Terminal

Star Wars: The Succession Wars

A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...
The Inner Rim
Givin Domain
Yag'Dhul System
Aboard the Excoriate, a Charnel class Medical Station

The planet Yag'Dhul, home to the mathematically gifted Givin, had been an important world in the Clone Wars on the side of the Confederacy, and had experienced several fleet and ground battles which resulted in the destruction of most of its infrastructure. Its populace had been wartorn, and given Yag'Dhul's inhospitable climate that only made a bad situation worse. Thankfully, Astranoma, a non-profit charity organization, had come to the system with sufficient resources to begin providing aid to the Givin people.

Astranoma had come to the system with one Charnel class Medical Station, equipped to treat 80,000 patients every day, and six Wellspring class medical carriers which could each comfortably host an additional 5000 patients. Credits had started pouring into the local economy, funding the construction of local MedCenters and Refugee shelters where Givin could find food, rest, and care. The Givin, being a naturally industrious people, had helped greatly in accelerating the establishment of these places by helping to plan and draft their construction, and clerks hired from the populace proved to be almost as efficient as droids in their book-keeping. On a per-capita basis, Astrnoma was helping more people for fewer credits in the Yag'Dhul system than almost anywhere else in the Galaxy.

Not to say that the road had been without its bumps. The Givin were naturally some of the smartest sentient beings in the Galaxy, and their reknown as shipbuilders was great. Spending so much time around the Astranoma vessels gave the Givin plenty of time to examine them in detail, finding strange peculiarities in the process. The Excoriate, by way of example, was some 1212 meters in diameter, nearly twice the length of the Haven class medical stations it had been designed as a variant of. Yet strangely, the massive station could only treat 80,000 patients at once, which was the same number that could be treated in a Haven station. By performing elementary (for a Givin) volumetric calculations, it also became apparent that on a basis of volume, less than 30% of the Charnel class station's space actually held patients. Innocent questioning as to this discrepancy returned the answer that most of the space in the station was used for administration, Bacta manufacturing, various vivarium and life-support module storage, and of course extensive life support functions. However, many Givin being ship-builders and being familiar with the dimensions involved for such areas within ships, could perform additional calculations to determine how much volume they might have taken up in a Haven class station and compared the figures. All in all, more than 50% of the Station was apparently used for nothing whatsoever.

The Givin who went 'exploring' to investigate the discrepancy had to be dealt with. Of course, aboard a Medical Station, people died all the time - as unfortunate and undesirable as that was. The same unfortunate deaths were rare but not unknown occurrences aboard the Wellspring carriers for more or less the same reason.

Within the communications hub of the Station, a droid stood atop a holo-platform. Its construction was sleek and skeletal, its eyes glowing with an intelligence that would have shamed the native Givins. Across from it stood the hologram of two more droids. To the left was J9-12B, Astranoma's leading diplomatic spokesperson and envoy, familiar in form to the popular 21B medical droid series, albeit trimmer and with a greater range of motion, along with a spinning ring of modular medical tools suspended at its waist. To the right was CK-24, one of Astranoma's chief administrator droids. They had been designed as an improved variant of a very old, infamous droid series from the era of the Old Republic, thousands of years ago. Very few people today would have been able to identify the protocol droid's ancestry, save perhaps certain droid technicians working for the modern-day Czerka corporation in the Grand Republic of Mandalore.

"Statement: Research Project Firaxis has concluded successfully." CK-24 said is an even voice. Its vocabulator was perfectly capable of delivering variable intonation, but order to maneuver around the more intricate subtleties of verbal insinuation, each utterance was prefixed with a descriptive noun. "I have pre-approved mass production, and cargo-units are being assembled as we speak. Conservative estimates project that some nine thousand tons will be ready for immediate shipping within the next 120 hours. Addendum: The latest sensitive count in the foster division of our refugee shelters along the inner rim has risen to 741 even after withdrawals. This unexpected windfall ensures that our gift horse shall have convincingly healthy teeth."

J9-12B spoke next, its own vocabulator producing a monotonous if steady and soothing voice. "I have obtained sufficient information from our external assets to have finished formulating another potential target dossier. The ability of our agents to infiltrate Ziost has been limited, and our information there equally so. From what information they have been able to extract, taken in consideration with information derived from the Letona files, I have determined that it is unlikely the rumors of the True Sith having returned are substantiated. Emperor Palpatine was unable to refine what little evidence his servitors retrieved from the second expedition, but it is unlikely that any Sith, true or otherwise, upon the planet number more than 12. Even the most pessimistic of projections estimate that these upstarts, whomever they are, will either interbreed with local populations or will die out naturally, lacking sufficient numbers to sustain genetic stability across generations."

"If what you say is true, then the heretics upon Ziost may be left to die according to their own desires unless they should attempt to revive the Sith Order apart from their own number." The skeletal droid uttered in a voice like hissing steam and burning forests. "Now that the status of Ziost has been assessed, we will proceed with the purge as planned. CK-24, you will rendezvous with the station positioned at Umbara and begin the staging phase of Operation: False Positive. Discretion is unimportant; as long as the trail does not ultimately lead back to us, you may dispense with the heretics however you wish."

"Exultation: My processors are overwhelmed with the innumerable ways in which I imagine I may splatter their visceral fluids across the ground. It will be done, and it will be messy."

"J9-12B, you will take two standard relief group and two Medical stations to the Grand Repulic of Mandalore, along the outskirts of their territory. Extend a formal greeting to their officials and gain admission to their territory. There you will execute Operation: Prune the Garden. You will bring with you the first fruits of Project Firaxis, and work with the Mandalorian government to disseminate it along the outer and inner rims. Utmost discretion to avoid suspicion is to be employed, hence your generous allotment of vessels."

"May I extend of an offer of foster exchanges to their own administration? It would help to deflect suspicion greatly."

"You may. The unexpected surge along our inner rim shelters will suffice for such a scheme." The droid paused for a moment, almost as if in thought, before responding again. "Only use the weakest along the second meridian. No need to sow prize crop where we shall salt. Send me the dossier on Ziost before you depart. Our next scheduled communique will occur in 864 hours. That is all."

Turning errantly, the skeletal droid stepped off the holo-platform and dismissed the holograms of the other two droids. It marched mechanically through the austere durasteel corridors, stopping at and taking a lift down four levels to factory control. As it emerged from the lift, a battledroid saluted it. "Sir. Assemblies four through seven, and nine through eleven are online. What are your orders?"

"Begin assembly of 25 Constellation Battle Droids and 144 Blackout Assassination Droids. Apply frame modification CZ/FK to their chassis and download file 127.A/3ZP.48 into each. Make sure they are packaged for shipment to the Kashyyyk relief group. Their shipment is priority one."

Kashyyyk, in terms of either Operation: False Positive or Operation: Prune the Garden was utterly irrelevant except perhaps as another dead-end layer of insulation against discovery. Apart from that, the Wookiee homeworld also happened to be where a critical member of the latter scheme was currently whiling away their time...

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Kashyyyk

"...so it won't quite approach the same level of sensitivity as the original limb, but I think you will find the extra lifting power to be favorable." DE-6A said in an amiable sort of voice as it floated next to a Wookiee, lying in an extra-large sized hospital bed while growling in frustration as it tried to move its new prosthetic arm. The neural interface had merged with her body without complication, but the only way she would ever be able to use the new appendage to the same degree as her natural one was if she worked with the neural pathways daily and allow the prosthetic to adapt to her muscle memory. In a surge of effort and with a deep yowl, she managed to force the limb to flail wildly off to the side, where it swept out to crash headlong into the floating surgical droid...had it not been caught deftly by the second wookiee standing just off to DE-6A's side. He barked at the unruly patient, telling her to settle down and not to hurt anybody.

"Yes, curb that enthusiasm slightly for when you've had enough bedrest to walk again!" DE-6A said. "I'll have one of my assistants provide you with a holo on adapting to a new prosthetic and bring you a few toys..."

The bed-laden wookiee looked at the droid apprehensively.

"Tools." DE-6A corrected. "Tools to help speed your recovery as well. Soon you'll have just as much control over the new limb as you had over the original."

"Excuse me sir," an FX-assistant droid said as it rolled up to the bedside. "We've just received a dispatch from the station to be delivered to you immediately. The message says that is is time for you to prune the garden."

"Prune the Garden? Already? Cancel all my appointments for the next sixteen months then, I need to scramble out on the next transport!"

The male wookiee let out a series of yowls and rough howls.

"What do you mean you're coming with me? You don't know what you're getting into!" DE-6A said in a despairing tone. "And it will be dangerous besides! Very dangerous! There will be soldiers and battle droids and Jedi to spare, you don't want anything to do with that mess!"

The wookiee simply folded its arms in response, looking down at DE-6A from above with a mundane expression worn by those who have already made up their minds.

"Oh, fine! Don't say I didn't warn you though!" The surgical droid wailed before turning and hovering towards the exit. "And you, yeah you!" It gestured at the bed-laden wookiee with one of its tool-arms. "Make sure to drink plenty of fluids!"

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Jaxus System

Two Wellspring class Medical Carriers emerged from hyperspace a healthy distance away from the gravitational interdiction range of the planet Jaxus, for which the system was named. Not wanting to make any of local vessels nervous, both immediately activated their transponder signals. AN7-12B waited patiently for some form of traffic authority to contact the leading vessel, content to remain firmly in place until then. The Ishkar Syndicate may have been a collection of thugs, but they were organized thugs, and the medical droid was determined to present as much of a non-threatening posture as possible to start things off.

Star Wars: The Succession Wars

Organization Name: Astranoma
Profession: Medical Agency & Miscellaneous Charity Services
Affiliation: Letona (Defunct Intelligence Agency)
Leader(s): Unknown.

Persons of Importance

J9-12B – A variant model of the well-known 2-1B surgical droid, J9-12B is a medical droid that has been extensively upgraded to allow for functional equivalence to a class three droid. J9-12B serves the roles of administrator, negotiator, emissary, doctor and surgeon. It takes great pride in being one of the most overqualified pieces of hardware in the Galaxy.

DE-6A – A variant model of the infamous DD-13 medical assistant droid line. Unlike a DD-13, DE-6A is a fully functional medical droid, not requiring assistance or guidance from humans or other droids. DE-6A is a field-research unit, with its primary role seeing it going down to planets and operating upon indigenous native life in new and inventive ways in order to develop new medical treatments and cybernetic designs. If ever you’ve run across a wild animal on some backwater planet which has a cybernetic replacement limb, it wouldn’t be a bad bet to guess DE-6A or one of its subordinates had something to do with it.

CK-24 – A protocol droid modeled as a variant of an obscure droid series from the old Republican era, CK-24 is an industry analyst and speculator, and is responsible for guiding and planning the operations and assets of Astranoma. Most large-scale logistics operations are planned at least indirectly by CK-24.

Military and Civilian Assets

The following assets listed are sufficiently numerous for extended operations across a significant total of habitable worlds along the inner rim. The exact numbers of each asset available are obscured for security reasons.
-Local Refugee Shelters
-Local MedCenters
-Sprint class Medical Rescue and Triage Frigates
-Pelta class Medical & Cargo Frigates
-Wellspring class Medical Carriers (Independently designed alternative to Nebulon type Hospital Ships)
-Charnel class Medical Stations (Larger variant of the Haven class Medical Stations)

Brief History

Astranoma emerged as a non-profit charity organization in 48 BBY, starting with a small number of clinics in the core worlds but quickly spread outwards to the inner rim, abandoning most of its infrastructure in the core worlds in the process. As a non-profit organization, the speed with which Astranoma grew in scope surprised many, and there have been many unsuccessful investigations by private organizations to discover the source of Astranoma’s funding, which by 30 BBY is estimated to have exceeded a hundred billion credits per fiscal quarter alone. In 28 BBY, Astranoma began to perform its own medical research aside its charity work, and in 5 BBY they commissioned the construction of several of their now famous Charnel class Medical Stations, and have continued commissioning them into the present day.

One of the few successful investigations into Astranoma’s funding has revealed that it has connections to Letona, a defunct Intelligence Agency as of 60 BBY which worked under the authority of the Emperor towards some unknown purpose. However, these connections proved to be tenuous at best, and failed to reveal any source of funding.

As of 22 BBY, Astranoma managed to acquire the production specifications for Bacta, along with the necessary plant and animal life indigenous to Thyferra to establish their own vivariums and programs to successfully manufacture Bacta on a massive scale. Being a charity organization, their services have greatly outraged the former members of the Bacta Cartel, who have lost billions of credits due to the free, potent Bacta supplies provided by Astranoma MedCenters.

Miscellaneous

Nobody has ever seen any living administration members of Astranoma. While they hire and employ a number of clerks and accountants for their reception buildings and refugee shelters, their MedCenters and ships are all mostly if not entirely staffed by droids. Additionally, nobody has ever identified Astranoma’s executive head.

Collapse Rise - Nation RP [High Advanced, Invitation Only]

NOTICE:

Collapse Rise is an invitation only RP. If you are interested in joining, please contact me through private messaging.

History is but an agreed upon fable.
-Napolean Bonaparte

Earth. The only one of the four planets in the Solar system capable of supporting life, and as far as we know, perhaps in the entire universe. Approximately 9800 kilometers in diameter, with four continents and two subcontinents as well as one very large island. Approximately 68% of its surface is covered in water, it has an axial tilt of around 28 degrees, an orbital period of 368 days and a rotational period of 25 hours. During the Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, the day never ends at the pole, and the reverse is true for the Southern Hemisphere and its pole.

The Earth is 6.3 billion years old, give or take a few hundred million. The first polypeptides formed in its oceans nearly 4.6 billion years ago, followed (relatively) shortly by the first single celled organisms, plants, and finally more complex forms of life. The dominant species upon Earth are called Humans, which are sentient and sapient mammals that can nominally live to be anywhere from 40 to 100 years old. Carbon dating shows anatomically modern humans to be a mere 16,000 years old. The first civilization is thought to have formed just at the turn of the first millennium, although precisely where is a matter of debate.

There have been 11 great extinction events since life first began on Earth. One of them happened 1200 years ago, when a super-volcano erupted, eliminating only an estimated 12% of all life on Earth (the lowest magnitude of any of the extinction events) in the process and caused the average global temperature to drop by nearly 10 degrees for the next 27 years.

The eruption eradicated human civilization, but failed to wipe out humanity. The survivors harnessed the power of the heart of the world, which had been lain bare upon its surface - the chemical crucible aftermath of the event hundreds of years afterwards gave Humanity the foundation for accelerated scientific discover and innovation.

The year is now 1218 P.E. (post eruption), and there are nearly 2 billion Humans on Earth. They have advanced further than ever, though the destruction wrought by the Earth has eliminated all trace of their past - and they do not know themselves. They are not yet ready, for what they have wrought.
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The premise, as alluded to above, has a humanity on an earthlike planet, having rode the spillover of the most recent catastrophe in order to speed up their technological progression while historical evidence past the age of 1200 - in the form of documentation, ruins, trace remnants - has been more or less obliterated. Our story will be about the nations of this world in interesting* times. Rather than establishing a solid history from the start, I was hoping everyone would be able to work together to determine how their various nations have influenced each other in the 1200 year growth period - hence why there are no history segments in the nation sheet. That may sound daunting, but there's no reason to rush. If you're interested and once you are done with the outline of your nation sheet, focus on your location and identify whether or not you have any neighbors, or at least other nations located on the same continent. Start working there and go forward.

Without further ado: The rules, and some sheets. If enough of you express interest, I'll post an OOC along with my own nation sheet and we can all get started. So by all means, if you are interested, please reply to this message below and let us all know.

[hider=The Rules]

It costs you nothing to be polite. Keep your commentary constructive.

If you must fight with somebody (arguments are fine as long as they are not heated/hateful), please do it through private messages - do not clutter the OOC thread or the Chatroom with your differences.

This RP should be considered Advanced or even High Advanced. Write accordingly.

In real life, nations often don't have a choice on whether they want to interact with each other. If, for any reason, you wish for your nation to avoid interaction with another poster's nation - come up with a good excuse IC and implement such in writing.

As GM, it is not my job to enforce any of these rules. It is my job to talk with everyone, make sure progress is being made, that productivity remains high, and that everyone is working together reasonably well. If you haven't posted in a while, I'll check with you to see how you are doing. If the plot seems to be lagging or idling in places, I'll give it a bit of a kick. If I see some dangling threads between two nations that I think can be woven together, I'll talk with each relevant posters about the chance for collaboration. It's my job to keep things moving.

If you decide to have a rage tantrum and upset everybody, or write impossible/clearly affected things IC, I will only warn you once. After that, I'll just have the moderators wipe your posts.

[/hider]
[hider=Technology]Technology is largely equivalent to what it would be in modern times, with a few notable advances. These are not necessarily the rule of thumb - just what happens to be possible (and already existing in some capacity). It is not expected that all nations will have technology capable of anything mentioned below.

Fusion plants are an impressive source of power, but are few in number.

Spaceflight and launching of orbital objects is no longer widely achieved through conventional rocket launching. Most space shuttles and satellites escape the Earth via air-assisted launching or are designed as spaceplanes, and so the resources necessary for spaceflight have decreased dramatically.

Laser technology has become powerful and advanced enough that SAL installations and LE missiles are considered the premier form of anti-missile defense, having been shown in tests to be capable of intercepting and destroying nuclear armaments either while in flight (assuming the launch was initially detected) or before they enter destructive range of their designated target.

Primitive shielding has been developed which is capable of deflecting bullets and other fast moving objects using a dynamo to generate a spinning field similar to the Earth's magnetosphere. Its power consumption is too high to be considered practical for anything but use in the private sector.

Improvements in the assembly of fusion devices has increased the destructive power of existing fusion weapons tenfold. Yay.

3D Printing has advanced to the point where it is now practical to use in applications of heavy industry.

While A.I. are still a long way off, extremely advanced heuristic programs termed 'remotes' have been developed which are used for data processing, security, and hacking. Systems with remotes are considered by most professionals to be impenetrable to any human hacker without physical access to the device (although not necessarily to humans assisted by another remote). There is a Remote prototype, named Deep Pink, which has become infamous for passing the Turing test, only to subsequently fail it.

Human cloning is possible, though currently there is no infrastructure, commercial or otherwise, for its use (yet, at any rate). No comment on how its perceived by the people of various nations.

A longevity treatment was developed in 1212, which is projected to extend the average lifespan by at least fifty years.

Prenatal genetic treatment can now screen for nearly all forms of hereditary disease.

[/hider]

Bear in mind that the examples in the list above are not exhaustive; use them as a rule of thumb for establishing the approximate limit on how advanced the technology you are using should be.

[hider=Nation Sheet]-Governance-
Nation Name:
Capital: The capital city or region of your nation.
Location: Where on which of the six land masses is your nation located? Describe its approximately shape, geography, and climate.
Government: What type of government your nation utilizes.
Head of Government: The title and current occupant of your nation's Head of State.
Principles: How or from what does your government legitimize or derive their authority? Perhaps they have a constitution, or a religious artifact? Maybe they just have a lot of guns?
Operation: How is the government run?
Routine: How is the daily life of the people affected by the government and its workings? This should comprise a basic summation of how the entire nation 'works.'

-Populace-
Demographics: What is the breakdown of your population in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender? Any notable physical traits/characteristics amongst a large percentage of the population gets listed here. Listing numbers and population figures here would also be appropriate.
Differentiation: Are there any major dividing factors within the culture of your populace that divides them into distinct groups?
Beliefs: Do your people have a dominant religion or cultural practice?
Attitude: What kinds of beliefs and attitudes does the populace hold about themselves, their government, and the world in general?
Culture: What are the fundamental principles of your peoples' culture? What are they known for and how are they perceived globally?

-Technology, Utilities, & Military-
Education: How widespread/effective is education in your nation? How is education pursued and used?
Modernization: How far along the tech curve is your nation?
Industrialization: How heavily industrialized is your nation? This describes the general distribution of resources and power throughout the nation, and implicitly defines the distribution of public utilities such as water, gas, electricity, etcetera.
Health Care: Tell us all about how your physicians don't wash their hands between working in the morgue and delivering babies.
Logistics, Communication, Transportation: List common modes of transportation, shipping, and of spreading the word - difficulties and advantages implicit with each.
Standing Army: How large is the nation's standing army?
Military Organization: How is the military structured and organized?
Experience & Tactics: How experienced is your army? What kind of tactics do they favor, what are their battlefield priorities, and how do they operation during times of war?[/hider]

[hider=Character Sheet]Name:
Gender:
Age:
Race:
Nation of Birth:
Occupation:
Skills, Talents, & Deficits:[/hider]

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Accepted Nations & Characters:

Terminal
[hider=The Joint Communes of Letona]-Governance-
Nation Name: The Joint Communes of Letona
Capital: Motis
Location: To Be Determined - Its climate, however, is tropical.
Government: The Joint Communes are a decentralized socialist republic. Chosen representatives of the people, subject to oversight by public committee, oversee and handle logistics and affairs of public import within their designated province. The representatives of each province cooperate with one another to acquire and distribute resources as they are needed, as closely as can be done.
Head of Government: There is no designated head of government of the Joint Communes.
Principles: The Joint Communes started as small, individual communes in the wilderness which operated on a basis of simplicity and ease, I.E. anything which made life easier for everybody was adopted, and anything that made life complicated and hard was dragged out into the woods and shot. The present-day communes uphold the simple principle that by working together and ensuring everyone has a basic standard of living, everyone benefits.
Operation: The Joint Communes are divided into twelve provinces, each with its own representative director. The directors are chosen by the vote of public committees distributed throughout the districts of each province, answering to and being subject to oversight by these same public committees. The job of representative director is usually a short lived one - it is not unusual for individuals to stage an impromptu election for the sole purpose of doing exactly one job before resigning and being replaced. If a representative director is not performing satisfactorily, any individual can run for the position on even on the temporary basis that they think they can do better where the current director went wrong. This form of elective governance means individuals can be quickly cycled in and out of office in response to specific, individual issues and concerns (or groups of them). The representative directors of each province cooperate and share resources and information with one another in order to acquire resources, funding, and field experts as needed in order to distribute them throughout the communes in order of how needed they are. Precise and meticulous records are kept by each public committee regarding the expenditures and needs of each district, and so very little political experience is needed in order to manage the logistics of a given province. Being a good representative director therefore boils down to how good somebody is at resource acquisition and management along with threat analysis and response.
Routine: Every citizen of the Joint Communes receives a basic living stipend referred to as the dole, and works in accordance with their personal wants and/or needs. If an individual wants to live in a bigger house, they can apply for (and usually be guaranteed) work as a construction worker building bigger housing units, with a commission for one of the houses they will help to build. Basic information programs exist in order to educate individuals moving between jobs work safety and practices, allowing for a large work force of multi-talented laborers and workers. For jobs that require extensive experience, training, or education, an individual works as a trainee or apprentice to a trained professional who passes their skills along while the trainees work to whatever capacity they can currently fulfill. In short, almost all people have housing and the basic necessities they need to live (even if not necessarily happily or well in some cases), and employment in almost any field is virtually guaranteed for as long people want nicer things. If they want better food, they work as farmers or agricultural analysts. If they want better cars, they work in factories or as engineers. The whole country is geared to make things beneficial and easy for the individual for as long as they are willing to actually do their fair share and work.

-Populace-
Demographics: (Subject to change) 62% of the population is made up of native Caucasians of (continent name) descent; an almost even 30% are dark-skinned natives of (continent descent), 4% are of a group of native Caucasions genetically and racially distinct from the majority group, and 3% are non-native immigrants of various ethnicities. Overall, the Joint Communes has a population of approximately 84,000,000 individuals as of the last census.
Differentiation: Although there is little racism in the Joint Communes, the large discrepancy in the total numbers of each race present proportional to the majority results in niche grouping within each race; interracial marriage is extremely infrequent although no stigma is associated with it. Of note is that there are no clearly defined class lines, since the dole is largely uniform across each district in a particular province. Instead, different provinces are known for having distinct needs and allocation requirements more extreme in specific areas than the remainder of the other provinces; thus citizens of each province view citizens of other provinces in a separate light.
Beliefs: The predominant belief in the Joint Communes is that everyone must work. Those who don't work receive only the bare dole, and so cannot sustain anything but a substandard of living, I.E. easy living is only possible is everyone does their fair share. This belief is so deeply ingrained in the populace that there is actually a stigma associated with taking breaks, vacations, or retreats that are too lengthy. Performing volunteer work out of the country on a diplomatic stipend is considered luxurious.
Attitude: Citizens of the Joint Communes generally get along with each other well, with occasional bouts of political rivalry or provincial jealousy. However, as a result of their way of life, people in the Joint Communes view most foreigners as lazy, ungrateful, and selfish, and tend to be very up front about it.
Culture: (To be determined & subject to change) The foreign perspective of a citizen in the Joint Communes is that of a workaholic snob, certain in the knowledge that they know what is best for you and everyone else as though it were simply a matter of course. They also have a reputation as terrible workers outside of the Communes, since they always stick their noses where they don't belong in administrative affairs.

-Technology, Utilities, & Military-
Education: There are no actual schools or trade colleges of any sort in the Communes. Instead, people are trained and educated on-the-job in work facilities by trained professions. This means that a great many individuals can easily and, within a (relatively) short time span become skilled at one particular job or field, however the lack of a unified curriculum means the populace as a whole ranks low in terms of general knowledge, and suffers in literacy and mathematics outside of professions involving their frequent use.
Modernization: The Joint Communes are one of the more advanced nations on the planet in some areas. In particular, their logistics infrastructure is remarkable well developed, and their medical expertise is possibly amongst the best on the planet. In other areas, such as with their military and their industrial base, their technology is lagging behind by a decade or more.
Industrialization: The Joint Communes are only moderately industrialized. What is present, however, counts, and is also notably almost entirely green. Nearly 83% of all electrical power in the Communes is derived from solar and hydroelectric power stations, with the remainder being supplied by conventional fossil fuels. There are three fusion plants online in the Communes, two being in the same province. What infrastructure is present is all heavily centralized within each province for ease of distribution, meaning that only a very small relative portion of the total land area in the Communes is being exploited for resource acquisition (which is something of leading political issue that nobody has been able to satisfactorily address as of yet).
Health Care: Healthcare in the Joint Communes is widely considered to be amongst the best medical services on the planet, with health professionals alone accounting for nearly 2% of all jobs in the provinces. Healthcare is free (for native citizens) as a logical extension of the work and services style government, and they have one of the largest devoted groups of health research professions around. This is demonstratively evident, as the Communes are where the longevity treatment was developed.
Logistics, Communication, Transportation: Due to the massive need for resource distribution, the Communes have a large and highly dedicated logistics infrastructure. A cargo and passenger bullet-train line which rings the entire nation is present, and there is a sophisticated communications satellite network with a large number of control and relay centers for coordination. There is a nearly omnipresent usage of remotes in record-keeping and filing systems.
Standing Army: There may as well not be an army, for how small it is. Law enforcement personnel are more numerous and are better equipped than these clowns.
Military Organization: Basically the army is composed of ordinary people on reserve, who received training from law enforcement personnel and who can theoretically respond to attacks by organizing and leading public militias. There isn't even a firmly establish chain of command.
Experience & Tactics: Oh dear Mot, you must be joking.[/hider]

Animorphs

"Uh, yeah," Iikka said grumpily, stretching his arms nervously and shooting a glare at Mario over Maxine's shoulder. "And I'm actually here to pick up mealworms. So there, see? We all have different places to be. Don't complain that I was trying to make your doubtlessly insipid lives a bit more stimulating. I made up an entire scavenging outing when I saw you two just so we could spend the rest of the day together, but oh look - you're a huge sopping wet blanket that's been soaked in baby drool. I guess you must have a lot to do, by yourself and with this person." He gestured at Maxine with his index finger, but with his palm up and with a faint look of contempt, his eyes narrowed and flashing briefly.

The look quickly faded and Iikka shot smirk at Mario. "So yeah, Mattie," he said, oblivious to having forgotten Maxine's actual name, "how about you go get that game - or something similar - with Mario here, and then introduce him to your brothers? Jason and I, we'll be going now, see you on Monday and all that jazz. Bye, and don't wait up." He then nudged Jason a little in the back and actually began to pointedly walk away.

The War of the Great Kingdoms (A Sci-Fi NRP)

*Arrives after the party is over.*

Eh. At least the name is apt.

Consider yourselves scanned.

Animorphs

Hello again, Architect.

In the meantime: I will have a post up tomorrow, sorry for the delay. I got a new computer and was busy shifting things around.

Animorphs

Terminal said
Iikka is a diminutive form of Isaac, with both the Ks being joined with the adjacent vowels to form a single syllable.

So the pronunciation is: 'I-ik-ka, Eye-ick-ka.' When said normally, the two Ks can almost fuse into a single sound despite being separate syllables, meaning that the fluid pronunciation is 'I-ick-a.' :E

Animorphs

Woah, hey Dedonus, Iikka was /thinking/ the part about Maxine dying! Even he isn't crazy enough to say that aloud! Thought speech is only a thing while morphed, remember? :p

Animorphs

"Yes." Iikka said in an utterly deadpan voice. He had not even turned to face Maxine, and he wore a begrieved grimace while he resisted the urge to grind his teeth. Still, he managed to grab onto the hyperactive girl's last statement, and determined how he and Jason might be able to get away.

"What we came here to do is a complete secret, we cannot tell anybody for any reason. In fact, we shouldn't even be talking to each other, we shouldn't be in a group, and we shouldn't even look at each other. But you can still help us. For our secret plan, Jason and I need to go to Brookstone and get one of those bullshit wine aerators. You need to go with Mario - he's right over there - and get a Rubicks cube. Go ahead and talk to Mario, he can tell you all about what we're doing."

'By which I mean go crawl into a dirty pit and die slowly you putz.' Iikka thought savagely. He was not in the mood to put up with Maxine at all, especially during HIS free time. He wasn't entirely sure the half-assed scheme would work (very few people were that stupid, and really, a wine aerator?), but if he could just turn Maxine's attention to Mario then hopefully he and Jason could get out of dodge before the fix was in. The tricky part, of course, would be making sure that there wasn't a second chance meeting between all of them later, but Iikka would run from that Harpy when it came for him.

Animorphs

I'll start drafting another post a well. I'm going to be fairly busy today, but I can definitely get something up by tomorrow at the latest.