Keyguyperson

From Stardust, To Stardust

Post incoming today

From Stardust, To Stardust

I've been doing things and stuff. I'll probably make a post at some point in the foreseeable future.

Torn World, a Post WW3 NRP

ASTA said
I'm trying to figure out why lasers are still experimental weapons in 2035. And why one player faction has successfully branded itself as the most advanced civilization on the planet.

Same here. Especially since the USA is looking at deploying them.

As for the power armor, it is an exoskeleton. But since an exoskeleton would allow for increased mobility and carrying heavier loads, extra armor was strapped on there for the Army (which would be deployed in large-scale engagements). The Marines, on the other hand, use an unarmored exoskeleton with the purpose of increased mobility. The pictures are rough ideas, not what they actually look like. Especially since the Army one has "Marines" painted right on it.

Torn World, a Post WW3 NRP

It probably shows that I did this in a single evening, but hey, it's here!

Name of Nation: United States of North America

Territories: All unclaimed parts of the United States

Government Type: Democracy, with an elected President and Council (One councilor for each state). The President can give any order they wish, but if the Council decides to hold a vote on it, then it will be postponed until the vote is over. If the Council votes against it, then there is no way to attempt getting it through them again unless the Council itself votes to vote on it. During a time of Total War, the President can choose take full control of the nation. If the Council decides that the PResident should be removed from office, they can hold a public vote across the nation. However, it is fully electronic due to the immense amount of time it would take to hold a conventional vote, and anyone without access to the internet cannot vote on the issue. If the President is removed from office, then the Council takes control until a vote can be organized. There is no term limit.

Military: The Military is split up into six branches: The Army, the Marine Corps, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard, and the Space Force. The military as a whole is one of the most advanced in the world, with laser weapons deployed on all Navy vessels as well as multiple tanks and aircraft. Powered exoskeletons are also used by all soldiers, with highly specialized roles for each one.

Marine Exoskeleton

Army Exoskeleton (Helmet Off)

Multiple tanks are also operated, most are equipped with a laser turret, though a few are begin equipped with a railgun. it is believed that these railguns are being fielded in anticipation of full-on battle mechs (the idea being that they could be either extremely mobile or heavily armored, both of which a railgun can combat).

The Navy operates 20 Aircraft Carriers, most of which are older vessels that have undergone refit. All are equipped with laser weaponry, mostly to defend against aircraft. Multiple close-combat vessels are operated as well, mostly agile, low radar profile trimarans with a few turreted railguns. However, many ships that resemble the Dreanoughts of WW2 are also fielded, with extensive missile defense systems to protect them as the close in. Most of the Navy's power comes from missile cruisers, which are kept in the back with the aircraft carriers. They provide missile support for the melee vessels, and have only a few anti-aircraft lasers for self defense.

The Air Force operates three general types of aircraft: Fighters, Bombers, and Railgun Craft. The first utilizes missiles and a turreted laser or two to take down enemy aircraft or ground forces. The second is designed for carpet bombing, and most bombers resemble the "Flying Fortresses" of WW2. The Railgun Craft are a completely new design, used to destroy heavily armored targets. They carry multiple missiles, just like fighters, but have a large railgun that runs the entire length of the craft. Due to the recoil of the railgun, these craft are equipped with rocket engines that are fired whenever the railgun is in use. They are usually utilized to hit enemy naval vessels, but have also been used to attack larger bombers.

The Space Force is entirely focused on orbital bombardment, since it would be ridiculous to field a space fleet when all the ships would be vulnerable to pistol fire due to decompression. They refuse to field any nuclear weapon in space, due to the dangers of an EMP blast. They instead use kinetic kill vehicles and conventional missiles. While they can't destroy a city, the bombardment platforms can wipe out a tank division on the move.

Economy: The economy is a heavily regulated free market, with strict health & safety guidelines, a high minimum wage, and harsh punishments for breaking any regulations. It exports mainly digital goods, aerospace goods, raw resources, and vehicles. The government controls the entire power grid, and provides free internet for everyone it possibly can.

Foreign Policy: The USNA is usually fair to other nations, but is known for sticking their nose in places it shouldn't go. Even so, it is extremely open to outside cultural influence, and an odd mixture of Asian and American culture is prevalent in western areas.

History: The USNA was formed as the result of a coup d'etat that occurred in 2026, three years after the start of WWIII. It was staged by Fergus McClain, a well-known opponent of the President (Whom he believed was abusing his power for personal gain, having somehow been elected for a second term despite the fact that most people were opposed to his conservative policies). It turned out that he was right, and most opposition to his rule vanished when documents detailing poll manipulation were released. Even so, there was a short but bloody civil war. The official military forces (not to mention the physical state of most of their forces). The deserters, however, were brutally effective in guerrilla warfare. Worst of all, they didn't limit themselves to military targets.

Believing anyone who did not fight for them to be an enemy, the resistance attacked multiple towns outright and performed hundreds of car bombings across the country. Their extremism was answered with pro-government militias popping up around the nation, many of them not to support the government, but to put a stop to the terrorism. However, nobody expected that the new government would have kept the NSA around. Using the extensive spy agency, the terrorist cells were located one by one and stomped out in short and decisive battles. Within a few months, all resistance had disappeared. Those that disagreed with the new government came to a slow and peaceful end, most emigrating to nations that shared their ideals or simply giving up. All forces on foreign ground were pulled out, and the USNA declared neutrality.

In a surprising move, the government announced that the NSA had been disbanded. Fergus McClain them proceeded to make multiple promises on the future of the nation, and immediately set up a democratic government. He slowly increased working standards, making life better for the common citizen while also keeping the corporations from leaving the country. The budget was drastically changed, with military spending being cut significantly to focus on research and infrastructure development. The national debt was paid off and the budget balanced almost miraculously. Industry was expanded even further, and the USNA became an economic powerhouse with new infrastructure being put in place. Renewable energy became a government-endorsed industry, and millions of jobs were created in the Solar and Wind power industries. By 2032, the USNA had recovered from the disaster that was the US economy before the coup.

Now, a decade after the coup, Fergus McClain is still president. His incredibly success in fixing the economy has turned him into a public hero, earning the support of the people. He seems to serve the people, doing whatever the polls say. Funding is being diverted to government research programs, which seem to be split between military research and theoretical physics. An odd combination, considering that one is the very face of direct application, and the other is notorious for being a "For science!" field. At least, in the public's eye. Even with his somewhat odd decisions, Fergus McClain always makes sure the people are happy, and they always vote for him.

Foes: The Grand Empire of Louisiana, both due to past wars and the fact that it is an absolute monarchy (Called a "Dictatorship" by most in the USNA).

New Aztlan Republic, thought of as the archenemy of the USNA. The general view of the nation is that of bloodthirsty conquerors stuck in the past, with a side of institutionalized racism against every other culture.

Population: 361,680,000

Other: The history of Fergus McClain before he began to vocally oppose the President is quite obscure. What is known seems unfitting for his current position, it seems like he would have been the last person to stage a coup and then keep himself in power as long as possible.

From Stardust, To Stardust

Jeddaven said
In regards to humans, I have a few ideas for my faction. This one is probably the most feasible, unless multiverse theory is fair game.Since the origin of life on Earth is a bit blurry, if we were to presume that life was seeded on Earth by an asteroid or extraterrestrial, what if, by some chance, that same "seed" broke up and crashed into another, earthlike planet, resulting in the evolution of a species very similar to homo sapiens?

As much as I love to use the panspermia theory to justify humanoid aliens in my stories, it totally wouldn't result in anything like humanity at all. That being said, you can do that, just with a few modifications to the species. I'm talking Star Trek alien level modifications, so just give them pointy ears or something and it's all good.

From Stardust, To Stardust

TehAlphaGamer said
Nouvelle is like pure little Africa before it got buttfucked by Europe.

Don't worry, Space Africa! The UTF will protect your with our overwhelming fleet of, like, three ships! Two of them even have weapons!

We r so pwurfl.

From Stardust, To Stardust

I RETURN!

With a new personal post record!

Not sure if I should treat those as exceptional anymore!

Torn World, a Post WW3 NRP

Thinking about going with a Megacorp turned Nation, do you have anything to say on that, Duck?

From Stardust, To Stardust

Sol, Asteroid Belt
Dozens of gigantic, cubical freighters lumbered through the void, their plasma engines burning brightly as they accelerated towards Terra. New vessels left drydock, being turned over to their new owners. With the more efficient warp drive and negative energy factories, FTL had became accessible to civilian businesses. Since all large corporations were nationalized, no civilian could leave Sol, but with FTL capability within the system, trade would no longer require kilometer-long cubical titans to move materials. Just one of the new in-system FTL ships could move, in a single month, a hundred times the cargo a Cubeship could in a year.

At the scrapyards, former Cubeship owners were selling their ships to the military in order to buy an FTL freighter. The military had promised to pay a fair sum for any used Cubeship, as their sheer size made them valuable as scrap. The plan was to use their materials in new interstellar warships like the Försvarere av Humanity. However, there was also a new Dreadnought initiative. Since it was obvious that the Dreadnoughts currently in use were painfully obsolete, many of these Cubeships were being sent to be forged into new Dreadnoughts, armed with triple-mode turrets instead of a single, spinal railgun. The turrets would be capable of firing either standard railgun slugs, plasma-coated ones, or pure plasma bolts. The standard slugs would be used in engagements against Terran vessels, the plasma-coated ones would be the most commonly used ammunition type, and the pure plasma bolts would be used against vastly superior enemies. Of course, having made contact with Nouvelle, it was possible that plasma bolts would become a stable of Terran vessels, especially with the government able to build interstellar vessels cheaply for the first time.

Out of the military shipyards, a single interstellar vessel emerged. It was a giant cylinder, with a shuttle bay in the front, which contained five heavy VTOL SSTO planes. It had warp rings built into the cylinder, making them harder to target. There was a ring of plasma engines surrounding the shuttle bay, and a giant wall of them at the back. RCS thrusters were positioned across the hull, allowing for the entire ship to rotate in order to provide artificial gravity. On both sides of it, the name "Pride of Ceres" was written in stark white letters, standing out well against the grey hull of the ship and the black of the void.

The vessel immediately accelerated towards one of the many large stations in the Belt. It was going to pick up a cargo that nobody had actually been told about. The official story was that it would simply be a dummy cargo taken to Alpha Centauri, but nobody on the crew actually believed that. Negative energy was too precious to waste on a test, but it didn't make sense to deliver anything to Alpha Centauri. They suspected that it might be a trade run to an alien planet, some entertained the imaginative idea that they were smuggling something into another nation. The sensible members of the crew just waited to see it.

Hilariously, they were all wrong. They were so caught up with the idea of aliens that they completely forgot that it might not even involve them.

Levant, Former Israel
A child played in the streets of a makeshift village, the only thing she had ever known. She didn't know it, but her father was a soldier for a terrorist cell. Everyone there was, but all she knew was the radioactive remains of the city her parents said had once been the center of all attention in the entire region. They never said it, but it certainly wasn't positive attention. Another thing she was never told was the fact that the only reason they were there was because of the nuclear weapons left behind by the nation that formerly controlled the city. Her world was tiny, just that little village.

Very few noticed it, but a missile flew through the sky towards the village. It must have seemed like a fair response to the UTF, they destroy Paris, retaliation comes. It was a very human way of thinking, but regret was also a very human feeling, and it always seemed to come with such decisions. There wasn't any time to react, no cinematic scene with the last screams of those who died. It was instant, the entire village was obliterated so fast that there was barely any pain.

Though the village was gone, warheads still remained inside the missile silos, lying in wait for whoever would venture into the wasteland to take them.

UTF WarpComm Broadcast
"Paris is dark. Repeat: Paris is dark. A curfew of 9:00 PM GMT will be enforced by the Ground Army across all territories. Any suspicious activities must be reported to an Army officer immediately. Capital will be moved to Luna Station, all spacecraft must call off to the nearest port. Any vessel that refuses to identify will be intercepted and destroyed. If you live in the Western Europe region please report to the nearest bomb shelter. Updates as situation develops."

Siberia, 2045
Explosions went off in the distance, shaking the tiny hut. Inside was a girl, no older than fourteen, cowering in fear. Coilgun shots resounded in her ears, as well as shots from weapons ranging from eleven to over seventy years old which still used gunpowder. She knew what was happening, and she was damn well happy about it. The UTF had finally taken notice of the atrocities going on in Siberia, and had sent in a force. The archaic weapons being used by the local so-called "Tsar" were no match for the coilguns used by the UTF.

So it came as a surprise when she heard the screams.

They were long, and not a single one ever ended. No shots could be heard, nothing but screaming. Having to know what was happening, she looked outside. There was a small vehicle, with a faded American flag painted on it. There was a large dish on top of it, pointing down at a mass of soldiers kneeling and rolling on the ground, screaming. It was an Active Denial System, a weapon that had been outlawed after WWIII. It was designed not to kill, but to immobilize the target with extreme pain, like that of being on fire. It looked like the UTF soldiers were being tortured, probably as a warning to anyone else that dared oppose the "New Tsar".

Then one of the soldiers dropped dead. It wasn't just crowd control anymore, they were feeding enough energy into the weapon to make it lethal. As if by instinct, she ran out right into the area of effect. The m1oment she left the hut, her skin began to boil. She kept running though, listening to the screams of the soldiers on the ground. She'd worked outside at sub-zero temperatures wearing almost nothing. She figured that if she could stand that kind of cold, then she could stand this kind of heat.

Running over to one of the soldiers, she grabbed his coilgun pistol from it's holster. She ran straight at the vehicle, burn marks beggining to appear on her skin. IT felt like she was being burned at the stake, but she kept running. After what seemed like an eternity, she lunged towards the vehicle. It's door window was nonexistent, having been through so much combat without seeing any repair. Ever since the collapse of the United States, Humvee parts were practically nonexistent. Without any thought, she jumped through the window and landed right on the lap of the operator. He reached for his pistol, but she fired first, hitting his head.

The pistol had little recoil, due to it's design. As blood dripped from his head onto her, she reached for the controls. The pain was greatest inside the cabin, the operator was wearing a radiation suit to protect him from the effects of the weapon. Still, she reached up and flipped the switch marked "Aктивировать" (Activate). The pain dissapeared immediately, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The soldiers outside got up, five more had been killed while she was trying to stop the "Heat Ray" as it was often called. Looking down, she saw a block of C4 explosives. It was obviously a self-destruct. Being a rare piece of equipment, the Tsar would have it protected from falling into enemy hands at all costs. It had an activator right on it, which also happened to have a timer on it.

It appears that even the Tsar can care for someone's life. She thought, setting it to a five-minute fuse.

The moment she activated it, she opened the door and ran. She managed to reach a safe distance just before the explosives went off, throwing shrapnel all over the village. The Federal troops looked to see what had happened, and they saw her coming towards them, with the smoke still in the background. At first they couldn't believe that she had done it, but then they saw that she was holding a pistol that was still cooling from a high-power shot. Her clothes had splotches of blood on them, and her breathing was heavy but orderly. She was exhausted from the ADS, just like all the soldiers.

"English?" She said once she reached the UTF lines. The enemy soldiers were being held captive, apparently they had surrendered.

Surprised at the question, the commander stood up to answer her.

"Yes, I'm Commander Mael, 21st Infantry Division. How do you know English?"

"Taught self, old books, instructions." She responded in a thick accent. "Grammar... confusing. Too many rules, not like Russian. Name is Praskoviya, Praskoviya Lovisa."

"What are you doing here? Why are you carrying a Federal pistol."

"Assault rifle too big for window." She said, smiling. It surprised the commander, he was told to expect any child to be traumatized, not joking. Especially not about weaponry.

"I mean, why do you even have a weapon?" He asked, clarifying.

"I saw weapon, A.D.S. War crime. Could not allow use, deactivated it, destroyed it."

Everyone within earshot looked shocked, they simply couldn't believe that she was the one who destroyed it.

"How?"

"Head-on attack. Enemy did not expect me, I killed operator, turned it off. Then destroyed to prevent future use."

The Commander's jaw somehow dropped even further, she had rushed an A.D.S. on lethal settings head on. Not only had she survived, but she had destroyed it, and the only weapon she had was a pistol!

She dropped the pistol on the ground, then continued.

"Good luck with war." She said "Geneva Conventions say you protect me now."

"There is no war now, those were the so-called Tsar's last forces. They say he was operating the A.D.S. himself."

She simply stood there, her mouth opened slightly in shock. She hadn't thought about it until then, but she had succeeded where so many trained soldiers had failed. The Tsar had taken everything she had, her family, her possessions, and everything else. To think that she had been able to kill him... it was an astounding thought. Unknowingly, she began to smile.

"You attacked an A.D.S. head on, without giving in to the pain." He continued "You should consider joining up someday, it seems like you like toppling evil regimes."

"No, I would rather go to space." She responded. "Freedom in space, no people like Tsar."

"Then the Star Forces are going to have one hell of a recruit."

Nouvelle, Present Day
After bowing their heads in return, the three followed the Seargent.

"Your people put a lot of emphasis on names." Said the Captain, taking great care to step slowly and gently in the lower gravity. "I apologize for anything we did wrong, these two are District Dwellers, they've never met royalty. They also don't have a reputation for diplomacy either."

"We took the non-verbal first contact course at the academy!" Said one of them indignantly.

"Your people are the reason that protocol involves kneeling and holding up a sword." She responded. "That reputation will wilt away the moment we repay the universe for what we have done."

"Good point." Said the man, surprisingly putting up almost no fight.

Mars
The woman nodded, her movements indicating understanding. She spoke to one of her crew, who went and opened the outer airlock door to one of the vehicles, which slid open with a quiet hiss. The wind began to pick up, dust flying in from kilometers away to obscure their vision. She motioned to the two aliens, asking them to follow her to the vehicle.

Saturn
The Admiral reached his hand out as well, glad to see that the Mandalorians still had some human culture left. He shook the Captain's hand, it was a weak handshake, not the kind one would expect from someone in the military.

"The third planet is our capital, the largest station above it's only moon is where the Council currently is. Depending on how long the peace talks with the other species took, you might have to wait. You won't have to worry about any sort of battle though, it turns out that the other species wants peace almost as much as we do."

Near Gliese, E.U.V Starfire
Fergus looked at the suit, specifically the pants. It was quite obvious that he wasn't paying much attention to the coat.

"I love the color." He said, a smile on his face. "You know, I wasn't going to say anything, but when you described Lahnha... I knew who you were talking about. I knew someone just like that many years ago, back before the war. She's who made me realize that I was from Gliese, it was indirect, and took advantage of subconscious thoughts. I knew there was something different about her, I always thought she was just another one from Gliese. I guess I was wrong."

Torn World, a Post WW3 NRP

duck55223 said
Cybernetics consist of basic implants and basic prosthesis. Will begin working on a OOC today.

Should I break out the corporations and political commentary then?