Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

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Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

Post by Booted Vulture »

Trying to spur some forum activity here! And one of the ideas was one of the spontaneous post by post universes were used to do. So I thought I'd start one up. I've just started watching B5 so I was going to post a start up blurb aimed at b5/star trekky tech level but if anyone has any better ideas feel free to suggest them.

The rules for those of us who don't remember:

- Collaborative post-by-post universe.
- There is no need to contribute one whole subject matter per post. You can also add detail or twists to any existing subject, or leave a skeleton for others to add to!
- You cannot post after your own post (to maintain balanced content input).
- You cannot contradict a previous poster's material (only build upon each others' stuff).


------
To try and get the ball rolling I shall start with:

Known Space
'Known Space' refers to one spiral arm of the milky way galaxy, that is inhabited by numerous interstellar species with any number loose political ties, alliances, rivalries and enmities. There are 96 species acknowledged as sapient by the interstellar community and as being viable interstellar states. This does not include 5 pre-space species which are acknowledged as protectorates not to be interfered with and numerous other sapient species that have been subsumed entirely by more advanced and less principled species.
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Re: Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Huzzah! These are my favourites.

The Three Kingdoms

The Three Kingdoms are the three largest empires in Known Space, wach one guarding, respectively, the Coreward, Middle and Trailing regions. Each of the Kingdoms claims to have been given legitimacy by the Tetrarchs of the Inner Stars, the mysterious race also known as the Keepers of Galactic Peace in ages past, when they were much more active than they are now. Each Kingdom is, it is therefore claimed, meant to excercise hegemonic power over its surroundings, and they are intended to work in concert with one another to ensure Peace, Justice and Security for the entire arm. All three have, however, become rather insular in the modern age.

The Coreward region is guarded by the Scintillain Shogunate

The Middle region is guarded by the Orlak All-Systems Coordination

The Trailing region is guarded by the Custodians of the Dragon-Roads

All of these names are, of course, translations for your convenience, dear reader.
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Re: Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

Post by Booted Vulture »

Was hoping we'd have other participants but...

Bel'troc StarHub
The Bel'troci are practically unique that their 'home' system has no habitable (or formerly habitable) planets what it does have is five gas planets and as many asteroid belts. Making it the perfect system to mine resources from. Indeed Bel'troc has innumerable space habitats, StarMines and refineries and draws customers from half the arm.

How ever the Bel'troci annoy many of their neighbours for refusing to export their resources in raw, or even refined forms. But only as a finished product. As the Bel'troci are of the opinion they make the finest starships in the galaxy. This 'fact' is highly disputed but their vessels have still been sold far and wide.

They are especially disliked by Orlak All-Systems Coordination for the number of their small yachts, utility vehicles, and light transports that turn up refitted with weapons and in the hands of privateers and pirates.
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Post by Invictus »

Like I wouldn't be all over this but just needed to put the forum back on my regular browsing pattern again and wasn't too busy to check the place yesterday anyway.

---

The System Control Ships are the benchmarks of the age not only when it comes to space warfare, but as symbols of the power and legitimacy of the Three Kingdoms. It was said that when the Keepers of old handed over its golden stewardship over Known Space to the three successors, one edict-condition it imposed was the establishment of standing fleets supercapital warships crewed by fearless volunteers, so that no world may look up without seeing a shining guardian in sight. It was also said that the Keepers gifted secrets of technology to the founders of each of the Kingdoms so that they may achieve this, and versions of such a legend do indeed feature prominently in the national mythologies of the Three Kingdoms as well as the vast swath of interstellar civilization they held cultural sway over. To those under their hegemony, fitness to rule is tied inextricably to naval supremacy, and from this stems much of the troubles of the current age.

This is not to say that such ships are no longer formidable, their designs and operating doctrines refined over countless iterations until they have become a triad of archetypes reflected in places from modern force theory to children's games. The Shield Bastions of the Scintillain Shogunate focus on an unstoppable concentration of energy resistance and energy projection capability, operating in the dense and hazardous starscapes of coreward. The Monitors of the Orlak All-Systems Coordination combine flexible forcefield generation with formidable insystem infowarfare, perfectly adapted towards patrolling the settled and populous mid-reaches. And the Crux Guardians of the Custodians of the Dragon-Roads are designed towards unparalleled speed and stand-off strike capacity, such that a handful of them can maintain authority over the strange and scattered settlements of the trailing drifts. And unlike in children's games*, the worth of these classic vessel designs are under much vigorous debate.

*Monitor trumps Bastion, Crux trumps Monitor, Bastion trumps Crux.
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Re: Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Nice!, Ok, let's keep this going.

Zirag

The Cursed Planet of Zirag is a place of huge historical significance in Known Space, as it is alleged to be the last place where the Keepers of Galactic Peace took direct action in the Arm. During the last stage of the war between the Scintillain and the Quoril Empire, the Quoril deployed their most terrible weapons, the self aware Demon Engines, intelligent and seemingly invincible battleships that laid waste to all in their path. With the assistance of the other kingdoms and the Keepers themselves, the Scintillain were able to destroy all but four, which met them over the gas giant Zirag.

While the Scintillain fleet was devastated by the battle, the Quoril were the ones who saw their empire fall, for when all hope seemed lost the Keepers themselves englobed the Demon Engines, forcing them down onto the planet in a battle so ferocious it blew away the gas giant's atmosphere, leaving a huge, dead ball of featureless stone. The Engines proved impossible to destroy, even for the Keepers, so they deployed the Four Fold Seal, locking the Demons away in an inaccessible pocket dimension cage, the body of which was buried deep in the core of Cursed Planet.

It is forbidden to land on Zirag, and the planet has four Shield Bastions permanently stationed in orbit. Every sys-shift the Shogun of Scintill makes a pilgrimage to the Demon's Cage to meditate on the history of the place, and to see if their people's hopes or nightmares are realised: If the Keepers are to return, or the Demons break free.
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Post by Invictus »

The Haelin Armada

The Haelin are migrants from Unknown Space, crossing the Outer Rift in Arks of such size and sophistication to have caused galactographers to radically revise their estimated civilizational index of the galaxy in general. The vectors of their Arks see the Armada filtering mostly into the Trailing volumes, where they make use of unclaimed star systems to refuel and replenish before unfurling their Arks into seemingly permanent habitats at choice locations. More problematically, the Haelin do not hesitate to take advantage of star systems that have been left unsettled during the Consolidation Era, their rights held in delicate suspension at the Tri-Tribunal but now thrown utterly into turmoil by settlers who knew nothing of the intricacies of inter-Kingdom law. Some Arks also find their way into the other regions of Known Space, where the species show a remarkable persistence in avoiding all conflict and navigating through claimed territory until they can find a suitable home.

The Haelin are counted among the 96, such is their undeniable presence in Known Space, but this count comes with the qualifier of "Penumbral" - which is a way of saying that Known Space has yet to have their measure. The full extent of the Haelin Armada, with unsealed Arks still arriving where their kin have long settled and established alliances, is not estimable. Furthermore, the Armada do not fall well into Known Space's definition of an interstellar state. They live, on fully capable starships and never near worlds; claim no territory and admit no citizenry; and always interact with the formal political structure of Known Space, such as it is, through independent proxies.

They know of the Tetrarchs and openly recognize the signs of their stewardship over Known Space, but are cagey at best around representatives of the Three Kingdoms. Vague speculation that associate the Haelin to the Great Hunters of yore have not prevented the Haelin from gradually filling the power vacuum in the wake of the Concord's retreat, establishing their own network of allies and clients with their naturally light hand. That said, in the Trailing region the Armada is only one rising power out of many, alongside many states that once chafed under Tribunal-imposed limits of expansion.
"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: Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

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The Dromons in the Dark

In the dark recesses between systems, at the far points between stars, drift the titan tomb-ships referred to in Known Space as the Dromons in the Dark. Unseen and unheard, sphinxlike and necromantic, the Dromons are part old wive's tale, part scare story, but also part frightening reality.

Known only as a legend amongst the Custodians of the Dragon-Roads that may date back to the days of the Keepers, the existence of the Dromons was recently confirmed by renowned classicist-adventurer Lyra d'Ys, who stumbled upon one of the tomb-ships on her quest for the Sword of Sh-Halla.

D'Ys reported nearly colliding her star cutter against a heretofore unknown object of truly brobdingnagian proportions, a construct that did not stand out against the interstellar darkness in any way, whose stygian exterior was pockmarked by the tell-tale craters of high-energy impacts, some dating back hundreds of thousands of years.

The legendary adventurer continues to report on the discovery of an ancient airlock into the great Dromon, of finding the vessels' internals a near-perfect zero vacuum threaded with strange technology and warped geometries. Then followed the discovery of the vast and utterly dark basilica deep within those great ships, and the tombs contained therein; the accidental awakening and the terrifying anger of the creatures that slept there, and the panicked flight of her crew back to the star cutter to barely escape with their lives.

Much has been speculated on the purpose of the Dromons and the Sleepers. One theory believes them to be creatures trying to hibernate through the universe's current hot phase to the eventual cold death of the universe, an environment more suited to their biologies (insofar as that term can even be said to apply); another says their tombs are transcendence machines gone awry, with the Sleepers permanently lost in the Overtrance beyond our five dimensions.

Whatever the case, the existence of these vast and near-undetectable objects in the deepest recesses of space serves as an explanation for many mysterious disappeared spacecraft over the centuries. Current consensus in the galactic milieu is that it is probably best not to disturb the Dromons and to let the Sleepers dream in their airless tombs.
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Cosmau Security Trust

Cosmau Security Trust is a Not-For-Profit Private Military Company that operates on the disputed borders between the Orlak All-Systems Coordination and the space claimed by Custodians of the Dragon-Roads. It draws personnel from multiple species and governments in the area and its official remit is that it is a peace keeping and humanitarian armada. With standing contracts from its sponsor governments that means 75% of its fleet is occupied with merchant convoy protect, active suppression of piracy, privateering and slaving vessels, and disaster relief. This means some governments fund the Trust as an excuse to cut their military funding, others fund their mandatory foreign aide into the Trust's humanitarian programs.

The remaining 25% of the Trust is available to hire, though is subject to the strictest moral guidelines for commissions it under takes. This has not stopped the Trust have been accused of being little better of privateers by some races. The Trust has also had to disavow the actions of several rogue Commodore-Commissioners who have been involved in various shady operations. Though of course the cynical maintain that they were really acting under Trust orders and only declared rogue when caught.

Historically, the Trust purchased surplus and second hand military units for their vessels. But to the empire's distaste has recently been designing and commissioning its own design. Several ex-patriot Bel'troci are on the design board for the new starships, making their specs as good as any short of the Kingdom's. Though the trust is not even close to being able to challenge the naval supremacy of the Three Kingdoms except on a very local scale, it is still seen as provocative, heightening tensions that already existed, as the Kingdom's claim authority over the region by divine right of inheritance while the Trust strictly practises policing-by-consent.

The official headquarters of the Trust is a modest office suite on a moon of Traxi. But the real operational centre of the trust is the TSS Ice Dragon. A ship created from salvage from the Heepla Nebula Incident, when a proposed live-fire exercise betweeen Orlak and the Custodians turned into an actual deadly skirmish. Where one Crux Guardian engaged four Orlak Monitor ships. A lucky shot from the final Monitor result in all five vessels being wrecked. The Ice Dragon was constructed based on the salvage hulk of the least damaged monitor and refitted with missile weapons from the Crux Guardian while retaining the infosystem warfare capabillites that make it an ideal control hub for the Trust's fleet.
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The Shining Cages and the Uncounted

Of the Three Kingdoms, the Scintillain Shogunate claim themselves to be the eldest and most favored of the successors, citing their closeness to the Galactic Core - admittedly acknowledged to be the home of the Tetrarchs - as evidence of their privilege. It is true that they cleave closest to the terms of their mandate over their portion of the Arm, terms that they have zealously interpreted and preached to their tributaries as spiritual teachings and moral codes.

And in this dwindling age, the insularity of the Shogunate has manifested as their redoubled wardenship over the Prison Systems of Wroth, where ancient artificial constructs channel the energies of the stars themselves into inescapable cages. And in these caged star systems languish the Uncounted, remnants of species whose egregious acts against Galactic Justice have seen them deprived of all rights as civilized persons, their clade-characteristics struck from the Count. Any member of such species at large in Known Space are unpersons to be captured, and the only means for such prisoners to reduce their millennia-long collective sentences are to serve as penal-janissary auxilia for the Shogunate, fighting and dying under merciless cybernetic constraints.

Such Unnumbered Legions may survive to earn their own kind of fame and freedom, and the Shogunate are known to lend their services out to trusted allies, the knowledge that they are working towards the redemption of their entire species (though it is to be noted that not one of the Uncounted species have completed their sentences since the rise of the Kingdoms) preventing them from going rogue...most of the time.
"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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Post by speaker-to-trolls »

^Harsh, man, real harsh, one wonders what egregious crimes they committed. Ah, but that is for another time.

**

Koso is one of the most remarkable things to emerge from the True Core beyond the Shogunate's borders. It was first cultivated by a number of the O-Loonx Guilds, but its origin, and whether it was originally created by some advanced civilisation or in the cauldron of natural selection, remains a mystery.

It has been compared to a plant, or some other sedentary organism, and there is no denying it must be classed as one of the Twenty Forms of Life, after all it grows of its own accord, reproduces, mutates and modifies itself. However, it contains numerous and contradictory chemical systems within its complex bodily structure, so where exactly it fits in the order of living things is still a matter of intense debate.

Koso grows on asteroids and microgravity environments, quickly covering the entire object it attaches to in enormous fruiting bodies, big enough, in fact, to comfortably admit large habitats inside, or to house passing spacecraft. In fact, this is what makes Koso so prolific and so useful to galactic civilisation, it has a wondrous ability to alter its internal environment, with some prompting, to match the requirements of its hosts. This is the chief argument for its artificial nature, for even when the O-Loonx first discovered it, the koso they found was able to change temperature, pressure and atmospheric composition within its body to suit their biology. With long term habitation it will even start to produce biological matter which can be eaten by its inhabitants, and adapt to consume their waste matter.

Different strains of Koso have been discovered in the True Core and even more have been developed by the O-Loonx and by follow-on groups of kosoculturists, adapted to live close to stars, in interstellar space, in the intense magnetic fields of gas giants, and adapted for different purposes, including mining koso which produce trees heavy with metal ores and defence koso with easy spots for the implantation of weapons systems. Some cultures, particularly those further from the core, distrust koso, for example the Bel'troci have maintained for centuries that it is inefficient for mining and uncomfortable as a habitat.

In addition to this, wild or feral koso have been recorded in the annals of history. Some of these have apparently lost the ability to provide suitable habitats, while others have been reported as luring in travellers before devouring both them and their spacecraft. The permutations are many, and some are so strange as to be difficult to credit.
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Post by Invictus »

The Table of Relics

It is unsurprising even to the more cynical of political observers that the Table of Relics is one of the best-run of the inter-Kingdom institutions, vital as it is in maintaining the legitimacy of the Three Kingdoms and their mandate. For in a galaxy where the past age is legend, tangible relics establish the shape of the history better than anything else, and by extension the shape of things as they ought to be as well. And in a galaxy where many species have long memories and heed the legacy of the Keepers as much as the present might of the Kingdoms, a paradigm that places all sources of antiquity under the power of the Kingdoms would not go amiss at all.

The Table refers mostly to the massive registry-database that, as the cynical will note, sorts all politically significant artifacts that predate this age into how useful they prove to be for the Three Kingdoms. The nature, provenance and current keeper of items are logged, their value ranked by progressive layers of verification, successful reverse-engineering and use - the very pinnacle being the Regalia, each a piece of crystallized technology that forms the foundation of one of the Kingdoms themselves. Webs of prestige and patronage thusly extend downward as the rankings descend, Kingdom-held relics swelling in importance as more client states are gifted their reverse-engineered bounties; the stature of lesser states are buoyed the more they submit their relics to the mercies of the Kingdoms' inspections. The recalcitrant find the symbols of their own history branded unsubstantiated or even proscribed under the Keepers' eyes.

All that said, the institution of the Table itself is quite serious about uncovering the past. Beyond the verified artifacts extend vast cones of rumor and possibility, the database itself collating any scrap of information on what the Keepers - and their foes and peers - left behind in the galaxy. Massive rewards are handed out to any party who prove helpful in completing the picture, and it is the hope of many an adventurer that a right discovery will set them for life. That said, many more foolhardy adventurers have met their ends questing beyond the safety of Known Space, from the rad-fluxes of the True Core to the unknown terrors of the Silencer Void, exile of those described by the Tetrarchs only as the Second Revilants.

That antiquity-hunting is such a generally encouraged activity in Known Space has had its drawbacks, and the Three Kingdoms have been quick in suppressing any alternate interpretations of their mandate that a discovery might trigger, sometimes with calamitous effects. The eradication of the Green Kings, for example, burned worlds and led to the banning of the Koso plant from some 40% of the volume of the Orlak All-Systems Coordination for any other than strictly aesthetic purposes.
"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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Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Dream Reavers are mysterious beings named for the disturbing and strange phantasms that accompany their appearance. Llegends of these beings have abounded since shortly after the time of the Tetrarchs, the details of the encounters are many and varied, but share three main features.

First are the eponymous dreams, weird and confused visions in which the senses are distorted and consciousness warped. The Record of the Wreck of the Kerisuk describes how the crew experienced "flying through bogs of fetid, crackling starlight... Torn in battle with the black hands, feeling the whine of claws descend from inside to out... Luminous voices, matter burns and vanishes before the heat of their words." The lists go on, and in all cases the dreams are as incomprehensible as they are unsettling.

Second is the strange form of radiation sickness which overtakes virtually all life forms encountering the creatures. The nervous system, seemingly regardless of its substrate, becomes unresponsive and the victim's behaviour erratic, while the body begins to disintegrate, rapidly becoming frail and eventually falling to pieces. A unique symptom is the fault lines which appear on an affected body, which in later stages of the sickness begin to emit brief flashes of light and bursts of exotic radiation.

Thirdly and finally is the final stage of the Reaving, the formation of instantaneous spacial anomalies, microsingularities, followed by explosions of tremendous power, destroying most of the surrounding matter and leaving much that remains irradiated and untouchable. The violence of this final stage is the reason that knowledge of the Reavers is mainly confined to legends, few reliable witnesses have survived close proximity to a reaving.

Reavings almost always occur near to pulsars or neutron stars, and it is therefore believed by many, though not all, that the Reavers themsrlves are the Pulsirics spoken of in certain Tetrarch communications from ancient times. Unfortunately, while the Tetrarchs allegedly had ways to communicate with these creatures, their methods do not seem to have been preserved by their successors. There are a few apocryphal exceptions to this rule, the most famous being General Takak, the only being who is confirmed definitively as having stopped and reversed a reaving whilst it was going on. Unfortunately, nothing of her Shield Bastion survived and communication was lost long before she did whatever saved most of the people of Tsaina . What happened that day will, tragically, remain a mystery.
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Post by Booted Vulture »

^ Oooh. Creepy and very Mysterious. Cool

Just a short one from me.

Dark Matter Sails
A Form of Faster Than Light (FTL) Drive. These take the form of massive sails that catch the dark matter flows that underlie the structure of the galaxy and are carried upon them. As Dark matter is notorious hard to detect, so are vessels being propelled via Dark Matter sails at least compared to ships using other forms of FTL.

Dark Matter sails are so named because they interact with dark matter not because they are necessarily constructed from them, they can be constructed from various different forms of exotic matter, or regular matter if charged correctly. It is theoretically possible for a ship to make them out of energy fields but any species capable of making said fields is capable of utilising different much more effective forms of FTL travel.

Nearly all forms of Dark matter sails are mass intensive. Meaning that only very small vessels are constructed with them. A dark matter sail on anything as big as formally Ranked Starship would be the size of a solar system.

The small size of the vessel and the hardness to detect have given DMSs the reputation of only being used in spy ships but they are a basic form of FTL used by young species especially those on the farthest rim of the galaxy where there is precious little other forms of matter or energy to use...
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Post by Invictus »

A Dip in the Mirror

"Blossoming fractality between bouncing atoms; webs that define the spaces beneath..." Was the description made by the cosmo-aesthetes of the Orlak All-Systems Coordination when they first detected the Mirroring in their instruments. And since then, capturing the full beauty of it had become a driving goal of the order, and then a full-fledged obsession shared across the entire Coordination.

The Mirroring is theorized to be many things: a previously undetected dimension among the Higher Manifold; a mere scattering phenomenon from the background radiation of Known Space; a manifestation of complexity transcending mere materiality, a sign that the Coordination has reached such a height of achievement that its sophistication is writ into the cosmos. Certainly is has some correspondence with physical space, the dancing patterns varying depending on where the instruments have been set, generally increasing in density and complexity where indeed, civilization is at its busiest. Some observers even claim that communication is possible with this fleeting phenomenon, and that the right actions on a large enough scale will unlock the transcendent wisdom necessary for the matter-bound societies of the Counted to follow the path - and obtain the power - of the Tetrarchs. The generally fraught history of attempted transcendence in the galaxy have not stopped many societies from building their own dedicated Mirror Arrays out of re-purposed symmshift drives, hoping to leapfrog the long slow ladder of species development.

Stories of impossible objects being plucked out of the Mirroring itself are, of course, bunk.

This latest fashion in heretical physics would normally be another offense against the mandate of the Coordination, if it had not seemingly proceeded under the tacit approval of its ruling orders. The Priories of Order and Peace already squabble for funding over research in using echoes in the Mirroring to map the extent of Penumbral civilizations and using its associations to understand and control Hermetical species such as the Pulsirics, respectively. Dangerously energetic machinery is being shipped into the metropoles of the Middle Reaches just so fashionable patrons can sit in parlors and divine the beauty of the Mirrored reflections. It is as though the growing insularity of the Orlak has manifested in far too poetic of a fashion, but its inhabitants would disagree - finally is there something new to explore, beyond the peril-partitioned gulfs of Unknown Space that wall them in and the ancient light of civilization that constantly bathe them.
"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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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
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Post by Invictus »

(This is getting a little too quiet. Shall I be forced to break the FOURTH LAW?!)
"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
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Post by speaker-to-trolls »

THE FOURTH LAW SHALL NOT BE BROKEN!

*

Among the Scintillain, particularly among the Akay, the so called Imperial Race, there is a saying; "The Name of the Shogun is our mandate".

The Name they speak of here is not the name of any individual sovereign, or even the office of Shogun itself. Rather, the Name of the Shogun is a principle which extends to all Scintillain citizens, by which all of them are involved in the highest office of their nation. Carrying the Name means citizens are entitled to enter the sub-manifold construct that is the Hall of Thought Combination. Through this great etheric network, their thoughts and personal character becoming part of the sea of information read by the most honoured of Scintillain regalia, the Crown Eternal, as it advises and modifies the current Shogun and ranks and shuffles the line of succession, marking the entire populace in endless strata of heirs presumptive, apparent and occultant.

The Name also allows all citizens the privileges of the Shogun's House, command of the Public Autons, free travel along the Silver Roads that connect the Scintillain worlds, and the right to act as a representative, or Face of Scintill to alien powers. Those bearing the Name are also subject to the input of the Crown Eternal, for even while it modifies the personality of the Crown Temporal(the Shogun xirself) based on the nature of the times, so it will send forth its influence into the minds of all the Named, to bring greater harmony, greater strength and greater prosperity to the Kingdom.

It is to be noted that, despite this, none but one of the Akay have ever actually become Shogun.
"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."
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Invictus
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Re: Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

Post by Invictus »

The Laws remain unbroken. Excellent!

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The End of the Diaspoch and the Parting of the Fourth

A young member of Known Space, upon studying the Fourfold Annals of history, may pose the question: "If the name of the Tetrarchs referred not to the construction of their biology nor to the divisions of their galactic presence, but to the fourfold lines of power in their stewardship of Known Space, then why did they bestow it upon only three successors?" This is not in truth a difficult question, though the answer must cross the vast and entropy-laden distance of two whole ages: before the founding of Known Space, before the coming of the Keepers of Galactic Peace, at the chaos of the Diaspoch.

The first rudiments of civilization as it is now recognized swept into the spiral arm that would later become Known Space during this epoch, a ragtag mobile population constantly nipped at the heels by a veritable horde of apocryphal foes: The Revilants, the Outer Lords, the Great Hunters, the Star-Sworn, and more. From the thin stars of the Trailing marches these progenitor civilizations were pushed towards the heart of the galaxy, converting star systems into short-lived bulwarks, taking looping and terror-laden treks through the interstellar darkness on primitive FTL drives, seeding memorials and resilience-caches in vain wherever they could. At the same time the vast migration displaced their own share of apocryphal inhabitants which joined the refugees or perished in their immobility, either to the advancing progenitors or those who pursued them.

At the culmination of the terrible diaspora the progenitors were backed up against the deadly furnace of the True Core, their numbers culled, withered and amalgamated to only four civilization-species. And it was recorded that at this time that the Tetrarchs of the True Core, taking pity, raised the mantle of the Keepers and declared the remnant to be under their protection. With their transcendent power they ignited an uncrossable line before the baying hunters from beyond, scattering their fleets with the Overfire and banishing them behind dimensional Seals. They sheltered and reinvigorated the battered civilizations of the four remnants, counseling them in the ways of technology and rulership. When the Four set forth after an epoch of recovery to reclaim the spiral arm and draw the boundaries of Known Space, the Tetrarchs issued forth with them. It was the Tetrarchs who urged the Four to stay their hand against the innumerable scavengers, natives and former foes who settled in the wake of the diaspora, such that Known Space knows its profusion of species today. And it was the Tetrarchs who were beseeched to take up stewardship over Known Space while the Four reconciled their driven existences with the unimaginable prospect of a peaceful and settled domain.

The Four were named as the Solved Clans, The Returned-from-Death, the Concorded Crusade and the Atomarchic Remnant. The Three Kingdoms all trace clear lines of transmission from one of the Four, each preserving some element or legacy of their predecessors as they rose and fell in prominence and worthiness during the long noon of the Age of Stewardship. Only the Atomarchic Remnant has no successor today, records of them growing scarce and vanishing at the beginning of the age. The common explanation is that they departed Known Space due to an inability to settle, either because their grievances compelled them to pursue their old foes into the intergalactic dark, or because some disagreement had them refuse to accept the stewardship of the Keepers so they passed through the True Core and into another arm of the galaxy at large. Less agreeable theories have the Keepers take a more active hand in their removal from Known Space, for defiance or presumption or the pursuit of darkest transcendence.
"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
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Re: Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

Post by Booted Vulture »

Invictus wrote:(This is getting a little too quiet. Shall I be forced to break the FOURTH LAW?!)
Fourth law?
- You cannot contradict a previous poster's material (only build upon each others' stuff).
:P

My apologies I got halfway through writing something and then forgot. More flavour items!
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GemStar

A minor curiosity in the coreward regions, the GemStar took longer than it should have done to find as it has much lower luminosity than it should do for a main sequence star. This owing to the fact that 96% of its area is covered with what appear to be gemstones each with facets thousands or tens of thousands metres wide. The remaining 4% is covered in opaque material.

The origin and purpose of the GemStar remains a mystery owing to its unfortinate habit of using its gems as laser lenses and incinerating any craft that ventures with a couple of AU of it.

There are theories that it is a form of Koso adapt to stellar environments or even that it was the original form of koso that has since been bastardised into its more known forms.

Some societies thinking that only the ancient races would able to build things on the scale of a dyson sphere, have petitioned to have it included in the Table Of Relics however as no team can get close enough to verify or quantify the GemStar it has only been listed infrequently in the Table's 'Apocrypha'
Ah Brother! It's been too long!
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speaker-to-trolls
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Re: Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

Post by speaker-to-trolls »

Ah.

Looking at your opening post, it's actually more like the First Law.

Just as well it wasn't broken then B-)
****

The Corini

Considered by some scholars to be the oldest extant civilisation in Known Space, the Corini are a frustrating species for the academics of the civilised galaxy. According to some, particulatly Corini scholars themselves, their race was one of the premier powers among the Crumbling States, the peoples displaced, conquered or destroyed during the Diaspoch. However powerful they were at that time, the depradations of predators and migrants must have shattered their empire, but, so goes the theory, they had a plan to preserve themselves. The ancient Corini built bunkers, in which their people and the relics of their civilisation could be preserved against the ravages of time and conquest alike. Sunk deep into planetary crusts, on bleak worlds orbiting brpwn dwarves, in the hearts of far flung asteroids, ensconced in Symm-Dsplacer Fields, they would wait out the eons.

This lines up, broadly, with both the Corini's own legends, the dispersed nature of their civilisation, and the fact that some colonies have, in recorded hisrtory, been witnessed emerging from displacer fields. Problems arise when one needs to look into the histories in greater detail. Most Corini worlds agree that their empire fell during the diaspoch, but whether the Corini were a single empire, a great profligation of rival states, when they fell, who was responsible, all of this is disputed. The Corini of Garsta say that it was a native of their world who convinced the disparate worlds to each seed their own temporal colony. Those of Sisstren claim that the whole enterprise was a plot by the Star Sworn along with Corini collaborators, and view the Displacer Bunkers as no better than prison cells. The Rusenchar believe their people to be the original Keepers of Galactic Peace, and that at some point their title was usurped. The theories and histories are endless, and each world
clings to its own version with implacable tenacity.

The Corini have variously been classed as Penumbral due to the unknown facts of their history, and as Periocan, because of their scattered nature. The closest thing to a
hegemonic state among them is the Corini Cultural Project, and while its authority is limitedin principle and generally ognored altogether in practice, it is their face to present to the rest of the galaxy, and allows them tje status of one of the Counted Races.
"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."
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Re: Collaborative Post By Post Universe MK: (x+1)

Post by Invictus »

You know what I mean :evil:

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All Roads Lead to the Dragons

The Roads are a well-understood form of FTL technology, using correspondence to overcome the distance between locations in such a way that any traveler can theoretically enjoy its effects. Any space-faring civilization with enough patience and a sufficient store of hyper-materials can construct their own Roads between star systems, though as the technology scales well with civilization size and it is naturally the Three Kingdoms who control and maintain the most impressive networks of Roads, ensuring that they are also the most commonly used form of FTL across Known Space.

The Scintillain Shogunate has its Silver Roads, its star-girdling primary trunkways each corresponding to one of the Seven Inner Virtures, and all those not exempt must perform an act reflecting the corresponding virtue and pay a symbolic oblation to the Shogun's House before being allowed to enter the network. It was the belief of many Shoguns that such a scheme of macro-ethics does all of Known Space a great service, rendering the act of travel into an act of moral advancement. The Orlak All-Systems Coordination has its Ways of Silk and Sapphire, connecting systems, moons, habitats and even individual rooms with the sheer rigor of its public engineering. The architect-coordinators of the Orlak have had long to perfect their art, and it is a point of great pride that given the perfect confluence of astrography, architecture, geomancy and fashion, a properly fasted citizen can take a step in any direction and end up in a different and exotic destination. But no Roads are as straight nor cross the light-years as quickly as the Dragon-Roads, the namesake of their Custodians.

The Custodians are the only of the Kingdoms to be ruled by Periocans, its very existence upholding the legitimacy of the classification and the peculiar rights they grant to all those in Known Space who take refuge in it. The Custodians also derive their cultural outlook in the fact that their Regalia is Keeper-Hallowed technology, once belonging to the darkest foes of Known Space but now tamed towards to its welfare. These are the Dragon-Hearts, tremendous engines that not only can generate the crackling Dragon-Roads between each other, but also has enough spare power to each propel a Throneworld, dragging it through the Trailing Region at a fraction of the same pace. Star systems that a Throneworld visits instantly become a nexus of trade and transportation, thronging with short-lived commerce under watchful fleets of Crux Guardians. But the Dragon-Hearts must move on sooner or later, for their numbers are far from enough to serve the Custodians' territorial mandate. Yet traders and travelers ever endeavor to match the schedules of the migrant Throneworlds, for it always promises a steep cut in travel time even if it involves a vast circuitous detour through the Trailing marches.

Such are the importance of the Dragon-Hearts that the unified inhabitants of a score of them comprise the High Chain, the ruling council of the Custodians. This collection of pilgrim-warlords elect a leader between them to act as the face of the Kingdom, and behind the scenes maintain a fragile consensus enforced by the grand Guardian Fleets that each Throneworld has at its disposal. Coups in the High Chain are swift affairs, whole flotillas dancing across the Dragon-Roads connecting their worlds to compel obeisance before they can close their connections.
"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
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