Nations:
- Raw'Hein as Secretary-General Far'Ha, the leader of the Galactic Economy and Security Organisation. He has seen war and has no wish to repeat it, but he cannot allow pirates to strike at the core of GESO's responsibilities to protect its members.
_________as Jekkai'Rei, enlisted Jekkai naval officer carrying a grudge against the pirates for the destruction of ships she was protecting. She will take great pleasure in bringing back their heads before the end.
The Fedral Union as Nodan Silver, Defence Secretariat for GESO.
_______________as Ryan Farr, a GRF frigate captain, jaded by experience and a veteran of war, and of his erstwhile foes that fight alongside him.
_______________as Jure Roscoe, a pirate that's distrustful of AI and technology.
Telros as Claws of Aquamarine, the military commander put in charge of the force dedicated to combating the pirate/raiding forces. A gruff and pragmatic being who is bitter about his government's reluctance to expand and support military actions and is hoping this conflict will show them otherwise.
_____as Wings of Maroon
Government Official/Diplomat sent by the Directorate as representative to the GESO effort and to oversee the military operation for the Directorate. New to the position, ambitious but nervous and also distrustful of the military. Wants to push peaceful and diplomatic options before war.,
And introducing Dolm as the distant Stephen, whose designs reach far beyond the border...
- Code: Select all
[b]IC Nation name:[/b]
[b]Alignment (GESO/independent/pirate faction):[/b]
[b]Character name:[/b]
[b]Character bio (history, personality, role, species etc.):[/b]
(repeat as necessary)
[b]RP Writing Samples (around twenty lines each, at least):[/b]
Background info
Dolm: here's the idea - the remnents of eight kingdoms, fleeing for their lives. Say 65 000 civie ships escorted by the surviving 2000 warships. As they trek across the galaxy, they are whittled down by pirate fleets making daring raids. Eventually, most of their military is annihilated trying to defend their civies from either piracy or states hostile to the nomadic fleet. From 2000 escorts, they barely have a hundred warships left. Of their initial refugee fleet, nearly 20% are annihilated, leaving barely 50 000 ships full of terrified, despairing women and children.
Dolm: Partially due to his own ambition, and partially as a desperate last gambit, the nobleman leading the fleet, Stephen, personally goes out and finds the large local pirate fleet (which happens to be near GESO space). He lets himself be captured, and in doing so manages to smoothtalk the pirates into an audience with the pirate leader.
Dolm: His preposition is simple - his people will recognize the pirates as their overlords and saviors, and will pay tribute to them when they can. In exchange, the pirate fleet will protect them, and allow them to settle in their space. In Stephen's eyes, it's a gamble to turn the local pirates into their new military/protectors.
Dolm: To solidify the deal, he notes the massive gender imbalance in the pirate fleet - primarily outcast men, and in his own refugee fleet - less of an imbalance, but leaning more towards women since they come from a patriarchical culture and so the men stayed behind to fight these aliens. I am assuming they are both human or at least of the same species here.
Dolm: He suggests that he could get the pirates wives. And husbands for the pirate women. This is yet another gamble - a way of tightening the new union through a massive marriage alliance.
Dolm: This pirate fleet might have had say, 1140 converted civilian ships as their warships.
Dolm: Stephen brings with him over 50 000 civie ships.
Dolm: Those who fled with the ships are often the upper crust of the former kingdom's population - there are many capable adminstrators, and while much of their military has been decimated, many generals still survive. He suggests that his administrators can help the pirates manage their sprawling fleet, and his generals help them innovate new tactics against the enemy.
Dolm: The pirates accept, and Stephen heads back to relay the news. It is a hard sell for his people, but he manages to convince all of them of the necessity of this action at least. From being hunted and worn down, his people have now secured a new home.
Dolm: As integration with the pirate fleet begins, and new space-based settlements are established (which conveniently soon act as rest stops for these pirates, later where their new families are, later where shipyards are built...) the pirates multiply in strength. They soon attract and either conqueror or assimilate other pirate fleets, and this more massive fleet itself raids with more vigor, to supply these new settlements with the necessary supplies to survive and thrive.
Dolm: In the course of this, the refugee fleet swears loyalty to the pirate lord, and begins suggesting that perhaps the pirate lord is their new king. They do similar with the pirates. Basically buttering him up and giving him a crapton of honours, getting him and the pirates to identify with these former refugees. From pirate lord, the Pirate leader begins to dream of kingdom and empire
Dolm: But these large scale raids have attracted the GESO alliance, who are unhappy with their trade getting crippled. And depending on how things go, probably utterly pissed off that some pirate fleet tried to extort tribute from a frontier colony
Dolm: Pirates just do what they normally do and all.
Dolm: Add in perhaps a history of mistrust for other peoples and states during the refugee migration era, and it could explain their reluctance to interact with other states out there, or to open communications with them
Dolm: Alternatively, they could've been raiding out of sorta-necessity (mostly to kickstart their economy and all that), but because they didn't understand the people they were raiding well enough, or perhaps because they didn't expect it, suddenly the GESO is sending gigantic warfleets to smite them out of existence, and traumatized by their recent history, they start framing this as the same as that invasion destroying their eight kingdoms and start seriously mobilizing for war, and so years or even decades of hostility could ensue just like that
Dolm: The GESO sees a grand pirate coalition with suspiciously advanced weapons and some suspiciously new warships, the refugees see a diabolical evil mobilizing to kill them all
Dolm: Next to no one thinks of stopping and communicating with the other side. GESO thinks "Why talk to pirates?" And the refugees think "They're out to kill us, we cannot let this be. We must not endure the grief of the migration again. Never again."
Dolm: By the time the GESO realizes what is going on, it is too late - countless atrocities have already accidentally been commited. All those pirate resupply depots? Yeah, there were hundreds of thousands of people and countless families in there. And the pirates themselves have carpet nuked outlying colonies in vengence
Dolm: The pirate kingdom also comes with extremely different values - in attempted peace negotiations, they demand things such as "suzerainity over fifteen worlds" and "15 million slaves", neither which I reckon the modern liberal inspired GESO could accept
Dolm: But this should lead to space based massive irritant on the alliance that is constant enemies that won't go away
Dolm: Especially if they also start taking in all pirate fleets and societal outcasts too
Dolm: Societal outcasts have personal reasons to hate the society they were outcast from afterall
Dolm: Most of the beginning of the refugee confederacy wasn't exactly GESO based. And like I mentioned before - their Pirate Lord now dreams of kingdom and empire
Dolm: They could be expanding in all directions, and raiding in all directions
Dolm: Particularly when they start integrating human pirate fleets from all over
Dolm: The biggest idea behind refugee hostile fleet is that we're getting a sympathetic enemy, and one potentially with plenty of awesome characters such as Stephen, who I am aiming to be an honourable magnificent bastard, or their king, Krano, who is uneducated and vulnerable to getting buttered up, but also has a sharp intellect and can be sufficiently ruthless in pursuing what he sees is best.
Verbal note form UTA: 47th Brigade from UTA also present - sword-to-sword with Chaos on a deathworld.
Raw'Hein: Housidou, tell us about your nation. What would it do, if asked to root out pirates?
Housidou: It has a history of doing exactly that. Relatively recent history, in fact.
Housidou: Insurgent group among some of the outer rims of their systems.
Housidou: Living in asteroid colonies and habitats.
Housidou: Prompted their military buildup in the first place, before the Basaka.
Raw'Hein: Okay then. Tell us what would mark it out as special in its way of doing things. Is it particularly strong/brutal/pragmatic/optimistic? Is a lot of it taken up with the Basaka?
Housidou: Not all of it, they are on a war footing with their economy, and kind of need to stay on such a footing to avoid an economic collapse, so they are looking into using their rising naval power in missions of goodwill.
Housidou: They are pragmatic fighters, preferring to avoid getting in fisticuffs and taking down their enemies with relatively few casualties to themselves.
Housidou: Strike quickly and efficiently.
Raw'Hein: Okay, so surgical stikes?
Housidou: Yep.
Raw'Hein: (don't tell the Emperor, he'll throw a fit)
Housidou: Though their armaments have shifted towards capital ships and dakka to take down Basaka Von Neumanns that outmass and outshoot their ships by a few orders of magnitude.
Housidou: They are essentially in need of a refresher course of fighting ships their own size and capabilities.
Raw'Hein: Okay, so you're very effective when you have surprise and planning on your side but are weak at straightup fighting.
Housidou: Put a Houseidan ship one-on-one with a counterpart with another nation, and the Houseidan ship will most likely lose.(edited)
Housidou: They rely more on a 3-dimensional version of Imperial Japanese doctrine: the Kantai Kessen.
Housidou: Using smaller scouting forces like corvettes, frigates, and fighters to pinpoint and locate an enemy so the bigger guns, like cruisers and battleships, can take them out.
Raw'Hein: So you're the dagger, while we're the sword.
Housidou: That works.
Housidou: To paraphrase Wikipedia on Kantai Kessen.
Housidou: "Deny the enemy the use of a system, and they will fall in that system."
Raw'Hein: So we've got your overall role nailed down. Tell us about your characters.
Raw'Hein: Why do they care about pirates? What makes them unique in a universe of trillions?(edited)
Housidou: Sgt. Takashi Ryozan, Celestial Marines.
Housidou: Well, these pirates are attacking a fleeing fleet of refugees, right?
Housidou: OHH.
Housidou: I totally misread the prompt.
Housidou: I thought we were protecting the refugee fleet.
Housidou: Anyway, Celestial Marines operate in "companies" that are more glorified platoons. Similar structure to modern SEAL teams.
Housidou: So about 40-50 fighters a company, with 200-300 in a battalion, 700-1000 in a brigade, and 2000-2500 in a division. But they make up for that by each Marine being inside of a TATAMI Armored Combat Suit, a 4-meter-tall mech capable of spaceflight and blurring the line between mechanized infantry, cavalry, and air cav.
Housidou: Naval doctrine carries over for Marines, as they use drones to pinpoint targets and flank while they fire away downrange with grav guns, fusion mortars, missile pods, and smart flechettes.
Housidou: Marines carry a gravitic assistance pack on the backs of their TATAMIs that let their suits fly about and maneuver in space, so they can launch from a ship to execute a boarding action on an enemy vessel.
Housidou: And if needed, Marines can disengage from their mecha to go to "ground mount", a more basic loadout for infantry. Some Marine units are known to detach their mech's weapons to use as heavy weapons for their units.
Raw'Hein: So, Starship Troopers?
Housidou: Basically. Houseidou also does have a force called the Mobile Infantry, which are orbital drop troopers in powered armor meant to land to secure a planet. They and the other Mobile Forces regularly work with the Celestial Marines.
Housidou: Anyways, Sgt. Ryozan, the Hero of VN-004. During the early stages of the Basaka War, the Houseidans executed a counterattack on the Basaka after Second Fleet was destroyed in the First Battle of Shikotan. The Basaka had left their most damaged Von Neumann, designated VN-004, behind to guard the system, repair itself, and begin twinning. Then PFC Ryozan went in with his company to infiltrate the crippled capital ship while First Fleet provided a distraction. Ryozan made it to the core and disabled it before it could dump all of its data, giving the Sovereignty most of the intel they have on the Basaka. He was one of 5 survivors of his 41-man company.
Housidou: Without him, the Second Battle of Shikotan would've been just as much of a disaster as the First, and his success brought Houseidan morale back from the brink.
Housidou: He's turned down promotion twice, as he loves leading from the thick of battle instead of in a detached rearguard position. It would basically take Housidou herself ordering him to go to OCS to budge him, something she has actually considered.
Raw'Hein: So that's one badass Marine sorted. Anyone else?
Housidou: Vice-Admiral Jiro Kyoukotsu, CO First Fleet.
Housidou: Another Houseidan war hero, he's one of the few survivors of the First Battle of Shikotan, back when he was just a captain of the cruiser Kongou. The Kongou managed to limp back to Madara along with 3 other ships to tell the news of the disaster. And before that, he got up to Captain by rooting out insurgents during the Yosomono crisis. He's one of the best military minds the Sovereignty has.
Housidou: He's also a man that cannot surrender. Literally. No one would buy it.
Housidou: He (in)famously served as a bridge officer at the start of the Yosomono Crisis when his destroyer, the Teibo, was attacked by a Yosomono-captured destroyer, the Banryu. The bridge was hit, but he miraculously survived, making him the highest-ranking officer on the ship.
Housidou: He signaled to surrender to the enemy ship, and told them to pull alongside one of the shuttles bays to link up.
Housidou: When they did so, he fired a missile fom inside of his ship into theirs, then disengaged to fire his point-defense guns on the exploding ship.
Housidou: He said he got the idea from an old sci-fi novel, but still, he proved his worth by showing cunning under pressure...and complete ruthlessness to win.
Huerdae: As you read in the logs, if I'm taking part, it will likely be an attempt to attack and destroy or wipe out their support infrastructure - that means the colonies.
Raw'Hein: and gathering intel on where the main base is.
Raw'Hein: There aren't really separate colonies - the colonists live with the pirates. They provide, um, home comforts.
Huerdae: But it was mentioned that those colonists settled somewhere, didn't they? And that they provide, in some respect, a port of call?
Huerdae: That's what I would focus on knocking out. Destroy their ability to repair and resupply.
Raw'Hein: That's what I mean by their main base, which is hidden in deep space.
Raw'Hein: I hate rhyming by accident.
Huerdae: It seems strange that such a thing would be hard to find, RH
Raw'Hein: It's well away from the places they attack. In between is a series of outposts and supply depots to keep the area under their control (in my mind).
Raw'Hein: Eh, we can handwave disruptive nebulae interference/solar storms/stolen tech for that.
Huerdae: After all, these pirates/civvies don't seem to be the sort who would have such a fanatical lean that they wouldn't cough it up under pressure.
Raw'Hein: As for interrogation...its more like the fear of what their mates will do to them afterwards.
Raw'Hein: That, and genuinely not knowing.
Raw'Hein: The base was moved to different locs a few times, and not everyone was informed.
Huerdae: Would a pirate fleet be organized enough to be able to conceal it, though?
Huerdae: We're talking about what is probably a loose coalition of ships that banded together for survival, and that's the key.
Huerdae: For survival.
Raw'Hein: No, not just that.
Raw'Hein: The refugees brought with them admirals and leaders. They...professionalised the pirates. And the pirates basically own the border now, so its a fair trade.
Huerdae: The order given to the chaos isn't really the issue, though, RH, it's the motivation. What drove these people to choose this path is almost invariably going to be their survival, or that of their family, isn't it?
Huerdae: They didn't band together with the pirates on the purpose of creating a new nation, they banded together to stop being hunted.
Huerdae: Which, ironically, is what seems to be about to happen.
Raw'Hein: Not anymore. They have a place to call home now. They won't give it up, not after losing their oldone to the Gata'ja.
Huerdae: So what you're building then is a horde of fanatics under military leadership, instead of pirates and colonists driven together by desperation?
Huerdae: Rebellion wasn't fanatics. They surrendered and broke and fled constantly.
Raw'Hein: It was like that, in the beginning. We're starting off with a ten-year skip to justify the...changes made since then.
Raw'Hein: As far as they're concerned, this is their home now and as long as the tribute is flowing, they live.
Huerdae: I'm not really sure I can make that jump. honestly. I can see a certain level of it being mandated if you have a Matrix-style lack of supply/equipment and a strict policy on who knows where things are
Huerdae: but even so, you're going to run into the problem that there are going to be a LOT of ships for this to even work out. And you really can't trust that.
Huerdae: The tribute?
Raw'Hein: @Huerdae They have a few border worlds that pay tribute under threat of getting blockaded.
Huerdae: Protection money.
Raw'Hein: Like the old robber barons, but yeah that works.
Huerdae: All well and good, but it makes a lot of enemies. Nobody wants to do it, and it's not particularly efficient, unless you do more than that. When you're doing that, it also means that it leaves a large group of peopel there that know their way to your home, or at least to a dead-drop.
Raw'Hein: The ships come to them.
Huerdae: So just anyone can show up and demand things?
Raw'Hein: ?
Huerdae: how do they know it's part of the robber barons?
Raw'Hein: Oh.
Raw'Hein: Well, generally they're always dealing with the same guy.
Huerdae: Either way, that's not a particularly good way to do it. It comes with a consistent threat of force that often drives people into armed conflict. Like danegeld, people will eventually break, on one side or the other, and the agreement breaks down.
Raw'Hein: And if someone does impersonate them, it's the same situation as gang wars. Not pretty.(edited)
Huerdae: To successfully manage something along the lines of protection money, the best way is to maintain the peace, to as quickly as possible back away from armed threats.
Huerdae: Success in this sort of endeavor depends on maintaining an illusion of protection and safety under in the status quo (making those payments) not in threatening force on a regular basis.
Raw'Hein: It's not direct harm, per se. They're threatening to put them under embargo, basically. Not turn up and start cracking kneecaps.
Raw'Hein: As for the above,
Huerdae: No, they're threatening to starve them to death. A slow, painful, desperate death.
Raw'Hein: Depending on the world. I'm not imagining these are developed enough to import food.
Huerdae: It's also the sort of maneuver that's hard for pirates, often, though it does play to a militarized group.
Huerdae: I don't expect that the worlds would be willing to supply such a thing. A seige (which is mostly what that is) is both costly and dangerous.
Huerdae: But may I suggest an alternative?
Raw'Hein: Go on, always open.
Huerdae: What you're suggesting is a massive, and radical shift in the way that people are surviving. People who have abandoned an ordered way of life forcefully, and had their confidence shattered in conventional leadership. It makes sense to me that such a group, even if it were to band together, would maintain a level of 'government by trust' that could not grow across larger groups. Instead of a single, unified force with a single 'main base', it may make more sense to completely decentralize it. Turn it into a coalition of sorts, more in line with the Suebi tribes. They see themselves as one unified people, but seperate leadership and families.
Huerdae: So you'd have a large area that would be 'infested' by them, but any one given group would have little information about those nearby
Raw'Hein: Terrorist cells?(edited)
Huerdae: No, that implies a certain level of covert ops infiltration.
Huerdae: These are desperate households forged in an unforgiving land.
Huerdae: People who fled together, were driven together, and learned to trust each other.
Huerdae: Small groups with varying amounts of supplies and capabilities that work together to build a 'better' life.
Huerdae: It would make it so that the focus of the thread changes from wiping out one base, to pacifying the region, and each nation could go about it differently.
Huerdae: After all, their GOAL is survival, and every group you come across is already quite desperate for food and supplies.
Raw'Hein: So what's the replacement for tribute?
Huerdae: You could still have tribute, but it would be key to everyone that it maintains the peace. Not armed ships stopping by to pick up the check every few weeks, you'd instead have a few people stick around and just make sure things go well. Even offer things in return. After all, Protection Money ends up being a trade in the end.
Raw'Hein: And I'll add (without prejudice) that part of the problem with that is you can't have one POV characters for the pirates that's in charge. You'd need one for each area.
Huerdae: And Ferret, that's exactly the point. It makes it so that people have to play a bit more carefully than just STORM THE DEFENSES OF THESE FANATICS
Huerdae: You come in too hard, they scatter and start again.
Huerdae: And yeah, RH
Huerdae: It means more people. more differing opinions.
Huerdae: Sometimes, the answer may be to kill the boss-guy, sometimes you can just try to buy them off with supplies or ships.
Huerdae: I think it's something you may want to consider.
Huerdae: After all, as I understand it, GESO isn't much of a military alliance.
Huerdae: Wouldn't diplomacy where possible be the preferred option for many members?
Raw'Hein: ...We had an OOC argument about that.
Huerdae: And who doesn't want to try to buy off the locals and gain that little advantage over your neighbors? It puts everyone in a position to compete with what their nations may very well consider 'the real danger', which is other nations.
Huerdae: It starts to stress a different part of this conflict, which is international interaction, on top of what's going on, on top of trying to make sure it doesn't just start the whole process again.
Raw'Hein: Suffice to say, the pirates are not recognised as a nation, and were not cooperative. Also, their activites discourage trade, something GESO is very, very interested in protecting.
Huerdae: So, to GESO, if you're a member of no nation they recognize, your life doesn't matter?
Raw'Hein: The pirates have no flag, no offers to negotiate from them, no formal government, no border control, no definite borders for that matter, and as far as we ICly know are taking advantage of civilian freighters and extorting worlds for protection. No, I don't think GESO would recognise them.
Huerdae: That's a dodge, RH :-P
Raw'Hein: If they wanted to be recognised, an excellent first step would be resisting the urge to plunder.
Huerdae: But, in answer to my question, you would have to say "no"
Raw'Hein: stuff that isn't theirs.
Huerdae: "The road to hell..."
Raw'Hein: Bearing in mind that GESO has typically lax standards for recognising nations...no.
Huerdae: That's an interesting point.
Huerdae: I wonder how that comes out to the member nations?
Huerdae: Or neighbors, for that matter?
Raw'Hein: If this could, in any way, be justified as self-defence, then they'd have a case.
Huerdae: After all, how lax your standards are does not matter if you have the option to simply say "They're not a nation, kill them all."
Raw'Hein: "They don't have a nation, try them for piracy and seize their weapons/ships" in this case.
Raw'Hein: "you know, for the stuff they did."
Huerdae: I didn't see anything about trying anyone.
Huerdae: I saw you guys talking about "destroy the ships, burn the worlds."
Huerdae: "Find their homes and destroy them."
Huerdae: That sounds like me, more than you.
Raw'Hein: I didn't say that. GESO would prefer to capture. However, resistance is expected to be fierce.(edited)
UTA (Burnt Fluff): I would point out I did suggest to telros that, his folks would be good intermediaries since as its laid out dolm's people and coalition there of would trust GESO or many other states.
UTA (Burnt Fluff): wouldn't*
Huerdae: You're putting yourselves in a position to be the bad guys here, is what I'm trying to impart to you. Are you comfortable with that?
Raw'Hein: ...
UTA (Burnt Fluff): As such GESO's defense policy is in my hands and obviously burning, glassing and otherwise commiting mass murder would not be the apporach taken.
Raw'Hein: As far as GESO, ICly, is concerned, they're on a mission to liberate the Gamma/Delta border from pirates, and that that's a good thing. Others may judge as they wish.
Huerdae: I actually don't have a problem with it, but every instance that I've seen before is GESO trying to be the morally upstanding group. And yet, you're talking about strikes on civilian centers simply because they have no flag or borders that you recognize or that they claim - possibly because they lost their trust in conventional institution.
Huerdae: Ahhhhahahaha
Raw'Hein: We don't ICly know about the refugee thing.
Huerdae: That's a fair response.
Huerdae: In any case, I like to stir the pot a little, if you haven't noticed. I ask questions to get a feel for what's going on and if I fit into it.
Raw'Hein: We assumed it was a Corleone-type organised gang that had moved in.
Raw'Hein: I know. It's good to add edge.
Huerdae: But even the Corleone, with their loyal people, weren't able to keep desperate people from taking desperate measures.
Huerdae: Anyway, I wanted to talk it through with you guys so that I had a good handle on what exactly it entailed. It doesn't look like it has a place for me in the current setup.
Raw'Hein: Sorry, Hue.
Huerdae: Nah, it's no problem. If I don't fit the thread, I don't fit the thread. Better to recognize that than to waste everyone's time.