The year is 2240, The 200th anniversary of the Holy Britannian Empire's rebirth and growth. 200 years since the third and final world war that led the earth into a state of poverty.
The Then-United Kingdom took advantage of the fighting by waiting out the war, getting rid of the past problems of their countries and letting the rest of the world burn itself to the ground in their arrogance and avarice. When the fires of the war finally died out, the UK made their move, scavenging the remains of the former superpowers of the world and taking over what was left of the desolate world.
Declaring itself now the Holy Britannian Empire, they instilled a one-world government they would rule, but was quick to realize...there wasn't much left TO rule over thanks to the wars. There were colonies by now who placed themselves in terraformed versions of the planets of the solar system, of whom they signalled to help assist in the earth's reconstruction, but none came to their aid, abandoning their homeworld to suit themselves on their own worlds.
It was then that help came from another source from beyond their solar system. The Denari, a race of elvish humanoids from the other side of the galaxy, somehow managed to detect the drifting signal launched from the Earth and traced it back to the planet. Not used to the gravity of Earth, their ship does not make a pleasent landing, but the Denari inside were unscathed nonetheless, impressing the humans of Earth who witnessed this for themselves.
The Denari were a peaceful race and came to earth upon tracing the signal so as to offer assistance to the humans and help reform the state of the currently battle-scarred planet. In return, the humans assisted in fixing their vessel so that they may return to their own side of the galaxy in the process. Both sides met their parts of the bargain in kind, with the humans taking an exquisite interest in the ship's technology and the unique metals it was made from. Upon the successful repairs of the ship, the Denari, save for a few who decided to stay behind for one reason or another, left the earth to return to their own home. The humans in turn took the knowledge they learned from researching the Denari, and among other technological advancements across the board, created their own intergalactic vessels to use, far beyond the shuttles they use to make for such travels.
Traveling outside their Solar System for the first time, and using the Hyperdrive technology gained by combining the knowledge of Denari technology with their own, the first imperial fleet traveled across the Milky Way Galaxy to a more populated sector of the galaxy, filled not only with the Denari, but other alien races and respective advanced technologies. Most of these Alien life forms seemed non-hostile, friendly even in one way or another. However, it seems they were in the middle of a war against another singular race of alien life that was far more hostile and deadly to the rest of them. They appeared to be a warrior race known as the Karatai, a brutally savage species, but not unintelligent. They were driven by the ambition to dominate the planets of the system, and proceed beyond that into eventually the whole of the galaxy. What's worse, they had the technology and the strength to back up those ambitions.
But the humans of Earth had charisma, they may have been new to intergalactic battle, but their experience in wars and strategy led them to unite with the alien species and together push back and defeat the Karatai, making them retreat to their home sector within the galaxy.
The once separated planets and species of this vast area of space were now united together, merging their cultures and politics together with each other and the newcoming human race, making the Holy Britannia Empire go from the ruler of a single planet to what it is now: a Conglomerate ruler of entire sectors of planets. Ever growing as they expand even further than the 32 sectors they currently possessed.
These sectors of space, each controlled by a core solar system, were each named after the mighty knights of the round table from Earth's Arthurian Lore, From Arthur, the most luxurious and home to its Capital planet of Excalibur, to Mordred, the original solar system that the humans all came from.
For 200 years the empire expanded and prospered under the glory of its emperor and the harmony of its multiple races of people. But it was not without its problem; like any government on any planet, the empire suffered from numerous crimes and vices that created unrest for the people of the world, Rebel terrorists who act against the empire's rule, Alien races from unexplored sectors who refuse to give the of their planet away from them, often declaring war on the empire for that sake, and the ever-present threat that still existed and loomed over the empire's head, the Karatai. Still, the empire is made quick to counter these problems as they come, using galactic police and military fleets to weed them out.
...They will NOT be our focus, however. Rather, our story truly begins on the Prime planet of Lancelot, the industrial sector of the Empire.
The Lancelot Sector served as the main production line for the rest of the imperial government; all the goods, valuables and resources are produced and mined from its planets and traded by imperial privateers to be escorted to whatever planets are in need or willing to buy. Because of this, it is no stretch to say that this is the heart of the imperial economy, making it a vital sector for the empire, hence the name. Most items of public society are marked with the words "Made in Lancelot."
Also because of its importance in galactic economy and industry, this is also often a place where criminals often attack for one reason or another, and so has been made into a police state as a result, and said police are not big fans of the poverished poor. What's more, the planets are not exactly the cleanest thanks to the smog created from the factories of these worlds, and Lancelot Prime had the worst of it, the factories on it being more like cities for the middle-class than anything. It was something of a miracle that you could breathe in the dirty atmosphere and still be able to work around the clock to complete the quota of your work.
Ah, but its impressive amount of pollution and and industry is not why you came here. You are currently jobless, but you had no intention of working in a nightmare working space like Lancelot. Rather, you came here because you found a note somehow plastered on almost every planet's job listings, and for one reason or another, decided to take a look at it.
HELP WANTED! Able-bodied mercenaries, pilots, mechanical experts, culinary experts, and doctors
The imperially recognized Captain B. Morgan has requested the ready assistance of any and all able-bodied men and women aboard the 'Typhon' as Privateers working under the order of the Imperial Armada and senate.
You will be engaging in business transactions of the sometimes forceful kind, ranging from repossession of merchant equipment on loan from the government, and forging productive deals with other tycoons of the 'vibrant' kind, to missions involving extreme repossession which may or may not lead to the issuing of lethal force.
In addition, you may or may not be contracted by the imperial armada to find and capture all naysayers, aliens, and of course the Karatai to be tried for whatever crimes they shall commit in the name of terrorism.
Any wishing to be hired: Come to the Dark Matter Bar, located on Lancelot Prime's 8th city block.
Glory to the Empire, Praise to the Emperor.
It seemed like an official, legitimate job advertisement directly published from the government. However, you are able to spot something odd about the paper, particularly in its first paragraph. It's difficult to tell with some of the letters, but you could see that some of the letters appeared to be marked with a cut on the paper. Looking in order, the letters that are marked seemed to spell out a couple of words.
B U R N P A P E R
Burn Paper
The less experienced with the shady side of the empire may seem it odd, but may humor the orders given. The more experienced, however, would know this is about and so as told without delay. Either way, you light up the paper as asked, and as the words on it disappear and the paper is charred to a singed ebony, just before it crumble to ashes and scattered char, you notice a white chalk-like lines fade in from the fire, until they formed the outline of a certain symbol.
A symbol that meant two things: Death, and Defiance. A symbol representing poison, but more importantly, Piracy.
It is, in fact, a common ploy used by most criminal organizations; no smart person in any mafia or rebel faction would outright say they're hiring members in public. So they disguise their announcement to make it look like they're hiring people for normal, legal jobs, while hiding their true message with invisible ink. Not only effective for announcing their need for members and new goons while avoiding the attention of authorities, but also in erasing the evidence of the announcement ever being made by burning the posters to dust, often using that to their advantage in trials against them, especially if the one to burn them was a detective or officer who immediately went to the location in question and arrested them for it, as they themselves would be charged with destruction of evidence and the prosecutor's case would therefore become void. There was, of course, downsides and loopholes made to counteracts this idea, but it is still an effective one, given the effort made to conceal it.
Usually the outline in question is a symbol that depicts the emblem of a mafia, or the logo of a rebel faction, but the skull and crossbones in this case meant one thing: This "Privateering" job in question is actually a Pirate asking for crew members. You have no idea what kind of pirate is asking for you and others to join him, but the paper in question looked especially well-made, one would dare say it even looked official, had an imperial stamp and everything. Either he was a master of forgery, had a master forger at his side, or he had someone within the imperial courts who make these for him, need it be by deception or an inside man. Either way, this job with this particular pirate peaked your interest, and so you traveled over to the location provided on the now-annihilated paper to join up.
Which brings you to now. You arrived at the Dark Matter Bar, a typically rancid place befitting the rest of this planet's toxic atmosphere. Whether you go directly to it, or you get yourself a drink first, you look for, and eventually find both the Captain, sitting alone in the bar seemingly twirling a straw inside of a shot glass, and what you assume is the ship you are being hired to work in through a window right behind him.
...Neither were what you were expecting.
For starters, the Ship in question did not look like your standard ship for a space pirate...hell, it didn't even look like a spaceship at all. If there was a word to describe it would be one of two words:
True to its name though, it was certainly massive, looked less like a cruiser and more like a dreadnought in terms of size. But even so, it seemed...impossible to consider something that looked made of wood to be worthy of space travel, to which the captain responds to such worries by explaining that the exterior is merely a giant shell, and that the real ship, 'less impressive' as he says, was inside the shell, perfectly air-tight and ready for space-travel like any other ship.
The captain himself looked...Nothing like one would expect. One would imagine some old experienced veteran of wars who may have had all he could take of the government or society, or a 30-to-40-something pirate captain with a few battle scars, or at least someone who might be new to the whole piracy thing, but with enough of an intimidation to warrant the job or the ingenious method of recruitment.
Instead, he didn't look a day over 18, maybe 19 or 20 if you look hard enough, but still too young for someone of his position, with an odd choice of fashion to boot, looking about as out of time as the ship behind him. Not to mention his...odd personality, as one notices with his spinning of that staw in a shot glass, and his...eccentric way of talking.
Maybe it was his father, or maybe an older brother who was the captain who asked for crew members, and he was just sitting there to interview you as their representative? Nope. With a sense of honesty one might see in the eyes of the naive...or the criminally insane, he declares that ship outside his Typhon, and himself its captain, claiming that "B. Morgan" was a false name to hide his real one, and introducing himself truly as Arron Marshal Falcon. (Yes, "Captain Falcon".)
You may, or may not have the urge to immediately spin a 180, walk out of that bar, and back to however you got on this planet as fast as you can, if only to get as far away from this young, clearly mentally 'wrong' human as possible. However, whether you are still hanging around despite the facts of who your supposed employer is, or trying to leave, you are ultimately stopped by the robots "customers" blockading the exit, before Arron points out that that isn't a very good idea...
As you may have noticed by now, this bar was filled to the brim with androids, with Arron and yourself as seemingly the only life forms in here. There was a reason for this: Lancelot Prime's cities were also their factories where the workers of them all lived in. The bars here are more designed for afternoons and evenings when shifts are just ending for the day, but of course, late night drinks were not allowed so that the employees in question would not be rendered insufficient from a hangover. As such, a curfew was established for all life forms to either go to their homes and sleep, or to leave the planet and go somewhere else.
...That curfew has been in effect for more than 30 minutes to an hour now. It seems Arron somehow managed to hack the surveilance cameras and the androids, which explains their unusual behavior in blocking the exit, sneaking himself and his ship into the bar after hours and allowing you to land on the planet and get inside the bar undetected. However, he states that he can only fool the cameras on your way inside, and the moment you take a foot outside, you will be detected by them. The Imperial authority is always on the hunt for any suspicious activity in the wake of the ever-cancerous criminal underworld and the secret rebellions against the empire that seems to constantly be a thorn in its side as it has with many governments in the past.
As such, especially if you are an outsider to Lancelot Prime, they will immediately suspect that you are making some kind of shady deal with enemies of the empire-which isn't that far from the truth-and will attempt arrest you on the spot for curfew-breaking and conspiracy. You try to run and hide, they will pursue, or put a bounty on your head, a bigger one if you already have one. You try to explain to them what really went down and they won't believe you; nevermind the fact that you yourself burnt the only evidence of your testimony to ashes, this boy seems confident that he'll be able to get away without a trace. You must not forget that if he truly is the Captain as he claims, then he DID somehow get actual government-issued papers to get you here with and is currently remotely controlling the androids in the bar. Either he is more deceptive than he looks, or he has friends in high places.
As the Captain puts it: "A piece of legal paper, a right place at a right time, and the choice to follow these things, is all it takes to ruin lives. You likely came here knowing that, but all the same: ...Sorry bout that, mate."
It seemed there was indeed more to this boy than meets the eye, proving that he was, indeed, the very same person who called you here in the first place. Having your attention, he explains that he wants to give you a job offer. If you refuse, he states that he will try to find a way to smuggle you off without anyone noticing, difficult as it may be, further cementing this boy as your only way off this planet without problem. He only needs you to answer one question: "Why are you here?" or another way he'll put it: "What is it you wanted by joining this crew?" Before giving you a chance to answer however, Arron pulls the straw out from the Shot Glass, and seems to pushed its tip on your forehead. Apparently, as he explains, the straw will serve as a lie detector for him as he seems to stare into the other hole; yet another possible sign of this boy's insanity. However, he seems very serious about that straw because if you lie to him about your answer, he seems to know it, and when you give him an honest answer, he takes the straw off and returns it to his shot glass. However, no matter what your answer is, no matter how good-natured or dark it may be, it seems Arron does not mind, and continues on with explaining his situation.
With no need to beat around the bush, he explains outright that his has a crew of several men and women currently on his ship, and originally had a few more that served as important lynchpins to the whole thing. However, those important members, for reasons he doesn't seem to wish to discuss, are now gone from the ship's crew, save for himself and someone else, and the Pirates all suffered because of it. Should you call out the oddity of this situation by asking why he can't just let THEM do these jobs, he simply says they "aren't capable" of doing these tasks, and that you'll understand when you actually see them. Should you question how your ship managed to get in that docking bay if he needed pilots, he explains he has experience as a pilot, but just barely got it here thanks to engine trouble and a lack of fuel, and would frankly prefer letting someone else take the wheel.
Any other questions regarding this situation he decided to hold off on answering, as they were pressed on time. He states this one-on-one style interview is something he is doing for all people who came to this place like you, all with the same explanation of how things are right now, all with the same question, all with the same choice of joining or refusal. You already answered the question he asked you, and so says you are welcome aboard his ship, need it be to join its crew or to be smuggled to a safer place. Your ship, or whatever you used to get here but needed to keep outside, has already been taken to the ship and placed in its docking bay.
Finally, with this information in mind, he concludes your personal interview by a promise: Join his crew, and whatever it is you want, by the honor of the black flag (whatever the hell that's suppose to mean) he will make sure you get. ...Starting with a merchant ship that he arranged to leave Lancelot Prime very soon with plenty of goods in hand. It seems Arron's key expertise is deception and manipulation, as he states that he 'advised' the merchant to leave at a set time, though he doesn't say the reason he gave said merchant. Whatever it was, it seems it made the merchant very intimidated to the point of paranoia, as Arron claims he's likely loading up some of his "merchandise" for practical use against criminals like them. Once the last potential member of his crew gets on board, The "real" interview begins for all the new members.
It seems the Captain has made this situation a quite literal make-or-break, about to backstab a paranoid merchant who just armed his ship, with a ship filled with newcomers, running on very little fuel and a damaged engine. They either pass this test, ...or they die.
"...A true pirate always strives to live on the edge." ~ Arron Falcon.
1. The GM's (and future Co-GMs') word is the word of god. We may not be perfect human beings, and as such, you have the right to appeal, but ultimately, if we decide to stand by our decision, then it is ultimately final.
2. No God-Modding: A no-brainer in a site like this, I'm sure. You may have become superhuman, but you are far from invulnerable in the wake of the challenges you will face. Likewise you are far from all-powerful, so no one-punch man-ing any situations.
One more thing before I move on: Time/Space powers are forbidden.
3. In the regard of Races. You are free to make your own race, or make a character from one of the currently available races. HOWEVER, if the Races are not listed as public domain, they are made by someone else already. You are, of course, free to make a character from one of their races, however, you must ask for permission by those creators first. Said creators who grant permission are responsible for giving important information about their created races to the players who wishes to make a character of them.
4. I'm making it a point that everyone who joins this RP is obligated to post at least once per week, myself included of course. I understand that there are cases where things happen unexpectedly, and if you explain in advance as to why you can't meet with this obligation, I will respect it...but that said, I'll likely poke you until you do get it done if you're late. ^^
5. You are free to make multiple characters if that is what you wish, and likewise, you are free to make characters outside this Pirate crew, provided at least one of your characters is said member of a crew.
6. Regarding confrontation of the OOC kind: We all want to have fun in RPs, but one or two people having a gripe with someone or something is always a possibility. Normally, GMs would say to take it outside via PMs. But after reading a heated arguement from a certain RP on a different site, it's occured to me that we are ultimately a community, and if there's an elephant in the room that must be discussed, we should do so as a community. Therefore, Personal issues with posts or people should still be "taken outside" as it were, but if you feel there's an issue that must be addressed that could be an issue for everyone here, discuss it with us. Either way, no flaming rages please.
7. This RP will ultimately be at a High-casual level. I don't expect absolute perfection, but I do expect a little more than a paragraph per post, good spelling/grammar, and decent levels of sentence structure.
8. D.S.G.S.: A signature rule I seem to always have in all of my RPs, it seems. The explanation for this rule is simple: "Causality", or to put it another way: "Do Shit, Get Shit". You are free to satiate your desire or fight and burn to your heart's content. But remember that all actions have consequences, be they good or terrible. You make wise decisions, such as retreating from a situation you know you can't win against (If you're able/in a position to, that is.), your characters will be fine. You make stupid or simply unwise decisions in your characters' lives, such as immediately charging head-first and guns ablazing to the capital of the world, wanting to kill off the King of the world immediately, and they will be punished accordingly. The consequences of your actions depends on the intensity of how wise/unwise the decision is. An effective strategy could put the enemy in disarray, a very bad move could prove disadvantageous, or even fatal for your character.
Ultimately though, as long as you follow your common sense, you'll be fine.
9. More rules may be added if it proves necessary.
10. Have fun! ^^
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Now then, a little info on the universe and the Empire itself.
FTL: The main FTL device in question is the Hyperdrive, the device designed for ships to cross through light-years via entering Hyperspace.
Shields: Shields are usually able to sustain projectiles of laser, low-to-medium grade plasma, and explosives. High-level plasma and heavy physical impacts along with excessive use of weaker weaponry diminishes the shields until the breaking point.
Weapons: All weapons are, in one way or another high grade. High-calibur rifles, laser, plasma, the works. Of course as time advance, even more advanced weaponry is possible to be made.
Robotics: The Robotics of the universe are about as advanced as one would think in a futuristic reality such as this.
Communications: Hyper-communication, or hyperdrive subspace communication.
Super materials: As the Empire expands, so too does the resources it gains from other planets. The ships created are usually considered to be classed by the quality of the materials its made from, even if that's not actually the case. Each material has its own strengths, but also weaknesses.
In addition to the traditional materials found on Earth and other similar planets, there are a few more materials, alien to earth, that has found common ground in the Empire:
Estevnium- Found and studied by doctor Frederica Estev. A metal that stays elastic until it's as thin as a graphene sheet (1 atom) in room temperature (10-40 degrees Celsius). When frozen below 0 it looses the elasticity and becomes brittle. And when heated over 50 it becomes a soup. It has proved to alloy well with stiffer metals to increase their overall ability to deform without scattering.
Loawium- A brittle metal with a melting point of 10,000, it's commonly called metallic Gem, as impurities make is shine as a rainbow.
Gohosium- An extremely strong and stiff metal, more than 10 times the strength of classic steel. For example a chain-link of finger size could hold almost 400 tonnes before breaking.
Mental powers?: Yes, Psychokinetic energies, telepathy, and other such psychic powers are a thing in this universe, and there are cybernetic enhancements designed specifically for the mind to further empower psychic energy.
Biotech?: Yes
AI?: Yes, advanced level AI to equalize to human levels of intellect and conscious thought.
Energy Storage?: Yes
Information Storage: Crystal processors, as well as quantum computing technology.
The 32 (and counting) systems of the Holy Britannian Empire is divided into 3 sections: An inner, middle and outer layer of star systems, arranged in a circular spiral motion and by doing so, making the whole of the empire look like a giant galaxy ironically akin to the Milky Way that the humans got out of to form this empire in the first place. Using Denarian technology and human improvisation, creating the "Extended Star Control System" (ESCS) and the "Planetary Control System" (PCS), any new systems that assimilate into the empire, every last planet, planetoid, and even the suns themselves, are moved from their original place in the universe, to one of these three layers according to how significant they can be to the empire as a whole.
The Inner layer consists of 14 star systems named after 14 of the more particularly popular of the Arthurian Knights of the Round Table. Each one has a set role given to it by imperial order based on the history, culture and significant achievements made by their denizens. Only the most useful and significant systems founded by the empire are placed here, and is considered the most grand of honor to be recognized.
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The 14 layers are as follow:
The King Arthur system, or simply the Arthur System for short, is the respectable crown jewel of the empire, serving as the capital from which all the governments of all the races come together to do their respective works. The Arthur System was originally renown as Karatai ruins, their former homes before the Denar came to live upon them after the Karatai left, sparking the war that eventually conceived the Empire itself.
Because of its importance to the whole of the Empire, serving as its center and heart, this system is infamous for being the most protected and well-guarded system in the entirety of the Empire, even sparking rumors that there are more soldiers and enforcers of law protecting the Arthur System than there are in the systems that supposedly bore them. This has effectively made this system - and its respective hypothetical invasion by others - infamous among Pirates and other forms of organized crime as the greatest of suicide missions.
As the legend is heard among criminals: "Arthur's sword's drenched in the blood of fools."
The 15 Planets of the Arthur system are either homes for the noble and government officials, or for use as administrations of the inner layer of the empire, serving as overseers of their respective systems and ensuring they are kept in line and doing their jobs. For this reason, unlike the other systems of the Empire, The names of each planet are given the name "Pendragon" following the name of the respective system they administrate. (For example, the administrative planet for Lancelot is "Lancelot Pendragon", Bors = "Bors Pendragon", and so on.) Gawain Pendragon in particular serves as the centerpiece of Imperial defense serving a role similar to the Pentagon of the United States.
The planet known as "Arthur Pendragon" serves as the Administrator of the middle and outer layers of the Empire, responsible for keeping the middle layer safe and keeping the outer layer in line, as well as for officially approving the placements of converted systems and keeping an eye on them. For this reason, it is known as a planet of Central Intelligence, where all records and government databases are stored.
Finally there is the 15th planet standing at the center of the system and with it the center of the Empire itself, the planet of "Excalibur". On this planet is where the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the government resides, and everything the effects the whole of the Empire itself is decided and done on this planet. The representatives of each and every race of the Empire, the noble houses, and of course the Emperor and his royal bloodline all reside and live upon this planet.
As a way to show the union of the races of the empire, one of the Emperors of old decreed to use the rather massive imperial palace as the center for all three branches of government to do their duties, all the while serving as the home for the Emperor and his family.
If the Arthur system was the brain, the core behind the Empire, then the Lancelot system is certainly the heart keeping the Empire alive.
The 25 planet system of Lancelot is completely and utterly laced with factories, farms, and mines of all kinds for the purpose of finding, creating, and producing the Materials, food, and industrial creations of the empire, and respectfully distributed across all of its systems. Anything you can think of buying comes from here, and if they are not made here, the ingredients and materials used to make them most certainly were.
Planets across the universe that are particularly rich with natural materials or high quality soil are often separated from their respected systems of planets and placed in Lancelot to be mined and used for the prosperity of the Empire. If those natural resources are used up completely, they are broken off the system to drift eternally through space while a new planet is found to take its place. Usually there is a delivery system in place to allow for quick travel across the Empire to give what's needed to whoever needs it immediately. However, most quality merchants often buy what they need directly from Lancelot wholesale, so that they may then easily and quickly sell those products across the galaxy and earn a profit.
Because industry in general is purpose of Lancelot, the entirety of each and every planet on it becomes giant factories, mines, or farms, entire cities are simply giant factories, and whatever isn't a factory is a farm or a mine, and all who live on these planets are workers. Day and night, the Lancelot Industry is without stop, working in perpetuity with shift workers living and breathing for their factories, mostly so that they may have their pay given to their families, most of which live in the middle layer. Imperial Holidays are just about the only times that these factories are ever allowed to take days off, and usually it's only because the sellers of their products have already done so.
Because of this 24 hour work system being fundamentally important for the whole of the Empire, the laws and its enforcement in this galaxy are incredibly strict with little to no tolerance for their flexibility. The general philosophy behind this is that the whole of Lancelot is a giant factory, a machine that produces anything and everything that is demanded by the imperial populous. A single loose or rusty cog is all it takes for whole machine to come to a sudden halt. That is when delays happen, which leads to economic problems and shortages on things, which leads to chaos. Not to mention that being the single industrial maker comes at the price of being the target for criminals such as pirates and thieves to steal directly from. For this reason, their laws and regulations have imperial martial backing, law enforcement and even soldiers are common to protect the workers the products, and ensure things are in working order. Curfews are common in most planets of this industry to ensure no one gets sick, hurt, or overdoes things and causes problems for the rest of the system.
That is not to say they are not completely unfair to their workers though. Each and every planet has bars and lounges designed for people who needs their rest and relaxation after a hard day's work after ending their respective shifts. In the unlikely event that workers are sick or hurt, or even die during their work, a group of reserve workers are on standby to temporarily or permanently take their places. This group is relatively small as they are usually yet another batch of workers that are paid for their service as reserve workers, but they are expected to be just as good as the ones that they are replacing and a decrease in quality between workers is not tolerated. Moreover, this group, along with other replacements should there be enough absences to run out of reserves, are selected via a government-backed draft.
Lancelot Pendragon of the Arthur System serves as the Department of Labor for the Empire. They are charged with overseeing the quality and consistency of the multiple industries of Lancelot, and the well-being of all of its many hard-working denizens. Every few months, health inspectors, usually Denars, are sent from Lancelot Pendragon to the Lancelot system to ensure the workers are doing fine and are given whatever they need to be healthy, the safety protocols of factories and mines are well intact, and that the overall quality of farms, such as the quality of the soil, the health of cattle and other such meat animals, how good the plant life and harvests are, and so on, are at their finest. If any factory, mine, or farm do not meet with the expectations placed on them, they will be forced to make changes to do so, or they may face a shutdown of their services. Additionally, any strike of workers are reported to them, and any complaints made by workers are sent to them. If they find these complaints as reasonable, they will force the respective employers to accommodate to their workers needs, and failure to do so will lead to their resignation and replacement of someone who will.
A patriot's heaven, and a Pirate's living hell. This is the most common way of summing up the militaristic Gawain system. Within this 16 planet system lies all of the imperial bases, weapon depots, boot camps, and military ship docks, capable of holding castle-class ships. If you ever dreamed of being a part of the Imperial Army, then being accepted into the Gawain system is essentially its realization. Millions upon millions of soldiers and counting are trained, and essentially live within this system before being dispersed to deal with either the problems of the empire, or in assisting in its perpetual expansion.
These 16 planets are used for the different divisions of the Military such as the Imperial Armada, the Army, the Marines, even some espionage operatives. Because of the fact that some would consider the Gawain system a suitable first target of attack for an invasion however, (Take out the military system and you essentially disarm the Empire at least in theory) Some of the planets have been transformed into planetary defensive arrays, sacrificing the atmosphere, ecosystem and oxygen level of a planet in order give it a mechanical core and a lot of big guns.
Gawain Pendragon serves as the Department of Defense, akin to a planetary version of a Pentagon. The leading men of the military reside there and are responsible for keeping the military in line and at the ready for any possible negative event that may come. If the Empire ever was in need of going to war, Gawain Pendragon would be the first place they'd need authorization from. All war prep and fallout activity occurs here, and here is where the economic strain of warfare is often discussed. All military strategies and meetings regarding the troops and weapons being bought and sold are also discussed here. Furthermore, any and all court marshals that are issued are done here, with the general serving as Judge, and the elite officers of the military serving as jury.
With ships being as popular to the Empire, if not more so, than vehicles in general were on Earth, the demand for more and more ships of the various classes and sizes required far more workers, factories, and materials than the Lancelot System would be able to handle. As such, the 50-planet Geraint system was crafted from the most mineral rich planets, moved to this system from other Serf systems as the imperial expansion progressed.
Geraint is focused solely on the development, production, and business practice of ships. If you want to buy or sell a ship, or make repairs or upgrades to your own ship, it's all done here in this system. Whenever a ship is utterly destroyed in the depths of space, or rendered unusable or stranded, "tow" ships are sent to find and take the ships back to Geraint, where they would be placed into a junkyard planet, taken apart and melted down so that the material would be used for new ships. One of the planets, Geraint 50, is actually an unstable volcanic planet, used as a giant ship incinerator for this very purpose, with the Geraint 40's serving as a Junkyard of sorts.
Because of the constant need for ships and their maintenance, Geraint sees a lot of activity and a LOT of money. But because they are essentially a giant factory of ships, they naturally have the single largest amount of ships in the whole of the empire in their system, and should they need to, all of its employees are trained with how to operate ships and are willing to use their merchandise to defend themselves. Combine that with their Governor carelessness of who comes in to do business with them, and all ships' ever-present need to be worked on for one reason or another, and Geraint becomes the low-hanging fruit no pirate or criminal would ever want to touch.
Geraint Pendragon serves as the Imperial Department of Transportation. It's responsible for overseeing the enormous quota of ships for the empire, sending out inspections to ensure every ship is of the best possible quality in terms of safety and usage, and responsible for keeping traffic from getting clustered. Any new design of ships, any new models or versions of older ships have to be shown and reviewed by Geraint Pendragon before proceeding to Mass Production. In addition, Geraint Pendragon keeps a record of all repairs and upgrades of individual ships, should the need arise in, say, a trial, to whip it out. All those looking to so much as Drive a sword, let alone any other larger class of ships, must come to Geraint Pendragon, or to any city or village that has a representative of Geraint Pendragon in them (And there's plenty.) to take a test to see how good they are at driving one, and effectively earn a license to do so. ...Don't worry, no boring written test is required, action speaks louder than words - written or otherwise - and it's far better to show what you've studied by doing the driving first hand.
This system of 15 planets originally belonged to the Kautada race as their natural home of planets. However when the Empire saw the potential of their intellectual abilities, realizing that they could be very useful to their own scientific endeavors, they granted them the privilege of the whole of their system becoming a part of the Inner Layer of the Empire, renaming it to Percival.
The Percival system of planets are wholly endeavored to the progress of science of just about every field imaginable. Biology, Technology, Physics, Chemistry, you name it, they have a department for it. Because of the fundamental importance that Percival has in the Empire, it is bar none one of the most financially backed system by the government. Provided they make a steady amount of progress for each of their fields, the money from the royal bank will keep flowing into the Percival system's coffers.
Their most distinguished field, however, the one most remember them for, is the field of Medical practice, surgery, and medicine in general. The Percival system is home to most of the largest and most skilled hospitals and doctors in the whole of the Empire. If you ever needed to get yourself patched up or had an emergency, you get sent to this system for your well-being. The Kuatada's code of ethics apply especially for this, and all doctors who are fortunate enough to have a job here most have a nearly perfect sense of bed-manners and practical skill. Malpractice of any kind will not be tolerated.
Not all things are well for this system however. Due to the Kautada's code of ethics, and their insistence on applying it every field of science they do, progress is still relatively slow despite the money. More extreme tests and experiments that would fundamentally help the Empire's well-being in the long-run, are forbidden and even considered as crimes that can very well put scientists in jail for violation. Because of this, the non-Kautada scientists often believe them to be too pacifistic and too "safe" for their own good. Rumors even circulate scientists purposely sabotaging and endangering the lives of Kuatada scientists, just to get rid of them so that they may do things their own way.
Percival Pendragon acts as the Department of Energy and Medicine for the Empire. They are the ones responsible for checking up and inspecting on the scientific progress of the system, as well as administrating the flow of pharmaceutical products, the status of Paramedics and ensuring they are doing their job properly, and are essentially the ochestrators of Intergalactic health insurance. While the actual Health insurance companies are on Lamorak and therefore outside Percival Pendragon's jurisdiction, they are responsible for making sure the prices for the procedures are adequate and are being covered. Furthermore, any trials regarding malpractice or scientific accidental fatalities are ultimately done here.
The best way to describe the system of Bors is that it is essentially a system-wide Shopping Mall.
All of the things that are created on the Lancelot system were made specifically to be sold in this 10-planet system of Bors. Anything you can think of that's legal to have, (and Illegal, if you know where to look.) they sell in this system.
Most of the planets in this system are not exactly the most reasonable places to live, most of them being either so technologically filled that there's no real ecosystem to be had or being essentially desert planets. Nevertheless, merchants often choose to live on these planets to be able to get their shops running through the day and night. In addition to being a center of merchandise and consumerism, most often use these planets, oddly enough, as a social and cultural melting pot, a community grounds in which society of the inner layer comes to hang out and discuss things with other people. As such it is always a very busy and crowded system regardless of time.
At the center of this place lies Bor Prime, where only the most wealthy and respectable merchants are allowed to sell merchandise within. In addition, only the wealthy and uncommon are allowed to come to this place to buy whatever they wish. This is because among the expensive things sold on this planet, one of its rumored hot products happens to be Weaponry, both for personal appliance and for ships. The major for this rumor is that the head of Bors Prime, and by extension the Governor of the Bors System, is a man known as "Sol", an Arms Dealer and the Head of Apollo Inc over at Lamorak System, a well-known Arms Manufacturer financially backed by the Gawain System. Because of Sol's uncaring attitude about who he gives his merchandise to, provided they have the cash to pay for it, He's often known and visited by pirates and mercenaries for weapon upgrades before a raid or mission.
Bors Pendragon serves as the Department of Commerce; it is responsible for administrating and inspecting the merchandise being sold in the system are following the legal guidelines and being sold at prices that are equal to its respective quality, the appliance of supply and demand taken into consideration. More often than not, they sneak in an inspector among a crowd of people to analyze the goods, services and the prices of both. Should they find someone whose prices are higher than it should be, they demand the prices be lowered, or risk their shop getting closed down. Those with prices that are lower than they should be best have a display to say that they're having a sale for whatever reason and make them temporary or shall be forced to up their prices to respect the quality of the items at hand. Any type of Black Market shops they find are not only immediately thrown out of business without warning, but the owners will be arrested for Smuggling and selling illegal products, which why even minor Black Market shops in the Bors System are purposely convoluted and difficult to find. Sol gave the Administration in Bors Pendragon a considerable portion of his company's shares and profits in exchange for ignoring him and letting him conduct his arms business in peace, even to Pirates and Mercenaries.
When you think of a grand city, a large metropolis where there are so many skyscrapers stretching to really be true to their name, and where there's so many people and traffic on the streets, the first thing that comes to mind in this universe should be the Lamorak system.
The 13 planets of the Lamorak system are, in fact, 13 planet-sized metropolises, grand cities like no other for the sole purpose of being office buildings, and the central core of mass media and entertainment. Theaters, opera houses, arcades, news outlets, fashion companies, you'd find it all here in this system. The Imperial News networks broadcast throughout the entire empire, often having channels that are bias for either pro or anti imperial rule, and has one for every race in the Empire. Of course, this place is also the home of some of the finest restaurants in the whole of the Empire where all the farm-raised food from Lancelot are used to their finest quality.
But standing at its core are the businesses and giant corporations that are responsible for keeping the economic flow of money circulating throughout the whole of the empire, and controls the goods and services provided in the other systems. The brands you see on everything, the brands that own the factories, farms and mines of Lancelot and the ships of Geraint are found here as their point of origin. At the heart of this capitalist system is the Imperial Bank, the single largest bank standing dead in the center of Lamorak Prime and owned by the system's Governor. Any lesser banks in this system and others, in some way, answers to them.
Because of how cut-throat the business industry is known to be, there have been multiple rumors of all the companies of the Lamorak system, the Lamorak system itself even, essentially being in a cold, silent civil war with each other. Every other day there's talk of corporate sabotage in one company, attempts at hostile takeover of another. Rumors have it that some companies hires criminals and mercenaries to cause trouble and damage the reputation of competing companies. While it may be specifically for different reasons, in the end they do this with the same goal in mind: To establish a Monopoly, and thereby have utter dominion over the economy.
Lamorak Pendragon serves as the Department of Treasury essentially meaning they're the ones responsible keeping the money flowing out, recording the status of imperial debts, and overall keeping the economy of the Empire stabilized. To this end, they are responsible for Imperial taxation and are especially harsh on these bigwig companies when it comes to these taxes; it's partly the reason why they're so desperate to one up each other as then they'd have enough income flowing to where taxation is no longer a problem to them.
Even in the future, there are lots of people with green thumbs and a care for nature. Although it no longer involves the need to keep a single planet alive for as long as possible by preserving its nature, there are still several in the Empire who demanded there be a place where the habitats of flora and fauna are respected. Combine that with the existence of the Denar, and that demand becomes requirement. Thus, some of the most exotic and nature-bound planets they find in the whole of the universe are declared untouchable by Imperial Law, moved into the inner layer to further ensure this, and established a system designed specifically for this purpose: The Pellinore System.
The 5 planets that make up this system makes it one of the smallest systems in the Inner layer, and possibly the whole of the Empire itself. Nevertheless, these five planets are fundamentally important for being entirely made of jungles, rain-forests, Deserts, Ice caps, and all around ecological habitats that are otherwise rejected from most planets in the Empire. Within the planets are creatures and predators found on earth and also alien ones from other planets across the stars, placed on a planet that matches their respective ecosystem Unlike most of the Inner layer, actually entering these planets for any reason other than an emergency landing of some kind is expressly forbidden. What little technology they've established on these planets is meant for the purpose of observation and assistant preservation of the animals and plant life on the planet.
Because it's expressly forbidden to live on these planets, the people keeping these system intact and the respective governor heading this operation instead live up on Space colonies that orbit these respective planets, letting the small bits of technology and the occasional nature expert be the only things actually on the planet that aren't animals or plants, as well as a few protectors for them. As some of these plants and animals are considered rare and exotic, both for their materials and ingredients for remedies or food, Poachers are an unfortunate inevitability and often come to try and steal away what they can to make a a quick buck out of them.
The Real observational authority resides on Pellinore Pendragon, the Department of Agriculture. While this planet also tends to get into Lancelot Pendragon's business regarding the Farming industry on some of the planets of the Lancelot System, their primary focus lies in the observation and administration of the Colonies around the Pellinore system, essentially making sure they are doing their job and that these planets are being perfectly reserved. To that end, they often bring inspectors every month or so to investigate both the colonies, and the planets themselves.
Of course, the Military aren't the only thing that Pirates often have to watch out for. To an extent their other major, and more common concern would be the Imperial Police, their main headquarters being the 9-planet system of Kay.
Much like Gawain, Kay is a system that pirates would never want to try and enter unless they have REALLY good reason to, like if there were police records they need to claim. As one would expect, the place is absolutely swarming with cops; there's never a second in Kay where their isn't a police ship flying around or within it like a bunch of bees in a hive. These aren't just any cops either, the Kay System is considered a promotion and an honor to be a part of as an officer of the law, and only allow the best beat cops and detectives from the Middle layer minor departments to make themselves at home there, making them supposedly a swarm of the best of the best. Imperial prosecutors, just as brutal and striving for victory as they are nowadays, also make live within these planets, often with their offices and homes under strict protection due to them often being in the cross-hairs of most criminal organizations.
Each planet of the Kay system acts as a separate department of police.
Kay Alpha is the Homicide department, dealing in murders of just about all kinds. Kay Beta is the neighbor and partner of Kay Alpha, serving as the Forensics and Morgue department often working together with the Detectives of Kay Alpha to further investigate the details of their murders. Kay Delta focuses on Arson, Epsilon on Traffic, Zeta on Theft, and Eta is the planet that serves as the Prosecutors office for the whole of the Empire.
One of the two to really look out for, however, is Kay Gamma, otherwise known as "Planet Touchable". Kay Gamma is the Vice department dealing with drugs, Mafias, and pirates. Detectives in this department investigates any and all crimes that are suspected of being tied to organized crime or involved drugs in some way, shape, or form. For said pirates and Mafias, these detectives are something of a wild card, for they are either corrupted and bribed, and therefore can be on their side, or they are so stubborn over their justice that they would attempt to make arrests regardless of how powerful or numerous the criminals. Those of the latter are particularly ruthless in their pursuit, never stopping until they destroy and capture as many criminal organization or die trying, making them a Pirate's most persistent enemies. Going to Kay Gamma for whatever reason is an all-or-nothing in and of itself because of this.
The Other planet to look out for is, of course, Kay Prime. Home to the governor of the Kay system, the Imperial Commissioner, the department in this planet is the Special-class of the police, the specialists and experts you call in for when things get too hairy for regular cops. SWAT, Bomb Squad, Anti-terrorism, Royal protection, they do it all; they're less like a police department and more like a Mercenary strictly working for the Imperial Government, and much like one they are usually some of the only cops in the system with permission to shoot-to-kill, regardless of circumstances. (Other cops are allowed to shoot to kill only in self-defense when their lives depend on it.)
Kay Pendragon serves as the Department of Justice, having an FBI-esque division of their own for particular cases where the other cops, even in the Special Division of Kay Prime, fail. It is responsible for ensuring the Kay system does its job as police officers properly, making sure there's no corruption in its activities or the activities of its prosecutors (as far as they can see anyways). This is also where the imperial courts are with retired commissioners coming here and acting as presiding judges. Whenever a person is captured, they are taken to Kay Pendragon to be tried and sentenced.
There are, of course, plenty of public schools within the Middle layer, and even a few in the Outer layer, albeit in a horrific state. But if you truly want the best education you can find throughout the grade schools and beyond, you come to the Gareth system.
The ten planet "System of Scholars" is designed for the sole purpose of gaining knowledge. To that end, each of the ten planets of this systems serves academic institutions in which one comes to learn everything there is to learn about stuff. The Basic Grade schools are here of course, although treated as more private schools than public especially since one has to get accepted into these schools by either scouting particularly gifted children or paying a rather large tuition fee. But in addition to that there are universities of just about any kind you can imagine from general education to specialization schools such as Medical and Law.
Because of this being treated like a kind of private school due to how significant the learning here is, the students are often highly disciplined, always having zero tolerance to bullying and shenanigans. If any of them went out of line, they would be detained and punished for their actions, then sent back to class often with a look of horror in their eyes. Still, those who were wanting to learn from these schools were not left behind, special/disabled needs and race-specific needs were always taken into consideration and respectfully given to help further their education. The students of these schools more often than not lived in school dormitories, especially those who came here from the middle layer of the Empire, and those somehow fortunate enough to make it here from the Outer Layer, those in particular being likely bullied to hell and back for being from systems of low-lives. Those of the inner layer however don't share that want to be in dormitories and often returns home, away from what they feel are commoners compared to themselves.
Gareth Prime is a special planet even here, for it not only serves as the office of the Dean, the governor of this system, but also serves as the imperial public library. Any and all books made across the empire, be they educational or fiction novels, are found here and can be read for free by anyone in the empire that's looking for knowledge or fantasy of any kind. The entire planet serves as a giant hub of information on the account that it contains books not just made from humans, but from Alori, Denar, and even a plethora of science books crafted by the Kautada of the Percival system. Of course no book in this planetary library is allowed to leave the planet without permission or recording of its absence. Some of these books contain some dangerous knowledge that could very well be used for malicious intent after all.
Gareth Pendragon serves as the Department of Education, and has a very daunting task compared to the others: Administrating not just the Gareth system of schools, but Schools across the whole of the Empire. Gareth Pendragon is responsible establishing their budgets, investigating their methods of educating the imperial youth, ensuring the needs of the students are met, including disabled accommodations, Racial needs, and food, and ensuring no bias or racism of any kind are being showed in how they learn. While they are suppose to put focus on schools in all three layers of the empire, they ignore the Outer layer schools outright, justifying it by saying that the middle and inner layer schools are hard enough to keep on track and that the Outer Layer schools are essentially a lost cause. It should be noted that it's rumored that, since Gareth Pendragon doesn't afford to waste money and therefore put a budget on the Outer Layer schools at all, that the Outer Layer schools often are forced to raise money for their school in other ways, sometimes even illegal ways if they're desperate enough.
If Lamorak System was the New York City of the Empire, then the 9 planet Bedivere system was undoubtedly its Las Vegas. If you have plenty of money to burn, or just addicted to the thrill of gambling, then you can't find a better place to spend it on then the enjoyment you'd find risking it all for even more at the Bedivere System.
The Bedivere System is all about gambling of just about every kind imaginable. From classic casino games of Blackjack, Roulette and slots to horse races and sports bets. Planets thrown into this system are those have vasts levels of valuable minerals such as gold hidden and mined within, and sold out the whole of the planet to massive casino conglomerate to build their gambling emporiums around. The rulers of the planet are paid handsomely and live in these places as wealthy VIP and owners of the Hotel aspects of their planets, while the rest of the denizens are either put to work in these casinos, put to work in the mines underneath them, or kicked out the planets entirely. Because of their mining operations beneath the surface and the vast amount of money spent by their customers for the fun of it, the Beldivere system is sometimes revered as the third wealthiest system in the Empire, just below Lamorak and Arthur.
Each planet is owned by particular founders of casino brands across the empire who uses these planets as their main attraction while making lesser casinos of their brand name appear in other systems, especially in the middle layer. Bedivere Prime in particular is owned and operated supposedly by a relative of the Royal House and the casino on it is specifically designed for most wealthy high-rollers. While the gambling areas of these casinos are the main attraction behind the Bedivere planets, they are also home to arcades for the younger rich kids, live entertainment, and some of the best foods and parties in the whole of the Empire. Their hotels are often some of the greatest taste of luxury one can find outside of Excalibur. Rooms of a beautiful white marble, velvet drapes, comfortable beds, Jacuzzi tubs, and has amazing views of the technicolor neon lights shining across the horizon merged with what's left of their planets' natural ecosystem.
However, the beauty and fun of these planets are merely skin-deep. It's no secret that in order to be planets of Bedivere, the rulers of said planets either completely sold out their planet and its people for cold hard cash, that or had "accidents" happen which allowed the buyer to conveniently take them over. The people were "coerced" into then working for the casinos, need it be as employees of the casinos and hotels themselves or as workers in the mines beneath them. While treated poorly and without a way to complain to the higher ups, the miners ARE paid for their troubles, effectively making the Bedivere system able to avoid Anti-slavery laws via a loophole. Moreover, because of the immense wealth that the system gathered, it is often an easy hot spot for Pirates and thieves to attempt to break into, the result of which being that the Casino security is tightened, are always on the lookout for cheaters, and will often punish cheaters severely if they are ever found.
Bedivere Pendragon serves as the specially made "Imperial Department of Economic Speculation". In exchange for making all the gambling and mining activities for Bedivere perfectly legal, the government established this planet's role purely for the purpose of observing and administrating all gambling activity in the Empire, and the economy based and flowing around it. To that end, they are responsible for ensuring that every casino and betting area has low percentages of financial victory, but still fair enough to where anyone can win if they have the luck for it. Of course the house has a tendency to rig games in their favor, that's partly how they get as rich as they are and keep their respective jobs stabilized, but rigging the games too much and never letting anyone win will only serve to make those customers avoid those casinos in the future eventually. Which is why if they detect games being rigged, they'll send out agents to investigate and should they prove right, will call them out and insist they stop doing so. Failure to cooperate may lead to that particular area of the casino to close down, or in the worst case, the whole casino to close down.
The Gaheris system of 66 planets serves as the Imperial Maximum Security Prison system for the whole of the Empire.
Each planet of the Gaheris system, each one as large as the Earth or bigger, serves as prison cell blocks. Every area of land above and below the surface is used as prison cells for the many criminals caught and confined across the whole of the Empire. With Prison Guards living on these planets and keeping watch on the prisoners 24/7 in quick-switch shifts, combined with the fact that the prisons encompass the entirety of planets and everything needed by them are airdropped from orbit as oppose to delivered and rocketed up to orbit as oppose to a ship delivering them, all of these facts makes these prison planets supposedly impossible to escape from.
The treatment of the prisoners of the Gaheris prison system varies depending on the planet, usually the ones closest to the governing planet of Gaheris Zero, the Warden's planet, is where the lighter sentenced prisoners are sent, and are treated with respect and humanely by the prison guards and warden. Gaheris 7 serves as a Mental Asylum as oppose to a prison, with doctors straight from Percival sent to do the best they can to remedy whatever corroded mentality brought them there.
The farther away from Gaheris Zero, however, the more heinous the crimes, the worst they are treated. The Emperors of old decreed that Prisoners who commits the worst of crimes do not deserve rights, and the prison should not be obligated to give rights to those who would violate the rights of others and steal their lives.
Gaheris 66 in particular is a dangerous planet, with a horrific atmosphere and largest security force keeping the prisoners from escaping. Here is where the worst offenders of the Empire goes, "The Devil's Motel" as its commonly called in the Criminal society. Those unfortunate enough to get sent here are those in solitary confinement, or death row, sometimes even getting tortured and beaten to death before their scheduled execution date because, hey, they're gonna die anyways, what's a few days too early gonna do? Serial Murderers, Particularly violent criminals, dead men walking, they're all brought here, supposedly for an early taste of the hell that awaits them upon their deaths. Recently, they even built a coliseum beneath the planet's surface just above its mantle, where they throw in troublesome inmates to torture and kill each other at the entertainment of the guards, the winners of which supposedly get their death penalties delayed by a year or so, though it's unknown if the guards ever do their end of the bargain.
Gaheris Pendragon serves as the Imperial Department of Corrections. It is responsible for ensuring and inspecting all the prisons, not so much for health but for sturdy and tight security, to ensure that none of the prisoners are capable of escaping their cells, let alone the prisons and planets. Should a Prisoner escape their cell, even if they are recaptured, the warden and guards near the escaped prisoner are held accountable by the administration of Gaheris Pendragon and punished for their failure. The planet is also responsible for scheduling and carrying out any specific sentences, such as the Death Penalty, and ensuring that they are completed on schedule like an assembly line of death and pain.
There are many races in the Empire, and like humans, they bring about many religions and ideas of how the universe was made in their own way. The 8 planet Galahad system is where they all come together to worship their respective religions. The only ones that were not accepted by the Galahad system are the incredibly violent and aggressive ones, such as worships for blood and war gods (Save the War God worships for Gawain), and the dark ones like the worshiping of demons and outright forces of evil.
On these planets, many temples, churches and mosques were constructed by the empire according to instruction given by each respective religion's leaders or highest priests and priestesses. The artifacts from the previous temples from their homes are then moved over to these new temples and to touch or even move them without consent of the religious superiors is declared an illegal activity outright. When the announcement is distributed about the completed construction, hundreds of thousands of followers flock to do their respective worshiping. The human religions are not the only ones that focuses on singular days as holy, and so the seven non-prime planets, Alpha through Eta, build temples and focuses on religions that have their holy days focus on each day of the week. (Sunday through Saturday respectively.)
Those who do not have a religion that focuses on particular days of the week are worshiped on the 8th Planet, Galahad Prime. In addition to those particular religions having temples for themselves, at the center of the planet is one grand temple, that serves as the Governor's, the Cardinal's, house hold of sorts. The Cardinal himself must be someone who has lived his entire life researching the Mass-theology of all religions in the Empire and have a firm understanding of each one. In this temple houses supposedly one of the greatest religious treasures in the ancient times of humans, the Holy Grail. Whether it is actually the real deal or just a chalice made of gold and jewelry is unknown...but it is a very valuable artifact regardless. This particular temple is open to the worship of anyone regardless of their religion, as it is said that this was made specifically as a relay of all gods, not just one, as contradictory as that is for some religions.
Speaking of contradictions, As religion is a specially opinionated sense of ideals wherein there is supposedly only one true religion and all others are falsehoods, and by extension, the worship of falsehoods are sins, it is only natural that a system designated to all religions would inevitably find itself in the midst of a mass civil/holy war between them. The Cardinal did consider this as well, and has established an army of Templar knights, not affiliated with any religion in particular and serving only the Cardinal, to serve as keepers of Galahad's peace. If ever a religious conflict is about to brew, it is the job of the Templar to break it up before people get hurt, and if someone kills in the name of their god, they are taken and tried for their actions within the Grand Temple of Galahad Prime, the only place where their service in the name of their God or Gods has the right to be questioned.
Galahad Pendragon does not serve as a Department per se, not in the same sense as other Pendragon planets in the Arthur System. Instead, Galahad Pendragon serves as the Holy See of the System, the multi-religious Vatican so to speak. Its job is to administrate the Galahad system and ensure that all religions therein are being treated equally and without bias. It is also there Galahad's highest authority, the Pope, presides. Whereas the Pope of Catholicism's job is to be the head of the religion and make law the word of god through his translation of it, the Pope of Galahad Pendragon's job, while more or less the same in concept, instead focuses on the laws of the Grand Temple of Galahad Prime. He and he alone decides what is blasphemous and sacred within those Golden halls, and his authority over the Templar Knights and the whole of the Galahad system trumps the Cardinal, the only one with higher authority being the Emperor himself.
There are plenty of names and titles the Tristan system has, and most of them aren't exactly flattering. The most well-known of these being "The most expensive bordello in the universe."
The best way to describe this system is taking Morgana Delta, and injecting a mix of steroids and aphrodisiacs and expanding it across a system of 12 planets. Prosti-errr-"escorts" from Morgana Delta and other such red light districts dream of being selected to work their magic here in this system, in a similar vain to how Actresses dream of making it big in Hollywood. On these planets rests all sorts of escorts across aliens, genders, and sexuality ready and willing to do with them what you wish, or have them do to you what you want them to, for the right price. Strip shows, kinks, massages, if you can afford it, it can be done.
Officially this system is known as a Gentleman's club, in which all manner of the rich and famous come to...relieve their tensions and stresses, and have themselves a good time, even if it means having affairs behind the backs of their spouses, anyone who is anyone comes here for their pleasures from the simply rich and noble, to generals and politicians. Rumors have it even some of the royal family comes here to have a good time. In exchange for working their magic here, these escorts find connections here with these people and may in fact be on their way to being rich and famous themselves as a result.
The system's business is headed by its Governor on Tristan Prime, a pimp calling himself Eros. Officially, unlike the governors of the other systems, Eros isn't exactly an imperial officer of the government nor a politician. Instead he is more akin to a Lamorak business man in how he conducts his boardello operations, only allowed to make his business as large as it is because he gives special deals to the government workers and gives most of his shares directly to the Planet Excalibur itself as tribute. To this end, Tristan Prime, and by extension some of his very best workers, are reserved specially for the Royal House and the Nobles of Planet Excalibur.
The Imperial Government found the whole situation odd at first, but felt that as a system, even if it has a role that is unorthodox, it still needed a Pendragon planet that oversaw its operations, and by extensions similar operations like it. Thus Tristan Pendragon was made as the newly-created "Department of Legal Fornication". Its main role is to observe the proceedings of sexual activities in the Tristan System and ensure that the Escorts are being treated with care and not being abused. Any sign of abuse is an additional fine to Eros' tribute to them, and may lead to further punishment if left unchecked. In addition, they are often advising Eros regarding particular customers, arranging a blacklist that bans more aggressive and violent customers of the system so as to further ensure the safety of customers and Escorts both. To top it off, they are also responsible for inspecting bordellos not just on Tristan but also in the Middle Layer as well. The outer layer, like Morgana Delta, are often ignored however.
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The Middle Layer of the Empire also consists of 14 systems, named after 14 significantly less popular knights. Unlike the inner layer however, the middle layer systems have no singular role to them. Instead, the important roles of the universe that the inner layer systems have individually - and by extension the systems themselves - are a collective entity, acting more as districts of a single state as oppose to individual territories.
The layer exists as the residential area for a vast majority of the normal working civilians of the empire, and as a result possesses all that the inner layer has to a lesser and cheaper extent, blended to a point where all systems have the same things to some degree.
The Outer Layer of the Empire is considered by most as the worst layer, consisting of systems only "technically" affiliated with the Empire but are otherwise disowned, as well as, of course, those systems that are not affiliated with Empire yet but have likely come into contact with it and would likely become imperial members as the Empire's expansion ever continues outwards. These particular systems being known as the "Serf" systems, and the enemy-laced systems, such as those that are deemed territory of the Karatai, being known as the "Dragon" systems.
Within this Outer Layer, there exists only 4 systems officially designated as property of the Empire.
"You may never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." ~ Obi-Wan, Star Wars Episode 4.
This 9 planet system (Pluto may not be a planet anymore, but that doesn't mean they can't use it like one.) was once the home to all humans, more specifically those of the Planet Earth, now Mordred Prime. Since the establishment of the Empire however, most of the humans and Denar who lived in this system has long abandoned it, despite the colonies and Mordred Prime itself still somehow capable of sustaining life. It's believed by those who stayed behind that this imperial neglect of their system is out of vengeance, that this is suppose to be payback for them ignoring Britain's call for help during the post-war clean up.
As a result of this neglect however, the Mordred system became a hive which gathered all sorts of Mafias, pirates, slave traders, and other such criminals to its layer, even founded a Black Market of sorts here.
The government of Mordred is well aware of the situations that's going down in their system, however they stand idly by while taking a cut of the profits made by the Black Market, calling it a "tax", in addition to "paying penance" by other such criminals to look the other way from any crimes they are attempting to commit on the system. The Empire's only eye on the Mordred system is the reports given to them by their governor, and does not bother themselves with diving much further than that unless said reports are halted or simply on how terrible Mordred has become. The governor uses this fact as leverage for the criminals that lives here to follow his rules and abide his authority, ensure their payments are given to him and in return he gives false reports on how well the system is going so that the empire would turn their focus is elsewhere. The rest of the Mordred Government, meanwhile, uses this as an excuse to be corrupt and abusive to the people within their system and get away with whatever they please.
Because of this, while a vile and detestable place for any normal folks, for pirates and the like it is something of a sanctuary, a place to go when there is no where else to turn, to drink away their problems or celebrate a successful crime, so long as they pay for it.
It is also one of the most unclean environments in the whole of the universe, even Lancelot's factory pollution pales in comparison. Mordred Prime's ecosystem in particular is all but dead from the combination of air pollution and nuclear radiation from the third world war. The whole system quite literally lives in bubbles of artificial atmosphere either because of a destroyed atmosphere, or in most of these planets' cases, the lack thereof.
For the Record: Mercury= Alpha Venus= Beta Earth= Prime Mars= Gamma Jupiter= Delta Saturn= Epsilon Uranus= Zeta Neptune= Eta Pluto= Theta
You would think that Mordred is the worst system to be in if you were a normal citizen, what with the rampant crime syndicates and individual criminals that call it home, and the government that lets them get away with it. If you had money and were just travelling around, you'd be right about that. However, for citizens who wanted to live in the empire, there was one system they'd never want to ever be in a position to move into; the Agravain system, where dreams come to commit suicide.
The Agravain system is one of the largest systems of the Empire, clocking at 70 planets and counting, making it larger than even the Gaheris Prison system. This is because whenever the expansion finds a planet that has very little worth in terms of resources or useful races of people, they take it off the hands of the system they bring into the Empire, and throw them here. For this reason, the Agravain system is often considered by many to be the "Imperial Garbage Dump."
That being said, it is also deemed as the Slums of the empire, where those who are incredibly poor, who have little to no money, or are simply homeless are dragged into and forced to stay in, marking it as the single largest Ghetto in the universe. The area is unsanitary the houses having little sense of quality and cleanliness and may in fact have aspects of it that are falling apart, either due to the lack of quality of the houses or due to the oppressive atmosphere of the planets themselves. Every working person's nightmare in the middle and inner layer is to wind up here, with everything they've worked for falling apart at the seams. What supplies they can get for their survival and nourishment they get from stores that are low-quality and have products that are just as low-quality in nature, but it was either that, or jumping into actual garbage and trying to grab what's edible and usable for you and your family. The oppressive nature of these planets have led to violence among its citizens, and many, many, many angry drunks.
That is not to say that they are completely abandoned however, or at least they're not supposed to be. The story goes that the previous Emperor, the father of the current one, took a sudden trip to the Agravain system against the advice of his peers to see for himself the situation of poverty that was happening there. Completely awe-struck and horrified by the anguished state of living that the people had to deal with on this system, he returned to Excalibur and issued an Executive order that passed into law with the approval of all three branches of the government. Effective immediately, every month or so the Agravain system is shipped financial support to help stabilize the living conditions of impoverished denizens who live there, essentially granting food stamps and supplemental security income, which would in theory help them be able to get out of the outer layer and back into getting a job in the middle layer.
However, while that is suppose to be the case, in reality, it's nothing of the sort. The money is shipped directly to the Governor of Agravain Zero, who then hordes it all and gives only a small portion of it to the populace to fight and kill each other over, like giving a slab of meat to a group of starving dogs. The Government of the Agravain system, is renowned as the most corrupt government in the entirety of the Empire, more so than even the Mordred system's government. Agravain Zero has become something of an oddity with how rich it feels compared to the other impoverished planets of the system.
The planet is essentially the living quarters of the governor, his sycophants and the many law enforcers that serves to oppress the whole of the system and keep them from getting money that rightfully belongs to them, not afraid to shoot down anyone who so much as looks at them funny. Sending out said small portion and blowing it out of proportion in the reports, bribing any imperial official who questions it into silence, and essentially pressuring the people of the system to say when asked that their lives are better than they actually are, in order to get another small cut of the greater whole is how they managed to get away with this abuse and misuse of government money. As the governor cannot afford to let the never ending money stream to be cut by the Empire due to the goal being hopeless, they perform fake construction projects and cut corners to make the Agravain system look nice, bribe the inspectors into approving if they notice any issues, and then tears them right down to be used again for the next inspection. This way they make the Imperials in Arthur Pendragon and Excalibur assume that the Agravain is properly making improvements when, in reality, is keeping it to a depressive status quo. In the governor's eyes, this system is a giant Garbage dump as it was intended to be, and everyone that exists within it is merely the trash of society, thrown away and left on these planets to rot.
(Description made by Windstormugly.)
"So, Mordred wasn't good enough was it? No problem, you'll love it here. Where none judge and none interfere."
The second unlawful system of the empire, a place left more or less to it's own devices, as no fangs or winds of rebellion are shown. One could say that Morgana has managed to lower crime-rate and unrest by embracing crime itself, or rather the vices crime revel in. Named after the seven sins of old, the planets each cater to a certain kind of living, or "Joy" as permanent residents refer to them. Due to this, criminals and those outside the eyes of the law regard it as a sort of resort, a place to spend your credits and live merry for a while.
All planets of the system have a dual society, one part for the common folk, and one for the entertainment of guests. It could easily be misunderstood that this divide is discriminatory towards the common folk. But in reality many make a living through the Joy-Zones, which cover most of the planets.
Travel between the Common and Joy is allowed, however most guests choose to enjoy their stay in the Joy, maybe because law means something different there. For the folk commuting to Joy and back this is done with "VainTravel" the single company operating transport in the system, whether it be train, boat, plane or spaceship. Vain is also the law in system, their police force only concerned with safeguarding the Common and the individual rules of the Joy.
It is no simple task to explain exactly what the planets of Morgana and their Joy entail, but a try is the following:
Prime (Pride) With mountain ranges and underground ecosystems, the prime of Morgana is not simply a place where you are treated well, it's a place where you are treated as a god, on the condition that you have either the money, connection, shrewdness or outright character to pull it off. And as they say, the taller they are, the harder they fall. Was a while since the king died... Long live the queen!
Alpha (Wrath) A desert planet that gave most of its water to the moon is the place when you want a fight, and being in a constant revelry is a good start. Just make sure you paid the doctors fee before you landed, or you might have some pretty steep debt on your hands once they patch you together again, sad that little accident, and as you had no insurance... Your face is now a patchwork. Better join the arena and become the angriest beast in here.
Beta (Greed) If you haven't visited this gas giant with its floating islands and cities, you've never been to a market or a place of games until now, and everything can be bought or bargained for. Just now we auctioned your ship, and you are swimming in quid. Just don't fall in with the loan-sharks,they are arguably worse than the lawyers on Pride.
Gamma (Gluttony) Welcome to the jungle, it's deltas sprawling, these lands are lush and abundant, as if everything was made for our consumption. The drink, the clothing, the everything you can eat buffet. Going out hunting for fresh meat in the forests, mountains and rivers.
Delta (Lust) There is no such thing as an incubus nor succubus... But if there was it would damn well be here, in this city of cities covering the planet to become a nature of it's own. Any specific requests go through the madams, ruling the zones with the same fetishes their people live by.
Epsilon (Sloth) Island upon island, it's hard to believe a planet can be so perfectly, everything, just no reason to do anything, but there are some crazy drugs, and smoke, and shrooms.
Zeta (Envy) A belt of asteroids and rocky planetoids, burning in the sun and freezing in the shadow. With scrap ships adding to the metals and radioactive elements, dirty-work and manual labor for recycling and scrapping has to be done somewhere... Might as well be right in the middle and with the raw materials to match. Maybe pay your debts with a few days or weeks in the mines or workshops.
The most enigmatic system of all of the Empire, so much so that no one can say for sure how many planets are in this system, let alone what goes on within it. Some don't even believe the Merlin system does not even exist, considering there is no known designated Prime/Zero Planet to be seen. If one was to try and look for it, in addition to rumors of being hunted by the military the moment it's found out what they're doing, they'll find no signs of any planets, the closest they'll get is the rumor to "find the edge of the universe." Even that is enough of a hint to warrant assassinations supposedly.
What is known, or rather rumored by conspiracy theorists and what have you, is that the Merlin system is a top-secret area-51 esque system of planets designed for the projects of the highest levels of confidentiality. Secret weapons of mass destruction, sapient experiments, kidnapping and experimenting on new races of aliens from recently converted systems so as to create "contingencies" against them should they ever rebel, you name it, Merlin is rumored to be doing it. Supposedly if you ever try to research this place, if you try to find it, or if you even speak out against the Government with a passionate charisma, you would be thrown into this system, and never return. Employees sent here are forced to stay here and never leave, lest they be assassinated for what they know. The most infamous way of gaining said employees are a letter saying that they are chosen for a secret project on "Percival Zero", despite the Percival system being a 15 planet system and would therefore be considered as "Percival Prime".
There are only a handful of people who are aware of Merlin's existence supposedly, among them being the Emperor/Empress, Sworn to secrecy upon gaining the throne even from his/her family, The General and Grand Admirals of the Imperial Armada, all of whom are sworn to secrecy and are ordered to issue a kill order to anyone who leaks info, even if it is themselves, and the Director of Imperial BlackOps, who is allegedly the governor and director of the Merlin System. There are also rumors that the neighboring government of the Alori, the UTF, is somehow in on this as well, but it's unknown if that's truly the case.
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Next thing to talk about are the Ships themselves. There are a myriad of ships used by the government, merchants, other pirates, and other types of travelers. However, regardless how they look or what modifications they may have to them, they all fall under six different classes of ships. Modifications made to them aside, all ships within a specific class usually has the same design and specifications to them.
Hello, hello! Welcome to me shop. We got all kinds of the best ships to sell in all the empire here. You alone, and going for something cheap? Well then I suggest a good sword to use. It maybe small, it may not look like much, but much like a wasp on a hot summer day, it'll give your enemies nightmares if you use it right. Comes with standard equipment of course, atmospheric thrusters, laser cannons on the sides, lock-on targeting system, the works. I'll even throw in a good ol fashion torpedo launcher on the bottom free of charge. You'll find they're very customizable like that.
What we'd consider as the Economy class of ships in the galaxy. Lightly armored, lightly armed, not even as quick as a Page, but hey, it's cheap, and very capable of modifying to make better, if you can deal with the additional charges from such a thing. On its own, provided you take the secure imperial routes from one planet to another, it'll certainly get you to where you need it to.
When you think a page, you think immediately of something that's small, not likely to be taken seriously in an imperial fleet in regards of offence or defense...but damn are they fast little guys. They can maneuver through most situations and are agile enough to keep you safe from immediately harmful situations, provided you have a good pilot of course. Why see some of these crazy a-holes equip these babies with some of the best hyperdrives this side of the galaxy which is usually why they're the number one model for some of those fancier galactic races. Most of the Merchants I've seen around these parts seem to prefer spend a little extra to get a Page rather then play it cheap with a Squire, more protection of the merchandise when they can just high-tail from any dangers, y'know?
Now here's a real beauty for the more, shall we say...violent type. You want a ship designed to just kick in as many naval teeth as possible, you buy this hulking behemoth. It's fairly small, I'd say the biggest I've seen carries about 10, maybe 20 people tops? But what it lacks in general space and speed, it makes up for in raw destructive power. Each and every weapon on this thing has a very simple user interface and is designed in such a way that even children could fire its guns without problem. What's that? You're alone? Well shoot mister, that ain't no problem. The Berserkers are made with this in mind, so all weapons are designed to be capable of firing from the cockpit. Obviously the more people you have the more conveniant the usage of the weapons, but if you can't stand other people and have good sense of multitasking, then you can just fire up all the weapons on your own. Just one of the bad boys can likely take out a small fleet of squires without effort, imagine what fleet of them can do.
Ah, I see you got yourself a good eye for ships mate. This here is a Knight, the Imperial Military Standard, the foot soldier of the imperial fleet as far ships are concerned. You would never be able to find an official imperial fleet without at least 5 or more Knights in it...oh, this one is a civilian model of course. Lighter than the official military model...but cheaper. ...Oh, don't misunderstand, they're cheaper than the military models, but they are still VERY expensive. Civilian Model Knights are often bought and driven around by richer merchant corporations and celebrities. For good reason too, Knights are bar none the most adaptable ships to use, the military model are often used for a variety of different purposes such as being anti-fighter, plantary bombers, but most are use for good ol fashion raids.
Now this, THIS baby's a prime-time military elite. When you see a fleet of imperial ships and you see even one of these babies in it, and there's usually you know things are going down. These are the frontliners of the fleet, the main cannons and shields of a fleet, and more often than not the first to fire off. They're the heavy-hitters of any fleet and more often than not, a captain or admiral prefers using these as their flagships. ...What, this one? Oh that's just a model, selling Paladin-class ships are outlawed.
Now this thing...this is my pride and joy and the most expensive thing you can buy a civilian model of by far. This here, is an Armory-class, or as I like to call it, the flying headqurters. What's that, why's it called an Armory? Cause it can carry so many swords and Berserkers in it, that it might as well be an armory. These ships are bulky, slow, and aren't really known to have some good guns, but damn are they durable, and combine that with the number of swords that could be thrown into it and you got yourself a giant hornet's nest of metal. These are usually used as the imperial quarter ships due to these factors.
What's that, do I carry a Castle? ...Hahahahaha! If I had a Castle in my Merchandise, I'd rather live in it than sell it. Castle-class ships are strictly military-grade, the single most elite class of starship in this fine empire. They have a load of fire power, enough space to fit in an entire village population, enough armor in it to deal with anything thrown at it and to top it off, like a Fortress, it can carry quite a bloody lot of sword inside. No imperial fleet in this galaxy's complete without a general manning a castle and leading the charge.
Now THAT, THAT there is bar none the single greatest class of ship in the empire...Boy just looking at the picture brings back memories. That is what we call a Monarch-class ship. You can think of it as a type of super-castle with a fashionable touch of adding a legit castle on top just to show off. Sure it looks incredibly haughty nowadays but it's a ship that can back up its boasts. Designers have given these ships the very best of everything, weapons, armor, shielding, engines, you name it. They used to actually be mass-produced and serve as the original flagships of every Imperial Fleet, but they were so bloody expensive that the empire couldn't pay for the mass production anymore. Top it off, I hear most of the models were either stolen, or destroyed, usually both. Either way, the only one that's officially left of the Monarch-Class serves as the Emperor's personal ship.
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Next, there's not much else to add about the Holy Britannian Empire. There isn't much to the government that some hasn't seen already in a corrupt authority. However, they are massive, as is their Domain.
Their dominion over a part of the galaxy is divided into 32 systems, with several planets in each. Each system is named after one of the legendary Knights of the Round Table, including King Arthur himself, and each has their own purpose to the empire, such as being a center of trade, commerce, scientific/medical research, military, etc. The Lancelot System, for example is the center of industrialization of products for the empire to use, as mentioned before.
With the exception of "Excalibur", the capital planet of the Arthur system, the "crown system" of the empire, all planets of each system is named after the system, with an Epiphet (Prime, Alpha, Beta, etc.) added afterwards. (Lancelot Prime,) for example. However, when the amount of planets in a system id larger than the number of epiphets that can be added, they become numbers instead. The "Prime" planets are usually the Capitals of their respective systems, except in numbered planets, in which the capital planets are "Zero Worlds". That being said, the names they are given are only that, "given". All planets do have a real name that they originally had before converting to imperial law.
Eventually, we intend on showing the entire list of 32 systems that the pirates are open to explore. For now, however, it is a work-in-progress.
One thing of note for all those who are experienced Mercs and criminals: Chances are you've been to or at least heard of the 32nd system of the empire, "Mordred". As Obi-Wan stated about Mos Eisley, "You may never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Mordred is essentially the social garbage bin of the empire. A system filled to the brim with corruption, villains, and criminals doing whatever they please. For pirates like yourself, you cannot find a better hub to gain knowledge and allies.
(Note: The name of the following Galaxy, Scar, two planets, and government of said galaxy (As well as a few other things I may throw into this RP later.) was created by a friend of mine by the name of Diamond Celestalis, or Diamond Greyfell as he calls himself nowadays. He's not a member of RPG, but even so, it wouldn't feel right not to mention this.)
Ever since the introduction of the Evolution theory by Charles Darwin, some humans back in the old world of earth who had once considered the possibility of races of animals on earth who would ever have been able to gain the ability to walk on their hind legs, use their fore legs as arms, and gained an intellect that equals to their own. Until now, however, it was considered as nothing but a pipe dream, that the primates humans were evolved from was more the exception rather than the norm as far as intelligent anthropomorphic beings were concerned.
However, somewhere out in the vastness of space, far from where the humans once resided far even from the HBE itself, was a galaxy that appeared to be very similar the Milky Way of the past, so much so that to this day it's debated if this universe is really like all the others or if it's so far past the laws of space and time that it's the placement of a parallel timeline version of Earth, or that it just happened to evolve life in an very similar way to Earth, but with animals rather than humans taking the full fruit of evolution. This, is the Altia Galaxy, in which resides the mirror planet of Earth known as Terra. The anthropomorphic animals within being known as Terrans, or Altians, but were deemed "Alori", A Denarian word.
Much like the Humans of Earth, The Alori has went through several phases of life on their nature-bound backwater planet of Terra, planets like Alexandria also going through those same phases during albeit in a different manner than them. They had their ancient days of superstition mistrust and religion, eventually having a evolution of their technology and way of living similar to the history of earth, eventually becoming advanced in their space technology, one could dare say surpassing the humans of earth in how fast and able they were at making said space tech. Unlike Earth however, which drowned itself in the convenience of futuristic technology to make up their cities, the Terrans very rarely used the potential of their own technology on Terra itself, keeping the natural ecosystem of their world mostly intact, keeping its appearance as a backwater planet intact. Eventually, under Terra, the whole of the Galaxy united under one flag, forming the "United Terran Federation", or "UTF" for short.
Because the Altia Galaxy evolved so differently when compared the Milky Way, the "furless and scaleless ones" like the Humans and the Denar were alien to them, about as much as the Alori would be considered alien to the Humans. Stories of the Terrans told of an ancient race of human-like beings once considered as gods and long dying out, who came to their galaxy and enslaved them to work for and worship them, before disappearing from time altogether. While they have lightened their feelings for races like Humans and Denar, they are still cautious around them, and the executive politics of the UTF in general haven't ever been able to put alot of faith or trust in their imperial neighbor.
Most of the qualities of humans, such as the growth of strength, intellect, and dexterity, and the capability of quick-thinking and improvisation are shared by the Alori. In addition to that, they possess the qualities and instincts of their specific species of animal that they are. Some have even been known to possess the gift of psychokinesis, though to a lesser extent compared to the Denar.
Before we can further expand on the Denar’s culture, politics, social climate, and so and so forth we must first understand their origins. There is an origin story for all species, whether it be Humans who came from a single cell and that single cell turned into the apes and primates than humans. It begins in Middle Earth or something close to Middle Earth during the medieval ages.
Everyone knows a story about an elf, or really any human. Tolkien first described them as ethereal, beautiful people with glowing skin, often fair hair, but darker hair was known to exist, who lived deep in the woods with vast amounts of knowledge and lore. While the earliest depictions of elves were that of a much shorter species with bat like ears, and had more in common with fairies, pixies and other sorts of fae. The truth is that both depictions are correct, just as humans were once primates or apes. Middle Earth Elves had evolved from some sort of fae, what set them apart from other fae was their ability to learn quickly, highly adaptable, and vast thirst of knowledge. The Elves were known for their understanding of an invisible energy, known as magic then, and now as psychokinetic qualities. They were described as astronomers with in depth star charts and advance technology. It was these qualities that would allow them to leave Earth far sooner than their human neighbors.
You will never hear stories of elves in the renaissance or industrial age because the elves set their sights on something else and something greater, life beyond earth. Much like something humans would do later on in the great space race. Something elves managed to do far before them. But on Earth you would hear stories toted by environmentalist who said their colonization and industrialization is what killed the fae and elves too delicate for their toxic chemicals they pumped into the water. Others said they never existed because they simply vanished from recollection, reserved only for stories and revivals in new era books.
Truth was the Elves of Middle Earth were far off in their galactic journey. Meeting and intermingling with a set of various species, most found them attractive, beautiful alluring. These qualities were highly valued at first, which meant the Elves never met much threat. It is this mixing that would shape the Denar as they are known today.
No what could be possible be the biggest threat to the Elven people of Middle Earth was the diseases their alien friends brought, the hardship of space travel on their bodies, and the fear the species would die out do to this culminating factors. It was during this scare as elves of Middle Earth began to die due to outside influences they didn’t consider that it was discovered the babies born with alien DNA were immune to the disease the Middle Earth Elves were not immune to.
This is where the course of nature changed for those elves. As their Earthen origins began to slowly die out and the alien DNA of the new elves began to take hold.
With years of travel and years of mixing with other species, the newly shaping Elves began to look towards the future. Settling into their new world. Discovering a set of planets that seemed uninhabited at the time, with discovered “ruins” the new Elves declared this part of the Artheus System theirs. And declaring themselves, Denar [Stranger].
Not soon after their discovery of their new land, new system, and the beginning stages of forming their own government and politics the true holders of the system came back home. The Katari, furious of the Denar’s invasion declared war on the spot. The Denar the first time in their lives met with threats of violence, fought to defend their new home. The One the Karatai had abandoned for whatever reason was their own.
It is this war and it is the aid of Human intervention that has forged racial tension between the Karatai and the Denar for centuries. And each paints each other off as worse in their foretelling. If perhaps the Karatai had spent the time to speak with the Denar maybe they would have saw their mistake, being a reasonable people who value logic, but the Karatai greeted them with violence and the Denar might be elves that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have fought back with their own violence.
Pretty sure there has been a complaint or two about a government somewhere. No government would be the perfect solution, though the Denar’s values and what they deem worthy seem like a ideal some would dream of. The Denar have always been a close connected people, they have never really lost sight of each other. Elves have always been closely connected to each other, perhaps it is through spirituality or perhaps it is because of their hardships getting where they are. They do not believe in the concept that one individual should equal more than other. They value the Voice as they call it. As their concepts of Gender, there is a connection between the old spiritual resonance inside the Denar and their view on people. There is a spiritualism even embedded into their government and what they value in their politics.
The Denar are a logical race, they are reasonable people, despite what some will say about them. They understood that at some point in time an individual would likely gain more favor than the other and while living such long lifespans, they brought with them a minimalistic nomocracy government to the Empire.
Under the “Rule of Law” it states that even it’s authority figures are to be judged within the law. There is the belief that laws must service the people, and the laws themselves should be regulated with ration. Civic rights and civic duty are at the forefront of maintaining a healthy society and social balance. With this the Denar have simplified their government down to three institutions, the people, the people’s defense, and the people’s reason.
These three institutions being;
The Public Court - Speakers of the Public, several individuals voted by the people, required to be a minimum income level at a certain mark in order to be representative of the people. [so we can take America for example, normally most president in our current era let's face it are the top 1%. In the Denar, to be a Civilian Court Speaker you would need to be in the bracket of the other 90%. So you would have to be making a civilian wage to be considered a Civilian Court Speaker. ]
Civilian Security Administration - This would be the institution that monitors and regulates defense, security, as civic services to the people. These are your police, but also the military. And is represented by a Civic Chief [essentially head of police], Commander of Systems Security [essentially your military chief] and Head of Security Services [essentially the guy above those two]
Supervisory Bureau - Essentially this would be that "sovereign" figure who exist in the law, except that is less a singular sovereign figure and more like a branch of few elected individuals from the other two Institutions who have been elevated in status to make the final decision on any rational laws or civic rights. To pass a law would require 10 votes from Civilian, at least 2 Votes from Defense, and an unanimous agreement of the five representatives of the supervisory bureau.
The Denar never lost sight of their spiritual beliefs, it is something that seemed to be passed down genetically to them. They do not believe in a God or Gods for the fact of the matter, they do not have names for everything or names for the seasons.
However, they have a deep understanding of it. Something that pulls them along like a sixth sense. While a rational, and reasonable species, they are also deeply pulled by something like an intuition. More deeply connected to something humans would call supernatural.
They listen to their instincts and their gut feelings, they feel an invisible force of life that connects them mostly to everything and everyone. Some Denar who have devoted themselves to this deep understanding of spiritualism have turned a life to heal others. Said to take other’s pain away and take it within themselves. Weeping for the individual to let that feeling pass. While some Denar deep connection to the world has lead them down a path of pleasure, since they are so deeply intertwined with a feeling. A feeling that drives them passionately along the world, spiritually at harmony and at peace.
In the case of their ancestors this was taken as a respect for nature. In a world of choices and more freedom this spiritual realization leads some Denar astray and others more humbly grounded.
This Spiritualism is rooted in many aspects and traditions of the Denar, what they value, how they value it, and why they value you it. Because they have this respect for the Spirit, it has spawned a unique gendering system that belongs to them and them alone. Denar respect each other as a Person, and they are connected to each other Spiritually. Thusly they have a concept of a Person’s Physical and a Person’s Spiritual Signature.
Young men and woman are born first as they are physically presented, male or female. But for the Denar they have a concept of two to three Genders.
The second Gender is specified of the individual themselves, it is the Spirit Gender of the individual. A young female or male may declare their Spirit Gender at a particular age.
The way this would be seen is;
1st Female [The Physical Gender]
2nd Female [The Spirit Gender]
It can also be seen as;
1st Female [The Physical Gender]
2nd Male [The Spirit Gender]
And this individual would be declared a He within the society as soon as they declared their spirit gender as it is important to respect another’s spiritual signature. A third gender can be categorized to a person’s spiritual signature as well, as this would declare them the equivalent to “non gendered” or “non binary”.
That would be seen as;
1st Female [Physical Gender]
2nd Female [Spiritual Gender]
3rd Female [A non gendered individual who would respect feminine identity]
They may ultimately write it as such
Spiritually 3rd [which would mean they prefer no pronouns to be used when addressing them, usually a name in service to their gender] Or it can be written
1st Female
2nd Male
3rd Male [a non gendered individual who would respect masculine identity]
In the end it is the Spirit that matters.
The ears of the Denar are quite iconic, it is what sets them apart from their human counterparts. They are the leftover remainder of their Middle Earth Ancestors, with their alien lineage taking precedence over the physical shape of the ears. While their Middle Earth Ancestors ears were more close to their head, while the Denar are noticeably further from their head, their lobes with a wider more pan shape, almost like a knife rather than the leaf shapes of their Middle Earth counterparts.
Though it is their ears that have made them famous, there are quite some distinct features that separate them from their human counterparts. The Denar being quite tall with the average adult height being between 5’9” and the tallest being near 7ft. Their skin are often fair tone, though it often has an ethereal glow to it, it is often soft, and they are colder to the touch than others. It depends on the perception of temperature of other species, of course to an frost alien they would be quite warm, but to a fire alien they might be cooler to touch than say a human. Their hair color runs often fair, but not only can it be darker, some have been known to have bioluminescent hair and or hair that changes color based on their emotion. Though these are quite rare features.
Due to their unusual heritage it also seems that they can possess an array of colored irises that would otherwise be unnatural on earth. Not only do the classic blue, browns, grays, greens, and so and so forth exist. But you sometimes have shades of violet and even shades with flecks of other colors dotting the iris.
Beyond physical features Denar are gifted psychokinetics, in their historical times these psychokinetic abilities would have been considered magic to some. Due to their spiritualism, they make excellent healers, gifted empaths who can read others, some are profound telepaths, others have enhanced sixth senses.
The Denar also have traditions of inking their skin. Often with some form of meaning to the individual. It is rare to see a Denar without some form of marking on their skin. Though lately with their inclusion to the Empire they tend to keep these markings to themselves, on their arms, or on their backs, chest. Somewhere hidden due to many species not understanding the meaning behind the markings, in some species like that of human ones ink is sometimes seen with negative connotations. Some Denar adopt a mentality of not being ashamed of their markings and have them ink’d their markings on their face. Ink is earned through merit and actions and your standing within the community.
Somewhere out there is a machine they simply call The Xerox. It is not seen as a God nor is it seen really as a parent. Though The Xerox became aware of itself and gained some form of sentience. It desired what humanity had, the ability to have family, connections and relationships. They say The Xerox stores whatever junk or deleted data and reprints it into a being. Some humans question whether this being is even considered sentient or living. They seem to be alive, they seem to be human, they aren’t necessarily digital data, but they don’t necessarily have human biology either. They don’t reproduce, they don’t age, they don’t require food or sleep. Yet, they have desires, a sense of self awareness, what seems like complex emotions and a sense of self identity. Codes as they are called are a fascinating wonder of science and unexplainable creation.
Codes have a physical body, well it seems physical, though instead of having flesh like humans their bodies seem to have a strip of data as body. Almost like looking at a motherboard with human parts. Though most Codes find ways to synthetically modify their data to appear to have some skin. And later forms created by The Xerox have more and more human like skin seemingly being made, however, most can still faint blue veining from even the most human looking Code. Most of the Code’s personality is determined on their own. Like children they go out and gain new experiences in which they adopt into their personal memory banks.
Which brings in certain unique features for to the Codes alone. Most do not have limited memory like a human being might. For a Code, not only can they have internal memory the way another lifeform might have stored inside their head. It also seems Codes are capable of storing their memory in external sources, usually that’s the way a human might store their data from computer to computer. Via USB, or via other electronic devices that act as an external hardware for the Codes.
They have the ability to upload themselves physically or merely through their conscious into the networks of other electronic devices. Though are susceptible to all invasive software prevention techniques, such as virus killing software, and can be deleted with. Though it is in the internal network Codes modify themselves, using what they have learned to extend their further development. They may change their accessory appearance, not their core appearance. What that means is they cannot change their face, height, or core features. But can change things like hairstyle, clothing, eye color, and what not within the network.
It also seems while they may be physically susceptible to trojan software or could be deleted alongside other data inside a computer. Codes are immune to hacking. It seems whatever data has created them is nearly as complex as human DNA, and not as simple to crack as merely hacking into a Code.
One final feature is that most Codes take jobs in tech positions. Some Codes have been able to better manage electronic companies, ships, by incorporating bits of themselves into the software the company, ship, etc. uses.
Codes themselves are not immortal. Not only can they be deleted within the computer’s network that they sovereign. But Codes despite not possessing a heart or have blood, can be killed. People have seen Codes get shot or blasted, breaking into pieces of binary bits. Some have been melted. Though a Code can be fixed from mild to moderate injuries through their external hardware.
The Kautada race are diminutive in stature on their home world the omnivores are the closest thing to 'apex predators' as you get... but that description is perhaps misleading. Kautada are bipedal salamander like amphibian-humanoids and are known for their intelligence, not martial prowess. Their world simply never had any animal larger or more dangerous than the rather mild mannered salamander people, allowing their evolution and society to abandon thoughts of war quite quickly. Early on their innate intelligence was turned away from conquest and unification of their world to the communal pursuit of scientific enlightenment. Their brains are *exceedingly* complex and advanced when compared to other similar races, leading to your average Kautada having an average intelligence on level with human scientists, intellectuals and nearing their geniuses. Were they a more ambitious and aggressive race they would be a dangerous force. Luckily for the galaxy the 'Space newts', as they are nicknamed, have an almost universally helpful and friendly disposition thanks to long millennia without predators and relative peace among their own race.
Their society is largely without class restrictions as all Kautada could be considered intellectuals, and their governing body reflects this. Known as the 'Ethics Committee' rather than being voted in or owing to dynasties the Committee is completely voluntary. Their purpose is both to ensure fair treatment at all levels in their society as well as to monitor all scientific projects and research for breaches in their 'Moral codes'. These Moral Codes are the only law the Kautada have had for thousands of years now and are followed closely by all Kautada lead scientific endeavors. Often annotated, added to and edited, the Codes are more than flexible enough to allow for research to move forward but strict enough to let their inquisitive and often, dangerously curious minds from wandering to dark places.
Upon meeting the Holy Britannian Empire, per normal policy of the Ethics Committee they presented their races innate intelligence and offered their help on any research endeavors, allowing human firms and think tanks to recruit Kautada as they wished, since the amphibious humanoids were so very eager to help advance any and all scientific research. As with all such offers it of course came with the caveat that all projects in which a Kautada was involved that an ethics representative periodically check up to ensure the codes were not being violated.
Other races are allowed.
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The Crew:
1. Captain Arron Falcon
2. ??? (Arms)
3. ICARS/Icarus (Wing)
4. Nero Kynigos (Snow)
5. Tserv Diaahk (Serve)
6. Mark Astaroth (Star)
7. Izaroth Aestorm (Storm)
8. Spia Aestorm (Spa)
9. L'Azul/Doc Holiday (Newt)
10. Ileshara Xanahir/Tsivari Khastae (Spots)
11. Debra K Amberdine (Psi)
12. Vrain "Reaver" Syous (Reave)
13. Cliff Essence (Cliff)
14. REM (Rem)
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Appearance: (image if possible, it doesn't matter whether it's an anime character, human or even concept art characters) Name: Race: Age: Gender: Job: Weapons: Abilities: Personality: Short bio: (it doesn't have to be too long, but in depth characters are fine)
I'd like to cast my interest, if you'll have me. I'd like to play an AI in a robotic body (or 'mobile chassis') if at all possible, and I feel a pilot or engineer would be best suited for him. If not, I'll be an Alori
1. I'm giving you guys the CS early on to use for your characters.
Appearance: (image if possible, it doesn't matter whether it's an anime character, human or even concept art characters) Name: Race: Age: Gender: Job: Weapons: Abilities: Personality: Short bio: (it doesn't have to be too long, but in depth characters are fine)
2. I've decided that not only am I allowing multiple characters, I'm also allowing for characters made outside of the crew...provided at least one of them is a crewman. You can make said characters whatever you wish them to be, but my personal recommendation is that we need some COs for this empire. XD
I'll wait for a while longer before posting the OOC to see if anyone else is interested. Specifically, 6 hours will do. ^^
Tossing in my interest in spite of the staggering list of mentions. If there is still room for a gunner or engineer (or really any room at all), count me in!
Just...wow, that's a lot of people. ._.
I only mentioned the people who were in the last RP. There's no guarantee that they'll join. So far it's looking like 6 people are interested.
Both Gunner and Engineer is open, so flip yourself a coin and pick one...Or both, I'm ok with people making more than one character. ^^
@Jarl Coolgruuf and @DeadDrop if you two want to reserve spots for your characters as well, now's the time.
Oh, and anyone that are coming back from the old RP and had positions like Engineer, you don't have to worry. Just let me know and I'll add you in as extras that surpass the limit. Think of it as appreciation for coming back. ^_^
It's been almost an entire year since we last met. Where does the time go?
I did promise to put a mention on each and every one of you when I'm done with my OOC, and after almost a year, I have finally done just that. Because of how long it's been, I can understand if some or most of you can't participate this time around, that is just fine. But I did want to at least fulfill my promise to you all, and I have now done that.
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Now then, to everyone else:
Welcome one and all, as the name suggests, this here's an RP where you are a newly enlisted pirate on the crew of...downright the strangest space pirate captain you will likely ever meet in your life. For whatever reason you heeded the call for crewmen and will take part in whatever absolute insanity the captain decides to throw you all into.
A little information regarding the world you are a part of:
FTL: The main FTL device in question is the Hyperdrive, the device designed for ships to cross through light-years via entering Hyperspace. Shields: Shields are usually able to sustain projectiles of laser, low-to-medium grade plasma, and explosives. High-level plasma and heavy physical impacts along with excessive use of weaker weaponry diminishes the shields until the breaking point. Weapons: All weapons are, in one way or another high grade. High-calibur rifles, laser, plasma, the works. Of course as time advance, even more advanced weaponry is possible to be made. Robotics: The Robotics of the universe are about as advanced as one would think in a futuristic reality such as this. Communications: Hyper-communication, or hyperdrive subspace communication. Super materials: As the Empire expands, so too does the resources it gains from other planets. The ships created are usually considered to be classed by the quality of the materials its made from, even if that's not actually the case. Each material has its own strengths, but also weaknesses. Mental powers?: Yes, Psychokinetic energies, telepathy, and other such psychic powers are a thing in this universe, and there are cybernetic enhancements designed specifically for the mind to further empower psychic energy. Biotech?: Yes AI?: Yes, advanced level AI to equalize to human levels of intellect and conscious thought. Energy Storage?: Yes Information Storage: Crystal processors, as well as quantum computing technology.
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Next thing to talk about are the Ships themselves. There are a myriad of ships used by the government, merchants, other pirates, and other types of travelers. However, regardless how they look or what modifications they may have to them, they all fall under six different classes of ships. Modifications made to them aside, all ships within a specific class usually has the same design and specifications to them.
Hello, hello! Welcome to me shop. We got all kinds of the best ships to sell in all the empire here. You alone, and going for something cheap? Well then I suggest a good sword to use. It maybe small, it may not look like much, but much like a wasp on a hot summer day, it'll give your enemies nightmares if you use it right. Comes with standard equipment of course, atmospheric thrusters, laser cannons on the sides, lock-on targeting system, the works. I'll even throw in a good ol fashion torpedo launcher on the bottom free of charge. You'll find they're very customizable like that.
What we'd consider as the Economy class of ships in the galaxy. Lightly armored, lightly armed, not even as quick as a Page, but hey, it's cheap, and very capable of modifying to make better, if you can deal with the additional charges from such a thing. On its own, provided you take the secure imperial routes from one planet to another, it'll certainly get you to where you need it to.
When you think a page, you think immediately of something that's small, not likely to be taken seriously in an imperial fleet in regards of offence or defense...but damn are they fast little guys. They can maneuver through most situations and are agile enough to keep you safe from immediately harmful situations, provided you have a good pilot of course. Why see some of these crazy a-holes equip these babies with some of the best hyperdrives this side of the galaxy which is usually why they're the number one model for some of those fancier galactic races. Most of the Merchants I've seen around these parts seem to prefer spend a little extra to get a Page rather then play it cheap with a Squire, more protection of the merchandise when they can just high-tail from any dangers, y'know?
Now here's a real beauty for the more, shall we say...violent type. You want a ship designed to just kick in as many naval teeth as possible, you buy this hulking behemoth. It's fairly small, I'd say the biggest I've seen carries about 10, maybe 20 people tops? But what it lacks in general space and speed, it makes up for in raw destructive power. Each and every weapon on this thing has a very simple user interface and is designed in such a way that even children could fire its guns without problem. What's that? You're alone? Well shoot mister, that ain't no problem. The Berserkers are made with this in mind, so all weapons are designed to be capable of firing from the cockpit. Obviously the more people you have the more conveniant the usage of the weapons, but if you can't stand other people and have good sense of multitasking, then you can just fire up all the weapons on your own. Just one of the bad boys can likely take out a small fleet of squires without effort, imagine what fleet of them can do.
Ah, I see you got yourself a good eye for ships mate. This here is a Knight, the Imperial Military Standard, the foot soldier of the imperial fleet as far ships are concerned. You would never be able to find an official imperial fleet without at least 5 or more Knights in it...oh, this one is a civilian model of course. Lighter than the official military model...but cheaper. ...Oh, don't misunderstand, they're cheaper than the military models, but they are still VERY expensive. Civilian Model Knights are often bought and driven around by richer merchant corporations and celebrities. For good reason too, Knights are bar none the most adaptable ships to use, the military model are often used for a variety of different purposes such as being anti-fighter, plantary bombers, but most are use for good ol fashion raids.
Now this, THIS baby's a prime-time military elite. When you see a fleet of imperial ships and you see even one of these babies in it, and there's usually you know things are going down. These are the frontliners of the fleet, the main cannons and shields of a fleet, and more often than not the first to fire off. They're the heavy-hitters of any fleet and more often than not, a captain or admiral prefers using these as their flagships. ...What, this one? Oh that's just a model, selling Paladin-class ships are outlawed.
Now this thing...this is my pride and joy and the most expensive thing you can buy a civilian model of by far. This here, is an Armory-class, or as I like to call it, the flying headqurters. What's that, why's it called an Armory? Cause it can carry so many swords and Berserkers in it, that it might as well be an armory. These ships are bulky, slow, and aren't really known to have some good guns, but damn are they durable, and combine that with the number of swords that could be thrown into it and you got yourself a giant hornet's nest of metal. These are usually used as the imperial quarter ships due to these factors.
What's that, do I carry a Castle? ...Hahahahaha! If I had a Castle in my Merchandise, I'd rather live in it than sell it. Castle-class ships are strictly military-grade, the single most elite class of starship in this fine empire. They have a load of fire power, enough space to fit in an entire village population, enough armor in it to deal with anything thrown at it and to top it off, like a Fortress, it can carry quite a bloody lot of sword inside. No imperial fleet in this galaxy's complete without a general manning a castle and leading the charge.
Now THAT, THAT there is bar none the single greatest class of ship in the empire...Boy just looking at the picture brings back memories. That is what we call a Monarch-class ship. You can think of it as a type of super-castle with a fashionable touch of adding a legit castle on top just to show off. Sure it looks incredibly haughty nowadays but it's a ship that can back up its boasts. Designers have given these ships the very best of everything, weapons, armor, shielding, engines, you name it. They used to actually be mass-produced and serve as the original flagships of every Imperial Fleet, but they were so bloody expensive that the empire couldn't pay for the mass production anymore. Top it off, I hear most of the models were either stolen, or destroyed, usually both. Either way, the only one that's officially left of the Monarch-Class serves as the Emperor's personal ship.
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Next, there's not much else to add about the Holy Britannian Empire. There isn't much to the government that some hasn't seen already in a corrupt authority. However, they are massive, as is their Domain.
Their dominion over a part of the galaxy is divided into 32 systems, with several planets in each. Each system is named after one of the legendary Knights of the Round Table, including King Arthur himself, and each has their own purpose to the empire, such as being a center of trade, commerce, scientific/medical research, military, etc. The Lancelot System, for example is the center of industrialization of products for the empire to use, as mentioned before.
With the exception of "Excalibur", the capital planet of the Arthur system, the "crown system" of the empire, all planets of each system is named after the system, with an Epiphet (Prime, Alpha, Beta, etc.) added afterwards. (Lancelot Prime,) for example. However, when the amount of planets in a system id larger than the number of epiphets that can be added, they become numbers instead. The "Prime" planets are usually the Capitals of their respective systems, except in numbered planets, in which the capital planets are "Zero Worlds". That being said, the names they are given are only that, "given". All planets do have a real name that they originally had before converting to imperial law.
Eventually, we intend on showing the entire list of 32 systems that the pirates are open to explore. For now, however, it is a work-in-progress.
One thing of note for all those who are experienced Mercs and criminals: Chances are you've been to or at least heard of the 32nd system of the empire, "Mordred". As Obi-Wan stated about Mos Eisley, "You may never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." Mordred is essentially the social garbage bin of the empire. A system filled to the brim with corruption, villains, and criminals doing whatever they please. For pirates like yourself, you cannot find a better hub to gain knowledge and allies.
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The Captain is looking for those of the following occupations:
The White Rabbit was stricken nervous by the girl's questions regarding her weapons. ...That's right, the Hatter gave additional orbs to her in the wake of him seeing more humans on his way back to his sanctuary. One of them was meant for Tyler, but he's lost thanks to falling into a tree and there was yet another human that was now among their ranks once more.
"Ah, yes...Here you go." Jill said, reaching into her little pockets and taking out another set of orbs, giving one to Tylissa, one to Mark, one to Jacob, and one to Arthur.
"You have to squeeze them until they break while thinking about what weapons you want, then they'll turn into them. ...You...probably shouldn't do it here though." The White Rabbit said.
Meanwhile, The Caterpillar looked over to the one who asked the first question to him.
"The Personas that you have all acquired are a side of you that manifests as you face the world around you in your daily life. You may think of it as an alter ego, a mask, that manifests itself as you face hardships in your life. They exist within your mind, and is empowered by the strength of your will, your heart. To further enhance them is akin to enhancing yourself, in mind, body, and soul. In layman's terms, you can think of your persona as a limb in addition to your arms and legs, in that the more you use it, the stronger it - and you by extention - will become. Typical training such as this is only half of it, and so would only give you half of the true potential you can wield. The other half is strengthening the soul, the heart, and that can only be done through your bonds with others. To truly strengthen yourselves as individuals, you must also strengthened yourselves as comrades. I understand such a thing may be difficult, you certainly look as if you only just met each other very recently, after all. Bonding is not so simple that we'd expect you to be friends with people you have only ever seen about an hour ago at most. However, you will only be able to overcome what awaits you beyond this point if you work together, and so it is advisable to take the time to get along with each other, and strengthen your heart, your persona, by doing so, as best as you can." The Caterpillar explained to Cronic, and by extension to everyone else. He next turned to Hector, who also gave a good question on the matter regarding this world.
"...For the most part, no, we were not. Aspects of your world are unfamiliar to us in our world. All we knew for certain is that this world shaped itself this way because it is the way you humans collectively desired it to be."
"...Yet another creature that speaks in riddles..."
"...Very well. If you insist, I shall simplify this for you as best as I can." The Caterpillar said upon hearing Adam's annoyance. Immediately, he breathed out a large puff of smoke, dispersing and shaping itself unnaturally into shapes and images conveniantly matching what he has to say next.
"The world you see before you now, this world you know as Wonderland, is a part of the sea of souls, the collective unconsciousness of all living things. Humanity and other species like it are connected via this sea, and so shapes it by the current state of their hearts. In other words, Wonderland was made to be the way it is by the will of humans."
"...So, we are the reason your world is like this?"
"Not you all specifically, but humanity in general. To be precise, the collective populace of the area you were taken from. Wonderland is not all there is to the sea, after all. ...As I am not familiar with your world, or the state of which it is in, I cannot surmise as to why this world and we shadows were shaped into such forms, only how." The caterpillar explained. He then looked towards Luke, and though Luke clearly tried to hide it, it was rather easy for both the Rabbit and the Caterpillar to read his emotions. The Caterpillar went silent for a second, placing his pipe back in his mouth and smoking it with a saddened look on his face before puffing another cloud of smoke.
"I am sorry, but the World Trees and any other forms of transportation within this world, are not capable of such a feat. This world was never meant to be visited by humans, and so a way in or out was never meant to exist naturally. The times in the past where your world interacted with our own occurred by the direct intervention and meddling of others. The circumstance bringing you and the lost children to Wonderland being no different; the Looking Glass was created as a means of bringing humans to this world, and even that is a one-way door for them." The Caterpillar explained.
"...Created by who?" Chase simply asked.
"The Queen, I would imagine."
"'Imagine'? You mean you don't know for certain?"
"...Embarassingly, yes. It is a question I am currently attempting to discover for myself, but the direct cause of this phenomenon is elusive, every attempt at solving this mystery has been met with a proverbial wall erected by hands unknown to my eyes. However, the fact remains that the Queen has made use of the Looking Glass regardless of who truly created it, and that it is catalyst of her goals. Therefore if it is not the queen herself who created it, I believe it is someone or something close to her." The Caterpillar changed his attention back to Luke, knowing he might not have liked the answer he was given to his question.
"I understand you have many anxieties regarding your own world. I may not know or even understand what they are specifically, but I certainly know they are there. You were dragged to this world against your will, it is only natural you feel the way you do. Were there any other way they could have done this, they would have taken it in a heartbeat. The rebels truly have done everything they could to stop what is about to transpire...the lot of you are their last resort. ...If it's any consolation, you may have quite some time before anyone in your world notices you are gone. Time in this world flows differently from time in your own world. Before Wonderland, time used to flow at the same pace as it did in your world, but certain events in the past, combined with the twisted nature of this wonderland, has altered many of the rules to be different and ever-shifting, including time. Time in this world flows faster than it does in your world, and so it may take a day or two in this world before the sun rises in your own. ...However, do not be mistaken, time is running out for us all."
"...What do you mean?" The Caterpillar then took his pipe into his hand and used it to point up, if the others looked up as well, they'd see a moon in the sky, nearly full but not quite there.
"...In Wonderland, whenever it is a full moon in this world, it is midnight in your world. The looking glass opens up, and more children are lured to the Queen's castle. It is past midnight in your world, so the moon's full phase has only recently passed. But in due time, it shall be full again as midnight strikes your world the next night. Our Queen has gathered a number of children and her dominion has further spread with each harvest. This next night will be her largest yet, and most likely her last. If she is not stopped before the next full moon, she will have what she needs to extend her reign beyond Wonderland. Should that happen, the rebellion will fail, and the humans of your world will suffer for it."
"...In other words, we have a Time Limit." Chase said. It was around this point that Jacob decided to ask his own question to the Caterpillar, oddly changing the dreaded subject unknowingly.
"Oh? ...I had thought the Hatter and his comrades already explained this to you all."
"Umm...He wasn't with us during that, he and a few others came with us later on." Jill said to the Caterpillar, pointing towards Jacob, Tylissa, and Arthur.
"...I see, late arrivals then. ...Very well, I will keep this swift and simple. You were all chosen for the power of Persona that you wield. Not all people in your world are capable of wielding the potential for this power that you possess, and so only you stand here before us now. No other human is capable of fighting the Shadows, and no creature, be it human or shadow, can stand against the queen without the capability of persona." The Caterpillar then looked over to everyone else.
"Are there any other questions? ...No? ...Very well. Step into the Pond, and it shall take you back to the Sanctuary, you will likely need some rest and a strategy before stepping into the four realms of Wonderland. ...I shall always be here in this place, so if you have any other questions about this world, about we shadows, or about your personas, do not hesitate to come back and see me. I have opened the way between the sanctuary and here, so you may come and go through this pond as you see fit." The Caterpillar explained to them, as the pond began to glow with a beautiful cyan.
"This world is a haven of many dangers, but do not lose heart. Stay true to yourselves, and you shall succeed." The Caterpillar then said as Alice, Jill, Adam, and Chase jumped into the pond first.
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Hatter's Sanctuary
As soon as they step into the pond, they would immediately find themselves coming out of a giant mirror in the Sanctuary, as if the surface of the pond and the surface of the mirror were the same. There they'd be greeted by the Hatter and his comrades, Sipping tea in a floating and spinning chair non-chalantly.
"...Welcome back. I had recieved word from the Dorm Mouse that you managed to awaken to your personas. I must admit, I'm quite impressed; you adapted faster than I was expecting. ...Ah, and these three must be the ones in the forest I saw a while ago. I'm glad to see you are safe. ...I am the Mad Hatter, as the three of you may have guessed, and we are a rebellion against the Queen of Wonderland." The hatter said, the latter half of his words being focused towards Jacob, Arthur, and Tylissa.
"...There was actually one more, but...he dropped himself in a World Tree on accident."
"I see...Well, there's no need to lose heart. I'll send one of our men to try searching for him. In the meantime, what did the Caterpillar say must be done?" The Hatter asked. Jill hopped forward and explained to him what the Caterpillar explained to the others.
"...Hmmm...There's a great deal of risk with such a plan, you only just awakened to your persona abilities, and those keys are likely very well-guarded in the center of each section." The hatter contemplated aloud.
"Well...we might be able to pull it off if we all work together and go to them one at a time."
"Yeah, no...Not happening." Said the voice of the Dorm Mouse as she came out of the rabbit hole, clearly somewhat injured after her fight with those silhouettes.
"Dorm, are you alright?" Jill asked as she hopped over to the mouse woman.
"Just a scratch here and there, some of those spoiled little brats don't fight fair, that's all. More importantly, they're on high alert now. The whole lot of us sensed you guys getting your personas - good job with that by the way - and they went running, likely heading back to their respective lairs to reinforce security. A good chance at least one of them came running to Daddy Dearest and told him about it already, and if he knows, the Queen probably knows too."
"...Oh dear."
"But why would that stop us from doing what the rabbit here says and attack them one at a time?"
"Because of time. ...Now that they know that you are all awakened, you are an ever-growing problem to them, but we only have until midnight in your world and a full moon in ours, and they know this. They are not protecting themselves from a threat, they are stalling for time."
"...How much time do we have then?"
"Every six hours in your world is 24 in ours. Therefore...we have less than four days before the next full moon."
"Less than 96 hours then, that sounds like a fairly large amount of time, all things considered. We probably could storm them together and get to the castle by then."
"...If only it was so simple. The shadows you all fought in the forest are but mere pests compared to the Queen's soldiers. For as much as I admire your confidence, and have faith in your newfound persona abilities, you have only just awakened to those powers, and the Queen's forces, her Royal house and the card soldiers with them, they shall not show you mercy or relent. Even when you succeed in getting those keys from them, the next step is storming the Queen's Castle, a challenge in and of itself even for us. Focusing on one thing at a time will cost too much of it. It is for the best we save time by focusing on all four lands at once." The Hatter explained.
"But that would mean splitting us all up, right? ...Isn't that even more dangerous?" Alice asked.
"Fear not, None of you will be alone during this. As I mentioned, you are our only hope of fighting the queen, it would be unfortunate should any more of you die by the hands of her minions before you even meet her. Therefore, I will be sending a member of this rebellion to each of the four parties to protect and train you in preparation for what's to come. ...Now then, there is still some time we can use to rest. I suggest you all take the time to do so, and discuss among yourselves who is going where. My only advice is to keep it as even as possible." The Hatter explained.
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