Vahir

Hegemony of the Stars, a Sci-fi RP

WIP (Hope you don't mind, Durandal, about me mentioning you on my sheet)

The Most Glorious Kingdom of Saverne

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alignment: Interplanetary semi-autonomous nation. Against the Hegemony (Privately) Species: Saverne is a human nation. Jalilu merchants are present within the Kingdom, though the human inhabitants are quite xenophobic towards them, and thus few Jalilu settle there. Leadership: By the grace of God, King Sylander II rules Kingdom. All decisions regarding the internal ruling of Saverne fall in his wise hands. Nevertheless, he is assisted in this task by the Estates, a small council of twelve noblemen and twelve clergymen, headed by his son and heir, Prince Therrian. Court is held in the royal capital of Faucher, on planet Saverne. Economy: Saverne is a kingdom of great inequality. The royal planet itself is prosperous, covered in opulent metropolises and sprawling urban centers. It is an important financial center within the Hegemony. The beauty of the surface cities, however, is deceptive; beneath these cities, inside the planet's crust, lies a massive network of slums. Those who have fortune live on the surface, while those without live below them, tending to the needs of the rich. Beyond planet Saverne, the Kingdom controls the rest of the colonies inside its star system. These are generally miserable settlements, however. Most of them are mining stations in asteroid belts, populated by less than a thousand laborers each, who live hard lives, toiling to extract the minerals that are the lifeblood of Saverne. Those on the barren desert worlds are not much better off. Instead of harvesting asteroids, the main economic drive on these planets is the massive factory clusters which dot them, owned by oligarchs who live on the Royal Planet. Relations with other factions: Though officially the King is a loyal citizen of the Hegemony, it is common knowledge that the Kingdom is constantly struggling for more autonomy. Darker still are the rumors that the King is one of the great benefactors of the Solar Brotherhood, offering asylum to its agents and funding for its projects. Technology: The Kingdom is quite wealthy, and so its military is equipped with the cutting edge of hegemony technology. As far as day to day life goes, however, it almost seems as if the Kingdom is two separate nations: The country of the poor, who make do with shockingly primitive technology that would be obsolete a century ago, and the country of the rich, who live as gods. History: (To be filled as I get a better handle on the lore here)

Characters

Name: Appearance: Affiliations: Assets: Biography:

The Royal Armada

SHIP CLASSES Ecorcheur Class Cruisers Role: Ecorcheurs are the bread and butter of the Royal Armada. They are not particularily adept at any role, but they make up for this with their versatility, having the firepower to engage in firefights, the armor to survive against enemy vessels, and the cargo space to transport a company of ground troops. Because of this, they are frequently used for patrol purposes, or to put down the occasional revolts against royal authority that crop up in the exterior colonies. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tonnerre Class Battleships Role: The Tonnerres are massive ships that act as the sword of the King. Though few in number (only two are currently in operation, with another under repairs on Saverne), they are fearsome to behold in combat, having the firepower to performal orbital bombardements that can ravage entire cities, and the cargo space to transport entire armies. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pirren Class Cruisers Role: The Pirrens are relatively unimposing vessels, when one looks at their small size and thin armor. Nevertheless, they play a vital role in the functionning of the Armada, for one reason: Each Pirren comes with a massive railgun on its front end, capable of firing weapons of mass destruction. Their purpose in battle is to stay away from enemy ships, and to instead wreck havoc from range, firing their payloads to devastate much larger enemy ships. Due to their vulnerability, Savernian military doctrine holds that the rest of the fleet must form a 'shield' around the Pirrens, allowing them to deal damage away from harm's reach, often at the cost of the defending ships. For this reason, the crew of Pirrens are seen with distaste by the rest of the Armada.

House of the Rising Sun?

What are you disagreeing with? You are practically repeating what we already established which is that no one questioned why someone is born to rule over others. Sure, rebellions happened, monarchs were killed, and crowns shifted hands, but at the end of the day those peasants that rose up would go back to their fields and just work for the next guy that comes along claiming he is destined to rule them. They accepted it as a normal thing because they never left their little bubble of ignorance. Progress of philosophy was crippled by Church who insisted that every new idea must be explained and be connected to God. Everything else was sacrilegious. You can clearly see the difference in philosophy of the Medieval ages and that of the Renaissance and the Enlightment, for example reading works of Machiavelli and Hobbes, who are mocking the way society works. If this was done in the Medieval times the author would be punished, most likely by death.

Xilaw

My point is that the idea of the divine right to rule of kings is as old as civilization, and not at all a characteristic of medieval society. In fact, the monarchies we typically associate with that kind of posturing came after the Renaissance.

I don't deny there has been civilizations in the Medieval Ages. It's called the Dark ages because scientific progress was relatively stagnant. Sure, it's not exactly historically accurate to call it Dark ages as it implies nothing significant happened. Obviously this is not true. However, there was no progress in neither medicine nor literature (most of it revolved around religion), science was practically non-existent and anything that remotely went against contemporary standards was frequently dubbed witchcraft. Contrast to this is the Renaissance and the Enlightenment period when literature and art flourishes, science is still somewhat held back but is making break throughs in secret. Criticizing Church is slowly becoming acceptable. This is the era when Europe is slowly leaving it's conservative cocoon. We're talking about Europe here, I'd leave the Islamic world out of it, who by the way, was ahead of Medieval Europe in a lot of aspects, including mathematics, astronomy, astrology, anatomy, physiology, philosophy etc. We can see this by the fact that Europe had to gather and translate old scripts from the Arabs, who unlike Europeans, wrote down and preserved literature of the ancient times and built upon the foundations laid down by the ancient Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, and other great civilizations.

Xilaw

Wiki Quite a long list.

Sure, civilizations existed, but was there much progress in anything other than in art of warfare? It was a time of wars, poverty, famine, plagues and death. On top of that, it was an era of little to no hygiene. Byzantium can be somewhat excused as far as that goes.

Xilaw

Yup, the medieval period was characterized by these things. But how is that any different from any other pre-industrial period? From Rome to 18th century Germany, population growth was glacial, pandemics were epidemic, famine was the family friend of every peasant. The medieval period (and again, lumping together 1000 years of history under one period is a gross oversimplification) wasn't any more bleak or bright than previous or following eras.

Papacy wouldn't be as strong as it was if the monarchs wanted all the power for themselves. Fact is, they acknowledged Pope as the religious leader. The Pope literally had the authority to stop two kings fighting each other and make them fight together against a common enemy which is the case with Crusades. This 'struggle' for power only culminated in the 16th century with the emergence of Protestant church and even then Kings only joined it for completely unrelated reasons, for example King of England converted because he wanted a divorce. King of Denmark converted because he needed the money from confiscating church lands after his country was broke following a civil war. By this time Europe was already largely in Renaissance period.

Xilaw

I'm not talking about religious dissidence, I'm talking about conflict for religious authority. Both King Henry and Emperor Henry engaged in ugly squabbles with the papacy over this.

If I'm not mistaken, 17th century is 100-150 years after the Medieval ages. How is it anachronism?

Xilaw

It's an anachronism in that the church had nowhere near the authority to hunt down dissenters in the time period known for the divine right to rule of kings.

House of the Rising Sun?

Was just doing some irony, don't worry :P The fact is that before the 17th century none questions on the nature of royal power. It was given for granted that it came directly from God.

TwistedSun

I don't think anything was questioned back then. Everyone just accepted it as it was, either because they were illiterate and uneducated or because they feared the almighty church that was out to get anyone who was going against it's teachings. Dark ages, indeed.

Xilaw

No. Kings in the 17th century certainly ruled with a divine right to rule, but that's been pretty much standard for all of history- every despot since the cavemen claimed to rule with the mandate of heaven. And throughout that history, it was never enough to just shut everyone up- whether the people accepted an autocrat was largely dependent on the man's political strength. I mean, the 17th century saw ol' Charlie of England- one of the great proponents of the divine right to rule, mind you- be overthrown and executed, largely because of his attemps to control everything. The second assertion I'd like to contest, and one that makes me cringe in terrible agony every time I see it, is everything you said about the so called 'dark ages'. Apparently, everything between the fall of Rome in the 400s and the renaissance was anarchy and cultural stagnation, which lasted over a thousand years. Except for, what do you call it, the Carolingian renaissance of the 700s, or the cultural brilliance of the Byzantines and the Islamic world, ect, ect. /Sarcasm My point here is that calling the 400-1400 period the 'dark ages' is a gross oversimplification, one which reduces the greatness of the countless civilizations that rose and fell in that period (yes, civilization did exist). Finally, you seem to imply that the 'church'- by which I assume you refer to the Roman Catholic Church- was not only a proponent of the divine authority of Kings, but actively hunted those who opposed their tyranny. This is a ridiculous concept; for one thing, the popes would never impart divine authority on kings, authority they guarded as their own. The thousand years you clumped into the 'dark ages' saw a constant struggle between the papacy and the European Kings for religious authority. And even if one were to ignore that and pretend that the popes loved these Kings, it ignores the simple fact that your statement is an anachronism. By the 17th century, the roman church was already spiraling into its political decline. A third of Europe had broken off and formed their owned reformed churches, and even in those catholic nations that remained, papal authority was almost non-existent. With that said, good sir, I bid you adieu. (Oh, and I'm interested in the RP.)

Amongst Living Gods (Sci-Fi NRP)

I've got to go off the grid for the next week or so for christmas stuff, so I won't be able to post an IC. We'll just say the Legion is traveling to random places while I'm gone.

Amongst Living Gods (Sci-Fi NRP)

Symmetry, my good man. Jeddaven needed a week to make the OCC, so it's only natural he needs a week to make the IC.

Amongst Living Gods (Sci-Fi NRP)

My map (I'll edit this post as needed)

map

Green = Earth
Red = The Legion
Purple = The Oliocht Technocracy
Blue = The Arian Collective
Tan = The Uarshi Swarms
Orange = The Gestalt

Amongst Living Gods (Sci-Fi NRP)

The Legion

The Legion

The Legion


Location: The Legion is a nomadic armada, and thus they have no permanent home world. Their closest thing to one would be the Sanctuary, a massive space station which acts as the central hub of the fleet. The Legion is currently in the Formar System, which they are stripping of all resources for the good of the Legion, as is custom.

Form of Govt.: The Legion is an authoritarian theocracy, divided under strict hierarchies. Under its system, no single gann possesses complete power. Rather, different spheres of responsibility are accorded to different ministers. For example, all matters of war, security, and defense are the charge of the Marshall, while the duty of ensuring the logistical survival of the fleet is the burden of the Chancellor. Gann's destined to become ministers are trained not to interfere in the spheres of their equals.
Nevertheless, disagreements do occur between ministers, and when this happens arbitration falls to the spiritual leader of the Legion, the Tamwern, the greatest of the wern (the female ganns), who can live for centuries. They possess the final word in all says within the Legion, though the Tamwern is only consulted in times of great distress.

History: The Legion was born on Prius, the homeworld of both the gaan and the wern. In the old days, it was the site of an eternal war between tamwerns, who were many then. They fought for land, for resources, and for their own petty grudges. These conflicts were carried on when their race reached the stars. As gaan and wern expanded throughout the solar system and beyond, there grew a religious conflict: the First Mother, a legendary tamwern, believed that all life came from the Extall, the existing universe. She decreed that all wern and all gaan must be united, as they were all as one under the Extall. The other tamwern saw her as a threat, moreso when her armies, dubbed the Legion, began attacking other tamwerns unprovoked. An alliance was arrayed against her, and eventually she decided to exile herself with a warfleet of her faithful, to leave the other tamwerns to their decadence.

This proved opportune, as not long after their departure, another species declared war on the empire of the wern, and eradicated all of their kind, save those who had followed the First Mother. Thus freed from the constraints of their homeworld, she established a new society, one that endures to this day as the Legion. Since then, the great armada has roamed the galaxy, surviving by stripping entire solar systems of resources. This often places them in conflict with foreign empires, which view with displeasure this kind of extreme scavenging. Often, the Legion has made pacts with these empires, to fight their enemies on their behalf in exchange for the right to strip a system for resources.

General Military Information: The Legion is a society shaped for war. The great fleet's warships are each commanded by its own captain, who are like gods on their ships; Obedience in every facet of life is required, and rebellious gaans are brutally killed. In addition to its captain, a warship also has a wern, from whom all the gaan in the ship are descended. While the gaan captains handle the immediate affairs of tactics and security, the wern offer guidance in the larger sense.

There are three classes of warships within the fleet. First, there are the fighters, which are generally small, maneuverable crafts that have two roles: to damage enemy ships, and to defend their own from enemy fighters. Secondly are the gunships, which carry powerful, long ranged weaponry, and are the tip of the spear of the Legion in battle, using their overwhelming firepower to decimate enemies from distance. Finally, the greatest warships are the dreadnoughts, massive spaceships that act as flagships for sections of the fleet, directing their operations and acting as a home base in which the fighters are transported.

On the species of the Legion

The Gann

Physiology: The Gann are a humanoid race, and are bipedal, so at first glance, they appear to be human. This would be a mistake, however, for there is very little human within them. They are large, for one, easily twice the size of a full grown man when fully grown.

There is also nothing human in how they eat, as they possess negligible internal digestive capacity. Instead, they must excrete digestive enzymes directly onto the substance they desire to consume (Usually plant life, though they can also consume certain kinds of meat- Notably their own kind). Once the substance is sufficiently dissolved, they suck it in by the mouth, where it passes through small tentacles which filter out impurities. Food is digested and excreted. As they do not need to spend energy digesting food in the way other species do, they have a great deal of energy to spare, which is the cause of their great strength.

Breeding: Gaan are all male, and are born from the fertilized eggs laid by wern. They mature only slowly, and are only capable of fertilizing eggs in their turn after around twenty years.

Skills compared to humans: As stated above, gaan are quite strong, and have amazing regenerative capabilities, being able to grow back even limbs. Their senses, however, are not as superior: They have poor vision, and are colorblind. Furthermore, taste and smell are unknown to them. What they lack in these, however, they make up for with a sharp sense of touch. A gann can feel the approach of another simply from the flow of air being pushed in their direction. They also have quick reflexes.

The Wern


Physiology and Breeding: Wern are massive creatures which, unlike the gaan, could never possibly be mistaken for human. It is they who lays the eggs that, when fertilized, grow to become gaan. Their 'children' are very protective of their 'mother', and all the wern's needs are met by gaan servants. This is necessary, as all of the wern's energy must be spent on their primary task, laying more eggs to grow their brood. They large sacs on their backs are filled to the brim with eggs that are not yet fully formed. When a sack's eggs are ready for fertilization, it falls off.

They can live essentially indefinitely, in theory, as genetic damage is unknown to them. They simple grow, and grow, and continue growing until they quite literally are too large to survive, with their organs being crushed under its own weight. This only occurs after hundreds of yeas, however, at which point they are so large one would hardly think them to be living creatures, but rather a mountain.

It is sometimes wondered how wern are born: After all, their eggs only hatch into gaan. The truth is that they cannot reproduce themselves in the normal sense. Wern belong to 'clans', among which the greatest (usually the oldest) wern is known as the Tamwern. Tamwern are biologically different from other wern: they can no longer hatch gaan, but instead their eggs grow to be other wern.

Skills compared to humans: Wern are large, slow, and strong. However, these physical traits are of little use to them, as their purpose is not to fight, but to breed. What is notable is their superior intellect, compared to the gaan as well: Wern are, as a rule, clever and cunning, and lead their slightly less intelligent children.

Amongst Living Gods (Sci-Fi NRP)

I meant, edit it into your first post there, people might not see it here in the comments

Amongst Living Gods (Sci-Fi NRP)

Put a link to the chatzy in the opening post so that new players can see it.

Amongst Gods (High sci-fi NRP)

zombieaccount said
Hope IC starts soon.

Shit, I hope the OOC starts soon.