Tortoise

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

Six Months Later

Time passes.

The year is now 2602.

More than three hundred years have passed since Earth fell. Two years since the Gateways reopened. And six months since the Battle of Sol. This galaxy has already seen too much human conflict, of the same kind that killed Mother Earth, in this little speck of time. There have been wars, assassinations, manipulations and revolutions. Battle after battle, human blood has painted the Milky Way. And still we fight.

But- perhaps- our fate has just started to shift. The S.U.N. shines: the Sol United Nations, a gathering of colonies at the Meeting Place, where important issues can be voted on and debated as a group. Here, one may propose customs that will effect every member nation: intergalactic currency, international defense fleets, the embargo of a particular nation. After a Proposal is made by a particular nation, all members can vote YES or NO, and the most votes wins. Simple, right?

Not all have joined. But for those who have chosen to rise with the SUN, new opportunities for cooperation and for control are already revealing themselves. Who will win in the war of politic?

Time will tell, time will pass, and inevitably, blood will be spilt.

Welcome to the SUN.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

Still need to finish the Military and History sections, but:

EDIT: Now just the history section!

White Flower Democracy (WIP)

White Flower Democracy

Government Form:
Direct Democracy

Demographics:
While all Flowers are human, there remains a demographic split in the form of faith. 88% of post-revolutionary citizens remain secular, however, a growing 12% have converted to the popular new religion of Mixtism. (This divide has caused a major split within some votes.)

While not officially citizens, there also remains a small community of Supremus Apes, native to the Khanate of the Apes, who have taken up residence on Bezia. A vote to offer them citizenship is currently being processed.

Population:
1.2 Billion

Planet Name and Description:

_{On a scorching day, the ruin-filled deserts can glow like molten gold}

Bezia- sometimes called "New Hollywood"- is a once-ruined world that has since been given new life. The original inhabitants, nicknamed "Bezians," are thought to be the same aliens who colonized the homeworld of the One. But sadly, few things about them can really be confirmed: except that they used to be here, they are no longer, and they left nothing but dust, rust and ruins behind them.

So when the first human colonists arrived, that's all they found. A planet filled with cities that nobody lived in. Monuments of creaking, decaying metal. Water was scarce, and all native life was fully extinct. An endless wasteland.

The perfect blank canvas.

Before the revolution, New Hollywoodites were deeply focused on preserving and restoring the aspects of Old Earth life. To find a world so barren might have disheartened some other peoples, but it gave the early colonists a perfect starting place towards restoring the world they'd lost. Terraforming tech was heavily invested in, and as progress continues today, the world of Bezia is becoming more and more like a mirror image of Earth. And though hot, alien deserts remain the norm in large swathes of the world, plant life is creeping in even there, turning the world green.

In order to bring moisture back to the surface, vast amounts of H2O are currently being released into the atmosphere. This causes frequent rains.

History:

It all starts with the first Savant, Chun Zhang. Or well, no, it doesn't. But he'd convince you that it does.

Chun Zhang was a masterful speaker and beautiful propagandist- as befitting of someone who grew up in Hollywood. He always portrayed himself as the epitome of a cultured genius: intelligent and charming, determined and impulsive, stormy and mysterious. It was that personality- along with other things- which later won him leadership of the early colony.

Prior to that, the real facts of his life on Earth are blurry- unusually so, given the famous accuracy of Bezia's records, almost as if someone had scrubbed them. A handful of details are salient. He was born to Chinese immigrants, he lived in LA his entire life, and he worked as a part-time actor in his youth.

Post-revolution, more formerly locked records have been released to the public, revealing that a California university did indeed list him as the highest graded student in his freshmen class. Does that, perhaps, add some legitimacy to his claims of intellectualism? Maybe. It is still unknown what exactly he studied. And his grades dropped every year after, so that his GPA at the age of graduation was barely above 2.0. One teacher wrote "Chun is a genius, if he would just work like one."

Genius or no, he managed to end up on the Champion.

This Champion was a rare breed of colony ship. It didn't belong to one nation nor one company, but instead was a mix of the finest minds of two powerhouse countries who had both led the world in scientific progress at one point or another: China and the United States. Achieved scientists and engineers from either nation could join the Champion's journey; the seats filled up quickly.

[DATA INCOMPLETE]

Chun spoke both.

Culture and Society:

_{The slums of New Rome are a busy, tragic place}

Media-obsessed. Romanticist. Escapist.

These words described the people of the ECU, and still largely describe the people of the WFD. The average citizen spends all of their free time engrossed in media of one flavor or another: films, music, plays, holograph-enabled videogames, social media, news. They are materialistic and love entertainment.

The culture of Bezia is also still geared, just as it was back when it was called New Hollywood, towards the preservation of Old Earth cultures. Most citizens have what is known as a "Chosen Cultural Expression," or CCE, that they take very seriously. A citizen's CCE represents not only his favorite Old Earth cultures, but the ones he most identifies with, that he considers to be him. They dress accordingly. They listen to their music accordingly. When they speak, they'll likely put on an accent that fits it.

(OOC: For context, readers, Tanaka's CCE was American Western, and Abadi's is "Arabic with British and American influences." This is just a fancy new term for a concept I've been using from the start.)

You might call it performative, but a Flower (or a New Hollywoodite, for that matter) would argue that all culture is performative: they just happen to be the first ones to embrace it.

What has changed, when it comes to Bezia/Hollywoodite culture, is their stance on outsiders. The ECU was puritanical in ideology, xenophobic in character. Their nature was one of fear: fear of the alien, of the cyborg, of the mutant. But after exposure to so, so many foreign cultures, the more open-minded have begun to accept that not all peoples could stay as unchanged as they did, and- perhaps- that is not their fault.

Outside of xenophobia, there is one other aspect of culture that has been greatly altered: religion.

Religion is a touchy subject for the Flowers, having been illegal under the ECU. The old Oligarchs didn't like having competition over the minds and hearts of the populace. Because who can compete against a god? What can move a man's spirit more than faith? So it was illegal, with the largest religious group- the Mixtists- being driven out of the cities and into the wilderness, or else being driven into hiding their faith from the world.

But now that the restrictions are lifted and they've finally been reunited, the Mixtists are beginning to realize that they aren't all the same any more.

Ruinists

"The early Mixtists, you know, their name comes from an Old English word, 'mix.' They accepted almost every Old Earth faith as true in some sense or some other, and tried to smash them all together. This is what made the Noocracy angry with them. Made them chase us out of the cities. Earth religion never had such a unity, so the ECU will not accept it now."

"But why?" I asked her, "Isn't unity good?"

"Maybe," she answered. "But New Hollywood will not have a thing which Earth didn't have. But besides, back when I was still young, we were... over-enthusiastic. Living out in these ruins has made us more discriminating. Perhaps every faith does have some echo of the Truth. But- but- there can still only be one Truth. It is our mission to find it."

Interview with a Mixtist, by Martina Ward

There are few things more hardening than life in a wasteland. Cast out from the cities, the Mixtists had to survive on less than nothing. Earlier, they tried to mix all Earth religions into a cohesive whole. The desert made them abandon that folly.

Throwing aside a million faiths, these Mixtists- often called Ruinists- have come to believe that there can be only one, whole Truth to the world. Shadows of the Truth may be found in many places- and indeed, in many hearts. But there is still only one. They must find it where they can, and serve it as they must.

Putting aside the poetic language for a moment: the Ruinists are monotheists, believing that one god created the universe and maintains it. Because they do not have a name for this god, they simply call it "Truth." The customs for worshipping Truth are derived from many different Old Earth faiths, especially monotheistic ones, creating a distinct blend of religious practice found only among the Ruinists.

Masonists

The more mysterious half of that two-headed dragon called Mixtism. The Masonists are those who, rather than being dragged out into the wastelands, managed to hide themselves "under cover" in secular society. They hid it with secret passcodes and occult rituals nobody else could identify. Life was harsh for them, just as it was for the Ruinists, but in a different way: they had to cozy up to criminals to keep themselves hidden.

For years, the Masonists worked alongside gangs, bribed officials, did all they could to stop the protectors from breathing down their necks. Only in those few, free hours, early in the morning or late at night, could they truly practice their faith- which become more esoteric and secretive every year. By now, it's all wrapped up in doublespeak, with hidden meanings and inscrutable rituals at every corner. They certainly don't worship anything named Truth. But they do worship, and for them, that is enough. Right?

---

Governance and Politics:

Although very new and deeply unstable, the new government of Bezia is quickly coming to resemble a "Direct Democracy." That is, it is becoming a system in which most laws and other affairs-of-state are decided not by rulers or representatives, but by votes direct from the people themselves.

You see, most every citizen on New Hollywood owns a device called the infopad, a descendent of the smartphone of Earth's past. Under the ECU, these devices were used primarily (by the individuals) as entertainment and (by the government) as a surveillance device. However, the Flowers have justly appropriated them for the purposes of democracy. When a governmental decision must be made, New Hollywood citizens receive a prompting on their infopads, detailing the issue and allowing them to vote on it. Everyone gets a say on... everything.

Now, you may wonder: who decides which votes are to be held? And who watches over the system altogether? That work is done via a mass Bezia Bureaucracy, the closest thing New Hollywood still has to a traditional government. Except that the bureaucrats are elected, if you can believe it, by lottery. Any citizen who volunteers can be randomly selected to serve as a bureaucrat.

The bureaucrats serve for one year, and have a limit of two consecutive terms at a time. They work outside of offices, primarily from their infopads, to regulate the voting process. And this also works democratically: while any citizen can propose a vote, it must receive approval from a certain number of bureaucrats before the rest of the population is prompted to vote on it. These bureaucrats are random and numerous, to outweigh any personal bias one may have against a particular proposal.

Therefore, the process goes as follows:

A Flower citizen, let's call her Jane Doe, proposes a law that bans the use of tobacco within public spaces. The Anti-Tobacco Proposal is sent to a randomly-selected group of bureaucrats, with each one voting on whether the Proposal is relevant and possible. After receiving sufficient approval from many individual bureaucrats, the Proposal then appears before the citizens themselves, who vote en masse on whether the Proposal is good.

As infopad messages are near-instantaneous, this entire process can happen quickly, sometimes within an hour. AI is currently being developed to detect redundant laws.

In this way, Bezia's population can now decide major issues with neither rulers nor representatives. No masters. No kings. Only the will of the people.

It is perfect.

It is not perfect.

The obvious problem with such a system is that humans, when in large groups, tend towards a mob-like mentality. Already, the punishments leveled on former protectors have been brutal and unusual- because the mob hates them. No education is required to vote, after all. You do not have to be smart, or understanding, or a good person.

There are particular critics who point these flaws out. Very often. They come from the other side of screens- because they are, of course, embedded in the media. The old Oligarchs still have many sympathizers within the media groups that they used to own, who still attempt to divide the new democracy. And yet, those media anchormen who no longer care for the Oligarchs might just be worse.

The news thrives on eye-catching, anger-inducing headlines. The kinds that naturally drive people towards political extremes. Many arguments are had between the viewers of different news stations who, for all intents and purposes, are beginning to live in different worlds. The headline of one station says this, and the headline of another says that. It splits the vote. How can they be reconciled?

Division already wants to tear apart this new democracy. Time will tell if it does.

Technology Overview:

_{A complex tower seeds the earth while releasing purifiers into the air}

Hardlight: Originally designed as touchable holograms, the hardlight of the ECU is currently being expanded for use in other fields, especially matters military. Holographic soldiers and hardlight shielding in particular are becoming trademarks of ECU defensive strategy.

Micro-emitters, a new invention, enable the use of touchable holograms everywhere. As these holograms are replacing real workers at an alarming rate, socialist policies have become markedly more popular. A vote will be held about this.

Terraforming: From strategically releasing climate-altering gases into the atmosphere to building gigantic, sun-reflecting mirrors in space, the WFD understands terraforming. Their own world has been shifted remarkably, from a wasteland to a little almost-clone of Earth. It's great! And now the thought has come up to terraform other planets in the Bezia system as new colonies, or even- would we dare it?- to terraform Earth itself back to life. But the decision has yet to be made. A vote will be held about this.

Psychological Programming: A dark secret, buried in the past that is the ECU, perhaps best left alone. They learned how to "brainwash" a person to obey specific commands at the hearing of specific trigger words. Their psychological warfare tactics have recently become infamous. The WFD has formally condemned the former, but holds a place in their armed forces for the latter.

Military Overview:

The WFD fleet is growing quickly, and is no longer just Old Earth designs. If recent events have taught the masses anything, it's that a good military is a necessity; they've been shot at by enough people to learn.

See, when the Oligarchs evacuated Bezia, they left their bank accounts behind. All currency and all assets- a staggering amount- have been seized by the Bezia Bureaucracy, to be used for funding public works. Like the navy. The navy is a public work.

And due to the abundance of metal resources on Bezia, many ships can be constructed cheaply. The Flowers lean deep into this advantage to create countless, small ships, manned by one at a time. They are inexpensive in design, simply armed, but numerous. In fact, the one area where the Flowers have splurged is in hardlight shielding, leading to a new nickname for the Flower's one-man fighters: "Shield Ships."

_{Shield Ships working collaboratively}

The name is accurate to their strategies, as well. Shield Ships in combat often act collaboratively, generating group shields around themselves and important assets. When a larger, "warship" size Flower vessel enters the battle, its smaller comrades will be spotted swarming around it in a cylinder pattern, cloaking the warship in their shields. They can then deactivate shielding at key points to allow the warship to fire projectiles, reactivating it after the missile has passed through.

This tactic can't go on forever- it is a huge drain on batteries- but for the moments it lasts, a Flower warship is nearly invincible.

Finally, and borrowing again from ECU strategy, fighter ships often flood comm channels with random noise, making it difficult for enemies to coordinate- but, as a consequence, making it laughably easy to detect the ships doing the jamming. Really, they expect to be detected. They have to fall back on that shielding to keep themselves safe.

Being such a self-sacrificing role, AI is currently being developed to "autopilot" smaller vessels. But the Flowers are three centuries behind in AI development: they will need foreign aid to complete this project.

[Side-note: Most Shield Ships are carried inside the warships themselves, to be released during combat]

Examples of Flower Ships

<sub>An M01 Lily Class; the classic "Shield Ship"


An M03 Wasp Class; a one-man fighter


An M01 Sunflower Class; a warship, used for docking the Wasps and Lillies.</sub>

---

Additional Info:

A search has began for the famous icon of the White Flower movement, Martina Ward, who was sentenced to exile by the ECU. She is likely somewhere in the ruins. She must be found and brought back to her people, to be told how much things have changed.

The Scuttler's Gang, a Neo London criminal organization who helped the Flowers win, has become increasingly agitated by their lack of repayment. They pose a real threat to local security. A vote will be held about this.

The more anti-cyborg Flowers still call Zetans "toasters," and refuse to stop even when it's making everyone else increasingly uncomfortable. A vote will be held about this.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

White Flower Revolution

Conclusion: Heralds

Manon. Seung. Jun. Kamali. Kyle. Eta-Theta.

This is what he thinks to himself, to stay focused. It's a simple list of names; not important to anybody but him. Yun says them to himself, constantly.

He says them when they breached the compound, him and a wildly, unstably mixed gang of rouge Flowers and ex-protectors. He said them when he helped batter down the real protectors who were still trying to do their jobs- poor men. He says them now, especially now, that he knows he has the monster cornered.

All through it: Manon. Seung. Jun. Kamali. Kyle. Eta-Theta.

"Come ooooonnnn, Heralds, where are you?"
"We know you're hiding here somewhere..."
"Hey, hey, little rat, the cats are coming!"

Those voices aren't Yun's. He doesn't talk as much as he used to, he's been so weighed down with unfamiliar thoughts. Thoughts that make him feel guilty, old and cruel. They've reminded him of every murder he did for the Oligarchs. They make him say the names.

Something changed in him that day, the very day this all started, when he was standing out in the rain. Something in his heart shifted. It won't let him sleep at night.

But that's why he's here. That's why he has to do this.

"I'll take the left passage," Yun forces himself to talk, finally, 'cause they're standing at a crossroads. Two steel passages stretch on before them, both windowless and red-lit, somewhere deep in Herald's hiding place. He can only be down one of them. "I'll take the left," Yun says again, to the man standing beside him, "with the other ex-protectors. You take the right with your Flowers. One of us'll catch him."

"And then?" the Flower asks, always doubting Yun's loyalty.

"And then we'll kill him."

The Flower nods, happy and serious. If he even is a Flower, technically? Yun's not sure. He used to be, but went all rouge and off-the-grid so he could hunt down Heralds all on his own. Grabbed a whole bunch of used-to-be-protectors to take with him, Yun included. Maybe because he figures they're too hated to steal the glory from him.

He leads his favored soldiers down the right passage, and Yun splits the other way.

"Where you think we headed, boss?" one of the ex-protectors asks him.
"Prolly into a trap," answers another, who is neither Yun nor the boss. But it stands uncorrected.

The cold, steel passage continues onwards no matter what they say, for what feels like a comically long time. (But is, in reality, only a few minutes.) At its end is a door, and in front of the door is...

"Who the hell are you, kid?"
"...and why are you wearing a cowboy hat?"

The kid, a thin Japanese man with sunken eyes- and, indeed, a cowboy hat on his head- doesn't answer either question. He says something else instead: "The Savant James Heralds, genius leader of the ECU, has evacuated the building." His voice is so grim, you can't help but think of it as more of a threat than a statement.

"Yeah," grins one of the other two ex-protectors, Jameson, circling closer, "then what's that door behind you?"

"You don't need to worry about that, protector. If you go in there, you die. That's what that door is. Walk away from it. Today doesn't have to end this way. It can stop here; you have the power to end it here. The Savant is gone. Death is inside that door."

He adjusts his hat.

Now the other ex-protector- Cho- is circling too, like two sharks in the water, and the cowboy-kid is obviously getting nervous. But he speaks calmly, a soft voice that shows no fear: "Listen, my friends, to my words. Sold cold bold. Do you understand? Sold cold bo-"

And that's when a protector's club splits his skull.

The metal those things are made of, so hard, it makes a person's bones snap. There's an audible sound before Tanaka hits the floor, a crack! like a baseball bat. He drops down. The sentence isn't finished.

Cho, who killed him, takes a long deep breath. "That's what we do, you both hear me?" He looks at Yun and Jameson in turn. "If they start that hypnosis, brainwashing crap they like to use on us. You crack their skulls before they finish the sentence. Nobody uses magic words on us. Got it?" The other two both nod. Looks like Cho is the boss tonight, after all.

The doors open with a key-card found in the cowboy kid's pocket.

Behind the door is not death, but a garden. It's green, white and brown, filled with rocks and grass, arranged like a painting in three dimensions. Little god rays come streaming down from the glass dome overhead, just to add to the effect. It's beautiful. Except for the snake sitting in it.

He's leaned against a tree, sitting down like he doesn't have a care in the world, all alone in this massive terrarium. Fiddling with a trinket: some little metal box that he keeps tightening or loosening screws on. Is this how far Heralds has fallen? They said he was a madman. Almost enough to make you feel bad for killing him.

Almost, Yun decides.

They approach slow, and this is their mistake. Because of course, Heralds would try the exact same thing as Tanaka, but he would do it just a little more cleverly. Just as they're approaching the tree, that box he's fiddling with suddenly jumps and whirs in his hands, and out of it comes a voice, louder than a human voice should be, echoing off the rocks.

It says the words. Every ex-protector goes spear-straight. Cho especially tries to fight it, closing his eyes and plugging his ears. Heralds only gleefully twists a few more screws; the sound doubles in volume.

At that moment, they are tin soldiers, waiting on orders. Even half-aware of what's happening, it's unavoidable: the conditioning feels not like a desire to obey, but like a fundamental need, like breathing or eating. Like you'll die if you don't listen. Heralds has three attack dogs back on leashes. He presses a button on its bottom, turning off the little box- it's not needed anymore.

He straightens his gray coat as he stands up onto his feet. "Protectors," he says, calmly, as the men stand still, "I need you to listen to me. I need you to go outside and guard the door. I am the Savant. The Savant is in danger. I need you to go outside and guard the door, and tell anyone who comes close that I have left the planet. But I'll stay here; because this is my home, and no rebels are going to drive me from it." The last bit sounded more for him, but two of the protectors nodded along anyway, automatically. Only one doesn't: that peaks Heralds interest.

Heralds draws close to Yun, leaning in towards him. Is he saying something? Muttering something, under his breath? It sounds like...

"Manon. Seung. Jun. Kamali. Kyle. Eta-Theta." Yun's eyes are closed tight, focusing so intensely that it should drive him insane. It's like pulling yourself out of quicksand. But the names ground him: they remind him both who he is and what he's done. This is where the Savant makes a true mistake, because he leans in close, always curious, to hear more clearly what the ex-protector is trying to say. Yun's eyes open: "Heralds."

It is faster than lightning and easier than breathing, then, the way Yun sweeps Herald's feet out from under him, and the way he shoves his bodyweight against the tree, and the way- with a thousand memories behind it- he lifts his old metal club high into the air, high enough to hide the sun-

And brings it down.

The reports tomorrow will say that Heralds died "instantly." But when is that ever true? No, his mind takes a moment to go out. And in those lingering few seconds, his eyes flit up to the tree, really noticing all the details for the very first time. It is a Cornus Florida, a dogwood tree, in mid-bloom: it has white flowers on it.

The Savant James Heralds, genius leader of the ECU, is staining the roots red.

~~~~~~~~
Conclusion: Tanaka and Abadi

Viewable from the window of an apartment is a graveyard. It's a great, stately one, as clean and as posh as a gravesite can be, reserved for the rich and their family: "In Memory of Good Friends Lost," reads the sign outside. The lettering is gold, of course, and almost every corpse in that cemetery used to be an Oligarch. Of course.

Compared to the graves below, the apartments are poor and dirty and small. Made for families to sleep on top of each other. They have three rooms to share between twelve people, so that the sound of their arguing and protesting pierces through the walls and is heard by every other family in the building. Ms. Janson likes to sit by one little window and watch the visitors to the graves. So clean, with fancy clothes. Unlike anything up in these trapped apartments. It's so strange that the city planners would put them so close together.

The grave visitors don't come as much as they used to. Since the revolution, that is. But there's one: a Middle-Eastern girl- because she still looks too young to be called a woman- who always wears one of those funny robe things that Ms. Janson once heard the name for, but can never quite remember. Adaya? Abay?

Whatever it is. The girl walks to the same grave every day, carrying flowers that are red or blue or yellow, but never white. She leaves them there without preamble, which is another funny thing. She just lays the flowers gently down, no words and no tears, and walks away. Something looks so sad in her walk, but the watcher doesn't think it's about whoever it is that died: she walks like she's carrying a heavy weight.

Beneath the inscribed name, and above the dates of birth and death, the grave has a funny shape carved into it. The first time Ms. Janson leaned out of her window to catch a glimpse of it, she was confused: it looks like a hat.

One day, the girl stops coming. Nobody leaves flowers at that grave anymore.

~~~~~~~~
Conclusion: Yun

Life is ironic.

It's taken all of this to teach Yun that. All the beatings and murders, the ones that he committed. All the training and programming, that they forced onto him. All the internal war, and then at last the real, external one, against the Zetans, and then back home, against his own people. It's taken all of that to teach Yun that the universe has a sense of humor.

He sure knows that it does now, because he's sitting in the same kind of prison cell that he once locked people up into. He never realized how damp it was in here. It was just his job to bring people in: he threw them into a cell, closed the bars behind them, and never thought about them again. Protectors rarely bothered with interviews and confessions; the perp was guilty from the moment the cuffs came on. Somewhere in the very back of his mind, back then, buried beneath a sea of base thoughts and rage, he always knew that they would face a trial. He also knew that ECU trials are supposed to be brutal. Will the Flowers be different?

You know, he's not betting on it.

When they dragged him in here, the provisional security guys said "This needs to be a society of order." Whatever that means. And they said "You must still face trial for what amounts to a murder," because he did it without official permission.

He thinks what they meant to say is "You're a protector. We can't let you get the credit for killing Heralds!"

He wanted to correct them, saying "You mean ex-protector." But since they never actually said it outloud-like, that wasn't possible. He couldn't even defend himself, because his accusers didn't have to speak the words at all- they just thought it. He knows they did. 'Cause he could feel it. He'll always be the monster.

Manon. Seung. Jun. Kamali. Kyle. Eta-Theta. Heralds.

Yun slumps into the wall of his cell, letting the cold, wet bricks soak his back. Will it be execution, his sentencing, or will it be exile? Life in prison sounds like too much to hope for.

And he's not sure he'd want it.

~~~~~~~~
Conclusion: Tiffany

The apes are doing their rounds again. Since Heralds fell- it can't be more than a few days ago- this song has been beat into the skull of everyone who has ears to hear. A victory lap, she guesses.

Tiffany hears the chorus start up again now, throaty, vibrating and ape-like, blending in with the roar of their engine. Round the corner they come, three apes clinging to a vehicle that used to be a protector's, if you could even recognize it today. The gun from the back ripped clean from its place; the exterior a mess of wires like spilled guts. This automobile has been the victim of violence. It drifts quick around the curve, skidding the pavement like it's still being chased, and the song shouts as it flies:

"Do you hear the people sing?
Singing a song of angry men?
It is the music of a people
Who will not be slaves again!"

Tiffany flags the apes down, one hand in the sky- they recognize her. Naturally. Her face has been spread all around the news, so that it seems like every man, woman and child has a well-thought-out opinion on Tiffany Holstead. The chimpanzee driver, a Freemen who deserted his Khan for his ideals, looks at her like he halfway expects orders. But she just climbs up into the proc-auto with them.

"Come on," she says, "let's keep driving. I want to sing too." She ignores the surprised faces of the apes- and the internal question, 'When did I learn to read monkey face expressions?'

So they ride on, the song picking up and filling these streets. These blood-stained, war-cracked streets of New Hollywood.

"When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!"

Vehicles are quite rare in Neo London. Public transport has always been heavily encouraged. This mutilated proc-auto being the only car in sight, she has an easy time spotting the faces of the crowd, looking up at what their oppressors used to ride.

"Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade
Is there a world you long to see?"

They pass by a bombed-out shell that used to be a business. Was it the Matuvistans that bombed this one, or the Oligarchs? No telling. Funny, Tiffany thinks, how when the sign hangs sideways, half-burnt, the only word you can still read is "Quality." It's not the only tragedy around here; this city looks like a disaster film. Gray and crumbling. War vehicles scattered about, flipped over, nobody has bothered to clean them out. Burnt clothes on the sidewalk.

"Then join in the fight
That will give you the right to be free!"

The proc-auto sputters and coughs as they slow down, passing by a man being taken into custody right in the middle of the street. The ones cuffing him wear bright, clean uniforms with white flowers printed on their chests. And judging by the golden fist tattooed on his arm, that man they're cuffing could only be a protector. The aimless, ever-present crowd of civilians spits on him.

The proc-auto's engine whines in sympathy. It doesn't have many miles left itself. But Tiffany and the apes drive it onwards, singing:

"Do you hear the people sing?
Singing the song of angry men?
It is the music of the people
Who will not be slaves again!"

The next scene is nothing but the last two, repeated again. Dirty streets filled with dirty people, lost and aimless, scarred by war. How many foreign soldiers fired bullets here? And where are they today? Even the New Havenists, who came in the name of compassionate aide, are beginning to pack up and leave. But these people, these huddled masses yearning to breathe free, are left behind.

This is my world, Tiffany thinks. These are my people.

"When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!"

In the falling raindrops, her tears are invisible.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

@jorvhik
Approved!

Can't wait to be decapitated by one of these guys.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

@jorvhik
Yo, love the feel here. I have a weakness for technobarbs and you are exploiting it for approval, I can feel it. :

But for real, there's only one issue I gotta ask you to correct. If you've spotted the Discord chat lately, you can tell there's been some debate about the existence of fusion. In the tech section, you mention probable fusion used to generate weapons. We might wanna change that.

Perhaps their energy weapons simply use batteries, created via non-portable fission reactors somewhere? It would mean an energy sword could run out of juice on the battlefield- but that sounds like a fun thing to write. Drama!

If you can edit that, you're approved and may drop your NS in the char tab and start posting whenever.

Can I offer a bit of personal advice tho? You seem to have based Kudrion society entirely off of martial acts. That's totally fine for the NS, but in IC, remember that even the most warlike of people are still human. What does a warrior do when they aren't fighting? What about the Kudrions who don't fight at all, like the old? Humans aren't Klingons. Just a thing to keep in mind.

@Lady Lascivious
Approved!

@Dog

Messaging on Discord. Stuff we should discuss.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

@Lady Lascivious

This is probably one of the best sheets I've ever gotten, in a story-telling sense. I love the feeling that, by the end, the Tiamat are a completely traumatized people: trying to wipe out the natives because they might speak of the Terrible Truth. They even gouged their own eyes out so they don't have to see it. Spoopy.

Questions:
How would the redundant brain be able to transfer memories in the event of physical-death? Like, say you got shot in the head. How can your primary brain, that just got shot and is dying, have time to transfer anything to the secondary, redundant brain? Wouldn't primary brain die first? It can't be instant, since- if I remember correctly- the brain stores some things physically. Unless all memories, thoughts and feelings are always been stored on both brains, simultaneously?

You never explain what the Hive strain is, or where it come from. I guess that's intended to be in one of the archives?

@Dog
I'll have to check out your sheet a little later on.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

Addressing: @Raylah, @Crusader Lord, @Irredeemable, @SgtEasy, @Sigma

It's dark, and not only because of the late hour. It's because he turned the lights down. Certain things just need to be done in the dark.

The man takes a long drink of pitch-black tea, another mood-appropriate prop, before he places the cup down on someone else's desk. He's waited days for her to fall asleep. Abadi. A puppet, sacrificing her youth and her sanity for a system that will never love her back. But there's no point in trying to tell her. There are more important things to share this evening.

He turns on her terminal, listening to it groan and whine like a personal computer from the 20th century. Like the hardware itself is tired. Every one is waiting for this to be over. Days spent without sleep, trying to put out diplomatic fires, just for something else to burst into flame right as you extinguish the last. The terminal prompts him, and he keys in the password she once shared with him, before all this started.

Message to the Undefeated

You claim to be our ally. To the government, or to the people?

They are not the same.

Soon, you'll have to choose.

Choose wisely,
A Flower.

He hits "Send," hoping and praying that his half-understood encryption measures will work. This man is no technical expert; far, far from it. But the terminal tells him the message went through anyway. Good. It's important that the nations realize that there are real people behind this. New Hollywood is not a battleground, it is not a political experiment. It is his home. He lives there, he dreams of there. He will risk capture and trial to send this message.

Message to the Khanate

Your soldiers make our homes their stomping grounds, on behalf of the Khan, payed by the Oligarchs.

But people live there. Lives are stomped under your feet.

We remember them all,
A Flower.

His hands shake. He feels exposed. To threaten a government isn't a small thing; suddenly, his body is frail and unprotected. He looks to the glass door, like soldiers could come breaking in any moment to take him prisoner. Could anyone save him?

Snap out of it. He drinks more tea, closing his eyes just a moment. His fingers press "Send" before he's opened them again.

Message to the Columbians

Thank you.

We won't forget it. We'll find a way to pay you back.

I promise,
A Flower That Grows Where Nations Meet.

The Meeting Place rotates just a little bit, always in orbit, so that Earth can be seen. Dead and gray. Is this what humanity always does? We only kill each other. That's what a human is. A machine that kills things.

Stop, stop, stop. That's not true. We were made for something better; each person feels it in their hearts. That's what the conscience is, the sense of right and wrong. It's your spirit telling you, "You're meant to be more than this."

Message to the Zetans

New Hollywoodites let the war happen. Each one of us is responsible for that.

I don't expect your forgiveness.

But it was wrong,
A Flower.

He still remembers his face. The face of the boy he saw the protectors kill on the pavement. They said it was an accident, that the kid fought back and might have had a weapon and probably had it coming and was on drugs and so on and so forth.

But he knows what he saw. It was a murder.

Message to the Xandalians

Some say you're for us, some aren't so sure.

Come out the shadows. Fight openly for what your heart knows is right.

And one day,

We'll pay you back,
A Flower That Grows Where Nations Meet.

Focus, focus, focus. Three days without sleep, and you can't control for a second where your mind wanders off to. It takes you back to who you really are.

There's one last people to contact. The killer's best friends.

Message to the Matuvistans

How long? How many more?

You spill blood for a government that will not be here in a month.

When they're gone, we'll remember who are enemies were.

The clock ticks, see the writing on the wall,
A Flower.

---

~~~~~~~~

---

Collab between Tortoise and @TimeMaster

(Previously the main One force agreed with the plan they came up with and made long apologies to Kayla for hiding the nature of the meat, but they were sure she would understand.)

They are a group, but they move and flow as a single life. It’s one body that dodges through the streets of New Beijing. Ten members. They all know where the others will be. Without talking, only relying on their shared memories, they understand one another.

Kayla emerges from a long-abandoned alleyway, and finds five James and a William waiting for her. She knew they would be there. They took the faster, riskier path, and she- being the most valuable member of the team- took the slower and safer one. Three Grants walk out from behind her, into the bright streetlights.

“The team’s all here.” She points up to a dense, squat building. Chain-link, electric fencing. It’s a power plant, but you’d think it was a fort. “That's our target. You remember the tour I had, five years ago?”

The One split up, a few squadrons of Williams and James moved throughout the city meeting with White Flower leaders, explaining who they are and that they were there to help. Some didn’t accept the One at first and some were wildly surprised by the nature of them but in the end they all agreed that the One was there to help during the revolution, afterwards...things would be different.

The group following Kayla was armed to the teeth with bone armor, spears, bows and small swords. In addition, the James also made use of the debris from the spaceport to make a few very durable spears in compassion to their bone weaponry. The Grants followed Kayla as One being, no small-talk, no signs, no sounds.

As Kayla talked, one of the Grants stepped forward.

“ You already know the answer to that. The fence is electrified, the corridors are long and tightly packed. It wouldn’t be a good idea to be caught in them. ” answered the Grant.

"About the fence-" she hesitated. "The power in New Beijing has been running full-blast, non-stop. For a long time now. Weeks, months? Yeah. And there were a lot of power-outages even before then. So I was thinking..." she took a deep breath. "I was thinking that the fence might short out, you know, if it suddenly had to release a lot of energy. Like. Like if someone were electrocuted."

She looked over to the William. She didn't like this.

“ We actually were thinking of the same plan. Think about what the screams were in the ship when we passed through the Gateway. You don’t need to worry about us. We are One! ” said the Grant in a calm, shushed voice then at the end, all the others instinctively banged their chests with their fists.

Behind the false bravado, the One were having similar feelings about it. Kayla’s influence paled in comparison to the original One mind but still made them doubt themselves at times. Changes would surely appear in the One society after the revolution but for now, those thoughts and feelings would be pushed aside.

The William walked forward, bravely and with a small bow to the others ran straight into the fence hugging it tightly as the electricity coursed through their body. No scream, no shout. Just a small grunt of pain. Kayla winced. But the fence did stop humming- it was out. One by one, they jumped it.

When Kayla's feet hit the pavement on the other side, she felt like she'd just landed on foreign territory. This titan of a power plant was on the very outskirts of the city, placed right before a slow drop-off into wasteland, and was one of the few places of officialdom the White Flowers hadn't yet rested control from. There were still ECU guards here: but they were the same ones that had stood guard when the city fell, and couldn't be able to hold out much longer. How long will it be before, for want of food, they decide to give themselves up?

Kayla doesn't pray. But if she did, she would pray that they're all still alive to make that decision.

A James kicks the door down, and they slide into the smooth lighting of the Ai Zhang Memorial Plant. "The psychological warfare isn't hitting here," Kayla said, aloud. She ran her fingers along a sign on the wall that read (in English, Chinese and Latin) FISSION CORE THIS WAY ---->

"It's, like, three AM,” she says. “Maybe we can slip by the guards?"

But they couldn't, because right as the last word left her mouth, a protector in gold uniform came strolling around the corner.

Without a word, the One moved to the side, hiding in the shadows. As the protector approached their “hiding” place, one James stepped out.

The protector stopped in his tracks and said “You there, stop! Identify yourself!”

The James lifted his arms up in a peaceful gesture and stopped, as the protector was approaching them, gun held high.

“ Hey there! No need for that. I just came back from the city. Those revolutionaries got help from scum-extraterrestrials. Bastards thinking they can take our city! ” said the James mimicking to the best of Kayla’s memories of how the ECU talked.

For a moment, as the ECU protector approached he lowered the weapon. He got into arm’s reach of the James when a Grant stepped out from the shadows. The protector’s weapon flew straight away towards the Grant and that’s when the James made his move.

He lunged at the protector, hitting him square in the solar plexus instantly stopping the protector in his tracks as he tried to breathe. Another James stepped out and quickly wrapped his arms around the neck of the protector, putting him in a rear naked choke and held on tight to him as he slowly fell asleep.

Quickly they proceeded into stripping the protector, taking his weapon/clothes, equipping a Grant with them and then afterwards, sent one James with him back towards the One lines.

“ That could’ve been worse. We got lucky that the protector believed our ruse for long enough. Now, we’ve got an undercover scout. ” said the leading Grant.

Kayla had felt funny, watching the protector fall. The sick sounds he made when the James choked him out. She thought of herself as an empathetic person, she didn’t want him to be hurt, but then-

But then, she’d always hated them.

She hardens her heart. And after that, watching him be stripped didn’t bother her too much; Kayla had only ever been into women anyway. (And that’s canon now.)

The group proceeds in a straight line, right to where they all remember the reactor being. The tour Kayla had of this place was years ago, and felt more like ages, but the lay-out hadn’t changed. Only this time, it looked like the lab of a mad scientist; the trash littering the floor and the little scraps of food huddled into corners.

The guards and engineers have been stuck inside this building since the Flowers took over. Absolutely terrified of leaving the building and facing the mobs outside. Trapped, probably half-starving; looks like cleanliness standards go out the window after a while. She wonders where they’re all sleeping.

The reactor itself isn’t visible, being behind a protective wall of Bezian metal. Kayla remembers them lowering that for her visit, but it took a passcode entered into the computer terminal to do it.

“Guys,” Kayla says, realizing it as she does, “we’re going to need to kidnap a scientist.”

As the group followed Kayla, they were trying to pierce together all her memories of the place. Checking them again and again for all the small things that she might’ve missed or overlooked.

Seeing the state of the reactor’s room hardened the One. They remembered how it felt. The loneliness, the fear of not waking up tomorrow, the lack of food. Soon they would’ve turned on each other, soon they would’ve eaten each other. Eventually only one would remain if he or she would’ve been smart enough. But they weren’t on an alien planet, they weren’t trapped forever...all they had to do was to go out and all would’ve stopped. Remembering how the protectors were trained, they knew they wouldn’t have surrendered but to choose to torment yourself when you’ve got a choice? That was something the One wouldn’t accept. Something that simply wouldn’t stand with them.

“ We know. We can’t break into it and even if we could, we will not be able to do so without alarming the whole facility. We’ve got an idea, pretty sure you’ve thought about it as well. ” said one of the Grants. Looking around, they visualized the whole area based on Kayla’s memories. Each door, each window, each nook and cranny.

The James took to the corridors, each armed with a spear, sword and a shield. Checking room by room like a well oiled machine, they eventually found what they were looking for.

The mess hall, now made as a sleeping area. Protectors, the staff and everyone else was there. Some huddled on the floor, sleeping on broken tables, others playing cards as if they had no care in the world. They’ve all had the same look in their eyes, a look which the One understood very well. Desperation. Starvation.

One of the James went back to the main group and called them to the mess hall.

“ We’re going to leave the decision to you, Kayla. Do you wish to murder them all and save one person or should we show mercy? In the state they are, we can take them easily. ” said the One closest to Kayla.

Kayla nodded. “Take them. I- I don’t want to be a murderer.”

“ We all know that you feel like one already. You’ve been in our mind, we’ve been in yours. You understand why we are keen to kill them all. They don’t deserve living anymore than we deserved starving for hundreds of years but alright, we’ll follow your lead.” said the closest James, their voice full of anger.

The other Ones looked towards them and shook their heads. The One was vengeful, the One refused to believe that one cannot find ways out of bad situations. They’ve done so from the beginning of their life and until now. Maybe it was Kayla’s influence or maybe the One found a way to forgive and to understand that not everyone can survive, but they’ve decided to let them live as per Kayla’s wishes.

The Grants carried in their backpacks some provisions and handed the backpacks to the Jamess. The James , who was dressed up in the protector’s clothes, went inside the mess hall. Almost instantly, the protectors were onto them. Guns held high towards them with the same desperate look. They knew death came without realizing it.

“ Easy there, easy. Put the guns down. W--I’ve found some friends. ”

“Identify yourself at once!” said one of the protectors, gun aimed towards the James’s midsection.

“ It doesn’t matter who I am but what matters is what I bring. Look!” said as he threw a backpack on the floor, as it hit the floor, some meat fell out.

Instantly, the desperation in the protector’s eyes turned to madness. A food-deprived madness. Two of the protectors threw their weapons on the floor and half-ran half-sprinted towards the food, pushing each other away from the backpack.

“ There, there. No need to fight. We’ve got more food. Just put the weapons down and we’ll give you all the food you can eat. ” said the James with a charming smile on their face.

At this, the other protectors put their weapons down and soon the civilians approached as well. The One stepped from the corridors and into the mess hall, calmly taking the discarded weapons of the protectors and with trained efficiency, pointed them at the protectors.

The lead Grant stepped forward and looked behind them where Kayla stood, calling out to her.

“ Please, set forward. See the mighty protectors, the ones which we so much feared. Anyways, you should talk with your people, Ambassador. They’re docile enough. ”.

It was strange, seeing the protectors- the hostile, lurking force she'd feared her entire life- so contained. The only other time they'd been so pliable was after psyche-programming. Like a lion in a cage.

But they weren't those who would know the passcodes. She'd need to find the administrator, the one whose rank is indicated by- there he is. With the red stripe across his lab coat. Kayla led him by the arm into a small side-room, probably meant to be a janitorial closet, and let the One guard the rest. She figures he wouldn't be super willing to talk with a horde of identical men staring him down.

She brought a gun with her.

"Tell me the passcode," she whispered to him, as soon as they were alone. "I won't hurt you. We just need to know how to shut this place down."

The administrator was an aging, bearded man, wildly-haired, like a descendant of Einstein and Freud. His white hair trembled when he shook his head. "No, madam, I cannot do that. I will not."

"Why?"

He only shook his head again. "No."

"But the ECU doesn't do anything good. For you scientists, I mean. Why are you loyal?"

"Because it is what I have always been, madam. I'm too old to change, and-" here he lifted his sunken, hungry eyes, and there was a glimpse of life in them, "because I don't give in to bullies."

Kayla then tried a hundred things. She tried to convince him. She tried to bribe him. She promised a future career in the new government. And then she threatened to call the One back into the room and let them beat old Einstein-Freud until he was black and blue. Still, the man just shook his head sadly, and rejected everything.

Then she raised the gun.

“Tell me,” she whispered. Her voice turned desperate, almost pleading. Because she knew what the answer would be. And when he refused again, she knew what she would have to do.

“No, madam.”

She shot him in the arm. The sound echoed off the cramped little walls, so that it sounded like a bomb going off. He crumpled over in pain; the blood splatter looked like fresh red paint.

“Tell me.”

He tried to say something, but his voice came out in ragged gasps. She leaned close, tilting her ear to his mouth, so that he could whisper the prized secret to her, telling her how to shut this abomination down. He said to her:

“I will not.”

Kayla screamed in rage, turning around in the closet, feeling so many of the memories of the One at that moment that it nearly overwhelmed her. This isn’t what she wanted to become. She didn’t want to be this. Her fist banged against the door. She turned around, raising the gun again- now it was at his head. His sparkling, hungry eyes met hers again. There was a challenge there.

She breathed deep, ran her finger against the trigger... and lowered the weapon. “I can’t.” And she stalked out the room, to find the One outside.

The One looked at the protectors and the other staff as they were eating the meat, their meat with a look torn between pure hatred and pity.

On one side, they pitied them for being in this situation. For starving, for fighting to stay alive at any cost, for their integrity in not surrendering to the madness that is isolation.

On the other side, the protectors deserved to die for their foolishness of getting themselves trapped and starving. They should be left to starve until they learn better, left to suffer until they break. After all that if they would still be alive, they would be reborn and would deserve to breathe.

Memories came rushing to the One, remembering the faces of those on the colony ships. Beaten and broken, starving, their minds dead even if their bodies didn’t know yet. At the same time, others memories would surface, Kayla’s. The children she didn’t realize were there, begging in the streets. The hungry cries of a populace too afraid to fight their oppressors. The protectors beating up a kid for trying to steal from someone who thought they were important. For a second, the One was overwhelmed and it could be seen on their faces, a split second was all it took and then their usual calm face took over. The craziness in their eyes was gone, replaced with the one from before.

They will not break. They will not surrender to their feelings. They will overcome anything that comes towards them.

A gunshot from inside the small room where Kayla was and two Jamess ran towards the door, thinking that maybe the scientist managed to overpower Kayla.

“ Is everything alright? The scientist gave away his secrets and died or do you need help?” said one of the James as they saw Kayla outside the room. Something almost broken in her eyes.

She shook her head. “I tried to…” but then the words caught in her throat. She didn’t want to talk about this- right now, she didn’t want to even think about it. There’s a man bleeding in the closet behind her. And she shot him.

She shot him.

“He’s alive. I’ve hurt him. Badly. I didn’t want to, but-” her voice tried to fly away again, and she struggled to catch it, “-but I did. I did hurt him. Because of you.” She crossed her arms. “‘Cause of your sadistic, fucked up thoughts floating around in my head. It’s your fault. It’s not mine!”

The One sighted and stared at Kayla for a few seconds, looking at her closely. Emotions fighting on her face. One of the James stepped around Kayla and went to the scientist, bleeding from his arm. Nothing major, not enough to kill him.

“ Kayla. Listen to us. Think. Remember our training, our plight. Calm your emotions. Breath. In. Breath. Out. Center yourself. said the other James. Mimicking what they were telling Kayla.

After Kayla followed their advice and calmed down, they said :

“ As long as he still lives, it wasn’t us. You know better than anyone what would’ve happened here if we wouldn’t have our minds merged with yours.
You’ve also been warned what could happen if our minds merged and you agreed and we’re sure you understand why we proposed it as well. We understand your feelings but you also have to understand ours. ” continued the James, a melancholic tone in their voice.

She nodded. She did understand; that was the worst and best part of it. She knew exactly what he was saying, and why he was saying it. What argument could there be?

“Come on,” she says. “We can’t let him just bleed there.”

The first aid kit was easy to find, the general design not having changed in the last three hundred years: a big, blaringly white box marked "FIRST AID." Kayla should not have known how to use a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood, or how to dress the wound at all. But the One learned it in military training.

"Okay, okay," she told the administrator, as she finished it up in bandage, while he sat on the floor in front of her, "you should be alright. Roughly speaking."

He stared down at his arm, not for the first time in this little procedure. "I thought you were going to kill me?"

"I could never do that."

"The passcode is Alpha-71-Beijing."

Kayla nearly dropped the first aid kit in shock. He just told her, like that?

The James that was with Kayla watched her clean the admin’s wound and bandage it up. It seemed like a very complicated process centuries ago when they were going through training. Up, down, left, right. Make a small circle with the antiseptic then close it to the wound. They could do it now even if deprived of all their senses.

The James smiled, a kind smile as the admin told Kayla the code. It was rare for the One to truly smile but in this moment, they felt happy. One helping another, no strings attached.

“ Kindness is rare and it can go a long way. Admin, we never asked for your name but share it with us and we will remember you forever. ” said the James.

“Luther Able,” said the admin, “and I have lived in the ECU for all of my sixty-seven years. I’ve seen the very worst of the protectors and the Oligarchs. As long as you act as they do, everyone will resist you. It’s only when you show kindness that you might break your enemy’s heart.“ He twisted to face Kayla. “If you ever really get into power, madam, remember that.”

She nodded, and swore that she would.

With the passcode, disabling the Beijing power plant was simple. Soon, a rolling darkness swept across New Beijing, one block turning out after another. When they came back on, the system had been firmly disconnected from the Oligarch’s remote access, the passcode changed, and the White Flowers called in to guard it.

Luther Able and his colleagues were set free. But, like all protectors, the guards themselves had to be taken into custody, to await a trial at some future, undetermined date- presumably, when New Hollywood is finally free.

But now that must be made to happen.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

It's been a wild ride. A war, a civil uprising, multiple conflicts, too many diplomatic meetings to possibly count, trade deals and mercenary hirings and character moments and monkeys and who knows what I'm forgetting.

I'm thinking about doing the "Achievements" thing again soon.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

@Dog
Edits look nice: you're super approved. I'm honestly fascinated by the Ozols and def. hope we'll get to learn more about them IC.

Through the Gateways: Humanity [Closed] [Soon to be Concluded]

@Dog

First of all: I really, really like the quirky and conversational way that you wrote this.

Second of all: it's a good sign that I'm doing this here, instead of in a PM. I only critique publicly when the problems are very mild.

Honestly, all I really need from you is more. I don't care about sheet length (my own sheet is hilariously short) but it feels like there's a lot of vital stuff missing here. You mention that the Federal Union conquered an alien civilization: when, how, why? And if you are going to include aliens, I also need those talked about somewhere. What do they look like? Who are they? We know nothing about them but their species' name.

Also, you've talked to us about how (wage) slavery was a component of your nation, but I don't really see that reflected here.

We've discussed in Discord how sheets here are pretty mild. That's true! But if your nation has something special about it- aliens, wage slaves- then you should still describe that special thing. So if you can just fill those missing sections out, I can approve you and you can get posting :)