I mean, asteroids tend to be....very spread out, so, if we arent even orbiting a star? its very possible that we may not encounter an asteroid for billions of years, given how...empty...most of space is. and we would have to be going (in cosmic scale) extremely slow in order to not just, fly right past an asteroid belt. (which would beg the question how we escaped the orbit of a star in the first place) unless like, the clouds engine was some kind of inertialess drive?
Operator Module Embla-6, im thinking is going to be on the more idealistic end for something like this. but a bit paranoid as a survival strategy. Skilled spaceworker, actually knows shit about spacecraft and maintenance. On a quest for answers about the fate of the Cloud.
Embla is doubtful that the card will actually work, but is still taking the risk as it might be useful (if extremely dangerous) leverage if it even unlocks control of some of the ships systems.
So, looking for relationships, Embla has spiritual beliefs (Technoshamanistic) and is most closely tied to the mining union.
Government Form: Federal government commissioned by the various syndicates and other groups in the Ogygia system
Demographics: large portions of the colonists when they left Sol, had already been modified for living in space, and Non-human Intelligences had already been part of the lives of many space working peoples. Over the hundreds of years since then, great diversification happened as a result of largely pro-transhumanist attitudes, invention of new technologies. Cyborgs, Biomorphs, reverse cyborgs, AI, and more. There is also a sentient technological xenobiological species within the Ogygia system though they are not currently considered a part of CFS they are under CFS protection until such a time as formal first contact is made. There is some question as to what constitutes a person, but the CFS tends to lean towards inclusion, not âtechnicallyâ being a person also doesnt necessarily have the same negative connotations as it might have in other governments.
Population: It is difficult to put an exact number due to the variety of intelligences within the Calypso Federation of syndicates that do not have the same kind of distinctions between group, network, individual, along with the varieties of digital persons who might have a central consciousness but hundreds of personas, among weirder things. They have a fairly low population if you factor in only embodied persons, but would have a very high population if you factored in other intelligences. --- (This is probably a good place to insert a flag or other representative image) ---
Planet Name and Description: The Ogygia system is a triple star system with many planets and moons, however, none of them are places for unmodified earth life, most of the CFS population lives on the habitats and moons surrounding the Gas giants Willow and Capek. There are two planets with natural biospheres, Le Guin (a hothouse world) and Kukulkan a hellish superoceanic world.
History: The crew of the arkship Calypso was drawn from numerous sources, most of which viewed earth with a degree of hostility, There were spaceworkers who helped work on arkships of earthers to deal with âtheir messâ and Earth Imperialists were always interfering, wanting control of the outer system so that they could serve their people. Within the outer system despite scarcity there was a sense of âsurviving together against the cold void of space (and earth capitalists) which lead to the organization of fierce syndicates and unions which formed the basis of much of Calypso society, along with Dissilusioned researchers and others who had left earth behind. There was also a sizeable population of Volitional AI, Artificial Lifeforms seeking to escape copyright laws, enthusiastic inner system recruits wanting to âmake a differenceâ and various transhumanists who sought to escape earth persecution.
The Arrival of the Calypso at the Gateway made many Earth nations nervous due to previous Labor disputes that occasionally led to violent conflict with earth interests, tense negotiations had been made before the ship was allowed to enter earths orbit (especially given its armed belter escort)
The time of arrival was another tense one, various disagreements, claim jumpers, splintering factions. But most of the crew of the calypso and their escort knew that creating an infrastructure to serve the needs of the people would be important to survival. This eventually lead to the formation of the CFS (though it had a few intermediary steps to this process). The CFS helped get the disparate groups work towards a common goal of settling the system. They had some conflict with other groups, mostly resolved without bloodshed, but there were a few wars over the last 300 years. Occasional eras of piracy. And emergence of Malignant Intelligences and Catastrophic Processes. While these incidents might have drawn other nations to fear AI, human augmentation and other technology, The spacers would not let a few violent groups sway their view of synthetic life as a whole.
They eventually discovered sentient, technological but non-spacefaring life on the planet Le Guin, though given its orbit among the far more distant 3rd star of the system, and fear of accidental conflict, CFS has yet to make formal contact.
Signs of intelligent civilization on a brown dwarf megastructure have been found and probes were sent (some sentient) but knowledge of what lurks there remains unknown. A few organizations within the Calypso system have been working on slower than light interstellar spacecraft (with a few having launched) to nearby stars, many of which are planned to be one way journeys, often associated with spiritual desires of exploration.
Reactions to the gateways reopening has had mixed responses of wonder and fear, wanting to see how their distant cousins have progressed along with fear that not every civilization on the other side would be peaceful.
Culture and Society: The people of CFS are quite varied in lifestyles however they trace their lineage back to spacer cultures from the Sol system, adapted to life in enclosed environments of habitats and spacecraft, with the basic unit of society often being the space crew. These crews often seek like minded syndicates to join. With numerous unions guilds, and leagues forming the basis of much of society. The strong interdependence people experienced, with both eachother and technology, means that things like the AI of a starship became full citizens pretty quickly, as they were already seen as part of the basic social structures within society. Large scale space habitats become hubs for various spacer crews to come together and share stories, resources and whatever else.
Virtual reality at various levels of immersion is a fairly common form of entertainment, originally designed for therapeutic use on long space-flights but evolved into other entertainment forms. There is a sorta subculture of Specialized AI who specialize in bringing to life these artificial worlds, acting as the consciousness behind hundreds of personaâs with unique personalities. Generally these personalities are lower resolution than the personalities of full individuals, especially when not being actively interacted with (some virtual reality gamers have special personality processors installed that increase the resolution of Personas they interact with by interacting with the core conscious (though this has to be approved by both parties) virches come in many genres, some of which are more optimized for biologics, others for machines (sometimes quite abstract)
There are many ethical questions people of the CFS deal with, perhaps one of the more spoken about is the existence of the âUndeadâ advanced medical technology, compilations of brain scans, memories and patterns forming in cybernetic prosthetics, AI symbiotes, and intelligent software make the line between life and death quite fuzzy. In some cases a sense of continuity exists, other times, the spark of consciousness seems to fade, leaving behind shambling digital (and in some cases) physical corpses. Yet, these previously âzombieâ undead may at a later point redevelop sentience and often have a complicated mental relationship to who they once were, who they were before often hazy. Different groups react to this news differently, with many seeing undeath as a new stage of life, seeking ancestral knowledge in special âCryptsâ aboard habitats. But the process is often considered an intimate affair to be done by friends and the deads community, rather than opportunistic outsiders.
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Governance and Politics: Most habitats and ships (along with lunar and planetary bases) have some form of government, though sometimes quite informal. Syndicates and other workers associations play a major role in civic life. The Federation itself was created in order to provide public infrastructure for all parties, extend legal protection and representation for disparate groups, settle disputes and deal with bureaucracy, providing (usually voluntary) technical standards, handling traffic and asteroid and settlement claims along with providing for defense. The Federation has some aspects of old space agencies, often organizing into âMissionsâ selecting personnel based on past experience. Most elected officials are selected by blocs and coalitions who are in turn created by representatives of individual syndicates selected by the syndicates members.
Technology Overview: Given the tough environments of space, and the fact that the ancestors of Calypso helped construct the arkship, its not much a surprise that the Calypso Federation of Syndicates has a fairly high tech base. The need to adapt to their new environment, and the numerous health threats of space, and a comfortability with working alongside artificial beings has given them advanced biotechnology, robotics, AI, cybernetics and similar transhumanistic technology. Their experience with constructing arkships translated well to the development of other large scale space infrastructures with fairly advanced torchships, large space habitats with their own ecologies and automated mining and manufacturing operations tended to by sapient âshepardsâ that ensure non-sapient automated systems donât get out of hand.
Military Overview: Given their status as a space based civilization, the CFS has plenty of spaceships, but most of them are designed for non-violent ends (that said a torchship can be quite dangerous in the wrong hands. A dedicated federation patrol fleet exists to deal with pirates, Catastrophic Processes, Malignant Intelligences and other threats. Most of these ships are not purely combat in design, and often perform things like rescue operations and other emergency services. If an existential threat emerged, the CFS could probably create a competent military fleet relatively quickly. Given their preference for life in space, their technology for ground war is a bit less developed, but they do have power armor designed to be used on a variety of hostile environments ---
Additional Info: (Anything else you want to include that there isn't a spot for up there.)
Might play an alien scientist originally stationed on bedlam to study a xenoanthropological mystery, but is now on a tangent checking out these newcomers.
So I always have so many ideas so wondering which of these might fit the party the best.
A Scholar among Foxes, a foreigner, something rolewise similar to a bard, but without the musical connotation that D&D often ascribes to them. magic is pulled from diverse sources of apocrypha.
A character who claims to just be a pilgrim, claims to be a simple person. perhaps extremely lucky or unlucky, depending on your point of view. knows much more than a typical pilgrim, well travelled. Townsfolk often say that the pilgrim can help with what ails you, but to not speak too loudly about it. (this character will probably need more GM talk, because of their secret, but might potentially be interesting)
[hider=TEOSC] Nation Name/Flag: Treaty on Exploration and Operation in Superluminal Contexts In accordance with Consensus of Covenants (can be abbreviated TEOSC, TEOSCOC, or TEOSCACC) this is a rough translation of an alien phrase
Map Location: (Post your claim on the starmap.)
Government Type: Long story short an Astrocratic Republic aided by a mystery cult. At the upper levels of government The highest government official has a title that might be translated as âConsulâ the consul is often multiple people at once. Below the consul are an Executive Branch. A judicial branch, and a legislative branch which together decide and act on TEOSC goals. Below each of these branches is a Council of representatives. Below the consul is another few councils of representatives, the most notable of which are the Embassy Program, which handles integration of new civilizations into TEOSC and the Ominous âItineraryâ or âOrder of Prophetsâ as its sometimes called, which is a group of Techno-psionic mystics who work as Liasons between hyperspace and ârealâ space, along with precursor technology. The Itinerary has a huge sway on policy within the TEOSC and all FTL capable structures are required to have one or more agents of the itinerary overseeing operation. Individual planets within TEOSC space operate as city-states, but enjoy protection and favorable trade agreements, but with some oversight to prevent âgross violations of sentient rightsâ
Demographics: Chiroform: Founding race of TEOSC, Eusocial low gravity bird-bat-moth like creatures. Homeworld in ruins, often cybernetically and genetically modified. Yesod: a machine race, while the Chiroformics are the founders of TEOSC, the modern day industrial and infrastructural base of Yesod made it what it is today Proteans: Shapeshifters whos civilization became experts with gravitic technology, known for their religious beliefs regarding black holes. (one of which serves as a holy site) Celestials: The Celestials origins are largely shrouded in mystery, claim to descend from humanity (and generally believe this) The Celestials have a long history of STL spaceflight, and relativistic travel. The federation considered the Celestials barbarians Crusaders: The Crusaders are believed to have been the creation of a malignant Federation AI, while clearly of human descent, the creators were turned into twisted super-soldiers who fought against the barbarians, ,early Teosc, and during the civil war, other federation polities. During the civil war Teosc rooted out and destroyed the commanding AIs âliberatingâ the crusaders. Most crusaders these days either isolate themselves in small communities, form charities, or serve as mercenaries. Armezoa: a âbarbarianâ species, fought against the federation and the Crusaders, and alongside the early Teosc. The Armezoa are often described as âliving war machinesâ while they fought relentlessly against the Federation, they have since become more peaceful, believing ânot getting into unnecessary conflictsâ is a form of threat neutralization, an enemy destroyed by never being an enemy in the first place. Many other âbarbariansâ live alongside the Armezoa. Lindwurms: snake like creatures from a high gravity scytherian world, they have very high g-tolerance, while they were not spacefaring when first contact occurred, they have since then become notable space travellers Hadalic: crablike deep sea aliens, early members of TEOSC, originating in the same system as the Chiroformics. Wizard: Anomalous Plantlike lifeforms, powerful psionicists, but difficult to integrate into society
Military:
Treaty Authorized Interstellar Peacekeeper Assembly (TAIPA, the Assembly is not believed to be in the original name, Celestial translators said that âit sounded betterâ): act as interstellar peacekeepers, settling disputes within TEOSC space. They also are used for guarding important infrastructure. Most ships of TAIPA fleets are designed to handle a lot of different kinds of missions. Composition is not strictly military, and contains diplomats, negotiators, beurocrats and other professions. Attached to TAIPA are the âBreach Corpsâ which are used for combat within starships, spacestations, and megastructures. They also have the âDrop Corpsâ which specialize in planetside fighting, however, such conflicts are often left to other military groups
The expeditionary forces area of operation is newly colonized worlds and unexplored space, âFirst Inâ its among the most collaborative of the militaries, with presence of every client species within, often using ships designed using a mix of different species technologies. Ships are often multipurpose and designed for long journeys, plenty of fuel, food, and other resources. They often have the largest crews, needing individuals of a variety of specialties. Often have large civilian logistics fleets travelling alongside them. This armed force has several specialized planetary operation units that are adapted to alien environments.
all other military forces within TEOSC space are designed with more than combat in mind, with civilian applications, the Reckoning force however has one purpose: Warfare. The ships are designed with roles in mind, unlike the generalist direction of the other branches ships reckoning force vessels tend to be heavily armed with powerful engines, sometimes powerful enough that only a crew of automated systems, crusaders, armezoa, or Lindworms can survive the intense g-force (as for TEOSC inertial dampers are still the realm of scifi and theoretical physics). They have sub-branches for infantry, boarding. And even naval and air. Reckoning force has numerous levels of engagement, depending on the context they are deployed. âWarningâ âTacticalâ âEngagementâ âApocalypticâ and âQuietusâ as the engagement level raises, the options the Reckoning force has are increased, eventually suspending all laws of conflict. The reckoning force has so far, only been used in the conflict with the Crusaders, and was key to their eventual victory.
Legacy military forces of client races, that they built before joining. All major races of TEOSC have an auxiliary force, with the largest being that of the âCelestial Starmadaâ unfortunately, Starmada ships have difficulty navigating hyperspace and fargates, often requiring transport by a larger ship, which is expensive as Starmada ships are already quite tall/long. The Protean auxiliary force is also highly powerful, but relies on being in the same system as a black hole in order to properly function.
the military arm of the Itinerary, heavily involved in covert ops, assassination, sabotage, subversion. Along with enforcing laws relating to misuse of technology. If you make a mistake and do it on accident, you get by with a warning and a stern talking to, if you purposefully attempt to use public ftl resources in order to achieve âforbidden flightsâ the gatekeepers are not required to respect your sentient rights. However, the most important job of the gatekeepers is protection of FTL technology, and where acquired, hyperdrives. Psionics is a secondary concern they deal with, however, they are far more lenient with most psionic crimes. (though they might turn you over to the local authorities).
Each system is suggested to raise, with help from TAOSC resources a system defense force to deal with local security problems and, under numerous space treaties over the years, the responsibility to respond to emergencies, either military or civil. they often have multi-purpose patrol ships with multiple missions they can do, from repairing damaged starships, to asteroid redirection, to blowing up ships that do illegal maneuvers and refuse to attempt to change course. one of the less lethal weapons sometimes used by system defense forces are "redirection missiles" which clamp onto illegally moving ships and forcibly alter their course without resorting to destruction. System defense forces have juristiction over one star system (with some special multi-system juristictions existing within the Almagest cluster) and they are often semi-independent, but they have to have special licenses and approval of operations from TAOSC. system defense guards are fairly diverse, with Foundation guards being almost unrecognizable as military (and they tend to loath combat) Starmata also have highly divergent system defense forces, due to their already strong martial tradition.
A step down from the system defense guards are the Orbital defense guards, which have juristiction over a planet or moons orbit, dealing with local threats, landing and launch clearance, customs inspections and the like, they also are often in charge of cleaning up trash that can cause hazards to orbiting vessels. Orbital defense guards like system guards vary quite a lot in different parts of TEOSC controlled space. the requirements to form an orbital defense guard are less strict than that of a system defense guard. they are generally taking orders from both the System defense guard, and the planetary administration, usually it works out ok...usually.
As long as it falls within the guidelines of the Teosc, the planets within Teosc space are allowed to build their own planetary militias, multiple if they like. these might not see a lot of action unless politics on the world is particularily spicy, but in those cases TAIPA will probably want a word with you about the crisis.
small militaries of various kinds are allowed for situations besides those covered by other militaries, these must register with both the local system defense force and TEOSC, in some situations, these requirements can be wavered with authorization of one of the interstellar armed forces. various kinds of licenses exist for military contractors, stating what kind of operations they are authorized to run. The TEOSC believes diversity is important, so there are hundreds of potential licenses, and its not too difficult to get multiple licenses. Interstellar bureaucracy however can be hellish, especially if you are not in a system with an FTL gate.
History: The areas now controlled by Teosc were, during the time of the Federation, within a hyperspace deadzone, difficult to get through for races which relied on FTL, meaning none of the native species discovered FTL travel until the Chiroformics discovered ruins of a past civilization along with the designs for âFTL gatesâ which are large space stations function something like federation hyperspace relays. However travel through them was much slower, akin to a federation hyperdrive in travel times. The Itinerary was formed from newly emerging psionics who believed that if improperly used, FTL technology could have extreme consequences, they were also the ones who figured out how to operate FTL gates. Within the ruins they also found what was preventing hyperspace travel within their sector, a form of hyperspace quarantine which they managed to shutdown.
Teosc spread to the stars, using leverage as the only FTL species in the sector to encourage other civilizations to agree to its terms, with a lot of freedom given to individual worlds, and with the Itinerary helping guide newly emerging psychics of those species Integration went fairly smoothly.
In the early days of Teosc, the beginnings of the Federation/Barbarian war began, with a malignant Federation AI sending an invasion force that wrecked the homeworld of the Chiroformics. The Armezoa barbarians, enemies of the federation, joined forces with Teosc to attack the federation. While the federation eventually âwonâ the war, Teosc had established itself as an independent government.
As the empire fell to bickering, infighting and infrastructural decay Teosc entered a golden age, building up their infrastructure, integrating more species. The FTL gates, while more expensive than the standard hyperdrives of other species, were able to better withstand the storms that plagued the galaxy.
Now with the fall of the Federation, Teosc turns its eyes coreward.
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