The United Freestates

Post Reply
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

Image

In stark contrast to the knights, lords, aristocrats and emperors of the other imperial powers, the Grand Union of Free Stars and States, often simply referred to as the United Freestates, is a nation of free men and women, with an elected Congress and President, where anyone with the will and the opportunity can rise to any position they choose. At least, that's how it works on paper (the paper in question being the Manifest, the Freestates' central body of laws). While it's true that there are no noble classes and that no human citizen of the Freestates is granted any greater or lesser rights than any other, it's a very different story for the Freestates' large (and growing) population of alien and automaton citizens who are almost all levied with restrictions and various forms of "indentured citizenship." Even among the humans, the disparity of wealth is not all that different from the difference between a commoner and noble in the Chrysanthemum Shogunate or the Brittanic Star Empire, and the libertarian capitalist nature of the Freestates' government means that these "barons" may do as they like with very little harassment from the police or any regulatory body.

Nevertheless, just by living in Free Space a person truly does have a wide degree of freedom and opportunity. Don't like your life in the cooped-up, smoggy industrial planets? Pick up stakes and move out to the unsettled frontier. The Freestates are the smallest of the six empires, but they are also expanding the quickest, with new colonists and prospectors making land on virgin moons and planetoids, and steadily settling and developing the planets firmly in their grasp into bustling worlds of commerce, culture, and industry. Fortunes are won and lost by the hour in both the trading floor and the casino, and the Who's Who list of VIPs in the Freestates can change at a moment's notice. If you're not afraid to take a risk for a jackpot, to gamble on a dream, then the United Freestates are the place for you.

Of course, the rapid and unchecked expansion, particularly into the Big Sky and Dixie star systems, has not been without consequences. By simple luck of the draw, the Freestates' territory (commonly referred to as Free Space) is practically littered with the homeworlds of developing alien civilizations. Some of these have been, or are in the process of being, absorbed into the Freestates, but others have been nearly eradicated by paranoid and trigger-happy ranchers and sheriffs, not to mention largely-autonomous military operations. Several of these races have unified into a force which the Freestates simply call the Coalition, which has been harassing the Freestates' colonization efforts for the last several decades, and has even managed to strike a few decisive blows against Freestate population centers and forts. There are five major races of the Coalition (the Diggers, Honkers, Gargoyles, the Forsythian Wraiths, and a sizeable portion of the Sasquatch), but membership is somewhat fluid as races join or leave depending on how much they think the Coalition will benefit them. There are even a few humans within the Coalition, protesting the Freestates' rapacious colonization efforts or just using the Coalition as an excuse for mischief or the settling of accounts with the Freestate government. This Coalition is currently the most immediate threat to the Freestates' security, and great efforts and resources have been brought to the forefront to deal with "the Alien Problem." This includes close scrutiny and harassment of alien citizens of the Freestates which, perhaps unsurprisingly, only provides the Coalition with recruitment opportunities.

The Freestates do not have a single unified military or armed force. Instead, they are defended and represented by the Free Battalions and the Free Ships, companies of soldiers and/or sailors raised by a sponsor and granted a charter and right of prize. These forces are not mercenaries in the usual sense - they are not paid by the Freestate government, but they are given freedom to take military action in the name of that government. The relationship between the Freestates' federal government and the Free Battalions and Ships is largely genial and symbiotic - the Freestates get a seemingly-endless and willing supply of defenders essentially for free, while the Free Battalions and Ships get a chance to bear some pretty impressive arms and gallivant around Freestate space and beyond more or less as they please, getting into whatever manner of ruckus and adventure they choose, so long as they do not abandon or forsake their duties. They may purchase military-grade weaponry and vehicles which would otherwise be off-limits to citizens, and they may take whatever spoils and prizes of combat that they choose. The Free Battalions are typically named for their sponsor and/or commander with an almost always-alliterative appellation attached, such as Cainard's Carbines, Rothfort's Raiders, or Jameson's Jackhammers; or they may be named for their home planet or city, such as the all-female Fightin' Furies of Forsyth or the Mad Manahatta Minutemen. Free Ships may have whatever name their sponsor and/or captain chooses, but long-standing tradition holds that Free Ships be named for heroes of yore, such as Bruce Springsteen, Clint Eastwood, and Ernest Hemingway.
Last edited by Arty on Tue Jun 11, 2013 2:26 am, edited 4 times in total.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

The Fifteen Free Worlds


Chesapeake System

Adirondack (AD)
Capital City: New Salem

Keystone (KS)
Capital City: Coulton City

Hudson (HU)
Capital City: Manahatta

Potomac (PT)
Capital City: Teagan's Corridor

Big Sky System

Cherokee (CK)
Capital City: Fort Lewis

Deseret (DR)
Capital City: Smithsville

Mojave (MJ)
Capital City: Topaz City
Governor: Mariah Roseman

A desert world so bleak and open that it makes Rio Bravo look positively temperate, Mojave is nevertheless a bustling world with a steady rate of settlement. This has been driven primarily by the planet's truly astounding deposits of silver and diamonds, the result of the planet's rough-and-tumble geological past. Vast mines stretch across the planet's surface and dig deep into its crust, extracting the precious material, yet one can also ride for whole days between these mines and see no evidence that any human other than yourself lives on the planet. Aside from the mines there are also large ranching operations near the planet's small but almost-entirely fresh water sources, and a few large cities have formed at the intersection of skytrain rails. Mojave's citizens, called Mojavans, are a hardy and taciturn people, but certainly not without a sense of poetry for their world, and who could blame them - Mojave's vast deserts are bleak, to be sure, but their largely unspoiled beauty, particularly in the mountains and long river-cut canyons, are inspiring sights, and drive the colonization and immigration rate almost as strongly as the planet's bountiful resources. Mojave was once the home of the Digger race, before those aliens were nearly wiped out by human settlers and the survivors abducted by the Honkers. While a few small "suburbs" of their huge subterranean townships still remain, they left little of real interest to any by the most dedicated and niche xenoarcheologists, and today there is little evidence that the Diggers were ever on Mojave at all. Except, of course, for the occasional Coalition raids on human cities, mines, and ranches, in which the Diggers frequently take part.

Mojave is of particular interest, aside from its economic traits, for its ecological ones. Despite (or perhaps because of) the hot, dry desert environment, Mojave is host to a wide array of animal life, the most prominent and famous being several species of quasi-reptilian megafauna, from the titanic Kilosaurus (massive omnivores the size of skytrain engines) to the swift Falcosaurus (flying raptor-like scavengers) to the deadly but clever Sabresaurs (bipedal hunters the size of a large horse, with wickedly-curving arm claws the span half the length of their body). Many of these creatures can be and have been tamed by humans, and are used for menial labor in places where it would be impractical to ship in machinery or vehicles that could do similar work. It is not at all unusual to see cowboys herding their cattle while riding on the back of a tame Sabresaur, and in fact these creatures are more highly-valued than horses on many ranches thanks to their greater intelligence and, if they are brought up as hatchlings, loyalty to their masters. Mojave's plant life is similarly interesting, and similarly imposing. While it may not seem so from orbit or the surface, Mojave is very much a living planet, with its atmosphere replenished and scrubbed by vast underground networks of plants that seem like a cross between cacti and pine trees, which only pop above the surface every few miles but which are connected by root systems that can cross whole tectonic plates. These are also the local fauna's primary source of water far from the fresh lakes and rivers, as the plants will occasionally "leak" excess water for a few days at a time.

Rio Bravo (RG)
Capital City: Delgado

Ozark (OZ)
Capital City: Moose Lake

Redwood System

Golden Gate (GG)
Capital City: Zoetrope City

Rainier (RN)
Capital City: Copperthorne

San Joaquin (SJ)
Capital City: Plateado

Dixie System

Acadiana (AC)
Capital City: Delta City

Bluegrass (BG)
Capital City: Sweethome

Forsyth (FS)
Capital City: Oglethorpe
Governor: Josiah Abercorn III

The largest and only habitable moon of the blue-green gas giant Caroline, Forsyth is a relatively small world but one that is rich in natural resources, most prominently timber and copper. The soil of the moon is very rich, and has done very well for the growth of cotton, tobacco, and rice, from which the early settlers of Forsyth made their fortunes. Forsyth is a very prosperous world, as it is both the center of trade and business in the Dixie System, as well as a major ship-building world, thanks to the multi-level Factor's Waltz drive yard and wharf cluster. Today, Forsyth is called the Jewel of Dixie, not only for its lovely emerald color as seen from space, but for its resplendent, cosmopolitan cities which, while not nearly as large as those of Hudson, Potomac, or Golden Gate, are truly among the loveliest in the Freestates, and indeed in the galaxy as a whole. The citizens of these cities are likewise cultured, genteel, and famous for their both their manners and their forthrightness, and are instantly recognizable thanks to their impeccable sense of fashion and style, rivaling the dandies and belles of Britannica and the Star Republic. It is a center of education, with several institutes, universities, and academies teaching everything from theology to physics, from art to engineering. The richest citizens of Forsyth live in grand plantation manors deep in the river-woods, away from the hustle and bustle of the cities, where their manage their affairs in relative privacy and comfort. The poorest have taken to living on the rooftops of Forsyth's cities, building tent-and-rope bridge mini-cities right over the heads of the more well-to-do.

While there is plenty to recommend Forsyth as a destination for either business or holiday, there are also plenty of whispers and rumors surrounding the Jewel of Dixie. Most of these come from the fact that humans were not the first race to settle on Forsyth - the relics and ruins of an ancient civilization remain, hidden deep within the forests and swamps, in the form of strange gothic structures which might have been homes, or ancient astrolabes, or temples to unknowable and unwholesome alien deities. Of course, architecture isn't the only thing the Forsythians left behind - there are also the Wraiths, the psychic ghosts of these long-dead aliens, which maintain their intelligence and memories and can even interact with the physical world to a certain degree. Stay on Forsyth long enough, and you're certain to encounter one of these Wraiths. The kindest of them will welcome you into their homes and offer to tell you your future, in exchange for a story from your past. The worst will kill you in a fit of rage, with neither warning nor explanation. The tree-choked graveyards of Forsyth, already among the most extensive and luxurious in all the galaxy, are home to many who have crossed the Wraiths. While it is hard to say for certain, there is even a rumor that the population of the Forsythian Wraiths has increased since humans first made landfall on the moon. The reasons this might be are as numerous as they are disturbing.
Last edited by Arty on Thu Jun 13, 2013 1:27 am, edited 9 times in total.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
User avatar
Invictus
Posts: 1306
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 11:44 pm

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Invictus »

Is the list of worlds indicative of the general scale of the New Old Familiars, or are the United Freestates just that tiny? :P
"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."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
Coming NEVER
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

We're definitely scaling things down to a more manageable size this time around - which is not to say that the Freestates might not be lacking in real estate compared to Britannica or some of the other nations :)

Mostly I wanted each Freestate world (which I guess also means each Freestate) to have its own flavor and feel to it, so that if we introduce a character who's from, say Adirondack, it means something beyond just "she's from a Freestates world." That's a lot easier to do with fifteen worlds than with a couple hundred that will never in all likelihood ever get named.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
Mobius 1
Global Mod
Posts: 1099
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 11:40 pm
Location: Orlando, FL

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Mobius 1 »

FREESTATES

FUCK YEAH

DID SOMEBODY ORDER A HELPING OF SPACE FREEDOM

Image

More seriously, how close are you guys sticking to the WWI theming this time around?
SHADOW TEMPEST BLACK || STB2: MIDNIGHT PARADOX
The day our skys fe||, the heavens split to create new skies.
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

Not nearly so much - there is definitely a sense of "everybody's watching each other with one hand on their gunbelts," but (and Siege, feel free to disagree with me here) I feel like this time around we're going for more Pulp! Action! Adventure! In Space! rather than War is Hell, and War in Space is Hell in Space. Also gone are a lot of the direct historical links (though there will be plenty of nods and winks to historical events and figures), and the various nations are more... caricature seems like a mean word to use, but honestly it kind of feels right. Yeah, more caricatures of the old imperial powers than extrapolations of them.

For example, the Freestates this time around are gonna look a lot more like the USA during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age rather that WWI-WWII, with a little extra seasoning from the diesel-fueled, rockin' and rollin' 1950s. Think robber barons managing their vast gold-backed finances from their ever-mobile office in the car of a sky-train that travels from world to world, and a hard frontier of prospectors and guns-for-hire fighting against aliens who are pissed off because the prospectors desecrated and invaded their lands.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
Mobius 1
Global Mod
Posts: 1099
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 11:40 pm
Location: Orlando, FL

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Mobius 1 »

Yeah, for what it's worth, going off what Siege said in the Society thread, I think aiming more towards pulp is a great decision. For me, the Gilded Age isn't exactly something I see translated a lot, and I'd love to see some elements of that adapted (in space).
SHADOW TEMPEST BLACK || STB2: MIDNIGHT PARADOX
The day our skys fe||, the heavens split to create new skies.
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
Global Mod
Posts: 4637
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:09 pm
Contact:

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Maybe those sparse worlds are just the government-owned ones. The rest not-officially-gov't-run worlds are owned by Freestates-aligned entities. Like Daniel Plainviews in space, stripmining worlds and such. Robber baron star systems where workers toil in the asteroid fields.
Image

"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

Critters, Devils, Freaks and Worse
the Alien Races of Free Space


For reasons which remain a mystery, the region of space inhabited by the United Freestates is also inhabited by several sentient alien races, an unusually and extremely high density of such beings compared to the territory of the other human imperial powers. It seems as if five years can't pass without Freestate prospectors or explorers don't stumble across another race, like kids playing in the sand and kicking over an endless series of anthills. This comes with certain benefits for the Freestates - some aliens are friendly enough and strong enough that war with them would be foolish, and are instead lucrative trading partners, while others have been absorned, voluntarily or otherwise, into Freestate culture, where they fill all sorts of economic and cultural niches. Of course, for every friendly alien there are three ornery ones, and at least one downright hostile one. Many of these latter have united into a dangerous and surprisingly effective Coalition, which exists purely to drive the Freestates off of the Coalition members' worlds, and perhaps to destroy the Union entirely. Stated plainly, the Freestates' relationship with their many neighbors is a complicated one.

Diggers

Diggers were once native to the planet Mojave, but have since been driven off their world by gold and gem prospectors. Which is a nice way of saying that the Diggers' vast network of underground tunnels was collapsed by a few well-placed seismic charges, crushing untold millions of Diggers in an earthquake that even their well-built tunnel cities could not withstand. The only Diggers which managed to escape this catastrophe were those on the surface, raiding Freestate villages and forts. The Diggers were not a technologically advanced race - their tools and weapons were barely up to Iron Age levels - and thus had no spacecraft to escape their homeworld, onto which more and more Freestaters were landing every day. That changed when the much more advanced Honkers landed on Mojave, and essentially abducted the remaining Diggers almost to a one, spiriting them away from their homeworld and taking them deep into Coalition space. While the Honkers are not an easily understood race on a good day, no one in the Freestates could quite agree on why the Honkers might have done this. It has only been in recent years that their motives became understood - the Diggers have returned to Free Space, but in much greater numbers, and armed with advanced weaponry supplied to them by the Honkers and the Screechers. The Diggers are now the shock troops of the Coalition forces, their culture almost entirely dissolved in place of a blind rage against humans in general, and the Freestaters in particular.

The Coalition's reasons for uplifting the Diggers and turning them into terror troops is relatively clear when one considers a Digger's anatomy. With the smallest of their adults weighing in at about 800 pounds, and covered in loose and flabby but thick hide, Diggers are powerful creatures even unarmed. They possess no eyes, but their sense of smell and hearing are amazing, and they can discern tremors in the ground with surprising sensitivity and accuracy, all of which make Diggers very hard to sneak up on from the ground. They possess a mouth with two sets of jaws, one which opens up to the esophagus and is lined with blunt grinding teeth, and a second out set which can open while the other remains close, and which ends in massive tusks, four for males and eight for females, which they normally use to chew their way through the earth but can also be used to snap a man in half or gnaw through even thick tank armor. They are surprisingly quick on their four feet, and while a lack of eyesight means they do not make for good marksmen, they prefer to strap massive swinging weights onto their short, stubby forelimbs, which they swing hard enough to shatter bones and break through walls. Whole forts have been overwhelmed by mass charges of Diggers covered in Screecher plate armor, and entire towns have been sunk into the earth by teams of Digger tunnelers, where the survivors are then slaughtered. Diggers have another trait which makes them particularly nauseating to humans - they have a habit of eating the dead or near-dead, both their own and that of their enemies. While this may have some religious or other cultural significance, most believe that it is simply a way of cleaning out potentially harmful debris from a future tunnel site.

If the Diggers have any native culture left, or any goals beyond killing any humans they encounter, no one has been able to ascertain them. Diggers do not communicate verbally, but rather through scent and pounding messages into the earth with their feet, and no human has managed to learn the language well enough to understand or communicate with them. While many in the Freestates advocate some form of peacemaking with the Coalition aliens, very few believe that there will ever truly be peace with the Diggers. They are simply too savage, too dangerous, and now too indoctrinated by the Coalition to be anything but killers.

Forsythian Wraiths

The Wraiths of Forsyth are perhaps the most unusual of all the alien races in Free Space, which is quite a statement. What makes them so odd, and often so difficult to deal with, is that they do not really exist in the same way that every other sentient race does. Plainly, the Forsythian Wraiths are, every one of them, dead. Which hasn't, mind you, stopped them from being both a boon and nuisance to the Freestate citizens of the planet Forsyth.

The Wraiths are the psychokinetic ghosts of Forsyth's long-dead native race, which was wiped out by a plague thousands of years ago, leaving only ruins and the Wraiths themselves behind. The native Forsythians were not terribly advanced, technologically, but their psychic abilities left that of most humans in the dust, and the most powerful of them managed to persist with at least part of their personality and memories intact even after their bodies died, in a semi-corporeal form capable of possessing inanimate objects for a limited period of time, depending on the strength of the Wraith in question and any conflicting psychic resonances tied to the object itself. Naturally, the human settlers of Forsyth were quite surprised to encounter these beings, but over time the living and dead, the new and the old, denizens of Forsyth have reached a sort of agreement with one another. Or at least, some of them have.

Many of the Wraiths are quite sane and even pleasant to be around, and seem happy for any company beyond their fellow Wraiths, which they've been stuck with for millennia. They can be quite helpful, and even caring protective of the humans who have settled in their former homes - stories of Wraiths watching over generations of Forsythian families are common, as are tales of Wraiths taking human several lovers from the same bloodline. However, the isolation and fragmentation brought on by their persistence after death has driven many Wraiths completely mad. For reasons unknown, this madness only seems to make Wraiths that much more powerful, and some of these Wraiths are capable of possessing the bodies of the living, driving the body's mind out temporarily or destroying it entirely. Such Wraiths often kill at random, seeing a kind of purity in wiping Forsyth clean of the living again, or perhaps out of frustration at being unable to die themselves. Some mad Wraiths who still retain their reason have gathered enough power to leave Forsyth entirely by possessing whole starships, and aid the Alien Coalition through the use of their ship-bodies.

The appearance of the Wraiths varies widely. Some Wraiths which have spent a long time among humanity have come to resemble their new neighbors, though they often appear to be wearing masks and other bizarre accoutrements. More isolated or insane Wraiths take the form of horrifying and unnatural beasts, and their appearance can change with their mood right before their viewer's (and victim's) eyes.

Gargoyles

Honkers

Loggerheads

Muters (Mutilators)

Little is known about the race called the Muters, aside from their disturbing, grisly habits. No one knows where their homeworld might be, or how they came from there to Free Space, or for that matter how they became so evenly-distributed across Free Space considering that they do not seem to have access to spaceships. A very few of them do fight for the Coalition, but for the most part Muters are organized into small tribes of rarely more than thirty individuals who tend to stick to a particular territory. A few Muter war bands, made up of hundreds of individuals, have formed in the past and tried to make a more organized attack against Freestate settlements and cities, but these seem to be almost random events, and no leader or even organizing cause has ever been identified for these bands. What is known is that they exist on nearly every planet in Free Space, including even the largely-settled and civilized worlds of the Chesapeake System, and that the only cultural identifier that all Mutilator tribes share is the act which gives them their name - they have a strange fascination with taking living animals, killing them, and then mutilating the bodies in savage, yet intricate ways. Their victims range from rabbits to deer to cattle to planetary local fauna, and even to humans - the Muters see little difference between a civilized, intelligent being and a dumb beast when it comes to their less-than-tender artistry.

Muters stand about four feet tall and have long, triple-jointed arms and legs from which spiky quills emerge. They have nine long fingers of varying length on each hand, and their heads, sitting on double-jointed, necks, are long and narrow, similar to a vulture's but with a toothed mouth rather than a beak. Their skin comes in a variety colors which are almost always suited to their chosen environment, suggesting that Muters adapt to their chosen territory very quickly, perhaps even over the course of an individual's lifetime. They move with a hopping motion, and speak to one another with a noise a bit like water boiling. They seem capable of understanding human speech, and if they can be convinced that trying to kill a human will not go well for them, they can even be reasoned or traded with. However, as soon as they believe they have the advantage, Muters will strike, killing with wickedly-curved knives, long and surprisingly-durable spears, and slingshot weapons loaded with spiked iron balls. Fortunately, Muters are not especially tough creatures, and a single shot from most guns is almost always enough to kill them from shock alone.

Killing Muters almost always comes with a reward attached to it, and bounty hunters hired by ranchers and settlers routinely search caves, forests, and valleys where Muters typically like to inhabit. Muter skin makes for very tough and rather beautiful leather, and Muter-skin boots, belts, and hatbands are often the hallmark of a successful hunter, survivalist rancher, or a well-to-do businessman with a fascination for the frontier. On the rare occasion that humans trade with Muters, these items fetch quite a high price indeed, as the Muters seem fascinated with what humans have managed to accomplish in this particular craft.

Sasquatch

Screechers
Last edited by Arty on Tue Jun 11, 2013 8:26 am, edited 3 times in total.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

Shroom has the right of it - these fifteen are the worlds which have been granted statehood, while there are plenty of largely-unsettled "territories" on the frontier of Free Space.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
User avatar
Invictus
Posts: 1306
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 11:44 pm

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Invictus »

You can have your Space Wild West and stuff, I'll just be over here experiencing the unspeakable luxury and commensurately epic ennui of Space Jay Gatsby, guys.

That said, Forsythian Wraiths.
"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."
-
REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 1 - Rey Quirino Versus the Dark Heart of the Philippines
"...a literary atrocity against the senses..." - Ford

REBUILD OF COMIX STAGE 2 - Advent Rey Returns: REVERGELTUNG
Coming NEVER
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

Yes, about those Forsythian Wraiths :)
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
User avatar
Magister Militum
Posts: 921
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 8:01 pm
Location: California

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Magister Militum »

A question about the Freestates themselves. Exactly how closely do the worlds map their namesakes? For example, it's obvious what the inspiration is for Golden Gate and Hudson, but does San Joaquin the Freestate mirror the enormous agriculture and petroleum goldmine that is the real-life San Joaquin Valley in addition to the Hollywood influences?
Democratic Socialist | Atheist | Transhumanist | Bright Green Environmentalist | Worldbuilder | IT Professional |


Germania your game is through, now you're gonna answer to... The Freestates! Fuck Yeah! Now lick my balls and suck on my cock! Freestates, Fuck Yeah! Coming in to save the motherfuckin' day! Rock and roll, fuck yeah! Television, fuck yeah! DVDs, fuck yeah! Militums, fuck yeah! - Shroomy
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

The names are pretty much direct correlations to their real-world U.S. regions. I'm engaging in a bit of generalization here, since I'm breaking 50 states down into 15, but it's my goal to capture an (exaggerated and pulpy) version of the character and culture of each region.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
User avatar
speaker-to-trolls
Posts: 766
Joined: Thu May 22, 2008 12:34 am
Location: The World of Men

Re: The United Freestates

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Sounds like a cool setting for stories with all the wild west and gilded age motifs ( when was the gilded age, incidentally, did it include the Roaring Twenties?) and I think it only makes sense to scale the size of the cosmos down to a number of planets that actually means something.

I am curious about how much of a central government even exists in this place, the frontier ruggedness you are pushing makes it look downright anarchic, I mean no national military at all, couldn't a group of space confederates break off from the Space Union whenever they want so long as they could pay their PMCs?
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

Sounds like a cool setting for stories with all the wild west and gilded age motifs ( when was the gilded age, incidentally, did it include the Roaring Twenties?) and I think it only makes sense to scale the size of the cosmos down to a number of planets that actually means something.
As it is usually defined, the Gilded Age lasted from the end of the Civil War (or The Warra Nahthun Aggression, depending on who you ask) to the start of the 20th Century. I'm gonna be a little more flexible in that definition, since I'm drawing influences from both the Civil War and all the way up to about Prohibition, with a few little pockets of 50's and 80's because why not?
I am curious about how much of a central government even exists in this place, the frontier ruggedness you are pushing makes it look downright anarchic, I mean no national military at all, couldn't a group of space confederates break off from the Space Union whenever they want so long as they could pay their PMCs?
It certainly could, and it's probably happened more than a few times. When it has, one of three things has resolved the split. A) The secessionists get involved in a nasty fight with the rest of the Freestates and have their insteps stomped on before being brought back into the fold, B) they suffer some kind of societal or economic collapse and come crawling back to the Freestates, or C) they get snapped up by one of the other empires shortly after seceding. There might be a few rogue states that split off and managed to survive, but these largely exist as convoys of spaceships - remaining planetbound with a pissed-off UF on one side, an equally pissed-off Alien Coalition on the other, and five hungry space empires each bigger than the UF themselves, is a really bad idea for long-term survival.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, while the frontier (mostly in the Big Sky system and the unsettled Free Space territory beyond) is all about pioneer spirit and rugged individualism, the fifteen planets which have been granted statehood aren't quite as wild, and it's on these worlds that are the center of Freestate economy and industry. A tiny corner of a territorial planet could, conceivably, break away from the Freestates, but good luck getting the Freestates to sell them much of anything. For all their can-do pioneering, the frontier worlds and settlers do rely on the state-worlds a lot more than they'd like to admit. Naturally the robber barons and prospector kings of Potomac, Hudson, Golden Gate, and Forsyth are all loathe to let them forget it, either.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

The Few, the Brave, and the Free
Free Battalions and Free Ships of Note and Prominence


While there are hundreds of fighting forces acting under the Freestates banner, only a few of the Free Battalions and Ships have truly risen to the status granted to heroes and celebrities. These are the solders and sailors who have already gone down in the history books, and are likely to do so again.

Free Battalions

Bailey's Comets
Rocketeer Cavalry
Sponsor: Esther Ramona/Comet Tails Cereal Company
Commander: Colonel Brigham Williams Bailey
Homebase: Franklin's Kite, Hudson

The Screamin' Cyclones of Cedar City
Gunship Air-Carriage Cavalry and Transport
Sponsor: Dr. Richard Zebulon Pryce, M.D.
Commander: Air-Colonel Amalthea Rodriguez Jones
Homebase: Cedar City, Cherokee

The Fightin' Furies of Forsyth
Special Recon Infantry
Sponsor: Camille E. McHamish/McHamish Fine Tobacco
Commander: Colonel Cordelia E. McHamish
Homebase: Montgomery Square, Forsyth

Halsey's Hellions
Sabresaur Fast Cavalry
Sponsor: Harold Ackleston/Mojave Rancher's Union
Commander: Colonel Obadiah Petersen Halsey
Homebase: Old Stone, Mojave

Jameson's Jackhammers
Armored Hoverwagon Cavalry
Sponsor: Finnegan Gladstone IV/Deucalion Motor Company
Commander: Colonel Boris Jameson
Homebase: Deucalion, Keystone

Thompson's Titans
Boilersuit Infantry
Sponsor: Uriah Ramses Halstead/Libertine Studios
Commander: Colonel Josephine Schroeder
Homebase: Caliban, San Joaquin

Free Ships

F.F.V. Born to Run
Extraterritorial Response
Sponsor: The Rock'n'Roll Institute and Museum of Bluegrass
Commander: Captain Clarence Scialfa

F.F.V. Raven
Stealth Reconnaissance and Special Operations
Sponsor: Chesapeake System Library Union
Commander: Captain Baltimora DuPont

F.F.V. Long Goodbye
Customs and Criminal Pursuit
Sponsor: Blackvane Detective Agency
Commander: Captain Phillip Blackvane

F.F.V. Color Out of Space
Unusual Reports Investigation
Sponsor: Arkham Museum Institute
Commander: Captain Herman P. Westhouse
Homebase: Dunwich Port, Arkham
Last edited by Arty on Sun Jun 23, 2013 12:14 am, edited 3 times in total.
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
User avatar
speaker-to-trolls
Posts: 766
Joined: Thu May 22, 2008 12:34 am
Location: The World of Men

Re: The United Freestates

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

I cannot wait to hear what a film studio is doing sponsoring a mercenary regiment.

I love the aliens, well I love the wraiths, what a fantastic concept! Being a huge killjoy the diggers give me some pause with the idea they could be charging down humans with rayguns armed with nothing but big rocks, that seems a bit too silly to me (mind you the idea of fighting them in a confined space is terrifying, they would be perfectly placed to drill up into the middle of a base and start breaking people). The Muters I am also kind of ambivalent about, but they present a good mystery and there must be some mileage in the fact there is obviously a weird secret to them.

I love the article on Forsythe as well, there is real character to this planet and Free Space as a whole.
"Little monuments may be completed by their first architects, but great ones; true ones leave their copestones to posterity. God keep me from completing anything."
User avatar
Czernobog
Posts: 1315
Joined: Thu May 22, 2008 9:27 am
Location: Holy Terra

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Czernobog »

Is that dinosaur cavalry you have there? And what in God's name is "rocketeer cavalry"? Financed by a cereal company of all people?
You have ruled this galaxy for ten thousand years.
You have little of account to show for your efforts.
Order. Unity. Obedience.
We taught the galaxy these things.

And we shall do so again.
User avatar
Arty
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Apr 25, 2013 12:16 am

Re: The United Freestates

Post by Arty »

That is, indeed, dinosaur cavalry. Well, not dinosaurs precisely, but close enough that if you saw one running your way with its massive claws out and a rider on its back armed with a ray-carbine, the difference would be the last thing on your mind.

And by Rocketeer, I mean Rocketeer.

Image
I know it’s a mess and it’s half-taped together and it’s old and busted — but it’s mine. And you gotta make that work, right? You gotta make your own stuff work out.
Post Reply