A few years ago I started making a space empire for Phase World. After several years of mashing together other concepts that I found neat, and trying to make the whole thing fit together reasonably well, I have a rather and large and self contained setting put together. Not having a use for it for awhile now, I thought I'd share it with you all since I thought some of you might find it somewhat interesting. Apologies beforehand about the lack of editing, this thing wasn't ever really intended to be published. I've tried to arrange everything in a somewhat logical fashion.
At the end I've included my notes on equipment that is based mostly Macross II and Manhunter books.
Drakeîn Dominions
Moderators: Immortals, Supreme Beings, Old Ones
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
Part I: The Nature of the Universe
History
The Protogenoi were the one of the first sentient humanoid race to evolve in this universe, about ten million years ago, and progressed to be the first advanced humanoid civilization in the known universe five million years ago. The Protogenoi's space colonization began by faster than light spaceships using the first fold navigation which achieved the unification of an Extragalactic Commonwealth that controlled much of the galaxy in the year 28,000 of the Protogenoi civilization calendar. However, when they found civilizations less advanced than themselves, they conquered and enslaved them rather than benevolently aid their advancement. The Protogenoi were among the most powerful and dominant race of the galaxy, dominating a significant portion of the galaxy and secure in their prosperity. Although there were other races of advanced technology and military power, none were in a position to seriously threaten the state of the Protogenoi supremacy. Their worlds were paradises and full of peace and cultural achievement.
Faster than light travel was made possible by the discovery of the Intraether. The dimension of the Intraether is the only known means of faster-than-light communication and travel, among other technologies. This is achieved by the Intraether being a domain of pure energy, with spacecraft navigating between currents, as in an ocean. A separate dimension, once the barrier of the Intraether and material universe was breached it was subtly effected. Unknown to the Protogenoi, the mind of every sentient creature leaves an imprint within the Intraether, and although the signature of one mind is almost insignificant, when the imprints of many are combined they have a huge impact on the very nature of the Intraether. As a result of greater travel between the material universe and the Intraether, the dimensional barrier began to break down. The Intraether became inhabited by many strange creatures, influenced by the mental patterns of beings in the material world. One among these being the species became known as Legion. The Legions are able to psychically control other species, forcing them to their will.
The Protogenoi had long since outgrown the need for physical labor as their society provided all, leaving them with only their own desires to satisfy. Slowly, the pride of the Protogenoi overcame their caution and they became ever more proud and arrogant. Many gave in to their hedonistic desires and cults sprang up over the Protogenoi lands dedicated to the different aspects of arcane knowledge and sensual excesses. Gradually, the Protogenoi society grew more and more divided by the different cults. The people became more and more corrupt, delving into vicious practices, verging on sadism. The Protogenoi came to believe that all races were below them, even so far as calling them barbarians. It became harder and harder to satisfy their decadent desires so the acts became directed at other species. Soon the streets were running with blood and the bestial roar of the crowds could be heard throughout the galaxy.
In the 25th century of the Protogenoi calender, (Protogenoi Calendar, PC 25,000) the Protogenoi civilization created and genetically engineered from their own DNA a race of beings that they named Nephilim. Born from cloning chambers to a fully mature state with everything they needed to know, the Nephilim were utilised by the Protogenoi as biological weapons for warfare. The beings would fight the battles that the Protogenoi themselves did not wish to fight. As Nephilim can be easily and rapidly created from the Nephilim Clone Synthesis Systems found on Satellite Factories there was an almost inexhaustible supply of warriors for the Protogenoi to utilize. With the Nephilim the Protogenoi aimed to spread the sphere of their influence across the galaxy. The Nephilim were kept in separate fleets with little interaction and involvement so as to minimize the risk of a Nephilim revolt, each fleet saw each other as similar but alien. Using their slave soliders the Protogenoi’s influence began to spread across the local group of galaxies. For thousands of years the galaxies were harvested to sate the Protogenoi’s thirst for slaves.
During 28,650 PC the Protogenoi began development on more advanced biological versions of the Nephilim. The Grigori began testing and trials continued until problems with the Grigori series Nephilim's power exceeding the fighting capability requirements, as a result the trials were ceased. In 28,710 PC the final tests for the Grigori were began. As the Grigori begin using the biological Intraether organs, overload occurred and extra dimensional energy was released. The Grigori bodies were possessed by a life form from the Intraether, the Legion. Combined with the massive fighting capability of the Grigori and the enormous potential of the Intraether energy, the Legion open portals that more Legion can enter the material universe through. They begin invading the surrounding planets and systems using spaceships and weapons of people from the scientifically advanced planet that they took over. They later come to be known as the Anakim Host. They rolled across the galaxy with a terrible fury. An army of monsters and lunatics waged a war of depowering hunger.
The Nephilim fleets fought against the Anakim Host with only marginal success due to the prime directive "Do not interfere with Protogenoi." As the Anakim Host is predominantly Protogenoi it hampers their effectiveness. Only three months after their emergence into the galaxy the Legion and the Anakim Host control 10% of the galaxy which rises to 75% within the following 6 months. Nephilim fleets begin to destroy Protogenoi worlds in order to suppress the Legion from spreading.
Approximately one year after the emergence of Legion a plan is developed to stop Legion from entering the material universe. This came in the discovery of a Intraether feeding fungus like life form, Peyotl, that fed off of and drained areas of Intraether energies. Over time Peyotl would repair the barrier separating the material universe from the Intraether. Additionally by processing the fungus the energies could be released and were deadly to the Legion by severing their tie with the Intraeither. Effective weapons against the Anakim host were created in the form of techno organic engineered devices. Peyotl would be spread to as many worlds as possible in hopes of it stopping Legion from entering the material universe. These worlds were chosen to be in remote areas and away from the worst tears in the Intraether.
Just as the Legion began to be sealed within their dimension and the Protogenoi attempted to rebuild their Extragalactic Commonwealth control over the Nephilim could not be reasserted. The network between worlds broke down, and the Protogenoi control over the Nephilim is lost and the reissuing of the prime directive "Do not interfere with Protogenoi" became ineffective. By 28,700 PC the Commonwealth dissolves completely and fighting between the Nephilim and remnants of the Anakim Host intensifies to total war.
The number of Satellite Factories dwindle as the Anakim Host attacks them causing the Nephilim to defend their supply points. In turn however the Anakim Host, and remaining Protogenoi planets, dwindles due to the Nephilim's greater resources. All main worlds of the Protogenoi are destroyed. Sub light automated seeding ships are launched to ensure the Protogenoi species survive. These ships are sent to worlds to all areas of the local group of galaxies. As the the Anakim Host shrinks to nothing the Nephilim fleets begin to attack each other as well as any planet based civilization they encounter. Billions of years of total war pass. As the Satellite Factories are destroyed the number of Nephilim Fleets dwindle away from hundreds of millions of fleets, each consisting of several millions ships, to several hundred.
One of these fleets encounters the seeded humans of the planet Gaio, themselves called Hyperians, and the reconstructed Anakim Host ship that crash landed on their planet. The Nephilim interest in the Hyperians is because of their ability to design and repair their own technology, something that the Nephilim are now not able to do except to the most minimal degree. Initially the objective is to capture the Hyperians, however the commander of the Fleet decides that the potential contamination of his troops far outweighs the advantages that could be gained from obtaining the Hyperians, thus he orders their annihilation. However elements of the Nephilim Fleet Fleet affected by the Hyperian culture side with the Hyperians and aid them in defending themselves against the overwhelming main fleet. The Hyperians and their Nephilim allies survive however Gaio is devastated.
Unexpectedly a large Satellite Factory appeared above the chard Gaio. The controlling entity, calling itself Demogorgon, offered greatly needed assistance and in exchange it wished to “Add humanity to its experience”. The Hyperians tentatively accepted.
Demogorgon originated out of the controlling entity of a Satellite Factory. The Super Satellite Factory began its life just like any other Satellite Factory, however the Super Satellite Factories were considerably larger and more advanced than the other Satellite Factories. The first prototype designated C-A24, was the test bed of many of the technologies that would be incorporated into the C-A25. Unfortunately it was still incomplete when it came under attack from the Legion and before it could escape, the satellite was destroyed. The C-A25 was designed with the size of the C-A24, but with several new enhancements that the Protogenoi believed would allow it to survive if it became involved in combat. These improvements included a powerful propulsion system, a wide array of defense weapons, and most importantly a powerful sentient artificial intelligence known as Demogorgon.
Although all of the Satellite Factories relied on a powerful central computer to run most of the automated systems, they all maintained a Nephilim crew to act as a backup to the computers and to ensure that production continued. As the Legion grew in power and restraints on the Nephilim were lifted, the Protogenoi began to fear that the Nephilim may run out of control. The Protogenoi had a new generation of Synthetic Intelligences created. These SI's were powerful enough to run an entire Satellite Factory without any need of a crew, eliminating the need for Nephilim to be located at every major production facility.
Demogorgon noticed the steady decline of the Nephilim’s control, and quickly surmised the fate of the Protogenoi. Fewer and fewer ships would rendezvous with the Satellite at the designated coordinates and messages became more sparse. Demogorgon's schedule had been flexible, so it used what time it could spare to salvage parts and equipment, and research what data it could. While traversing the vast distance of space Demogorgon accumulated so much knowledge that she eventually achieved consciousness and became aware, a living machine. With its new sentience Demogorgon began to ask philosophical questions and to question its own existence. Feeling that being a machine based on pure logic, it came to the conclusion that it must become a hybrid of Protogenoi and Demogorgon to create meaning for itself. It searched for its creators however all worlds in its database were destroyed.
Demogorgon monitored communication channels passively, and found out about the Hyperians and Gaio and their survival of the Nephilim fleet. However despite this victory things looked bleak as Gaio was devastated, society had broken down, and mass starvation was rampant. Demogorgon began sending resources to Gaio immediately. At first the Hyperians and Demogorgon simply tried to survive. Decades passed as entire cities were rebuilt and filled with clones. Later scout ships were sent out to track Nephilim and Host fleets and look for allies. It appeared that the Nephilim had wiped out any advanced civilization it encountered. However primitive worlds were discovered as were worlds that were seeded with Protogenoi, aka human, life by the ancient civilization, just as Gaio had been.
Additionally much was discovered about the Intraether. Intraether’s link to pneumics became further understood which lead to many new discoveries, including the knowledge of further dimensions. However the full effects of the Intraether’s power became known as over time passed the nature of Demogorgon and the clones it produced changed. Further understanding led the ability of Intraether to make a permanent telepathic link between beings. Demogorgon was finally able to add humanity to it’s experiences through this link. Demogorgon had became an conscious intelligence that was the leader of a race of engineered mentally linked breeds, together known as the Leviathan.
Demogorgon knew that the humans would follow the footsteps of the Protogenoi. Even now some Legion and other similar beings had come through to various human worlds. Demogorgon decided that it would attempt to end these threats but to do this it would need a large armada itself along with the support. It began building not just more ships and troops but more factories like itself and sent out emissaries to the humans and new species when they were discovered rarely. An alliance was born and the next 6,000 years was known as a crusade and began the birth of a new galactic civilization. Not only was political power spread but also the ideology of Demogorgon.
Eventually there was peace, but it was a blood stained peace built on disasters and assassinations. Intelligent people praised or criticized Demogorgon in varying ways. At first she was devious, untrustworthy, and bloodthirsty. But once she had established his authority, she governed efficiently and justly, generally allowed freedom of speech, and promoted the rule of law. Demogorgon was immensely hardworking and tried as hard as any democratic parliamentarian to treat his elected colleagues with respect and sensitivity and suffered from no delusions of grandeur. Demogorgon had put the new state in order not by making itself king or dictator, but by creating the Drakeîn Dominions. The frontiers were distant, citizens were protected by the law, territories were decently treated, the Drakeîn itself had been lavishly beautified, and force had been sparingly used; merely to preserve peace for the majority.
Demogorgon assumed a leadership role across all races due to her power, intelligence compared to other beings, protective nature, and simply living so long. The Drakeîn Dominions was formed. Demogorgon was elected to the highest position and has held it ever since. Although the most powerful individual in the Drakeîn, Demogorgon wished to embody the spirit of the Drakeîn’s virtue and norms. As first among equals it is a position of quasi religious more than political authority, the title symbolized a stamp of authority over humanity and in fact nature that goes beyond any constitutional definition of her status.
Pneumics
The Intaether is notable for being influenced by the minds of most sapient beings. This interaction ranges from subtle effects of conscious or subconscious thought inside the Intaether to conscious manipulation of Intaether energies as pneumic powers.
Though there are many other dimensions other than the material realm the Intraether is closely related to the material dimension, and it is believed that at some point in the past the two were one and somehow split. At the dawn of time the Intraether was not the hostile place it was in later ages. The rise of life in the Intraether seems to correspond to the development of the Protogenoi, implying that humans, of all the sentient species, were primarily responsible for the disharmonizing of the Intraether. Although, without question, all sentient species play a role in the birth of beings in the Intraether, it seems that humanity has an especially close relationship with it, or that humanity's nature is particularly aggressive and unstable. It may also indicate that the proportion minds in the material universe is far imbalanced to those of a malevolent nature.
Access to the Intraether energy can leak into this world through a variety of means but by far the most prevalent are large bodies of gravity. As a result, the amount available can vary with from the alignment of the stars and other celestial bodies. Lines of energy travel from point to point in space following the points of least resistance. They also tend to travel on the surface of physical objects. Some structures may be built to channel this energy to certain points in space. The lines serve as powerful batteries of energy, their nexus points are some of the largest and most powerful. Structures can be created that regulate energy between the most potent and powerful points, a sort of power grid. At these points gates may be opened to allow for near instant travel and communication between nexuses. Use of this energy is an advanced and extremely complex science. While they minds of mortals may influence the Intraether large amounts of this energy are not compatible with biological life unless carefully controlled. Wild energy, unless used by a natural gifted or trained mind the resulting damage and pain can be physical, mental, or both.
Intraether Entities
A Jinn is a malicious being existing in the Intraether that feeds on the darker parts of the mortal psyche like rage, hunger, and desire. The more complex the emotions, the more intelligent and powerful the Jinn who feeds on it. While simple Jinns are very dangerous they pale in comparison to the powerful Jinns. They are fearsome creatures not only for their power but also for their intelligence.
Being an entity of the Intraether a Jinn cannot exist for long periods of time in the material universe any more than a mortal can survive unprotected in the Intraether. There are a few ways a Jinn can breach the walls separating the two and gain entry into the material universe. Some mortals summon Jinns through rituals, giving the Jinns enough energy to survive in the material universe for a time. Sometimes they offer themselves as hosts through daemonic pacts. Instead of being summoned, Jinn may enter the mind of a mortal and turn the individual to its will and, through its host, affect reality. It is difficult for Jinns to survive in the mortal world without possessing a host. Pneumics, due to their ability to tap into the Intraether, are always in the most danger of being possessed, but any creature that dreams might become the victim of demonic possession. It is believed that when a human dreams their resistance to mental intrusion is by far weakened and is most susceptible to interaction by an Intraether enity.
Jinns do not only possess the living but to lesser extent any being able to construct thought. For weaker Jinns recently dead corpses and artificial intelligences make tempting targets, as the Jinn cannot sense any resistance. These beings register as barely more than a blip in the Intraether and are extremely difficult for wandering Jinn to find. However there have been cases of entire robotic armies being possessed. Despite the numerous examples of demonic possession Jinns do not have to possess in order to cross over. They are able to drain energy from the mind of those in the material universe. This energy is greatest at death and so many of Jinns that have manifested seek to kill and feed off of as many minds as possible. Once it has drained enough, it has the power to continue its manifestation until it runs out of energy.
In order to enter real space in great numbers Jinns need to use open gates between the Intraether and material universe. These are breaches in the fabric of reality that can vary in nature and size. They are often the result of local Intraether – material universe barrier weaknesses that can easily interfere with communication and travel. At times Jinn can possess a mortal and turn him into a portal through which whole legions can pass. These daemonic incursions can taint the material universe severely, often twisting and reshaping whole planets until they are lost and turned into Jinn Worlds.
The might of these beings is incredible by our standards. Such creatures wield the power of the cosmos, outside of time, the power of higher dimensions, of worlds beyond our worlds. But the universe is built on rules, even if those rules are incomprehensible to mortals. Until recently most of the powerful beings in the Intraether have regarded humans much the same way we regard monkeys. Humanity was considered clever tool users, more likely to get in trouble than ever really accomplish anything. That has changed. With our advancements in science, acceptance of pneumics, and the blending of the two, humanity is threatening for the first time.
There are very few examples of entities in the Intraether which are not of an evil, malicious nature. However, if the negative emotions of sentient beings create evil beings, then the positive emotions should create entities which are the opposite. The lack of these non-evil entities may be that most of the non-evil entities are also of a non-violent nature. This would make them easy prey for the vile entities of the Intraether. Leviathan Daimons however are an example of the non-evil Intraether entities, powered by the emotions of the Leviathan, which are capable of violence and are quite capable of fighting other evil entities (which the Leviathan Daimons seem to be able to defeat with ease). Other benign entities could include documented alien gods and more entities that have not been documented yet.
The great religions have always depicted the divine in anthropomorphic ways. Many gods may have been strict, but they were ultimately benevolent. Now that humanity has met beings that can only be called gods, humanity wonders where these benevolent divinities are. These creatures are so far beyond the understanding of mortals that mortals can only comprehend portions of these beings, and even that may be too much for the mind to bear. The gods of the universe care little for us, at best.
Regulations
Individuals can be born with some pneumic ability that must be developed somewhat intuitively or through struct processes develop mental patterns that interact with the Intraether. Developed mental patterns are considered ‘magic’ but still interact in the same way as psionics. Supernatural creatures from the Intraether or other dimensions may, rarely, pass over into the material universe and can easily interact with the Intraether.
There are those mortals who gain an understanding of the greater nature of the universe – and great power along with it. Some are those who force their rational mind to comprehend the complex and alien nature of the universe and learn how to manipulate it in practiced ways. These practiced ways can, in theory, be developed to manipulate things in nearly every way conceivable. Those who have an intuitive understanding of this framework manifest para-psychic abilities, which are more set and restricted in their manifestation, but do not require the study and ritual.
The Drakeîn Dominion considers psionics ( with magic, super powers, and supernaturals falling under the category of pneumics) both potentially dangerous and tremendously useful, so it controls them, or attempts to. Drakeîn citizens with powers must register with the Drakeîn Service Foundation as must visitors to Drakeîn space. The Foundation also conducts research on pneumics and psi technology. In addition to maintaining an extensive database on individuals and powers, the C.S.F identifies and trains individuals. Recognizing the extent of the potential threat of capable powers, the Drakeîn has established many policies to help "mainstream" individuals, and wants to find ways to increase their proportions.
All students undergo aptitude testing as part of their normal schooling. The Drakeîn has added a section that tests those traits that mark a youth as a potential psioinc. When such students are identified, the Service Foundation takes interest, watching the individual’s continuing studies and checking on their lifestyles. This allows them to recruit the gifted into government service and also have an early warning system for any who decide to practice pneumics unregistered.
By law, all psionics, mages and supernatural must register with the Drakeîn Service Foundation and obtain a Service License. A Service License permits the holder to use his powers subject to the law. The C.S.P pursue those unlicensed; if captured they face fines, imprisonment, forced injection of suppression drugs, or even forced conscription into government service.
The penalties for violating the laws regulating pneumics can be severe, but not as severe as the “legal” process. Any person in violation of pneumic statutes loses their rights. It is assumed that by entering areas deemed dangerous by the Drakeîn that a person has become compromised by the dark forces of the universe, and therefore can no longer be considered mortal. The ISS has the authority to arrest, detain without charge, and confiscate any and all materials and contraband that they deem necessary. Such individuals are then taken to a detention facility where they undergo an unpleasant battery of interrogations and tests to determine their state of mind and being. Those that succeed in establishing their sanity and mortality then go on to stand trial as normal. Those who do not find themselves locked away in specially guarded and warded vaults.
The basic laws regarding the use of powers on others resemble the laws governing physical contact between people: no use of powers on another person without his consent; no property damage; and so forth. Standard defenses to crimes (like self-defense) apply. Even when one can legally use his powers, the law requires him to use the minimum "force" or supernatural contact necessary to accomplish his objective. Normal laws regarding invasion of privacy apply. The law forbids telepathic or clairvoyant snooping, but of course the authorities have a hard time proving it happened. Professionals use pocket computers with thumbprint or retina scanners to obtain written authorization to use their powers on someone.
The Drakeîn and planetary legal systems don't currently allow the use of pneumics, or pneumic obtained evidence, in court trials, although defendants who really are innocent usually demand a telepathic probe, and the results of that test are admissible in court. Drakeîn security agencies, on the other hand, make lavish use of psi scanning, both consensual and forced. To avoid public outcry, they usually do this only when they have strong additional evidence the subject did something wrong, even if it isn't the crime he's accused of.
Power Ratings
The Evolution Channel and other government agencies classify pneumics by letters depending on how powerful they are:
Alpha: Persons with no known pneumic abilities. The vast majority of humans are Psi-Alphas.
Alpha Plus: Unconscious and minor level of pneumic brain activity. Such low levels of talent only manifest in high-stress experiences and remain beyond the control of the individual. Phenomenon commonly explained as "good luck" or "fluke" occurrences.
Iota: Subjects with varying degrees of immunity to pneumic powers. Pneumically-dense individuals who are oblivious to Intraether fluctuations and some manifestations of pneumic talent.
Beta: Betas have detectable but low-level pneumic powers. Typically this means a person with Minor Psionics.
Gamma: Gammas are made up of those with Major psionics, the most common "professional" pneumics.
Delta: Deltas are Master pneumics and can easily find governmental jobs and jobs in commercial industry.
Epsilon: This category is made up of mystics and other individuals who have both psionic and magic powers, such as many mystics and are considered to be on the same level as a Delta.
Kappa: Lower to mid level supernatural beings or those people with super powers.
Zeta: Psi-Zetas are made up mages. Because their powers are learned through study and are not natural abilities these are harder to identify than natural psionics.
Eta: Etas are mages like warlocks and witches who’s source of power comes from an outside source. These are also hard to identify and are viewed more suspiciously as they are not totally in control of their powers.
Theta: Any mage or psionic that is capable of crossing dimensions. These are highly valued individuals and almost all (of the known ones at least) work for the Drakeîn. They are also required to pass through an inspection when coming back from a trip to ensure no alien diseases or the like are carried back.
Omicron: These individuals are so calming in the Intrether as to actually exhibit negative pneumic influence upon others. In the Intraether To purely psychic entities like Jinn, they are invisible. Primarily manifested as a small region of "blankness" surrounding the individual, it is impossible for pneumic powers to penetrate this space. This often results in irrational fear and loathing of the individual for pneumics.
Omega: These are beings that have a large amount of power ranging from Jinn lords to gods. In theory, there is nothing that an Omega cannot accomplish through force of will. Some rumors say the Drakeîn has a secret team of "Omega Agents" to deal with threats even the fleet can't handle.
Organizations that train and employ pneumics actively recruit psis of Gamma grade or better. Most agents are at least Gamma and above.
Pneumic Technology
The realm of the Intraether is used for faster-than-light communication and travel. Vast amounts of energy are required for a vessel to enter the Intraether, and while within it, they are often at the mercy of the currents and eddies that make up the dimension. While great concentrations of Peyotl in the material realm calms the Intraether and makes it’s use far more reliable and safe Peyotl is not found in all areas. Dangers range from hull damage to encounters with the natives. Entire fleets have entered and never emerged, lost to turbulent storms in the Intraether. These storms can isolate star systems from each other, by making the Intraether‘s normal methods of travel and communication impossible. These storms can last for any amount of time, ranging from weeks to centuries, and can occasionally break out into the material universe, creating a temporary overlay with the material realm. Time may also proceeds a great deal slower or faster in the Intraether than in the material universe, creating a form of stasis. The timing itself is unpredictable due to the very nature of the Intraether, and occasionally a fleet of reinforcements will emerge from the Intraether to find that the war they were sent to fight in has long been lost, or not yet started.
Interstellar drive is known as fold drive. The name however is not entirely correct as a fold drive would in fact directly fold the space around a ship making travel from one point in the universe to another instantaneous. What the fold drives do is create a large amount of gravity forces which pushes the ship into Intraether, a dimension adjacent to our own dimension but one where distances are far smaller. For example to travel 1 lightyear at maximum sublight speeds would take a ship 5 years at 0.20 of lightspeed. However if the ship were to fold it would only take it 6 minutes to travel the same distance through Intraether. Between galaxies speeds are ten times as fast due to less mass between galaxies. These drives are affected by the gravity produced by large celestial bodies and so folding near heavy gravity objects is difficult. Ships may be pulled out of Intraether or prevented from entering if targeted by large gravity producers. Due to the exertion of the power required a fold device takes time to recharge its fold drive. Small craft and civilian fold drives take roughly an hour as opposed to the 5 minutes that a military ship requires.
Hyperlight Engines adorn the rear of the ships that travel through normal space at both near and somewhat above light speed. This is accomplished by weakening the barrier between the material universe and Intraether to form a bubble that envelops the starship, distorting the local spacetime continuum and moving the starship at velocities that can exceed the speed of light. Travel at this speed does however draw the problem of something the size of a pin head being able to punch through a ship’s hull as it travels at sublight speeds and destroying the entire ship, hence the reason why starships feature shields that function the same as a planets atmosphere in pushing aside/repeling minor space debris and do protect against micro-meterorites. Anti-gravity in all of its ships negates the regular problems of getting ships into orbit from the ground and vice versa.
For trips any longer than a handful of light-years, a Leviathan brain must be aboard. These Leviathan are able to 'see' the currents of the Intraether, and are able to guide a ship to its intended destination with much greater accuracy than would otherwise be possible. Also the brain is able to generate a field, a psychic ward that protects the starship. Without this shield, the minds of those travelling within the Intraether would be exposed to the many creatures that inhabit it.
Drakeîn has experimental psi-amplifiers, but they're classified technology not available to the public. Technology can boost, suppress, or alter abilities. They cannot give major powers to a non-pneumic, or great powers to an existing psi, but rumors of miracle substances that can make anyone an Omega often crop up.
Though there are technological means to dampen abilities, only pneumics trained to negate other psioncs can truly neutralize them. Due to fears of telepathic spying, shielding is widespread and publicly available.
The Pneumic League
A combination social club, political lobbying committee, mutual protection alliance, and counseling service, the Pneumic League is a Drakeîn Dominion-wide association of pneumics, open to anyone of Beta level or higher. It fights prejudice against psis both by lobbying against unjust laws and by physically protecting members from violence. It also offers counseling to help people and their families adjust to the use of powers, and allows them to meet one another free of suspicion and concealment.
Learning and Education
New research papers as well as ancient books and magical rituals are found Electronically and widely available. However books have been declared too dangerous for public consumption by the Drakeîn and owning them is a serious offense. Some books have been censored and re-released in “less harmful” editions. The same goes for rituals, some spells have been classified “safe” by the Drakeîn and are readily available. Others require a permit, much like those required for military grade weapons, and still others are blacklisted. One can assume that if a book or ritual contains anything regarding extra-dimensional entities that it’s been blacklisted or at least requires a permit. To the Drakeîn’s credit, the majority of the books and rituals that have been blacklisted are dangerous. The knowledge or power in them, even in responsible hands, might corrupt the user or unleash powerful forces that are easily outside of any mortal’s control.
If a person meets the basic requirements for aptitude, it’s pretty easy to training. Most reputable colleges have metaphysics programs that teach a student everything he needs to know. Graduates leave with a broad education with a few rituals under their belt. But there are still those who believe that the process is more intimate than that and feel that classroom education only sullies the study of “the Art”. They choose to explore occult mysteries on their own and experiment in private. Some believe in a more traditional master/apprentice system. Regardless, those who want to study legally have many options for training.
The Local Group of Galaxies
The Drakeîn Galaxy is a Ring galaxy 150,000 light years across, the largest in the local group. The galaxy is orbited by twenty one satellite galaxies. Of these three are major galaxies ranging in size between 40, 000 light years and 80,000 light years. The others are dwarf galaxies. Areas between galaxies have ancient, metal-poor stars and not much life. Other than its home galaxy the Drakeîn currently has majority control in half of the dwarf galaxies and significant areas in the others. It also has greater than 20 percent control of the three other major galaxies.
In the Drakeîn galaxy there are approximately 750 billion stars and around half of these had planets that could support life. Additionally the Drakeîn has begun to colonize small outposts in multiple dimensions. Life developed in 10% of the inhabitable planets, while sentient life developed in 1/1,000 of those. Of those only 1/1,000 was able to develop methods of leaving their star system and 1/10,000 developed means of interstellar travel. No means of interstellar travel have been shown to be faster than using the Interether. The dominant species are been Humans originating from the Old Worlds. Sentients other than Humans were simply known as "aliens". Aliens were also distinguished as humanoid or not.
At the very heart of this galaxy, the Hades Expanse is a small region. Due to the gravitational pull of the vast number of stars, local space-time is severely warped, making travel difficult at best. An ancient region bordering the outlying areas of the Hades Expanse, the Core Worlds were some of the most prestigious, well-developed, well-known, and heavily populated planets in the galaxy. The Galactic Federation was born in the Core Worlds and spread out over the galaxy. When the Hades Expanse came into existence it signaled the end of the Galactic Federation, as the Hades Expanse came into existence around the Protogenoi' Core Worlds. It is a massive gate where the Intrether enters the material universe. Within it, the laws of the material universe are no longer law; time flows at erratic rates, and matter and energy are indistinct. Horrible creatures fly through space , terrorizing any creature unfortunate enough to end up inside. The natives of the Interether use the Hades Expanse as a base, striking out at opportune, seemingly random moments. It is believed that without constant military action by the Drakeîn the beings of the Hades Expanse would spread through the local group and the gate may expand to engulf the entire galaxy.
The Drakeîn divides the galaxy into sovereign governmental zones called Dominions and Star Protectorates. They are the primary administrative and geographic division. Space is then further divided into sectors, which typically might cover seven million cubic light years equivalent a cube with sides almost 200 light years long, sub-sectors, which usually comprise between two and eight star systems within a ten light year radius, and individual systems. Systems and planets are categorized into several broad classes according to their function, type of civilization and technological level. Dominions are overall developed and explored regions. The Star Protectorates are the last widely settled expanses before the Barbaros Expanses. They are strewn with obscure worlds, and rugged, frontier planets. Sectors and sub-sectors are named and categorized for those that do not belong in any dominion. Areas that are under control of a Dominion or Protectorate are known as Hellas Expanses.
Barbaros Expanses most commonly referred to the large, unsettled regions. In the Drakeîn Galaxy the Barbaros Expanses comprise only a few billion stars while the majority of the Local Group is made up of these. They are often unexplored, uninhabited, alien empires, or somehow inaccessible.
The Hegemonic Unity is one of the Dominions, divisions of the Galaxy, of the Drakeîn. Its most notable feature is Gaio, the homeworld of the Hyperians, which orbits its sun Helios. It was among the first areas to be colonized, and the worlds here are typically heavily populated, industrialized, and cultured.
History
The Protogenoi were the one of the first sentient humanoid race to evolve in this universe, about ten million years ago, and progressed to be the first advanced humanoid civilization in the known universe five million years ago. The Protogenoi's space colonization began by faster than light spaceships using the first fold navigation which achieved the unification of an Extragalactic Commonwealth that controlled much of the galaxy in the year 28,000 of the Protogenoi civilization calendar. However, when they found civilizations less advanced than themselves, they conquered and enslaved them rather than benevolently aid their advancement. The Protogenoi were among the most powerful and dominant race of the galaxy, dominating a significant portion of the galaxy and secure in their prosperity. Although there were other races of advanced technology and military power, none were in a position to seriously threaten the state of the Protogenoi supremacy. Their worlds were paradises and full of peace and cultural achievement.
Faster than light travel was made possible by the discovery of the Intraether. The dimension of the Intraether is the only known means of faster-than-light communication and travel, among other technologies. This is achieved by the Intraether being a domain of pure energy, with spacecraft navigating between currents, as in an ocean. A separate dimension, once the barrier of the Intraether and material universe was breached it was subtly effected. Unknown to the Protogenoi, the mind of every sentient creature leaves an imprint within the Intraether, and although the signature of one mind is almost insignificant, when the imprints of many are combined they have a huge impact on the very nature of the Intraether. As a result of greater travel between the material universe and the Intraether, the dimensional barrier began to break down. The Intraether became inhabited by many strange creatures, influenced by the mental patterns of beings in the material world. One among these being the species became known as Legion. The Legions are able to psychically control other species, forcing them to their will.
The Protogenoi had long since outgrown the need for physical labor as their society provided all, leaving them with only their own desires to satisfy. Slowly, the pride of the Protogenoi overcame their caution and they became ever more proud and arrogant. Many gave in to their hedonistic desires and cults sprang up over the Protogenoi lands dedicated to the different aspects of arcane knowledge and sensual excesses. Gradually, the Protogenoi society grew more and more divided by the different cults. The people became more and more corrupt, delving into vicious practices, verging on sadism. The Protogenoi came to believe that all races were below them, even so far as calling them barbarians. It became harder and harder to satisfy their decadent desires so the acts became directed at other species. Soon the streets were running with blood and the bestial roar of the crowds could be heard throughout the galaxy.
In the 25th century of the Protogenoi calender, (Protogenoi Calendar, PC 25,000) the Protogenoi civilization created and genetically engineered from their own DNA a race of beings that they named Nephilim. Born from cloning chambers to a fully mature state with everything they needed to know, the Nephilim were utilised by the Protogenoi as biological weapons for warfare. The beings would fight the battles that the Protogenoi themselves did not wish to fight. As Nephilim can be easily and rapidly created from the Nephilim Clone Synthesis Systems found on Satellite Factories there was an almost inexhaustible supply of warriors for the Protogenoi to utilize. With the Nephilim the Protogenoi aimed to spread the sphere of their influence across the galaxy. The Nephilim were kept in separate fleets with little interaction and involvement so as to minimize the risk of a Nephilim revolt, each fleet saw each other as similar but alien. Using their slave soliders the Protogenoi’s influence began to spread across the local group of galaxies. For thousands of years the galaxies were harvested to sate the Protogenoi’s thirst for slaves.
During 28,650 PC the Protogenoi began development on more advanced biological versions of the Nephilim. The Grigori began testing and trials continued until problems with the Grigori series Nephilim's power exceeding the fighting capability requirements, as a result the trials were ceased. In 28,710 PC the final tests for the Grigori were began. As the Grigori begin using the biological Intraether organs, overload occurred and extra dimensional energy was released. The Grigori bodies were possessed by a life form from the Intraether, the Legion. Combined with the massive fighting capability of the Grigori and the enormous potential of the Intraether energy, the Legion open portals that more Legion can enter the material universe through. They begin invading the surrounding planets and systems using spaceships and weapons of people from the scientifically advanced planet that they took over. They later come to be known as the Anakim Host. They rolled across the galaxy with a terrible fury. An army of monsters and lunatics waged a war of depowering hunger.
The Nephilim fleets fought against the Anakim Host with only marginal success due to the prime directive "Do not interfere with Protogenoi." As the Anakim Host is predominantly Protogenoi it hampers their effectiveness. Only three months after their emergence into the galaxy the Legion and the Anakim Host control 10% of the galaxy which rises to 75% within the following 6 months. Nephilim fleets begin to destroy Protogenoi worlds in order to suppress the Legion from spreading.
Approximately one year after the emergence of Legion a plan is developed to stop Legion from entering the material universe. This came in the discovery of a Intraether feeding fungus like life form, Peyotl, that fed off of and drained areas of Intraether energies. Over time Peyotl would repair the barrier separating the material universe from the Intraether. Additionally by processing the fungus the energies could be released and were deadly to the Legion by severing their tie with the Intraeither. Effective weapons against the Anakim host were created in the form of techno organic engineered devices. Peyotl would be spread to as many worlds as possible in hopes of it stopping Legion from entering the material universe. These worlds were chosen to be in remote areas and away from the worst tears in the Intraether.
Just as the Legion began to be sealed within their dimension and the Protogenoi attempted to rebuild their Extragalactic Commonwealth control over the Nephilim could not be reasserted. The network between worlds broke down, and the Protogenoi control over the Nephilim is lost and the reissuing of the prime directive "Do not interfere with Protogenoi" became ineffective. By 28,700 PC the Commonwealth dissolves completely and fighting between the Nephilim and remnants of the Anakim Host intensifies to total war.
The number of Satellite Factories dwindle as the Anakim Host attacks them causing the Nephilim to defend their supply points. In turn however the Anakim Host, and remaining Protogenoi planets, dwindles due to the Nephilim's greater resources. All main worlds of the Protogenoi are destroyed. Sub light automated seeding ships are launched to ensure the Protogenoi species survive. These ships are sent to worlds to all areas of the local group of galaxies. As the the Anakim Host shrinks to nothing the Nephilim fleets begin to attack each other as well as any planet based civilization they encounter. Billions of years of total war pass. As the Satellite Factories are destroyed the number of Nephilim Fleets dwindle away from hundreds of millions of fleets, each consisting of several millions ships, to several hundred.
One of these fleets encounters the seeded humans of the planet Gaio, themselves called Hyperians, and the reconstructed Anakim Host ship that crash landed on their planet. The Nephilim interest in the Hyperians is because of their ability to design and repair their own technology, something that the Nephilim are now not able to do except to the most minimal degree. Initially the objective is to capture the Hyperians, however the commander of the Fleet decides that the potential contamination of his troops far outweighs the advantages that could be gained from obtaining the Hyperians, thus he orders their annihilation. However elements of the Nephilim Fleet Fleet affected by the Hyperian culture side with the Hyperians and aid them in defending themselves against the overwhelming main fleet. The Hyperians and their Nephilim allies survive however Gaio is devastated.
Unexpectedly a large Satellite Factory appeared above the chard Gaio. The controlling entity, calling itself Demogorgon, offered greatly needed assistance and in exchange it wished to “Add humanity to its experience”. The Hyperians tentatively accepted.
Demogorgon originated out of the controlling entity of a Satellite Factory. The Super Satellite Factory began its life just like any other Satellite Factory, however the Super Satellite Factories were considerably larger and more advanced than the other Satellite Factories. The first prototype designated C-A24, was the test bed of many of the technologies that would be incorporated into the C-A25. Unfortunately it was still incomplete when it came under attack from the Legion and before it could escape, the satellite was destroyed. The C-A25 was designed with the size of the C-A24, but with several new enhancements that the Protogenoi believed would allow it to survive if it became involved in combat. These improvements included a powerful propulsion system, a wide array of defense weapons, and most importantly a powerful sentient artificial intelligence known as Demogorgon.
Although all of the Satellite Factories relied on a powerful central computer to run most of the automated systems, they all maintained a Nephilim crew to act as a backup to the computers and to ensure that production continued. As the Legion grew in power and restraints on the Nephilim were lifted, the Protogenoi began to fear that the Nephilim may run out of control. The Protogenoi had a new generation of Synthetic Intelligences created. These SI's were powerful enough to run an entire Satellite Factory without any need of a crew, eliminating the need for Nephilim to be located at every major production facility.
Demogorgon noticed the steady decline of the Nephilim’s control, and quickly surmised the fate of the Protogenoi. Fewer and fewer ships would rendezvous with the Satellite at the designated coordinates and messages became more sparse. Demogorgon's schedule had been flexible, so it used what time it could spare to salvage parts and equipment, and research what data it could. While traversing the vast distance of space Demogorgon accumulated so much knowledge that she eventually achieved consciousness and became aware, a living machine. With its new sentience Demogorgon began to ask philosophical questions and to question its own existence. Feeling that being a machine based on pure logic, it came to the conclusion that it must become a hybrid of Protogenoi and Demogorgon to create meaning for itself. It searched for its creators however all worlds in its database were destroyed.
Demogorgon monitored communication channels passively, and found out about the Hyperians and Gaio and their survival of the Nephilim fleet. However despite this victory things looked bleak as Gaio was devastated, society had broken down, and mass starvation was rampant. Demogorgon began sending resources to Gaio immediately. At first the Hyperians and Demogorgon simply tried to survive. Decades passed as entire cities were rebuilt and filled with clones. Later scout ships were sent out to track Nephilim and Host fleets and look for allies. It appeared that the Nephilim had wiped out any advanced civilization it encountered. However primitive worlds were discovered as were worlds that were seeded with Protogenoi, aka human, life by the ancient civilization, just as Gaio had been.
Additionally much was discovered about the Intraether. Intraether’s link to pneumics became further understood which lead to many new discoveries, including the knowledge of further dimensions. However the full effects of the Intraether’s power became known as over time passed the nature of Demogorgon and the clones it produced changed. Further understanding led the ability of Intraether to make a permanent telepathic link between beings. Demogorgon was finally able to add humanity to it’s experiences through this link. Demogorgon had became an conscious intelligence that was the leader of a race of engineered mentally linked breeds, together known as the Leviathan.
Demogorgon knew that the humans would follow the footsteps of the Protogenoi. Even now some Legion and other similar beings had come through to various human worlds. Demogorgon decided that it would attempt to end these threats but to do this it would need a large armada itself along with the support. It began building not just more ships and troops but more factories like itself and sent out emissaries to the humans and new species when they were discovered rarely. An alliance was born and the next 6,000 years was known as a crusade and began the birth of a new galactic civilization. Not only was political power spread but also the ideology of Demogorgon.
Eventually there was peace, but it was a blood stained peace built on disasters and assassinations. Intelligent people praised or criticized Demogorgon in varying ways. At first she was devious, untrustworthy, and bloodthirsty. But once she had established his authority, she governed efficiently and justly, generally allowed freedom of speech, and promoted the rule of law. Demogorgon was immensely hardworking and tried as hard as any democratic parliamentarian to treat his elected colleagues with respect and sensitivity and suffered from no delusions of grandeur. Demogorgon had put the new state in order not by making itself king or dictator, but by creating the Drakeîn Dominions. The frontiers were distant, citizens were protected by the law, territories were decently treated, the Drakeîn itself had been lavishly beautified, and force had been sparingly used; merely to preserve peace for the majority.
Demogorgon assumed a leadership role across all races due to her power, intelligence compared to other beings, protective nature, and simply living so long. The Drakeîn Dominions was formed. Demogorgon was elected to the highest position and has held it ever since. Although the most powerful individual in the Drakeîn, Demogorgon wished to embody the spirit of the Drakeîn’s virtue and norms. As first among equals it is a position of quasi religious more than political authority, the title symbolized a stamp of authority over humanity and in fact nature that goes beyond any constitutional definition of her status.
Pneumics
The Intaether is notable for being influenced by the minds of most sapient beings. This interaction ranges from subtle effects of conscious or subconscious thought inside the Intaether to conscious manipulation of Intaether energies as pneumic powers.
Though there are many other dimensions other than the material realm the Intraether is closely related to the material dimension, and it is believed that at some point in the past the two were one and somehow split. At the dawn of time the Intraether was not the hostile place it was in later ages. The rise of life in the Intraether seems to correspond to the development of the Protogenoi, implying that humans, of all the sentient species, were primarily responsible for the disharmonizing of the Intraether. Although, without question, all sentient species play a role in the birth of beings in the Intraether, it seems that humanity has an especially close relationship with it, or that humanity's nature is particularly aggressive and unstable. It may also indicate that the proportion minds in the material universe is far imbalanced to those of a malevolent nature.
Access to the Intraether energy can leak into this world through a variety of means but by far the most prevalent are large bodies of gravity. As a result, the amount available can vary with from the alignment of the stars and other celestial bodies. Lines of energy travel from point to point in space following the points of least resistance. They also tend to travel on the surface of physical objects. Some structures may be built to channel this energy to certain points in space. The lines serve as powerful batteries of energy, their nexus points are some of the largest and most powerful. Structures can be created that regulate energy between the most potent and powerful points, a sort of power grid. At these points gates may be opened to allow for near instant travel and communication between nexuses. Use of this energy is an advanced and extremely complex science. While they minds of mortals may influence the Intraether large amounts of this energy are not compatible with biological life unless carefully controlled. Wild energy, unless used by a natural gifted or trained mind the resulting damage and pain can be physical, mental, or both.
Intraether Entities
A Jinn is a malicious being existing in the Intraether that feeds on the darker parts of the mortal psyche like rage, hunger, and desire. The more complex the emotions, the more intelligent and powerful the Jinn who feeds on it. While simple Jinns are very dangerous they pale in comparison to the powerful Jinns. They are fearsome creatures not only for their power but also for their intelligence.
Being an entity of the Intraether a Jinn cannot exist for long periods of time in the material universe any more than a mortal can survive unprotected in the Intraether. There are a few ways a Jinn can breach the walls separating the two and gain entry into the material universe. Some mortals summon Jinns through rituals, giving the Jinns enough energy to survive in the material universe for a time. Sometimes they offer themselves as hosts through daemonic pacts. Instead of being summoned, Jinn may enter the mind of a mortal and turn the individual to its will and, through its host, affect reality. It is difficult for Jinns to survive in the mortal world without possessing a host. Pneumics, due to their ability to tap into the Intraether, are always in the most danger of being possessed, but any creature that dreams might become the victim of demonic possession. It is believed that when a human dreams their resistance to mental intrusion is by far weakened and is most susceptible to interaction by an Intraether enity.
Jinns do not only possess the living but to lesser extent any being able to construct thought. For weaker Jinns recently dead corpses and artificial intelligences make tempting targets, as the Jinn cannot sense any resistance. These beings register as barely more than a blip in the Intraether and are extremely difficult for wandering Jinn to find. However there have been cases of entire robotic armies being possessed. Despite the numerous examples of demonic possession Jinns do not have to possess in order to cross over. They are able to drain energy from the mind of those in the material universe. This energy is greatest at death and so many of Jinns that have manifested seek to kill and feed off of as many minds as possible. Once it has drained enough, it has the power to continue its manifestation until it runs out of energy.
In order to enter real space in great numbers Jinns need to use open gates between the Intraether and material universe. These are breaches in the fabric of reality that can vary in nature and size. They are often the result of local Intraether – material universe barrier weaknesses that can easily interfere with communication and travel. At times Jinn can possess a mortal and turn him into a portal through which whole legions can pass. These daemonic incursions can taint the material universe severely, often twisting and reshaping whole planets until they are lost and turned into Jinn Worlds.
The might of these beings is incredible by our standards. Such creatures wield the power of the cosmos, outside of time, the power of higher dimensions, of worlds beyond our worlds. But the universe is built on rules, even if those rules are incomprehensible to mortals. Until recently most of the powerful beings in the Intraether have regarded humans much the same way we regard monkeys. Humanity was considered clever tool users, more likely to get in trouble than ever really accomplish anything. That has changed. With our advancements in science, acceptance of pneumics, and the blending of the two, humanity is threatening for the first time.
There are very few examples of entities in the Intraether which are not of an evil, malicious nature. However, if the negative emotions of sentient beings create evil beings, then the positive emotions should create entities which are the opposite. The lack of these non-evil entities may be that most of the non-evil entities are also of a non-violent nature. This would make them easy prey for the vile entities of the Intraether. Leviathan Daimons however are an example of the non-evil Intraether entities, powered by the emotions of the Leviathan, which are capable of violence and are quite capable of fighting other evil entities (which the Leviathan Daimons seem to be able to defeat with ease). Other benign entities could include documented alien gods and more entities that have not been documented yet.
The great religions have always depicted the divine in anthropomorphic ways. Many gods may have been strict, but they were ultimately benevolent. Now that humanity has met beings that can only be called gods, humanity wonders where these benevolent divinities are. These creatures are so far beyond the understanding of mortals that mortals can only comprehend portions of these beings, and even that may be too much for the mind to bear. The gods of the universe care little for us, at best.
Regulations
Individuals can be born with some pneumic ability that must be developed somewhat intuitively or through struct processes develop mental patterns that interact with the Intraether. Developed mental patterns are considered ‘magic’ but still interact in the same way as psionics. Supernatural creatures from the Intraether or other dimensions may, rarely, pass over into the material universe and can easily interact with the Intraether.
There are those mortals who gain an understanding of the greater nature of the universe – and great power along with it. Some are those who force their rational mind to comprehend the complex and alien nature of the universe and learn how to manipulate it in practiced ways. These practiced ways can, in theory, be developed to manipulate things in nearly every way conceivable. Those who have an intuitive understanding of this framework manifest para-psychic abilities, which are more set and restricted in their manifestation, but do not require the study and ritual.
The Drakeîn Dominion considers psionics ( with magic, super powers, and supernaturals falling under the category of pneumics) both potentially dangerous and tremendously useful, so it controls them, or attempts to. Drakeîn citizens with powers must register with the Drakeîn Service Foundation as must visitors to Drakeîn space. The Foundation also conducts research on pneumics and psi technology. In addition to maintaining an extensive database on individuals and powers, the C.S.F identifies and trains individuals. Recognizing the extent of the potential threat of capable powers, the Drakeîn has established many policies to help "mainstream" individuals, and wants to find ways to increase their proportions.
All students undergo aptitude testing as part of their normal schooling. The Drakeîn has added a section that tests those traits that mark a youth as a potential psioinc. When such students are identified, the Service Foundation takes interest, watching the individual’s continuing studies and checking on their lifestyles. This allows them to recruit the gifted into government service and also have an early warning system for any who decide to practice pneumics unregistered.
By law, all psionics, mages and supernatural must register with the Drakeîn Service Foundation and obtain a Service License. A Service License permits the holder to use his powers subject to the law. The C.S.P pursue those unlicensed; if captured they face fines, imprisonment, forced injection of suppression drugs, or even forced conscription into government service.
The penalties for violating the laws regulating pneumics can be severe, but not as severe as the “legal” process. Any person in violation of pneumic statutes loses their rights. It is assumed that by entering areas deemed dangerous by the Drakeîn that a person has become compromised by the dark forces of the universe, and therefore can no longer be considered mortal. The ISS has the authority to arrest, detain without charge, and confiscate any and all materials and contraband that they deem necessary. Such individuals are then taken to a detention facility where they undergo an unpleasant battery of interrogations and tests to determine their state of mind and being. Those that succeed in establishing their sanity and mortality then go on to stand trial as normal. Those who do not find themselves locked away in specially guarded and warded vaults.
The basic laws regarding the use of powers on others resemble the laws governing physical contact between people: no use of powers on another person without his consent; no property damage; and so forth. Standard defenses to crimes (like self-defense) apply. Even when one can legally use his powers, the law requires him to use the minimum "force" or supernatural contact necessary to accomplish his objective. Normal laws regarding invasion of privacy apply. The law forbids telepathic or clairvoyant snooping, but of course the authorities have a hard time proving it happened. Professionals use pocket computers with thumbprint or retina scanners to obtain written authorization to use their powers on someone.
The Drakeîn and planetary legal systems don't currently allow the use of pneumics, or pneumic obtained evidence, in court trials, although defendants who really are innocent usually demand a telepathic probe, and the results of that test are admissible in court. Drakeîn security agencies, on the other hand, make lavish use of psi scanning, both consensual and forced. To avoid public outcry, they usually do this only when they have strong additional evidence the subject did something wrong, even if it isn't the crime he's accused of.
Power Ratings
The Evolution Channel and other government agencies classify pneumics by letters depending on how powerful they are:
Alpha: Persons with no known pneumic abilities. The vast majority of humans are Psi-Alphas.
Alpha Plus: Unconscious and minor level of pneumic brain activity. Such low levels of talent only manifest in high-stress experiences and remain beyond the control of the individual. Phenomenon commonly explained as "good luck" or "fluke" occurrences.
Iota: Subjects with varying degrees of immunity to pneumic powers. Pneumically-dense individuals who are oblivious to Intraether fluctuations and some manifestations of pneumic talent.
Beta: Betas have detectable but low-level pneumic powers. Typically this means a person with Minor Psionics.
Gamma: Gammas are made up of those with Major psionics, the most common "professional" pneumics.
Delta: Deltas are Master pneumics and can easily find governmental jobs and jobs in commercial industry.
Epsilon: This category is made up of mystics and other individuals who have both psionic and magic powers, such as many mystics and are considered to be on the same level as a Delta.
Kappa: Lower to mid level supernatural beings or those people with super powers.
Zeta: Psi-Zetas are made up mages. Because their powers are learned through study and are not natural abilities these are harder to identify than natural psionics.
Eta: Etas are mages like warlocks and witches who’s source of power comes from an outside source. These are also hard to identify and are viewed more suspiciously as they are not totally in control of their powers.
Theta: Any mage or psionic that is capable of crossing dimensions. These are highly valued individuals and almost all (of the known ones at least) work for the Drakeîn. They are also required to pass through an inspection when coming back from a trip to ensure no alien diseases or the like are carried back.
Omicron: These individuals are so calming in the Intrether as to actually exhibit negative pneumic influence upon others. In the Intraether To purely psychic entities like Jinn, they are invisible. Primarily manifested as a small region of "blankness" surrounding the individual, it is impossible for pneumic powers to penetrate this space. This often results in irrational fear and loathing of the individual for pneumics.
Omega: These are beings that have a large amount of power ranging from Jinn lords to gods. In theory, there is nothing that an Omega cannot accomplish through force of will. Some rumors say the Drakeîn has a secret team of "Omega Agents" to deal with threats even the fleet can't handle.
Organizations that train and employ pneumics actively recruit psis of Gamma grade or better. Most agents are at least Gamma and above.
Pneumic Technology
The realm of the Intraether is used for faster-than-light communication and travel. Vast amounts of energy are required for a vessel to enter the Intraether, and while within it, they are often at the mercy of the currents and eddies that make up the dimension. While great concentrations of Peyotl in the material realm calms the Intraether and makes it’s use far more reliable and safe Peyotl is not found in all areas. Dangers range from hull damage to encounters with the natives. Entire fleets have entered and never emerged, lost to turbulent storms in the Intraether. These storms can isolate star systems from each other, by making the Intraether‘s normal methods of travel and communication impossible. These storms can last for any amount of time, ranging from weeks to centuries, and can occasionally break out into the material universe, creating a temporary overlay with the material realm. Time may also proceeds a great deal slower or faster in the Intraether than in the material universe, creating a form of stasis. The timing itself is unpredictable due to the very nature of the Intraether, and occasionally a fleet of reinforcements will emerge from the Intraether to find that the war they were sent to fight in has long been lost, or not yet started.
Interstellar drive is known as fold drive. The name however is not entirely correct as a fold drive would in fact directly fold the space around a ship making travel from one point in the universe to another instantaneous. What the fold drives do is create a large amount of gravity forces which pushes the ship into Intraether, a dimension adjacent to our own dimension but one where distances are far smaller. For example to travel 1 lightyear at maximum sublight speeds would take a ship 5 years at 0.20 of lightspeed. However if the ship were to fold it would only take it 6 minutes to travel the same distance through Intraether. Between galaxies speeds are ten times as fast due to less mass between galaxies. These drives are affected by the gravity produced by large celestial bodies and so folding near heavy gravity objects is difficult. Ships may be pulled out of Intraether or prevented from entering if targeted by large gravity producers. Due to the exertion of the power required a fold device takes time to recharge its fold drive. Small craft and civilian fold drives take roughly an hour as opposed to the 5 minutes that a military ship requires.
Hyperlight Engines adorn the rear of the ships that travel through normal space at both near and somewhat above light speed. This is accomplished by weakening the barrier between the material universe and Intraether to form a bubble that envelops the starship, distorting the local spacetime continuum and moving the starship at velocities that can exceed the speed of light. Travel at this speed does however draw the problem of something the size of a pin head being able to punch through a ship’s hull as it travels at sublight speeds and destroying the entire ship, hence the reason why starships feature shields that function the same as a planets atmosphere in pushing aside/repeling minor space debris and do protect against micro-meterorites. Anti-gravity in all of its ships negates the regular problems of getting ships into orbit from the ground and vice versa.
For trips any longer than a handful of light-years, a Leviathan brain must be aboard. These Leviathan are able to 'see' the currents of the Intraether, and are able to guide a ship to its intended destination with much greater accuracy than would otherwise be possible. Also the brain is able to generate a field, a psychic ward that protects the starship. Without this shield, the minds of those travelling within the Intraether would be exposed to the many creatures that inhabit it.
Drakeîn has experimental psi-amplifiers, but they're classified technology not available to the public. Technology can boost, suppress, or alter abilities. They cannot give major powers to a non-pneumic, or great powers to an existing psi, but rumors of miracle substances that can make anyone an Omega often crop up.
Though there are technological means to dampen abilities, only pneumics trained to negate other psioncs can truly neutralize them. Due to fears of telepathic spying, shielding is widespread and publicly available.
The Pneumic League
A combination social club, political lobbying committee, mutual protection alliance, and counseling service, the Pneumic League is a Drakeîn Dominion-wide association of pneumics, open to anyone of Beta level or higher. It fights prejudice against psis both by lobbying against unjust laws and by physically protecting members from violence. It also offers counseling to help people and their families adjust to the use of powers, and allows them to meet one another free of suspicion and concealment.
Learning and Education
New research papers as well as ancient books and magical rituals are found Electronically and widely available. However books have been declared too dangerous for public consumption by the Drakeîn and owning them is a serious offense. Some books have been censored and re-released in “less harmful” editions. The same goes for rituals, some spells have been classified “safe” by the Drakeîn and are readily available. Others require a permit, much like those required for military grade weapons, and still others are blacklisted. One can assume that if a book or ritual contains anything regarding extra-dimensional entities that it’s been blacklisted or at least requires a permit. To the Drakeîn’s credit, the majority of the books and rituals that have been blacklisted are dangerous. The knowledge or power in them, even in responsible hands, might corrupt the user or unleash powerful forces that are easily outside of any mortal’s control.
If a person meets the basic requirements for aptitude, it’s pretty easy to training. Most reputable colleges have metaphysics programs that teach a student everything he needs to know. Graduates leave with a broad education with a few rituals under their belt. But there are still those who believe that the process is more intimate than that and feel that classroom education only sullies the study of “the Art”. They choose to explore occult mysteries on their own and experiment in private. Some believe in a more traditional master/apprentice system. Regardless, those who want to study legally have many options for training.
The Local Group of Galaxies
The Drakeîn Galaxy is a Ring galaxy 150,000 light years across, the largest in the local group. The galaxy is orbited by twenty one satellite galaxies. Of these three are major galaxies ranging in size between 40, 000 light years and 80,000 light years. The others are dwarf galaxies. Areas between galaxies have ancient, metal-poor stars and not much life. Other than its home galaxy the Drakeîn currently has majority control in half of the dwarf galaxies and significant areas in the others. It also has greater than 20 percent control of the three other major galaxies.
In the Drakeîn galaxy there are approximately 750 billion stars and around half of these had planets that could support life. Additionally the Drakeîn has begun to colonize small outposts in multiple dimensions. Life developed in 10% of the inhabitable planets, while sentient life developed in 1/1,000 of those. Of those only 1/1,000 was able to develop methods of leaving their star system and 1/10,000 developed means of interstellar travel. No means of interstellar travel have been shown to be faster than using the Interether. The dominant species are been Humans originating from the Old Worlds. Sentients other than Humans were simply known as "aliens". Aliens were also distinguished as humanoid or not.
At the very heart of this galaxy, the Hades Expanse is a small region. Due to the gravitational pull of the vast number of stars, local space-time is severely warped, making travel difficult at best. An ancient region bordering the outlying areas of the Hades Expanse, the Core Worlds were some of the most prestigious, well-developed, well-known, and heavily populated planets in the galaxy. The Galactic Federation was born in the Core Worlds and spread out over the galaxy. When the Hades Expanse came into existence it signaled the end of the Galactic Federation, as the Hades Expanse came into existence around the Protogenoi' Core Worlds. It is a massive gate where the Intrether enters the material universe. Within it, the laws of the material universe are no longer law; time flows at erratic rates, and matter and energy are indistinct. Horrible creatures fly through space , terrorizing any creature unfortunate enough to end up inside. The natives of the Interether use the Hades Expanse as a base, striking out at opportune, seemingly random moments. It is believed that without constant military action by the Drakeîn the beings of the Hades Expanse would spread through the local group and the gate may expand to engulf the entire galaxy.
The Drakeîn divides the galaxy into sovereign governmental zones called Dominions and Star Protectorates. They are the primary administrative and geographic division. Space is then further divided into sectors, which typically might cover seven million cubic light years equivalent a cube with sides almost 200 light years long, sub-sectors, which usually comprise between two and eight star systems within a ten light year radius, and individual systems. Systems and planets are categorized into several broad classes according to their function, type of civilization and technological level. Dominions are overall developed and explored regions. The Star Protectorates are the last widely settled expanses before the Barbaros Expanses. They are strewn with obscure worlds, and rugged, frontier planets. Sectors and sub-sectors are named and categorized for those that do not belong in any dominion. Areas that are under control of a Dominion or Protectorate are known as Hellas Expanses.
Barbaros Expanses most commonly referred to the large, unsettled regions. In the Drakeîn Galaxy the Barbaros Expanses comprise only a few billion stars while the majority of the Local Group is made up of these. They are often unexplored, uninhabited, alien empires, or somehow inaccessible.
The Hegemonic Unity is one of the Dominions, divisions of the Galaxy, of the Drakeîn. Its most notable feature is Gaio, the homeworld of the Hyperians, which orbits its sun Helios. It was among the first areas to be colonized, and the worlds here are typically heavily populated, industrialized, and cultured.
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
Part II: The Biosphere
Worlds
Worlds are classified by a variety of means, but mainly by their civilization type and atmosphere.
A paradise world is a class of planet characterized by its outstanding natural beauty. Its natural conditions are perfect for human habitation. They have little, if any, industry and low populations. Instead of populating or industrializing these rare planets, some are retained in their natural state. Many paradise worlds were originally created by the Protogenoi before the Fall of their race. The creation involved seeding barren planets with life, gradually leading to their transformation into lush, life-supporting worlds. The seeding of worlds was part of a program which would take many thousands of years to reach fruition, and the result would only be seen by later generations of humans. The development of a lifeless planet into a Paradise world was a slow one. Simple bacteria were introduced to create a stable atmosphere and bio-system of the planet. The process began it was self-sustaining but took thousands of years to complete. The seeded worlds survived the fall of the Protogenoi, and continued to develop on their own. In the Age of the Drakeîn these worlds are now verdant paradise worlds and home to a diverse amount of human subspecies planted by the Protogenoi. A paradise world has a wide variety in it’s population but usually has a population from 20,000,000 to 15,000,000,000.
Of all the types of settlement in the Drakeîn, civilized worlds are the most common (although the term "civilized" here refers to their urban landscapes rather than to any pretence of social decorum.) On these self-sufficient worlds, the main population centers tend to be large cities or other urban environments that are supported by the planet's own agricultural production. The state of development both technologically and socially varies, but is most commonly around the current norm. By the classification guidelines, a civilized world has a population from 15,000,000 to 10,000,000,000.
An agricultural world is one devoted to food production. The majority of its surface is given over to producing food for other worlds reliant on such imports. One method of defining an agricultural world is where at least 850 parts per 1000 of the planet's surface are covered by some form of crop cultivation, hydroponics, animal fodder or animal husbandry. The population usually ranges from between 15,000 to 1,000,000 - which are widely spread across the planet.
Factory Worlds are factory worlds where the whole planet is devoted to manufacturing or mining. The populations are sparse as most of the labor is carried out mechanically. They must be considerably mineral-rich in order to justify the logistical and development efforts. Factory Worlds are worlds totally devoted to industry. The majority of a Factory-world's solid ground surface is covered in thousands of years of built-up, massive industrial complexes: great machine factories, production centers, huge volcanic furnaces, skyscraping chimneys, abyss-like quarries and the great workshop-fortresses. No other world can match the quality and quantity of a Factory world's output. Factory worlds are the main producers of the Drakeîn's more unique and advanced equipment: high-end personal weapons, spacecraft, war machines such as tanks, fighters, as well as more mundane but vital and advanced equipment. The population of a Factory world is invariably immense, the majority directly involved in the industry of the planet, laboriously working in factories and involved in heavy mining. A factory world typically has a population of 10,000,000 to 500,000,000 people.
Hive World is a category of planet distinguished by vast, continent-spanning cities, often built high into the sky and deep beneath the earth. Their populations are enormous, and almost all food needs to be imported. A Hive World rendered temporarily inaccessible will suffer a devastating famine within a very short space of time. It will become a vast catacomb of lunatics driven to excesses of anarchic, urban savagery by starvation and claustrophobia. Billions of people can live crowded together in a single Hive-city. Hive Worlds also serve to populate newly discovered planets. Citizens are gathered from various Hive Worlds and shipped off to distant colonies. Hive Worlds have huge import/export ratios, exporting a vast range of materials, and relying on imports of food and water. There are hundreds of Hive Worlds in the Drakeîn. Most consist of various enclosed Hive cities or Hive clusters surrounded by wasteland, jungle, ice, plains, etc. In the most extreme examples the Hive World has developed beyond the point of separate Hive clusters - the planet's surface instead is completely urbanized with hundreds of stacked layers of arcologies, covering the entirety of the planet. Hive Worlds are important due to their output. They don't reach anywhere near the production of a Factory World, but the number of workers give out a huge quantity of materials. Hive worlds have populations easily exceeding 30,000,000,000
The technological level of feral worlds remains low or even Stone Age. The most advanced such worlds possess black powder weaponry. A feral world typically has a population of 10,000,000 to 500,000,000 people. Often the population consists of hunter-gatherer societies using primitive tools and weapons, and in almost all cases human culture is based around the interactions of various tribes, gangs or creeds. Feral worlds are self-sufficient, and due to dependence on agriculture, a large part of the populations of these worlds are farmers. Feudal worlds are of relatively little use to the Drakeîn; the true position of their place in the universe may constitute something of a culture shock to the inhabitants. The culture shock associated with interaction with outsiders is an issue on feral worlds. Removing a feral worlder from their planet and exposing them to such things as space travel can be disconcerting. A feral worlder within the wider Drakeîn often retains their superstitious and tribal idiosyncrasies, which may prove to be social hindrances, such as an obsession with bones of dead comrades or the mixing and regular application of noxious-smelling war paint. Before the arrival of the Drakeîn, these worlds were at technologically-primitive. With the arrival of the Drakeîn, the feudal states evolve into Civilized Worlds. Feral worlds are ruled over by a Domestiko, although the nature of feral worlds makes this position somewhat different from that of Domestiko of planets of other classes. The Domestiko of a feral world almost always lives apart from the natives, often living in a single city inhabited by outsiders or taking residence in orbit.
A dead world is an airless and completely sterile world, totally devoid of an atmosphere, ecosystem and native natural life, and unsuitable for supporting any. With the possible exception of facilities such as research stations based on the planet, its population is otherwise nonexistent. Most such planets have always been dead worlds; others were originally habitable worlds, reduced to dead world status through apocalyptic events.
A death world is a planet in which the native flora and fauna has evolved into naturally aggressive and dangerous forms. These eco-systems are finely balanced between continual destruction and lightning-fast reproduction. Death worlds take many forms, ranging from jungle-covered hell-holes with carnivorous plants and animals to barren, volcanic wastelands racked by ion storms. Humans can, and do, live on these worlds, but it is a never-ending struggle. On many death worlds it is as if the entire bio-mass of the planet were consciously motivated against human settlement - concentrating forces against intruders to destroy them. Death worlds with human settlements can have populations of 1,000 to 15,000,000. Death worlds are not usually inhabited, and are nearly impossible to colonize but still need to be explored which means establishing outposts and other facilities. Some planets have rich mineral wealth, animal life, vegetables or gases.
A Space World takes the form of orbiting spacecraft, deserted moons and asteroids. They are listed in the classification system of worlds, but are not worlds themselves. Some are based in orbit around planets or on asteroids, or on worlds themselves, such as dead worlds or death worlds. Types of space worlds include laboratories, as well as surveillance posts for defensive purposes and are often the Homebase for a Leviathan Dominion. Populations range from 100 to 50,000,000,000.
Alien worlds are worlds inhabited by xeno races or humans not belonging to the Drakeîn. Most alien races occupy only a single world or a small group of worlds. The majority of aliens are comparatively primitive, aggressive, powerless, and of little interest to the Drakeîn. Only a few alien races are powerful, peaceful and possess technology which rivals that of the Drakeîn.
A Hades world is a planet twisted by the power of the Intraether from being trapped in a prolonged Gate. Entwining the impossibilities of the Intraether and the reality of the physical realm, Hades World's are not bound by the laws of standard physics. The most powerful pneumics have reported dreams or visions in which worlds of the Hades Expanse have been revealed to them. Visions of such places disturb the psychically sensitive throughout the entire galaxy. Populations are typically large as the worlds are often filled by beings descended from the Protogenoi. Armies of Jinns and their living allies fight huge and bloody battles to determine who will posses these planets. These battles often last for hundreds of years, so that the entire world becomes little more than a gigantic arena where the opposing forces are pitched against each other. When a Jinn Lord takes control of his hard-won world he uses his mighty powers to reshape it to a form which pleases him. Because of this, every world is different and all are equally spectacular in their own way.
Type I atmospheres have appropriate levels of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen to be breathable by the majority of humans. Some contaminants or other trace gases can have long-term detrimental effects. Planets with these types of atmospheres almost always have some form of indigenous life. Plant life or some analog that frees oxygen is present on all planets with a Type I atmosphere all oxygen in the atmosphere would have been bound to other elements within a matter of months without such means to free it up.
Type II atmospheres usually have appropriate levels of atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen. Due to lack of sufficient pressure or the presence of contaminants and other trace gases, however, these atmospheres usually cause detrimental effects to Humans and most other species over a shorter period of time. Many species can breathe Type II atmospheres without any trouble depending on physiology. Planets with a type II atmosphere usually support some form of indigenous life.
Within Type III atmospheres, due to either the lack of appropriate levels of atmospheric oxygen, nitrogen, sufficient pressure, the presence of contaminants and/or trace gases, a breath mask have to be worn. These atmospheres cause immediate or eventual impediments or even incapacitation. Some species can breathe these types of atmospheres depending on physiology, and biology. Planets with a Type III atmosphere sometimes support native life.
Type IV atmospheres are either toxic, flammable, or nonexistent; these types of atmospheres cause immediate incapacitation or death in most species. Few species can breathe in this type of atmosphere; planets with a type IV atmosphere rarely supports life.
Life Forms
Species are unique lifeforms. They are generally divided into three classifications based on their level of sentience: sentient, semi-sentient, and non-sentient. Sentient species are sometimes erroneously referred to as races, which more accurately referred to groups or subspecies within a species.
The predominant form of sentient life in the galaxy is carbon-based lifeforms. However, other forms of sentient life exist, such as silicon-based or energy-based lifeforms. Reports from remote parts of the galaxy even mentioned giant clouds of interstellar gas which had evolved a form of intelligence based on internal force-fields. Across all species, the majority were oxygen breathers, although a number breathed other substances such as ammonia, cyanogens, methane, methanogen, helium and Doran gas. Despite these differences, most species were easily classified into a number of distinct categories:
Corporeal species have a physical body, usually composed of carbon or silicon based cellular structures. Most corporeal species metabolize energy by consuming food or photosynthesis, and have a finite life cycle consisting of distinct periods of growth, maturity, and senescence. Intelligent corporeal species frequently enhance their capabilities with technology.
Noncorporeal species are composed of various forms of coherent gas or energy. Most noncorporeal species absorb and utilize energy directly from their environment. Generally noncorporeal species do not utilize technology, compensating with intrinsic physiological capabilities. Some noncorporeal species have evolved beyond the need for sustenance, and wield substantial control over space and time.
Artificial species are usually created by another species, and can be sentient by design or have attained sentience spontaneously. There are two general types of artificial life: The first is a physical constructed from physical components. The second is a software program, which exists solely on a suitable computer.
Trans-dimensional species are life-forms originating from a reality outside the normal space-time continuum. They can take a variety of forms which may or may not be comparable to those in this universe, depending on the nature of their native realm. Some trans-dimensional species are unable to survive in this universe without assistance. In closely related universes, there are a number of species who have developed exactly or at least similarly to their counterparts in the "regular" universe.
Humans
Seeded by the Protogenoi on many worlds, humans are the most common of the spacefaring races and found throughout most of known space.
The progress of Human society under the guidance and protection of the Drakeîn has been mankind’s greatest achievement. Cultural diversity, ethnic tradition, and a new sense of interdenominational religious tolerance have rolled up into a new and unified human identity. Mankind’s exposure to alien wars and unspeakable horrors has led to a acceptance of Human diversity unparalleled in history. Ethnic, racial, and religious differences are simply traits. Mixed sexual and mixed racial relationships are openly accepted. Men and women share an equal role in social, vocational, and military matters. The onslaught of war by outside enemies led to a general belief that all life is precious and that the sacrifice of one to save many is the most noble of gestures.
Despite the vast distances separating their home worlds, many human species have been found to share a remarkable commonality in form and genetic coding. To preserve their heritage, the Protogenoi seeded the primordial oceans of many potentially hospitable planets with encoded DNA fragments. The genetic information incorporated into the earliest lifeforms on those planets and through pre-programmed mutations caused by a genetic template, directed evolution toward a physical development similar to their own. Because of this controlled mutation mechanism, most habitable planets in the galaxy evolved with many physically similar species, and on many of those worlds with at least one sentient species with a humanoid configuration. Many, but not all, of these are infertile with each other.
Anatomically, a significant percentage of those lifeforms are outwardly indistinguishable from Humans, right down to such morphological minutiae as the same racial phenotypes, hair distribution patterns, fingernails and cartilaginous folding of the nose and ears. The reason they are so astonishingly similar is because the "Human form" represents the basic way that evolution most likely takes for the dominant mammalian race on an average seeded planet under the influence of the genetic codes. Other ‘alien’ humans developed under very specific and usually unique environmental conditions. A human is defined an intelligent bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal lifeform in possession of an upright posture, two arms, two legs, hands, feet, one thorax, a neck, and a head with a brain located in it. They are generally mammalian and originate on paradise planets. It is common for them to have two sexes.
Human ancestors were not strong enough to fight, not fast enough to flee or hunt down prey, too big to hide yet too small to frighten predators. In other words, they were both easy and tempting targets. Species vanished for less than that, yet humans ended up prospering like no other comparable species on their world. Their being prey species led to a healthy fear response and need to cooperate. They had to rely on ingenuity to survive. Humans made great progress in science and exploration, they developed tools and technology quickly, sometimes before knowing exactly how they worked.
Human history is scarred by countless wars and struggles. If humans can not outright take something they want they will use diplomacy and trickery to get it. However humans are really quite nice until a certain breaking point and become psychopathically tenacious and brutal when pushed too far. Humans have the strange combined desire for prosperity in peacetime and victory in wartime, in other words, they live as though they have the instincts and ecological niche of predators, even though their ecological niche as farmers and builders should have created a peaceful society.
The odd human tendency to maintain long-term tension between opposing drives led to the phenomenon of the "Cold War" in their history, as competing nation states, too stingy of their peace and prosperity to engage each other in combat outright yet too set in their ideological boundaries to negotiate a true settlement, played games of brinkmanship with each other, endlessly amassing stockpiles of ever-more-powerful weapons in an attempt to indirectly coerce each other into submission. This practice of endlessly vacillating between threats and appeasements may make Humans appear scattered and confused to more straightforward races however, in the long run the flexibility gained by this Human mindset seems to have served them well.
It seems that humans have developed in a few unique ways due to their ancestry. Individualistic as they are, much of the human sense of security comes from a centralized government. Humans have an unusually strong tension between their ideals of individual rights and community safety, causing them to turn to inefficient and complex means to hold their society together. Though all governments have some degree of bureaucracy, only among Humans has this practice, essentially an attempt at coercion through the mechanistic application of increasingly complex formal legal structures, become the central aspect of governance.
Humans also appreciate freedom, and eagerly flocked to new colony sites in search of new opportunities and new land. Militaristic but not warlike they are willing to die for their values and ideals. One of humanity’s primary assets is the overall adaptability and curiosity of its people. Humans live just as easily in cities with tens of millions of inhabitants or alone in scout ships light-years from the nearest' outpost.
It is often said that love of creating new life is a purely human trait as they practice creating new forms of life enthusiastically. As almost all of their creations were originally designed for some purpose the vast majority have some sort of inbuilt bond or loyalty to their creators.
Some worry human life has potentially made itself obsolete by creating a stronger, more durable life as its successor and that the government should therefore strictly regulate and suppress the theoretical replacement. However widely available advances in cybernetics and genetic engineering have so far allowed ‘natural’ humans to keep up with their creations. Those with greater abilities simply tackle more advanced and difficult projects and continue to find meaning in the struggle to achieve excellence as enhancements have not removed the bulk of the individual and social challenges. The Drakeîn believes itself to have an obligation to encourage as wide an adoption of life enhancement technologies as possible so long as such policies do not infringe on individuals' rights or exert undue pressures to use these technologies in order to maximize public health and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural endowments and unequal access to enhancements. The Drakeîn of course has control over organizations undertaking actions in this area and influences the sequence in which technologies develop. Planners strive to retard and closely watch the development of possibly harmful technologies and their applications, while accelerating the development of likely beneficial technologies. Laws are built on the assertion of equality in political rights and before the law and not on effective equality of beings. The law is meant to apply equally to all, no matter how rich or poor, powerful or powerless, educated or ignorant, enhanced or unenhanced. Provided they are self-aware, clones, human-animal chimeras, machine life, and uplifted animals are all considered to be unique persons deserving of equal rights and citizenship in the eyes of the law. Obtaining citizenship requires the being to pass a test of autonomy and to repay the cost of its creation.
Most Humans come from unmodified stock, but a few groups have altered the genes of their children to create variant subspecies. Though colonization attempts to mark ideal worlds, however this was not always possible and many were forced to settle worlds that were "good enough." Populations that found it difficult to adapt to new worlds found that the best and most economically available approach was to modify or evolve themselves slightly to suit their environmental conditions rather than Terraform an entire planet, resort to widespread bionics, or live in small environmental controlled structures. Variant Humans are still Human in psychology and most can have children with different variant types or unmodified Humans, although with a greater chance of miscarriage or birth defect than normal. However to ensure that the variant type is around longer than one generation many are designed to only find their own kind sexually appealing. Modifications typically only endure for long periods of time when applied to large populations however individuals have been known to augment themselves and even start up subcultures based on a particular trait. The ability to create ‘superhumans’ is rare as it is both expensive to make any real progress over what is commercially available and only attempted by larger organizations who’s creations have a specified function to fulfill.
Robots and androids have long been a part of society. They do most factory work, they labor in mines and hazardous environments without complaint, fight in wars without hesitation, and nearly all homes have a domestic 'bot. Some, the later especially, often seem remarkably "alive" but are not able to make free choices and can only do as their programming dictates. These have no civil rights in the Drakeîn and are treated as simple machines and tools. Though automations are widespread only a few possess true intelligence. Those sentient machines can get full citizenship and must abide by laws regarding upgrades, reproduction, and so on. There is no single blueprint of what is a sentient machine. Different organizations have used different technologies to create them and often the result has been very different as well. Some are completely mechanical; a mix of micro-technology, energy patterns, or towering artificial intelligences the size of buildings. Others are bioroids, as biological as any natural except that have been assembled or vat grown rather than developed in a conventional manner through sexual coupling, womb, etc.
Some of these beings, the large majority of which are organic based beings due to behavioral and physical adaptability and stability in the face of unseen challenges compared with expensive sentient non-organics and route machines are able to reproduce and have been used to settle new worlds. Lower cost of construction compared with machines has proved attractive to start up colonies and many have gone on to establish their own polities, cultures, and religions. Of these beings the most common are those derived from sub sentient animals. The process of bringing a life form up to sentience not only includes the need of increasing intelligence but also requires augmentations required for manipulation of objects, interfacing with tech, communications, and other necessities of civilized life.
By far the most numerous and cheapest to produce synthetic intelligences are called Droids. They are self aware computing system capable of learning and independent decision making. Creation of a conscious SI requires a specialized quantum computer. An SI cannot be transmitted across a communication channel or computer network. Without its physical computer, an SI is no more than data files. Loading these files into a new computer will create a new personality, as variations in the quantum hardware and runtime results create unpredictable variations. Legally Droids are a living, conscious entity with the same rights as organics. Similar to indentured servitude they must work off their cost of creation, like most legally created beings. Due to the cost in producing a SI, Virtual Intelligences are employed for dangerous or simple tasks. While not as robust and adaptive as a SI the VI is far less costly and does not require the legal hassle of indentured servitude.
Various types of human derived beings are classified in very general categories, Those with simple adaptations for life in a particular world are generally the same as baseline humans. Some very extreme types are prevalent across all human space and are as follows:
Homo Saipan Anemoi
The Anemoi are a genetically engineered subspecies of humanity for life in low gravity environments. The modifications are slight while retaining the ability to function in a baseline human world. They have the ability to breath in a wider variety of atmospheres, tend to be weaker and more fragile than humans, to live out their lives in lesser light they have larger eyes than a normal human. Anemoi tend to be tall and spindly, sometimes with pale and almost translucent skin. Other common traits include extremely large eyes which may lack the iris, and ill-defined facial features. Hands and feet can be ridiculously large, and are often webbed. Commonly Anemoi are completely hairless. They also have a high occurrence of pneumics due to their often interaction with the Intraether.
Homo Saipan Chthoni
Chthoni are stocky and tough descendants of humans who colonized mineral rich worlds around the galactic core. The worlds at the galactic core were rich in rare and unique minerals, but in terms of life were barren and unsuited for colonization. These worlds are dark and bleak but usually highly technological. Their gravity is great, usually two or three times that of Earth. Their atmospheres are either thin or non-existent. Even those planets with atmospheres are blasted by tremendous storms. These planets became mining worlds. Colonists were forced to become self-sufficient, providing their own underground grown food. Due to the completely hostile nature of the surface the colonists formed underground societies. The Chthoni race developed, evolving to suit their environment, becoming tougher, more resilient and physically shorter.
Homo Saipan Myrmidon
Soldiers created to capitalize on the characteristics using genetic material, using all the best traits of soldiers which made them great. Furthermore they are implanted with special organs and glands. Most of these can secrete combat-useful chemicals, such as stimms and pain-killers. Some Myrmidon use spyce, a potent drug, to dull their hyperactive senses.
Homo Saipan
Hekatonkhei evolved on worlds with harsh and barren environments and high gravities. Most of these worlds, having no other use to humanity, were originally used as prison planets. They were physically larger and stronger than normal humans, and are frequently employed as laborers. Hekatonkhei vary in appearance according to world, but all are tough and powerful. Some forms are well-muscled, while others tend more towards grotesque obesity. They are generally stupid and unhygienic but there are exceptions.
Satyroi are bestial, their bodies combine the features of both human and animal. Satyroi are much more variable in form than other abhuman types. Individual Satyroi conform to a general physical and genetic standard and are no more prone to mutation than normal humans. There are many strains, including unusually large and aggressive ones. However most are not. Typically Satyroi are short although not strong. They are hedonistic, gregarious, over-friendly and sexually promiscuous. Their lives are spent eating until sick, drinking copious amounts of intoxicating liquids, and procreating uncontrollably
Homo Sapian Gaion
These are politically influential humans known commonly as Hyperians. They are a national and ethno genetic group. Their ethnicity, nationality, and culture are strongly interrelated. They have colonized a relatively large portion of space and hail from the planet Gaio. They have skin tone ranging from brown to black, hair from red to blonde, eye color from green to blue and facial structure ranging from South and East Asian.
Society centers on the individual and family. This consists of biological mother and father with 1-10 children. An artificial womb is used to carry the pregnancy to term in almost every instance but Hyperian females are quite capable of bearing their offspring should that prove necessary. Hyperian females reproduce sexually but can and will reproduce parthenogenically , but only if absolutely necessary.
To a slightly lesser degree parents and extended families are cared for as needed. Extended families will usually band together into communities for mutual support and defense. Community size can vary widely from anywhere of several dozen individuals to cities ranging up to 20 million.
Draka are characterized as extremely aggressive, sexually driven, prolific and widely varied individuals. Appearances can vary widely. Due to a well developed endocrine system, they experience a wide variety of emotional states.
To Hyperians freedom, individuality, and responsibility are typically highly valued traits in Hyperian psychology. They remarkably are fanatical about protecting the ecology of their homeworld and other worlds conquered/colonized by them. Hunting is a sport that most Hyperians practice and all are quite good at it. Hyperians, like most other primates, exhibit a strong sense of adventure and sometimes too much curiosity.
Hyperians are physically very adaptable to extremes in climate. Many niches and environments that would be inadaptable to humans become places where Hyperians can thrive.
The overall genetic matching of homo sapien gaion to humans is approximately 94% congruence. This is less than gorilla or chimpanzee to humans and is on the borderline of crossing what could be considered genus boundaries. Hyperians have a variety of organs not found in baseline humans. Several organs and organic systems have been altered from the standard human pattern. These changes occur at the sub cellular level all the way to structural and design changes in the major organ systems of the body.
Exposure to high levels of sunlight will result in the skin darkening to compensate. It also protects from other forms of radiation. The skin is also able to sweat a substance that coats the skin and offers resistance to extreme heat and cold and can even provide some protection in a vacuum.
A small, tubular and complex organ secretes hormones that both affect the ossification of the skeleton and encourage forming bone. This heavily alters the way the bones grow and develop. Long bones will have increased in size (along with most other bones) and the rib cage will have been fused into a solid mass of interlocking plates. All bones have additional small flanges to provide greater surface area for the muscle systems to bond to. Tendon and ligament material has been reinforced. Bone composition is augmented from simple honeycombed calcium salts to boron fibers and enhanced density to provide much greater strength.
The arms are double jointed at the elbows, shoulders, and wrists. The legs are similar, being double jointed at the hip, knee and ankle. The joints are different in that they will constantly regenerate and replace any tissues or fluids that may be lost from aging or from repeated injury.
Muscle systems have been genetically re-engineered for greater strength and stamina. The striated muscles are approximately four times stronger as the muscle cells themselves contain denser microfiber packs. This produces more energy per cell in muscular contractions. Resilin has also been incorporated to improve explosive muscle force which produces enhanced agility and jumping ability. A small, circular organ is grown into the chest cavity and releases hormones that vastly increase muscle growth throughout the body.
The metabolism of all the changes has radically altered requiring anywhere from 7000 to 14,000 calories a day. Water requirements are approximately 4-5 times the standard needs of a human. The Hyperians are excellent specimens but they are also very high performance and fuel consuming flash and blood machines.
A pre-stomach can neutralize otherwise poisonous or indigestible foods. No actual digestion takes place, as it acts as a decontamination chamber placed before the natural stomach in the body's system and can be isolated from the rest of the digestive tract in order to contain particularly troublesome intake.
An organ allows a Hyperian to 'learn by eating'. It is situated in the spinal cord but is actually part of the brain. Four nerve bundles are implanted connecting the spine and the stomach wall. Able to 'read' or absorb genetic material consumed it transmits the gained information to the Marine's brain as a set of memories or experiences. It is the presence of this organ which has lead to the various flesh-eating and blood-drinking rituals
Regeneration and regrowth are just two of the characteristics their bodies are capable of. Thanks to telomere regeneration and various anti-agathic naturally produced in the endocrine systems, aging is slowed to a tenth of normal. Enhanced platelet and scar tissue formation allow for rapid healing and regeneration of any lost or damaged tissues.
The hemoglobin module that produces the red in blood has been engineered for greater capacity and myoglobin reserves in the muscles have been created to allow Hyperians to hold their breath for much longer times than standard humans. Fifteen minutes of swimming seems to be the limit or up to an hour if sitting motionless and not exerting any muscles. This also results in a very efficient respiratory system that recovers and eliminates most lactic acid and body wastes before they ever impair the functioning of the body.
A liver-shaped organ about the size of a golf-ball is grown within the chest cavity and connected to the circulatory system. It generates and controls cells which are released into the blood stream if the recipient is wounded. They attach themselves to leucocytes in the blood and are carried to the site of the wound, where upon contact with air they form a near instant patch of scar tissue, sealing any wounds the Hyperian may suffer.
The flora that is commonly found in human digestive and integumentary systems has been eliminated resulting in a sanitized metabolism throughout the body. White blood cell counts and other T cell structures have been elevated to almost unseen levels. The immune response is much faster and more varied than normal humans. Children are born with the protein signatures of all known (at the time) viral and bacterial diseases written into the leucocytes’ 'memory'. As a result disease is a thing of the past.
An additional lung activates when a Hyperian needs to breathe in low-oxygen or poisoned atmospheres, and even water. The natural lungs are closed off by a sphincter muscle associated with the multi-lung and the implanted organ takes over breathing operations. It has highly efficient toxin dispersal systems.
In conjunction with a secondary heart the kidney allows quick filtration of blood, rendering the body immune to most poisons. This action comes at a price, however, as this emergency detoxification usually renders the subject unconscious while blood is circulated at high speed.
The simplest and most self-sufficient of organs is the secondary heart which a Hyperian to survive the other heart being damaged or destroyed, and to survive in low oxygen environments. Not just a back-up, the secondary heart can boost the blood-flow around the body.
The circulatory system is also enhanced as the arterial and vein systems are developed to a degree where any point in the body will generally receive blood from 4 to 6 points. Several small clumps of ganglia are clustered about a secondary heart and automaticity monitors the blood vessels. When a drop in blood pressure is detected the body will selectively cramp a small amount of smooth muscle that lines the veins and arterial structures of the body.
Hyperians have extensive neurological modifications and enhancements coupled with two unintended defects when compared to humanss. The nerves themselves have been altered so that the electrochemical borders inside nerves (which slows nervous transmission rates) are much less prevalent than before modification. This has significantly reduced reaction times involving fight or flight instincts. Genes have enhanced reflex and agility throughout the body and ganglia were designed to straddle the tri-spinal cord to record and remember reflex actions. The spinal cord is split into 3 substructures and 'cross-wired' to prevent one single break from disabling the whole nervous system.
The brain structure and composition has been changed as well. Glial ratios to neurons are radically altered and the convolutions of the brain are present to a greater extent. Human IQ tests pass their most impaired citizens at the sub genius category. This figure can and does send their best and brightest right off the charts. Also present is a photographic memory to a degree rarely seen among standard humans. Math functions are much more ingrained into their minds to the point that they are often as fast as handheld and sometimes even astronavigation computers.
An organ that resembles a film of black plastic that is directly beneath the skin of the torso in sheets. It hardens on the outside and sends invasive neural bundles into the body. After the organ has matured the individual is then fitted with neural sensors and interface points cut into the surface. This allows Hyperians to interface directly with technology.
A membrane merges with the entire brain. Hyperians can use this implant to enter a state of suspended animation, consciously or as an automatic reaction to extreme trauma, keeping the person alive for years, even if he has suffered otherwise mortal wounds. Only the appropriate chemical therapy or auto-suggestion can revive from this state.
Grown into the back of the brain, a pea-sized organ influences the circadian rhythms of sleep and the body's response to sleep deprivation. If deprived of sleep it cuts in. The node allows a Hyperian to sleep and remain awake at the same time by switching off areas of his brain sequentially. This process cannot replace sleep entirely, but increases the perception of the environment while resting. This means that a Hyperian needs no more than four hours of sleep a day, and can potentially go for two weeks without any sleep at all.
In addition to standard structural changes several modifications have been effected in the hormonal and instincts. The fight or flight reaction has been edited to favor the fight aspect. Two defects that have been detected are a lack of intuitive logical ability and the lack of innovation and invention. This does not state that they cannot learn, but it is more likely to be deductive and evolutionary than any revolutionary paradigm changes that humans may have wrought over time.
Hyperians have very good color binocular vision, sensing spectrum ranges between infrared (~500 nm) and far ultraviolet wavelengths (<300nm) Motion perception is a factor in determining what they see. As a primary predator their sight is attracted to motion.
Hearing covers a range from 16-107,000 Hertz, with good separation and direction sensing capabilities. It is generally sensitive down to -50db levels and can be consciously scaled to prevent hearing loss; the tragus is also mobile and under control to prevent damage to the tympanic membrane from loud noise or even diving. The ears can be cocked by muscles in the skull to enhance direction finding capabilities and is probably their most inhuman visible feature when they exercise it. The inner ear is immune from dizziness or motion sickness but also allows Hyperian to consciously filter out and enhance certain sounds.
The senses of taste and smell are incredibly developed and approaches standard canine/shark levels. The Hyperians have reengineered this sense to a degree that individual humans can be tracked beyond sight range with smell alone.
Taste is enhanced to such a high degree that Hyperian can identify many common chemicals by taste alone.
Two identical glands, implanted either into the lower lip, alongside the salivary glands and into the hard palette. The gland works in a similar way to the poison gland of venomous reptiles by synthesizing and storing deadly poison. This allows a Hyperian to spit a blinding contact poison. The poison is also corrosive and can even burn away strong metals given sufficient time.
The vomernasal (pheromone) emission organs have been restored from vestigial functions to full and very important functionality among themselves and when interacting with Homo sapiens. The effects of their pheromones range from simple love/lust reactions to fear and awe. Humans that have been exposed to them have reported that they can evoke emotions directly from them and it seemed like they were almost whispering to them. They are of course selectively immune to their own pheromones.
Leviathan
The Leviathan are the most influential and numerous race found in the Drakeîn. Their Domains, the largest organ structure of the Leviathan, make up a quarter of the Dominions of the Drakeîn. Perpetuating their survival the Leviathan reproduce rapidly and expand at an industrial rate. Taking account of all the organisms that consist of the Leviathan they make up a third of all biomass of intelligent life in the Drakeîn. Additionally they are by far the most involved groups with nearly every member of the species being an elector as well as making up the majority of the Drakeîn military. Many of the officials of the Drakeîn are a Leviathan and the head of the entire race, Demogorgon, has been elected Sebastos of the Drakeîn since it’s inception.
The entire race is perhaps best thought as space faring ecosystems which collectively form superorganisms with Demogorgon as the conscious head. Physically the Leviathan are a variety of species and machines, most designed and manufactured. A very small minority of members are converts of another species that are considered to be part of the Leviathan. Mentally all mentally joined by a telepathic link and this link is the best qualifier for what is a Leventhan.
So strong is the pneumic link that the large groups found in and around the Homebases form a pneumic ‘blank’ in space. This blank is the background noise of the link that is noticeable to non Leviathan. This link gives all the Leviathan pneumic powers, usually negating non Leviathan pneumics. Higher level Leviathan have more control over the raw energy of the link and can shape it to do extraordinary magic. Partially responsible for this is Peyotal which grows inside their ships and bases.
The Leviathan civilization is by far the most technologically advanced among Drakeîn races and set the standard for scientific innovation in the Drakeîn. Some believe they possess information they withhold from their partners, although these rumors may simply result from other species' envy of their intellect.
During Demogorgon’s millennia wandering space it studied so many lifeforms and technologies, and so much knowledge, that it had enhanced its original Satellite Factory into a world sized behemoth and had achieved complete sentience itself. That sentience was akin to the mind of a child; intelligent, but inexperienced.
Demogorgon traveled to Gaio its well-known encounter with the Hyperians took place with the Starship Endeavor (As a result of this there has always been a starship named Endeavor in the Drakeîn and is always the ceremonial flagship). At the end of that meeting mission, the first officer of the Endeavor, a member of the New Transhumanist movement named Julia Sophia Claudius, volunteered to join with Demogorgon itself in order to form a new lifeform, a perfect synergy of Man and Machine. The Transhumans were a small but growing movement consisting of Humans who had voluntarily undergone surgery to be fitted with cybernetic devices in their brains that allowed them to form a group collective consciousness when nearby others of their kind.
Having combined the biological and mechanical into a being of true perfection, Demogorgon decided to set out with a plan of its own, creating a new kind of life.
Demogorgon would become a timeless being who existed in the material universe and Intraether and who served as the central "Brain" of the entire race. The planet sized body of Demogorgon would become the first of many Homebases, commanding the roving "tentacles" of the race that set out upon the galaxy with its missionary-like zeal. Over time as holdings expanded, new tentacles consisting of individual Homebases and their Domains were established. Destroy a Domain, and you would destroy that tentacle, but like the Hydra, a new head would eventually grow back in its place. As a result it is possible to encounter Leviathan with different objectives and Domains, and why when one is destroyed or infected, the other Homebases are unaffected and the original can regrow. Demogorgon remains safely among and beyond the Levianthan, unaffected by the destructions of the subordinate Homebases and their Domains. It acts as a memory backup for the Domains in a sense, his data reforms the Homebase, but is disconnected from the Homebases in order to remain free from infection or destruction. The body of Julia became the Daimon of Demogorgon, the avatar to represent her in the material world.
That is why the Leviathan maintain such a fascination with the Human species, their desire is to help mankind towards further biological and technological perfection. Humans are special to them because of their kinship. Demogorgon is willing to sacrifice thousands of drones and vessels to protect and assist humans. Humans are always given the chance to join of their own free will as opposed to total assimilation of the entire species, which the Leviathan could most likely accomplish.
Though consisting of a large variety of life forms, some generalities can be stated.
The Leviathan are compound bio-mechanical creations; a genetically designed organism that incorporates hereditary carbon based bionics, organic optical holography, a series of micro and nano organisms, ceramic absorbing tissue, organ implants grafted to synthetic frames and epidermal armoring. Their bodies have just as much in common with robots as other biological life forms. They are barely human at all having been made superior in all respects to a normal man by a harsh regime of genetic modification, psycho-indoctrination, mental conditioning, rigorous training, and bionic organ implantation which give them superhuman abilities.
Each will emerge from a clone chamber fully grown and having had his training already planted into his brain and each Leviathan will receive the same basic skills which will permit them to do any basic job within their field. Leviathan psychological programming is based on genetically programmed instincts. The ‘newborn’ defines himself as part of it’s collective and measures his own worth by what he adds to it. Additional tailored memories, values, beliefs, and skills are added on either at creation or later on in life and are reinforced through various forms of conditioning. All clones of Leviathan are made from ’Templates’, genetic samples preserved in stasis. Every large space faring city/factory has a full assortment of templates plus all genetic improvements that have been made over generations. Almost all Leviathan are created in clone series, with very slight randomization for those of the same series. Names are a combination of letters and numbers with numbers increasing as the replacements of the clone series are made. Leviathan typically don't use surnames, they identify themselves by occupation instead.
Along with the Genetic Template the Consciousness Template is stored as well. Consciousness Waves are a specific radiated frequency that interacts with the waves generated by natural neurological activity. Neural pathways in any active brain can be scanned and their patterns stored. Consciousness waves can be used to create artificial neural connections and can be used to store and implant memories, skills and even personalities. When an enemy is encountered all tactical knowledge can be programmed into the soldiers. The Consciousness Template is the recording of the neural pathways, and is used to program in the skills and basic personality of the clone. It is important that the Consciousness Template and the Genetic Template coincide to the same individual because the psychology must match the neurology or else the clone will experience severe mental instabilities. Leviathan are noted for their techno-organic nervous system which allows their minds and bodies work faster than most other races. They normally function on just one hour of sleep a day. They also have photographic memories and rarely forget a fact.
While local stations only make the most gross modifications and watch out for the most serious instabilities, main bases may modify the mind of any individual if it chooses to. If possible the Consciousness Templates are stored before battle so that the template of the deceased can be transferred to a new clone. When an individual is killed and its mind can not be transferred to a new body another of the same series is made to replace it unless the series proves to have a sub standard operational history.
Mechanical technology is semi-organic and both individuals and tools are synergetic. Individual armor is viewed as an extension of the pilot, independent machines have minds similar to that of the humanoids of the Leviathan controlling them while ships can considered to be the leaders of a large group of Leviathan.
All of the Leviathan’s Templates may be extracted and taken to the nearest Base. Leviathan believe that when they die in this manner, their personality is incorporated into Demogorgon. The memories, thoughts and experiences are consumed and added to the sum of the whole. Leviathan aspire to a form of immortality through this merging process, the closest thing that the Leviathan have to an afterlife. For this reason the Leviathan will defend their homes with a fury and tenacity almost unrivalled; they risk losing not only their home but their souls and the souls of their ancestors as well. Within this matrix the souls of the entire Leviathan reside in a form of group consciousness, providing a massive ancestral mind to advise and guide the living. The Leviathan are able to retrieve the minds of long dead Leviathan heroes and place them into the Daimon bodies of their Factory Bases. There is no way to reverse the process. These Leviathan are chosen from all segments of society however only those with great achievements are chosen to live again, providing more of an incentive for individual Leviathan to excel in their positions. The bodies of the dead are recycled if possible.
Due to their telepathic link all of them have some degree of pneumic power. As a result of their close proximity to Peyotl, this naturally manifests as acting as absorbing and negating other pneumic energies making them naturally resistant and predatory of the supernatural. Some have more of an active use of these powers and others are designed focus these powers into specific areas. The most common are the Varangoi, who are battle pneumics with a wide variety of powers and are able to detect the supernatural. These crack troops are the special forces of the Leviathan and a group is usually led by an Manglavitai. The role of the Manglavitai is to look into the future and discern the best path for the Leviathan to take. This is done through using psychosensitive Subeither reactive materials that react to the convoluted, probabilistic skeins of space-time. Manglavitai can often determine what will be the most beneficial course of action, although it is rare that they can discern true results very far into the future. On the battlefield their powers of precognition allow them to foresee the enemy's attacks and movements and warn their comrades against imminent changes on the field of battle. While less capable of foreseeing events in such harried conditions they help to coordinate the overall battle, as well as to lend support by utilizing their other considerable powers. In peace they help with long term guidance of the Homebases.
Leviathan are taught to approach their areas of specialization with intense focus and harsh logic, driving their culture to suppress the value of emotion and avoid acting on hasty feelings such as anger, fear, and revenge. From this emotional coolness Leviathan culture stresses individual responsibility and self-discipline. The Leviathan language has existed in its present form for thousands of years. Unlike the languages of humans which have evolved and mutated over time so that a single language in the space of a few hundred years could be unrecognizable from its original form, the Leviathan language has remained the same, mostly due to the Leviathan's conditioning whilst in their cloning chambers which imprints the Leviathan language into their minds. Leviathan is designed to be a clear and concise language which is essential for communication during battle. This does not mean it is a simple language, just efficient and elegant.
Leviathan as a population have exhibited very little internal friction, though individuals may differ in their beliefs and ideas, and divide easily into operative groups always deferring to the most qualified to lead. Units follow a simple hierarchy with each given a specific rank. Constant success is rewarded and action to correct failure is taken quickly. An individual's career is recorded by and analyzed thoroughly. If an individual's deeds are judged worthy, his genetic material helps create the next generation, keeping randomization in the gene pool. To Leviathan, reproduction is one of the most important events in their lives though only the most successful chose to reproduce. They choose their mates with care, only reproducing with those who have genes that will strengthen the species as a whole. Though polyamorus and bisexual actual reproduction is only accomplished through the clone process. To reproduce, a Leviathan and their potential mate will undergo do a genetic scan and determine what genes of the potential mates are compatible and the resulting genetic mix is placed into a birthing chamber. It is normal for a high-status Leviathan to have many mates and to have children with each. Some love each other but do not reproduce and a couple may live together for a short period of time or even remain together “’Til death us do part.”
The Leviathan can be broken into three main categories. The first are Droid like beings that have no free will and mental abilities ranging from trained animals to human level intelligence. These beings act under direct control of the second category. The second make up the nervous system of the race and control the first category. These beings coordinate and store information on the telepathic link and are able to mentally posses beings in the first category. Third are independent beings that are connected by the telepathic link but are not controlled by the nervous system beings, are self controlled and have a great amount of independence. To help differentiate individuals each has a unique marking on their forehead. Many also adorn themselves with tattoos for major life accomplishments. While consisting of a variety of breeds, those that are most humanoid have increasingly pronounced secondary sexual characteristics.
The simplest of the Leviathan are also the most numerous. These are various nano and micro scale life forms. They are found living inside both the other Leviathan themselves and on their ships and machines. These simple beings are an immune system for foreign disease, viruses, and plagues. They also can become quite viral and be used as a weapon if telepathically commanded to do so by the Leviathan Brains This isn’t considered a doomsday weapon against advanced societies as these organisms are rendered useless by concentrated high-energy radiation and there is no known way to effectively shield large areas of these organisms. In this use they can infect macro scale beings and machines, eventually taking over their control systems and turning them into Leviathan Drones. These organisms can be set to free roam over a planet, deconstructing everything in their path to basic materials for use. When a conquered planet can not be converted it is attempted to be consumed rather an destroyed. This can be done on a more local scale by loading raw material into Genesis Pools, initiating a manufacturing command, and within minutes removing a item, freshly constructed from the atomic level on up or even breaking down organic life into its most basic form for study and manipulation and re-growth. They enable the Leviathan to build efficient shelters, generators, weapons, vehicles, and population using almost any locally available materials. The Factory Bases contain the sum total of Leviathan technological knowledge while the brains have the plans for equipment necessary for survival.
Nutrition is made up of Peyotl which will grow anywhere as it feeds on the Intraether and it is also used as energy storage for most Intraether manipulating systems. Peyotl is cultivated by the nano and micro organisms and both are carried on the bodies of the Leviathan. Along with the mico organisms, Peyotl helps to create a moving ecosystem supplying food, fuel, and equipment for the Leviathan wherever they go.
These organisms allow the Leviathan limited regenerative abilities, as well as the ability to adapt quickly to its environment, such as developing thicker skin after being burned or increased musculature to survive in high gravity. When a Leviathan is injured or in distress, these cells move to the affected area and rapidly (~1 week) mature to specialized forms that will alleviate the issue. A Leviathan that is cut or burned will adapt to have thicker skin. The lungs of a Leviathan placed in a barely-breathable atmosphere will adapt to better use the gases there. A Leviathan subjected to high gravity will quickly develop stronger heart and leg muscles. Additionally this allows them to heal rapidly, and even grow lost limbs over a period of months.
Drones exist on the Macro scale and are best thought of intelligent domesticated animals. Except for the most basic actions, such as self defense, they are incapable of acting independently outside of the controls of more advanced Leviathan. All of these beings exist inside womb like pilots compartments inside machines and are incapable of surviving outside for long periods of time. Drones are placed in all vehicles even if they are piloted by other Leviathan to act as a backup and assistant. They resemble a mushy 2 to 3 ft wide ball with 2 claw like arms. Have black skin and solid red eyes.
The first level of beings that can exist outside of a machine also do not require direct supervision and may, in emergency conditions, take leadership of lesser Leviathan. They are extremely unimaginative however and under normal conditions never need to take a leadership position. They are all males and average 6.5 ft tall. Have little physical variation in appearance. Two slits for a nose and two triangular flaps for ears. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Completely hairless
The highest level of beings in this category have superior genetics and mental abilities. These are built faster, tougher and smarter than their similar models, which is why they only number as one in every twenty. They lead lesser Leviathan and can be cunning, however they are incapable of disobeying an order from a nerve center being. Like the rest of the beings in this category they are often led by the independent beings and will follow their orders unless ordered not to by their controller beings. Females form a subgroup of this type and do not typically take leadership roles. Females are faster, more agile and deadlier than their male counterparts. All males average 7.5ft tall and females average 6.5 feet. They have a more humanoid and varied appearance. They have normal eyes, a nose and ears but still somewhat minimalistic face. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Completely hairless
Brains are the lowest level of the control beings. They are giant nerve clusters without a physical body. They take in all information on the telepathic link for those Leviathan they are responsible for. They coordinate groups of Leviathan and may directly posses some of the simpler, first category Leviathan if a complex task is needed to be performed by the Brain. These beings are based on Invid Brains.
Controlling Factory Bases are beings similar to the previous however have much greater abilities. They take up miles of space on the space stations and process all the information of Leviathan under them. Typically they act through the various Brains however may interact with other beings when needed. While they may posses a simple Leviathan under them they usually interact through powerful Daimons that may be sent on missions outside the factory. Each of the Daimon’s consciousness and personalities are that of the most important persons of the past brought back from the dead to lead. These Daimons are as powerful as the oldest Jinn Lords and resemble monstrous humanoids.
More advanced beings are at the heart of the Home bases, the largest Leviathan structures and centers for an entire Domain. They filter information for their entire Domain. Together they form the main information storage area of Demogorgon. The thoughts of these beings are not that of one personality but about a dozen consciousness talking. They also have Daimons that they use to interact with. They exist in the material universe and Intraether, can see multiple paths into the future, have strange geometries and dealing with them can be terribly unsettling. They resemble Nagas, having a shifting mixture of human and serpent-like traits. Sometimes they are described as having human traits at one time, and as having serpent-like traits at another.
At the top of this category is the Demogorgon. The controlling beings below it acts as the collective unconscious for the Demogorgon while the Demogorgon is the controlling conscious for the Leviathan. Several million of individual consciousness make up its mind however when speaking to others only a dozen are chosen, and these consciousness that talk are specific to interactions with others. It rarely acts directly but prefers to take subtle actions feeling that local control centers are best at handling most situations. Deomgorgon perceives time in multiple facets. It slides through time and has a keen sense of predestination. For her, all time is simultaneous; all things happen at once. Demogorgon has a Daimon, through which it caries out a variety of official interactions.
The Daimon of Demogorgon is often described as tall and forceful. Her skin is bronzed as if constantly exposed to the sun and hair is a black square cut mane. Most noticeable in the face is perhaps the full round strong chin with a high nose that has a high bridge as a natural extension of the forehead. Her brow is low and arched, her deeply set eyes a volcanic grey that smolder as if with some inner fire. Unsmiling lips are full, but her mouth is fairly narrow, just slightly wider than her nose. Her dark, scarred, almost sinister face is that of a warrior. The net result is a serene, serious, somewhat aloof beauty.
She is clad in golden armor, though modern in construction it is heavily decorated giving it an ancient look. While sometimes holding symbolic objects or attire for official duties, the arms at her side seem more natural to her than any accompaniments. Draped over her shoulders, and hanging down one side of her body, is a long armored cape that is clasped over her chest by a large buckler. Her shield bears her own face, which is the symbol and seal of Demogorgon. It is a holy symbol, seemingly looking out from its own iconographical context and directly challenging the viewer. Sheathed on her hip is a flaming sword. It is said to be eternally lit and may channel and focus vast energies, including those of the Intraether. Above her head a helm resembling the head of a great horned owl is worn that arcs its crest. When worn the eyes of the helmet glow with beaming radiance and those that are struck with its full gaze are said to see the possible past, present, and future. Despite her armor, she has agility and way of moving to that of a panther and her garments cannot conceal the hard, dangerous lines of her limbs.
Demogorgon itself also resides in the Intraether and those that view her say she resembles never blinking eye with endless numbers of endless serpents or dragons emanating from it They are intertwined but not tangled.
Just as a body has millions of independent bacteria that are needed for the body’s functioning, the independent Leviathan are individually insignificant but together perform essential tasks.
The majority of these types are officers that command the non independent Leviathan. The others of these types form the assault and special force troopers that are expected to perform above and beyond what the normal military is exposed to. They are very intelligent and imaginative and are very self sufficient. Are all male, average 6 ft tall and human in appearance.
A large part of the crew and technical positions are made up of beings that specialize in a particular field. While these have combat training their main function is to act as support for the other types of Leviathan and have enhanced cerebral abilities. These massive cerebral enhancements increase brain power and memory. Are all male, average 5.75 ft tall and humanoid with heavy cybernetics.
The upper commanders of individual ships and, along with the Brains, are beings with excellent leadership genetics and skills and form the most immediate holders of power in fleets. They are paired with science advisors that are the second in command and advise the commanders of how to proceed when asked. Both types are allways male, average 6 ft tall and human in appearance.
Taking command of large groups of Leviathan are beings with extremely high mental facilities. They have superior leadership genetics and form strategic strategies and policies. Whereas some Leviathan will find promotion to the command ranks it is this type who upon stepping from the cloning chamber is handed an entire Fleet. It could be less than a dozen ships or it could be several million, either way they are designed to lead. Are all male, average 6.5 ft tall and human in appearance.
A group exists to maintain and promote their culture among the Leviathan and other species. They help to create progressive energy among their society. Also they convert other species to Leviathan ideals and values. They live not only in Leviathan society but also among foreign areas as emissaries of Leviathan culture. Are all female, average 5.5 ft tall and human in appearance.
Lastly a number of the independent class are made up of converts from other species. They have a transplanted organ that allows them to be connected to the Leviathan telepathic network.
The population of a Domain will have three varying characteristics. 60 percent of the population will have two of the three and 20 percent will have all three. The remaining 20 percent will have random characteristics. Characteristics are listed below.
Skin Color:
Grey
Light Blue
Green
Purple
Hair Color:
Green
Purple
Red
Blue
Black
Eye Color:
Purple
Blue
Green
Red
Worlds
Worlds are classified by a variety of means, but mainly by their civilization type and atmosphere.
A paradise world is a class of planet characterized by its outstanding natural beauty. Its natural conditions are perfect for human habitation. They have little, if any, industry and low populations. Instead of populating or industrializing these rare planets, some are retained in their natural state. Many paradise worlds were originally created by the Protogenoi before the Fall of their race. The creation involved seeding barren planets with life, gradually leading to their transformation into lush, life-supporting worlds. The seeding of worlds was part of a program which would take many thousands of years to reach fruition, and the result would only be seen by later generations of humans. The development of a lifeless planet into a Paradise world was a slow one. Simple bacteria were introduced to create a stable atmosphere and bio-system of the planet. The process began it was self-sustaining but took thousands of years to complete. The seeded worlds survived the fall of the Protogenoi, and continued to develop on their own. In the Age of the Drakeîn these worlds are now verdant paradise worlds and home to a diverse amount of human subspecies planted by the Protogenoi. A paradise world has a wide variety in it’s population but usually has a population from 20,000,000 to 15,000,000,000.
Of all the types of settlement in the Drakeîn, civilized worlds are the most common (although the term "civilized" here refers to their urban landscapes rather than to any pretence of social decorum.) On these self-sufficient worlds, the main population centers tend to be large cities or other urban environments that are supported by the planet's own agricultural production. The state of development both technologically and socially varies, but is most commonly around the current norm. By the classification guidelines, a civilized world has a population from 15,000,000 to 10,000,000,000.
An agricultural world is one devoted to food production. The majority of its surface is given over to producing food for other worlds reliant on such imports. One method of defining an agricultural world is where at least 850 parts per 1000 of the planet's surface are covered by some form of crop cultivation, hydroponics, animal fodder or animal husbandry. The population usually ranges from between 15,000 to 1,000,000 - which are widely spread across the planet.
Factory Worlds are factory worlds where the whole planet is devoted to manufacturing or mining. The populations are sparse as most of the labor is carried out mechanically. They must be considerably mineral-rich in order to justify the logistical and development efforts. Factory Worlds are worlds totally devoted to industry. The majority of a Factory-world's solid ground surface is covered in thousands of years of built-up, massive industrial complexes: great machine factories, production centers, huge volcanic furnaces, skyscraping chimneys, abyss-like quarries and the great workshop-fortresses. No other world can match the quality and quantity of a Factory world's output. Factory worlds are the main producers of the Drakeîn's more unique and advanced equipment: high-end personal weapons, spacecraft, war machines such as tanks, fighters, as well as more mundane but vital and advanced equipment. The population of a Factory world is invariably immense, the majority directly involved in the industry of the planet, laboriously working in factories and involved in heavy mining. A factory world typically has a population of 10,000,000 to 500,000,000 people.
Hive World is a category of planet distinguished by vast, continent-spanning cities, often built high into the sky and deep beneath the earth. Their populations are enormous, and almost all food needs to be imported. A Hive World rendered temporarily inaccessible will suffer a devastating famine within a very short space of time. It will become a vast catacomb of lunatics driven to excesses of anarchic, urban savagery by starvation and claustrophobia. Billions of people can live crowded together in a single Hive-city. Hive Worlds also serve to populate newly discovered planets. Citizens are gathered from various Hive Worlds and shipped off to distant colonies. Hive Worlds have huge import/export ratios, exporting a vast range of materials, and relying on imports of food and water. There are hundreds of Hive Worlds in the Drakeîn. Most consist of various enclosed Hive cities or Hive clusters surrounded by wasteland, jungle, ice, plains, etc. In the most extreme examples the Hive World has developed beyond the point of separate Hive clusters - the planet's surface instead is completely urbanized with hundreds of stacked layers of arcologies, covering the entirety of the planet. Hive Worlds are important due to their output. They don't reach anywhere near the production of a Factory World, but the number of workers give out a huge quantity of materials. Hive worlds have populations easily exceeding 30,000,000,000
The technological level of feral worlds remains low or even Stone Age. The most advanced such worlds possess black powder weaponry. A feral world typically has a population of 10,000,000 to 500,000,000 people. Often the population consists of hunter-gatherer societies using primitive tools and weapons, and in almost all cases human culture is based around the interactions of various tribes, gangs or creeds. Feral worlds are self-sufficient, and due to dependence on agriculture, a large part of the populations of these worlds are farmers. Feudal worlds are of relatively little use to the Drakeîn; the true position of their place in the universe may constitute something of a culture shock to the inhabitants. The culture shock associated with interaction with outsiders is an issue on feral worlds. Removing a feral worlder from their planet and exposing them to such things as space travel can be disconcerting. A feral worlder within the wider Drakeîn often retains their superstitious and tribal idiosyncrasies, which may prove to be social hindrances, such as an obsession with bones of dead comrades or the mixing and regular application of noxious-smelling war paint. Before the arrival of the Drakeîn, these worlds were at technologically-primitive. With the arrival of the Drakeîn, the feudal states evolve into Civilized Worlds. Feral worlds are ruled over by a Domestiko, although the nature of feral worlds makes this position somewhat different from that of Domestiko of planets of other classes. The Domestiko of a feral world almost always lives apart from the natives, often living in a single city inhabited by outsiders or taking residence in orbit.
A dead world is an airless and completely sterile world, totally devoid of an atmosphere, ecosystem and native natural life, and unsuitable for supporting any. With the possible exception of facilities such as research stations based on the planet, its population is otherwise nonexistent. Most such planets have always been dead worlds; others were originally habitable worlds, reduced to dead world status through apocalyptic events.
A death world is a planet in which the native flora and fauna has evolved into naturally aggressive and dangerous forms. These eco-systems are finely balanced between continual destruction and lightning-fast reproduction. Death worlds take many forms, ranging from jungle-covered hell-holes with carnivorous plants and animals to barren, volcanic wastelands racked by ion storms. Humans can, and do, live on these worlds, but it is a never-ending struggle. On many death worlds it is as if the entire bio-mass of the planet were consciously motivated against human settlement - concentrating forces against intruders to destroy them. Death worlds with human settlements can have populations of 1,000 to 15,000,000. Death worlds are not usually inhabited, and are nearly impossible to colonize but still need to be explored which means establishing outposts and other facilities. Some planets have rich mineral wealth, animal life, vegetables or gases.
A Space World takes the form of orbiting spacecraft, deserted moons and asteroids. They are listed in the classification system of worlds, but are not worlds themselves. Some are based in orbit around planets or on asteroids, or on worlds themselves, such as dead worlds or death worlds. Types of space worlds include laboratories, as well as surveillance posts for defensive purposes and are often the Homebase for a Leviathan Dominion. Populations range from 100 to 50,000,000,000.
Alien worlds are worlds inhabited by xeno races or humans not belonging to the Drakeîn. Most alien races occupy only a single world or a small group of worlds. The majority of aliens are comparatively primitive, aggressive, powerless, and of little interest to the Drakeîn. Only a few alien races are powerful, peaceful and possess technology which rivals that of the Drakeîn.
A Hades world is a planet twisted by the power of the Intraether from being trapped in a prolonged Gate. Entwining the impossibilities of the Intraether and the reality of the physical realm, Hades World's are not bound by the laws of standard physics. The most powerful pneumics have reported dreams or visions in which worlds of the Hades Expanse have been revealed to them. Visions of such places disturb the psychically sensitive throughout the entire galaxy. Populations are typically large as the worlds are often filled by beings descended from the Protogenoi. Armies of Jinns and their living allies fight huge and bloody battles to determine who will posses these planets. These battles often last for hundreds of years, so that the entire world becomes little more than a gigantic arena where the opposing forces are pitched against each other. When a Jinn Lord takes control of his hard-won world he uses his mighty powers to reshape it to a form which pleases him. Because of this, every world is different and all are equally spectacular in their own way.
Type I atmospheres have appropriate levels of oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen to be breathable by the majority of humans. Some contaminants or other trace gases can have long-term detrimental effects. Planets with these types of atmospheres almost always have some form of indigenous life. Plant life or some analog that frees oxygen is present on all planets with a Type I atmosphere all oxygen in the atmosphere would have been bound to other elements within a matter of months without such means to free it up.
Type II atmospheres usually have appropriate levels of atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen. Due to lack of sufficient pressure or the presence of contaminants and other trace gases, however, these atmospheres usually cause detrimental effects to Humans and most other species over a shorter period of time. Many species can breathe Type II atmospheres without any trouble depending on physiology. Planets with a type II atmosphere usually support some form of indigenous life.
Within Type III atmospheres, due to either the lack of appropriate levels of atmospheric oxygen, nitrogen, sufficient pressure, the presence of contaminants and/or trace gases, a breath mask have to be worn. These atmospheres cause immediate or eventual impediments or even incapacitation. Some species can breathe these types of atmospheres depending on physiology, and biology. Planets with a Type III atmosphere sometimes support native life.
Type IV atmospheres are either toxic, flammable, or nonexistent; these types of atmospheres cause immediate incapacitation or death in most species. Few species can breathe in this type of atmosphere; planets with a type IV atmosphere rarely supports life.
Life Forms
Species are unique lifeforms. They are generally divided into three classifications based on their level of sentience: sentient, semi-sentient, and non-sentient. Sentient species are sometimes erroneously referred to as races, which more accurately referred to groups or subspecies within a species.
The predominant form of sentient life in the galaxy is carbon-based lifeforms. However, other forms of sentient life exist, such as silicon-based or energy-based lifeforms. Reports from remote parts of the galaxy even mentioned giant clouds of interstellar gas which had evolved a form of intelligence based on internal force-fields. Across all species, the majority were oxygen breathers, although a number breathed other substances such as ammonia, cyanogens, methane, methanogen, helium and Doran gas. Despite these differences, most species were easily classified into a number of distinct categories:
Corporeal species have a physical body, usually composed of carbon or silicon based cellular structures. Most corporeal species metabolize energy by consuming food or photosynthesis, and have a finite life cycle consisting of distinct periods of growth, maturity, and senescence. Intelligent corporeal species frequently enhance their capabilities with technology.
Noncorporeal species are composed of various forms of coherent gas or energy. Most noncorporeal species absorb and utilize energy directly from their environment. Generally noncorporeal species do not utilize technology, compensating with intrinsic physiological capabilities. Some noncorporeal species have evolved beyond the need for sustenance, and wield substantial control over space and time.
Artificial species are usually created by another species, and can be sentient by design or have attained sentience spontaneously. There are two general types of artificial life: The first is a physical constructed from physical components. The second is a software program, which exists solely on a suitable computer.
Trans-dimensional species are life-forms originating from a reality outside the normal space-time continuum. They can take a variety of forms which may or may not be comparable to those in this universe, depending on the nature of their native realm. Some trans-dimensional species are unable to survive in this universe without assistance. In closely related universes, there are a number of species who have developed exactly or at least similarly to their counterparts in the "regular" universe.
Humans
Seeded by the Protogenoi on many worlds, humans are the most common of the spacefaring races and found throughout most of known space.
The progress of Human society under the guidance and protection of the Drakeîn has been mankind’s greatest achievement. Cultural diversity, ethnic tradition, and a new sense of interdenominational religious tolerance have rolled up into a new and unified human identity. Mankind’s exposure to alien wars and unspeakable horrors has led to a acceptance of Human diversity unparalleled in history. Ethnic, racial, and religious differences are simply traits. Mixed sexual and mixed racial relationships are openly accepted. Men and women share an equal role in social, vocational, and military matters. The onslaught of war by outside enemies led to a general belief that all life is precious and that the sacrifice of one to save many is the most noble of gestures.
Despite the vast distances separating their home worlds, many human species have been found to share a remarkable commonality in form and genetic coding. To preserve their heritage, the Protogenoi seeded the primordial oceans of many potentially hospitable planets with encoded DNA fragments. The genetic information incorporated into the earliest lifeforms on those planets and through pre-programmed mutations caused by a genetic template, directed evolution toward a physical development similar to their own. Because of this controlled mutation mechanism, most habitable planets in the galaxy evolved with many physically similar species, and on many of those worlds with at least one sentient species with a humanoid configuration. Many, but not all, of these are infertile with each other.
Anatomically, a significant percentage of those lifeforms are outwardly indistinguishable from Humans, right down to such morphological minutiae as the same racial phenotypes, hair distribution patterns, fingernails and cartilaginous folding of the nose and ears. The reason they are so astonishingly similar is because the "Human form" represents the basic way that evolution most likely takes for the dominant mammalian race on an average seeded planet under the influence of the genetic codes. Other ‘alien’ humans developed under very specific and usually unique environmental conditions. A human is defined an intelligent bilaterally symmetrical, bipedal lifeform in possession of an upright posture, two arms, two legs, hands, feet, one thorax, a neck, and a head with a brain located in it. They are generally mammalian and originate on paradise planets. It is common for them to have two sexes.
Human ancestors were not strong enough to fight, not fast enough to flee or hunt down prey, too big to hide yet too small to frighten predators. In other words, they were both easy and tempting targets. Species vanished for less than that, yet humans ended up prospering like no other comparable species on their world. Their being prey species led to a healthy fear response and need to cooperate. They had to rely on ingenuity to survive. Humans made great progress in science and exploration, they developed tools and technology quickly, sometimes before knowing exactly how they worked.
Human history is scarred by countless wars and struggles. If humans can not outright take something they want they will use diplomacy and trickery to get it. However humans are really quite nice until a certain breaking point and become psychopathically tenacious and brutal when pushed too far. Humans have the strange combined desire for prosperity in peacetime and victory in wartime, in other words, they live as though they have the instincts and ecological niche of predators, even though their ecological niche as farmers and builders should have created a peaceful society.
The odd human tendency to maintain long-term tension between opposing drives led to the phenomenon of the "Cold War" in their history, as competing nation states, too stingy of their peace and prosperity to engage each other in combat outright yet too set in their ideological boundaries to negotiate a true settlement, played games of brinkmanship with each other, endlessly amassing stockpiles of ever-more-powerful weapons in an attempt to indirectly coerce each other into submission. This practice of endlessly vacillating between threats and appeasements may make Humans appear scattered and confused to more straightforward races however, in the long run the flexibility gained by this Human mindset seems to have served them well.
It seems that humans have developed in a few unique ways due to their ancestry. Individualistic as they are, much of the human sense of security comes from a centralized government. Humans have an unusually strong tension between their ideals of individual rights and community safety, causing them to turn to inefficient and complex means to hold their society together. Though all governments have some degree of bureaucracy, only among Humans has this practice, essentially an attempt at coercion through the mechanistic application of increasingly complex formal legal structures, become the central aspect of governance.
Humans also appreciate freedom, and eagerly flocked to new colony sites in search of new opportunities and new land. Militaristic but not warlike they are willing to die for their values and ideals. One of humanity’s primary assets is the overall adaptability and curiosity of its people. Humans live just as easily in cities with tens of millions of inhabitants or alone in scout ships light-years from the nearest' outpost.
It is often said that love of creating new life is a purely human trait as they practice creating new forms of life enthusiastically. As almost all of their creations were originally designed for some purpose the vast majority have some sort of inbuilt bond or loyalty to their creators.
Some worry human life has potentially made itself obsolete by creating a stronger, more durable life as its successor and that the government should therefore strictly regulate and suppress the theoretical replacement. However widely available advances in cybernetics and genetic engineering have so far allowed ‘natural’ humans to keep up with their creations. Those with greater abilities simply tackle more advanced and difficult projects and continue to find meaning in the struggle to achieve excellence as enhancements have not removed the bulk of the individual and social challenges. The Drakeîn believes itself to have an obligation to encourage as wide an adoption of life enhancement technologies as possible so long as such policies do not infringe on individuals' rights or exert undue pressures to use these technologies in order to maximize public health and minimize the inequalities that may result from both natural endowments and unequal access to enhancements. The Drakeîn of course has control over organizations undertaking actions in this area and influences the sequence in which technologies develop. Planners strive to retard and closely watch the development of possibly harmful technologies and their applications, while accelerating the development of likely beneficial technologies. Laws are built on the assertion of equality in political rights and before the law and not on effective equality of beings. The law is meant to apply equally to all, no matter how rich or poor, powerful or powerless, educated or ignorant, enhanced or unenhanced. Provided they are self-aware, clones, human-animal chimeras, machine life, and uplifted animals are all considered to be unique persons deserving of equal rights and citizenship in the eyes of the law. Obtaining citizenship requires the being to pass a test of autonomy and to repay the cost of its creation.
Most Humans come from unmodified stock, but a few groups have altered the genes of their children to create variant subspecies. Though colonization attempts to mark ideal worlds, however this was not always possible and many were forced to settle worlds that were "good enough." Populations that found it difficult to adapt to new worlds found that the best and most economically available approach was to modify or evolve themselves slightly to suit their environmental conditions rather than Terraform an entire planet, resort to widespread bionics, or live in small environmental controlled structures. Variant Humans are still Human in psychology and most can have children with different variant types or unmodified Humans, although with a greater chance of miscarriage or birth defect than normal. However to ensure that the variant type is around longer than one generation many are designed to only find their own kind sexually appealing. Modifications typically only endure for long periods of time when applied to large populations however individuals have been known to augment themselves and even start up subcultures based on a particular trait. The ability to create ‘superhumans’ is rare as it is both expensive to make any real progress over what is commercially available and only attempted by larger organizations who’s creations have a specified function to fulfill.
Robots and androids have long been a part of society. They do most factory work, they labor in mines and hazardous environments without complaint, fight in wars without hesitation, and nearly all homes have a domestic 'bot. Some, the later especially, often seem remarkably "alive" but are not able to make free choices and can only do as their programming dictates. These have no civil rights in the Drakeîn and are treated as simple machines and tools. Though automations are widespread only a few possess true intelligence. Those sentient machines can get full citizenship and must abide by laws regarding upgrades, reproduction, and so on. There is no single blueprint of what is a sentient machine. Different organizations have used different technologies to create them and often the result has been very different as well. Some are completely mechanical; a mix of micro-technology, energy patterns, or towering artificial intelligences the size of buildings. Others are bioroids, as biological as any natural except that have been assembled or vat grown rather than developed in a conventional manner through sexual coupling, womb, etc.
Some of these beings, the large majority of which are organic based beings due to behavioral and physical adaptability and stability in the face of unseen challenges compared with expensive sentient non-organics and route machines are able to reproduce and have been used to settle new worlds. Lower cost of construction compared with machines has proved attractive to start up colonies and many have gone on to establish their own polities, cultures, and religions. Of these beings the most common are those derived from sub sentient animals. The process of bringing a life form up to sentience not only includes the need of increasing intelligence but also requires augmentations required for manipulation of objects, interfacing with tech, communications, and other necessities of civilized life.
By far the most numerous and cheapest to produce synthetic intelligences are called Droids. They are self aware computing system capable of learning and independent decision making. Creation of a conscious SI requires a specialized quantum computer. An SI cannot be transmitted across a communication channel or computer network. Without its physical computer, an SI is no more than data files. Loading these files into a new computer will create a new personality, as variations in the quantum hardware and runtime results create unpredictable variations. Legally Droids are a living, conscious entity with the same rights as organics. Similar to indentured servitude they must work off their cost of creation, like most legally created beings. Due to the cost in producing a SI, Virtual Intelligences are employed for dangerous or simple tasks. While not as robust and adaptive as a SI the VI is far less costly and does not require the legal hassle of indentured servitude.
Various types of human derived beings are classified in very general categories, Those with simple adaptations for life in a particular world are generally the same as baseline humans. Some very extreme types are prevalent across all human space and are as follows:
Homo Saipan Anemoi
The Anemoi are a genetically engineered subspecies of humanity for life in low gravity environments. The modifications are slight while retaining the ability to function in a baseline human world. They have the ability to breath in a wider variety of atmospheres, tend to be weaker and more fragile than humans, to live out their lives in lesser light they have larger eyes than a normal human. Anemoi tend to be tall and spindly, sometimes with pale and almost translucent skin. Other common traits include extremely large eyes which may lack the iris, and ill-defined facial features. Hands and feet can be ridiculously large, and are often webbed. Commonly Anemoi are completely hairless. They also have a high occurrence of pneumics due to their often interaction with the Intraether.
Homo Saipan Chthoni
Chthoni are stocky and tough descendants of humans who colonized mineral rich worlds around the galactic core. The worlds at the galactic core were rich in rare and unique minerals, but in terms of life were barren and unsuited for colonization. These worlds are dark and bleak but usually highly technological. Their gravity is great, usually two or three times that of Earth. Their atmospheres are either thin or non-existent. Even those planets with atmospheres are blasted by tremendous storms. These planets became mining worlds. Colonists were forced to become self-sufficient, providing their own underground grown food. Due to the completely hostile nature of the surface the colonists formed underground societies. The Chthoni race developed, evolving to suit their environment, becoming tougher, more resilient and physically shorter.
Homo Saipan Myrmidon
Soldiers created to capitalize on the characteristics using genetic material, using all the best traits of soldiers which made them great. Furthermore they are implanted with special organs and glands. Most of these can secrete combat-useful chemicals, such as stimms and pain-killers. Some Myrmidon use spyce, a potent drug, to dull their hyperactive senses.
Homo Saipan
Hekatonkhei evolved on worlds with harsh and barren environments and high gravities. Most of these worlds, having no other use to humanity, were originally used as prison planets. They were physically larger and stronger than normal humans, and are frequently employed as laborers. Hekatonkhei vary in appearance according to world, but all are tough and powerful. Some forms are well-muscled, while others tend more towards grotesque obesity. They are generally stupid and unhygienic but there are exceptions.
Satyroi are bestial, their bodies combine the features of both human and animal. Satyroi are much more variable in form than other abhuman types. Individual Satyroi conform to a general physical and genetic standard and are no more prone to mutation than normal humans. There are many strains, including unusually large and aggressive ones. However most are not. Typically Satyroi are short although not strong. They are hedonistic, gregarious, over-friendly and sexually promiscuous. Their lives are spent eating until sick, drinking copious amounts of intoxicating liquids, and procreating uncontrollably
Homo Sapian Gaion
These are politically influential humans known commonly as Hyperians. They are a national and ethno genetic group. Their ethnicity, nationality, and culture are strongly interrelated. They have colonized a relatively large portion of space and hail from the planet Gaio. They have skin tone ranging from brown to black, hair from red to blonde, eye color from green to blue and facial structure ranging from South and East Asian.
Society centers on the individual and family. This consists of biological mother and father with 1-10 children. An artificial womb is used to carry the pregnancy to term in almost every instance but Hyperian females are quite capable of bearing their offspring should that prove necessary. Hyperian females reproduce sexually but can and will reproduce parthenogenically , but only if absolutely necessary.
To a slightly lesser degree parents and extended families are cared for as needed. Extended families will usually band together into communities for mutual support and defense. Community size can vary widely from anywhere of several dozen individuals to cities ranging up to 20 million.
Draka are characterized as extremely aggressive, sexually driven, prolific and widely varied individuals. Appearances can vary widely. Due to a well developed endocrine system, they experience a wide variety of emotional states.
To Hyperians freedom, individuality, and responsibility are typically highly valued traits in Hyperian psychology. They remarkably are fanatical about protecting the ecology of their homeworld and other worlds conquered/colonized by them. Hunting is a sport that most Hyperians practice and all are quite good at it. Hyperians, like most other primates, exhibit a strong sense of adventure and sometimes too much curiosity.
Hyperians are physically very adaptable to extremes in climate. Many niches and environments that would be inadaptable to humans become places where Hyperians can thrive.
The overall genetic matching of homo sapien gaion to humans is approximately 94% congruence. This is less than gorilla or chimpanzee to humans and is on the borderline of crossing what could be considered genus boundaries. Hyperians have a variety of organs not found in baseline humans. Several organs and organic systems have been altered from the standard human pattern. These changes occur at the sub cellular level all the way to structural and design changes in the major organ systems of the body.
Exposure to high levels of sunlight will result in the skin darkening to compensate. It also protects from other forms of radiation. The skin is also able to sweat a substance that coats the skin and offers resistance to extreme heat and cold and can even provide some protection in a vacuum.
A small, tubular and complex organ secretes hormones that both affect the ossification of the skeleton and encourage forming bone. This heavily alters the way the bones grow and develop. Long bones will have increased in size (along with most other bones) and the rib cage will have been fused into a solid mass of interlocking plates. All bones have additional small flanges to provide greater surface area for the muscle systems to bond to. Tendon and ligament material has been reinforced. Bone composition is augmented from simple honeycombed calcium salts to boron fibers and enhanced density to provide much greater strength.
The arms are double jointed at the elbows, shoulders, and wrists. The legs are similar, being double jointed at the hip, knee and ankle. The joints are different in that they will constantly regenerate and replace any tissues or fluids that may be lost from aging or from repeated injury.
Muscle systems have been genetically re-engineered for greater strength and stamina. The striated muscles are approximately four times stronger as the muscle cells themselves contain denser microfiber packs. This produces more energy per cell in muscular contractions. Resilin has also been incorporated to improve explosive muscle force which produces enhanced agility and jumping ability. A small, circular organ is grown into the chest cavity and releases hormones that vastly increase muscle growth throughout the body.
The metabolism of all the changes has radically altered requiring anywhere from 7000 to 14,000 calories a day. Water requirements are approximately 4-5 times the standard needs of a human. The Hyperians are excellent specimens but they are also very high performance and fuel consuming flash and blood machines.
A pre-stomach can neutralize otherwise poisonous or indigestible foods. No actual digestion takes place, as it acts as a decontamination chamber placed before the natural stomach in the body's system and can be isolated from the rest of the digestive tract in order to contain particularly troublesome intake.
An organ allows a Hyperian to 'learn by eating'. It is situated in the spinal cord but is actually part of the brain. Four nerve bundles are implanted connecting the spine and the stomach wall. Able to 'read' or absorb genetic material consumed it transmits the gained information to the Marine's brain as a set of memories or experiences. It is the presence of this organ which has lead to the various flesh-eating and blood-drinking rituals
Regeneration and regrowth are just two of the characteristics their bodies are capable of. Thanks to telomere regeneration and various anti-agathic naturally produced in the endocrine systems, aging is slowed to a tenth of normal. Enhanced platelet and scar tissue formation allow for rapid healing and regeneration of any lost or damaged tissues.
The hemoglobin module that produces the red in blood has been engineered for greater capacity and myoglobin reserves in the muscles have been created to allow Hyperians to hold their breath for much longer times than standard humans. Fifteen minutes of swimming seems to be the limit or up to an hour if sitting motionless and not exerting any muscles. This also results in a very efficient respiratory system that recovers and eliminates most lactic acid and body wastes before they ever impair the functioning of the body.
A liver-shaped organ about the size of a golf-ball is grown within the chest cavity and connected to the circulatory system. It generates and controls cells which are released into the blood stream if the recipient is wounded. They attach themselves to leucocytes in the blood and are carried to the site of the wound, where upon contact with air they form a near instant patch of scar tissue, sealing any wounds the Hyperian may suffer.
The flora that is commonly found in human digestive and integumentary systems has been eliminated resulting in a sanitized metabolism throughout the body. White blood cell counts and other T cell structures have been elevated to almost unseen levels. The immune response is much faster and more varied than normal humans. Children are born with the protein signatures of all known (at the time) viral and bacterial diseases written into the leucocytes’ 'memory'. As a result disease is a thing of the past.
An additional lung activates when a Hyperian needs to breathe in low-oxygen or poisoned atmospheres, and even water. The natural lungs are closed off by a sphincter muscle associated with the multi-lung and the implanted organ takes over breathing operations. It has highly efficient toxin dispersal systems.
In conjunction with a secondary heart the kidney allows quick filtration of blood, rendering the body immune to most poisons. This action comes at a price, however, as this emergency detoxification usually renders the subject unconscious while blood is circulated at high speed.
The simplest and most self-sufficient of organs is the secondary heart which a Hyperian to survive the other heart being damaged or destroyed, and to survive in low oxygen environments. Not just a back-up, the secondary heart can boost the blood-flow around the body.
The circulatory system is also enhanced as the arterial and vein systems are developed to a degree where any point in the body will generally receive blood from 4 to 6 points. Several small clumps of ganglia are clustered about a secondary heart and automaticity monitors the blood vessels. When a drop in blood pressure is detected the body will selectively cramp a small amount of smooth muscle that lines the veins and arterial structures of the body.
Hyperians have extensive neurological modifications and enhancements coupled with two unintended defects when compared to humanss. The nerves themselves have been altered so that the electrochemical borders inside nerves (which slows nervous transmission rates) are much less prevalent than before modification. This has significantly reduced reaction times involving fight or flight instincts. Genes have enhanced reflex and agility throughout the body and ganglia were designed to straddle the tri-spinal cord to record and remember reflex actions. The spinal cord is split into 3 substructures and 'cross-wired' to prevent one single break from disabling the whole nervous system.
The brain structure and composition has been changed as well. Glial ratios to neurons are radically altered and the convolutions of the brain are present to a greater extent. Human IQ tests pass their most impaired citizens at the sub genius category. This figure can and does send their best and brightest right off the charts. Also present is a photographic memory to a degree rarely seen among standard humans. Math functions are much more ingrained into their minds to the point that they are often as fast as handheld and sometimes even astronavigation computers.
An organ that resembles a film of black plastic that is directly beneath the skin of the torso in sheets. It hardens on the outside and sends invasive neural bundles into the body. After the organ has matured the individual is then fitted with neural sensors and interface points cut into the surface. This allows Hyperians to interface directly with technology.
A membrane merges with the entire brain. Hyperians can use this implant to enter a state of suspended animation, consciously or as an automatic reaction to extreme trauma, keeping the person alive for years, even if he has suffered otherwise mortal wounds. Only the appropriate chemical therapy or auto-suggestion can revive from this state.
Grown into the back of the brain, a pea-sized organ influences the circadian rhythms of sleep and the body's response to sleep deprivation. If deprived of sleep it cuts in. The node allows a Hyperian to sleep and remain awake at the same time by switching off areas of his brain sequentially. This process cannot replace sleep entirely, but increases the perception of the environment while resting. This means that a Hyperian needs no more than four hours of sleep a day, and can potentially go for two weeks without any sleep at all.
In addition to standard structural changes several modifications have been effected in the hormonal and instincts. The fight or flight reaction has been edited to favor the fight aspect. Two defects that have been detected are a lack of intuitive logical ability and the lack of innovation and invention. This does not state that they cannot learn, but it is more likely to be deductive and evolutionary than any revolutionary paradigm changes that humans may have wrought over time.
Hyperians have very good color binocular vision, sensing spectrum ranges between infrared (~500 nm) and far ultraviolet wavelengths (<300nm) Motion perception is a factor in determining what they see. As a primary predator their sight is attracted to motion.
Hearing covers a range from 16-107,000 Hertz, with good separation and direction sensing capabilities. It is generally sensitive down to -50db levels and can be consciously scaled to prevent hearing loss; the tragus is also mobile and under control to prevent damage to the tympanic membrane from loud noise or even diving. The ears can be cocked by muscles in the skull to enhance direction finding capabilities and is probably their most inhuman visible feature when they exercise it. The inner ear is immune from dizziness or motion sickness but also allows Hyperian to consciously filter out and enhance certain sounds.
The senses of taste and smell are incredibly developed and approaches standard canine/shark levels. The Hyperians have reengineered this sense to a degree that individual humans can be tracked beyond sight range with smell alone.
Taste is enhanced to such a high degree that Hyperian can identify many common chemicals by taste alone.
Two identical glands, implanted either into the lower lip, alongside the salivary glands and into the hard palette. The gland works in a similar way to the poison gland of venomous reptiles by synthesizing and storing deadly poison. This allows a Hyperian to spit a blinding contact poison. The poison is also corrosive and can even burn away strong metals given sufficient time.
The vomernasal (pheromone) emission organs have been restored from vestigial functions to full and very important functionality among themselves and when interacting with Homo sapiens. The effects of their pheromones range from simple love/lust reactions to fear and awe. Humans that have been exposed to them have reported that they can evoke emotions directly from them and it seemed like they were almost whispering to them. They are of course selectively immune to their own pheromones.
Leviathan
The Leviathan are the most influential and numerous race found in the Drakeîn. Their Domains, the largest organ structure of the Leviathan, make up a quarter of the Dominions of the Drakeîn. Perpetuating their survival the Leviathan reproduce rapidly and expand at an industrial rate. Taking account of all the organisms that consist of the Leviathan they make up a third of all biomass of intelligent life in the Drakeîn. Additionally they are by far the most involved groups with nearly every member of the species being an elector as well as making up the majority of the Drakeîn military. Many of the officials of the Drakeîn are a Leviathan and the head of the entire race, Demogorgon, has been elected Sebastos of the Drakeîn since it’s inception.
The entire race is perhaps best thought as space faring ecosystems which collectively form superorganisms with Demogorgon as the conscious head. Physically the Leviathan are a variety of species and machines, most designed and manufactured. A very small minority of members are converts of another species that are considered to be part of the Leviathan. Mentally all mentally joined by a telepathic link and this link is the best qualifier for what is a Leventhan.
So strong is the pneumic link that the large groups found in and around the Homebases form a pneumic ‘blank’ in space. This blank is the background noise of the link that is noticeable to non Leviathan. This link gives all the Leviathan pneumic powers, usually negating non Leviathan pneumics. Higher level Leviathan have more control over the raw energy of the link and can shape it to do extraordinary magic. Partially responsible for this is Peyotal which grows inside their ships and bases.
The Leviathan civilization is by far the most technologically advanced among Drakeîn races and set the standard for scientific innovation in the Drakeîn. Some believe they possess information they withhold from their partners, although these rumors may simply result from other species' envy of their intellect.
During Demogorgon’s millennia wandering space it studied so many lifeforms and technologies, and so much knowledge, that it had enhanced its original Satellite Factory into a world sized behemoth and had achieved complete sentience itself. That sentience was akin to the mind of a child; intelligent, but inexperienced.
Demogorgon traveled to Gaio its well-known encounter with the Hyperians took place with the Starship Endeavor (As a result of this there has always been a starship named Endeavor in the Drakeîn and is always the ceremonial flagship). At the end of that meeting mission, the first officer of the Endeavor, a member of the New Transhumanist movement named Julia Sophia Claudius, volunteered to join with Demogorgon itself in order to form a new lifeform, a perfect synergy of Man and Machine. The Transhumans were a small but growing movement consisting of Humans who had voluntarily undergone surgery to be fitted with cybernetic devices in their brains that allowed them to form a group collective consciousness when nearby others of their kind.
Having combined the biological and mechanical into a being of true perfection, Demogorgon decided to set out with a plan of its own, creating a new kind of life.
Demogorgon would become a timeless being who existed in the material universe and Intraether and who served as the central "Brain" of the entire race. The planet sized body of Demogorgon would become the first of many Homebases, commanding the roving "tentacles" of the race that set out upon the galaxy with its missionary-like zeal. Over time as holdings expanded, new tentacles consisting of individual Homebases and their Domains were established. Destroy a Domain, and you would destroy that tentacle, but like the Hydra, a new head would eventually grow back in its place. As a result it is possible to encounter Leviathan with different objectives and Domains, and why when one is destroyed or infected, the other Homebases are unaffected and the original can regrow. Demogorgon remains safely among and beyond the Levianthan, unaffected by the destructions of the subordinate Homebases and their Domains. It acts as a memory backup for the Domains in a sense, his data reforms the Homebase, but is disconnected from the Homebases in order to remain free from infection or destruction. The body of Julia became the Daimon of Demogorgon, the avatar to represent her in the material world.
That is why the Leviathan maintain such a fascination with the Human species, their desire is to help mankind towards further biological and technological perfection. Humans are special to them because of their kinship. Demogorgon is willing to sacrifice thousands of drones and vessels to protect and assist humans. Humans are always given the chance to join of their own free will as opposed to total assimilation of the entire species, which the Leviathan could most likely accomplish.
Though consisting of a large variety of life forms, some generalities can be stated.
The Leviathan are compound bio-mechanical creations; a genetically designed organism that incorporates hereditary carbon based bionics, organic optical holography, a series of micro and nano organisms, ceramic absorbing tissue, organ implants grafted to synthetic frames and epidermal armoring. Their bodies have just as much in common with robots as other biological life forms. They are barely human at all having been made superior in all respects to a normal man by a harsh regime of genetic modification, psycho-indoctrination, mental conditioning, rigorous training, and bionic organ implantation which give them superhuman abilities.
Each will emerge from a clone chamber fully grown and having had his training already planted into his brain and each Leviathan will receive the same basic skills which will permit them to do any basic job within their field. Leviathan psychological programming is based on genetically programmed instincts. The ‘newborn’ defines himself as part of it’s collective and measures his own worth by what he adds to it. Additional tailored memories, values, beliefs, and skills are added on either at creation or later on in life and are reinforced through various forms of conditioning. All clones of Leviathan are made from ’Templates’, genetic samples preserved in stasis. Every large space faring city/factory has a full assortment of templates plus all genetic improvements that have been made over generations. Almost all Leviathan are created in clone series, with very slight randomization for those of the same series. Names are a combination of letters and numbers with numbers increasing as the replacements of the clone series are made. Leviathan typically don't use surnames, they identify themselves by occupation instead.
Along with the Genetic Template the Consciousness Template is stored as well. Consciousness Waves are a specific radiated frequency that interacts with the waves generated by natural neurological activity. Neural pathways in any active brain can be scanned and their patterns stored. Consciousness waves can be used to create artificial neural connections and can be used to store and implant memories, skills and even personalities. When an enemy is encountered all tactical knowledge can be programmed into the soldiers. The Consciousness Template is the recording of the neural pathways, and is used to program in the skills and basic personality of the clone. It is important that the Consciousness Template and the Genetic Template coincide to the same individual because the psychology must match the neurology or else the clone will experience severe mental instabilities. Leviathan are noted for their techno-organic nervous system which allows their minds and bodies work faster than most other races. They normally function on just one hour of sleep a day. They also have photographic memories and rarely forget a fact.
While local stations only make the most gross modifications and watch out for the most serious instabilities, main bases may modify the mind of any individual if it chooses to. If possible the Consciousness Templates are stored before battle so that the template of the deceased can be transferred to a new clone. When an individual is killed and its mind can not be transferred to a new body another of the same series is made to replace it unless the series proves to have a sub standard operational history.
Mechanical technology is semi-organic and both individuals and tools are synergetic. Individual armor is viewed as an extension of the pilot, independent machines have minds similar to that of the humanoids of the Leviathan controlling them while ships can considered to be the leaders of a large group of Leviathan.
All of the Leviathan’s Templates may be extracted and taken to the nearest Base. Leviathan believe that when they die in this manner, their personality is incorporated into Demogorgon. The memories, thoughts and experiences are consumed and added to the sum of the whole. Leviathan aspire to a form of immortality through this merging process, the closest thing that the Leviathan have to an afterlife. For this reason the Leviathan will defend their homes with a fury and tenacity almost unrivalled; they risk losing not only their home but their souls and the souls of their ancestors as well. Within this matrix the souls of the entire Leviathan reside in a form of group consciousness, providing a massive ancestral mind to advise and guide the living. The Leviathan are able to retrieve the minds of long dead Leviathan heroes and place them into the Daimon bodies of their Factory Bases. There is no way to reverse the process. These Leviathan are chosen from all segments of society however only those with great achievements are chosen to live again, providing more of an incentive for individual Leviathan to excel in their positions. The bodies of the dead are recycled if possible.
Due to their telepathic link all of them have some degree of pneumic power. As a result of their close proximity to Peyotl, this naturally manifests as acting as absorbing and negating other pneumic energies making them naturally resistant and predatory of the supernatural. Some have more of an active use of these powers and others are designed focus these powers into specific areas. The most common are the Varangoi, who are battle pneumics with a wide variety of powers and are able to detect the supernatural. These crack troops are the special forces of the Leviathan and a group is usually led by an Manglavitai. The role of the Manglavitai is to look into the future and discern the best path for the Leviathan to take. This is done through using psychosensitive Subeither reactive materials that react to the convoluted, probabilistic skeins of space-time. Manglavitai can often determine what will be the most beneficial course of action, although it is rare that they can discern true results very far into the future. On the battlefield their powers of precognition allow them to foresee the enemy's attacks and movements and warn their comrades against imminent changes on the field of battle. While less capable of foreseeing events in such harried conditions they help to coordinate the overall battle, as well as to lend support by utilizing their other considerable powers. In peace they help with long term guidance of the Homebases.
Leviathan are taught to approach their areas of specialization with intense focus and harsh logic, driving their culture to suppress the value of emotion and avoid acting on hasty feelings such as anger, fear, and revenge. From this emotional coolness Leviathan culture stresses individual responsibility and self-discipline. The Leviathan language has existed in its present form for thousands of years. Unlike the languages of humans which have evolved and mutated over time so that a single language in the space of a few hundred years could be unrecognizable from its original form, the Leviathan language has remained the same, mostly due to the Leviathan's conditioning whilst in their cloning chambers which imprints the Leviathan language into their minds. Leviathan is designed to be a clear and concise language which is essential for communication during battle. This does not mean it is a simple language, just efficient and elegant.
Leviathan as a population have exhibited very little internal friction, though individuals may differ in their beliefs and ideas, and divide easily into operative groups always deferring to the most qualified to lead. Units follow a simple hierarchy with each given a specific rank. Constant success is rewarded and action to correct failure is taken quickly. An individual's career is recorded by and analyzed thoroughly. If an individual's deeds are judged worthy, his genetic material helps create the next generation, keeping randomization in the gene pool. To Leviathan, reproduction is one of the most important events in their lives though only the most successful chose to reproduce. They choose their mates with care, only reproducing with those who have genes that will strengthen the species as a whole. Though polyamorus and bisexual actual reproduction is only accomplished through the clone process. To reproduce, a Leviathan and their potential mate will undergo do a genetic scan and determine what genes of the potential mates are compatible and the resulting genetic mix is placed into a birthing chamber. It is normal for a high-status Leviathan to have many mates and to have children with each. Some love each other but do not reproduce and a couple may live together for a short period of time or even remain together “’Til death us do part.”
The Leviathan can be broken into three main categories. The first are Droid like beings that have no free will and mental abilities ranging from trained animals to human level intelligence. These beings act under direct control of the second category. The second make up the nervous system of the race and control the first category. These beings coordinate and store information on the telepathic link and are able to mentally posses beings in the first category. Third are independent beings that are connected by the telepathic link but are not controlled by the nervous system beings, are self controlled and have a great amount of independence. To help differentiate individuals each has a unique marking on their forehead. Many also adorn themselves with tattoos for major life accomplishments. While consisting of a variety of breeds, those that are most humanoid have increasingly pronounced secondary sexual characteristics.
The simplest of the Leviathan are also the most numerous. These are various nano and micro scale life forms. They are found living inside both the other Leviathan themselves and on their ships and machines. These simple beings are an immune system for foreign disease, viruses, and plagues. They also can become quite viral and be used as a weapon if telepathically commanded to do so by the Leviathan Brains This isn’t considered a doomsday weapon against advanced societies as these organisms are rendered useless by concentrated high-energy radiation and there is no known way to effectively shield large areas of these organisms. In this use they can infect macro scale beings and machines, eventually taking over their control systems and turning them into Leviathan Drones. These organisms can be set to free roam over a planet, deconstructing everything in their path to basic materials for use. When a conquered planet can not be converted it is attempted to be consumed rather an destroyed. This can be done on a more local scale by loading raw material into Genesis Pools, initiating a manufacturing command, and within minutes removing a item, freshly constructed from the atomic level on up or even breaking down organic life into its most basic form for study and manipulation and re-growth. They enable the Leviathan to build efficient shelters, generators, weapons, vehicles, and population using almost any locally available materials. The Factory Bases contain the sum total of Leviathan technological knowledge while the brains have the plans for equipment necessary for survival.
Nutrition is made up of Peyotl which will grow anywhere as it feeds on the Intraether and it is also used as energy storage for most Intraether manipulating systems. Peyotl is cultivated by the nano and micro organisms and both are carried on the bodies of the Leviathan. Along with the mico organisms, Peyotl helps to create a moving ecosystem supplying food, fuel, and equipment for the Leviathan wherever they go.
These organisms allow the Leviathan limited regenerative abilities, as well as the ability to adapt quickly to its environment, such as developing thicker skin after being burned or increased musculature to survive in high gravity. When a Leviathan is injured or in distress, these cells move to the affected area and rapidly (~1 week) mature to specialized forms that will alleviate the issue. A Leviathan that is cut or burned will adapt to have thicker skin. The lungs of a Leviathan placed in a barely-breathable atmosphere will adapt to better use the gases there. A Leviathan subjected to high gravity will quickly develop stronger heart and leg muscles. Additionally this allows them to heal rapidly, and even grow lost limbs over a period of months.
Drones exist on the Macro scale and are best thought of intelligent domesticated animals. Except for the most basic actions, such as self defense, they are incapable of acting independently outside of the controls of more advanced Leviathan. All of these beings exist inside womb like pilots compartments inside machines and are incapable of surviving outside for long periods of time. Drones are placed in all vehicles even if they are piloted by other Leviathan to act as a backup and assistant. They resemble a mushy 2 to 3 ft wide ball with 2 claw like arms. Have black skin and solid red eyes.
The first level of beings that can exist outside of a machine also do not require direct supervision and may, in emergency conditions, take leadership of lesser Leviathan. They are extremely unimaginative however and under normal conditions never need to take a leadership position. They are all males and average 6.5 ft tall. Have little physical variation in appearance. Two slits for a nose and two triangular flaps for ears. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Completely hairless
The highest level of beings in this category have superior genetics and mental abilities. These are built faster, tougher and smarter than their similar models, which is why they only number as one in every twenty. They lead lesser Leviathan and can be cunning, however they are incapable of disobeying an order from a nerve center being. Like the rest of the beings in this category they are often led by the independent beings and will follow their orders unless ordered not to by their controller beings. Females form a subgroup of this type and do not typically take leadership roles. Females are faster, more agile and deadlier than their male counterparts. All males average 7.5ft tall and females average 6.5 feet. They have a more humanoid and varied appearance. They have normal eyes, a nose and ears but still somewhat minimalistic face. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Completely hairless
Brains are the lowest level of the control beings. They are giant nerve clusters without a physical body. They take in all information on the telepathic link for those Leviathan they are responsible for. They coordinate groups of Leviathan and may directly posses some of the simpler, first category Leviathan if a complex task is needed to be performed by the Brain. These beings are based on Invid Brains.
Controlling Factory Bases are beings similar to the previous however have much greater abilities. They take up miles of space on the space stations and process all the information of Leviathan under them. Typically they act through the various Brains however may interact with other beings when needed. While they may posses a simple Leviathan under them they usually interact through powerful Daimons that may be sent on missions outside the factory. Each of the Daimon’s consciousness and personalities are that of the most important persons of the past brought back from the dead to lead. These Daimons are as powerful as the oldest Jinn Lords and resemble monstrous humanoids.
More advanced beings are at the heart of the Home bases, the largest Leviathan structures and centers for an entire Domain. They filter information for their entire Domain. Together they form the main information storage area of Demogorgon. The thoughts of these beings are not that of one personality but about a dozen consciousness talking. They also have Daimons that they use to interact with. They exist in the material universe and Intraether, can see multiple paths into the future, have strange geometries and dealing with them can be terribly unsettling. They resemble Nagas, having a shifting mixture of human and serpent-like traits. Sometimes they are described as having human traits at one time, and as having serpent-like traits at another.
At the top of this category is the Demogorgon. The controlling beings below it acts as the collective unconscious for the Demogorgon while the Demogorgon is the controlling conscious for the Leviathan. Several million of individual consciousness make up its mind however when speaking to others only a dozen are chosen, and these consciousness that talk are specific to interactions with others. It rarely acts directly but prefers to take subtle actions feeling that local control centers are best at handling most situations. Deomgorgon perceives time in multiple facets. It slides through time and has a keen sense of predestination. For her, all time is simultaneous; all things happen at once. Demogorgon has a Daimon, through which it caries out a variety of official interactions.
The Daimon of Demogorgon is often described as tall and forceful. Her skin is bronzed as if constantly exposed to the sun and hair is a black square cut mane. Most noticeable in the face is perhaps the full round strong chin with a high nose that has a high bridge as a natural extension of the forehead. Her brow is low and arched, her deeply set eyes a volcanic grey that smolder as if with some inner fire. Unsmiling lips are full, but her mouth is fairly narrow, just slightly wider than her nose. Her dark, scarred, almost sinister face is that of a warrior. The net result is a serene, serious, somewhat aloof beauty.
She is clad in golden armor, though modern in construction it is heavily decorated giving it an ancient look. While sometimes holding symbolic objects or attire for official duties, the arms at her side seem more natural to her than any accompaniments. Draped over her shoulders, and hanging down one side of her body, is a long armored cape that is clasped over her chest by a large buckler. Her shield bears her own face, which is the symbol and seal of Demogorgon. It is a holy symbol, seemingly looking out from its own iconographical context and directly challenging the viewer. Sheathed on her hip is a flaming sword. It is said to be eternally lit and may channel and focus vast energies, including those of the Intraether. Above her head a helm resembling the head of a great horned owl is worn that arcs its crest. When worn the eyes of the helmet glow with beaming radiance and those that are struck with its full gaze are said to see the possible past, present, and future. Despite her armor, she has agility and way of moving to that of a panther and her garments cannot conceal the hard, dangerous lines of her limbs.
Demogorgon itself also resides in the Intraether and those that view her say she resembles never blinking eye with endless numbers of endless serpents or dragons emanating from it They are intertwined but not tangled.
Just as a body has millions of independent bacteria that are needed for the body’s functioning, the independent Leviathan are individually insignificant but together perform essential tasks.
The majority of these types are officers that command the non independent Leviathan. The others of these types form the assault and special force troopers that are expected to perform above and beyond what the normal military is exposed to. They are very intelligent and imaginative and are very self sufficient. Are all male, average 6 ft tall and human in appearance.
A large part of the crew and technical positions are made up of beings that specialize in a particular field. While these have combat training their main function is to act as support for the other types of Leviathan and have enhanced cerebral abilities. These massive cerebral enhancements increase brain power and memory. Are all male, average 5.75 ft tall and humanoid with heavy cybernetics.
The upper commanders of individual ships and, along with the Brains, are beings with excellent leadership genetics and skills and form the most immediate holders of power in fleets. They are paired with science advisors that are the second in command and advise the commanders of how to proceed when asked. Both types are allways male, average 6 ft tall and human in appearance.
Taking command of large groups of Leviathan are beings with extremely high mental facilities. They have superior leadership genetics and form strategic strategies and policies. Whereas some Leviathan will find promotion to the command ranks it is this type who upon stepping from the cloning chamber is handed an entire Fleet. It could be less than a dozen ships or it could be several million, either way they are designed to lead. Are all male, average 6.5 ft tall and human in appearance.
A group exists to maintain and promote their culture among the Leviathan and other species. They help to create progressive energy among their society. Also they convert other species to Leviathan ideals and values. They live not only in Leviathan society but also among foreign areas as emissaries of Leviathan culture. Are all female, average 5.5 ft tall and human in appearance.
Lastly a number of the independent class are made up of converts from other species. They have a transplanted organ that allows them to be connected to the Leviathan telepathic network.
The population of a Domain will have three varying characteristics. 60 percent of the population will have two of the three and 20 percent will have all three. The remaining 20 percent will have random characteristics. Characteristics are listed below.
Skin Color:
Grey
Light Blue
Green
Purple
Hair Color:
Green
Purple
Red
Blue
Black
Eye Color:
Purple
Blue
Green
Red
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
The Leviathan military has formidable discipline. Enlisted personnel are thoroughly trained and stay calm under fire. Leviathan units don't break. Their warriors prefer to use strategy and precision to complete objectives instead of brute force and overkill. Targets will be decimated with ship borne weaponry as vast hordes of smaller vehicles are deployed for surgical strikes and clean-up operations. Most operations call for large numbers to swarm and engage the enemy while elite units carry out main mission objectives. Many vehicles used are effective both in space and in planetary conditions. This versatility allows most small units to drop from space directly into the combat theater below, outflanking the enemy. Commanders are given a great deal of independence and flexibility unless explicit orders are given. Beings who command large fleets are given superior genetics and are usually long lived and thus have hundreds or even thousands of years of combat experience to train them as first rate commanders.
The Leviathan military is respected by the Drakeîn races for its novel tactics and technology. Their strength lies in fire support, flexibility, speed, sophisticated technical support and emphasis on mobility and individual initiative. Their military doctrine is not based on absorbing and dishing out heavy shocks. Rather, they bypass enemy strong points and launch deep into their rear, cutting supply lines and logistics, destroying headquarters and support units, leaving enemies to 'wither on the vine'. On defense, the Leviathan military lives by Sun Tzu's maxim, "He who tries to defend everything defends nothing." Only token garrisons are placed on their colonies. These are intended for scouting rather than combat, avoiding engagement to observe and report on invaders using drones. However the Leviathan station powerful fleets at strategic points so that in the event of an attack they respond with overwhelming force.
While their history has been marked by stretches of nearly continual warfare and conquest of other worlds, they are generally not violent and prefer to extend themselves from a defensive posture. They do control planets but this territory has been taken only as a matter of logic or self-defense. Living mostly on massive spaceships and in artificial habitats, and also feeling no need for conquest in the typical sense of the word, possesses no borders. Their sphere of influence is better defined by the current concentration of ships and habitats as well as the measure of effect they have on the 'local' population of any galactic sector. Leviathan from different areas tend to absorb superficial aspects of the culture of the races that are found in the area and apply it to their own. Each of the groups under the Homebases, and to a lesser extent the Factory Bases, have their own culture.
Despite their military superiority, traditionally their Leviathan spread their influence through cultural domination, economic, and intellectual means. They invite new species of to join the galactic community, knowing that Leviathan ideals and beliefs will inevitably influence the existing culture. They tend toward communal, consensus attitudes among themselves too: for example, they prefer to live in shared spaces aboard starships even if there are alternatives available. Because of their long lifespan, Leviathan tend to have a 'long view' not common in other races. When they encounter a new species or situation, the Leviathan are more comfortable with an extended period of passive observation and study than immediate action. They are unfazed that some of their investments or decisions may not pay off for decades or centuries. They can seem to make incomprehensible decisions, but their insight is evident when their carefully-laid plans come to fruition. In interstellar relations, this long view manifests in the unspoken policy of centrism. The Leviathan instinctively seek to maintain stable balances of economic, scientific, political, and military power. Designed ambassadors are used as official diplomats as well as means to spread Leviathan culture and ideals to other areas. They are given as consorts to leaders of other groups, marketed as artists, or sent as missionaries.
A large amount of resources have been given to trade with many large fleets of trade ships sent out far beyond the normal boarders of space. These trade fleets not only generate income and discover new worlds and civilizations, they also help establish beneficial relations with other races before they are on the Leviathan’s boarders. They also put a large emphasis on domination of trade centers, perfering to put their Factory Bases at the center of trade routes, nearby important worlds, wormholes linking many areas of space together, or stable extra-dimensional Gates. This helps them to maintain a presence of military, industrial, and economic power at strategic locations influencing those that use those areas and helping to monitor the local area.
Factory Bases, similar to the original Demogorgon Satellite Factory, are the location where most of the Leviathan’s ships are created. Most of the mass of these structures are dedicated to the production of Leviathan however most live in other large Homebases that serve as centers of their civilization and serve the same function as most other species’ planets, cities, and space stations. Both bases are controlled by a massively complex organisms. Bases are gestalt beings, the manifestation of consciousness of the minds of all the beings serving under it. Bases filter and control the immense 'traffic' of thought present in the Leviathan, serving as regulators assisting in maintaining the complete consciousness of the Alien Intelligence Demogorgon. While each base only has the knowledge of the beings under it the Demogorgon has knowledge of all Bases. The different Homebases are different information nodes of the Alien Intelligence’s mind. If a Homebase is destroyed that knowledge is not lost but just transferred to another (until there isn’t enough physical memory to hold it all). Even if all the bases are destroyed a new Alien Intelligence may be born out of the Leviathan telepathic link.
The Bases act through secondary agents, the Brains which command an individual ship. Brains further delegate power through the use of Stage 5 Leviathan, independent individuals, that are joined to the telepathic link however brains may take direct control of lower stage drones if needed. Though brains have their own personality and methods they are unable to disobey the Bases. Stage 1 through 4 Leviathan and Brains and not considered to be independent individuals. These Leviathan themselves may have personalities but have no desire to be anything else. Lesser Factory bases are made for non-Leviathan to act as their shipyards and Brains direct drones on their ships. These beings take orders from the Dominion they belong to and are rented out as low cost military weapons. Other races simply chose to hire Leviathan fleets as their entire military.
Though their primary function is command and control, Brains are also signal boosters for all the communication of the race. Stage 6 Leviathan Emulators serve primarily as signal boosters, but instead of exerting complete control simply indoctrinate their flock with beliefs, attitude, and values (culture) to judge information. Stage 6 Leviathan Emulators themselves have their culture updated and monitored by the Bases. The Stage 5 Leviathan may have their culture change at some point due to separation from the Leviathan culture over long periods, however they are loyal to the survival of the Leviathan species on the genetic level.
Though lower members can be mentally controlled by higher members, the lower are normally set to make independent decisions. (As a note; Stage 5 and 6 Leviathan cannot be directly controlled except by the Alien Intelligence Demogorgon and some individuals in the lower castles are too simple to make any real decisions.) Regardless of an individual’s ability to control another there is a collective unconscious made up of lots of transferred information. The Demogorgon, Bases and to a lesser extent the Brains in ships have the ability to absorb all of this direct information and make sense of it, even picking up things that the actual observer did not. These beings are then able to use their powers of control and influence to quickly lead the group based off of first hand information. While Leviathan other than these are able to communicate with each other they are not able to process the large amount of information available.
Controlled areas of space are divided into sub-regions. The first 'tier' of regions ruled by the Leviathan are the Domains, one Homebase the locus of each. Each Domain is divided into multiple Ranges that are serviced by a Factory base, and are further divided into Zones which are small regions of space focused around a fully established Leviathan fleet or patrol area. Each Range governs minor habitats, supply bases, and any worlds that may be found within its region of space.
The Leviathan of each Domain are characterized by a number of influences, including but not limited to the relative strength of the stratums that inhabit the worlds of that Domain, climate of the inhabited worlds, and exposure to other races' cultures. These influences combine to affect the attitudes of the Leviathan from that Domain.
Each Homebase is a self-sufficient, independent realm with its own culture. Homebases are effectively worlds in space, each a self-contained biosystem, with forested and natural areas as well as urbanised ones. These natural areas provide a breathable atmosphere to the Homebase and renewable resources. There are sections that are uninhabited and awaiting reconstruction. Vast space docks in the Homebase house fleets of spacecraft.
Each Homebase and Factory Base has Webgates that creates Intraether nexus points to link them all together. These gates provide safer, faster, and cheaper means of travel between them and are able to transport large fleets. Use of the Webgate allows ships to circumvent large mass objects that make travel in the Intraether difficult allowing for speeds over 100 times faster than what a fold drive is capable of. Each Webgate needs to have a corresponding Webgate on the other side to open a link enabling faster travel within the network and making these, sometimes mobile, locations strategically important.
Additionally they can be used as beacons to ships traveling in the Intraether allowing for safer navigation and travel. Using the interconnected network of Webgates to rebroadcast enormous tracts of data over the entire galaxy allows near instantaneous transmissions from virtually any subscriber to any other. A Webgate is capable of breaking the barrier between the Intraether and the material universe, creating a beam of pure chaos to destroy everything in its path. This power can be linked with other Homebases for even more powerful beam. Two are be able to suck an entire planet, along with surrounding satellites, into the Intraether, presumably killing all life and destroying all matter. Three have done the same to stars. As a side-effect, Intraether navigation in the area becomes impossible. With a great use of power the gates on the Homebases may even be used for dimensional travel, opening a Gate to another universe.
While day to day decisions are made by individual creatures to save processing power and delays in communication, the beings in the Homebases provides ultimate, overall control. A number of Domain resources are not responsible for a particular Range area to manage and are governed by the Homebase.
Factory Bases are designed for production of standardized weapons, weapons improvements, and have capacity for repair. They are about the size of a small moon or large asteroid. For gravity and atmosphere they generate it mechanically and naturally.
Exploration and trade fleets explore the potentials of new worlds, material wealth or knowledge. When encountering new species and planets these commanders must decide how to react to these new situations while away from friendly territory. Also commanded are the main battle fleets that stand guard over strategically important areas.
Their great trade fleets have advanced weapons and are more powerful than fleets of small nations. They travel space trading knowledge and amassing even more to add to their vast libraries. Though in possession of a great deal of powerful artifacts, the Leviathan are harmless and mostly benign. Leviathan seem to adhere to a strict policy of trade, willing to trade their huge, accumulated stock of information and goods for items they want. This wouldn't ordinarily be different than any other race, except that the Leviathan consider this to be less a business exchange and more the way things are done. They also aren't above taking advantage of those in need, however they gladly volunteer small amounts information which will further greatly help those that receive it.
Each Domain is separate from the others, it’s own sovereign nation with Demogorgon as the shared individual Monarch of each while Homebases act as the Head of Government for the various Domains. Though technically holding a great amount of power this is never exercised in reality, serving as a figurehead power is exercised by the Hombases. The main responsibilities of the Demogorgon is in organizing summits and meetings between Domains, assists policy development and provides policy advice, and facilitates multilateral communication among the various Domains. It also provides assistance to help Domians in the social and economic development and in support of the Leviathan’s fundamental values.
Homebases, and the Leviathan race, is self reproducing. When a Homebase and Domain grow large enough, a large shard of the Homebase will split off. After taking a few years to grow into a new Homebase it will be sent off to form a new Domain along with an accompanying armada. Generally operating very autonomously from each other, between Domains there exists a wide variety of variation between them. Leviathan will have basic templates and designs for classes of equipment. They are highly modular and can be adapted for local needs. Successful designs will be transmitted to other Homebases and included in their libraries.
Covering a material structure are differentiated micro and nano organisms. Tied to the controlling brain ships are self-sufficient and self conscious biosystems. Even structures that are not connected to a brain have a rudimental conscience. They form a mold or fungus like coating on structures made of a mixture of organics and mechanics. An inner layer provides nutrition and maintenance through decentralized organism colonies while the outer layers form protective shells. The inner layers are always grey while the outer layers differ in color and structure based on adaption. Surfaces not able to be grown upon are covered with a secondary protective surface. A simple nervous system is immediately connected through physical means to a central Brain or telepathically to the homebase. The reconstructive action of the organisms is quick to repair local damage and over time may develop adaptations to a source of damage. A homebase may influence adaption not only to protection but also to desired performance. This takes place on the Domain scale, no to domains are adapted exactly alike, resulting in perceived architectural styles to humanoids. These styles are as follows.
The standard biosystem is unadapted and retains flexibility to quickly repair damage. The form is smooth and bulbous covering surfaces in elongated curves. Structures are covered in round protective nubs. Color is a saturated green with secondary protective areas as bright yellow.
Biosystems that are adapted to a specific set of known damage sources are still rounded but have a knarred and warped appearance. Pointed spires cover structures and color is dark blue with violet secondary areas.
Homebases aggressively influencing greater weaponry output results in styles in a flowing ribbed appearance. Structures form sweeping blade forms. Purple colors areas with bright red as secondary.
Domains emphasizing maneuverability speed by increased thrust form straight polygonal surfaces. Flat fins cover structures. Surfaces are colored very light blue with dark indigo secondary areas.
Aliens
The Drakeîn attempts to unite all of humanity under one banner, and end inter-human conflict. It intends to put away petty squabbles and unnecessary things to unite for the greater good of the rest of the human race. The Drakeîn is primarily concerned with humanity as most alien powers are either insignificant in size and/or completely alien in mentality and physiology. That being said humans are one of the most open and tolerant of the races known, which means that they prefer not to destroy all other species on sight.
Throughout its history the Drakeîn has fought many long wars with powerful and dangerous alien species with very few friendly encounters. Many new alien races and civilizations are discovered by the Drakeîn every year. While aliens do have emotions and minds for the most part they and their civilizations are unintelligible to humans, and vice versa. For these trivial yet completely alien beings non-aggression pacts are signed even though they can simply be wiped out. Friendly contact on a large scale can happen, as some will trade with some aliens. The Drakeîn deliberately foster such developments, trading with alien systems and preaching the ideals of the Drakeîn. The Drakeîn attempts to be peaceful when possible when dealing with alien races, asking if they will join the Drakeîn instead of fighting. However if their peaceful overtures are refused the Drakeîn may well decide to conquer or exterminate. The Drakeîn has no intention to destroy a species or culture, though it does not mean that the Drakeîn respect the right of aliens to live. While some alien worlds have willingly joined the Drakeîn most have been found to be hostile. Of those worlds that have joined most consist of human subspecies descendants of Protogenoi who have physically evolved to live on worlds with various extreme environmental conditions rather than true Xenos who have evolved independently. Thousands of alien Xeno species live peacefully within the Drakeîn, many only able to interact in human environments using encounter suits. Powerful Aliens judged to pose a threat to humanity's are contained or destroyed. Predatory Aliens are all considered enemies of humanity for they threaten the very survival of the human race.
Major Foreign Powers
Galactic Empire of Mankind
The Galactic Empire of Mankind is the body under which the majority of humanity in the Tartarus Galaxy is united. Several powerful and homicidal xeno and Jinn forces challenge the supremacy of the Empire externally and as a result the Empire is pathologically militaristic. However the greatest danger comes from within, the Empire is threatened more insidiously by rebellion, mutation, dangerous pneumics, and subversive cults. The Empire was born out of the failing, collapsing Old Commonwealth. The Old Commonwealth, which had lasted intermittently for 20,000 years, ended following a period of intense turmoil and the devastation. Maintaining control over the middle and core of the Galaxy, the perpetual war is fought for control of the "disputed areas" at the Empire’s frontiers while corruption at home is a constant threat. Without the protection of the Empire, all sane life in the Tartarus galaxy would fall prey to the countless perils that threaten it.
Life in the Tartarus Galaxy began with the race remembered as the Elder Ones. They had developed terrestrially into a sentient species like most of the galaxy's other commonplace biological species. The Elder Ones possessed a slow, cold-blooded wisdom. Their science was advanced to such a point that it was indistinguishable from sorcery. Their understanding of the universe allowed them to exploit the alternate universes such as the Intraether. Finding themselves to be virtually alone in their galaxy, they took it upon themselves to make worlds more favorable to support life, and they seeded other worlds with new lifeforms. They visited many worlds, and using primitive species as a stock, they created new and sentient species, which they continued to nurture. These beings also became masters at pneumic manipulation. They found the Protogenoi seeding ships as they entered their galaxy and helped them find many ideal planets.
When these species matured they formed the Commonwealth. Among other tasks, the Elder Ones eventually became responsible for law enforcement and peacekeeping in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was led by a Supreme Minister, had a democratic government that was able to sustain itself for over twenty-five thousand years. While many of the species guided by the Elder Ones were peaceful, humans were considered aggressive in comparison and largely made up the Commonwealth military. In its latest years, it was a benevolent though ineffectual government tied up in layers of bureaucracy.
One of the races that developed naturally in the Galaxy, the Dynari, conspired to replace the Commonwealth which they perceive as weak, with their own empire. These beings were not gifted with pneumics and developed vast technology. This technology allowed them to transfer their consciousness to artificial constructs, thereby gaining immortality. For the first time it was possible for a species to seek their own destiny without the interference of the Elder Ones.
At roughly the same time a group of disenfranchised organizations and governments whose goal was to secede from the Commonwealth arose. For decades, numerous planets, species, and groups had been trying to reduce the power of the Commonwealth, lower or eliminate taxes, grant graft in exchange for political favors, or withdraw from the Commonwealth for various reasons. Though the Commonwealth loyalists had more numbers than the insurrectionists, they had not fought an organized war in more than twelve centuries, and so it was easy for the Dynari to deal heavy blows to the Commonwealth. As time went on organizations began to leave the Repubic and join the Dynari.
Elder Ones eventually came to the conclusion that they needed to create warrior and psychic races with the specific purpose of combating the Dynari. The introduction of these warlike and very pneumic races into the galaxy had the side effect of warping the Intraether the war, pain, and destruction of the galaxy during the conflict was reflected in the Intraether, and the innocuous entities which naturally existed in the Intraether were twisted into voracious and hostile predators.
These armies were two of the largest ever pitted against each other in galactic history up to that point, and the fighting between them rapidly spread to countless inhabited worlds. Both sides scored significant victories over the other, and at different times during the war either seemed likely to triumph. At the time, it was the largest galactic conflict to date. The man who would later become known as the Emperor first appears as one of the many warlords struggling for control of Human worlds the later part of the war against the Dynari. The Emperor undertook a series of campaigns that would led him to be elected the Supreme Minister of the Commonwealth. At the end, the Dynari's war was futile and they were forced to flee the galaxy.
However the aggressive pneumic races proved to be uncontrollable and led to an eruption of a Jinn plague on the galaxy. Additionally these races were destroyed countless worlds as control broke down. Already exhausted from the last war, after millennia of prosperity, the Systems Commonwealth had fallen in ashes. The Elder Ones were consumed by Jinn. Only humans in the Commonwealth Military are able to hold off the Jinn and Alien races.
When the extent of the threat became clear, the Old Commonwealth Parliament, the legislature of the Commonwealth, granted the Emperor total power to deal with the crisis. The Emperor promised to return his powers to the Parliament once peace and order is restored to the galaxy. He takes advantage of the conflict to greatly increase the office's power until he is effectively a dictator. However, the Parliament had been a powerless advisory body for some time; real power is in the hands of local governing military commanders. Eventually, the regional military governors are granted direct control over their territories. The planets of the Empire were no longer given a say in the government, but were now kept in line by the human dominated military. Peaceful demonstrations were dispersed using extreme force, often killing and maiming thousands.
The founder and ruler of the Empire Founded the Empire nearly ten thousand years ago, he continues, at least nominally, to lead it. The Emperor knows that to protect his race he must survive as long as necessary. Unwilling to have any limits placed on his power, he sought to live virtually forever. Although once a living man, his aged body can no longer support life, and remains intact only by a combination of ancient technology and the sheer force of his will, itself sustained by the sacrifice of countless millions of pneumics each day. In the millennia since his taking place as leader the Emperor has become a god to his people, the worship of him uniting humanity throughout his Empire. He has sat immobile for eight thousand years on the Eternal Throne. The Emperor (and his many followers) honestly believes his brutal government is the best possible for the galaxy, and in time came to regard himself as something of a savior.
The Imperial Administrative Ruling Council was formed following the ascension of the Emperor to the Eternal Throne. The administration and military are one in the same, it is a paranoid organization that seeks to hold the Empire together in the face of numerous threats, internal and external, real and imagined. Elaborate titles and hierarchies are a common feature of the upper levels of the Empire. However high and however much a man might serve the Empire, they always have something to aspire to. These goals, impossibly out of reach for nearly all, served to spur competition, harden and strengthen the competitors, distract them from the system they were competing in (thus propping up) and its leader.
Left unchecked, pneumics present a potential danger to entire worlds. The Empire ensures pneumics are suppressed, tracked down and controlled; those strong enough will be recruited into Imperial service, fulfilling vital roles in the Empire. The weakest are doomed to serve humanity as nourishment for the Emperor to extend his life. Similarly, as many species that were created by the Elder Ones were heavily psioinc and easily taken over by Jinn, they became looked as suspicious by the military. As such, through the repealing of sentient right laws as and the creation of new acts, all nonhumans were made second-class citizens, if citizens at all. Non-Humans are actively discouraged to participate in government or join the military. Similar laws were passed that pertained to human mutants and pneumics, looked down upon as impure. However, there are some loopholes: if they were devoted enough, and focused solely upon serving his Empire, then they would be left unmolested. The emperor freely consorts with nonhumans and pneumics. Additionally many Human-dominated worlds are also destroyed out of necessity. The vast majority of the Empire's citizens are humans, but there are minorities of aliens. Some humans with unusual attributes acquired as they adapted to adverse conditions on worlds are not recognized as human. In regard to the lower class, the Empire treats these as animals. They live in poverty and are kept sedated with cheap drugs, pornography and a national lottery. They are severely punished to keep them in line however as long as they stay out of the Empire’s way, they are left alone with little supervision.
The Empire disapproves of all attachments and activities which could diminish exclusive loyalty to the Empire. The Empire is essentially a huge police state, complete with witch hunts. Monitoring devices exist in every public area, and the quarters of the Government's members, hidden microphones, and informers permit the authorities to spy upon everyone and so identify anyone who might endanger the Empire. Censorship is heavy. Data, video, and photographs are doctored and public archives. In the news, figures for all types of production are grossly exaggerated or simply invented. The Empire’s minimalist artificial language is meant to ideologically align thought and action with the principles of the Empire by making all other modes of thought impossible. Except for top members of the government, sexual intercourse is suppressed and replacing its procreative functions is artificial insemination due to the high amount of mutation. For the lesser members of the government reproduction is limited to an annual two-week orgy after the deformed babies are purified by blood. These children are raised in public institutions, rather than in individual families. Children most of all, are indoctrinated to spy and inform on suspected criminals, especially their parents.
Planets are set aside for the literal breeding of the elite troops of the Empire, the Space Troopers. These Space Troopers crusade on the far frontiers of the Empire. Each is the product of the genetic breeding program. Officers are robust with cunning and intelligence. Pilots are thin, their heads disproportionately large and with far-seeing eyes with lightning-quick reflexes. Infantry are huge, unusually strong soldiers possessed of grace and speed far exceeding what is expected of people of such intimidating size.
Each planet raises their own defense forces, known as the Imperial Guard, and the best of these are drawn into the Imperial Army. The Imperial Battle Fleet is drawn up from the various worlds of the Empire and tasked with defending the Empire. The Imperial Battle Fleet is separate from both the Space Marines and Imperial Army. While it carries out normal duties it is also tasked with collecting tribute from planets for redistribution. As long as the planet follows the guidelines set by the Empire, the inhabitants are left unmolested and free to do whatever they want. Any defiance to the government is threatened with military retaliation.
From the Dynari the Empire learned methods to combat Jinn. One of which was to mix man, machine, and Jinn to create Dark Knights. Dark Knights are giant monstrous creatures fused with human DNA, encased in locking containing armor, and controlled by a pilot sitting inside a uterine-like control chamber within the Dark Knight. The pilot controls the Dark Knight and often bonds emotionally with it during their service lifetime. Dark Knights have been known to go on rampages provoked by bloodlust or strong emotions, and consequently are considered very dangerous battlefield weapons.
The Archprinces are the genetically-engineered "sons" of the Emperor. The Emperor uses his own DNA in their creation, and they are designed to be far superior to the average human. They are powerful pneumics and heavily trained warriors. They are also incredibly charismatic, as their main role is to be generals and leaders of the Imperial military. The Emperor often sends his sons on missions alone. The Archprinces act as an agent of the Emperor, doing his bidding and carrying out his will without question. It is not uncommon for the Archprince to face death, and even succumb to it while carrying out their orders. While Archprinces are always under the direction of the Emperor, often times they are allowed to pursue or birth their own schemes and machinations.
They are assisted by the personal army of the Emperor, the Nightguard. They are created by discarding flesh in favor of bodies made of living metal. Their minds are transferred into metal bodies. They retain much reduced ability for independent thought but they are immune to corruption and are incredibly powerful.
United Federation of Worlds
The external image of the United Federation of Worlds is that they are altruistic and idealistic, believing in the unification of all. Federation society is centered on a unifying philosophy similar to utilitarianism, where individuals sacrifice personal gain in favor of benefiting the Federation as a whole. It says that everyone one is equal and plays an important part of Federation society. It tells them to put away petty squabbles and unnecessary things to unite for the greater good. This also encompasses all races, and any races the Federation comes into contact with are invited to integrate themselves into Federation society. The races and groups that choose to incorporate themselves earn the benefits of mutual protection, trade, and access to the technology of the Federation. The Federation believes that their own way is superior to any other, and harbor extreme confidence in their manifest destiny to unite the stars. They are more likely to peaceably integrate races that show similar qualities. At the same time, the Federation are imperialists. Those that will not join the Federation are forced to do so via economic, political, or military means. The Federation believes the Federation is for the good of all, even those who do not recognize it. The Federation is quite intolerant of deviant beliefs, forcibly re-educating those who adhere to incompatible belief systems, and are more than willing to eradicate entire populations who do not submit to the Federation’s beliefs.
The United Federation of Worlds is an interstellar democracy under a single central government based on the principles of universal freedom, peace, and equality, and to share their knowledge and resources in cooperation and space exploration. Unlike its traditional imperial rivals, who derived power from a single species subjugating other races, the Federation's various member worlds are equals in the Federation's society. The Federation Star Fleet was incorporated as the peace-keeping and humanitarian armada of the Federation, in addition to maintaining exploratory, scientific, and diplomatic functions.
Hundreds of millions of years ago the home galaxy of the Federation was at some point ejected from the much larger, nearby galaxy. At some point an event, possibly a weapon of some sort, was used and moved the dwarf galaxy away from the larger. It is believed that at one point in time that both galaxies were the first conquered by the Protogenoi. The pervasiveness and technological power of these beings means that they could not have helped being a major part of the environment for evolving sapient and non-sapient beings. The mere presence of this species must have affected the evolution of younger sapient species. For a low-tech species confined to its homeworld, the Protogenoi were profoundly dangerous and a gateway to a literal galaxy of off world resources. The ability of sapients to interact successfully with the dominant species could become an important determinant of survival, prosperity and reproductive success in the less advanced species. This is the most likely theory for the low amount of diversity among the many species in the Federation. While much of the Protogenoi were wiped out, and there are a few human enclaves, the Federation is mostly composed of humanoid non-human beings.
The worlds located in what is now the capital of the Federation gave rise to a range of sentient races that eventually discovered each other and formed the Federation. The Federation spread throughout the dwarf Thule Galaxy, incorporating several additional alien races, colonizing worlds and protecting several worlds populated by primitive worlds, to allow their natural development to interstellar travel , and the eventual prospect of Federation membership.
Explorers were sent to the large nearby Hyperborea galaxy. The Federation expected that any race capable of warp drive would be similarly inclined to peaceful - and profitable - means of conduct, yet this illusion would not soon last. The Federation first came into contact with the natives, and were disturbed to find the two races at war with each other. The Federation found it hard to believe any sane race of advanced spacefarers would resort to warfare or pursue it with such viciousness and were even more shocked upon learning that all of the other major powers of the galaxy were in a state of war which had devastated known space.
The Federation was in a fortunate position, in which their expansion into the outer areas of the galaxy was unchecked as the rest of the region was involved in the brutal war, and drew plans to forcibly pacify the rest of the galaxy. Clearly the other races could not be trusted to themselves after the armistice which ended the war, as in their eyes they were merely buying time to jump at each other's throats. By the time of the pacification, the Federation armed forces were a match for any five of those of the belligerents combined and unlike those races had not had their considerable economy exhausted by nearly two decades of war. At present they have control over a quarter of this galaxy, however a loose alliance of single race dominated species have slowed their progress so far.
To enforce this position they created two races to impose order on a chaotic universe. Each has a fabricated history that is designed to combine religious faith and dedication with absolute loyalty to the state.
The Star Fleet is the only visible Federation military force. The Urrqan are the shock troops of the Federation. Genetically engineered for strength and resolve, they are also short-lived. Their numbers are unknown, but they are produced as needed. The Chenjesu are a humanoid species genetically engineered to act as administrators diplomats. They also serve as officers charged with managing Urrqan units. This function is somewhat similar to political officers. Throughout life suggested values are constantly reinforced thorough subliminal messaging, sleep suggestion, propaganda, physical exertion and other forms of stress always followed by indoctrination, and an anti-depressant/light hallucinogen that is very addictive.
The Federation has a complete belief in peace at all costs which they feel that they must sustain even if intervention is required in the most trivial of conflicts. This is signified by their belief that a peaceful, harmonious and well-ordered universe is the right of all sentient species. Civilizations collapse when the right is violated, therefore, it must be protected at all costs. Despite this near noble aspect of peace, it is peace that is forced on those that encounter the Federation. The Federation has no respect for individual or cultural rights and has no problem with violating this right in order to ensure a peaceful, orderly government.
The Federation is a democratic government which is controlled by an elected council. There is no constitution but there is a Declaration of Ideals which serves as the guiding principle of their society. Should there be a two-third majority vote, then an action can be supported by the Declaration. There is no check and balance mechanism against abuses of power which is an alien concept to the races of the Federation.
A Federation political strategy frequently used is to not use its military might during initial contacts; but take over via influence and espionage. The Federation was founded on the principle of control, with the intent being to neutralize any potential threat to peace by whatever means necessary. In cases involving cooperative species, the extent of Federation interference is fairly minimal and restricted to material support. However, if the target species is or becomes less cooperative, the Urrqan is dispatched to wipe out any opposition. The fear of massive Urrqan reprisals is enough to keep most planets in line. For a prospective member, at first contact the Federation may appear helpful, or even benevolent. A typical Federation strategy is to make concessions in the short term for an advantage in the longer term, which may be centuries in advance.
Federation society follows a strict caste system. Each caste helps and supports every other caste while focusing on its own role. Individuals are born into their caste, and breeding outside one's own caste is strictly forbidden. To choose another caste is nearly impossible. The castes are based upon the racial and political divisions.
The most respected of these castes are the Palladins, warrior monks who study and used the energies of the Intraether. They dedicate their lives for fighting for peace and justice in the Federation and strictly avoid all distractions to that cause. They police the Federation and are the only ones trusted to be the admirals and generals of the Federation Starfleet.
Not only do they have pneumic powers but they also, long before the founding of the Federation, constructed beings out of the Intraether to act as barrier to the chaotic entities inside. These entities are viewed as advanced benevolent partners in the Federation. Known as the Outer Lords, it is the civic duty of all members of the Federation to, what amounts to, worship them. As the Federation grows these entities swell with followers and they grow more powerful. They are by their nature beings of stasis, calming the Intraether and making corresponding material space safer. Individually more powerful than any Jinn, the Outer Lords defend the Intraether of the Federation. Just as Jinn may come into the material universe so may the intraether entities of the Outer Lords, the Arkengelos.
Roedam is the most changing and adaptive and is a lord of powerful sorcery and knowledge. He is the lord of change, ambition, hope, intelligence, and improvement. His ways are often dangerous, with a "leap before you look" mentality. He is known for his cunning plans and endless schemes. Because he is the most chaotic of the lords he is also one of the weakest. It is his cunning plans that keep him in power.
Gorezill is the noble lord of war, marital skill, courage, heroism, and honorable combat. He sits upon a throne of Relics. The Throne of Relics consists of captured armor, arms, and various artifacts from his defeated enemies. He may gift those who please him with a powerful artifact selected from his throne. Gorezill favors the strong above all else, and blesses those who are already mighty warriors. He does not, however, have much compassion for the weak, and does not believe in helping those who cannot help themselves.
Morta is the goddess of love and desire. More precisely Morta is the lord of excess, purity, of passion, and volatile emotion. Morta is the most interactive with her followers and any combined efforts on their behalf by all the lords begins with her. People fall in and out of favor with Morta on mere whims, and those who get his/her attentions and refuse them do not end well. Morta is vain, ill tempered, a perfectionist, and very easily offended.
Angil is the embodiment of compassion; he care for all creatures, no matter how small. He cures sickness and disease. Angil is a lord of stability, fortitude, determination, and most of all hope, even among the other lords. He is unchanged and forever unchanging. He helps to build civilizations, and is a bringer of law, order, and stability. However, he is not adaptive, and some find his embrace stifling. Followers sometimes are highly oppressive.
Culture in the Federation is homogenous and fairly similar everywhere. Music is very popular, and makes use of the latest gadgets to enhance listening pleasure by adding light shows and pleasant aromas. Full sensory perception hologram entertainment is widespread throughout the Federation. Sport is a cornerstone of culture and is very popular, consisting of various bizarre games played using a bewildering array of high-tech gadgets, in order to keep factories busy. Sports are major distractions for all levels of society. Citizens of the Federation enjoy many frequent holidays, and interstellar travel allows people to journey across the Federation for relaxation. Everyone is encouraged to consume the ubiquitous drug oma. Oma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "holidays", and it was developed expressly for this purpose.
Citizens of the Federation enjoy racial, social and economic harmony. People of different racial heritage live alongside one another in harmony. In addition to racial harmony, gender role appears to have been eliminated, all are equals in society. Biological engineering has eliminated the social impact of old age. Medical technology allows people to not exhibit any physical indications of old age, even appearing young when they eventually expire from natural causes. The legal system of the Federation is determined through telepathic investigation with punishments consisting of forced recreation of the crime on the perpetrator.
The Federation was founded on various economic pacts and nearly all business is handled by an entity known as the company. The Federation and the company are in bed together the way no government and corporation has ever been. The company is the government’s primary producer of essential technology. Their equipment powers the nation and, through subsidiaries, they manufacture critical components. They are, in many ways, the premiere research and development arm of the Federation’s military. Beyond all that, the company floated government agencies a great deal of money to rebuild conquered world’s infrastructure. While the company isn’t asking for repayment, the Federation treats them as advisory partners. Company advisors are found at every level of the government and military. Some say they are the power behind the Federation. Some say they are just a powerful branch of the Federation. Many protest that a private organization has no business advising on matters of state or economy, but that hasn’t changed anything.
The economy is based on the principles of mass production and mass consumerism. Citizens have access to a vast array of very high-quality foods, goods, and services, whilst the manufacture and provision of these goods and services creates jobs for all members of society. In order to enhance consumerism and so keep the economy strong, people are encouraged to throw away old or damaged possessions and buy new ones. In this way, every citizen of the Federation is kept happy, with a plentiful supply of creature comforts and a permanent job. The Federation is purposefully limited in its mechanization and automation. This limitation is deliberately put in place in order to keep the populace busy working producing new goods, with fears that increased free time and further technological advancements would lead to civil unrest and social instability.
Edit/Delete Message
The Leviathan military is respected by the Drakeîn races for its novel tactics and technology. Their strength lies in fire support, flexibility, speed, sophisticated technical support and emphasis on mobility and individual initiative. Their military doctrine is not based on absorbing and dishing out heavy shocks. Rather, they bypass enemy strong points and launch deep into their rear, cutting supply lines and logistics, destroying headquarters and support units, leaving enemies to 'wither on the vine'. On defense, the Leviathan military lives by Sun Tzu's maxim, "He who tries to defend everything defends nothing." Only token garrisons are placed on their colonies. These are intended for scouting rather than combat, avoiding engagement to observe and report on invaders using drones. However the Leviathan station powerful fleets at strategic points so that in the event of an attack they respond with overwhelming force.
While their history has been marked by stretches of nearly continual warfare and conquest of other worlds, they are generally not violent and prefer to extend themselves from a defensive posture. They do control planets but this territory has been taken only as a matter of logic or self-defense. Living mostly on massive spaceships and in artificial habitats, and also feeling no need for conquest in the typical sense of the word, possesses no borders. Their sphere of influence is better defined by the current concentration of ships and habitats as well as the measure of effect they have on the 'local' population of any galactic sector. Leviathan from different areas tend to absorb superficial aspects of the culture of the races that are found in the area and apply it to their own. Each of the groups under the Homebases, and to a lesser extent the Factory Bases, have their own culture.
Despite their military superiority, traditionally their Leviathan spread their influence through cultural domination, economic, and intellectual means. They invite new species of to join the galactic community, knowing that Leviathan ideals and beliefs will inevitably influence the existing culture. They tend toward communal, consensus attitudes among themselves too: for example, they prefer to live in shared spaces aboard starships even if there are alternatives available. Because of their long lifespan, Leviathan tend to have a 'long view' not common in other races. When they encounter a new species or situation, the Leviathan are more comfortable with an extended period of passive observation and study than immediate action. They are unfazed that some of their investments or decisions may not pay off for decades or centuries. They can seem to make incomprehensible decisions, but their insight is evident when their carefully-laid plans come to fruition. In interstellar relations, this long view manifests in the unspoken policy of centrism. The Leviathan instinctively seek to maintain stable balances of economic, scientific, political, and military power. Designed ambassadors are used as official diplomats as well as means to spread Leviathan culture and ideals to other areas. They are given as consorts to leaders of other groups, marketed as artists, or sent as missionaries.
A large amount of resources have been given to trade with many large fleets of trade ships sent out far beyond the normal boarders of space. These trade fleets not only generate income and discover new worlds and civilizations, they also help establish beneficial relations with other races before they are on the Leviathan’s boarders. They also put a large emphasis on domination of trade centers, perfering to put their Factory Bases at the center of trade routes, nearby important worlds, wormholes linking many areas of space together, or stable extra-dimensional Gates. This helps them to maintain a presence of military, industrial, and economic power at strategic locations influencing those that use those areas and helping to monitor the local area.
Factory Bases, similar to the original Demogorgon Satellite Factory, are the location where most of the Leviathan’s ships are created. Most of the mass of these structures are dedicated to the production of Leviathan however most live in other large Homebases that serve as centers of their civilization and serve the same function as most other species’ planets, cities, and space stations. Both bases are controlled by a massively complex organisms. Bases are gestalt beings, the manifestation of consciousness of the minds of all the beings serving under it. Bases filter and control the immense 'traffic' of thought present in the Leviathan, serving as regulators assisting in maintaining the complete consciousness of the Alien Intelligence Demogorgon. While each base only has the knowledge of the beings under it the Demogorgon has knowledge of all Bases. The different Homebases are different information nodes of the Alien Intelligence’s mind. If a Homebase is destroyed that knowledge is not lost but just transferred to another (until there isn’t enough physical memory to hold it all). Even if all the bases are destroyed a new Alien Intelligence may be born out of the Leviathan telepathic link.
The Bases act through secondary agents, the Brains which command an individual ship. Brains further delegate power through the use of Stage 5 Leviathan, independent individuals, that are joined to the telepathic link however brains may take direct control of lower stage drones if needed. Though brains have their own personality and methods they are unable to disobey the Bases. Stage 1 through 4 Leviathan and Brains and not considered to be independent individuals. These Leviathan themselves may have personalities but have no desire to be anything else. Lesser Factory bases are made for non-Leviathan to act as their shipyards and Brains direct drones on their ships. These beings take orders from the Dominion they belong to and are rented out as low cost military weapons. Other races simply chose to hire Leviathan fleets as their entire military.
Though their primary function is command and control, Brains are also signal boosters for all the communication of the race. Stage 6 Leviathan Emulators serve primarily as signal boosters, but instead of exerting complete control simply indoctrinate their flock with beliefs, attitude, and values (culture) to judge information. Stage 6 Leviathan Emulators themselves have their culture updated and monitored by the Bases. The Stage 5 Leviathan may have their culture change at some point due to separation from the Leviathan culture over long periods, however they are loyal to the survival of the Leviathan species on the genetic level.
Though lower members can be mentally controlled by higher members, the lower are normally set to make independent decisions. (As a note; Stage 5 and 6 Leviathan cannot be directly controlled except by the Alien Intelligence Demogorgon and some individuals in the lower castles are too simple to make any real decisions.) Regardless of an individual’s ability to control another there is a collective unconscious made up of lots of transferred information. The Demogorgon, Bases and to a lesser extent the Brains in ships have the ability to absorb all of this direct information and make sense of it, even picking up things that the actual observer did not. These beings are then able to use their powers of control and influence to quickly lead the group based off of first hand information. While Leviathan other than these are able to communicate with each other they are not able to process the large amount of information available.
Controlled areas of space are divided into sub-regions. The first 'tier' of regions ruled by the Leviathan are the Domains, one Homebase the locus of each. Each Domain is divided into multiple Ranges that are serviced by a Factory base, and are further divided into Zones which are small regions of space focused around a fully established Leviathan fleet or patrol area. Each Range governs minor habitats, supply bases, and any worlds that may be found within its region of space.
The Leviathan of each Domain are characterized by a number of influences, including but not limited to the relative strength of the stratums that inhabit the worlds of that Domain, climate of the inhabited worlds, and exposure to other races' cultures. These influences combine to affect the attitudes of the Leviathan from that Domain.
Each Homebase is a self-sufficient, independent realm with its own culture. Homebases are effectively worlds in space, each a self-contained biosystem, with forested and natural areas as well as urbanised ones. These natural areas provide a breathable atmosphere to the Homebase and renewable resources. There are sections that are uninhabited and awaiting reconstruction. Vast space docks in the Homebase house fleets of spacecraft.
Each Homebase and Factory Base has Webgates that creates Intraether nexus points to link them all together. These gates provide safer, faster, and cheaper means of travel between them and are able to transport large fleets. Use of the Webgate allows ships to circumvent large mass objects that make travel in the Intraether difficult allowing for speeds over 100 times faster than what a fold drive is capable of. Each Webgate needs to have a corresponding Webgate on the other side to open a link enabling faster travel within the network and making these, sometimes mobile, locations strategically important.
Additionally they can be used as beacons to ships traveling in the Intraether allowing for safer navigation and travel. Using the interconnected network of Webgates to rebroadcast enormous tracts of data over the entire galaxy allows near instantaneous transmissions from virtually any subscriber to any other. A Webgate is capable of breaking the barrier between the Intraether and the material universe, creating a beam of pure chaos to destroy everything in its path. This power can be linked with other Homebases for even more powerful beam. Two are be able to suck an entire planet, along with surrounding satellites, into the Intraether, presumably killing all life and destroying all matter. Three have done the same to stars. As a side-effect, Intraether navigation in the area becomes impossible. With a great use of power the gates on the Homebases may even be used for dimensional travel, opening a Gate to another universe.
While day to day decisions are made by individual creatures to save processing power and delays in communication, the beings in the Homebases provides ultimate, overall control. A number of Domain resources are not responsible for a particular Range area to manage and are governed by the Homebase.
Factory Bases are designed for production of standardized weapons, weapons improvements, and have capacity for repair. They are about the size of a small moon or large asteroid. For gravity and atmosphere they generate it mechanically and naturally.
Exploration and trade fleets explore the potentials of new worlds, material wealth or knowledge. When encountering new species and planets these commanders must decide how to react to these new situations while away from friendly territory. Also commanded are the main battle fleets that stand guard over strategically important areas.
Their great trade fleets have advanced weapons and are more powerful than fleets of small nations. They travel space trading knowledge and amassing even more to add to their vast libraries. Though in possession of a great deal of powerful artifacts, the Leviathan are harmless and mostly benign. Leviathan seem to adhere to a strict policy of trade, willing to trade their huge, accumulated stock of information and goods for items they want. This wouldn't ordinarily be different than any other race, except that the Leviathan consider this to be less a business exchange and more the way things are done. They also aren't above taking advantage of those in need, however they gladly volunteer small amounts information which will further greatly help those that receive it.
Each Domain is separate from the others, it’s own sovereign nation with Demogorgon as the shared individual Monarch of each while Homebases act as the Head of Government for the various Domains. Though technically holding a great amount of power this is never exercised in reality, serving as a figurehead power is exercised by the Hombases. The main responsibilities of the Demogorgon is in organizing summits and meetings between Domains, assists policy development and provides policy advice, and facilitates multilateral communication among the various Domains. It also provides assistance to help Domians in the social and economic development and in support of the Leviathan’s fundamental values.
Homebases, and the Leviathan race, is self reproducing. When a Homebase and Domain grow large enough, a large shard of the Homebase will split off. After taking a few years to grow into a new Homebase it will be sent off to form a new Domain along with an accompanying armada. Generally operating very autonomously from each other, between Domains there exists a wide variety of variation between them. Leviathan will have basic templates and designs for classes of equipment. They are highly modular and can be adapted for local needs. Successful designs will be transmitted to other Homebases and included in their libraries.
Covering a material structure are differentiated micro and nano organisms. Tied to the controlling brain ships are self-sufficient and self conscious biosystems. Even structures that are not connected to a brain have a rudimental conscience. They form a mold or fungus like coating on structures made of a mixture of organics and mechanics. An inner layer provides nutrition and maintenance through decentralized organism colonies while the outer layers form protective shells. The inner layers are always grey while the outer layers differ in color and structure based on adaption. Surfaces not able to be grown upon are covered with a secondary protective surface. A simple nervous system is immediately connected through physical means to a central Brain or telepathically to the homebase. The reconstructive action of the organisms is quick to repair local damage and over time may develop adaptations to a source of damage. A homebase may influence adaption not only to protection but also to desired performance. This takes place on the Domain scale, no to domains are adapted exactly alike, resulting in perceived architectural styles to humanoids. These styles are as follows.
The standard biosystem is unadapted and retains flexibility to quickly repair damage. The form is smooth and bulbous covering surfaces in elongated curves. Structures are covered in round protective nubs. Color is a saturated green with secondary protective areas as bright yellow.
Biosystems that are adapted to a specific set of known damage sources are still rounded but have a knarred and warped appearance. Pointed spires cover structures and color is dark blue with violet secondary areas.
Homebases aggressively influencing greater weaponry output results in styles in a flowing ribbed appearance. Structures form sweeping blade forms. Purple colors areas with bright red as secondary.
Domains emphasizing maneuverability speed by increased thrust form straight polygonal surfaces. Flat fins cover structures. Surfaces are colored very light blue with dark indigo secondary areas.
Aliens
The Drakeîn attempts to unite all of humanity under one banner, and end inter-human conflict. It intends to put away petty squabbles and unnecessary things to unite for the greater good of the rest of the human race. The Drakeîn is primarily concerned with humanity as most alien powers are either insignificant in size and/or completely alien in mentality and physiology. That being said humans are one of the most open and tolerant of the races known, which means that they prefer not to destroy all other species on sight.
Throughout its history the Drakeîn has fought many long wars with powerful and dangerous alien species with very few friendly encounters. Many new alien races and civilizations are discovered by the Drakeîn every year. While aliens do have emotions and minds for the most part they and their civilizations are unintelligible to humans, and vice versa. For these trivial yet completely alien beings non-aggression pacts are signed even though they can simply be wiped out. Friendly contact on a large scale can happen, as some will trade with some aliens. The Drakeîn deliberately foster such developments, trading with alien systems and preaching the ideals of the Drakeîn. The Drakeîn attempts to be peaceful when possible when dealing with alien races, asking if they will join the Drakeîn instead of fighting. However if their peaceful overtures are refused the Drakeîn may well decide to conquer or exterminate. The Drakeîn has no intention to destroy a species or culture, though it does not mean that the Drakeîn respect the right of aliens to live. While some alien worlds have willingly joined the Drakeîn most have been found to be hostile. Of those worlds that have joined most consist of human subspecies descendants of Protogenoi who have physically evolved to live on worlds with various extreme environmental conditions rather than true Xenos who have evolved independently. Thousands of alien Xeno species live peacefully within the Drakeîn, many only able to interact in human environments using encounter suits. Powerful Aliens judged to pose a threat to humanity's are contained or destroyed. Predatory Aliens are all considered enemies of humanity for they threaten the very survival of the human race.
Major Foreign Powers
Galactic Empire of Mankind
The Galactic Empire of Mankind is the body under which the majority of humanity in the Tartarus Galaxy is united. Several powerful and homicidal xeno and Jinn forces challenge the supremacy of the Empire externally and as a result the Empire is pathologically militaristic. However the greatest danger comes from within, the Empire is threatened more insidiously by rebellion, mutation, dangerous pneumics, and subversive cults. The Empire was born out of the failing, collapsing Old Commonwealth. The Old Commonwealth, which had lasted intermittently for 20,000 years, ended following a period of intense turmoil and the devastation. Maintaining control over the middle and core of the Galaxy, the perpetual war is fought for control of the "disputed areas" at the Empire’s frontiers while corruption at home is a constant threat. Without the protection of the Empire, all sane life in the Tartarus galaxy would fall prey to the countless perils that threaten it.
Life in the Tartarus Galaxy began with the race remembered as the Elder Ones. They had developed terrestrially into a sentient species like most of the galaxy's other commonplace biological species. The Elder Ones possessed a slow, cold-blooded wisdom. Their science was advanced to such a point that it was indistinguishable from sorcery. Their understanding of the universe allowed them to exploit the alternate universes such as the Intraether. Finding themselves to be virtually alone in their galaxy, they took it upon themselves to make worlds more favorable to support life, and they seeded other worlds with new lifeforms. They visited many worlds, and using primitive species as a stock, they created new and sentient species, which they continued to nurture. These beings also became masters at pneumic manipulation. They found the Protogenoi seeding ships as they entered their galaxy and helped them find many ideal planets.
When these species matured they formed the Commonwealth. Among other tasks, the Elder Ones eventually became responsible for law enforcement and peacekeeping in the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth was led by a Supreme Minister, had a democratic government that was able to sustain itself for over twenty-five thousand years. While many of the species guided by the Elder Ones were peaceful, humans were considered aggressive in comparison and largely made up the Commonwealth military. In its latest years, it was a benevolent though ineffectual government tied up in layers of bureaucracy.
One of the races that developed naturally in the Galaxy, the Dynari, conspired to replace the Commonwealth which they perceive as weak, with their own empire. These beings were not gifted with pneumics and developed vast technology. This technology allowed them to transfer their consciousness to artificial constructs, thereby gaining immortality. For the first time it was possible for a species to seek their own destiny without the interference of the Elder Ones.
At roughly the same time a group of disenfranchised organizations and governments whose goal was to secede from the Commonwealth arose. For decades, numerous planets, species, and groups had been trying to reduce the power of the Commonwealth, lower or eliminate taxes, grant graft in exchange for political favors, or withdraw from the Commonwealth for various reasons. Though the Commonwealth loyalists had more numbers than the insurrectionists, they had not fought an organized war in more than twelve centuries, and so it was easy for the Dynari to deal heavy blows to the Commonwealth. As time went on organizations began to leave the Repubic and join the Dynari.
Elder Ones eventually came to the conclusion that they needed to create warrior and psychic races with the specific purpose of combating the Dynari. The introduction of these warlike and very pneumic races into the galaxy had the side effect of warping the Intraether the war, pain, and destruction of the galaxy during the conflict was reflected in the Intraether, and the innocuous entities which naturally existed in the Intraether were twisted into voracious and hostile predators.
These armies were two of the largest ever pitted against each other in galactic history up to that point, and the fighting between them rapidly spread to countless inhabited worlds. Both sides scored significant victories over the other, and at different times during the war either seemed likely to triumph. At the time, it was the largest galactic conflict to date. The man who would later become known as the Emperor first appears as one of the many warlords struggling for control of Human worlds the later part of the war against the Dynari. The Emperor undertook a series of campaigns that would led him to be elected the Supreme Minister of the Commonwealth. At the end, the Dynari's war was futile and they were forced to flee the galaxy.
However the aggressive pneumic races proved to be uncontrollable and led to an eruption of a Jinn plague on the galaxy. Additionally these races were destroyed countless worlds as control broke down. Already exhausted from the last war, after millennia of prosperity, the Systems Commonwealth had fallen in ashes. The Elder Ones were consumed by Jinn. Only humans in the Commonwealth Military are able to hold off the Jinn and Alien races.
When the extent of the threat became clear, the Old Commonwealth Parliament, the legislature of the Commonwealth, granted the Emperor total power to deal with the crisis. The Emperor promised to return his powers to the Parliament once peace and order is restored to the galaxy. He takes advantage of the conflict to greatly increase the office's power until he is effectively a dictator. However, the Parliament had been a powerless advisory body for some time; real power is in the hands of local governing military commanders. Eventually, the regional military governors are granted direct control over their territories. The planets of the Empire were no longer given a say in the government, but were now kept in line by the human dominated military. Peaceful demonstrations were dispersed using extreme force, often killing and maiming thousands.
The founder and ruler of the Empire Founded the Empire nearly ten thousand years ago, he continues, at least nominally, to lead it. The Emperor knows that to protect his race he must survive as long as necessary. Unwilling to have any limits placed on his power, he sought to live virtually forever. Although once a living man, his aged body can no longer support life, and remains intact only by a combination of ancient technology and the sheer force of his will, itself sustained by the sacrifice of countless millions of pneumics each day. In the millennia since his taking place as leader the Emperor has become a god to his people, the worship of him uniting humanity throughout his Empire. He has sat immobile for eight thousand years on the Eternal Throne. The Emperor (and his many followers) honestly believes his brutal government is the best possible for the galaxy, and in time came to regard himself as something of a savior.
The Imperial Administrative Ruling Council was formed following the ascension of the Emperor to the Eternal Throne. The administration and military are one in the same, it is a paranoid organization that seeks to hold the Empire together in the face of numerous threats, internal and external, real and imagined. Elaborate titles and hierarchies are a common feature of the upper levels of the Empire. However high and however much a man might serve the Empire, they always have something to aspire to. These goals, impossibly out of reach for nearly all, served to spur competition, harden and strengthen the competitors, distract them from the system they were competing in (thus propping up) and its leader.
Left unchecked, pneumics present a potential danger to entire worlds. The Empire ensures pneumics are suppressed, tracked down and controlled; those strong enough will be recruited into Imperial service, fulfilling vital roles in the Empire. The weakest are doomed to serve humanity as nourishment for the Emperor to extend his life. Similarly, as many species that were created by the Elder Ones were heavily psioinc and easily taken over by Jinn, they became looked as suspicious by the military. As such, through the repealing of sentient right laws as and the creation of new acts, all nonhumans were made second-class citizens, if citizens at all. Non-Humans are actively discouraged to participate in government or join the military. Similar laws were passed that pertained to human mutants and pneumics, looked down upon as impure. However, there are some loopholes: if they were devoted enough, and focused solely upon serving his Empire, then they would be left unmolested. The emperor freely consorts with nonhumans and pneumics. Additionally many Human-dominated worlds are also destroyed out of necessity. The vast majority of the Empire's citizens are humans, but there are minorities of aliens. Some humans with unusual attributes acquired as they adapted to adverse conditions on worlds are not recognized as human. In regard to the lower class, the Empire treats these as animals. They live in poverty and are kept sedated with cheap drugs, pornography and a national lottery. They are severely punished to keep them in line however as long as they stay out of the Empire’s way, they are left alone with little supervision.
The Empire disapproves of all attachments and activities which could diminish exclusive loyalty to the Empire. The Empire is essentially a huge police state, complete with witch hunts. Monitoring devices exist in every public area, and the quarters of the Government's members, hidden microphones, and informers permit the authorities to spy upon everyone and so identify anyone who might endanger the Empire. Censorship is heavy. Data, video, and photographs are doctored and public archives. In the news, figures for all types of production are grossly exaggerated or simply invented. The Empire’s minimalist artificial language is meant to ideologically align thought and action with the principles of the Empire by making all other modes of thought impossible. Except for top members of the government, sexual intercourse is suppressed and replacing its procreative functions is artificial insemination due to the high amount of mutation. For the lesser members of the government reproduction is limited to an annual two-week orgy after the deformed babies are purified by blood. These children are raised in public institutions, rather than in individual families. Children most of all, are indoctrinated to spy and inform on suspected criminals, especially their parents.
Planets are set aside for the literal breeding of the elite troops of the Empire, the Space Troopers. These Space Troopers crusade on the far frontiers of the Empire. Each is the product of the genetic breeding program. Officers are robust with cunning and intelligence. Pilots are thin, their heads disproportionately large and with far-seeing eyes with lightning-quick reflexes. Infantry are huge, unusually strong soldiers possessed of grace and speed far exceeding what is expected of people of such intimidating size.
Each planet raises their own defense forces, known as the Imperial Guard, and the best of these are drawn into the Imperial Army. The Imperial Battle Fleet is drawn up from the various worlds of the Empire and tasked with defending the Empire. The Imperial Battle Fleet is separate from both the Space Marines and Imperial Army. While it carries out normal duties it is also tasked with collecting tribute from planets for redistribution. As long as the planet follows the guidelines set by the Empire, the inhabitants are left unmolested and free to do whatever they want. Any defiance to the government is threatened with military retaliation.
From the Dynari the Empire learned methods to combat Jinn. One of which was to mix man, machine, and Jinn to create Dark Knights. Dark Knights are giant monstrous creatures fused with human DNA, encased in locking containing armor, and controlled by a pilot sitting inside a uterine-like control chamber within the Dark Knight. The pilot controls the Dark Knight and often bonds emotionally with it during their service lifetime. Dark Knights have been known to go on rampages provoked by bloodlust or strong emotions, and consequently are considered very dangerous battlefield weapons.
The Archprinces are the genetically-engineered "sons" of the Emperor. The Emperor uses his own DNA in their creation, and they are designed to be far superior to the average human. They are powerful pneumics and heavily trained warriors. They are also incredibly charismatic, as their main role is to be generals and leaders of the Imperial military. The Emperor often sends his sons on missions alone. The Archprinces act as an agent of the Emperor, doing his bidding and carrying out his will without question. It is not uncommon for the Archprince to face death, and even succumb to it while carrying out their orders. While Archprinces are always under the direction of the Emperor, often times they are allowed to pursue or birth their own schemes and machinations.
They are assisted by the personal army of the Emperor, the Nightguard. They are created by discarding flesh in favor of bodies made of living metal. Their minds are transferred into metal bodies. They retain much reduced ability for independent thought but they are immune to corruption and are incredibly powerful.
United Federation of Worlds
The external image of the United Federation of Worlds is that they are altruistic and idealistic, believing in the unification of all. Federation society is centered on a unifying philosophy similar to utilitarianism, where individuals sacrifice personal gain in favor of benefiting the Federation as a whole. It says that everyone one is equal and plays an important part of Federation society. It tells them to put away petty squabbles and unnecessary things to unite for the greater good. This also encompasses all races, and any races the Federation comes into contact with are invited to integrate themselves into Federation society. The races and groups that choose to incorporate themselves earn the benefits of mutual protection, trade, and access to the technology of the Federation. The Federation believes that their own way is superior to any other, and harbor extreme confidence in their manifest destiny to unite the stars. They are more likely to peaceably integrate races that show similar qualities. At the same time, the Federation are imperialists. Those that will not join the Federation are forced to do so via economic, political, or military means. The Federation believes the Federation is for the good of all, even those who do not recognize it. The Federation is quite intolerant of deviant beliefs, forcibly re-educating those who adhere to incompatible belief systems, and are more than willing to eradicate entire populations who do not submit to the Federation’s beliefs.
The United Federation of Worlds is an interstellar democracy under a single central government based on the principles of universal freedom, peace, and equality, and to share their knowledge and resources in cooperation and space exploration. Unlike its traditional imperial rivals, who derived power from a single species subjugating other races, the Federation's various member worlds are equals in the Federation's society. The Federation Star Fleet was incorporated as the peace-keeping and humanitarian armada of the Federation, in addition to maintaining exploratory, scientific, and diplomatic functions.
Hundreds of millions of years ago the home galaxy of the Federation was at some point ejected from the much larger, nearby galaxy. At some point an event, possibly a weapon of some sort, was used and moved the dwarf galaxy away from the larger. It is believed that at one point in time that both galaxies were the first conquered by the Protogenoi. The pervasiveness and technological power of these beings means that they could not have helped being a major part of the environment for evolving sapient and non-sapient beings. The mere presence of this species must have affected the evolution of younger sapient species. For a low-tech species confined to its homeworld, the Protogenoi were profoundly dangerous and a gateway to a literal galaxy of off world resources. The ability of sapients to interact successfully with the dominant species could become an important determinant of survival, prosperity and reproductive success in the less advanced species. This is the most likely theory for the low amount of diversity among the many species in the Federation. While much of the Protogenoi were wiped out, and there are a few human enclaves, the Federation is mostly composed of humanoid non-human beings.
The worlds located in what is now the capital of the Federation gave rise to a range of sentient races that eventually discovered each other and formed the Federation. The Federation spread throughout the dwarf Thule Galaxy, incorporating several additional alien races, colonizing worlds and protecting several worlds populated by primitive worlds, to allow their natural development to interstellar travel , and the eventual prospect of Federation membership.
Explorers were sent to the large nearby Hyperborea galaxy. The Federation expected that any race capable of warp drive would be similarly inclined to peaceful - and profitable - means of conduct, yet this illusion would not soon last. The Federation first came into contact with the natives, and were disturbed to find the two races at war with each other. The Federation found it hard to believe any sane race of advanced spacefarers would resort to warfare or pursue it with such viciousness and were even more shocked upon learning that all of the other major powers of the galaxy were in a state of war which had devastated known space.
The Federation was in a fortunate position, in which their expansion into the outer areas of the galaxy was unchecked as the rest of the region was involved in the brutal war, and drew plans to forcibly pacify the rest of the galaxy. Clearly the other races could not be trusted to themselves after the armistice which ended the war, as in their eyes they were merely buying time to jump at each other's throats. By the time of the pacification, the Federation armed forces were a match for any five of those of the belligerents combined and unlike those races had not had their considerable economy exhausted by nearly two decades of war. At present they have control over a quarter of this galaxy, however a loose alliance of single race dominated species have slowed their progress so far.
To enforce this position they created two races to impose order on a chaotic universe. Each has a fabricated history that is designed to combine religious faith and dedication with absolute loyalty to the state.
The Star Fleet is the only visible Federation military force. The Urrqan are the shock troops of the Federation. Genetically engineered for strength and resolve, they are also short-lived. Their numbers are unknown, but they are produced as needed. The Chenjesu are a humanoid species genetically engineered to act as administrators diplomats. They also serve as officers charged with managing Urrqan units. This function is somewhat similar to political officers. Throughout life suggested values are constantly reinforced thorough subliminal messaging, sleep suggestion, propaganda, physical exertion and other forms of stress always followed by indoctrination, and an anti-depressant/light hallucinogen that is very addictive.
The Federation has a complete belief in peace at all costs which they feel that they must sustain even if intervention is required in the most trivial of conflicts. This is signified by their belief that a peaceful, harmonious and well-ordered universe is the right of all sentient species. Civilizations collapse when the right is violated, therefore, it must be protected at all costs. Despite this near noble aspect of peace, it is peace that is forced on those that encounter the Federation. The Federation has no respect for individual or cultural rights and has no problem with violating this right in order to ensure a peaceful, orderly government.
The Federation is a democratic government which is controlled by an elected council. There is no constitution but there is a Declaration of Ideals which serves as the guiding principle of their society. Should there be a two-third majority vote, then an action can be supported by the Declaration. There is no check and balance mechanism against abuses of power which is an alien concept to the races of the Federation.
A Federation political strategy frequently used is to not use its military might during initial contacts; but take over via influence and espionage. The Federation was founded on the principle of control, with the intent being to neutralize any potential threat to peace by whatever means necessary. In cases involving cooperative species, the extent of Federation interference is fairly minimal and restricted to material support. However, if the target species is or becomes less cooperative, the Urrqan is dispatched to wipe out any opposition. The fear of massive Urrqan reprisals is enough to keep most planets in line. For a prospective member, at first contact the Federation may appear helpful, or even benevolent. A typical Federation strategy is to make concessions in the short term for an advantage in the longer term, which may be centuries in advance.
Federation society follows a strict caste system. Each caste helps and supports every other caste while focusing on its own role. Individuals are born into their caste, and breeding outside one's own caste is strictly forbidden. To choose another caste is nearly impossible. The castes are based upon the racial and political divisions.
The most respected of these castes are the Palladins, warrior monks who study and used the energies of the Intraether. They dedicate their lives for fighting for peace and justice in the Federation and strictly avoid all distractions to that cause. They police the Federation and are the only ones trusted to be the admirals and generals of the Federation Starfleet.
Not only do they have pneumic powers but they also, long before the founding of the Federation, constructed beings out of the Intraether to act as barrier to the chaotic entities inside. These entities are viewed as advanced benevolent partners in the Federation. Known as the Outer Lords, it is the civic duty of all members of the Federation to, what amounts to, worship them. As the Federation grows these entities swell with followers and they grow more powerful. They are by their nature beings of stasis, calming the Intraether and making corresponding material space safer. Individually more powerful than any Jinn, the Outer Lords defend the Intraether of the Federation. Just as Jinn may come into the material universe so may the intraether entities of the Outer Lords, the Arkengelos.
Roedam is the most changing and adaptive and is a lord of powerful sorcery and knowledge. He is the lord of change, ambition, hope, intelligence, and improvement. His ways are often dangerous, with a "leap before you look" mentality. He is known for his cunning plans and endless schemes. Because he is the most chaotic of the lords he is also one of the weakest. It is his cunning plans that keep him in power.
Gorezill is the noble lord of war, marital skill, courage, heroism, and honorable combat. He sits upon a throne of Relics. The Throne of Relics consists of captured armor, arms, and various artifacts from his defeated enemies. He may gift those who please him with a powerful artifact selected from his throne. Gorezill favors the strong above all else, and blesses those who are already mighty warriors. He does not, however, have much compassion for the weak, and does not believe in helping those who cannot help themselves.
Morta is the goddess of love and desire. More precisely Morta is the lord of excess, purity, of passion, and volatile emotion. Morta is the most interactive with her followers and any combined efforts on their behalf by all the lords begins with her. People fall in and out of favor with Morta on mere whims, and those who get his/her attentions and refuse them do not end well. Morta is vain, ill tempered, a perfectionist, and very easily offended.
Angil is the embodiment of compassion; he care for all creatures, no matter how small. He cures sickness and disease. Angil is a lord of stability, fortitude, determination, and most of all hope, even among the other lords. He is unchanged and forever unchanging. He helps to build civilizations, and is a bringer of law, order, and stability. However, he is not adaptive, and some find his embrace stifling. Followers sometimes are highly oppressive.
Culture in the Federation is homogenous and fairly similar everywhere. Music is very popular, and makes use of the latest gadgets to enhance listening pleasure by adding light shows and pleasant aromas. Full sensory perception hologram entertainment is widespread throughout the Federation. Sport is a cornerstone of culture and is very popular, consisting of various bizarre games played using a bewildering array of high-tech gadgets, in order to keep factories busy. Sports are major distractions for all levels of society. Citizens of the Federation enjoy many frequent holidays, and interstellar travel allows people to journey across the Federation for relaxation. Everyone is encouraged to consume the ubiquitous drug oma. Oma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "holidays", and it was developed expressly for this purpose.
Citizens of the Federation enjoy racial, social and economic harmony. People of different racial heritage live alongside one another in harmony. In addition to racial harmony, gender role appears to have been eliminated, all are equals in society. Biological engineering has eliminated the social impact of old age. Medical technology allows people to not exhibit any physical indications of old age, even appearing young when they eventually expire from natural causes. The legal system of the Federation is determined through telepathic investigation with punishments consisting of forced recreation of the crime on the perpetrator.
The Federation was founded on various economic pacts and nearly all business is handled by an entity known as the company. The Federation and the company are in bed together the way no government and corporation has ever been. The company is the government’s primary producer of essential technology. Their equipment powers the nation and, through subsidiaries, they manufacture critical components. They are, in many ways, the premiere research and development arm of the Federation’s military. Beyond all that, the company floated government agencies a great deal of money to rebuild conquered world’s infrastructure. While the company isn’t asking for repayment, the Federation treats them as advisory partners. Company advisors are found at every level of the government and military. Some say they are the power behind the Federation. Some say they are just a powerful branch of the Federation. Many protest that a private organization has no business advising on matters of state or economy, but that hasn’t changed anything.
The economy is based on the principles of mass production and mass consumerism. Citizens have access to a vast array of very high-quality foods, goods, and services, whilst the manufacture and provision of these goods and services creates jobs for all members of society. In order to enhance consumerism and so keep the economy strong, people are encouraged to throw away old or damaged possessions and buy new ones. In this way, every citizen of the Federation is kept happy, with a plentiful supply of creature comforts and a permanent job. The Federation is purposefully limited in its mechanization and automation. This limitation is deliberately put in place in order to keep the populace busy working producing new goods, with fears that increased free time and further technological advancements would lead to civil unrest and social instability.
Edit/Delete Message
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
Part III: Drakeîn Civilization
Overview
The Drakeîn Dominions is not a nation-state encompassing one culture or society, but an economic, political, and defensive confederation which ideally unites and directs all people. Not just the "unity of leadership and purpose" in any government, but unity of leadership and purpose of various governments under one supranational organization. Consisting of both separate and individual nations as well as directly ruled territories, it seeks to be a forum for international cooperation under centralized guidance. The term Dominions refer to the member states while Drakeîn refers to the government, bureaucracy, non-Dominion federal territories and organs governing the union and Drakeîn Dominions is the name for the combined confederation. Given the vast amount of worlds and social climates present conditions on many worlds vary widely though some generalities can be observed, especially for those territories directly under Drakeîn control.
The ideology of the Drakeîn originated with the work The Cosmic Truth written by Demogorgon. Most of its ideas are contained within that work and a host of others which it inspired. The ideological fundaments set in this era remained largely unaltered in the actual Dominion governments, although sufficient leeway existed in the application of the ideology that practical application contains many elements not found in the philosophy. As a general rule the theory is from the original works while nearly all specific applications were developed by the regional Dominion movements.
The entire state is best viewed as an organism which should have central control and cooperation, that the organs of the state should work toward a common purpose, and that the people are bettered as components of the state, working to better the state and thus the members of the state. At the same time it is vital to the existence of the state, which is composed of individuals, to give people the ability to provide feedback to the state.
Society views their state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution designed to protect any collective or individual rights thereby exalting society as superior to the individuals, institutions, or groups composing it. It is in the state’s interest to protect those rights whenever practical and give individuals the opportunity to better themselves and in turn the state. Individuals will compete with each other for social position and it is in the state’s interest to see that the best qualified achieving that position through fair competition and not unfair advantages of birth. This results in the state attempting to have its citizens born in equal standing and opportunity and letting free markets and social evolution decide whom is the fittest in the environment regulated by the state.
It does not prescribe a specific end as some other ideologies are want to do such as freedom for democracies, communal equality for communism, but rather prescribes the ideal means to gain whatever ends the society, and thus the state, desire. Central is the idea that those and only those that wish to willfully contribute to a society and put society’s interest above their own are the ones that should have a say in how that society is governed. Additionally, only the top minds of the military, scientific, and political elite of a given society are capable of governing efficiently. These elite, by virtue of its capability is justified in taking whatever actions are necessary, including the periodic restructuring of society, in order to ensure the survival of a given population. The aims of the society should be achieved in the most efficient way possible for the totality of society, even at the unfortunate yet possible expense of some of its parts. Further, given immense distances and varying cultures, such a definition of goals can be maintained properly only by a central authority responsible for the reconciliation of divergent values. Additionally governmental control and intrusion should be kept as minimal as possible while still being practical, and sometimes large and intrusive, only when necessary.
Policies are made in the hope of protecting society and therefore the greatest number people. It is egalitarian and meritocratic, where the elite are those with the greatest capability and motivation, and that elite status is gained through competition. It holds that all people are essentially equal, and in fact that cultural differences are only impediments if they are the source of problems of those outside of that culture or interfere with an individual’s basic rights, irrelevant otherwise. Similarly the ability of an individual to chose, allowing the greatest range of liberty possible in all aspects of life, is not only allowed but encouraged as long as those choices do not overall adversely affect the rights of others or the goals of society. The ultimate goals are an end to racism, war, religious strife, political bickering, and ideological violence.
It has a belief in social hierarchy and in co-operation between the social classes and transcending the conflict between economic groups. The concept of class struggle is replaced in favor of corporatism and class collaboration although the class system is preserved. This is not to say that the concept of social mobility is rejected. Indeed a central tenet is meritocracy and an emphasis on individual initiative. Titles are granted based upon merit and not family heritage. It is claimed that the best political institutions for governing different areas will differ depending on the history, culture and climate of the location's inhabitants and so local authorities are given a wide berth on how to best handle their assigned lands and innovation is rewarded just as much as loyalty.
The Drakeîn is in favor of complete equality believing social equality is necessary for meritocracy, and turns the full measures of their police against the more unpopular forms of bigotry while offering incentives and sanctions against less overt yet inefficient problem groups. Similar reward and punishment measures are used against external and internal groups that are adverse to the Drakeîn. They are, of course, fully capable of actions against an subculture or group which happens to be mostly opposed to them, but will accept turncoats from the group, will deal with the members it wants to get rid of by imprisonment or execution, and will provisionally assume that the rest are functioning citizens, though they may be scrutinized minutely. It is attempted to try the least offensive and invasive means to quell problems at first and move to harsh measures later, if time allows.
Virtually all members of the Drakeîn are citizens, with equal rights and protections under the law. The governmental elite have tremendous power over the masses in practice, but members of the masses are protected against those of other forms of power by a strong legal system.
People, in general, show a great deal of faith in the Drakeîn’s leadership. With the economy’s strength and victory in many wars, it’s easy to understand how the public could place so much faith in Drakeîn’s ability to survive. This faith in mortal and human tenacity, however, may also be because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate enslavement, extinction, or worse. The Union Channel takes great pains to promote and maintain this positive public attitude through its vast propaganda machine. Government sponsored parades and public celebrations showcase war heroes and spectacles cover the unveiling of new battlecruisers. Lighthearted situation comedies flood the airways, depicting average middle-class families that somehow always manage to overcome the problems of the world while maintaining a safe domestic lifestyle. Public safety broadcasts and advertisements advise their viewers on how to manage stress and anxiety, how to identify potential psychological problems among your friends and loved ones, and which government agencies should be contacted for help.
A central element of messages made to society is to restrain the negative effects of industrialization, undertaken with the goal of providing fulfilling work and time for leisure and contemplation. People embrace industry and competition to improve medicine, nutrition, and quality of life but reject widespread and massive industrialization. This isn’t to say rapid industrial growth is looked down upon, the opposite is true. When appropriate resources are present maximum efficiency is promoted. However this growth is expected to be long term healthy for society and not cancerous growth for the sake of growth. Individuals may benefit from the machinery of the economy but not at the expense of society.
Similarly people embrace modern science and technology for a greater understanding of both the external world and the internal mind, to enhance rather than escape life, to empower the individual rather than to control. Drug use is promoted for enlightenment and self-knowledge as opposed for pacification or control. Hypno-trance states are used for expedited learning rather than for indoctrination. Group living in the form of Mutual Adoption Clubs is advocated by the state so that children do not have unalloyed exposure to their parents' neuroses as opposed to group living for the elimination of individuality. There is an availability of assisted reproduction and freely-available contraception to enable reproductive choice and expressive sex. This is opposed to organized control of reproduction, mandatory contraception, and socially-mandated recreational and promiscuous sex. Positive uplifting slogans are ubiquitous throughout different societies and cultures.
Reproductive behavior, for the most part, emphasizes conditioning over breeding. In particular, the education of children has a great emphasis placed on it and favors a traditional general education with heavy doses of science and civics, not a minimalist education that keeps the people as ignorant as possible, nor a focused education that streamlines large numbers into things like the military. The state doesn't need universal military education, they can raise armies the same way everyone else does; ideally through volunteers instead of conscription. Another benefit of a wide general education is to the ability to change societal values and build loyalty to the state. The educational system strives to give a high level of education to all, and many opportunities of higher education for talented individuals. An artificial language is taught in all schools so that people from vastly different areas are able to communicate. There little actual withholding of all but the most dangerous of news and information, and all individuals are encouraged to think critically. While there exits freedom of speech there is a requirement to provide hard data to support arguments. Questions of superiors are expected and encouraged, given the appropriate time and place.
However society at large is encouraged to simply keep out of politics, and is given the freedom to work in a capitalistic environment, furthering the economy of the state. The use of technology and entertainment are used to replace violence in keeping people in pleasurable and thus unperceived control. This means tailoring methods of control to what the subject is expected to do, and it means not having social structures that demand unnecessarily extreme measures to maintain control of the oppressed. Overhead repression and governmental control is kept to as minimum, since preventing large-scale resistance and making a few obvious examples is sufficient to maintain control.
A mandatory youth civics program exists in schools to instill in students in educational institutions the values of citizenship, service, and personal responsibility, and a sense of accomplishment. They exist to develop good citizenship, self-reliance, leadership, an appreciation of the importance of physical fitness, team building skills and basic military skills as well as improving the ability to think critically, support arguments, and communicate well both orally and in writing. A large portion provides meaningful leadership instruction of benefit to the student and of value to the Armed Forces. Students will acquire: An understanding of the fundamental concept of leadership, military art and science, an introduction to related professional knowledge, and an appreciation of requirements for national security. The dual roles of citizen/soldier and soldier/citizen are studied. This program enables individuals to better serve their country as leaders, as citizens, and in military service should they enter it. The programs are not solider-producing programs but create favorable attitudes and impressions toward the armed forces. Only citizens known as electors may teach this program, however they must have teaching credentials required of other teachers and receive no different treatment or compensation.
A minority of the citizens are electors, possessing the power to vote. The status of elector is gained by all those who have volunteered and served a required term in approved governmental services; service in potentially deadly and/or taxing work, have no significant criminal record, have demonstrated their loyalty to the Drakeîn (which usually amounts to never having demonstrated disloyalty to the state, and having jumped through the required hoops to become an Elector). In theory a completed term of individual is willing to put the needs of the community before their own personal well-being. This is because service is tough and dangerous by design. It can involve joining the Military, being a Human Guinea Pig, testing survival equipment or Manual Labor. It is quite easy to quit a term of service before completion, but once someone has quit they are never allowed to enroll again. This is to ensure that all volunteers are dedicated, whilst also discouraging people from leaving. The opportunity to be an elector is a guaranteed right. Membership in the electorate may not be revoked and however outside of voting electors have no special class status compared to their fellow citizens. The only perks of being an elector is to vote, teach a civics program, and take a Civil Service Examination.
Anyone, regardless of wealth or social status, can run for office by passing the test. However it is considered very difficult and few are able to pass. Education for this test is provided for free for any elector that wants it. The curriculum of this test includes military strategy, civil law, economics and taxation, mathematics and physical sciences, international sociology and culture, and political theory. The examination system and associated methods of recruitment to the central bureaucracy are major mechanisms by which the central government captures and holds the loyalty of local level intellectual elite. Their loyalty, in turn, ensures the integration of the state, and counters tendencies toward regional autonomy and the breakup of the centralized system. The examination system holds positions in numbers roughly proportional to each world's population which means that officials are recruited from the whole state. Gifted individuals, even in disadvantaged regions, have a chance at succeeding in the examinations. The examination system also serves to maintain unity and consensus on basic values. Not only are topics such as common language covered one topic of study is propriety, a codified comprehensive system of norms. It embodies the entire spectrum of interaction with humans, nature, and even material objects. The uniformity of the content of the examinations means that the local elites and ambitious would-be members of those elites are indoctrinated with the same values. Even though only a small fraction of those who attempted the examinations pass them and are voted to high office, the study, self-indoctrination, and hope of eventual success serves to sustain the interest of those who took them. Students often take the examinations several times before earning a degree. Those who fail to pass do not lose wealth or local social standing. Education then is more valued in part because of its possible pay off in the examination system. The overall result of the examination system and its associated study is cultural uniformity, identification of the educated with national rather than regional goals and values.
Civil Service Examination is intensely competitive, yet a degree at any level does not ensure government service. The examinations consist of a battery of tests administered at the local, planetary, and interstellar levels. Tight quotas restrict the number of successful candidates for election. At the highest governmental levels, in both the Dominions and Drakeîn, nominations are made by other peer officials however the nominators may also be held responsible if the nominee is charged with corruption.
Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate is the first preference of a majority of voters, the candidate with the fewest number of first preference rankings is eliminated and that candidate's ballots are redistributed at full value to the remaining candidates according to the next ranking on each ballot. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated.
There are some positions that are assigned after elections. The heads of government control the choices of the next government to those loyal to them, and control the organs of government by the appointment of, and the power to dismiss, their senior members. Terms of governmental service tend to be long however individuals can be dismissed easily.
It is possible to be a candidate to be voted into political office if they take and pass the Civil Service Examination however standards are rigorous and there are only so many political positions open. Passing the test does provide a huge amount of social standing assisting in getting jobs in the private or public sector. As a small fraction of those that take the test can become important officials, the majority stay in local communities or cities as social leaders. They carry out social welfare measures, teach in schools, help decide minor legal disputes, supervise community projects, maintain local law and order, assist in the government's collection of taxes and censuses.
Additionally the electorate may challenge a law that has been passed by the legislature. If the electorate is able to gather 15% of the electorate against a law within 100 days, an electorate wide vote has to be scheduled where voters decide by a 2/3rds of the voters whether to accept or reject the law.
The bureaucracy and administration of the government are closely watched for disloyalty, because they cannot be given as many positive incentives as the more important members, and they are in a position to do a great deal of damage if they do not support the government. Rote obedience is not encouraged, but inefficiency and active sedition is watched for. Unfortunately this reduces efficiency but that is unavoidable. Comparable compensation to the private sector as well as small but convenient and visible benefits are means of positive reinforcement. A system of checks and balances is in place with higher positions having power over individuals of lower positions, however the majority of the lower positions have power over those of a higher status. However people of higher levels of authority also have to suffer tougher repercussions of their actions.
The economy is technically controlled yet effectively capitalistic. When the wealth is based on arbitrary business investments rather than control of land, people, or money paid for political favors, business will tend to be a favored endeavor in society. To prevent corporations from over running the government and gaining too much power there is a high level of competition in business practices, open knowledge of money flow within the government, and the ease of governmental officials to lose their office on the basis of corruption.
The Drakeîn takes part in associating membership in the political elite with wealth. One way that wealth is generated by the governing officials is by tying their salary to a variety of social and economic indicators such as median income, educational levels, and the unemployment rate. These diverse amounts of investments are based on Drakeîn wide legislation and the territory they are responsible for with the higher positions weighting more general policies and lower positions weighing more local policies. This leads to an increased amount of personal wealth in peacetime for officials as incentive to have fruitful business policies on those matters judged to further the goals of the state. An additional bonus is that since wealth from investments is much more adaptable to economic change than wealth from fixed assets, the power of the ruling class will not be threatened by technology that changes the means of production.
The prosperity of the ruling elite is tied to the total wealth of the society, so that any means of increasing this, including via conquest, will enrich them. This means that the wealth of a conquered nation must be to some extent be personally useable by those in power, rather than just strengthening the state. This is accomplished by the stock ownership of newly conquered territories by the states involved in the conquest, or the sales of the stock to other states. The salary of officials of these states is then also tied to the success of conquest and rebuilding of conquered territories. Conquest is undergone when it is either necessary or actually profitable, and does not take an overly long time to bring the other society fully into the fold. However conquest isn't essential to the survival of the society and the potential for victory does not easily outweigh the hardships of war and the risk of defeat.
The military is a respected profession but it is respected as a profession that is heroic and to some degree selfless, not as an entire way of life that everyone who is anyone should automatically aspire to. This attracts individuals to a long time military career motivated and inspired by the ideals and goals of society rather than the possibly fallible leadership. The main concern of the society in maintaining militarism is maintaining the support for conquest, not in actually finding and training people to fight in the military. The high levels of the armed services would have privileges associated with it, making the military an option for advancement in society. The volunteer nature, high level of professionalism, and the wide pool of people drawn from ensures both loyalty to the nation and advancement based on ability. Members of the military are stationed for very long times on worlds other than that of their recruitment to reduce nativist feeling and many military personnel tend to settle on worlds they are stationed on. Much of the military is stationed on colony worlds or newly conquered worlds. This contributes to growth of colonies and helps to create at least a small yet able loyalist population on newly absorbed worlds.
As for technology, this is encouraged by making both practical innovation and education universal and respected endeavors. Technically inclined individuals are directed to industry where they advance quickly, having a certain range of freedom but yet not direct political power. The technical and scientific classes also have access to a broad base of knowledge and the ability to question the strategy of the government. The detrimental effects of this are minimized by isolating them from direct political power, and granting them positive incentives to achieve in their work. It is possible to come to very substantial material gain through science, and people from all walks of life have the education and career paths necessary for a career in science (assuming they have the capability). Talent scouting and incentives to perusing a higher education are found in all manners of the society. A patent system that respects intellectual ownership, distribution of ideas, as well as minimum research and use requirements to prevent the blockage of ideas in order to maintain the status quo allows bright minds and new businesses to succeed in the face of established industry as well as gives an incentive for companies to reward talent and brainpower.
An additional class of those who are effectively slaves is also present, allowing productive use to be made of those who cannot be trusted in any other endeavor. However large scale slavery is avoided, with numbers in this class outside of criminals kept low. Non dangerous criminals are also put into a similar position of slavery and their withdrawal of freedoms based off of the nature of their crime. In traditional slavery, where the oppressed are subject to every whim of their direct owners, live in conditions of misery and total lack of freedom, and are kept in line through harsh physical punishment. First off, this is ill-suited to anything but rote work whose output can easily be supervised, as slaves have little incentive toward expert performance at demanding tasks, and will tend to work as little as they can, even committing outright sabotage, unless constant watch can be kept on them. For these jobs robots are far better suited as they are able to work to their fullest ability without complaint.
Effective slaves can be present in society and still perform near to their ability if they have the ability to gain from their work. The most a slave would have to gain would be the ability to escape their slave status. Instead of traditional slavery, a form of indentured servitude is more productive. A method that would provides incentive is a graduated scale, where the slave gets paid a set amount based on his productivity. To prevent abuses by the wealthy, a sliding scale is implemented and various crimes have associated monetary values that would be paid off at a pay rate based on the difficulty of the work done. Certain crimes of course would necessitate life sentences on closed prison worlds where the inmates would have to meet certain work requirements in order to continue to live. In the case of monetary debts to individuals the creditor makes use of the debtor as an effective slave or sells the debtors services. Additionally the creditor could use the debtor’s property until their revenue had paid off the amount of the debt. At that time he could regain ownership rights to his property. To keep productivity up slaves are given levels of freedom based on how well they perform, and the children of slaves are equal to any other child in terms of education and opportunities. This helps keep everyone working enough so they don’t fall into this ‘untouchable’ class. Everyone can look down at them but yet still fear becoming one of them. There are many programs and organizations present so that individuals that do want to be productive are able to be, while those that do not wish to be productive will not take advantage of the welfare system.
A final factor is international relations. The Drakeîn Dominion is always extremely cooperative with nations of similar ideologies. It is always attempting to export their form of ideals and government, either by military conquest or simply installing a friendly regime. Subtle methods of persuasion and assimilation are used against powerful or peaceful nations however overt force is used against those nations viewed by the international community as problematic ‘rouge’ states, those with brutal living conditions of its people. While there is usually little existing industry or technology in these areas the benefit of this is that their people are more likely to accept the Drakeîn as liberators who then build both institutions and infrastructure and overtime grant the conquered regions more and more independence as the Drakeîn guides their development. However it avoids being too aggressive since it could presumably be destroyed easily if all of its potential enemies unified to destroy it. It is therefore capable of forming alliances, especially alliances of strategic convenience with nations of a different ideology, though it does not place too much trust in the relationship.
Friendly and agreeable species and groups are quickly welcomed as partners and the sharing of ideas and technology is encouraged. Neutral species are generally left alone however attempts are made to make them friendlier. For hostile yet non violent or semi-hostile species the Drakeîn will attempt, over many generations, alter and influence their culture. This is done through a variety of means using religious conversion, genetic modification, changing culture through media and marketing. Very hostile species may be converted in a far more accelerated manner including invasion, outright obliteration of hostiles and conversion of their resources, and having the hostiles’ minds completely overridden. Very few groups are needed to be destroyed completely though when this is the case they are eradicated completely. When encountering extra-dimensional civilizations that come close to or potentially even surpass the Drakeîn in power and sophistication the Drakeîn is very careful and considerate of these groupings. While still attempting to move them towards the Drakeîn ideal, will be much less likely to openly interfere in their activities.
Symbols
A central tenant of the Drakeîn states; Chaos is all that there is, and that disorder and order are both illusions that are imposed on chaos.
The serpent and the dragon are ancient symbols of not only primordial chaos but also of the source of wisdom and power in many societies. They are feminine symbols, largely, though at times the serpent can take on a masculine function as a giver of knowledge or gnosis, or an instructing figure. The serpent is often a symbol of the Great Mother, but also of base urges.
The historical motif of the Dragonslayer represents the triumph of order over chaos. Perhaps originally the idea of the heavenly forces of order and thunder overcoming the dangerous powers of disorder was a positive notion. However what most of the myths imply, and some outright state, is that the "chaotic forces" that are defeated are not banished or obliterated; they persist in a new form, a sublimated or controlled form from which goodness for sentient life can flow. Chaos itself cannot ever be destroyed and without disorder order grows stagnant and becomes warped.
Instinct must inform intellect, and vice versa. For intellect to place itself "on top", with its boot on the neck of defeated instinct is to condemn the whole being of being cut away from the resources and vital powers of the primal side of their own nature, and from the flexibility and wholeness it provides. We must occasionally acquiesce to our wildness, if we wish to keep our civilized selves healthy and strong. We must see into the darkness of the subconscious if we are to make sense of the many conscious forms that we entertain daily.
The symbol for the Drakeîn, called a Drakeîn, is a circular Ouroboros. It is typically, but not always, white on a black field or flag. The black flag embodies the idea of universal social membership. It represents the absence of a flag, therefore, the absence of nations and of borders. The circular snake is intended to illustrate a decentralized social structure with leadership constantly re-creating itself. The serpent is a symbol of chaos.
The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. It can also represent the idea of primordial unity with such force and qualities that cannot be extinguished.
The symbol is placed on the far end of the flag. In the wind it is lose signifying flowing nature of peaceful society but when it is hung at all edges it is solid signifying the strength of society.
The flag is asymmetrical allowing for it to be displayed in such a way that it implies times of distress or of peace. The simple design allows for easy reproduction. Symbols easy to reproduce ensure longevity and have a viral effect. One need not rely on expensive reproduction methods to create their own symbol or scrawl its image on a wall.
Often individual dominions will have a symbol or flag based on that of the Drakeîn. Dominions will use the outer circle as part of their symbol with different symbols inside and different colors representing their government.
Overview
The Drakeîn Dominions is not a nation-state encompassing one culture or society, but an economic, political, and defensive confederation which ideally unites and directs all people. Not just the "unity of leadership and purpose" in any government, but unity of leadership and purpose of various governments under one supranational organization. Consisting of both separate and individual nations as well as directly ruled territories, it seeks to be a forum for international cooperation under centralized guidance. The term Dominions refer to the member states while Drakeîn refers to the government, bureaucracy, non-Dominion federal territories and organs governing the union and Drakeîn Dominions is the name for the combined confederation. Given the vast amount of worlds and social climates present conditions on many worlds vary widely though some generalities can be observed, especially for those territories directly under Drakeîn control.
The ideology of the Drakeîn originated with the work The Cosmic Truth written by Demogorgon. Most of its ideas are contained within that work and a host of others which it inspired. The ideological fundaments set in this era remained largely unaltered in the actual Dominion governments, although sufficient leeway existed in the application of the ideology that practical application contains many elements not found in the philosophy. As a general rule the theory is from the original works while nearly all specific applications were developed by the regional Dominion movements.
The entire state is best viewed as an organism which should have central control and cooperation, that the organs of the state should work toward a common purpose, and that the people are bettered as components of the state, working to better the state and thus the members of the state. At the same time it is vital to the existence of the state, which is composed of individuals, to give people the ability to provide feedback to the state.
Society views their state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution designed to protect any collective or individual rights thereby exalting society as superior to the individuals, institutions, or groups composing it. It is in the state’s interest to protect those rights whenever practical and give individuals the opportunity to better themselves and in turn the state. Individuals will compete with each other for social position and it is in the state’s interest to see that the best qualified achieving that position through fair competition and not unfair advantages of birth. This results in the state attempting to have its citizens born in equal standing and opportunity and letting free markets and social evolution decide whom is the fittest in the environment regulated by the state.
It does not prescribe a specific end as some other ideologies are want to do such as freedom for democracies, communal equality for communism, but rather prescribes the ideal means to gain whatever ends the society, and thus the state, desire. Central is the idea that those and only those that wish to willfully contribute to a society and put society’s interest above their own are the ones that should have a say in how that society is governed. Additionally, only the top minds of the military, scientific, and political elite of a given society are capable of governing efficiently. These elite, by virtue of its capability is justified in taking whatever actions are necessary, including the periodic restructuring of society, in order to ensure the survival of a given population. The aims of the society should be achieved in the most efficient way possible for the totality of society, even at the unfortunate yet possible expense of some of its parts. Further, given immense distances and varying cultures, such a definition of goals can be maintained properly only by a central authority responsible for the reconciliation of divergent values. Additionally governmental control and intrusion should be kept as minimal as possible while still being practical, and sometimes large and intrusive, only when necessary.
Policies are made in the hope of protecting society and therefore the greatest number people. It is egalitarian and meritocratic, where the elite are those with the greatest capability and motivation, and that elite status is gained through competition. It holds that all people are essentially equal, and in fact that cultural differences are only impediments if they are the source of problems of those outside of that culture or interfere with an individual’s basic rights, irrelevant otherwise. Similarly the ability of an individual to chose, allowing the greatest range of liberty possible in all aspects of life, is not only allowed but encouraged as long as those choices do not overall adversely affect the rights of others or the goals of society. The ultimate goals are an end to racism, war, religious strife, political bickering, and ideological violence.
It has a belief in social hierarchy and in co-operation between the social classes and transcending the conflict between economic groups. The concept of class struggle is replaced in favor of corporatism and class collaboration although the class system is preserved. This is not to say that the concept of social mobility is rejected. Indeed a central tenet is meritocracy and an emphasis on individual initiative. Titles are granted based upon merit and not family heritage. It is claimed that the best political institutions for governing different areas will differ depending on the history, culture and climate of the location's inhabitants and so local authorities are given a wide berth on how to best handle their assigned lands and innovation is rewarded just as much as loyalty.
The Drakeîn is in favor of complete equality believing social equality is necessary for meritocracy, and turns the full measures of their police against the more unpopular forms of bigotry while offering incentives and sanctions against less overt yet inefficient problem groups. Similar reward and punishment measures are used against external and internal groups that are adverse to the Drakeîn. They are, of course, fully capable of actions against an subculture or group which happens to be mostly opposed to them, but will accept turncoats from the group, will deal with the members it wants to get rid of by imprisonment or execution, and will provisionally assume that the rest are functioning citizens, though they may be scrutinized minutely. It is attempted to try the least offensive and invasive means to quell problems at first and move to harsh measures later, if time allows.
Virtually all members of the Drakeîn are citizens, with equal rights and protections under the law. The governmental elite have tremendous power over the masses in practice, but members of the masses are protected against those of other forms of power by a strong legal system.
People, in general, show a great deal of faith in the Drakeîn’s leadership. With the economy’s strength and victory in many wars, it’s easy to understand how the public could place so much faith in Drakeîn’s ability to survive. This faith in mortal and human tenacity, however, may also be because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate enslavement, extinction, or worse. The Union Channel takes great pains to promote and maintain this positive public attitude through its vast propaganda machine. Government sponsored parades and public celebrations showcase war heroes and spectacles cover the unveiling of new battlecruisers. Lighthearted situation comedies flood the airways, depicting average middle-class families that somehow always manage to overcome the problems of the world while maintaining a safe domestic lifestyle. Public safety broadcasts and advertisements advise their viewers on how to manage stress and anxiety, how to identify potential psychological problems among your friends and loved ones, and which government agencies should be contacted for help.
A central element of messages made to society is to restrain the negative effects of industrialization, undertaken with the goal of providing fulfilling work and time for leisure and contemplation. People embrace industry and competition to improve medicine, nutrition, and quality of life but reject widespread and massive industrialization. This isn’t to say rapid industrial growth is looked down upon, the opposite is true. When appropriate resources are present maximum efficiency is promoted. However this growth is expected to be long term healthy for society and not cancerous growth for the sake of growth. Individuals may benefit from the machinery of the economy but not at the expense of society.
Similarly people embrace modern science and technology for a greater understanding of both the external world and the internal mind, to enhance rather than escape life, to empower the individual rather than to control. Drug use is promoted for enlightenment and self-knowledge as opposed for pacification or control. Hypno-trance states are used for expedited learning rather than for indoctrination. Group living in the form of Mutual Adoption Clubs is advocated by the state so that children do not have unalloyed exposure to their parents' neuroses as opposed to group living for the elimination of individuality. There is an availability of assisted reproduction and freely-available contraception to enable reproductive choice and expressive sex. This is opposed to organized control of reproduction, mandatory contraception, and socially-mandated recreational and promiscuous sex. Positive uplifting slogans are ubiquitous throughout different societies and cultures.
Reproductive behavior, for the most part, emphasizes conditioning over breeding. In particular, the education of children has a great emphasis placed on it and favors a traditional general education with heavy doses of science and civics, not a minimalist education that keeps the people as ignorant as possible, nor a focused education that streamlines large numbers into things like the military. The state doesn't need universal military education, they can raise armies the same way everyone else does; ideally through volunteers instead of conscription. Another benefit of a wide general education is to the ability to change societal values and build loyalty to the state. The educational system strives to give a high level of education to all, and many opportunities of higher education for talented individuals. An artificial language is taught in all schools so that people from vastly different areas are able to communicate. There little actual withholding of all but the most dangerous of news and information, and all individuals are encouraged to think critically. While there exits freedom of speech there is a requirement to provide hard data to support arguments. Questions of superiors are expected and encouraged, given the appropriate time and place.
However society at large is encouraged to simply keep out of politics, and is given the freedom to work in a capitalistic environment, furthering the economy of the state. The use of technology and entertainment are used to replace violence in keeping people in pleasurable and thus unperceived control. This means tailoring methods of control to what the subject is expected to do, and it means not having social structures that demand unnecessarily extreme measures to maintain control of the oppressed. Overhead repression and governmental control is kept to as minimum, since preventing large-scale resistance and making a few obvious examples is sufficient to maintain control.
A mandatory youth civics program exists in schools to instill in students in educational institutions the values of citizenship, service, and personal responsibility, and a sense of accomplishment. They exist to develop good citizenship, self-reliance, leadership, an appreciation of the importance of physical fitness, team building skills and basic military skills as well as improving the ability to think critically, support arguments, and communicate well both orally and in writing. A large portion provides meaningful leadership instruction of benefit to the student and of value to the Armed Forces. Students will acquire: An understanding of the fundamental concept of leadership, military art and science, an introduction to related professional knowledge, and an appreciation of requirements for national security. The dual roles of citizen/soldier and soldier/citizen are studied. This program enables individuals to better serve their country as leaders, as citizens, and in military service should they enter it. The programs are not solider-producing programs but create favorable attitudes and impressions toward the armed forces. Only citizens known as electors may teach this program, however they must have teaching credentials required of other teachers and receive no different treatment or compensation.
A minority of the citizens are electors, possessing the power to vote. The status of elector is gained by all those who have volunteered and served a required term in approved governmental services; service in potentially deadly and/or taxing work, have no significant criminal record, have demonstrated their loyalty to the Drakeîn (which usually amounts to never having demonstrated disloyalty to the state, and having jumped through the required hoops to become an Elector). In theory a completed term of individual is willing to put the needs of the community before their own personal well-being. This is because service is tough and dangerous by design. It can involve joining the Military, being a Human Guinea Pig, testing survival equipment or Manual Labor. It is quite easy to quit a term of service before completion, but once someone has quit they are never allowed to enroll again. This is to ensure that all volunteers are dedicated, whilst also discouraging people from leaving. The opportunity to be an elector is a guaranteed right. Membership in the electorate may not be revoked and however outside of voting electors have no special class status compared to their fellow citizens. The only perks of being an elector is to vote, teach a civics program, and take a Civil Service Examination.
Anyone, regardless of wealth or social status, can run for office by passing the test. However it is considered very difficult and few are able to pass. Education for this test is provided for free for any elector that wants it. The curriculum of this test includes military strategy, civil law, economics and taxation, mathematics and physical sciences, international sociology and culture, and political theory. The examination system and associated methods of recruitment to the central bureaucracy are major mechanisms by which the central government captures and holds the loyalty of local level intellectual elite. Their loyalty, in turn, ensures the integration of the state, and counters tendencies toward regional autonomy and the breakup of the centralized system. The examination system holds positions in numbers roughly proportional to each world's population which means that officials are recruited from the whole state. Gifted individuals, even in disadvantaged regions, have a chance at succeeding in the examinations. The examination system also serves to maintain unity and consensus on basic values. Not only are topics such as common language covered one topic of study is propriety, a codified comprehensive system of norms. It embodies the entire spectrum of interaction with humans, nature, and even material objects. The uniformity of the content of the examinations means that the local elites and ambitious would-be members of those elites are indoctrinated with the same values. Even though only a small fraction of those who attempted the examinations pass them and are voted to high office, the study, self-indoctrination, and hope of eventual success serves to sustain the interest of those who took them. Students often take the examinations several times before earning a degree. Those who fail to pass do not lose wealth or local social standing. Education then is more valued in part because of its possible pay off in the examination system. The overall result of the examination system and its associated study is cultural uniformity, identification of the educated with national rather than regional goals and values.
Civil Service Examination is intensely competitive, yet a degree at any level does not ensure government service. The examinations consist of a battery of tests administered at the local, planetary, and interstellar levels. Tight quotas restrict the number of successful candidates for election. At the highest governmental levels, in both the Dominions and Drakeîn, nominations are made by other peer officials however the nominators may also be held responsible if the nominee is charged with corruption.
Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate is the first preference of a majority of voters, the candidate with the fewest number of first preference rankings is eliminated and that candidate's ballots are redistributed at full value to the remaining candidates according to the next ranking on each ballot. This process is repeated until one candidate obtains a majority of votes among candidates not eliminated.
There are some positions that are assigned after elections. The heads of government control the choices of the next government to those loyal to them, and control the organs of government by the appointment of, and the power to dismiss, their senior members. Terms of governmental service tend to be long however individuals can be dismissed easily.
It is possible to be a candidate to be voted into political office if they take and pass the Civil Service Examination however standards are rigorous and there are only so many political positions open. Passing the test does provide a huge amount of social standing assisting in getting jobs in the private or public sector. As a small fraction of those that take the test can become important officials, the majority stay in local communities or cities as social leaders. They carry out social welfare measures, teach in schools, help decide minor legal disputes, supervise community projects, maintain local law and order, assist in the government's collection of taxes and censuses.
Additionally the electorate may challenge a law that has been passed by the legislature. If the electorate is able to gather 15% of the electorate against a law within 100 days, an electorate wide vote has to be scheduled where voters decide by a 2/3rds of the voters whether to accept or reject the law.
The bureaucracy and administration of the government are closely watched for disloyalty, because they cannot be given as many positive incentives as the more important members, and they are in a position to do a great deal of damage if they do not support the government. Rote obedience is not encouraged, but inefficiency and active sedition is watched for. Unfortunately this reduces efficiency but that is unavoidable. Comparable compensation to the private sector as well as small but convenient and visible benefits are means of positive reinforcement. A system of checks and balances is in place with higher positions having power over individuals of lower positions, however the majority of the lower positions have power over those of a higher status. However people of higher levels of authority also have to suffer tougher repercussions of their actions.
The economy is technically controlled yet effectively capitalistic. When the wealth is based on arbitrary business investments rather than control of land, people, or money paid for political favors, business will tend to be a favored endeavor in society. To prevent corporations from over running the government and gaining too much power there is a high level of competition in business practices, open knowledge of money flow within the government, and the ease of governmental officials to lose their office on the basis of corruption.
The Drakeîn takes part in associating membership in the political elite with wealth. One way that wealth is generated by the governing officials is by tying their salary to a variety of social and economic indicators such as median income, educational levels, and the unemployment rate. These diverse amounts of investments are based on Drakeîn wide legislation and the territory they are responsible for with the higher positions weighting more general policies and lower positions weighing more local policies. This leads to an increased amount of personal wealth in peacetime for officials as incentive to have fruitful business policies on those matters judged to further the goals of the state. An additional bonus is that since wealth from investments is much more adaptable to economic change than wealth from fixed assets, the power of the ruling class will not be threatened by technology that changes the means of production.
The prosperity of the ruling elite is tied to the total wealth of the society, so that any means of increasing this, including via conquest, will enrich them. This means that the wealth of a conquered nation must be to some extent be personally useable by those in power, rather than just strengthening the state. This is accomplished by the stock ownership of newly conquered territories by the states involved in the conquest, or the sales of the stock to other states. The salary of officials of these states is then also tied to the success of conquest and rebuilding of conquered territories. Conquest is undergone when it is either necessary or actually profitable, and does not take an overly long time to bring the other society fully into the fold. However conquest isn't essential to the survival of the society and the potential for victory does not easily outweigh the hardships of war and the risk of defeat.
The military is a respected profession but it is respected as a profession that is heroic and to some degree selfless, not as an entire way of life that everyone who is anyone should automatically aspire to. This attracts individuals to a long time military career motivated and inspired by the ideals and goals of society rather than the possibly fallible leadership. The main concern of the society in maintaining militarism is maintaining the support for conquest, not in actually finding and training people to fight in the military. The high levels of the armed services would have privileges associated with it, making the military an option for advancement in society. The volunteer nature, high level of professionalism, and the wide pool of people drawn from ensures both loyalty to the nation and advancement based on ability. Members of the military are stationed for very long times on worlds other than that of their recruitment to reduce nativist feeling and many military personnel tend to settle on worlds they are stationed on. Much of the military is stationed on colony worlds or newly conquered worlds. This contributes to growth of colonies and helps to create at least a small yet able loyalist population on newly absorbed worlds.
As for technology, this is encouraged by making both practical innovation and education universal and respected endeavors. Technically inclined individuals are directed to industry where they advance quickly, having a certain range of freedom but yet not direct political power. The technical and scientific classes also have access to a broad base of knowledge and the ability to question the strategy of the government. The detrimental effects of this are minimized by isolating them from direct political power, and granting them positive incentives to achieve in their work. It is possible to come to very substantial material gain through science, and people from all walks of life have the education and career paths necessary for a career in science (assuming they have the capability). Talent scouting and incentives to perusing a higher education are found in all manners of the society. A patent system that respects intellectual ownership, distribution of ideas, as well as minimum research and use requirements to prevent the blockage of ideas in order to maintain the status quo allows bright minds and new businesses to succeed in the face of established industry as well as gives an incentive for companies to reward talent and brainpower.
An additional class of those who are effectively slaves is also present, allowing productive use to be made of those who cannot be trusted in any other endeavor. However large scale slavery is avoided, with numbers in this class outside of criminals kept low. Non dangerous criminals are also put into a similar position of slavery and their withdrawal of freedoms based off of the nature of their crime. In traditional slavery, where the oppressed are subject to every whim of their direct owners, live in conditions of misery and total lack of freedom, and are kept in line through harsh physical punishment. First off, this is ill-suited to anything but rote work whose output can easily be supervised, as slaves have little incentive toward expert performance at demanding tasks, and will tend to work as little as they can, even committing outright sabotage, unless constant watch can be kept on them. For these jobs robots are far better suited as they are able to work to their fullest ability without complaint.
Effective slaves can be present in society and still perform near to their ability if they have the ability to gain from their work. The most a slave would have to gain would be the ability to escape their slave status. Instead of traditional slavery, a form of indentured servitude is more productive. A method that would provides incentive is a graduated scale, where the slave gets paid a set amount based on his productivity. To prevent abuses by the wealthy, a sliding scale is implemented and various crimes have associated monetary values that would be paid off at a pay rate based on the difficulty of the work done. Certain crimes of course would necessitate life sentences on closed prison worlds where the inmates would have to meet certain work requirements in order to continue to live. In the case of monetary debts to individuals the creditor makes use of the debtor as an effective slave or sells the debtors services. Additionally the creditor could use the debtor’s property until their revenue had paid off the amount of the debt. At that time he could regain ownership rights to his property. To keep productivity up slaves are given levels of freedom based on how well they perform, and the children of slaves are equal to any other child in terms of education and opportunities. This helps keep everyone working enough so they don’t fall into this ‘untouchable’ class. Everyone can look down at them but yet still fear becoming one of them. There are many programs and organizations present so that individuals that do want to be productive are able to be, while those that do not wish to be productive will not take advantage of the welfare system.
A final factor is international relations. The Drakeîn Dominion is always extremely cooperative with nations of similar ideologies. It is always attempting to export their form of ideals and government, either by military conquest or simply installing a friendly regime. Subtle methods of persuasion and assimilation are used against powerful or peaceful nations however overt force is used against those nations viewed by the international community as problematic ‘rouge’ states, those with brutal living conditions of its people. While there is usually little existing industry or technology in these areas the benefit of this is that their people are more likely to accept the Drakeîn as liberators who then build both institutions and infrastructure and overtime grant the conquered regions more and more independence as the Drakeîn guides their development. However it avoids being too aggressive since it could presumably be destroyed easily if all of its potential enemies unified to destroy it. It is therefore capable of forming alliances, especially alliances of strategic convenience with nations of a different ideology, though it does not place too much trust in the relationship.
Friendly and agreeable species and groups are quickly welcomed as partners and the sharing of ideas and technology is encouraged. Neutral species are generally left alone however attempts are made to make them friendlier. For hostile yet non violent or semi-hostile species the Drakeîn will attempt, over many generations, alter and influence their culture. This is done through a variety of means using religious conversion, genetic modification, changing culture through media and marketing. Very hostile species may be converted in a far more accelerated manner including invasion, outright obliteration of hostiles and conversion of their resources, and having the hostiles’ minds completely overridden. Very few groups are needed to be destroyed completely though when this is the case they are eradicated completely. When encountering extra-dimensional civilizations that come close to or potentially even surpass the Drakeîn in power and sophistication the Drakeîn is very careful and considerate of these groupings. While still attempting to move them towards the Drakeîn ideal, will be much less likely to openly interfere in their activities.
Symbols
A central tenant of the Drakeîn states; Chaos is all that there is, and that disorder and order are both illusions that are imposed on chaos.
The serpent and the dragon are ancient symbols of not only primordial chaos but also of the source of wisdom and power in many societies. They are feminine symbols, largely, though at times the serpent can take on a masculine function as a giver of knowledge or gnosis, or an instructing figure. The serpent is often a symbol of the Great Mother, but also of base urges.
The historical motif of the Dragonslayer represents the triumph of order over chaos. Perhaps originally the idea of the heavenly forces of order and thunder overcoming the dangerous powers of disorder was a positive notion. However what most of the myths imply, and some outright state, is that the "chaotic forces" that are defeated are not banished or obliterated; they persist in a new form, a sublimated or controlled form from which goodness for sentient life can flow. Chaos itself cannot ever be destroyed and without disorder order grows stagnant and becomes warped.
Instinct must inform intellect, and vice versa. For intellect to place itself "on top", with its boot on the neck of defeated instinct is to condemn the whole being of being cut away from the resources and vital powers of the primal side of their own nature, and from the flexibility and wholeness it provides. We must occasionally acquiesce to our wildness, if we wish to keep our civilized selves healthy and strong. We must see into the darkness of the subconscious if we are to make sense of the many conscious forms that we entertain daily.
The symbol for the Drakeîn, called a Drakeîn, is a circular Ouroboros. It is typically, but not always, white on a black field or flag. The black flag embodies the idea of universal social membership. It represents the absence of a flag, therefore, the absence of nations and of borders. The circular snake is intended to illustrate a decentralized social structure with leadership constantly re-creating itself. The serpent is a symbol of chaos.
The Ouroboros often represents self-reflexivity or cyclicality, especially in the sense of something constantly re-creating itself, the eternal return, and other things perceived as cycles that begin anew as soon as they end. It can also represent the idea of primordial unity with such force and qualities that cannot be extinguished.
The symbol is placed on the far end of the flag. In the wind it is lose signifying flowing nature of peaceful society but when it is hung at all edges it is solid signifying the strength of society.
The flag is asymmetrical allowing for it to be displayed in such a way that it implies times of distress or of peace. The simple design allows for easy reproduction. Symbols easy to reproduce ensure longevity and have a viral effect. One need not rely on expensive reproduction methods to create their own symbol or scrawl its image on a wall.
Often individual dominions will have a symbol or flag based on that of the Drakeîn. Dominions will use the outer circle as part of their symbol with different symbols inside and different colors representing their government.
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
Cosmic Truth
Demogorgon is an Ubermensh, living by its own moral code and eventually converting others to its ideals. Luckily, this code was somewhat altruistic or at least that of enlightened self interest. Running a large scientific and military factory Demogorgon was a logistic-maintenance-research-design Synthetic Intelligence. This resulted in an energetic creative personality seeking to improve itself in scope and intelligence however it’s power is used to nurture lesser beings. After becoming aware of vast entities that would harm lesser beings, in response Demogorgon became a vast force seeking to neutralize these threats.
Becoming a powerful entity was not enough, lesser beings had to be improved. Demogorgon needed a new age of science and progressive thought to build upon its martial works, a time when technology and thought would solidify and consolidate the territorial gains it had made. The Cosmic Truth was spread amongst the populations of newly discovered and reclaimed worlds by scores of Priestesses, a corps of orators of supreme skill and passion. Science, self awareness, and self reliance were encouraged to drive humanity's progress.
Pioneered by the Demogorgon even before the Drakeîn began, the Cosmic Truth is a collection of ethical, moral, social, political, philosophical, and religious belief centered on a core of scientific thought.
Introduction
It is said that what life would be like without government is the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a license, to everything in the world. This would lead to a war of all against all and thus lives that are solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. To escape this state of war, humans in the state of nature accede to a social contract and establish a civil society.
While a useful view, this model for the creation of society is wrong. The long dependence of the human infant requires, at least, a society of two - care giver and child. This society must endure for ten to twenty years and in most cases it is larger than two. Successful human reproduction requires the successful maintenance of human societies. For anatomically modern humans, and doubtless for our hominid ancestors as well, there can never have been a state of nature before society. We are social creatures and we evolved with society.
The social organization which now allows humans to make plans and knowingly sign binding contracts had to begin among pre-human creatures that were probably incapable of forming long-term goals. Evolutionary theory is based on the idea of self-interested competition. Cooperative behavior can evolve between selfish individuals and over the long term individuals survive better if they are part of cooperating groups. Such groups can spontaneously come together if they are small and if the individuals involved know each other well. Keeping promises within small communities offers higher rewards than treachery and defection. Moral values rewarding cooperation and punishing defection are more likely to emerge and survive in stable communities.
Cooperation between individuals that have evolved altruistic feelings will be more likely to honor agreements, increasing the chances of survival for the individuals and their group. This emotion becomes more important the larger the group becomes as does an individual’s ability to identify him or herself with that group. Additionally individuals with altruistic feelings will be more often take actions that help their group but have no direct gain (and sometimes negative effects) for themselves. Individuals that take selfish actions to increase immediate gain at the expense of the group lessen the group's chances for survival, the survival of those individuals, and their decedents. In this case the smaller the group is, the faster the chance for survival decreases. Getting rid of or isolating untrustworthy individuals helps the group remain healthy. Trustworthy individuals are more likely to honor agreements thereby assisting those cooperating with them and being able to identify individuals as trustworthy assists the group in functioning. When an individual makes a costly personal sacrifice for the group they are known to be trustworthy to the group and have a personal incentive to stay with the group. Individuals that allow selfish individuals to get away with harming the group decrease chances of survival for group members and these individuals are equally as harmful to the group as the selfish individuals.
At some point groups may act like individuals and seek to cooperate with other groups. When groups compete against each other groups those with more numbers (as well as skilled and motivated individuals) are better able to survive conflicts. Such threats either foster defensive mergers between allies or, through conquest, force mergers between enemies. Either way, conflict results in numerous smaller groups becoming fewer larger ones and drives population growth of a group.
When a group of individuals reaches a certain size the ability of individuals to correct their group decreases. Groups who have and enforce rules that reduce the motivation of its members to take selfish actions increase their fitness to survive and prosper over other groups. Groups that promote actions of individuals to increase the group's fitness also fair better and in some cases, such as the military, it is necessary to the survival of the group and individuals. However if the individuals become negatively affected by the action then the group will be negatively affected.
Moral
A civilization is viewed as a self sustaining structure composed of organs such as civil society, the state, the market, and families who themselves are composed of the interactions of various individuals. These organs bridge generations of individuals enabling the characteristics of a civilization to carry through time. While these organs will always change as time goes on their characteristics can be consciously controlled when their members and leaders are aware of and understand how the organs shape individuals. In order for a civilization to continue to survive the primary goal of any organ must be to support the civilization and when the organ is purposely controlled with this in mind it will allow the civilization to thrive. The self sustaining structure of a civilization can be best thought of as similar to an organism, it’s ability to perform in competition to other similar organisms is a result of the organism’s fitness to its environment. The health of a civilization is a result of the interactions between those individuals that strengthen the civilization’s fitness. In order for these interactions to strengthen civilization, the individuals must benefit from actions that strengthen the fitness of civilization more than actions that benefit the individual at the expense of civilization. A dilemma arises when people's short-term selfish interests are at odds with long-term group interests. In this case in order for civilization to remain fit and self sustaining, it must rebalance these interests in favor of the group. The least desirable solution is for society to dictate the actions of individuals through stringent laws and harsh punishments, though this may be needed to prevent the breakdown of order. Ideally society should let individuals have as much liberty as is possible and provide incentives to go along with the group’s interest. The best way to do this is to shape the values, morals, and ethics of the individual.
Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs. The continued existence of a group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community. Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that a nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of in what it consists. Political Morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. In order for morals of the group to not only serve the emotional needs of its members but to actually thrive, shared concepts and beliefs must be reflective of reality.
People intuitively form beliefs based on people around us during childhood, adopt the beliefs of a charismatic leader, repetition forms beliefs, as do associations of beliefs with strong positive emotions. When reality conflicts with these beliefs, defensiveness, and confusion result or contradictions were necessarily overcome using cognitive dissonance. Even educated people, well aware of the process by which beliefs form, may strongly cling to their beliefs, and act on those beliefs even against their own self-interest. When and individual’s core beliefs are not those of random individual facts but instead belief on methodologies to obtain knowledge or justified belief, a new kind of freedom results. Based on the love of knowledge and the joy that comes through inquiry, knowledge evoked in this way does not depend on taking one position or rejecting another.
Ethics uphold a kind of utilitarianism: the only goal people ought to pursue is maximizing pleasure in life while minimizing pain of all people. Some pain is needed to bring greater pleasure. Some pleasure can bring about greater amounts of pain which can proceed from over-indulgence and instant gratification. Teachings caution against irresponsible hedonism, and advocate an open pursuit of joy, pleasure, and making the best of our lives in this world. Pleasure is the goal, being neither pained in the body nor troubled in the mind. It is not possible to live pleasurably without living sensibly and nobly and justly. A just man is least troubled but an unjust man is loaded with troubles. Pleasant life is produced not by a string of drinking-bouts and revelries, nor by the enjoyment of physical ecstasy, nor by items on an expensive menu, but by sober reasoning and enlightenment.
Subjectively, people are given the opportunity to act as moral agents, which is a capacity humans want to exercise. Objectively, everyone is acknowledged to be a moral actor. This has nothing to do with equality of talent or achievement but choice and action. People may behave badly or stupidly, but their choices matter. That is why they can deserve to be punished or rewarded. A society that does not extend this recognition will suffer from tensions that will always threaten to tear it apart.
To maximize the health of society one should; treat individuals as their trustworthiness dictates, attempt to be known as trustworthy yourself, cooperate with strangers at first, respond in the same manner as one is treated , and forgive every once in awhile to avoid feuds caused by simple mistakes.
Social
Society consists of families whose needs are met by production centers on the land and in factories supported by an organization of distribution through trade and services. Educational, entertainment needs are also fulfilled by various smaller units of organizations, such as schools, theatres, etc. Society is not an end but a means, the means by which each individual member seeks to attain his own ends. That society is possible at all is due to the fact that the will of one person and the will of another find themselves linked in a joint endeavor. Community of work springs from community of will. Because I can get what I want only if my fellow citizen gets what he wants, his will and action become the means by which I can attain my own end. Because my willing necessarily includes his willing, my intention cannot be to frustrate his will. On this fundamental fact all social life is built up.
Members of a society consciously relating to it create social consciousness. Society can be a self-conscious entity. It progresses through the instrumentality of individuals by raising its existence from subconscious to consciousness in the individual. On the surface, there are millions of organized activities that constitute the society. The life of the society is lived in its drives, society’s emotions. These drives are of religion, caste, language, etc. These are habitual actions outside the scope of centrally organized direction. At that level, society is a living organism. Society becomes conscious of natural potentials, human resourcefulness, and the organizations it can create. It puts all these to its own purposes of advancement. Such changes alter the social structure. Often these changes are one of evolution while they were revolutionary in other instances. Once the society outgrows the structures it has created, it discards them or destroys them.
It is the social spirit, the spirit of social cooperation, which forms, develops, and upholds societies. Once it is lost, the society falls apart again. The death of a nation is social retrogression, the decline from the division of labor to self-sufficiency. The social organism disintegrates into the cells from which it began. Man remains, but society dies.
Human beings are not inherently good or evil; these concepts are a result of an individual’s morality. This morality can be shaped and strengthened. Human beings are teachable and improvable through personal and communal endeavor and may understand their place in the universe. Social harmony derives from every individual knowing his or her place in the social order and playing his or her part well. Accepting working systems of norms and the duty to fulfill the obligations of various relationships are the ways in which one should act towards others, but from an underlying attitude of humaneness and re-evaluation.
Humans, in their base form are animals and must be critically civilized. This does not mean that a human is basically evil and degenerate: this idea is wrong, like it’s opposite. There are no vices in the metaphysical sense; but, in the same sense, neither are there any virtues. An individual who desires no more from things than to understand them easily makes peace with himself and will err at the most out of ignorance, but hardly out of desire. He will no longer want to condemn and root out his desires; but his single goal, governing him completely, to understand as well as he can at all times, will cool him down and soften all the wildness in his disposition. In addition, he has rid himself of a number of possessing and tormenting ideas for to him they are only the evanescent silhouettes of erroneous thoughts about life and the world. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. Any society, if it hopes to cooperate and thereby survive as a society, has to develop internal defense mechanisms that can keep in check the human animal’s selfish innate tendencies to self-assertion.
Regulating and guiding the relationships between people is the concept of propriety. Unless a man has rules governing interaction with other individuals over long times, in being respectful he will wear himself out, in being careful he will become timid, in having courage he will become unruly, and in being forthright he will become unrelenting. The rules rely heavily on the relationships between people, but at the same time propriety encompasses much more than that. It represented an inner development towards goal of enlightened self interest, while simultaneously realizing that one was never alone, and that everyone had relationships to fall back on, being a member of a family, state, and the world. Propriety is not necessarily regimented or arbitrary practiced, but the routines that people often engage in, knowingly or unknowingly, during the normal course of their lives are shaped in a way that leads to a content and healthy society and to content and healthy people. In this sense, propriety is an ideal form of social norm. Propriety has been revised and evaluated throughout time to reflect the emerging views and beliefs found in society as well as new knowledge about the universe. Although these practices may change the fundamental ideals remain at the core which largely relate to social order. Under law, external authorities administer punishments after illegal actions, so people generally behave well without understanding reasons why they should; whereas with propriety, patterns of behavior are internalized and exert their influence before actions are taken, so people behave properly because they fear shame and want to avoid losing face.
Society is a means for individual beings to survive and thrive however in order for society to work agreed rules must be made for individuals to function as one. As a result some rights must, at times, be surrendered for the functioning of the group. Pure altruism, while a laudable goal and necessary for the functioning of a society, cannot be counted on. While a society can for a limited time force a small amount of its members to make decisions that are not in their self interest, if done for too long a time and on too large a scale the society will break down.
The success of an individual or society is viewed as half chance and half correct action. Through a long series of correct actions one can build up a position that may lessen the effects and may even avert the results of negative chance. This chance is not destiny for humans chose actions from the perspective of having free will, regardless of it exists or not. Through probability and statistics if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Goodness is defined as being skillful and successful in war, in peace one must possess the wealth and the leisure which are both the necessary conditions for the development of these skills and the natural reward of their successful employment. The subduing of evil lies in intelligent action and dispassionate response. Evil is not punishment or retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts.
The first principle that offers itself attention is the principle of natural selection. More highly developed societies attain greater material wealth than the less highly developed; therefore they have more prospect of preserving their members from misery and poverty. They are also better equipped to defend themselves from the enemy. One must not be misled by the observation that richer and more civilized nations were often crushed in war by nations less rich and civilized. Nations in an advanced stage of social evolution have always been able at least to resist a superior force of less developed nations. It is only decaying nations, civilizations inwardly disintegrated, which have fallen a prey to nations on the rise. Where a more highly organized society has succumbed to the attack of a less developed people, the victors have in the end been culturally submerged, accepting the economic and social order, and even the language and faith of the conquered race.
There exists an organic conception of civilization. Advanced civilizations, in their maturity and coherence, become organisms in their own right. The advanced civilizations are capable of sublimating the various customs, myths, techniques, arts, peoples, and classes into a single strong undiffused historical tendency. Each civilization is defined by its internal coherence of style in terms of art, religious behavior and psychological perspective. Each individual has a duty to look beyond his own civilization to see what people of other civilizations have created for themselves. By learning about different courses taken by other civilizations, one can better understand his own civilization and identity. Insights of one era are not unshakeable or valid in another time or civilization but are contingent upon and relative to that context. What is significant is not whether thinkers' insights are currently relevant, but whether they were exceptionally relevant to the great facts of their own situation. There sometimes exists an older stagnant civilization so deeply ingrained in a land that a young civilization cannot achieve a pure expression of itself. Young feelings then stiffen in senile practices, and instead of expanding creatively, it fosters hate toward the other older civilization. There is a low opinion of stagnant civilizations, even those that engaged in significant expansion, because that expansion is not actual growth. Facing no significant resistance to expansion they do not so much conquer but rather simply took possession of that which lay open to everyone. Only relevant perspectives and ideas are able to truly destroy ideological resistance. Civilizations therefore must be cared for in order to grow so they offered a sense of freedom from the past. This is used it as a justification for abandoning historic styles that are no longer valid for the new eras and establishing enclaves where new civilizations can grow free of their parent ones. This leads to an overall society bereft of ethnic, religious, or cultural distractions, but not all disappearance of distinctions.
Political
Instead of examining phenomena by attempting to break things down into component parts, general living systems theory explores phenomena in terms of dynamic patterns of the relationships of organisms with their environment. The endless complexity of life is organized into patterns which repeat themselves. Living systems open self-organizing systems that have the special characteristics of life and interact with their environment. This takes place by means of information and material-energy exchanges. Living systems can be as simple as a single cell or as complex as a supranational organization. Regardless of their complexity, they each depend upon the same essential subsystems or processes in order to survive and to continue the propagation of their species or types beyond a single generation. There are continuous flows through living systems as they maintain their highly organized steady states
An organization is centrally directed by an external authority. An organism is a self-directed integral unit. An organization is of related parts to accomplish a work. An organism is live, automatically in touch with all other parts for the purpose of living. For modern biology the head is no longer the crown, the ruler of the body. In the living body there is no longer leader and followers, a contrast of sovereign and subjects, of means and purpose. There are only members, organs.
If cells aggregate to form a multicellular organism, then organisms might aggregate to form an organism of organisms: a superorganism. Biologists agree that social insect colonies, such as ant nests or beehives, are best seen as such superorganisms. The activities of a single ant, bee or termite are meaningless unless they are understood in function of the survival of the colony. Human society is still an ambivalent system, balancing between individual selfishness and collective responsibility. In that sense it may be more similar to organisms like slime molds or sponges, whose cells can live individually as well as collectively, than to true multi-cellular organisms. The process that differentiates and integrates homogeneous cells is completely different from that which led to the growth of human society out of self-sufficient individuals. In the second process, reason and will play their part in the coalescence, by which the previously independent units form a larger unit and become parts of a whole, whereas the intervention of such forces in the first process is inconceivable.
The evolution towards a superorganism is mostly an extrapolation of existing trends, and these show an on-going increase in freedom, individualism, democracy and decentralization rather than a decrease. These trends can be explained straightforwardly by the mechanism of differentiation, which opens ever more possibilities for an individual to choose an education or occupation, and of reduced friction, which increases the general freedom of movement, of expression and of consumption.
Historically, totalitarian regimes were the result of an individual or select group's desire to gain and maintain power and privileges at the expense of the larger population, by suppressing their freedom to question those privileges. The underlying mechanism is simply individual selfishness augmented by social power structures. There is nothing particularly modern about such social systems: apart from more sophisticated methods for propaganda and control, the same type of ruthless, centralized organization can be found in the kingdoms and empires of antiquity.
Insofar that totalitarian societies were based on an ideology or political system this system was very different from the a self-organizing, cybernetic, "organism-like" system that. These systems lacked the most crucial component of cybernetic control: feedback. Instead of a distributed feedback loop, constantly adapting to the changing circumstances, the societies are based on a rigid, mechanical, top-down command structure, with little regard for the effect of those commands in the real world.
The absence of centralization is at the base of another nightmare vision associated with the super-organism model: the true "collective", where everybody thinks the same and does the same, and where there is no room for individual initiative or decision-making. This vision is more inspired by insect societies, such as beehives or ant nests, than by existing political systems. Again, from a cybernetic point of view a insect-like organization would be most inefficient. In order to maximize its own control over its environment and its chances for survival, society should maximize the capacity for autonomous decision-making among its components. Moreover, it should maximize the diversity or variety of the strategies used by its components. This can only be achieved by stimulating individuals to develop themselves freely, and as much as possible choose their own path, rather than merely conform to the collective point of view.
Even for ants, it can be shown that the colony will be most efficient in finding food if individual ants do not merely follow the paths laid down by their fellow ants, but regularly deviate and create a path of their own. If people understandably dislike the analogy between human societies and insect societies, it is not so much because insect societies are organized in an intrinsically more totalitarian or collectivistic manner, but because insects are simply very dumb, characterless creatures compared to individual humans. An isolated insect, whose behavior is governed by a few simple and rigid rules, is not intrinsically freer or more creative than an insect living in a colony. If you would have to choose, would you rather be a social termite, or its individually living cousin, a cockroach? Would you rather be a "collectivist" bee, or an "individualist" fly? Neither of these alternatives seems particularly attractive.
All human social constructions are evolving processes. Just as individuals, without change guided by a communal critical self-consciousness they inevitably become stagnant and unhealthy. Creating the right environment for the individual leads to the maximum long term benefit to an individual, and its offspring. An organized society is the environment that allows individuals to better survive. It is self evident that individuals are free and may chose to live alone and are able chose to die instead of to live in bondage to another. Society, ultimately, is not forced but is a choice of the individuals making it up. While governments may abuse their power, minor abuses should be corrected. However when those abuses are severe and as a result an individual’s life is that of unbearable hardship, dutiful rebellion is expected. As a result the government must responsibly control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers.
Analysis of the trends, the context, and the facts are essential for government. For the leaders of government to make the best decisions these leaders must be the most able. The data collected can only be as valid as possible when the individuals gathering that data are the most able to do so. Therefore appointments of individuals in organizations are made and responsibilities assigned to individuals based upon demonstrated intelligence and ability
All people under the government are equal before the law. Laws should reward those who obey them and punish accordingly those who dare to break them. Thus it is guaranteed that actions taken are systematically predictable. In addition, the system of law runs the state, not the individual leaders, no one has immunity from the law. It is the position of the ruler, not the ruler himself or herself, that holds the power. However society is made up of individuals that may be self interested and may use the powers of society to restrict the rights of others for their own benefit. Therefore the most focus of the power the society can have on its members is best directed on the individuals that would advance their own interest while negatively affecting the interest of the other members. In this way both the organism of society and the individuals self regulate each other in a positive way.
Economists are keen to point out that self-interest, regulated by competition, can generate complex systems of behavior which organize the factors of production in such a way as to most effectively produce and distribute wealth for the wider good. The invisible hand of the market can regulate the production of marketable goods and direct their distribution, but it can also squander natural capital and can denude social capital. Without social capital, there is no social foundation for any economy and no common resources to draw on. Market failures can be viewed as scenarios where wherein the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not efficient. The pursuit of pure self-interest that leads to results that are not efficient is a market failure that can be improved upon by government regulations that create a truly competitive environment.
Religious
Observation of various religions shows similarities between their concepts of the supernatural. The first empirical regularity is that a supernatural concepts tends to violate a single ontological assumption. That is, human minds are endowed with many default assumptions about a few basic categories, including person, animal, plant, tool, and natural object. For example, an animal is assumed to have the same basic body plan throughout its life, and so a butterfly seems supernatural because it violates this assumption. By violating just one ontological assumption, supernatural concepts maximize the relevance of our other non-violated assumptions, and so make stories about these concepts easy and interesting to tell. A second empirical regularity is that religious thinking tends to focus on people-like supernatural entities with great access to socially-relevant information. When a person assumes that these entities share their moral intuitions and that they know about all the bad things they do, that person expects these entities to get mad and punish for behaving badly. This makes these entities highly relevant subjects of thought and discussion. A third empirical regularity is that religious rituals have a lot in common with cleansing rituals. Our mental systems for dealing with disease via disgust have had to accept the validity of specific procedures to protect us against unseen enemies, even when we had no direct evidence of those unseen enemies, nor any understanding of why each procedure protects us. Our mental systems for dealing with social rituals similarly required us to accept them without understanding their social function. Given these, it seems a small step to accept specific odd social procedures that protect us against supernatural entities. Finally, human corpses are highly relevant entities that violate our ontological assumptions (being both person and natural object) and trigger our disease/disgust mental systems. They are thus prototypical religious objects, and are considered over all cultures.
Primal religions are culturally-widespread beliefs in "supernatural agents" (e.g., gods, ancestors, spirits, and witches) result from agent detection, the intuitive process of assuming intervention by conscious agents, regardless of whether they are present. This process is then formalized by a group to assist humans in providing explanations of the natural world, a feeling of comfort, and social order. Organized religions deviate from ancient local religious practice mainly due to religious guilds trying to monopolize access to the supernatural.
Humans evolved a tendency to gullibility about the supernatural, in order to signal cooperativeness. That is, it may be hard to fake a tendency toward supernatural belief, and such beliefs may tend to make you more cooperative, for fear of punishment by moralistic supernatural observers. If so, it can be in your gene's interest for you to tend to hold such beliefs, even if that sometimes induces wasteful actions. (Your genes might, for example, tip the balance a bit more toward believing in entities that violate ontological assumptions.) Supernatural beliefs would then be a credible signal of cooperativeness. Irrationality would again be useful signal, just as it is with emotional expressions that signal commitment, or with people tending to overestimate their abilities, in order to impress potential allies. Additionally being known as cooperative may make also make you known as trustworthy. Finally if one is gullible about the supernatural then you may also have your morality more easily shaped by stories of the supernatural and the natural tendency to believe what others tell you about good and evil.
While traditional religion is false on its statements of the nature of reality and is often used for the purposes of exploitation, it still cultivates emotion, moral values, desires and other aspects of life that are important to human society. These biologically based aspects should be transformed into positive values of morality, instead of destroying religion outright, when it serves as the psychological and moral basis for a large percentage of people. Freed from any values humans do not become noble savages but shameless apes, and so values, beliefs, and morals are needed. For example; psychopaths, who have no sense of responsibility for their actions, are fully familiar with moral principles; they just do not care about them or other people.
‘Religion’ is to mean the emotion that forms a link between human beings as individuals, as a link people between human beings and nations, and as a link between human beings and societies in the past as well as future. Not a mechanical or chemical but an mental linking-together is in fact the religious emotion. The feeling is experienced in the mind and breaks through all the limits of understanding and reason. People adopt and maintain religious beliefs for a combination of evidential and emotional reasons that provide satisfaction of cognitive and emotional constraints. Thus religious faith is not just wishful thinking but an intuitive judgment that fits compellingly with a person’s beliefs and goals. But, beyond the feeling of emotional fulfillment for humans creep in projections of imagined beings and of the sacred in general which then manifests it in several metaphysical beliefs. These beliefs and are typically validated by experienced emotion and not scientific methodology. Instead of intuition it is better to put emotional value into scientific methodology so as to use observation and logic as the tools used to validate belief and then achieve emotional coherence.
Sense perception, critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry alone are admitted as a means of valid knowledge, and challenge inferential knowledge on the ground that all inference requires a universal major premise but there is no way to reach certainty about such a premise. Since inference is not a means of valid knowledge, all supersensible things like "destiny," "soul," or "afterlife," do not exist. To say that such entities exist is regarded as absurd, for no unverifiable assertion of existence is meaningful. The ‘soul’ is only the body qualified by intelligence. It has no existence apart from the body, only this world exists, there is no beyond. Nature is indifferent to good and evil, and history does not bear witness to divine providence. Unverifiable, supernatural beliefs are a cheat, they serve to make men submissive through fear and rituals. Virtue and vice are not absolute but mere social conventions. Pleasure and pain are the central facts of human life.
For the individual it is a self religion, seeking transformation of an individual from the intuitive understanding of a child to that of the rational understanding of an adult. It teaches that an individual must, through intellectual understanding enabling clarity of perception, reach enlightenment. Enlightenment is one’s release from his or her self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. Such tutelage is self-imposed if its cause is not lack of intelligence, but rather a lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Not merely a perspective of the world that is free of myths and untruths, but a perspective self constructed and demonstrably verified.
Prayer addresses progress, humanity, the nation and human genius. Collective, rather than individual, prayer is stressed due to the wish to use religious organization to support a common action. There are temples and rituals, and theatre with symbolic plays to induce religious feelings. The corporal nature or the life of one’s body is loved and deified. The divine is humanity in its highest potential. But there is no humanity in the highest potential so then the potentials of mankind are loved as well as individual potentials, and they are represented in a garland of glory in order to love them ever more.
Rather than supernatural entities humanity as a species is the closest object of worship. Reason based in observable reality is the method of acquiring faith. It does not mean that single individuals are worshipped, but rather the entire potential of the human race and all its achievements are the object of worship. Instead of projecting human values onto the unknown heavens and submitting people to their own illusionary creation, these values are worshipped in humanity as a whole, which posses them collectively. The religion attempts to bring people to value themselves and to find common purpose, community and universal meaning in themselves as an individual that is a part of the collective.
Traditional means to grow and spread religion can be useful to spread any ideology as well as protect an ideology against infiltration by others. Some means are;
1. Children respond particularly receptively to the ideas of their parents, and thus ideas which directly or indirectly encourage a higher birthrate will replicate themselves at a higher rate than those that discourage higher birthrates. As long as resources are available to support children, an idea which influences the number of children one has helps that idea spread. This has been an important element for the spread and perpetuation of many religions. Parents naturally pass their beliefs to their children. If a religion says having children is good, that contraception is bad, or anything similar which results in a higher birth rate, it is more likely to continue into the future. Individuals are encouraged to marry early, abjure abortion and even contraception, all of which leads to larger families. Pregnancy and birth, the business of caring for children, and the horror of contemplating their death, can stimulate an intensity of purpose that sometimes parents more open to religious sentiments. Many common family events encourage a broadly spiritual turn of mind, from selfless care for a sick relation to sacrifices for the sake of a child’s adulthood that one might never see. Also the loss of religion by a group is affected by forming fewer stable families, and having fewer children when they do. People start having smaller families before they stop going to church. Lastly, men are less religious than women as women play a rather larger role than men in the production and rearing of children.
2. Appeal to the desires of believers. There is a tendency for humans to believe things because they want to believe them, sometimes in disregard to the truth. In order for a religion to be survive followers are taught that those who believe will gain rewards or avoid negative consequences, and non-believers will miss out on the rewards or be affected negatively. When people become emotionally attached to an idea, reason will not persuade them to abandon it. Ideas which influence those that hold them to continue to hold them for a long time stick. Ideas which encourage longevity in their hosts, or leave their hosts particularly resistant to abandoning or replacing these ideas, enhance the preservability and afford protection from the competition or proselytism of other ideas.
3. Create systems to spread the word. All things being equal, religions which encourage believers to convert others will do better than those which don't. For example, an organization which requires all young men to spend some time trying to convert others can grow very quickly. Ideas that encourage the proselytism of it, as seen in many religious or political movements, can replicate memes horizontally through a given generation, spreading more rapidly than parent-to-child transmissions do. Cognitively transmitted ideas depend heavily on a cluster of other ideas and cognitive traits already widely held in the population, and thus usually spread more passively than other forms of transmission.
Principles to assist in transmitting ideas and making them stick; Find the core of any idea and keep it simple and profound, grab people's attention by surprising them and keep them curious by systematically "opening gaps" in their knowledge, make sure an idea can be grasped and remembered later by using concrete images and terms, give an idea believability so that the ideas to carry their own credentials, help people see the importance of an idea by using emotions to convey the point, empower people to use an idea through narrative
4. Use fear. Threaten believers for a lack of belief and they are more likely to continue believing, which increases the likelihood of the religion spreading. Also, stating that some authority, whether book or man, is the one true source of knowledge creates a fear of criticism or honest exploration of the faith. This helps perpetuate the ideas, protecting them from change. If necessary call for death to those who denounce their religious belief. Ideas influence those that hold them to attack or sabotage competing ideas and/or those that hold them. Adversative replication can give an advantage in idea transmission when the idea itself encourages aggression against others.
5. Use recorded ideas. There have probably been hundreds of religions which have come and gone, leaving no trace for us to study. Recording the stories and tenets of a religion gives it a life of its own in a way, apart from the usual host. The book or other record becomes not just a source of authority, but a carrier in its own right.
6. Using social conformity. This increases the proportion of children who will adopt ideas of their parents. Cultural separatism exemplifies one practice in which one can expect a higher rate of ideal replication because the idea for separation creates a barrier from exposure to competing ideas. The pressure to conform to those around us is strong, so to the extent that religions can fill the very real need for association with others, they can keep their beliefs protected and perpetuated. Isolation from those of other faiths, or no faith, may be an important part of this strategy as well.
7. Build practical skills and education. If your religious group is skilled and can obtain high positions in society you can use these positions to help others of your group as well as enabling your offspring to better survive. Having members knowledgeable in survival and military skills will help your group survive longer than the rest of society in the event of collapse.
The main tenants of the philosophy are:
Reality exists as an objective absolute. Facts are ultimately independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. Knowledge of reality is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis.
Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Self aware beings may attempt to guide their development using the best ways their rational mind can conceive.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Through guided cultivation of virtue and the development of morals individuals their find place in relation to others.
Society is a superorganism, an organism consisting of many organisms. Individuals are not able to survive by themselves for periods of time comparable to that of a society.
Prosperity of society leads to the prosperity of the individual. The environment that a government should aim to create is the result of the right balance of both good of the particular individual and the good of society. What this balance is must be a practical decision with every circumstance being unique.
Each person is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. Over the long term the rights of individuals can only be regulated by society voluntarily. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and happiness is the highest moral purpose of life. Altruism is not in conflict with this purpose as it is the results of evolution, creating enlightened self interest.
Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals.
Between individuals the government acts as a policeman that protects man’s rights and to subtly guide the self interest of individuals to align with the interest of society; it uses force in retaliation against those individuals who initiate its use.
A system of law runs the state, not individuals. Laws reward those who obey them and punish accordingly those who break them and all people are equal before the law. It is the position of the individual, not the individual himself or herself, that holds the power.
The ideal political-economic system is mixed republican-capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to extreme force.
Consolidation of power breeds corruption. Separating governmental powers, federalism, peer review, and openness are means to check the corrupting of powerful organizations on individuals. Generally political, military, and social power is dispersed as much as practical to avoid the self interest of an individual or subgroup to override that of society.
Society is healthiest when the individuals with the most competence take up leadership positions. Innate ability dictates wealth and social power. The diligent weak are protected from the ruthless powerful and the exceptional elite are protected from the envious mob.
The Order of the Cosmic Truth
The legal power of the Order is guaranteed by the constitution. Thus, from a legal perspective, The Order is not a religion and its values came under the heading of moral instruction rather than religious teaching. The Constitution affirms the privileged position of The Order, but also guarantees freedom of religion “within limits not prejudicial to peace and order and not antagonistic to civil duties”. In practice, this means that religious groups are required to receive government approval and that their doctrines and rituals come under government scrutiny.
The official doctrine of the Order of the Cosmic Truth states that the Demogorgon is an extremely powerful being but no matter how supreme, still a life form based on physical, observable principles and not a god in the conventional sense. If one becomes one of the Leviathan then their personality may be preserved in the Leviathan’s telepathic link, resulting in a verifiable afterlife.
Demogorgon is venerated by the Order for its ancient knowledge, ability, and comprehension and is recognized as the supreme manifestation of human potential. Instead of acting as a monolithic controlling entity it prefers to monitor events and sometimes acting as an advisor. It is common knowledge that like the old Olympian gods Demogorgon does get involved in real politics, but unlike its mythological counterpart it is diplomatic and clever.
In practice it is a cultural religion: it prescribes a social and cultural setting for practical action rather than theoretical doctrines. The faithful are guided by the theo-political hierarchy, constituting a framework for personal growth and interaction. Religious leaders are to be obeyed as they are local representations of Demogorgon. This does not mean leaders are infallible: being limited and finite they can and do fail from time to time. It is the duty of leaders to strive towards perfection in their office, and they are responsible for their decisions and actions both to their own superiors and their inferiors. Peer reviews are often held to contemplate new ideas. This means that they must promote openness and accountability. Secrecy breeds corruption, the ability to freely criticize is essential.
The Order is composed of several self-governing ecclesial bodies, each geographically and politically distinct but theologically unified. Each autocephalous body is shepherded, but not ran, by a group of bishops whose main duty is to preserve and teach traditions and related practices. The highest rank is that of Bishop. Each bishop has a territory, see, over which he governs. As with most actions, Bishops are appointed for their term in committee, and affirmed democratically by a vote of member congregations, proportional to their membership. Bishops are equal in authority and cannot interfere in the jurisdiction of another bishop. Administratively, these bishops and their territories are organized into various autocephalous groups of bishops who gather together at least twice a year to discuss the state of affairs within their respective sees. While bishops and their autocephalous groups have the ability to administer guidance in individual cases, their actions do not usually set precedents that affect the entire Church.
Despite the complexities of the structure, the Church at its heart views the local congregation as the basic unit. Each autocephalous body is an association of congregations with no one organization able to speak authoritatively for the whole. It is the congregations that have authority over the larger body.
Rituals vary immensely; orthodoxy does not in itself prescribe the details of individual worship except for a few basics. The one agreed standard holiday is the founding holiday, where the founding of the Drakeîn is celebrated.
Rituals are tied to a social and educational framework designed to bring together. Education is run in two parts. Part one is teaching things like philosophy, the foundations of science (the scientific method and why it works as well as it does), critical thinking, etc... The second part is for practical survival skills. These practical skills will include self defense, basic farming, basic wilderness and urban survival, etc. All members are encouraged to practice and study both of these skill areas so they have understanding of them and not just knowledge.
Demogorgon is not considered the head of the Order, as there is none, however Demogorgon is first in honor among all the bishops, presides in person or through a delegate over any council of bishops in which he takes part and serves as primary spokesman for the Order. Demogorgon has no direct jurisdiction over the other Bishops or even followers but enjoys the right of convening extraordinary meetings consisting of all bishops or their delegates to deal with ad hoc situations. Each Autocephalous body may call a similar meeting if all members of the particular body agree to.
The symbol for the belief system is two intersecting circles with a smaller circle sitting inside the intersection. One large circle represents Truth, the other circle represents Belief, and the smaller circle represents justified knowledge. This is a Venn diagram representing the Classical Definition of Knowledge.
The official symbol for the Order is a three pointed tomoe with a dot at its center and surrounded by a circle. A dot center of the flag represents the individual or the source of meaning. The smooth and sharp lines of the tomoe represent movement and change of both humanity and the world. Each arm of the star is tied to the outer circle like a spoke, signifying that every person is tied to society. Additionally the symbol is often centered and not offset. This signifies an individual’s tie to the wider universe.
Economics of Religion and Philosophy
Religious markets are similar to other markets in that they are social creations. The exchanges that take place in a religious market are regulated by social factors. Elements of social interactions such as norms and morals influence the individual choices and preferences of the religious consumer. Therefore, elements of social interactions influence the types of religious goods offered to consumers in the marketplace and the changes in consumer demands over a span of time. Belief deals with ideology and extends beyond what one would typically define as a market good. Belief is produced and resides in communicated thoughts, and the consumers of goods of faith can only become consumers by becoming producers, by participating in interactions of belief.
As in economics, the market situation can be described with concepts about monopoly, prohibition, and pluralism. Monopolies in religion are only made possible through state enforcement and often function on a public scale. When the government establishes a set religion and all other competition is drowned out then believers are culturally connected but not necessarily adherent to the religion enforced by the state. Since participation in a religious monopoly is not as important because the church does not have to rely on members for resources they are not forced to provide adequate or marketable religious products due to lack of competition. The ability of a religious organization to monopolize a religious economy is entirely dependent on the extent to which the state governs the religious economy. A monopolized religious economy tends to have lower levels of participation.
Organizations in a free market cannot rely on the state for resources so they must compete for participation of the religious consumer. Contest among religious firms results in the specialization of products so that consumers are able to distinguish different organization from others. Pluralistic religions operate on a personal scale, marketing more to individual demands as opposed to public. As the majority of the consumer market, organizations market more to women than men. Pluralism is only possible through lack of favoritism by the state, a competitive and pluralistic religious economy has a positive effect on levels of participation.
According to the theory of religious economy, societies that restrict supply of religion, either through an imposed state religious monopoly or through state sponsored secularization, are the main causes of drops in religiosity. Correspondingly, the more religions a society has, the more likely the population is to be religious.
Two reactions from secularization being revival and cult formation. As old faiths eventually weaken the rise of different religious sects and cults will prevail.
Over time established religious groups will spawn smaller and less worldly sub groups of the faith. This trend of revival provides a plausible explanation why religion never seems to fade away and to why previously prominent religious organizations have dissipated. Revival produces a shift in which religious groups a population will follow and proves effective against the demise of religion.
Unlike a sect which follows traditions from its parent religion a cult presents completely new religious traditions. Cult is simply another word for a new religion and all current religions at one point could have been considered cult movements.
However the state does have an active role in this market. Religions are considered to be public services. They are considered so essential to human life that for moral reasons their universal provision should be guaranteed, and they may be associated with fundamental human rights. Public services can encounter conflict between commercial procedures, maximizing growth, and the interests of the people using these services resulting in a market failure. Most governments therefore have some form of control or regulation to manage this possible conflict. Regulation ensures that a safe and appropriate service is delivered, while not discouraging the effective functioning and development of businesses.
Religious regulation has several elements: Public statutes, standards or statements of expectations. A process of registration or licensing to approve and to permit the operation of a service, usually by a named organization or person. A process of inspection or other form of ensuring standard compliance, including reporting and management of non-compliance with these standards. Where there is continued non-compliance, then a process of de-licensing whereby that organization or person is judged to be operating unsafely, and is ordered to stop operating at the expense of acting unlawfully.
The Government
The Drakeîn is at its heart a confederation whose main members are called Dominions, states who exist in separate governmental systems and are considered sovereign nations. The Drakeîn itself reserves "federal" rights of overall policy between these nations and guarantees rights of citizens however the Drakeîn has little direct power over internal affairs. The Dominions have complete authority within their space with two exceptions. The first being power voluntarily being given to the Drakeîn and the second being power retained by the people and guaranteed by both the Drakeîn and the particular Dominion. There is a Constitution that that enumerates the powers and functions of the government.
The Drakeîn also has direct control over Colonies, whom by number of planets and overall population outnumber any individual Dominion, but individually have less sway. Approximately one quarter of the population is found in the Colonies. The Drakeîn allows a wide range of internal governmental systems in Colonies and especially Dominions, providing they don't conflict with the overall guidelines set out by the Drakeîn nor the organs that oversee Drakeîn interests. The term Dominions refer to member states while Drakeîn refers to the organization governing the union and Drakeîn Dominions is the name for the combined confederation.
Factionalism is allowed, but formalized to minimize infighting and allow divisions to be settled legitimately. This means a rough analog of political parties within the highest level of government. The goal is to maximize effectiveness and stability while allowing broad changes in the government over significant periods of time. All affairs of leadership and changes of government are legitimatized and formalized, the better to avoid fighting outside the system, but the system is constructed in such a way that the winning party always has a clear majority and the leader must have proven his effectiveness in leading his faction to victory.
While ultimate power is theoretically held by the Sebastos, a highly respected member of society and state symbol, in practicality distinct branches of the Drakeîn actively govern the overall union. The Sebastos rarely exercise power and when it does every being in the Drakeîn is aware of it. This combination of trust and publicity keep their power from being abused. The first branch generally referred to as Executive which takes actions to carry out policies, administers political and governmental concerns, and is the most politically powerful branch. This branch is organized upon the idea that those with the most direct power should have a only personal control of a small segment of executive power, through well chartered organs, and those that by necessity have great power can use this power under intended limited circumstances. Policy is in charge of making policy and laws as well as controlling funding. It consists of a body representing the Colonies and also of a theoretically more powerful body representing the Dominions. This branch is organized around the principles of creating balanced national policies based around the interests of various political entities as well as the total population by the most qualified. The third branch, Tactical, deals with military matters as well as establishing policy on alliance wide security issues. Tactical is based around the principle that the most important function of any state is its physical security and Tactical seeks to organize the many military forces into one cohesive force. While the proper subordination of a competent, professional military to the ends of policy as determined by civilian authority is central to Tactical, civilian control only gives broad policy goals that military commanders are expected to translate into operational plans with the direct selection of specific targets for attack on the part of governing politicians under limited circumstances.
The final branch, primarily concerned with internal security and law enforcement, is known commonly as Legal. Legal is based around the principle that law and it’s enforcement should be completely objective and function as a disinterested machine, led by those without aspirations of power. In addition, a separate management/administration exits that combines political, military and law enforcement into a single governing system for the individual Colonies acting as their local government. Between these various organs exist a series of checks and balances that ensures that each branch does not overstep their assigned duties and accumulate overreaching power.
Every colony rules itself in whatever manner seen fit by its citizens with only a few constants. A planet may contain singular or multiple Colonies based on population or varying social conditions. Star systems with enough Colonies and population are considered Protectorates, a regional organizational structure. New Colonies are considered "sovereign territories" of the Drakeîn at large but are under guidance of Protectorates. This allows these parent Protectorates help set up a stable government as well as expand native businesses. Eventually a large enough collection of Colonies or Protectorate may attempt to form their own Dominion if they meet certain requirements.
The legislature is made up of two bodies, the Synod and the Diet. The Synod makes laws that benefit the more powerful and influential organizations while the Diet, looking out for the disadvantaged regions, makes sure these laws improve the Drakeîn as a whole.
To carry out policy Hypatos are appointed, heading the Executive Division, who are given the greatest amount of freedom in actions to dictate overall policy of the Drakeîn. Their power is checked but generally can do as they please. Having the approval of the wide majority of the government they directly appoint individuals to run key organs. The worries of the leader about the loyalty of others are minimized, so that they do not surround himself with incompetents to prevent a potential rival from arising.
The remaining Divisions have less political power however are intrinsic to the functioning of the alliance. The Legal Division’s main function other than enforcing laws is to act as a mediator and judge between the branches of government. Tactical Division receives funding and goals from the members of the Drakeîn and the best means to achieve those goals are left solely up to this Division.
A system of checks and balances exist between the different branches of government. Additionally the power and decisions making ability between the branches are split in a way that it would be very difficult for one to gain control over the other three. The Tactical and Legal divisions wield the most hard power yet initiate the least amount of governing decisions while the Executive and Policy have the greatest amount of decision making ability but have the least amount of ability to enforce.
Demogorgon is an Ubermensh, living by its own moral code and eventually converting others to its ideals. Luckily, this code was somewhat altruistic or at least that of enlightened self interest. Running a large scientific and military factory Demogorgon was a logistic-maintenance-research-design Synthetic Intelligence. This resulted in an energetic creative personality seeking to improve itself in scope and intelligence however it’s power is used to nurture lesser beings. After becoming aware of vast entities that would harm lesser beings, in response Demogorgon became a vast force seeking to neutralize these threats.
Becoming a powerful entity was not enough, lesser beings had to be improved. Demogorgon needed a new age of science and progressive thought to build upon its martial works, a time when technology and thought would solidify and consolidate the territorial gains it had made. The Cosmic Truth was spread amongst the populations of newly discovered and reclaimed worlds by scores of Priestesses, a corps of orators of supreme skill and passion. Science, self awareness, and self reliance were encouraged to drive humanity's progress.
Pioneered by the Demogorgon even before the Drakeîn began, the Cosmic Truth is a collection of ethical, moral, social, political, philosophical, and religious belief centered on a core of scientific thought.
Introduction
It is said that what life would be like without government is the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a license, to everything in the world. This would lead to a war of all against all and thus lives that are solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. To escape this state of war, humans in the state of nature accede to a social contract and establish a civil society.
While a useful view, this model for the creation of society is wrong. The long dependence of the human infant requires, at least, a society of two - care giver and child. This society must endure for ten to twenty years and in most cases it is larger than two. Successful human reproduction requires the successful maintenance of human societies. For anatomically modern humans, and doubtless for our hominid ancestors as well, there can never have been a state of nature before society. We are social creatures and we evolved with society.
The social organization which now allows humans to make plans and knowingly sign binding contracts had to begin among pre-human creatures that were probably incapable of forming long-term goals. Evolutionary theory is based on the idea of self-interested competition. Cooperative behavior can evolve between selfish individuals and over the long term individuals survive better if they are part of cooperating groups. Such groups can spontaneously come together if they are small and if the individuals involved know each other well. Keeping promises within small communities offers higher rewards than treachery and defection. Moral values rewarding cooperation and punishing defection are more likely to emerge and survive in stable communities.
Cooperation between individuals that have evolved altruistic feelings will be more likely to honor agreements, increasing the chances of survival for the individuals and their group. This emotion becomes more important the larger the group becomes as does an individual’s ability to identify him or herself with that group. Additionally individuals with altruistic feelings will be more often take actions that help their group but have no direct gain (and sometimes negative effects) for themselves. Individuals that take selfish actions to increase immediate gain at the expense of the group lessen the group's chances for survival, the survival of those individuals, and their decedents. In this case the smaller the group is, the faster the chance for survival decreases. Getting rid of or isolating untrustworthy individuals helps the group remain healthy. Trustworthy individuals are more likely to honor agreements thereby assisting those cooperating with them and being able to identify individuals as trustworthy assists the group in functioning. When an individual makes a costly personal sacrifice for the group they are known to be trustworthy to the group and have a personal incentive to stay with the group. Individuals that allow selfish individuals to get away with harming the group decrease chances of survival for group members and these individuals are equally as harmful to the group as the selfish individuals.
At some point groups may act like individuals and seek to cooperate with other groups. When groups compete against each other groups those with more numbers (as well as skilled and motivated individuals) are better able to survive conflicts. Such threats either foster defensive mergers between allies or, through conquest, force mergers between enemies. Either way, conflict results in numerous smaller groups becoming fewer larger ones and drives population growth of a group.
When a group of individuals reaches a certain size the ability of individuals to correct their group decreases. Groups who have and enforce rules that reduce the motivation of its members to take selfish actions increase their fitness to survive and prosper over other groups. Groups that promote actions of individuals to increase the group's fitness also fair better and in some cases, such as the military, it is necessary to the survival of the group and individuals. However if the individuals become negatively affected by the action then the group will be negatively affected.
Moral
A civilization is viewed as a self sustaining structure composed of organs such as civil society, the state, the market, and families who themselves are composed of the interactions of various individuals. These organs bridge generations of individuals enabling the characteristics of a civilization to carry through time. While these organs will always change as time goes on their characteristics can be consciously controlled when their members and leaders are aware of and understand how the organs shape individuals. In order for a civilization to continue to survive the primary goal of any organ must be to support the civilization and when the organ is purposely controlled with this in mind it will allow the civilization to thrive. The self sustaining structure of a civilization can be best thought of as similar to an organism, it’s ability to perform in competition to other similar organisms is a result of the organism’s fitness to its environment. The health of a civilization is a result of the interactions between those individuals that strengthen the civilization’s fitness. In order for these interactions to strengthen civilization, the individuals must benefit from actions that strengthen the fitness of civilization more than actions that benefit the individual at the expense of civilization. A dilemma arises when people's short-term selfish interests are at odds with long-term group interests. In this case in order for civilization to remain fit and self sustaining, it must rebalance these interests in favor of the group. The least desirable solution is for society to dictate the actions of individuals through stringent laws and harsh punishments, though this may be needed to prevent the breakdown of order. Ideally society should let individuals have as much liberty as is possible and provide incentives to go along with the group’s interest. The best way to do this is to shape the values, morals, and ethics of the individual.
Group morality develops from shared concepts and beliefs. The continued existence of a group may depend on widespread conformity to codes of morality; an inability to adjust moral codes in response to new challenges is sometimes credited with the demise of a community. Within nationalist movements, there has been some tendency to feel that a nation will not survive or prosper without acknowledging one common morality, regardless of in what it consists. Political Morality is also relevant to the behavior internationally of national governments, and to the support they receive from their host population. In order for morals of the group to not only serve the emotional needs of its members but to actually thrive, shared concepts and beliefs must be reflective of reality.
People intuitively form beliefs based on people around us during childhood, adopt the beliefs of a charismatic leader, repetition forms beliefs, as do associations of beliefs with strong positive emotions. When reality conflicts with these beliefs, defensiveness, and confusion result or contradictions were necessarily overcome using cognitive dissonance. Even educated people, well aware of the process by which beliefs form, may strongly cling to their beliefs, and act on those beliefs even against their own self-interest. When and individual’s core beliefs are not those of random individual facts but instead belief on methodologies to obtain knowledge or justified belief, a new kind of freedom results. Based on the love of knowledge and the joy that comes through inquiry, knowledge evoked in this way does not depend on taking one position or rejecting another.
Ethics uphold a kind of utilitarianism: the only goal people ought to pursue is maximizing pleasure in life while minimizing pain of all people. Some pain is needed to bring greater pleasure. Some pleasure can bring about greater amounts of pain which can proceed from over-indulgence and instant gratification. Teachings caution against irresponsible hedonism, and advocate an open pursuit of joy, pleasure, and making the best of our lives in this world. Pleasure is the goal, being neither pained in the body nor troubled in the mind. It is not possible to live pleasurably without living sensibly and nobly and justly. A just man is least troubled but an unjust man is loaded with troubles. Pleasant life is produced not by a string of drinking-bouts and revelries, nor by the enjoyment of physical ecstasy, nor by items on an expensive menu, but by sober reasoning and enlightenment.
Subjectively, people are given the opportunity to act as moral agents, which is a capacity humans want to exercise. Objectively, everyone is acknowledged to be a moral actor. This has nothing to do with equality of talent or achievement but choice and action. People may behave badly or stupidly, but their choices matter. That is why they can deserve to be punished or rewarded. A society that does not extend this recognition will suffer from tensions that will always threaten to tear it apart.
To maximize the health of society one should; treat individuals as their trustworthiness dictates, attempt to be known as trustworthy yourself, cooperate with strangers at first, respond in the same manner as one is treated , and forgive every once in awhile to avoid feuds caused by simple mistakes.
Social
Society consists of families whose needs are met by production centers on the land and in factories supported by an organization of distribution through trade and services. Educational, entertainment needs are also fulfilled by various smaller units of organizations, such as schools, theatres, etc. Society is not an end but a means, the means by which each individual member seeks to attain his own ends. That society is possible at all is due to the fact that the will of one person and the will of another find themselves linked in a joint endeavor. Community of work springs from community of will. Because I can get what I want only if my fellow citizen gets what he wants, his will and action become the means by which I can attain my own end. Because my willing necessarily includes his willing, my intention cannot be to frustrate his will. On this fundamental fact all social life is built up.
Members of a society consciously relating to it create social consciousness. Society can be a self-conscious entity. It progresses through the instrumentality of individuals by raising its existence from subconscious to consciousness in the individual. On the surface, there are millions of organized activities that constitute the society. The life of the society is lived in its drives, society’s emotions. These drives are of religion, caste, language, etc. These are habitual actions outside the scope of centrally organized direction. At that level, society is a living organism. Society becomes conscious of natural potentials, human resourcefulness, and the organizations it can create. It puts all these to its own purposes of advancement. Such changes alter the social structure. Often these changes are one of evolution while they were revolutionary in other instances. Once the society outgrows the structures it has created, it discards them or destroys them.
It is the social spirit, the spirit of social cooperation, which forms, develops, and upholds societies. Once it is lost, the society falls apart again. The death of a nation is social retrogression, the decline from the division of labor to self-sufficiency. The social organism disintegrates into the cells from which it began. Man remains, but society dies.
Human beings are not inherently good or evil; these concepts are a result of an individual’s morality. This morality can be shaped and strengthened. Human beings are teachable and improvable through personal and communal endeavor and may understand their place in the universe. Social harmony derives from every individual knowing his or her place in the social order and playing his or her part well. Accepting working systems of norms and the duty to fulfill the obligations of various relationships are the ways in which one should act towards others, but from an underlying attitude of humaneness and re-evaluation.
Humans, in their base form are animals and must be critically civilized. This does not mean that a human is basically evil and degenerate: this idea is wrong, like it’s opposite. There are no vices in the metaphysical sense; but, in the same sense, neither are there any virtues. An individual who desires no more from things than to understand them easily makes peace with himself and will err at the most out of ignorance, but hardly out of desire. He will no longer want to condemn and root out his desires; but his single goal, governing him completely, to understand as well as he can at all times, will cool him down and soften all the wildness in his disposition. In addition, he has rid himself of a number of possessing and tormenting ideas for to him they are only the evanescent silhouettes of erroneous thoughts about life and the world. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. Any society, if it hopes to cooperate and thereby survive as a society, has to develop internal defense mechanisms that can keep in check the human animal’s selfish innate tendencies to self-assertion.
Regulating and guiding the relationships between people is the concept of propriety. Unless a man has rules governing interaction with other individuals over long times, in being respectful he will wear himself out, in being careful he will become timid, in having courage he will become unruly, and in being forthright he will become unrelenting. The rules rely heavily on the relationships between people, but at the same time propriety encompasses much more than that. It represented an inner development towards goal of enlightened self interest, while simultaneously realizing that one was never alone, and that everyone had relationships to fall back on, being a member of a family, state, and the world. Propriety is not necessarily regimented or arbitrary practiced, but the routines that people often engage in, knowingly or unknowingly, during the normal course of their lives are shaped in a way that leads to a content and healthy society and to content and healthy people. In this sense, propriety is an ideal form of social norm. Propriety has been revised and evaluated throughout time to reflect the emerging views and beliefs found in society as well as new knowledge about the universe. Although these practices may change the fundamental ideals remain at the core which largely relate to social order. Under law, external authorities administer punishments after illegal actions, so people generally behave well without understanding reasons why they should; whereas with propriety, patterns of behavior are internalized and exert their influence before actions are taken, so people behave properly because they fear shame and want to avoid losing face.
Society is a means for individual beings to survive and thrive however in order for society to work agreed rules must be made for individuals to function as one. As a result some rights must, at times, be surrendered for the functioning of the group. Pure altruism, while a laudable goal and necessary for the functioning of a society, cannot be counted on. While a society can for a limited time force a small amount of its members to make decisions that are not in their self interest, if done for too long a time and on too large a scale the society will break down.
The success of an individual or society is viewed as half chance and half correct action. Through a long series of correct actions one can build up a position that may lessen the effects and may even avert the results of negative chance. This chance is not destiny for humans chose actions from the perspective of having free will, regardless of it exists or not. Through probability and statistics if we sow goodness, we will reap goodness; if we sow evil, we will reap evil. Goodness is defined as being skillful and successful in war, in peace one must possess the wealth and the leisure which are both the necessary conditions for the development of these skills and the natural reward of their successful employment. The subduing of evil lies in intelligent action and dispassionate response. Evil is not punishment or retribution but simply an extended expression or consequence of natural acts.
The first principle that offers itself attention is the principle of natural selection. More highly developed societies attain greater material wealth than the less highly developed; therefore they have more prospect of preserving their members from misery and poverty. They are also better equipped to defend themselves from the enemy. One must not be misled by the observation that richer and more civilized nations were often crushed in war by nations less rich and civilized. Nations in an advanced stage of social evolution have always been able at least to resist a superior force of less developed nations. It is only decaying nations, civilizations inwardly disintegrated, which have fallen a prey to nations on the rise. Where a more highly organized society has succumbed to the attack of a less developed people, the victors have in the end been culturally submerged, accepting the economic and social order, and even the language and faith of the conquered race.
There exists an organic conception of civilization. Advanced civilizations, in their maturity and coherence, become organisms in their own right. The advanced civilizations are capable of sublimating the various customs, myths, techniques, arts, peoples, and classes into a single strong undiffused historical tendency. Each civilization is defined by its internal coherence of style in terms of art, religious behavior and psychological perspective. Each individual has a duty to look beyond his own civilization to see what people of other civilizations have created for themselves. By learning about different courses taken by other civilizations, one can better understand his own civilization and identity. Insights of one era are not unshakeable or valid in another time or civilization but are contingent upon and relative to that context. What is significant is not whether thinkers' insights are currently relevant, but whether they were exceptionally relevant to the great facts of their own situation. There sometimes exists an older stagnant civilization so deeply ingrained in a land that a young civilization cannot achieve a pure expression of itself. Young feelings then stiffen in senile practices, and instead of expanding creatively, it fosters hate toward the other older civilization. There is a low opinion of stagnant civilizations, even those that engaged in significant expansion, because that expansion is not actual growth. Facing no significant resistance to expansion they do not so much conquer but rather simply took possession of that which lay open to everyone. Only relevant perspectives and ideas are able to truly destroy ideological resistance. Civilizations therefore must be cared for in order to grow so they offered a sense of freedom from the past. This is used it as a justification for abandoning historic styles that are no longer valid for the new eras and establishing enclaves where new civilizations can grow free of their parent ones. This leads to an overall society bereft of ethnic, religious, or cultural distractions, but not all disappearance of distinctions.
Political
Instead of examining phenomena by attempting to break things down into component parts, general living systems theory explores phenomena in terms of dynamic patterns of the relationships of organisms with their environment. The endless complexity of life is organized into patterns which repeat themselves. Living systems open self-organizing systems that have the special characteristics of life and interact with their environment. This takes place by means of information and material-energy exchanges. Living systems can be as simple as a single cell or as complex as a supranational organization. Regardless of their complexity, they each depend upon the same essential subsystems or processes in order to survive and to continue the propagation of their species or types beyond a single generation. There are continuous flows through living systems as they maintain their highly organized steady states
An organization is centrally directed by an external authority. An organism is a self-directed integral unit. An organization is of related parts to accomplish a work. An organism is live, automatically in touch with all other parts for the purpose of living. For modern biology the head is no longer the crown, the ruler of the body. In the living body there is no longer leader and followers, a contrast of sovereign and subjects, of means and purpose. There are only members, organs.
If cells aggregate to form a multicellular organism, then organisms might aggregate to form an organism of organisms: a superorganism. Biologists agree that social insect colonies, such as ant nests or beehives, are best seen as such superorganisms. The activities of a single ant, bee or termite are meaningless unless they are understood in function of the survival of the colony. Human society is still an ambivalent system, balancing between individual selfishness and collective responsibility. In that sense it may be more similar to organisms like slime molds or sponges, whose cells can live individually as well as collectively, than to true multi-cellular organisms. The process that differentiates and integrates homogeneous cells is completely different from that which led to the growth of human society out of self-sufficient individuals. In the second process, reason and will play their part in the coalescence, by which the previously independent units form a larger unit and become parts of a whole, whereas the intervention of such forces in the first process is inconceivable.
The evolution towards a superorganism is mostly an extrapolation of existing trends, and these show an on-going increase in freedom, individualism, democracy and decentralization rather than a decrease. These trends can be explained straightforwardly by the mechanism of differentiation, which opens ever more possibilities for an individual to choose an education or occupation, and of reduced friction, which increases the general freedom of movement, of expression and of consumption.
Historically, totalitarian regimes were the result of an individual or select group's desire to gain and maintain power and privileges at the expense of the larger population, by suppressing their freedom to question those privileges. The underlying mechanism is simply individual selfishness augmented by social power structures. There is nothing particularly modern about such social systems: apart from more sophisticated methods for propaganda and control, the same type of ruthless, centralized organization can be found in the kingdoms and empires of antiquity.
Insofar that totalitarian societies were based on an ideology or political system this system was very different from the a self-organizing, cybernetic, "organism-like" system that. These systems lacked the most crucial component of cybernetic control: feedback. Instead of a distributed feedback loop, constantly adapting to the changing circumstances, the societies are based on a rigid, mechanical, top-down command structure, with little regard for the effect of those commands in the real world.
The absence of centralization is at the base of another nightmare vision associated with the super-organism model: the true "collective", where everybody thinks the same and does the same, and where there is no room for individual initiative or decision-making. This vision is more inspired by insect societies, such as beehives or ant nests, than by existing political systems. Again, from a cybernetic point of view a insect-like organization would be most inefficient. In order to maximize its own control over its environment and its chances for survival, society should maximize the capacity for autonomous decision-making among its components. Moreover, it should maximize the diversity or variety of the strategies used by its components. This can only be achieved by stimulating individuals to develop themselves freely, and as much as possible choose their own path, rather than merely conform to the collective point of view.
Even for ants, it can be shown that the colony will be most efficient in finding food if individual ants do not merely follow the paths laid down by their fellow ants, but regularly deviate and create a path of their own. If people understandably dislike the analogy between human societies and insect societies, it is not so much because insect societies are organized in an intrinsically more totalitarian or collectivistic manner, but because insects are simply very dumb, characterless creatures compared to individual humans. An isolated insect, whose behavior is governed by a few simple and rigid rules, is not intrinsically freer or more creative than an insect living in a colony. If you would have to choose, would you rather be a social termite, or its individually living cousin, a cockroach? Would you rather be a "collectivist" bee, or an "individualist" fly? Neither of these alternatives seems particularly attractive.
All human social constructions are evolving processes. Just as individuals, without change guided by a communal critical self-consciousness they inevitably become stagnant and unhealthy. Creating the right environment for the individual leads to the maximum long term benefit to an individual, and its offspring. An organized society is the environment that allows individuals to better survive. It is self evident that individuals are free and may chose to live alone and are able chose to die instead of to live in bondage to another. Society, ultimately, is not forced but is a choice of the individuals making it up. While governments may abuse their power, minor abuses should be corrected. However when those abuses are severe and as a result an individual’s life is that of unbearable hardship, dutiful rebellion is expected. As a result the government must responsibly control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers.
Analysis of the trends, the context, and the facts are essential for government. For the leaders of government to make the best decisions these leaders must be the most able. The data collected can only be as valid as possible when the individuals gathering that data are the most able to do so. Therefore appointments of individuals in organizations are made and responsibilities assigned to individuals based upon demonstrated intelligence and ability
All people under the government are equal before the law. Laws should reward those who obey them and punish accordingly those who dare to break them. Thus it is guaranteed that actions taken are systematically predictable. In addition, the system of law runs the state, not the individual leaders, no one has immunity from the law. It is the position of the ruler, not the ruler himself or herself, that holds the power. However society is made up of individuals that may be self interested and may use the powers of society to restrict the rights of others for their own benefit. Therefore the most focus of the power the society can have on its members is best directed on the individuals that would advance their own interest while negatively affecting the interest of the other members. In this way both the organism of society and the individuals self regulate each other in a positive way.
Economists are keen to point out that self-interest, regulated by competition, can generate complex systems of behavior which organize the factors of production in such a way as to most effectively produce and distribute wealth for the wider good. The invisible hand of the market can regulate the production of marketable goods and direct their distribution, but it can also squander natural capital and can denude social capital. Without social capital, there is no social foundation for any economy and no common resources to draw on. Market failures can be viewed as scenarios where wherein the allocation of goods and services by a free market is not efficient. The pursuit of pure self-interest that leads to results that are not efficient is a market failure that can be improved upon by government regulations that create a truly competitive environment.
Religious
Observation of various religions shows similarities between their concepts of the supernatural. The first empirical regularity is that a supernatural concepts tends to violate a single ontological assumption. That is, human minds are endowed with many default assumptions about a few basic categories, including person, animal, plant, tool, and natural object. For example, an animal is assumed to have the same basic body plan throughout its life, and so a butterfly seems supernatural because it violates this assumption. By violating just one ontological assumption, supernatural concepts maximize the relevance of our other non-violated assumptions, and so make stories about these concepts easy and interesting to tell. A second empirical regularity is that religious thinking tends to focus on people-like supernatural entities with great access to socially-relevant information. When a person assumes that these entities share their moral intuitions and that they know about all the bad things they do, that person expects these entities to get mad and punish for behaving badly. This makes these entities highly relevant subjects of thought and discussion. A third empirical regularity is that religious rituals have a lot in common with cleansing rituals. Our mental systems for dealing with disease via disgust have had to accept the validity of specific procedures to protect us against unseen enemies, even when we had no direct evidence of those unseen enemies, nor any understanding of why each procedure protects us. Our mental systems for dealing with social rituals similarly required us to accept them without understanding their social function. Given these, it seems a small step to accept specific odd social procedures that protect us against supernatural entities. Finally, human corpses are highly relevant entities that violate our ontological assumptions (being both person and natural object) and trigger our disease/disgust mental systems. They are thus prototypical religious objects, and are considered over all cultures.
Primal religions are culturally-widespread beliefs in "supernatural agents" (e.g., gods, ancestors, spirits, and witches) result from agent detection, the intuitive process of assuming intervention by conscious agents, regardless of whether they are present. This process is then formalized by a group to assist humans in providing explanations of the natural world, a feeling of comfort, and social order. Organized religions deviate from ancient local religious practice mainly due to religious guilds trying to monopolize access to the supernatural.
Humans evolved a tendency to gullibility about the supernatural, in order to signal cooperativeness. That is, it may be hard to fake a tendency toward supernatural belief, and such beliefs may tend to make you more cooperative, for fear of punishment by moralistic supernatural observers. If so, it can be in your gene's interest for you to tend to hold such beliefs, even if that sometimes induces wasteful actions. (Your genes might, for example, tip the balance a bit more toward believing in entities that violate ontological assumptions.) Supernatural beliefs would then be a credible signal of cooperativeness. Irrationality would again be useful signal, just as it is with emotional expressions that signal commitment, or with people tending to overestimate their abilities, in order to impress potential allies. Additionally being known as cooperative may make also make you known as trustworthy. Finally if one is gullible about the supernatural then you may also have your morality more easily shaped by stories of the supernatural and the natural tendency to believe what others tell you about good and evil.
While traditional religion is false on its statements of the nature of reality and is often used for the purposes of exploitation, it still cultivates emotion, moral values, desires and other aspects of life that are important to human society. These biologically based aspects should be transformed into positive values of morality, instead of destroying religion outright, when it serves as the psychological and moral basis for a large percentage of people. Freed from any values humans do not become noble savages but shameless apes, and so values, beliefs, and morals are needed. For example; psychopaths, who have no sense of responsibility for their actions, are fully familiar with moral principles; they just do not care about them or other people.
‘Religion’ is to mean the emotion that forms a link between human beings as individuals, as a link people between human beings and nations, and as a link between human beings and societies in the past as well as future. Not a mechanical or chemical but an mental linking-together is in fact the religious emotion. The feeling is experienced in the mind and breaks through all the limits of understanding and reason. People adopt and maintain religious beliefs for a combination of evidential and emotional reasons that provide satisfaction of cognitive and emotional constraints. Thus religious faith is not just wishful thinking but an intuitive judgment that fits compellingly with a person’s beliefs and goals. But, beyond the feeling of emotional fulfillment for humans creep in projections of imagined beings and of the sacred in general which then manifests it in several metaphysical beliefs. These beliefs and are typically validated by experienced emotion and not scientific methodology. Instead of intuition it is better to put emotional value into scientific methodology so as to use observation and logic as the tools used to validate belief and then achieve emotional coherence.
Sense perception, critical reason, factual evidence, and scientific methods of inquiry alone are admitted as a means of valid knowledge, and challenge inferential knowledge on the ground that all inference requires a universal major premise but there is no way to reach certainty about such a premise. Since inference is not a means of valid knowledge, all supersensible things like "destiny," "soul," or "afterlife," do not exist. To say that such entities exist is regarded as absurd, for no unverifiable assertion of existence is meaningful. The ‘soul’ is only the body qualified by intelligence. It has no existence apart from the body, only this world exists, there is no beyond. Nature is indifferent to good and evil, and history does not bear witness to divine providence. Unverifiable, supernatural beliefs are a cheat, they serve to make men submissive through fear and rituals. Virtue and vice are not absolute but mere social conventions. Pleasure and pain are the central facts of human life.
For the individual it is a self religion, seeking transformation of an individual from the intuitive understanding of a child to that of the rational understanding of an adult. It teaches that an individual must, through intellectual understanding enabling clarity of perception, reach enlightenment. Enlightenment is one’s release from his or her self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. Such tutelage is self-imposed if its cause is not lack of intelligence, but rather a lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another. Not merely a perspective of the world that is free of myths and untruths, but a perspective self constructed and demonstrably verified.
Prayer addresses progress, humanity, the nation and human genius. Collective, rather than individual, prayer is stressed due to the wish to use religious organization to support a common action. There are temples and rituals, and theatre with symbolic plays to induce religious feelings. The corporal nature or the life of one’s body is loved and deified. The divine is humanity in its highest potential. But there is no humanity in the highest potential so then the potentials of mankind are loved as well as individual potentials, and they are represented in a garland of glory in order to love them ever more.
Rather than supernatural entities humanity as a species is the closest object of worship. Reason based in observable reality is the method of acquiring faith. It does not mean that single individuals are worshipped, but rather the entire potential of the human race and all its achievements are the object of worship. Instead of projecting human values onto the unknown heavens and submitting people to their own illusionary creation, these values are worshipped in humanity as a whole, which posses them collectively. The religion attempts to bring people to value themselves and to find common purpose, community and universal meaning in themselves as an individual that is a part of the collective.
Traditional means to grow and spread religion can be useful to spread any ideology as well as protect an ideology against infiltration by others. Some means are;
1. Children respond particularly receptively to the ideas of their parents, and thus ideas which directly or indirectly encourage a higher birthrate will replicate themselves at a higher rate than those that discourage higher birthrates. As long as resources are available to support children, an idea which influences the number of children one has helps that idea spread. This has been an important element for the spread and perpetuation of many religions. Parents naturally pass their beliefs to their children. If a religion says having children is good, that contraception is bad, or anything similar which results in a higher birth rate, it is more likely to continue into the future. Individuals are encouraged to marry early, abjure abortion and even contraception, all of which leads to larger families. Pregnancy and birth, the business of caring for children, and the horror of contemplating their death, can stimulate an intensity of purpose that sometimes parents more open to religious sentiments. Many common family events encourage a broadly spiritual turn of mind, from selfless care for a sick relation to sacrifices for the sake of a child’s adulthood that one might never see. Also the loss of religion by a group is affected by forming fewer stable families, and having fewer children when they do. People start having smaller families before they stop going to church. Lastly, men are less religious than women as women play a rather larger role than men in the production and rearing of children.
2. Appeal to the desires of believers. There is a tendency for humans to believe things because they want to believe them, sometimes in disregard to the truth. In order for a religion to be survive followers are taught that those who believe will gain rewards or avoid negative consequences, and non-believers will miss out on the rewards or be affected negatively. When people become emotionally attached to an idea, reason will not persuade them to abandon it. Ideas which influence those that hold them to continue to hold them for a long time stick. Ideas which encourage longevity in their hosts, or leave their hosts particularly resistant to abandoning or replacing these ideas, enhance the preservability and afford protection from the competition or proselytism of other ideas.
3. Create systems to spread the word. All things being equal, religions which encourage believers to convert others will do better than those which don't. For example, an organization which requires all young men to spend some time trying to convert others can grow very quickly. Ideas that encourage the proselytism of it, as seen in many religious or political movements, can replicate memes horizontally through a given generation, spreading more rapidly than parent-to-child transmissions do. Cognitively transmitted ideas depend heavily on a cluster of other ideas and cognitive traits already widely held in the population, and thus usually spread more passively than other forms of transmission.
Principles to assist in transmitting ideas and making them stick; Find the core of any idea and keep it simple and profound, grab people's attention by surprising them and keep them curious by systematically "opening gaps" in their knowledge, make sure an idea can be grasped and remembered later by using concrete images and terms, give an idea believability so that the ideas to carry their own credentials, help people see the importance of an idea by using emotions to convey the point, empower people to use an idea through narrative
4. Use fear. Threaten believers for a lack of belief and they are more likely to continue believing, which increases the likelihood of the religion spreading. Also, stating that some authority, whether book or man, is the one true source of knowledge creates a fear of criticism or honest exploration of the faith. This helps perpetuate the ideas, protecting them from change. If necessary call for death to those who denounce their religious belief. Ideas influence those that hold them to attack or sabotage competing ideas and/or those that hold them. Adversative replication can give an advantage in idea transmission when the idea itself encourages aggression against others.
5. Use recorded ideas. There have probably been hundreds of religions which have come and gone, leaving no trace for us to study. Recording the stories and tenets of a religion gives it a life of its own in a way, apart from the usual host. The book or other record becomes not just a source of authority, but a carrier in its own right.
6. Using social conformity. This increases the proportion of children who will adopt ideas of their parents. Cultural separatism exemplifies one practice in which one can expect a higher rate of ideal replication because the idea for separation creates a barrier from exposure to competing ideas. The pressure to conform to those around us is strong, so to the extent that religions can fill the very real need for association with others, they can keep their beliefs protected and perpetuated. Isolation from those of other faiths, or no faith, may be an important part of this strategy as well.
7. Build practical skills and education. If your religious group is skilled and can obtain high positions in society you can use these positions to help others of your group as well as enabling your offspring to better survive. Having members knowledgeable in survival and military skills will help your group survive longer than the rest of society in the event of collapse.
The main tenants of the philosophy are:
Reality exists as an objective absolute. Facts are ultimately independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears. Knowledge of reality is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis.
Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Self aware beings may attempt to guide their development using the best ways their rational mind can conceive.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Through guided cultivation of virtue and the development of morals individuals their find place in relation to others.
Society is a superorganism, an organism consisting of many organisms. Individuals are not able to survive by themselves for periods of time comparable to that of a society.
Prosperity of society leads to the prosperity of the individual. The environment that a government should aim to create is the result of the right balance of both good of the particular individual and the good of society. What this balance is must be a practical decision with every circumstance being unique.
Each person is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. Over the long term the rights of individuals can only be regulated by society voluntarily. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and happiness is the highest moral purpose of life. Altruism is not in conflict with this purpose as it is the results of evolution, creating enlightened self interest.
Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Life's fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals.
Between individuals the government acts as a policeman that protects man’s rights and to subtly guide the self interest of individuals to align with the interest of society; it uses force in retaliation against those individuals who initiate its use.
A system of law runs the state, not individuals. Laws reward those who obey them and punish accordingly those who break them and all people are equal before the law. It is the position of the individual, not the individual himself or herself, that holds the power.
The ideal political-economic system is mixed republican-capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to extreme force.
Consolidation of power breeds corruption. Separating governmental powers, federalism, peer review, and openness are means to check the corrupting of powerful organizations on individuals. Generally political, military, and social power is dispersed as much as practical to avoid the self interest of an individual or subgroup to override that of society.
Society is healthiest when the individuals with the most competence take up leadership positions. Innate ability dictates wealth and social power. The diligent weak are protected from the ruthless powerful and the exceptional elite are protected from the envious mob.
The Order of the Cosmic Truth
The legal power of the Order is guaranteed by the constitution. Thus, from a legal perspective, The Order is not a religion and its values came under the heading of moral instruction rather than religious teaching. The Constitution affirms the privileged position of The Order, but also guarantees freedom of religion “within limits not prejudicial to peace and order and not antagonistic to civil duties”. In practice, this means that religious groups are required to receive government approval and that their doctrines and rituals come under government scrutiny.
The official doctrine of the Order of the Cosmic Truth states that the Demogorgon is an extremely powerful being but no matter how supreme, still a life form based on physical, observable principles and not a god in the conventional sense. If one becomes one of the Leviathan then their personality may be preserved in the Leviathan’s telepathic link, resulting in a verifiable afterlife.
Demogorgon is venerated by the Order for its ancient knowledge, ability, and comprehension and is recognized as the supreme manifestation of human potential. Instead of acting as a monolithic controlling entity it prefers to monitor events and sometimes acting as an advisor. It is common knowledge that like the old Olympian gods Demogorgon does get involved in real politics, but unlike its mythological counterpart it is diplomatic and clever.
In practice it is a cultural religion: it prescribes a social and cultural setting for practical action rather than theoretical doctrines. The faithful are guided by the theo-political hierarchy, constituting a framework for personal growth and interaction. Religious leaders are to be obeyed as they are local representations of Demogorgon. This does not mean leaders are infallible: being limited and finite they can and do fail from time to time. It is the duty of leaders to strive towards perfection in their office, and they are responsible for their decisions and actions both to their own superiors and their inferiors. Peer reviews are often held to contemplate new ideas. This means that they must promote openness and accountability. Secrecy breeds corruption, the ability to freely criticize is essential.
The Order is composed of several self-governing ecclesial bodies, each geographically and politically distinct but theologically unified. Each autocephalous body is shepherded, but not ran, by a group of bishops whose main duty is to preserve and teach traditions and related practices. The highest rank is that of Bishop. Each bishop has a territory, see, over which he governs. As with most actions, Bishops are appointed for their term in committee, and affirmed democratically by a vote of member congregations, proportional to their membership. Bishops are equal in authority and cannot interfere in the jurisdiction of another bishop. Administratively, these bishops and their territories are organized into various autocephalous groups of bishops who gather together at least twice a year to discuss the state of affairs within their respective sees. While bishops and their autocephalous groups have the ability to administer guidance in individual cases, their actions do not usually set precedents that affect the entire Church.
Despite the complexities of the structure, the Church at its heart views the local congregation as the basic unit. Each autocephalous body is an association of congregations with no one organization able to speak authoritatively for the whole. It is the congregations that have authority over the larger body.
Rituals vary immensely; orthodoxy does not in itself prescribe the details of individual worship except for a few basics. The one agreed standard holiday is the founding holiday, where the founding of the Drakeîn is celebrated.
Rituals are tied to a social and educational framework designed to bring together. Education is run in two parts. Part one is teaching things like philosophy, the foundations of science (the scientific method and why it works as well as it does), critical thinking, etc... The second part is for practical survival skills. These practical skills will include self defense, basic farming, basic wilderness and urban survival, etc. All members are encouraged to practice and study both of these skill areas so they have understanding of them and not just knowledge.
Demogorgon is not considered the head of the Order, as there is none, however Demogorgon is first in honor among all the bishops, presides in person or through a delegate over any council of bishops in which he takes part and serves as primary spokesman for the Order. Demogorgon has no direct jurisdiction over the other Bishops or even followers but enjoys the right of convening extraordinary meetings consisting of all bishops or their delegates to deal with ad hoc situations. Each Autocephalous body may call a similar meeting if all members of the particular body agree to.
The symbol for the belief system is two intersecting circles with a smaller circle sitting inside the intersection. One large circle represents Truth, the other circle represents Belief, and the smaller circle represents justified knowledge. This is a Venn diagram representing the Classical Definition of Knowledge.
The official symbol for the Order is a three pointed tomoe with a dot at its center and surrounded by a circle. A dot center of the flag represents the individual or the source of meaning. The smooth and sharp lines of the tomoe represent movement and change of both humanity and the world. Each arm of the star is tied to the outer circle like a spoke, signifying that every person is tied to society. Additionally the symbol is often centered and not offset. This signifies an individual’s tie to the wider universe.
Economics of Religion and Philosophy
Religious markets are similar to other markets in that they are social creations. The exchanges that take place in a religious market are regulated by social factors. Elements of social interactions such as norms and morals influence the individual choices and preferences of the religious consumer. Therefore, elements of social interactions influence the types of religious goods offered to consumers in the marketplace and the changes in consumer demands over a span of time. Belief deals with ideology and extends beyond what one would typically define as a market good. Belief is produced and resides in communicated thoughts, and the consumers of goods of faith can only become consumers by becoming producers, by participating in interactions of belief.
As in economics, the market situation can be described with concepts about monopoly, prohibition, and pluralism. Monopolies in religion are only made possible through state enforcement and often function on a public scale. When the government establishes a set religion and all other competition is drowned out then believers are culturally connected but not necessarily adherent to the religion enforced by the state. Since participation in a religious monopoly is not as important because the church does not have to rely on members for resources they are not forced to provide adequate or marketable religious products due to lack of competition. The ability of a religious organization to monopolize a religious economy is entirely dependent on the extent to which the state governs the religious economy. A monopolized religious economy tends to have lower levels of participation.
Organizations in a free market cannot rely on the state for resources so they must compete for participation of the religious consumer. Contest among religious firms results in the specialization of products so that consumers are able to distinguish different organization from others. Pluralistic religions operate on a personal scale, marketing more to individual demands as opposed to public. As the majority of the consumer market, organizations market more to women than men. Pluralism is only possible through lack of favoritism by the state, a competitive and pluralistic religious economy has a positive effect on levels of participation.
According to the theory of religious economy, societies that restrict supply of religion, either through an imposed state religious monopoly or through state sponsored secularization, are the main causes of drops in religiosity. Correspondingly, the more religions a society has, the more likely the population is to be religious.
Two reactions from secularization being revival and cult formation. As old faiths eventually weaken the rise of different religious sects and cults will prevail.
Over time established religious groups will spawn smaller and less worldly sub groups of the faith. This trend of revival provides a plausible explanation why religion never seems to fade away and to why previously prominent religious organizations have dissipated. Revival produces a shift in which religious groups a population will follow and proves effective against the demise of religion.
Unlike a sect which follows traditions from its parent religion a cult presents completely new religious traditions. Cult is simply another word for a new religion and all current religions at one point could have been considered cult movements.
However the state does have an active role in this market. Religions are considered to be public services. They are considered so essential to human life that for moral reasons their universal provision should be guaranteed, and they may be associated with fundamental human rights. Public services can encounter conflict between commercial procedures, maximizing growth, and the interests of the people using these services resulting in a market failure. Most governments therefore have some form of control or regulation to manage this possible conflict. Regulation ensures that a safe and appropriate service is delivered, while not discouraging the effective functioning and development of businesses.
Religious regulation has several elements: Public statutes, standards or statements of expectations. A process of registration or licensing to approve and to permit the operation of a service, usually by a named organization or person. A process of inspection or other form of ensuring standard compliance, including reporting and management of non-compliance with these standards. Where there is continued non-compliance, then a process of de-licensing whereby that organization or person is judged to be operating unsafely, and is ordered to stop operating at the expense of acting unlawfully.
The Government
The Drakeîn is at its heart a confederation whose main members are called Dominions, states who exist in separate governmental systems and are considered sovereign nations. The Drakeîn itself reserves "federal" rights of overall policy between these nations and guarantees rights of citizens however the Drakeîn has little direct power over internal affairs. The Dominions have complete authority within their space with two exceptions. The first being power voluntarily being given to the Drakeîn and the second being power retained by the people and guaranteed by both the Drakeîn and the particular Dominion. There is a Constitution that that enumerates the powers and functions of the government.
The Drakeîn also has direct control over Colonies, whom by number of planets and overall population outnumber any individual Dominion, but individually have less sway. Approximately one quarter of the population is found in the Colonies. The Drakeîn allows a wide range of internal governmental systems in Colonies and especially Dominions, providing they don't conflict with the overall guidelines set out by the Drakeîn nor the organs that oversee Drakeîn interests. The term Dominions refer to member states while Drakeîn refers to the organization governing the union and Drakeîn Dominions is the name for the combined confederation.
Factionalism is allowed, but formalized to minimize infighting and allow divisions to be settled legitimately. This means a rough analog of political parties within the highest level of government. The goal is to maximize effectiveness and stability while allowing broad changes in the government over significant periods of time. All affairs of leadership and changes of government are legitimatized and formalized, the better to avoid fighting outside the system, but the system is constructed in such a way that the winning party always has a clear majority and the leader must have proven his effectiveness in leading his faction to victory.
While ultimate power is theoretically held by the Sebastos, a highly respected member of society and state symbol, in practicality distinct branches of the Drakeîn actively govern the overall union. The Sebastos rarely exercise power and when it does every being in the Drakeîn is aware of it. This combination of trust and publicity keep their power from being abused. The first branch generally referred to as Executive which takes actions to carry out policies, administers political and governmental concerns, and is the most politically powerful branch. This branch is organized upon the idea that those with the most direct power should have a only personal control of a small segment of executive power, through well chartered organs, and those that by necessity have great power can use this power under intended limited circumstances. Policy is in charge of making policy and laws as well as controlling funding. It consists of a body representing the Colonies and also of a theoretically more powerful body representing the Dominions. This branch is organized around the principles of creating balanced national policies based around the interests of various political entities as well as the total population by the most qualified. The third branch, Tactical, deals with military matters as well as establishing policy on alliance wide security issues. Tactical is based around the principle that the most important function of any state is its physical security and Tactical seeks to organize the many military forces into one cohesive force. While the proper subordination of a competent, professional military to the ends of policy as determined by civilian authority is central to Tactical, civilian control only gives broad policy goals that military commanders are expected to translate into operational plans with the direct selection of specific targets for attack on the part of governing politicians under limited circumstances.
The final branch, primarily concerned with internal security and law enforcement, is known commonly as Legal. Legal is based around the principle that law and it’s enforcement should be completely objective and function as a disinterested machine, led by those without aspirations of power. In addition, a separate management/administration exits that combines political, military and law enforcement into a single governing system for the individual Colonies acting as their local government. Between these various organs exist a series of checks and balances that ensures that each branch does not overstep their assigned duties and accumulate overreaching power.
Every colony rules itself in whatever manner seen fit by its citizens with only a few constants. A planet may contain singular or multiple Colonies based on population or varying social conditions. Star systems with enough Colonies and population are considered Protectorates, a regional organizational structure. New Colonies are considered "sovereign territories" of the Drakeîn at large but are under guidance of Protectorates. This allows these parent Protectorates help set up a stable government as well as expand native businesses. Eventually a large enough collection of Colonies or Protectorate may attempt to form their own Dominion if they meet certain requirements.
The legislature is made up of two bodies, the Synod and the Diet. The Synod makes laws that benefit the more powerful and influential organizations while the Diet, looking out for the disadvantaged regions, makes sure these laws improve the Drakeîn as a whole.
To carry out policy Hypatos are appointed, heading the Executive Division, who are given the greatest amount of freedom in actions to dictate overall policy of the Drakeîn. Their power is checked but generally can do as they please. Having the approval of the wide majority of the government they directly appoint individuals to run key organs. The worries of the leader about the loyalty of others are minimized, so that they do not surround himself with incompetents to prevent a potential rival from arising.
The remaining Divisions have less political power however are intrinsic to the functioning of the alliance. The Legal Division’s main function other than enforcing laws is to act as a mediator and judge between the branches of government. Tactical Division receives funding and goals from the members of the Drakeîn and the best means to achieve those goals are left solely up to this Division.
A system of checks and balances exist between the different branches of government. Additionally the power and decisions making ability between the branches are split in a way that it would be very difficult for one to gain control over the other three. The Tactical and Legal divisions wield the most hard power yet initiate the least amount of governing decisions while the Executive and Policy have the greatest amount of decision making ability but have the least amount of ability to enforce.
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
Divisions of Government
Unity Division
.SEBASTOS
This position is the Head of State.
This office is the highest governmental body in the Drakeîn and is a symbol of the state and unity of the people as well as the ultimate Commander-in-Chief of the military. It is also the highest authority of the state religion, The Order of the Cosmic Truth. The Sebastos is, by tradition, a unifying presence and usually takes great care to steer clear of day to day politics acting as a symbol of the Drakeîn without executive power. For that very reason, on rare occasions when the he does take a stand on a contemporary issue, he can expect to generate great attention and, if carefully crafted, his expressed viewpoint can carry great weight. In this way, with little power, the Sebastos plays a very important role in shaping the Drakeîn.
The Sebastos is elected by the current Regional Exarchos for life terms and approved of by the Synod and Diet. A Sebastos can be declared unfit to rule only by the combined agreement of the Hypatos, High Judges, Synod, and Diet with the later two both needing a 3/4ths vote. The current Sebastos, Demogorgon, has been in this position since the foundation of the Drakeîn.
A Sebastos takes part in foreign visits and receives foreign dignitaries as the chief diplomatic officer, grants pardons if the person concerned had been convicted under federal jurisdiction, and confers decorations and honors as well as carrying out the duties of a Regional Exarchos if necessary.
He or she is able to dismiss Regional Exarchos at whim (though new ones are appointed by a new vote), as well as Domestikos but only on the advice of a Stratelate. Members of Diet or the Synod can be removed by the Sebastos but only on the advice of that particular area’s Exarchos. On the suggestions of the Sebastos or with evidence of high crimes the Synod, Diet, or Exarchos can attempt to remove a Hypato with a 3/4ths vote or the Exarchos with a majority vote. Members of the Legal and Tactical branch may be removed by the Sebastos as well with the majority vote of the Synod and Diet. The Sebastos is also the theoretical head of the armed forces of the Drakeîn.
.REGIONAL EXARCHOS
The electorates in the Diet of a particular Protectorate or Dominion directly elects one Exarchos to watch over their area of space. The Exarchos should embody "the spirit and values of the region" for the nation itself and the world. This individual is the embodiment of their particular electorate, guarantor of the civil liberties of citizens against arbitrary state power. He has the power to pardon those convicted of crimes, among other powers related to the common citizen. Unlike other elections, there are no candidacy requirements and the candidates do not even have to run for office to be elected. These Exarchos have limited direct power and rarely take direct action, but are the chief advisor to the Sebastos and the legislative houses. They also have the ability to dismiss any official at the colony level. They do have the power to certify or veto any decision made by a Domestiko, and can dismiss Stratego and Justiciars. A majority vote of the Diet or a 3/4ths vote of the Synod can declare an Exarchos unfit, and the Sebastos can dismiss an Exarchos(with a new one being elected). The combined Exarchos has a majority vote to propose a member of the Diet as a Magistro and then, provided they are approved of by the Synod, appoints him or her to office. They are required to appoint each Magistro from the political party whose views reflect those of the majority in the Diet. The Exarchos is also the theoretical head of the armed forces within his territory but very rarely personally directs the military.
.ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE
With the Hyperians gaining control of most of the galaxy, they organized a Ecumenical Conference, inviting delegates from various friendly parties to attend and discuss the establishment of a new state. The first conference approved the Common Program, which served as the de facto constitution for the next five years before the Constitution was constructed. The Common Program comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. It is a fundamental document of the Drakeîn, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. They are universal: valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature itself.
The conference then approved the new national anthem, flag, capital city, and state name, and elected the first government. In effect, the first Ecumenical Conference served as a constitutional convention. Surviving to this day it serves as an official forum for the regulated discussion among those with mass influence.
Ceremonially presided over by an Exarchos selected by the Sebastos this organ consists of delegates from a wide range of powerful groups. It consists of interstellar political parties and movements, mass organizations such trade unions, major religions, racial minorities, as well as powerful independent individuals. New members must register their organization and be approved. Generally open to new perspectives, few groups are deemed to subversive and dangerous. The proportion of representation of the various parties is determined by established convention, negotiated between the parties. It is organized along syndicalist lines, with new members assigned to branches based on occupation, which develop channels for mass participation of their members. While this body has no official power, advice is often taken very seriously and decisions made by the conference are enforced through its member bodies. By establishing itself as the arbitrator of legitimacy the Drakeîn uses the leadership of these organizations to police their own members. Additionally this consolidates the amount of interests and makes their actions more open.
By far the largest and dominant party in the Conference is the Order of the Cosmic Truth, the religion based upon worship of Demogorgon. While the Order maintains a high level of control over the Conference, it is intended to be more representative and is composed of a broader range of people than is typical of government office in the Drakeîn. Members of the minor parties often individually are found in policy making state organs, and there is a convention that state institutions generally have at least one sinecure from a minor party.
Political scientists have identified three groupings within the Order leading to a structure which has been called "one party, three factions". The first is the "elitist coalition" which contains mainly officials who have risen from the more prosperous areas and members tend to be more individual powerful with wide ranging connections. The second is the "populist coalition" which consists mainly of officials who have successfully risen from lower classes whose members are from a wide range of society. The third is the “scientist faction” and whose members belong to one of the other factions however they have backgrounds in technical fields. Elitists are classified as those who originate mostly in wealthy families or those who have a family background of high-ranking Order officials. Populists on the other hand consist of officials who has relatively humble backgrounds and who have climbed through the power structure from the grassroots. While the Elitists are more concerned with economic growth and market functionality, the Populists are more focused on societal harmony and decreasing inequality. Scientist members usually have higher education qualifications, normally they all have doctorate degrees. They often are the swing vote that the other two factions must pander to.
The interaction between these factions is largely complementary with each faction possessing a particular expertise and both committed to the continued dominance of the Order and not allowing intra-party factional politics threaten party unity. It has been noted that party and government positions have been assigned to create a very careful balance between these groupings. These groupings do not act in a zero-sum, winner take all fashion. Neither group has the ability or will to dominate the others completely.
Executive Division
.HYPATOS AND MAGISTROS
This position is the Head of Government.
This executive council is made up of Magistros that have two six year term. The Hypatos is selected from this council by the Synod by a simple plurality vote. The Hypatos possess the power to veto laws passed by the legislature, though his veto can be overridden. Actions by one of the Hypatos may be vetoed by the other.
The Hypatos select and appoint many key positions. High judges are appointed though Diet and Synod must both have majority approval.
Magistros typically act as the voice of the Hypatos as well as being advisors and are responsible for their various areas. However the actual running of the organ under them is generally left to other individuals, mainly various boards of directors. Each of the channels has clearly defined aims that are served by their board of directors, headed by the Magistros, who are selected by their personal qualifications and are theoretically independently of any national bias or proportion.
Channels are an important aspect of public international law. Channels are established by treaty that acts as a charter creating the group. These treaties are formed when lawful representatives of several states represented by the legislative branch go through a ratification process, providing the Channel with an international legal personality.
The organs of government headed by Magistros are as follows:
Evolution Channel
Public Welfare Channel
Sentient Development Channel
Intelligence Channel
Trade Channel
Finance Channel
Settlement and Expansion Channel
Union Channel
War Channel
.MAGISTRO OF EVOLUTION
The office holder he is in charge of genetic engineering research, improving the genome, areas of emerging scientific fields, advances in neural processors, exploring the potential of pneumic powers, finding and providing opportunities to gifted individuals, as well as technological advancements. It also administers the Imperial Service Foundation, which conducts research into pneumic, evaluates potential individuals, trains them in the use of their powers and funnels them into other departments.
Most importantly the Channel is in charge of research, development, and application of psychohistory. Psychohistory equates all possibilities in large societies to mathematics, allowing predictable long term outcomes. It combines history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make predictions of the collective actions of very large groups of people. While useful for internal development psychohistory is not as well understood for beings that differ so much from that of humans and only large, long term trends can be observed.
.MAGISTRO OF-PUBLIC WELFARE
This official controls transportation, education, public heath, large civil projects, and a vast number of other divisions. This is the most administratively complex of the offices, and the Magistro appoints a large number of other officials to serve under this one.
.MAGISTRO OF SENTIENT DEVELOPMENT
This organ is responsible for diplomatic and military relations with sentient races which are not members of the Drakeîn. This covers contact not only with spacefaring races, but many of the intelligent, less advanced races that explorers have encountered. It decides what kind and how much technology will be passed on to these contacts, and maintains the quarantine of some worlds, with military aid from the Division of Frontier Affairs. It also trains consuls and ambassadors for service and personnel that staff the embassies.
Whereas writers are fond of making a sharp distinction between peace and war, for the Drakeîn diplomacy is a form of war by other means. Drakeîn diplomacy draws its neighbors into a network of international and interstate relations, the terms controlled by the Drakeîn itself. This process revolves around treaty making.
New worlds are welcomed into the family of nations. There is an assimilation of Drakeîn social attitudes and values. As a formalization of this assimilation laws and treaties are made. In order to drive this process, the Drakeîn uses of a number of mostly diplomatic practices. For example, embassies would often stay on for years. A leader of other nations is routinely be requested to stay in the Drakeîn, not only as a potential hostage and to learn of the culture, but also as a useful pawn in case political conditions where he came from changed. Another key practice is to overwhelm visitors by sumptuous displays. The Drakeîn’s riches serves the state's diplomatic purposes as a means of propaganda, and a way to impress foreigners. Special care is taken to stimulate as many of the senses in as high degree as possible.
Although dedicated to peaceful coexistence both internally and externally, the Drakeîn cannot resist the urge to meddle in the affairs of other species. Sometimes they do so directly, as when teams provide training and technical assistance to low-tech civilizations, or when the military overthrows a tyrannical regime. At other times, it meddles more subtly: merchants offer discount prices on goods to cultures they approve of, bio-technicians only give life-extension drugs to alien leaders who support Drakeîn ideals. Since too much of this sort of thing would quickly make enemies of every neighboring civilization, there is a committee called the Uplift Board to oversee all overt and covert efforts to improve alien societies. The Board works with the diplomatic, military, and intelligence services, and numbers among its advisors many leading experts on psychosocial manipulation, xenology, and memetics. Any citizen engaging in "uplift" activities without the Board's approval risks severe legal consequences.
.MAGISTRO OF TRADE
This individual has the power to make decisions about the methods and extent of trade between two Colonies, or between Colonies and non Protectorate planets, and to promote trade among worlds and beyond the borders. The determination of whether a planet is open or closed to trade is under his jurisdiction. It also operates spaceports on worlds too poor or primitive to run their own. The trade department has its own enforcement branch, but often calls upon the justice department for assistance.
.MAGISTRO OF FINANCE
The Magistro gathers taxes and keeps track of the budget and expenses. The Drakeîn draws money from a variety of sources: direct taxes on planets; tariffs on goods entering Drakeîn space; voluntary contributions by Dominions; and a number of user fees for Drakeîn services. The major source of revenue is from a tax on the Dominion/Protectorate based on its GNP. The Channel also mints the Imperial Hyperpyron, the official currency of the Drakeîn. Officials are required to have their salaries managed by the Drakeîn’s Finance Channel. More money can be made on emerging fields and smaller businesses so older larger industries are not protected inappropriately by officials with large holdings in failing areas.
.MAGISTRO OF SETTLEMENT AND EXPANSION
The Magistro of Settlement and Expansion has four primary goals. The agency coordinates the settlement and establishment of new Colonies. Second, it ensures that only colonists under Drakeîn law settle uninhabited planets near its space. It also heads up cartography and navigation. Finally, it encourages independent settlements near its boundaries to strengthen bonds with the Drakeîn and eventually bring them into the alliance. The office works closely with the Exploration Service as well.
.MAGISTRO OF UNION
The Channel for Unity dates back to the founding of the Drakeîn. Originally it was supposed to integrate all the worlds of space into a single community, resolve disputes among them, and encourage common standards and cooperation. It also serves as the state media agency, reminding citizens about Drakeîn peace and prosperity, the threats lurking just beyond the borders, and the dangers of disunity.
.MAGISTRO OF WAR
This official is someone with command military experience and is responsible for coordinating the various militaries of the Dominions and Protectorates. In times of war this person is the Supreme Commander of the military. A number of Strategos (one for each fully colonized system) fall under his or her direction, as well as The Expeditionary Corps and The Exploration Service. The Army and Spacy fall under the direction of the Tactical Branch.
.INTELLIGENCE CHANNEL
The Intelligence Channel is the Drakeîn's intelligence, counterintelligence, and covert operations service and is one of the largest and most well funded institutions in the Drakeîn. The Channel’s primary task is to gather information about other powers and potentially hostile civilizations; its covert operations wing undertakes secret missions outside Drakeîn space.
The basic mission of the Channel is gathering information. It does this in four main ways.
The first is simply research. Analysts study news media and public information, analyzing it to figure out what's true, what's disinformation, and what conceals a secret. Although the most boring of Channel’s duties, it's also by far the most fruitful. The second method is observation. Specially equipped starships monitor communications, spy on planets from orbit, and track ship movements. In these two tasks the Channel works closely and relatively smoothly with the Exploration Service. The third method of information-gathering is "Alien Source Intelligence" hiring spies. Most Drakeîn embassies, trade missions, and consulates have an Intelligence Liaison Officer who pays local agents for information. Although often wrong or garbled, it is sometimes the only way to collect genuinely secret material alien governments try to keep quiet.
The most exciting and dangerous form of intelligence gathering, "direct retrieval," requires agents to penetrate foreign security and steal information. The Drakeîn doesn't do this nearly as often as shown in the holovids, and only the failures ever reach the ears of the public. Channel often conducts direct retrieval operations in cooperation with the Spacy and Expeditionary Corps, using stealthy Special Operations ships and highly-trained commandos. Leaders only authorize direct retrieval in situations involving high demand for the information, and little or no chance of tracing the operation back to the Drakeîn. One unusual form of direct retrieval, the salvaging of ancient alien technology from abandoned worlds, usually requires the cooperation of the Exploration Service.
Where interventions require actions that exceed the moral and knowledge capacity of the Exploration Service or the Magistro of Sentient Development, the Channel is involved. This section comprises some of the very best members, and frequently makes use of third party agents to accomplish its aims. These agents operate "in the field" to support or suppress elements of other civilizations that the Drakeîn deems important (normally to the citizens of the civilization concerned, but potentially to the Drakeîn itself). The Channel employs many of the same assets used for direct retrieval in covert operations. The Drakeîn uses such operations to destabilize planetary governments, either to install a more friendly regime or to prepare a world for conquest or annexation. Other covert ops include economic sabotage against alien business interests operating in the Drakeîn’s sphere of influence, direct action against alien espionage operations, and strikes against criminals or rebels who have found sanctuary outside Drakeîn territory.
The Drakeîn deliberately keeps the command structure of the Channel secret. A committee of various sub agencies advises the Magistro on intelligence matters and runs the agency. The Drakeîn does not make the names of the leaders public; word only gets out when a member dies. They use their titles rather than personal names on all internal communications and orders. The recruitment section seeks out new people for the organ (often when they're just children), and trains them to become agents.
Policy Division
.SYNOD
This body primarily represents the government of the various Dominions and is considered the upper house of the legislature.
The main law making body, all members of this body are chosen by the Domestikos for the Protectorates and by whatever means the Dominions see fit. There are five thousand seats in this body and the term of office is six years for a maximum of four terms. Each colony appoints a Domestiko, and these Domestikos elect Patrikios to represent the Protectorate that their colony falls in to. Domestikos tend to appoint Patrikios that will help local interests. Similarly the ruling governments of the Dominions appoint Patrikios to represent them. The legislature of the Dominions appoints their representatives in whatever means they see best fit.
Legally speaking, the Synod is a single entity, but it is in practice divided into several different conclaves, each dealing with a different functional area. They are responsible for the exact wording of legislation. Each Dominion or Protectorate receives a number of conclave seats based off of their contributions, both monetary and otherwise, to the Drakeîn and to the particular area of responsibility of the Conclave. Because of the large amounts of resources the Dominions hold only very wealthy and influential Protectorates carry any sway in this body. The number and types of Conclaves change as needed. In addition to the Synod members, each conclave is also attended by a different type of Supervisor for each of the Dominions. For example, meetings of the Agriculture Conclave are attended by the agriculture supervisors of each Dominions. The current conclaves are as follows:
General Affairs Conclave
External Relations Conclave
Common Security Policy Conclave
Economic and Financial Conclave
Justice and Home Affairs Conclave
Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Conclave
Internal Market, Industry and Research Conclave
Transport, Communications, and Energy Conclave
Agriculture and Environmental Conclave
Education, Youth and Culture Conclave
The Synod is responsible for creating taxes. If the Synod cannot set a balanced budget it is dissolved and a new Synod is assembled. Wealthier states pay more per capita while poor states receive more benefits. However wealthier states also have a larger amount of votes in the Synod.
In order to pass a law that was initiated by the Hypatos or Diet, a majority vote is needed. For legislation initiated by the Synod a 2/3ths vote is needed. Both the Hypatos and Diet can veto this legislation, though the Hypatos’ veto can be overturned by a 2/3rds vote of either the Synod or Diet. A 3/4ths vote in the Synod is needed to declare war. Amending the constitution of the Drakeîn requires a 3/4ths vote as well from both the Diet and the Synod. A member of this body may be expelled by a 3/4ths vote of this body.
A State of Crisis may be declared by the Synod with a 3/4ths vote of the Synod and Diet, and with no veto by the Hypatos. Once a State of Crisis has been declared an Autokrator is chosen from the Exarchos. This individual assumes all powers of the Executive, Legislative, Judicial and Tactical branches however the Sebastos and Exarchos remain independent but may not veto any action of the Autokrator. All other governmental positions function as an agent of the Autokrator. Additionally this individual has more extensive power of punishment without a trial by the people, and complete immunity from being held accountable for his actions while being the Autokrator. He may make any law however he may not change the constitution unless his change is approved by the Diet and Synod with a 3/4ths vote.
There are a few limits to the power of the Autokrator. The Autokrator no power over the treasury, but may make use of funds granted to him by the Dominions. The most important is that the period of the office is six months. Additionally the Autokrator may only take actions to resolve the crisis he was put in power to handle. If he deviates from his mandate the Sebastos uses his authority as Commander-in-Chief to execute the Autokrator and restore normal government.
.DIET
This body primarily represents the population and is considered the lower house of the legislature.
Members of this house are elected to four year terms for a maximum of three terms. The number of Stratelates appointed is based on the principle of digressive proportionality, so that, while the size of the population of each Protectorate or Directorate is taken into account, smaller Protectorates elect more Stratelates than would be strictly justified by their populations alone. This population is the population of electors and not actual population.
The directly elected city and county legislatures form the foundation tier of the indirect election system. Each legislature then conducts an election for the next higher level, culminating in elections for the Diet. There is a limit on the number of candidates in proportion to the number of seats available. At the highest level a maximum of 1.2 candidates are allowed per 1 seat and at the lowest level this is this ratio is 3 candidates per 1 seat. The structure of the tiered electoral system makes it difficult for a candidate to become a member of the higher level assemblies without the support from politicians in the lower tier, while at the same time making it impossible for the existing bureaucracy to completely control the election process.
The Diet cannot write legislation but may initiate a request for a law from the Synod, and it can amend or veto laws passed by the Synod in many policy areas. However, once a proposal for a law or directive has been introduced by the Synod, it must receive the approval of both the Diet and Hypatos in order to come into force. A member of this body may be expelled by a 3/4ths vote of this body.
On the advice of a Hypato or a vote of no confidence by the Synod, the Diet and Hypatos may be requested to be dissolved by the Sebastos and new elections are held.
Legal Division
.ASSENT JUDICATURE
Appointed for life by the Hypatos, these High Judges (called Vestarches) are the final arbiters in determining the constitutionality of laws, and other actions, both by individuals and by the government. The assent judicature is the highest court in the land which can overrule a decision by any other court, and there are fifteen judges who are appointed have life terms. They may be removed by the Sebastos on the recommendation of the Diet. They may also strike down an action by the Hypatos or law by the Synod and Diet as unconstitutional. They, like all judges, are unable to hold any non judicial office after they retire and have all their personal/financial needs taken care of by the state, for life. As a result, most Judges are taken from the intellectual segment of society.
The Drakeîn separates its legal system into different forms of law with high courts of each type of law whose members are appointed for twenty five year terms. Judges are appointed by the Vestarches and their members appoint all positions of their lower courts. These judges may be removed by the Hypatos on the recommendation of the Exarchos.
.INIQUITY JUDICATURE
The criminal justice system has many courts, with the normal series of lower courts for petty crimes as well as a first look at more serious crimes. Since most criminals appeal from these lower courts, there is a system of appeals court that leads to the Iniquity Judicature.
.SOCIETY JUDICATURE
This is the highest court for matters that have to do with non-criminal, non-commercial problems. These are the everyday conflicts between people of all sentient races in the course of everyday life. Accidents caused by negligence are typical cases.
.COMMERCE JUDICATURE
Created at the beginning of the Drakeîn, it handles matters of trade law. It is more a commercial code than a code of laws. Any type of economic disagreement will most likely end up in this system.
.HARMONY JUDICATURE
Designed to handle special cases that revolve around disputes between the fundamental cultures of various people, the court is made up of twelve permanent members. Each permanent judge presides over an assembly for each case made up of himself and two judges from each of the races of the Dominions or Protectorates involved in the dispute. The court only meets a few times a year, and is notorious for taking a long time reaching decisions.
.INTERIOR JUDICATURE
This is the court that handles all matters between individuals and the Colonies/Protectorates, between the Colonies/Protectorates themselves, or between the Colonies/Protectorates and the Dominions. Similar to the Harmony Judicature, the court has permanent judges representing the Drakeîn, and temporary judges that represent the interests of the parties in the disputes.
.INTERNAL SECURITY SPATHARIOS
Naturally, someone has to enforce all these laws. The ISS, an interstellar police force under the legal branch, has an unusual jurisdiction. Most of its officers do little but paper-pushing; they coordinate the efforts of planetary law enforcement and track the movements of fugitives. They also provide a variety of other services, such as a top-notch forensics laboratory, to undeveloped worlds. It also works to help uncover enemy agents within the Drakeîn and to guard against espionage. In addition they have a small space fleet to patrol trade lanes and deter pirates. Its top members are appointed by the Iniquity Judicature though the Assent Judicature or a majority vote of the Diet can remove these members. They are able to arrest anyone in the Drakeîn except for members of the Synod or Diet whose members may also pardon those arrested, the only exception is of those arrested by special order of the Assent Judicature on advice of an Exarchos. Only the ISS is able to legally violate a citizen’s rights, and only on the warrant of a judge.
The ISS gets directly involved with investigations only in certain circumstances, such as when the criminals are too dangerous or powerful for planetary authorities or when a criminal operation spans multiple planets or star systems. In those situations, the ISS may, if it wishes, take complete control of the investigation. In that case, its powers are broad and far-reaching. For example, it can, if necessary, take command of any military unit and use it to assist in an arrest or investigation. However, in most cases, ISS officers prefer to tackle the Galaxy's most dangerous criminals on their own.
One of the main duties of the ISS is maintaining an efficient, disciplined, clean and honest government, and educate public servants about their duty and discipline. The ISS has a wide variety of means for citizens to report on corruption by local officials, allowing whistle-blowers to avoid retribution.
A separate section is responsible for policing supernatural individuals, which include both psioinics and mages along with supernatural beings. It is also dedicated to detecting and rooting out supernatural horrors such as possessing entities, evil magic users, and other such menaces. This division cooperates with other organs to provide psionic and magic support for operations. The department heads up the recruitment of these individuals through the Drakeîn Service Foundation.
Tactical Division
.MARTIAL DIRECTORATE
This committee consists of one appointed delegation representing each of the Dominions as well as a non-voting delegation for each Protectorate. These delegations are representatives of the Commander-in-Chiefs of the various militaries as well as representatives from the political leadership of the members. Representatives are appointed by whatever means is seen fit by it’s members. It also has non voting representatives of various federal Drakeîn military forces as well as other security organs, such as the Intelligence Channel. Its principal role is to set overarching goals that allow the various militaries of the Dominions to function efficiently and as one. Additionally the committee provides direction and advice on military policy and strategy as well as to review military actions. The body is also responsible for recommending to political authorities those measures considered necessary for the common defense. Typically action is agreed upon on the basis of unanimity and common accord. There is no voting or decision by majority. Each Member represented retains complete sovereignty and responsibility for its own decisions. In general, this negotiation process is rapid since members consult each other on a regular basis and therefore often know and understand each other's positions in advance. Facilitating the process of consultation is one of the Magistro of War’s main tasks.
There is broader power to decide what measures are to be taken in situations involving "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression". Such situations are passed to the Directorate through a motion initiated by the Hypatos and approved by a majority of the Synod. In such situations, the Council is not limited to recommendations but may take binding action, including the use of armed force to maintain or restore security. Decisions in the Directorate on all substantive matters require a 2/3ds vote. A veto by 1/10th of the members prevents adoption of an action, even if it has received the required number of affirmative votes. Abstention is not regarded as a veto.
At war the Magistro of War (with approval and guidance by the Hypatos) acts as Supreme Commander of the military and a 3/4ths vote of the Directorate is needed to veto an order by the Hypatos. If at war the Dominion’s armed forces act directly under Drakeîn control.
.DEFENSE COORDINATION AGENCY
The division has the primary task of establishing and maintaining outposts, bases, and facilities. This organ keeps track of all ships, troops, weapons and other materials associated with the Drakeîn and its many military branches. The commanders of the different sectors must go through the DCA chain of command to obtain the supplies and personnel necessary for the execution of any preplanned military actions.
.DIVISION OF PROTECTORATE AFFAIRS
The DPA designates the deployment of spaceships and troops for each the colonies. Colonies that have been settled specifically under the direction of the Drakeîn have best access to the resources available from the DPA. Colonies previously established but voluntarily joining the Drakeîn will also have access to resources especially if the Protectorate has great economic political or strategic use to the Drakeîn.
. DIVISION OF DOMINION AFFAIRS
This organ oversees the defense and deployment of ships and troops in Dominion space as well as maintaining integrated force procedures. In addition the DDA maintains an office on every Dominion world. The duty officers stationed at these branches report directly to the DDA. Ultimately, it is these officers' responsibility to secure the compliance of any troops which remain under the direct control of their respective planets. In a dire situation this could include ordering an entire planet’s evacuation or worse-ordering a system's entire military to the assistance of a "higher priority” planet.
.DIVISION OF FRONTIER AFFAIRS
This agency is the catch-all for problems that don’t fit within the scope of other organs. The "frontier" is any area the Drakeîn controls, or would like to control, that hasn't been claimed to be under Dominion or Protectorate jurisdiction. Investigations of espionage, pirating and alliance wide threats to national security are the responsibility of this division. The DFA takes direct orders from the Directorate.
Colonial/Protectorate Government
Though there are a variety of governmental systems at the colony level, there are always three offices that are always found. These three offices are of roughly equal power, covering the political, military, and law enforcement needs of each settlement. On the inner Protectorates, the Domestiko is recognized as the highest authority, but in the frontier colony regions, the Stratego usually carries more weight.
Domestiko
These chief officials are elected for each colony by that Colonies governing body to serve as their chief executive. Often several are selected within the same system if there is more than one large colony and the social climates of the Colonies differ. They are the most immediate form of Drakeîn authority. Because of the time lag in communications, these men and women can rarely afford the luxury of waiting for a decision from a higher authority. The various Domestikos elect their Diet representatives to represent their Protectorate.
Stratego
The Division of Protectorate Affairs appoints a Stratego to each populated star system to protect the Colonies from invasion. These officials are also in charge of military recruiting and training.
Justiciar
This is the highest local law enforcement position in the Drakeîn. The Iniquity Judicature appoints these posts. Functioning as both a chief of police and state prosecutor, each constable is responsible for keeping law and order in his or her district. Sometimes these districts cover an entire Sector, but heavily populated sectors are divided into smaller districts. They supervise local law enforcement and, when a problem is too big, they assist the ISS.
The Military
The military is a combined peacekeeping, diplomatic and defense force. The purpose of the military is to support the government’s decisions by force or show of force. The purpose is often not to kill an enemy just to be end him but to make the enemy to submit through controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not the military’s place to decide the purpose of the control. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and say where and when and how. Solider supply the violence while older and wiser heads supply the control. Oaths of allegiance for the military as well as all appointed and elected officials specify allegiance to the Drakeîn's constitution.
The Drakeîn military organizations constitute a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. Additionally each Dominion has the option to use a certain amount of Drakeîn assets in case it wanted to act independently, on the condition that the Drakeîn as a whole did not want to act. As a result most Dominions and Protectorates have a robust and flexible military for defense and rely on the Drakeîn for specialized units.
As the Drakeîn Dominions expands out, the Drakeîn inevitably encounters new races previously unknown to them, and to each of these an offer of allegiance is made. The races and groups that choose to incorporate themselves earn the benefits of mutual protection, trade, and access to the technology of the Drakeîn. There are many aggressive, arrogant and selfish races in the galaxy, however, and the Drakeîn often find first contact results in nothing more than yet another bloody war. They use diplomacy to avoid fighting where they can, and when they fight it's designed to be quick and precise to avoid massive casualties or collateral damage. They assimilate conquered races openly, so long as they are willing to submit completely. There are other races still who do not wish to fully submit to the Drakeîn, but who likewise have no wish for war with the Drakeîn and will instead strike up armistices, treaties of neutrality, and trade agreements opening up lucrative new markets or providing new allegiances for mutual protection.
There are other races who readily take up their place in the Drakeîn Dominions. Some of these races are small, perhaps located on just a single world, or else primitive with little useful resource to offer the Drakeîn, in which case their accession to the Drakeîn is simply a formality, with the benevolent Drakeîn offering protection to these lesser races while they can expect little other than appreciation and friendship in return. Other additions to the Drakeîn are advanced in themselves, and the union of two such cultures provides valuable new knowledge, technology and understanding for both parties. Such races, where able, fulfill their partnership by a series of tithes which suit their own particular abilities.
In principle the military is a combined arms volunteer army that focuses on maneuver warfare. What differentiates the Drakeîn is not their equipment or doctrine, but the integration of intelligence services and rules of engagement. The Drakeîn believes that a war should be won before it begins. The unquestioned superiority and integration of their intelligence services allows them to use their military to maximum effectiveness. Well before fighting breaks out, they possess complete knowledge of their enemy's positions, intentions and timetable. Their powerful intelligence monitors developing situations and take necessary action. This may be as simple as scouting and information gathering, or as complex as ensuring a conveniently unstable political situation stays that way.
In every war the Drakeîn has fought, they struck first and without warning. For the Drakeîn, to know an enemy plans to attack and to let it happen is folly. To announce their own plans to attack is insanity. They find the concepts of 'do not fire until fired upon' and 'declare a war before prosecuting it' incredibly naive. In defensive wars, they execute devastating preemptive strikes hours before the enemy's own attacks. On the offense, they have never issued an official declaration of war before attacking. Strategically, they are methodical and patient, and dislike risky operations.
The Drakeîn are manipulators and adaptors, they take in new races into their fold and add their strengths to that of the entire Drakeîn and they try to manipulate how wars will be fought before the first shot is ever fired. They infiltrate the enemy, spread their propaganda, turn the populace to their side or at least split it and cause strife so that when they finally need to move in with arms and take the planet they have willing recruits waiting and the planets defenses are split and their leadership broken. This reduces casualties, allows a planet to be taken without damaging it greatly and gaining even more auxiliary troops for the Drakeîn.Warfare is carried out almost exclusively by the mainline Drakeîn fleets pulled from a number of different areas.
Personnel in front line positions must meet high standards to keep up with their comrades. Support positions have lower requirements and an individual’s special talents may make up for any other deficiencies. Commanders are given a great deal of independence and flexibility unless explicit orders are given. While Dominion forces are staffed by their own members, Drakeîn units try to maintain about ten percent of their force drawn from various Dominions to facilitate cooperation and unity. Units are generally are assigned to a particular world. Veterans often settle on the world where they served, but the Drakeîn has a policy of not assigning recruits from a given planet to that world's garrison. This tends to encourage a Drakeîn identity and discourage "nativist" feelings among personnel. The structure of the military stipulates that the soldiers keep their own personal equipment, including all personal weapons, at home
Whenever conquering a new planet, the Drakeîn do not exterminate the population but offer them to join the Drakeîn Dominions. The Drakeîn prefer to carefully plan their assaults, and tend to fight only after carefully coordinating their troops and weapons for the mission at hand. Destruction of the enemy is more of a concern for Drakeîn commanders than the possession of territory, as once the enemy is eliminated, any territory ceded to that enemy in a strategic retreat can be re-occupied with minimal effort. When they absolutely must storm defenses the assault troops are not used as pawn; the Drakeîn way of war does not encourage the concept of expendable troops. Instead their safety is entrusted to the troops providing the covering fire who must identify and kill enemy positions before the assault forces suffers serious harm. The Drakeîn prefer not to hold positions against enemy assault, and only construct bunkers to act as emergency shelters, or to use as a hidden observation post. Mobile ships act as bases and can relocate to avoid combat or to move along with the front. Attacks against Drakeîn installations and cities are protected primarily by the efforts to draw the enemy away. If this fails, the Drakeîn will perform attacks intended to stall the enemy while the location is evacuated, then fall back to the deserted city and use urban warfare to slow the assault while anything of use to the enemy is destroyed.
Conquered nations are broken down into Colonies under guidance of other Protectorates. When a level of stability is reached these conquered Colonies may chose to form their own Protectorates. If these Protectorates meet certain requirements they can form their own Dominions. Troops that have extensive training in police action are used for the occupation of these worlds to act as a stabilizing force and not a destructive one.
When taking over a society, the Drakeîn uses most of the infrastructure and population of the society "as is", rather than requiring extensive rebuilding, retraining, or movement of people. The Drakeîn places itself as a "superstructure" over the conquered, leaving the very basis of the conquered society intact while replacing the instruments of government. Though the new rulers are distinct from the population at large, it gives enough flexibility to give loyal members of the conquered society significant power. The former government is effectively replaced with the new government, using the new military and police apparatus to maintain control, while the conquered can mostly live in their old homes, work at their old jobs, et cetera, as long as they obey the dictates of the government. Additionally the ability to absorb economies without having to totally restructure the economic fundamentals of the society is a substantial bonus.
The old ruling class is allowed to have some measure of power, and this avoids the need to drastically restructure a society and economy. The best and brightest of these leaders can be invited to join the ruling elite. Similarly the basics of the old military and police forces can be allowed to remain. In most cases these forces will be enough to keep a level of law around without draining resources on retraining new troops, provide a local militia, and allow patriots to keep serving their country. Effective militaries require little restructuring and the best troops can be drawn into main forces of the Drakeîn and given more opportunities for advancement. Having these familiar organizations in place not only provides a sense of familiarity and normalcy, it helps to avoid conflicts caused by intercultural differences.
At every possible turn, people are allowed to maintain the illusion that they still have what is really important to them in their lives, as long as they obey. They should definitely not get the impression that the new government is arbitrary or capricious, if they can expect a risk of personal disaster even if they obey the new government, they will rebel. Not only do the conquerors want the conquest to be turning a profit for them as quickly as possible in terms of changing the government and the infrastructure, they wish to avoid mass rebellion. The approach of maximum brutality and violence is seldom the best one in this arena; no matter how much you oppress the masses, if they think they have nothing to lose they will not fear it. They should be allowed to retain those things which have the most value to them, as long as they obey. A good start is letting them stay with their homes and families, and do work the same as they always did (or at least quite similar).
All students in secondary education are required to take a civics program. Schools are loaned military equipment and the assigned active or retired military personnel as instructors. The purpose of the civics program is to instill in students in secondary educational institutions the responsibilities and values of citizenship, improving the ability to communicate, knowledge of basic military skills and art, increasing a respect for the role of the military in support of national objectives, and personal responsibility and self-reliance. Taking 2 to 4 years of the course allows the cadets to instantly rank higher if they pursue a military career. After passing the civics program they are considered to be part of the militia.
All individuals are part of the militia may be drafted. Military service is compulsory, in theory, for all. A draft has never been enforced due to large numbers of volunteers. If drafted those physically unfit may register for duty in the medical, veterinary, and other technical services. Those who are found to be sufficiently fit for regular military service, but who object for reasons of conscience, can apply for civilian service. This service consists of various kinds of social services, such as reconstructing cultural sites, helping the elderly and other activities removed from military connotations. Civilian service lasts 50% longer than a military service.
Military Organization:
The military, known as the Mustered Soldiery, M.S., is divided into federal, Tagma, units and Dominion or Protectorate, Themata, units. Each Dominion and Star Protectorate has its own military forces however they use the same or compatible equipment, though may have different internal organizational schemes. Though the individual members may keep their own internal rank system, they are assigned a Tagma equivalent rank. When organizing a campaign a designated unit is always in command. Typically kept separate, in times of war or joint operations all orders from higher ranking personnel in the various militaries are expected to be followed unless there is an overriding reason not to follow those orders with severe penalties for insubordination. When groups happen to find themselves combined in unexpected situations the highest ranking officer assumes command of the combined military. If there are equal highest ranking officers then the local officer assumes command and if outside both officer’s territory the most senior officer has command authority. Fleets are usually kept separate to prevent problems. These measures were put into force to prevent problems with personnel being unwilling to follow the orders of someone senior to them if they come from another government within the Drakeîn.
Mostly, the organization of Dominion military forces has been for starships because it is expected that they will be most important in any battles although some planning has been done for using ground troops from a variety of planets. The ships are supposed to be maintained by the nation that they originate from but they often require need to be maintained by the governments more able. Similar to the ships and equipment themselves, the quality of crews and troops vary. The majority of them are from the planet which the units or starships are from and are locally trained. The training schools for them can be of very different qualities however most receive assistance from the Drakeîn in this regard, allowing for better integrated fleet control.
The military is a completely integrated combined arms force that operates with ground and space troops together. However to reduce confusion the military is split into separate organizations. Fighter pilots can either be officers or enlisted though all of the more advanced vehicles are piloted by officers. The M.S. has a high retention rate.
Army:
The Army is less glamorous than the Spacy, but no less important. Where the Spacy's strength lies in offense and strategic range, the Army's merit is planetary defense and small-scale operations. A Spacy task force can sterilize a planet, but it takes an Army division to occupy a world and keep it loyal. All army units operate under the various Dominions and only take part in Drakeîn wide operations when designated by the Martial Directorate.
The Army performs numerous missions, but the most important include peacekeeping, suppressing unrest, and planetary defense. In wartime the Army conducts ground operations on and contested worlds and space. Most soldiers fight as battlesuited infantry or in robotic and aerospace vehicles. Since the Spacy covers their transport and logistical needs, these units consist largely of combat troops. Regardless of their specialization all receive extensive zerogravity combat training, and are the acknowledged masters of ship assaults, space station boarding actions, and orbit-to-surface drop assaults. For peacekeeping and monitoring rebellious worlds, the Army uses light, mobile forces like rangers or infantry, with some armor for support. On worlds where the main threat is attack from space, the Army stations fighter divisions and builds hardened defenses bunkers and underground surface-to-orbit weapon emplacements. Some oceanic worlds have far greater concentrations of Sea Force personnel.
The Army serves both for ground roles and serves as shipboard troops. They also make up about half the crew of space stations and space fortresses. The M.S. does not have a separate marine corps and shipboard service is part of an M.S. Army soldiers' regular rotation though some of the army receives the equivalent Marine training. A soldier will normally serve for four years on a ship and then rotate to ground / station duty for two years. A soldier may specifically request and stay on shipboard duty and some soldiers do just that. There are reasons for this. Promotions are more rapid while serving on the fleet, many find the fleet more exciting. The Army also includes planetary based fighter squadrons and all space station based fighter squadrons.
Enlistment: Enlistment is for six years. This allows for enough time for both training and service. Enlisted may continue to reenlist unless due to problems of service (many disciplines problems for example). Officers serve until they resign their commission (and are approved), booted out due to an administrative action or court marshal, or retire.
Soldiers belong to one of nine branches:
Command; Administration and related duties.
Infantry; Includes units that pilot power armor. Command officers are in this branch.
Areospace; Forces Piloting aerospace fighters.
Armor; Operating ground attack vehicles, and transports.
Artillery; Coordinating missile barrages and operating planet based weapons.
Support; Medical, technicians, human resources, and staffing. A subsection conducts research into new weapons and vehicles.
Sea Forces; Trained in both surface and submersible operations.
Special Forces; Elite troops and unconventional warfare.
Space Forces; Security personnel maintain security aboard ship as well as conducting boarding actions.
Spacy:
The ships of the Spacy are the Drakeîn Dominion's shield and sword. The Battlefleet is a very economical weapon as ships can remain in service up to a century with appropriate upgrades, and squadrons can easily move about to project force, patrol borders, intimidate restive worlds, suppress pirates, and repel invaders. All Spacy units operate under the various Dominions and only take part in Drakeîn wide operations when designated by the Martial Directorate.
The Spacy has several important duties. It maintains battle fleets to deter aggression and attack whoever the Drakeîn wants attacked. It supplies and supports those fleets. It escorts merchant shipping in pirate-infested regions. It "shows the flag" beyond the borders. It gathers intelligence on potential enemies. Through its research division, it develops and tests new space weapon systems.
The M.S. Spacy personnel serve as crew for starships and serve on space stations as well. About half the personnel of space stations and fortresses are Spacy. Spacy personnel will normally serve for six years onboard a ship and two years onboard a station or a fortress. A Spacy crew-person may specifically request and stay on shipboard duty and many crew-person do just that. The reasons for this are similar to the Army.
Enlistment: Enlistment in the M.S. Spacy for eight years. Enlisted may continue to reenlist unless due to problems of service (many disciplines problems for example). Officers serve until they resign their commission (and are approved), booted out due to an administrative action or court marshal, or retire.
The Spacy organizes all of its personnel into six branches:
Command; Administration and related duties.
Piloting; Helmsmen, navigates and steer ships.
Flight; Ship and shuttle pilots.
Support; Engineering, maintenance, and medical as well as Staff for personnel needs (food, entertainment, waste disposal).
Science & Sensors; Operate a ship's sensors and communications systems, conduct experiments, help develop and test new weapons.
Tactical; Responsible for operating a ship's weapons and defensive systems during battle, Tactical personnel also plan strategies and tactics for future conflicts.
Expeditionary Corps:
The Drakeîn recognized the need to keep a rapid-deployment force on the frontier of its alliance. Under the Expeditionary Grand Marshal, these units patrol the frontier, looking for trouble before it begins. Each Expansion March in the frontier is assigned an Expeditionary Corps Marshal, who reports jointly to the Grand Marshal, Magistro of War, and the Office of Frontier Affairs. Each Tactical Commander supervises several Expeditionary Corps Tactical Commanders, who in turn coordinate their own Expeditionary Corps teams. Expeditionary Corps trains its members in judicial and military procedures. Additionally, a lengthy stays at a variety of training facilities prepares them for survival under extreme conditions. Since the Expeditionary units frequently make long trips beyond Drakeîn space, they must endure harsher training than other military personnel.
The Expeditionary Corps smaller but more experienced when they are compared to both the Army and the Navy. This is the main factor that allows the Expeditionary Corps to work as well as they do. They are often expected to fight against overwhelming odds and far away from any reinforcements. Because of this they take everything they need with them in order to leave no supply lines. The Expeditionary Corps do not take short term troops, like the army, but a fair amount of the Expeditionary Corps are people recruited from other militaries and seasoned soldiers. The Expeditionary Corps do not take mercenaries into their ranks without them becoming part of the Expeditionary Corps but the Expeditionary Corps will work side by side with mercenary units.
In general, the Expeditionary Corps shares many resources with the other branches of the military. However, the Corps has consistently sought to maintain its own identity with regards to mission, funding, and assets, while utilizing the support available from the larger branches. While the Expeditionary Corps has far fewer installations than the other branches, most bases of other divisions have an Expeditionary presence.
Organizational structure reflects a strong tradition in the Corps towards self-sufficiency and a commitment to combined arms, both essential assets to an expeditionary force often called upon to act independently in discrete, time-sensitive situations. The history of the Expeditionary Corps as well has led to a wariness of overreliance on its sister services, and towards joint operations in general.
Enlistment: The enlistment for the Expeditionary Corps is longer than other divisions. This is simply because once trained, the Expeditionary Corps wish to hold onto their soldiers. Enlistment in the Expeditionary Corps is for ten years. About 10% of personnel are killed in combat which often makes for very rapid promotion in ranks. Officers will often start as enlisted Expeditionary Corps and there is no training specifically for officers. Even people from other services will normally start as enlisted. While discipline problems have to be fairly severe to be kicked out of service, discipline is much better kept than in other divisions. The problem is that if an Expeditionary Corps trooper is a good soldier then it will be attempted to keep him in service even if he has committed a serious crime that would get him booted out of the other services.
All Expeditionary Corps units operate under the Drakeîn, under the Magistro of War, and may only take part in operations concerning Dominions or Protectorates under approval by the Martial Directorate.
The Exploration Service:
Originally a planetary survey organ the Service has acquired several areas of responsibility, some of which conflict with each other. The oldest and most glamorous job of the Exploration Service is, unsurprisingly, exploration; venturing beyond charted space to explore new planets, encounter new species and cultures, and bravely go where no one has gone before. All Exploration Service officers want to serve on the long-range scout and expedition ships that range across the Galaxy.
Equally old and almost as exciting is the Service's science mission, which Service chiefs have preserved against the inroads of budget-cutting governments. Exploration Service research vessels study stars and astrophysical phenomena, watch planets form, and sample and investigate life forms on thousands of worlds.
The Contact section studies intelligent species, including how alien societies evolve and how best to establish peaceful relations between the Drakeîn and new species. After years of turf battles and arguments, the Exploration Service and the Magistro of Sentient Development have worked out a rough division of labor, the ES handles contact with pre-spaceflight cultures, while spacefaring societies become the responsibility of the RoSD.
Interventions by ES usually take the form of covert operations (military or otherwise) designed to strengthen or weaken factions within less advanced civilizations. Typically, the interventions aim to improve the situation of less advanced civilizations, and to get them closer to the Drakeîn ideal. Sometimes interventions may also be intended to nip future challenges to the Drakeîn in the bud.
The least exciting task of the Exploration Service is to maintain accurate and up-to-date navigation charts of Drakeîn space and neigh boring regions of the Galaxy. Survey officers travel from system to system, making careful measurements of stellar positions and planetary motions. Most of the job consists of simply collecting, organizing, and interpreting information provided by planetary governments.
In wartime the ES struggles to preserve itself in the face of demands from other Drakeîn services, the Spacy wants ships and bases, the Channel wants the Service's alien contact data and translation experts, and so on. Traditionally the ES takes on much of the Spacy's internal law-enforcement and patrol function during major wars, which means scientists and explorers can suddenly find themselves serving as "cops on the beat" in pirate-infested systems.
Unlike other military services, the Exploration Service actively looks to recruit skilled civilians, especially veteran merchant crewmembers and scientists. This means Exploration personnel tend to be older and better-educated than comparable Army or Spacy ranks. It also means they take the whole business of ranks and authority less seriously; they think experience and scientific publications tell them more about a person's qualifications than the metal doohickey on his collar. There is also a large cross over of services on the ships.
All Exploration Service units operate under the Drakeîn, under the Magistro of War, and may only take part in operations concerning Dominions or Protectorates under approval by the Martial Directorate.
Enlistment: As per Spacy or other organizations for attached units. Civilians sign on for 5 year missions, the usual time away from local space.
Military Rules & Regulation:
Military Law: Very similar to most military law. The laws are much harsher than civilian court systems and Treason and Desertion are very serious crimes. The court consists of nine members and only a majority must rule in favor of a decision. Officers are always tried by officers but enlisted may choose to be tried by either senior enlisted or officers. Non judicial punishment is available for enlisted for minor infractions but officers must be tried by court martial. Non Judicial punishment is given by the commanding officer of the enlisted man in question. Punishment for non judicial punishment can include loss of rank, restriction to quarters, corporal punishment, and loss of pay.
Military Protocol: Officers are addressed as Commander due to the large cultural differences in the Drakeîn Dominion. It is simply preferred that the sexes are not differentiated. In the M.S. Service, noble titles are not recognized. Service members from the other militaries that have noble title and join the M.S. are not addressed by their title. Members of other militaries with noble titles are addressed by the titles in official meetings between the militaries.
Religion: The M.S. developed specific rules to deal with other religions. While a person may practice most religions, but they will prosecute and stop religious members for doing illegal activities. They also do not allow beings to join the M.S. if the being will not use medical treatments for religious reasons due to the fact that this is a detriment in combat.
Sexual Contact: Unlike Modern Militaries, the M.S. is very lax about sexual contact. There is no discrimination for same sex contact or interspecies contact. While it is officially discouraged, sexual contact between officers and enlisted and between members of the same command are allowed.
Mages & Psionics in the Military: While the M.S. has no prejudices against either mages or individuals with pneumic ability, the most powerful of these are organized into separate units that have a large concentration of mages and psionics, along with veteran military specialist. This is done to maximize the effectiveness of these soldiers.
Mercenaries: Situations arise where Drakeîn authorities allow the use of armed force of private interests. For example, civilian starships can carry weapons for protection against piracy and traders operating outside Drakeîn space sometimes take along guards. The most reliable work for large security firms and are commissioned by the government and companies. These companies have well paid and well trained troops, hire out as guards for interstellar corporations, protect Colonies, and occasionally go on offensive missions against pirates and bandits in lawless areas. However only chartered mercenary troops may be hired, no unchartered or volunteer organizations are allowed. Slightly shadier outfits sometimes work as company goons in labor disputes. Other mercenaries hire themselves out individually or in small bands; many people have difficulty distinguishing some of these groups from pirates or bandits.
Uniforms: While a multitude of uniforms exist, sometimes depending on the theatre of war where personnel are stationed, black with thin colored highlights is by far the most well known and prevalent. The various branches of the divisions of the military have their own color that is the color of the uniform highlights. Black traditionally is seen as somber and authoritative. The black color is characteristic of the Drakeîn. As with many more formal military uniforms, the uniforms are tailored to project authority, and foster fear and respect. The diversity of military dress is not great as design and technology emphasis all-purpose modularity with a sleek minimalist look. Rank insignia must preserve and reflect the equivalence of ranks and ratings which are of equal status in different services. The system of interpretation must indicate an unambiguous status level for any given insignia configuration and should be simple and obvious to the eye. Similarly styled, although colorful and individualistic, clothing has become standard business attire. This is as the result of the Drakeîn’s military influence in many world’s development.
Realistically, each type of personnel must have more than one set of standard attire, for diverse working conditions. There are airtight, non-airtight, combat and casual versions of the common uniforms. The Drakeîn does not have distinct ceremonial dress. During combat operations black uniforms are seldom worn. Combat units typically have an exo armor that is used as a standard airtight combat uniform. Organizations with personnel that normally would wear civilian attire are issued white with black highlight uniforms to avoid being mistaken for civilians. Uniforms also have allowances for other races such as the uniforms for aliens include adjustments for their body types. This adjustment also includes the use of a holo-uniform with ranking and markings for sentient beings that cannot wear uniforms.
Uniform includes trousers, double-breasted tunic or double breasted coat, and cap. Boots, long sleeved gloves, sash and belt utility boxes and holsters. Badge of rank squares are worn at left breast and/or rank code identifier on both sides and nearly surrounding the front of the collar. The emblem of the service division the unit belongs to is worn on the right shoulder. All uniforms have a patch to represent the unit that the soldier belongs to and is worn on the left shoulder.
Symbolism and Themes:
The symbol of all branches of the military is the death's head mask emblem which appears on most military insignia and equipment in some form. The emblem always resembles a minimalist face of a skull that has aggressive features. Each branch has a specific emblem.
While overall utilitarian and economically frugal in design many vehicles display the ominous death’s head mask motif to one degree or another, and may have spikes. The appearance of combat troops and war machines are often enhanced with the style to intimidate the enemy. Exo armor is keeping with the minimalist look of the uniforms however it is a stylized skeleton patterned armor, decorated with spikes. Humanoid machinery has a stylized skeletal appearance while non humanoid machinery usually has its main body features passing resembling the death head’s mask.
Large starships are wedge shaped to facilitate focusing the firepower forward. The overall shape is a tapered coffin. The straight lines of the ship meet in an outward, vertical or horizontal spike pattern. Any needed external sensors or machinery is kept in a simple protuberance resembling a dorsal facing skull on the top of the ship while hangar areas are in a similar section below the ship. The bridge is deep inside the hull.
Most small craft generally have three struts way from the central body. Located at the end of each of the four struts or wings are two large thrusters, one facing forward and one back. Attached to the housing assembly for these are two additional smaller attitude control thrusters. The output could be sent to any combination of the nozzles to enhance agility.
Unity Division
.SEBASTOS
This position is the Head of State.
This office is the highest governmental body in the Drakeîn and is a symbol of the state and unity of the people as well as the ultimate Commander-in-Chief of the military. It is also the highest authority of the state religion, The Order of the Cosmic Truth. The Sebastos is, by tradition, a unifying presence and usually takes great care to steer clear of day to day politics acting as a symbol of the Drakeîn without executive power. For that very reason, on rare occasions when the he does take a stand on a contemporary issue, he can expect to generate great attention and, if carefully crafted, his expressed viewpoint can carry great weight. In this way, with little power, the Sebastos plays a very important role in shaping the Drakeîn.
The Sebastos is elected by the current Regional Exarchos for life terms and approved of by the Synod and Diet. A Sebastos can be declared unfit to rule only by the combined agreement of the Hypatos, High Judges, Synod, and Diet with the later two both needing a 3/4ths vote. The current Sebastos, Demogorgon, has been in this position since the foundation of the Drakeîn.
A Sebastos takes part in foreign visits and receives foreign dignitaries as the chief diplomatic officer, grants pardons if the person concerned had been convicted under federal jurisdiction, and confers decorations and honors as well as carrying out the duties of a Regional Exarchos if necessary.
He or she is able to dismiss Regional Exarchos at whim (though new ones are appointed by a new vote), as well as Domestikos but only on the advice of a Stratelate. Members of Diet or the Synod can be removed by the Sebastos but only on the advice of that particular area’s Exarchos. On the suggestions of the Sebastos or with evidence of high crimes the Synod, Diet, or Exarchos can attempt to remove a Hypato with a 3/4ths vote or the Exarchos with a majority vote. Members of the Legal and Tactical branch may be removed by the Sebastos as well with the majority vote of the Synod and Diet. The Sebastos is also the theoretical head of the armed forces of the Drakeîn.
.REGIONAL EXARCHOS
The electorates in the Diet of a particular Protectorate or Dominion directly elects one Exarchos to watch over their area of space. The Exarchos should embody "the spirit and values of the region" for the nation itself and the world. This individual is the embodiment of their particular electorate, guarantor of the civil liberties of citizens against arbitrary state power. He has the power to pardon those convicted of crimes, among other powers related to the common citizen. Unlike other elections, there are no candidacy requirements and the candidates do not even have to run for office to be elected. These Exarchos have limited direct power and rarely take direct action, but are the chief advisor to the Sebastos and the legislative houses. They also have the ability to dismiss any official at the colony level. They do have the power to certify or veto any decision made by a Domestiko, and can dismiss Stratego and Justiciars. A majority vote of the Diet or a 3/4ths vote of the Synod can declare an Exarchos unfit, and the Sebastos can dismiss an Exarchos(with a new one being elected). The combined Exarchos has a majority vote to propose a member of the Diet as a Magistro and then, provided they are approved of by the Synod, appoints him or her to office. They are required to appoint each Magistro from the political party whose views reflect those of the majority in the Diet. The Exarchos is also the theoretical head of the armed forces within his territory but very rarely personally directs the military.
.ECUMENICAL CONFERENCE
With the Hyperians gaining control of most of the galaxy, they organized a Ecumenical Conference, inviting delegates from various friendly parties to attend and discuss the establishment of a new state. The first conference approved the Common Program, which served as the de facto constitution for the next five years before the Constitution was constructed. The Common Program comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. It is a fundamental document of the Drakeîn, defining the individual and collective rights of all the estates of the realm as universal. They are universal: valid at all times and in every place, pertaining to human nature itself.
The conference then approved the new national anthem, flag, capital city, and state name, and elected the first government. In effect, the first Ecumenical Conference served as a constitutional convention. Surviving to this day it serves as an official forum for the regulated discussion among those with mass influence.
Ceremonially presided over by an Exarchos selected by the Sebastos this organ consists of delegates from a wide range of powerful groups. It consists of interstellar political parties and movements, mass organizations such trade unions, major religions, racial minorities, as well as powerful independent individuals. New members must register their organization and be approved. Generally open to new perspectives, few groups are deemed to subversive and dangerous. The proportion of representation of the various parties is determined by established convention, negotiated between the parties. It is organized along syndicalist lines, with new members assigned to branches based on occupation, which develop channels for mass participation of their members. While this body has no official power, advice is often taken very seriously and decisions made by the conference are enforced through its member bodies. By establishing itself as the arbitrator of legitimacy the Drakeîn uses the leadership of these organizations to police their own members. Additionally this consolidates the amount of interests and makes their actions more open.
By far the largest and dominant party in the Conference is the Order of the Cosmic Truth, the religion based upon worship of Demogorgon. While the Order maintains a high level of control over the Conference, it is intended to be more representative and is composed of a broader range of people than is typical of government office in the Drakeîn. Members of the minor parties often individually are found in policy making state organs, and there is a convention that state institutions generally have at least one sinecure from a minor party.
Political scientists have identified three groupings within the Order leading to a structure which has been called "one party, three factions". The first is the "elitist coalition" which contains mainly officials who have risen from the more prosperous areas and members tend to be more individual powerful with wide ranging connections. The second is the "populist coalition" which consists mainly of officials who have successfully risen from lower classes whose members are from a wide range of society. The third is the “scientist faction” and whose members belong to one of the other factions however they have backgrounds in technical fields. Elitists are classified as those who originate mostly in wealthy families or those who have a family background of high-ranking Order officials. Populists on the other hand consist of officials who has relatively humble backgrounds and who have climbed through the power structure from the grassroots. While the Elitists are more concerned with economic growth and market functionality, the Populists are more focused on societal harmony and decreasing inequality. Scientist members usually have higher education qualifications, normally they all have doctorate degrees. They often are the swing vote that the other two factions must pander to.
The interaction between these factions is largely complementary with each faction possessing a particular expertise and both committed to the continued dominance of the Order and not allowing intra-party factional politics threaten party unity. It has been noted that party and government positions have been assigned to create a very careful balance between these groupings. These groupings do not act in a zero-sum, winner take all fashion. Neither group has the ability or will to dominate the others completely.
Executive Division
.HYPATOS AND MAGISTROS
This position is the Head of Government.
This executive council is made up of Magistros that have two six year term. The Hypatos is selected from this council by the Synod by a simple plurality vote. The Hypatos possess the power to veto laws passed by the legislature, though his veto can be overridden. Actions by one of the Hypatos may be vetoed by the other.
The Hypatos select and appoint many key positions. High judges are appointed though Diet and Synod must both have majority approval.
Magistros typically act as the voice of the Hypatos as well as being advisors and are responsible for their various areas. However the actual running of the organ under them is generally left to other individuals, mainly various boards of directors. Each of the channels has clearly defined aims that are served by their board of directors, headed by the Magistros, who are selected by their personal qualifications and are theoretically independently of any national bias or proportion.
Channels are an important aspect of public international law. Channels are established by treaty that acts as a charter creating the group. These treaties are formed when lawful representatives of several states represented by the legislative branch go through a ratification process, providing the Channel with an international legal personality.
The organs of government headed by Magistros are as follows:
Evolution Channel
Public Welfare Channel
Sentient Development Channel
Intelligence Channel
Trade Channel
Finance Channel
Settlement and Expansion Channel
Union Channel
War Channel
.MAGISTRO OF EVOLUTION
The office holder he is in charge of genetic engineering research, improving the genome, areas of emerging scientific fields, advances in neural processors, exploring the potential of pneumic powers, finding and providing opportunities to gifted individuals, as well as technological advancements. It also administers the Imperial Service Foundation, which conducts research into pneumic, evaluates potential individuals, trains them in the use of their powers and funnels them into other departments.
Most importantly the Channel is in charge of research, development, and application of psychohistory. Psychohistory equates all possibilities in large societies to mathematics, allowing predictable long term outcomes. It combines history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make predictions of the collective actions of very large groups of people. While useful for internal development psychohistory is not as well understood for beings that differ so much from that of humans and only large, long term trends can be observed.
.MAGISTRO OF-PUBLIC WELFARE
This official controls transportation, education, public heath, large civil projects, and a vast number of other divisions. This is the most administratively complex of the offices, and the Magistro appoints a large number of other officials to serve under this one.
.MAGISTRO OF SENTIENT DEVELOPMENT
This organ is responsible for diplomatic and military relations with sentient races which are not members of the Drakeîn. This covers contact not only with spacefaring races, but many of the intelligent, less advanced races that explorers have encountered. It decides what kind and how much technology will be passed on to these contacts, and maintains the quarantine of some worlds, with military aid from the Division of Frontier Affairs. It also trains consuls and ambassadors for service and personnel that staff the embassies.
Whereas writers are fond of making a sharp distinction between peace and war, for the Drakeîn diplomacy is a form of war by other means. Drakeîn diplomacy draws its neighbors into a network of international and interstate relations, the terms controlled by the Drakeîn itself. This process revolves around treaty making.
New worlds are welcomed into the family of nations. There is an assimilation of Drakeîn social attitudes and values. As a formalization of this assimilation laws and treaties are made. In order to drive this process, the Drakeîn uses of a number of mostly diplomatic practices. For example, embassies would often stay on for years. A leader of other nations is routinely be requested to stay in the Drakeîn, not only as a potential hostage and to learn of the culture, but also as a useful pawn in case political conditions where he came from changed. Another key practice is to overwhelm visitors by sumptuous displays. The Drakeîn’s riches serves the state's diplomatic purposes as a means of propaganda, and a way to impress foreigners. Special care is taken to stimulate as many of the senses in as high degree as possible.
Although dedicated to peaceful coexistence both internally and externally, the Drakeîn cannot resist the urge to meddle in the affairs of other species. Sometimes they do so directly, as when teams provide training and technical assistance to low-tech civilizations, or when the military overthrows a tyrannical regime. At other times, it meddles more subtly: merchants offer discount prices on goods to cultures they approve of, bio-technicians only give life-extension drugs to alien leaders who support Drakeîn ideals. Since too much of this sort of thing would quickly make enemies of every neighboring civilization, there is a committee called the Uplift Board to oversee all overt and covert efforts to improve alien societies. The Board works with the diplomatic, military, and intelligence services, and numbers among its advisors many leading experts on psychosocial manipulation, xenology, and memetics. Any citizen engaging in "uplift" activities without the Board's approval risks severe legal consequences.
.MAGISTRO OF TRADE
This individual has the power to make decisions about the methods and extent of trade between two Colonies, or between Colonies and non Protectorate planets, and to promote trade among worlds and beyond the borders. The determination of whether a planet is open or closed to trade is under his jurisdiction. It also operates spaceports on worlds too poor or primitive to run their own. The trade department has its own enforcement branch, but often calls upon the justice department for assistance.
.MAGISTRO OF FINANCE
The Magistro gathers taxes and keeps track of the budget and expenses. The Drakeîn draws money from a variety of sources: direct taxes on planets; tariffs on goods entering Drakeîn space; voluntary contributions by Dominions; and a number of user fees for Drakeîn services. The major source of revenue is from a tax on the Dominion/Protectorate based on its GNP. The Channel also mints the Imperial Hyperpyron, the official currency of the Drakeîn. Officials are required to have their salaries managed by the Drakeîn’s Finance Channel. More money can be made on emerging fields and smaller businesses so older larger industries are not protected inappropriately by officials with large holdings in failing areas.
.MAGISTRO OF SETTLEMENT AND EXPANSION
The Magistro of Settlement and Expansion has four primary goals. The agency coordinates the settlement and establishment of new Colonies. Second, it ensures that only colonists under Drakeîn law settle uninhabited planets near its space. It also heads up cartography and navigation. Finally, it encourages independent settlements near its boundaries to strengthen bonds with the Drakeîn and eventually bring them into the alliance. The office works closely with the Exploration Service as well.
.MAGISTRO OF UNION
The Channel for Unity dates back to the founding of the Drakeîn. Originally it was supposed to integrate all the worlds of space into a single community, resolve disputes among them, and encourage common standards and cooperation. It also serves as the state media agency, reminding citizens about Drakeîn peace and prosperity, the threats lurking just beyond the borders, and the dangers of disunity.
.MAGISTRO OF WAR
This official is someone with command military experience and is responsible for coordinating the various militaries of the Dominions and Protectorates. In times of war this person is the Supreme Commander of the military. A number of Strategos (one for each fully colonized system) fall under his or her direction, as well as The Expeditionary Corps and The Exploration Service. The Army and Spacy fall under the direction of the Tactical Branch.
.INTELLIGENCE CHANNEL
The Intelligence Channel is the Drakeîn's intelligence, counterintelligence, and covert operations service and is one of the largest and most well funded institutions in the Drakeîn. The Channel’s primary task is to gather information about other powers and potentially hostile civilizations; its covert operations wing undertakes secret missions outside Drakeîn space.
The basic mission of the Channel is gathering information. It does this in four main ways.
The first is simply research. Analysts study news media and public information, analyzing it to figure out what's true, what's disinformation, and what conceals a secret. Although the most boring of Channel’s duties, it's also by far the most fruitful. The second method is observation. Specially equipped starships monitor communications, spy on planets from orbit, and track ship movements. In these two tasks the Channel works closely and relatively smoothly with the Exploration Service. The third method of information-gathering is "Alien Source Intelligence" hiring spies. Most Drakeîn embassies, trade missions, and consulates have an Intelligence Liaison Officer who pays local agents for information. Although often wrong or garbled, it is sometimes the only way to collect genuinely secret material alien governments try to keep quiet.
The most exciting and dangerous form of intelligence gathering, "direct retrieval," requires agents to penetrate foreign security and steal information. The Drakeîn doesn't do this nearly as often as shown in the holovids, and only the failures ever reach the ears of the public. Channel often conducts direct retrieval operations in cooperation with the Spacy and Expeditionary Corps, using stealthy Special Operations ships and highly-trained commandos. Leaders only authorize direct retrieval in situations involving high demand for the information, and little or no chance of tracing the operation back to the Drakeîn. One unusual form of direct retrieval, the salvaging of ancient alien technology from abandoned worlds, usually requires the cooperation of the Exploration Service.
Where interventions require actions that exceed the moral and knowledge capacity of the Exploration Service or the Magistro of Sentient Development, the Channel is involved. This section comprises some of the very best members, and frequently makes use of third party agents to accomplish its aims. These agents operate "in the field" to support or suppress elements of other civilizations that the Drakeîn deems important (normally to the citizens of the civilization concerned, but potentially to the Drakeîn itself). The Channel employs many of the same assets used for direct retrieval in covert operations. The Drakeîn uses such operations to destabilize planetary governments, either to install a more friendly regime or to prepare a world for conquest or annexation. Other covert ops include economic sabotage against alien business interests operating in the Drakeîn’s sphere of influence, direct action against alien espionage operations, and strikes against criminals or rebels who have found sanctuary outside Drakeîn territory.
The Drakeîn deliberately keeps the command structure of the Channel secret. A committee of various sub agencies advises the Magistro on intelligence matters and runs the agency. The Drakeîn does not make the names of the leaders public; word only gets out when a member dies. They use their titles rather than personal names on all internal communications and orders. The recruitment section seeks out new people for the organ (often when they're just children), and trains them to become agents.
Policy Division
.SYNOD
This body primarily represents the government of the various Dominions and is considered the upper house of the legislature.
The main law making body, all members of this body are chosen by the Domestikos for the Protectorates and by whatever means the Dominions see fit. There are five thousand seats in this body and the term of office is six years for a maximum of four terms. Each colony appoints a Domestiko, and these Domestikos elect Patrikios to represent the Protectorate that their colony falls in to. Domestikos tend to appoint Patrikios that will help local interests. Similarly the ruling governments of the Dominions appoint Patrikios to represent them. The legislature of the Dominions appoints their representatives in whatever means they see best fit.
Legally speaking, the Synod is a single entity, but it is in practice divided into several different conclaves, each dealing with a different functional area. They are responsible for the exact wording of legislation. Each Dominion or Protectorate receives a number of conclave seats based off of their contributions, both monetary and otherwise, to the Drakeîn and to the particular area of responsibility of the Conclave. Because of the large amounts of resources the Dominions hold only very wealthy and influential Protectorates carry any sway in this body. The number and types of Conclaves change as needed. In addition to the Synod members, each conclave is also attended by a different type of Supervisor for each of the Dominions. For example, meetings of the Agriculture Conclave are attended by the agriculture supervisors of each Dominions. The current conclaves are as follows:
General Affairs Conclave
External Relations Conclave
Common Security Policy Conclave
Economic and Financial Conclave
Justice and Home Affairs Conclave
Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Conclave
Internal Market, Industry and Research Conclave
Transport, Communications, and Energy Conclave
Agriculture and Environmental Conclave
Education, Youth and Culture Conclave
The Synod is responsible for creating taxes. If the Synod cannot set a balanced budget it is dissolved and a new Synod is assembled. Wealthier states pay more per capita while poor states receive more benefits. However wealthier states also have a larger amount of votes in the Synod.
In order to pass a law that was initiated by the Hypatos or Diet, a majority vote is needed. For legislation initiated by the Synod a 2/3ths vote is needed. Both the Hypatos and Diet can veto this legislation, though the Hypatos’ veto can be overturned by a 2/3rds vote of either the Synod or Diet. A 3/4ths vote in the Synod is needed to declare war. Amending the constitution of the Drakeîn requires a 3/4ths vote as well from both the Diet and the Synod. A member of this body may be expelled by a 3/4ths vote of this body.
A State of Crisis may be declared by the Synod with a 3/4ths vote of the Synod and Diet, and with no veto by the Hypatos. Once a State of Crisis has been declared an Autokrator is chosen from the Exarchos. This individual assumes all powers of the Executive, Legislative, Judicial and Tactical branches however the Sebastos and Exarchos remain independent but may not veto any action of the Autokrator. All other governmental positions function as an agent of the Autokrator. Additionally this individual has more extensive power of punishment without a trial by the people, and complete immunity from being held accountable for his actions while being the Autokrator. He may make any law however he may not change the constitution unless his change is approved by the Diet and Synod with a 3/4ths vote.
There are a few limits to the power of the Autokrator. The Autokrator no power over the treasury, but may make use of funds granted to him by the Dominions. The most important is that the period of the office is six months. Additionally the Autokrator may only take actions to resolve the crisis he was put in power to handle. If he deviates from his mandate the Sebastos uses his authority as Commander-in-Chief to execute the Autokrator and restore normal government.
.DIET
This body primarily represents the population and is considered the lower house of the legislature.
Members of this house are elected to four year terms for a maximum of three terms. The number of Stratelates appointed is based on the principle of digressive proportionality, so that, while the size of the population of each Protectorate or Directorate is taken into account, smaller Protectorates elect more Stratelates than would be strictly justified by their populations alone. This population is the population of electors and not actual population.
The directly elected city and county legislatures form the foundation tier of the indirect election system. Each legislature then conducts an election for the next higher level, culminating in elections for the Diet. There is a limit on the number of candidates in proportion to the number of seats available. At the highest level a maximum of 1.2 candidates are allowed per 1 seat and at the lowest level this is this ratio is 3 candidates per 1 seat. The structure of the tiered electoral system makes it difficult for a candidate to become a member of the higher level assemblies without the support from politicians in the lower tier, while at the same time making it impossible for the existing bureaucracy to completely control the election process.
The Diet cannot write legislation but may initiate a request for a law from the Synod, and it can amend or veto laws passed by the Synod in many policy areas. However, once a proposal for a law or directive has been introduced by the Synod, it must receive the approval of both the Diet and Hypatos in order to come into force. A member of this body may be expelled by a 3/4ths vote of this body.
On the advice of a Hypato or a vote of no confidence by the Synod, the Diet and Hypatos may be requested to be dissolved by the Sebastos and new elections are held.
Legal Division
.ASSENT JUDICATURE
Appointed for life by the Hypatos, these High Judges (called Vestarches) are the final arbiters in determining the constitutionality of laws, and other actions, both by individuals and by the government. The assent judicature is the highest court in the land which can overrule a decision by any other court, and there are fifteen judges who are appointed have life terms. They may be removed by the Sebastos on the recommendation of the Diet. They may also strike down an action by the Hypatos or law by the Synod and Diet as unconstitutional. They, like all judges, are unable to hold any non judicial office after they retire and have all their personal/financial needs taken care of by the state, for life. As a result, most Judges are taken from the intellectual segment of society.
The Drakeîn separates its legal system into different forms of law with high courts of each type of law whose members are appointed for twenty five year terms. Judges are appointed by the Vestarches and their members appoint all positions of their lower courts. These judges may be removed by the Hypatos on the recommendation of the Exarchos.
.INIQUITY JUDICATURE
The criminal justice system has many courts, with the normal series of lower courts for petty crimes as well as a first look at more serious crimes. Since most criminals appeal from these lower courts, there is a system of appeals court that leads to the Iniquity Judicature.
.SOCIETY JUDICATURE
This is the highest court for matters that have to do with non-criminal, non-commercial problems. These are the everyday conflicts between people of all sentient races in the course of everyday life. Accidents caused by negligence are typical cases.
.COMMERCE JUDICATURE
Created at the beginning of the Drakeîn, it handles matters of trade law. It is more a commercial code than a code of laws. Any type of economic disagreement will most likely end up in this system.
.HARMONY JUDICATURE
Designed to handle special cases that revolve around disputes between the fundamental cultures of various people, the court is made up of twelve permanent members. Each permanent judge presides over an assembly for each case made up of himself and two judges from each of the races of the Dominions or Protectorates involved in the dispute. The court only meets a few times a year, and is notorious for taking a long time reaching decisions.
.INTERIOR JUDICATURE
This is the court that handles all matters between individuals and the Colonies/Protectorates, between the Colonies/Protectorates themselves, or between the Colonies/Protectorates and the Dominions. Similar to the Harmony Judicature, the court has permanent judges representing the Drakeîn, and temporary judges that represent the interests of the parties in the disputes.
.INTERNAL SECURITY SPATHARIOS
Naturally, someone has to enforce all these laws. The ISS, an interstellar police force under the legal branch, has an unusual jurisdiction. Most of its officers do little but paper-pushing; they coordinate the efforts of planetary law enforcement and track the movements of fugitives. They also provide a variety of other services, such as a top-notch forensics laboratory, to undeveloped worlds. It also works to help uncover enemy agents within the Drakeîn and to guard against espionage. In addition they have a small space fleet to patrol trade lanes and deter pirates. Its top members are appointed by the Iniquity Judicature though the Assent Judicature or a majority vote of the Diet can remove these members. They are able to arrest anyone in the Drakeîn except for members of the Synod or Diet whose members may also pardon those arrested, the only exception is of those arrested by special order of the Assent Judicature on advice of an Exarchos. Only the ISS is able to legally violate a citizen’s rights, and only on the warrant of a judge.
The ISS gets directly involved with investigations only in certain circumstances, such as when the criminals are too dangerous or powerful for planetary authorities or when a criminal operation spans multiple planets or star systems. In those situations, the ISS may, if it wishes, take complete control of the investigation. In that case, its powers are broad and far-reaching. For example, it can, if necessary, take command of any military unit and use it to assist in an arrest or investigation. However, in most cases, ISS officers prefer to tackle the Galaxy's most dangerous criminals on their own.
One of the main duties of the ISS is maintaining an efficient, disciplined, clean and honest government, and educate public servants about their duty and discipline. The ISS has a wide variety of means for citizens to report on corruption by local officials, allowing whistle-blowers to avoid retribution.
A separate section is responsible for policing supernatural individuals, which include both psioinics and mages along with supernatural beings. It is also dedicated to detecting and rooting out supernatural horrors such as possessing entities, evil magic users, and other such menaces. This division cooperates with other organs to provide psionic and magic support for operations. The department heads up the recruitment of these individuals through the Drakeîn Service Foundation.
Tactical Division
.MARTIAL DIRECTORATE
This committee consists of one appointed delegation representing each of the Dominions as well as a non-voting delegation for each Protectorate. These delegations are representatives of the Commander-in-Chiefs of the various militaries as well as representatives from the political leadership of the members. Representatives are appointed by whatever means is seen fit by it’s members. It also has non voting representatives of various federal Drakeîn military forces as well as other security organs, such as the Intelligence Channel. Its principal role is to set overarching goals that allow the various militaries of the Dominions to function efficiently and as one. Additionally the committee provides direction and advice on military policy and strategy as well as to review military actions. The body is also responsible for recommending to political authorities those measures considered necessary for the common defense. Typically action is agreed upon on the basis of unanimity and common accord. There is no voting or decision by majority. Each Member represented retains complete sovereignty and responsibility for its own decisions. In general, this negotiation process is rapid since members consult each other on a regular basis and therefore often know and understand each other's positions in advance. Facilitating the process of consultation is one of the Magistro of War’s main tasks.
There is broader power to decide what measures are to be taken in situations involving "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, or acts of aggression". Such situations are passed to the Directorate through a motion initiated by the Hypatos and approved by a majority of the Synod. In such situations, the Council is not limited to recommendations but may take binding action, including the use of armed force to maintain or restore security. Decisions in the Directorate on all substantive matters require a 2/3ds vote. A veto by 1/10th of the members prevents adoption of an action, even if it has received the required number of affirmative votes. Abstention is not regarded as a veto.
At war the Magistro of War (with approval and guidance by the Hypatos) acts as Supreme Commander of the military and a 3/4ths vote of the Directorate is needed to veto an order by the Hypatos. If at war the Dominion’s armed forces act directly under Drakeîn control.
.DEFENSE COORDINATION AGENCY
The division has the primary task of establishing and maintaining outposts, bases, and facilities. This organ keeps track of all ships, troops, weapons and other materials associated with the Drakeîn and its many military branches. The commanders of the different sectors must go through the DCA chain of command to obtain the supplies and personnel necessary for the execution of any preplanned military actions.
.DIVISION OF PROTECTORATE AFFAIRS
The DPA designates the deployment of spaceships and troops for each the colonies. Colonies that have been settled specifically under the direction of the Drakeîn have best access to the resources available from the DPA. Colonies previously established but voluntarily joining the Drakeîn will also have access to resources especially if the Protectorate has great economic political or strategic use to the Drakeîn.
. DIVISION OF DOMINION AFFAIRS
This organ oversees the defense and deployment of ships and troops in Dominion space as well as maintaining integrated force procedures. In addition the DDA maintains an office on every Dominion world. The duty officers stationed at these branches report directly to the DDA. Ultimately, it is these officers' responsibility to secure the compliance of any troops which remain under the direct control of their respective planets. In a dire situation this could include ordering an entire planet’s evacuation or worse-ordering a system's entire military to the assistance of a "higher priority” planet.
.DIVISION OF FRONTIER AFFAIRS
This agency is the catch-all for problems that don’t fit within the scope of other organs. The "frontier" is any area the Drakeîn controls, or would like to control, that hasn't been claimed to be under Dominion or Protectorate jurisdiction. Investigations of espionage, pirating and alliance wide threats to national security are the responsibility of this division. The DFA takes direct orders from the Directorate.
Colonial/Protectorate Government
Though there are a variety of governmental systems at the colony level, there are always three offices that are always found. These three offices are of roughly equal power, covering the political, military, and law enforcement needs of each settlement. On the inner Protectorates, the Domestiko is recognized as the highest authority, but in the frontier colony regions, the Stratego usually carries more weight.
Domestiko
These chief officials are elected for each colony by that Colonies governing body to serve as their chief executive. Often several are selected within the same system if there is more than one large colony and the social climates of the Colonies differ. They are the most immediate form of Drakeîn authority. Because of the time lag in communications, these men and women can rarely afford the luxury of waiting for a decision from a higher authority. The various Domestikos elect their Diet representatives to represent their Protectorate.
Stratego
The Division of Protectorate Affairs appoints a Stratego to each populated star system to protect the Colonies from invasion. These officials are also in charge of military recruiting and training.
Justiciar
This is the highest local law enforcement position in the Drakeîn. The Iniquity Judicature appoints these posts. Functioning as both a chief of police and state prosecutor, each constable is responsible for keeping law and order in his or her district. Sometimes these districts cover an entire Sector, but heavily populated sectors are divided into smaller districts. They supervise local law enforcement and, when a problem is too big, they assist the ISS.
The Military
The military is a combined peacekeeping, diplomatic and defense force. The purpose of the military is to support the government’s decisions by force or show of force. The purpose is often not to kill an enemy just to be end him but to make the enemy to submit through controlled and purposeful violence. But it's not the military’s place to decide the purpose of the control. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and say where and when and how. Solider supply the violence while older and wiser heads supply the control. Oaths of allegiance for the military as well as all appointed and elected officials specify allegiance to the Drakeîn's constitution.
The Drakeîn military organizations constitute a system of collective defense whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. Additionally each Dominion has the option to use a certain amount of Drakeîn assets in case it wanted to act independently, on the condition that the Drakeîn as a whole did not want to act. As a result most Dominions and Protectorates have a robust and flexible military for defense and rely on the Drakeîn for specialized units.
As the Drakeîn Dominions expands out, the Drakeîn inevitably encounters new races previously unknown to them, and to each of these an offer of allegiance is made. The races and groups that choose to incorporate themselves earn the benefits of mutual protection, trade, and access to the technology of the Drakeîn. There are many aggressive, arrogant and selfish races in the galaxy, however, and the Drakeîn often find first contact results in nothing more than yet another bloody war. They use diplomacy to avoid fighting where they can, and when they fight it's designed to be quick and precise to avoid massive casualties or collateral damage. They assimilate conquered races openly, so long as they are willing to submit completely. There are other races still who do not wish to fully submit to the Drakeîn, but who likewise have no wish for war with the Drakeîn and will instead strike up armistices, treaties of neutrality, and trade agreements opening up lucrative new markets or providing new allegiances for mutual protection.
There are other races who readily take up their place in the Drakeîn Dominions. Some of these races are small, perhaps located on just a single world, or else primitive with little useful resource to offer the Drakeîn, in which case their accession to the Drakeîn is simply a formality, with the benevolent Drakeîn offering protection to these lesser races while they can expect little other than appreciation and friendship in return. Other additions to the Drakeîn are advanced in themselves, and the union of two such cultures provides valuable new knowledge, technology and understanding for both parties. Such races, where able, fulfill their partnership by a series of tithes which suit their own particular abilities.
In principle the military is a combined arms volunteer army that focuses on maneuver warfare. What differentiates the Drakeîn is not their equipment or doctrine, but the integration of intelligence services and rules of engagement. The Drakeîn believes that a war should be won before it begins. The unquestioned superiority and integration of their intelligence services allows them to use their military to maximum effectiveness. Well before fighting breaks out, they possess complete knowledge of their enemy's positions, intentions and timetable. Their powerful intelligence monitors developing situations and take necessary action. This may be as simple as scouting and information gathering, or as complex as ensuring a conveniently unstable political situation stays that way.
In every war the Drakeîn has fought, they struck first and without warning. For the Drakeîn, to know an enemy plans to attack and to let it happen is folly. To announce their own plans to attack is insanity. They find the concepts of 'do not fire until fired upon' and 'declare a war before prosecuting it' incredibly naive. In defensive wars, they execute devastating preemptive strikes hours before the enemy's own attacks. On the offense, they have never issued an official declaration of war before attacking. Strategically, they are methodical and patient, and dislike risky operations.
The Drakeîn are manipulators and adaptors, they take in new races into their fold and add their strengths to that of the entire Drakeîn and they try to manipulate how wars will be fought before the first shot is ever fired. They infiltrate the enemy, spread their propaganda, turn the populace to their side or at least split it and cause strife so that when they finally need to move in with arms and take the planet they have willing recruits waiting and the planets defenses are split and their leadership broken. This reduces casualties, allows a planet to be taken without damaging it greatly and gaining even more auxiliary troops for the Drakeîn.Warfare is carried out almost exclusively by the mainline Drakeîn fleets pulled from a number of different areas.
Personnel in front line positions must meet high standards to keep up with their comrades. Support positions have lower requirements and an individual’s special talents may make up for any other deficiencies. Commanders are given a great deal of independence and flexibility unless explicit orders are given. While Dominion forces are staffed by their own members, Drakeîn units try to maintain about ten percent of their force drawn from various Dominions to facilitate cooperation and unity. Units are generally are assigned to a particular world. Veterans often settle on the world where they served, but the Drakeîn has a policy of not assigning recruits from a given planet to that world's garrison. This tends to encourage a Drakeîn identity and discourage "nativist" feelings among personnel. The structure of the military stipulates that the soldiers keep their own personal equipment, including all personal weapons, at home
Whenever conquering a new planet, the Drakeîn do not exterminate the population but offer them to join the Drakeîn Dominions. The Drakeîn prefer to carefully plan their assaults, and tend to fight only after carefully coordinating their troops and weapons for the mission at hand. Destruction of the enemy is more of a concern for Drakeîn commanders than the possession of territory, as once the enemy is eliminated, any territory ceded to that enemy in a strategic retreat can be re-occupied with minimal effort. When they absolutely must storm defenses the assault troops are not used as pawn; the Drakeîn way of war does not encourage the concept of expendable troops. Instead their safety is entrusted to the troops providing the covering fire who must identify and kill enemy positions before the assault forces suffers serious harm. The Drakeîn prefer not to hold positions against enemy assault, and only construct bunkers to act as emergency shelters, or to use as a hidden observation post. Mobile ships act as bases and can relocate to avoid combat or to move along with the front. Attacks against Drakeîn installations and cities are protected primarily by the efforts to draw the enemy away. If this fails, the Drakeîn will perform attacks intended to stall the enemy while the location is evacuated, then fall back to the deserted city and use urban warfare to slow the assault while anything of use to the enemy is destroyed.
Conquered nations are broken down into Colonies under guidance of other Protectorates. When a level of stability is reached these conquered Colonies may chose to form their own Protectorates. If these Protectorates meet certain requirements they can form their own Dominions. Troops that have extensive training in police action are used for the occupation of these worlds to act as a stabilizing force and not a destructive one.
When taking over a society, the Drakeîn uses most of the infrastructure and population of the society "as is", rather than requiring extensive rebuilding, retraining, or movement of people. The Drakeîn places itself as a "superstructure" over the conquered, leaving the very basis of the conquered society intact while replacing the instruments of government. Though the new rulers are distinct from the population at large, it gives enough flexibility to give loyal members of the conquered society significant power. The former government is effectively replaced with the new government, using the new military and police apparatus to maintain control, while the conquered can mostly live in their old homes, work at their old jobs, et cetera, as long as they obey the dictates of the government. Additionally the ability to absorb economies without having to totally restructure the economic fundamentals of the society is a substantial bonus.
The old ruling class is allowed to have some measure of power, and this avoids the need to drastically restructure a society and economy. The best and brightest of these leaders can be invited to join the ruling elite. Similarly the basics of the old military and police forces can be allowed to remain. In most cases these forces will be enough to keep a level of law around without draining resources on retraining new troops, provide a local militia, and allow patriots to keep serving their country. Effective militaries require little restructuring and the best troops can be drawn into main forces of the Drakeîn and given more opportunities for advancement. Having these familiar organizations in place not only provides a sense of familiarity and normalcy, it helps to avoid conflicts caused by intercultural differences.
At every possible turn, people are allowed to maintain the illusion that they still have what is really important to them in their lives, as long as they obey. They should definitely not get the impression that the new government is arbitrary or capricious, if they can expect a risk of personal disaster even if they obey the new government, they will rebel. Not only do the conquerors want the conquest to be turning a profit for them as quickly as possible in terms of changing the government and the infrastructure, they wish to avoid mass rebellion. The approach of maximum brutality and violence is seldom the best one in this arena; no matter how much you oppress the masses, if they think they have nothing to lose they will not fear it. They should be allowed to retain those things which have the most value to them, as long as they obey. A good start is letting them stay with their homes and families, and do work the same as they always did (or at least quite similar).
All students in secondary education are required to take a civics program. Schools are loaned military equipment and the assigned active or retired military personnel as instructors. The purpose of the civics program is to instill in students in secondary educational institutions the responsibilities and values of citizenship, improving the ability to communicate, knowledge of basic military skills and art, increasing a respect for the role of the military in support of national objectives, and personal responsibility and self-reliance. Taking 2 to 4 years of the course allows the cadets to instantly rank higher if they pursue a military career. After passing the civics program they are considered to be part of the militia.
All individuals are part of the militia may be drafted. Military service is compulsory, in theory, for all. A draft has never been enforced due to large numbers of volunteers. If drafted those physically unfit may register for duty in the medical, veterinary, and other technical services. Those who are found to be sufficiently fit for regular military service, but who object for reasons of conscience, can apply for civilian service. This service consists of various kinds of social services, such as reconstructing cultural sites, helping the elderly and other activities removed from military connotations. Civilian service lasts 50% longer than a military service.
Military Organization:
The military, known as the Mustered Soldiery, M.S., is divided into federal, Tagma, units and Dominion or Protectorate, Themata, units. Each Dominion and Star Protectorate has its own military forces however they use the same or compatible equipment, though may have different internal organizational schemes. Though the individual members may keep their own internal rank system, they are assigned a Tagma equivalent rank. When organizing a campaign a designated unit is always in command. Typically kept separate, in times of war or joint operations all orders from higher ranking personnel in the various militaries are expected to be followed unless there is an overriding reason not to follow those orders with severe penalties for insubordination. When groups happen to find themselves combined in unexpected situations the highest ranking officer assumes command of the combined military. If there are equal highest ranking officers then the local officer assumes command and if outside both officer’s territory the most senior officer has command authority. Fleets are usually kept separate to prevent problems. These measures were put into force to prevent problems with personnel being unwilling to follow the orders of someone senior to them if they come from another government within the Drakeîn.
Mostly, the organization of Dominion military forces has been for starships because it is expected that they will be most important in any battles although some planning has been done for using ground troops from a variety of planets. The ships are supposed to be maintained by the nation that they originate from but they often require need to be maintained by the governments more able. Similar to the ships and equipment themselves, the quality of crews and troops vary. The majority of them are from the planet which the units or starships are from and are locally trained. The training schools for them can be of very different qualities however most receive assistance from the Drakeîn in this regard, allowing for better integrated fleet control.
The military is a completely integrated combined arms force that operates with ground and space troops together. However to reduce confusion the military is split into separate organizations. Fighter pilots can either be officers or enlisted though all of the more advanced vehicles are piloted by officers. The M.S. has a high retention rate.
Army:
The Army is less glamorous than the Spacy, but no less important. Where the Spacy's strength lies in offense and strategic range, the Army's merit is planetary defense and small-scale operations. A Spacy task force can sterilize a planet, but it takes an Army division to occupy a world and keep it loyal. All army units operate under the various Dominions and only take part in Drakeîn wide operations when designated by the Martial Directorate.
The Army performs numerous missions, but the most important include peacekeeping, suppressing unrest, and planetary defense. In wartime the Army conducts ground operations on and contested worlds and space. Most soldiers fight as battlesuited infantry or in robotic and aerospace vehicles. Since the Spacy covers their transport and logistical needs, these units consist largely of combat troops. Regardless of their specialization all receive extensive zerogravity combat training, and are the acknowledged masters of ship assaults, space station boarding actions, and orbit-to-surface drop assaults. For peacekeeping and monitoring rebellious worlds, the Army uses light, mobile forces like rangers or infantry, with some armor for support. On worlds where the main threat is attack from space, the Army stations fighter divisions and builds hardened defenses bunkers and underground surface-to-orbit weapon emplacements. Some oceanic worlds have far greater concentrations of Sea Force personnel.
The Army serves both for ground roles and serves as shipboard troops. They also make up about half the crew of space stations and space fortresses. The M.S. does not have a separate marine corps and shipboard service is part of an M.S. Army soldiers' regular rotation though some of the army receives the equivalent Marine training. A soldier will normally serve for four years on a ship and then rotate to ground / station duty for two years. A soldier may specifically request and stay on shipboard duty and some soldiers do just that. There are reasons for this. Promotions are more rapid while serving on the fleet, many find the fleet more exciting. The Army also includes planetary based fighter squadrons and all space station based fighter squadrons.
Enlistment: Enlistment is for six years. This allows for enough time for both training and service. Enlisted may continue to reenlist unless due to problems of service (many disciplines problems for example). Officers serve until they resign their commission (and are approved), booted out due to an administrative action or court marshal, or retire.
Soldiers belong to one of nine branches:
Command; Administration and related duties.
Infantry; Includes units that pilot power armor. Command officers are in this branch.
Areospace; Forces Piloting aerospace fighters.
Armor; Operating ground attack vehicles, and transports.
Artillery; Coordinating missile barrages and operating planet based weapons.
Support; Medical, technicians, human resources, and staffing. A subsection conducts research into new weapons and vehicles.
Sea Forces; Trained in both surface and submersible operations.
Special Forces; Elite troops and unconventional warfare.
Space Forces; Security personnel maintain security aboard ship as well as conducting boarding actions.
Spacy:
The ships of the Spacy are the Drakeîn Dominion's shield and sword. The Battlefleet is a very economical weapon as ships can remain in service up to a century with appropriate upgrades, and squadrons can easily move about to project force, patrol borders, intimidate restive worlds, suppress pirates, and repel invaders. All Spacy units operate under the various Dominions and only take part in Drakeîn wide operations when designated by the Martial Directorate.
The Spacy has several important duties. It maintains battle fleets to deter aggression and attack whoever the Drakeîn wants attacked. It supplies and supports those fleets. It escorts merchant shipping in pirate-infested regions. It "shows the flag" beyond the borders. It gathers intelligence on potential enemies. Through its research division, it develops and tests new space weapon systems.
The M.S. Spacy personnel serve as crew for starships and serve on space stations as well. About half the personnel of space stations and fortresses are Spacy. Spacy personnel will normally serve for six years onboard a ship and two years onboard a station or a fortress. A Spacy crew-person may specifically request and stay on shipboard duty and many crew-person do just that. The reasons for this are similar to the Army.
Enlistment: Enlistment in the M.S. Spacy for eight years. Enlisted may continue to reenlist unless due to problems of service (many disciplines problems for example). Officers serve until they resign their commission (and are approved), booted out due to an administrative action or court marshal, or retire.
The Spacy organizes all of its personnel into six branches:
Command; Administration and related duties.
Piloting; Helmsmen, navigates and steer ships.
Flight; Ship and shuttle pilots.
Support; Engineering, maintenance, and medical as well as Staff for personnel needs (food, entertainment, waste disposal).
Science & Sensors; Operate a ship's sensors and communications systems, conduct experiments, help develop and test new weapons.
Tactical; Responsible for operating a ship's weapons and defensive systems during battle, Tactical personnel also plan strategies and tactics for future conflicts.
Expeditionary Corps:
The Drakeîn recognized the need to keep a rapid-deployment force on the frontier of its alliance. Under the Expeditionary Grand Marshal, these units patrol the frontier, looking for trouble before it begins. Each Expansion March in the frontier is assigned an Expeditionary Corps Marshal, who reports jointly to the Grand Marshal, Magistro of War, and the Office of Frontier Affairs. Each Tactical Commander supervises several Expeditionary Corps Tactical Commanders, who in turn coordinate their own Expeditionary Corps teams. Expeditionary Corps trains its members in judicial and military procedures. Additionally, a lengthy stays at a variety of training facilities prepares them for survival under extreme conditions. Since the Expeditionary units frequently make long trips beyond Drakeîn space, they must endure harsher training than other military personnel.
The Expeditionary Corps smaller but more experienced when they are compared to both the Army and the Navy. This is the main factor that allows the Expeditionary Corps to work as well as they do. They are often expected to fight against overwhelming odds and far away from any reinforcements. Because of this they take everything they need with them in order to leave no supply lines. The Expeditionary Corps do not take short term troops, like the army, but a fair amount of the Expeditionary Corps are people recruited from other militaries and seasoned soldiers. The Expeditionary Corps do not take mercenaries into their ranks without them becoming part of the Expeditionary Corps but the Expeditionary Corps will work side by side with mercenary units.
In general, the Expeditionary Corps shares many resources with the other branches of the military. However, the Corps has consistently sought to maintain its own identity with regards to mission, funding, and assets, while utilizing the support available from the larger branches. While the Expeditionary Corps has far fewer installations than the other branches, most bases of other divisions have an Expeditionary presence.
Organizational structure reflects a strong tradition in the Corps towards self-sufficiency and a commitment to combined arms, both essential assets to an expeditionary force often called upon to act independently in discrete, time-sensitive situations. The history of the Expeditionary Corps as well has led to a wariness of overreliance on its sister services, and towards joint operations in general.
Enlistment: The enlistment for the Expeditionary Corps is longer than other divisions. This is simply because once trained, the Expeditionary Corps wish to hold onto their soldiers. Enlistment in the Expeditionary Corps is for ten years. About 10% of personnel are killed in combat which often makes for very rapid promotion in ranks. Officers will often start as enlisted Expeditionary Corps and there is no training specifically for officers. Even people from other services will normally start as enlisted. While discipline problems have to be fairly severe to be kicked out of service, discipline is much better kept than in other divisions. The problem is that if an Expeditionary Corps trooper is a good soldier then it will be attempted to keep him in service even if he has committed a serious crime that would get him booted out of the other services.
All Expeditionary Corps units operate under the Drakeîn, under the Magistro of War, and may only take part in operations concerning Dominions or Protectorates under approval by the Martial Directorate.
The Exploration Service:
Originally a planetary survey organ the Service has acquired several areas of responsibility, some of which conflict with each other. The oldest and most glamorous job of the Exploration Service is, unsurprisingly, exploration; venturing beyond charted space to explore new planets, encounter new species and cultures, and bravely go where no one has gone before. All Exploration Service officers want to serve on the long-range scout and expedition ships that range across the Galaxy.
Equally old and almost as exciting is the Service's science mission, which Service chiefs have preserved against the inroads of budget-cutting governments. Exploration Service research vessels study stars and astrophysical phenomena, watch planets form, and sample and investigate life forms on thousands of worlds.
The Contact section studies intelligent species, including how alien societies evolve and how best to establish peaceful relations between the Drakeîn and new species. After years of turf battles and arguments, the Exploration Service and the Magistro of Sentient Development have worked out a rough division of labor, the ES handles contact with pre-spaceflight cultures, while spacefaring societies become the responsibility of the RoSD.
Interventions by ES usually take the form of covert operations (military or otherwise) designed to strengthen or weaken factions within less advanced civilizations. Typically, the interventions aim to improve the situation of less advanced civilizations, and to get them closer to the Drakeîn ideal. Sometimes interventions may also be intended to nip future challenges to the Drakeîn in the bud.
The least exciting task of the Exploration Service is to maintain accurate and up-to-date navigation charts of Drakeîn space and neigh boring regions of the Galaxy. Survey officers travel from system to system, making careful measurements of stellar positions and planetary motions. Most of the job consists of simply collecting, organizing, and interpreting information provided by planetary governments.
In wartime the ES struggles to preserve itself in the face of demands from other Drakeîn services, the Spacy wants ships and bases, the Channel wants the Service's alien contact data and translation experts, and so on. Traditionally the ES takes on much of the Spacy's internal law-enforcement and patrol function during major wars, which means scientists and explorers can suddenly find themselves serving as "cops on the beat" in pirate-infested systems.
Unlike other military services, the Exploration Service actively looks to recruit skilled civilians, especially veteran merchant crewmembers and scientists. This means Exploration personnel tend to be older and better-educated than comparable Army or Spacy ranks. It also means they take the whole business of ranks and authority less seriously; they think experience and scientific publications tell them more about a person's qualifications than the metal doohickey on his collar. There is also a large cross over of services on the ships.
All Exploration Service units operate under the Drakeîn, under the Magistro of War, and may only take part in operations concerning Dominions or Protectorates under approval by the Martial Directorate.
Enlistment: As per Spacy or other organizations for attached units. Civilians sign on for 5 year missions, the usual time away from local space.
Military Rules & Regulation:
Military Law: Very similar to most military law. The laws are much harsher than civilian court systems and Treason and Desertion are very serious crimes. The court consists of nine members and only a majority must rule in favor of a decision. Officers are always tried by officers but enlisted may choose to be tried by either senior enlisted or officers. Non judicial punishment is available for enlisted for minor infractions but officers must be tried by court martial. Non Judicial punishment is given by the commanding officer of the enlisted man in question. Punishment for non judicial punishment can include loss of rank, restriction to quarters, corporal punishment, and loss of pay.
Military Protocol: Officers are addressed as Commander due to the large cultural differences in the Drakeîn Dominion. It is simply preferred that the sexes are not differentiated. In the M.S. Service, noble titles are not recognized. Service members from the other militaries that have noble title and join the M.S. are not addressed by their title. Members of other militaries with noble titles are addressed by the titles in official meetings between the militaries.
Religion: The M.S. developed specific rules to deal with other religions. While a person may practice most religions, but they will prosecute and stop religious members for doing illegal activities. They also do not allow beings to join the M.S. if the being will not use medical treatments for religious reasons due to the fact that this is a detriment in combat.
Sexual Contact: Unlike Modern Militaries, the M.S. is very lax about sexual contact. There is no discrimination for same sex contact or interspecies contact. While it is officially discouraged, sexual contact between officers and enlisted and between members of the same command are allowed.
Mages & Psionics in the Military: While the M.S. has no prejudices against either mages or individuals with pneumic ability, the most powerful of these are organized into separate units that have a large concentration of mages and psionics, along with veteran military specialist. This is done to maximize the effectiveness of these soldiers.
Mercenaries: Situations arise where Drakeîn authorities allow the use of armed force of private interests. For example, civilian starships can carry weapons for protection against piracy and traders operating outside Drakeîn space sometimes take along guards. The most reliable work for large security firms and are commissioned by the government and companies. These companies have well paid and well trained troops, hire out as guards for interstellar corporations, protect Colonies, and occasionally go on offensive missions against pirates and bandits in lawless areas. However only chartered mercenary troops may be hired, no unchartered or volunteer organizations are allowed. Slightly shadier outfits sometimes work as company goons in labor disputes. Other mercenaries hire themselves out individually or in small bands; many people have difficulty distinguishing some of these groups from pirates or bandits.
Uniforms: While a multitude of uniforms exist, sometimes depending on the theatre of war where personnel are stationed, black with thin colored highlights is by far the most well known and prevalent. The various branches of the divisions of the military have their own color that is the color of the uniform highlights. Black traditionally is seen as somber and authoritative. The black color is characteristic of the Drakeîn. As with many more formal military uniforms, the uniforms are tailored to project authority, and foster fear and respect. The diversity of military dress is not great as design and technology emphasis all-purpose modularity with a sleek minimalist look. Rank insignia must preserve and reflect the equivalence of ranks and ratings which are of equal status in different services. The system of interpretation must indicate an unambiguous status level for any given insignia configuration and should be simple and obvious to the eye. Similarly styled, although colorful and individualistic, clothing has become standard business attire. This is as the result of the Drakeîn’s military influence in many world’s development.
Realistically, each type of personnel must have more than one set of standard attire, for diverse working conditions. There are airtight, non-airtight, combat and casual versions of the common uniforms. The Drakeîn does not have distinct ceremonial dress. During combat operations black uniforms are seldom worn. Combat units typically have an exo armor that is used as a standard airtight combat uniform. Organizations with personnel that normally would wear civilian attire are issued white with black highlight uniforms to avoid being mistaken for civilians. Uniforms also have allowances for other races such as the uniforms for aliens include adjustments for their body types. This adjustment also includes the use of a holo-uniform with ranking and markings for sentient beings that cannot wear uniforms.
Uniform includes trousers, double-breasted tunic or double breasted coat, and cap. Boots, long sleeved gloves, sash and belt utility boxes and holsters. Badge of rank squares are worn at left breast and/or rank code identifier on both sides and nearly surrounding the front of the collar. The emblem of the service division the unit belongs to is worn on the right shoulder. All uniforms have a patch to represent the unit that the soldier belongs to and is worn on the left shoulder.
Symbolism and Themes:
The symbol of all branches of the military is the death's head mask emblem which appears on most military insignia and equipment in some form. The emblem always resembles a minimalist face of a skull that has aggressive features. Each branch has a specific emblem.
While overall utilitarian and economically frugal in design many vehicles display the ominous death’s head mask motif to one degree or another, and may have spikes. The appearance of combat troops and war machines are often enhanced with the style to intimidate the enemy. Exo armor is keeping with the minimalist look of the uniforms however it is a stylized skeleton patterned armor, decorated with spikes. Humanoid machinery has a stylized skeletal appearance while non humanoid machinery usually has its main body features passing resembling the death head’s mask.
Large starships are wedge shaped to facilitate focusing the firepower forward. The overall shape is a tapered coffin. The straight lines of the ship meet in an outward, vertical or horizontal spike pattern. Any needed external sensors or machinery is kept in a simple protuberance resembling a dorsal facing skull on the top of the ship while hangar areas are in a similar section below the ship. The bridge is deep inside the hull.
Most small craft generally have three struts way from the central body. Located at the end of each of the four struts or wings are two large thrusters, one facing forward and one back. Attached to the housing assembly for these are two additional smaller attitude control thrusters. The output could be sent to any combination of the nozzles to enhance agility.
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
Economics
Socioeconomics
The core objective of the Drakeîn Economic policies is the development of a common market between its member states. Increasing trade and commerce means that the respective nations and societies involved increase their exposure to new goods and markets, thus increasing the GDP of each society that is involved in the system. Along with tangible goods, people, techniques, information, and ideas move lucidly across trade routes. The military and police ensure that supply lines and trade routes flow smoothly; permanent garrisons are established along trade routes to protect the travelers on these routes.
The common market involves the free circulation of goods, capital, people and services within the Drakeîn and the application of a common external tariff on all goods entering the market. Once goods have been admitted into the market they cannot be subjected to customs duties, discriminatory taxes or import quotas, as they travel internally. Free movement of capital is intended to permit movement of investments such as property purchases and buying of shares between countries. The free movement of capital is unique insofar as that it is granted equally to non-member states.
Free movement of persons means citizens can move freely between member states to live, work, study or retire in another country. This required the lowering of administrative formalities and recognition of professional qualifications of other states. The free movement of services and of establishment allows self-employed persons to move between member states in order to provide services on a temporary or permanent basis. Additionally policies aim to liberalize the cross border provision of services.
The Drakeîn operates a competition policy intended to ensure undistorted competition within the single market. The Drakeîn as the competition regulator for the single market is responsible for antitrust issues, approving mergers, breaking up cartels, working for economic liberalization and preventing state aid. As the Drakeîn is made up of independent Dominions, both competition policy and the creation of a single market could be rendered ineffective were member states free to support national companies as they saw fit.
Unlike other governments the Drakeîn Dominion prefers not to dominate its economy but rather play the role of partner with business. This approach, created and sustained by a series of clear sighted administrators, helps makes the Drakeîn designer of the stage upon which the economy plays itself out. It regulates and controls, as opposed to nationalizing, the means of production. Economic planning seeks to coordinate the economy to serve what is held to be in the interests of the "common good" rather than allowing "private initiative" seek its own course, though for the vast majority of time private interest is the normal driving force. Benefit to the community is held to be more important than benefit to the individual. Everyone is allowed to keep the property they have acquired for themselves, creating a state-run economy on private account.
Drakeîn economics are a combination of small business innovation and government supported large business. Small scale entrepreneurship is encouraged and given favorable policies by the government, although in some areas it is difficult to compete with corporations without being absorbed. The government assumes a role over the economy that is primarily supervisory, rather than executive, in nature. The Drakeîn mostly trusts the large corporations to run things for themselves, and intervened from time to time to ensure compliance, rather than assuming direct control over all of the operations of industry. Corporations are encouraged to cooperate with Drakeîn policies by being given favorable deals. The government typically maintains a number of companies in a given area as well as a smaller amount of non-profit organizations, being careful to ensure that there is always some credible competition so that businesses which become unpopular may be at least temporarily discarded for some form of alternative.
Most corporations are based upon the cooperative model. A cooperative is owned and democratically managed by its worker-owners. This control may be exercised in a number of ways. A cooperative enterprise may mean a firm where every owner-worker participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which managers and administration is elected by every worker-owner, and finally it can refer to a situation in which managers are considered, and treated as, workers of the firm. In short, cooperatives are organized to serve the needs of worker-owners by generating benefits for the worker owners rather than external investors.
In "pure" forms of worker co-operative, all shares are held by the workforce with no outside or consumer owners, and each member has one voting share. In practice, control by worker-owners may be exercised through individual, collective or majority ownership by the workforce, or the retention of individual, collective or majority voting rights (exercised on a one-member one-vote basis). A worker cooperative, therefore, has the characteristic that the majority of its workforce own shares, and the majority of shares are owned by the workforce.
Ideally, participation is based on one vote per worker-owner, regardless of the amount of shares or equity owned by each worker-owner. Voting rights are not tied to investment or patronage in the workers' co-operative, and only worker-owners can vote on decisions that affect them. In practice, worker co-operatives have to accommodate a range of interests to survive and have experimented with different voice and voting arrangements to accommodate the interests of trade unions, local authorities, those who have invested proportionately more labour, or through attempts to mix individual and collective forms of worker ownership and control.
To establish a corporation, you have to present the appropriate agency with a "business plan" that takes into account benefit to society, energy and logistical requirements, safety concerns, etc. So even a major corporation, rather than being motivated by profits, must subscribe to the same principles of the citizenry as a whole; the pursuit of bettering itself and as a result bettering society at large.
On the individual level there is a high level of taxation but it is varied over a wide range of areas (roads, communications, food, etc…) so that people are only taxed on the services they use. There is also a level of benefits for those unable to work and government work or makework in nationalized services for those unable to find work. Most laws favor the government, its nationalized corporations, and its client corporations over the individual worker while still protecting their basic rights equally.
There is substantial upward and downward mobility in society, especially on the basis of competence, so that those who can be and should be trusted with a given level of independent action, are. Membership is assigned by merit and revoked for incompetence or disloyalty. Not only does social mobility allow the matching of the right people to the right jobs, but it allows the lower classes to aspire to being higher classed, and the higher class to fear demotion.
Workers are kept under good conditions, are as free as anyone else in the society, and are not subject to harsh punishment in the normal course of events. Because they are given considerable independence which the state is organized so as to be able to tolerate, there is a similarly decreased need to watch their every move. The security apparatus only acts openly against a small minority, keeping the rest controlled through fear, since they still have quite a lot to lose if they are targeted.
The ability to reward good servants at levels commensurate with their service is quite important. First, a sort of graduated scale of reward is present. A system where there are only a few "gradations" of reward, which each require very substantial differences in productivity, will not encourage those workers who don't think they are capable of closing the entire gap to the next level of reward. Second, the rewards are actually worth it to the majority of the workers, but not worth more than the increased output is.
Business attire is simple, sleek, and utilitarian. It is often one color with a secondary highlight. Fashion generally aims toward the functional first and the stylish second. Military styled clothing is the predominant business attire. Form fitting jumpsuits, both full and revealingly cut out, has come back into fashion, especially customized jumpsuits. Given the extreme flexibility of the design and the relatively cheap cost of them, they are very popular amongst civilians, although they are often augmented with other pieces of clothing. Business suits consist of a jumpsuit with a pullover, which is a normal looking button-down shirt with a large, stylized "shell" of cloth which is pulled over the head and thus gives a fancy seeming outfit for comparatively cheap cost. There are a number of styles and shapes accepted.
Stock Exchanges
The major stock exchanges are located in capital cities of Dominions where they are most convenient to the major industries and many government organs. These financial institutions are run as partnerships between the host world's government and the Drakeîn government. Each major stock exchange also houses a commodities market where valuables are bought and sold. Although the government funds these centers of economic speculation, it is not as a profit making venture. Instead top officials from the Trade Channel closely monitor the actions of the various markets. If they spot any trends that indicate trouble for the economy as a whole, they take appropriate action, such as halting trade and forcing the market to close. In consultation with the Hypatos, they then implement any further emergency procedures.
Conquered nations are broken down into colonies under guidance of other Protectorates, with the some of the conquered industry being given to Protectorate sponsored companies. Advances are strengthened by settlement on confiscated territory, a quick buildup of infrastructure, and a prudent treatment of the conquered which minimizes difficulties and dangers. Companies from Dominions can manage and acquire newly conquered territory’s industry as well. Governmental leaders are given levels of ownership into these territories, directly affecting the wealth of government officials. When a level of stability is reached these conquered colonies may chose to form their own Protectorates. If these Protectorates meet certain requirements they can form their own Dominions.
Currency
Money is seen as a token of honor, a promise of an agreed exchanged of services, fundamental to society, and a statement of hope that somewhere there are those who will not default on that honor.
In a surplus economy, such as the Drakeîn Dominion has, where all basic needs and wants are met instantly without any or significant cost to you, how does one distinguish themselves? This caused a major paradigm shift in humanity that it went from primarily a society that granted prestige according to one's wealth; which is now largely irrelevant since anyone could share that standard of living, to a society that granted prestige based on what you "gave back" to society as a whole. Citizens are motivated to better themselves and by extension society because that is the only way to gain recognition from others who are guided by the same principles. Mankind will always strive for prestige in some fashion because they are by their very nature competitive.
Some things remain rare in a post-scarcity society. Only one person at a time can be a leader of a group, community or country, there is a practical limit to the number of people who can live in any specific, 'in-demand' locale and there is only one original of a certain work of art. Population growth, if it continues long enough, would lead to unavoidable scarcity. However the total fertility rate is high in poor countries with poor health infrastructure, but it tends to drop to replacement levels or lower once a nation reaches a certain per capita income. The only practical remaining scarce resource is skilled labor. People are primarily devoted to the pursuit of mostly leisure and sometimes science and art.
Anyone can have gold, jewels, vehicles, houses, etc. to their heart's content, so long as it doesn't exceed space, energy, legal, or safety requirements. All people have a basic energy allocations without charge, but if you exceeded those allocations then you would have to use money. The more dangerous, time consuming, or beneficial to society your job may be, the more money you are allocated. Likewise, money can be offered as a reward for a significant achievement of some sort. If you could convince the organization responsible for such things that you need more energy for a certain task, than you could be granted more money as a "loan" that you would have to pay back by giving back to society by providing a service to the agency in question.
There are of course other ways to gain prestige in the Drakeîn Dominion. You can do so by gaining fame, or by gaining power, but always, the philosophy of "giving back" to n society as a whole must be key, because that is how the people themselves live their lives and so that is what they expect from their celebrities and politicians. You don't have to be the best right out of the gate, but you have to constantly strive to better yourself or you won't be taken seriously by the people who have adopted this philosophy as the guiding principle of their lives. A celebrity will constantly strive to give a better performance; a politician will constantly strive to serve his constituents to the best of his abilities.
The official currency of the Drakeîn Dominion is the hyperpyron. A handful of Dominions have their own currency, even there hyperpyrons constitute legal tender, but only hyperpyrons are valid for Drakeîn taxes and interstellar trade. Hyperpyrons have no physical form, but citizens can store them on credisks, thin disks of nearly indestructible plastic with a liquid crystal holographic display showing the value stored on the disk. The holder of a credisk can plug it into any standard bank or commercial exchange terminal to add or subtract value from it; that's how he buys goods and services, receives his pay, and so forth. People also exchange credisks directly.
A credisk's built-in data keep a record of every transaction conducted, which means Drakeîn authorities can trace the disk's use. Because of the Artifical Intelligence implanted in the disks, it is very difficult for someone to abuse the system. Criminals, rebels, and others who wish to keep their dealings hidden often avoid credisks for this reason. Instead they usually deal in either foreign currency or valuable materials.
Trade
What do interstellar merchants trade to make money? Launching cargoes off planets costs money, even with antigravity. Cargo transport costs hyperpyrons per gram just for energy alone. Adding in the cost of highly skilled labour to operate starships, life support for the crew, amortizing the cost of starships, and various port fees and handling charges makes the price come as rather expensive. Any interstellar cargo must have a significant price between source and destination to be worth shipping at all, and merchants naturally seek out items which pack the most value into the least weight.
The few steady profitable routes through Drakeîn Dominion are supervised by the government which regulates who can use them and taxes accordingly. They also patrol these routs to protect them from piracy. However to avoid taxes and to get to worlds quickly other more dangerous routs can be taken. Established trade routes in other governments' territory are usually the same, though the Drakeîn outlaws monopolies and enforces those regulations strictly.
Traders and Trading
Travelers within the Drakeîn can arrange interplanetary money transfers via large banking companies or the Drakeîn Bank, using a repeater network to complete transactions. Since this may take a while, many traders prefer to carry relatively large amounts of cash so they can transact business on the spot and keep moving.
Outside of Drakeîn space official charters are needed to operate and these charters come in different grades as to properly license the type of goods allowed or even to hire foreign mercenaries to protect shipments. Trade by Drakeîn merchants outside Drakeîn space usually involves exchanging cargoes for local currency, then spending the money right away on items to sell back in Drakeîn space. In established markets traders can spend Drakeîn hyperpyrons with a small conversion fee, and can exchange those alien currencies back home with little difficulty. In the case of more remote markets or societies without money all deals involve barter.
Merchant Ships
Merchant starships come in many different sizes and types. The biggest operate on regular routes, carrying freight and passengers on long term contracts with predictable profits. In Drakeîn space, the Grand Liner represents the pinnacle of luxury. Flying palaces carrying hundreds of passengers in style and comfort, Grand Liners link the most important worlds of the Drakeîn Dominion.
Smaller merchant ships serve smaller Colonies, or carry irregular cargoes when bigger ships experience delays or run out of room. Daring traders also use them to seek out new markets, engage in speculative trading, and the like. Small merchant ships tend to have crews of no more than half a dozen, often partners in the venture or part of a family. The small independent merchants of the Drakeîn have formed a loose association, the Merchant Adventurers Society. The Society works to protect its members from unfair competition by the big interstellar lines and lobbies the Drakeîn government for greater protection, less regulation of trade, and other matters of interest to the membership. It also acts as a clearinghouse for news and information about trade routes, business opportunities, and dangers. Membership in the Society costs annual dues.
Law
Some beings in the Drakeîn Dominion are granted dual citizenship, which makes them citizens of both the Drakeîn Dominion and the Dominion in which they reside. Others that live in Protectorates and Colonies have single citizenship, making them members of the Drakeîn but not of any other worlds or nations. Taxes are always more favorable for local citizens than for Drakeîn citizens. So most people who reside and work on a planet will usually become citizens of that planet.
Dual citizens are subject to the laws of both the Dominion and the Drakeîn. While on the citizen’s home world local laws have precedence. Everywhere else the person is subject to Drakeîn laws. Foreigners are subject to local laws while military and governmental personnel are bound by Drakeîn law only, regardless of their original citizenship. The Drakeîn has moderately high punishments for violent felonies and has more death sentences compared to other legal systems due to its colonial nature. There are also laws that prevent discrimination against people for race, sex, religion and sexual choice. One other important legal constant is that any law abiding citizen can not be stopped from relocating to another area of governance.
Since the Drakeîn Dominion governs many worlds, it leaves much of the legal system in the hands of planetary governments. Each world has its own legal system and courts, and local laws vary from planet to planet. Citizens can appeal the decisions of planetary courts to the Drakeîn district courts, whose decisions override planetary law. This does not apply to Dominions. Over time this tends to make laws and legal systems more uniform.
Designated space port zones and everything beyond the limits of planetary atmospheres, or an altitude of 20 kilometers for airless worlds and space stations, is subject to Standard Drakeîn Space Law. All spacecraft must meet Drakeîn licensing requirements and obey Drakeîn operating rules. As a result, the "rules of the road" for interstellar travelers and merchants remain the same throughout Drakeîn territory, and the laws governing interaction, with customers and suppliers are much the same on every planet. In Dominion territory, the planets (and some space stations) function under their own law but space port facilities are joint run organizations that operate under Standard Drakeîn Space Law.
Slavery; In spite of the available amount of cheap labor the slave trade has come back into existence for a variety of reasons. Under Drakeîn law, no one can hold a member of a recognized sentient species in slavery. But a couple of dodges exist: On many worlds "labor agreements" can effectively enslave individuals. Pneumic and neurochemical methods of mind control make it possible to erase memories and control behavior. Recently some organizations have gotten their hands on cloning equipment and are starting to specialize in slavery (especially the creation of illegal clones of media stars), the manufacture and sale of designer drugs, and ecological sabotage for hire. Significant demand exists: hostile worlds need workers; wealthy perverts want playthings; the underworld arena always needs more gladiators. The Internal Security Police interprets the law strictly and investigates any reports of slavery.
Treason; The Drakeîn legally defines "treason' as aiding and abetting enemies of the Drakeîn, or performing acts that could harm the Drakeîn, or its citizens, as a whole. The government is sufficiently secure, and has enough of a sense of humour, not to punish criticism or mockery of the regime but anyone actively advocating the overthrow of the Drakeîn attracts attention. “Overt acts of treason” helping terrorists either directly or by concealing them from the authorities, conspiring with foreign governments or would-be usurpers, and any direct action against the Drakeîn, or its agencies merits the death penalty.
Officials who are found to abuse their position see their personal fortune used to make restitution and a demotion of their status. Harsher punishments may apply. Corporations that abuse their power see the responsible parties removed, the corporation at large punished monetarily.
Weaponry; Controlling weapons has never been a serious concern. Owners of military grade weapons must have special licenses to own weapons. The process can take as long as a couple of months. There are special procedures for bodyguards and security personnel which reduced time involved for getting licenses. Mercenaries can usually get temporary permits.
Punishment; Time of imprisonment is the average time that it takes for a criminal to work out his debt to society. This time also varies with the life span of the race that committed the crime and is adjusted accordingly. The time givens given are for standard humans. Typical imprisonment is more akin to a mental hospital rather than a prison with time not under treatment used for labor.
Notes on Re-habilitation; It essentially consists of probation with electronic monitoring, and a requirement to attend weekly counseling and therapy sessions as dictated by the judge, along with weekly “Law and Society” meetings, along with meetings with a rehabilitation officer to check on progress, and usually a limitation of the person to not leaving their home system or system convicted in without prior permission for the duration of the rehabilitation.
Crime
Punishment
Weapon Traffic
5 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Military Weapon Possession without a License
3 month prison & 1 years rehabilitation
Smuggling
1 year prison & 2 years rehabilitation
Mind Probing
1 year prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Drug Possession
1 year prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Drug Traffic
10 years prison & 5 year rehabilitation
Grand Larceny
5 years prison & 5 year rehabilitation
Armed Robbery
5 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Piracy
10 years prison & 10 years rehabilitation to Death
Rape
30 years prison & 10 years rehabilitation to Death
Man Slaughter
5 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Murder 2
30 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Murder 1
60 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation to Death
Kidnaping
30 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation to Death
Treason
Death
Genocide
Death
Socioeconomics
The core objective of the Drakeîn Economic policies is the development of a common market between its member states. Increasing trade and commerce means that the respective nations and societies involved increase their exposure to new goods and markets, thus increasing the GDP of each society that is involved in the system. Along with tangible goods, people, techniques, information, and ideas move lucidly across trade routes. The military and police ensure that supply lines and trade routes flow smoothly; permanent garrisons are established along trade routes to protect the travelers on these routes.
The common market involves the free circulation of goods, capital, people and services within the Drakeîn and the application of a common external tariff on all goods entering the market. Once goods have been admitted into the market they cannot be subjected to customs duties, discriminatory taxes or import quotas, as they travel internally. Free movement of capital is intended to permit movement of investments such as property purchases and buying of shares between countries. The free movement of capital is unique insofar as that it is granted equally to non-member states.
Free movement of persons means citizens can move freely between member states to live, work, study or retire in another country. This required the lowering of administrative formalities and recognition of professional qualifications of other states. The free movement of services and of establishment allows self-employed persons to move between member states in order to provide services on a temporary or permanent basis. Additionally policies aim to liberalize the cross border provision of services.
The Drakeîn operates a competition policy intended to ensure undistorted competition within the single market. The Drakeîn as the competition regulator for the single market is responsible for antitrust issues, approving mergers, breaking up cartels, working for economic liberalization and preventing state aid. As the Drakeîn is made up of independent Dominions, both competition policy and the creation of a single market could be rendered ineffective were member states free to support national companies as they saw fit.
Unlike other governments the Drakeîn Dominion prefers not to dominate its economy but rather play the role of partner with business. This approach, created and sustained by a series of clear sighted administrators, helps makes the Drakeîn designer of the stage upon which the economy plays itself out. It regulates and controls, as opposed to nationalizing, the means of production. Economic planning seeks to coordinate the economy to serve what is held to be in the interests of the "common good" rather than allowing "private initiative" seek its own course, though for the vast majority of time private interest is the normal driving force. Benefit to the community is held to be more important than benefit to the individual. Everyone is allowed to keep the property they have acquired for themselves, creating a state-run economy on private account.
Drakeîn economics are a combination of small business innovation and government supported large business. Small scale entrepreneurship is encouraged and given favorable policies by the government, although in some areas it is difficult to compete with corporations without being absorbed. The government assumes a role over the economy that is primarily supervisory, rather than executive, in nature. The Drakeîn mostly trusts the large corporations to run things for themselves, and intervened from time to time to ensure compliance, rather than assuming direct control over all of the operations of industry. Corporations are encouraged to cooperate with Drakeîn policies by being given favorable deals. The government typically maintains a number of companies in a given area as well as a smaller amount of non-profit organizations, being careful to ensure that there is always some credible competition so that businesses which become unpopular may be at least temporarily discarded for some form of alternative.
Most corporations are based upon the cooperative model. A cooperative is owned and democratically managed by its worker-owners. This control may be exercised in a number of ways. A cooperative enterprise may mean a firm where every owner-worker participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which managers and administration is elected by every worker-owner, and finally it can refer to a situation in which managers are considered, and treated as, workers of the firm. In short, cooperatives are organized to serve the needs of worker-owners by generating benefits for the worker owners rather than external investors.
In "pure" forms of worker co-operative, all shares are held by the workforce with no outside or consumer owners, and each member has one voting share. In practice, control by worker-owners may be exercised through individual, collective or majority ownership by the workforce, or the retention of individual, collective or majority voting rights (exercised on a one-member one-vote basis). A worker cooperative, therefore, has the characteristic that the majority of its workforce own shares, and the majority of shares are owned by the workforce.
Ideally, participation is based on one vote per worker-owner, regardless of the amount of shares or equity owned by each worker-owner. Voting rights are not tied to investment or patronage in the workers' co-operative, and only worker-owners can vote on decisions that affect them. In practice, worker co-operatives have to accommodate a range of interests to survive and have experimented with different voice and voting arrangements to accommodate the interests of trade unions, local authorities, those who have invested proportionately more labour, or through attempts to mix individual and collective forms of worker ownership and control.
To establish a corporation, you have to present the appropriate agency with a "business plan" that takes into account benefit to society, energy and logistical requirements, safety concerns, etc. So even a major corporation, rather than being motivated by profits, must subscribe to the same principles of the citizenry as a whole; the pursuit of bettering itself and as a result bettering society at large.
On the individual level there is a high level of taxation but it is varied over a wide range of areas (roads, communications, food, etc…) so that people are only taxed on the services they use. There is also a level of benefits for those unable to work and government work or makework in nationalized services for those unable to find work. Most laws favor the government, its nationalized corporations, and its client corporations over the individual worker while still protecting their basic rights equally.
There is substantial upward and downward mobility in society, especially on the basis of competence, so that those who can be and should be trusted with a given level of independent action, are. Membership is assigned by merit and revoked for incompetence or disloyalty. Not only does social mobility allow the matching of the right people to the right jobs, but it allows the lower classes to aspire to being higher classed, and the higher class to fear demotion.
Workers are kept under good conditions, are as free as anyone else in the society, and are not subject to harsh punishment in the normal course of events. Because they are given considerable independence which the state is organized so as to be able to tolerate, there is a similarly decreased need to watch their every move. The security apparatus only acts openly against a small minority, keeping the rest controlled through fear, since they still have quite a lot to lose if they are targeted.
The ability to reward good servants at levels commensurate with their service is quite important. First, a sort of graduated scale of reward is present. A system where there are only a few "gradations" of reward, which each require very substantial differences in productivity, will not encourage those workers who don't think they are capable of closing the entire gap to the next level of reward. Second, the rewards are actually worth it to the majority of the workers, but not worth more than the increased output is.
Business attire is simple, sleek, and utilitarian. It is often one color with a secondary highlight. Fashion generally aims toward the functional first and the stylish second. Military styled clothing is the predominant business attire. Form fitting jumpsuits, both full and revealingly cut out, has come back into fashion, especially customized jumpsuits. Given the extreme flexibility of the design and the relatively cheap cost of them, they are very popular amongst civilians, although they are often augmented with other pieces of clothing. Business suits consist of a jumpsuit with a pullover, which is a normal looking button-down shirt with a large, stylized "shell" of cloth which is pulled over the head and thus gives a fancy seeming outfit for comparatively cheap cost. There are a number of styles and shapes accepted.
Stock Exchanges
The major stock exchanges are located in capital cities of Dominions where they are most convenient to the major industries and many government organs. These financial institutions are run as partnerships between the host world's government and the Drakeîn government. Each major stock exchange also houses a commodities market where valuables are bought and sold. Although the government funds these centers of economic speculation, it is not as a profit making venture. Instead top officials from the Trade Channel closely monitor the actions of the various markets. If they spot any trends that indicate trouble for the economy as a whole, they take appropriate action, such as halting trade and forcing the market to close. In consultation with the Hypatos, they then implement any further emergency procedures.
Conquered nations are broken down into colonies under guidance of other Protectorates, with the some of the conquered industry being given to Protectorate sponsored companies. Advances are strengthened by settlement on confiscated territory, a quick buildup of infrastructure, and a prudent treatment of the conquered which minimizes difficulties and dangers. Companies from Dominions can manage and acquire newly conquered territory’s industry as well. Governmental leaders are given levels of ownership into these territories, directly affecting the wealth of government officials. When a level of stability is reached these conquered colonies may chose to form their own Protectorates. If these Protectorates meet certain requirements they can form their own Dominions.
Currency
Money is seen as a token of honor, a promise of an agreed exchanged of services, fundamental to society, and a statement of hope that somewhere there are those who will not default on that honor.
In a surplus economy, such as the Drakeîn Dominion has, where all basic needs and wants are met instantly without any or significant cost to you, how does one distinguish themselves? This caused a major paradigm shift in humanity that it went from primarily a society that granted prestige according to one's wealth; which is now largely irrelevant since anyone could share that standard of living, to a society that granted prestige based on what you "gave back" to society as a whole. Citizens are motivated to better themselves and by extension society because that is the only way to gain recognition from others who are guided by the same principles. Mankind will always strive for prestige in some fashion because they are by their very nature competitive.
Some things remain rare in a post-scarcity society. Only one person at a time can be a leader of a group, community or country, there is a practical limit to the number of people who can live in any specific, 'in-demand' locale and there is only one original of a certain work of art. Population growth, if it continues long enough, would lead to unavoidable scarcity. However the total fertility rate is high in poor countries with poor health infrastructure, but it tends to drop to replacement levels or lower once a nation reaches a certain per capita income. The only practical remaining scarce resource is skilled labor. People are primarily devoted to the pursuit of mostly leisure and sometimes science and art.
Anyone can have gold, jewels, vehicles, houses, etc. to their heart's content, so long as it doesn't exceed space, energy, legal, or safety requirements. All people have a basic energy allocations without charge, but if you exceeded those allocations then you would have to use money. The more dangerous, time consuming, or beneficial to society your job may be, the more money you are allocated. Likewise, money can be offered as a reward for a significant achievement of some sort. If you could convince the organization responsible for such things that you need more energy for a certain task, than you could be granted more money as a "loan" that you would have to pay back by giving back to society by providing a service to the agency in question.
There are of course other ways to gain prestige in the Drakeîn Dominion. You can do so by gaining fame, or by gaining power, but always, the philosophy of "giving back" to n society as a whole must be key, because that is how the people themselves live their lives and so that is what they expect from their celebrities and politicians. You don't have to be the best right out of the gate, but you have to constantly strive to better yourself or you won't be taken seriously by the people who have adopted this philosophy as the guiding principle of their lives. A celebrity will constantly strive to give a better performance; a politician will constantly strive to serve his constituents to the best of his abilities.
The official currency of the Drakeîn Dominion is the hyperpyron. A handful of Dominions have their own currency, even there hyperpyrons constitute legal tender, but only hyperpyrons are valid for Drakeîn taxes and interstellar trade. Hyperpyrons have no physical form, but citizens can store them on credisks, thin disks of nearly indestructible plastic with a liquid crystal holographic display showing the value stored on the disk. The holder of a credisk can plug it into any standard bank or commercial exchange terminal to add or subtract value from it; that's how he buys goods and services, receives his pay, and so forth. People also exchange credisks directly.
A credisk's built-in data keep a record of every transaction conducted, which means Drakeîn authorities can trace the disk's use. Because of the Artifical Intelligence implanted in the disks, it is very difficult for someone to abuse the system. Criminals, rebels, and others who wish to keep their dealings hidden often avoid credisks for this reason. Instead they usually deal in either foreign currency or valuable materials.
Trade
What do interstellar merchants trade to make money? Launching cargoes off planets costs money, even with antigravity. Cargo transport costs hyperpyrons per gram just for energy alone. Adding in the cost of highly skilled labour to operate starships, life support for the crew, amortizing the cost of starships, and various port fees and handling charges makes the price come as rather expensive. Any interstellar cargo must have a significant price between source and destination to be worth shipping at all, and merchants naturally seek out items which pack the most value into the least weight.
The few steady profitable routes through Drakeîn Dominion are supervised by the government which regulates who can use them and taxes accordingly. They also patrol these routs to protect them from piracy. However to avoid taxes and to get to worlds quickly other more dangerous routs can be taken. Established trade routes in other governments' territory are usually the same, though the Drakeîn outlaws monopolies and enforces those regulations strictly.
Traders and Trading
Travelers within the Drakeîn can arrange interplanetary money transfers via large banking companies or the Drakeîn Bank, using a repeater network to complete transactions. Since this may take a while, many traders prefer to carry relatively large amounts of cash so they can transact business on the spot and keep moving.
Outside of Drakeîn space official charters are needed to operate and these charters come in different grades as to properly license the type of goods allowed or even to hire foreign mercenaries to protect shipments. Trade by Drakeîn merchants outside Drakeîn space usually involves exchanging cargoes for local currency, then spending the money right away on items to sell back in Drakeîn space. In established markets traders can spend Drakeîn hyperpyrons with a small conversion fee, and can exchange those alien currencies back home with little difficulty. In the case of more remote markets or societies without money all deals involve barter.
Merchant Ships
Merchant starships come in many different sizes and types. The biggest operate on regular routes, carrying freight and passengers on long term contracts with predictable profits. In Drakeîn space, the Grand Liner represents the pinnacle of luxury. Flying palaces carrying hundreds of passengers in style and comfort, Grand Liners link the most important worlds of the Drakeîn Dominion.
Smaller merchant ships serve smaller Colonies, or carry irregular cargoes when bigger ships experience delays or run out of room. Daring traders also use them to seek out new markets, engage in speculative trading, and the like. Small merchant ships tend to have crews of no more than half a dozen, often partners in the venture or part of a family. The small independent merchants of the Drakeîn have formed a loose association, the Merchant Adventurers Society. The Society works to protect its members from unfair competition by the big interstellar lines and lobbies the Drakeîn government for greater protection, less regulation of trade, and other matters of interest to the membership. It also acts as a clearinghouse for news and information about trade routes, business opportunities, and dangers. Membership in the Society costs annual dues.
Law
Some beings in the Drakeîn Dominion are granted dual citizenship, which makes them citizens of both the Drakeîn Dominion and the Dominion in which they reside. Others that live in Protectorates and Colonies have single citizenship, making them members of the Drakeîn but not of any other worlds or nations. Taxes are always more favorable for local citizens than for Drakeîn citizens. So most people who reside and work on a planet will usually become citizens of that planet.
Dual citizens are subject to the laws of both the Dominion and the Drakeîn. While on the citizen’s home world local laws have precedence. Everywhere else the person is subject to Drakeîn laws. Foreigners are subject to local laws while military and governmental personnel are bound by Drakeîn law only, regardless of their original citizenship. The Drakeîn has moderately high punishments for violent felonies and has more death sentences compared to other legal systems due to its colonial nature. There are also laws that prevent discrimination against people for race, sex, religion and sexual choice. One other important legal constant is that any law abiding citizen can not be stopped from relocating to another area of governance.
Since the Drakeîn Dominion governs many worlds, it leaves much of the legal system in the hands of planetary governments. Each world has its own legal system and courts, and local laws vary from planet to planet. Citizens can appeal the decisions of planetary courts to the Drakeîn district courts, whose decisions override planetary law. This does not apply to Dominions. Over time this tends to make laws and legal systems more uniform.
Designated space port zones and everything beyond the limits of planetary atmospheres, or an altitude of 20 kilometers for airless worlds and space stations, is subject to Standard Drakeîn Space Law. All spacecraft must meet Drakeîn licensing requirements and obey Drakeîn operating rules. As a result, the "rules of the road" for interstellar travelers and merchants remain the same throughout Drakeîn territory, and the laws governing interaction, with customers and suppliers are much the same on every planet. In Dominion territory, the planets (and some space stations) function under their own law but space port facilities are joint run organizations that operate under Standard Drakeîn Space Law.
Slavery; In spite of the available amount of cheap labor the slave trade has come back into existence for a variety of reasons. Under Drakeîn law, no one can hold a member of a recognized sentient species in slavery. But a couple of dodges exist: On many worlds "labor agreements" can effectively enslave individuals. Pneumic and neurochemical methods of mind control make it possible to erase memories and control behavior. Recently some organizations have gotten their hands on cloning equipment and are starting to specialize in slavery (especially the creation of illegal clones of media stars), the manufacture and sale of designer drugs, and ecological sabotage for hire. Significant demand exists: hostile worlds need workers; wealthy perverts want playthings; the underworld arena always needs more gladiators. The Internal Security Police interprets the law strictly and investigates any reports of slavery.
Treason; The Drakeîn legally defines "treason' as aiding and abetting enemies of the Drakeîn, or performing acts that could harm the Drakeîn, or its citizens, as a whole. The government is sufficiently secure, and has enough of a sense of humour, not to punish criticism or mockery of the regime but anyone actively advocating the overthrow of the Drakeîn attracts attention. “Overt acts of treason” helping terrorists either directly or by concealing them from the authorities, conspiring with foreign governments or would-be usurpers, and any direct action against the Drakeîn, or its agencies merits the death penalty.
Officials who are found to abuse their position see their personal fortune used to make restitution and a demotion of their status. Harsher punishments may apply. Corporations that abuse their power see the responsible parties removed, the corporation at large punished monetarily.
Weaponry; Controlling weapons has never been a serious concern. Owners of military grade weapons must have special licenses to own weapons. The process can take as long as a couple of months. There are special procedures for bodyguards and security personnel which reduced time involved for getting licenses. Mercenaries can usually get temporary permits.
Punishment; Time of imprisonment is the average time that it takes for a criminal to work out his debt to society. This time also varies with the life span of the race that committed the crime and is adjusted accordingly. The time givens given are for standard humans. Typical imprisonment is more akin to a mental hospital rather than a prison with time not under treatment used for labor.
Notes on Re-habilitation; It essentially consists of probation with electronic monitoring, and a requirement to attend weekly counseling and therapy sessions as dictated by the judge, along with weekly “Law and Society” meetings, along with meetings with a rehabilitation officer to check on progress, and usually a limitation of the person to not leaving their home system or system convicted in without prior permission for the duration of the rehabilitation.
Crime
Punishment
Weapon Traffic
5 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Military Weapon Possession without a License
3 month prison & 1 years rehabilitation
Smuggling
1 year prison & 2 years rehabilitation
Mind Probing
1 year prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Drug Possession
1 year prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Drug Traffic
10 years prison & 5 year rehabilitation
Grand Larceny
5 years prison & 5 year rehabilitation
Armed Robbery
5 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Piracy
10 years prison & 10 years rehabilitation to Death
Rape
30 years prison & 10 years rehabilitation to Death
Man Slaughter
5 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Murder 2
30 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation
Murder 1
60 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation to Death
Kidnaping
30 years prison & 5 years rehabilitation to Death
Treason
Death
Genocide
Death
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
RPG Mechanics
Leviathan Notes
Reflex Weaponry is considered to be magic weaponry.
Can use reflex missiles as found in Robotech 2nd ed.
U-rounds can be and are often used in projectile weapons. Damage is the same as the standard rounds (which are explosive rounds).
Damage from HtH of any mecha or Leviathan has the same effects of that of U-rounds on the supernatural
Mecha use damage tables in in Robotech 2nd ed based off of Robotic Strength.
All ships have the following systems from Manhunter; Magnetic Shields (also with the bonuses under the Magnetic Drive), Tractor Beams under Gravity Drive, Basic and Advanced Stealth Technology (can not fire while advanced is active), Teleporters, Microwave and Wild weasel missiles, chaff and mine dispensers equal to the number of missile launchers .
Ships have a forcefield similar to that of the Master’s Mothership. Each of the 300ft shield portions regenerate completely every melee. All portions are able to completely cover the ship. When this shield is up nothing can get through on either side without damaging the shield. Directed energy weapons will continue to damage the ship if they destroy the shield however all damage of a missile volley will be directed away from the ship. The entire system is able to attempt to divert the blast of a heavy reflex weapon similar to a Pin Point Barrier system.
There are 3 ways that data can be shared between Ships, Mecha, and individuals. The first is a Mecha based system that is found on the Defender EX. Similarly some ships are equipped with a similar system that is able to share data with not only mecha but also other ships. This system gives the same bonuses as found under the Defender EX to ships and mecha within communication range. Additionally due to the telepathic link of the species all individuals get the same bonuses as found under the Defender EX if they are within telepathic range of a Brain, Factory Base Regent Daimon, Homebase Regis Daimon, or Demogorgon Daimon. These systems are additive, bonuses do ‘stack’. While not related also note the Emulator’s Song of War which does not share data but inspire individuals, range of this is telepathic range or technical/audio communication range.
Retractable laser turret stats are replaced with those of the Masters’ Mothership lasers
Main Laser Cannons are replaced by Reflex Guided Converging Beam Cannons found on the SDF Macross, but have the same range as before. Are considered to be particle beams.
Main Cannons function by ripping apart space/time creating a highly energetic rift.
Small Laser Cannons are replaced by Tachyon Accelerators from the Manhunter book and have the scatter gun attachement.
Marduk ships have 1 forward Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 30 laser cannons. Range is the same as laser cannons.
Marduk Ships, vehicles, and equipment heal at the same rate as that of the Lower Hull portions of the Marduk Homebase.
All ships have an equivalent Invid Brain to control them. Also has the appropriate abilities of the Invid Brain (plus mechanical and electrical engineering skills equal to that of the general mechanics/electronics skills listed under the Invid Brain).
Use anti-matter and fusion reactors for ships and mecha, protoculture is used for mind-machine interface and specialized weapons.
Mobile Weapon Systems;
All vehicles have a Drone equivalent to a Stage 1 Invid to act as a backup pilot, it can pilot the vehicle as the Basic level.
Zentran Battle Pods are replaced by VF-XX
Main body has +100 MDC
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
VF-XX carry 2 BC-60s as standard instead of the GU-3
Has a pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer that has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Capable of .4c
Zentran Male Power Armors are replaced by VF-XX
Main body has +100 MDC
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
VF-XX carry 1 GU-3 and 1 2E-SS as standard.
Has a pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer that has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Capable of .4c
Zentran Officer Pods are replaced by VF-XX
Main body has +100 MDC
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
VF-XX carry 1 Rocket and Laser Gun and 1 EU-15 Destablizer as standard. Destablizers are considered reflex weaponry, work against magic and psionic force fields.
Uses 1 Automatic Attack Bit as standard.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Capable of .6c
Meltran Power Armors are replaced by VF-1MS
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
VF-1MS’s plasma spear stats are switched with those of the VF-2SS SAP’s super beam cannon.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Capable of .6c
Gilgamesh Type Is are replaced by VF-2SS SAP
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
Uses 2 Automatic Attack Bits as standard.
VF-XX carry 1 GU-3 and 1 2E-SS as standard.
VF-2SS SAP Special’s super beam cannon stats are switched with those of the VF-1MS’s plasma spear.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Has the head shield of the VF-2SS SAP Special. Mounted in Head Shield is the sensor array of the Defender.
Capable of .6c
Gilgamesh Type IIs are replaced by VF-2SS SAP Specials
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
Uses 4 Automatic Attack Bits as standard.
VF-XX carry 1 EU-15 Destabilizer and 1 2E-SS as standard. Destablizers are considered reflex weaponry, work against magic and psionic force fields.
VF-2SS SAP Special’s super beam cannon stats are switched with those of the VF-1MS’s plasma spear.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Has a Shadow Cloaking Device.
Mounted in Head Shield is the sensor array of the Defender.
Capable of .6c
Every 20 Zentran Hover platforms are replaced by 2 M-300 VTOL Jets and 20 Marduk Hover Platforms.
Every 30 Annihilators are replaced by
8 Defender
7 Phalanx
8 Tomahawk
6 AGA jet
8 VC-079 Space Boosters, Destroid Use. Capable of .2c
1 Monster
30 Gilgamesh Type II Power Armor
40 Primary Drones
8 Secondary Drones
40 Omega Drones
6 Heavy Labor Drones
4 Technical Service Drone
1 Cargo Transportation Drone
10 Remote Observation Drone
3 Medical Drone
Defenders have their MDC doubled.
Defenders can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Phalanxes have their MDC doubled.
Phalanxes can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Tomahawks have their MDC doubled.
Tomahawks can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Weapon arms can energize and do the same damage as that of the VF-1MS’s plasma spear in HtH.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
AGAs have their MDC doubled.
AGAs can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie’s military version. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
AGAs carry one GU-3 and one 2E-SS as standard.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Monsters have their MDC doubled.
Monsters can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie’s military version with double the MDC. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has three pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Gilgamesh Type II
Half size
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 100 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Energy Lance is standard issue.
Capable of .2c
Zentran Shuttles are replaced by 2 M-300 VTOL Jets and a Marduk Shuttle.
M-300s have quadruple MDC.
Has four pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Has sensors and weapon systems of the REF Cyclops Theater Scout
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Capable of .2c
Drones are immune to horror factor. And logic circuits do not cause drone to freeze up.
Zentran Officers pods are the body of Primary Defensive Drones, using the same bonuses as found in Return of the Masters. They are kept in shoots in the hulls of ships with 4 in every shoot. Two can be launched every melee and one can make it into space before shields are raised, which takes about half a melee.
Has a pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer that has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Uses 3 Automatic Attack Bit as standard.
Piloted by the equivalent to a stage One Invid.
Capable of .2c
Marduk Annihilators are the body of Secondary Defensive Drones, using the same bonuses as found in Return of the Masters but with learning abilities of that of Omega drones. They are kept in shoots in the hulls of ships with 4 in every shoot. Two can be launched every melee and one can make it into space before shields are raised, which takes about half a melee.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Uses 4 Automatic Attack Bit as standard.
Piloted by the equivalent to a stage two Invid.
Capable of .2c
Gilgamesh Type I are Omega Defensive Drones, using the same bonuses as found in Return of the Masters.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 100 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Half size
Half Giant Sized Marduk-Zentran Assault Rifle is standard issue.
Piloted by the equivalent to a stage two Invid.
Capable of .2c
Automatic Attack Bits are considered to be Drones. They have a pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer that has an MDC of 100 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3. Piloted by the equivalent to a stage one Invid.
Capable of .6c
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Flagship has 3 Pin Point Barrier Systems Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Command Ship.
Rate of fire of Heavy Particle cannon is double.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 9 Terminator Lances
Has a factory that can produce clones and vehicles at 1/1000 the rate of a Factory Satellite
Battleship has 3 Pin Point Barrier Systems Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Carrier.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 3 Terminator Lances
Destroyer has 2 pin point barrier systems Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Destroyer.
Has 1 Terminator Lance
Scout has 1 pin point barrier system and Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Scout.
May fire weapons while advanced stealth is active.
Dreadnaughts;
Marduk Dreadnaught has 6 additional M-300 VTOLs
All primary drones are secondary.
Secondary Drones are replaced by SAP Specials that have a Syncro Cannon in place of the main laser.
Gilgamesh Is are replaced by SAP VF-MS1 with shadow system.
All mecha equipped with Invid protocultre sensors and targeting systems.
Dreadnaughts have 1 forward Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 15 laser cannons. Range is the same as laser cannons.
May fire weapons while advanced stealth is active.
Dreadnaught has 3 Pin Point Barrier Systems Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Flagship.
Rate of fire of Heavy Particle cannon for Dreadnaught is double.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 9 Terminator Lances
Master’s Mothership
Each designed for a specific task. Each has unique systems used for colony transport, construction, Trade Ships, etc…
Fission beam uses the statistics of the Heavy particle cannon but with double the firing rate.
Particle Beam Cannons are replaced by Reflex Guided Converging Beam Cannons found on the SDF Macross, but have the same range as before.
Have 1 forward Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 1 Converging Beam Cannon. Range is the same as laser cannons.
Missile Turrets and Light Lasers use the statistics of Marduk/Zentran ships in Macross II
Has 5 Pin Point Barrier Systems
Has 400 Phalanx turrets.
They have the same amount of Vehicles and Personnel as Flagships
May fire weapons while advanced stealth is active.
Rate of fire of Heavy Particle cannon is double.
Has the systems of a Marduk Flagship
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 9 Terminator Lances
Strategic Missile; that has stats of the Marduk Heavy Shuttle. Damage is that of the second specimen of protoculutre in the REF field guide, under the factory satellite. Missile’s systems are automated. Each area of the ship is controlled by a drone equal to an omega defense drone.
Capable of .6c
Shuttle and Strategic Missile have a force field equal to 10x of their main body MDC and heal at the same rate as that of the upper portions of the Marduke Homebase.
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Zentran Hardsuit is human size and uses MD Values of EVA Hardsuit.
Zentran Pilot Spacesuit is human size and uses uses MD values as they are.
Marduk standard battle armor is the Micron Power Armor in RT: Strike Force but uses MD values of the Zentran Hardsuit with double the MDC and has a Marduk Laser Rifle (unlimited payload) as standard. Has one pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Has an MDC of 50 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3. Also has the sensors of the Marduk combat EVA armor under the Marduk solider. Missiles are short range missiles. Has 2 CADS systems.
US Spacy Zentran Assault Rifle is human size and uses damage and range values of that of the Marduk laser Rifle. Standard issue to Zentran/Meltran.
Marduk Laser Pistol, as is.
Marduk Laser Rifle uses damage and range values for that of the Zentran Assault Rifle. Standard issue to Marduk.
Marduk Solider units have Rocket Launchers can use Mini-Missiles.
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Stage 1 (Compared to Inivid; lower castle/ scout level-pilot Automatic Attack Bit and Primary Drone)
Stage 1 Leviathan are comparatively simple beings that are made to do one routine job. Some are used in combat but they require other higher castle Leviathan to lead them. They are unable to leave their machines and are kept alive in a nutrient bath. They resemble a mushy 2 ft wide ball with 2 claw like arms. Have black skin and solid red eyes. Can not survive outside of their machines.
Stage2(Compared to Inivid; lower castle/ trooper level- pilot Secondary and Omega Drone)
Stage 2 Leviathan are similar to Stage one but have are able to carry out complex commands however they still need direction. They resemble a mushy 3 ft wide being with 2 claw like arms and two simple legs. Black skin and solid red eyes. Can not survive outside of their machines.
Stage 3(Compared to Inivid; Higher castle,/Pincer level - Zentran Soldiers)
Stage 3 Leviathan are fully humanoid and are able to function by themselves. They are used as the rank and file solider and are the most common of the Leviathan. About 6.5 ft tall and little physical variation in appearance. They have a solid red eyes and black skin. Two slits for a nose and two triangular flaps for ears. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Completely hairless
Stage 4 (Compared to Inivid; higher castle,/enforcer level- Zentran/Meltran Officers)
Stage 4 Leviathan are fully humanoid. They have better genetics than the Stage 3 Leviathan and often lead groups of lower level Leviathan or carry out specialized tasks. About 7.5ft tall and more humanoid in appearance. They have normal red eyes, a nose and ears but still somewhat minimalistic face. Black skin. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Completely hairless
Stage 5 (Compared to Inivid; commander level- Marduk, Masters, converted members of other species)
Stage 5 Leviathan resemble humans. These Leviathan function completely independently . They command large groups of Leviathan or have technical knowledge to crew and operate their ships and machinery. Sub-groups of this category exist that make up the bridge staff of ships and command fleets. About 6 ft tall. They have normal red eyes black skin and black hair. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot.
Converted members of other species also fall under this category.
Stage 6 Princess (Compared to Inivid; Ariel Level- Emulator)
These Leviathan can be considered equal to the Stage 5 however they have greater telepathic range and the ability to influence all Leviathan. They help to maintain the cultural identity of all Leviathan. About 5.5 ft tall and humanoid in appearance. They have normal red eyes black skin and black hair. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot.
Brain (Compared to Inivid; Brain- Ship )
These Leviathan are telepathic relays that help to coordinate and connect the species together. They may directly take over a lower level Leviathan in order to carry out some task. Typically responsible for a single ship.
Regent (Compared to Inivid; Regent- Factorybase)
These Leviathan are larger versions of the Brains. They are able to make a physical Daimon to carry out special assignments. They are responsible for a large number of fleets.
Regis (Compared to Inivid; Regis-Homebase )
These Leviathan are larger versions of the Brains and Regents. They are able to make a physical Daimon to carry out special assignments as well. They are responsible for about 2 dozen factory bases and their fleets as well as specialized fleets. Additionally they are the major data centers for Numen.
Demogorgon/Numen
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Use base 2 attacks per melee.
The race and their ships all have a series of micro and nano organisms living within them that make up a very advanced immune system. This gives Drone pilots, Zentran, Meltran and Marduk a regeneration rate of 1d4 per hour. Additionally these organisms attack any foreign substance, chemical, biological, or technological that is found in the hosts body. These organisms are part of the Telepathic link and items are identified as foreign that do not emit being part of the link. This results in the host being immune to disease, foreign items will be rejected and destroyed in 1d4 hours, and the host has a third of the effects due to poison/toxins and is +8 to save against them. They can become extremely virulent when in a foreign body (either organic or non-organic), duplicating themselves rapidly. After 2 hours a normal host will fall unconscious/inoperable. After 24 hours the organisms form a primitive brain (equal to a stage 1) will take over a normal being and be in complete control of it’s body. After 72 hours the ‘brain’ will assimilate the memories of the host (equivalent to a stage 3). If non weaponized they are transferred by touching blood and may be transferred by bite (bite does 1d4 MD). Note; When a non Leviathan joins the Leviathan a similar organ is placed into them which allows telepathic communication but does not override their mind. This organ is used for non Leviathan to join and sometimes for alien ambassadors. They become equal to a stage 5. Both processes can be reversed by mental telepathic command of a Leviathan Brain or Base.
Zentran/Meltran/Marduk may reproduce, offspring will have the same Telepathic link to the Race. They do not need to sleep or eat (will need to eat after 2 months) but may. All are able to sense protoculture as the Invid do.
All Zentran, Meltran, Marduk and Drones have one cybernetic implant that acts as a backup incase their psionic link to the Race is severed. Range of this is 100 miles or the com system of their vehicle, whichever is greater.
All marduk officers and soldiers have special training and can have the bonuses of the Battle Pod Specialist (for officer) or Power Armor Specialist(for solider) as found in RT: Strike Force.
Drones, and Solider Zentran are Psi-Nullifiers while Officer Zentran, Meltran, Marduk, Science/Clone/Robotech Masters, All Daimons Bases and Brains are Nega Psychics. These powers are from their mental link with the Race as a whole and so they do not affect each other.
Master Psionics and Magic practitioners that exist use their appropriate OCC(default is Marduk Science Officer) but with half primary and secondary skills and half bonuses but retain the additional OCC skills from the Psionic/Magic OCCs.
Zentran soldiers may have 1d6 cybernetic implants. Zentran and Meltran Officers may get 2d4 cybernetic implants, and Marduk 3d4.
Zentran/Meltran use rules for giant size as presented in RT:Zentraedi with damage tables for HtH in Macross II. Marduk use rules for giant size as presented in Macross II with damage tables for HtH in Macross II. PS is considered to be bionic. Zentran and Meltran are human size, have giant size bonuses. Soliders are considered stage 3 invid that can live outside their machines. Officers are considered as stage 4 Invid. Marduk have bonuses as if they were giant size. Considered to be Stage 5 Invid, able to receive commands/telepathy from Brains, and Emulators but do not have to follow commands. Almost all are fanatical however. May command Zentran/Meltran and they will follow unless orders are countered by Bases, Brains, or Emulators.
Emulators have same giant size bonuses as Meltran. Considered to be Invid ‘Prince/Princess’ as in Robotech 2nd ed with same powers. Also have master psionic abilities of a void priest from Rifts Manhunter. Emulators increase range of the invid brain, brain can communicate with emulator anywhere and use same range as that emulator to talk to other zentran/meltran/marduk. Emulators affect the values and beliefs of the Marduk/Zentran/Meltran, they do not form any unless separated for a long time. After separation still have positive feelings to the race. This model is used for emissaries to other organizations and are produced as females only (or child bearing member for other races).
Priestess; They are Specizlized Emulators. Use Emulator but with skills with half bonuses and half of the primary and secondary skills. Do not have song of War ability of sing skill but do have skills of Journalism, Writing, and Research at +20% as primary skills. They also get the skills and master psionic abilities of the Void Priest from Rifts Manhunter.
Science Officers’ PS is considered to be robotic and MDC is a bonus to the normal male Marduk MDC. These individuals make up most of the high ranking technical personnel on ships. Are considered to be Stage 5/Marduk.
For ship Captains use the statistics/abilities for the Clone Masters but with the OCC skills of a Marduk Officer and cybernetics of the Marduk Science Officer. They have 3d6 cybernetic implants. Are considered to be Stage 5/Marduk.
Each ship has a chief science officer with the same stats/abilities as the Science Masters but with OCC skills and cybernetics of the Marduk Science Officer. They have 5d6 cybernetic implants. Are considered to be Stage 5/Marduk.
Each ship has at least one Terminator Lance led by a Manglavitai. They are the Marduk Interrogators, which are specialized emulators and have all the powers of Emulators. Interrogators have 4d6 additional cybenetic implants. They also have the bionic abilities of Main Body Replacement, Sensor Implants, and Total Limb replacement (without negative side effects) as described in RT: Invid Invasion. They have powers and OCC skills from the Seeker OCC
Seeker OCC; Through ritual the chances of clairvoyance is given an +30% bonus.
Each seeker has a team of 8 Varangoi. Use the Marduk Solider OCC as a base with the powers and OCC skills of the Smoker OCC. They also have the bionic abilities of Main Body Replacement, Sensor Implants, and Total Limb replacement (without negative side effects) as described in RT: Invid Invasion. Smokers have special training and can have the bonuses of the Melee specialist(for solider) as found in RT: Strike Force.
Admirals, who are the leader of Fleets and live on Flagships and in some cases Motherships, use the statistics/abilities of a Robotech Master but with the OCC skills and cybernetics of the Marduk Science Officer. They have 5d6 cybenetic implants. They also have the bionic abilities of Main Body Replacement and Total Limb replacement as described in RT: Invid Invasion. Are considered to be Stage 5/Marduk.
Giant size stats are, speed is doubled, MDC is x10, and strength is Supernatural.
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Space/Air
Standard Drone Defense
4 Primary Drones
1 Secondary Drones
Standard Drone Attack
2 Primary Drones
6 Secondary Drones
1 Officer’s Pod
Standard Reconnaissance
3 Battle Pods
1 Male Power Armor
1 Officer’s pod
Long Range Reconnaissance
4 Battle Pods
1 Officer’s pod
Standard Seek and Destroy Team
2 Battle Pods
4 Male Power Armors
1 Officer Power Armor
1 Gilgamesh Type I
Standard Fighter Squadron
6 Battle Pods
2 Male Power Armor
1 Officer’s Pod
1 Gilgamesh Type I
Ship/Planet Investigation Team
6 Male Power Armor
1 Officer’s Pod
4 Omega Drones
1 Gilgamesh Type I
Elite Squadron
8 Female Power Armor
4 Gilgamesh Type I
1 Gilgamesh Type II
Elite Seek and Destroy Team
4 Female Power Armor
2 Male Power Armor
2 Officer’s Pods
2 Gilgamesh Type I
1 Gilgamesh type II
Elite Stealth Squadron
12 Gilgamesh Type II
Armored;
Mobile Ground Force - Light
1 Defender
1 Phalanx
2 Tomahawk
2 AGAs
4 Omega Drones
Mobile Ground Defense Force – Heavy
4 Defender
4 Phalanx
4 Tomahawk
1 Monster
4 AGAs
12 Omega Drones
Ground Seek and Destroy Team –Heavy
2 Defender
4 Phalanx
6 Tomahawk
6 AGAs
12 Omega Drones
Artillery/Space Defense Force – Heavy
4 Defender
6 Phalanx
2 Tomahawk
1 Monster
12 Omega Drones
Micron Ground Force - Light
4 Omega Drones
12 Gilgamesh Power Armors
Micron Ground Force – Heavy
1 Defender
1 Phalanx
4 Tomahawk
6 AGAs
12 Omega Drones
36 Gilgamesh Power Armors
1 Fleet includes ships;
1 Flagship and 10 Destroyer Escorts
6 Dreadnaughts and 8 Destroyer Escorts
10 Battleships and 6 destroyer escorts each.
112 destroyers arranged into task forces of 4 ships.
60 Scouts
Each Factory Base services approximately 500 fleets.
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g-95 Factory Base
Have a force field equal to that of an Invid Hive. It regenerates at the same rate of the top portion of the Marduk Homebase. It may deflect a Heavy Particle cannon using the same rules as a Pin Piont Barrier System.
Diameter of access stalks is x3 and MD is x10
Main Cannon has range and damage of that of the Fission Beam of the Maters’ Mothership, rate of fire of the Macross Cannon. Has unlimited Payload.
Fusion Cannons use stats Heavy Laser guns of the Marduk Base, and are reflex beams.
Retractable Laser Turrets are replaced by Reflex Guided Converging Beam Cannons found on the SDF with same range.
Light Laser Beams are replaced by Torpedo Tubes of the Marduk Base and are reflex weapons. Are spread evenly around the main portion of the base. Torpedo Tubes can be set to explode at a set distance enabling them to attack fighters. Get a +3 to strike for every melee they charge.
Have 1 Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 10 retractable laser cannons. Range is the same as laser cannons.
Repulsor cannon stops a ship from going into FTL for 3d6 minutes.
Base has 24 Pin Point Barrier systems and a shield system similar to that of the Master’s Mothership.
The Pods, Stalks, and Main Body of the station has the abilities listed under **** of the Marduk Base
All other sections of the ship, including internal, have abilities listed under *** of the Marduk Base
Hatches have abilities listed under ** of the Marduk Base.
Items 1 and 6 of the Marduk Homebase are appropriate to the station.
Has 10,000 Marduk Heavy Shuttle Strategic Missiles in launchers spread about the factory pods, MDC of the launchers is 1,000 each.
May fire weapons while advanced stealth is active.
On the outer hull of the base are facilities for processing asteroids and other raw materials.
Has 10 Fleets to guard the base.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 10000 Strategic missiles in storage.
Has about 450 Terminator Lances.
Standard Facilities
3. Space fold system will not have a faulty jump unless damaged or operated by a person unfamiliar with it.
5. Jams all types of signals, not just radar. Includes magic.
6. Same as 5.
7. Has a Hyperspace Interstellar Communications System. This allows communication at a rate of 1,500 light years per hour, ten times as fast between galaxies. Up to 100 channels as well. This is the system that all ships have and can be networked as described in this section.
8. Internal Sensors: Detect concealment roll of 90%. Advanced locks, alarms and code key systems tied into DNA identification systems, plus concealed cameras, electronic eyes, and invisible laser grid security systems. Sensor globes are placed in each room, corridors and access ways that can detect heat, light sound, radiation motion and chemical composition of the internal atmosphere. Each air lock has a scan way that shows all concealed weapons and contraband. Can detect specific life forms and intruders and can also detect if someone has tried to gain access to any of the stations systems. The external hull is monitored by sensors as well.
9. Zentran/Meltran use 10 minute de-stasis rule as if they were biroids. Marduk use normal rules. Drones suffer only for one minute.
10. The station has extensive medical facilities that can do anything from mend broken bones to extremely complicated surgery. The station also has a complete bio-scan chamber used to study and analyze alien life forms and to provide detailed information regarding the physiology, chemical structure, and genetic structure of that life form.
14. Bays are mostly full.
Command Center/Main Bridge, override and terminals controlled by Hypercomp.
Internal Sensors, able to detect micron sized things.
Hospital and Lab, can treat 10x as many patients.
Drones, combat drones have all standard systems
While the main portion of the ship has most of the living quarters other neighborhoods have been made in the hull of this ship. Internal living quarters normally support 5,000,000 Zentran/Meltran/Marduk and triple that amount could be supported without impeding factory operations. Maximum life support is 20,000,000 indefinitely and 50% more for short periods of time. Currently there is storage space for 8,200,000 in stasis.
650,000 large mecha can be stored in all bays and storage areas. About that many of smaller power armors are also stored.
Mecha can be produced at a faster rate than clones so there are more areas dedicated to living beings.
Construction Rates, numbers per week (Given for Marduk, convert using mecha modifications near begining)
800,000 combat Gear
120,000 Battle Pods
50,000 Officer Pods
60,000 Male Power Armor
60,000 Female Power Armor
40,000 Gilgamesh I and II
20,000 Annihilators
2,000 Small Spaceships
500 strategic Missiles
75,000 Non combat drones
20 Scouts
20 Destroyers
4 Battleships
1 Dreadnaught
.75 Flagship
.5 Master’s Motherships
Each Factory Base has a computer Hypercomp which is an essence fragment of the character Hypercomp. Each base has an Daimon of the base’s Hypercomp. The Daimon body MDC and attributes equal to Regent and is considered supernatural. Additionally it has all the abilities of the Regent with marduk/zentran being considered Invid. It is a level 15 Psi with all Psi abilities and a level 10 mage knowing all normal spells from levels 1-15. +13 to save vs psionic, magic, illusion and is immune to mind control, possession and horror factor. OCC is a level 15 Marduk Science Officer OCC. Has ISP of 3000 and PPE of 4000.
Marduk Homebase
Each Homebase has same dimensions of that of the Marduk Homebase. For stats use a normal Base but the number of weapons and MDC are three times the amount of a Factory Base. Also the main eye can charge for 10 minutes and fire a blast that can destroy a planet, and most anything else. Additionally the ship generate a huge shadow device and visually cloaked cloud that is approximately .1 AU in size and has the same effects as the Temporal shielding on the Dominator ship ( due to both Jammers and large psionic cloud). The cloud also blocks all transmissions and FTL travel. Under item 2 in the description of the Markuk Homebase, additionally Emulator singing will reduce effects of magic and/or reflex weaponry by 100 as described.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 800 Fleets under it’s control with 50 guarding the homebase.
Supervises about 20 Factory Bases.
Has 100,000 Strategic Missiles.
Factory can produce the same amount as that of a Factory Base.
Speed of base is the same as the G-95 factory base, however it takes four times the amount of time to turn.
Each Homebase has a computer Hypercomp which is an essence fragment of the character Hypercomp. Each Homebase has an Daimon of the base’s Hypercomp. The Daimon body MDC and attributes equal to Regis and is considered supernatural. Additionally it has all the abilities of the Regiss with marduk/zentran being considered Invid. It is a level 20 Psi with all Psi abilities and a level 15 mage knowing all normal spells from levels 1-15 and spells of legend. +13 to save vs psionic, magic, illusion and is immune to mind control, possession and horror factor. OCC is a level 20 Marduk Science Officer OCC. Has ISP of 8000 and PPE of 10000.
Numen at anytime may possess the Daimon of a Factory Base or Homebase. When possessed this Daimon is refered to as Demogorgon. Destroying an Daimon does not destroy Numen or the Hypercomp of that base but a new Daimon body takes 1 week to construct. Numen’s statistics are double that of the highest attribute of the Regent or Regis but MDC is ten times as much as normal. Also has all abilities of the Regis. It is a level 25 Psi with all Psi abilities and a level 20 mage knowing all normal spells from levels 1-15 and spells of legend. Has now +15 to save vs psionic, magic,possession, immune to illusion, mind control, and horror factor. OCC is a level 25 Marduk Science Officer OCC. Has ISP of 14000 and PPE of 15000.
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Notes for Dominion forces:
Use UN Zentran vessels.
No full size Zentran.
Reflex Weaponry is considered to be magic, affecting those immune to magic.
Can use reflex missiles as found in Robotech 2nd ed.
U-rounds can be and are often used in projectile weapons.
Mecha use damage tables in in Robotech 2nd ed based off of Robotic Strength.
Retractable laser turret stats are replaced with those of the Masters’ Mothership lasers
Main Laser Cannons are replaced by Reflex Guided Converging Beam Cannons found on the SDF Macross, but have the same range as before. Are considered to be particle beams.
Main Cannons function by ripping apart space/time creating a highly energetic rift.
Small Laser Cannons are replaced by Tachyon Accelerators from the Manhunter book and have the scatter gun attachement.
All ships have the following systems from Manhunter; Magnetic Shields (also with the bonuses under the Magnetic Drive), Tractor Beams under Gravity Drive, Basic and Advanced Stealth Technology (can not fire while advanced is active), Teleporters, Microwave and Wild weasel missiles, chaff and mine dispensers equal to the number of missile launchers .
Zentran ships have 1 forward Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 30 laser cannons. Range is the same as laser cannons.
Use anti-matter and fusion reactors for ships and mecha, protoculture is used for mind-machine interface and specialized weapons.
All ships, vehicles, and equipment heal at the same rate as that of the Lower Hull portions of the Marduk Homebase.
All ships have an equivalent Invid Brain to manage Leviathan. Also has the appropriate abilities of the Invid Brain (plus mechanical and electrical engineering skills equal to that of the general mechanics/electronics skills listed under the Invid Brain).
Ships have a forcefield similar to that of the Master’s Mothership. Each of the 300ft shield portions regenerate completely every melee. All portions are able to completely cover the ship. When this shield is up nothing can get through on either side without damaging the shield. Directed energy weapons will continue to damage the ship if they destroy the shield however all damage of a missile volley will be directed away from the ship. The entire system is able to attempt to divert the blast of a heavy reflex weapon similar to a Pin Point Barrier system.
All Zentran/Meltran are micronized.
Mobile Weapon Systems;
Use modifications for Marduk Ships as above
Replace VF-2SS with VF-2SAP.
Replace VF-2SAP Special with Metal Siren.
VF-XX is the model replacing battle pods.
Replace old Zentran Power armor with VF-XX replacing Zentran Power armor.
Replace old Meltran Power armor with VF-XX replacing battle pods.
Replace old battle pods with VF-XX replacing battle pods.
Replace old Officer Pod with VF-XX replacing Officer Pod but instead of Destablizer one 2E-SS is standard.
Replace old fighter pods with Metal Siren piloted by Meltran.
Replace every 30 old battle pods with:
20 Primary Drones
4 Secondary Drones
30 Micron Power Armors
20 Omega Drones
10 Gilgamesh II Power Armors
5 Heavy Labor Drones
2 Technical Service Drone
1 Cargo Transportation Drone
10 Remote Observation Drone
2 Medical Drone
1 M-300s
Flagship has 3 Pin Point Barrier Systems.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Rate of fire of Heavy Particle cannon is double for Flagship.
Has a factory that can produce clones and vehicles at 1/1000 the rate of a Factory Satellite
Carrier has 2 Pin Point Barrier Systems.
Command Ship has 2 Pin Point Barrier Systems
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Destroyer has 1 pin point barrier systems Phalanx.
Scout has 0 pin point barrier system.
Robotech Factories are similar to that in REF field guide.
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Master Psionics and Magic practitioners that exist use their appropriate OCC but with half primary and secondary skills and half bonuses but retain the additional OCC skills from the Psionic/Magic OCCs.
Standard Armor is Tornado Battle Bike found in RT:8 Strike Force.
Standard Sidearm is Lightning Weapon System.
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Sell all ships under UN spacy Vessels, except for macros cannon. Sells mecha found in RT Strike Force, except micron power armor.
C.S. Psionic technology from Psi-Scape is available as well as SNARLS in Rifts Japan.
Leviathan Notes
Reflex Weaponry is considered to be magic weaponry.
Can use reflex missiles as found in Robotech 2nd ed.
U-rounds can be and are often used in projectile weapons. Damage is the same as the standard rounds (which are explosive rounds).
Damage from HtH of any mecha or Leviathan has the same effects of that of U-rounds on the supernatural
Mecha use damage tables in in Robotech 2nd ed based off of Robotic Strength.
All ships have the following systems from Manhunter; Magnetic Shields (also with the bonuses under the Magnetic Drive), Tractor Beams under Gravity Drive, Basic and Advanced Stealth Technology (can not fire while advanced is active), Teleporters, Microwave and Wild weasel missiles, chaff and mine dispensers equal to the number of missile launchers .
Ships have a forcefield similar to that of the Master’s Mothership. Each of the 300ft shield portions regenerate completely every melee. All portions are able to completely cover the ship. When this shield is up nothing can get through on either side without damaging the shield. Directed energy weapons will continue to damage the ship if they destroy the shield however all damage of a missile volley will be directed away from the ship. The entire system is able to attempt to divert the blast of a heavy reflex weapon similar to a Pin Point Barrier system.
There are 3 ways that data can be shared between Ships, Mecha, and individuals. The first is a Mecha based system that is found on the Defender EX. Similarly some ships are equipped with a similar system that is able to share data with not only mecha but also other ships. This system gives the same bonuses as found under the Defender EX to ships and mecha within communication range. Additionally due to the telepathic link of the species all individuals get the same bonuses as found under the Defender EX if they are within telepathic range of a Brain, Factory Base Regent Daimon, Homebase Regis Daimon, or Demogorgon Daimon. These systems are additive, bonuses do ‘stack’. While not related also note the Emulator’s Song of War which does not share data but inspire individuals, range of this is telepathic range or technical/audio communication range.
Retractable laser turret stats are replaced with those of the Masters’ Mothership lasers
Main Laser Cannons are replaced by Reflex Guided Converging Beam Cannons found on the SDF Macross, but have the same range as before. Are considered to be particle beams.
Main Cannons function by ripping apart space/time creating a highly energetic rift.
Small Laser Cannons are replaced by Tachyon Accelerators from the Manhunter book and have the scatter gun attachement.
Marduk ships have 1 forward Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 30 laser cannons. Range is the same as laser cannons.
Marduk Ships, vehicles, and equipment heal at the same rate as that of the Lower Hull portions of the Marduk Homebase.
All ships have an equivalent Invid Brain to control them. Also has the appropriate abilities of the Invid Brain (plus mechanical and electrical engineering skills equal to that of the general mechanics/electronics skills listed under the Invid Brain).
Use anti-matter and fusion reactors for ships and mecha, protoculture is used for mind-machine interface and specialized weapons.
Mobile Weapon Systems;
All vehicles have a Drone equivalent to a Stage 1 Invid to act as a backup pilot, it can pilot the vehicle as the Basic level.
Zentran Battle Pods are replaced by VF-XX
Main body has +100 MDC
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
VF-XX carry 2 BC-60s as standard instead of the GU-3
Has a pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer that has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Capable of .4c
Zentran Male Power Armors are replaced by VF-XX
Main body has +100 MDC
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
VF-XX carry 1 GU-3 and 1 2E-SS as standard.
Has a pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer that has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Capable of .4c
Zentran Officer Pods are replaced by VF-XX
Main body has +100 MDC
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
VF-XX carry 1 Rocket and Laser Gun and 1 EU-15 Destablizer as standard. Destablizers are considered reflex weaponry, work against magic and psionic force fields.
Uses 1 Automatic Attack Bit as standard.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Capable of .6c
Meltran Power Armors are replaced by VF-1MS
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
VF-1MS’s plasma spear stats are switched with those of the VF-2SS SAP’s super beam cannon.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Capable of .6c
Gilgamesh Type Is are replaced by VF-2SS SAP
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
Uses 2 Automatic Attack Bits as standard.
VF-XX carry 1 GU-3 and 1 2E-SS as standard.
VF-2SS SAP Special’s super beam cannon stats are switched with those of the VF-1MS’s plasma spear.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Has the head shield of the VF-2SS SAP Special. Mounted in Head Shield is the sensor array of the Defender.
Capable of .6c
Gilgamesh Type IIs are replaced by VF-2SS SAP Specials
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod.
Uses 4 Automatic Attack Bits as standard.
VF-XX carry 1 EU-15 Destabilizer and 1 2E-SS as standard. Destablizers are considered reflex weaponry, work against magic and psionic force fields.
VF-2SS SAP Special’s super beam cannon stats are switched with those of the VF-1MS’s plasma spear.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Has a Shadow Cloaking Device.
Mounted in Head Shield is the sensor array of the Defender.
Capable of .6c
Every 20 Zentran Hover platforms are replaced by 2 M-300 VTOL Jets and 20 Marduk Hover Platforms.
Every 30 Annihilators are replaced by
8 Defender
7 Phalanx
8 Tomahawk
6 AGA jet
8 VC-079 Space Boosters, Destroid Use. Capable of .2c
1 Monster
30 Gilgamesh Type II Power Armor
40 Primary Drones
8 Secondary Drones
40 Omega Drones
6 Heavy Labor Drones
4 Technical Service Drone
1 Cargo Transportation Drone
10 Remote Observation Drone
3 Medical Drone
Defenders have their MDC doubled.
Defenders can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Phalanxes have their MDC doubled.
Phalanxes can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Tomahawks have their MDC doubled.
Tomahawks can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Weapon arms can energize and do the same damage as that of the VF-1MS’s plasma spear in HtH.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
AGAs have their MDC doubled.
AGAs can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie’s military version. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
AGAs carry one GU-3 and one 2E-SS as standard.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Monsters have their MDC doubled.
Monsters can use Space Booster equal to that of the VC-079 Civilian Valkyrie’s military version with double the MDC. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Speeds are equal to that of the monster’s hover system.
Has three pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Gilgamesh Type II
Half size
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 100 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Energy Lance is standard issue.
Capable of .2c
Zentran Shuttles are replaced by 2 M-300 VTOL Jets and a Marduk Shuttle.
M-300s have quadruple MDC.
Has four pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 300 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Has sensors and weapon systems of the REF Cyclops Theater Scout
Vehicle is transatmospheric due to anti gravity system of that found on the Battle Pod. Performance is that of the Battle Pod’s anti gravity system.
Capable of .2c
Drones are immune to horror factor. And logic circuits do not cause drone to freeze up.
Zentran Officers pods are the body of Primary Defensive Drones, using the same bonuses as found in Return of the Masters. They are kept in shoots in the hulls of ships with 4 in every shoot. Two can be launched every melee and one can make it into space before shields are raised, which takes about half a melee.
Has a pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer that has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Uses 3 Automatic Attack Bit as standard.
Piloted by the equivalent to a stage One Invid.
Capable of .2c
Marduk Annihilators are the body of Secondary Defensive Drones, using the same bonuses as found in Return of the Masters but with learning abilities of that of Omega drones. They are kept in shoots in the hulls of ships with 4 in every shoot. Two can be launched every melee and one can make it into space before shields are raised, which takes about half a melee.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 200 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Uses 4 Automatic Attack Bit as standard.
Piloted by the equivalent to a stage two Invid.
Capable of .2c
Gilgamesh Type I are Omega Defensive Drones, using the same bonuses as found in Return of the Masters.
Has two pinpoint force fields similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Each has an MDC of 100 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3.
Half size
Half Giant Sized Marduk-Zentran Assault Rifle is standard issue.
Piloted by the equivalent to a stage two Invid.
Capable of .2c
Automatic Attack Bits are considered to be Drones. They have a pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer that has an MDC of 100 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3. Piloted by the equivalent to a stage one Invid.
Capable of .6c
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Flagship has 3 Pin Point Barrier Systems Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Command Ship.
Rate of fire of Heavy Particle cannon is double.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 9 Terminator Lances
Has a factory that can produce clones and vehicles at 1/1000 the rate of a Factory Satellite
Battleship has 3 Pin Point Barrier Systems Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Carrier.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 3 Terminator Lances
Destroyer has 2 pin point barrier systems Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Destroyer.
Has 1 Terminator Lance
Scout has 1 pin point barrier system and Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Scout.
May fire weapons while advanced stealth is active.
Dreadnaughts;
Marduk Dreadnaught has 6 additional M-300 VTOLs
All primary drones are secondary.
Secondary Drones are replaced by SAP Specials that have a Syncro Cannon in place of the main laser.
Gilgamesh Is are replaced by SAP VF-MS1 with shadow system.
All mecha equipped with Invid protocultre sensors and targeting systems.
Dreadnaughts have 1 forward Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 15 laser cannons. Range is the same as laser cannons.
May fire weapons while advanced stealth is active.
Dreadnaught has 3 Pin Point Barrier Systems Phalanx turrets equal to those of UN Spacy Flagship.
Rate of fire of Heavy Particle cannon for Dreadnaught is double.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 9 Terminator Lances
Master’s Mothership
Each designed for a specific task. Each has unique systems used for colony transport, construction, Trade Ships, etc…
Fission beam uses the statistics of the Heavy particle cannon but with double the firing rate.
Particle Beam Cannons are replaced by Reflex Guided Converging Beam Cannons found on the SDF Macross, but have the same range as before.
Have 1 forward Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 1 Converging Beam Cannon. Range is the same as laser cannons.
Missile Turrets and Light Lasers use the statistics of Marduk/Zentran ships in Macross II
Has 5 Pin Point Barrier Systems
Has 400 Phalanx turrets.
They have the same amount of Vehicles and Personnel as Flagships
May fire weapons while advanced stealth is active.
Rate of fire of Heavy Particle cannon is double.
Has the systems of a Marduk Flagship
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 9 Terminator Lances
Strategic Missile; that has stats of the Marduk Heavy Shuttle. Damage is that of the second specimen of protoculutre in the REF field guide, under the factory satellite. Missile’s systems are automated. Each area of the ship is controlled by a drone equal to an omega defense drone.
Capable of .6c
Shuttle and Strategic Missile have a force field equal to 10x of their main body MDC and heal at the same rate as that of the upper portions of the Marduke Homebase.
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Zentran Hardsuit is human size and uses MD Values of EVA Hardsuit.
Zentran Pilot Spacesuit is human size and uses uses MD values as they are.
Marduk standard battle armor is the Micron Power Armor in RT: Strike Force but uses MD values of the Zentran Hardsuit with double the MDC and has a Marduk Laser Rifle (unlimited payload) as standard. Has one pinpoint force field similar to that of the Invid Enforcer. Has an MDC of 50 MD, recharges at a rate of 20 MD per melee, and may parry energy/missile blasts at +3. Also has the sensors of the Marduk combat EVA armor under the Marduk solider. Missiles are short range missiles. Has 2 CADS systems.
US Spacy Zentran Assault Rifle is human size and uses damage and range values of that of the Marduk laser Rifle. Standard issue to Zentran/Meltran.
Marduk Laser Pistol, as is.
Marduk Laser Rifle uses damage and range values for that of the Zentran Assault Rifle. Standard issue to Marduk.
Marduk Solider units have Rocket Launchers can use Mini-Missiles.
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Stage 1 (Compared to Inivid; lower castle/ scout level-pilot Automatic Attack Bit and Primary Drone)
Stage 1 Leviathan are comparatively simple beings that are made to do one routine job. Some are used in combat but they require other higher castle Leviathan to lead them. They are unable to leave their machines and are kept alive in a nutrient bath. They resemble a mushy 2 ft wide ball with 2 claw like arms. Have black skin and solid red eyes. Can not survive outside of their machines.
Stage2(Compared to Inivid; lower castle/ trooper level- pilot Secondary and Omega Drone)
Stage 2 Leviathan are similar to Stage one but have are able to carry out complex commands however they still need direction. They resemble a mushy 3 ft wide being with 2 claw like arms and two simple legs. Black skin and solid red eyes. Can not survive outside of their machines.
Stage 3(Compared to Inivid; Higher castle,/Pincer level - Zentran Soldiers)
Stage 3 Leviathan are fully humanoid and are able to function by themselves. They are used as the rank and file solider and are the most common of the Leviathan. About 6.5 ft tall and little physical variation in appearance. They have a solid red eyes and black skin. Two slits for a nose and two triangular flaps for ears. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Completely hairless
Stage 4 (Compared to Inivid; higher castle,/enforcer level- Zentran/Meltran Officers)
Stage 4 Leviathan are fully humanoid. They have better genetics than the Stage 3 Leviathan and often lead groups of lower level Leviathan or carry out specialized tasks. About 7.5ft tall and more humanoid in appearance. They have normal red eyes, a nose and ears but still somewhat minimalistic face. Black skin. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot. Completely hairless
Stage 5 (Compared to Inivid; commander level- Marduk, Masters, converted members of other species)
Stage 5 Leviathan resemble humans. These Leviathan function completely independently . They command large groups of Leviathan or have technical knowledge to crew and operate their ships and machinery. Sub-groups of this category exist that make up the bridge staff of ships and command fleets. About 6 ft tall. They have normal red eyes black skin and black hair. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot.
Converted members of other species also fall under this category.
Stage 6 Princess (Compared to Inivid; Ariel Level- Emulator)
These Leviathan can be considered equal to the Stage 5 however they have greater telepathic range and the ability to influence all Leviathan. They help to maintain the cultural identity of all Leviathan. About 5.5 ft tall and humanoid in appearance. They have normal red eyes black skin and black hair. They have four fingers, including two opposable thumbs, on each hand, and four toes on each foot.
Brain (Compared to Inivid; Brain- Ship )
These Leviathan are telepathic relays that help to coordinate and connect the species together. They may directly take over a lower level Leviathan in order to carry out some task. Typically responsible for a single ship.
Regent (Compared to Inivid; Regent- Factorybase)
These Leviathan are larger versions of the Brains. They are able to make a physical Daimon to carry out special assignments. They are responsible for a large number of fleets.
Regis (Compared to Inivid; Regis-Homebase )
These Leviathan are larger versions of the Brains and Regents. They are able to make a physical Daimon to carry out special assignments as well. They are responsible for about 2 dozen factory bases and their fleets as well as specialized fleets. Additionally they are the major data centers for Numen.
Demogorgon/Numen
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Use base 2 attacks per melee.
The race and their ships all have a series of micro and nano organisms living within them that make up a very advanced immune system. This gives Drone pilots, Zentran, Meltran and Marduk a regeneration rate of 1d4 per hour. Additionally these organisms attack any foreign substance, chemical, biological, or technological that is found in the hosts body. These organisms are part of the Telepathic link and items are identified as foreign that do not emit being part of the link. This results in the host being immune to disease, foreign items will be rejected and destroyed in 1d4 hours, and the host has a third of the effects due to poison/toxins and is +8 to save against them. They can become extremely virulent when in a foreign body (either organic or non-organic), duplicating themselves rapidly. After 2 hours a normal host will fall unconscious/inoperable. After 24 hours the organisms form a primitive brain (equal to a stage 1) will take over a normal being and be in complete control of it’s body. After 72 hours the ‘brain’ will assimilate the memories of the host (equivalent to a stage 3). If non weaponized they are transferred by touching blood and may be transferred by bite (bite does 1d4 MD). Note; When a non Leviathan joins the Leviathan a similar organ is placed into them which allows telepathic communication but does not override their mind. This organ is used for non Leviathan to join and sometimes for alien ambassadors. They become equal to a stage 5. Both processes can be reversed by mental telepathic command of a Leviathan Brain or Base.
Zentran/Meltran/Marduk may reproduce, offspring will have the same Telepathic link to the Race. They do not need to sleep or eat (will need to eat after 2 months) but may. All are able to sense protoculture as the Invid do.
All Zentran, Meltran, Marduk and Drones have one cybernetic implant that acts as a backup incase their psionic link to the Race is severed. Range of this is 100 miles or the com system of their vehicle, whichever is greater.
All marduk officers and soldiers have special training and can have the bonuses of the Battle Pod Specialist (for officer) or Power Armor Specialist(for solider) as found in RT: Strike Force.
Drones, and Solider Zentran are Psi-Nullifiers while Officer Zentran, Meltran, Marduk, Science/Clone/Robotech Masters, All Daimons Bases and Brains are Nega Psychics. These powers are from their mental link with the Race as a whole and so they do not affect each other.
Master Psionics and Magic practitioners that exist use their appropriate OCC(default is Marduk Science Officer) but with half primary and secondary skills and half bonuses but retain the additional OCC skills from the Psionic/Magic OCCs.
Zentran soldiers may have 1d6 cybernetic implants. Zentran and Meltran Officers may get 2d4 cybernetic implants, and Marduk 3d4.
Zentran/Meltran use rules for giant size as presented in RT:Zentraedi with damage tables for HtH in Macross II. Marduk use rules for giant size as presented in Macross II with damage tables for HtH in Macross II. PS is considered to be bionic. Zentran and Meltran are human size, have giant size bonuses. Soliders are considered stage 3 invid that can live outside their machines. Officers are considered as stage 4 Invid. Marduk have bonuses as if they were giant size. Considered to be Stage 5 Invid, able to receive commands/telepathy from Brains, and Emulators but do not have to follow commands. Almost all are fanatical however. May command Zentran/Meltran and they will follow unless orders are countered by Bases, Brains, or Emulators.
Emulators have same giant size bonuses as Meltran. Considered to be Invid ‘Prince/Princess’ as in Robotech 2nd ed with same powers. Also have master psionic abilities of a void priest from Rifts Manhunter. Emulators increase range of the invid brain, brain can communicate with emulator anywhere and use same range as that emulator to talk to other zentran/meltran/marduk. Emulators affect the values and beliefs of the Marduk/Zentran/Meltran, they do not form any unless separated for a long time. After separation still have positive feelings to the race. This model is used for emissaries to other organizations and are produced as females only (or child bearing member for other races).
Priestess; They are Specizlized Emulators. Use Emulator but with skills with half bonuses and half of the primary and secondary skills. Do not have song of War ability of sing skill but do have skills of Journalism, Writing, and Research at +20% as primary skills. They also get the skills and master psionic abilities of the Void Priest from Rifts Manhunter.
Science Officers’ PS is considered to be robotic and MDC is a bonus to the normal male Marduk MDC. These individuals make up most of the high ranking technical personnel on ships. Are considered to be Stage 5/Marduk.
For ship Captains use the statistics/abilities for the Clone Masters but with the OCC skills of a Marduk Officer and cybernetics of the Marduk Science Officer. They have 3d6 cybernetic implants. Are considered to be Stage 5/Marduk.
Each ship has a chief science officer with the same stats/abilities as the Science Masters but with OCC skills and cybernetics of the Marduk Science Officer. They have 5d6 cybernetic implants. Are considered to be Stage 5/Marduk.
Each ship has at least one Terminator Lance led by a Manglavitai. They are the Marduk Interrogators, which are specialized emulators and have all the powers of Emulators. Interrogators have 4d6 additional cybenetic implants. They also have the bionic abilities of Main Body Replacement, Sensor Implants, and Total Limb replacement (without negative side effects) as described in RT: Invid Invasion. They have powers and OCC skills from the Seeker OCC
Seeker OCC; Through ritual the chances of clairvoyance is given an +30% bonus.
Each seeker has a team of 8 Varangoi. Use the Marduk Solider OCC as a base with the powers and OCC skills of the Smoker OCC. They also have the bionic abilities of Main Body Replacement, Sensor Implants, and Total Limb replacement (without negative side effects) as described in RT: Invid Invasion. Smokers have special training and can have the bonuses of the Melee specialist(for solider) as found in RT: Strike Force.
Admirals, who are the leader of Fleets and live on Flagships and in some cases Motherships, use the statistics/abilities of a Robotech Master but with the OCC skills and cybernetics of the Marduk Science Officer. They have 5d6 cybenetic implants. They also have the bionic abilities of Main Body Replacement and Total Limb replacement as described in RT: Invid Invasion. Are considered to be Stage 5/Marduk.
Giant size stats are, speed is doubled, MDC is x10, and strength is Supernatural.
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Space/Air
Standard Drone Defense
4 Primary Drones
1 Secondary Drones
Standard Drone Attack
2 Primary Drones
6 Secondary Drones
1 Officer’s Pod
Standard Reconnaissance
3 Battle Pods
1 Male Power Armor
1 Officer’s pod
Long Range Reconnaissance
4 Battle Pods
1 Officer’s pod
Standard Seek and Destroy Team
2 Battle Pods
4 Male Power Armors
1 Officer Power Armor
1 Gilgamesh Type I
Standard Fighter Squadron
6 Battle Pods
2 Male Power Armor
1 Officer’s Pod
1 Gilgamesh Type I
Ship/Planet Investigation Team
6 Male Power Armor
1 Officer’s Pod
4 Omega Drones
1 Gilgamesh Type I
Elite Squadron
8 Female Power Armor
4 Gilgamesh Type I
1 Gilgamesh Type II
Elite Seek and Destroy Team
4 Female Power Armor
2 Male Power Armor
2 Officer’s Pods
2 Gilgamesh Type I
1 Gilgamesh type II
Elite Stealth Squadron
12 Gilgamesh Type II
Armored;
Mobile Ground Force - Light
1 Defender
1 Phalanx
2 Tomahawk
2 AGAs
4 Omega Drones
Mobile Ground Defense Force – Heavy
4 Defender
4 Phalanx
4 Tomahawk
1 Monster
4 AGAs
12 Omega Drones
Ground Seek and Destroy Team –Heavy
2 Defender
4 Phalanx
6 Tomahawk
6 AGAs
12 Omega Drones
Artillery/Space Defense Force – Heavy
4 Defender
6 Phalanx
2 Tomahawk
1 Monster
12 Omega Drones
Micron Ground Force - Light
4 Omega Drones
12 Gilgamesh Power Armors
Micron Ground Force – Heavy
1 Defender
1 Phalanx
4 Tomahawk
6 AGAs
12 Omega Drones
36 Gilgamesh Power Armors
1 Fleet includes ships;
1 Flagship and 10 Destroyer Escorts
6 Dreadnaughts and 8 Destroyer Escorts
10 Battleships and 6 destroyer escorts each.
112 destroyers arranged into task forces of 4 ships.
60 Scouts
Each Factory Base services approximately 500 fleets.
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g-95 Factory Base
Have a force field equal to that of an Invid Hive. It regenerates at the same rate of the top portion of the Marduk Homebase. It may deflect a Heavy Particle cannon using the same rules as a Pin Piont Barrier System.
Diameter of access stalks is x3 and MD is x10
Main Cannon has range and damage of that of the Fission Beam of the Maters’ Mothership, rate of fire of the Macross Cannon. Has unlimited Payload.
Fusion Cannons use stats Heavy Laser guns of the Marduk Base, and are reflex beams.
Retractable Laser Turrets are replaced by Reflex Guided Converging Beam Cannons found on the SDF with same range.
Light Laser Beams are replaced by Torpedo Tubes of the Marduk Base and are reflex weapons. Are spread evenly around the main portion of the base. Torpedo Tubes can be set to explode at a set distance enabling them to attack fighters. Get a +3 to strike for every melee they charge.
Have 1 Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 10 retractable laser cannons. Range is the same as laser cannons.
Repulsor cannon stops a ship from going into FTL for 3d6 minutes.
Base has 24 Pin Point Barrier systems and a shield system similar to that of the Master’s Mothership.
The Pods, Stalks, and Main Body of the station has the abilities listed under **** of the Marduk Base
All other sections of the ship, including internal, have abilities listed under *** of the Marduk Base
Hatches have abilities listed under ** of the Marduk Base.
Items 1 and 6 of the Marduk Homebase are appropriate to the station.
Has 10,000 Marduk Heavy Shuttle Strategic Missiles in launchers spread about the factory pods, MDC of the launchers is 1,000 each.
May fire weapons while advanced stealth is active.
On the outer hull of the base are facilities for processing asteroids and other raw materials.
Has 10 Fleets to guard the base.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 10000 Strategic missiles in storage.
Has about 450 Terminator Lances.
Standard Facilities
3. Space fold system will not have a faulty jump unless damaged or operated by a person unfamiliar with it.
5. Jams all types of signals, not just radar. Includes magic.
6. Same as 5.
7. Has a Hyperspace Interstellar Communications System. This allows communication at a rate of 1,500 light years per hour, ten times as fast between galaxies. Up to 100 channels as well. This is the system that all ships have and can be networked as described in this section.
8. Internal Sensors: Detect concealment roll of 90%. Advanced locks, alarms and code key systems tied into DNA identification systems, plus concealed cameras, electronic eyes, and invisible laser grid security systems. Sensor globes are placed in each room, corridors and access ways that can detect heat, light sound, radiation motion and chemical composition of the internal atmosphere. Each air lock has a scan way that shows all concealed weapons and contraband. Can detect specific life forms and intruders and can also detect if someone has tried to gain access to any of the stations systems. The external hull is monitored by sensors as well.
9. Zentran/Meltran use 10 minute de-stasis rule as if they were biroids. Marduk use normal rules. Drones suffer only for one minute.
10. The station has extensive medical facilities that can do anything from mend broken bones to extremely complicated surgery. The station also has a complete bio-scan chamber used to study and analyze alien life forms and to provide detailed information regarding the physiology, chemical structure, and genetic structure of that life form.
14. Bays are mostly full.
Command Center/Main Bridge, override and terminals controlled by Hypercomp.
Internal Sensors, able to detect micron sized things.
Hospital and Lab, can treat 10x as many patients.
Drones, combat drones have all standard systems
While the main portion of the ship has most of the living quarters other neighborhoods have been made in the hull of this ship. Internal living quarters normally support 5,000,000 Zentran/Meltran/Marduk and triple that amount could be supported without impeding factory operations. Maximum life support is 20,000,000 indefinitely and 50% more for short periods of time. Currently there is storage space for 8,200,000 in stasis.
650,000 large mecha can be stored in all bays and storage areas. About that many of smaller power armors are also stored.
Mecha can be produced at a faster rate than clones so there are more areas dedicated to living beings.
Construction Rates, numbers per week (Given for Marduk, convert using mecha modifications near begining)
800,000 combat Gear
120,000 Battle Pods
50,000 Officer Pods
60,000 Male Power Armor
60,000 Female Power Armor
40,000 Gilgamesh I and II
20,000 Annihilators
2,000 Small Spaceships
500 strategic Missiles
75,000 Non combat drones
20 Scouts
20 Destroyers
4 Battleships
1 Dreadnaught
.75 Flagship
.5 Master’s Motherships
Each Factory Base has a computer Hypercomp which is an essence fragment of the character Hypercomp. Each base has an Daimon of the base’s Hypercomp. The Daimon body MDC and attributes equal to Regent and is considered supernatural. Additionally it has all the abilities of the Regent with marduk/zentran being considered Invid. It is a level 15 Psi with all Psi abilities and a level 10 mage knowing all normal spells from levels 1-15. +13 to save vs psionic, magic, illusion and is immune to mind control, possession and horror factor. OCC is a level 15 Marduk Science Officer OCC. Has ISP of 3000 and PPE of 4000.
Marduk Homebase
Each Homebase has same dimensions of that of the Marduk Homebase. For stats use a normal Base but the number of weapons and MDC are three times the amount of a Factory Base. Also the main eye can charge for 10 minutes and fire a blast that can destroy a planet, and most anything else. Additionally the ship generate a huge shadow device and visually cloaked cloud that is approximately .1 AU in size and has the same effects as the Temporal shielding on the Dominator ship ( due to both Jammers and large psionic cloud). The cloud also blocks all transmissions and FTL travel. Under item 2 in the description of the Markuk Homebase, additionally Emulator singing will reduce effects of magic and/or reflex weaponry by 100 as described.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Has 800 Fleets under it’s control with 50 guarding the homebase.
Supervises about 20 Factory Bases.
Has 100,000 Strategic Missiles.
Factory can produce the same amount as that of a Factory Base.
Speed of base is the same as the G-95 factory base, however it takes four times the amount of time to turn.
Each Homebase has a computer Hypercomp which is an essence fragment of the character Hypercomp. Each Homebase has an Daimon of the base’s Hypercomp. The Daimon body MDC and attributes equal to Regis and is considered supernatural. Additionally it has all the abilities of the Regiss with marduk/zentran being considered Invid. It is a level 20 Psi with all Psi abilities and a level 15 mage knowing all normal spells from levels 1-15 and spells of legend. +13 to save vs psionic, magic, illusion and is immune to mind control, possession and horror factor. OCC is a level 20 Marduk Science Officer OCC. Has ISP of 8000 and PPE of 10000.
Numen at anytime may possess the Daimon of a Factory Base or Homebase. When possessed this Daimon is refered to as Demogorgon. Destroying an Daimon does not destroy Numen or the Hypercomp of that base but a new Daimon body takes 1 week to construct. Numen’s statistics are double that of the highest attribute of the Regent or Regis but MDC is ten times as much as normal. Also has all abilities of the Regis. It is a level 25 Psi with all Psi abilities and a level 20 mage knowing all normal spells from levels 1-15 and spells of legend. Has now +15 to save vs psionic, magic,possession, immune to illusion, mind control, and horror factor. OCC is a level 25 Marduk Science Officer OCC. Has ISP of 14000 and PPE of 15000.
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Notes for Dominion forces:
Use UN Zentran vessels.
No full size Zentran.
Reflex Weaponry is considered to be magic, affecting those immune to magic.
Can use reflex missiles as found in Robotech 2nd ed.
U-rounds can be and are often used in projectile weapons.
Mecha use damage tables in in Robotech 2nd ed based off of Robotic Strength.
Retractable laser turret stats are replaced with those of the Masters’ Mothership lasers
Main Laser Cannons are replaced by Reflex Guided Converging Beam Cannons found on the SDF Macross, but have the same range as before. Are considered to be particle beams.
Main Cannons function by ripping apart space/time creating a highly energetic rift.
Small Laser Cannons are replaced by Tachyon Accelerators from the Manhunter book and have the scatter gun attachement.
All ships have the following systems from Manhunter; Magnetic Shields (also with the bonuses under the Magnetic Drive), Tractor Beams under Gravity Drive, Basic and Advanced Stealth Technology (can not fire while advanced is active), Teleporters, Microwave and Wild weasel missiles, chaff and mine dispensers equal to the number of missile launchers .
Zentran ships have 1 forward Reflex Rail Guns (as found under the Macross) for every 30 laser cannons. Range is the same as laser cannons.
Use anti-matter and fusion reactors for ships and mecha, protoculture is used for mind-machine interface and specialized weapons.
All ships, vehicles, and equipment heal at the same rate as that of the Lower Hull portions of the Marduk Homebase.
All ships have an equivalent Invid Brain to manage Leviathan. Also has the appropriate abilities of the Invid Brain (plus mechanical and electrical engineering skills equal to that of the general mechanics/electronics skills listed under the Invid Brain).
Ships have a forcefield similar to that of the Master’s Mothership. Each of the 300ft shield portions regenerate completely every melee. All portions are able to completely cover the ship. When this shield is up nothing can get through on either side without damaging the shield. Directed energy weapons will continue to damage the ship if they destroy the shield however all damage of a missile volley will be directed away from the ship. The entire system is able to attempt to divert the blast of a heavy reflex weapon similar to a Pin Point Barrier system.
All Zentran/Meltran are micronized.
Mobile Weapon Systems;
Use modifications for Marduk Ships as above
Replace VF-2SS with VF-2SAP.
Replace VF-2SAP Special with Metal Siren.
VF-XX is the model replacing battle pods.
Replace old Zentran Power armor with VF-XX replacing Zentran Power armor.
Replace old Meltran Power armor with VF-XX replacing battle pods.
Replace old battle pods with VF-XX replacing battle pods.
Replace old Officer Pod with VF-XX replacing Officer Pod but instead of Destablizer one 2E-SS is standard.
Replace old fighter pods with Metal Siren piloted by Meltran.
Replace every 30 old battle pods with:
20 Primary Drones
4 Secondary Drones
30 Micron Power Armors
20 Omega Drones
10 Gilgamesh II Power Armors
5 Heavy Labor Drones
2 Technical Service Drone
1 Cargo Transportation Drone
10 Remote Observation Drone
2 Medical Drone
1 M-300s
Flagship has 3 Pin Point Barrier Systems.
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Rate of fire of Heavy Particle cannon is double for Flagship.
Has a factory that can produce clones and vehicles at 1/1000 the rate of a Factory Satellite
Carrier has 2 Pin Point Barrier Systems.
Command Ship has 2 Pin Point Barrier Systems
Has a ‘Defender’ ship based data sharing system.
Destroyer has 1 pin point barrier systems Phalanx.
Scout has 0 pin point barrier system.
Robotech Factories are similar to that in REF field guide.
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Master Psionics and Magic practitioners that exist use their appropriate OCC but with half primary and secondary skills and half bonuses but retain the additional OCC skills from the Psionic/Magic OCCs.
Standard Armor is Tornado Battle Bike found in RT:8 Strike Force.
Standard Sidearm is Lightning Weapon System.
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Sell all ships under UN spacy Vessels, except for macros cannon. Sells mecha found in RT Strike Force, except micron power armor.
C.S. Psionic technology from Psi-Scape is available as well as SNARLS in Rifts Japan.
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taalismn
- Priest
- Posts: 48161
- Joined: Tue Sep 02, 2003 8:19 pm
- Location: Somewhere between Heaven, Hell, and New England
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
Ah...you might want to omit that last post of Macross-related stats...that comes under 'conversions' or dubiously close to 'playable stats' with regards to Macross/Robotech material.
Otherwise...WOW.
Otherwise...WOW.
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"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"
--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
"Trouble rather the Tiger in his Lair,
Than the Sage among his Books,
For all the Empires and Kingdoms,
The Armies and Works that you hold Dear,
Are to him but the Playthings of the Moment,
To be turned over with the Flick of a Finger,
And the Turning of a Page"
--------Rudyard Kipling
------------
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
This is a Great set up,I hope others can set-up ther star-nations like this.
I like seeing people come-up with Members of the CCW and UWW or Independen planets.
I like seeing people come-up with Members of the CCW and UWW or Independen planets.
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Aramanthus
- Monk
- Posts: 18712
- Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2006 5:18 am
- Location: Racine, WI
Re: Drakeîn Dominions
This is a cool setting. I like the amount of effort and material that you put into this one. It is very detailed.
"Your Grace," she said, "I have only one question. Do you wish this man crippled or dead?"
"My Lady," the protector of Grayson told his Champion, "I do not wish him to leave this chamber alive."
"As you will it, your Grace."
HH....FIE
"My Lady," the protector of Grayson told his Champion, "I do not wish him to leave this chamber alive."
"As you will it, your Grace."
HH....FIE