Only Through Giant Robots Can We Achieve Nirvana

As a side-note, this isn't replacing my other quest, I'm just hitting a huge block trying to write for it so I thought I'd do something else with a setting I've been wanting to play with for awhile. I felt like writing something else might help me break through it.

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You are a newly-minted Spiritualist, fresh off your training from the world of Newsight. The Transcendent Empire would -very understandably - call you a Transcend, the Galactic Federation of Co-Tolerant Species would call you a Psi Specialist, and when your kind had first been discovered they simply called you psychics.

Enough of that, though. Six years of training, and you were now graduating at age eighteen. You knew, in truth, everything there was to know about the world.

You knew the history of the traitors to humanity, the SolSphere, who united with the Galactic Federation to subordinate humanity to wicked alien outsiders. The glorious uncovering of humanity's potential, the realisation that a Spiritualist who operated a machine similarly-shaped to herself could amplify that machine's speed and strength by hundreds of times if she was weak - to hundreds of thousands of times at the higher end - meant that tiny humanity had become a true contender on the galactic stage.

Yes, just as you were taught, the aliens who had made up so much of the galactic population had refused your rightful place in the sun, and so the Transcendent Empire was born. An Empire of those who understood humanity's true potential, and fought for more! Fought and conquered their way through the Federation, with tiny mecha facing off against kilometre-long battleships, winning not through industrial potential but through the blessings given to the human species.

The war had begun almost two thousand years ago, and still it ground on. The monks had taught you of the great Twisting Explosion, the vile thing made by the Federation to twist and destroy hyperspace, to make it near-impassable and to make progress incredibly slow. The Empire had conquered one-tenth of the galaxy in a century, and in the following two millennia it had only managed to increase that to a third.

Of course, you were very far from the war-front. In the Hoang Realm, founded by the illustrious Anh Hoang, you lived and would most likely die. The average Spiritualist fought other humans, not aliens or those traitors who hewed to the Tolerant Philosophy. The Transcendent Empire had a simple enough method of governance - those who were weak remained where they were, and those were strong were given lands and factories for their families to rule, while they were taken to the war-front.

If you found yourself clambering up the ranks of the Transcendi, you might one day go to fight for humanity. Not that you had ever seen an alien, of course, but you had imagined how they might look and act.

In any case, that was enough thinking about history! This was your graduation! The day you were increased in grade from Potential Spiritualist to Apprentice Spiritualist, Grade 1. Capable of moving a machine with two arms and two legs at nearly fifty times its actual technical specifications, nothing except another Spiritualist or a true warship from the past would pose a threat to you.

To celebrate your formal graduation, you'd been taken out drinking by your sponsors, who were a:
In order of difficulty
[ ] Archeate - The largest and most powerful worlds were ruled by the Archeate Families, descendents of Expert Spiritualists or Demi-Transcendants. Well, they weren't always the largest and most powerful, but they were granted to those families at a time when they were. Those families were granted an absolute right to rule a world for five hundred years, and tended to be the greatest powers in the sector. As a member of a lesser branch you were always expected to work for the family, and fight for their glory. Your initial mech will be weak, but as you achieve more it can be easily upgraded.

[ ] Honorium - Honored for great deeds if not great power, the Honorium-Worlds were given two hundred years of absolute rulership, and tended towards trade and fighting for the Archeates. In the last twenty years alone four Honorium were extinguished, and both of the remaining Honorium in the Sector have only twenty years or left to hold their title. The time when the Hoang Realm contributed greatly to the warfront is long-gone, so your family needs you to succeed rather desperately. Your family will invest in you a great deal, but you must be worthy of that investment.

[ ] Trading Organisation - Spiritualists were key for fending off pirates, and so a trading organisation would often raise lesser Spiritualists up. With nothing but a formal contract for a decade or two that could easily be bought out, you will have to fight for every scrap of metal you put together in your mech.

[ ] The Blue-Handed Band - Pirates of the worst sort, the Blue-Handed Band raid mech production facilities and trade fleets, as well as one legendary raid on the former Archeate of Nguyen that caused them to collapse so badly their ownership was revoked it and it was renamed New Earth. Living amidst an asteroid field, they are not true revolutionaries, and commonly fight one another for loot if none other is to be had. Being at the bottom of the totem pole is... difficult.

[ ] Set of Republicans from New Amerigo - With little money and no Spiritualist bloodlines to rely on, New Amerigo has few Spiritualists and those they have are weak. The world's relative poverty means it is not worth conquering, especially considering it's position away from the hyperlanes. Republicanism is not illegal, but it is not a serious philosophy anyone in power is inclined to listen to. Your mech will be poorly-funded, you will have little help, and any setbacks will be difficult to weather. You are likely to face superior opposition from Day 1.

Note: Archeate and Honorium will open up secondary votes.

Now, you were a young

[ ] Man - For reasons still not fully understood, Spirituality is associated with several mutations only found on the X Chromosome in humanity. While widespread genetic modifications had been made across all of humanity to ensure every human being has a chance at being a Spiritualist, the unfortunate truth is that male Spiritualists tend to be weaker. This is not a universal rule, but there is certainly some disdain for male Spiritualists except as potential genetic material donors in the higher echelons of mecha pilots.

[ ] Woman - As Spirituality is associated with the X Chromosome, women simply tend to be stronger Spiritualists and form nearly four-fifths of the ranks of Spiritualists. Very few powerful families opt to have sons for this reason, and it is further worsened by the fact that being grown in the womb of a powerful Spiritualist made one more likely to be stronger. A male embryo is much more likely to be tank-grown - few powerful pilots are willing to undergo the rigours of pregnancy for a child who is less likely to be powerful, compounding the disparity. A perfectly ordinary choice socially.

Lastly, you had trained yourself in a particular style of mecha combat. It was:

[ ] Close Combat - You used a weapon of sorts, ideally one you trained with in your personal life. A spear, a sword, and so on. Melee mecha pilots grew in power the most - as they increased in speed and toughness their value grew immensely, whereas a ranged mech found its firepower dropping off over time as enemies grew more and more difficult to hit. Initially, though, a melee mech was usually easily outpaced and outranged by its enemies, and tended to serve more as a bulkwark for its ranged allies.

[ ] Speedster - Speed and more speed! Usually unarmed, speedsters aim to move as fast as possible, getting into the enemy back-lines and tearing apart enemy gunnery and command mechs. Usually with powerful E-War suites, a single Speedster given free reign can damage enemies quite badly. Getting entangled with a heavier close combat mech can mean severe damage or even death, though.

[ ] Gunnery - Gunnery mechs aim at the enemy, simply enough. A usual battle sees gunnery mechs trying to destroy enemy gunnery and close combat mechs, aiming to break lines and allow speedsters through. While not helpless up-close, a gunnery mech is usually vastly inferior to a speedster or close combat mech if it comes to that.

There were other styles, of course, but for a newly-minted Specialist such as yourself, these were all the Monks of Newsight would train you in.

Lastly, you had spent your little free time on Newsight:

[ ] Excelling in your classes on space combat, making you one of the best of your class

[ ] Stealing an ancient psi detection beacon from a lair guarded by ancient half-broken robots, giving you a way to detect enemy ambushes

[ ] Spending time in the technician's bays, mastering the art of repair, ensuring you can keep your mech functional even if there's no allied repair bay nearby

[ ] Selling things to a few black market connections of yours, letting you buy and sell items on occasion others of your rank wouldn't have access to.

Feel free to vote as a plan!