The Drums of War

[Shroom Man 777]

Malchus is perceptive, as usual.

[Siege]

Kamin, please be so kind as to change the names of the spaceships.

[Shroom Man 777]

Or at least ask me or something if you want to borrow something from something I posted somewhere.

You remember when you borrowed something from Zor and Crossroads and didn't ask them?

[Czernobog]

You can still use them for Comix, I won't have any problem with it.

Also, the Kurushio is the name of the NAKAIDO sub in This is Some Party. To be fair, it is the name of a real Japanese destroyer. But given the other names also seem to be taken from Comix I'm not sure what to think.

My source for the Kurushio is neither from Comix nor from real life.

[Czernobog]

Changed the ship names, with the exception of the Kurushio.

[Malchus]

Changed the ship names, with the exception of the Kurushio.

I'll let you have that, given that the Kurushio is a name for a real ship. However, with the recent "coincidences" of you just happening to get names for ships used in Comix, suffice it to say I'm watching you boy--like the silent, long-loitering U-2 of O1 Shroom once said I am.

[Czernobog]

Culture

Susaki, Film Capital of Asia

Susaki is a place that before the 22nd Century, would not be counted as having much importance in the cultural world. However, as Japan's GDP increased and automation meant that much more of its population had time for leisure, Susaki began to became known as a regional centre of live-action film-making, including the celebrated live-action-CGI adaptations of many famous anime and manga.

By 2020, it had become known as 'Japan's Hollywood', and was famous throughout Asia, third in line behind Bollywood and L.A as a film-making capital. The Susaki Film Festival had become world-famous, drawing in many intrigued by the exoticness of Japanese film, compared to the dry style of Chinese and poor quality of Korean-made films.

With the 19th Constitutional Amendment of 2121 (stating that the JSDF were allowed to perform measures of 'pre-emptive self-defence') and the construction of the first Kurushio-class Space Cruisers, films became more action/adventure oriented, including Ryujo Kaitomara's controversial remake of Star Wars, but eventually settled down in the early 2140s, with the current main genres being thriller/horror and romance.

War Movies: The Revival

After a 21st Century crash in demand for them (largely caused by the 'War on Terror' being waged at the time) War Movies began their revival in the 2110s, with the film 'Heroes of Ottawa' (directed by Lars Glennson) and its counterpart 'Blood and Iron: Battle for Canada'. The two films were critically acclaimed as big-budget action movies with, one critic said, 'a morally uplifting tone'.

These two films inspired a great deal of imitators, most of which were low-value B-movies without any subtext or tone. But they got the genre back on its feet, and that was all that was needed. Lars Glennson directed several more war movies after his début hit, all successful, but never received the level of critical acclaim like he did for 'Heroes of Ottawa'.

Later, after the War of Korean Unification, less emphasis was put on infantry and more on the elite branches of the USNA military - fighter and mech pilots, SOCOM, etc. The most famous of these films is 'Hound Dog' (directed, again by Lars Glennson), which catapulted Nicholas Angela and David DeVito into instant stars, and was widely renowned, if not for its scenes of dramatic fighter battles and fusion explosions, but for being the highest-grossing film of all time, breaking Titanic's record of 1,842,879,955 dollars worldwide.

Unfortunately, Lars Glennson died in 2142, leaving a trail of 17 films, 2 Oscars, 1 world record, and the reputation of being 'the man who resurrected the war movie' behind him. It will be hard to see who will fill his shoes and continues the USNA's tradition of big-budget war/action movies.

[Shroom Man 777]

I like the fact that your diversifying into culture. And, yes, Titanic's record, heh.

[Czernobog]

Ryujo Kaitomara


Ryujo Kaitomara is, in his own words, 'a controversial genius'. Never afraid to challenge convention, his films have reached box-office success in both Japan and the West, most notably his controversial Star Wars remake.

Ryujo Kaitomara was born in Tokyo's bustled streets to a middle-class lawyer on 2nd December 2096, and had a normal childhood for his time and place. However, he aspired to be a producer of anime, and eventually achieved with the creration of his company, FilmCorp, in 2117. He had modest aspirations, but was forced into a series of mergers and acquisitions leading to FilmCorp becoming a major anime studio, and also of a few live-action films.

Ryujo became a leading figure in the Japanese film industry, following his production of several films that blended live action with CGI animation, like some 21st Century films (Sky Captain, 300) that are now considered to have been ahead of their time.

However, he remained a cult director outside of Japan, until LucasArts gave him a contract to remake the entire
Star Wars saga. Part of the contract gave him the right to re-interpret the Star Wars universe as he saw fit, on his insistence, a clause that has been much derided in fans of the original movies.

Indeed, his remake of Star Wars, and its controversies, deserves an entire section of this article to itself.

Star Wars: A New Hope

Ryujo's reinterpretation of Star Wars is unique in that it is a complete retelling of the tale, unlike some others' remakes.

The opening crawl tells us that this does not occur 'in a galaxy far far away' but in the Milky Way in the far future, ruled over by the villainous Terran Empire. It is ruled by Dante Palpatine, an Italian politician, and enforced by Darth Vader and his demented Order of Nihilus.

It opens, familiarly enough, with one of the Empire's 'Annihilators' (Ryujo's version of the Star Destroyer) attacking a rebel cruiser. However, from this point on, when the Annihilator docks with the rebel ship, that everything changes. Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers break in, and we see that their armour resembles that of fururistic Samurai. Not only that, but Darth Vader is wielding a Katana.

Reportedly, this shocked some die-hard fans so much that they immediately left the cinema. Regardless of the veracity of this tale, the bizarrity (to people who were already fans of the series) only increases. Ryujo's reimagining of Princess Leia is Angela Palpatine, heir to the throne of the Galactic Empire and daughter of Dante, who betrays him.

R2D2 and C-3PO walk in as required, and escape in a lifepod - in that respect it is similar to the original. It then lands in the desert of Tau Ceti, colonised by humans and inhabited by a group of lizard-aliens known as Saurians.

The Saurians find the droids and sell them to the Skywalker Family. The plot ensues as in much of the original, until we reach Mos Eisley.

Mos Eisley is a slum in the middle of a gigantic bog, inhabited by Saurians and other alien species. They find Han Solo and Chewbacca, who is a bird-alien in this reimagining. He has a ship, Century's Eagle, that will take them to the rebel base at 61 Virginis.

Moving there, they find an asteroid belt, as they are stranded by a hyperspace disruption. They discover the cause of the disaster - a black hole where the planet used to be. It is Angela's home planet, Naboo, destroyed by the Black Star, the Empire's ultimate weapon.

The heroes are taken by a tractor beam aboard the Star, and Obi-Wan goes to deactivate it. As he does so, Luke and Han go to rescue Angela.

Han, Luke and Angela escape back to the Century's Eagle. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan encounters Vader. The two battle, with massive amounts of implausible fencing, laser-dodging, and projection of energy beams. Vader gains the upper hand, and stabs Obi-Wan - Obi-Wan then vanishes, saying his famous words from the original movie.

The heroes find themselves at the rebel base, Yavin, and prepare to attack the Black Star in their fighters.

It is an epic battle, and the Black Star disintegrates upon itself, forming a black hole.

The stage is set for Ryujo's next ambitious remake...

To be continued...

[Siege]

Well, since you're at least persisting with this universe I'm willing to go through with the universe creation bit. Your previous universe, Colliding Worlds, is very inactive right now however. Shall I remove that in favor of this 'verse?

[Magister Militum]

Question: precisely how reliable/useful is that superluminal drive you've given to the Russians? You do realize that you've given Russia an obscene strategic/tactical advantage in space, right? Unless, of course, something prevents Russia from exploiting it to its fullest.

[Czernobog]

Well, since you're at least persisting with this universe I'm willing to go through with the universe creation bit. Your previous universe, Colliding Worlds, is very inactive right now however. Shall I remove that in favor of this 'verse?

Yes, you can.

[Czernobog]

Question: precisely how reliable/useful is that superluminal drive you've given to the Russians? You do realize that you've given Russia an obscene strategic/tactical advantage in space, right? Unless, of course, something prevents Russia from exploiting it to its fullest.

It isn't that reliable, doesn't work near gravity wells, and the Russians have absolutely no idea how it works or how to reproduce it.

[Czernobog]

Area 94 - CODENAME 'AVERNUS'

Area 94, code-named by the USNA government 'AVERNUS' is an area where the USNA government holds things that just defy explanation, often for a good reason. It is run by the Deathwatch Agency, and is located in the middle of the Utah desert. The base itself is largely underground, and forms a large R&D group that will hopefully decipher the secrets of the bizarre and alien artefacts contained within. Here is just a small sampling of the artefacts within:

The BLACK MAGIC Portal

The BLACK MAGIC portal was dug up at the very centre of the Chicxulub Crater, the one where the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs landed, and had to be shipped to Area 94 by cargo spaceplane, such was its size. The portal resembles a large orrery with the nine planets revolving round the Sun - under the sun lies a ring, which stands upright. It is constructed out of a material resembling black iron, which is an element not found on Earth.

When an electrical stimulus is received, the 9 planets in the orrery revolve around the sun 9 times (they do so at a much higher speed than the planets themselves), a portal is opened, a gaping void that seems to swallow the light, devoid of stars. Teams have been sent past the portal, and discovered an alien city of black basalt towers under a permanently clouded sky , abandoned and forgotten in the midst of great devastation. A semi-permanent base has been erected there, with scientists, archaeologists and anthropologists constantly studying the city, searching for clues as to what might have lived on this planet before it was abandoned. A series of other orreries have been found, but they seem weathered and have not responded to the stimuli that turn on the portal back on Earth.

The nature of the alien planet, and its abandonment, are unknown.

HYPERION

The device code-named HYPERION is a small thing. It resembles a plain ring, made of gold, and with a black stone set in the centre. However, when the black stone is pressed, a force-field is created that deflects most weaponry (and attempts to harm the wearer physically) for 12 hours. It seems to know what is intended to harm (and harmful to the wearer) and what is not, and the USNA is currently attempting to understand how it works and duplicate its function, as if it could do so it would become the most powerful nation ever.

The Starship

Ocassionally referred to as 'the ship', the Starship is an alien vessel that seems designed for interstellar travel, with force-fields to deflect radiation, an interstellar travel drive, and an antimatter reactor, all beyond the technology of Earth's greatest nations. It crashed in Roswell, and what is known is that the Russians have another, falling in the Tunguska Impact of 1908. Although the two countries are allied, knowledge on both spacecraft is beyond top-secret and thus they have not shared information.

[Siege]

Good to see you're back to working on a single universe. However, for an interesting place filled with such obscene hypertech treasures the article is a bit sparse, don't you think? Who works there, who's in charge, where is this place, what have they achieved so far? And more importantly, do they have a huge warehouse full of crates?

[Tangith]

Your Area 94 - are there going to be similar labs in other equally competing countries? How will this affect the sociopolitical landscape of your universe?

[Czernobog]

Your Area 94 - are there going to be similar labs in other equally competing countries? How will this affect the sociopolitical landscape of your universe?

Yes, Area 94 has equivalents in the European Dante Project and the Russian Base 100 in Siberia. I'm not sure how it affects the socio-political landscape, but hypertech is leaking in to the military.

[Czernobog]

The Dante Project

The Dante Project is located in a bunker under the Italian Alps, designed to take a 50-megaton explosion right over it and endure. Information about it is on a strictly need-to-know basis, due to the dangers of people discovering it accidentally, and it is overseen by the Shadow Operation, the European Alliance's answer to the Deathwatch Agency. It is divided into a series of levels, informally known as 'depths' among the scientists and soldiers that dwell within.

Depth 1 - The Entrance

The entrance of the Dante Project, is an airlock designed to survive a kiloton's worth of firepower. Beyond it, lurk the offices and barracks of the professors, soldiers, and Operatives that dwell within. At the end of a long corridor, beyond all the offices and messes and apartments and barracks, lies the elevator leading to Depth 2.

Depth 2 - The Warehouse

The warehouse is a massive, well, warehouse, filled with thousands of crates of every description. They all contain artefacts, some valuable, some dangerous, and some earth-shatteringly terrible. From alien corpses, to the mysterious artefact known as the Ark, they are all here.

Depth 3 - The Laboratories

The laboratories are where the least dangerous artefacts are tested, from simple tests done with electrical stimuli to reactions with chemicals, the laboratories are a well-trod place, but still dangerous, albeit not as much as the depths below.

Depth 4 - The Inferno

The inferno is a massive incinerator complex, built solely to dispose of some of the most dangerous things ever found by man. In its incinerators, temperatures sometimes reach hot enough to heat steel white, but sometimes even this is sometimes insufficient to dispose of the deadly (and worse) artefacts sometimes encountered. For this, the pit is required.

Depth 5 - Cryonics

Cryonics is where things and creatures are frozen to preserve them indefinitely, or at least as long as the fusion generators last. It is generally held to be a bad posting, mostly because of the freezing cold and the knowledge that things older than man are locked in a vault just behind your back.

Depth 6 - The Pit

The pit is simply that - a pit, drilled by laser and leading deep down into the mantle. It is sometimes required to dispose of extremely dangerous artefacts, and while the hope is that they melt in such pressures and temperatures, at least they are far away from any conceivable human.

[Czernobog]

Cybernetics and AI Technology

Cybernetics is the way to the future - a future that has already arrived. Indeed, the world is changing faster than ever before, as humanity evolves culturally, genetically, and cybernetically.

Neural-Psychokinetic Cybernetic Manipulators

The Neural-Psychokinetic Cybernetic Manipulator, or to give its short form, the 'Neural-Psychokinetic Manipulator', is a wondrous thing. It was created by the European Alliance based on the disaster of Project BLACKLIGHT and the information gained by European spies as to SOL INVICTUS, the training and enhancement regimen of the Deathwatch Agency. The Neuro-Psychokinetic Manipulator boosts the brain's performance immensely - those implanted with it have eidetic memories, the ability to read minds by the body's subtle cues, and the ability to interface with machines remotely. Other, stranger, devices are also implanted - ones that generate zero-point electrostatic fields, giving effective telekinesis, ones that allow the implantee to move and think faster than any other human can, ones that increase his strength immensely, and even, it is rumoured, allow his body to be taken over remotely by computer.

MAI

MAI is a sapient AI, the result of decades worth of work, the end-point of centuries of research. She was created by the USNA's military, and brought online on 12th July 2145, exactly 4 years ago. Her name stands for Military Artificial Intelligence, a rather blunt statement of her function, but she enjoys it. Her specifics are beyond top-secret, and many even doubt that she exists, but what is known is that she incorporates cutting-edge quantum computing, and is more intelligent than her superiors.

She has dozens, maybe hundreds of back-ups hidden in bunkers, the capability to be downloaded into the Internet, and a back-up on the USNA's spacestation Discovery linked by quantum entanglement directly to her mainframe under Cheyenne Mountain - anything she knows, that back-up knows. MAI is friendly towards humans, and thinks of herself as female - the reason she is referred to as 'her' in this article. She primarily works in strategising, but also performs valuable research and surveillance work.

SOL INVICTUS

SOL INVICTUS is the codename for the training and enhancement program of the Deathwatch Agency. SOL INVICTUS consists of nanobot infestation and cybernetic augmentation over a period of a year. First, the body is infested with nanomachines that eliminate disease and fat, and render the body immune to cancer, obesity, and other illnesses, while keeping it in working order and slowing ageing. Then, begin the real enhancements. The eyes are augmented, replaced with high quality cybernetics that are capable of digital photography and thermal vision, while the brain's memory centres are enhanced to create eidetic memory, memories that may be deleted as needed.

Then, changes are made to the emotion centres to enable Deathwatch Agents to activate and de-activate emotional response as needed, making them unflappable but somewhat removed from normal humans when emotional response is de-activated. Important muscles are then replaced with ultra-light plastic fibre while bones are reinforced with titanium alloy, enhancing strength and durability. Then, nanomachines are implanted to allow the agent to change his face, skin colour, and build (they retain the same height as before) over the period of a month, to enable blending in with local populations.

Finally, changes are made to the brain, enabling the agent to deactivate the pain centres at will, rendering them immune to torture.

[Siege]

Like the NPCM; like MAI too but would want more specifics about her make-up. Not that big a fan of your description of Sol Invictus (and why that name? It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Roman god.), mainly because it's all fairly predictable as far as nanotech is concerned. You might want to flip out a little if you're going to make nano-enhanced badasses anyway.