TehAlphaGamer

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

Listening Array Aboard PNS Emergence
The explosion was picked up along with shreds of audio. Surveyor Captain Rilsh Karkin'dum couldn't tell much of it besides the mention of "Sylve". Upon the realization that the organization may be up to its older antics, he sent the report to SCNOSE High Command. The 5th Quadrant Sazkarjhia Assault Division Task Force has been mobilized to Lakfakalle to investigate wreckage from the attack.

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

Four days later and my app never got accepted? D:

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

I've resolved to making Sylve an NPC Faction, Sazkarjhia I decided to bring back up again as it's muc more developed.

Original player app
Name of Nation: Sazkarjhia
Summary of events after thread was moved: Sazkarjhia would take a backseat to intergalactic politics for some time. Supreme Commander Barasmus Lano'dum passed away after a long extended life, and Grand Vessel Fakeem Suar'kum married and began to raise a daughter, Marna, to become the next Grand Vessel. The original Peoples' Army commander, Doman Felasi'hum was instated as the Supreme Commander and development also grew within the military. The Mark I "Maelstrom" Gravity Well was perfected as both a defensive and anti-planetary weapon. The economy was once again opened up to other nations, but the trading of weapons technology was once again kept from them. The military and fleet grew in size and the naval fleets swelled. Overall, Sazkarjhia flourished and prepared to enter into a changing universe once again. However, the emerging threat of Sylve has prompted them to step up on military security, including thing such as ship escorts and checkpoints. Listening posts were established all around to monitor the activity of the pirate faction, as well as to collect intelligence on possibly hostile forces.

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

TO: CAPTAIN JARGALO'YUM, SYLVE ILLICIT SUBSTANCE DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR
FROM: STRATEGIC ANALYSIS STATION KA49190105812934 (ENCRYPT) STATIONED AT REDACTED
SUBJECT: ABH CARGO RAID REPORT
DETAILS:
Mission flow ground to a halt when units realized that the Abh freighters that were besieged were not carrying spices like we thought. Reports from scanning ships indicated that it was livestock and seeds, which were being carried most likely to an Abh colony. Situation intensified when freighters and the Sylve raiding party entered Lakfakalle's orbit. At the sudden, communication with Team Kappa was lost, and upon examination most of the freighter group was destroyed. The violence of the explosion and the later detection of radioactive material determined that someone, most likely one of our own soldiers, used a small nuclear detonator to preserve the encryption of Sylve. As per the Arkin Protocol, all data was purged and the ships were self-destructed, escape shuttles entered hyperspace roughly thirty-nine hours ago and are to return to REDACTED Station soon.
MISSION STATUS: Failure. Regroup at REDACTED Station to debrief.

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

Space

The soldier laughed, his cackle filled with both disbelief and malice. "Is it, now? Our scanning equipment detected spices, not a bunch of useless livestock and seeds."

His twisted grin contorted into a sneer and his brow furrowed. A blazing fire burned in his glossy black Sazkarjhian eyes. His thumb wrapped around and stuck through the circular pin, motioning to pull it out. "Then, that also means..." he started, "It's not a valuable asset, and thus not a valuable loss."

He chuckled. "So what if you'll sic some ships on us? Sylve is everywhere! Systems all around the universe have been dominated by our economic control. And once this detonator sets off, it'll send a signal to all those aboard our ships to abandon and purge all data. So, yes, even if you were able to reach our ships, they'd be completely destroyed and untraceable. So we blow up this miserable pile of scrap and the animals you have on board it. So you have a loss for the frozen wasteland you try to settle. It won't be worth it."

He jerked his hand and removed the pin, a counter inside of the device began a crescendo beeping.

"Count your prayers, fool."

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

Lakfakalle Freighter

The marine chuckled, pulling out the earbud and spitting at the feet of one of the marines.

"You dumbass, we speak English perfectly well. But I believe you underestimate who we are." he chided as he pulled out a small, metallic slip and tossed it at the soldiers. It was emblazoned with a peculiar symbol; a circular object with a sword going through one end and a frond of a certain plant forming an "X", with a spear in the middle. Text in a foreign language was also engraved onto it.

"We're members of the Sylve Faction, the elite druglords and pirates of this sector. We couldn't help but take notice of your...interesting shipment, and figured that we'd take a personal look at it ourselves. We've fought forces scores larger than yours, who stand before us."

He pulled out a small device, about the size of a human fist with a small safety lever, pin and a yellow symbol, a universally-identified symbol that told the device was radioactive.

"This is a Mark III Personal Nuclear Detonator. We recovered it a few weeks ago when we were scavenging the wreck of a few ships. Now, I want you to consider closely what you're doing, and how if you even think of pulling that trigger, how your precious little cargo ship, and maybe a few others, will be completely obliterated."

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

Space

A Sylve Manumar, the Repentance maneuvered towards the convoy of six freighters, outbound from Lakfakalle. It and a few other ships moved around to the side, making sure their reflective armor was raised to bounce off radio signals. A small pod was jettisoned from Repentance and affixed itself to an airlock on the freighter. Nose-tipped charges detonated, creating a hole which the pod quickly sealed. Sylve marines hopped on and made headway towards the bridge.

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

Sylve Command Station, Rigel System

Space. It was something of such beauty, but also a cold and heartless void. SCS Alpha 3 drifted lazily around the star Rigel as reports were coming in from around the galactic sector, monitoring for the next freighter convoy to strike. Captain Switch stood at his office, looking out the window at the endless expanse of stars, with Sylve patrol fighters zipping past. He took a sip of tea from his desk and sat back down, observing his terminal. Suddenly, a document window popped open with a frenetic beeping and flashing light. He clicked on it and scrutinized the report.

DELTA III LISTENING POST DETECTS PASSING CONVOY.
ORIGIN: UNKNOWN, POSSIBLY SAZKARJHIT, MOST LIKELY AIF.
CONTENTS: IDENTIFIERS STATE THE CONTAINMENT OF FOREIGN SPICES OF HIGH VALUE.
VIABILITY OF STRIKE: VIABLE

The pirate captain smiled to himself. He had gotten on the comm and ordered the Delta III assault squadron to move in.

"Assault at least two of the freighters and take what you can on board. If anyone tries to attack you place nuclear detonators and clear the area. Once area's clear...hehehe...return to the me before we can put it on the market. Now GO!"

He almost lost control at the end. He checked himself and deactivated the comm, reaching under his desk for medicine. He took two capsules and threw them into his mouth and swallowed them. He sometimes reminisced how odd it was that they made him a leader so fast. His intense bipolar disorder often made others worry that he would make a tactical mistake. But alas, he held to it. He looked at Delta III's scanners and observed the vessels moving into the kill. He cackled slightly, reclining into his chair and taking another sip of tea.

Void of the Stars II: Return to the Stars [Sci-Fi] [Always Accepting]

As I said before, letting Sazkarjhia take a backseat so I can work on teh piratez.

Normal App

Name of nation: Sylve Faction (Pronounced "Silvuh")

Species: Sazkarjhian

Description of government:

Sort of a militaristic organization lead by a senior captain of the group. What this captain says goes, and disagreeing with his commands often end rather...deadly. The current head of the government for the Sylve Faction is Captain Yarkonis "Switch" Jargalo'yum, given the nickname due to his bipolar disorder and tendencies to switch decisions on the fly. Criminal activity is, as one can surmise, extremely common with Sylve as many government and peace groups, such as the Sazkarjhia Unity Foundation, have labeled them as a pirate organization. Among the list of atrocities they commit lies activities such as piracy (The attacking and robbery of ships, stations and so on), extortion, murder, possession of illicit substances, possession of military-grade weaponry, distribution of illicit substances, production of illicit substances, trafficking of several sorts, and arson to name a few. Despite this, there is a powerful respect for rank and authority as inflicted by Captain Switch and the extreme consequences of breaking his laws.

Description of military:

Branches aren't really specific, although there are two distinctive land/air-based units, the Krysol Unit for on-ground escapades and the air-based Torkan Unit, and the more prominent space-faring units include the Sylve Privateer Squadron, the Dilnox Stealth Squadron and the Serpentis Smuggling Squadron. The Krysol Unit has different military units in deployment:

Grunt: Basic footsoldiers, expendable and disposable.
Field Commanders: The most fearless, and most feared, units on the battlefield. With lizardlike mounts, each one has armor covering them along with an energy-absorbent cape that is able to bring charge to a high-powered lance. This lance can both be used as a melee weapon and a ranged weapon--with a sharp lower blade and an energy projector capable of firing high-temperature bolts.
Most other units and technologies are either hired as mercenaries or are stolen technology, and go as they come along.

The Torkan Unit, similarly, uses stolen units or technology. They are known to have a high number of Sazkarjhit HV-6 Sparrowhawk VTOLs in their possession, however.

The three space squadrons all contain stolen ships, everything from outfitted freighters to nuclear-armed warships. The Sylve faction was successful in using these technologies to develop the predecessor to the Mark 1 "Maelstrom" Gravity Well, as well as the Extremely-High Lumen Defensive Countermeasure System (EHLDC, known more commonly as the "Flash Pod") which was capable of severely damaging ship viewscreens. They are known for using suckerpunching and sneaking tactics to launch surprise offensives and go to extremes with the likes of suicide bombing and similar atrocities to achieve whichever mission they need to. The only one not heavily armed is the Smuggling Squadron, which deals mostly with the smuggling of illicit substances and weapons.

History:

The earliest known history dates back to the violent 10,000 B.C.E. religious civil war on Sazkar Major known as the Ten Year's Bloodshed. Most of the atheist or pagan sympathizers left, and one man, Balkania Salotis'tum had gotten into the business of the drug trade with several other sympathizers once most of the deserters turned to piracy. He developed the logic that ecopolitical warfare could be launched by controlling the trade of a certain narcotic that was secretly traded known as Kyls Root to one of the interstellar nations between the Barsadas and Kaltin systems. By completely dominating the trade, he was able to completely take over a planet, recruiting them to build a military force. He continued to grow and grow until the Sylve Faction became a dominant space-faring tour-de-force across the galaxy. Then, suddenly everything fell apart. Sylve's grasp on the drug trade faltered and many either left or were beginning to be killed off. A deadly plague spread through Sylve, and it took long before a cure was developed. It saved the remaining members, but it would be a long time before order was restored. Then Switch came along.

The edgy Yarkonis Jargalo'yum was at first under heavy watch because it was believed he had an advanced form of psychosis. Bipolar Disorder is an extremely rare case among Sazkarjhians so many did not understand his powerful mood swings. Jumping from a manic and cheery man to a pure embodiment of rage and disdain seemed to make others thing his emotions were only two settings: Extreme happiness and stone-cold anger, likened to a switch, hence his nickname. But his intelligence and his tact was beyond many left of Sylve. He was quickly instated as a leader, and his "absorb as many as you can into Sylve and regain the dominance it once had" dogma spread quickly. The faction swelled in size, and was soon able to regain control of the drug trade. After being able to secure spacecraft with the Translight Space Corporations warp engine, spreading business expenditures across the universe became a matter of ease.

Other (Culture and the like):

A (un)surprisingly common sport among Sylve members is using different creatures from different worlds in a variant of bug or cockfighting known as many different names. A common betting sport among the faction. Being mostly aboard stations and ships due to their nomadic tendencies, there's little else to do. The Sylve faction has no dominant religion, but most do hold some variant of faith, while some are diehard atheists, Captain Switch being among these few. Also, given their smuggling habits they often are under the influence, everything from relaxants to narcotics to hallucinogens so powerful that a trip can last anywhere from a few hours to several days. But structure is still maintained because any drugs taken while on duty sentence the user to death by firing squad or jettison into the black, heartless abyss of space. They try to intertwine with other cultures, but given the pirate nature they're often rejected by others. This is especially the case with the Sazkarjhit, who not only universally revile the Sylve but also immediately fire upon them if identified if members of the faction.

Sorry if this post sucks a donkey's scrotum, it's really late at night :/

Void of the Stars: A sci-Fi Nation Roleplay

I think for the sequel I'm going to let Sazkarjhia take a back seat, more specifically because I want to shed light on the pirates and I think I'm going to create a faction of them.