold in person as it loomed over her.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“no. no I’m not” she answered. The shock was gone but the sense of wrongness remained, even if it was down to a lower level of existential horror and uncomfortableness. She was so cold. “My body…It’s not… I can’t… What am I? Where am I?” she tried, “and where are my breasts!?”
The great bird blinked in surprise “Oh dear. I thought I explained?” she said. Then, seemingly sensing Lekika’s bewilderment, added. “I had one of the Alma bring some of the recently dead here and asked them if they would help me. You said you would, don’t you remember?”
“No. no I died... and then woke up here,” she said, scouring her memory for this conversation yet finding no recollection of it. The great bird cocked her head in response to this and said “Curious. Perhaps there was a flaw with that method of communing with the dead? Hmmm. I’ll explain again then. After you died your soul was crystallized by an Alma, after which it was brought to the north pole, which is a secluded space at the very top of the world. You should have gone down into the vault with the others, but I’ve had an idea that I’ve been working on for some time for how to have people live after they are dead. I asked you if you’d want to help test it. You said yes.”
“I have taken your soul crystal and plugged it into an Armonia, which is a simple minded creature made out of air and song made physical that can be commanded to perform tasks. The one you are in’s task is to be your new body.” Azura then explained “And its working better than I could have hoped. You’re articulate, the limbs seem to be obeying you fairly well… you did scream quite a bit at first but you seem to be feeling better now right?”
“I…” she was so cold “I’d prefer it if it were more… me?” she tried to explain “why can’t you just put me back in my body. Or make a new one?” “True resurrection is, at the moment, very difficult. I could, but it would be extremely taxing and as a result I’d never be able to bring back everyone even with all the time in the world. I can’t put your soul crystal in control of a new body because if I made one it would form its own soul. Its own Selka soul. Which you would need to replace or, bleh, dominate, in order to control the body. I don’t think I need to explain why that would be terrible. Does it feel bad to be in this kind of body/”
“The body… its numb. But it’s also the wrong…” she tried to explain, hands fidgeting as she failed to find the words “shape?”
“Like wearing clothes that don't fit” Azura suggested.
“Kind of. I think it would feel a bit better if it looked how I wanted it to look?” she tried before hurriedly adding “I’m sorry, I don't mean to say you made it look bad it’s… it’s just not me”
“I’m not offended” she sounded a little offended as she said it, just not angrily so, before returning to a more understanding tone “Do you think if you designed it it would suit better?”
“Maybe? But how would I do that? I’m not even sure how to describe what it should look like. More Selka and more me I guess?” Lekika respond
“Hmmm. I think I know how to do this. Armonia where made so mortals could create them after all. But you’ll need power, and musical accompaniment and a way to shape it exactly how you like around yourself and...” the bird trailed off into thoughtful muttering before moving away from Lekika and beginning to spin strange tools and instruments from thin air.
“I uh” Lekika begin before Azrua explained “oh. Sorry. I’m going to make a magical monument that will let you make your body just the way you want it. But this may take a while. Feel free to explore the sky bastion while I work, or ask any questions you like and I’ll try to answer them as best I can.”
After a few minutes of questioning Lekika had discovered that Azrua was not the best conversation partner while she was working, and so had wandered out into the halls. It was a strange experience, walking though perfectly square caves lit by a directionless light in her alien body. She kept misjudging how long her legs where, causing her to stumble every few steps. Eventually she found an exit, a massive cave that ended with a pair of open doors large as hills.
She had to walk up to the doors and stick her hand out before she could believe that she wasn’t underwater, because outside myriads of sea life could be seen, swimming though the skies as if it were the ocean.
“What is this?” she asked.
“It’s the Blue” said a voice
Lekika was startled, having not expected to be answered, and then fell over herself in fear when she saw what had spoken. A killer whale, one of the Selka’s main predators, floated up into view only a few meters away from her.
“Please don't eat me” she cried. In response the orca performed a slow spin, as if it had cocked its head and then kept going by accident, before responding “Why would I? God bird’s stone things don't taste good and greatest whale Luis gets mad when we try.” the orca completed its role before coming to a realization “oh! I should show you to Luis. I’ve never seen a stone thing that talked before. hmmm. But luis does not like us biting stone things… I know. I carry you, like luis carry Bruna!”
Before Lekika could say anything the orca had swum up to the side of the door “hop on.” It instructed.
“I really shouldn't. Azura wouldn't want me wandering off” she retorted.
“Luis and Azura are same pod. Will be fine.” the whale explained impatiently. Somewhat worried that it would drag her along either way Lekika gingerly boarded her natural predator. Then sat down with her back to its fin while her hands tried to grip its smooth skin. “Ok. but make sure I don’t fall!
“Ok ok. Here we go!” the orca responded, before heading out. Fortunately it seemed to grasp that it needed to be gentle and so the ride was relatively smooth.
“I’ve never met a whale that could talk before. How can you speak Selka?” she asked it.
“Selka? What is Selka? We talk with the Verse, like all things made by Azura” it explained.
“I wasn't made by Azura. Selka where made by Father Kirrion… oh. Its the body. The body was made by her. huh.” she said, figuring it out on her own. An uncomfortable realization, but a useful one.
The rest of their journey was a rather relaxing affair. She traded rather simplistic small talk with the sea creature and watched the shoals of Tonnikala swish to and fro in the skies around her. Their destination was hard to miss, an absolutely titanic whale swam lazily through the Blue, accompanied by a pod of smaller whales of many different species. Once they were close enough the orca called out “Hay. Hay Luis. look what I found. A talking rock thing!”
Lekika waved and shouted “hello” at the great whale, who turned to face them both. Her captor/mount swam up in front of the whale, who then spoke to the orca.
”What an interesting find you have there Matías, I hope you did not seal them away. Luis said
“What? Noooo. I asked her to come. Right?” Lekika shook her palm from side to signal “kind of.” she realized afterwards that this was a stuid way of communicating with a bing with no hands, but Luis seemed to get it regardless as he let out a disappointed sigh directed at the Ocrca, who was apparently named Matías, before addressing her.
”Hello there. Who might you be, and where did you get stolen away from?” he asked.
“I’m Lekika. A migrant from the Mokala tribe. Or was. I died and then... uh” Lekika’s mind suddenly ran into a roadblock. She couldn't remember what happened after she died but before she left the sky bastion. “Well I uh. Died and then… I was in that big floating cave thing and this killer whale came and startled me and took me to you… but before that I was. I was.” Lekika’s speech became more and more erratic as she tried and failed to remember. “There was Azura and she. She was doing something? We spoke. Maybe we spoke?. I can't. Why can't I?” Lekika gripped her head with alien hands she no longer knew how she acquired “Why can’t I remember?!”
”Matías, drop her on my back, we’re taking her home!” the whale ordered. As the smaller whale moved to comply Luis assured her that. ”I’m going to get you help. Its ok. It’s going to be ok.” Lekika didn't even suffer deja vu at being comforted like this again.
Some time later a colorful mass of feathers landed in front of Lekika. She was sitting on the back of Luis, knees pulled in against her chest in a fetal position. She had spent the return journey trying to hold on to her oldest memories only for them to keep slipping away from her grasp. Soon she’d forget the moment where she realized it was happening, and then what?
“Do you know who I am?” asked the large parrot
“Your Azura. From the bird vision” she said, her voice dull and hopeless.
“oh dear, oh dear.” Azura muttered “I’m going to need to look in your mind to see what is going on. Is that ok Lekika?” she asked. Lekika simply nodded. She felt nothing as the goddess did whatever she was doing. She’d almost forgotten agreeing to the mind reading when Azura spoke up again.
“I’m so very sorry, but I’ve made a bit of an oversight in this design. Because soul crystals are usually static, they can't create new memories easily. I knew this was a problem, but I didn't realize just how bad it was. you seemed to be doing fine while we where together after all. The issue is your crystallized mind have no natural short term memory whatsoever. However the Armonia has been filling in for that role, but unfortunately it has a very small memory capacity, which is why you keep dropping memories as quickly as you are. I can make that longer in the next version, but that doesn’t solve long term memory.”
Azura sat down before the sad dead Selka and told her “I need you to relax, get your head out of your knees, close your eyes and to focus your mind on what I just said and what I am saying just now. Turn it over and over in your mind. If you do this you can force the crystal of your soul to grow, adding it to long term memory the same way your body used to do on its own.”
Lekika did as she was instructed. She crossed her legs and tried to repeat the memory over and over instead of clinging to the last one, till the entirety of her short term memory was filled with the explanation of why she was forgetting and how to remember.
Eventually Azura spoke startling Lekika. “Now stop.”
She did, and opened her eyes to unfamiliar surroundings and the presence of the goddess from the bird vision.
“Now we wait and see if the memory sticks. Try and not think about it until I ask.” she said, “Til then I imagine you have a lot of questions?”
Lekika did, though she’d probably asked them before. She asked and Azura answered, while the goddess periodically checking that the memory had stuck. The process was exhausting as she tried to speak with the bird and ignore that her memories were slipping away. Eventually, after goddess only knows how long, Azura concluded that it had stuck.
“Well that's one problem solved. Now I just need to finish the machine that will make you a body exactly how you want it and with more memory this time.”
“Exactly how I want it?” Lekika asked “That would be good. This one, it doesn't fit right”
“You said as much the.. Ah. never mind.” Azura responded “It might be quite some time until I have a new body ready for you. Do you think you can hold out till then?”
“I.. no. no I can’t keep going like this. I can't live a life of forgetting and remembering. Even if you make my next body better what’s the point. I’m so cold and numb in here. It’s not a life worth living for the sake of living” she said, sorifuly. “I miss my tribe and my husband. But I don't want them to live like this either. You have them right? I want to go to where they are, because what's the point of living if it’s not begin happy with them?”
“But if you stay awake you can help people. Help the living! I have this idea for a...”
Lekika shook her head “the only people I cared about are dead now. I want to be with them”
Azura sighted. “Ok then”
There was a feeling of pressure where her heart was supposed to be, and then everything went dark.
Azura examined the soul crystal of Lekika as she floated in front of her. Her second body lay on its back before her, its chest cavity torn open from where she had ripped the Selka woman’s soul out of it. “of course it couldn't be that easy.” she said, before handing the soul over to an Alma to be sent down into the depths. Lekika would get to be with her friends and family, even if she would never know it.
”This thing you’ve been working on is a dead end then?” Luis asked.
“No. Not quite. We just need to recruit people who have everything left to live for.” Azura said.
We follow the afterlife of Lekika, a Selka who was killed while trying to migrate through the hoodlands.
She agrees to take art in an experiment and then awakens with no memory of doing so in a strange stone body that does not suit her one bit and makes her feel dysphoric. She speaks with azura, who explains that she has inserted her soul crystal into an armonia as an alternative to resurrection.
Lekika explains that the body is both cold and does not suit her to such a degree that it makes her feel like shit. Azura starts work on a system to make bodies that suit their hosts and Lekika goes off exploring.
She finds the outside, gets kidnapped by an orca and taken to Luis. while speaking with him she realises she can't remember how she got the body she is in. Luis takes the freaking out lekika back to azura who works out that she can’t passively create long term memories, but must actively force herself to remember things. Also the Armonia’s memory is way to small for its people as acting as Lekika’s short term memory.
She teaches Lekika how to remember and promises lekika that the next boy will have better short term memory but Lekika is sick of this and wants to go be with her people because she has nothing worth living for if it means putting up with being cold and having a weird memory situation.
Azura rips out her soul and sends it back to the vault. She then concludes that if she wants to recruit dead mortals to her cause, she needs ones that have unfinished business.
Start: 8 fp 4 mp
3 fp enhanced by soul crystal spent on a monument that can make custom Armonia bodies for soul crystals. Technically in the process of being built during the post but I’m paying for it now to justify not paying for Lekika’s temporary unlife.
”IS ANYONE GOING TO DEAL WITH THAT?” Bowser asked, regarding the massive monster truck bearing down on their position ”HELLO? ANYONE?” The centurion, jr and poppy all grappled the truck in their own way, but none actually did anything that would alter its course.
The Rabbids, now healed of their ear pain, began to panic, running around like headless chickens while screaming their lungs out. They were joined in their concern by a rather more reserved ”Sire?” coming from the inside of the Bowser Mobile.
The situation was clear. It was stand here and be run over, flee like a coward and leave his minions loyal to die, or do something incredibly stupid. Boweser took the third option as naturally as he breathed.
”DO I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF!?” Bowser roared, before launching himself forward towards the brother’s grimm with an excellent jump. Mid flight he retracted his vulnerable body parts inside his shell, which became a spinning vertical disk that disdainfully plowed through the incoming mini-gun fire. The spinning disk of death was aimed to cleave into the right hand side of the car’s exposed steering axle in-order to smash it and force the monster truck to turn off course. The red hot claws of the mecah mit, which thirsted for it's first strike, poked out of one of the holes in the shell, adding a singular rapidly revolving fang to the massive projectile.
At the same time, back at the parked vehicles, Kamek shouted at anyone and everyone who would listen to ”Drive you idiots!” A pile of Rabbids obeyed as best they could, hurling themselves on the accelerator, causing the Browser mobile to roar away blindly. At the same time buckler Rabbid gunned the engine of the koopa king that was pulling the rabbids truck, doing their best to pull away from their now untenable defensive position.
”GAHAHAHA! THAT’S RIGHT, RUN YOU COWARDS!” Bowser shouted after the two retreating survivors after the team reduced their comrades to scrap metal.
”It’s already over?” Kamek asked as he poked his head over the side of the door just in time to spot the enemy reinforcements ”Oh. No. No it really isn't.” he said, before ducking back down into the car interior to continue buffing the centurion in relative safety.
Bowser meanwhile stepped out of the car upon seeing their new foes, his main focus on the massive monster truck.
”NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT!” he cackled as he activated the Mecha-Mit, is massive orange claws coming online. However it was the comparatively small ice cream truck that proved to be an immediate threat rather than the massive monster truck. The comically inappropriate battle wagon launched some kind of glowing orange clown faced projectile at the king. In response he took a defensive posture and clenched his fist, switching the power claw into a small energy shield that he brought up to block the massive shot. He was saved from the repercussions of this inadequate defense by Linkle, who shot and arrow from her pixly bow at the balloon, causing it to detonate prematurely. The explosion washed over the koopa king and his small shield in a far less dangerous fashion than it would have otherwise, but it still hurt a fair bit.
After the blast was past Bowser shook his head to clear the ringing and then glanced behind him. Despite not being hit by the blast the rabbids, and the rabbit eared Linkle, had all been pretty badly by the noise of the blast.
”Heal!” he ordered, quieter than usual, summoning the rabbid medic to do just that. Bowser had no idea if the bunny could help with their plight, but he did know he was a bit banged up from the near miss of the blast. Heel, happy that they had missed having his own eardrums shattered, did his thing, bouncing around and mashing the button on their back mounted healer pack to first top off the king’s hp and then to provide light healing for the rabbids and Linkle in an attempt to reduce their head pain.
Bowser meanwhile summoned mallet and sledge so that, if another shot came, they could try to pull of the same trick Linkle had with their hammers. Then he stood guard in case they failed. He could not afford to lose the Bowser mobile, because losing it meant walking. Also he was a touch worried Kamek might get hurt. The old turtle seemed to be both deaf enough and insulated enough behind the car door that the explosion had not done much, but if it suffered a direct hit? That would end poorly.
Jr meanwhile moved to get in on the action. He had expended his koopa troop for the time being, and was very sure that the goombas would be pretty worthless here, so it was time to show the team how the royal heir handled business personally. Splattershot stored and Gadbrush in hand he moved to attack the enemy cars for above in his clown car, only to be met by a hail of gunfire.
”wow wow wow” Jr cried as he jerked the controls of the clown car too and fro in order make the small inverse helicopter move erratically to avoid the gunfire. It seemed one of the wastelanders in this group had considered mounting non fixed weapons that could actually directions other than forwards on their vehicle. Atop the titanic monster truck a man with his muscular arms bare was using a swivel turret mounted machine gun as an anti air weapon. Fortunately, it looked like he was having to crouch awkwardly to get the gun to point upwards, reducing his aim a bit as the weapon was clearly meant to shoot targets around the truck’s wheels rather than above it.
After a bit of quick thinking jr ascertained that his Splattershot and paintbrush’s ink would not out-range the gun even with his height advantage, and getting in close enough to use them could prove deadly. As a result, he turned to his latest acquisition to solve the problem. A hand darted down into the bomb bay of the cart and retrieved a Pokeball, which he then tossed into the air. Then he used the Gadbrush like a baseball bat to punt the ball at the turret operator.
”Go Mimikyu” he cried, urge to do so by the universes demand that he stay on brand, as the ball soared forth and bonked the man harmlessly on the head. After impacting it split open and spilled a white energy out and onto the roof of the car, before snapping shut and flying back to its owner.
With one hand rubbing his head the gang member looked down at what the projectile had divulged, his eyes meeting those of some kind of yellow rodent. A few cm below where the man was staring Mimikyu’s actual eyes darted too and fro as it tried to work out where it was. It had a rather pleasant time in the ball all things considered, and had also had time to repair its outfit while Jr drove. Now it was standing on a horrible steel roof surrounded by loud noises and toxic fumes. It was not a pleasant place to be, particularly for the fairy side of its typing. Then the man tried to stomp on it. This did not amuse the specter one bit. It scooted out the way of the man’s boot and then used copycat to retaliate. A wooden mannequin leg shot out from the dark void that seeped out of the bottom of the Pikachu disguise and it’s foot struck the man in the groin. This amused the specter a great deal.
Enraged and with his pride hurt the man swiveled the gun turret around and opened fire on the tiny nimble target. The manikin leg was discarded and riddled with lead as the little spook darted in and around the man’s legs as he tried to shoot it while also avoiding shooting himself in the foot. Anger and gunfire deafened him to the sound of an approaching propeller blade.
Just as it seemed like the brother had gotten the Mimikyu tired out and pinned down Jr leapt from his clown car, paintbrush in hand. With a slash her cut it down the length of the man's body before landing on the truck roof and elbow barging the man’s leg. He stumbled back, his torso streaked with an thick line of neon blue goop that burns like acid where it touched, causing the gun to be pulled up and away from Mimikyu. Before he could recover jr grabbed the front end of the gun and forced it skyward so the man couldn't try and shoot or deafen him with it.
The brother screamed with wordless anger and, after failing to wrench the gun from the prince hand or shoot him with it, punched the child in the face. Jr cried in pain and then jabbed the brush blindly at the man, one hand still clinging to the gun to avoid falling off. Ink stained the offender’s striking arm. The man shook it violently in an attempt to get the goop off while simultaneously kicking Jr’s shell ineffectively.
”Mimikyu help!” jr shouted. The ghost Pokemon tilted its false head in consideration as the man and boy struggled with one-another while trying to avoid falling off the car.
edit. and then Mimikyu clawed the guy's face off
Jr groped his way along the gun till he gripped the handle for support and possible future use. He now had a gun. A real ass gun. He was a boy with a god damned gun. ”Took you long enough.” he complained. “Kyu” responded the ghost noncommittally before petting the gun affectionately and then reeled the Synapse back into the mysterious shadow realm it had inside its disguise.
The pair then used the breathing room they had acquired to check how everyone else was doing.
Can Din buff Gogoat with the Spell of Spring? What would such a buff entail? Also, do I play Gogoat like a separate character with its own XP bar and such? Do you have 4 pokemon attacks that you wish to assign, or should I pick?
<Snipped quote by Stern Algorithm>
Spell of Spring, judging by its description, has no buffing properties, so no. Gogoat can be treated like an NPC, and kept track of via its pokeball in your sheet's equipment section, without EXP. You can pick your pokemon's attacks.
On the other hand gogoat can have the ability grass pelt which raises it's defence on grassy terrain, which the spell of spring could create.
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