Just need to add some military stuff from here, so feel free to review it terminal.
Sevromahi Aggregate
(Best visual approximation, actual flag based on chemicals and relief.)
A strange and reclusive nation the Aggregate has long found the differences between itself and other species insurmountable. This has fostered a policy of isolationism and military build up, a policy that has only ever been broken in the face of crises. Much like the very one that has befallen the nation.
The home system of the Sevromahi is Sesas, a system dominated by a faint red dwarf star. Within the system the species homeworld of Resa sits as a vast ice planet of surprisingly low density. Resa represents the only planet in the system and its surface has a blueish green colour when seen from space. The world sports an eight kilometre metallic and rocky crust over a subsurface ocean one hundred kilometres deep with the core composed mostly of water ice. The crust of the planet has been considerably thinned in some areas by heavy industry in the past and these are often the same areas spaceports have been built in. The planet supports an enormous infrastructure of both commercial and defensive stations in it's orbit and serves as the focal point for the entire nation. Even if it is just a lonely ball of rock and ice around a cold star.
Fifteen other systems make up the territory of the Aggregate, and within them a total of twenty planets and moons are colonized. Of considerable importance among these are the systems of Srecs, Juses, and Kosens.
The yellow dwarf system of Srecs represents what could be said to be the military core of the Aggregate and is the closest system to Resa. Filled with countless asteroid belts constantly disturbed by a vast ruddy gas giant the system is the foundry that permitted the once burgeoning Aggregate to fend off other opportunistic species in times of expansion. The main colony in the system is known as Gsuars, a moon of the giant gas world of Gsu. An ice world with a sub surface ocean much like the homeworld, Gsuars differs in that the world holds a rocky core and a liquid layer far deeper than that on Resa. It is on Gsuars the personnel which man the ubiquitous shipyards of the system reside. Truly a poster child of industry and the military it sustains the Srecs system is a major symbol for the people of the Aggregate.
Juses, also a yellow dwarf system, is remarkable in that it contains three life bearing worlds. While a boon to most, this system proved an enormous point of contention between the Aggregate and other interstellar powers in the old universe. This was because of three life bearing worlds in the system, only one was of interest to the Aggregate. Having been the first to colonize the relatively distant system the Aggregate developed the enormously ecologically diverse ice world of Kosa into what amounted to a paradise for the Sevromahi and entirely neglected the remaining two planets. These two other worlds were perfect for most other life forms, one a veritable paradise of its own and the other an arid but livable place with thriving subterranean life. Multiple incursions into the system by other species looking to settle the two worlds useless to the Aggregate consistently led to skirmishes and eventually to the fortification of every planet in the system, habitable or not.
Kosens is a red dwarf system much like Sesas, in fact it is so similar that many have subbed the system a sister to the home system. Kosens initially lacked any worlds habitable by Sevromahi standards, however it possessed a single candidate for a new type of terraforming being developed. The world of Kisk orbiting Kosens possessed sub surface ice likely the remnant of a long frozen ocean and proved the perfect testbed for a new technology dubbed planetary revival. After ten years of using enormous generators to produce heat throughout the layer of frozen water a sub surface ocean was eventually created. While scarcely inhabited Kisk is an ongoing experiment in reviving dead ice worlds.
The Aggregate is governed by three distinct bodies. The first of these is the house of achievement, a body made up of those members of society that have been recognized as distinguished individuals. There is no specific definition as to what distinguished means, nor is there a criteria that must be met to be considered so. Rather, those in the house of achievement are chosen by the second house: the house of age. The second house is exactly what it sounds like, it is made up of the most senior members of the first house. Finally the third house, the house of assent, elected by the first house.
The house of achievement is always composed of one hundred and one individuals and is technically responsible for all governmental decisions. However the real role of the house is almost always one of legislation, with many decisions such as the application of law being left to approved sub houses created by the greater first house.
The second house, the house of age, holds no official power save the appointment of those in the first house. The second house is a distinct body and is always made up of the oldest eleven who served in the first house. The oldest individuals from the first house ascend to the second house upon the death of one in second house, and there they select their replacement in the first house with the rest of the second house.
The third and final house, the house of assent, is made up of three individuals elected from the first house. These individuals still serve in the first house but have a secondary duty to the third. This secondary duty is the final say on all issues; laws may be passed by the first house but they must be approved by the third house. If the third house rejects the law it must be arbitrated by the first house once more and then resubmitted. Another duty of the third house is that of international relations and military command. The third house is without question the most powerful of the three.
The only species represented within the Aggregate are the long lived aquatic Sevro. With a lifespan of some three hundred years the Sevro are colonial organisms made up of Zooids. Given this colonial existence, the intelligence of the Sevro species can best be described as the Mahi; the Zooid most closely resembling something recognizable as a brain. Of note is the fact that the Mahi is not a conventional centralized brain, it takes a form closer to an immense nervous system with millions of localized functions and connections. This specialized intelligent Zooid has led the species to colloquially and often officially refer to itself as the Sevromahi, even if the scientific name of Sevro has not changed. Once existing as predators in the sub-surface ocean on their icy home world the Sevro appear somewhat similar to a cross between a squid and eel. An elongated tail forms the propulsive part of their bodies with some two dozen elastic and muscular tentacles protruding from it. At the head of this tail he gaping maw of the Sevro can be found, an opening filled with things more resembling circular saw blades than teeth.
The unique colonial structure of the Sevro brings about several strange physiological phenomenon. Perhaps the most notable of these is the act of reproduction, which for the Sevro is done entirely outside of the body. A single Zooid responsible for replication of all the others is gorged with nutrients and detached from the body into a sort of breeding pit, where it exchanges genetics with a great many others like it. Eventually it takes that information and begins the process of producing all the various Zooids that make up a Sevro, a process it repeats until it runs out of resources. This style of reproduction allows enormous genetic variety in offspring, however it also results in extremely slow population growth. A single reproductive Zooid has never been known to produce more then three offspring, and even then is nearly always capable of just one. Needless to say, this type of reproduction has made inherited positions, or clear parentage, impossible
Another of these phenomenon is the ability of the Sevro to eject and reattach parts of their bodies with minimal effort. This is largely focused on the tentacles which serve as the primary manipulators of the Sevro and are highly capable of independent function. Alone they act on primitive senses and as animals lacking only the ability to feed themselves, this means a detached tentacle can be left that way for close to a month before it expires. While the ability to detach these body parts was a great boon to escape predation by larger creatures in the past, in the modern day it is done almost always in medicine. As colonial organisms this shifting or exchange of parts isn't terrible strange when applied to the smaller Zooids, and theoretically even large Zooid sections can be replaced—such as the main digestive or eel like Zooid. This digestive Zooid is fully capable of survival without any other Zooids and could be said to represent the core body of a Sevro. While it is technically possible for a Mahi to be transplanted from one digestive Zooid to another in an excessive akin to body swapping the physical, if not religious, deterrent to this is the fragility of an exposed Mahi and its profoundly short isolated life. Such Mahi transplant attempts have almost always resulted in severe neurological damage and are banned.
As deep sea creatures the Sevro posses a wide array of senses, with the notable exception of vision. In place of what may well be the universes most common sense the Sevro have come to rely on electroreception, chemoreception, hearing, and a combined sense of pressure and current in the surrounding water that reaches an accuracy nearly analogous to what vision would have provided. With this array of senses and an inability to make meaningful sounds almost all communication among the Sevro is through chemical secretion and body motion.
The most basic level of Sevromahi society is almost always said to be the underlying system of care designed for youth. From the moment an individual is born from the breeding pits they are assigned to a class of peers and in that class are raised from infant to adult over the span of some twenty years. This system of classes often creates groups of life long contacts and groups of friends similar to family groups in other species.
Upon the completion of their education these pseudo families are injected into the highly competitive society of the Aggregate. With the Aggregate's ideal of fairness sustained by laws that permit only one of a 'family' to enter the house of achievement it is not uncommon for groups of peers to work together in order to elevate one among their ranks to house. This not only ensures a level of status for the whole group, but almost guarantees them all high ranking positions in various sub houses and corporations. The groups with a member in one of the houses make up a sort of elite in Sevromahi society, and given a position in the first house is life long, some have questioned if this constitutes a generational oligarchy.
While this somewhat meritocratic system has proved largely successful and is publicly recognized as fair, it is not without fault. Due to the highly competitive nature of society and the legal framework surrounding peer groups it is not uncommon for under or even over achievers to commit suicide if it seems to them they are either a drain on their group, or their group is preventing them from success.
Though the competitive nature of Sevromahi society is inescapable, it is still a society obsessed with refined entertainment. Theatre is as close to a shared interest for the entire species as could be considered possible and many actors are represented in the house of achievement. This focus on live theatre is largely due to the issue of transmitting any meaningful sensory data in a cost efficient manner being nearly impossible, though chemical 'radios' are popular. Art is also exceedingly popular, though it would be unrecognizable as such by most creatures. Taken together live displays and in person viewing is almost a constant feature of Sevromahi culture.
Driven by competition but in love with art there is a dissonance within the Sevromahi society, one that has ironically been the subject of dozens of plays.
By any reasonable measure it can be said there is only one dominant religion within the Aggregate: Juksi Hus, or Unity of Spirit.
Juksi Hus has a history dating back to the most primitive of recorded eras, and has long shaped the cultural norms of the entire Sevromahi species. What is prioritized is the idea of a spirit existing within all the Zooids of the Sevromahi. According to Juksi Hus the personality is centred in the Mahi, the capacity kindness and creation in the tentacles, the capacity for good or evil in secretion glads or 'speaking mouths', and so on. The religion has made preservation of the body a prized thing; but has also made the exchange of smaller Zooids like tentacles a spiritual experience akin to taking in a part of another and coming to share their inner soul.
This combined spirit is believed to unite and descend to the endless heaven below all worlds upon death. Transplanted tentacles or other Zooids from the dead are believed to be empty and innocent as the newborn are for this reason. This had made donation of Zooids extremely common with those receiving a major transplant being seen as born anew and given another chance at life by those that preceded them. While this transplantation or exchange of Zooids is considered either deeply intimate or highly spiritual and redeeming, modifications to any Zooid is seen as defiling the home of the spirit. For this reason cybernetic or genetic augmentation is rare.
There are a number of organizations within the Aggregate that promote a change of foreign policy and believe an end to the constant tension between other nations and the Aggregate can be achieved. These groups are known for illegally attempting contact with other species.
Discord, strife, isolation. These are the best terms to describe the history of the Aggregate, a nation forged in turmoil.
The Aggregate itself goes back roughly seven hundred years, to the first contact war. Before the war the Sevromachi were divided among national lines, and their only interstellar colony on Srecs carried over those same divisions. When prospective miners from a species still unknown entered that colonial system and finally showed the Sevromahi that they were not alone it should have been a joyous event. It was anything but.
After nearly a day of translation efforts on both sides proving utterly impossible the frustrated would be prospectors decided to go about their work and ignore the seemingly unintelligent natives. Misinterpreting this as a sign of aggression more than a few colonial defence ships elected to fire on the prospectors ship and in the end the sheer scale of fire directed at the more advanced vessel reduced it to little more then slag.
This incident escalated into a species wide paranoia and before long nearly every Sevromahi nation had allied and gone into a war footing. By the time other ships came searching for the missing prospectors the military build up in the Srecs system was more than sufficient to repel them. What followed was a 'defensive' war that would carve out the first real territory for the Sevromahi, and forge the Aggregate.
That first war, while an extreme example, has more or less been repeated throughout the history of the Aggregate. Communication fails, war ensues, territory is gained or lost. Every once in a while, during rare periods of prolonged peace, scouting vessels have been sent out to find others like the Sevromahi, any species that might be able to meaningfully communicate and co exist with the Aggreate. To date, none have been found.
This has led to a profound sense of isolation that has fuelled a strong enmity for the conventional forms of life in the universe, and many have concluded that peaceful co-existence between the Aggregate and more 'barbaric' lifeforms is impossible.
The realization that something cataclysmic had occurred across the entire universe was one that came slowly to the aggregate, but after two weeks of study and debate, eventually hit hard. Nearly the entire civilian population ground to a halt for days as massive unrest abounded and apprehension gripped the populace. Now, after a series of hard hitting measures and police mobilizations, the government is working with the military to formulate a plan and innumerable sensor arrays are searching the skies for any signs of other life.
Technology: Give a brief summary of the state of your nation's technological advancement and standards.
Local Absorption Shield: The Absorption Shield is an Aggregate innovation and the primary defence on all their vessels. Acting as an energy sponge the shield absorbs all the kinetic or direct energy put into it until it reaches full capacity and falls in a powerful discharge of energy. The energy discharge would be a catastrophic explosion if not for limiters making it a slower process of constant discharge. The Shield can be brought back up after this, but not until a suitable time has passed for the energy banks to entirely discharge. Local shields work by the shield being a multi-layered construct, with one large general shield over the ship’s hull and one to two shields above this that only activate after an incoming threat is detected, minimizing strain on the main shield and providing a sort of means to maintain the main shield’s integrity through extended battle by the first and second layers discharging and covering for each other if there are two outer layers. If the incoming fire is not concentrated this means of taking the damage and discharging while the other shield takes the hits can be maintained indefinitely so long as the shield has local outer layers. As a result volume of fire and concentrated fire are the most effective means of countering absorption shields of two local layers. Single local layer shields are more vulnerable to large singular hit weapons that can drop the local shield and leave the general layer exposed, however if the volume of fire is too low from even a large weapon the general shield and the local shield can swap out similarly to the two local shield system. This however leaves the ship proper exposed to fire for a split second. Currently three shield layers, two local and one general, is the effective maximum before energy discharges of the first layers begin to influence the general layer and cause a drop of all shields.
Neutron Cannon: The Neutron Cannon is a powerful energy weapon that works though a simple means. Stripping neutrons from high atomic number elements through the use of a powerful Neutron generator and forcing those highly concentrated neutrons as well as the associated products into an accelerator that fires them at relativistic speeds. The Neutrons in this state are free and as a result they are undergoing neutron decay further increasing the impact energy of the weapon. Despite its already fearsome potential the Neutron Cannon has another secret, by pumping the gamma rays created during the stripping process into a Graser and focusing them into a containment beam the Neutron Cannon gains increased focus and coherence as well as a secondary beam. Needless to say this increases the precision and destructive potential of the weapon significantly.
Liquid Composite Taking the form of a blackish blue liquid capable of rapid shape and phase change Liquid Composite is a sort of programmable material. Tiny 1mm squared nodes interspersed throughout the liquid deliver electric currents to modulate the shape of the liquid and are capable of vibrating in such a manner that the liquid displays solid qualities. Various types are capable of variable strengths and are optimized for specific applications. The main construction materials used by the Aggregate for anything from ships to housing are all variations of this immensely useful innovation.
Military Structure: Give a brief summary of your Military hierarchy's structure/arrangement.
The Military of the Aggregate is a separate entity from the government, and is technically only inferior to the house of assent. As a result the military holds a uniquely strict hierarchy in the Aggregate with a single high commander holding authority over the entire organization. (Expand)
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