Cosmic Era [The Factbook]

by **Skaldia** » Mon Sep 08, 2014 10:55 am

The Cosmic Era
"I'm here to kick ass and chew bubblegum and I'm all out of bubblegum."
Theme

What is the Cosmic Era?

The Cosmic Era combines the core themes of cyberpunk, mecha anime, dystopian literature, and Saturday Morning cartoons to create a setting in which giant robots, fireball throwing martial artists, and genetically engineered super-soldiers boldly face the arcanotech fueled intimately wired future of humanity.

How is the Cosmic Era Used?

The Cosmic Era setting is based around a concept of levels of engagement. There are 4 levels of conflict: human, vehicle, capital, and virtual. These levels promote the idea that for each character, vehicle, weapon, etc, there is something on a scale above it, up until you reach the realm of floating warships designed to destroy cities.

Within this paradigm, there are a variety of RPs that can be used; Shadowrunning, Mecha Military, Space Operations, Weird Future.

The Shadowrunning RP draws heavily on aspects of cyberpunk, with the characters being independent contractors with unusual skills and abilities hired out to the various movers and shakers in the Cosmic Era world. This can range from mundane security work, to assassination attempts, rescuing VIPs, and engaging in espionage, sabotage, terrorism and counter-terrorism. The Variations of the Shadowrunning RP can include infantry scale military operations with special forces and super soldiers, arcanotech explorers delving into the unknown realms of dimensional science, or the Class Warfare RP where the PCs are caught in the battle between the impoverished masses living in the urban slums and the wealthy decadent elite living in the gleaming towers.

The Mecha Military RP showcases more the giant fighting machines of the Cosmic Era, including Power armor suits, combat robots, variable frame aerospace fighters, and other military scale vehicles in one on one, and small unit engagements. There are brushfire wars and skirmishes occurring all over the globe between the New Earth Governments, terrorist factions, and corporate mercenaries.

The Space Operations RP is based around the exploration and colonization of the Solar system in arcanotech powered space ships, building colonies, exploring strange anomalies, and discovering classified cyclopean ruins on other planets and moon, and digging up the occasional alien artifact, cosmic horror, or hibernating monster.

The Weird Future RP delves more into the social aspects of the Cosmic Era, facing the issues within the slums, with things like clone rights, and how everyday people deal with life when life gets weird. It only takes one dimensional fatigue event to turn a normal person into an extraordinary person, or a gibbering howling monster. The Weird Future doesn't deal with the underworld, rather it deals with existing legal groups, response organizations and such, and the PCs in the Weird Future game are not shadowrunners, or mercenaries. Cops, pilots, and other professionals are common professions for the weird future.

Visuals, Backgrounds, and Salient Points

There are some aspects of the Cosmic Era that define it, and while some of these ideals, conflicts, and tropes are not new, it is In my experience rare to find many of them together in a cohesive setting. Most mecha based RPs have almost no criminal or underworld aspect to them, and likewise, with the advanced technology in most cyberpunk settings there is almost no reason for there to not be legged tanks and such other than thematic ones.

Arcologies and MegaSlums
The imagery is simple and striking, the arcologies are gleaming towers, works of architectural art, and soar thousands of feet into the air, and the residents inside have clean, orderly, peaceful lives, living in a computer controlled ant like utopia. They are doted upon by machine servants, and have constant immersive entertainment, and everything is very neat, very tidy, and color coordinated for greater efficiency. Outside of the arcos the slums rise up in great heaps, with the cores of old skyscrapers as the pillars supporting the new favelas. Life outside of the arcos is dominated by who has the most power, and gangs rival with terrorist factions, and arco based heavily armed law enforcement deals out punishment and the military is ever-present with their giant robots and floating warships. The contrast between the rich and the poor is staggering in the Cosmic Era, and the value of human life is very low.

Clones and 'Droids
There are artificial people in the Cosmic Era. Advances in technology have lead to cloning, cloned organs, genetic quick fix treatments, and ultimately replaceable people. The advances in robot technology have likewise produced superior menial workers, mechanical soldiers, and further decreased the value of life. Clones and droids are a common aspect of life in the Cosmic era and they exist in stark contrast to the natural and freeborn humans. Across the spectrum, these two technological advances have taken their places in the home, as entertainment devices, as part of the industrial complex, and part of the military.

The Military
The Cosmic Era is both militaristic and patriotic, and this is only tempered by generations of pragmatism. One of the things that has prevented massive conflicts from breaking out between the NEGs is the calculated expense in terms of equipment and training hours that would be lost versus the long term potential goals. Instead, emphasis has been placed in smaller numbers of higher quality, more capable combat units. To that end, the Cosmic Era has supersoldiers, power armor troopers, giant combat mecha and flying warships rather than hundreds of thousands of infantry and tens of thousands of armored vehicles. Wars are still fought, and there are parades and flag waving after the oration and saber rattling, but now battles are fought on brush level skirmishes, or between dueling forces that more closely resembles medieval combat than the unlimited warfare of the Petroleum era.

The Underworld
The top of the Cosmic Era is shiny, with gold plated servant droids, gleaming white arcos, and pristine habitats in space. On the ground, things are much more dirty. There are drugs, human trafficking, violent crime, and a almost pre-programmed drive to self destruction. The Underworld of the Cosmic Era is littered with human debris, organized crime, and there are systems and organiztions that exist to benefit from and profit on human suffering, vice, and greed.

Shadowrunning and MegaCorps
A primary point of dystopian fiction and cyberpunk is the MegaCorp, and the relentless shadow wars and shadowrunning carried out between these corps to support their constant struggle to oppress the population, control the government, run the military, and fight with each other for dominance and supremacy like dragons tearing apart a single continent. MegaCorps are a major force in the Cosmic Era, and have a position between the governments and the general populace not entirely unlike the the position the church enjoyed in the Dark Ages.

Cosmic Horror
Amongst the flashing lights, and over the top technology, the Cosmic Era is built on a foundation of horror, and for every brilliant light, there is a terrible price, or appalling secret. The terrible secret is Arcanotechnology is built on a metaphysical foundation of madness, human suffering, and an entirely new aspect of mathematics that at the least causes nervous breakdowns and anxiety attacks in it's comprehension, and at the worst results in piles of decaying corpses, some of which are still crawling around, trying to find something alive and screaming to eat.

A Brief History of the Cosmic Era

The Petroleum Era:
The Petroleum Era is the modern day and several decades down the road. The Petroleum Era is marked by excess of consumerism, political expediency, near ceaseless war, and a reckless disregard for the environment. Attempts at reigning in waste of natural resources fail, and investment in alternative and renewable resources falters. The stage is set for the onset of the Resource Wars as the world powers, America, China, and the European Union square off in competition to exploit the mineral and natural resources of the undeveloped third world.

The Petroleum Era has a certain charm to it, in the eyes of the Cosmic era, much as the Victorian Era a Steampunk appeal to the modern person. The PetroPunk, or GasPunk genre highlights the mass consumerism, waste, and 'cool vibe' of the Petroleum Era with a pastiche of style and visual elements ranging from 1940s Big Band and Swing, 1950s Greaser Cool, 1960s Hippie Chic, 1970s Fashion style, 1980s action and violence entertainment, 1990s Grunge movement and calculated disdain, and the malaise, bling and chavvy styling of the 2000s. This is all done in a technological vacuum that ignores the existence of computers and other high tech devices, with the end effect being stereotypes and caricatures from over 100 years of history all sitting at a 1950s technological level. Atomic devices, turbo gas everything, and Mayberry style telephones, and tiny radiophonic television sets.

The Resource Wars
The Resource Wars were a prolonged period of near constant conflict that temporarily bordered on World War III, and thermonuclear Armageddon. The largest conflicts tore Africa to pieces as the world powers fought over the largely undeveloped continent. Likewise, major wars were fought between India, China, and Russia, and the United States and the South American nations. Europe staggered through several civil wars, and then was pitched into a massive religious war with the Mediterranean and the Middle East. This exacerbated the shortages of fossil fuels as the world militaries consumed the dwindling supply at a frightening pace, with the world Air Forces being the worst offenders.

There are several different opinions on when the Resource Wars ended and when the Second Dark Age began. Many point to the collapse of the Federal superstates, while technological historians favor the end of the global Hypernet. Some consider the thermonuclear exchanges between Israel and the Arab states, and India and Pakistan as the hard end of the Resource Wars. Whatever point is chosen is largely an academic naval gazing debate. The end result was an end of the global spanning economy, multinational states, and a massive reversion to a mode of life that was very similar to the 1800s, with steam, zeppelins, and sailing ships returning to use as there simply wasn't petroleum to fuel traditional transportation, and the nuclear powered ships were involved in keeping the first generation Arcologies powered while the structures were under construction.

The Second Dark Age
The Second Dark Age was a rough time for the world and for humanity in general. There were two fallouts from the Resource Wars, The Population Contraction and the Oxygen Depletion Incident. The Population Contraction was an after the fact observance of the global population decreasing from just shy of 9 billion fall to less than 2 billion in less than a century. The Resource Wars were the final expression in Non-Nuclear unlimited warfare and saw massive use of biological, chemical and limited application of atomic and nuclear weapons. Many died in the war, and just as many died in close proximity to the end of the war as the global systems collapsed, along with industrialized agriculture, cultures of foreign aid, and famine and disease ran rampant. As the population continued to fall, it was discovered that the atmosphere, and biosphere was seriously compromised. The massive use of defoliants, and debris in the atmosphere had broken down the global biomass's ability to maintain the oxygen level. This spurred the cooperation of the dark age world powers to come together and forge the Tycho Conventions, share technology, and kickstart the Second Renaissance.

The Second Dark Age is a rich period of history for the Cosmic Era as it was a collapse from a global economy into a local one. If something wasn't made within a few days travel, people didn't have it. It also saw the major growth of arcologies, and the cementing of the Cosmic Era values of Collectivization, and pragmatism. The Second Dark Age is a mixture of the Great Depression and Mad Max, as the old society and values faded away, with bandits and hold outs fighting against the inevitable end of petro-tech and facing the brutal realities of reverting to subsistence level agriculture, primitive medicine, and facing an uncertain future.

The Second Renaissance
Spurred by the Tycho Conventions on the Moon, and the sharing of vital technologies, the realm of Arcanotechnology was broken open, and this ignited a technological, economic, and societal boom across the globe. Cheap, abundant power made it's return and the lights came back on. Within a century, the biosphere was turned 180 degrees and was on the march to a solid recovery, and the planet was studded with atmospheric and oceanic purification systems. The billions of tons of waste generated by the Petroleum Era stopped being a problem and became a valuable resource and the ideals of pragmatism and collectivism remained true as instead of expanding back outwards to recreate the vast sprawling megaplexes of previous centuries, larger and more efficient arcos were built.

Medical technology boomed as a result of arcanotechnology, and many diseases that had long plagued mankind were annihilated. Diabetes, Alzheimers, Cancer, were all snuffed out in a moment with genetic screening techiques. Organs could be grown in tanks for transplants, and as the demand for manpower surpassed the human population, massive strides were made in human cloning, and the supplemental field of robotics.

The Birth of the Cosmic Era
The Cosmic Era marked the end of the Second Renaissance. By the last part of the Second Renaissance , the breakneck pace of the expansion of arcanotech had slowed dramatically. While this might be seen as a peak point, it was really a leveling off. There were still many advances to be made, and new frontiers to open, but the deluge was over. Centuries old problems had been addressed, and many old questions and conundrums were answered, and it was a golden time of science and exploration (unless you happened to be in one of the labs or research facilities that vanished, was eaten by an elder god, or otherwise contaminated).

The terminus point of the Second Renaissance is generally marked as the collapse of the 3rdNet, and the later rebirth of the CogNet, though the truth is that the SR continued on well into the first couple of decades of the CogNet. The real marker is the slowdown in research breakthroughs, and the establishment of the Colonies. As mentioned, the rate of growth slowed, and this was a good thing, because many breakthroughs had come to quickly, to easily, and in many instances, the side effects and fallout from these breakthroughs hadn't been investigated fully. It was time to deal with the consequences, and the hormone fueled growth spurt of tech entered into it's maturity and began to polish and hone itself.

The urge to explore remained, and even facing the issues of a population shortage, space exploration restarted and along with it, colonialism. The experience of building arcos and geofronts on Earth made converting asteroids into habitats easy. Raising an arco on Mars or burrowing out geofront cities on the moon were actually easier than building on Earth due to the lower gravities. Lunar cities grew out of the bleak regolith faster than cities on Earth. Atmospheric processing towers were raised on Mars, and it is planned that the Red Planet will be a cold but habitable world in less that 300 years. Until then, its growing population lives in arco cities, and geofronts.

Who Are the Big Players?

There are a number of powers that everyone in the Cosmic Era is aware of. The New Earth Governments are power blocs that formed around the time period of the Oxygen Depletion Incident, during the early portion of the Second Renaissance. These powers are coalitions, confederations, and multi-nation alliances and vary from being very strongly unified to being their own worst enemies.

The Atlantic Federation:
Composed of Western Europe, the Eastern half of North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Central and Equatorial Africa, and a large number of space stations, habitats, and colonies on the Moon, Mars, and on several of Jupiter's Moons. The Atlantic Federation is big, it is powerful, it is patriotically pro-military, and like Oceania, it is constantly at war. Armed with fleets of flying battleships, divisions of giant robots, and a robust supersoldier and robot army, it strides proudly onto the field of conflict.

The Eurasian Alliance:
Also known as the Neo-Soviet Union, the Eurasian Alliance is composed of the poor parts of Central and Eastern Europe rejected by the Federation, North Africa, the wasteland ruins of the Middle East, Russia, and many of the former Soviet Bloc nations. The Alliance has lagged behind in advanced technology and the space race, but can win on the ground with its peerless submarine fleet, excellent aerospace fighters, and continued usage of heavy armor. The Alliance is nationalistic, hybrid socialist, and hearkens back to the Greatness of the old Soviet Union, and it's thriving masses of the proletariat, with military parades and institutionalized stoicism.

The Asian-Co-Prosperity Sphere:
Also known as China and Friends, the ACPS is composed of China, Tibet, all of SE Asia, Korea, and large portions of Indonesia, Mars, and a number of space stations and habitats. The ACPS has remained a cultural oasis, and has resisted the encroachment of megacorps and their corporate philosophies, meaning that off all the world powers, the ACPS is going to be culturally the most organic of the world powers. The ACPS is self-serving and is expanding it's power and borders through eugenics programs, genetic manipulation, and virtual warfare.

The Pacific Rim Coalition:
The PRC is a liberal progressive collection of nations the surround the Pacific Ocean, the most notable being Nippon aka Japan, the Western North American continent, Australia, and the island nations that do not want to be annexed by the Chinese leviathan. The PRC is technologically advanced, but it's moral attitudes and ideals have left it militarily vulnerable, demonstrated by the ACPS conquest of Korea in the last decade. Unless the Coalition finds a new backbone beyond the Army of Nippon, it is looking as a slow slide into second tier status.

The United States of South America:
Also known as the Amazon League, Amazonia, and Latinia, the USSA is united by a common culture heritage, a common landmass, a common history, and a unifying hatred of the Federation for its heavy handed militarism, and the Nipponese for their intrusiveness and attempts to collapse the USSA's culture and economy. The citizens and corporations of the USSA draw upon pre-Columbian mythology, imagry, and the ideals of a warrior culture and are determined to defend their continent from outside intrusion. Communism, statism, and economic stagnation are painfully common among the USSA member states.

The South African United Republics:
Better known as the SAUR, this new earth government is composed of a coalition of nations the occupy southern Africa, and have mutual economic, cultural, and military interests. These have welded together to the point that the nations are now more states than sovereign entities, and this suits the residents of the region, as they have banded together and have colonies in space, in the ocean, and have resisted the might of the Federation, and have Prevented that power from conquering all of Africa.

Free India:
The sole National Power, India has allies, but none of them are woven into a NEG pattern charter. India is a free nation, with a strong economy, strong presence in space, and a prominent position as the abode of choice for many of the world's shadowy organizations, as well as being a haven for criminals, smugglers, and online illegal operations. India retains it's culture, and what it lacks in technology, it more than makes up for in it's zeal, and ability to react strongly and quickly to threats around it. India has repulsed several ground wars started by the ACPS, and in some instances, forced that NEG to lose ground.

The New Economic Blocs

One of the hallmarks of both dystopian literature, movies, and the cyberpunk genre is the presence of the MegaCorporations. The MegaCorps miss the mark in most fiction, as the world's largest companies don't make guns, or sell drugs, they are banks, commodities trading companies, and corporations that as their business, own other businesses.

The MegaBanks:
The names of the MegaBanks aren't horribly important other than for letterhead purposes and who signs the checks. At the end of the day, these monsters spread their tentacles across nations, across NEG borders, across peoples, across entire worlds. Each and everyone of them is almost identical as they all exist for the same, sole purpose, the enrichment of their shareholders and the draconian will of their Boards of directors. They are represented by generic men in generic suits with scads of money, and obvious moral bankruptcy.
Examples: The Goliath Bank, Bank of the Northern Hemisphere, The Red Sun Bank, etc.

The TeleComms:
The CogNet is big big business, and it handles the largest part of the commerce through the entire Solar System. The companies that exist maintaining the infrastructure, designing new equipment, creating new code, new programs and enforcing cyber security make massive amounts of money. These megacorps have massive amounts of money, power, and are the behemoths in the virtual realm, and like the MegaBanks, they are cut from the same uniform templates, generic men and women in fashionable generic suits, with scads of money, low morals, and an interest not in just profit, but in entertainment and social media and controlling who, how, and what is said.
Examples: Atlantic Telecomm & TeleNet, Cyberdyne Systems, Orion Technologies, CognaPhone, Vivid-Sony, Rockstar, DisnEA, state sponsored corps.

Power Companies:
Electricity keeps the Cosmic Era turning, and while power is cheap, the companies that produce it make great amounts of money doing so. The Cosmic Era is power hungry on a scale that is staggering. Free energy has meant that the idea of conserving electricity is as absurd as breathing shallowly to conserve air. Arcos are electric, industrial geofronts are electric, the war machines and mass transit, and vertical farms, and magnetic rails launching shuttles into space all are electric. The Power companies are almost backwards in their presentation, with generic men and women in dated suits, with surly attitudes, scads of money, and a firm belief that he who controlls the Grid, controls the world. Damned if their not right, though.
Examples: Magnetar North American, MagnaVolt Technologies, Consolidated Electric, Industrial Light & Power

Classic MegaCorps:
The bottom tier MegaCorps are the ones most familiar to the dystopian reader, because for the most part bankers, media moguls, advertising executives, and power company liaisons aren't really interesting villains, even if they are more realistic. The classic MegaCorps do things like own large swaths of territory, have vertical zaibatsu structures, and are involved in construction, manufacture and distribution of sundry goods, large scale services, and military contracting.
Examples: Omni-Consumer Products, Union Aerospace Corporation, Cyberdyne-Grumman, Armadyne, SecuriCorp, Vault-Tec

Baddies

Without certified villains and bad guys, it's hard to have a proper setting. Someone has to be the assholes. Luckily, in the Cosmic Era, organized crime is big business, and as such there are several major terrorist groups, crime syndicates and megagangs.

Amerikka Command
Aka Cobra, the AC hearkens back to their antiquated biased misinformed idea of what 'Murica was and in the Cosmic Era, they fight to see that dream recovered. This generally involves primitive religious ideas, personal materialism, and rebellion against the pragmatism and collectivism of most of North America. Drawing from social outcastes, criminals, and disenfranchised veterans, the Command has turned most of the southern Rockies/North and central Texas into a North American version of Taliban Afghanistan. AC has indigenous support, access to heavy weaponry and military factories and can and does fight battles against the Atlantic Federation.

Shadowlaw
The biggest more organized criminal syndicate in the Eastern Hemisphere, this cartel of drug lords, gun smugglers, vice kings, political terrorists, despots and banana republic dictators have amassed a staggering amount of wealth from illegal shadowrunning, gambling, human and drug trafficking, and are among some of the worst people on the planet. Operating out of Indonesia and SE Asia, they are heavily armed, and have access to powerful arcanotech including major advancements in genetic modding and supersoldier information stolen from the PRC and the ACPS. Shadowlaw is well known for violence, staging martial arts tournaments, criminal biomodification, and torture.

Black Dragon Society
The Black Dragon is a massive guns, drugs, and money criminal organization that has a heavy hand and strong presence in the Western portion of North America and has made inroads in Central America, and the USSA. The Black Dragon is violent, remorseless, ruthless, and where they lack heavy weapons and advanced tech, they have numbers recruited from favela dwelling street gangs, disgraced mercenaries and discharged military and war criminals on their side.

Armas
A European threat, Armas wants to see Europe united again into an independent power, free of both the Federation and the Alliance. This has lead to constant violence and terrorism along the AtFed/EA border, and major hotspots in France, Italy, Spain, and the Balkan Peninsula (Shocking, I know). Armas is internationally savvy, as has allies with Amerikka Command and Shadowlaw facilitating the flow of technology, equipment, and information between these powers. While not a huge immediate threat, Armas and it's charming agents are the glue that hold the criminal underworld together.

Python Patrol
A maritime terrorist/pirate organization, the Python Patrol operates out of Australia and Indonesia, where it is a threat to the PRC, the ACPS, and even clashes with the agents of Shadowlaw. The Patrol is heavily armed, psychotically violent, and receives funding from the government of Australia, as the Patrol has formed a strong buffer between the Land Down Under and China and it's regional ideas of Manifest Destiny. The Patrol is primarily a racist organization bent on hunting down ethnic Chinese and killing them.

Others:
The Foot Clan, the Mafia, street gangs in the favelas and megaslums, Mad Gear Gang, Local Drug cartels, regional banditry and rogue mercenary organizations.

The History

RESOURCE WARS: 2068-2120

POPULATION CONTRACTION: 2128-2251

by **Skaldia** » Mon Sep 08, 2014 10:55 am

The History Cont.

THE SECOND RENAISSANCE: 2275-2305 CY

The Factions

The Second Renaissance didn't magically bloom around the world in a very short amount of time. The expansion of technology took decades, little was willingly shared. Technology was spread through trade, lend lease agreements, long term treaties, theft and espionage, and other less than savory means. The Eurasian Alliance was the last of the New Earth Governments to form, and it was also the last power to enter the Cosmic Era. This has given it two broad associations, being backwards and being slow. Neither is exactly true, but then there has to be a grain of truth to a stereotype for it to remain.

Duncan Duncannon, Northwind Arcology, Scotland

Roots
The origin of the Eurasian Alliance are tied to the economic disparity in Europe and non-Chinese Asia. Going through the Second Dark age, much of Russia and the former Soviet nations were particularly hard hit. The population contraction was particularly severe in states like the Ukraine, Serbia, Belarus, Greece, and Turkey. These nations had largely subsisted on technological and economic support from stronger nations around them, or had subsisted on economic based trade such as food goods, mines, and manufacturing tied to a low cost of labor workforce. The Second Dark Age was less devastating in many NATO countries, who had built first generation arcologies, and were working with nuclear and hybrid reactors.

While Russia might be the core of the Eurasian Alliance, it is not it's point of origin. The Eurasian Alliance started germinating after the Third Paris Accord, which laid out the European nations that would be joining the Atlantic Federation. A good number of the nations who attended the accord were denied membership in the Federation. There were many reasons, some nations, like Greece, were little more than anarchist states, others were given the thumbs down because of the shattered nature of their economies, ecological damage, and a variety of other reasons.

The Mediterranean League was formed from Spain, Italy, and Greece as a counterpoint to the European branch of the Atlantic Federation. Italy lead with the largest (fascist at the time) military, supported by Spain's wounded but not dead economy. The Mediterranean League was a disaster from the start as Spain demanded control of the League finances, while Italy expected to consolidate control over all the member militaries. Both were denied as both were correctly suspected of planning to usurp control of the league through their strategy. The two nations were quickly embroiled in a low intensity war that was only ended after the involvement of the Pro-European Union anti-Federation Armas terrorist organization.

Armas lead the Mediterranean League for almost thirty years. During that time, the League expanded to occupy Crete, Sicily, the Balkan Pensinsula and parts of North Africa.

The Corporations

by **Skaldia** » Mon Sep 08, 2014 10:55 am

The Corporations Cont.

by **Skaldia** » Mon Sep 08, 2014 10:56 am

The Corporations Cont. II

For hardcore gamers who read all the background material in the game books, you might recognize the UAC. The UAC is the fictional megacorp that is responsible for releasing Hell on Earth through the Doom franchise.

Union Aerospace
UAC is the largest and most powerful megacorporation in the Atlantic Federation. It began as a coalition of enterprises in the Military Industrial complex of the Commonwealth of New England where it made warships, aircraft, and spaceships. It expanded, building civilian ships and aircraft and power begets power. The UAC would grow to eventually 'purchase' the entire former state of New Jersey. Once this was done, the UAC became a proper Zaibatsu style megacorp and owned everything from the top of the Union Federation Credit Bank (UFCB) down to the quickie marts and sanitation reclamation zones.

Union Aerospace is the largest supplier of mechs, warships, firearms, power armors, and weapon systems in the world. It's goods are exported around the world, and off of earth to the colonies on the Moon, Mars, the Asteroid Belt, and beyond. It's creation of ion drive spacecraft, magnetic resonant shielding, and mass driver construction technologies have made it not just the most important megacorp to the Federation, but the entity singly most responsible for the rapid and mass colonization of space.

Aside from owning the former state of New Jersey, the UAC (always 'the' never just) also has legal ownership of both of Mars' moons, Phobos and Deimos, as well as owning no fewer than 13 asteroids that have been moved into earth orbit, mined out, and rebuilt as some of the best offworld real estate in the solar system.

The Good
UAC is a leader in space exploration, space exploration technologies and offworld resource gathering efforts. It has mining operations throughout the asteroid belt, on Mars, and major construction efforts at the LaGrange points and on the moon. It is the second largest employer in the Atlantic Federation (only surpassed by the Federation government and military)
The Bad
The UAC was a founding member of the New Economic Bloc Treaty Organization (NEBTO) which has promoted human cloning, downgraded human rights in various nations, and promoted militarism as an effective model of economic growth.

The UAC has also been a primary supporter of the Federation Corporate Party in the government. While the Commonwealth of New England has remained in largely in the hands of the American Socialist Party, the Corporate Party has made major inroads against the establishment, as well as all but conquering the neighboring Great Lakes Republic (via Omni-Consumer Products). This party, while not really that attractive, has lots and lots of money and money talks.

The Ugly
The UAC has two hideous secrets. It has been actively pursuing pointless skirmishes and low level wars between the Federation and other smaller powers to maintain its pro-military stance. No on buys tanks unless there is a war on. The ongoing hostilities in Africa between Congo (AF) and the South African United Republics (SAUR) have been egged on and incited in several instances by UAC runners. Likewise conflicts in MesoAmerica, the Levant, and the Kingdom of Scandinavia.

Secondly, the UAC has been doing a lot of black budget work with arcanotechnology. They are messing with things that are patently beyond the ken of mankind. They have accidentally created several 'storm surges' that have resulted in cosmic horrors, zombie outbreaks, and mutations that they have worked diligently to cover up, research and exploit, and weaponize. If a single world power was going to wipe out humanity for doing something stupid, it will likely come from a UAC letterhead.

by **Skaldia** » Mon Sep 08, 2014 12:27 pm

The Corporations Cont. III

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

The Tomas Brothers
The Tomas Brothers hailed from a small island in the Mediterranean, most likely Corsica or Sicily. They are identical twins and had an interesting life growing up. The short version involves a troubled youth spent flirting with counter culture movements and anti government revolutionaries. Rather than ending up being attached to a Eurasian naval group, the brothers fled south and joined a mercenary company in North Africa. Rather than seeing combat, they ended up in the legal section of the group, handling pay, contract negotiation and other matters financial. After leaving that company they both pursued higher education in France before heading west to the Americas.

The Federation Connection
The Brothers used their skills and life experiences to take over a small cloning technology company and started making and selling their greatest asset, themselves. The brothers started cloning themselves, working with the engram mind programming and other technologies to make each clone they produced the best that could be had. Now these clones were not 'sold' since the buying, selling, and owning of sentient beings is illegal, they were hired out. The Tomas clone gained a reputation as a ruthless legal hawk, unflinching and unafraid in even the most hostile courtroom. They also gained a notoriety for being somewhat lacking in morals, willing and able to represent the worst human scum.
After several years, the Tomas clone series had made itself influential and well connected, and the original Brothers Tomas started pulling in those contacts and favors. The corporation swelled as the cloned brothers turned over favors, secrets, blackmailings, coercions and other things they had gathered over their years of working. The corporation expanded it's facilities, and gained the ability to start mass creating clones, rather than the small groups that had been produced before. They officially founded Unione Clone Corp, placing it's legal headquarters in Brussels, Belgium and production facilities in key locations, the most notable being found in the Republic of Texas, France, and Cuba.

Unione Clone Corp quickly began it's three prong assault on the world. It's legal offices and services were expanded. Now instead of a single Tomas brother clone lawyer, a team would be brought in, a lead Clone supported by as many as three more Tomas clones. These clones would spend hours preparing for cases, and many of their courtroom antics, starting and finishing sentences for each other, were quickly woven into the stereotypes about all clones. The Legal offices raked in money and favors as they represented a variety of wealthy if unsavory clients. Their training involves mock courtroom trials of famous criminals of the past, ranging from psychpaths and serial killers to dictators and madmen. Those who are able to pull off the biggest cases, such as defending Hitler successfully are given lead roles.

UCC also started creating special soldiers, clones of the brothers that delved deeper into their military service, and integrating in vitro military training. These UCC clone troopers were not created to be gun toting red shirts, but rather special forces, doing commando work to driving high end mecha and combat vehicles. Many were employed as bodyguards to ambassadors and dignitaries and other important people, as well as doing things like SWAT, counter-terrorism, and other dangerous jobs. An underground organization hires the largest percentage of the UCC clones, and works in tandem with UCC with the legal branch frequently representing members of said organization that end up on the wrong side of police or military detainment.

Disposable People
The Tomas Brothers were cold, ruthless, and intelligent. Few knew when they actually perished from old age, or incident. But by the time the Panoz and Jakob died, there were approximately 3,800 Tomas brother pairs. They saw the world in terms of numbers, not in any humane or moral sense and if regular humans are expendable, then clones, even clones of themselves were by design disposable. This is a common theme with clones and cloning in the Cosmic era. Clones are treated as second class citizens and worse. Clone soldiers are a wartime materiel and not personnel, and in many organizations a dead clone is treated the same was a vehicle that has been scrapped or a single use weapon like a heavy anti-armor missile.

The Tomas brothers believed this, and their clones are pre-indoctrinated to also believe this. This has lead to them being fanatical in whatever field they follow, as most matters are treated as victory or death. Tomas clones are monsters to fight as they refuse to surrender, and will very quickly resort to asymmetrical warfare, terrorism, and other very negative aspects of the face of war.

Other Factions

by **Skaldia** » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:28 pm

Other Factions Cont.

by **Skaldia** » Mon Sep 08, 2014 2:45 pm

Other Factions Cont. II

Robotics is serious business
Much like how Apple devices are built today, the autons, robots, and other simulacra of the Cosmic Era are also manufactured in such a way to discourage home customization, modification, or repair. Only licensed technicians in approved facilities are approved to made repairs or upgrades to robots or autons.

The Clockmakers
Clockmakers are the underground robotics technicians who work on and modify mechanoids, illegally. Clockmakers often keep shops that are locally known for tinkering and making minor repairs, and have signs with timepieces or watches on them. The clockmaker is an important figure in the geofronts andslums, as their work keeps the machines working and technology limping along a few more days.

Usage:
Figure of Importance: inside the underworld communities, the clocksmith is likely the most skilled individual, and in more good aligned sectors, they are going to be council members or otherwise leaders of the community. In more chaotic and criminal sectors, they are going to the slaves of the warlords, or their supporters, giving them fighting machines for their defense.

Illegal Alteration: If a droid inside the city goes off of the rails, there are only two potential reasons, infection by a hostile program or virus, or the deliberate alteration by a clocksmith. This would send investigators looking for who did the modification, and why it was done. Droids can be reprocessed to steal, commit crimes, perform terrorist actions, or function as a vector of a viral attack.

Custom Work: colorful robots and outlandish work is the sure sign of a savvy clockmaker, and each will sort out their own style, a sort of combination of a fashionista, mad scientist, and garage monkey. This custom work is most often seen in underworld entourages and robosports.
RoboSympathizer: the clocksmith is a supporter of robotic rights, and works to create as many sentient machines as possible to support their cause. This can be problematic as machine intelligence and human intelligence are not the same thing.

Technology:
The core of being a face dancer is the mutable face. The technology is relatively simple, and only requires a scan of the face to be replicated and a medical grade polyforge. The new face is 'printed' out as a prosthetic, using an electrosensitive biopolymer. This is the sort of material that is commonly used to put synthetic skin over artificial limbs where growing real skin would be problematic. These compounds are not difficult to come by as they are commonly used by people with cybernetic augmentation.

The Face of a Face Dancer
Under the mask, a person who wishes to be a face dancer has to undergo a procedure where muscle tracer inlays have to be implanted in their face. Without these inlays, the mask being worn would look like a mask glued to their face. The muscle tracers relay electrical impulses to the mask, which the electrosensitive polymers respond to. Thus, the wearer smiles, and the mask smiles as well. This limits the number and scope of people who are willing or able to become face dancers.

Why not more? There is certainly a market for people who can in a few hours literally become another person, especially with a good ghost team behind them, keeping up the fake virtual presence as well. The facial work is the drawback. Once implanted, the tracers are tied into the facial and cranial nerves making removal painful and difficult. If done wrong, it can leave a person with facial paralysis or worse. Face dancers eventually lose their own facial expressions, as the material used can often amplify gestures, so a twitch of the lip is all that is required for a smile, while a normal smile on the wearer turns into a Nicholson Joker rictus on the mask. Long time users end up with a largely blank or neutral expression as they have spent countless hours cultivating their skill to use a fake face. In areas like law enforcement, there exists a certain level of trust that is still required, and police units that have employed on staff face dancers see a dramatically lower approval rating. The populace has accepted the wojek artificial cops, but when they see a human face in uniform, they need to believe who they are talking to is who they are talking to.

Application:
The Face Dancer is a mole, an infiltrator, and saboteur, making a living from imitating other people. There are two prominent groups of face dancers in the Cosmic Era, shadowrunners and low tier actors. Shadowrunners use face dancing as a way to hide their identity and ply their work as low profile operatives. Why launch a massive shadow war to steal files, when a good face dancer with a nice rack can put on a pretty face, saunter into the offices and get a job as an information technologist, and in a few weeks, oops her way into the mainframe, steal the data and then apologize to the boss for breaking the console. No muss, no fuss, and no one the wiser, until six months later when the aforementioned data is sold on the black market.

Low level actors and actresses have resorted to this technology to imitate more successful artists, ranging from working in porn parodies, to B and C grade level entertainment copies of popular media streams. There is significant legal action, as well as media based shadow ops to hunt down and eliminate this underground faction, to destroy their mask making operations, and so forth.

The spy community uses face dancers as well, but the biometric scanning and other identification technology used in sensitive areas can usually beat a face dancing mask. The mask only changes the appearance of the wearer's face. It doesn't change their voice (there are cybernetic implants that do, an Tracheal Vox will allow for extreme voice modification) nor does it change retinal patterns, or genetic/biometric data like gene scans, fingerprints, etc. These can all be be overcome through various methods such as artificial eyes, synthetic skin gloves, and so forth. The level of modification required to use these devices

Kroenen, the Faceless Man
The Faceless Man is a whisper in the spy community, a bad dream among the shadowrunner networks, and one of the most feared and hated people on the planet. Little is known about Kroenen, even the name is just one of the aliases adopted by the agent, even his gender is in question. What is none is that Kroenen is an extreme level cybernetically enhanced individual, and suspected of being a high level parapsychic as well. His body is presumably stripped down to the minimum, allowing for his to create elaborate disguises that include growing an organic outer shealth cultured from the DNA of the person he plans on imitating. He has extensive modifications, and a suspected modular body system, allowing him to exchange body parts as needed. Should a security system have a breath analyzer, he'll have cultured a set of lungs, if not, it's the gas respirator in his torso. Kroenen's mimicry seemingly knows no bounds, as he can as easily become a woman, a man, any race, and can appear as anything from the late teens into old age. Anyone could be Kroenen. The agent has extensive skills with firearms, melee weapons, improvised weaponry, demolitions, and an array of other skills. It is suspected that he has a cybernetically altered brain allowing him to chip-jack skills, so that he can can become an expert on any skill as needed by a job.

All these rumors are fine and dandy, and the Faceless Man should be a terrifying foe, but it leaves two questions that should be more worrisome. Who has provided the tech and bio support for the Faceless Man? That level of tech requires maintenance, and it is neither cheap, nor simple. Secondly, who employs the Faceless Man, and to what end?

Trick, Turn, and Prestige
Also known as the Magicians, the trio are a group of Face Dancers who make their living by doing high level infiltration. The trio will insinuate themselves into a community, agency, or corporation, typically moving into low level clerical or servitor jobs. While there they will lay out plans to hit the target they are after. They don't kill, don't carry out abductions, or cause collateral damage. Their specialty is data theft. Trick is androgynous, having moving to a genderless biology. This allows Trick to emulate men, women, or larger bodied children. Turn is an average sized man, but is a master of distraction and has a silver tongue. Prestige is an empath and psychic projector, and appears differently to anyone she meets. The trio are very good at what they do, and have a altruistic tradition of giving a large portion of their wealth to various charities and foundations that are commonly in need.

Author's Note: Face Dancers were inspired by a trio of sources, the mask wearing agents of Mission Impossible, the cult film Darkman, and the Face Dancers of the Dune universe. (There is also a band called the Face Dancers, so it seems the name isn't trademarked)

by **Skaldia** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 7:46 am

Other Factions Cont. III

by **Skaldia** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 10:25 am

Other Factions Cont. IV

Location/s

Our incomplete records of the Imbrians repeatedly refer to something that translates roughly to 'alcazar' and it is a regular feature among the most youthful and vigorous dynasts. The alcazar seems to have been a combination of a personal sanctum, a bedroom, and possibly the Imbrian equivalent of a med-pod, but in a much different fashion. The Heart of the Alcazar was a small circular pool, which was filled with what we assume to be a highly advanced formula of amnion. This fluid, presumably a smart liquid, was instrumental in preserving the life functions of the dynasts. It would seem that even their Phoenix Engines had limits, or costs, that made them less than the perfect solution. With the Heart of the Alcazar and it's rejuvenation serum pool, an Imbrian dynast could prolong their lifespan by centuries, moving rebirths through the Phoenix Engine to once a century, or less.

The Alacazar was a feature of the typical Dynast palace. The palaces were all placed in harmonious locations, and drew on latent arcane power flows, as well as having advanced technology. This tech was advanced to the point that there was little difference between it and magic, and many of the Dynasts themselves had little to no knowledge of how their palaces and arcana worked. They only knew that they did, and that was enough. Bathing in the Heart of the Alacazar would restore biological youth and vigor to the host, rendering flesh firm and supple, clear of blemish and signs of age. The nature of the Alcazar would see this regenerative effect move inward, restoring vitality to muscles, organs, and bones as well. The only things that the restorative wouldn't mend were injuries of the spirit, and maladies of the mind.

There are seeds of truth around the world, and the alcazar survived the destruction of Imbria, and the fall of the last Imbrian city on Earth, Atlantis. Surely you've heard of the Fountain of Youth, or El Dorado? El Dorado was an Imbrian retreat in the Americas, and it had the only alcazar on this entire miserable planet. It is still there, broken and ruined, and buried under 10,000 years of sediment. It's not far from Machu Pichu. It wouldn't matter if you fixed it, and knew how to fix it, because the Vita Vitae is long gone. You couldn't make it work again unless you knew how to make more of the Water of Life. If you knew how it was made, heh, you would never make a drop of it.

Alcazars and the Dynasty
The number of alcazars and the flow of aqua vitae were carefully controlled during the Imbrian dynasty, because these, along with the Phoenix Engines, were the Dynast's monopoly on immortality. Their foes were never able to match them simply because they could never come close to the wisdom or personal experience of the dynasts. A man in his 30s, regardless of his wit or skill, is going to be able to surprise a foe who is well into their third century of life. Each of the branches of the dynasty controlled a single alcazar, which was the demense of the leader of each branch. They could dole out its use to those who had earned it, or had asked it as a boon, but this was rare.

The new dynasty, the new elite are starting to understand the concept of the alcazar. The central point of the common person's domicile is the central entertainment system. In poorer places, the central area is the kitchen, or the bedroom. In the arcanotech savvy wealthy soon to be immortal class, the personal med-pod is the center of their domicile. The daily diagnosis and adjustment replaces the morning bathroom ritual, ensuring the continued day to day health of the would be immortal. The humors are balanced, the brain soothed by smartbed sleep. The only thing that hasn't reached the old technology of the Imbrians is the application of amnion.

The Secret of Imbrian Amnion
In the Cosmic Era, amnion is refined from the excretions of several captured and sedated teratomorphs and exomorphic creatures. Other sources exist, but are considered too expensive and ghastly inefficient. The Imbrians, with their near perfect immortality would never dream of using kaiju sourced amnion. Imbrian amnion was refined from human beings.

There is a thing called a duck press. The whole carcass of a cooked duck is placed in the screw driven press and crushed, producing a sluice of fluids is issued from the spout. The imbrian Dynasty had an entire undercaste of people who existed for the sole purpose of being harvested. They would be prepared, with rituals and arcanotech, and then their bodies would be crushed and rendered of their most vital fluids. This would be purified, refined, and processed until it was a slightly viscous fluid. This was the amnion of the Imbrians.

The part that there is no record of, the horror that no one particularly knows is that the Imbrian Dynasts favored pregnant women above all others. A woman in the 7th month of pregnancy was considered prime for the Amnion Forge. The undercaste was groomed to raise their daughters, to impregnate them and offer them as sacrifice to their immortal demigod leaders. The more pregnant they were, the better. There were rituals, drugs, and procedures done so that the sacrificial victims could be nearly immobile, laden down with dozens of fetuses gestating within them.

Those who learn the secrets of the Imbrians find their esteem for the ancients diminished, and a greater appreciation for the fact that they are no more.

Appearance:
Alpha City is an impressive structure, and is a ziggurat arcology sitting on artificial island surrounded by an artificial moat/lake. Twenty-six major roads connect Alpha City to it's supporting satellite districts. The lower tier of the ziggurat is just over half a mile tall, and has a large open platform that functions as an aerodrome and base for aerostats and a functional tethervator (space elevator precursor that uses aerostats and magnetic tethers to move containers ships higher and higher until it can be boosted into orbit. The rest of the ziggurat surface serves as the ground floor for over a dozen super highrises, creating an utterly unique skyline for the city. The 'steps' of the ziggurat have more super highrises in rows, creating the image of stairs leading to heaven.

The island is reinforced material and serves as the base of a massive Castle Avalon. Many of the super highrises are shells that house the hundred meter long barrels of anti-ship gauss cannons that hit targets in orbit. There are concealed missile silos housing building size missiles that can reach targets in lunar orbit. The core of the Castle Avalon is the Alpha City geofront, which is the great and massive arsenal of the city. It contains dozens of polyforge factories, munitions factories, and body farms for churning out weapons and soldiers to use them.

The moat is an entirely artificial body of water and is does double duty as a heat circulation system for the industries inside the geofront, and as a host for a tropical aquarium style seacology. People live in the lap of luxury under the water, looking at massive genimal fish, supersized versions of salt water coral reef fish.

Places of Interest:
Olympus - the ultra-luxury demi-arco that is the central feature of the skyline, and the base of the tethervator, Olympus is among the tallest structures on Earth, and it houses the hyper and ultra wealthy who make their residence in the city. Most of these individuals have multiple residences, often including homes on other planets, in orbit, and even private islands or space habitats entirely to themselves.

Grand Mezzanine - the Grand Mezzanine is a massive commercial and common space district that is the core of Alpha City, and is located in the center of the ziggurat. It has sunlight directed into the core, and is as much a commercial and cultural focal point as it is a literal hanging garden. The entire sector is a display of technological prowess and wizardry, leaving many thinking that the area is many magnitudes larger than it actually is.

Castle Ultima - the official title of the Castles Avalon structure, Ultima is an armored curtain wall wrapped around the geofront, and houses not just the mecha barracks, aerodrome, and the more than impressive anti-ship weaponry concealed within.

Rumors:
The Empty City - despite all of the splendor and technology in Alpha City, the city is empty. No one is interested in placing anything built as such a massive fortress. Having a billionaire's wealth means that you don't have to live in or anywhere near something as strategic as a mega-fortress. The city isn't truly empty, it still has staff and residents, but these are people who have been assigned to the city for various reasons. Employees of service industries, but with no customers. One version of this rumor is that Alpha City is a grandiose real estate venture that went tits up. Another version is that the city is a honeypot, a lure to draw in potential enemies so they can be revealed and dealt with. The most popular version is that Alpha City was a headhunter trap, and that the powerful realized that if they ever stepped foot in the city, it would become their prison, and they would be made into the puppets of those in charge of the city.

The Satrapy Configuration - the problem of Alpha City is that is not self sufficient as many arcologies are. It is instead reliant on the territories around it for food, water recycling, and so forth. The workforce required to support Alpha City would number in the tens of thousands, and would only grow as the city population increased. This is expanded to cover that Alpha city has no green towers, no internal manufacturing ability.

An Accident - the construction of Alpha City has almost no record or paper trail, and to most of the world it rather sort of just appeared. The rumor is that the existing information was falsified and that Alpha City literally did just appear out of nowhere, a massive fortress city, devoid of inhabitants, but bristling with weaponry. Most shrug, dimensional fatigue event? and move on with their lives.

by **Skaldia** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 1:44 pm

Location/s Cont.

Armisael Station
Armisael Station is a triple torus station, the three rings nested inside each other to create a gyroscope configuration. Conditions in the outer ring are near earth normal for gravity and air density. The middle ring is closer to Martian conditions, and the inner ring is close to Lunar standard. The core module has zero gravity and is laid out in a efficiency model that doesn't give concessions to the typical human two dimensional model of thinking. The holo-projection table is technically located on the ceiling of the command center, and most of the crew belt into their stations and can have a core axis that put them on the walls, upside down, and normal configuration. There are many handrails and link points for the crew to move around in the space.

The main purpose of the station is as a communications relay and observation point, with the ability to handle stellar cartography. When in operation, all three of the rings rotate on their main axis, and spin in a gyroscopic configuration. The station is enormously stable even when operating at peak performance.

Crew: Normal - 800, max occupancy 2,200, skeleton 18

Offensive Capability: point defense and anti-debris systems only, Armisael is classified as unarmed, and has no anti-aerospace or anti-ship firepower.

Defensive Capability: Modest armor, and has the ability to carry and service an aerospace squadron. Normally the station only has 3-5 fighters, and the rest of the space is taken up by tugs, small craft, and construction aerospace craft.

Behind the scenes: Armisael is a piece of psychotronic arcanotechnology and the entire station is an alpha wave transmitter and psychotronic 'beam' device. In passive mode, the station can 'read' the alpha wave patterns of the humans and sentient non-machine intelligences in its field of view. This isn't mind reading, but rather taking pictures of the surface of the ocean and discerning the currents. In active mode, it operates as a megascale emotion radiator. While not staggeringly powerful in this configuration, Armisael can mimic the effect of normal emotion radiators in arcologies, but can affect hundreds or even thousands of square miles. In its most devastating configuration, strike mode, Armisael can fire a psychotronic beam, the psi-disrupter. This beam completely disrupts the neural pathways and synapses in organic nerve tissue. This causes immediate catatonic state, seizures, and in some cases, death. After a psi-disrupter blast the population in the strike zone is left in a mental break state, disoriented, and will have to make difficult mental checks to avoid psychosis, neural divergence, and mental illness.

Use: Armisael Station is a wonderweapon designed to pacify large areas, allowing them to be quickly taken and occupied. It can also be used to completely disable rebellious population centers, or act as a 'happy beam' to undermine social based problems.

Straight to the Business
The heart of the Bady Farm is the storage facility. Individual clone bodies are stored in vertical racks, packed between two layers of thick bioplastic. The body has several lines and tubes plugged into it, keeping the body alive, but in a suspended animation. These racks are attached to each other to make large walls of clones that are stored like racks in a beehive. There are fluid pumps that capture waste materials, clean blood, and keep a steady flow of nutrients to the clones. Damaging this system can set up septic shock, anemia, or starvation in the hosts.

Staff
A Body Farm with have a small administrative area, a small number of mundane employees who monitor the machines and bodies, generally 1 worker to 100 clones, and 1 admin for every 10 workers.

Security
All body farms represent a significant investment in resources. As such, most body farms have a sizeable security force, generally 2 security personnel for every normal staff person. This is mundane security equipped with normal low profile body armor, basic sidearms, and communications equipment. For every 10 security personnel, there is a single paramilitary power armor security officer. This is basic power armor, and equipped with non-military weaponry. For every 10 power armor personnel, there is a power armor captain who is armed with military grade gear.

The Stuff
Why all this security for clone farms?

Black Market Organs - black market surgeons and underground body modifiers need fresh meat. Clones are easily chopped up, and most of them have O negative blood, making them universal donors. Stealing live bodies with no legal status is big money to those brave and amoral enough.

Clone Theft - Good clone bodies can be sold on the black market exactly like slaves. These clones end up in the worst places, and many have poorly constructed personas downloaded into them. It is still a large payoff for anyone willing to do it.

Fresh Meat - in the less savory parts of the world, protein is protein, and clone meat is still meat. This isn't a big payoff, but the people willing to steal mindless bodies to eat aren't going to be the talk rationally and compromise sorts.

Secret Batch - body farms can be used as long term storage for people, ranging from dissidents to criminals. In this pancaked suspension, they are completely helpless.

Special Order - Most body farms have just mundane clones, but some have special order supersoldiers, potential parapsychics, mentats, and other special made clones that are dramatically more valuable.

by **Skaldia** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 3:54 pm

Locations Cont. II

I was quite excited when I was assigned to a Class 0 science and research facility. There are no facilities more secure, or working on more potentially reality altering applications of arcanotech. These sites, they are remote, incredibly remote, so that if something goes wrong that the damage is contained, and if something truly horrific happens, the reflex teams, or the fleet will have time to respond. The incident and the UAC facilities above Huo Hsing proved to some planners that 33 million miles was too close. Those sort of things are kept under wraps, no one back home needs to know that there are really alternate dimensions, and in them there are aliens, and giant ass monsters, or things worse than that.

But that is what Cykranosh is about, it's about looking into those things, those terrible things that mortal man, mundane man, was not meant to know. There are great and wondrous things to be found, immortality, magic, teleportation, reaching other stars, other worlds. There is also madness, and death, to be forgotten, or lost, but these are the risks of the great explorers.

Cykranosh Ader-Wissenschaft Aerostat
The Cykranosh facility is an aerostat floating along the boundary between the stratosphere and mesosphere of Saturn's atmosphere. The facility is shaped roughly like a jellyfish. The upper dome of the facility is approximately 3 kilometers wide and is actually the gas bladder that keeps the facility floating. Inside is a mixture of helium and hydrogen that is under thermic control. It can be heated or cooled to cause the facility to rise or sink into the atmosphere. The actual research centers and habitation sections of the facility are held in the central stalk and the gondola that hangs under the main dome. The gondola hangs almost another kilometer beneath the dome and has facilities to house 200 scientists and engineers, as well as the 100 crew and technicians who keep the facility in working order.

Cykranosh is owned and operated by the New Hanseatic League faction of the Atlantic Federation, and is just one of several Ader-Wissenschaft facilities in the Solar System. The design is largely self sufficient, and the gas dome is dynamic allowing a universal construction model to be built and dropped into almost any atmosphere in the Solar system (except for Mars and Earth, the former having too thin an atmosphere, and the latter having too high a gravity). Roughly half of the facilities remain under the control of the New Hanseatic League, while the other half are owned and operated by corporate interests or Federation allied nations.

Cykranosh has a tandem purpose, it is a science research station working on technology for atmospheric studies, gas extraction, and such, but it is also a listening post for the Federation's Bureau of Intrasolar Communications. A half dozen facility crewmen work for the BiC, and relay coded messages back to Earth, and other listening posts through the solar system. While the Anunnaki and the Glassenheim Foundation are aware of Cykranosh, it is considered beneath their concerns, as it is an industrial research facility, and even a dedicated surveillance facility would struggle to catch even a glimpse of anything going on at Iapetus

Cykranosh is serviced every six months, and this is the standard tour of duty on the station. It is considered a strategic asset by the Federation, along with the Cygnus Gas Harvester Conglomerate (southern region of Saturn) and the Titan Colonies.
The station symbol is a Swan sporting a double halo, resembling Saturn's Rings.

by **Skaldia** » Tue Sep 09, 2014 6:04 pm

Locations Cont. III

While the Atlantic Federation was spending it's staggering budget to explore space travel, mecha, ever more powerful computers, and promoting it's own electronic culture of decadence, the Eurasian Alliance got on with what it was good at. Instead of mechs, it built tanks capable of fighting the giant stomping machines. It used what it had, and expanded on it. Rather than contending with the greater resources of the Atlantic Federation in space, the Alliance found their Achillies heel. Water.

The Atlantic Federation, composed of Eastern North America, Mexico, the Carribbean, Western Europe, and Equatorial Africa is completely accessable and vulnerable by water. And the past proved that the largest member state of the Eurasian Alliance, Russia, was very good at building submarines. The Alliance quickly filled the oceans with their own fleets of submarines. Magentic catepillar engines made them quiet, while Dimensional Fatigue engines made them tireless. The subs were able to reach new depths, and were only limited by the amount of food they could carry, and the endurace of the crews.

It was little surprise that the Alliance started investing in underwater arcologies. Dubbed Seacologies, these types of habitats were already popular in the ACPS, which struggled with it's huge population and limited technological resources. The new Alliance Seacologies quickly grew around the Mediterranean, the Baltic Sea, and the arctic. These settlements attracted many occupants, offering jobs, and security. The seacologies quickly proved their value through undersea mining, exporting food production, and creating a vital tourist industry in the more forgiving locales. But the main purpose of the undersea cities was the maintenance and resupply of the submarine fleet. By the time the Atlantic Federation realized the extent of the Alliance aquatic theatre they were more than a decade behind. The Alliance had 24 seacologies, all strategically placed and well defended, and a fleet of over 150 capitol subs. This wasn't counting the endless stream of commercial and privately owned submarines that the Alliance manufactured and sold around the world to other nations that operated seacologies.

Then Gibraltar fell. The Alliance Fleet occupied the island with marines and the garrison was taken without a single casualty. The flags were changed, and while ambassadors screamed and shouted at each other, the Alliance knew that the island was theirs, and with it, access to the Atlantic from the Mediterranean.

Gibraltar Seacology Complex
Owing to it's sunny climate, Gibraltar became very popular as a destination for Alliance vacationers. The surface of the island remained largely unchanged. Contrary to Federation fears, the Alliance didn't build a major airbase there, or a military installation for launching mecha based raids against Federation states in Europe. What the Alliance did do was to build a major seacology in the waters around Gibraltar. Soon, the population of the island, above and below water reached almost half a million from its Federation population of some 30,000. The base of the island saw major excavation and construction as the seacology was built to house and repair even the largest Alliance submarines.

Complex 1
Complex 1 is the core of the seacology. The primary power supply is generated here by means of a two stage cascade D-Engine. It is also the location of the primary computer core, the CIC for routing civilian surface and submarine craft around the western edge of the Mediterranean, and the primary communication hub for the underwater city. This complex has no residential areas and no residents.

Complex 2
Complex 2 is the deepest part of the seacology and is burrowed into the base of the island. It has facilities to house and drydock up to eight Alliance Naval Submarines at a time, and can do full engine and propulsion repairs, as well as computer diagnostics. Complex 2 has it's own seperate power supply, computer core, and communications system. The arsenal and magazines of missiles and torpedoes are locked up in Complex 2. It is highly restriced access, and most non-military residents believe that Complex 2 is the mechanical support system for the seacology.

Complexes 3-9
These seven complexes compose the residential core of the seacology, and house just over 350,000 people in total. Most are involved with nothing more than the operation of a basic seacology, providing civilian services, running businesses, and enjoying living in the warm waters of the Mediterranean. The island has for it's industry aquaculture of shellfish, prawn, and kelp harvesting and aside from tourism, is its primary industry. Complex 9 is the most involved in tourism, and houses most of the civilian submarines, and surface sport fishing boats.

Complex 10
The actual mechanical section, all of the access points to Complex 10 have the number 2 written on them. This complex houses the water recycling facilities, waste management systems, and the medical waste disposal unit. The small detention center for Gibraltar is also located in 10.

The Atlantic Foyer, Red Alley, the Alliance Toilet. After losing Gibraltar the Mediterranean became a major liability to the Atlantic Federation. Prior to it's fall, the Rock was one of the choke points the Federation had to contain the Alliance. At the time the Federation didn't consider the Alliance to be a threat, and its attention was focused instead on the ACPS, which was routinely starting skirmishes with the Federation across Africa, and its escalating cyber warfare. Then the Alliance, armed with it's 200 meter long KB type Guided missile subs, put itself on the map. By the end of the year, cut off from Federation surface ships, several north African nations joined the Eurasian Alliance.

Inemuri Salon started as one of the first generation of SemSinse establishments. In Nippon, Inemuri, the tradition of the late day productivity improving efficiency remained into the Cosmic Era. The creation of cognitive technologies and immersion made it possible for a patient to be cycled through one loop of REM sleep in a stable and controlled environment. Inemuri started as an in house service in the Mishima Zaibatsu, but would eventually expand outward and become one of the most successful SimSense providers.

Simplicity
Inemuri Salon is slick, clean, and exhibits all the Spartan asceticism commonly associated with Nippon, and the hallmarks of Nipponism including bonzai trees, water fixtures, and elements of Feng Shui, Shinto, and the Samurai culture. The foyer and general floor of every Inemuri blends the atmosphere of the Apple Store with a Nipponese styled Starbucks. Behind the general area there are between four and twenty Synthetic Sensation System (S3 Couches). Each of these couches is secluded in it's own small private space, for the privacy of the users.

The staff at Inemuri is entirely robotic, and consists of the highest level of human interaction androids, almost all of which drawn their design elements from the Hitome gynoid design.

There are three available options at Inemuri, 15 minute, 20 minute, and one hour sessions. Through manipulating the sleep cycle and activated dreaming, this time can be expanded to be perceived as much as 6 to 12 times as long.

The 15 Minute Day Dream - the most common, and minimal of Inemuri's offerings, an hour and a half of dreaming is experienced.

The 20 Minute Sweet Kiss - the middle tier offering, the Sweet Kiss is a three to four hour power dream.

The 1 Hour Good Night's Sleep - in an hour, the user will experience an accelerated eight hours of sleep patterns and dreaming.
Pink Salons and SensoRama

Pink Salons and SensoRamas are common in the Cosmic Era, with Pink Salons catering exclusively to sexual dream experiences and SensoRamas being geared more towards entertainment purposes. Inemuri rises above both of these options as it's dreamscapes and sequences are artistically designed. Day dreams involve picnics under cherry blossoms, sweet kisses might involve tea ceremonies or meditating under a waterfall, and the Good Night's Sleep features tailored dreams that are considered as much works of art visually, with music scores and a rarity, no product placements.

The Pink Salon
The Pink Salon exists as the SimSense version of late night softcore pornography and erotica, much like an immersive version of HBO or Cinemax. These salons differ greatly from the more seedy hardcore adult/XXX salons in that they are geared towards women, and tend to be more focused on emotional response.

The SensoRama
SensoRamas are pulp fantasy outlets, selling adventures and escapism for those who are trapped inside the arcology life. The most infamous SensoRama was the short lived Rekall Corp, which ended up going out of business after causing a number of cerebral hemorrhages and cognitive dissonance disorders. It was discovered that Rekall's problem was that their immersions were poorly made and entirely too long, with some running as long as 8 hours, being expanded out into days or even weeks of lucid dreaming. Some of these Rekall dream feeds can still be found in hidden archives and are traded between cog junkies.

For Employees Only
The first Inemuri's were only available to Zaibatsu employees. These employees enjoyed the daily dream they had, and some lamented the fact they couldn't enjoy the same afternoon dream when they weren't working. This prompted Mishima Zaibatsu to open several pilot locations, and soon Inemuri was an installation in Neo Tokyo, and Kyoto. The convenience of the power nap became a staple in Nippon nightlife, pausing between clubs for a 20 minute snooze, then following it with an ice cold Chrome and then heading to the next party.

Following the popularity of Nipponism, Inemuri and it's competitors and copy-cats popped up across many cities, selling designer dreams. Inemuri remained the top contender, tracing it's products back to it's in house master artisans, and promoting not just the dream, but selling a culture and image that go with it. A person doesn't just take a nap at Inemuri, they enjoy a tiny cup of hot tea, and the smile that comes from belonging to a perceived superior product culture.

by **Skaldia** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 7:06 am

Locations Cont. IV

Appearance: New NuOrleans is a futuristic floating city. The city is composed of hundreds of interlocked floating panels, each the size of a football field. The layout is spacious with open lanes and many parks and boulevards. All traffic is either foot or bicycle, or done by public transit buses. The city recalls the glory days of the Big Easy, and has a great deal of old French architecture and wrought iron ornamental gates are common, the same goes for two and three story Creole type houses. Cypress, magnolia, and weeping willow trees are also found throughout the city. The interior is very much old style buildings, while the commercial districts ring the outside of the two mile wide raft. The outer most section of the city is the Port Perimeter, and it is where mercantile trading goes on, as well as serving as home base for the fleets of fishing ships, tenders for the fisheries, and seaweed harvesting operations go on. Walking from the Port Perimeter down to Old Metairie is like talking a walk from the 21st century back into the 18th.

The Free city of New NuOrleans is a trade city that moves about freely in the Caribbean Sea, and is a haven for travelers and merchants doing business between the Atlantic Federation and Amazonia. It is a popular tourist location, and is inconvenient enough that little contraband material is moved through it. Aside from trade, the city exports seafood, both fresh and processed and is known for its coffee, pastries and its maintaining of the Mardi Gras festivals. This has carried the Free city a great deal of profit as Old NuOrleans long ago dropped the traditions as the old city gave way to the triple arcological complex of today.

Not everything in New NuOrleans is beneits and coffee. The city requires a great deal of maintenance to keep its floating structure intact. The movement of the city is also ponderously slow and it maintains relations with the various island nations in the area so it has places to shelter during the worst of the hurricanes come through. There is also a vein of vice and perversion associated with the city and its residents. Unlike the Atlantic Federation, the city has loose drug laws, and prostitution is legal.

History: As the Petroleum Era came to a close, and the nations of the world either merged into the new superpower blocs or faded, some places fought to keep their heritages and cultures alive. The emergence of the arcology revived the economies of the world, but it did so by erasing the hearts of old cities, replacing colorful vibrant cultures with their own electric presences. Old New Orleans was one such city that was forced to embrace the arcology, building at first a pair of smaller models, and then building a third larger arco and connecting all three into one of the older arco-plexes. This ended the centuries old traditions of Mardi Gras parades and the cultural tradition of living close to the water and the things that lived in it. Instead of cajun creole food, the arco residents ate flavored mycoprotein meat substitutes and processed food. Many fled the old city and enough came together that a Raft City was built. They followed the model of the Asian raft cities, New Hong Kong, New Taiwan, and Tokyo II.

The raft city rejected the vertical life of the arco in favor of a nomadic life living on the ocean, farming it for fish and seaweed, taking and giving back. The residents rejected the Puritanism of the Atlantic Federation, and revived both the original French culture, and the patois Cajun Creole culture of the old city. As much effort was put into appearances as was self sufficiency and maintenance. As such, the city is a floating jewel in the Caribbean Sea.

But with good comes bad, the Port Perimeter unwillingly and unknowingly plays host to a large number of small innocent looking pirate skiffs and boats. An unknown number of the fishing ships and small trading ships are actually well armed pirate ships that prey on traffic in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. There are rumors of kidnapping and sex slaves being bought and sold at midnight auctions on the docks, between the shrimp and fish trawlers. There is also a vibrant drug culture in the city, ranging from recreational use drugs to serious hard drug use pushed through the lower decks of the city where the poorest of the poor live in shanties built in now unused ship hangars.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!
New NuOrleans is the new Big Easy. Despite the troubles of the world the wine is still flowing here, and the people are friendly, and the pastry and the coffee is hot. Don't trouble nobody and they won't trouble you.

by **Skaldia** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 10:33 am

Locations Cont. V

by **Skaldia** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 12:21 pm

Locations Cont. VI

Properly, Xeo America is an ACPS mega resort in a areosynchronous orbit above Kunlun, as geo implies Earth, and most of the western names for Mars and it's features have been replaced by Chinese names, as China represents the dominant nationality on the planet. The resort has been assembled to operate as the penthouse of Wukong's Ladder, a space elevator.

Appearance:
Xeo America is a massive bernal sphere floating above Huo Hsing. It started life as an asteroid, a demi-moon in orbit above the red planet. The Chinese captured it, moved it into a stable orbit, and started building. They flattened one side of the asteroid and used the excess material to fill out the other side. A geodesic sphere was assembled around the structure, and over several years, was filled with a breathable atmosphere. Guests of Xeo America can walk freely across the surface in nothing more than chinos and a polo shirt, or a traditional sarong.

As a mega resort, Xeo America has a dozen themed hotels, a massive commercial complex, and a huge theme park. The gimmick is that this was not an accurate representation of the former United States, it was very much an Asian-centric perspective on the 'Beautiful Country'. It has many of the salient features of American iconography, a twice the size replica of the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, an Opryland music hall, a giant waving Texas Cowboy, a semblance of the Vegas strip, a highly incorrect version of Mount Rushmore (featuring Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping, Chiang Kaishek, and Confucius), the Hollywood sign, and a few other (insert your own oriental version of significant American landmark) sites. There are many restaurants and spas, but these are very heavily skewed towards Chinese traditions, with what is considered an American flare. Cheeseburgers can be had, but they are made with miso paste, and are more likely to be made of surimi (minced fish) or a blend of shellfish, soy, and other ingredients. Ketchup is present, but almost all other traditional American flavors and sauces are non-existent.

There are several modes of transit in Xeo America, but the main attraction is to ride the perimeter of the resort on what are considered to be vintage American Harley Davidson motocycles. There is also a 'dude ranch' that has a number of synth animals; horses, bison, cougars, and rattlesnakes, all artificial so they need to food or medical care.

Grandiose Plans
Xeo America is a massive monument to the ACPS on Huo Hsing, and as it serves as the upper anchor of the Wukong Space Eleator, it will be the crown of the Emperor's accomplishments.

Xeo America has no grandiose secrets, no hidden nefarious purpose, it is a massive Chinese vision of America, how it is seen from the outside, and through the lens of time, several centuries after the demise of that nation. For a point of reference, Xeo America should feel like visiting an America themed theme park in the middle on China, being a massive attraction for people who've never been to the US, so it looks foreign and decadent, but all the familiar domestic elements. A contrasting perspective would be native Chinese people visiting a China themed amusement park in the Great Lakes region and trying to figure out just how in the name of the Middle Kingdom that they are experiencing Cincinnati chili spaghetti in Tienanmen Square.

Once the Wukong elevator is operational, Xeo America will become the crown jewel of Huo Hsing. The attraction is expected to drive tourism to the Red planet, as well as potentially invigorate the ACPS space industry. The attraction is expected to appeal to China, Nippon, and a slew of other non-Western countries that were enamored with the legacy of the United States.

Future Plans and Scrapped Ideas
Xeo America is the first stage in the August Emperor of Jade's plan. If it is successful, there are plans to create further attractions, with the most prominent being a real life mega park on the Red Planet to recreate the American Wild West, as well as expanding further into the exploitation of other national cultures. Plans for Xeo France, Xeo Britannia, Xeo Mexico, and Xeo Roma are in the concept and illustration stages, following the asteroid in a ball plan of Xeo America. Half of this is engineering, design, and applied anthropotronics, and the other half is economic and commercial industry. With sufficient economic influence, and investment in resorts, media, shipping, and heavy construction, the ACPS can potentially secure dominance without engaging the military actions.

There was a ACPS military plan to install a black market source Higgs cannon in the mock up of the Statue of Liberty, so that if threatened, the statue could engage hostile forces with it's torch becoming a beam weapon with a 200 kiloton yield blast. The Emperor was deeply upset by this, as Xeo America should represent the ideal of America, not it's actual legacy. By the Emperor's decree the Xeo America facility is completely unarmed, there are not even point defense weapons on the station, which is a registered and internationally recognized fact, making the entire station a neutral and non-combatant installation. Any ship, ANY ship, firing on Xeo America would be internationally recognized as a pirate vessel, and be subject to military action from any armed ship in the vicinity.

Xeo America is also, for the same reason, deliberately lacking strategic and military assets. It doesn't have a military barracks, no integral fighter support, and while it can dock with military ships, docking procedures are largely universal, and just as it can dock with one of the scarce ACPS fleet ships, it can just as easily dock a Federation battlestar, or Hanseatic heavy cruiser, or any of the remaining Pan-Solar luxury cruise liners.

Military Units

by **Skaldia** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 12:50 pm

Military Units Cont.

Vehicles

1. Aerospace Fighters
Aerospace Fighters are high speed, armored, and heavily armed combat craft intended for a variety of military roles. They represent the pinnacle of performance, but are offset by being equivalently expensive.

2. Light Aerospace Craft
In the same general weight class as light and medium aerospace fighters, light aerospace craft cannot match the power, speed, or performance of the light aerospace fighter, but they are more numerous, fully intended for civilian purposes, and dramatically cheaper. These represent the personal craft owned by civilian pilots, hobby pilots, and light courier and light cargo craft.

3. Heavy Aerospace Craft
Under the general rules, aerospace light craft are going to be capped at 30-50 tons, while heavy aerospace craft can ramp all the way up to 500 tons or more and these represent the non-military large craft in civilian service. This includes commercial transports, large passenger craft, and a variety of cargo craft. Likewise, the military makes use of non-combatant heavy aerospace craft for patrol, search and rescue, basic cargo, and other non-combatant roles.

4. Large Aerospace Military Craft
Large military craft are not fighter craft, an often have the same roles as heavy aerospace craft but are built in the same fashion as aerospace fighters. This means stronger frames, higher performance, and the presence of armor, weaponry, and combat electronics. In a setting with flying warships, and space combat, large aerospace craft are the huge gravity bombers, and the craft that carry the enormous missiles (torpedoes in terminology to denote their anti-ship role) used to destroy ships, space fortifications, and so forth.

5. Long Range Craft
Long Range Craft are heavy aerospace craft that are intended for long duration missions, at least in terms of non-capital craft. These craft have spartan accomodations, but can sustain their small crews for several weeks of uncomfortable duty before either running out of fuel or food. This is typically used by intelligence agencies, patrol and guard forces, and by scientific research projects.

6. Aerospace Tramp Craft
ATCs are technically heavy aerospace cargo haulers, but unlike those craft, ATCs tend to have extensive modifications, including pirated military equiment, black market technology, and so forth. These craft exist in a gray area where they are not really civilian craft, but they do not have the performance to match dedicated military vehicles.

ATCs have a very important role in sci-fi, these are the heavily modified and customized rides employed by smugglers and ne'er do wells and include ships like the Serenity and the Millennium Falcon.

7. A-Craft
A-Craft exist in their own category and are unique in that they have no thrust based propulsion systems and rely entirely on a-pods (gravity manipulation). These craft have excellent VTOL and hover capabilities, but as they move away from a source of gravity, the less effective they become.

Big Guns Never Tire
Artillery is the King of the Battlefield

The Artillery Litter
This vehicle is one of the stranger weapons to be seen shambling out of the wastelands, supporting an advancing wasteland host. The design is quite simple, it consists of the legs and lower torsos of two mecha, welded and bolted together. Between them they carry a heavy artillery piece, typically large bore mortars, short barrel cannons, or rocket batteries.

Form and Purpose
The Wastelands don't lack for heavy weapons that can be scavenged. The problem is that the vehicles required to move such devices is sorely lacking. A unique solution was realized when a warlord decided the take the wreckage of abandoned mecha and make something out of them. The first artillery litter was a pair of Centurion mecha, severely damaged. There was a single reactor, powering the entire thing, so its locomotion was slow. Controlling the machine proved difficult, as the pilot lacked a proper control harness, cockpit, or helmet. The effect was the same, even at a paltry twelve kilometers and hour, they were able to position a destroyer's hedgehog launcher and fire multiple heavy rounds into fortified positions resisting raider advances.

The design was spread through the Silk Road, which was a stroke of provenance. Federation reprisals saw the first Artillery Litter destroyed by the perennial enemy of artillery, strike aircraft.

Evolution
The Artillery Litter didn't vanish with the first frankenmech and its warlord creator. Dozens more were built, each as kludgey and cobbled together as the last, toting such an array of weapons that no two were the same. This wasn't the end of the philosophy. Several New Economic Blocs and New Era Governments took up the concept and wedded it to their enhanced industrial capacity. Thus were created a new bizarre breed of not quite mecha, not quite assault platforms, not quite vehicles.

The Damocles
The Damocles was pioneered by the EuroZone of the Atlantic Federation, and consisted of the leg assemblies from Wolverine main battlemechs, a large fusion core, and a light naval particle cannon. Compared to contemporary mobile turrets and self propelled artillery pieces, the Damocles was cheaper, moderately faster, and was able to be used less judiciously. The largest reasons that Damocles units aren't used more happens to be the radioactive fallout from the weapon being fired. Most ground forces have to avoid the weapon as the wash from the gun has a habit of causing cancer, tooth loss, blindness, and sterility.

The Achillies
The Achillies was a downgraded version of the Damocles and replaced the naval particle cannon with a naval grade laser. It sees more use, and it still has issues with dissipating heat, but it isn't hampered by producing a radioactive pulse every time the main weapon is fired.

The King George V
A one of a kind artillery litter, the King George V mounts a large anti-ship missile system, capable of shooting down dropships and severely damaging warships, even in orbit. When deployed on maneuvers, the King George is supported by a mech company, two of which act as loaders, requiring the strength of two machines to lift the reload into the launcher.

by **Skaldia** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 1:00 pm

Vehicles Cont.

by **Skaldia** » Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:46 pm

Vehicles Cont. II

Container Ship
During the Petroleum Era massive and super massive container ships plied the oceans carrying hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo per load. While in many cases, the size and scope of the Cosmic Era is somewhat smaller than the smoke filled Petroleum Era, the need to move massive amounts of cargo efficiently remains. The massive container ship is less common, but the ships of this type never enter a planet's atmosphere, or set down on the surface of even a barren moon. Most of the container ships are involved in terraforming operations, moving cargos of water and volatiles from the outer reaches of the solar system to Mars and other points. There are also container ships that move refined metals from asteroid belt refineries to various other interests around the system. Despite frequently being used as bases for space pirates and being retrofit into massive space war wagons, container ships are remarkably bad at combat. The ships are massive, they are slow and have almost non-existent maneuverability. While capable of carrying stunning amounts of cargo, they have no armor, and their superstructure is designed to use the strength of shipping containers to reinforce their structural stability.

The Atlantic Federation, Pacific Rim Coalition, and India use a standardized container, roughly the same volume as a modern tractor trailer, but cube in shape, rather than rectangular. These superstates have strong interests in the Asteroid Belt, and in goods that are found well away from Earth.

Bulk Freighter
The Bulk Freighter is similar to the container ship, both are massive ships, but the bulk freighter differs in that it carries raw materials and things like ore, ice, or toxic waste. The freighter is distinguished by having large reinforced holds, or being modified for moving specific cargoes. These ships are large and expensive to operate, but the payouts from their large cargoes justifies their cost. Bulk freighters come in a variety of sizes, and while the most common explanations are Small, Medium and Large, the actual nomenclatures are TerraMax, AresMax, and LunaMax, with each representing the planetary body they are capable of landing on and taking off from with a full load.

TerraMax ships are the smallest, requiring more substantial engines to overcome Earth's gravity and atmosphere. These ships are the most common, and compared to the other types, the fastest. TerraMax ships can also generally land on and take off from almost any body in the solar system.

AresMax ships are the middle sized, capable of landing and launching from Mars. Larger than TerraMax, these ships are common throughout the system as the middle ground in cargo hauling.

LunaMax ships are the largest bulk freighters, and even though they can land and launch from Earth's moon, they seldom do, to reduce gravitational stress on the ship's spaceframe.

Tramp Freighters and Freight Liners
Tramp freighters are independent cargo ships that do not have established lines of transit and a home port. Freight Liners have home ports and long established shipping lanes, such as the lucrative Ares-Gaia line, that sees heavy freighters and container ships moving goods back and forth from Mars to Earth. Tramp freighters are common in space action adventure vids.

Space Trucks
Space Trucks occupy a niche under the Light Freighter. The space truck is a small craft capable of being operated by 2 to 3 crewmen and carries a small payload, generally less than 200 tons. The most common use of space trucks is moving containers back and forth from the much more massive container ships, and pushing bulk cargo modules. These smaller craft do not run long range shipping lines, and the majority are used in surface to orbit, orbit to surface, and moon to moon or moon to planetside.

Space Trucks are not economically feasible and efficient for long range hauling, as to do anything longer than a 2-3 day run would require it's container capacity to be compromised to house more fuel and supplies for the vehicle's small crew.

Shipping in most space operas ignores things like the actual logistics of freight hauling and shipping, where the biggest value is cost per mass per mile. Small ships are the least economical means of carrying cargo, and so called light freighters like the Millennium Falcon are just not feasible. With a cargo capacity of less than 100 tons, the Falcon is an interstellar cargo ship that can only carry as much as two semi-truck loads of goods. Compared to the cost of building, and operating a ship capable of interstellar travel, the ship could only feasibly function as a very high value cargo hauler, moving things that are the most expensive, like pharmaceuticals, top level electronics, and courier services.

by **Skaldia** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 12:51 pm

Vehicles Cont. III

by **Skaldia** » Thu Sep 11, 2014 3:02 pm

Vehicles Cont. IV

by **Skaldia** » Fri Sep 12, 2014 1:40 pm

Vehicles Cont. V

Modifications

by **Skaldia** » Sat Sep 13, 2014 1:57 pm

Mods. Cont. II

The Cromwell Chassis
Man: James 'Cyborg' Westerland was a brash young soldier in the commando corps of the Republic of the Great Lakes where he served as part of an urban warfare and recon team. He had the typical midwestern appearance, and would have been relatively unremarkable save for having volunteered for medical experimentation after being severely injured. After being caught in an explosion in a tank versus power armor battle, Westerland lost one of his legs, his left arm, and suffered severe injury to his chest and abdomen.

Machine: Cromwell Cybernetics Series 3
After the success of the CyberCops program in Delta City, Westerland underwent a dramatic cybernetic upgrade. His left arm and leg were replaced with cybernetic limbs, run of the mill upgrades. The real challenge came when the engineers and doctors replaced almost half of his ribcage with a 'cyber torso'. This armor and upgrade studded shell protected Westerland's organs, and provided a strong and stable anchor for his artificial arm and leg. This differed from the civilian grade armor and technology used in the CyberCop program. As a military contractor, Cromwell Cybernetics used aerospace grade materials manufacturing the new components. This in and of itself was not a new development. The Eurasian Alliance had already broken ground with their Besmert Zhelezo or 'Black Knight' cybernetic upgrade. Contrary to the BZ-1, the Cromwell 3 was more than just amputation and upgrade, it was designed from the ground up, piece by piece, to protect the life of the soldier it was attached to.

Westerland was left unbalanced by the initial operation, and was not able to return to active duty. The new limbs and torso worked fine, but he was left unable to run or maintain strenuous levels of activity. His organic arm and leg were unable to keep up with his artificial parts, and he struggled with personal hygiene and relationships. He opted to undergo a second round of surgeries. The second round removed his remaining leg and replaced it with a matched limb. The cyber torso was extended to cover his entire torso and abdomen and he retained his right arm. This gave him the strength and stability to go back to performing military duties. The hygiene matters were handled through a series of waste gates and collection systems, negated the need for him to clean more than his arm, face, and hair.

Moment: The Second Battle of Cleveland
The City of Cleveland was left a ruin after the first battle over it between the Commonwealth of New England and the Republic of the Great Lakes. The second battle was a violent run and gun operation that has been historically compared to Stalingrad in World War II. Westerland picked up the rather unimaginative call sign Cyborg during his tour of duty through the city. Westerland led a team of cyborg commandos through the city as guerrillas fighting the Commonwealth occupiers. He wore a distinctive helmet and custom made assymetrical lorica segmentata and carried a heavy pulse rifle with a progressive bayonette. His left arm concealed a high pressure flamethrower (hold-out, 3 shots, 30 meter range) and a LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device) that was used to break up communications and disrupt infantry formations.
Westerland and his commandos were successful in destroying several key logistic centers, communications relays, and raiding the Commonwealth's main armor pool where they destroyed several vehicles and wounded or killed a number of key personnel. Cyborg was awarded a number of medals for honor and duty, and had over 113 children from his pre-surgery sperm collections.

The Cromwell Chassis
A Cromwell Chassis is the name given to a cyborg pattern upgrade that replaces the legs and reinforces the torso of the person wearing it. It is an invasive upgrade, as the torso becomes an armor shell with organs inside of it, and cannot be removed. The men and women who end up in these upgrades over time eventually become not much more than a collection of organs and viscera inside a robot body that grew around them over time. They are in contrast to 'brains in jars' type cyborgs like the Stears-Cusickas they retain most if not all of their internal organs and still carry out normal aspects of life such as eating, and usually do not subsist on nutrient solutions or pastes.

It isn't uncommon for these uncommon cyborgs to be referred to as Bucket Brigadiers or Waste Bin Warriors due to the typical shape of the armored torso, or the way that said soldiers are thrown into battles with little regard for their personal safety.

Description
Creating a cybernetic centaur is relatively easy. The trick is to connect any sort of torso to a legged robotic chassis, be it a Centurion guard platform, or a quick moving Bouncer. When working with straight robotics, this is a piece of cake as very few considerations have to be made for the comfort or care of the machine components. This is typically used to put a human brain inside the body of the walker, where it is the most protected, and route the senses through sensors of the chassis and the robot extrusion. Thus this type of centaur is still completely functional if it's robot head and torso are shot off. Less commonly, a human cyborg that has a Cromwell chassis can opt to use the Cromwell as the mounting point and link their body to a legged undercarriage. This is almost always done with some sort of plug and socket or quick release option that allows the biological component to be removed from the legs, either for sleep, medical attention, or to evacuate the cyborg from their legs in case they are damaged. This is a much less popular option, one generally only used for entertainment programming. The human component is high and well exposed, making them easier targets for snipers, or collateral damage, and if the cyborg is knocked unconscious or killed, the entire unit it out of action.

Creation
There are no production models and runs for creating cybernetic centaurs, it is entirely an underground phenomenon being done by shadowrunners, body modification enthusiasts, and cybernetics enthusiasts. Each is a unique creation, even if they are pulling from the same general pool of equipment, in terms of what legged chassis are being used, to what sort of life support systems are involved, and what humanoid parts are being used. This has the side effect of most cyber centaurs having some interface issues, and some functionality bugs.
Any decent clocksmith or other cybernetics and cyborg doctor with access to a working polyforge station and the appropriate schematics (or access to a robotics recycling facility) can create a cybernetic centaur, but the it involves twice as many skill checks based on the size of the machine being made.

History
Cybernetic Centaurs do not have a cohesive history or even community, as they are exceedingly rare, and they are likely to keep close contact with fellow cybernetics enthusiasts and body mod extremists rather than attempting any sort of cyber-solidarity movement as some other scratch build mods have done. They are not used by military or paramilitary forces as a normal cybernetic centaur costs more than a suit of power armor, is too large for most base facilities, require special equipment to work on, are fully vulnerable to anti-power armor tactics and anti-robot warfare.

They are more represented in media, where they are typically featured as oversized villains for heroes to fight.
The most common professions for centaur are working as a cyberneticist themselves, wasteland surveying, exploration, and shadowrunning

Notable Cybernetic Centaurs
Baby Girl - the shadowrunner Baby Girl has a large six legged tank chassis for a body and her humanoid torso is built from a femme bot. Unlike most, her femme bot component is complete, the legs are tucked inside the tank body, which allows for her to use the femme bot to leave the tank component and walk around and do things, but generally not too much as the bot is tethered to the centaur by an umbilical. Baby Girl is a shadowrunner and surveyor, and her biological components are housed in the tank body.

MANDROID - a well known media personality, MANDROID has the quad legs of a common heavy Centurion Walker, and its gun arms are still attached. MANDROID himself is a cyborg who plugs into the top of the walker chassis, bare chested and bearded, frequently glistening with machismo, surveying his foes with his one good eye and his glowing red robot eye. Despite mounting 2 40mm autocannons, 4 20mm autocannons, and 1 body mounted 37.5mm high velocity cannon, MANDROID prefers to swing a plasma edged axe and fight his foes with fisticuffs. The show has a high violence niche audience.

Mama Bear - Mama Bear is a standard quad walker with a human host connected to the body at her waist. She is a scout and surveyor, and works with a team, usually half drones and autons, and half other terrestrial surveyors and explorers. She is considered a highly valuable member of the team as she can carry close to two tons of gear and equipment as easily as any other member of the team carries 60 lbs, and she has a dedicated mini-fusion reactor in her tank body. This fusion reactor isn't affected by things like dimensional sheer or strange radiation interference, and she has the ability to recharge robot power cells, and heavy equipment. Her only combat concession is carrying a thaser rifle that is much more used to take out hostile fauna than hostile people.

Procedure:
Cybernetic skulls are not manufactured, they are grown. A composite of ceramics and metal, a cyberskull is relatively lightweight and very strong. Custom made models can be grown from x-ray scans of the patient. Mass production models can also be made with generic measurements. Once the new skull has been made, usually in a number of pieces, the patient is sedated and section be section, their face, and scalp are cut away from the existing bones of the face and skull. Piece by piece these bones are cut away and discarded. The new armored components are placed and grafted to the portions of the skull that remain behind. This is done through a series of surgeries, with downtime between them for healing. Once completed, the patient has a ceramo-metallic head that is nearly impervious to damage.

Exterior Cybernetic Skull: This less common variant discards any pretense of retaining an organic human face. The eyes, nose, and other sensory organs are replaced with cybernetic equivalents. The skull is smoothed, and reinforced with an armor carapace. The end result is a person with a robotic face. This is typically done for pragmatic reasons, such as already have a high degree of cybernetic augmentation, or for military/intelligence/clandestine purposes.

The pros of the exterior cybernetic skull are improved armor protection, enhanced cranial space for additional brainware like cyber decks, augmented senses, CogNet linkages, and so forth, and a bonus to intimidation and military/authority leadership tests. A person willing to have their face cut off and replaced with machinery is not someone to take lightly.

The cons of the cyber skull is a drastically reduction of social interaction skills. Cyber faces are not human, lack the same degree of expression. Finally, the dedication required for this surgery is very easily associated with zealotry and extreme behavior.

Face-Dancing
One of the advantages to the cybernetic skull is that the machine is by nature modular and adjustable. This gives a person with a cyberskull the ability to disconnect their face, and replace it with a new one. For internal cyberskulls this is a relatively simple procedure, something that can be done in an out patient cosmetology clinic. For the external cyberskull, this is a matter of a few minutes with the right hand tools and the desired replacement parts.

[box]Body Doubles
There is a long history of famous and important people using doubles to take their place where they might be in danger, ranging from Hollywood celebrities to third world dictators. A VIP could use a group of face-dancer cyborgs to act as duplicates that rather than being victims are counter-strike forces. A less violent version of this is found in the sex entertainment industry where some high end face dancers alter their appearance to look like certain celebrities for exploitative purposes.

Face Punks
Face Punks are a faction who believe in depersonalization. They adopt a generic mask or face template to mark themselves as transhuman or posthuman. Face Punks are highly modified individuals, with extensive cybernetic and genetic modifications. Some ask the question, who is the person under the mask, what is the face under the gleaming synthetic shield, and the answer is that there is nothing under that artificial facade but blood, flesh, and some bone.[/box

Description
The Cyber-Satyr is characterized by three key features, digitigrade leg configuration, cranial decoration, and pheromone pumps.

The Digitigrade Leg is the most complicated modification as it requires the legs of the host to be completely rebuilt and regrown from the hip joint down. The heel becomes a 'false knee' and the toes form the entire 'foot'. This allows for the leg to be much more elastic movement, and for more decorative footwear to be worn. In practical application, the digitgrade modification increases the weight distribution of the host, making it rather easy for them to be stuck in soft or muddy terrain, but most cyber-satyrs are very much creatures of civilization, and there is very little mud in an arcology or space station. This gives cyber-satyrs a higher level of mobility, higher jump, and flexibility.

Cranial Decoration is typically some sort of horn or antler configuration. Most affect this as purely cosmetic, and have minimal decoration. Others use it as a social status display or if things get dicey, such decorations are good for goring and intimidation purposes.

The Pheromone pumps are an inescapable and seminal part of being a cyber-satyr. These pumps, typically associated with the lymph node regions, make cyber-satyrs highly desirable to potential mates. The longer they spend in contact with a specific person, the more the pumps will adapt to their specific biological profile.

Less common modifications include altering muscle and nerve tissue for higher endurance and reflexes, sculpting the face to appear more beautiful, modifications of the genitals for enhanced sexual performance, heightened senses, augmented eyes (typically cosmetic) and the general bag of other cosmetic mods, crazy hair colors, bio-luminescence, dazzle modification, and such.

Creation
Creating a cyber-satyr is relatively easy. The leg modification requires the growth or replacement of the legs with digitigrade legs. Mechanical prosthetics are more common than organic. Most looking to take this path are not interested in the amount of time it takes for new bones to be grown, and muscles to be stitched to them. Mechanical legs are cheaper and faster, and when it comes down to brass tacks, steel legs are stronger and more reliable than flesh and blood. Cyber-satyrs are also likely to be involved in some more depraved fetishes, steel toes are less vulnerable or sensitive than flesh and blood. Most of the other augmentations that go into a cyber-satyr are by the book modifications, and are not remarkable other than in their combination.

The origin of the Cyber-satyr is rooted in the revival of Sybarite Movement where the pursuit of pleasure and sexual gratification. The more extreme adherents of the movement sought out augmentation to further their capacity to give and receive sexual pleasure.

Cyber-Satyrs and Shadowrunning
After the widespread burnout of the Sybarite Movement, there were a fair number of neo-satyrs and a fair number of agencies that were proficient in creating them. The enhanced mobility, agility, and high social skills of the neo-satyrs made them valuable as scouts, recon forces, and faces for shadowrunning groups. While not overwhelmingly common, there are enough that seeing them in the places shadowrunners frequent isnt uncommon. Neo-Satyr agents favor missions that are tailored to their advantages of charisma and agility.

Cyber-Satyrs and Prostitution
Cyber-Satyrs have made an impact in the sex industry where their highly exotic looks combined with their well known seductive powers make them objects of desire, male and female alike. Few are reduced to subsistence level work, and most are high end escorts and sex-celebrities.

Fetching a person of importance from an inconvenient place is a common job for heroes and freelancers. The use of a Ding Ziu can make things more interesting.

What is a Ding Ziu?
A Ding Ziu is a person who impersonates a wealthy person, typically one convicted of a crime. Rather than going to prison themselves, the wealthy person pays the Ding Ziu to go to prison, accept the punishment in their stead. This is usually done through bribery. Coercion is a less effective method, as the Ding generally has to be willing, and it is too easy for them to out their employer.

Set-Up
The PCs have been tasked with rescuing a prisoner from a remote location, like a triple max prison, a cryodetention center, an offworld habitat or something similar. The PCs must overcome distance, security protocols, security guards, and a system designed to keep prisoners in, and people from breaking them out.

When the PCs finally succeed they find that their intended person of interest is someone who just looks like them. The ACPS hacker mastermind, just a kid who looks like her. The PCs then discover that rather than being trapped in a prison on the edge of society, the person they were after is actually living their life of luxury far far away from such banal things as punishment or consequences.

Professional Ding Ziu
A competent Face Dancer could easily imitate almost anyone they wanted to. These professionals could make a comfortable living by serving the petty and menial sentences doled out to celebrities who break the law.

The Person in the Iron Mask
By donning a fascia, anyone could be a proxy for a criminal who had the means and money to evade the law. It would even be relatively easy to argue that the fascia was required to protect the identity and brand of the celebrity being incarcerated. Then, the options for a Ding Ziu are expended even further, as the fascia bearer would not automatically have to look like the celebrity in question.

Multiplicity
A different method of creating a Ding Ziu involves cloning the person in question, and then, expy stype, injecting a copy of the person of interest's mind into the clone. The clone is then trucked off for incarceration or other punishment. This is less common because clones can be detected by various means.

by **Skaldia** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 7:33 am

Articles

Dirac Space
As arcanotech advanced, there was a backlash against applying popular science fiction and space opera terms to the emerging theories and technologies. Dirac space is theoretical space that exists inside of a much smaller space that shouldn't be able to contain it, such as a shoebox with the internal volume of a sports gymnasium. Theoretically fascinating, but almost useless for storage since one could only reach a few feet inside of it. This includes things like hyperdimensional storage, hammer space, bags of holding, and the rest.

The technology behind Dirac space isn't understood and devices that utilize Dirac space are not reliably creatable, aside from things like Dirac Batteries, often called dimensional batteries, which store a vast amount of power despite their small size. The electrons contained in a Dirac battery automatically move towards the access point when it is opened.

Gamma Notation
Also any other notation involving Gamma that is not specifically referencing gamma rays, is a shibboleth version of 'Here be Dragons'. Not so much a matter of ignorance or fear, but a note that this line of research is problematic or highly dangerous. Other examples include Gamma Interference, Gamma Inclusion, Gamma Acceleration, and so forth. It is also used as a expletive among arcanotechs and arcanoscience majors use gamma (gah-MAH!) interchangeable with the usage of Fuck!

Nixie
Reference to the vintage Nixie tube (give it a google, very retropunk, very cool) Nixie is an adjective given to a piece of technology that was replaced with newer tech before the old tech exceeded its projected lifespan. Some Nixie tubes were projected to have a lifespan of 200,000 running hours (or 22 years). With as rapidly as arcanotech advanced, quite a few things became 'nixie'.

In a modern context, vinyl record players are totally nixie, as are things like automobiles that predate electronic engine controls. Nowhere near cutting edge, but still completely reliable.

Stein's Gate
Early in the realm of arcanophysics and dimensional science there were extensive efforts made to incorporate existing theories of contemporary physics. There were serious conflicts as the old models included theories that weren't compatible with the new realm of science, like super string theory, the unifying field theory, relativity, and one that was particularly troublesome, the Einstein-Rosen Gate. References to Einstein-Rosen gates, or Einstein Gates, and eventually Stein Gates, became a shibboleth that has a composite meaning of a problem that cannot be solved, and fate.

There is something behind a Stein's Gate, but the phenomenon has yet to be discovered, but it features very prominently in dimensional science and arcanotech that deal with temporal mechanics and teleportation. These attempts fail, and they almost always create loops and bubbles with the same events, phrases, and outcomes occurring.

by **Skaldia** » Tue Sep 16, 2014 10:41 am

Articles Cont.

I was born in the Indianapolis Arcoplex, to wealthy parents. I wasn't carried to term inside my mother, but was cultured and gestated inside a machine, and when I was old enough, they decanted me, inserted a tracker inside my skull, and put a smart toy in my hands. They do the implant when we are newborn, through the fontanel, the soft spot in the skull, where our head was supposed to compress when our mother would squeeze our helpless form out through her pelvis. Biologically, I was four when they popped the cork on my tank. I was chronologically just under a year old. In the old days, when birth was a bloody affair that could end in fatalities, infants were completely helpless, unable to walk, crawl, sensitive to everything, constantly trying to die as their bodies struggled with the bacteria and virii outside of the womb. In the year I spent in the can, my body was run through hundreds of simulated diseases and vaccines, ensuring high or complete immunities to these commonplace illnesses. My mind was linked to a neonatal computer, and in the quasi sleep I was in, the machine dreamed with me. It taught me to walk, how to control my bowels, and the basics of communication, learning how to make words and sounds even if the meaning behind them wasn't there yet.

Eleven months ago I was diagnosed with EDS. Emotional disruption syndrome. The doctors scanned my brain, they ran diagnostics on my chip, and they said the prognosis was good. With 10mg Lybrium and 50mg of Soma, I could live a happy and productive life, and that I would only need emotional evaluations maybe once a year.

As a kid, I had my bright blux MUSE, with it's impact resistant case and kid friendly interface. The device was linked to not one, but three boppets. I always had friends to play with, and when I wasn't playing with them, I could go jump on the bed, plug in my headgear, and go play online. In the good places online, all of my boppets could come and play with me. It was easy to get lost out there, chasing dragons, playing settlers and natives, being heroes in space. Some of that play was education, and its where I learned to read and do basic math, about history and the rest of it.

After the diagnosis, I saw things differently, I couldn't help it. I could see through the illusion, I could see the trap for all its naked glory. There were movies in the past about machines enslaving humanity, and how humans, desperate and plucky, fought the machines valiantly. It was true, but the relationship was backwards. Humanity wasn't conquered by the machines, humanity built the shackles, the prisons, the cages, and built the wardens and the jailers to hold the keys. Humanity put itself willingly into bondage

When I became a teenager, I switched two of my boppets for companion droids. Their personas stayed the same, but their automated plush bodies were replaced with synthetic humanoid. One became my 'best mate' and my autobrother. The other became my girlfriend, and hump mate. The third stayed my boppet companion, my closest confidant and the keeper of all my secrets and fears. I was issued my multikard, applied for my own residence, and moved out into the great big world.

Life in Synchronicity, Indianapolis
The residential zone I was relocated to was called Synchronicity, and was home to 10,000 people. Inside the zone, everything was perfect. Residential units were kept up to spotless spec, and everyone was genuinely polite and well mannered. The urban park was splendid, and the the commercial sector of the zone was the epitome of gentrification.

Synchronicity was sterile. It was cold and dead. It was a model community populated by the children of upper income households, and well off retirees from middle income households. The young people are congregated in one section, while the retirees are clustered in another, and the two groups seldom ever mix. And we newcomers, we were presorted by the machines, prescreened, and placed with in a cul-de-sac with five to ten other young like minded people. We mixed and mingled, we had a lot in common, and being new to the zone, we made friends with each other easily. We accepted each others quirks, the people who had synthetic pets, those who had synthetic partners like I did, and those who had their own interests and enthusiasms.

It was a quiet hell. We were all jacked into the net, with out MUSEs and earpieces and scouters. We had zingers and one liners on hot feed, and when we got in a good joke or jab, our accessories purred with laughter and applause. We were living in our own sitcom. Our devices were all linked, so everyone was in on the jokes, and the emotional outbursts were uncommon, and often mild. There were parties, and there was lots of sex, and eventually everyone would sleep with everyone. And it would be fine, and for lots of people it was fine. It was fine for me, at least, until the incident.[//box]

It was a real surprise when I got a real job, and got to relocate again. It was with one of the big robotics manufacturers in Indianapolis, so I wasn't moving far. I went up 25 decks, and over into the main tower of the arco. I settled into a new bachelor unit, and a week later, I got the same roommate I had in Synchronicity. Almost 3/4ths of my circle from Synchro moved into the same section. There were new faces, but they were the minority. We were young professionals, so we did what young professionals did, we drank, we did drugs, and we fucked like animals. It didn't matter, no one got pregnant, no one caught any diseases, in hindsight, we weren't even having sex, we were just using other people as masturbation aids. That's all that mattered. How many hots girls had you been with, how many hot guys had you been with. Everything was fluid.

[box]I hated most of them, and I am sure, they hated me as well. Somewhere along the line, I developed a serious problem. It was an illegal narcotic, one of the real ones, and it was something from the geofront. I had a chinpira named Gunther Gustav who supplied me with the stuff. I had a seizure, my heart stopped, and technically, I died.

I didn't actually die, but it messed things up inside my brain. My brain can no longer mesh with my accessories. My scouter, headgear, and earpiece don't work for my anymore.

The techs and the doctors say everything is working fine, and that the data feeds are running normally, and that there is no reason that prevents any of my gear from working.

I was outside of the bubble. I was out of the circle. I couldn't hear the laugh tracks, in conversations I didn't have any witty repartees, no quips, just a handful of lines I could remember, and I started using them as catchphrases. The people I had known most of my life started shutting me out. I was excluded from parties, girls who would spread their legs for me no matter what no longer remembered my name. I was a person non grata. The only people who didn't cut me out were coworkers who couldn't, and Gunther Gustav. He was also an outsider, we all knew him, but we only knew his name and frosted blond hair, and that he was quiet, didn't get the jokes and was super uncool. We hated him, but he had the drugs, he had the good stuff, and he was our guide when we would take a wild hare to go slumming in the geofront.

My life was falling apart. I hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks, since my SmartBed couldn't link to my brain anymore. My work evaluations were falling into termination range, between having lost my Cog access and increasing sleep deprivation. I told Gunther Gustav about this, and he told me that I needed to max out my credit and put it into transportable goods with intrinsic value. I was terrified when I asked him why, and he told me I was about to get the Cunningham treatment,

There was a kid, Chuck Cunningham, and he fell out, just like I had. He was one of the first, and he tried to get back in. He became a disruption to the harmony of Felicity zone, New Boston. One day, he went back to his apartment to get something he forgot, and he never came back. A month later, he didn't exist. He had never existed, and even his roommate of 6 years didn't remember him. Gunther told me I was about to get that treatment.

I had a moment of clarity, and thought myself clever, and asked him, if no one remembered him, how could there be a Cunningham treatment.
Gunther sighed, and at great length, and over several strong drinks, he explained the concept of FNORD to me. If you are indoctrinated to never see a FNORD, even if one is right in front of you, you can't see it. You can't name it, you can't describe it. He explained that Chuck was a kid from a TV show centuries before who was written out by the execs, and literally went up to his room and never came back, and then was ret-conned from the series. It happened to people, he said, because he was a Chuck Cunningham himself. That's how he knew how to get around inside the city, because he had lived there before. He traded street drugs to jerk offs like me in exchange for shit that we didn't need, stuff we could replace with ease.

He said that the powers that be inside the arcos do this, to keep the peace and the harmony.

I thought he was joking, until I was diagnosed with EDS. It was always inevitable that someone would get the diagnosis, and then a short time later, they would relocate. Somewhere peaceful, or a medical center, where they could be treated. We would wish them the best, and then forget about them.

I was about to be shipped off.

I maxed out my multikard, then threw it away. I bought ridiculous things, and multiples of things I didn't need, and then in the middle of the afternoon, I grabbed all of these things, and I ran away. I was traumatized, my companions, my Mia, and my autobrother JoeAwesome, and my age worn Boppet all stopped at the edge of the arco boundary, refused to go forward, and then powered down when forced across the boundary. Gunther picked up Mia, slung her over his shoulder, and told me to carry whatever I could and leave the rest.

Security swept through the upper level of the geofront, and they passed over us. We were sitting in what he called a bunker box. he said that a century before it had been used for storing hazardous materials, and was shielded. They couldn't scan to find my brain chip, or Mia's cortex signature.

I learned that his name was August. He had told us to call him Gus, since he knew that our wired up brains wouldn't remember anything longer than that. We called him Gunther Gustav because we knew he had a g name, and those were the first two g names we stumbled across trying to remember someone outside of the circle. He tolerated it because he said that to the outsides, wired in arco dwellers are the pinnacle of human stupidity. Blind, deaf, shallow, stupid, and hateful as fuck, and determined to fuck as many people as possible. He knew this because he had once lived in Synchronicity too. He had been in the circle. He hadn't had a near fatal overdose, he hadn't had a near fatal accident, he had gotten up one morning, and because of a technical error, his access code to the network had been revoked. He went from a resident to a trespasser, and was apprehended by security, detained for 24 hours, questioned, and then exiled. He had stumbled through the geofront until he landed on his feet, and found his own way to make it forward.

August, Gunther Gustav, still owns Mia. He had a clocksmith fix her, so she will run without cognet access, and outside of the boundaries. She's a waitress for him now, he has a something between a junkshop and a coffee shop, and a bar down in the geofront. The things we gave him for drugs, he traded to drug dealers and makers in the geofront, and kept some on the side. He's got quite the set up now, a half dozen droids, the shop itself, and he's still a chinpira, a middle man for the arcos.

I work for him now, and he's training me how to make runs. He also said that when I can afford it, he'll sell me Mia back. He also said that when I can afford her, I will probably have grown enough to realize I don't need her back.

I die inside, when I see her. I picked out her face, he breasts, everything, and it's my property, my girl, that that his customers are taking in the back for a go at her perfect vulva.

I just want to go back to my smartbed, with Mia giving me a blowjob every night before going to sleep, and to my cushy job up in the tower, and instead, I'm in hell. Under the tower, eating rat meat and digging through refuse for treasure.

What is Beneugenics?
Beneugenics is the systematic biological grading of a person's individual genetic code. This produces both a letter score and a numeric score. This is commonly known as a IV, or Individual Value.

What are the Beneugenic Scores?
S Scores are considered 'Superior' and all are deliberate and artificial in nature. Even in the most accomplished athlete, brilliant scientist, or most beautiful person, there is a massive backlog of genetic information that is functionally garbage, inheritable diseases, and remnant viral DNA.
SSS - this score is mythically rare and represents the perfect human being, a paragon of perfect genetics. This is the vaunted 100% that beneugenecists are seeking.
SS - slightly more common than the SSS grade, the SS grade genome is 95-99% quality and represents deliberate engineering, genetic screening, and so forth to produce this specimen.
S - the most common superior grade, the S specimen is 90-94% perfect.
A - at 80-89% perfect, A grade specimens are very rarely seen in nature, and are much more commonly found in second and third generation genetically screened families. They might not seem especially bright, strong, accomplished, but they will have far above average health, almost no inheritable diseases, and are slowly emerging as a superior genus of humanity. Given enough time, these A grade genomes and their support system would eventually become a new species, relegating Homo Sapiens to a more primitive position.
B - at 70-79% perfect, these specimens represent first generation genetic screenings and are increasingly common. There are cultural factions who argue that this level of genetic engineering represents creating a Human+ genus and is a clear violation of the conventions against such. This doesn't dissuade parents from having their genetics and their unborn child's genetics screened and scrubbed to remove known triggers for Cancer, diabetes, and a litany of other diseases.
C - 60-69% perfect, this represents the best of modern humanity and is present in less than 5% of the natural gene pool. These are the people who are record breaking athletes and those who set standards for what is attractive in a physical partner.
D - 50-59% perfect, the second largest segment of the gene pool, D grade represents normal baseline human.
NR - not rated, the largest segment of the gene pool. NR genomes have significant problems, such as predisposition to inheritable diseases, to actual damage to the genome itself.

[i]NR Grades are a point of contention, as there are two major societal forces that collide at this point. One side is grading genomes and kicking many genomes out for having undesirable factors such as carrying code for autism, mental illness, physical disability ranging from cerebral palsy to blindness. The other side contests that these are not inferior or flawed, just different, and attempting to remove these differences from the gene pool is tantamount to genocide against the disabled and genetically atypical.

Usage
Beneugenics is a voluntary system, which is growing in popularity in the Cosmic Era and is acting as a sort of genetic background check. Many dating and match making services make use of the Beneugenic scale, along with personality matrices, and specified points of interest in matching potential partners.

Biomorphosis is not new, and is actually quite old and well known. It is also almost exclusively the realm of dark fantasy and fiction. The anecdotes of the werewolf or the wolfman are the handed down folk legends of ancient biomorphs. Parapsychics have existed for a very long time, but have only appeared in any measurable number in the Cosmic Era.

The Big Secret
Biomorphosis is a branch of the 'Body' realm of parapsychic ability and is related to healing, physical augmentation, and biomanipulation expressions like pheromone production, or biopneumatics (altering the size of body parts without largely changing their structure). This renders biomorphosis being in the most common manifestation of parapsychic powers.

The manifestion of biomorphosis starts early and is easy to recognize. Biomorphs tend to develop incomplete transformations and altered behavior as their powers emerge. It is very rare for a biomorph to fully erupt into their alternate form. This makes it easy for monitors to find biomorphs while they are still weak and not in control of their powers, and to handle them as case warrants.

The Truth
The powers that be in the CE distrust biomorphs and hunt them down. The majority are nerve stapled and drugged, and those that prove resistant or are regenerators are exterminated.

The Biomorph is a natural shapeshifter, and this isn't just physical, it includes their mindsets, their appearance, their spirit, everything. This makes them very hard to control, and resistant to things like indoctrination or mind control. This goes against the interests of the power brokers, an uncontrollable asset is as bad as an enemy or rival to those who are obsessed with control.

Continued Truth
There is a second reason that biomorphs are carefully controlled. During dimensional fatigue events, the plastic nature of biomorph biology actively works against them. Their powers tend to be amplified, and their alternate forms become stronger, more atavistic, and their control over them degrades. Biomorphs are also prone to contamination and outsider influence. Even if a biomorph seemingly escapes a DFE unscathed, there is no way to tell if they picked up a biomorphic parasite or infestation along the way. Such things can lurk for weeks or even years before emerging as frightening threats to humanity.

The chance of a biomorph becoming a carrier for something like a nihilid or plasmid lifeforms is generally considered justification for the inhumane treatment of potential biomorph parapsychics.

Everything looks like a van Gogh painting now. It's depressing. There is no fine detail, I miss reading, but it's hard to make out letters that aren't more than a foot tall. It all shimmers and wavers, like a signal buffer that close to overloading. I don't know where I am, I can see something of the world, something out there.

I can't touch it, I'm part of this swirling rainbow colored nightmare,and it's not part of the real world. It's like water, I'm part of the water, and reality is the rocks, the river bed, the shorelines. I can run my hands across it and know it's shape, but I can't lift it, I can smell it or taste it.
How long has it been?

The clocks, I can't read them, just stupid red swirls. There are no people in the lab today, I can see people, they shimmer and flicker, more colors swarm around them, like auras. That's something because I can't hear them speaking. It's infrasound I guess, because I know they are, I can feel the vibration of their voices, but there is no sound.

Their thoughts make noise. Him, he's some sort of technician, but his mind isn't on working, he's thinking about sports and drinking. The woman over there, she is in a terrible mood, a cloud of darkness hangs around her. Everyone else knows she is in a bad mood and stays away from here.

I can't remember the last time I ate.
or used the restroom.

I don't even know if I have a body anymore. I am sentience, I suppose. Self-aware, but aware of what, I don't know.

I carried the sample into the refractor chamber, we weren't going to trust that useless droid Marty to carry anything else. For a diagnostic genius, the damn thing can't seem to get around stuttering and falling over it's own metal feet. The sample. It's here. Six ounces of a flaky semi-porous stone resembling an amber colored jade. I'm not sure I have hands, but it's here and I can pick it up, it might be the only real thing here. I am beginning to doubt if I am even real now.

The refractor was going to take it apart, to look inside of it, and then, molecule by molecule, put it back together. I think tis thing came from one of those black site digs on the Moon, real hush hush stuff. There were warnings, alarms, something went wrong. There was a cascade reaction, and the sample wasn't unraveling, time-space around it was. Dimensional Fatigue Event.

Cold sweat.

Panic.
Panic!

Then there were lights, the colors unfolded and billowed around me, around everything. The Refractory Center should be up this hallway. Thing's aren't always right though. Sometimes the hallway is there, sometimes it isn't. The door is here, but it's wrong. It's a green door, made of wood, very strange. It's not the thermoplastic, no security locks. I know what's on the other side, it's a model of a home, dated, very dated. A single family lives there, kids, a dog, the whole bit. But it's completely different colors, and the lights are dim, and I get nervous, and then I get scared if I am there too long.

Maybe the hallway will be back tomorrow.

I might check yesterday, I think I can do that. Yesterday is easier than checking tomorrow. A few shuffling steps and I can see the door, gleaming white, with the comforting green lights.

The long hallway, the sanitizer stations, the UV wash, it's here, but it's glitching, not working right. Damned things never worked right, they would blink on and off at random intervals. Sensor six, right here, was the worst offender. It would be burnt out, from switching on an off constantly, like there was someone just wandering through the corridor. The samples room, the sample decontaminator, the cradle device.I did this, dozens of times.

That day, I stepped back inside the refractory. There were lights everywhere, I can hear them shouting at me, to not go, their voices are dull buzzing sounds, I think I tried to fix it. Maybe tried to pull the sample out of the refractory, shut down the reaction? I wonder if it worked, or is this all that's left of the world.

Sometimes I think about that, sitting in what used to be my quarters.

Is this the memory of the world, the anomaly blow out of control and turn reality inside out like a ruptured balloon? Or do I have it backwards, is that what's on the other side of the anomalies, are they windows, doors, did I fall through one? Is this what happened after we die? Is this limbo? Can they see me if they take a picture with a spectrascope?

I think I might be tired. I don't think I sleep anymore. I can think about sleep, and then I feel better.

It's scary but it works for other things too, I can think about food and I'm not hungry, I can think about sex and either I feel satisfied, or I feel disappointed. I try to never think about negative things, can I make myself sick or even die by thinking too concretely about mortality? I'll look into it when I can't stand this hypercolor twilight existence.

This is what is referred to in the dimensional sciences as a Lambda Vortex. The flow and ripple of the colors and lights around me at first seem random, but under careful observation, they follow basic fluid dynamics. The water metaphors seem to have a decent basis. That's what happened, the refractor interfaced with the sample, and there was a sub-Planck reaction, there was a microscopic breach, punching through to somewhere else. It unfolded, and the lights started.

No, memories are a mess right now.

The sample, I knocked the sample out of the cradle, hoping to interrupt the growth of the anomaly. The anomaly began to rotate, becoming a lambda vortex. These are very dangerous anomalies, among the worst outside of the cataclysmic Mu Reaction, a massive implosion that sucks a hole in existence and leaves a neat scoop left in the ground, or a Delta Wave Formation. That has a pretty sound, delta wave formations sound like ripples in water, but in dimensional science, a delta wave formation is a spontaneous shockwave. Massive fucking explosion, typically on par with Petroleum Era atomic devices.

Lambda rotation, that creates stable anomalies, which generate fixed event horizons. Then things start coming through them, heat, light, radiation, parasites, diseases, strange fluids, teratomorph spawn, and yes, those unofficial cosmic horrors that every government in the world denies.

Handy that they have reflex teams, and SCP units, and the rest. That's a lot of prep and hardware for something that never happens.
The men are coming, I can see them. They are in a hurry, all pointy and jagged. Their guns look like lightning bolts in their blurry hands. Then they are gone. They flicker all over the place, and then they are gone for days at time. I think they are gone for days at a time. Time flows strangely here, again, the water metaphors. Time flows like water, like the way reality ripples around the lambda vortices. I don't think I'm in the water anymore. I can go back days in time, I can go forward, sideways even. I think. Or I'm just going mad. At least insanity seems to be interesting.

by **Skaldia** » Wed Sep 17, 2014 12:05 pm

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Cosmic Era [The Factbook]

Cosmic Era [The Factbook]

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