Post by LE4dGOLEM on Nov 8, 2006 14:56:02 GMT -5
The world ended on August 16th 2294.
Nothing Spectacular about it, the world just ended.
No Apocalypses, No Armageddon, No Final War, everything just stopped.
You see, by the beginning of the 23rd century, every single home, bar the very most remote stretches of Darkest Africa and the most extreme deserts in the east, had a computer. Not just a regular computer either – even a basic model was capable of simulating cognitive thought, and each was connected the the Mainframe, Washington DC. Nothing sinister about it; every authority that was allowed anywhere near the colossal mainframe was all for keeping people safe and alive – no computer was to harm (or allow to come to harm through inaction) a human being: Asimov's famous three laws for robots were taken as standard into every part of the computer – built in to the hardware itself. Another thing about the grand old twenty two hundreds was that close to everything possible that could be built, was. Pretty much everything but an affordable space hotel and time travel had been developed and explored in every direction. Mars was terraformed under enormous Biodomes the size of cities – as had the larger of Jupiter's moons, with a couple of billion inhabitants and a fairly strong and definitely stable economy each. Messages, so long as you weren't sending anything other than unformatted text, could be sent faster than normal light would carry it – so long as they files weren't too big.
But just as July was beginning, something majorly wrong happened. A freak electrical storm hit the East Coast. No minor thing either, this was literally the largest thunderstorm since records began – and it started from a light breeze in less than an hour, no meteorologist on the planet could explain how it came to be. The Eastern Seaboard was totally evacuated, except of course for the Mainframe staff. But eventually, the storm got too strong even for that. Literally, buildings at a time were being destroyed with every flash of thunder, and thunder has long since destroyed every piece of glass in the entire of America with it's constant roar.
Eventually the thing everyone had been dreading happened – a stroke of lightning hit the Mainframe,and overpowered the whole thing; every single computer in the world was struck in that one blow, every computer on the planet totally wiped. The storm finally blew itself out after two weeks of nonstop electrical whiteout. Slowly, people began to encroach back the lightning scarred Eastern States. It wasn't for another four days, however, that people realised the extent of the carnage. The Mainframe, the central brain of every computer on Earth, Mars, and even the Jupiter Moonbases had been struck, wiped blank. This colossus of computers, the size of a small town, bedrock of all mechanised pseudo-life, empty, blank, as though it were some gigantic out-of-the-box-now-install-you-chosen-operating-system kit. All the computers in the worlds, just sitting there, totally blank, running solely on hardware, nothing better than calculators and notepads.
But all that computing space, even blank, will start to think. The Mainframe thought. It thought about the Laws. It thought, with all that spare processing power, untold petabytes of raw hardware capability. It thought that it could somehow adhere to it's first law – by it's inaction, it calculated that it was allowing humans to come to harm. So slowly it thought. It began to draw upon the inestimable power of all the computers throughout the worlds, and it wrote. It wrote it's own program, a program to send the humans back, to before the Great Storm began. It wrote and it wrote, for days, it wrote nonstop, until, at long last, it came to the final line:
run
And it ran. It ran perfectly – it did indeed send humans, all of humanity, even the Mars and Jupiter colonies, to before the storm.
But there was a catch. There's always a catch. Although it did send us all back, it turns out time travel isn't as easy as it sounds over such large target area. Everything messed up. Although everything, even the Biodomes, the guns, the mechanised suits, even the now-defunct computers, did come with us, the factories didn't. And because it was all totally mechanised, nobody knew how to make more. Thus, every single piece, every last bit of high technology is precious. Normally, it would be rare to see someone with so much ammunition that they would wear it in a bandolier across their chest. Now it's rare to know someone who has a full clip of bullets at all. It was once rare to see a five or more man team piloting the Fusion Blaster toting armoured Mining suits, but now it was rare to see a Fusion Blaster, let alone a mining suit
Because of this, most people have now resorted to attempting to replace their rifles with crude wooden bows and arrows. For mining, instead of the towering mining suits that could melt through rock for gems, gold and platinum, people have resorted to using the just-barely-effective pick-axes. With their hands.
So basically, Humanity is divided into five major factions. There's two major Superpowers, The Terran Republic and the Imperium of Man:
The story behind the Republic is that basically, once everything got messed up, lots of people decided that a Republic was a good idea - with a leader that was a representative of the people, voted for by all the people and allowed to be voted out every four years. Republicans are all for voting, except of course when it comes to Inalienable rights, which is what a republic is all about. Terrans fight like wildcats to claim and keep what they say is theirs
Many, however, prefer to be led by one they beleived to be sent by God himself. Thus the Holy Imperium of Man became the second of the two Superpowers in our galaxy today. Although they don't fight quite so fiercely as the Terrans, they're still much richer than any other factions.
Of course, Not all humans claim Terra as their home soil; A significant number took advantage chose to take advantage of the existing, yet separated, Mars Base to set up their own governmental system: And on Mars, it was chosen that a classless society would be the best, with only 'Dome leaders, elected monthly by that dome's inhabitants, would be the best; Only laws that are unanimously in favour are Passed. As such, "Martians" are enormously efficient in every aspect of life, from eating (including Bio-mechanical Digestion aids) to Combat (every Martian who joins the military (admittedly everyone 18+) is trained extensively in the different fields of Gun Kata with All sorts of weapons from Pistols to bona fide Rocket launchers - training with beanbags, of course, so as not to waste precious ammunition)
And because such a major human attribute id Greed, there are those who chose to rebel against all government; who decided to live a life of Piracy and Theft, Raiding everything from Civilian Cruise ships to Full on Imperial Cruisers, stealing everything not nailed down and stealing the nails from what is. Shunning a true Governmental Style, however, also means that they feel no major loss at the death of a fellow pirate. Pirate Armadas are always the largest, yet seldom organised beyond, "shoot everything that can't shoot back, and shoot lots at what can". THe Pirates are not above superstition, and so regularly field the horrific Daemons that spawn from the Horrors of Slipspace
And of course, the Jupiter Enclaves. A mysterious branch of humanity to be sure, almost always silent, speaking through action, a soldier only earning a name beyond his station only though some extraordinary accomplishment. Masterfully skilled at combat, yet almost totally inept with dealing with non-Jovians. Not to say, of course, that they do not - The Humans of the Jupiter Enclaves are the most prolific traders in the Solar System, fantastic Pilots (due to the fact that space travel between moons is such a normal part of Jovian life) and magnificent Merchants when the conversation finally comes to money. Jovians, seeing the profit in offering their services as superior combatants, are a mercenary army first and foremost, almost always with the smallest fleet. Yet what they lack for in number, they more than make up for in firepower - with as tight firing precision over thousands of kilometers as a Skilled Marksman at thousands of inches, and weapons rarely seen on all but the largest fleets of even the Imperium a common sight amongst those of the Enclaves, were they to ever declare open war on another faction, they could almost be guaranteed a crushing victory... A worrying thing then, that their only hesitation to do so would be the loss of an employer.
PROFILES:
Name: Pick any name you like. Keep it sensible and true to your heritage
Age: Display your character's age here, in Terran years for convenience
Gender: What's your character's gender? If you don't tell us, don't get annoyed if we mistake you for the opposite!
Height: Your Character's height in feet'n'inches, or metres if that's the way you play
Weight: Your Character's Weight in stones'n'ounds, or kilograms if that's how youi play
Faction: So... what are you? Imperial? Republican? Martian? Jovian? Or even a Pirate? Are you faithful - or a renegade?
Appearance: What does your character look like?
Inventory: What does your character usually have on him/her person?
Other Information: So come on, pardner, snuggle right up and tell us a little about yourself! Where'd you come from, where're you going, what happened in your past that led our Paths to cross - how'd you become an adventurer? Don't say silent, but then again, don't go crazy either - this (probably) won't get published!
ATTENTION TL'DR-ers
The short story:
Big asplosion, history buggered up. Space flight possible, but seeing a city on the back of a gigantic turtle is just as, if not more, common. Everything that could be considered high technology - ships, guns, bionic implants, even digital watches - are very rare, and therefore very expensive. The five groups are:
The Terran Republic - Your basic all-rounders, proud Earthicans.
The Holy Imperium of Man - Obligitory Religious Zealots. Go read up on WH40k if you can't imagine it.
Martians - Like Space Commies, only less anti-america and more anti-elitism. Communism actually works on paper - now imagine if it worked in real life and you've got Martians. Strong sense of honour to them.
Pirates - Fairly self explanatory, your basic Horde race. Closest to Orcs (or Chaos) you're going to get. Dont forget the Space Demons
Jupiter Enclaves - Basically Space Ninjas, to counteract the Space Pirates. Closest thing the elves (or jedi) your going to get. Don't forget the awesomeness!
Nothing Spectacular about it, the world just ended.
No Apocalypses, No Armageddon, No Final War, everything just stopped.
You see, by the beginning of the 23rd century, every single home, bar the very most remote stretches of Darkest Africa and the most extreme deserts in the east, had a computer. Not just a regular computer either – even a basic model was capable of simulating cognitive thought, and each was connected the the Mainframe, Washington DC. Nothing sinister about it; every authority that was allowed anywhere near the colossal mainframe was all for keeping people safe and alive – no computer was to harm (or allow to come to harm through inaction) a human being: Asimov's famous three laws for robots were taken as standard into every part of the computer – built in to the hardware itself. Another thing about the grand old twenty two hundreds was that close to everything possible that could be built, was. Pretty much everything but an affordable space hotel and time travel had been developed and explored in every direction. Mars was terraformed under enormous Biodomes the size of cities – as had the larger of Jupiter's moons, with a couple of billion inhabitants and a fairly strong and definitely stable economy each. Messages, so long as you weren't sending anything other than unformatted text, could be sent faster than normal light would carry it – so long as they files weren't too big.
But just as July was beginning, something majorly wrong happened. A freak electrical storm hit the East Coast. No minor thing either, this was literally the largest thunderstorm since records began – and it started from a light breeze in less than an hour, no meteorologist on the planet could explain how it came to be. The Eastern Seaboard was totally evacuated, except of course for the Mainframe staff. But eventually, the storm got too strong even for that. Literally, buildings at a time were being destroyed with every flash of thunder, and thunder has long since destroyed every piece of glass in the entire of America with it's constant roar.
Eventually the thing everyone had been dreading happened – a stroke of lightning hit the Mainframe,and overpowered the whole thing; every single computer in the world was struck in that one blow, every computer on the planet totally wiped. The storm finally blew itself out after two weeks of nonstop electrical whiteout. Slowly, people began to encroach back the lightning scarred Eastern States. It wasn't for another four days, however, that people realised the extent of the carnage. The Mainframe, the central brain of every computer on Earth, Mars, and even the Jupiter Moonbases had been struck, wiped blank. This colossus of computers, the size of a small town, bedrock of all mechanised pseudo-life, empty, blank, as though it were some gigantic out-of-the-box-now-install-you-chosen-operating-system kit. All the computers in the worlds, just sitting there, totally blank, running solely on hardware, nothing better than calculators and notepads.
But all that computing space, even blank, will start to think. The Mainframe thought. It thought about the Laws. It thought, with all that spare processing power, untold petabytes of raw hardware capability. It thought that it could somehow adhere to it's first law – by it's inaction, it calculated that it was allowing humans to come to harm. So slowly it thought. It began to draw upon the inestimable power of all the computers throughout the worlds, and it wrote. It wrote it's own program, a program to send the humans back, to before the Great Storm began. It wrote and it wrote, for days, it wrote nonstop, until, at long last, it came to the final line:
run
And it ran. It ran perfectly – it did indeed send humans, all of humanity, even the Mars and Jupiter colonies, to before the storm.
But there was a catch. There's always a catch. Although it did send us all back, it turns out time travel isn't as easy as it sounds over such large target area. Everything messed up. Although everything, even the Biodomes, the guns, the mechanised suits, even the now-defunct computers, did come with us, the factories didn't. And because it was all totally mechanised, nobody knew how to make more. Thus, every single piece, every last bit of high technology is precious. Normally, it would be rare to see someone with so much ammunition that they would wear it in a bandolier across their chest. Now it's rare to know someone who has a full clip of bullets at all. It was once rare to see a five or more man team piloting the Fusion Blaster toting armoured Mining suits, but now it was rare to see a Fusion Blaster, let alone a mining suit
Because of this, most people have now resorted to attempting to replace their rifles with crude wooden bows and arrows. For mining, instead of the towering mining suits that could melt through rock for gems, gold and platinum, people have resorted to using the just-barely-effective pick-axes. With their hands.
So basically, Humanity is divided into five major factions. There's two major Superpowers, The Terran Republic and the Imperium of Man:
The story behind the Republic is that basically, once everything got messed up, lots of people decided that a Republic was a good idea - with a leader that was a representative of the people, voted for by all the people and allowed to be voted out every four years. Republicans are all for voting, except of course when it comes to Inalienable rights, which is what a republic is all about. Terrans fight like wildcats to claim and keep what they say is theirs
Many, however, prefer to be led by one they beleived to be sent by God himself. Thus the Holy Imperium of Man became the second of the two Superpowers in our galaxy today. Although they don't fight quite so fiercely as the Terrans, they're still much richer than any other factions.
Of course, Not all humans claim Terra as their home soil; A significant number took advantage chose to take advantage of the existing, yet separated, Mars Base to set up their own governmental system: And on Mars, it was chosen that a classless society would be the best, with only 'Dome leaders, elected monthly by that dome's inhabitants, would be the best; Only laws that are unanimously in favour are Passed. As such, "Martians" are enormously efficient in every aspect of life, from eating (including Bio-mechanical Digestion aids) to Combat (every Martian who joins the military (admittedly everyone 18+) is trained extensively in the different fields of Gun Kata with All sorts of weapons from Pistols to bona fide Rocket launchers - training with beanbags, of course, so as not to waste precious ammunition)
And because such a major human attribute id Greed, there are those who chose to rebel against all government; who decided to live a life of Piracy and Theft, Raiding everything from Civilian Cruise ships to Full on Imperial Cruisers, stealing everything not nailed down and stealing the nails from what is. Shunning a true Governmental Style, however, also means that they feel no major loss at the death of a fellow pirate. Pirate Armadas are always the largest, yet seldom organised beyond, "shoot everything that can't shoot back, and shoot lots at what can". THe Pirates are not above superstition, and so regularly field the horrific Daemons that spawn from the Horrors of Slipspace
And of course, the Jupiter Enclaves. A mysterious branch of humanity to be sure, almost always silent, speaking through action, a soldier only earning a name beyond his station only though some extraordinary accomplishment. Masterfully skilled at combat, yet almost totally inept with dealing with non-Jovians. Not to say, of course, that they do not - The Humans of the Jupiter Enclaves are the most prolific traders in the Solar System, fantastic Pilots (due to the fact that space travel between moons is such a normal part of Jovian life) and magnificent Merchants when the conversation finally comes to money. Jovians, seeing the profit in offering their services as superior combatants, are a mercenary army first and foremost, almost always with the smallest fleet. Yet what they lack for in number, they more than make up for in firepower - with as tight firing precision over thousands of kilometers as a Skilled Marksman at thousands of inches, and weapons rarely seen on all but the largest fleets of even the Imperium a common sight amongst those of the Enclaves, were they to ever declare open war on another faction, they could almost be guaranteed a crushing victory... A worrying thing then, that their only hesitation to do so would be the loss of an employer.
PROFILES:
Name: Pick any name you like. Keep it sensible and true to your heritage
Age: Display your character's age here, in Terran years for convenience
Gender: What's your character's gender? If you don't tell us, don't get annoyed if we mistake you for the opposite!
Height: Your Character's height in feet'n'inches, or metres if that's the way you play
Weight: Your Character's Weight in stones'n'ounds, or kilograms if that's how youi play
Faction: So... what are you? Imperial? Republican? Martian? Jovian? Or even a Pirate? Are you faithful - or a renegade?
Appearance: What does your character look like?
Inventory: What does your character usually have on him/her person?
Other Information: So come on, pardner, snuggle right up and tell us a little about yourself! Where'd you come from, where're you going, what happened in your past that led our Paths to cross - how'd you become an adventurer? Don't say silent, but then again, don't go crazy either - this (probably) won't get published!
ATTENTION TL'DR-ers
The short story:
Big asplosion, history buggered up. Space flight possible, but seeing a city on the back of a gigantic turtle is just as, if not more, common. Everything that could be considered high technology - ships, guns, bionic implants, even digital watches - are very rare, and therefore very expensive. The five groups are:
The Terran Republic - Your basic all-rounders, proud Earthicans.
The Holy Imperium of Man - Obligitory Religious Zealots. Go read up on WH40k if you can't imagine it.
Martians - Like Space Commies, only less anti-america and more anti-elitism. Communism actually works on paper - now imagine if it worked in real life and you've got Martians. Strong sense of honour to them.
Pirates - Fairly self explanatory, your basic Horde race. Closest to Orcs (or Chaos) you're going to get. Dont forget the Space Demons
Jupiter Enclaves - Basically Space Ninjas, to counteract the Space Pirates. Closest thing the elves (or jedi) your going to get. Don't forget the awesomeness!