Fanwork#7100 words
Endless thanks to
@Lealope for providing the color theory for this CYOA!
After some forty millennia, the long-lost homeworld of the Humanities has been found! Earth has been recontacted, and you are one of the lucky few among its population who, in the modern era, possess a Soul and thus potential for Magic. The utopic technology of the Humanities will be made available to all the hollows of Earth, as they are made to hollows everywhere, but as a latent mage, you will have the privilege of training your magery and the responsibility of helping defend the Humanities from the depredations of Unity.
You will learn much more about the incredible diversity of the Humanities, their cultures and histories, and of the Defense Force's own history, during your training, but here's a brief primer on history and magic to consider on the flight away from Earth and towards the nearest Defense Force orbitat.
First, the abbreviated history of the Humanities. About fifty thousand years ago (the exact date remains unknown and is an area of active archeological research), the mages of Earth developed spaceflight and began to explore the solar system. With access to the resources of space, their science and material culture rapidly expanded, though for as yet unknown reasons they did not create orbitats or other long-lasting space infrastructure in the solar system, or settle on any bodies here other than the Earth and Moon.
About forty thousand years ago, several events happened in quick succession, though the precise order is still not known: The first FTL vessels were developed and the ancient mages began to colonize many stars both near and far from the Sun; the oldest reservoirs of gray matter were created, and ancient mage society collapsed completely and utterly, such even now much of its magic is unreplicable and the Defense Force is still recontacting new descendants of that ancient polity to this day (including Earth itself, just now). There are virtually no records or artifacts from this period, and archeological efforts indicate that there was a massive reduction in the population of mages across all of humanity, possibly even a complete extinction of mages.
Without magic and with the destruction of seemingly all records, the hollow populations of Earth and all other worlds were left disconnected from one another, and would remain so until approximately 1528 years ago, when the mages of the Manifold Stargale consortium discovered the first Dark Shard and began the work of recontacting and reconnecting the humanities. A lot has happened then, politics happens about as fast in space as it does on Earth, including some important stuff like the discovery of gray matter control magic, contact and war with Unity, and the formation of the Defense Force, but you'll learn more about recent events later.
Now, here's a basic rundown of magic. Again, you'll get some proper instruction in your training, but this will help you understand what people are talking about until then.
Magic is, fundamentally, a process of bringing the ideal into the real. This process is generally considered to have three steps, those being: channeling, in which essence is drawn from Idealspace and into one's soul; shaping, in which meditation and visualization alters the essence within the shaper's soul into the desired forms; and realization, where the essence is expelled from the soul and into Realspace, causing it to transform into tangible phenomena or materials in accordance with the shape of the essence.
Channeling and realization are pretty basic, you'll be trained in them regardless of what tracks you pick, but shaping is where the real meat of things is, and is the primary thing that distinguishes one magical working from another. Some workings are simple while others can have terribly complex shapings, but there are various mental aids to help with that until it becomes second nature.
Workings also vary in how much essence they need, and are divided up into four broad categories: trivial workings, that need just a little essence, probably just a minute or two of channeling at a maximum for most people; lesser workings, that will tap most people out if they're at full to start (which, for an average mage, will take 3-4 days worth of on-and-off channeling when it is convenient, or about 20 hours of continuous channeling) and are more commonly done with two or a handful of casters; greater workings, which range from just a bit more than the most expensive lesser workings to requiring as many as a thousand average mages' full worth of essence; and grand workings, which can need as much around ten million mages' full worth and usually either a greater concert working to get everyone synchronized, or a massive essential vessel that gets filled up beforehand. Hypothetically grand workings could use more than that, but it's already pushing the limits of modern ergology to design workings at that scale, let alone even larger ones.
Also, at least for most people, even for ancient veterans from the pre-contact days, realization is a messy and inefficient process (and, generally, workings are designed with wide tolerances in mind), and the essence that's 'spilled' during realization still enters reality, but instead of contributing to the working's goal, it instead creates 'manifestations', which are semi-random, semi-real ghostly projections whose form is influenced by the shape of the manifesting essence (but also tends to warp and mutate away from the one the caster shaped). Most ritual spaces include manifestation shielding to prevent from getting in the way of the working or interfere with the rest of the environment, but managing manifestations is an important part of preparing more-than-trivial workings when in the field.
Alright, with that done, let's talk yourself, your soul, and your options in the Defense Force.
You possess great (8)
potential, but what form does that potential take in you?
[ ] Powerful - Your spending cap for Powers is 5, but your spending cap for Skills is 3.
[ ] Balanced - Your spending caps for Powers and Skills are both 4.
[ ] Skillful - Your spending cap for Skills is 5, but your spending cap for Powers is 3.
You may not spend more than your spending cap in the corresponding section of the CYOA.
The souls of the humanities' mages are as diverse as their bodies. Now that we're at the base and have access to the psychometry equipment, let's see what yours is like.
[ ] Sensitivity (1) - Your magical senses are especially sharp. You can detect the presence of other mages and magical devices even when they are not manifesting, and with time to focus can determine their precise location and nature of the magical activity. You also have a greatly enhanced ability to synchronize with other mages in group workings, and integrate your magic with the workings of others in general.
[ ] Transmigrator (1) - Modern technology allows mages who die in a recoverable location and state to be reliably reincarnated into new, empty bodies. Some souls naturally possess the ability to transmigrate, and that includes yours. Upon awakening, the surviving memories of your predecessors will begin to integrate with your own. There's no threat of your identity being lost, but you will benefit from a much greater understanding of the Humanities' situation and subsequently suffer much less culture shock. If you ever die, your own memories will likewise be passed on to your successor.
[ ] True Form (1) - A mage's soul exists before it is awakened, latent though it may be. Even in its latency, some mages' souls channel Idealspace, creating a steadily growing reservoir of essence far beyond the ordinary limits of their soul's capacity, held in place by their soul's somnolence. In cases like these, such as your own, the mage's awakening can be quite dramatic, as years of essence suddenly flow from their soul into their mind and body. The sheer quantity of essence, enough to fuel a greater working or even a working on the lower end of grand, overcomes the inefficiency of realizing nearly unshaped essence. Aside from producing a quite spectacular manifestation, this sort of inundation of essence naturally causes you to undergo radical changes in physiology as your body is suffused with the ideal. This idealization process also imbues you with a strong affinity for further physical augmentation, both magical and cybernetic.
[ ] Unbreakable (1) - Some souls are tougher than others. Some souls, like yours, are unbreakable. Regardless of what sort of willpower you had prior to your awakening, it now surpasses all which might test it. You now draw from a bottomless well of effort and executive function, and possess the superhuman self-control to wield this Power responsibly. Additionally, you are totally and absolutely immune to all attacks on your soul, including most forms of magical mental influence or surveillance.
[ ] Tasteful (2) - All souls are conduits, channels through which essence flows. Most mages are only able to draw upon Idealspace, but some, including you, possess the rare ability to absorb manifest essence from Realspace. This Power allows you to draw the excess essence of workings you participate in, which would normally be wasted in manifestations, into yourself, ready to be used in workings again. You may also draw in the manifesting essence of other's workings, absorbing it into your own reserves in a similar manner and learning what essential components their working was built from, and may choose to do so with violence, disrupting the working in the process. The presence of this ability also alters your relationship between essence and your body in another way, allowing your body to subsist on essence alone, without requiring even a trivial working to realize it into physical food, drink, or atmosphere.
[ ] Aura Aureola (2) - Your soul is a pure conduit, allowing you to safely channel vastly greater quantities of essence from Idealspace. You can produce Lesser Workings easily and effortlessly and with monumental effort may even sustain Greater Workings on your own. Your manifestations have a golden cast to them, rather than the cool blue-white of other mages.
[ ] Splendor Solares (3) - Requires
Aura Aureola. An exceptionally rare mutation of the aura aureola, your soul is not merely a conduit of the ideal but a mouth which sups a heavenly deluge of essence. You can fuel Greater Workings with ease, and may utterly exhaust yourself to power a Grand Working on your own. You manifest an aura of golden fire even when not casting, and your casting manifestations share this fiery character, which can shine painfully bright when in the midst of a Grand Working.
[ ] Wisdom (2) - All mages possess the ability to touch the ineffable plane of Idealspace, not unlike one who is blind navigating a physical space by feeling. The Wise, then, are those who can see with their souls' eyes. Visions of idealspace overwhelm the mind with supernal brightness, however, so even the Wise must limit themselves to glimpses, perhaps a handful of times per hour if they push beyond pain and to their true limit. Each such glimpse is a powerful divination nonetheless, and an invaluable tool for advancing your magic, gathering intelligence, making well-informed decisions, and almost any other task which you might pursue.
[ ] Perspective (3) - Requires
Wisdom. Even among the Wise, some can withstand the brightness of Idealspace for shorter, and some for longer. You fall at the very farthest range of the latter group, capable of holding onto visions of Wisdom for seconds or even minutes rather than mere momentary flashes. With a soul's eyes so accustomed to Idealspace, you can even view it alongside Realspace for a brief time. Through this dual vision of the universe, unique insights become available to you, as the essence and the accident of the world around you intertwine, revealing the structure of time and space to you. Through this perspective, you can achieve a sort of enlightened awareness and self-control, perfectly orchestrating your actions to mold the future into your preferred shape for as long as you are able to both keep your soul's eyes open and your physical awareness grounded. Overtaxing yourself to dive deeply into the perspective can lead to a temporary loss of your Wisdom as your soul's eyes recover, or even negatively impact your ability to channel essence and cast workings if you push yourself to the absolute limit.
[ ] Trinity (3) - In all mages, the soul exists in three spaces. It exists in Realspace, where it is anchored to the physical brain. It exists in Idealspace, from which it channels essence and possibly glimpses Wisdom. It also exists in the Gap or Interstice, the empty plane which separates the real from the ideal and which the soul spans to bridge the two. For the vast majority of mages, those who have not explored the cutting edge of modern cognitive augmentation, their mind is little more than that of a hollow's, stretched across their soul to touch Idealspace and to grasp essence, but not truly
expanded. You, however, possess the exceedingly rare mutation of a tripartite mind, which truly occupies both your ideal and interstitial brains as well as your physical one. Integrating three fully independent brains may take some getting used to, but once mastered will provide incredible and holistic benefits to your cognition, including an obviation of the need for sleep and dreams as the work of memory integration and other sleep-related cognitive functions can be safely distributed across all three brains. Additionally, the experience of awakening to two additional minds which are equally you, as well as the ability for self-inspection between brains, gives you a great headstart in designing and implementing further mental augmentations.
[ ] Familiar Bond - Your soul possesses the uncommon ability to bond permanently with certain kinds of magical entity. With your soul now awakened, you may now form such a bond.
-[ ] Ideal Spirit (1) - Ideal Spirits are beings which exist wholly within Idealspace, though they may extend a limb into the mind of a mage through the familiar bond. The bond also motivates the normally impassive ideal spirit, aligning it with the bonded mage's will. Possession of such a familiar provides holistic mental benefits as the ideal spirit orders and expands the mage's mind, as well as moderately enhancing divinatory workings (including glimpses of Wisdom).
-[ ] Gray Matter (2) - The mysterious legacy of the First Wave, the ancient people who initially departed from Earth at the beginning of the Stellar Age and the ancestors of the modern Humanities. Its physical properties and behavior are dynamic and evolving, growing in complexity as its bonded mage feeds it essence and direction, which also nourishes its nascent intelligence as it blossoms into a devoted and loyal companion. Unbonded gray matter can be increased and shaped via workings, and forms the basis for much of the Humanities' technology through the great Mother Factories where gray matter's function as a general constructor is used to create the Factory Ships which sustain much of the Humanities' modern space industry, but falls greatly short of bonded gray matter's full potential. Still, it will take time and care for yours to reach those lofty heights.
-[ ] Dark Shard (3) - A piece of something truly ancient, and utterly broken. Dark shards are tools first and foremost, mechanically impersonal in disposition and ruthlessly efficient in action. Learning to operate one can be challenging, but the rewards for doing so are great. The remit of the dark shards is spacetime in every aspect, from wormholes to bags of holding, from stasis chambers to warp drives. Nothing achievable by a dark shard is truly beyond an ordinary working, but without them the complexity and sheer scale of the workings is completely impractical.
As a mage-recruit, some basic skills will be drilled into you regardless of your potential. Channeling and realizing essence are fundamental to all magic, and will be as natural as walking by the end of your training. You will also become fluent in the Dialects, familiar with using the most common technologies of the Humanities and casting the many Trivial Workings which make life as a mage convenient, and comfortable with moving and operating in all the myriad strange environments which your Duties may bring you to. However, you may undergo further training, as suits your aptitude.
[ ] Combat - Despite all our best efforts, all our genius, all our magic, war still plagues the Humanities. The Defense Force doesn't get involved in any internecine conflict except to provide humanitarian aid. Instead the Defense Force's purpose is to protect the Humanities from existential threats, and in particular its formation was motivated by Unity, a long-divergent branch of humanity who have foregone all pretensions of individuality to achieve perfect unity for which they are known, became hostile not long after being recontacted.
-[ ] Vessel of War (1) - While many spaceships are equipped with advanced mundane weapons or even magical weapons fueled by integrated pseudo-souls, ultimately both are simply no match for a fully magical weapons platform, directed by a human soul from within. Becoming a Vessel of War is as much a matter of augmentation and transformation as it is one of training, as you pass through the stages of fusion with your chassis and familiarizing yourself with the various armaments it may bear. The training you will receive from this class will be relatively basic, but the equipment loadout will be considerable and will be designed with your Powers and other Skills in mind.
-[ ] Pankrator (2) - The Vessels of War make up the bulk of the Defense Force's manpower, and make efficient use of that manpower, but they are not the Defense Force's pinnacle of violence. That crimson honor belongs to the Pankrators. Rather than fusing with a chassis which serves an interface with external magical weapons, Pankrators are simply shaped into weapons themselves, crafting warforms from countless individual magical and cybernetic augmentations, as well training in a vast repertoire of rapid-casting combat magic. The heavy focus on augmentation lends Pankrators with the
True Form and
Trinity Powers a significant advantage.
-[ ] Special: Nightblade (3) - Requires
Familiar Bond: Dark Shard. While the majority of Dark Shard bondholders work in transportation, both within and without the Defense Force, a few choose to hone their skills of spatial manipulation for combat instead. There are numberless applications for Dark Shards in combat, ranging from temporal acceleration to inflation beams to the eponymous nightblades. The training is long and arduous, but the result is a force that can turn almost any battle.
[ ] Ecology - One thing that is as true of the Humanities as it is of earthling humans is the never-ending desire for living space. While not strictly necessary, it is a simple political infeasibility to try and house all of the Humanities in the minimum amount of space, and so new orbitats and created every day, to house families, organizations, eccentrics, and more. At the same time, the recontact is ongoing even now, and in the millennia that have passed since the disappearance of the First Wave, many orbitats and even inhabited planets are in dire straits if not outright shambles, with their hollow populations barely clinging to life. While the Defense Force is not the only group serving both these purposes, it does fall within their mission to protect the humanities from existential threats.
-[ ] Genopoet (2) - Creating whole new ecosystems is already an enormous task on the face of it. Adding the additional demands on the precise make-up or parameters of the ecosystem, ensuring it fits with the particular features of the orbitat or planetat that it's being built to fill, that it an adapt to even just the most likely ways that its environment might change rather than spiraling into collapse only makes the challenge more daunting. Thus, the Defense Force's genopoets receive one of the most extensive training programs in Defense Force and in the Humanities as a whole, utilizing the furthest extent of Defense Force's archives and learning technologies to instill both a deep and wide understanding of life and its subtle, sublime dance into your mind, as well as the countless workings that go into creating and propagating the various waves of colonizing lifeforms to implement that knowledge.
-[ ] Ecumenarch (2) - The task of repairing and maintaining extant ecosystems, full of unknown factors, vast forces, and wild chaos is an equally momentous task to creating ones from scratch, though of a very different character. Ecumenarchs are dispatched to help failing orbitats and planetats, which are often the very same as those which the Defense Force has only just recently contacted and thus has the fewest and least reliable records of, so in addition to a diverse library of life-, terrain-, and weather-altering workings and the fundamentals of ecology, they also train in the divinations and investigative techniques to determine the possible paths unknown ecosystems might take, to diagnose their ills, and to find or invent the methods necessary to cure them, and to lay the groundwork for future ecumenarchs in case of future disaster. Given your particular background, if you choose this Skill class and a relevant Duty, it's highly likely that you will be assigned to Earth to help with repairing the damage done to it since the First Wave's departure.
[ ] Engineering - While it is possible with the right workings for any mage to travel through space without the help of spacecraft, and indeed the First Wave most likely utilized this mode of travel for much of its earliest era, it is nonetheless a great hassle, to speak nothing of the Humanities' vast population of hollows who need spacecraft to remain connected to the rest of the universe. The Defense Force maintains a considerable fleet, and such a fleet demands considerable care, and it is the Defense Force's engineers entrusted with that care.
-[ ] Idealist (2) - Many spacecraft, indeed most throughout the Humanities' lot, are purely mundane machines, suitable to be piloted by hollows and built by fully autonomous factory-ships without magical intervention. The Defense Force's fleet, however, is not composed of such crafts. The Defense Force cannot afford anything less than full utilization of its magical potential, and this fact extends to its ships. Consequently, Defense Force ships need as much magical care as they do mechanical, and as an Idealist, you will learn all the workings that go into any of various sorts of ship which the Defense Force flies, including the magical equipment and apparati carried aboard them, as well as deep grounding in the principles of enchantment and the invocation of pseudo-souls.
-[ ] Technopath (2) - As powerful and numerous as the workings which are poured into each Defense Force craft are, there are still machines, and like all machines they require maintenance of the physical kind. The incredible complexity of the physical systems, and their widespread integration with the ideal, means that principles of mundane engineering often fall short of the ship's demands. While a Technopath's education includes knowledge of the physical basis and details for the multitudinous systems of the fleet's various craft, you will also receive mental and spiritual augmentations to allow you to more efficiently and deeply interface with your ship's systems, and learn workings to enhance this connection further, to spread your senses through the ship, to absorb the information of its body and its soul as if it were your own, and to let you act through it and upon it with grace and speed.
-[ ] Special: Factor (2) - Requires
Familiar Bond: Gray Matter. The great factory-ships which produce much of the Humanities' spacecraft are the children of the ancient and mysterious Gray Matter reservoirs scattered throughout the First Wave's expanse. Your familiar is a droplet taken from one such reservoir, which recognized in your soul some obscure echo of its old masters and allowed itself to be bonded to you. As a Factor, you will be given the time, resources, and information necessary to realize as much of gray matter's potential as possible during your training period, as well as developing your relationship with its nascent intelligence, and acclimating it and yourself to whatever Duties you choose to pursue.
[ ] Medicine - Even ignoring the Defense Forces many humanitarian aid efforts, the members of the force itself often face great danger and suffer great harm to their bodies and their souls in the course of their Duties, to say nothing of the many augmentations they receive before, during, and after those same missions in order to let them achieve the goals of the Defense Force. For all these reasons, the Defense Force's medical branch is its most well-staffed and well-funded.
-[ ] Infusionist (2) - Even with the power of the ideal, dealing with the intricacies of all the diverse human bodies is a delicate business, especially those of hollows, latents, and novices who have not or cannot learn to sustain and transform their own bodies with magic. Training in the Infusionist Skill class will ensure that, beyond being able to heal yourself and repair your own physical augmentations, you will be prepared to provide comprehensive diagnosis and healing of injuries, diseases, and other ailments to anyone you might encounter in your Duties, hollow or mage, from the most basal to the most derived morphologies which the Defense Force knows of. You'll also be equipped with the knowledge and workings to implant, repair, and remove all of the myriad physical augmentations which the Defense Force provides its members, as well many more which you might need to interface with during your Duties.
-[ ] Psychosurgeon (2) - Just as with the Defense Force's fleet is composed of magical spacecraft, so the Defense Force's personnel are mages, and just as the Idealist is trained to care for the needs of a ship's ideal, so the Psychosurgeon is trained to care for the souls of the crew. While not utterly unknown to modern mages, the soul is still much more mysterious than the body, and much more strange. Training as a Psychosurgeon will teach you all that the Humanities know of the soul, perhaps even more as the Defense Force uncovers the further secrets of Unity after each battle, including the workings to observe many facets of the soul and to cure the ailments for which cures are known, as well bringing your knowledge to very forefront of the still young and tremendously peculiar science of spiritual augmentation.
[ ] Navigation - Space is vast, a darkness which demands incredible light to traverse. While mundane spacecraft suffice for civilian interplanetary travel within a star-system, but the Defense Force often needs greater speeds and longer ranges than be achieved with the merely real, and they have the magic needed to reach the ideal they need.
-[ ] Descrier (1) - Journeying through the void, especially at the speeds that a Defense Force ship needs to reach its destination in time to prevent whatever catastrophe they've discovered, requires excellent information. As a Descrier, you will learn how to gather this information, from whatever sensors your ship is equipped with, or directly via your own augmentations and divinatory workings. Even outside the realm of the ship, Descriers are trained in a wide variety of valuable divinations, ensuring their crew is always as informed as possible.
-[ ] Reckoner (2) - On the other side of the divinatory coin, Reckoners process the endless reams of data provided by the Descriers, transforming it into the wisdom which the ship needs to swim through the darkness and which command needs to make the best decisions they can. In addition to some of the most advanced mental augmentations available, Reckoner training also includes the principles of algorithmic theory and ideal computation, to ensure your calculations proceed with maximum speed and accuracy, and that you will be able to develop the means to understand even the strangest unknowns that you might find in the rubble of the First Wave.
-[ ] Special: Claviger (3) - Requires
Familiar Bond: Dark Shard. The Dark Shards are the keys to the universe, the impossible devices which reject the limitations that otherwise seem to be perfectly unimpeachable. With your familiar bond to one, you are its keybearer. There is a truly endless demand for FTL travel, even just within the Defense Force, so your training as a Claviger will be intense. The science of altering space-time possesses both staggering depth and breadth, and so your training will focus on those powers of the Dark Shard most relevant to moving your ship, extending its senses, and communicating with other ships, stations, and orbitats, but if you continue to expand your skills in the future, there are fathomless depths of advanced techniques to explore.
[ ] Negotiation - As one of the primary agency of the recontact, the Defense Force naturally has a large and ongoing need for negotiators and diplomats. Ideally, each new contact would result in an uplifting and equitable incorporation of the diasporic group into broader human society, but even with all the magic available to the Defense Force, the ideal is not always within reach. Ultimately, the only results that are truly necessary are to avoid a second disastrous contact like with Unity. The Defense Force has need for negotiators even beyond the mission of recontact, though. Despite it's power to conscript latent mages from newly contacted world (a power granted by the Enduring Coalition only in the face of subsumption by Unity), the Defense Force is
not a government, nor are they pirates or chattel slavers. Aside from the conscripts and their labors for the duration of their service, every resource the Defense Force holds is either given freely in aid of their mission or else bought at fair price, both of which require the aid of negotiators.
-[ ] Archivist (1) - The Defense Force is old, and its contemporaries and predecessors have even longer histories. The Humanities have been growing, evolving, and interacting for millennia, and that means millennia of history, and ocean of information in which the knowledge necessary to understand the true workings of society and economy hides. As an Archivist, you will be trained in all the diverse means of record-keeping which the Humanities use, how to convert them all into the standardized mimetic ideofractal template which the Defense Force uses for their own archives, as well as how to read, transfer, translate those MIFs into all the other formats you're familiar with. You will also be trained in the principles of negotiation, as well as the particular histories of and prior negotiation strategies used by the Defense Force in the areas and cultures you are most likely to encounter in the course of your Duties.
-[ ] Psychometer (2) - Many of the societies negotiators of the Defense Force interact with, whether in the course of recontact or in funds-gathering, will possess mages of their own. Some of those mages may have history with the Defense Force, perhaps even a positive inclination, but just as many will not. Magic can enact violence upon the soul and the mind as well as the body, and while it is the Psychosurgeon's task to heal those wounds, it is the Psychometer's to prevent them as best they are able. As a Psychometer, you will receive extensive training in the principles and techniques of negotiation, as well as receive an education in the natures and tendencies of the Humanities' many modern minds, psychology of both mind and soul, as well as many workings to detect and counter attempts to magically alter the thoughts and words of your fellow negotiators.
-[ ] Special: Conservator (3) - Requires
Unbreakable. In even the Humanities' oldest records, only one thing has proven truly indestructible: those souls who are Unbreakable. While not the easiest format to read from, an Unbreakable soul is absolutely the most durable, and as a Conservator, your task will be the immortal scroll on which the words that must not die are written. As one of the Unbreakable, the spiritual augmentations to expand your mind and order the memories of your soul, as well as those to allow your soul to be located and retrieved in the case of your death, can only be performed by you, so your training will initially focus on perfecting and performing these workings. Once your augmentation can be verified, you will begin taking in your assigned MIFs and storing them within the safety of your soul, and occasionally drawing on this knowledge as your crew needs.
As highly the Defense Force values freedom, ensuring that newly awakened mages are given the training they need to use their magic without risking catastrophe and to navigate the strange and unfamiliar worlds of the Humanities is itself a matter of existential importance. While mage-recruits from worlds with their own magical traditions are offered and often take on a Duty which returns them to their tradition to be taught and guided, no such option exists for sleeping worlds, which ironically enough happens to include the Homeworld. As such, the Duties available to you will retain you to the Defense Force's care. All Mage-Recruits are obligated to take at least one Duty after completing their training tour, though certainly not without reward, and are strongly encouraged to take as many as you believe you are fit to complete. All Duties can be taken as many times you like, though stipends do not add upon one another. After your first tour of Duty, however, you are free to go, to use your magic as you see fit (so long as you follow the laws of whatever polity you find yourself in, anyway). Each tour lasts for one standard year (approximately 415 Earth days), though long-term projects may require multiple tours to reach completion.
[ ] Unity War - Requires
Combat OR
Engineering OR
Medicine OR
Navigation. It can be easy to forget, especially with Homeworld on the other side of the Humanities' domain and separated from Unity by numerous interdicting Clavigers, but there is a war for the survival of human freedom being fought at this very moment. Unity's ongoing conquest is the Defense Force's raison d'être, and stopping Unity's expansion remains its highest priority.
- Risks - Danger to your body and soul, including the possibility of final death or fates worse than death. There is also a likelihood of physical and psychological trauma even if you meet success in your tour.
- Rewards - Assuming you survive your tour, you will be provided a regular stipend which will extend as long as you remain with the Defense Force and for twenty years after, compensation for any damage sustained during your tour, and entitlement to any spoils of war which you recovered from Unity. If you die during your tour, you will be added to the Defense Force's roll for attempted soul recovery, and if recovered you will be reincarnated at no expense and receive the same rewards as those who survived their tour.
[ ] Mercantilism - While many polities see the value in the Defense Force and donate what resources they can afford to the force to help us sustain ourselves and pursue our mission, it is nonetheless far less than the force needs to continue functioning, and so a large portion of the force's efforts must be turned to garnering profit to make up the difference. It's not glamorous or easy, but it's certainly much safer than facing Unity head on.
- Risks - Some danger of physical harm or temporary death, potential long-term financial and political entanglements, possible injury to your reputation or social standing.
- Rewards - You will receive a regular stipend to cover operational and living costs, which individual mercantile operations may add upon. Successful operations, interest in advancement, and a formal proposal may result in you leading your own mercantile operation, which will include additional budget in accordance with your proposal and which you may run as you see fit. You will retain control of any companies or organizations which you create during your tour even should you choose to leave the force, and even if you do not create any or choose to relinquish them to the force, you will receive a portion of all future profits generated by operations you participate in. Additionally, if you suffer any damage during your tour, you will be compensated for it.
[ ] Humanitarian Aid - While the war with Unity is the Defense Force's first priority, it is not our sole priority. Even stopping existential threats to the Humanities as a whole is only the highest level, most abstract formulation of our goal. We're here to defend the Humanities from all kinds of harm and injustice, and there's a lot that we can do to help. Additionally, if you took the Ecumenarch Skill class in the hopes of being assigned to the Homeworld, this is the Duty you should take to make that happen.
- Risks - Some danger of physical harm or temporary death, possible injury to your reputation or social standing, and a chance of psychological trauma. Additionally, many lives will depend on your success or failure.
- Rewards - You will receive a regular stipend to cover living costs, as well as additional budget on a project-to-project basis. Reliable work, interest in advancement, and a formal proposal may result in you leading your own aid project, especially if you have been assigned to and are making a proposal for a project on the Homeworld. Should you choose to leave the force, your stipend will continue for up to twenty years after your departure, and should you request it you will be referred to other humanitarian aid groups which have use for you and operate in areas of your choice. Additionally, there is a small but not negligible chance that the local magical tradition of any people you aid, if they exist, may offer unique rewards for your aid, and which you are entitled to keep even if you leave the force.
[ ] Conservation - Requires
Negotiation: Conservator. While the rewards for a Conservator's service are modest, they are very real, while the demands of the work are quite light. The Defense Force values their Conservators highly, especially in the face of Unity. Some Conservators do participate in other Duties and apply both their Conservator training and whatever other training they receive, the Defense Force also maintains a reserve of Conservators who serve in relative safety and isolation, and that is what this Duty entails.
- Risks - Boredom, mostly. There is an extremely small but technically existent chance that your station may be attacked by a Unity deep strike, but even in the absolute worst case, it is all but guaranteed that your soul will be recoverable, and you will have the highest priority for recovery.
- Rewards - All your basic needs will be met by your station accommodations, and you will receive a small regular stipend with which to purchase luxuries. Each tour of Conservation will also contribute to a lump-sum payment which you will receive if you choose to take a break from Conservation, whether for civilian life or another Duty.
[ ] Research & Development- Requires at least one other tour of Duty. There are still many mysteries in our universe, whether in the past, the present, or especially the future. Green recruits need to focus on the fundamentals and whatever their Skill classes need to know, but once you've finished a tour and have solidified the foundation of your understanding, you can start building on top of it. Whether it's weapons development, archaeology,political-economic divination, or pure ideology, the Defense Force has a department for it somewhere.
- Risks - Most research doesn't end up resulting in much of anything, so there's a considerable possibility of wasting your time, though you can focus on testing positions if you're willing to trade that for a significantly higher danger to your body and soul. Even a laboratory position isn't perfectly safe either, especially if you're researching something inherently dangerous.
- Rewards - You will receive a regular stipend to cover living costs, as well as additional budget on a project-to-project basis. Reliable work, interest in advancement, and a formal proposal may result in you leading your own R&D project. The results of any projects you lead will be held in confidence at your discretion or if they are deemed to represent an existential threat to the Humanities, and in the former case you are entitled to use your results as you see fit and to all profits thereby gained. Should you choose to leave the force, your stipend will continue for up to twenty years after your departure, and should you request it you will be referred to other R&D groups which have use for you and focus on topics of your choice. If projects you lead meet great success and you choose to reveal this to the public at large, you stand to gain considerable social standing.
[ ] Special Operations - Requires at least one other tour of Duty. There are some jobs that are too sensitive to let green conscripts participate. These Duties don't merely require discretion, but an amount of investment in the cause, principles, and goals of the force.
- Risks - Danger to your body and soul, including the possibility of final death or fates worse than death. There is also a likelihood of physical and psychological trauma even if you meet success in your tour. Your actions and any information you gain while on tour may be classified, and if classified beyond your clearance may be subject to memory alteration or binding non-disclosure agreement.
- Rewards - Rewards will match those of previous Duties, plus a small off-record bonus which will be delivered intermittently.
[ ] Commission - Requires at least three other tours of Duty, including at least one operation or project leadership Duty. The Defense Force commissions its leadership from many source populations, but highly favors the few conscripts who display the necessary commitment to our mission and capacity for leadership.
- Risks - Your reputation and social standing will be tied to those of the Defense Force, which is not without detractors even within the Enduring Coalition. Additionally, there is a small but not negligible chance that you may targeted for assassination by Unity. Commissary work is extremely time-consuming and may limit your ability to pursue other activities.
- Rewards - Pay for commissaries is higher than for non-commissioned Defense Force agents, though only in proportion to the greater work-load. You will be in charge of budgetary decisions for whatever organ of the Defense Force you are commissioned to lead, including the approval or rejection of operations and projects therein. You will be entitled to a seat in all Defense Force leadership meetings you possess sufficient clearance for. Should you choose to leave the Defense Force, you will receive a regular stipend of equal value to those of the non-commissioned which extends for the usual twenty years.
