Submerged in Hellfire (Closed)

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

SUBMERGED IN HELLFIRE

A FUTURE-TECH RP IN WHICH THINGS ARE LIABLE TO EXPLODE

IC

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This RP is now closed. A big thanks to everyone for their interest and participation, but I feel that I will not be able to run this RP going forward.

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It's a common joke among spacers that you can tell what civilization a fleet is from by the light show they put on when they drop out of FTL. Bright flashes, whirling thunderclouds, grids or beams of exotic particles, multicolored spheres the size of planets, seething portals lined with teeth — but over the past few weeks, all of these have from time to time been interrupted by a series of sea-urchin-shaped explosive pulses that turn whatever was emerging from the other realm into an expanding cloud of plasma and shrapnel. The Empire of Blades, the Kzaari Pact, the myriad competing nations of the wealthy Northern Economic Consortium... it seems none are safe from having their beloved battlecruisers or raid-cutters or siege dreadnoughts annihilated.

The Milky Way Galaxy's unknown assailants broadcast no clear motive, have left useless messages at best, and their weapons of war have never even been sighted, all sensors in the vicinity of these attacks having been overwhelmed by a wave of ECM attacks beyond anyone's capacity to resist. The few bits of known data suggest the repeated (if only momentary) presence of objects with the mass and propulsive capability of warships. Besides this, everything the galaxy has deduced has been from their pattern of attack. Beginning with only one or two strikes per day but now rising past twenty, these attackers seem only to engage military targets, and almost all of their strikes have been against the Milky Way's more politically active factions — supposedly, some conspiracy theorists claim, only those known for overt expansionism or militarism — but evidently quite a few others now and again.

Some nations have put their wars on hold and joined forces to scour the galaxy of the intruders; others revel in the chaos, faking cooperation and then backstabbing one another when their foes' militaries are elsewhere. All that is known now is that the greater the congregation of warships, the more likely it is to be struck, and the galaxy will be drowning in its own blood if something is not done to stop the unending escalation.

The reason for most Milky Way nations to be concerned about these incursions is a simple matter of self-defense. With frequency and scale increasing, while it remains unlikely that numerous civilizations will be put at serious risk, averting the risk of further damage to one's military assets is probably worth the cost of investigation. At a stretch, a nation outside the Milky Way may be concerned that these attacks could spread; predictive algorithms have already prompted many halo, globular-cluster, and satellite-galaxy nations to prepare for the worst.

In the same vein as this is the need to protect allies or special interests. The Milky Way is crowded and full of upstarts that might prove useful to extragalactic powers, so ensuring that an outside-context threat does not wipe them out might motivate some to action. Nations within the galaxy, too, who have not yet been attacked — and perhaps see themselves as unassailable — nonetheless may also have a vested interest in their allies' or benefactors' safety.

Curiosity can drive outsiders into the Milky Way to perform operations involving research or recovery. The intruders' unknown but presumably advanced technology has been a honeypot for looters and scientists seeking to get money, fame, or knowledge from anything they may eventually leave behind. Tacticians may also gain valuable insight from learning about these attacks and how to defend against them, in case anything more serious happens to their own home militaries. In addition to the potential spoils of war, the Milky Way is old and littered with artifacts and structures of numerous unusual sorts, which may have drawn in outsiders trying to slip through the ongoing panic unnoticed.

Finally, there are no doubt other matters that rouse the Milky Way's nations to action or that bring outsiders into the fold. The ongoing events have raised alertness and typically preclude attempts at conquest or exploitation for the time being, but more subtle approaches of myriad sorts are always up in the air.

(OOCly: Figured I might as well let you in on a big thing in this canon; else it'd be like introducing magic into a presumably medieval setting halfway through. Terrible mistake.)

A civilization that doesn't care too much about FTL might slowboat across the universe with arks full of frozen passengers and thaw them out in a galaxy where they are shocked to discover FTL is the norm, and any military or political action they might try to take must always keep this new technology in mind, especially given that the locals are likely more familiar with it than them. A similar situation tends to arise when outsiders arrive in this instance of the Milky Way, where social technology — also known as metatech — developed to the same incredible extent as, say, nanotech or biotech.

It may not be necessary for one's purposes — but to neglect its existence would be folly.

The essence of metatech is in making people think of certain things, an art that has been relevant since before the advent of language and that every society eventually develops methods for. A television is just a machine that receives and shows images in sequence, but televised news is a form of metatech: a means of conveying a set of ideas to people, whether intending to make these relevant to physical reality (as some news organizations try to) or simply to persuade people of some cause or political ideology (as many news organizations become). Mass media, conversation tactics, grand speeches, body language, even art and philosophy; the race to make all of these more convincing does not stop in the early-spaceflight age.

A portion of metatech is derived from memetics, the science of the propagation and mutation of ideas through cultures. Applied memetics allows a crafty individual or group to persuade the undecided of an opinion, develop a widespread conspiracy theory, or provoke some reaction from the public consciousness. The line between "acceptable" and "unacceptable" uses of memetics is nonexistent in many places and hard to police in the rest, making it a popular battlefield for people trying to keep their heads down. In the same way that modern combatants must prepare for both conventional and digital warfare, it is only sane to prepare for a meme war as well — a war that is always happening, even on very subtle levels. Some attempt to plug their ears and make their society wholly isolated from unwanted thoughts; rarely do these plans succeed for those not willing to rewrite the way they operate entirely.

On a more local scale, metatech includes the study of making oneself more persuasive or threatening. Body language, word choice, and tone of voice can be carefully controlled so as to induce precise emotional responses from one's audience, and a skilled practitioner of some of these techniques can shift them on the fly to account for people who treat them with skepticism at first. Particularly advanced metatech can make one's words into weapons, using just the right inflection to make someone hesitate or be overcome with fear. While low-quality translation programs may fail to pick up on nuance, providing a degree of protection against high-level tactics, a person with their information limited in that way will obviously not be able to act as effectively on it.

Where metatech intersects with other technologies, it becomes far more dangerous. A superintelligence with access to civilization- or galaxy-wide infrastructure can apply memetic techniques at large scales, tailoring arguments for entire populations and fabricating rumors that practically everyone is motivated to believe. With sufficient knowledge of a mind's operation, one can create hazards in the shape of images or words, typically called basilisks, to influence it. A lethal basilisk might lie in wait as information — say, a computer file, a pattern of neuron signals, or even some philosophical concept — and only when recognized by an outside source does it strike, like a code-injection attack engineered to corrupt the brain's computer, and kill its target, potentially very quickly. More advanced, subtle basilisks can influence behavior, trigger innate reflexes, or even implant beliefs. Defense against these measures is most often accomplished through some combination of rigorous mental training, digital noise filters in the sensory organs, and restructuring one's brain for increased redundancy.

Metatech is not psionics, nor is it even related to the source of these so-called psychic or magical powers. A sophont cannot use it to levitate a brick, deflect a bullet, or hear a conversation behind a wall. The techniques it employs are, in fact, just like the ones people on early-spaceflight worlds are familiar with, merely applied at a more refined level. It is convincing someone else to carry the brick, scaring an attacker into shaking their aim, or making someone so calm that they find themselves spilling the truth on their behind-the-wall secrets.

1. Ask me questions about anything you are not familiar with or sure about.

I make up or reference a lot of weird things, and you're under no obligation to convince yourself that you know what they mean without further information. I don't like when people act blindly when they could have put in some effort to clear things up. In exchange for this, I'll try my best to ask you all if I'm not really clear what you're pulling, either.

Simultaneously, this means I trust you to double-check with me before trying an approach you aren't sure will work — I may not give all the information that will be relevant IC, but I'm going to want to be able to stop you if something's a little ridiculous.

2. The only scaling that should occur here is me scaling our nebulous opponents to all of you.

A primary reason this is even happening is because I wanted to see if I could run an RP without continual escalation, where multiversal empires call for backup and fleets swell in size and numbers. These are fun in some sense, but they force some people to rapidly rewrite their factbooks or call up stuff they didn't want to in order to stay relevant. We're going to keep this small-scale — a few dozen kilometer-scale ships per person (unless you have a death wish), generally not galaxy-spanning ubertech or magitech thank-you-very-much — so that everyone has a chance to shine. I may sit down and have a conversation with you if you intend to escalate; there might be chances to, but remember that the more you send in, the worse things get for you.

That being said, I have to scale our adversary to roughly the sum of everyone who might end up fighting them, else one side will just get roflstomped. Forgive me for doing this — it's for the sake of keeping it interesting.

3. Non-combat approaches are going to help!

Your adversary is — at first — impersonal and shadowy. That does not mean they cannot eventually be bargained with, convinced to do something else, aligned with, or tricked (though that may be difficult). Even face-to-face meetings are not out of the question. I would encourage you all to mix in some of these approaches, based on what your strengths are and what you think might be fun. Perhaps your characters could gain unique opportunities, too...

4. There's no Discord, at least not yet.

For the time being, let's keep talk relevant to this RP in the OOC thread or in telegrams. Discord shouldn't be necessary to run an RP, and more often than not it's just a distraction. I may change my mind on this later. If contacting me through Discord makes it easier for you to talk to me, that's fine, but I won't be joining any community that forms around the RP itself yet.

5. Pay attention when writing, and keep me updated if something stops you.

I would like your posts to be in clear English, at least two small paragraphs long, and with clear thought put into them. I'd rather see one clever/creative post, even if on the short side, every few weeks than three thoughtless ones a day.

If you don't expect to get a post out for a while, tell me in advance and I'll see what we can do. If you've been taking a long time despite promising "okay real soon", I might need to talk through your involvement.

Please follow instructions on the application very carefully; do not add additional entries except where specified. Don't hesitate to ask for help! Items in parentheses can be removed after instructions are followed. Color can be chosen independently of anything involving your nation, and may or may not be used by me for something.

Code: Select all

[align=center][b][size=125]Application and Summary ~ IC NATION NAME HERE[/size][/b][/align]

[floatleft][b]Origin (tick one box unless specified)[/b]
[ ] Local Milky Way
[ ] Alternate/fractal Milky Way (also tick box best representing [i]physical distance[/i])
[ ] Extragalactic
[ ] Outside local observable universe
[ ] Outside physical universe[/floatleft][floatright][b]Color (tick one or more boxes)[/b]
[ ] White
[ ] Red
[ ] Orange
[ ] Blue
[ ] Purple[/floatright]
[hr][/hr]
[align=center][b]Course of Involvement[/b]
(At least a full sentence. Pick from the summary if relevant.)

[b]Stance in International Politics[/b]
(At least a paragraph.)

[b]Space-Combat-Relevant Technology[/b]
(Briefly summarize at minimum the following: FTL and sublight propulsion, common weaponry, typical defense mechanisms, computing and electronic warfare.)

[b]Metatech Proficiency[/b]
(As much detail as you care to give. If it hasn't progressed much since MT levels, that's fine, just note it down!)

[b]Order of Battle[/b]
(The more you bring, the more you're asking for trouble. Keep ship sizes within the low kilometer range, with maybe a handful of slight exceptions.)

[b]Additional Information[/b]
(Delete this entry if you don't have anything relevant left to say. "No" is, after all, hopefully false.)[/align]

Application and Summary ~ KASA TKOTH SPHERE

Origin
[✔] Local Milky Way
[ ] Alternate/fractal Milky Way
[ ] Extragalactic
[ ] Outside local observable universe
[ ] Outside physical universe

Color
[✔] White
[ ] Red
[✔] Orange
[ ] Blue
[✔] Purple

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Course of Involvement
Self-defense. K-Sphere military forces within the Milky Way have been repeatedly struck by precision attacks during FTL emergence; as such, Holder of Dreams has escalated readiness to the point where a proper task element has been allocated to tracking and armed response. The force involved maintains little interest in first contact, beyond locating the attackers and convincing or forcing them to abandon their campaign.

Stance in International Politics
Holder of Dreams maintains no notion of national sovereignty or authority-on-behalf-of-a-nation, including its own, beyond the strictly utilitarian. To Holder of Dreams, it is a tragedy that the cosmos is divided into factions of different purposes, and it is crucial to rally all available polities to pool resources on mutually beneficial solutions. Such an outlook — that these massive coordination problems can, in fact, be solved — has gained a reputation for being naïve, but that hasn't seemed to stop the K-Sphere from ignoring national boundaries and demarcation lines in favor of getting more people into its mainframe.

It would be somewhat rational to accuse the K-Sphere of being dangerously expansionist; after all, unlike some nations who only have an emergent goal to last forever, it explicitly centers its stratagem around securing as many minds for as long as physically possible. International superforecasters have generally placed predictions that it will begin expanding its exclusion zone and building additional Dyson Spheres within the next few centuries. Meanwhile, thanks to the increasingly tangled network of advertisements and advanced memes injected into galactic culture, many would consider it right to scrutinize the K-Sphere's apparent distate for others' isolationist, "don't contact me please" kind of politics.

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology
K-Sphere FTL relies on writing a body's properties into a mathematical system sometimes abbreviated to "complex phase space", a process only feasible for objects with advanced computers, active internal sensors, and a propulsion method of some kind to perform the spacial translations (these criteria fairly accurately describe only full-sized spacecraft). Entry and exit times are effectively nil — provided the calculations can be done fast enough, a spacecraft can easily make a thousand microjumps a second — but jumps between systems tend to take hours to days. In realspace, K-Sphere spacecraft rely on torch drives powered by "cyclefusers" that convert densified stored hydrogen into a stream of heated iron plasma used as reaction mass. Delta-v on these drives is a substantial portion of c, and acceleration is typically on the order of fifty to a hundred gees. Naturally, this means the exhaust is incredibly dangerous to unshielded vessels.

Since the K-Sphere usually sees enemy fatalities as something to be avoided, true ship-to-ship weaponry on their spacecraft is light, consisting mostly of micromissile swarms intended to precisely knock out their targets' critical subsystems. In emergencies, combat spacecraft use relativistic exotic-matter cannons in the anti-fleet or extreme anti-armor role. Supplementing these damaging systems are indirect means of attack, such as "mass grapplers" (effectively close-range tractor beams) and interdiction weapons of a few sorts, typically meant to temporarily scramble enemy FTL drives long enough to gain the upper hand in a high-speed tactical battle. More conventional weapons like kinetic rounds and large explosive warheads are employed only in the experimental role.

Defensive tactics first rely on prediction and evasion; against guaranteed hits, K-Sphere vessels are limited. They mount short-range grasers for point defense, simple electromagnetic "shields" for deflecting polarizable projectiles and particles, and only a thin layer of lightweight armor. More relevant to their survival under fire is the fact that these spacecraft generally have numerous redundant systems, meaning they can lose substantial amounts of their mass and still be able to retreat.

Holder of Dreams is a superintelligence with easily quadrillions of times the processing power of a baseline sophont, and it employs this intelligence to predict enemy movements and make optimal decisions without any semblance of stress or hesitation. K-Sphere spacecraft use their computers in tandem, updating each others' information and developing emergent strategies. Electronic warfare forms a major arm of K-Sphere combat, as ships often load viruses onto enemy computers whenever practical in attempts to end the battle bloodlessly, while ECM and ECCM systems dot the surface of practically every spacecraft in their fleet. The key flaw with these computing systems is that they have been optimized for efficiency over redundancy; Holder of Dreams saw it better fit to ensure code ran in fewer lines and with less energy expenditure than to include preemptive error corrections and such; as such, when under electronic attack in return, it often has to improvise.

Metatech Proficiency
By sheer necessity, the K-Sphere is forced to be a metatech powerhouse in at least the defensive sense. Those with a grudge against what the K-Sphere represents have very often attempted to load their neural patterns with basilisks before uploading; it falls to the K-Sphere's computing systems (defensively spearheaded by Five Brilliant Walls) to detect the components of such a mental basilisk and neutralize it within milliseconds before the upload finishes. Additionally, forcing tailored basilisks into others' minds is one of the few truly prohibited actions in the K-Sphere, and Holder of Dreams finds it its responsibility to terminate any attempts at these. Combined, the K-Sphere has trillions of emulated years' worth of experience in identifying hostile ideaforms and memeplexes, as any failure would have set back its efforts to achieve eternal cognitive safety for all those who join.

Offensively, Holder of Dreams has to perpetually toe the line between maximizing the effectiveness of its persuasive arguments and establishing a fair meaning of consent. It makes up for this shortcoming with superiority in planning and large-scale operations; it has only been through precision application of high-power memes that the K-Sphere remains widely accepted among the galactic community, after all. It is said that for every pro-K-Sphere ad "Hod" sends through galactic networks, it seeds two or three doubful-sounding (and falsified) "opinion pieces" and "skeptical comments", carefully tuned using new metatech techniques, so as to very precisely control the Milky Way's populace's reactions and avoid drawing attention for seeming too unilaterally effective.

Order of Battle
Detachment "Flower Ends Here"
1 x FO (~3km, industrial)
4 x FTS (~2km, auxiliary/logistics)
9 x FCM (~300m, combat)
4 x FI (~80m, contact)
2 x FL (~60m, strike)
790 x FCR (~20m, combat support)

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

The Players

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Federation of United Human Planets ~ United Human Planets
The Foederati Olimpiada ~ Olimpiada
The Human Star State ~ Menschlicher Sternenstaat
Kasa Tkoth Sphere ~ Kasa Tkoth Sphere
The Octavian Imperium ~ Imperial-Octavia
Oortian Community of Qhevak ~ Qhevak
The Telrosian Compact ~ Telros

(... more to come.)

[Imperial-Octavia]

What's the color section in the app about? I don't know if I missed something, but I can't seem to find what it's supposed to be for?

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

What's the color section in the app about? I don't know if I missed something, but I can't seem to find what it's supposed to be for?

Color can be chosen independently of anything involving your nation, and may or may not be used by me for something.

Pick any number of colors (at least one) for whatever reason you'd like, whether that's based on your nation or not. I can't say I will use the colors for anything, but it's just a crafty way to hide a little bit of randomization/customization into what happens, if I decide to roll with that.

Check off whatever colors tickle your fancy.

[Arkeyana]

Application and Summary ~ FEDERATION OF ARKEYANA

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

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

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Course of Involvement
Curiosity/Self Defense. While the Federation does not know of this Milky Way's more mysterious landmarks yet, the attacks are alarming enough to draw a response in the form of an IX-S Flotilla, with the intent of assessing the threat and the possibility of interference with Cymopolian Operations.

Stance in International Politics
The Federation tends to base its attitude towards others off of the first contact's impressions. Should the party be disagreeable, the Federation may attempt to avoid and tiptoe around them, should they be agreeable, the Federation will seek closer relations. Typically, any expansionistic tendencies are non-permanent, and meant for observation, extended FTL range, etc.

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology
FTL: Cutter Drives, a highly advanced PrecursorTech computing device that can relocate a ship across thousands of lightyears in the span of a picosecond. Phase Drives, a FTL system that takes the surrounding space around a ship and pushes it "Out" of the universe, rendering it completely invisible and incorporeal, at the cost of being unable to attack other ships OR having to limit its attacks lest it implodes under the collapse of the bubble of space around it.
STL: Gravitic Drives, advanced Alcubierre Drives utilized for sublight, Relativistic, and FTL travel if necessary.
Common Weapons: RKKVAs, relativistic projectile launchers/Particle Beam emitters. VES Warheads, interplanetary missiles that utilize Vacuum Energy as a means of destruction. Gravitic Railguns, a toned-down RKKVA used for mid-range engagements.
Common Defenses: Aegis Shields, rounded, slightly mirrored fields that absorb energy and radiate it as photons. Phase Shields, clouds of miniscule wormholes that "shunt" incoming fire into a Microcosm Reactor's internal universe. Graviton Lances/Beams, weaponized AG generators that are used to apply tremendous force to inbound projectiles or dangerously close ships. Disruptor Missiles, which are...special. Anything within 50,000 kilometers of a Mark VIII is going to have a bad time.

Metatech Proficiency
The Federation is governed by a Superintelligent AI with access to thousands, if not millions, of various philosophies and beliefs ranging from Christianity to The Church of Vosimus. While said ASI doesn't typically intervene actively, it has passively run advanced memetic patterns in the background to make sure the Federation stays the way it wants it to.

Order of Battle
4x Mark IX-S Warminds
[RESERVE] 12x Mark VIII Xenopaleotechnology/Celestial Anomaly Research Platforms (Science Ships, basically)
Additional Information
While a Cutter Drive can send a ship thousands of lightyears, this is possible under optimal conditions. Without all the advanced infrastructure, Mark IX Oversight, and other factors, Warminds in this RP will be limited to a Jump Range of ~500 Lightyears. Still a lot of space they can cover, but they won't be hopping across the galaxy, that's for sure.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

(Arkeyana)

Let's take a look.

• With the amount and power of the forces you've brought, plus the given evidence that this is indeed meant as an armed response rather than some intimidation measure, I would have to scale our adversary to levels that would render the involvement of any lower-tech nations in combat utterly useless. Please remove at minimum all Mark VIII Warminds from your order of battle, as these are far larger and stronger than anything I hoped people would bring (the reason I'm limiting ship sizes is so that any fights at least look vaguely symmetric with what I had in mind). If you would like to cut down your force involvement to something that can readily get in brawls, I'd also prefer if you introduced a smaller and less capable combat class; failing that, the six Mark IX-Ss are (while likely still overkill) somewhat more manageable provided they stay in a support role.
• What I'm looking for in the "Stance" category is how the Federation tends to behave towards others. Consider someone doing a quick lookup on their history in this universe (or others); what do they notice? Does the Federation tend to assimilate people into its fold, join lots of alliances, exterminate those unlike themselves, leave others alone in general? Do they target specific ideologies for war or other "aggressive" approaches? I've outlined in mine, for example, that the K-Sphere is at risk of becoming seen as expansionist, has little respect for borders, and assumes the universe should agree with its approach rather than being comfortable with lots of different ideologies working at once. An outline of that kind would help; I'm not saying these guys are politically motivated, but...

[Imperial-Octavia]

Application and Summary ~ The Octavian Imperium

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

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

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Course of Involvement
Octavia is looking to take as much technology from as many parties as possible to aid in it's own advancements. There is also a chance that the group sent tries to get the attackers to avoid synthetic nations or even give fellow synthetics their tech.

Stance in International Politics
As it stands Imperial Octvaia is a inter-galatic pariah for it's expansionist attitude and policy on forced assimlaton of organics. Despite this Octavia is willing to enter deals and other agreements with organic nation's if they can give some benefit to the Imperium at large and are considered "assimilated in spirit". Civilizations that are already mechanical in nature are treated very nicely by the Imperium and usually ally themselves with these nations unless they were to actively oppose Octavia

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology
FTL: FTL is done via advanced Alcubierre drives able to cross significant portions of the galaxy within a few days. Sublight travel is done with fusion-powered thrusters.

Common Weaponry: The most common weapon systems on Octavian vessels are Laser cannons and mass drivers. The Laser cannon is usually on smaller ships while mass drivers rest on the larger vessels in the Octavian navy. Missiles pods are located on a few larger craft, though they are not common

Defense mechanisms: Point defense lasers are widely used on Octavian vessels

Computing: Octavian ships are their computing. There is no interior except for room for the engines, the ship AI, and other essentials.

Metatech Proficiency
Octavian memetics are fairly advanced, given that Octavia can actually get their hands on their target. If someone can be assimlated the memories and personality of person can be changed, and though it is a very hard process to do this without possibly damaging the consciousness of an individual, but when it works it can be a useful tool in altering public opinion when used on leaders. There are also more conventional metatech options for Octavia such as realistic deepfake technology, mass propaganda capabilities, and media manipulation via infiltraters.

Order of Battle
3x Uan class Cruisers
10x Assimlaton class Corvettes
2x Karsh'Ka class destroyer
1x Y'nel class Carrier (this will be used less for combat and more for collecting technology from any destroyed ships)

Additional Information
This will probably be my first time doing actual FT fleet combat so please forgive any gaffs that I may make in the course of this RP

[Arkeyana]

Edited app accordingly, clarified just what the Federation was there for (Recon and Threat-Assessment, not a full armed response)
I am wondering, however, if the Federation finds some of these artifacts and structures you mentioned in the OP, if I could bring in Science Ships for the purposes of examining said artifacts and structures.

[Olimpiada]

Application and Summary ~ The Foederati Olimpiada

Origin
[x] Local Milky Way
[ ] Alternate/fractal Milky Way
[ ] Extragalactic
[ ] Outside local observable universe
[ ] Outside physical universe

Color
[ ] White
[x] Red
[ ] Orange
[ ] Blue
[x] Purple

---

Course of Involvement
Self-defense. Starships are fairly expensive machines, and losing them in peacetime would be very unfortunate. On the eve of war in the distant Beta Quadrant, past the Kongorikishi through Hermes's Blessing, loss of FTL travel would be a strategic and logistical disaster. Leaving the Astro Vexillatio at the mercy of whatever transport its allies can provide is hardly an ideal situation, and even they could lose transport capabilities due to this threat.

Stance in International Politics
The Foederati Olimpiada is an aggressive capitalist state in the Gamma Quadrant. The aggressiveness is born from a desperate need to expand to escape overcrowding, paired with a general distaste for xenoi and artificial intelligence throughout the galaxy. The capitalist spirit abates this aggressiveness some; Olimpiadans are willing to make a deal with nearly anyone, but rarely willing to trust them excepting well established human allies. The government isn't eager to cooperate with potentially hostile AI-governed polities, but is willing to make an exception in this extenuating case.

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology
FTL: The preferred method for the Astro Vexillatio to cheat the lightspeed barrier is the Blink Drive. It uses antimatter for fuel and can create an instantaneous wormhole between any two points. However, this distance comes at a cost. Fuel consumption increases exponentially with distance, and vast quantities of waste heat are produced commensurately.

STL: Relatively simple fusion torches. Vast stockpiles of metallic hydrogen are sublimated and the resultant gas is fired past a nozzle superheated by a fusion reactor. Acceleration generally does not exceed 1 km/s², and achieving that is unwise on most craft as Olimpiadans do not possess any sort of gravitic control technology

Common weaponry: The Astro Vexillatio uses a blend of lasers, railguns, and missiles. Lasers tend to be used for mid-short range engagements due to beam diffusion. Kinetics are used for engagements at any range, though some like the spinally mounted Longinus Mk. I are better suited toward longer ranges (1 to 3 light seconds). Missiles are long range weapons since their acceleration time tends to make them ideal targets at short range when they aren't yet moving quickly. A few thousand kilometers before impact, they split into separate warheads, each carrying a shaped fusion penetrator for inflicting maximum damage against armored targets.

Defense mechanisms: Advanced armor composites are designed to mitigate laser heat and arrest kinetic projectiles before penetrating the hull itself. Shields are something of a joke, consisting only of an electrical charge run through the armor to disperse incoming charged particle beams and plasma projectiles. Point defense is handled by lasers since arranging kinetic intercepts at the split-second times required is impractical with available technology. Crews stay in space suits or acceleration pods during combat while the rest of the ship is depressurized to prevent catastrophic explosions due to penetrations.

Computing: Olimpiadan ships have little in the way of advanced computing. Optical computers packed with low attenuation fiber optics handle classical computation, while algorithms within this system recognize problems better suited toward quantum computing and assign them to the quantum cores for rapid analysis of the problems in question. AI is not used.

Metatech Proficiency
Memetics have never been an especially important part of Olimpiadan culture or technology. The corporations use a fairly subtle blend of advertising and propaganda disguised as journalism to keep the population in some semblance of check, but the really cutting edge work in the field is done by the Officium Anomala Defensionis and Cobalt Ascendancy corporation, which have developed anti-basilisk filters for integration with military augments. These detect the memetic hazard in question, and short the optic or auditory nerve temporarily before the signals can reach the brain. The hazard is then censored with a plain black rectangle or a noise filter. This is only effective against particularly obvious or devastating hazards.

Order of Battle
Nautikos XVI Gaia (Admiral Isamu Eirenikos)
-3x Basileus-class battleships
-10x Polybolos-class arsenal ships
-10x Constantinople-class escorts
-25x Hermes-class destroyers
Chega de Saudade, an unarmed science ship with an OAD research team and Special Operations Group on it.

Additional Information
OAD Special Operations Groups generally have some (reasonable and well limited) magical capacity since it's their job to combat paranatural threats. If this is impermissible, I can just remove that capability from these ones.

[HypErcApitAl]

How exactly does Metatech work, I'm confused. I know you said that it had something to do w/ Memetics and Art, or concepts and not a physical technology or type of military tech (I.E ships, blasters, armors, etc), but it sounds super odd.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

Application and Summary ~ The Octavian Imperium

Looks fine across the board, at least for starters. I may need a little more from you as things become relevant, but we'll talk that out in this thread later on. Accepted.

Edited app accordingly, clarified just what the Federation was there for (Recon and Threat-Assessment, not a full armed response)
I am wondering, however, if the Federation finds some of these artifacts and structures you mentioned in the OP, if I could bring in Science Ships for the purposes of examining said artifacts and structures.

Application accepted as is.

If these science ships aren't, like, more combat-capable than your IX-Ss, I'll let you tag a couple of them onto your ORBAT right now with the mention that they're being held in reserve. If you would like to withhold even mentioning them until later, you're bringing loads and loads, or they are actually a step up in capability, it'll be better to ask when the time comes, so we can manage the level of escalation.

Application and Summary ~ IC NATION NAME HERE

You're submitting as "The Foederati Olimpiada", right? Let me know if you'd like to be called something else in the players list.

A level of magic in the Special Operations Group is definitely acceptable. Application is accepted.

[Olimpiada]

Sorry about that, forgot that one part of the application. It's fixed.

[Imperial-Octavia]

Oh wait, I forgot to mention that all Octavian ships had Whipple shielding. I'll add it to my app...sometime later.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

Oh wait, I forgot to mention that all Octavian ships had Whipple shielding. I'll add it to my app...sometime later.

I'll keep that in mind if someone decides to throw some sand your way. /s

[Telros]

Application and Summary ~ The Telrosian Compact

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

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

---

Course of Involvement
Primarily research or recovery, self-defense if things progress that far. They are a small nation taking its first steps in extrasolar colonization and expansion, and now this threat of an unknown force attacking FTL exits threatens their position and expansion at its most vulnerable stage. Due to being so early and local threats, they cannot spare any of what forces they have to defend and maintain control in their initial colonies, so they are going to be focusing on studying the events and trying to find out who is doing this, why and reacting accordingly.

They are looking for allies, trade partners, etc from this to manage this crisis as well as gain technology and resources. If they find the organization behind these attacks may be able to provide, it may be an avenue they pursue, but it depends on what they found out and how they find it out.

Stance in International Politics
The Compact is a small nation that is beginning its colonization efforts and exploring the systems it has colonized in the past decade, and with its exploration of the galactic news and information networks as well as the reconnaissance missions from long distance probes and scouting groups have revealed how dangerous and chaotic the galaxy is. With this came the realization they are not quite prepared to take even a hard stance on many conflicts and ideologies, they don't have the resource, military and diplomatic base to get involved in galactic politics. As such, they are focusing on the development of their colonies, their resource and industrial production infrastructure to support the expansion of the fleet and armed forces to allow such endeavors. They are also aware of the gap between their technologies and the technology bases of much of the galaxy, so the hunt is on to acquire more technology and reverse-engineer them to improve and adapt to the galaxy, as they did with the acquisition of FTL and creating the Duat drive. Diplomacy and deals are the focus, and if a military response was required, it'd be limited to as much as they needed and more on raids and strikes, especially in coordination with stronger powers, small naval task forces and inserted special forces and other armed forces groups.

Space-Combat-Relevant Technology

FTL: The Duat Drive is the FTL drive developed by the Compact government's R&D after the acquisition of an FTL drive from the galactic market place, as they already had the theory for generating the field and how to travel in this realm to make the sheer distance of space transit in days not decades, it was the power requirements and some of the mathematics were not adding up. Upon using the FTL math from the purchased drive, tests were done, with some casualties in the early testing and developed the drive that would go through the realm known as the 'Duat'. Religiously, it is known as the realm where lost souls go and houses the other planes of existence, and is the realm of pure chaos/possibilities. As determined by the tests, an energy field has to be generated and charging the hull, both serving as an EM field but also to prevent the realm from adversely affecting the vessel and crew. The FTL is power by the fusion reactors of the ship that it is used on, and generates a lot of heat by the transit as well as the field required to be safe.

Sublight propulsion: Their ships use the magneto-inertial fusion drive for STL movement, a solid blob of fusion fuel is converted into plasma by lasers and then a magnetic field in reversed configuration is used to turn it into a spinning ring that stabilizes, providing the energy and stable direction to direct it out of the nozzle. As there are no gravitic control technologies, these are kept in bursts and under a certain limit that the human body can withstand, even with drugs and acceleration couches.

Common weaponry: The Compact uses a mixture of kinetics, lasers and missiles; the kinetics are coil-based, using E/M charge to launch rather than rails to reduce wear on the launch mechanisms, and are primary done in batteries, as spinals in current designs make the firepower insufficient with the loss of other weapons. Lasers are in the x-ray range, and are primarily used for point defense and counter battery fire, especially against other lasers, and missiles are the workhorse of the fleet, being weapon able to be used reliably at the most extreme distances, and utilizes fusion cores for standard impact explosion and bomb-pumped laser varieties to generate range x-ray laser beams to hit targets and irradiate the hull and crew.

Defense mechanisms: An EM field is generated to help diffuse laser and other energy weapons, weakening their coherency/magnetic field for plasma making its energy less dense when impacting their hull and countering charged particle beams. Ship design utilizes alloys, with carbon and other layers for dealing with energy weapons and spaced armor to ensure impact shock doesn't rip a vessel apart. Point defense is primarily lasers, with clusters of gauss guns and micro-missiles to serve as closer lines of defense or when the heat requires less use of the lasers. To prevent cascading explosions, the deck is vented of all oxygen and the crew are in special suits that are made to handle radiation to a point for combat scenarios and acceleration couches to handle the forces when doing turns and maneuvers.

Computing: Their computing capabilities are far behind much of the galaxy, SSD's are standard issue to enhance processing time and the networks are made redundant to ensure if one system goes down the entire one isn't brought with it. There are no AI used, as there are compunctions of using/creating AI for religious reasons, automated subsystem computing is in the experimental stages.

Electronic Warfare: This is conducted mostly by spamming frequencies with junk data, sounds, and communication requests, trying to jam up the EM frequencies while also running their own counter EW suites to cut through enemy jamming as much as possible to maintain as much of their capabilities as they can with the enemy's own electronic warfare going. Again no AI's are used so there are not network intrusions going on, especially for first encounters with a new computer system and programming language.

Metatech Proficiency
The Compact has extensive experience in this arena, due to the nature of their society and the secret war they fight. The realm of Duat contains many beings and creatures that seek to harm humanity and it is the job of the Compact and its hidden organizations to contain, fight and destroy them. This is very difficult in the age of computers, satellites, cellphones and instant communication. As such, the government has its own department designed to smooth over events and cover up events to keep the populace thinking that the tales of demons and angels and monsters in this realm are only religious cautionary tales.

Memetics are used in some degree, albeit in a anomalous rather than technological way, small wavelengths used to nudge people into forgetting or moving on, supported with good stories and agents to convince with swift tongues of what 'actually' happened. Information control is also an aspect of the Compact's life, as its religious government wishes to keep the populace on the right path, so some information and people are suppressed and others elevated, along with the normal amount of advertising and opinion manipulation you see in modern life.

Order of Battle
3rd Solar Battlegroup
2x Cruiser-class
4x Destroyer-class
8x Frigate-class
12x Escort Class
3x Science-class civilian ships
1x Order Cruiser that can deploy the Order's anomalous teams.


Additional Information
The Compact, as referenced in Metatech, has access to anomalous powers, or 'magic'. There is a system and set up of what they can do and how it works I can get into, if you wish to know. At most, it'd be a few agents of the Order used to support missions investigating this threat or assisting allied groups in their missions. Other than that, let me know if you have any questions/concerns regarding my app.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

I've updated the opening post to push the information box up to the top, since it seems at least two people have now missed it. I will address Telros' app eventually, pending TG confirmation.

IC due to erupt from the seething mass of entropy underlying the cosmos sometime before Friday.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

Application and Summary ~ The Telrosian Compact

That's two on white-blue, huh?

Honestly, in this setting it's perfectly normal for the line between technology and anomaly to be blurred somewhat. A few special operatives with magic will absolutely work here, though I'm still working out how many opportunities we'll have for personal-scale combat/stealth operations. Accepted!

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

IC due to erupt from the seething mass of entropy underlying the cosmos sometime before Friday.

For some definition of "Friday".

IC link on opening post. Hope this is a usable setup for meeting up and then getting our first clues; as always, let me know if something's unclear.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

Hey everyone. The IC's been up for a few days and nobody's made any comments here or in TGs, so I figured I might as well check in.

Please let me know if something's up. I can try to make things more clear if you have questions, or even rewrite stuff to better facilitate activity (I figured an "obvious first place to prepare at" would work, but you never know...), but I can only do this stuff if people say anything. If it's the case that nobody has any interest in this, also let me know so I don't have to wait on nothing happening.

Thank you for your patience.

[Telros]

It has been a bit crazy with the rush to find a place to move within the next month. Just to make sure I understand, there is a ping of activity in a system that the last part of the post shows a ship entering into, that is a ping we're all going to be aware of and sending our own compliments to investigate, correct?

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

It has been a bit crazy with the rush to find a place to move within the next month. Just to make sure I understand, there is a ping of activity in a system that the last part of the post shows a ship entering into, that is a ping we're all going to be aware of and sending our own compliments to investigate, correct?

Ah, I understand. Thank you for letting me know, at least; that's all I'm looking for.

The system of Obek Palsag contains a rebelling force, and the galaxy expects the major local power responsible for holding that system — the Empire of Blades — to drop in a big policing fleet and likely get annihilated, since they seem to be a recurring target of the attackers. People interested in investigating the attacks might want to preemptively start there, unless you'd like to look into previous attacks (not that there's much to comb through by this point). I'll be happy to allow investigation of previous attack sites if that's relevant for you all. Or your first posts can just be setup and such; I'm ready to elaborate more on the Obek Palsag situation before you get involved.

The last part mentioned an entirely different system, Ertel, for people who want to start pursuing the "artifact recovery" part of the story.

[Olimpiada]

I'm also in a bad spot myself, I've got the university's disaster of an online finals week to contend with for the next few days, followed by job hunting. But I'll see what I can do after finals end, at least.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

I'm also in a bad spot myself, I've got the university's disaster of an online finals week to contend with for the next few days, followed by job hunting. But I'll see what I can do after finals end, at least.

Thank you for explaining. I have no problem waiting for a while, I'd just really rather know when people are going to be mid- or long-term unavailable.

[Kasa Tkoth Sphere]

One more check-in, since people were talking about delays at least on this order of length (although two people haven't said anything at all). I'll probably do another after an additional week or two, unless I get a lot of dropout requests.

I'm ready to continue this whenever, and happy to elaborate on anything that's still missing; an extra IC post to bring the timeline even closer to the first stage of investigation, if you'd like? I can provide a lot, but I'll need some confirmation that this is still of interest to people.

[Telros]

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