Cosmic Pluralism · Legacy archive
I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
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I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#1I'm going to Ramble
Azure Beetles
There is some connection between the beetles and arcanotech gear. Where the machines are that piece dimensions, the beetles soon appear. They are nominally harmless, but certain conditions can cause them to become agitated where they will swarm and bite. The bite is poisonous and causes severe flu like symptoms and has a very fast onset time. The beetles are opportunistic carrion eaters, and are carriers of conventional diseases, sometimes even diseases that are not insect transmissable.
AISC Politicians
After fighting for legal rights, sentient computers go after politican positions. Presenting the President of the Atlantic Federation, A.A. (ArchAndroid) Hal 9000. The more power and rights delegated to the machines, the more they will take them.
Theme Ideas:
Doomed Love
Pharmacology
Futility
Insane Machines
Unholy Creatures
Dismemberment
Infection
Horrific Body Modification
Genetically engineered plants, animals and 'Plantimals' that exist to synthesize compounds in their bodies. Immobile, requiring regular attention, either being milked, drained, or harvested of pods, lymph nodes, etc for the desired compound. Thoughts: insects that secret hormone pods, plants that produce blood cell reservoirs, etc.
Legend of the Demon Fighters
the resurgent of parapsychic powers isn't just a random incident. The powers have returned to humanity as have enemies of man and earth have. Mislabeled demons and devils, these beings are manifestations of the River of Sorrows, sentient avatars of human suffering and emotional trauma. After the horror of the Resource Wars and the Second Dark Age, they have grown swollen and fat, strong enough to start tearing through the borders between this world and theirs. Places where large disruptions occur become 'Storm Zones' and are affected in very negative ways. Something along the lines of the Chaos Space Marines, zombie outbreak, strange mutations and radiations and unholy possessions are pretty spot on. Toss in a few cosmic horrors for extra color and zest.
The are humans who have been called to fight and kill them. Some use parapsychic abilities, some use heavy gear and weaponry, and others use occult magic, sorcery. These are the demon fighters. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#2Equilibrium (gun katas)
Ultraviolet (I love Milla)
Aeon Flux, movie and TV shorts (weirdness of arcanotech)
Constantine (metaphysics and the River of Sorrows)
The Devil's Rejects (cultists)
Doom (The Mars colonies, UAC)
The Fog (this is what a blight/storm breech looks like)
The Covenant (a group of teens become parapsychics)
Silent Hill (very bad dimensional breech)
The Golden Compass/His Dark Materials (examination of the multiple part non-corporeal soul and multiple dimensional self expression)
The Last Mimzy (arcanotech rocks)
Teeth
Babylon A.D. (general look and feel)
Max Payne (the disconnect between the dirty outside world and the shiny clean world inside Aesir, also good foundation for megacorp)
Repo! The Genetic Opera (organs for sale, better make the payments)
Speed Racer (a-pod racing with wheels)
Street Kings
The Men Who Stare at Goats (wat)
Surrogates (remote control androids)
The Cell (CogNet nightmares)
The 6th Day (replicants)
Vanilla Sky (CogNet, cyrostasis)
Deathwatch (River of Sorrows, nightmare fuel)
Minority Report (retina scanning based adverts)
Super Size Me (McFood Horror)
The Crow (just and only the first one)
Flatliners (playing with fire)
Robot Jox (how to not do stompy robots)
Total Recall (1990) life on mars, mind manipulation, third breast
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man
Cool World (more CogNet inspiration)
Fortress (creative triple max slam)
Freejack (time travel and body stealing)
The Lawnmower Man (S3 systems, brain rape)
Demolition Man (what are the three shells???)
12 Monkeys
Empire Records (good movie, Liv Tyler underwear, who remembers record stores?)
Hackers (because Fisher Stevens on a skateboard)
In the Mouth of Madness
Johnny Mnemonic (artificial brains, brain couriers, neo-dolphins)
Judge Dredd (eat recycled food, its good for the enviroment and ok for you)
Screamers (dont make smart breeding robots)
Strange Days (brain recordings)
Tank Girl (the third world of the Cosmic Era)
Virtuosity (need to rewatch this one)
Barb Wire (anarch free city, etc)
Chain Reaction (conspiracies against hypertech)
Eraser (arnold and rail guns, thats all I remember)
Multiplicity (cloning blues)
Event Horizon (best example of why arcanotech is bad)
Starship Troopers (best example of the Atlantic Federation)
Dark City (our true masters)
Arlington Road (this one is disturbing)
Fight Club
The Matrix (parapsychic martial arts, CogNet, Viral Intelligence)
The Abyss (seacologies, minisubs)
Leviathan (more sea horror)
AKIRA (Tetsuo!!!)
Robocop (OCP, Delta City)
Top Gun
2001, and obviously 2010
Firestarter (parapsychics)
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (the ruined parts of the world)
The Terminator (psychotic anti-seibertronian schlock)
WarGames, Manhatten Project, Real Genius (playing with hypertech)
Blue Thunder
Scarface (life in the shadows of 2nd world arcos)
Videodrome (death to videodrome, long live the new flesh)
Bladerunner
Firefox (cool plane)
The Secret of Nimh
The Thing (cosmic horror shit right there)
TRON
Heavy Metal (Loc-Nar = arcanotech hell egg)
Scanners
Iron Eagle
The Road Warrior (you know, Mad Max I)
Rambo (now the mold for the average soldier)
Short Circuit (more Fisher Stevens, now suddenly Hindu)
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#3Sample Character Information
Arcanotechnician (CT)
Technomancer (SR4)
The arcanotechnician is the mad scientist with emphasis on madness.
Specialties: Clone tech, cyberneticist, genetic engineering, CogNet tech, dimensional science tech, robotics tech
Engel Pilot (CT)
Not all of the giant stompy things are robots, some are cosmic horrors wrapped in armor and carrying weapons. The Engel pilot forms a biological symbiosis with the beast and functions as it's pilot. (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
Intelligence Agent (CT)
Face (SR4)
A federal man, the Cosmic Era counterpart to the FBI, CIA, MOSSAD, MI6, and all of the other men in black suits with guns operations. It's not what he knows, it's who he knows (X-Files) The Face is the shadowy counterpart to the Agent. (Lone Gunmen, A-Team)
Mecha Pilot (CT)
A mix of technology (giant stompy robots) and archaic chivalry (knighted warriors) the Mech pilot is the heroic fighting soldier of the Cosmic Era. Mech pilot aces are local heroes in their home states and often commonly known as prominent public officials. (Mechwarrior)
Occult Scholar (CT)
A student of arcane theory, delving into the mysteries of parapsychic lore, storm blights, mutations, and the otherwise strange and horrible. (Ghost Hunters, Supernatural, X-Files again)
Soldier (CT)
Weapon Specialist (SR4)
The infantry and power armor troopers, the poor bloody infantry. Well versed with a variety of skills, and in the militarized Cosmic Era, public heroes. (Starship Troopers, standard military trope)
Super-Soldier (CE)
Covert Ops Specialist (SR4)
Street Samurai (SR4)
Genetically born and bred monsters, arcanotech infused commandos, genetic boosted monsters, strange radiation victims, cyborgs, etc. (Incredible Hulk, Final Fantasy 7, Captain America)
Parapsychic (CT/CE)
Combat Mage (SR4)
Street Shaman (SR4)
Mind over matter, firestarters, mind controlling yuris, the standard parapsychic/psionic (Firestarter, Red Alert 2,Yuri, 'the force')
Parapsychic Martial Artist (CE)
Mortal Kombat, Street Figher franchises
Bounty Hunter (SR4)
Enforcer (SR4)
Smuggler (SR4)
Sprawl Gang Member (SR4)
We don't need their scum. Specialized tracker/fighter, often augmented with toys, and biomods
Rigger (SR4)
A CogNet specialist who deals exclusively with drones, surrogates, and remote technology. Can 'occupy' a machine with their own electronic will.
Gunslinger Adept (SR4)
A bullet artist. A soldier can hit a target with a bullet, an adept can miss the target to hit something behind it. (Equilibrium, Wanted)
Hacker (SR4)
A CogNet adept, works online. Specialties: cyber dueling (Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblade, any other power up series) Cyberwarfare, AI, programming, etc (Lawnmower Man, TRON)
Radical Eco-Shaman (SR4)
oddball. urban primitive, parapsychic. Creche dweller, biosphere restoration, etc.
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#4I shudder to think of the movie Teeth and the fact that you ACTUALLY added it to the list of movie inspirations. I would think that a psychotic (or not so much) Ko Girl would, um, apply?
Another movie perhaps to add is iRobot (3 Laws, little whatchamacallit that projects hologram). Of course, this is probably moot considering the other movies you have added to the list. I'm astounded you didn't add BladeRunner, but again could fall under the same moot points as iRobot. One other movie concept that comes to mind that would be certifiably delicious to add to the Cosmic Era is Toy Soldiers, the 1991 plot about little robot men. Of course, in the Cosmic Era, they would actually be toys for wealthy (or maybe not so) children. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#5
I hate to be "that guy," but the Ghost of Isaac Asimov haunts me so. The film - and the book it is based very, very loosely on - is entitled "I, Robot". The film did have that slightly obnoxious Apple-inspired font, so the mistaking is certainly understandable.
Another movie perhaps to add is iRobot (3 Laws, little whatchamacallit that projects hologram). Of course, this is probably moot considering the other movies you have added to the list. I'm astounded you didn't add BladeRunner, but again could fall under the same moot points as iRobot. One other movie concept that comes to mind that would be certifiably delicious to add to the Cosmic Era is Toy Soldiers, the 1991 plot about little robot men. Of course, in the Cosmic Era, they would actually be toys for wealthy (or maybe not so) children.
I was also going to add movies that might inspire, but every time I thought I'd come up with one, I see you've already listed it. Quite thorough and diverse. I do back Morte's reference of both Blade Runner and Toy Soldiers.
In regards to books, I think I mentioned in one of your subs regarding Arcanotech that it does read as sublimely Lovecraftian, with its knowledge leading to madness. I might also recommend John C. Wright's Count to a Trillion. Less than halfway through the book jumps forward about a millennium, but references the in-between as post-petrol with the fall of the nation-state, the many attempts at genetic supersoldiers, the early developments of post-human AI, human augmentation, the arcologies of the Hispanosphere, as well as an innovative method of travel via inter mantel bullet trains, et cetera, et cetera. Highly recommended. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#6Blade Runner is on the list, lol. I forgot about Toy Soldiers, that is a good one. I didn't add I, Robot because I haven't seen it. I read the Aasimov books and had no interest in watching any movies made from the books.
Teeth made it to the list because of the disturbing factor -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#7
Blade Runner is on the list, lol. I forgot about Toy Soldiers, that is a good one. I didn't add I, Robot because I haven't seen it. I read the Aasimov books and had no interest in watching any movies made from the books.
Teeth made it to the list because of the disturbing factor
iRobot is passe, okay for someone who hasn't read the books such as I have but even a science fiction nut such as myself found it okay. I'll try to think of any others that might have slipped my mind.
And I still like the idea of a psychotic Ko Girl using the same, um, ability as that of the woman in Teeth. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#8I actually enjoyed Teeth as a cinematic experience, it was IMHO a well made low budget indie movie, plus the female lead has some very nice boobs. It had some truly disturbing moments, as well as some hilarious/horror funny moments (such as the entire scene with the OB/GYN). That being said, I was put off any sort of romance with the wife for about a week afterwards.
Aasimov was a good writer, but I loathed his 3 Laws of Robotics. They were fantastic for creating conflict by contradicting each other and creating horrible paradoxes in logic and good stories. The fact that modern roboticists (or whatever robot boffins are called) use the 3 Laws as guidelines, well I find that frakking horrifying -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#910 Most Influential Movies for the Cosmic Era
Aeon Flux (movie and series)
Babylon A.D.
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Total Recall
Demolition Man
Johnny Mnemonic
The Matrix
Judge Dredd
Strange Days
Dark City -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#10
I actually enjoyed Teeth as a cinematic experience, it was IMHO a well made low budget indie movie, plus the female lead has some very nice boobs. It had some truly disturbing moments, as well as some hilarious/horror funny moments (such as the entire scene with the OB/GYN). That being said, I was put off any sort of romance with the wife for about a week afterwards.
Aasimov was a good writer, but I loathed his 3 Laws of Robotics. They were fantastic for creating conflict by contradicting each other and creating horrible paradoxes in logic and good stories. The fact that modern roboticists (or whatever robot boffins are called) use the 3 Laws as guidelines, well I find that frakking horrifying
Yeah, but try watching Teeth with your dad, who just so happens to be a major pervert. He loved to pause, rewind, and reply in slow-mo and preferably on zoom with the whole boobs and what not. :what: Totally ruined the experience for me.
And perhaps they use them as the fact that robotics have not got nowhere near as advanced yet to worry? -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#11
[quote author=Scrasamax link=topic=6084.msg75283#msg75283 date=1360040857]
I actually enjoyed Teeth as a cinematic experience, it was IMHO a well made low budget indie movie, plus the female lead has some very nice boobs. It had some truly disturbing moments, as well as some hilarious/horror funny moments (such as the entire scene with the OB/GYN). That being said, I was put off any sort of romance with the wife for about a week afterwards.
Aasimov was a good writer, but I loathed his 3 Laws of Robotics. They were fantastic for creating conflict by contradicting each other and creating horrible paradoxes in logic and good stories. The fact that modern roboticists (or whatever robot boffins are called) use the 3 Laws as guidelines, well I find that frakking horrifying
Yeah, but try watching Teeth with your dad, who just so happens to be a major pervert. He loved to pause, rewind, and reply in slow-mo and preferably on zoom with the whole boobs and what not. :what: Totally ruined the experience for me.
And perhaps they use them as the fact that robotics have not got nowhere near as advanced yet to worry?
My condolences. I live 612 miles away from my nearest biological relative
As for the robotics guys, they are newrds (Nadia G reference, either you get it or you dont) -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#12I just thought of another movie reference!
Please don't castrate me for this but...Battlefield Earth.
There, I said it. Don't get the flensing knives just yet and let me explain. The whole ruined cities part? -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#13No, I get Battlefield Earth. While it's a terrible, terrible movie for one to spend $15 bucks of one's grocery bagger salary on (it could happen to you, too!), it does have some very vivid imagery. The Psychlos (ugh) aren't human, but their human experimentation, hedonism, and violence could bespeak of a post-apocalyptic society. I'm imagining their little nose tube things as the mark of a drug addict in the Cosmic Era. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#14
No, I get Battlefield Earth. While it's a terrible, terrible movie for one to spend $15 bucks of one's grocery bagger salary on (it could happen to you, too!), it does have some very vivid imagery. The Psychlos (ugh) aren't human, but their human experimentation, hedonism, and violence could bespeak of a post-apocalyptic society. I'm imagining their little nose tube things as the mark of a drug addict in the Cosmic Era.
I am ashamed to admit that I spent $5 to buy a previously viewed copy of the movie but the ruined cities imagery is good. I also really like the notion of a vapor based drug inhaled through a nose tube. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#15
[quote author=Dozus link=topic=6084.msg75296#msg75296 date=1360091776]
No, I get Battlefield Earth. While it's a terrible, terrible movie for one to spend $15 bucks of one's grocery bagger salary on (it could happen to you, too!), it does have some very vivid imagery. The Psychlos (ugh) aren't human, but their human experimentation, hedonism, and violence could bespeak of a post-apocalyptic society. I'm imagining their little nose tube things as the mark of a drug addict in the Cosmic Era.
I am ashamed to admit that I spent $5 to buy a previously viewed copy of the movie but the ruined cities imagery is good. I also really like the notion of a vapor based drug inhaled through a nose tube.
They have a similar drug in Minority Report, except it is inhaled through the mouth rather than the nose.
Dredd, the remake of Judge Dredd, is also an EXCELLENT example of many of the concepts of the Cosmic Era. I know you have Judge Dredd on there, but I think Dredd with Karl Urban as the protagonist is WAY better than the original movie. They have a drug in the movie called Slow-Mo and buildings like arcologies. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#16Between parapsychics, arcanotech, and genetic augmentation, some of the low and middle level comic book characters can be created in the Cosmic Era.
Iron Man - almost passe now, since armor suits are mainstream military hardware. Stark would sit at the head of a MegaCorp and his personal armor suit would be geeked out with the most advanced tech the corp could wedge into it.
Batman - also almost passe, an encounter suit and a belt of gadgets, and a few enhancements (augmented strength, agility, reflexes, combat training programs loaded into a chip jack and Batman, hell, Batman Corps are possible.
Etc.
But there are some comic characters I would like to do some work with, maybe collab on, or inspire others to do it.
Punisher
Deadpool
Captain America
The Hulk
Thor
Loki
Black Widow
Hawk Eye/Green Arrow/Captain Archer Man with a Bow and Arrow
Nick Fury
Wonder Woman
assorted characters from X-Men
assorted characters from TMNT -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#17I need slaves to farm out some of the more tedious writing -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#18To Do:
Foot Clan
Mix of Nipponism and cybernetics. Shredder is a low level robotics factory owner, and his Foot Soldiers are predominantly low end unarmed fighting robots, SakiTech could be a local supplier of work bots and bot replacement parts. Nipponism is used to recruit humans into the organization, where they are exposed to stolen genetic modifications, cyberware implants, etc. Shredder has a middle to high end custom light battle suit/unsealed. Based out of New Nuyork Arcoplex.
Couple of Mechs:
Hunchback upgraded to a badass Vulcan cannon carrying monster.
Enforcer used as European main mech, laser and heavy gatling gun
Centurion used as African theatre main mech, big bore gun boom boom
Generic Template Main mech, avg speed, 50-55 tons, good armor, AC/10 or PPC, or 2 Large lasers (Centurion, Enfield, Enforcer, Bushwacker, Griffin, etc)
Generic Template Light mech, good speed 20-25 tons, light armor, light weaponry (Wasp, Stinger, Thorn, Mercury, etc)
Valkyrie joint effort mech for Scandinavia and Federation, multiple variants
Mech systems breakdown
Avengers Stuff:
Captain America - injectable supersoldier
Hulk - irradiated brute supersoldier (scaled down compared to comics Hulk, maybe 3X strength, durability.Can smash power armor, but not throwing tanks
Ironman - power armor elite commando
Hawkeye - gun adept modified to using archery, plus SmartGun system altered for bow
Black Widow - Elite ops, high training and subtle biomods
Tesseract - arcanotech (not adding it to the Cosmic Era, but it is a fantastic example of arcanotech)
Comic Books Stuff
Lobo, Deadpool, Punisher, other ultraviolent borderline incoherent stuff. The Cosmic Era needs its over the top distraction.
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#19Some days I feel like no one is reading this stuff but me.
But the idea last night was the use of astromechs, like R2D2, in battlemechs. I shot my buddy, an avid Star Wars guy a text about it and he didn't like the idea. I thought about it, and really, the only thing the astromech did was provide something for the pilot to talk to in the movies, and to do random minor things. (especially if you count out R2 from the second trilogy)
I was seeing the rollerbots being used as plug and play special equipment, like a communications dummy, a standard back up pilot/gunner dummy or in the area of black ops, a secure data system, ie the mission specs have been programmed into the bots that are being plugged into your mechs as we speak. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#20There are corporations
There are the MegaCorporations
And then there are the CorporateNations.
Some megacorps become so large and powerful they are able to establish national sovereignty for themselves through economic means. The majority of megacorps are multinationals that are based out of small nations far tax purposes and have no sovereign status. Some corps are able to basically buy a big enough piece of land that they make themselves into nations, typically industrial nations. These sovereign states typically exist inside another nation or state, much like the native american nations that exist within the US. They have their own borders, passports and are recognized internationally but use US currency and other standards. Union Aerospace in the Atlantic Federation is a CorpNation, as it basically purchase/plundered most of New Jersey and owns the infrastructure and most of the controlling interests of the local economy. Residents can be citizens of the Atlantic Federation (requiring military service, or other federal level service) or citizens of UAC (requiring only working for UAC or one of its subsidiaries).
Corporate Sponsorship for paramilitary organizations
Rebels and terrorists who fight against the enemy of a megacorp can in some cases be supported or compensated by said megacorp. This is much more common in the Pacific region. Nippon's Red Sun Bank regularly supports mainland asia rebels who fight against the Chinese and pro ACPS megacorps. The Aegis Group routinely provides funding to Amerikka Command, as the constant warfare in the middle of North America is profitable to the ChicagoLand based commodities and tech corp.
Slave Wages
Some industrial megacorps and industrial arcologies use a limited form of human slavery to keep the cost of labor down. Wage Slaves don't earn a paycheck, but rather work to support their monthly room and board provided by the corp.
There needs to be something else, since the Tycho Conventions on Human Labor require that humans be provided jobs if they want them over robots and androids.
Corporate Navies
Cargo shipping companies, and cruise lines, and other ship operating companies often fund their own wet navies to protect their ships at sea. These fleets and national/federal fleets work sometimes together, sometimes against each other. Images and thoughts: The Disney Atlantic Fleet and Pacific Fleets, Princess Cruise Lines submarine fleet protects cruise liners without mucking up the oceanic scenery, and Maersk container ships are escorted by Maersk merchant marine destroyers and light aircraft carriers
I am starting to get a different vibe out of the interaction of corporations and states. It is making me think of the balance of power between the European monarchs and the nobility. Strong Nations are going to have weak megacorps and weak nations are going to have strong megacorps. There will be a constant power struggle between the two factions, as the Government will want/expect to have the final say but the corps will likewise expect the same.
Corps can field para and regular military forces, which can assist federal forces as the case requires. These forces are 'allies' and are not paid like mercenaries, and aren't on the gov't payroll at all. But too much reliance on 'vassal corps' weakens the military of the Gov't and gives the corps the ability to control legislation through the withholding of military support or even aid as the case may be. If Superstorm Sandy had occurred in the Cosmic Era, UAC with it's corp ownership of New Jersey would have had repair crews working the day the storm cleared out and the BOD would have it funded very quickly. The Commonwealth of New England/Atlantic Commonwealth would have struggled with the disaster like every government does, and there would have been politics and infighting over funding, like there was and it would be a slow and arduous process of repair and restoration, like it has been.
UAC could have provided disaster relief to the afflicted areas, in exchange for future concessions from the Commonwealth, or it could have done it anyway just to make itself look really good. Billboard, this community rebuilt courtesy of UAC, carry on citizens!
This would make the Commonwealth gov't look like a bunch of weak pansies who couldn't get their crap in order
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#21These is a Hemingway quote I've seen on Facebook recently. Something along the lines that writing is easy, all you do is sit in front of a typewriter and bleed.
That is how I feel with the Cosmic Era. It isn't so much something that I am creating, so much as it is something that it coming out of me. I write, and I write, and there is more there. And when I am done writing for a while I do feel a little drained, like I've given blood. I have that little bit of tired, that emotional plateau.
Its weird
I know -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#22That is why he drank!
Bleed all over us Scras. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#23
That is why he drank!
Bleed all over us Scras.
Send more bourbon -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#24It wold have to be made way more grimdark and bloody to fit in, but the first few seasons of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers wouldn't be out of place in the Cosmic Era.
The monster of the week, or the Magnagogs from the previous write up I did of Power Rangers would be domesticated larvae of the Outer Gods, teratomorphs cultivated by Rita, an Imbrian who survived the destruction of the solar system because she was locked away in a hypersleep prison cell.
Rita Repulsa would be, as i said, an Imbrian criminal who was placed in a prison and left to sleep for 10,000 years until some hapless assholes open the lid and wake her up. She is a parapsychic of cultivated skill, who is educated and versed in arcanotech matters that humanity hasn't seen in 10 millennia. Building organisms and then matter shifting them to great size, beam weapons, a lair on the moon, near perfect immortality. She is the Zod of the Imbrians, and the rest of her crew are similar.
Goldar is a warrior caste Imbrian, grown and bred to serve and fight for his master. He appears like a normal Imbrian until he activates his armor, calling it forward from the Nebiru Array, where it wraps around him, granting him immense power and protection. The gold sword he carries is a probability blade and can cut through anything. Anything it can't cut through it will transmogrify into something it can. The Gold Filigree Armor has wings, he can fly, and being an actual Imbrian war-born, he could go toe to toe with a platoon of power armor troopers and win, and even overcome mecha in one on one combat.
Finster is an aged biogeneticist and artist who once made a living sculpting organics for wealthy imbrians, now he makes monsters for Repulsa. He enjoys playing with the tainted cosmozoan matter that the outer gods are made of, and he is good at making truly horrific monsters from it. His eventual goal is to observe the transformation of a teratomorph into an erelim, and see the formation of the Dirac solenoid that makes them divine.
Baboo and Squat are gene-shaped minions, the sort of house servants or slaves that a decadent Imbrian of dark persuasion would keep. Baboo would be something of a personal valet, while Squat is the house dog, eating things off of the floor and making loud noises at things that aren't supposed to be there.
Scorpina is a clone of Rita Repulsa, quickly grown after she escaped captivity. This has pleased Goldar, as he has an incestuous love for his master, Repulsa. Having youth and hostility on her side, she is young, strong, and dangerous.
Lokar is a sentient computer from the Imbrian period that has been recovered and restored to operation, an evil counterpart to Zordon.
Lord Zedd is a Desolate One, an Imbrian who allowed a larval spirit to fuse with his soul, turning him into a horrific looking monster. He was one of the conspirators who worked to slaughter the Dynasts, and was fine will killing millions of Imbrians in the process and shattering planets, so long as he won. He will depose Repulsa for a while, until she brings him under her power via parapsychic emotion manipulation.
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#25Battleships
The Atlantic Federation is the leader in this freetext, with their 13 battlestars combining the durability of a battleship, with the combat payload of a mecha based aircraft carrier. Add in spaceflight capability and energy weapons that are measured in kiloton yields and they win. They Win big.
The Pacific Rim Coalition, and Eurasian Alliance don't have any true battleships, but they have a number of cruisers. The PRC lacks a central cohensiveness, and this echoes through their military. Nippon dreams of building their own battlestar, the Yamato, but it would likely be a one of a kind, or one of two operation given the enormous cost of such ventures. The Alliance has focused more on submarines and surface ships, and has largely conceded the space race to the Federation.
The EUdAS, SAUR, and other smaller blocs only have a handful of ships, most of which are either inferior to first world fleets, or are ships from those fleets that have been retired and sold to them. The EUdAS fields predominantly Alliance second line ships, and are struggling with a space answer to the Federation but are failing. The SAUR are in the same field, but being less hostile to the Fed, they have a few of those ships, a few others, in service. It is a real hodgepodge mess.
Amerikka Command has one battleship, the USS General George Washington, an antique precursor to the modern battlestar. It has conventional weapons and a modest mech drop capability.
The Seibertronians have a number of military aspected 'Arche' class ships, typically called barges. The Arche warships are functionally identical to the industrial and exploration versions of the ship, but exchange cargo space for power amps, hull mounted beam weapons, and can sortie seibertronians and drone weapons -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#26Do the Monster Mash
Grottu! King of the Insects
megafauna insects, plus an associated dimension, tie into the invae of Shadowrun horror. The pre-cambrian horrors, the irresistable invertibrates! The horror. Also tap into the old Hammer horror movies with janky giant insects and insect swarms.
Monstrom!
A generic swamp dwelling be-horned cyclopean titan, quadruped, dense and dumb. Monstrom can be an umbrella term for titano-fauna that are not intelligent, and do not demonstrate teratomorph qualities.
Gorgilla
The missing link, tie to yeren, bigfoot, chinese wildman, hairy ass neanderthal hominid. Give mythos gifts and sapience, but non-human intelligence
Groot
Plantimals, aka ents. Probably gonna pass on this one.
The Blip
Energy entity that is a civilization 'saver' Figure out how a laser fire elemental can save a civ, when pic is said elemental ripping apart a tank
Goom
similar to titano-fauna, but sentient. Outcast from other exocultures that have drifted through space, growing in the manner of cosmozoans.
Orrgo
earth elemental type alien, hypertech, asinine, but advanced.
The source of some of the monsters can be the exiles from advanced cultures, corrupted individuals and such that were too dangerous to keep, and too hard to kill, so they were contained and fired off into space. They fall into a grey zone between larvae and outer gods, having sentience and power, but not the extinction level capabilities of erelim. Could also tap into the Aberrant vibe, where the exiles are all parapsychics who have hideously and irreparable mutated far beyond their original species. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#27The Worst Bad Guys in Comics
http://www.cbr.com/bad-bad-guys-the-15-worst-comic-book-movie-villains/?utm_source=CBR-FB-P&utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_campaign=CBR-FB-P&view=lista
1. Mobsters
An overlooked and underplayed resource, mobsters and specifically, mob bosses have a great deal of power. THey don't have to be supers or meta like Kingpin, but they are people people, and are planners, organizers, manipulators, and planners. A mundane mob boss with good connections and allies can be a major foe for a super or other team. Just because a super villain has great power doesnt always mean they are smart, or immune to basic manipulation, or the same general desires that drive people. Moroni vs Batman, Saint vs. Punisher, and then extrapolate out, Tony Soprano vs Jessica Jones
2. Blackheart
Laughably bad, but using demon-spawn who are predominantly human, is underrepresented. There is too much of a rush to the big bad, when some of the best big bads haven't been big bads. Peter Stormare's Lucifer from Constantine comes to mind.
3. Ozymandias
supra-intelligent foes who lead heroes into inescapable plans, so that the heroes very actions ensure that the villain's plan comes to fruition. Amoral, apathetic, pragmatic, organized, and so forth. Unmoved by emotion or sentiment
4. no one talks about the Catwoman movie
5. The Octopus
What happens when a batshit crazy alien wears a human suit?
6. Poison Ivy
Plant oriented parapsychic
7. Bullseye
gun adept
8. Mr Freeze
Cryogenic parapsychic who is stuck in permanent burn, and requires an exosuit to survive without 'melting down'
9. Two-Face
psyche damaged, split personality, meh
10. Dr Doom
desolate one, magic, power armor
11. Galactus
A literal Elder God (versus Outer God), powerful but less alien intelligence. On par with ophanim. Parapsychic exile who survived the death of the previous universe
12. Tainted Genius
A parapsychic hyperintelligence manipulator, but unlike Ozymandias, completely dominated by lesser urges, and base emotions. Can build a hypertech device from scratch, but in the pursuit of a single woman's sexual attention
13. Venom symbiont
Nothing like a plasmic entity you can wear
14. Nuclear Man
The high upkeep borderline out of control supersoldier, lacks self control and is constantly on the verge of parapsychic overload
15. Weapon XI
aka Origins Deadpool, Swiss Army Soldiers, cobbled together out of cybernetic implants and parapsychic torture to create focused chaos generators
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#28X-ecutioners
http://www.cbr.com/x-force-deadliest-members/
Dethlok
Half zombie, half cyborg, psychically bonded to his mechanically reanimated corpse, he is an immortal supersoldier. Tormented.
Shatterstar
The celebrity supersoldier, a grandstanding psychopath who uses the biggest hammer possible and considers collateral damage a bonus point modifier.
Feral
Full on neko mod crossed with a combat mod, a organic killing machine
Marrow
A tarkatan hybrid, with some serious self control issues, cannibal urges, and bone manipulation parapsi powers
Domino
A successful breeding program supersoldier, one that is grown into power over several generations rather than being decanted and juiced up.
Spiral
6-armed augment, plus the Doom package (magic, hypertech) and more capitalist and destructive than political and tyrannical than doom
Bishop
eh?
Psylocke
psi-blade ninja
Fantomex
3 brains, and an external nervous system... wat?
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#29I have written in other places in the Citadel about the fact that the Cosmic Era is creeping towards a technological extinction level event, ala garnering the attention of something that humanity cannot survive, like an actual outer god. I have also written that parapsychic ability and arcanotech draw their functionality from the River of Sorrows, an aspect of reality that itself is powered by the suffering of sentient beings.
The parapsychic is an entity in transition, not entirely unlike the larvae of the outer gods, their abilities manifest, and they become more powerful, they employ arcanotech to enhance and accelerate their modification, because the ultimate goal, the basal urge, is for a metamorphosis. The most powerful parapsychics, the proposed arhats, the mortal demigods, will move beyond black and white morality, traditional mortality, and will eventually shed their humanity, they will become creatures of the River of Sorrows.
The attrition rate for this transformation is appalling. The success rate is astonishingly low. Most never gain the power and potential to reach the critical threshold for this level of transformation. Of those who do, some turn away, choosing their native race over transcendence, or they choose to transcend and must survive their own race attempting to destroy them. This can be a fear reaction, non-transcended parapsis knowing what they are doing and fighting them, or their actions drawing the attention of something else beyond their world/plane of existence.
The former mortal undergoes their metamorphosis and the thing that comes out on the other side is a a small outer god, a Seraphim as per the submission.
Over time, a seraphim gains strength and power, it faces the rest of the cosmos and finds its place.
This isn't flying away into the ether so much as it is becoming a megapredator and dominating their area of emergence, usually starting with their homeworld. The can be an extinction level event, with all but the most basic forms of life being wiped out, it can be apocalyptic with the seraph making itself the leader of the world, and brutally subjugating it. In some shark species, the unborn shark pups will gestate and eventually start feeding each other, until only the strongest pup survives and is carried to term, and thus most seraphs are destructive of their home environs.
Erelim are transcended teratomorphs
Some of the most epic comic big bads are basically seraph of varying degrees of strength, ala Darkseid, Thanos, Doomsday, Apocalypse, etc. A good sign is being 50% bigger than other characters, being immortal or being beyond the normal ability to be killed, fantastic ability to come back from seeming death.
The Escape Pod: A civilization has a nascent seraph, they can't kill it, and they know containment is only temporary. Rather than increasingly complicated traps and tombs, it makes sense to load the dormant seraph into a container and send it as far away from the homeworld as possible. The tomb ship is made as secure as possible and is sent into one of three places
SHOOT IT INTO THE SUN! - and hope the fury of the stellar environment destroys it like your civ couldnt.
Shoot it into a gas giant - and hope that even if it is not crushed, it can't escape the gravity and dense atmosphere
Shoot into deep space - and let it be someone elses problem in 10,000 years
This is where things like the hashmallin come from, their bodies ravaged by nuclear fury until they gather enough strength to emerge, but as mindless destroyed things with only fury, hunger, and pain as their sole drives.
This is also how space dumpsters show up and disgorge cosmic horrors. Not everything fired off into space actually was a seraph, some were close, some just turn into monsters, etc.
Then there is the issue of just what are the Elder Gods, in the Lovecraft mythos, when they are blended into the Cosmic Era universe, and the answer is simple as it is terrifying.
The Universe is cyclical, and it dies and is reborn on a regular schedule, but on an order of tens of billions of years, and there are few things capable of altering this pattern. In each incarnation of the universe, the outer gods arise, sentience arises, and the universe moves on, until it begins to decay, and there is the death of the universe. Like the phoenix, it is reborn from a new big bang. very few things survive the death of the old universe to transition into the new one.
When an outer god is able to pass through the membrane between the universes it becomes an elder god, as it carries everything it had into a new universe. Being immensely powerful in a universe that is still sorting itself out, the Elder Gods are the ones who get to make the momentous incidental decisions that will echo through that incarnation of the universe. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#30Mandalay Nation:
Basic idea: During the ‘Second Dark Age’ the most advanced and economically prosperous nation in the world was centered in what we call Burma.
Rationale: South East Asia was spared much of the direct trauma of the resource wars and starting in about 2040 a progressive technocratic government took over in Mandalay. After the year of fire (2051), this nation was there to pickup the pieces such as they were and take in the refugees. For the next 100 years, a multi-ethnic nation boomed. Using a combination of solar, nuclear and wind power the nation reached a standard of living not seen since the petroleum era. A huge urban sprawl stretch out over southeast Asia, marked by high-speed rail, sprawling indoor markets, manufacturing centers and broad reaching state-run media.
It was technologically interwoven society. They used endemic electronic hardware and programming languages to keep their populace entertained, connected and monitored. It was not a completely free culture or free economy. Extensive testing and tracking in the education system produced a meritocracy. Rather than funneling their best and brightest into capitalist consumer industries, they were funneled into state-run projects. There was an extensive space program. Satellite governments were installed in southern India, Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. New gas reserves were found in the Indian Ocean. Most people were fed. Most people were employed, most had health care and things appeared to be getting better. There was hope. Then the culture died.
Almost overnight (historically speaking) close to a billion citizens of the nation died. It took less than a decade for the jungle to reclaim the land. The massive shopping malls became overgrown, the power plants went dark and were hidden by foliage, and the high-speed rail tracks became trails for animals and nesting places for birds. The name of the nation itself has been forgotten.
The collapse of this culture was the work of the Glassenheim foundation. The Glassenheim foundation being made up of the members of the Intelligence agencies and Oligarchies of the old power did not few a new Khmer Empire as part of their world plan. A new world super power, not under their thumb and not created by their members didn’t fit into their vision. Additionally, the life style of the Mandalay citizens, with their sprawling cities, large families, and expansionist ideals threatened to create all the problems that had lead to the resource wars. So the GF poisoned them. The GF observed that there was a common food additive. A simple preservative, used in small amounts, meant to enhance the flavor of mass-produced food with a long shelf life. The additive was found in almost all mass produced food products used by the Mandalay, and it was produced at a single factory. The Glassenheim alter the chemistry of the synthesis just enough to make it toxic; but not immediately so. Once consumed the toxin would slowly destroy your nervous system. Even the smallest dose was toxic.
What I like about adding this to the cosmic era.
-It provides a cool over-grown but abandoned urban jungle/jungle-jungle landscape to play in. This over grown urban sprawl goes on for miles. Mech battles can take place between crumbling malls covered in vines, and foot chases can lead into 150-year-old residential buildings with trees growing through the roof and monkeys living in bathtubs. Not to mention the danger of abandoned nuclear power plants.
-If the fate of the society is ever found out, then the ruthlessness, power, and vision of the Glassenheim foundation will be revealed.
-It challenges the monolithic use of the term dark age. I believe the term dark age is out of vogue now among medieval historians, and besides the term describing Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire has always been evolving. The cosmic era is written with a heavy-handed intellectual and academic tone, thus in the cosmic era terms used to describe the world, and views of the world should also be open to evolution. Just as Scras hopes that reading the CE will force people to take a fresh look at today's society, characters and readers should encounter things that force them to rethink the conclusion and beliefs regarding the subject matter. There is no room for a singular narrative in a setting as sophisticated as the CE.
-It provides mystery and makes a statement about what our society will leave behind. A conceit is that one reason there is so little history of this nation is because they didn’t use physical print. Almost all data was digital and stored in a dead computer language on obsolete systems. Imagine going to the library now and not finding books, but 3.5 floppy discs or Jazz drives. How would you read them? Now imagine the files are written for software nobody uses anymore. What will happen to the citadel when Strolen stops supporting the site?
If characters can access this information then they might gain something or learn something important to the plot. The Mandalay culture may have had knowledge about the location of eldritch creatures, natural resources, off-world colonies, medicine or the Glassenheim Foundation. Finding a way to read Mandalay data storage software and finding some protected data disks or hard drives could move a story forward.
What I don’t like about it.
-I’m suggesting explaining a major catastrophe with conspiracy theory. While conspiracy theories can be fun, I don’t like em. I think they are lazy story telling and don’t reflect the world.
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#31Free City of Bankok and (spelled differently on purpose) the Singapore Extension.
-Basic idea: in the 2320-30s the PRC’s control of the Malay Peninsula was tenuous. One of the first places to ‘fall’ was Bankok. The PRC lost control because of growing unwired population and a lack of interest in Arco living by that population. Singapore is still controlled by the PRC and has one the largest and most advance archology complexes in the world. However north of Singapore is an area called the Singapore Extension. It is more than just an unwanted geofront, but it once held important infrastructure necessary for supporting the archology while it was being built and modified. Once the archology became self-sufficient there was no need for the extension, but several hundred thousand people chose not move into the archology. I imagine a briefing where the influential intellects and PRC discussing.
“The briefing takes place via CogNet uplink.
‘Greetings my Esteemed Collaborators, Bankok, formerly known as Bangkok, is an ancient name for a location that has attracted human suffering since before we have records. In the last pre-war census of 2030 there were 30 million people living on roughly 1,600 square kilometers. It was unplanned and unregulated traps for suffering like the Bankok of 2030 that created the well-spring of need that precipitated the resource wars and brought humanity to the brink of extinction.
In 2250 the region was almost entirely unpopulated, save for a handful of uneducated and unmodified savages pulling a living out of the sea. Our resource council at the time built a port facility and research center on the location. The human element required to staff those facilities were minor, 2,000 people at most. However, we graciously granted the requests of construction and engineering teams to remain in the area once the facilities went on-line, and we even took steps to indoctrinate the locals. Thus, in 2252 there were roughly 5,000 biological humans living on the historical sight of Bangkok.
Rising military pressure in the region, and the first Indian Ocean War led us to increase the number of onsite personal slightly over the next few years. Our automated systems provided healthcare and food for the populace, but with great a shameful negligence, we ignored the most basic needs of the people. He did not maintain the population’s information diet. We did not monitor the birth rate nor require CHIPing of free births. We did not construct interactive housing facilities such as micro-arcologies and we allowed human and biological resources to play a larger and larger roll in the lives of our citizens in Bankok. People started keeping pets if you can believe it.
As you know in the 2290s things reached a critical point. In ’98 there was the Cyclone (name) which stressed our infrastructure, and early in ’99, the decision was made to turn control off the city over to a local government. We extracted as many of our resources as was economical. The year we left there was just over 100,000 human beings living in and around the Port of Bankok. Today, less then 50 years later there are over 900,000 people living around the port of Bankok. The average age is 26 years old and the majority of them are unCHIPed. thus they have only intermediate medical monitoring, no daily assessments of nutrient intake or activity, no control over emotional input, and information access requires a tertiary device. To put it bluntly, they have almost nothing to protect them from the unpleasantness of being alive. It is horrific and we let it happen.
What is worse, is that we are letting it happen again just north of Singapore. We placed seven pre-fabricated communities in the area, but all together they were never intended to hold more than 32,000 human beings. For a time it was effective to have a residential area north of Singapore while we were constructing the new Singapore Arco. But as with Bankok our predecessors made some poor assumptions. They assumed that once the Arco went up, the people would leave the Extension. Today, in the Singapore Extension, more than 200,000 PRC citizens live in those seven prefabricated communities.
Most of the humans living in the extension are free births. I’ve personally seen documented examples of women having up to seven children in their life times via unmodified birthing methods. Most humans are unCHIPed. They produce their own food. They work outdoors so long that their skin becomes burnt by the sun, and insects and other parasite feed on their flesh while they still alive. Our drones have even seen evidence of money being used. We are referring to physical money, not credit lines, but a physical representation of value that if lost or stolen is gone. It is mass insanity, it is pointless and it is our fault. We let this happen.
But we can fix it. There is room in the new Arco for all of them. They are citizens of the PRC that are willing choosing a lifestyle that is not in their best interest. We most stop them. Soft incitements have not worked. It is time to make the children come home.
I propose that we hire a team of mercenaries, not directly associated with the PRC, to disrupt these communities. The mercenaries will be tasked with destroying their crops, their livestock, the vehicles they use for gathering wild fish, and the majority of their dry food stores. Additionally, we will offer financial incentives to encourage the mercenaries to sabotage the power plants, water treatment facilities, and medical facilities. The people will have no choice but to come to us. Once they are home, with us, we can make them happy. We don’t want another Bankok. It is 2346, no human deserves to suffer in ignorance.”
Thoughts:
-The CE culture gets discussed a lot in broad strokes, but Bankok gives it some concrete examples. Bankok, where people are living in houses, walking down streets, preparing their own food and are unmodified, is a humanitarian disaster in the minds of the PRC.
-Bankok I imagine is good ‘frontier’ or ‘border’ town off the grid and just before the wilds. It is a stable place and a safe place, but it is not monitored and regulated like other places. Here is a person can be free. And the material culture might be more accessible to some readers or players. Here you could go to a street vendor and buy a mug of tea with cash. Here there are sidewalks and independent street vehicles. This will contrast with the Acros, but it won’t be as dangerous as the geofronts. It is not a geofront that hold the Arco’s culture trash. It is a cultural throwback.
-Basic idea of the Singapore Extension is that main characters are on the other side of a Seven Samurai scenario. The people of the Extension will hire their own mercenaries to protect themselves. The ‘heros’ will have to defeat seven cool and deadly mercenaries in order to reach their goals of destroying the lively hood of the Extension.
-This fits a basic dystopian trope, the people in the dystopia genuinely believe they have it better. The leaders of the PRC are genuinely horrified that people would live without the technology that keeps one from getting lost, sick, bored or unhappy.
-It frames the PRC’s humanitarian and progressive slant as awful and everything in the CE is supposed to be awful. I want the motivation of the people hiring the mercenaries to be truly altruistic, but without respect for different lifestyles or cultures.
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#32Overview
In the year 2346, man called EM-Khway is a charismatic celebrity warlord who directly controls large portions of what people of the 20th century called Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. His domain of direct rule is non-contiguous, and these large regions of direct rule are limited to the sparsely populated rural areas in which he is viewed with quasi-religious status. However, his influence and fame are not limited to the regions directly ruled by his followers. He travels widely, and has business interests and contacts in every major population or production center throughout the region. Thus, while he doesn’t have any direct role in or formal relations with the governments running the Free City of Bankok or the La Nan Collective (North Western Thailand) he does operate freely in those regions and those governments are often forced to cooperate or be complacent with the activities of his organization. Moreover, while infamous and feared, he is very popular in the region and through out the world. His good looks, dedication to para-military fashion, and flamboyantly violent behavior make him a delightful object for the news streams. The feeds of the bi-annual martial tournament, which he hosts and competes in, have a world-wide following. His very public and regular visits to Bankok, Hanoi or Dhaka always top the celebrity information feeds. His personal news stream, which he updates constantly, is viewed by millions. Despite this, or because of it, many consider his smuggling and extortion operations criminal. The Eurasian Alliance and the Pacific Rim Collation both have placed a large bounty on EM-Khway, with the Eurasian Alliance wanting him dead and the PRC demanding he be captured alive.
Plot Ideas
2308: The Princes in the Tower: A ten year old Khway and his twin Peha are serving as rallying point for the local militias and gangs in South East Asia. The two boys fit a local prophecy about warrior children. The PRC believes that if these boys stay put they will lead to unity among the locales. The PCs are contracted to kidnap the boys and bring them to the PRC authorities. The PRC doesn’t want the boys to be killed: they’d be martyrs. The PCs have to enter rural Thailand, fight or sneak there way past the militias hold the boys and then get them out alive. The surprise will be the boys. They are hyper-intelligent, confident, stealthy, charismatic, manipulative and ultimately uncooperative. They will try every trick, physical and psychological to foil the PC’s efforts.
2323: The Wages of Fears: The city and Arcologies Yangsoon are on the verge of collapse. It is all the PRC can do to keep the peace. Khway and his allies have effectively besieged the city by extracting huge “tolls” from every transport trying to pass through. The PCs are contracted by the PRC to travel to La Nan (North West Thailand), purchase three carry-all loads (truck loads, mech load, cargo plane loads) of rice and get it into Yangsoon (Southern Burma) at all costs. The PCs can muscle or stealth there way past geographic barriers and hundreds of irregular fighters.
3325-2345: Something gets lost in the areas West of the Mekong River and the PC need to go retrieve it. They will either need to work with EM-Khway to get it or fight him to keep it.
2339,2341,2343,2345 or 2347: The Kapan Tournament. One or more of the PCs is invited to the Kapan tournament. International high stakes martial art tournament hosted by infamous criminal-celebrity with a huge bounty on his head. Nuff said.
Information for Players
A timeline in anecdotes and factoids: EM-Khway’s international fame is largely due to stories and clips that have circulated through the news feeds. As an internationally infamous personality and criminal, most people will know of the following facts, factoids or rumors regarding EM-Khway’s life. If perchance a person isn’t familiar with EM-Khway a simple Cognet search will reveal all of the following facts. They presented here in chronological order.
1) Born a twin and a god: Khway and his twin brother Peha first gained international news when a PRC intelligence report was leaked. The PRC report claimed that the two boys, were located* in a rural village in the wilds between and Bankok and Yangoon. The locales were treating the boys as the reincarnations of the Htoo brother, famous revolutionary leaders from the petroleum era. An image accompanied the report that showed the two boys seated side by side in a gaudy gold-painted chairs at the head of shabby looking banquet hall. The small identical looking boys were between the ages of 8-10, smoking tobacco cigars and each wearing military uniform: one red-orange and one cobalt blue.
2) Black Mucus Membranes: Also detailed in the PRC report was the fact that Khway and his brother’s mucus membranes are all coal black. His lips, gums, tounge and the inside of his mouth are all coal black. This also makes it look like he is wearing eye-liner.
3) Uses Tobacco: The chief viral property of the Khway and Peha report leaked from the PRC was the anachronistic use of Tobacco by the two young boys.
4) The Murder of Li Park: Col. Li Park was a PRC mecha pilot and war hero. When the rule of law begin to collapse in Yangoon, Col. Li was sent in to ensure the protection of PRC intellectual property and personal. As part of her assignment, Col. Li elected to meet with the leaders of the various factions controlling in the area outside Yangoon. One of those meetings was with Khway and Peha. Col. Li never returned. Col. Li’s flight mecha was found standing at attention outside of the derelict shopping mall were the meeting took place. Col. Li’s remain were found inside the mall. An autopsy revealed that she was killed by single blow to the chest that collapsed her ribs and stopped his heart. Khway has never discussed the incident, but has publicly acknowledged killing Li. The PRC placed a bounty on his head that day.
5) Back Handing the Tank and Saving a Baby Goat: After the PRC completely pulled out of the Malay peninsula there was a period of chaos which included an ill-fated attempt by the Eurasian Alliance to impose direct military rule over the region. Video streams of the conflicts were popular viewing all over the world. One live stream was transmitting a battle between a lightly armed but vicious group of boom-hawkers** and a lance of Eurasian armor. The two sides were engaging each on the ancient Number 4 highway, which runs along Mekong river. The camera drone, embedded with the boom-hawkers, focused on a solitary figure walking across rice paddy field next to highway. The figure is an wearing impeccability clean red military fatigues with blue piping, a blue and red cape, blue boots and a red cap with a blue band. With his cape flowing behind him and completely oblivious to the cross fire, the garishly dress figure strode out the field and onto the road. One of the advancing tanks moved into the figures path and the figure swung out with back of his hand struck the tank. A slow motion viewing of the streams reveals a crackle of blue para-psychic energy, before the struck tank flies backward through the air and lands upside down on another tank. The man who struck the tanks then calmly lights a cigar before crossing the road. In the ditch on the far side of the road the man in the red and blue outfit lifted up a baby goat that been hiding during the battle. With the goat under one arm the man walks back the way he came. That man was EM-Khway.
6) Only Wears Red and Blue Para-Military Uniform: EM-Khway has many different designs of uniforms he wears, from old style 19th century dress uniforms to camouflage fatigues, but they always have exactly two colors in them and use the exact same shades of orangish-red and cobalt blue.
7) Live Streamed his invasion of PRC controlled Malaysia to visit his ailing mother: It is not known how the young Khway got to Burma/Thailand, but it was no secret that was he born in Malaysia***. When his mother became ill, he made it very clear via Cognet streams that was he returning to pay his respects to his mother (who was in here 90s). He assembled a force of over one thousand men and took a flotilla of armed hydrofoils down into PRC territory. He live streamed the entire effort. His force landed without trouble, over powered local defenses nearly without a shot and travelled to Singapore Extension where his mother lived. A popular video feed starts with EM-Khway kneeling by the corpse of his recently departed mother while there are excited shouts outside. Saying a few words to her softly, Khway rises, dusts off his knees, puts on a cobalt blue beret and then walks to the door of the pre-fabricated house as the sounds of shouting increase. Outside of his mother’s house are hundreds of his men in the neat courtyard of the community pointing hand held weapons at the night sky. The camera pans up to the sky, and four PRC flight mecha are hovering just above the roofs of the neighboring houses. The feed ends just after Khway leaps hundreds of feet into the air to place para-psychicly powered fist into the chest of one mecha as the sounds of gun fire and the men screams of men in pain erupts from every direction. It was originally reported that Khway died in that battle, but he again surfaced ten days later just outside Bankok. Though he lost most or all of the men he brought with him, he proceeded to upload smug and haughty monologs that mocked the PRC military, and questioned their bravery and honor. And almost everyone in the world has seen the image of a single man with flaming blue fist punching a PCR mecha in the chest.
*The phrasing of the original leaked reported suggested that the PRC had been looking for these two boys specifically. The PRC has never confirmed or denied any connection to the report.
**Boom-hawkers refers to lightly armed group of mercenaries that are generally hired to enter regions and disrupt commerce and employ asymetircal warfare tactics. The use of the term also suggests soldiers without high tech body modifications or equipment.
*** The term EM is Thai slang for people from the Malaysian archipelago. In the CE, the Malay use the term EM as all-purpose phoneme in conversation. On the islands the sound Em might mean hello, it might be a general interrogative, it might mean stop or it might mean look out depending on the tone of voice used. The Malay use it so frequently in conversation that the people in the region will refer to Malay natives as Ems or Ms.
Gamemaster Information
History:
Genetically Engineered:
The man called EM-Khway is the product of a Pacific Rim Coalition super solider program being undertaken on an island just south of Bankok Khway and Peha were the first two prototypes and what was intended to be a line infiltration and espionage units. The longsighted plan of the program’s director, Dr. Prem Tinonda, was to combine genetically engineered abilities with a directed developmental program. The line infiltrators were to born as infants and then raised to be insurgents and spies. Tinonda was not able to follow through on those plans. Field test of Tinonda’s first supersolider line, group 50-I, were not going well. The soldiers were proving to be unmanageable. Furthermore, the PRC was quickly loosing controls on the Malay Peninsula. The political implosion of Bankok’s PRC friendly government happened with disarming speed, and Tinonda was ordered to liquidate his entire lab and flee to Singapore.
Saved from Liquidation:
However, a Dr. Lak Soon, the embryologist epigeneticist who had been responsible for the prenatal development of Khway and Peha took the small infants. Rather then rejoining the rest of her team, she escaped separately in the chaos and smuggled the boys to her parent’s village just a hundred mile north of Singapore. Lak Soon’s parents raised the boys as their own.
Raised to be Revolutionaries:
Soon’s family were ethnic Karens, an ethno-religious sect that has existed for centuries in southeast asia. In the late 20th and early 21st the Karen’s had been led by twin boys who were believed to be demi-gods or prophets. The Soons are direct descendants of the Htoo boys that had led the Karens. Lak’s parents told the boys that they were direct decedents of the Htoo and told the boys they were destined to return to the mainland and reclaim their ancestral land.
Ascending to the Throne:
At the age of 10 the boys were smuggled onto the mainland and presented to the locales as reincarnation of the Htoo brothers. Khway and Peha were used as tools to unite the local warlords. But being as they were genetically engineered to be charmingly, thoughtful, intelligent, persuasive and ruthless the boys were soon running things in their own right. At the age of 16 the boys acquired the arcano tech nanonites (see below) that grant them there super human martial strength and abilities and they began to personally lead their men into battle. Under direct leadership of the Khway and Peha the regional fighter were organized into the Paatow Brigade. Leading this Brigade the he twins began taking control of various over-land trade routes between the Mekong River and the Ayeyarwady River.
The Killing of Colonel Li.
Twenty five years after the fall of Bangkok the last PRC friendly government west of the Mekong river, Yangoon, was on the verge of collapse. With the Second Indian Ocean War in full swing, the only way to get supplies into Yangoon was by airlift or overland. The twins, smelling opportunity, moved into the area around Yangoon and consolidated their control over the land routes. The twins began to extort higher and higher prices from the PRC in exchange for allowing supplies through. Colonel Li Park was the military commander of Yangsoon and was herself a product of Tinoda’s supersoldier project. Li was part of group 50-I. Overtime, the PRC high command had changed its view of the 50-Is. While not great foot-soldiers or grunts, the 50-Is did make good commanders and independent operatives. Colonel Li had deduced the origins of Khway and Peha. Not a woman prone to doubt or fear, Li believed that she could use this information about their shared origins to help negotiate with the twins. When Li suggested the twins were not the direct natural descendants of the Htoo, Peha struck Li in the chest and killed her instantly.
The “Death” of Peha.
Directly after the killing of Colonel Li there was a concerted push to find and kill the twins. One of the leaders of this push was another member of group 50-I named Li Chun. Li Chun worked for the PRC as an independent asset. She gathered intelligence and carried out assassinations. At the time the PRC still had an effective intelligence network in the area and they were able to locate current base of the twin operation. Li Chun personally led a squad of Nipponese special-forces that was tasked with capturing the twins alive during the general attack on the base. The battle paused when Peha and Li Chun, an accomplished para-psychic fighter herself, engaged in personal combat. The duel end with Li Chun leaving Peha skull fractured. Khway managed to extract his severally wounded brother, but Peha remains in a vegetative coma to this day.
The Cult of EM-Khway
Despite the PRC’s apparent victory over Khway’s men, Yangsoon was still lost and with Yangsoon gone fighting for control of the region was now costing more than it produced. The PRC’s moral obligation to the region was largely lost after the “tragedy” of the Hanoi Archo, and to the honor conscious ranks of the PRC military the region also became associated with a great personal shame. When PRC finally pulled out of the Malay peninsula entirely the effects of the power vacuum were immediate and dramatic. Other interests from all over the hemphisphere began to jockey for control.
It was during this time that current persona of EM-Khway was born. He took to only wearing the two specific shade of red and blue: red for him and blue for Peha. News streams and video feed of his exploits became popular all over the world. He began to refer to his soldiers as the Brigade of God and he claimed to be God’s chosen leader. The members of Paatow Brigade routinely flood the Cognet with loving and fanatical rants about EM-Khway’s greatness. Each solider willing received an agonizer implant and would daily subject themselves to excruciating pain as a show of loyalty. Even the former PRC citizens that didn’t see him as a holy man came to prefer him as the local alternative to the rule of ‘foreign’ powers.
A cult of personality grew up around EM-Khway. He came to personify haughty nonchalance and a casual disregard for personal danger. His style became infamous, he was twice voted the worst dressed man in the world, and there was an uptick in the number of tobacco cigar parlors around the world. His physical abilities became legendary. Once the region stabilized (relatively) EM-Khway started to host the tournament he calls Kapan. This biannual tournament, is held somewhere on the Malay peninsula-the exact location changes from year to year. The tournament, which last three months, invites twelve fighters from around the world to battle in a single elimination bracket for the chance to face EM-Khway himself. There have been four tournaments thus far, two ended with EM-Khway yielding and declaring the challenger the winner, and two ended with EM-Khway killing the challenger. Both the winners now work for EM-Khway. The fighters are generally para-psychics or cyborgs and the feeds of the tournament are incredibly popular.
Assets and Abilities
The Paatow Brigade and Business Interests
EM-Khway’s military strength is difficult to gage because he serves as something of an overlord to other locale warlords. Thus, he could conceivable call upon the military strength of his allies if needed. But the Paatow Brigade serves as his personal army and is ‘described as 4,000 men that eat rice in front EM-Khway every day’. They are a fanatical but a lightly armed unit. Their vehicles tend to be lightly modified civilian craft, they have no heavy weapons and typically do not wear battle armor. The members of the unit carry a wide variety of hand held weapons that are often chosen based on person preference rather than tactical concerns. The brigade does have a relatively high number of para-psychic fighting in their ranks. However, at the end the day the God Brigade is an amateur military force that would not stand against any of the superpowers frontline units. Indeed, despite some dramatic actions that went viral, the God Brigade has lost every full-scale engagement it had with the PRC or the Eurasian Alliance. It is a testament to EM-Khway’s abilities as a leader that he has been able to consistently rebuild.
The prime economic engine of EM-Khway’s organization is as middlemen, smugglers and extortionists. EM-Khway’s territory sits at the start of the Silk Road and he gets at least a part of everything that crosses the Mekong or Ayeyarwady Rivers. Plus, all the rice that leaves La Nan does so under EM-Khway’s ‘protection’. But he does have control over several other moneymaking interests. He controls several mines, several agricultural regions, has a stake in the some of the vice industries in Bankok and he earns money from his tournament feeds and celebrity endorsements.
Physical Abilities:
It is commonly believed that EM-Khway is para-psychic. This is not true. He and Peha refused infusion Arcano driven nano-technology that directly channels into the River of Souls. As the nano machines channel that suffering, they also extract Arcano engery. The nanonites can use that energy to grant EM-Khway several specific physical abilities. Those physical abilities are
-Increased Reflexes
-Flight
-Momentum strike (by touching an object he can imbue it with a great deal of momentum and thus send tanks flying or send mecha crashing to the earth.)
-Resistance to extreme temperatures
-Momentum Stabilization Field (this protect EM-Khway from injury from a fall and high force impacts)
-Electro shock (he deliver large or small elector shock to whatever he touches)
The nano machines in Khway’s body draw the suffering from specialized agonizers. These agonizers, which Khway manufactures in his own polyforge, transmit the suffering via sub-dimensional signal. Once the nano machines trade that suffering for energy they can either store the energy or use it immediately. The sub-dimensional signal has a very short range and the agonizer has to be within a few hundred yards of Khway. The people wearing the specialized agonizer can activate them voluntarily. The Paatow Brigade does this regularly at rallies that serve both to motivate the troops and recharge Khway’s batteries. Khway cause also activate the agonizers remotely with his own implants. He does this during battles or tournaments to help ensure that he will win the fight.
As a martial artist, Khway is disciplined, but is not a great fighter. He wins fights because of the immense power the nano machines give him and because he stays surrounded by members of the Paatow Brigade. With just a thought he can subject the members of Brigade to intense pain and use that suffering to defeat his opponents.
Khway is genetically designed be intelligent, intuitive, charismatic and perceptive. He has a photographic memory with perfect recall and has a talent for languages. His personality was engineered to be ambitious, confidant, gregarious, meticulous, ruthless, unsympathetic and focused. He is incapable of lust or forming strong personal relationships, and while he is physically capable of having sex he has no sex drive.
Khway was also designed to be difficult to track and detect by modern surveillance systems. All the modification were designed with standard tracking and detection methods in mind. Thus, sensors and forensic tracking device can locate Khway, but they need to be specifically calibrated to look for him.
His skin secrets and his bodily fluids contain a potent and stable DNase enzyme. Thus, while most people are constantly leaving DNA on surfaces they touch, Khway’s touch actually cleans surfaces of free DNA. His cells also express higher levels of a zymgenic DNase (higher than standard humans) that becomes activated when cells go through necrosis or apoptosis. Thus, even when getting a cell sample it is difficult to get genetic material from Khway. The bacterial flora that populates his skin and other tissue was also costumed designed. The bacteria and Khway’s own glands alternate their metabolic profile randomly to change Khway’s scent throughout the day. The darkness of mucus membrane is the result of a specialized glycoprotein that his cells produce that makes his tissue refractory to standard EM scans. His lung tissue and other epithelial tissue is also more resistant to stress damage that can be caused by fine particle exposure, radiation or temperature stress. His physiology is designed to function with an irregular heartbeat and an undulating metabolism, that most sensor programs would not recognize as human.
Personality:
Khway has a presence that is felt by everyone who interacts with him. He always speaks in calm level manner, often with a smile or simple joke, but it’s a high-energy placidity. Another word for it may be intensity. Part of this is the way he pairs nonchalance with deliberate actions. For example, he has stopped a fight to light a cigar or adjusting his hat before killing somebody. These actions always suggest that he is not that interested in what he is doing. But to Khway’s persona these actions indicate that he has no doubt of his own success.
The key to Khway’s personality is that he believes his ancestors and his brother Peha are always watching him. Thus in every moment of the day he is on stage. And there is no separation in Khway’s mind between who he is, who he wants to be and who he should be. He believes it is his divine destiny to restore control of his ancestral lands to his people. He believes he is doing a wonderful job and that his ancestors are pleased with everything he has done. Thus, when he is reincarnated again he will inherit the paradise that he has created. To his mind he is his own savior.
Because Khway cannot form strong personal attachments to others he has formed a strong emotional bond to his ancestors and to animals. His connection and affection for Peha and his ancestors was because he sees Peha and his ancestors as extensions of himself. His affection for animals, he has many pets, is similar. He is incapable of loving a person, but he can find an animal cute. Animals will love him near unconditionally, which strokes his ego, and he can imbue the animals personality traits.
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Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#33The Singularity
The technological singularity was achieved in the Cosmic Era close to 12 decades before the current date in the setting. Many of the new technologies have minimal human involvement in their design. Humans only developed the first generation of AISCs and arcologies, the first androids. After that, the AISCs took over design improvement and refinement. The machines didn't pioneer many new applications, invention still largely comes from humanity, but once something is made the machines can put a hundred years of improvement in over a day.
The explosion of technology and it's applications changed the world in a subtle way that is still being sorted out decades later. The role of humanity has changed, and mankind is still sorting out it's place.
With the Population contraction, the pressing matter for the emerging world was the shortfall of humanpower. Dozens of avenues were all pursued, cybernetics, clones, extensive automation. This spurred the growth of intelligence technologies, which birthed the AISCs, and the Autons. Various interests looking to profit from the new technology pushed it, and discovered that the new face of humanity, the clones and the machines, were superior to mankind. The breeding incentives and cloning programs are still in place, but the machines have taken over. The most powerful governments are organized and run by AISCs. The labor force is machines, the military is machines and expendables.
The pace of technology and industrial applications has outpaced human capability. Without the use of human hands, wonders have built across the solar system. Sentient machines have built things like the massive Raketenhaus habitat, and the JOSH-Annex, and mines, and spaceships, and seagoing arks.
Machines have done this, and humanity has fallen/grown to embrace arts, entertainment, media consumption, and pursuing their interests and passions -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#34Plutonomics
Plutonomics is the economic system wherein the ultra wealthy comprise and control the major factors of the economy. This is contrast to most other models, as the financial might of the ultra-wealthy eclipses the combined economic power of literally everyone else in said country. This in turn sees the commercial and industrial sectors turning away from the national or middle class and to catering to the plutocrats. This is not a matter of science fiction or dystopian frenzy, but something that is already underway today in our Petroleum Era. The United States, Canada, the UK, and China are all in the process of shifting to plutonomic economies.
Plutocrats and Plutarchs
The Plutocrat is the person who buys their seat in the government, regardless of the system of government. The plutarch (unrelated to the Greek Plutarch) is a person who is fine with maintaining their vast wealth and power without entering into the government system.
Corporatism
The Corporate Plutocrat is the leader of a powerful multinational, or even corporate national entity, and leverages this power to place themselves into positions of power. As the head of MegaCorp, the president of the board of directors also has a place in the govt, relating to the corporation itself. Thus, as the wealth and power of the corp grows, as the plutocrats dominate, their power is cemented in place. It only takes one.
Post Scarcity and the Singularity
The plutocrats will maintain their grip on power as the world moves into post-scarcity, and will at their whim, experience artificial scarcity, to ensure their continued power, dominance, and profit.
In the Cosmic Era, the plutocrats are the players behind the scenes, the Secret Societies like the Anunnaki, and the non-canon House of the Forsaken. The economic power of the 1.12 billion humans on 2362 AD Earth is inconsequential to the economic might of the plutocrats, and their machine minions. No one cares about selling smart toys, music albums, or prescription meds (well they do, corps have to start somewhere) but the real meat and potatoes of the pan-solar economy is building space stations, giant ships, mining colonies, colonizing other moons and planets, and the other megastructures. This is mirrored in the common misunderstanding between the middle class car guy and the plutarch car guy. The middle class car guy has a daily driver and a project car he is working on. He is a car guy. The plutarch car guy (like the sort who drops the millions required for a Bugatti Veyron) has 42 cars, 3 helicopters, a personal jet, and a yacht.
How is America becoming a plutonomy? The big car manufacturers are struggling with slumping sales. They are throwing every gadget and trick in every new car they make because they are desperate to sell cars. Despite a growing population, the demand for base and mid range cars is falling, and in the 18-24 year old demographic, this is considered a crisis because compared to a generation ago, demand has fallen 20-30%. On the other hand, the exotic and luxury car makers are churning out limited run, extremely high end cars, and they are selling out, they are pre-selling out. Ferrari floats a proposed limited edition supercar, 200 to be made, $2.3 million each, they will pre-sell all of them. And the same with Maserati, Bugatti, Lamborghini, and so forth. The car industry is making better selling exotic rockets to the obscenely rich than it is making sedans and minivans. Times are changing -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#35n see the Plutocracy best in entertainment prices, mega concerts are for the rich and sadly slowly theme parks too -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#36I would say for the entertainment industry, the emergence of the plutocrats there is best represented by acts such as Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Dr Dre, where the artist is just a keystone in a much larger enterprise. They aren't just selling albums and concert tickets, they have clothing lines, signature electronics and gadgets, and their personal brand attached to a dozen different things completely unrelated to music. Another event is for celebrity entertainers to slowly become involved with the operation of government. While this might seem a bit tinfoil hat, but just how many times did the Obamas entertain Jay-Z and Beyonce in the White House?
Dr Dre doesn't care if you buy his albums or not, he's made vastly more money selling Beats headphones than he ever did rapping.
Dolly Parton has her own amusement and theme park, and is vastly more visible and involved in that part of my state, moreso than any government agency. That became apparent when after the Sevier county fires were put out, Dolly showed up with checks in hand to hand out to the people who needed them, while FEMA was busy trying to figure out where their ass was. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#37he Verse
Within the CogNet, there are many nodes, servers, buffer areas, theme parks, and much more. These are in common parlance known as Verses. This is a shortening of Universe, and not a musical reference. A Verse operates within a single system, and is generally self contained. This is done mostly as a security feature, protecting the users of the Verse. The most common expression of Verses is the thematic settings where people engage in recreational activities.
Link to Wonder World LLC
Link to Virtual dungeon
Multi-Verses
An equally common set up is the creation of Mirror Verses. A Mirror Verse is just a duplicate of an existing Verse and is used to keep up with heavy demand. Some virtual theme park servers, and popular game Verses will have dozens of Mirror Verses running, all connected to a central control node, creating a Multi-Verse. These all share the same settings, the same internal physics, and so forth. The important factor of a multi-verse is that admins and power players can easily cross and change Verses, and where Verses aren't self correcting, this can cause some interesting effects.
Correcting Verse - a Correcting Multi-Verse keeps all of it's respective mirrors aligned, and switching from one Verse to another Verse has little impact on the user. All commercial and industrial Multi-Verses are correcting, many correcting only cycles measured in minutes. This can make hacking and cyberwar difficult, system corrections can reset defeated system defenders, reactivate damaged control systems, and generally leave attackers depleted from a fight, and the defenders reset.
Non-Correcting Verse - a non-correcting multi-verse allows for it's mirrors to deviate and evolve along their own lines. This is very popular in fantasy and sci-fi verses, and in alternate history verses. While this makes these verses more vulnerable to hacking, many times these Verses are much more dangerous for hackers by nature of their very design. Where a correcting verse would correspond to a shopping mall, DMV, or corporate office, a non-Correcting verse is much more likely to be set in Tolkien's Middle Earth or in some Starcraft like milieu. -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#381. GO-Bot
A very common type of synth, the GO-bot is a basic auton, but follows the notion of the mabu-ren and have fabric sheaths rather than rigid carapaces more common to occidental autons. These machines are relatively cheap and easy to manufacture, and their sensors are ported over from commonly available fascia technology. This creates the common imagery of the awkwardly lump and pointy chassis of a low end robot wearing human clothing and a fascia for the robotics of the wastelands. When things get dicey, as they are wont to do, GO-bots are action oriented, and can use basic hand to hand combat, melee weapons, and basic firearms. They will pick conventional weapons first, as they can have interference from high energy weaponry. With their enhanced strength and aggression, GO-Bots are go-getters who like to solve problems with clenched steel fists and hammers and maces.
Notable abilities - GO-Bots have Improvised Combat as a skill (being able to fashion and use almost anything as a basic melee weapon) and basic hand to hand combat (basic martial arts combat).
Notable drawbacks - almost zero linguistic ability, almost no appreciable non-combat skills
Variants -
GO-Bot Mk II: almost identical to the basic version, the Mk II is 20% stronger, has basic body armor, and an improved sensor system. 2 Mk II's are equal to 3 Mk I's
GO-Bot Mk Z: 50% stronger than a Mk I, and twice the armor protection of a Mk I, and mounting a medium size self destruct core, allowing Z-Bots to double as mobile mines as well as punch and kick bots
GO-Bot Mk III: improved initiative and faster, Mk III's have almost no armor protection and are vulnerable, but are favored in hostile environments, where a skeletron like Mk III with knives can slash open encounter suits and hazmat suits. These are cheaper than the Mk I, and are more used for ambushes and shock attacks. Some users will decorate their Mk IIIs with human remains, or wrap them in armor to make them tougher.
GO-Bot Mk S: the Mk S is similar to the Z, being bigger, and stronger, than most. It differs in that the unit replaces the fascia with a boppet head. The Mk S is a media creation, a sort of color-coded villainy trope for heroes to fight and to be merchanised. They do not self destruct.
2. TENGA Bot
The TENGA Bot is functionally similar to the Mk Z, but do not self destruct. They are flight capable, having jump packs and wings. Their cortices are 'slightly' better, more to handle flight demands, but it mirrors over in the fact that despite remaining low intelligence, they can speak in a passable if broken pidgin fashion. TENGA-Bots favor bladed weapons and thrown weapons like grenades and hand bombs.
Notable Abilities - Flight, voice mimicry
Notable Drawbacks - vulnerable to acoustic deterrents
Variants
TENGA-Z: The TENGA-Z has a much improved cortex, usually stolen from another auton or robot, and reprogrammed to handle a flight capable body. This means that TENGA-Z bots can have 2-3 unexpected skills from their previous configuration.
3. GEL-Bot
The GEL-Bot is functionally a GO-Bot Mk Z (minus self destruct), but it has a ballistic fiber sheath and ballistic gel 'flesh' that makes it much more durable than other synths. The GEL-Bot actually has a low function but humanoid face -
Re: I Really Need to Make the Cosmic Era it's Own Forum Section
#39The name of the game in 2044 was Combat Integration. The premise was meshing the technological power of emergent AIs with communications and forces on the ground, creating a military fighting force that could respond like it was a single cohesive organism with every unit connected.
CSAIS
CSAIS was predominantly a communications and information system and the main mode of interfacing with it was through what amounted to a smartphone. The AI was considered a floating system that existed within the servers closest to the military action, and was not actually housed in a specific location. This allowed for infantry on the ground to instantly access air recon and support, tanks could transition from assault vehicles to mobile artillery, and so forth.
Ultimately the CSAIS would be scrapped and most of the hardware was destroyed and recycled. The AI technology was at a sufficient level, but the programming of AI systems was still being done manually, before the current paradigm where AI systems are created from code 'seeds' which are germinated and brought up to operational status by existing AIs. The handful of systems that went active demonstrated that there were glaring flaws. CSAIS could be hacked, and could be compromised by viral attack. On a more basic level, if a unit with CSAIS interface was taken out, a smart foe could access the system, and then have intimate access to everyone else using the network. This could be exploited as easily as just using it as a recon system or as deviously as sending in false data, and setting up friendly fire incidents.
Basic Abilities
CSAIS connects the electronics systems of all units that are under its umbrella. In the former US military each soldier in a CSAIS net wore a 'smartphone' that had basic optics, microphone, mapping systems, and so forth. Vehicles could mount larger and more precise equipment. Using these overlapping fields of information, the CSAIS builds a composite virtual map of what the entire unit is doing. This information could be presented via a holo-projection table.
The CSAIS, running through a suitable system, could do more than compile and present data. When running in a 'War Room' setting, the CSAIS could build combat models on the fly and suggest courses of action. This information, so long as the network were uncompromised, could quickly turn battles in favor of the CSAIS forces.
During the Resource Wars, the US military scored decisive victories using the CSAIS and their operational AISCs Ares, Odin, and Vindicator. These machines powered multiple CSAIS zones, administered through a network of AWACS aircraft, spy drones, surface ships, and spy vehicles.
Creation
The CSAIS program was considered a waste of money and resources. It was the culmination of decades of AI and intelligence gathering technology, and had a long and problem filled history. There were multiple scandals, a large number of database breeches, and relentless senate hearings. The program was backloaded with large numbers of rules of engagement, and other non-combat relevant elements were rammed into it by the civilian government. So long as these rules were classified, everything was fine. When the media leaked various elements enemies of the US military discovered that these were hardwired loopholes they were quick to exploit them.
With computer systems making the decisions most of the time, the right symbols could turn a vehicle into a non-combatant. Once the American's enemies realized CSAIS forces wouldn't fire on medical and rescue vehicles, or they were not allowed to call in heavy support against them, they started painting combat vehicles like emergency response vehicles and hospitals. Local losses quickly became heavy when infantry were blocked from calling in airstrikes or artillery, and when tanks had their guns locked out when their smart systems identified a Russian T-14 with red crosses on it as an ambulance.
Military Legalism
The CSAIS worked most of the time. In large battles it was indispensable. In insurgencies and counter-terrorism, it was problematic. The designers of the CSAIS were repeatedly brought into legal proceedings where lawyers and politicians would wrangle and argue over the ethical use of the system, and how to use it to prevent civilian casualties and collateral damage