Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

RE: A bunch of thoughts on the Bounty

The Traumfanger might be the impetus behind most of the Goroks' compulsive territorial aggressions, but do they really want the whole Bounty paved over by the Phalanges? They got behind the Goroks in the first place because they found the souls/minds/psi-frequencies of the Bounty's sapient diversity delicious - if they just wanted sustenance in bulk, they would have stuck with the safer option of population farming the Goroks themselves - but the very nature of Gorok conquest (where they kill everything and remake planets into half-remembered bucolic ideals out of sheer fanatical insecurity) kind of jeopardizes that goal. Maybe the Traumfanger also do a lot to limit Gorok expansion behind the scenes too, but I suspect that it's one thing to stoke bloodlust but another to rein it back.

So, maybe some Traumfanger want to put the brakes on the monster they have created, or at least try to make the Goroks less psycho Khmer Rouge. Or maybe some Traumfanger want the Goroks to assimilate the Bounty wholesale so they can be built up into a war machine big enough to take on the Fracture, the Samtic Nexus and the rest of the universe! Or as Shroom pointed out, the Traumfanger figure that the Goroks have a long way to go before they can mulch the whole Bounty and really jeopardize their long term food supply, so why not feast in the meantime?

It also explains why the Goroks don't seem very interested in taking on the various Myrranni fiefdoms in the Bounty, which are fiercely individualistic and therefore can probably be overwhelmed one by one. The psy-null natures of the Myrrans don't make for good Traumfanger eating, and the threat of retaliatory MINDHUNTS is something truly concerning to the Traumfanger - the Myrran species has had a long time to perfect the murder of souls.

On the other side, what exactly is the "moral desynchronization" that is threatening the integrity of the Sajit regime anyway? I mean, having the Sajit'satyk splinter into multiple divergent realms adapted to local conditions might even be an improvement for its subject peoples, but I suppose it's a much worse look for the Sajit. Satykarma is basically Hinduism + postmodernism + big data with the Sajits as the big theorywanking nerds wise philosophers on top, a complex and input-intensive system where errors are going to crop up relatively quickly when its ability to communicate with itself becomes impeded. But I dunno, the Satykarma is also meant to be a resilient and metastable system so maybe the Sajit have been running a particularly fragile and sophisticated incarnation of it.

What have these Sajit'satyk sub-realms devolved into? Some are probably just rump territories centered around the impregnable Sajit Ranges themselves, suffering from certain demographic shortages because the homeworld of the designated janitor/telephone sanitizer space serengeti species got cut off. Some may have thrown themselves at the mercy of the Myrrans, who are of course perfectly happy to play Shogun to the legitimate and powerless civil administration but at least won't, you know, turn you into fertilizer without a second thought. That's not counting actual Bounty inhabitants who have turned themselves into refugees fleeing in every direction, even taking their chances at the K-Zone.

Some fringe Vorri khanates are also going to argue that it's time to make the Vorri'satyk rise again, but the Vorri species has on the whole moved past the idea and said khanates are probably just using the cause to attract more military aid to themselves.

And then there are even weirder offshoots. I can see realms suffering from a serious shortage of Sajit, either due to circumstance or all the Sajit deciding to go full Fingolfin against the unstoppable Gorok hordes, and the Beymin having to make do with giant moral supercomputers like they gave to those Khelerene kiths who lost their ancestor cores and as a result suffering from the stereotypical sci-fi outcome of running a society with supercomputers.

I can see really desperate realms turning to sources of SATYKARMICALLY FORBIDDEN wisdom for aid, such as karmically exiled and punished ex-ruler species! One species I envisioned are dinosaur-men who are cephalophores, having long ago submitted to voluntary decapitation of their higher brains so they would be devolved back into animals, but now having been reawakened and wearing their own braincases in artificial life-support spheres!

Worse still are the Hedgeworlds, where a particular spliced variant of Wrannath have been left to run wild into continent-covering thickets to deny strategic systems to the Goroks, sacrificing entire natives populations as psychic fuel! Gorok technological advantages mean nothing when such mutant hive-minds are powerful enough to rip starships from orbit, and their own psycho-eco-dogma prevents them from glassing such worlds when it's still full of viable biomass. Things get super weird when surviving populations actually go Treewalker among the mess, submitting their minds semi-consciously to the all-encompassing dream gardens and managing to influence it in turn.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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I would like to imagine the Kheler that got adopted by the 'satyk are less-militarized than the Samtic Kheler, as the satykarmic proscriptions took them elsewhere... namely in becoming the specialists for the civilian maritime sector? So civilian Satyk sailors have a majority of Kheler, the Satyk'Khelerene become traders - Portugese-like - and those karmic computer cores double as STOCK EXCHANGE CALCULATORS! :D Kutthroat kapitalist Kheler!

(IDK who are the naval specialists of the satyk? Do they even emphasize naval warfare? Maybe the Sajit have an enormous network of prayer-wheel stargates... so longhaul heighliners + protective squadrons aren't that necessary? Or what?)

We implied that the "moral desynchronization" was in part due to the pressures of the Gorok incursions - and the exhaustion from fending them off - and also the Myrran? And species seeking to either make their own pocket-satyk fiefs ala the Vorri, or the increasingly restive Kalaquelle, etc. and maybe even militarizing cause the Sajit's naval specialists and Wrannath planetary-security forces are not covering everyone? Low-priority SATYKARMICALLY-forsaken folks want their own armaments? And if the Goroks are pressing on the strained Sajit'satyk while ignoring the Myrran who the Gorok's hidden masters, the Traumfangers, fear due to their soul-killer countermeasures... would this actually prompt the Myrran to shortsightedly also-exploit the situation, smelling blood in the water and further assault the reeling Sajit'satyk?

We need to better define the extent of the Myrran colonies in the Bounty and the nature of their predations.

(All this might be a great opportunity for the Samtics to draw in new partners... AND for the Bragulans to introduce Byzonism!)


And YES I love the idea of pre-Sajit satykarmic metasatvhas being resurrected by desperate cultists out of Hybernation and being "reassembled" and taken to their ARTIFACT-ASTRAS. Either they wreck shit or it turns out being decommissioned for five thousand years means you get punked bad.

THE WAR OF SAINTS.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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I see the Myrrans in the Bounty as a process of prolonged nibbling - a star system taken over here, resources that would have gone to the Sajit'satyk being extracted there, another subject species introduced here, a humiliating and undiplomatic threat delivered there. Their scale and pace isn't going to take over the Bounty any time soon, but the way they just waltz around unstoppably with their sunsmithed tech and generally make a mockery of Satykarmic sovereignty just make the Sajit look incompetent as ruler-protectors, which is the actual principal threat to their authority.

The Myrrans are also outnumbered and disunited and just as prone to snipping at each other as Satykarmic holdings and there are probably any number of examples where concerted action defeats them, but most of the this just means that their golden mansion-palace blasts off like a video game villain's and they come back later to pick on somewhere else less defended. The feudal-demographic pressures of Myrr space means that they have nowhere else to go back to anyway, and that there are always going to be a steady stream of incoming conquistadoras who have decided that they aren't going to stick around and wait for some ascendant Sunsmith to melt their planets.

Of course, the very nature of Myrranity means that a unified Myrranni bloc in the Bounty isn't going to happen, and even a particularly ambitious overlady who accepts wheel-turning rulership of a new 'satyk is going to have to deal with a lot of rivals. I'd say that Myrrans handle the other threats in the Bounty the same way they handle any external threat - through sheer individual formidability.

As for Stargates - yeah. The naval weakness of the Sajit'satyk can well be explained if they did the Mass Effect thing of expanding wherever their predecessors had already handily built convenient access to. This leaves a strung-out polity that wouldn't be easy to navigate via other forms of FTL if gate access is cut off, with a short-ranged starfleet that forces it to stay on the defensive. And while the Stargate termini might be ancient and mighty fortresses, well, Goroks just happen to be very good at lithowarfare and infantry boarding actions.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Tangent:

I am thinking big Bragulan missiles, like Spuds, can be used to deploy pre-fabricated weapons systems. Imagine a Spud MIRVing into cylinder-shaped reentry vehicles that have drill-heads and... missile silos for bodies. The reentry vehicles bury themselves into the ground and act as aerospace-defense missile batteries. There can be deploy-able drill-headed sensors and countermeasures too... The drilling might even make them really well camouflaged compared to saner forms of deployed-defenses. The first-stage Spuds could continue orbiting in the atmosphere and irradiate the area for jamming... it could have deployable-wings and loiter for as long as their nuclear drives could last them - like Project Pluto - and they might even have sensors built into their bodies to serve as flying Chernobyl-AWACS for the MIRV-drill-deployed-buried-defenses.

And Bragulan stealth ship idea:

Veilclaw-class reconskimmer

A pinnacle of advanced bragtech, using state of the art low-observable passives and active cloaking orders of magnitude above the passive measures of the revengeancing Light of Bragule cryo-subcruisers* the Veilclaw's stealth systems are the manifestations and practical application of the most complicated forms of Byzonic science, theoretical thinking that takes doublethinking to the nth degree.

The vessel has an exo-hull made up of geometric facets that project fractalized hyperfields on their surface to mimic the surroundings sensory signatures perfectly - encompassing spectrums from the visual, thermal, electromagnetic to the gravitic and hyperspatial. The facets are made up of inert verdigrite crystals, perfectly structured and intricately nano-engineered so their layers can both conduct and absorb/mask the emanations of the cloaking fields being used, and moreover each facet is also mechanically steered with servohydraulics in addition to phase array modulation-guidance. This mastery of polycrystallics is thanks to the near-heretical hybridization of Apexai-inspired sciences and extremely radical theoretical Byzonism.

Sensory perception is also done through these facets, with state of the art supercomputers reinterpreting the distorted view of the outside world and re-extrapolating them into comprehensibility. Periscopes can be deployed as a last resort, or when there is a lesser need for absolute stealth. Such is the efficacy of the fractal stealth that the all-encompassing crystalline-cocoon also masks the vessel's gravitic engine emissions.

Within the crystalline-cocoon is an arrow-shaped endo-hull containing all the primary systems, the bridge, crew quarters, gravitic engine, hyperdrives, a passive verdigrite-decay generator meeting all of the ship's power requirements but precluding high-intensity functions like rapid hypertransit that would betray it to enemy sensors anyway, and so on. In emergencies, a rapid escape can be made by overloading said decay generator, resulting in a respectable polynucleonic initiation that can atomize the vessel and prevent capture and reverse-engineering while the bridge doubles as an escape pod with a reinforced hull and miniaturized secondary hyperdrive designed for nuclear-assisted hyperjumps.

As in its normal operations the Veilclaw cannot make high-speed unstealthy hyperjumps, the ship is usually ushered near enough to its area of operations by disposable paleocruisers with redlined drives. Byzon's Bows, as these are called, can carry multiple Veilclaws and other recon gunskimmers and even subcruisers on or within their enormous hulls. They hurtle through hyperspace heedless of stealth and go around in circuits, emitting jamming (aside from the jamming already emitted by their own engines and systems) while excreting decoys and stealth vessels somewhere along the way without even dropping into realspace. This boost allows the sub-vessels to make low-powered hyperglides towards their destination. In these cases, the sub-vessels are placed within disposable capsules to prevent stealth-compromising irradiation. These Byzon's Bows usually don't wait or last long enough to pick up returning vessels, as their crews exit the ships when the inevitable meltdowns begin and head home in gunskimmers while the abandoned paleocruisers continue running circuits and blinding long-range sensors until they boil away into hyper-radioactive vapor.

*that allow the deterrence-vessels to hide in remote systems with minute chances of detection from general long-range scanners but do not allow them to actively evade enemy sensors in their immediate vicinity..
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

I'm not entirely convinced that coating your hull in verdigrite is ever a good idea :<
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by wellis »

How exactly is FTL travel done in this setting again?
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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wellis wrote: Mon Feb 20, 2017 5:41 pm How exactly is FTL travel done in this setting again?
Hyperdrives and wormhole gates. Apexai and Solarian-inherited Dark Energy generators are among the higher-level power sources (it's not yet in The List... but that's what Siege wrote for SDNW4 and I guess we'll stick for that). There are Ichor, Orgone and Verdigrite-based power sources (see below) that are very common. Traditional anti-matter reaction, nuclear fusion and black hole/singularity-based sources also exist but I think they don't provide as much energy, or don't provide energy as easily and at such amount-per-density/volume as the previous sources. Which is why entire interstellar industries based on exporting god-stuff and space-monster-blood exist to fuel FTL drives rather than just mass-produced black hole or antimatter reactors ala Star Trek...

I think shorter-ranged vessels and more mundane tech uses the more "normal" anti-matter/nuclear fusion/black hole stuff. That's the equivalent of whatever gasoline's used for propeller-driven planes. Whereas Dark Energy/Ichor/Orgone and Verdigrite are like jet fuel.

Anyway relevant entries are below:
Gateways

Portal generators connecting two locations otherwise separated by the vast distances of interstellar space, enabling the nigh-instantaneous one-directional travel of vessels from one point to another. The immense power requirements surpasses that most conventional forms of supraluminal travel, as such gates are typically comprised of equally enormous and durable structures to accommodate macro-reactors, radiators, meta-spatial field apparatus and other important gate infrastructure... as well as to allow vessels of immense size or of numerous quantities passage through their event horizons. Needless to say, gate operations are incredibly complex, with advanced digital intelligences or bio-cogitators handling the various subsystems with their femto-scale tolerances, as even minor miscalculations can result in disastrous system failures.

It is no surprise that for most modern space-faring civilizations, the construction of even a single gateway is a highly resource-intensive mega-project and a comprehensive network of such portals usually necessitates long-term multilateral cooperation. All these make the superstructures incredibly valuable and they are usually built to last. Some Earthreign-era gates are many, many centuries old and still in use in the Fracture, and rumor has it that the Samtic Nexus and the Sajit Ranges operate even older voidways. Probes sent to the Karlack cosmo-biophere have also detected cyclopean halo-reefs emanating exotic bio-signatures impossibly similar to gateway technologies.
Hyperspace

A depthless dimension transcending conventional reality, as mysterious as it is treacherous with its contours ruled by utterly dissimilar laws of physics and strange space-time. Its phenomena manifest in all sorts of ways, in realspace leaks that most would regard as eerie anomalies, even stellar hazards, while being used by cosmozoans as sources of sustenance. It is a trans-aetheric expanse imperceptible to the mundane senses of most species, unreachable if not for science’s greatest breakthroughs, even as forms of other-life call its unknown fathoms home.

Yet for all its mysteries, aspects of the phenomena have been understood and harnessed for practical purposes, resulting in hyperdrive and hyperwave technologies that are the cornerstones of modern civilization throughout the galaxy. The former enables faster-than-light travel via measured transdimensional immersion attained through a variety of ways, the latter entails sending and receiving signals for communication and detection over interstellar distances. Beyond transit and transmission, more advanced applications include the creation of exotic matter suffused in transdimensional-energies, the generation of fields intersecting planes of reality and the conjuration of literally unreal constructs used for many specialized purposes ranging from the routine to the arcane, for creation and destruction.

It is a true testament to the galaxy’s diversity that traditional technologies, incredible feats of parabiological evolution and even hybrid approaches either ramshackle or elegant in synthesizing the orga- and mecha- paradigms, can all grasp at that which lies “beyond the infinite.”
And power sources include:
Ichor

Meta-biofluids found in Karlacks and other cosmozoans that wander across space and draw sustenance from the nectar of stars, blackhole ejectae, hyperspace bleedthroughs and other astral phenomena (or, less efficiently, a planet’s raw biomatter) to fuel their metabolic processes and enable supraluminal movement. The most concentrated and energy-rich ichor is found in primary consumers that directly feed on these sources. Secondary consumers that predate on or leech from the primaries also accumulate ichor in lesser amounts, but as the fuel has been pre-processed they also no longer need the enormous digestive structures of their prey. Similarly, many civilizations have learned to harvest ichor (preferably from more-docile non-predatory organisms) for their own ends, making the substance important in the galactic economy - the new “black gold.”

Orgone is a similar substance harvested from the rare and mysterious corpses of Rhapsodite titans that is orders of magnitude more potent than standard ichor. While the Shepherds and NEUROM heavily deal in ichor, benefiting from the abundance of bioforms in the space surrounding them and in the nearby Qirmiz Frontier, the Shen Rhapsody’s orgonic sources are far fewer but far more cooperative than giant Karlack sun-divers. The Joxndra of the Wayfound Voyages also harvest ichor from docile creatures. Theoretically, psychovorian creatures can also accumulate ichor-like substances from metabolized biopsionic energies or psychoplasms, but so far no known examples have been recorded by the galaxy’s leading Institutes of Cosmozoan and Karlack Studies (ICKS). Ironically, due to the industrial utilization of ichor, predatory Karlacks and cosmozoans have begun preying on ichor and orgone-powered vessels and even settlements.


Orgone

An extremely potent fuel derived from the necro-metabolic processes of the Rhapsodites entombed in the worlds of Shen. The tycoon-scientists studying the antigod-carcasses reactivated their digestive systems and repurposed them into industrial orgone accumulators in which infusions of exotic matter are transmuted into an energy source unlike anything else known to the Fracture. The precious juice powers a significant percentage of the region’s key infrastructures, advanced hypertechnologies and, most importantly, long-range interstellar transportation.

This has resulted in immense prosperity for the Shen Rhapsody, even as rivals fervently pursue alternative fuels to contest its economic dominance. The search for other cosmic crypts has been fruitless, while the Shepherds and NEUROM continue to rely on ichor harvested from Karlack bioforms and other cosmozoans - but the logistic hurdles of harpooning uncooperative space-leviathans compared to industrializing god-cadavers, and the sheer potency of Rhapsodite secretions, has kept orgone numero uno in the Fracture.

One of the effects of intensive orgone use, or contamination from environmental bleedthrough, is the condition called Theostigma, the corruption of organic matter, particularly living biological systems, unable to safely absorb the substance. Physio-spiritual deterioration is marked by pallor, emaciation, dysmorphia and hallucinations some believe to be visions tied to orgone’s eldritch origins. Rare cases exist of orgone-corrupted beings temporarily manifesting incredible but vaguely defined and poorly understood meta-abilities. And there are increasing numbers of orgone and O-derivative abusers, traffickers and groups of various legal statuses, from affluent experimentalists to criminal cartels and even Theostigma-obsessed cults. It is rumored that Shen’s elite Extreme Enhancile Elements Division (EXEED) operators are augmented by carefully administered O-derivatives.


Verdigrite

A hyper-radioactive crystalline metamaterial that self-replicates by transmuting other forms of matter into more verdigrite. Most expertly cultivated and utilized by Bragulans to enhance polynucleonic power sources and weaponry, its lethal effects extend hyperspatially and reactor meltdowns have been known to irradiate solar systems. These disasters have resulted in military applications inconceivable to other civilizations - like the lightyears-spanning Periphery Zones of Alienation, deliberate contaminations intended to secure sections of the Bragulan Star Empire’s borders from the Karlacks.

Quantities of verdigrite are harnessed outside Bragspace - NEUROM and the Shepherds are the second largest producers, primarily for military munitions - but its toxic nature has led most sane civilizations in the galaxy to opt for safer energy sources - such as the brute-force generation of anti-matter and black holes, ichor harvested from cosmozoans and the Karlack Swarm’s ravenous bioforms, orgone produced by rare Rhapsodite god-carcasses and the borderline incomprehensible arcane processes the Apexai have bequeathed their allies.

Natural sources of verdigrite are extremely rare, and second-order verdigrite is less potent and inherently dangerous in their production - though classified findings report the presence of virulent verdigrite growths surrounding the remains of the beings some call the Telestrons.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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GASP!

Ichor and Orgone are also not as volatile as antimatter or black holes or fusion micro-suns, so they can be literally stored in specially-lined drums while being around the same order of magnitude (or more!) energy-dense as those power sources... and this not only explains why ragtag ramshackle space truckers can cruise around interstellar space without worrying their warp cores with assplode if someone looks at it funny or sneezes at it... but like if ships get damaged, they BLEED! The bleeding liquid might be like fluid fire but nonetheless less horrifically explosion-prone as anti-matter. So we get epic visuals!

You have fluids seeping out and simultaneously crystallizing and evaporating - boiling away into weird-ass fractal patterns as lacking the hyper-pressurization systems of their tanks, these ichors and orgones have their components dissolving into hyperspace! Some kind of weird-ass phase change where the organic matter remains but the hyper-dimensional energies they're suffused with just scatters into other planes of reality.

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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Pyrrhon face... though needs more Carnotaurus snout:

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More PROPHETS:

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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Typical K-Zone Wild Space scenes:

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Yes, that's Kill Six Billion Demons! :D
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Lelouch vi Britannia »

In a similar vein, what happens when a naive tourist finds himself in a bad part of Wild Space:



(We can always use more Rick and Morty references.)
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Renamed the Unyielding Mandragoran Principalities into Principalities of the Unyielding Mandragorae. Vic and I decided that the Mandragorans have helots who are treated like civilians in Starship Troopers (or non-samurai in feudal Japan at the most worsest of Mandra worlds). Fittingly these subclasses are called Civis. They can include foreign contractors who'll be less-molested than domestic Civis.

The Sternheim got more characterization. Actually we suddenly made it more than just Goddamn Germanians Grinning, Goldstein Grimaced...

Sternheim

Perhaps it began with a mutiny, one among many during the Reignfall, which ceased to matter as the Cataclysm passed by and wiped all memory and allegiance away. All that would become the Sternheim was a crew of amnesiacs in a puissant but barely functional warmoon, among an astropolitical canvas similarly wiped clean. It was with surprising and terrible efficiency that said orphans of war remade themselves into a formidable martial power upon inventive discipline, steely-eyed politicking and the archeotechnological edge of their warmoon’s force-projecting complement, dealing with opportunistic Mandragorans and suspicious Anethgans both. As their fleets and holdings multiplied their warmoon became a symbol, a home among the stars that cradled and protected them during their difficult childhood. Yet this was countenanced by what they found in the worlds they came to claim, industrialize and defend: populations welcoming the hardened orphan-protectors, providing respite... and another crucial stake to preserve.

The New Remembrance Accords that led to NEUROM’s founding would have been very different without the Sternheim’s expertise in political organization, and accordingly it was they who initially invested most into enforcing the pact’s framework. But it was also running NEUROM and the loss of their warmoon in another terrible war, which led them to truly put down their roots in their colony-worlds, that saw Sternheim’s essence change and grow vulnerable to fragmentation and subversion by the Ministry of Fate. An identity rooted in dispossession and impartiality didn’t help, clashing with the drive to adopt the colonies as their new homes among the stars, while the lack of any memetic tradition saw peacekeeping governorships inherited by the Herzods, charismatic warlords with the biggest ‘mechs, slaves to their own visions and any whispering influences, ultimately answering to the one chosen to be the first among their ranks - the Kairo.
And I guess beyond the inheritors of the Sternheim military, the actual Herzods (bastardization of Herzogs) and Kairos... Sternheim is now in the process wherein the idyllic ruralworld lederhosen-wearing colonists the original Sternheim crews protected are now adopting Sternheim ways and actually becoming the next-generation scheming Herzods... so the Sternheim's characteristic is that of AMBITION, not necessarily xenophobia, and an actual passing-the-torch to these local colonist-protectorates unlike the Mandragoran and Anethgan systems. And even unlike the Shepherds who are really stratified in their own paranoid way, far moreso than the Sternheim.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Booted Vulture »

I am so far behind Sots it's not even funny.

I there a cheat sheet version somewhere?
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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The Master List?

I know it's hard, I'm sorry.

I think at some point soon we'll have to either make it a full feature (sub)forum... or we'll have to make regional-historical synopses.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

RE: INCOMING AURIGA GIGAPOST

Imperial Property
All Houses (even Auriga and Avancore) have limits on how much they can own, but the Empire - the united polity that is the Grandeur itself - of course has no such limits. As the Houses Regnant, Auriga and Avancore holds all Imperial possessions and territory technically in a kind of sovereign trust only, but in practice Imperial property is the property of the Imperial Houses, which makes them readily more powerful and prosperous than any other House. There is constant flux in the amount of Imperial property as disfavored Houses lose their possessions, which by default reverts to the Empire and thus Imperial House control. Imperial property is also the pool from which the Dual Monarchy draws on to reward other Houses on the Empire's behalf, either in the form of leases or gifts. Imperial property on lease is subject to a rent, which goes into the Imperial treasury - kept by the Dual Monarchy in the Grandeur’s stead, of course.

Imperial property, apart from stuff extracted from Houses and new territory acquired by the Grandeur officially, also consists of really important sites and infrastructure too important for any House to own, as agreed by treaty.

What is the identity of the Empire
On paper, the Grandeur - the polity, the superpower which is sum of all the Houses and all their subjects and vassals - exists independently as a common ideological cause, a primordial source of all rights, and a technically impartial ground on which the entire House system is built. It is this independent existence that technically means that the Dual Monarchy can be replaced with another House Regnant, that Auriga and Avancore are joint firsts among equals, and that the Grandeur is more than a patchwork of Houses and their pacts.

There remains real distinctions between the structure of the Grandeur proper and what merely belongs to the Dual Monarchy. There is an Imperial government of which the Dual Monarchy controls only in the capacity of being its head, and only as far as the Dual Monarchs themselves appoint members of their Houses to various governmental positions (which they do plenty of, of course.) There are ways the Imperial treasury cannot be used to benefit the Houses, and the Grandeur itself probably has a unified military arm that draws from all the Houses, which doesn’t stop each House from maintaining their own military. And there’s the Avestavra, whose ranks are if anything even more exclusive and its identity even more distinct than that of the Houses.

Sumptuary Law
The laws governing how much stuff a House is allowed to have is inextricably tied to its status, which is based on its services and duties to the Grandeur. Some of these are fairly petty sumptuary limits - the style and plumage of familiars, the orders of precedence in formal events, how many feet of gold are they allowed to wear on the ball of St. Alia’s Eve, etc. Given the cultural importance of pomp and pageantry in the Grandeur, defying such laws are major social statements as well as faux pas, but probably not the cause of major punishments - at least to the House as a whole, not the offending individual. Sumptuary laws are probably more important to sub-House individuals and the lower classes.

There are also limits to a House’s power - the worlds they are allowed to own and apply their laws to, the number of warships and space stations and subject populations, the number of backup clones they can keep - which do serve as a concrete measure for limiting a House’s power, and are more rigorously enforced. There maybe are legacy or exceptional exceptions for individual Houses which render them especially powerful. Auriga and Avancore set themselves very generous limits, of course, if their regulatory power wasn’t already enough.

Then there are any number of ways of circumventing such limits using property law chicanery. A House hitting against its limits may mortgage possessions to another House, in return for renting it back for a fee and maintaining de facto control. A particularly ballsy move may be to split up your House so all that property is not yours, just your cousins’, honest. The ownership caps themselves may even be tradeable. I don’t image the Dual Monarchy looking kindly upon these tricks, so Imperial countermeasures may include limits on trading and assigning possessions and means of assessing practical control. Most Houses probably have a nigh-inalienable core of possessions that they don’t expect to lose unless they really fuck up badly, surrounded by an ablative array of planets and such that are more fungible and more loosely managed.

Earning privilege depends on doing service for the Grandeur, which usually means taking public posts in government, administration and the military. The combined achievements of a House’s members (those that count, anyway, which is another debate with major stakes) are then tabulated into how well the overall House is doing - to be assessed and compared in periodic reviews. If they’re doing worse, their rights are worsened and their next generation of scions get less fancy titles. In a sense, combined with the private dealings and favor-trading among Houses, resource distribution at the upper reach of the Grandeur depends on a reputation economy. And if the Dual Monarchy wants to curb a House’s power, they can simply have the Imperial apparatus starve its members of appointments and other means of earning public prestige.

(You can see how this works: a House gets knocked down a notch on the Table of Nobility due to screwing up something and finds itself owning more territory than it is allowed to keep. So it cedes the excess territory to another, more favored House (who might be the one who screwed them in the first place!) and have the recipient House rent/enfeoff it back to them. The first House gets to retain some control, but the second House gets a cut and a favor owed - and depending on how the contract is worded, also a possession with built-in administration that the Empire itself agrees belongs to them if there is any dispute)

This also creates pressure for all title-bearing House scions to pull their weight - sure, they can sit back and share in the prestige of their House, but that can’t be well tolerated by the competitive. Of course, this also means the House takes credit as a whole for the achievements of any of its members, which may well be an individual disincentive. The Grandeur on its part allows Houses to work out how to assign credit (and by extension, resources) internally because hey, it respects their autonomy.

I suppose the entire prestige and allocation system is stable because on the whole the Houses find it fair. A House can just...earn (earn!) a new planet without having to pry it out of the cold dead hands of another House! They don't need to keep large standing militaries to defend their holdings or forge vast and unstable marriage alliances to secure their positions.

The Gentry
One defining attribute of the Houses is that they’re genetically compatible, as designed and enforced by the Emperors of Auriga, so that their traits can be passed between each other. There are transhuman lineages who for one reason or another did not join this genetic system: they were excluded from the start, or were later arrivals to the volume of space, or even were former Houses who lost all their sanctioned talents. Genetically, they may still be able to preserve and express transhuman ability to a degree not different in kind from the Houses, but are still limited in their influence in that they cannot benefit from the inter-House system of merit and reward with its vast movements of wealth and resources (and not to mention that all the important stuff e.g. stargates is already locked down in House ownership). Such locally limited gentry is still acknowledged, especially in the Lower House, and can still constitute formidable regional political powers especially if their history and accumulated privilege goes back long. Nevertheless, more have probably associated themselves with one House or another, if not outright vassalized and absorbed.

House Conflicts and Imperial Warfare
How the Aurigan imperial military might work as a centralized state institution while still preserving it as a feature of the aristocratic feudal structure is that it's still a duty of most Houses to raise fleets and armies to the defense of the empire, dating back from when they really were independent gene-monarchies with their own militaries. However, this system suffers from all the availability issues inherent to feudal armies, which is kind of unfeasible in an age where Grand Auriga is a top dog superpower which does in fact rely on a particularly well-functioning military.

So these days, instead of raising the military units themselves, Houses can instead pitch money and resources to the Imperial Muster, in return gaining patronage and privileges over particular regiments. This includes stuff like say over banners, decorations, dress uniforms and preferential assignment of members of that House as officers and recruits. However, the Muster is still part of the general Imperial apparatus and the Imperial bureaucracy (whose ministers and such are to be fair still House aristocracy, but at least on a level removed from the interests of their own Houses) is responsible for training, command, procuring hardware and so on so as to ensure the Muster functions on a unified basis.

This system frees up the transhuman Houses to specialize in whatever they specialize in instead of suffering inefficiencies of scale and uneven standards in floundering around with their own homegrown industries and supply chains and trying to supply troops and ships piecemeal to the Aurigan military. Of course, some bigger and more martial Houses still upkeep their own formations to fight alongside the Muster because they are rich and powerful enough to, and find the independence and bigger chunk of prestige earned worth it. House Auriga probably keeps the biggest official House force around, with extra prerogatives for being the Imperial guard to one of the Houses Regnant.

And for lots of commoners, joining the Imperial Muster and impressing their Highborn officer is a good way to find employment with the House that sponsored their regiment after they muster out.

But regardless, all Houses are allowed to keep a small armed Household for their own private use, as part of the rights to keep arms guaranteed by the Empire to Houses and their scions. However, using said Household forces necessitates House scions to risk personal danger to lead them, because as long as they are in personal command of the warship or battalion or whatever, under House law they're still technically fighting a private duel, which is not the Empire's business. The result of such constraints is that inter-House warfare works much like large-scale dueling, and probably often involves literal dueling between enemy commanders, with all the pomp it generally involves. Some Houses are even daring enough to try the schtick on smaller unaligned space polities because hey, it does minimize casualties and they might agree, and said polity might even favor their chances if the House in question offers enough of a handicap so they can brag about it later. Of course, then the House prince takes off his jacket and mows through twenty of your best swordsmen like a buzzsaw because he is a combat-optimized transhuman. In fact, Shroom opines that there are no lack of House scions who can take the average Solarian Replicant Marine in a shirtless rapier fight.

The downside is that if a House loses a duel (or a personally-led battle) they also lose one of their valuable leaders, and they're only entitled to so many personal backup clones in the first place, and not to mention that a House that gets too decapitated can no longer effectively function and loses the whole war by default. Houses must weigh the risks of maximizing honor while minimizing casualties, or choose the form of escalation.

The three legal forms of escalation I see are (a) bringing your case to the Chancellery Court, basically part of the Imperial government set up to arbitrate inter-House disputes, but they're officious and corrupt and not necessarily powerful enough to get what you want; (b) petitioning the Dual Monarchy directly, through they might not care for your side, and is in general suspected of using every precedent to chip away at the rights of the aristocracy; and (c) call out your opponent House on the floor of the Landsraad for collective censure, but you'd better make sure you have more supporters in the Landsraad than they do, and is a good way of leading to duels on the floor of the Landsraad.

Against other star powers and other such known dishonorable foes, of course this all goes out of the window. The Imperial Muster and House militaries may still fight in constrained fashion to preserve a veneer of honor, but when the Imperially appointed observer (usually from a neutral third House or the Avestavra) judges in situ that things have gone out of hand, the Emperor's Key gets turned and all available force is authorized. It takes either one of the Houses Regnant to declare total war on behalf of the entire Grandeur, and there are certain DEFCON ZERO levels of apocalyptic mobilization that takes both House Auriga and Avancore to agree on.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

We are thinking that the neutral third-party inter-house arbitrators and such can be composed of, aside from the Avestavra...

I propose:

The Cognants, genetic-eunuchs recruited from either disgraced or un-needed or idealistic scions of noble houses, or orphans particularly from those of distinguished parents (noble or commoner), who are then subjected to transhumanization and extreme training, turning them into intellectual powerhouses whose mental hyper-acuity can be of service to any house or be used in third-party mediatory roles... their transgenic enhancements are not hereditary, they are also sterilized in the process, hence they are genetic eunuchs and this guarantees their neutrality as they as individuals cannot make their own houses. The founders of the Cognants... perhaps they were something one of the more forward-thinking Aurigan-Avancorean Dual-Monarchs devised to stabilize inter-house affairs. Perhaps it was something made to stabilize affairs between the two monarchies themselves! It is they who staff the Imperial Houses' Gene Vaults and collect the Gene Tithes.

(I presume that commonborn orphans are actually more enhanced than nobleborn who in their teens or later decide to become Cognants... since pre-teen orphans' anatomies would be more flexible and receptive to the "gene-grooming" process... and I don't know if noble-born can keep their families' genetic gifts or if their transhuman blessings are removed before they are gene-groomed... then again, Grandeur genetic sciences might be so advanced that age won't matter in the enhancement process...).

Commoner mediators (name pending)... seen as neutral disinterested parties precisely because of their lack of transhuman genes, hence unbiased according to Aurigan nobility-doctrines. They are also layfolk who do not come from noble houses, just like most Cognants, they also don't have stakes that'll make them biased. Just by being average humans outside of the feudal-aristocratic upbringing and hierarchies, this gives them an edge in mediating between houses whose members are utterly biased and possessing entirely divergent world views. Perhaps by being mundane mortals, Aurigan restrictions on cybernetics are less stringent since there are considerations for those considered to be handicapped (i.e. non-transhuman nobles). Either way, these commoners are used for inter-house communications, not hyperintelligent bean-counting, so Cognant-style gifts aren't that vital.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Cognancy are not necessarily all hyperbrain-style eunuchs. They can also be particularly potent products of (sanctioned) gene-experimentation that tune House talents to the extreme at the expense of being able to be safely passed on, and in any case such sterilization signals a severance from their House and original allegiance, so tied up is the idea of personal value and identity to their hereditary lineage among the Houses. Such ex-scion Cognants would be rare compared to enhanced commoners though, given how valuable scions are. Being eunuchized may well be a form of Imperial reprieve for lineages that might otherwise be sentenced to extinction.

I wonder what the Avestavra's role is in this, given similar professions of neutrality. We've already established that they run the orphanages and act as guardians for the Houseless, and a lot of the Cognants may well belong to the Avestavra organization, even if they're not psykers. Maybe the Avestal Magi can even have a part in creating Cogents, using mystical psycho-surgery to modify what mere genetics or cybernetics cannot.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

Also:

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(EDITED 7/3/17)
"This explanation posits that external observation leads to the collapse of the quantum wave function. This is another expression of reactionary idealism, and it's indeed the most brazen expression."
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Heretic »

Invictus wrote: Mon Mar 06, 2017 2:18 pm Also:
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This picture sums up how my brain feels trying to get into the SoTS lore, Bragulans aside, heh.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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It is magnificent. :mrgreen:
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

CYTO - Cytoplasmic Transvironmental Overgear
(Pronounced: Psi-tow)

Multipurpose personal protective equipment common in the Cascade, the K-Zone and the more-permissive areas of the Fracture. CYTO originates from the Cascadian Freeworlds and is derived from Isopteric biomodulars, albeit simplified to make mass production and user interface easier.

Thus CYTO lacks the typical Isopteric bio-gears' chitinous exteriors*, specialized tool-appendages and sensory-pseudopods, trading those off in order to be worn directly without anatomical enhancements or intrusive interfaces. This streamlining means that it resembles its namesake, a living translucent gelatinous substance* enveloping the user, providing protection from environmental hazards ranging from radiation to hard vacuum and even anti-personnel weapons fire.

The synth-tissue is adaptive and can solidify for added protection, become viscous to absorb impacts, extend into elastic tendrils or form glider-membranes for non-terrestrial ambulation, detach solidified or soft adhesive portions of itself, even effectively replace a user's lost limbs. It can enhance user strength and fulfill loadlifting roles. When needed, CYTO can also interface with and incorporate various attachments, including other "soft" bio-gear as well as hardtech and hybrid equipment. CYTO can respire at a cellular level and filter out contaminants to provide its user breathable air in hostile environments, or grow gas-bladders for respiration and... movement in total vacuum operations.

In maintenance, CYTO can either be umbilical-fed or refueled with bio-nutrient packs. It can be stored in a ready-to-wear state or "compressed" via auto-dehydration, turning into a thick ooze with a specialized and portable container jug. When redeployed the CYTO can automatically absorb atmospheric moisture, take in fluid capsules or be manually rehydrated. If need be it can puff itself up pneumatically, using air instead of fluids, but this results in degraded performance and micro-damage and is usually reserved for emergencies.

Worn down CYTO can be regrown and advanced CYTO models used by colonists can actually be farmed to produce copies, though defects and malfunctions, even mutations, will emerge several generations down the line. Manufacturers strongly urge purchasing new replacement CYTO, but unofficial workarounds exist, including pirated gene-template infusions to patch up CYTO-descendants or wholesale pirated CYTO grown by bootleggers.

CYMREG - Cytoplasmic Medical-Regenerative (pronounced: Psi-mm-reg) - is the common medical variant of CYTO-tech. The cytoplasm serves as a medium for rejuvenative substances (i.e. drug infusions, liquid nanites, Zigonian healing saps, etc.), either absorbing them and transferring them to the patient via osmosis or coursing substances through its micro-vasculature. The frame can carry apparatuses such as auxiliary exo-organs, radiotherapeutic-emitters, feeding devices, monitoring instruments, waste-processors and so on. CYMREG provides movement assistance for those on the way to recovery as well as for those who require more radical interventions, serving as precursors or alternatives to cybernetic or bio-tech partial- or full-body prosthesis.

*In Isopterid territories, soft chitin-less bio-gear are actually not rare but Isopterids generally consider themselves under-dressed without their chitin.

References:

CYTO in hostile environment configuration

CYTO in "Star Body" configuration

Isopteric bio-gear

CYMREG
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

Oh come on, you can't just post random inspiration art and not at least suggest what they ought to be.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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:P

Karlack moonspores!
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Thoughts on the Faiths of the Fracture

Perhaps due to some Meridian memetic misstep from their initial attempts at civilization-building, where they sent Science Monks to minister amongst the ravaged worlds and peoples of the Fracture, monks who'd train others in their ways and thus repair humanity, make mankind whole again... while the program was probably discontinued, the ideas it introduced continued to spread through the many centuries... these ideas of religion!

So Vic asked what is Fracture religion like. I guess there's some plural polytheistic polydimensional thing going on. Humanism is a core philosophy, even amongst transgenic Aurigan-Avancore societies. Mandragorans and Anethgans probably think they are the New Humanity. There's the ancient White Children and whatever groups inherited their ideas... these are mostly philosophies, often with spiritual components. But they're not outright religions.

There's the Calibrationists but they're something else, not the mainstream.

So I thought that there could be ancestor worship, tall tales of influential sires whose exploits became mythic. Like Heracules! From deities to saints, be these ancients Magi saviors or Aurigan noble heroes. They would be a big thing...

But another major theological component of the Fracture would tie into the Meridian Science Monks aforementioned. Their early understanding of memetics could have been a meta-Jungian Campbellian thing where they thought there were universal aspects of the human condition... pop science-y archetypes that Fracture people just ran with, turning them into deities, that they embody essential parts of hummanness connects to the philosophy and spirituality of humanism that people have. Even the ancestor worships and hero myths could be rephrased as these individuals (real or not) becoming "saints" of these archetype-deities.

The most common of these Arches would be...

The Builder or Maker - Revered especially considering the sheer amount of archeotech and re-inhabited ruins in the Fracture. But there's a difference in being in-awe of the Maker and actually taking the path OF the Maker. Spiritually inclined Meridian STEM types go for this. Tradesfolk-types go for this too. Heck, Calibrationism can commonly just be radicalised Makerism... at least the ones that don't touch the deeper mysteries of calibrating reality.

The Warrior - Beloved by the Mandragorans, martial nobilities of Auriga and the Sternheim Herzods... Shepherds too!

The Mother - By the Anethgans most especially, of course. Magi revere this too, for some the Sophia is no different from The Mother.

The Lovers or The Joyful or the Jouissance - Nobilities everywhere. Commonfolks during festivities. And the Shen Rhapsody.

The Wise One, who can be the Crone or the Sage - (I think in this era gender-roles are something that most have really forgotten...) - Big in Meridia actually. At least amongst the social science types. And the Ministry of Faith, who blend this with their reverence for the Warrior.

The Childe or the Virgin - Oh everyone loves this. The way of the Child, and the followers who are called Children, would be something else entirely in the Cascadian Freeworlds and the Laurentian Terranates. This would have a following in the Sovereignty too...

The Verse - Representing all, the universe, as well as its darkness and the omnipresence of mortality, the notion of being a speck in the infinite. This might not be worshiped or followed directly... but it can be pondered. By those who follow the Crone and the Sage most especially. For xenophobes, aliens and inhumans emerge from The Verse!

Variant Arches like the Trickster, Leader or Ruler, Healer, the Poet or the Bard etc. would be supplementary characteristics of the archetype... a tricky warrior? A leading warrior? A leading mother? A healing parent? And even the core arches can have intermixing characteristics. Local conditions would cause more-unique or less-common arches to emerge. Like THE PRINCE or the Princess or otherwise known as The Prosperos would be something big in the Shen Rhapsody.

The Voyager can be something akin to Neptune IRL. The Voyager, or the Voyage, will be practiced even in the Sovereignty.

The Tyrant can be near-synonymous with the ancient Reign. Many see this as a devil-figure, there can be plural Tyrants, tyrannics or sins - Tempters, the Deceivers, the Killers, The Empty or Void, Destroyers - as either antitheses of the main deities... or the deities themselves but in twisted forms! Combinations of cardinal sins and archetypal villains.

The Unknown and The Beast can represent primordial aspects of reality, aspects of The Verse.

Di Fool that can also be The Mad or The Touched is another minor one. Espers love this. :mrgreen:

There can be speculation as to whether these were originally created by the Meridian or if they actually pre-existed the Science Monks. They might have even existed before the Earthreign. Solarians, whose ancestors fled before Reignfall, Magi and Ministers of Fate who were probably not subject to Meridian ministrations (though who knows the case with their founders), follow some of these faiths... there might even be aliens who do so too!

Yes, these kind of sound like the 7 in Game of Thrones but my first thought was actually a non-edgelord take on the Chaos Gods of 40k.

AND these Arches, their variants and other permutations are also frequently found in cards! As in Space Tarot!

Certain Magi and Ministry schools hone their psionic abilities using these archetypes, the symbols allowing them to give traits to their psionic manifestations and thoughtforms... ala Stands in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. :D

There can also be divine personality test! To see how one aligns with the Arches! Part quiz, part Tarot reading... part symbolically-assisted psionics that through complex techniques even baselines can sort of tap into. And part nonsense! :D

EDIT:

Theologians, as well as Meridian memeticists and the espers of the Magi and the Ministry, would know of the existence of the Fracture phenomenon... without fourth-wall breaking, they're aware of a great loss after the Reignfall. They wouldn't know the exact details, but their stories would treat it like Babel or the Flood, saying things like...

With the coming dark the reign fell / as Earth was lost in night / A Fracture in the void remaining / And from the cracks come a new Verse / the Arches of the remaining / bringing an age anew, humankind remade
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