Submerged in Hellfire (Closed)

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Sun May 31, 2020 9:36 pm

Telros wrote:I'm still interested, but have had no internet due to moving until today and have to do more moving tomorrow. Sunday or Monday I should be able to do something.

Glad to hear! Whenever you're ready.

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Mon Jun 08, 2020 10:01 pm

My next post is up. Let me know whether I should post these sorts of announcements here or not.

by **United Human Planets** » Tue Jun 09, 2020 4:19 pm

Alright, hopefully this is good, if not I can always edit.

Application and Summary ~ Federation Of United Human Planets

Origin (tick one box unless specified)
[X] Local Milky Way
[ ] Alternate/fractal Milky Way (also tick box best representing physical distance)
[ ] Extragalactic
[ ] Outside local observable universe
[ ] Outside physical universe

Color (tick one or more boxes)
[X] White
[ ] Red
[ ] Orange
[X] Blue
[ ] Purple

Course of Involvement
Self Defense: Though not the largest in the Milky Way, the UHP is still a local power, with ambitions to become one of the major players in galactic affairs. With a sizable military and notable presence in politics, the UHP has already experienced several attacks on their outer colonies and anti piracy patrols. In hopes to better protect their own self interests, the UHP has begun strategizing and allocating forces to learn more and combat the growing threat.

Securing Of Interests: The official policy the UHP has adopted has been continually referred to as the "securing interests," which is a more polite way of saying "get our foot in the door anywhere possible." It is common knowledge that the UHP is looking to become a major galactic power, and many are suspicious of what the UHP's true interests are. In essence, along with protecting themselves the UHP looks to use the current crisis to further their own gains, through subterfuge, politics or war if need be.

Stance in International Politics
The UHP is at present a local power, with the abilities to become a galactic power should things go their way. Though their territory is smaller than many other powers, (at only twenty four colonies, as well as the homeworld,) the UHP is well known for carefully choosing the planets it does take under its banner. Usefulness, weather for living space or resources, is far more important to the UHP in choosing its planets than mere prestige. However, when the UHP does decide that something will benefit them, they are ruthless and strategic in trying to get it for themselves.

In general, the UHP is viewed as power hungry, crafty and expansionist. They want what they want, and are willing to do whatever necessary to get it. However, they are not bombastic, and the UHP in general prefers to keep its cards close to the chest, always trying to avoid revealing what their grand strategy is. Due to the knowledge of this, many would prefer not to interact with the UHP, seeing them as dangerous and unpredictable. However, in the few hundred years the UHP has been involved at a galactic scale, they have managed to produce some of the largest companies involved in deep space mining and fuel production, as well as building some of the finest ship yards. This has allowed the UHP to set itself firmly into galactic economics, making it difficult for many to cut ties with them without jeopardizing aspects of their own economy. With this, the UHP has managed to produce a large and complex series of intelligence services, who often operate using these companies (as well as many fronts run by the government) in order to spy on and collect intel on enemies and threats.

When all else fails, though the UHP prefers to not fight, they have proven to be skilled soldiers, and has been making efforts to grow their military even more as more conflicts begin to break out on the frontier. Mostly the UHP has found itself fighting brushfire wars with insurgents and break away factions in the outer colonies, though some wars have also broken out between other interstellar nations, most notably with a rival power known as the Shvii Hegemony, where the presence of the UHP's sole Super Carrier, the ISS Forward Unto The Stars, allowed the UHP to come away with a major victory that caused many to sit up and take notice. All in all, the UHP supports a decently sized military with professional, experienced personnel, which has allowed them to further their more soft power oriented goals without having to risk outside forces wanting to intervene and spark a war.

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology

UHP FTL relies on the Alcubierre Drive, a type of large slip space engine which utilizes negative mass to produce apparent faster than light travel. It should be noted that UHP ships never actually go faster than light, nor do they ever teleport. Rather, the Alcubierre drive functions by expending space behind a ship, and shrinking space in front of a ship. In doing so, the ship is able to travel vast distances in only a matter of hours or days, due to the actual distance between the two locations being shortened by the Drive.

When in sublight conditions, such as in a solar system, UHP ships utilize fusion engines, allowing for a vast amount of power to be generated by only a comparatively small amount of fuel. Additionally, attitude thrusters are used by the UHP, allowing for ships to make large burns to pick up speed, and then be able to angle themselves as they move to fire in a full 360 degree space without ever having to change trajectory.

Common weaponry in the UHP is kinetic. The largest guns the UHP typically fields are Gauss Cannons, which run the length of most of ships of destroyer class and up. These can fire massive, car sized shells with the force of nuclear blasts. In general, the larger the ship, the more powerful the Gauss Cannon, as they have much more space to be able to work with and build up speed and force. For ship to ship combat as well, the UHP fields more traditional rotary canons, which range in size depending on the ship. These allow for a ship to have more sustained fire at more angles at once, rather than merely relying on the Gauss Cannons. Ships of destroyer class and up are armed with large missile batteries, which often run the length of the ships front end. Typically, there are four batteries, one for the top bottom and each side. These batteries can be loaded with different types of missiles depending on the missions of the ship, but most commonly shrapnel missiles, kinetic missiles and nuclear missiles are used. Finally, often times battleships and up will be armed with SGKW's, Space to Ground Kinetic Weapons, or rods from god in common parlance. In essence these are large, telephone pole sized rods of tungsten with a simple computer and control system fitted to the back. When over a ground target, a ship in orbit can detach one of these and direct it towards the ground. With the amount of energy build up from a free fall, SGKW's have the potential to hit the ground with the force of an atom bomb.

In terms of fighters, carriers typically have the largest fighter wings, though battleships and dreadnoughts also commonly have between three and six fighters on the craft. These fighters are controlled by living pilots. However, carriers come equipped with large drone wings, which are capable of operating semi autonomously thanks to advanced AI's.

UHP ships, both in offense and defense, are typically very utilitarian. The UHP possesses no exceptional force field technology, and instead relies on laser point defense systems for all large threats, such as missiles and fighters, and heavy ceramic plating as armor to defend against laser weaponry. However, due to the limitations of UHP shield technology, UHP ships are highly vulnerable to kinetic weapons, as there are few counter measures against them.

The UHP's true coup de gras however is their computing and electronic warfare suites. All UHP ships are equipped with AI's of varying quality, depending on the size of the ship and the duties the AI has. Additionally, many ships of the destroyer class are specifically designed as Electronic Warfare Destroyers, and come equipped with a wide range of functionalities, such as being capable of producing large scale EMP's, countering oppositions attempts to access ship and even fleet wide servers, electronic sabotage, extensive communications, extensive scanning abilities as well as a wide range of further operational capabilities. Battleships, Dreadnaughts, Carriers and the ISS Forward Unto The Stars are also equipped with Electronic Warfare suites in addition to their shipboard AI's. One of the most important duties of AI's, along with monitoring and running latent systems, is the control of the large drone wings the UHP fields. While many heavier fighters are piloted by people, carriers command massive swarms of drones as well, and it is the duty of these AI's to control the drones, with the direction of living commanders. As a result, one of the most important duties of the EW destroyers is the protection of the AI's from outside influence, running countermeasures and using their own capabilities to open up avenues for the AI's to do their jobs.

Metatech Proficiency
Almost all aspects of UHP foreign policy is structured around maximizing their metatech proficiency. By the very nature of the UHP's goals of expansion and power grabs, it is in their best interest to constantly try and maximize their memetic presence. The ubiquitous of many UHP companies, both fronts and legitimate, in the mining and fuel production industries has lead the UHP to be a prominent subject in many peoples minds, especially those who are higher up in their own societies structure. By managing to control such large aspects of those industries, the UHP is consequently able to shape many peoples views of them through these industries, but doing things such as offering subsidization packages, helping smaller powers get off their feet with supplies, and using their military to protect these interests and by extension show off their might in all aspects.

It should be noted however that much of the UHP's strategy is one of subtle intimidation. Though it is wielded using soft power as opposed to hard power, the UHP has put itself in a position where many smaller powers are forced to work with them in order to get off their feet. And on the flip side, many larger powers dont want to fight the UHP, as even if they win, the UHP is strong enough militarily to make it a difficult war. This unique position allows for the UHP to manipulate and project their own propaganda outside of their borders, especially in smaller nations, making themselves seem like stalwart defenders and helpers. Though larger powers are rarely fooled, as they can afford to pay less mind to the UHP, this strategy does allow for them to continually build up a large sphere of influence as they constantly try to be the first to reach out to smaller and newer interstellar societies.

Through the many mining facilities and fuel refineries the UHP has scattered around the galaxy, its many intelligence agencies work to gather information on other societies in the hopes of being able to manipulate them through targeted advertising, specific propaganda, and the purposeful withholding of specific resources or direct action of various sorts. Due to the UHP's notable skill with electronics, most of this is done through a careful combination of living field agents and hyper advanced AI's. Together from various front companies, (many of which are suspected to be highly successful, very real companies) the AI's monitor and collect vast swathes of information from their local areas, and filter them through super computers in order to determine the best way to go about targeting specific groups. It is the job of the field agents to deal with counter espionage operations from other groups, plant bugs, worms and computer viruses that will collect the information, and in general interact with the public in order to maintain the outward face of legitimacy.

Order of Battle
Operation: Seeker
Command: Admiral Adewale Nkosi
General Hamna Tabatabai
Professor Alexi Petrov
Mr Thomas Wilson (Field Operative)
Military Ships

Battleships
ISS Gabriel's Trumpet
ISS First Unto The Fire
Carriers
ISS Glory In The Black
Missile Destroyers
ISS Furious Intent
ISS Eternal Truth
EW Destroyers
ISS Gepetto's Raft
ISS Sole Malady
Cruisers
ISS Needle
ISS Crash Into The Cosmos
ISS Further Onward
ISS Mexico City
ISS Search For The Gods

Civilian Ships
Science Ships

CSS Never Lie
CSS The Old Masters
CSS The Truth Revealed

Office Of Foreign Affairs (Diplomats)
CSS Cutter Hands Spread Wide

Office Of Special Tasks (Spies)
CSS Cutter Cloak And Shadow

Additional Information
Colloquially, the United Human Planets are often simply referred to as the UHP.

Ship mounted Alcubierre Drives can only be legally used by military crafts. All civilian space traffic uses Alcubierre Stations, large space stations put into orbit around every major system the UHP controls. In doing so, the UHP is better able to control interstellar trade through their nation, as well as combat smuggling and piracy by forcing all civilians through a series of tightly controlled chokepoints.

The ISS at the beginning of UHP ships names stands for International Space Ship. This is a purely military convention. Civilian ships typically are just their name, with the UHP flag painted where it can be seen to identify it as a UHP ship. If however the ship is government owned and not private, it will have the prefix CSS, which stands for Civilian Star Ship.

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Tue Jun 09, 2020 11:21 pm

United Human Planets wrote:
Application and Summary ~ Federation Of United Human Planets

I think this is good to go, pending a couple of clarifying notes:

I'm in need of just a quick confirmation that your spacecraft max out at a few kilometers in length (no need to specify further if you don't want to). Generally, this is just a check to avoid "ants vs. elephants" style scale-of-conflict differentials in writing.
This is optional, but I'd love an elaboration on the metatech section detailing techniques and technologies in use in the Federation, especially as they might pertain to the items mentioned in the overview. I can absolutely buy that the UHP is employing advertisements and political posturing, but to what degree have these passed our modern capabilities at them, if at all?

by **United Human Planets** » Thu Jun 11, 2020 7:51 am

Kasa Tkoth Sphere wrote:
United Human Planets wrote:
Application and Summary ~ Federation Of United Human Planets

I think this is good to go, pending a couple of clarifying notes:
I'm in need of just a quick confirmation that your spacecraft max out at a few kilometers in length (no need to specify further if you don't want to). Generally, this is just a check to avoid "ants vs. elephants" style scale-of-conflict differentials in writing.
This is optional, but I'd love an elaboration on the metatech section detailing techniques and technologies in use in the Federation, especially as they might pertain to the items mentioned in the overview. I can absolutely buy that the UHP is employing advertisements and political posturing, but to what degree have these passed our modern capabilities at them, if at all?

Sorry for the late response, my internet has a tendency to shit the bed for 24 hours from time to time.

Anyhow, the largest ship of the UHP, the Forward Unto The Stars, is five kilometres long. The next largest ships are the dreadnoughts and carriers, which are each about one and a half kilometres long, and then the battleships are a little under one kilometre long, (about 950 meters.) But dreadnoughts, carriers and battleships are not as common as destroyers cruisers and corvettes, which make up the brunt of the UHP's space borne military. Generally a dreadnought or two, five or six battleships and a carrier would typically make up the core of a fleet, while the smaller ships make up the largest subsection of said fleet. And of course, the Forward Unto The Stars is a different sort of situation, as it is only deployed when the UHP wants to either make a major show of force, or is determined to defeat an enemy at whatever location it is deployed, so it is rarely seen and would not be deployed at the start of this RP (if at all.)

Anyhow, I'll update my metatech section to explain a bit more about how the UHP does what it does in that regard. And I'm not really sure, but if you want I can also add the description of ship sizes somewhere in my app. It might make sense to add in how large each ship is in the ship classes section.

EDIT: I updated my app. Hopefully those things should be cleared up now.

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Fri Jun 12, 2020 12:25 am

Yeah, that'll be more than enough information — I guess I just wanted the briefest of confirmations, really.

The Federation of United Human Planets is accepted.

by **Mamasa** » Fri Jun 19, 2020 1:26 pm

Application and Summary ~ THE CLANSHIP OF MAMASA

Origin (tick one box unless specified)
[ ] Local Milky Way
[x] Alternate/fractal Milky Way (also tick box best representing physical distance)
[x] Extragalactic
[ ] Outside local observable universe
[ ] Outside physical universe

Color (tick one or more boxes)
[ ] White
[ ] Red
[x] Orange
[x] Blue
[ ] Purple

Course of Involvement
Research and recovery - Massa are driven by trying to expand their understanding of the universe; their thirst for knowledge drives them to research and recover technology so they can intellectually challenge and better themselves as beings. Despite being rather low on the political power scale, the Massa are hoping to recover and reverse engineer some foreign technology, which will hopefully allow them to full become independent and let them stand on their own; even if it means hiding and watching a few ships blow each other up and pick up the scraps afterwards.

Stance in International Politics
Being relatively isolated in the Delta Quadrant, the Clanship is reliant on the more domineering Dimoniquid to protect them from more external threats in exchange for a huge manufacturing complex located in the Mamasa home system. Despite this complex relationship between dominant and reluctant submissive, the Mamasa are desperate to splinter from their binds and spread their eager thirst for knowledge around the galaxy.

Although firmly rooted in the war striken depths of the Delta Quadrant, the Mamasa maintain a rather friendly rapport with their neighbours, Barva, Muun, and Shaknor, who are also under the protection of Dimoniquid. They maintain a loose alliance between themselves, sharing secrets, technology and small nuggets of information that could hold the success of their release. The Clanship hopes to delve far enough outside of the single system they possess and find kindred spirits.

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology
(Briefly summarize at minimum the following: FTL and sublight propulsion, common weaponry, typical defense mechanisms, computing and electronic warfare.
FTL and sublight propulsion – The Clanship holds many types of drives and propulsion systems recovered and reverse engineered for their limited space craft, however most hive vessels have mass transit drives, utilising subspace (known as shock space in their nation) travel to propel whole groups of vessels at a time to their destination. Smaller ships, down to some modified military drop ships, contain a small shock drive, that allow them to travel through shockspace, although not as efficiently or accurately as larger ships with more complex power and navigational structures. Few vessels are equipped with a navigational shock shunt, which allows them to traverse a large distance almost instantaneously, however the regenerative hull will be severely damaged and will need to healed and tended to in a dry dock.

Propulsion wise, most ships use some for a repulsor array, an engine that accelerates electrons through a small particle accelerator and uses the energy to propel themselves forward. In terms of vector and manoeuvrability thrusters, most, if not all vessels, are equipped with biomechanical thruster units developed from a large dragon type creature in the Bavra home system.

Common weaponry – The Mamasa vessels are host to a variety of weaponry, but are standardly affixed with a variety of particle and railgun weaponry. As combat isn’t a prime concern among the growing and building of vessels, the ships are designed to operate at long range, hiding away and taking long, accurate shots in hope that the enemy will just go away. Most hive vessels are grown around a chassis that allows room for a spinal mounted particle or rail gun weapon, and then defensive weaponry are built within the growing frame. They very rarely use missiles, nuclear warheads, or antimatter weaponry, however have schematics and replication supplies on board to make them if needed from reverse engineered artefacts.

Defense mechanisms – As each ship is partially mechanical, partially symbiotic conglomeration of organisms and mechanical technologies, the ships can often react in turn with the tribe crewing it. The ship is capable of growing thicker armour, it can seal airlock and bulkheads against boarding parties, and can even alter the chemical composition of the air to allow security forces to be more aggressive or calm, or promote anxiety and paranoia among its intruders.

Mechanically, the vessels are designed strategically so that it can be operated by minimal crew, through various redundancy systems in case others are lost to enemy forces and if severely damaged. The crew live, serve, and breed on the vessel, and with high birth rate, short gestation and maturing periods, along with genetic memory splicing of their previous crew members, the vessels can hold well into the thousands in their small hibernation pods.

Computing and electronic warfare – Being a symbiotic conglomeration of mechanical and biological technologies, the ships provide a much wider array of computing power and sensory capabilities, along with electronic defenses than normal. Neural laces in each crew member allow them to merge with the main computer core, envisioning themselves in a tribe meeting with everyone else who may be merged into it. This allows them to communicate and maintain the vessel quicker than outside of the core, while also having the tactile ability of using the core itself for other maintenance and needed interaction of the vessel. There are sensory arrays available for the crew to use, some mechanical and some formed through biomimetics, utilising organ designs from creatures that can sense wavelengths not visible to the naked eye, or an lense design that can zoom in to a microscopic level.

In terms of electronic warfare, Mamasa vessels don’t seek to actively hurt other vessels or people, like installing viruses onto computers, but more to defend itself by downplaying its image. Vessels use various sensor jamming technologies to alter the image of their vessel, portraying a lightly armed life ark, and altering the number of escorts and defensive capabilities it has. Their goal is to play innocent, hopefully fooling their enemy into letting them go.

Metatech Proficiency
Mamasa society doesn’t believe in altering the views and thoughts of its citizens through memetics; they believe that their citizens should be able to express different opinions thoughtfully and through debate. There aren’t any televisions or social media in their society, so most information comes from their council elders through sanctioned information networks. They only use it in defensive circumstances; preferring to use it to trick and control their enemies or foes into thinking their much less advanced than they are, hiding their arcologies as mountains and the ships as asteroids. Their ability to obfuscate around their enemies has managed to prevent a huge amount of conflicts in their short interstellar history. The ships themselves can also be considered memetic in nature, with the ship interacting with the crew to make sure they operate at the most efficiency they can. Reports have been made suggesting that vessels have acted against the crews wishes to keep them away from circumstances and choices that may harm them. Examples of this have been sealing bulkheads to prevent access to damaged and harmful areas of the vessel, and affecting the chemical compositions of the internal life support to promote or deter mating processes of the crew. This can be considered a blessing, though; a report of a maintenance member becoming more paranoid at the though of the hull collapsing lead to discovery of frame stress throughout their vessel – they attributed it to ‘an itch behind his eyes, burning beneath his carapace, and an obsessive compulsion to check every beam and frame piece of the ship’.

Order of Battle
1x Hiveship (Designated a Netra Class Tribe Ark)
2x Light Cruisers (Designated Fergan Cruiser Frames)
2x Heavy Destroyers (Designated Carza Hunter Frames)
1x Defensive Frigate (Designated Normak Defense Frame)
1x Long Range Patrol Corvette (Designated Morn Patrol Frame)

Additional Information
I’ll update the ORBAT with schematic descriptions of the ships once I have them all types up in an organised format but the hiveship is the only ship that’s in the kilometer range. This is considered a very small exploration group by Mamasa standards. If anyone wants information on the technology and terminology, I’ll happily provide some sort of index in this thread.

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Fri Jun 19, 2020 10:58 pm

Mamasa wrote:
Application and Summary ~ THE CLANSHIP OF MAMASA

The Clanship of Mamasa is accepted with one preferred clarification: if it would make sense to you, as instructed on the application, please also tick the origin box corresponding to roughly how far your exploration group needed to travel to reach this place. (This shouldn't be too important, but it may eventually become relevant when determining who might have heard of them before.)

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Sat Jun 27, 2020 10:13 am

Hey, everyone.

One more reminder that I'm willing to provide anything you all need in order to get your posts up — setting information, clarification, even another post if you ask for it. If you don't wish to participate in the RP, please inform me so that I can remove you from the list rather than continuing to wait.

Thank you for your cooperation!

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Mon Jun 29, 2020 5:16 pm

Hey, Mamasa. Since you did not name your fleet's location of arrival, I'd like to know whether you'd like one of the following options:

This system is, in fact, the as-yet-undescribed system of Obek Palsag; the tribe ark and its escorts have just landed outside an active warzone and might be about to hit the "trace down the intruders" plot line if you so choose.
This system is somewhere else, in a location of your choosing (some galactic landmark or near one of the established locations, if you would like) and some secondary event is about to begin.

With a bit of luck, the threads in this RP should end up connecting; I just need to know which strand to send Alba's way.

by **Mamasa** » Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:42 am

Kasa Tkoth Sphere wrote:Hey, Mamasa. Since you did not name your fleet's location of arrival, I'd like to know whether you'd like one of the following options:
This system is, in fact, the as-yet-undescribed system of Obek Palsag; the tribe ark and its escorts have just landed outside an active warzone and might be about to hit the "trace down the intruders" plot line if you so choose.
This system is somewhere else, in a location of your choosing (some galactic landmark or near one of the established locations, if you would like) and some secondary event is about to begin.

With a bit of luck, the threads in this RP should end up connecting; I just need to know which strand to send Alba's way.

Having a secondary event near a galactic landmark would be more practical. If you need me to change anything, let me know.

by **HypErcApitAl** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:56 pm

this rp dead or naw?

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 10:59 pm

Hypercapital wrote:this rp dead or naw?

Not at all; my long-belated post in response to Mamasa's arrival is going up "tonight". If I need to take longer than this in the future, I'll let you all know!

Let me know if you've got any questions remaining or the like. I think we've already talked a bit, so you should be set to apply, too.

by **HypErcApitAl** » Fri Jul 03, 2020 11:21 pm

Kasa Tkoth Sphere wrote:
Hypercapital wrote:this rp dead or naw?

Not at all; my long-belated post in response to Mamasa's arrival is going up "tonight". If I need to take longer than this in the future, I'll let you all know!

Let me know if you've got any questions remaining or the like. I think we've already talked a bit, so you should be set to apply, too.

my newer country may be alot different than my older concept. I may need to ask about politics and the left-right/centre dynamic and also about Radicalism, Revolutionarism and so on.

by **Qhevak** » Sun Jul 05, 2020 5:25 am

Application and Summary ~ OORTIAN COMMUNITY OF QHEVAK

Origin (tick one box unless specified)
[X] Local Milky Way
[ ] Alternate/fractal Milky Way (also tick box best representing physical distance)
[ ] Extragalactic
[ ] Outside local observable universe
[ ] Outside physical universe

Color (tick one or more boxes)
[ ] White
[ ] Red
[ ] Orange
[X] Blue
[ ] Purple

Course of Involvement
Qhevak's Entangled Order has gained interest in assessing the unknown attackers, as a potential threat to Qhevak, a source of technology or even a potential ally against interstellar imperialism. They are currently deploying a mid scale deep space strike force, partnered with hired mercenaries from the Kumiho Clade's Hounds of Tindalos (who have already lost at least one ship to the assailants) to perform ground and boarding assaults if need be.

Stance in International Politics
Qhevak has historically been an isolationist region, without much interaction with outsiders. With the recent growth in Gamma Quadrant colonization, this has started to change - Qhevak based producers are increasingly exporting goods throughout the quadrants, mercenary organizations have played a major role in a number of small conflicts and less positively local dictatorships are beginning to view it as a place to dump troublesome minorities.

As a decentralized community with no real government, external stances vary widely from hab to hab. The Entangled Order, theoretically the most economically powerful clade, is largely isolationist, mostly being concerned with keeping Qhevak a stable place to conduct their investigations into the deeper nature of reality. On the other hand, Moria - the largest and most diverse habitat in Qhevak - is actively trying to bring in increased outside economic activity and tourism, an act that has drawn resistance from some members of the local populace desiring to "keep Qhevak weird".

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology
Propulsion: FTL travel is typically done via warp drive, locally adjusting compactified higher dimensions to alter the cosmological constant. Sublight propulsion mostly uses antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion with magnetic field "pusher plates". Warship combat accelerations can approach 10 gees sustained or higher in bursts.

Weapons: Primary ship-to-ship weapons are laser coupled cold antiparticle beams fired around half the speed of light. Maximum ranges are on the order of light minutes, but acceleration and laser jamming normally reduces this to a few light seconds. Main secondary weapons are variable spectrum smartmatter phased arrays, mostly used as ECM against enemy visual and IR sensors and for intercepting inbound kinetic and missile weaponry. Missiles are occasionally used, typically with fusion shaped charges, EFP warheads or laser focusing mirror arrays, but phased arrays mostly render them ineffective without a significant number advantage on the attacker's part.

Defenses: Armor typically consists of a thick layer of quantum wellstone smartmatter, capable of adjusting its atomic properties to optimize against enemy enemy attacks. Point defense consists of phased arrays capable of both hard and soft killing inbound projectiles, often with dust cloud firing railguns as a last resort. Electromagnetically contained "plasma shielding" exists, but as a gaseous cloud reducing in density with distance squared rather than a thin wall - it's therefore mostly mounted on point defense drones which maneuver into the path of incoming particle beam attacks to disperse or deflect them.

Metatech Proficiency
It's status as a host for numerous dangerous and unethical research programs has lead to Qhevak becoming a leading developer in memetic warfare techniques, particularly basilisk type hacks. Given the extent of ubiquitous online connectivity on major habs, this is starting to become a major threat to public safety, to the point that software designed to locate basilisk characteristics in incoming information has become a crucial safety feature in modern augmented reality suites.

Order of Battle
Entangled Order:
3 2.28 km HAV-190 Archangel Heavy Fighters
15 400 meter LGV-215 Seraph Patrol Craft
4 2.15 km HMD-952 Logistic Craft

Hounds of Tindalos
4 400 meters LGV-215 Seraph Patrol Craft
20 250 m Ba-71 Grizzly Orbital Assault Transports
2 1.2 km MMD-805 Logistic Craft

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Sun Jul 05, 2020 1:09 pm

Qhevak wrote:
Application and Summary ~ OORTIAN COMMUNITY OF QHEVAK

The Oortian Community of Qhevak is accepted, provided you at least have a self-consistent picture of its overall scale of computing and sensor processing as these become relevant. Some detective work may be involved.

Wow, this is a lot on blue.

by **Qhevak** » Sat Jul 11, 2020 5:54 am

Can I have a small Hounds of Tindalos hired mercenary squad (or alternatively, infiltrators) operating with the TPR force that seized the spaceport? I was thinking that the Qhevak expeditionary force would be intentionally trying to get small mercenary teams hired into various anti-imperialist guerilla organizations in order to get intel on the assailants.

Can probably get an IC post written by the end of the weekend btw.

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Sat Jul 11, 2020 9:04 am

Qhevak wrote:Can I have a small Hounds of Tindalos hired mercenary squad (or alternatively, infiltrators) operating with the TPR force that seized the spaceport? I was thinking that the Qhevak expeditionary force would be intentionally trying to get small mercenary teams hired into various anti-imperialist guerilla organizations in order to get intel on the assailants.

Can probably get an IC post written by the end of the weekend btw.

Yeah, absolutely, that sounds fine.

by **Godular** » Wed Jul 22, 2020 3:03 pm

Is this taking place in a specific galaxy? This seems interesting, especially on a character RP level.

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Wed Jul 22, 2020 3:22 pm

Saw your post, Qhevak; I'm giving myself five days to get a response up before I may need to be nagged about it.

Godular wrote:Is this taking place in a specific galaxy? This seems interesting, especially on a character RP level.

This RP takes place in the K-Sphere's instance of the Milky Way. Some of the applicants here were fine with saying it was the same as their own Milky Way. Others ticked the second box under "Origin" to say that they were coming from some other "Milky Way", as a convenient-ish way to excuse any massive political differences that may be relevant.

by **Godular** » Wed Jul 22, 2020 3:45 pm

Ah, alright. Godulans do not tend to venture into the Milky Way in any iteration (with one small exception that is unfortunately not present in the bounds of this RP)... they consider the Milky Way like a big city, and they're just small town folk. In order for their curiosity to be piqued, they would have to be able to actually note that something fun-kay is going on.

That being said, this setup is reminding me pretty hard of a newish book series called the Palladium Wars. It has very similar themes to this, and I like that series pretty damn hard.

by **Qhevak** » Mon Jul 27, 2020 1:17 am

In the Obek Palsag system's Oort cloud, this time in genuine realspace, a constellation of iron plasma and tachyon communication lines slowly bloomed.

Is this saying the EoB fleet was blown up on entry?

by **Kasa Tkoth Sphere** » Mon Jul 27, 2020 9:06 am

Qhevak wrote:
In the Obek Palsag system's Oort cloud, this time in genuine realspace, a constellation of iron plasma and tachyon communication lines slowly bloomed.

Is this saying the EoB fleet was blown up on entry?

Shit, sorry, I meant to say that the probes were all accelerating away from each other, as the iron plasma is K-Sphere exhaust and they're all part of a big interconnected telescope of sorts. Thank you for asking. I'll make that less weirdly worded in the post.

I'd put a lot more description into the explosion once it happened for real.

by **Qhevak** » Sat Aug 08, 2020 1:41 pm

New posts up. I'll be on a meditation retreat till next Saturday, so won't be on the internet much, but I'll try and get a post up five days or less after if you write something in the meantime.

by **Menschlicher Sternenstaat** » Mon Aug 10, 2020 12:05 am

Application and Summary ~ THE HUMAN STAR STATE

Origin (tick one box unless specified)
[✔] Local Milky Way
[ ] Alternate/fractal Milky Way (also tick box best representing physical distance)
[ ] Extragalactic
[ ] Outside local observable universe
[ ] Outside physical universe

Color (tick one or more boxes)
[✔] White
[✔] Red
[ ] Orange
[ ] Blue
[ ] Purple

Course of Involvement
Preventative action and astropolitical exploitation. The higher, strategic echelons of the Sternenstaat have always put trust and faith in pre-calculated measures of reconnaissance, research, and action against any and all events that may pose a threat to the nation. With the arrival of seemingly extragalactic invaders further eroding the astropolitical balance of the Milky Way, the Sternenstaat will approach this novel issue in a two-pronged advance: to gain as much information about this newfound threat before inevitable confrontation, and to further enrich the intelligence that the Staat has in the new astropolitical destructions that can be used for economic and technological gain. This has prompted the mobilization of the intelligence department of the Staatswehr, the Aufklärungsabteilung, to gain insight into this phenomenon, in addition to covert military assets.

Stance in International Politics
The Menschlicher Sternenstaat is a well-renowned power broker in the Gamma Quadrant — and arguably the Milky Way galaxy entirely — through maintenance this position with constant punitive conflicts and territorial expansions for centuries. Forming the backbone of the xenophobic Interstellar Compact of Collective Human Harmony alliance and having history as an avowedly human supremacist and biological purist empire, its position in international politics is simultaneously that of a shadowy menace to powerful alien states and their human sympathizers, in addition to a vanguard of human sovereignty and identity in the face of an increasingly hectic galaxy.

The Sternenstaat, while known for its widespread militarism and jingoistic philosophies, also maintains its international influence through powerful investments into financial, technological, and industrial control of both domestic and foreign enterprises. It has become a keystone in the prosperity of the Gaian Trail and New Silk Road, and the economic weight of the Staat can now be felt as far as the borders of the Alpha and Delta quadrants like most other galactic power players. The ultimate goal of the nation is to form the idealized polity known as ein galaktischer Staat, or a humanocentric Galactic State encompassing most of the known galaxy.

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology

Faster-than-light Technology: The FTL technology that the Sternenstaat possesses varies based on the role and available energy for each specific model of spacecraft, but most normal Sternenstaat warships utilize "internal alcubierre drives" that nullify the effects of quantum gravity in a predefined space and allow the manipulation of said space along the rear and front ends of spacecraft without the need for external warp rings. The actual drives are one of the most expensive products that the Sternenstaat produces, but they allow efficient fuel management when combined with ZPE energy generators and emergency antimatter reserves.

For stealth-based ships, the "silent blink drive" has been pushed into service with intense fuel consumption and heat generation, but with the plus of minimizing entrance and exit signatures. This blink drive essentially forms an instantaneous tunnel between two predefined points in space — i.e the ship itself and the drop-zone — and "blinks" the vessel into position. Large antimatter fuel tanks are used for these kind of ships, in addition to advanced internal heat sinks.

Sublight propulsion: Most warships utilized enhanced flow-stabilized z-pinch engines for propulsion, with input power provided by the ZPE or antimatter stores and plasma fuel being shot off into space using powerful magnetic electrodes. Large accelerations can be accomplished with a miscellany of these engines and fine partition between subject magnetic fields. Smaller warships, such as patrol boats, corvettes, cutters, etc. use less complex engines such as fusion torches for fast and efficient accelerations.

Common weaponry: Most Staat warships employ an eclectic mix of weaponry, based on their size and role. Smaller warships usually utilize missile pods for the ability to inflict damage on larger or similar-sized vessels, with energy weapons to provide a method of fast attack with minimal mass influence. Larger warships brandish anything from missile buses and torpedoes to gigantic missile pods for long-range combat and large-scale kinetic or energy weapon batteries for mid-range combat. Large vessels also employ deployable autonomous drones.

Defense mechanisms: All Staat warships employ energy or kinetic point-defense weapons for both short-range combat and defense against incoming kinetics or missiles. In addition to this, large enough warships use the Staat's unique projectable electromagnetic shields that originate from a field modulator within the hull of the vessel. The higher the ranking and larger the size of the ship, the more powerful the shield is, with the ability to easily deflect energy weapons and even manipulate the trajectories of physical incoming objects to a degree.

In the terms of actual armor, large warships utilize armor belts with varying strata of materials that increase survivability upon impact, in addition to strong integral hulls. Proliferation of bulkheads and compartmentalization of ship internals also ensures nominal operation even with a non-critical impact of enemy weaponry. Smaller warships are expected to utilize their nimbleness and integral hulls to survive enemy weaponry. Combat operations necessitate the crew to wear "combat state outerwear" that consist of isolation with the local environment in EVA-esque suits to ensure maximum survival of the crew, and can allow for the purging internal vessel environs of atmosphere during enemy boarding or enemy weapon impact.

Computation and electronic warfare: Most Sternenstaat warships operate sophisticated supercomputers with savant artificial intelligences specifically keened towards optimizing ship and crew efficiencies. Although they possess the ability to uplink with each other and higher strata of command AI, the ability to enter savant mode by the order human officers and thereby ignore outside inputs builds extra defenses against enemy perforation of communication and system operation (with the backdoors into said AI being found only through higher command AI or human commanders, to prevent mutiny occurrences). Even so, all naval artificial intelligences are disallowed the ability to fully operate the ship except in the instance of all human crew becoming deceased or unconscious through enemy attack, and cannot engage control even if said scenario occurs if human officers initiate an emergency scuttle order. They do not possess the technocognitive capacities that more "human" AI in other parts of the galaxy possess, such as emotions.

Electronic countermeasures (ECMs) of the Sternenstaat include AI savant modes and the utilization of redundant sensor systems to ensure constant, verified sensor and communication output. Electronic counter-countermeasures (ECCMs) of the Sternenstaat include high-intensity broad-electromagnetic field jamming by dedicated EW vessels, in addition to ECM detection and focus patterns that prioritize enemy ECM infrastructure. To combat against enemy jamming, ECCMs can also include tight-beam communications of light or faster-than-light speed variations (with the other being more susceptible to interception) when ships do not enter savant mode.

Metatech Proficiency
The metatechnological state of the Menschlicher Sternenstaat has evolved to become all-encompassing and all-terrifying. Even though many Staatsvolk are nothing more than baseline humans, intense psychological training for dedicated soldiers and the endless propagation of positive and negative conditioning throughout all levels of life — infinite dedication to humanity through serving God, Fatherland, and fellow Comrades — have become omnipresent. The metatech of the Staat has become potent enough to rouse sympathetic and human supremacist factions across the galaxy to rally to the nation's influence, and it has also allowed the country to slowly-but-surely cover up its internal mistakes and innumerable war crimes or international blunders. The state of usage of basilisks by the Staat is currently unknown.

The introduction of the basilisk metatechnology to the Sternenstaat has been met with a variety of counter-technologies that often cross the ideological line of biological purism. Many special operations soldiers receive complex augmentations in the form of "cognitive shields", which constantly scan the sensory receptacles of the eyes, nose, ears, skin, and mouth for hidden packets of neurologically aberrant information. When aberrant information is detected, the cognitive shield blocks all neural paths involving the sense or cognitive interpretation of said anomaly.

Civilians and other personnel who do not receive cognitive shielding augments (due to national ideology) are protected by basilisks and other unwanted memetic tamperings through intense state-wide "guard dog" computer programs that vet all inbound and outbound information, both domestically and internationally. These guard dog programs simulate the contents of messages through all sensory formats (almost always visual and auditory) in virtual environments, and only release the content back into transmission to the target device when no aberration is detected. Although still able to be exploited by dedicated basilisks, it has served to protect the biologically baseline populace from significant external tampering.

Order of Battle

Spezialaktivitäten Geschwader "Hornisse"

×1 Rán-class stealth battleship (2.27 km.)
×20 attached ASVDM-12s autonomous drones (heavy fighter-sized)

×1 Schemen II-class dedicated reconnaissance drone (94 m.)
×2 attached recon dronelets (7 m.)

×2 Nachtigall-class electronic warfare frigates (760 m.)

×5 Leonel III-class cruisers (880 m.)

×8 Radnitz-class advanced destroyers (405 m.)

×1 Kantorowicz-class scientific exploration craft (540 m.)

×1 Ackerman-class special logistics vessel (1.04 km.)

Additional Information
Although many Staat tech may seem of high quality, everything still has flaws - especially when facing a totally unknown enemy. If things seem too good, I can tone some techs down.

Submerged in Hellfire (Closed)

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