Inward of the Silesian Confederacy, almost within the Core, not far from the Darkvoid, there had once been a world known to its inhabitants by name that translated as Dirt, or as Fear, dependent upon whom you spoke to. Most just called it Earth. Located on the rim of a tiny, localised, wormhole cluster, it expanded, colonising habitable worlds through the Caprician wormholes. Nine colonys were founded - barren Caprice, wet Atlantis, the prisonworld of Botany. The most famous of the colonies, the second ofthem, Nueva Terra, was the jewel in their crown.
But all good things come to an end.
Ehrlich Tannhauser crowned himself Emperor and civil war raged across the homeworld. The expensive wormhole installations were abandoned and the colonies found themselves alone in the night. Fourteen centuries of labour were cast aside and the colonies sank into darkness.
On Nueva Terra the colonists forged their own unions and defences. Faced by marauders of cut off soldiers, they formed City-States. Faced by the militant rivalries of their neighbours they formed Leagues. Faced by the prospect of global holocaust, they polarised into Confederations.
Four hundred and fifty-nine years after the loss of contact with the homeworld, a new star blazed in the sky. Between the orbits of frozen Ares and Hades, a fleet emerged from the hyperspace, as the wormhole opened once again to disgorge assault transports. With fire and steel, William Stanley, Emperor of Imperial Terra, demanded the submisson of the proud descendants of the colonists.
Descending on the desert Badlands, the expeditionary forces moved to overrun horrified Nueva Terrans and orbital strikes shattered key defences. Led by the United Western States, four Leagues mounted a defence while two others bowed their knee to Stanley's legions. The centuries of internicine warfare had forged the Nuevan armies as the civil wars had hardened Stanley's forces. After six years of bloody battle, the depleted Imperial Fleet gathered what it could of the Imperial Field Army and departed. The ravaged United Western States, the Northern Republic, the Eastern Star Emirates and the Southern Lights Confederacy could do little but watch. Indeed they energies were diverted soon by squabbling over the resources of the fallen leagues.
Two decades passed and then another fleet was sited by the ESS Sword of the Spirit of Man. But ths fleet was not that of Imperial Terra. The homeworld was gone, burnt to a cinder when the developing instability of it's sun. With it had died more than half their race, those that William Stanley had sought to evacuate to the colonies. Now the New Empire of Caprice, ruled over by the Stanley dynasty, demanded vengeance upon those who had callously, to their propaganda, refused sanctuary to those billions.
For a hundred years Nueva Terra has fought for it's independence and it's survival. Across the planets of the Helios system they have contested the NEC and found themselves a battlefield for wars with their neighbouring prinicpality counter-spinward, the self-proclaimed Galactic Empire that spanned perhaps ten worlds.
Colonel-General Michael 'Drake' Brown, UWSA, studied the holodisplay that currently dominated his study on the second floor of Rhovanion House, a sprawling manor house that had been home to generations of his family.
The display showed two spherical images. The first, smaller, was marked by two dozen stars. A single golden star flared almost dead centre, connected to a web of white strands that reached out to half the other stars, marked in blue and tending towards the left of the display where the web centred. That blue star had a ring around it. He knew without checking that this was Caprice, capitol world of the never to be sufficently damned New Empire. The other stars in the display flared red, marking systems of the 'Galactic' Empire. Beyond them lay other powers, barely known in this isolated corner of the galaxy. Names such as Silesia, Haven or the distant Humanx conjured no familiar images for the officer.
The other display was simpler. A star blazed in the centre and around it faint lines decribed to orbits of the worlds around it. One tiny cube floated above the disc of the orbits of the six planets. Drake ignored it and used a remote to focus on the second world. The display expanded until it showed only Nueva Terra itself and it's three moons: Faith, Hope and Charity. The moons faded and political boundaries became highlighted as Drake thumbed the remote again.
"As you can see, Councillor, the scope of our operations is daunting." He pointed to one geopolitical region, a dumbell shape that spanned the equator at it's narrow point and flared outwards in the polar regions. "The Western Army defends one of the longest borders on Nueva Terra, and we also extend support to the Badlands cities after the destruction of July last year."
Councillor Pericles Waldeck paled slightly at the thought of the devestated desert city state. Miraculously the population had been unscathed by whatever had levelled it, but over a million had died as a result of starvation, rioting or disease before emergency aid from neighbouring communities had arrived. "Do we have any idea what caused this yet?" he asked hopefully.
Drake simply shook his head. "The only lead we have is witness claiming that whatever it was started in the Mayor's office. The Mayor himself was already dead - a gunshot wound from our forensic team's report - and his visitor, a wanderer named Vash, has dropped from sight. "We've offered a reward for anyone who can bring him in for questioning."
"Hah! Putting a price on his head would be more productive," Waldeck growled. "You already said he was in the office, and he probably killed the Mayor as well."
"We don't know that," Drake disagreed, but he saw that the newly elected Councillor for Timbuktu had heard all he wanted to on the subject. "In any event, we are also diverting some resources from replacing our satellite defence grid to Vice Admiral Antonov and the Unified Fleet. That's going to set back completion by at least two cycles but the Intelligence Secretariat reports that the Empire is still reorganising after their last civil war. The new Emperor seems rather unstable and he's cerainly got a powerful fleet but we have a grace period while he solidifies his position."
"Antonov..." Waldeck said thoughtfully. "I don't believe I've ever met him."
"One of Howard Anderson's proteges during the Third War," Drake told the pudgy politican. "Good man in a fight and no one in the NEC heirarchy right now wants to start anything while he has a fleet in their backyard. Especially since First Fleet will be at full wartime strength in six weeks."
He tapped another key. The holo display of Terra Nova blurred and reformed again on another planet, a frosty sphere. "Our otrher key deployment right now is Captain-General Whitehall and his Chu-sho on Ares. Reports are very good and we anticipate the last NEC holout will be in Nuevan hands by the end of the year."
Waldeck's eyes narrowed. "But surely there must be some slack in the budget," he complained. "The high burden is becoming a problem for my constituents in Timbuktu, and that's having knock-on efffects throughout the west."
Most directly your brother's automative plants, thought Drake grimly. "Unfortunately, no," he disagreed. "Rebuilding what we lost in the last ten years is the Chief Executive's major long term goal," he reminded the northern industrialist. "Until our defences are restored, the budget..."
An exhaustive hour later, Waldeck was out of the building and Drake could relax somewhat. Sinking into an armchair he deactivated the displays and stared out of a window and contemplated the crystal clear Ashanti sky. How long, he wondered, do we have to look up and fear what may come down on us.
The door opened and his assistant/bodyguard, Alica DeVries, entered with a file under one arm and a bottle in her hand.
"Could you get me some..." Drake began, then looked up and saw her smile.
"...of the '58 and the latest reports from Ivan the Terrible?" she asked with a twinkle in her jade eyes.
"Bless you, Alicia," he replied, accepting the bottle and the folder of printouts. "Where were you hiding when I was looking for a wife?"
The Elite Corps Master Sergeant chuckled throatily. "Probably in my cradle, sir."
He winced. "That was cruel."
"Yes," she admitted. "Probably true, though."
"I wouldn't be surprised. Anything else I should do today or can I actualy take a few hours off?"
Alicia frowned for a moment, considering the various duties that could at anytime come crashing down on her boss. "Nothing urgent."
Drake sighed in relief and popped the bottle's cap. "You might as well take the rest of the afternoon off then. Go hit the beaches or something."
Alicia nodded and saluted casually as she headed out of the room, probably already planning her next assault on the male hormones of the Western capitial, if Drake remembered the last time he'd seen Alicia on the beach correctly.
Then he remembered her salute and grinned. The girl had been painfully uptight when they'd first, but she'd shaped up nicely, probably ready for her comission really. Not really a girl anymore he reminded himself, she had to be, what? twenty-four? by now.
Her quip stung at his conscience and he sank back into the chair, sipping from the bottle. After all, she hadn't been in her cradle when he'd been her age. Nor had anyone else on Nueva Terra so far as he knew.
And Michael 'Drake' Brown, who had been born long ago and far away, on a planet that now existed only as an abandoned cinder, placed the bottle back on the floor by his chair and lost himself once again in his work.
drakensis
Hail Eris, we who are about to laugh salute you!
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What can I say, I started putting notes together and a few scenes leapt to mind. Some of what I put in may not make sense without more context (or at all) so here are some notes.
1. Nueva Terra. A mutation of Terra Nova from Heavy Gear. Its history is not entirely the same as that in the game and just to draw a distinction I swapped the poles so the northern states are in the Antarctic and vice versa. The main historical variation is the introduction of another league that never clearly aligns with north or south.
2. The Galactic Empire. Nothing whatsoever to do with the Taiidani, this is taken from a series of OVAs called Photon. The current Emperor is a scientist who worked out a new power system and used it to stage a coup (which indicates just how unstable the Empire is). He hasn't finished solidifying his position yet, as there are numerous holdouts to the previous dynasty.
3. The New Empire of Caprice. Originally the Earth mitary from Heavy Gear, these have been blended with the clans from Battletech (possibly they'll be connected or I'll just use some ideas) and EE 'Doc' Smith's d'Alembert books.
4. Military balance. The Nueva Terran Unified Fleet is roughly half the size of either Empire's fleet but they can afford to concentrate it in one system, while the other two have to watch each other, leading to a roguh parity. In terms of ground forces, Nueva Terra maintains almost as many frontline troops as either Empire, divided between the four leagues and various minor powers. Both the NEC and Nueva Terra use ships simialr to those of Battletech (blocky vessels with large batteries of weapons) whereas the Galactic Empire's newest stuff is more advanced but less numerous.
5. David Weber. I've stolen characters from a couple of his books. Alicia DeVries is from Path of the Fury, while Ivan 'The Terrible' Antonov and Pericles Waldeck are from Crusade.
drakensis
Hail Eris, we who are about to laugh salute you!
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>1. Nueva Terra. A mutation of Terra Nova from Heavy Gear. Its history is not entirely the same as that in the game and just to draw a distinction I swapped the poles so the northern states are in the Antarctic and vice versa. The main historical variation is the introduction of another league that never clearly aligns with north or south.
Neat. But why not just steal it straight? It's not like we own any of the rest of this...
>2. The Galactic Empire. Nothing whatsoever to do with the Taiidani, this is taken from a series of OVAs called Photon. The current Emperor is a scientist who worked out a new power system and used it to stage a coup (which indicates just how unstable the Empire is). He hasn't finished solidifying his position yet, as there are numerous holdouts to the previous dynasty.
Zor?!
>3. The New Empire of Caprice. Originally the Earth mitary from Heavy Gear, these have been blended with the clans from Battletech (possibly they'll be connected or I'll just use some ideas) and EE 'Doc' Smith's d'Alembert books.
Cool.
>4. Military balance. The Nueva Terran Unified Fleet is roughly half the size of either Empire's fleet but they can afford to concentrate it in one system, while the other two have to watch each other, leading to a roguh parity. In terms of ground forces, Nueva Terra maintains almost as many frontline troops as either Empire, divided between the four leagues and various minor powers. Both the NEC and Nueva Terra use ships simialr to those of Battletech (blocky vessels with large batteries of weapons) whereas the Galactic Empire's newest stuff is more advanced but less numerous.
The Caprician (ka-PREESH-uhn, not to be confused with those things, like the Galactica, which are of Caprican - KAP-rih-kan - origin) cluster is notable for being one of only three areas where one may find walkers as serious weapons of war (the others being the Inner Sphere and the Humanx Commonwealth).
>5. David Weber. I've stolen characters from a couple of his books. Alicia DeVries is from Path of the Fury, while Ivan 'The Terrible' Antonov and Pericles Waldeck are from Crusade.
Of course, I'm currently wondering if there's a pocket empire run by a bunch of felinoids bordering on this little cluster, and if their radiation-tolerant hexapedal henchrace is starting to expand deeper into the Core...
Well, we are talking about a limited wormhole net.
Blessed be.
Nathan Baxter
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Neat. But why not just steal it straight? It's not like we own any of the rest of this...
Just in case someone wants to use it elsewhere in a more canon format. I think it was mentioned as a spiceworld on another thread. Besides Nueva Terra sounds more exotic and one of the details I haven't pegged out yet is that Nueva Terra has a thriving tourist industry for those who can reach it (it's one of their major sources of foreign capital).
>2. The Galactic Empire. Nothing whatsoever to do with the Taiidani, this is taken from a series of OVAs called Photon. The current Emperor is a scientist who worked out a new power system and used it to stage a coup (which indicates just how unstable the Empire is). He hasn't finished solidifying his position yet, as there are numerous holdouts to the previous dynasty.
Zor?!
Worse. I recommend the OVA's (now available on a single DVD). This guy is totally insane.
>3. The New Empire of Caprice. Originally the Earth mitary from Heavy Gear, these have been blended with the clans from Battletech (possibly they'll be connected or I'll just use some ideas) and EE 'Doc' Smith's d'Alembert books.
Cool.
>4. Military balance. The Nueva Terran Unified Fleet is roughly half the size of either Empire's fleet but they can afford to concentrate it in one system, while the other two have to watch each other, leading to a roguh parity. In terms of ground forces, Nueva Terra maintains almost as many frontline troops as either Empire, divided between the four leagues and various minor powers. Both the NEC and Nueva Terra use ships simialr to those of Battletech (blocky vessels with large batteries of weapons) whereas the Galactic Empire's newest stuff is more advanced but less numerous.
The Caprician (ka-PREESH-uhn, not to be confused with those things, like the Galactica, which are of Caprican - KAP-rih-kan - origin) cluster is notable for being one of only three areas where one may find walkers as serious weapons of war (the others being the Inner Sphere and the Humanx Commonwealth).
I suspect Nuevan Terrans have something of a reputation for bellicosity. They haven't even got a united world government as such and they're already picking interstellar fights with multi-star system polities...
>5. David Weber. I've stolen characters from a couple of his books. Alicia DeVries is from Path of the Fury, while Ivan 'The Terrible' Antonov and Pericles Waldeck are from Crusade.
Of course, I'm currently wondering if there's a pocket empire run by a bunch of felinoids bordering on this little cluster, and if their radiation-tolerant hexapedal henchrace is starting to expand deeper into the Core...
Probably not part of the Caprician Wormhole cluster but the Orions, Gorm and Opiiuchi may very well be around the region - the precise location of which I may need to finetune based on the map. Of course, so may the Rigellians, the Thebans and the Bugs...
Well, we are talking about a limited wormhole net.
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'Galactic' Empire vs New Empire, are these both part of the former empire that originally spawned Nueva Terra?
>The Caprician cluster is notable for being one of only three areas where one may find walkers as serious weapons of war (the others being the Inner Sphere and the Humanx Commonwealth).<
possibly 4, depends on if Warhammer 40k's Empire is blended into the Taiidani Empire. In Warhammer the Empire has 2 types of military Walker units, the Imperial Guard's Sentinels and the Space Marine Dreadnoughts.
Sentinels are one-man, lightly armored walker. Mainly used for raiding, reconaissance and providing mobile heavy weapons support to Guard infanty units (Sentinels can fire while moving, infantry heavy weapons teams can't)
Dreadnoughts are assault units. 'Piloted' by a halfdead spacemarine permanently inturred inside with the machine's lifesupport sustaining him. moderatly armored and armed with any of a wide selection of heavy weapons, it's a serious threat to both armored units and infantry.
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>'Galactic' Empire vs New Empire, are these both part
>of the former empire that originally spawned Nueva
>Terra?
Nope. The New Empire (New Empire of Caprice) is the remnants of that Empire, which was itself a successor to the government that had colonised Nueva Terra. The 'Galactic' Empire is another species (well, they're human but from elsewhere). They happen to be the nearest neighbours to the New Empire and Nueva Terra. The last time they were united enough to try to expand was the only period thus far that the NEC and Nueva Terra have had a common cause.
>possibly 4, depends on if Warhammer 40k's Empire is
>blended into the Taiidani Empire. In Warhammer the
>Empire has 2 types of military Walker units, the
>Imperial Guard's Sentinels and the Space Marine
>Dreadnoughts.
Also Titans. Think a mecha about a hundred metres tall with weapons comparable to the those that make up batteries of a battleship. (non-canon: fit one with thrusters and it would be truly terrifying as a space combat platform)
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Fleet Balance
The Caprician Cluster is dominated by three fleets: the Galactic Imperial Army Fleet, the Imperial Caprician Fleet and the Unified Fleet (a combination of the Emirate Star Legion, Southern Lights Space Fleet, Republican Navy and United Western States Aerospace Service) of Nueva Terra. While most of each fleet is made up of cruisers massing between 200 and 900 kilotons, supported by parasite corvettes and destroyers massing less than 20 kilotons, each also maintains several capital ships as follows:
While both the other powers can deploy just over one hundred capitial ships and more than three hundred cruisers each, Nueva Terrra's unified fleet comprises about two-thirds the capitial ships and less than half as many cruisers as either.
Weapons
Naval Lasers -> Both the NEC and the galactic empire favor large laser mounts as their main batteries despite the substanbtial energy drain and low damage. They do have excellent range, good rate of fire and no ammuniton requirements however.
Naval Particle Cannon -> A very common main weapon for Nueva Terran ships, naval particle cannons have long range and can disrupt eneny electronics. Damage is comparable to a laser although slightly more energy is required.
Naval Massdrivers -> All three powers used massdrivers as their main batteries before improvements in lasers replaced them. While the Galactic Empire has completely phased them out, many Nueva Terran and NEC ships still carry some for the tactical advantages of cluster ammuntion or 'case' shot (a very short ranged round with a huge area off effect, useful against tight formations.
Naval Railguns -> The New Empire of Caprice carries spinal massdrivers on several of their lighter designs, since they can cause immense damage to targets (nuclear warheads) and are almost impervious to point defense. Nueva Terran ships are more likely to carry turreted railguns - Whirlwind-class light cruisers have three such turrets.
Naval Missile Tubes -> Fire large (20+ ton) missiles using massdriver technology. The missiles usually coast into proximity and only then maneuver for the kill, which limits them to internal launchers. The typical warhead carries multiple plasma warheads which scatter before entering interceptor range to overload defenses. These are slowly being phased out by the Terra Novans in favor of one-shot primaries, a highly focused graser capable of carving through almost any armour, limited by short range and beam duration as the radiation swiftly destroys the emitter. Weapons shielded for this are possible but too bulky to be practical on a ship so expendable warhead units are used. Antimatter bombs are technically illegal (and dangerous just to store) but all three nations have a few first generation AM naval missile warheads - just in case.
Lasers -> Batteries of lasers and particle cannons are quite common as secondary weapons on most warships, leaving the main batteries to deal with capital ships rather than escorts or fighters. The Galactic Empire makes heavy use of these weapons.
Massdrivers -> Not really different from vehicle- or fighter-mounted massdrivers and railguns, these are used in batteries against close range or immobile targets. Ammunition is either a single shaped charge or a number of smaller bomblets. These used to be extremely popular with Nueva Terra and the New Empire but are less so with improved lasers and missiles.
Missile Launchers -> These fire volleys of small missiles, most useful at short range for anti-fighter defences but they can also be used against ships. While an individual missile is not too powerful, usually a number strike and can inflict considerable damage.
Interceptor Turrets -> Only used on a the newest designs, using pulse lasers to target incoming missiles. Not generally configured for use against massdriver rounds or plasma pulses.
Defences
All three powers depend upon armour as their main defense. The NEC and Nueva Terra profer thick layers of composite armours, whereas the Galactic Empire prefer thinner layers of Inoson, which is arguably better, but far more expensive. Rumours suggest that the ships of the new Galactic Emperor use force fields, which if true would indicate his new power source is most impressive. Neither Nueva Terra nor the NEC have any military use for forcefields, prefering to use their power for weapons.
Power & Drives
Nueva Terra and the NEC use plasma fusion reactors to power their ships. Although slightly more dangerous than conventional fusion, plasma fusion is better suited to the rapidly changing output required by a warship. It is also highly compatible with the plasma combustion chambers used for propulsion by these races (boosted ion repulsion has a reputation for being 'finicky' and fragile, whereas the they can't handle antimatter well enough to use as anything but bombs yet - and they're more interested in that anyway). Gravitic compensators are used to provide internal gravity. The Galactic Empire, uses gravitic drives (similar to those of the Centauri Empire) but their power source is the poorly understood Aho motors. While not as powerful as a fusion reactor, these use what is usually translated as 'cosmic energy'. They are much less prone to explode than plasma fusion reactors and the new Aho motors used by the Galactic Emperor's forces may well be more powerful as well.
The lighter Potempkin is also faster and better armoured, to compensate for it's lighter weapon load than either of the others. It also carries many more parasite warships. The difference between the Texas and s'Ffalenn is less than their relative masses suggest since the s'Ffalenn is designed to just as fast and requires much larger engines. The larger ships is slighly better armed, but not decisively so.
The Potempkin's much smaller crew is the result of superior automation. However, all three have much smaller crews than ships of comparable tonnage in the regular navies of the Haven Sector's major powers.
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Fleet: TIN (Taiidani Imperial Navy)
Class: C
Mass: 37 Mt
Length: .9 km
Speed: 4.26
Crew: 29,000
Parasites: 0
Fighters: 24
Weapons:
Plasma Cannon: 20
Particle Cannon: 10
Missile Tubes: 20
Notable Ships in Class
Caladan
Corruption
Celerity
Caldera
Cranolta
Collapsar
Fleet: TIN
Class: D
Mass: 66 Mt
Length: 1.6 km
Speed: 6.92
Crew: 42,000
Parasites: 2
Fighters: 72
Weapons:
Plasma Cannon: 60
Particle Cannon: 60
Missile Tubes: 0
Notable Ships in Class
Demolisher
Darkwind
Defiance
Dismissor
Deathheart
Drakon
Fleet: TIN
Class: E
Mass: 1.4 Gt
Length: 17.6 km
Speed: 5.01
Crew: 300,000
Parasites: 8
Fighters: 216
Weapons:
Plasma Cannon: 500
Missile Tubes: 250
Particle Cannon: 250
Total Ships in Class (as of the fall of Golgotha)
Executor
Eclipse
Executioner
Eliminator
Endurance
Epiphany
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Should this really be classed as a ship, or should it be a very mobile battle station? [Said only in half sarcasm. I mean, I know what the source for this is, but -damn-]
-={(Astynax)}=-
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She wanted something big, impressive and unstoppable. Her designers thought about it, thought about what she'd do to them if they failed, took the biggest, nastiest ship they could think of...
And then tripled it.
Naturally, she loved it.
As a concentration of force, they're the best ships ever built. Unfortunately, the galaxy suffers from a severe dearth of targets that need that big a hammer, so they're mostly a waste of resources.
Of course, they make dandy morale weapons, too. To quote Karan S'jet's reaction on seeing one for the first time: "Oh, fuck me." (the second most common response to that sort of situation was "mommy.")
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Given the national divisions of the Unified Fleet there would be four -stereotypical- reactions to even the smallest of those three. I haven't figured out the ICF or GIAT positons yet.
ESE: "No fair!" (the ESE have the most dreadnoughts in the Unified Fleet)
NR: "Where do they get such wonderful toys." (The Northern Republic have the best espionage agency on Nueva Terra)
SLC: "Ah, but WE have the prophets on our side" (The Southern Lights Confederacy is not quite a theocracy but...)
UWS: "Target! Load AntiMatter!" (The United Western States are the only nation known to have used AntiMatter weapons in battle, and have a reputation for aggressive tactics).
Obviously the -actual- reactions would be closer to "oh SHIT" but that's the stereotypes.
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Since we're talking about large ships, the absolute largest vessel used by any of the three navies of the Caprician Cluster is the Unified Fleet's Leviathan-class Super-Dreadnought (about 1/3rd the size of most Haven Sector SuperDreadnoughts).
The Leviathan-class are designed as Fleet Flagships and can carry a large number of passengers in order to accomodate Admirals and their staffs.
As a combat unit the Leviathan is slow but heavily armed. It has enormous firepower at close quarters and is something of a deathtrap against fighter strikes. Its main batteries are evenly divided between heavy particle cannons, heavy railguns and naval missiles (the eight destroyers more than double this missile capacity). The ESES Leviathan, at the time the only completed vessel of the class, played a key role in the Fifth Battle of Gateway, where the Unified Fleet
broke up a ICF task force blockading the Helios Wormhole Terminus.
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He's my avatar (sort of a cross between UF-Redneck, John Constantine and Methos in personality). He's not a Highlander-style Immortal, although he's quite similar in some ways.
He's not actually immortal, although his aging has been drastically slowed (he's aged about twenty years over the last forty-odd centuries). He's almost impossible to kill (he doesn't know of anything that will kill him but I do, hehehe!), but doesn't heal any faster than an ordinary human, although he heals alnmost any wound (including decapitation - his head will regrow a body). And he's successfully maintained the charade of being various memebers of a non-existent extended family for more than five centuries, notably:
- Drake Brown (TN 1450s): Mayor of Ashanti during the cut-off from the Homeworld
- Arthur 'Drake' Brown (TN 1530s): host to the negotiations that created the Ashanti Pact, forerunner of the UWS on Nueva Terra.
- Denzel 'Drake' Brown II (TN 1570s): Commander, Army Group North in the Seige of Fort Charles.
- Ryan 'Drake' Brown IV (TN 1670s): project director of the UWS's first Heavy Gear design team.
- Jason 'Drake Jr' Brown III (TN 1680s): Chief of Naval Operations during the Wars with the NR, MD & UMF.
- Maxwell 'Drake' Brown (TN 1790s): Prime Minster of the United Western States.
- Joseph 'Drake' Brown (TN 1910s): Chief of Staff, Aerospace Service during the Imperial Earth Invasion.
- Arthur 'Drake' Brown II (TN 1970s): Commander in Chief, Unified Fleet of Nueva Terra.
- Michael 'Drake' Brown V (TN 2010s): Secretary of War, United Western States.
'Drake' as far as anyone is aware, is simply a nickname applied within the Brown family to those men who happen to closely resemble the well nigh mythical Drake Brown of almost six-hundred years ago, who was the first of the family on Nueva Terra.
In between more public facades, he's spent decades here or there in isolated retreats or distant cities. After centuries of careful investments he's got a respectable fortune. Rhovannion House, just across the river from the Hall of Ecthelion (the capitol building of the UWS) is his 'ancestral home' (he designed and built both but donated the Hall to the city government five hundred years ago).
>If he's not then is there any objections to me making my avatar one?
Not my call.
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First, you can be a member of a subspecies that doesn't play by the same "planned obsolescence" rules as the rest of humanity. You're at the same risk of injury or death as any other person - you just won't get old.
Second, your metatalent can involve an 'anchoring' of your physical state so firm as to override aging, injury, even physical death. The downside of this is that this will be your -only- metatalent - its rigid nature precludes the developement of anything more active.
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...advanced medical technology can extend lifespan dramatically -- for a price, and the price is high. (This is pretty much the same thing as the "planned obsolecence" option Nathan suggested, but instead of being born into it you're *rebuilt* into it.)
There's also the slowboat method; take a short trip to a nearby star without going into hyperspace. Move fast enough - an impeller wedge would do the job nicely - and you'll have aged only a few weeks or months while the rest of the world has aged years or decades. Of course, this has the small drawback of putting you out of the game for the interval you're away, but it's a small price to pay to watch your people change and grow.
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To be more precise, having a body-anchoring metatalent means that that's the only variety of metatalent you've got. There are a lot of different ways that the body can be anchored, and so
number of subpowers that you may or may not have, all sharing the same basic form and limitation - they are all effects on your physical body, and they are all completely outside of vour conscious control. Such subtalents can include, and upon occassion have included...
- physical improvements up to almost but not quite superhuman levels - physical endurance, reaction time, strength and so forth. Given the proclivities of the people who tend to have this aspect, this generally only means saving a lot of time that would otherwise be spent in the gym getting to that level the hard way.
- physical attractiveness and sensory ability. Very similar to the above except that it's not something you can get at a gym.
- various levels of healing factor all the way up to obvious and grotesque regeneration - and always at the same speed.
- immunity or effective immunity to some or all diseases, poisons, ect. For diseases, may or may not carry the disease, depending. Generally also means an utter inability to get even slightly buzzed.
- resilience in the face of certain attacks. Immunity to radiation poisoning, mind-altering chemicals, random alien attack #5, or whatever.
Incidentally, the original Wolverine is a great example of what a character with an immortalent might be like once exposed to a bit of cyberware - except that he didn't happen to get but so much of the anti-aging aspect. (The whole bone claws thing Never Happened. You hear me?)
note though, that no matter how powerful the immortalent, no one is unkillable. If nothing else, sufficient traumatic damage to the brain over a short enough span of time will disrupt the talent long enough to let the tissue die. There are a few talents out there that might allow one to recover from total disintegration, but they would require knowing what's coming, projecting your soul/creating a copy of yourself in hyper, and reconstructing from there. They are very much "conscious control" talents, and they involve the words "busting your esper thang" 9 times out of 10. There is also debate over whether the result is the same person, or just someone who think's that they're the same person.
Also, active and controlled countermagic talents can, if powerful enough, do potentially bad bad things, anywhere from increasing vulnerabilityto turning it off entirely for a short while to (in certain circumstances) causing the poor immortal to fall apart in a messy fashion as his/her body, unused to functioning unaided, proceeds to fail. Thankfully, this isn't as muchof a danger as it could be. In general active and controlled talents, particularly metatalents, tend to trade power for their flexibility. It is a rare countermage who can tangle effectively with a wild talent ("Look, ma! I can throw fire! No, I don't have any idea how I do it.") let alone one that is entirely uncontrolled.
Finally, a great many immortals have found out the hard way that the shape of Hyper is different around planets (bursting with energy) than out in space (not so much), and died the final death laughing, certain of their return. Remember, unconscious talent means that you can't neccessarily tell the difference, but it is most certainly still there. Note that no talent ceases functioning altogether in deep space - but it's a rare one that
Immortalents, like all unconscious talents, react unpredictably (if consistently) to entering hyper. The only way to find out what happens to you is for you to go. Once you find out, that's how it'll keep reacting, but that only matters if there's enough of you left for it to matter to. Entering hyperII with an unconscious talent is almost as ill-advised as trying to acess hyperIII with a conscious one.
Incidentally, there are a fair number of talents that are both physical and unconscious, but utterly incompatable with immortality - like the ever-popular "adapt to your surroundings" talent, which allows you todo things like adapt quickly to extremes of temperature, pressure, and gravity, or grow gills on demand. The immortalent functions by declaring an unchanging template and forcing the user's body into that template. The subtalents are all results of what exactly that template is, and how much force is used.
*thud*
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> Second, your metatalent can involve an 'anchoring'
> of your physical state so firm as to override aging,
> injury, even physical death. The downside of this is
> that this will be your -only- metatalent - its rigid
> nature precludes the developement of anything more
> active.
Yeah, that's Drake's situation. He doesn't know why he's in the position he is. Of course, what he has can only -mostly- override aging and -eventually- override injury or physical death.
Destruction of his head would probably kill him, depending on the form, and he couldn't survive total disintergration (too close to an AM/nuke warhead). HE does -not- have any concious control of this and given he has been suicidal on occasion, particularly while recovering from extreme injuries (he spent thirty years the TN 1800s regrowing an eye, which kept him out of public view and led to him spending two years breaking a pain-killer addiction).
And then there is the fact that despite four thousand years of experience, he's not really got any enormous aptitude for some things. For example, he's a decent administrator and an experienced tactican/strategist, but his actuial combat skills are only average and he's not very charasmatic (he made it to Prime Minister once but that doesn't require being actually elected, unlike the Chief Executive).
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>And then there is the fact that despite four thousand years of experience, he's not really got any enormous aptitude for some things. For example, he's a decent administrator and an experienced tactican/strategist, but his actuial combat skills are only average and he's not very charasmatic (he made it to Prime Minister once but that doesn't require being actually elected, unlike the Chief Executive).
So, instead of having a tactical-genius epiphany in the face of a given problem, he instead goes, "Hmm. I remember something just like this..." and uses the old solution?
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>And then there is the fact that despite four thousand years of experience, he's not really got any enormous aptitude for some things. For example, he's a decent administrator and an experienced tactican/strategist, but his actuial combat skills are only average and he's not very charasmatic (he made it to Prime Minister once but that doesn't require being actually elected, unlike the Chief Executive).
> So, instead of having a tactical-genius epiphany in
> the face of a given problem, he instead goes, "Hmm.
> I remember something just like this..." and uses the
> old solution?
Or remembers that the old solution didn't work and knows not to try it again. Most of the time he just muddles along and does whatever seems to be a good idea at the time.
BTW: unlike Highlander-style Immortals, he is quite capable of fathering children (who don't share his immortality). It doesn't happen very often because he's hiding his immortality so he rarely gets involved in intimate relationships that could reveal it (or expose him to heartache when he outlives his own kids).
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Also - not to be forgetting - if you happen to be good enough friends with the right sort of people, All Natural Juraiian Springs Mineral Water can grant extraordinary longevity - as long as you get your fix.
Fibula
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