Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Huh right Apexai sorcerer ghosts and memories of sorcerer ghosts that can still wreck shit like any living sorcerer ghost... the destruction of the Oversoul probably caused a lot of gnarly stuff to bleed out back into reality.

So in the occupied Apexaian parts of Bragspace there could've been all sorts of Stalker: Shadows of Chernobyl-like stuff going in irradiated wastelands and places Brags are trying to settle in. Elsewhere in Apexaian systems Brags wrecked but didn't occupy, ghostly shit would also go haunting so Silver Shield types probably sent their psycho-paranormalists to fix things, Zigonian astral kung fu monks, even bunches of errant Myrrani mindhunters, etc.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

Right, Myrrans in the K-Zone; I forgot to mention that.

We have to start with one particular way the Pyropraxy worries parties looking out for Aguero incursions like the Silver Shield other than just by existing; they are creating a vast psychic bonfire, visible even from the far-off Bounty, calling themselves out as a source of succor. And scattered refugees do come, on longshot ships of Khelerene make steered by Wrannath flockswains, their sensory petals aimed like sunflowers at the light.

And some Myrrans in the Bounty, of course, see this as a particularly challenging hunt. Mindhunters in particular, anti-psi specialists who see manifestations of the soul as an irritating mystery to be extinguished.

It would be amusing if most K-zone denizens will only ever encounter relatively dedicated and particularly standoff-ish Mindhunters, so on the whole the Myrrans are considered to be helpful folks.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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One imagines the Pyropraxy to also be a giant beacon beckoning Karlacks to come hither for tea and refreshments.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Siege wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:43 pm One imagines the Pyropraxy to also be a giant beacon beckoning Karlacks to come hither for tea and refreshments.
Oh yeah, the bigger psychic flames can probably defend themselves by shooting fireballs into space or driving the critters nuts if they get too close, and there are defenders including imbued flamey-archons. But newer, weaker colonies with smaller flames are gonna be prime targets for the bugs!
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Siege wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:43 pm One imagines the Pyropraxy to also be a giant beacon beckoning Karlacks to come hither for tea and refreshments.
Valid concerns, valid concerns.

EDIT: This can explain their heavy militarization and further contempt for the flesh. That said, the Respite might also look like a handy source of low-entropy biomass to the Karlacks.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Invictus wrote: Fri Mar 01, 2019 2:50 pm
Siege wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 4:43 pm One imagines the Pyropraxy to also be a giant beacon beckoning Karlacks to come hither for tea and refreshments.
Valid concerns, valid concerns.

EDIT: This can explain their heavy militarization and further contempt for the flesh. That said, the Respite might also look like a handy source of low-entropy biomass to the Karlacks.
The very relaxation of the Respite might mean its not as visible at long-range? Going near and eating oceans of tranquility-inducing goo might be like eating food with "too much MSG" :P
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Shroom Man 777 wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:38 pmThe very relaxation of the Respite might mean its not as visible at long-range? Going near and eating oceans of tranquility-inducing goo might be like eating food with "too much MSG" :P
I see your post but all I can read is "whole oceans of tranquility-inducing goo are about the right size to be a 10-pack of Advil to a quasi-sapient interstellar predatory ecosystem". Something that's too much to be a regular meal can still work as occasional self-medication, you know.

tl;dr oh great you've made the Karlack Swarms painkiller addicts :o
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Invictus wrote: Tue Mar 05, 2019 2:19 pm
Shroom Man 777 wrote: Mon Mar 04, 2019 2:38 pmThe very relaxation of the Respite might mean its not as visible at long-range? Going near and eating oceans of tranquility-inducing goo might be like eating food with "too much MSG" :P
I see your post but all I can read is "whole oceans of tranquility-inducing goo are about the right size to be a 10-pack of Advil to a quasi-sapient interstellar predatory ecosystem". Something that's too much to be a regular meal can still work as occasional self-medication, you know.

tl;dr oh great you've made the Karlack Swarms painkiller addicts :o
Huh and not all biomes they visit could be totally stripped bare...

What if the hardiest of the Respite have (or are developing) survival strategies where their psychic ooze can still persist and overcome whatever Karlackification of the ecosystem occurs on worlds touched by the Swarm, like after the Karlacks leave eventually the mutated flora and fauna return to that state of bliss and pilgrims can return and continue their business. The souls dissolved in the ooze won't care.

The Karlacks that drank the goo and returned to their hive clusters are inadvertently spreading the Respite... the stronger, more connected hive clusters can probably disinfect themselves but the more isolated and smaller ones might end up being gradually Sublimed or altered. And the souls in the ooze still don't care and the Respite theology might be so chill that "if space bugs manage to drink us up, well we'll continue on inside them" is part of their theology.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Solarian autolasers can, perhaps at the cost of diluting total yield, home in, curve and wind to follow their targets.

Original Apexai warsaucer beam weapons could literally branch out to strike multiple targets or even converge and reform into a single beam... mid-stream.

Bragulan verdigrite munitions are usually weaponized isotope shards (shades of the K-bolters of old), in small arms for these are called verdi-bolters and the substance's nucleo-transmutative nature results in its acidic melting effect - giving it an edge over standard kinetic weapons.

In advanced verdigrite applications, such as warship-grade munitions, the isotopes are radiologically calibrated to actually burn through shielding and even sear the laws of conventional physics.

More advanced Bragulan warships, the Byzon-class strategic planetoid-fortresses, Imperator's Fist dreadnoughts and Moonbreaker battlecruisers, have verdi-beams. Composed of enormous firing chambers as wide as escort vessels and arranged in a revolving array, within these cylinders enriched verdigrite is annihilated and focused to produce a concentrated beam of hyper-nucleonic destruction. Verdi-beams are also called V-Triggers. :P
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Of particular interest are Solarian missiles which, losing their niche as tactical guided weaponry to the homing laser, grew larger and more complex until they're basically their SDNW4 selves, autonomous spacecraft with interstellar range that achieve their enormous yields by having regular spacecraft power generation onboard.

In SOTS, it's not much of a stretch that they're also super-smart and able to determine their own strike missions, with plenty enough endurance to loiter, act as sensors, perform escort duties and just regular picket spaceship stuff; defending themselves with ECM, hyperfields and FTL maneuverability and engaging targets unworthy of their primary payload with submunitions, hardlight projections and so on. I feel like a Solarian missile that actually has to blow itself up is news on the level of an RL peacekeeper fatality.

Despite the can of worms opened earlier in the thread, expendable FTL projectiles weaponizing the Holdo maneuver may also be a thing. If there's some gravitational field Roche limit beyond which attempting to leave hyperspace turns you into relativistic spall, it would still be very useful if you can get the spall to hit something.

In fact, I've also worked out something similar in Samtic Nexus technology - the hyperray relay. Nexus spaceships can transmit power at each other by beaming the energy through hyperspace, and this works based on the principle that things can be induced to drop out of hyperspace by particular conditions. In the case of Nexus spaceships, this is a big ol' tranceiver matrix based on Cryst technology. Beaming energy at less well-tuned targets - like the hyperfield components of enemy spaceships - causes the energy to drop out of hyperspace in a less usable and more destructive form, but passing through anything in between.

(Bragulans also harness hyper-radiation but in less directed ways. Hypernucleonic mortar banks are tuned to produce explosions so energetic that they are launched into hyperspace itself - mainly to spoof FTL sensors.)
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Hurm Myrrani sunsmithing probably enables them to do weirdo solar-gravitonic countermeasures to disrupt Khelerene-Samtic energy transference... at least when they're close enough.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Whipped this up for the Master List. Been a while since I actually made entries rather than ramblings :P


73 Clans Kavalcade

Unruly as any stretch of Wild Space, the 68 Clans Kavalcade is actually among the older societies in the K-Zone, preceding the current dominant powers now surrounding it. Primarily populated by Kalaquelle, the Kavalcade is notable for its titular form of governance, conducted through festivities of unending songs that inundate the masses with clashing ideologies and memes. Over time this ostensibly democratic process has stratified, power coalescing into the hands of select dynasties, agencies and franchises, even the rare undefeated lyrical duelists - the Clans whose bands, superstars and maestros vie for influence over the crowds.

Exposure to the Feasts of Shleraac with their memetic madness only worsened the cacophony (which the Clans did before the Solarians or Cevaucians). Nomad Apexai exodites served as inspirations and even contributors, while Bragulan invasions proved the ultimate test for their martial orchestras and guerilla rhymers. Now the 85 Clans Kavalcade sprawls near the heart of the K-Zone, not quite the most territorially vast power, but undoubtedly the densest - freely taking in members of the surrounding societies and subsuming them into the chaotic clamor.

Yet for one golden moment, all were unified under the undisputable tunes of one visionary, Bhop Kyessen, whose masterpieces even compelled a Raptured Lord who ascended Kyessen into a Hirado. But Kyessen’s mind and music also transcended the ‘verse (perhaps sanity was the Lord’s price), marking the beginning of a centuries-long seclusion and experimental phase. Now the Clans scramble for the Divine Artist’s newest grooves, deciphering incomprehensible lyrics for their mysteries, and sampling them to sway the masses and guide society. Ever so often, Arkestras depart from Kyessen’s sanctum to awe the 79 Clans Kavalcade and beyond.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Shroom Man 777 wrote: Mon Apr 15, 2019 11:17 am Yet for one golden moment, all were unified under the undisputable tunes of one visionary, Bhop Kyessen, whose masterpieces even compelled a Raptured Lord who ascended Kyessen into a Hirado. But Kyessen’s mind and music also transcended the ‘verse (perhaps sanity was the Lord’s price), marking the beginning of a centuries-long seclusion and experimental phase. Now the Clans scramble for the Divine Artist’s newest grooves, deciphering incomprehensible lyrics for their mysteries, and sampling them to sway the masses and guide society. Ever so often, Arkestras depart from Kyessen’s sanctum to awe the 79 Clans Kavalcade and beyond.
Yesss, the Bhopster rises!

We like to think of him as the greatest rapper in the K-Zone, or even the galaxy. He is a celebrity who transcends the already very musically inclined Kalaquel species to earn literal immortality, possibly just so because a Raptured Lord wanted him to finish his verse, which went continuously for a hundred years and became the overall national anthem of the Kavalcade.

Of course, after earning his demigodhood his music started going weird, featuring him taking samples from sources all over the K-Zone such as the death-keens of Apexaia and, eventually, himself. Long-time (and long-lived) fans insist that this is just the natural progression of his career, versus any number of people who think it's gone to trash or whatever*, but then Kalaquelle rap in general sounds to baseline humans like someone dropping a firecracker factory onto a saxophone factory so who can tell about the tastes of posthuman Solarian sybarites.

He also did a track for C. J. Motonow's Star Wars.

*Sidney Hank thinks it has always been trash.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Totally Not Space Kanye probably lost fans when he started saying Byzon is an OK fellow and that people chose to be invaded and gulaged by the Brags :lol:
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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AUTOLASERS
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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As to not be such a total StarCraft ripoff... in the Zedath-Kalesh entry I edited this line from "The sector also has the few remaining Pylons, enigmatic psychic conduits for the Oversoul"

Into:

"The sector also has the few remaining Conduits, enigmatic psychic pylons for the Oversoul"

So yeah I think "Conduit" sounds less rip-offey and while it's a term used in Mass Effect, it's not a literal big psionic crystal that powers a psychic network :P
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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This touches on something I've been thinking about - the lifecycle of Apexai.

It is known that Apexai have vast and powerful minds, that grow increasingly moreso as they advance in age, and they can grow to be very ancient indeed. Meanwhile I don't think in all this time we've ever really seen any Apexai grow old in the human sense - physically frail, or faltering mentally.

So, what I was thinking was that the Apexai body is something that matures at some point and then pretty much doesn't naturally degrade. Their bodies just... stagnate. But their minds continue to grow. And at some point, after a couple thousand years, that becomes an issue - their minds basically become too vast and powerful for their bodies to handle. Their own raw strength basically burns them up.

Now, back when the Apexai were a youngish civilization common belief was that this wasn't an issue: to shuffle off this mortal coil in a burst of pure psionic glory was to achieve a oneness with the cosmos, and those who did were the greatest Apexai who would watch over Apexaia as celestial phoenixes, reborn as wholly mental beings free from mortal and physical constraints.

But then came the Rhapsodites, who enslaved the Apexai for a million years. They had no use for this belief. In fact it was dangerous to them, because it provided their slaves a religious escape from servitude. That's obviously unwanted and something to be stamped out. So they planted into the Apexai the belief that rather than a natural fact leading to a glorious new phase of their existence it was a terrible final collapse, a flaw of nature to be feared and avoided and raged at. They taught the Apexai that if they ever approached this terrifying end of their natural livespan they should focus their prodiguous talents inward, in an attempt to keep their bodies from falling apart through sheer mental strength. This eventually took the form of a kind of ritual transmutation - so great is the undiluted power of the mature Apexai mind that they can psychically vitrify their own bodies, metamorphosing into a kind of psionic chrysalic stasis in an ultimate attempt to stave off what would come next.

So basically the Rhapsodites first brainwashed the Apexai into fearing death, and then 'benevolently' taught them how to escape this fate - by turning themselves into giant psionic crystals. I'm sure the Rhapsodites found all kind of useful and terrifying uses for this new resource of pseudo-living crystals.

A million years later Rhapsodite civilization dies off and collapses, the Apexai become free, but they never shake this belief instilled into them by their colonial overlords, and they carry through with it into the golden age of Apexaia.

You see where this is going, yes? The crystals that get used for everything from Silver Shield psi-guns to giant Oversoul pylons, are dead fossilized Apexai, and the Oversoul is not just a repository of knowledge and Apexai souls - it's a Rhapsodite mind prison. Their whole society is built on the petrified bodies of their ancient dead, who are still in some ways alive and imprisoned inside them. And the Apexai are basically utterly mistaken about the very nature of their own species.

Maybe that's another reason their civilization stagnated so much. Maybe a few Apexai like Twennysex finally learned the truth, and realized to their horror that the only way to set their species free was to let Byzon have his day. Smash it all to fucking bits and LET MY PEOPLE GO.

(Also if those crystals grow and are harvested for shit like hybrid psion focusing pendants, maybe those hybrids occasionally get haunted by dead Apexai sorcerer ghosts - because those crystals are the same stuff what makes up the Oversoul, that being THE PETRIFIED BODIES OF THOSE VERY SORCERERS THEMSELVES.)
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Siege wrote: Wed May 01, 2019 4:45 pm This touches on something I've been thinking about - the lifecycle of Apexai...
Holy shit that's incredible... perhaps the initial FABULA NOVA CRYSTALISES were used by the Rhapsodites as a proto-Oversoul to help oppress the Apexai. The Rhapsodites gave the Gift of Immortality, to Become the Eternal Crystal, which the Apexai gratefully received... but then, perhaps with the Rhapsodites helping the Apexai transmute the first Ancestor Gems and set up the proto-Oversoul, they implanted ways to control the Apexai. Like the Rings made by Sauron!

I'm sure these aren't the only conduit crystals the Apexai make, the ones made out of their vitrified ancestors are probably held with more reference and used as the Oversoul Conduits. Psi-pistols would use more synthetic crystals. Unless it's some heirloom thing, ancient Apexai psionic warriors probably wielded psi-guns and psi-blades from ancestor crystals, going beyond "these are not coward's weapons, these are my father's weapons" into "these are literally my father!"

Connecting with the heirloom crystals would probably involve ritualistically reciting the names of the ancestors and then merging, it's just a polite thing to do, but in some cases these can act as passwords if some Apexai don't want strangers touching the Conduit that's made out of their grandma.

Maybe even before Byzon there were partial schisms where progressive Apexai sought to undo these practices, leading to their being dubbed as heretics. There could've been other, smaller Apexai societies scattered, but because they naturally die instead of turn into puissant artifacts that their societies can wield, they never became as ridiculously grand as Ancient Apexaia.

Maybe Tweenysex realized they were right when he beheld the breaking of the Pylons Conduits.

Perhaps Apexai reproduction, the whole mind-merging trance of Apexai couples (or more) to produce out of light and magic the next generation, requires a huge dose of puissance and can actually push back an Apexai's expiry/crystallization date.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Shroom Man 777 wrote: Thu May 02, 2019 5:25 pmHoly shit that's incredible... perhaps the initial FABULA NOVA CRYSTALISES were used by the Rhapsodites as a proto-Oversoul to help oppress the Apexai.
The Oversoul basically can only contain the knowledge and souls of Apexai since it was created. It makes sense then that it was used to stagnate Apexai thinking -- the Oversoul is the repository of all our race's knowledge and wisdom, if it isn't in the archives it cannot be true. Perhaps the Rhapsodites instilled that kind of circular reasoning to close the Apexai off from their naturally translated precursors. And the Apexai, being such an inherently stubborn and headstrong race, were uniquely susceptible to it.

I'm sure these aren't the only conduit crystals the Apexai make, the ones made out of their vitrified ancestors are probably held with more reference and used as the Oversoul Conduits.
Perhaps Ancestor Crystals are still living things that grow and can be ritually winnowed (say thankee to your ancestor), and the greatest and most ancient of these vitrified ascendants are truly vast formations that have been ceremonially shaped into enormous monuments or sanctums that are deeply psionically resonant.

It's probably too reductive to say that the Oversoul is *solely* made up of these things -- there could be a whole bunch of whacky psionic infrastructure, nexi and probes and stargates and such, involved, and the Apexai may well have developed artificial surrogates for Ancestor Crystals. But there also might not be a true one for one substitute for a real half million year old khaydarin crystal.

Perhaps Apexai reproduction, the whole mind-merging trance of Apexai couples (or more) to produce out of light and magic the next generation, requires a huge dose of puissance and can actually push back an Apexai's expiry/crystallization date.
Ooh, that I like a lot.

Maybe now that most of the Pylons have been destroyed and they are no longer warded off from their kin, some of the truly ancient raptured Apexai, those whose souls transmigrated the boundaries of their physical bodies long before the Rhapsodites first set foot on Apexaia, are gently trying to get back in touch. And the survivors don't know what the fuck is happening, because their entire race has long forgotten the very existence of these entities.

Perhaps many Apexai seek the refuge in the world-ships, convinced that they are going mad and only the the few Pylons remaining in Zedath-Kalesh can keep them sane. In reality the opposite is true and their species' SHAMANIC HERITAGE is remanifesting, but how are they to know?

Then the celestial phoenixes have to find intermediaries that are slightly less set in their ways -- the hybrids! They come to the Regeneratrix of the Silver Shield in a cosmic vision to lay down what's up. BUT! The Regeneratrix has absolutely no way of knowing if this stuff is for real or if it's, like, part of some HALFBAKED MAGI PLOT and besides as awesome as they are the Apexai barely consider the hybrids worth talking to anyway. They're not gonna listen to her on this.

So, she hand-picks an agent and hooks them up with the jaded specter of an antediluvian Apexai sorcerer famous for being a heretical thinker in life - and only moreso in death - and together they must CHASE THE ANCIENT TRUTHS.

The continuing adventures of ISABELLA NOGUIRA and the PSYCHIC ALIEN FRENEMY GHOST of TOMORROW PAST - SPIRIT GUIDES to APEXAIA.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Invictus »

Siege wrote: Fri May 03, 2019 4:48 pmThen the celestial phoenixes have to find intermediaries that are slightly less set in their ways -- the hybrids! They come to the Regeneratrix of the Silver Shield in a cosmic vision to lay down what's up. BUT! The Regeneratrix has absolutely no way of knowing if this stuff is for real or if it's, like, part of some HALFBAKED MAGI PLOT and besides as awesome as they are the Apexai barely consider the hybrids worth talking to anyway. They're not gonna listen to her on this.

So, she hand-picks an agent and hooks them up with the jaded specter of an antediluvian Apexai sorcerer famous for being a heretical thinker in life - and only moreso in death - and together they must CHASE THE ANCIENT TRUTHS.

The continuing adventures of ISABELLA NOGUIRA and the PSYCHIC ALIEN FRENEMY GHOST of TOMORROW PAST - SPIRIT GUIDES to APEXAIA.
Yes. They also fight crime!

The tying of the Apexai lifecycle into the Pylons/Conduits also goers into why the the demographic collapse of the post-fall Apexai prevents any attempt to reconstruct their own Oversoul-technology, even if they're now in a secure position to do so. The younger generations of Apexai born into the Sovereignty, liberal and freed from old dogmas yet cognizant of their species' near-extinction, are probably ahem, fuckin' like mad.

Speaking of the Oversoul, Shroom and I had discussed earlier about defining Apexaia, its appropriate grandeur at the peak of the Apexai's power, and reconciling it with the early stuff about Byzon breaching its psychic invisibility barriers by making the Greatest Speech in the Universe.

I was fine with 'Apexaia' being an actual planet (however well-protected) because there is plenty of sci-fi tradition of powerful elder races claiming nothing but single planets (see Arisia, Iscandar), but that wasn't a satisfactory answer. The Apexai worldships of old were marvels of power and convenience, warping space-time so seamlessly that you can step from one to another without the interior landscape as much as shifting, and they let their inhabitants/passengers travel freely all over the setting to gawk and laugh at things. Apexaia itself is something even more impressive than that - its own pocket universe that's simultaneously nowhere on and coterminous with the entire SOTS map.

In other words, the Apexai were never based in the K-Zone, full of wild shit and hostile parties like the Desthej Instrumentalities and the High Hrgltuhe Hegemonies at the best of times. It was just the case that the K-Zone was where Byzon breached into Apexaia, so when the wrecked fragments of Apexaia fell back into realspace they all fell into the rough region.

There must also some fundamental link between the Oversoul and Apexaia. The latter is a literal ideal state, responsive to thought and memory. The former can trivially produce physical manifestations, and it's arguable whether one is separable from the other.

This also puts into question whether Apexaia was ever accessible by, or comprehensible to, non-Apexai.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Siege wrote: Fri May 03, 2019 4:48 pm The Oversoul basically can only contain the knowledge and souls of Apexai since it was created. It makes sense then that it was used to stagnate Apexai thinking -- the Oversoul is the repository of all our race's knowledge and wisdom, if it isn't in the archives it cannot be true. Perhaps the Rhapsodites instilled that kind of circular reasoning to close the Apexai off from their naturally translated precursors. And the Apexai, being such an inherently stubborn and headstrong race, were uniquely susceptible to it.
Yes, but I don't think the post-Rhapsodite Apexai were already that stratified.

When the Rhapsodites were around their Sauronic influence probably helped make the Apexai really conformist until the Telestron rebellions and some Telestron robo-mystic-monk magic imparted the XYGNAL's energies to jam the Rhapsodite's sway over the Apexai. So during the epic Titanomachy this meddling either made the Apexai indecisive and unable to help their masters, or had some even regain their own senses and defect - Tweenysex' Gil Galad forefathers who summoned world-sized psionic auras to wrestle with Rhapsodites, or rode space crystals like Silver Surfer/Monkey King and Fingolfin-ed Rhapsodite Morgothoids...

In ancient times the Oversoul and the crystals were systemic, collective GRIMA WORMTONGUES!

ANYWAY perhaps when the Apexai were freed they realized the dangers posed by the Oversoul conformity. So while the crystalized ancestors - CRYSTALIS? - were still puissant and useful psionic conduits, the Apexai thought to neutralize the danger of stagnation this way: the Oversoul wasn't just supposed to be contained within the crystals, the crystals became conduits to *conduct* the living, shifting and growing minds and thoughts and culture of the Apexai collectively.

And maybe even the stagnancy-tending crystals could not just serve as antennae of this living collective consciousness, it could absorb some of this life, hence as you say the Ancestor Crystals remain alive in a way and still continue to grow. It's not the afterlife of the celestial phoenix-souls of the Apexai departed... but it's still something.

So there was a time, a long time, they weren't really stagnant. As long as their vibrancy could neutralize the tendencies of the Ancestor Crystals' mechanism, plus the introduction of non-ancestor mediums.

In their most arrogant phase, when they also denied their past misdeeds and shortcomings, (and thought that knowledge of the crystals' stagnation tendency might be abused to doom the species*) they probably decide to bury/forget some crucial knowledge on how the crystals worked.

*So ironically their course of action still brought them to doom!

I guess the Apexai's many mistakes - the Earthreign's Cataclysm, the removal of the Overlords/Pyrrhons' sentience, perhaps even whatever happened to the Myrran and/or the Sajit - made their mood jaded, and their supposed idealistic "retreat from the universe so that these civilizations will do better without our meddling" was also an act of cowardice AND also reduced their vibrancy to the point where the stagnancy-tendency of the Oversoul couldn't be abated. The Ancestor Crystals stopped growing! And even their glow became pale... like bleaching coral! They continued to exist and function, but the life ceased developing, it froze. They lived in their past, dwelled... and died.
Siege wrote: Fri May 03, 2019 4:48 pm Perhaps many Apexai seek the refuge in the world-ships, convinced that they are going mad and only the the few Pylons remaining in Zedath-Kalesh can keep them sane. In reality the opposite is true and their species' SHAMANIC HERITAGE is remanifesting, but how are they to know?

Then the celestial phoenixes have to find intermediaries that are slightly less set in their ways -- the hybrids! They come to the Regeneratrix of the Silver Shield in a cosmic vision to lay down what's up. BUT! The Regeneratrix has absolutely no way of knowing if this stuff is for real or if it's, like, part of some HALFBAKED MAGI PLOT and besides as awesome as they are the Apexai barely consider the hybrids worth talking to anyway. They're not gonna listen to her on this.

So, she hand-picks an agent and hooks them up with the jaded specter of an antediluvian Apexai sorcerer famous for being a heretical thinker in life - and only moreso in death - and together they must CHASE THE ANCIENT TRUTHS.

The continuing adventures of ISABELLA NOGUIRA and the PSYCHIC ALIEN FRENEMY GHOST of TOMORROW PAST - SPIRIT GUIDES to APEXAIA.
YES.
Invictus wrote: Sat May 04, 2019 1:24 pm The Apexai worldships of old were marvels of power and convenience, warping space-time so seamlessly that you can step from one to another without the interior landscape as much as shifting, and they let their inhabitants/passengers travel freely all over the setting to gawk and laugh at things. Apexaia itself is something even more impressive than that - its own pocket universe that's simultaneously nowhere on and coterminous with the entire SOTS map.
Yes, it's part Kirby's Fourth World, part Realm of the Fey. Once place that is between nowhere and everywhere!
Invictus wrote: Sat May 04, 2019 1:24 pm There must also some fundamental link between the Oversoul and Apexaia. The latter is a literal ideal state, responsive to thought and memory. The former can trivially produce physical manifestations, and it's arguable whether one is separable from the other.
The psionic puissance of the crystal Conduits powering the Oversoul also fuel, and are channeled by, hyperdimensional systems... hyper-manipulation, hyper-shaping of reality via Apexai science, becomes indistinguishable from their psionic psychocosmic mastery. At its prime there might've been no difference between the "virtual reality" or thoughtspace "inside" the Oversoul and the physical reality of strolling around downtown Apexaia. Of course each resident, each Apexai, maintains infinite mind palace abodes by the streets of this pocket-reality/thoughtspace.


This strange Apexai intersectionality of thought and reality continues on even with Apexai outside of the Oversoul and the Conduits/Pylons. Like an Apexai might be physically just a diminutive greyish alienoid but like their thought-auras are probably physically tangible and manifest as garish "clothing" that looks like abstract art or water color or painful-CG being worn. Evil warped Apexai look like slendermen wearing billowing Spawn capes, as in that 90s Spawn-movie CGI cape.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

We... just created a fourth list, a fourth Master List, for civilizations' sub orgs and notable persons in the 'verse.

List 4: Endofactions & Infraorders: Civilizations’ inner agencies
Metapersonae: Notable individuals


Vic, Siege and I have the URL for the Google Doc. Will PM Speaker as I forgot his FB handle. Any other takers?
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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New entry for the bygone order of Green Lanterns Silver Surfers sentinels imbued by ancient Apexai.

Vieleren

Individuals from a myriad of species and societies imbued with enormous psionic puissance by the Apexai and charged to keep the peace in their respective societies. Vieleren were anointed during the heydey of the Golden Imperium when, perhaps naively, they sought to enact an age of tranquility throughout the cosmos. Part monastics and part heroes of myth, trained to carry the burden of their immense powers and linked to the Oversoul itself, these Vieleren wandered space to mediate disputes, dissuade interstellar wars, ward off cosmic horrors and, most importantly, collect tales to sing to their teachers. Most honored their duties, though some would succumb to the temptations brought by such power, carving dominions they would rule as witch-kings... before being swiftly smote by their peers or even the Apexai themselves.

For millennia all was well, even as the Apexai grew steadily more withdrawn from remorse over past mistakes and interventions, and perhaps with an inkling of things to come. Dutifully the Vieleren carried on with their charge, even as the Oversoul waned from stanching the Cataclysm, as unchecked Karlacks and Pyrrhon poured out to assail the worlds the Vieleren heroically safeguarded. Finally, Apexaia itself fell, the Bragulan onslaught snuffing out that unending well of psionic puissance and laying low the Vieleren’s mentors.

So it was that at the end of the Golden Imperium that the last of the Vieleren did gather for what would be their final battle. By the side of their holy lieges did they rally to stand, to fight and die. Now only a handful of the Vieleren remain, most ascetic recluses, grief-mad survivors, or both, still formidable even with a fraction of their past puissance. While stories of these mighty beings are now relegated to legend, still the Mad Queen wails amidst swirling swarms of nightmares, the Burning King or the Lord Skull tends flowers and contemplates in solitude, the Ferryman who once sought cosmic necromancy for vengeance guides the lost, the Crone gives portents to emperors and prophets, and the Wandering One reminisces if not relives past their duties.
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

Post by Steve »

And since he shared it this new entry with me, here's our exchange on Facebook concerning the Vieleren and the tragic figure of the Mad Queen (A couple corrections are in parentheses):
12:25 PM stgarrettjr: Where is the Mad Queen's world then? Right up by Karlack space or at the furthest extent of where the Karlacks once roamed when they first surged over the galaxy?
12:25 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: Pyrrhon
12:26 PM stgarrettjr: I'm pretty sure you had the karlacks do that. Some initial surge that was eventually contained by various powers.
12:27 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: yeah the karlacks were everywhere in ancient times
12:27 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: uh
12:27 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: (but like these borders aren't like real-life borders so conceivably if you're unlucky some long-ranging karlack splinter can pop up far away from the critical mass)
12:28 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: I'd say the Mad Queen is like to the righter-half of the Cascade
12:29 PM stgarrettjr: Toward the Free Worlds and the Savannah/Bounty?
12:29 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: https://scontent.ftpa1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=5D5521C3
12:29 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: whoops LEFT I mean
12:29 PM stgarrettjr: Oh, i see that as the left side
12:30 PM stgarrettjr: Hah
12:30 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: yeah my bad
12:30 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: but then again she can move who knows
12:30 PM stgarrettjr: Heh
12:30 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: she might not be static
12:30 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: she might be "on a stroll" with her flock around her
12:30 PM stgarrettjr: Hrm.
12:30 PM stgarrettjr: How about both?
12:30 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: yeah she can have the usual haunt and then also sometimes move around
12:30 PM stgarrettjr: The world she's on was blown free from its solar system by one last outlashing of sheer psionic will as she succumbed to madness.
12:31 PM stgarrettjr: It now moves through the void of interstellar space passing through one system or another every century.
12:31 PM stgarrettjr: A ghost planet for the broken husk of a great hero.
12:31 PM stgarrettjr: Many try to find her world. They fail. A few succeed. They're never heard from again.
12:32 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: oooh yeah that's great
12:32 PM stgarrettjr: Only some faint cries through the subspace aether and the psionic realms to speak of their horrible fate, and to provide what little knowledge is known of this fallen heroine.
12:32 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: and the masses of swarming monstrosos
12:33 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: I wonder if it'd be unreasonable if she has enough juice left to FTL the world sometimes
12:33 PM stgarrettjr: She wails in inconsolable grief on her dead homeworld while the broken, undead husks of Phyrron and Karlack forms fight an eternal battle around her,.
12:33 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: yes
12:33 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: there you go
12:33 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: or IDK if the critters are undead, maybe they should be alive
12:34 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: some equilibrium of mass murder and eating
12:34 PM stgarrettjr: And breeding?
12:34 PM stgarrettjr: Okay, if you want.
12:34 PM stgarrettjr: She tried to save her people, even as the Oversoul dimmed and died. One last gasp of power. She would die, but her people would live!
12:34 PM stgarrettjr: The ravening hordes would be expelled from her world!
12:34 PM stgarrettjr: BUt she drew too much. She couldn't control the power.
12:35 PM stgarrettjr: Instead of destroying the Karlacks and Phyrrons, the energies blew the planet out of its orbit around its star.
12:35 PM stgarrettjr: Her world died, her people - save a few who managed to flee the planet, maybe? - did too.
12:35 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: Hah!
12:35 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: Sure yes
12:35 PM stgarrettjr: And within her, the last shard of the Oversoul continues to exist.
12:36 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: (Well there are other shards actually)
12:36 PM stgarrettjr: Okay, a last shard
12:36 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: :D
12:36 PM stgarrettjr: Fueling her power, allowing her to move the world (at FTL) at times, even as she's gone mad from grief and horro(r) at what she's done.
12:36 PM stgarrettjr: Trapped in nightmare.
12:36 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: yes
12:36 PM stgarrettjr: The nightmares of what's become of her, of her world, of all her dreams.
12:36 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: mang this works since Vic and I decided that the Oversoul was also involved in some weird ass dimension-folding hooohah that made ancient Apexai territory "on top" of most of the galaxy
12:37 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: some Gallifrey-like thing where it's a pocket realm that's "close" to a lot of other places it shouldn't be close at
12:37 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: when Byzon punched a hole, Apexaia "crashed" in the K-Zone
12:38 PM stgarrettjr: Heh.
12:39 PM stgarrettjr: And yeah, all around her the Karlacks and the Phy-whatevers continue an unending war, cut off from any connection by hive mind or psionics to the mroe sapient intelligence of their species. Mindless berserkers killing and eating each other and mindlessly spawning to commence the cycle anew.
12:39 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: yes
12:39 PM stgarrettjr: Arguably even extensions of the Mad Queen herself now.
12:39 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: the Broken King jumped into the middle of the Bragwar and killed probably fleets worth of then-not-paleo-cruisers
12:39 PM stgarrettjr: There will be theories, but none know the truth.
12:39 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: but everything around him was a nuclear waste and so he limped home
12:40 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: his sword broken from cutting all sorts of warships
12:40 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: and he's a war god who ran out of warring
12:41 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: and later on he had to talk the Ferryman out of using cosmic necromancy, or using a ritual where he'd slay a whole bunch of planets (that in the map would form a bagua or star or something) to anchor the souls of the fallen people he cared for (or Apexai or both)
12:41 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: so instead, coming to temrs with loss, he now just ferries beings to the other side
12:42 PM Cochengo Sarsaparilla: IDK and probably won't be figuring out where SOTS' Space Styx is located :P
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Re: Sovereigns of the Stars Supreme, revisited

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Steve wrote: Thu May 16, 2019 6:53 pm The world she's on was blown free from its solar system by one last outlashing of sheer psionic will as she succumbed to madness. It now moves through the void of interstellar space passing through one system or another every century. A ghost planet for the broken husk of a great hero. Many try to find her world. They fail. A few succeed. They're never heard from again.

Only some faint cries through the subspace aether and the psionic realms to speak of their horrible fate, and to provide what little knowledge is known of this fallen heroine. She wails in inconsolable grief on her dead homeworld while the broken, Phyrron and Karlack forms fight an eternal battle around her.

She tried to save her people, even as the Oversoul dimmed and died. One last gasp of power. She would die, but her people would live! The ravening hordes would be expelled from her world! But she drew too much. She couldn't control the power. Instead of destroying the Karlacks and Phyrrons, the energies blew the planet out of its orbit around its star. Her world died, her people - save a few who managed to flee the planet, maybe? - did too.

And within her, a last shard of the Oversoul continues to exist. Fueling her power, allowing her to move the world (at FTL) at times, even as she's gone mad from grief and horro(r) at what she's done. Trapped in nightmare. The nightmares of what's become of her, of her world, of all her dreams.

All around her the Karlacks and the Phy-whatevers continue an unending war, cut off from any connection by hive mind or psionics to the mroe sapient intelligence of their species. Mindless berserkers killing and eating each other and mindlessly spawning to commence the cycle anew.

Arguably even extensions of the Mad Queen herself now.
I love this. (And quoting this is an excuse for me to trim away the chat log stuff for readability :P )

The Burning King or the Lord Skull really IS just a skull, he lost his body in the fighting after tanking like hundreds of MIRV-ing planetcracking bragnukes. So only his still angry still alive flaming skull face is left physically - obviously taking gigatons of nukes to the face made the skin of his face melt off - and because he wanted to keep on killing he created a new body out of psychic fire and fought on. Perhaps now that flame body is flickering and no longer blazes as it once did and now he has to wear some kind of containment armor.
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