Post by Lord Harrab on May 8, 2016 22:38:59 GMT
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Role: Officer
File Access: Limited all, Command, Personal.
Equipment: Medium Void Suit (20 mins air), Datapad with Motion Tracker, Medium Armour, AutoSeal helmet, crew life sign HUD, Magboots, M-25 Pulse Carbine and two reloads, M-29 Pulse Pistol and two reloads.
Appearance: 5'11 and well-toned, he always walks with his head held high and his back rigidly straight. He keeps himself perpetually clean shaven and his black hair is as neat as it is short.
Bio: Known as JJ to his friends, Jeremy is a young officer, having only just assumed his first command. He followed his Grandfather, father and older brother into the navy as though it were his manifest destiny, preparing himself through his teenage years for what seemed like the next logical step in his life. Although excelling at the academy he lacks experience and has great expectations to live up to. Some say he only has a command by virtue of his family's connections, while others gossip that his command of a salvage crew is in fact an insult due to him slighting some superior during his academy days. He doesn't speak of it much, instead focusing on the task at hand. An idealist, he wants to explore space - firmly believing in alien life no matter what non-believers say - and make a name for himself. Privately, there is another reason he looks to the stars, something he keeps close to his heart.
Gender: Female
Age: 27
Role: Engineer
File Access: Engineering
Equipment: Engineer Void Suit ( 1 Hour Air, Medium Armour with Powered exoskeleton, shoulder mounted light. Combitool, internal radio) Plasma Cutter, M-29 Pulse Pistol and one reload. Datapad, MEC Mk7 Repair Drone
Appearance: Tall and broad in the shoulder, Anya looks like a woman who has spent hours upon hours in workshops, auto-depots, and landing bays. The fact she's half-Japanese isn't always readily apparent in her looks, but typically her last name is a dead giveaway. Nakamura sports shoulder-length hair typically tied in a ponytail void-suit or no, and a generous figure that turned a few heads when she was in the Navy. Nakamura's right arm from shoulder down has been completely replaced by a cybernetic prosthetic, a top of the line model with olive paint on the under arm and palm and a deep maple red on the forearm and back of the hand.
Pictured above; Kingstar Technology's NETOII model void-suit. Expensive and relatively new on the market, it's design is specifically meant for those with delicate jobs like technicians or engineers who nevertheless require adequate protection. The suit provides this protection without being too bulky, enabling it's owner to squeeze into tight maintenance passages and operate with dexterity. After a video conversation in which Nakamura's young niece commented that the suit made her look like some sort of extreme sports player or stuntman, Nakamura had her name printed on the back of the suit in bold letters vertical style, with the 'n' beginning near the top of her right shoulder. Pictured is the male variation, however the female model doesn't provide many differences aside from a slight design change to accommodate the female form.
Bio: Nakamura was born on earth, only days before she and her parents were scheduled to board a vessel bound for Harding, a prominent colony in the Ursae Majoris system with a main focus on manufacturing. This turned out to be the perfect environment for Anya, who took to vise grips and cutting torches like other kids would a baseball bat or a football. As Patriotic as Harding was, it only stood to reason that it instilled a wealth of curiosity and duty into the minds of it's people and therefore produced quite a few recruits for the Human Systems Alliance quarterly. Anya was once such recruit, enlisting as soon as she was eligible and heading straight for their Engineering courses. Graduating at the top of her class, she enjoyed several stations, the longest being on the ANS Hackett where she helped keep the vessel running smoothly during it's three year campaign against piracy and smuggling along the outer-reaches of HSA space, eventually making Head Engineer. She even received a medal for her actions during a surprise boarding, when she led a gaggle of relatively green engineers in holding off boarding pirates from reaching their equipment until combat aid arrived, though she would lose an arm during the event in an explosion. But when her term of six years was up she declined reenlisting, claiming she wanted to 'experience that big black void in another way'. With her credentials of course, she didn't find the private vessel job market wanting.
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Role: Dataminer/Hacker
File Access: Limited all, but can hack into others.
Equipment: Light Void Suit, Portable Terminal, 5 Data Recovery Cores. M-29 Pulse pistol and one reload.
Appearance: Mikhail is a gaunt faced man, someone who has seen something that left a lasting impression on him. Across his face is a long thin scar, terminating just below his left eye, an old war wound all told, his blue eyes turned seemingly dark and without much hope or expression. Whilst it is clear he is fit and capable, most likely from a previous military background, his facial hair is rarely shaven down, leaving a short mess of black and grey to match the salt and pepper of his hair, showing off years beyond what he possesses.
Bio: Born to unremarkable parents, on an unremarkable colony, Mikhail did not aspire for much, and was comfortable in life. Fortunate for him that he had found a purpose at enlistment age, signing on with the Alliance Marine Corps for the express purpose of learning something beyond life on the fringe of humanity. He took well to the profession of hacking, and operated on a multitude of pirate ship raids and seizures to decrypt and decipher various bits of information necessary for further operations, often whilst under fire.
Of course, there is little beyond those pirate raids on his service record, an entire page completely blanked out by censors, completely closed off from all means of knowing, following the dates leading up to his discharge from the Marines. The reason for it was never disclosed, but some might imply it is related to the expunged sections, and with how he seems to be so silent, so morose and full of a sort of self loathing. Truth be told, the story he has to tell is one he'd never wish to even remember, leaving him a husk of a man working odd jobs to get by, finding himself on the crew of a ship, a datapad in hand and a duty to perform.
Character Name: Kallen Sato
Gender: Female
Age: 23
Role: Pilot
File Access: Navigation
Equipment: Light Void Suit with EVA Pack and extended Air Tank (30 mins) M-29 Pulse Pistol and one reload. Neural up-link jack
Appearance: Standing at roughly 5'6, Kallen would be classed as being of Asian descent although she often doesn't acknowledge this herself due to hailing from one of the outer colonies. She has dark brown eyes and straight black hair, that she keeps short to just above her shirts collar when in uniform. This also just barely hides her standard 'pilot scars' whilst still allowing easy access for the neural uplink.
Pictured above: Kallen in her Mk4 Zechariah Pattern void suit. Whilst being one of the older models of void suit. The Zechariah pattern remains a common model seen on the market, often owed to its versatile nature. Whilst the base model is relatively lightweight, the Mk4 also allows for the easy attachment of extra armour modules for the more precarious of situations. Kallen has further personalised her suit with the addition of a desert shawl, one of the only personal items she took with her upon leaving home.
Bio: Born on the rural desert planet of Collis in the outer regions of the alliance. Kallen often displayed a desire to escape her homeworld and the dreariness of her life even at a young life. It came as little surprise then that she joined the military as soon as she was able, upon which she attended an academy back on Earth. The Sanctuary is her first posting and despite often being seen as a meagre posting by others, Kallen is proud of her posting and aims to perform to the best of her ability.
Gender: Male
Age: 30
Role: Marine
File Access: Security Only
Equipment: Combat Void Suit (30 mins air, Heavy Armour, AutoSeal Helmet, Magboots, Internal Radio, Shoulder mounted Light) M-99 Pulse Rifle and three reloads, M-29 Pulse Pistol and three reloads, Three Anti-matter demo charges. Datapad.
Appearance:
Mordecai's Tokugawa Heavy Industries Mk.VI Combat Void-Suit. Standard issue for all Marine combat personnel. His suit is unmodified, but does bear a number of cosmetic enhancements. Most notably a skull emblazoned on the helmet and a number of tallies on the chestpiece indicating confirmed kills. Both are common additions to the suits of Marine Raiders.
Bio: The Marine Corps is in Mordecai's blood. Both his parents and his grandparents served. Some joke that he was literally born to serve, as his mother gave birth to him at Camp Mons Military Hospital, the largest Marine base in the solar system. Mordecai never strayed far from the rigid discipline of military life and enlisted as soon as he came of age. After basic training he was assigned to the 3rd Marine Raider battalion, a unit that specialized in long-term edge of space deployment and close combat boarding actions against pirate fortresses. They were nicknamed the "Jolly Rogers" by other Marine units. Deployed onboard the ANS Luck be a Lady the Jolly Rogers earned themselves numerous unit citations for daring conduct in Pirate territory. After 12 years they were cycled back from active deployment and Mordecai found himself reassigned to the ANS Sanctuary. Although he doesn't resent his new posting, he very much wishes he was still on the frontline against pirates.
Gender: female
Age: 25
File Access: Medical Only
Equipment: Light Void Suit (20 mins air, Light Armour, Autoseal Helemt, magboots, Internal Radio) 2 Large Medical Kits, 3 Emergency Stims, Medi-tool. M-29 Pulse Pistol and one reload. Datapad
Role: Medic
Appearance: 5,4' tall Caucasian woman , dirty blonde hair kept at chin height, right eye replaced with cybernetic replacement.
Bio: Born on one of larger shipyards orbiting Mars, Anna has spent most of her life in space, looking behind glass as some of the heaviest vessels in Alliance's fleet were build and sent into the void. Lacking the statue to work on shipyard, she found calling on medical field and spent several years to get her the required marks to qualify as naval medic which would have kept her near the ships. Unfortunately posts in the home sector are under heavy competition and as fresh trainee she ended up being deployed as part of naval patrol squadron.
Now after spending several years as assistant medic on ANS cruiser, she has finally managed to secure transfer to Sanctuary as fully ranked medic.
Crew: 5-8
Role: Long range Patrol and Exploration
Name Ship of the Sanctuary Class escort Corvettes, ANS Sanctuary has seen many battles under many captains, been modernized and refitted a number of times. Originally designed to escort larger vessels from small attack craft and missiles, as technology and time advanced beyond the means of her aged, non-modular hull to support, she and her sister ships were relegated to patrol and scout flotillas, then frontier garrison pickets, then most were scrapped or converted for long range patrol and exploration.
ANS Sanctuary had the majority of her fast tracking turrets, missile pods and Electronic warfare systems removed for extended fuel reserves, FTL Engine, Sub-Space Comms array, an Improved Sensor suite, Worker manipulator arm and Ion drives of unparalleled efficiency for their size, leaving her with enough weapons for self defense as a precaution against the big empty sections of the star map.
Her Interior is cramped yet livable for the long patrol sweeps of unexplored space she is tasked with performing and previous crews spoke of their time aboard her with fondness, she may be old, ugly and tired, but she still serves with a sense of dignity, despite lacking a central AI that gives Modern ships a personality.
Crew: 3, Pilot, Captain, Engineer
Role: Fleet Support, Mining, Repair/Salvage.
One of the few remaining relics of the Humanity's original space-faring days, the Worker has existed in almost the same configuration since their initial concept hundreds of years ago. Workers are used for field repairs, asteroid and even planetary mining operations and salvage recovery, stuffing resources into their cargoholds not unlike how a terrestrial crab eats, hence their almost as old an revered nickname "Crab".
Although fast for their size, Crabs do suffer from sluggish controls, as well as a rather limited operational range, their over-sized cargo bay taking priority in hull space, with everything else being more or less shoved in wherever there is room, leaving the crew to suffer in the small and spartan command section. Fortuitously, their limited range means crew are not expected to live aboard one, instead they operate from mother-ships, such as the Taigei class Mobile Refinery, A Navy Carrier, or a mining station.
the distinguishing feature of a Worker are its two manipulator arms, ending in a pair of utility claws equipped with drills, cutting torches, magnetic locks and Fire Suppression assistance equipment, these are usually operated by the engineer while the pilot keeps the worker on station and the Captain uses the simple but efficient sensors to monitor operations.
Those Workers assigned to Alliance Navy task forces tend to have more Armour than civilian models as well as a pair of point defense turrets, these are not really designed to defend the worker, rather to fend off an attacker while the worker scuttles back to the protection of allied forces, although a cluster of Navy Workers together can offer up a respectable amount of Anti-Strikercraft fire.
Considered to be one of mankind's greatest achievements since finally breaking the bonds of Earth, AIs were first created in the year 2226, and almost overnight had a massive influence on human culture and industry.
AIs are self aware advanced computer programs with personality, traits and character flaws developed over their lifetime, able to perform thousands of calculations in a fraction of a second, adapt and learn, modifying their own code to better perform their tasks. AIs are commonplace in the Alliance, from government departments to Alliance Warships, AIs serve and assist Humanity in thousands of ways, the most obvious is the high degree of automation they allow, taking or tedious and dangerous roles without complaint, although not without some concerns and obvious flaws.
For one thing an AI Core is both Large and expensive to produce, the exact cost depending in the role it is to perform, the AI Core of an Alliance Battleship is more complex and larger than one intended for a Corporation
which in turn is larger and more complex than one built for personal use. The Core Cannot move or be moved while online, and requires substantial power and cooling to function, and in addition their ability to control Mechs, drones, and star ships is limited by proximity or transmission via wireless network, and signal loss and lag restricts such control to local area only.
When first announced, there was fear that these computers would, at best, force thousands of people out of work, or turn on us like so many old stories, their human-like personalities also causing paranoia as their hardware advanced enough to perfectly imitate human speech and mannerisms, some people never certain the voice they were talking to across a comm link was human or not, and so steps would have to be taken.
Several Laws were passed, No Government or organisation would be able to fully replace a workforce with AIs and mechs, AIs would never be placed in authoritative positions, and would always defer to a human when a decision was to be made, although they can and would advise to the best of their ability. AI's would also be indicated in text by a "+" before their Name and via voice by the tell-tale warble of synthesized speech. When the trend of giving AI's mech bodies took root in the private sector, these bodies could look human to a casual observer, and often served as secretaries and personal assistants to the rich and powerful, even though the true AI was still and always would be confined to the Core.
The Alliance Navy uses AIs in Ships larger than Frigate Class, cutting the massive crew requirements and improving efficiency and finds the idea of giving them so called "Mobile Models" a waste of resources, limiting personification to Uniformed Holograms. Although out of a sense of tradition to the belief that ship has a soul, Navy AIs are permitted substantial freedom of personality, and they tend to be more serious and decisive than civilian models, often taking after their first Captain.
Like the humans that created them, no two AI are alike and can be as inventive and personable, develop quirks and speech mannerisms, preferences and habits, changing and learning little by little everyday.
Void suits
Void Suits became Standard Issue for anyone with a lifestyle or job that required entering space, after several incidents where hull breaches, even minor ones, caused widespread loss of life. Voidsuits are protective suits worn over regular clothes and contain sensitive pressure and air purity monitors along with an auto-sealing helmet and internal oxygen tank. when the suit detects a sudden loss in pressure, entrance into a low gravity zone, or reduced O2 or a gas, it activates the sealant systems, turning the Armour into a void capable survival suit capable of protecting the wearer for as long as the internal air tank and battery lasts. Autoseal systems can also be triggered manually when Vacuum travel is expected. The basic model is only really designed for immediate evacuation of a damaged section, but more advanced suits can function as full EVA suits or Power Armour.
++Void Suits protect the wearer from most damage up to certain number of times, similar to Player status, damage to a suit will be displayed during events and can be checked at any time by anyone. Light suits protect only once, Medium twice, Heavy three times. Once these protection thresholds are exceeded, the suit is considered damaged. Players with damaged suits can be wounded or killed in the next event that causes damage, depending on the severity. The Engineer can repair damaged suits with the right materials, or a suit can be replaced should a new one be found. A character role is not limited to the suit type they start with, a pilot can wear a Heavy suit for example, but if they change suits they of course loose any listed advantages of their old suit for the new one.++
Pulse Weapons
With the Rapid advance of Technology, conventional firearms were replaced with man portable energy weapons, even while Railguns and Missile launchers became commonplace on Alliance warships. Called "Puse" weapons due to an inbuilt limiter that protects the focusing lens and prevents the firer from inadvertently draining the battery with sustained trigger activation.
Compared to conventional firearms, Pulse weapons can operate in vacuum and zero gravity with no loss in performance and while each shot lacks a solid projectile's kinetic force , the beam causes Armour or flesh stuck to be super-heated, causing severe burn trauma and can punch through thin cover.
The Internal batteries can be easily and quickly recharged at special power points aboard Alliance vessels, with a full charge taking less then ten minutes if needed, but such rapid energy transfer damages the weapon and will require repair. In combat, the Battery can be ejected using the release switch above the trigger and a new battery slotted in its place.
Of all Pulse weapons, the M-99 Rife is the most powerful, has the largest internal battery at 75 shots, longest range and can have a faster rate of fire.
The M-25 Carbine has only a slight reduction in battery-size at 65 and while the limiter is locked at single shot, the damage is similar to its larger cousin while being substantially more compact.
the M-22 Pistol has the least capacity, 30, and effective range, but is reliable, compact and retains the superior killing power over projectile weapons
++ A Player's weapon is used to defend themselves or can be used in whatever way a player wishes if they think it will help, ammo is limited however, and the success of defending oneself or attack another depends on the circumstances surrounding the use of the weapon. For example, if a character is surprised or unprepared, they miss the chance to fire. On the other hand, if a player is ambushing an enemy, they may kill or disable it with only one or two shots, again, it is event and circumstance dependent++
Drones and Mechs
Drones and Mobile Enhanced Constructs, MECs, are different from AI in that they lack a true governing, instead acting on preset conditions and programming with humans or AI's able to take direct control when needed. At the time of ANS Styx's launch, humanity's one major technological breakthrough was in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence. All walks of life often included these obviously mechanical workers, performing jobs too dangerous or otherwise unwanted by humans and aboard ships it is no different. All ships are required to carry a contingent of repair drones and Alliance Military ships and facilities contain a company or more of security mechs to support Marine operations, some of the larger even doubling as power Armour or walking heavy weapons platforms.
The Human Systems Alliance
Once known as the Human Colony Alliance, and before that as the United Nations, the ruling body of humanity actually has little to do with the daily lives of its citizens. The Alliance Council of Nations sets laws, manages the military and generally takes a hands off approach where individual colonies are concerned. The Nations of Earth still exist, albeit with a single currency and under the watchful eye of the Council, and any colonies they found out in the galaxy are considered sovereign territory, bound both by the general laws of teh Alliance and any the homeland wishes to enforce.
This makes interstellar travel a bit of a red tape nightmare for civilians, but with regular passenger ships, FTL travel and up to date paperwork, it is very much like air travel back when humanity was bound only to earth.
The Alliance Navy is the Military arm of the Council, and all nations are required to commit to its upkeep and recruitment, no nation is permitted to arm or maintain their own body of troops or warships, frontier worlds are permitted their own Militia if no Alliance patrol or garrison is available, but for its part the Navy is quick to send support to new colonies and polices the space lanes of Mankind's interstellar empire thoroughly to keep down pirates.
Privately owned starships are common, and are permitted to carry weapons, but are regularly inspected and scanned by the Navy and must always keep their ID beacon active or else transmit a constant SOS until the beacon is reactivated, failure to do either would result in the vessel being labeled as pirate or smuggler and dealt with accordingly.
Only the most basic of interplanetary skiffs lack FTL drives int his day and age, allowing anyone with enough finance to buy and crew a starship can set out to explore to cosmos at will and in fact can be a lucrative business opportunity, as the Alliance and its member nations pay well for navigation data for mineral rich asteroid fields, potential colony sites and not to mention the thriving market for oddities found on alien worlds.
Sentient Alien life still eludes mankind however, a matter of some concern to those who study such things, but space is vast, and while the human worlds may be linked by regularly traveled FTL routes, there are still vast of unknown space separating them, and who knows what dwells in such places?