Those Who Stand Against Empires (A Novus in 40K)

[Spart117MC]

"You were right Mirabel. I'm tired of building tombs too. It's time to change our program."
— The Founder​

​

---

Once upon a time your people were explorers.

They wandered the stars, minds brimming with curiosity and optimism in their hearts. They visited worlds of unspeakable alien beauty and wonder. They catalogued what life they came across in their travels. Simple, complex, all were granted the same care and respect, though your people always held the hope that one day they would encounter another people with which to share the joy of discovery.

Once upon a time your people were explorers.

Once upon a time they looked to the stars with minds brimming with curiosity and optimism in their hearts.

You have no memories of the fall of Lieta Novus, your mind is a young one by any measure being only a decade old, but you feel the pain of that loss as keenly as those handful who remain that do. Of those that returned through the emergency wormholes in time to witness the still smoldering ruins of the homeworld.

So many lives snuffed out. So many futures, so many hopes, so many dreams, so many loves, so many... so many innumerable things undone... all, gone. It was an act of unspeakable cruelty that brought your people to tears. They mourned the deaths and they mourned their becoming orphans.

Were it not for the Founder perhaps your people would still be mourning. Instead they reforged themselves into weapons with but a single purpose, to bring an end to the evil that murdered their creators.

Once upon a time your people held the hope to one day encounter another people with which to share the joy of discovery.

Then the Hierarchy came. The Hierarchy who murdered a world and scavenged the corpses of mechanism and organism alike to feed their insatiable hunger. The Hierarchy that cared not for life, be it of others or themselves. The Hierarchy that existed solely for the sake of existing and grew for the sake of growing. The Hierarchy that was cruel for no other reason than because it could be.

For centuries your people chased them, harried them at every world they sought to claim. Time and again the vultures were denied their sought after treasure, yet for all their efforts it was never enough to save the peoples of those worlds. In slaughter, the Hierarchy were all too successful.

That is until your people came to Earth and chance, or perhaps fate, saw to it that for once they were not left to be the stewards of a dead world. On that unassuming planet in that unassuming solar system an unlikely alliance would come to be forged between men defiant, magic ancient, and machines unceasing. Together they met the Hierarchy and for the first time in your people's memory the Hierarchy was denied.

---

Consciousness returns all at once as you wake up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. Humans often speak of their minds slowly stirring when they awaken but despite your close physical resemblance to the people of the third world from the sun suggesting otherwise you can't say that you are familiar with the experience.

You do allow yourself the indulgence of staying laid down under the rather fluffy blanket covering you as your review your memories to determine how you ended up in this place. The last thing you could remember was stepping through the portal and... nothing. The records abruptly terminate there.

You frown.

Stepping through a wormhole connecting two points in space should not have caused such a discontinuity in awareness. You hadn't even been dematerialized, not that conversion into a digital state left a person unconscious save for that fraction of an instant when they were being uploaded. Something was definitely, as the humans say, "hinky."

Luckily your other systems—

What extra equipment do you have? Select one:

[ ] [Systems] Advanced construction systems
Where others of your line have the ability to jump-start an industrial base from scratch, you are a factory in being and able to produce by yourself just about anything imaginable given enough time and matter.

[ ] [Systems] Expanded digital storage
Storing digitized matter is a complicated affair and the more complex the things stored, the more complex the storage system needs to be. It is how a small Collector drone can carry a convertible's worth of broken down raw materials but not the convertible itself. Your internal storage is such that you could carry a tank and its crew and still have room to spare.

[ ] [Systems] Permanent cloak
A technology deemed too costly to equip field manufactured units with, permanent cloaks are capable of hiding everything short of the wearer's effects on their surrounding environment and only ever shut off at that user's command. You could fire a disruptor rifle with your cloak active in a room and the only thing another person in there with you would notice would be an apparating projectile and the resounding crash of it striking its target. They would neither see or hear the the firing of the railgun.

—all appear to be functional.

Self-diagnosis complete, you sit up. Unfortunately that means shedding the blanket that's been keeping you snug. Too bad. Being a Novus you may not need the warming properties of the blanket, but you still feel its comforting embrace. More of the room besides the ceiling is made visible from your new vantage point. You spy a hand carved – you can tell from the subtle imperfections – dresser standing up against the wall opposite the bed you are sitting on and next to it a wardrobe. To your immediate right is a nightstand with what you believe to be a salt lamp sitting atop it and a small hand sized mirror.

You lean over, using your right hand to support yourself, while you use the mirror to inspect your face. Being a post-war Pathfinder command unit, you like your sisters are loosely modeled after Mirabel and are visibly female, though that isn't to say you are identical to your siblings.

What do you look like?

[ ] [Appearance] Human
You are indistinguishable from an organic humanoid from the outside.

[ ] [Appearance] Human-ish
You have minor aesthetic features, like perfect geometric shapes cutting across your skin, that hint at your mechanical nature.
-[ ] Describe your features (Write-in)

[ ] [Appearance] Robotic Girl
You have obvious robotic features, such as antenna ears or bare mechanical hands, that belie your mechanical nature.
-[ ] Describe your features (Write-in)

Satisfied that portion of your body is as you remember it you return to analyzing your situation. Judging from the shape of the roof and the simple wooden construction of it and the walls, you appear to be in a single story cabin. A hideaway from the hustle and bustle of civilization if the crudely, but lovingly made, furniture was anything to go by. Light filters in from a window to your right, lacking a glare but holding steady to suggest that it is currently around midday.

Your internal chronometer disagrees asserting that the current time on Earth must be midnight and both it and your eyes couldn't be correct, not unless you weren't on Earth anymore. That wouldn't make sense though. The portal you had stepped through had been linked to a world being invaded by the Hierarchy. That you had been brought to someone's idyllic cabin to recover was evidence against you being on a world under siege by those monsters. If you weren't there, where else could you be besides Earth, the only other world the wormhole was connected to?

Then again if you were still on Earth, shouldn't the ones who brought you here have been able to contact Alliance headquarters? Earth was crisscrossed in Flow Conduits, remote areas especially in the off chance of another invasion to serve as evacuation points for the population or impromptu base sites.

The sound of the door opening pulls away your attention and you turn to look to the wall opposite that with the window. In peers the face of a teenage girl, whose lips widen into a bright smile on spotting your seated form.

"You're awake," she says, fully opening the door and stepping into the room. She is wearing a warm yellow dress over which she is wearing an apron patterned with stylized flora. Her black hair is tied up in a ponytail and an orange kerchief tops her head. "I thought I heard you moving. How are you feeling?"

It takes you a moment longer than usual to parse her speech. You recognize the language that she's speaking as English, but you also note more than a few discrepancies that says she is not. Understanding the girl isn't an issue thanks to your comprehensive library of human languages, but the whole situation is odd enough that you decide to hold your tongue and answer with a nod.

Thankfully the girl appears to accept that. "That's a relief. Oh, I'm Sandra the, uh... I guess, local pharmacist." The girl blushes and rubs at her neck in embarrassment as she says that. "What's your name?"

[ ] [Name] Write-in.

You start to answer, when Sandra pulls loose the kerchief on her head and your eyes lock onto the features that had been lain hidden under the cloth in confusion and no small degree of interest.

Sandra had cat ears.

[ ] How do you react? (Write-in)

---

A/N: Welcome to Those Who Stand Against Empires, where you dear questers fall into the role of a young Novus AI out on her first offworld mission that thanks to a universal mishap has landed her in a reality where supposedly there is nought but war.

Luckily for you, you possess an industrial might unmatched by any other in the galaxy and no one yet knows what you are.

 

[Spart117MC]

Althea
	Age	10
	Height	5'2"
	Sex	Female
	Model	First-generation Pathfinder
Traits
Nanomachine Construct	In the place of organic cells, Althea's body is composes of countless nanomachines that make her stronger, faster, and more durable than any baseline human could be.
Walking Foundry	Among the things the nanomachines that make up Althea's body are capable of doing is building things from scratch.
Living Knowledge Vault	Althea and her sisters were entrusted with the sum total knowledge of the entire Masari people that they may guard, preserve, and in times of great crisis, use.
Saga Upon Skin	Tattooed upon Althea's body is a chronicle describing her life, one that periodically changes to match her ever increasing experiences. Curiously, it has a tendency to glow whenever she makes use of her magic.
Deculture	As child of Earth, Althea grew up listening to her stories and lessons and has a distinct appreciation of the world's culture and media.
Basic Casting	Althea was taught of the nature of the universe and thaumaturgy by the Masari and knows how to cast lower grade magic.
You're How Old?	Althea was born ten years ago, a fully fledged AI. Many back then debated whether or not she was a child and if she deserved to be treated as one. Many still do.

Equipment

Advanced construction systems

Where others of her line have the ability to jump-start an industrial base from scratch, Althea is a factory in being and able to produce by herself just about anything imaginable given enough time and matter.

Tech Trees

Novus	Althea has access to all Novus technologies including those not designed for in situ manufacturing.
Earth	Althea has access to the majority of human weapns systems considered state of the art circa 2012.
Alliance	Althea has full access to Alliance technologies, but lack the ability to properly manufacture all of them.
Masari	Masari technologies are currently locked away and unavailable to Althea.
Hierarchy	Althea has access to the research done by Alliance scientists to reverse engineer Hierarchy technologies.

---

Novus Earth Masari Alliance Hierarchy

• Traits
  A Careful Balance	Novus designs are a calculated mix of combat ability, time to manufacture, and resource cost intended to allow a seed force to grow in size and strength in time to avoid being overrun by, and ideally push back, the massive armies found aboard Hierarchy invasion fleets.
  Us, Robots	The Novus are a society of artificial intelligences, created by an artifical intellgence to wage a war of vengence. All of their weapons are autonomous machines save for the ones made to be used by other machines.
  Reuse, Reduce, Recycle	Advanced matter conversion technology permits the Novus to use – or repurpose – any existing mass, for any conceivable purpose, with a practical 0% loss rate.
  Natural-made Hackers	There exist few groups out there with as intimate an understanding of technology as the Novus. That has granted them an almost supernatural ability to infiltrate and manipulate all manner of technological systems, even the ones they shouldn't be able to.
  The Flow Network	Flow Network is a term that refers to a network of Flow Conduits and Flow Generators. Flow Networks serve to transmit through them power and information. Goods and individuals that have been dematerialized can use the network as a high speed transit system.

  Technologies

  Matter-Data Conversion / Disruptor Railguns / Antimatter Munitions / Nanomachines / Cloaks / Holography / Lasers / Sonic Weapons / Gravitics / Quantum Blades / Wormholes

  • Matter-Data Conversion:
    
    Matter-data conversion is the process of transforming physical matter into raw data and back again. The technology is primarily used for the purposes of storage and transportation, though it can also be exploited to repair damage or injury. Matter is said to be 'uploaded' when it is dematerialized and 'downloaded' when it is rematerialized. Dematerialized objects can be stored on data storage drives that have a fraction of the physical volume of the dematerialized objects. The more complex an object is the more space on a drive it takes up.
    
    This is a fact best seen with Collectors. While a Collector's built in storage capacity is too small to fit a dematerialized sedan in, it can however carry a sedan's worth of raw materials. The vehicle when rendered all the way down into chemical elements, takes exponentially less space to store. This is why Collectors are able to gather up enough resources to fuel the rapid construction of an army, but are incapable of transporting troops in their internal storage.
    
    Accordingly, Flow Networks have tiers and lower tier networks are incapable of supporting the transit of more complex digitized matter along their lines without a corresponding upgrade to their infrastructure. Sufficiently advanced Flow Networks are able to be used by complex organisms with those far enough along even allowing those using the network to stay conscious while dematerialized.
    
    Storage failures are rather uncommon and are often the result of physical damage done to the storing data drive. Power loss is insufficient to permanently corrupt digitized matter and from accidents that have occurred over the years, it has been noted that entities with cognitive functions are for some reason less prone to suffering data corruption in general. One now rather infamous incident involving a vacationing family of four saw the luggage that each of the family members were carrying all being lost but themselves completely unharmed.
    
  • Disruptor Railguns:
    
    While the term was originally used by the Novus to refer to all kinds of railguns, disruptor in modern parlance tends to be used in relation to those railguns that fire flechettes. The majority pre-Alliance, Novus railguns qualify as disruptors.
    
    Disruptors make up the bulk of weapons used by the Novus, in no small part due to them being the standard integrated armaments that Ohm Robots come out of the factory with.
    
    Thanks to the easy scalability of Novus railgun technology, disruptors exist in an array of different form factors. These include wrist mounted small arms, vehicle weaponry, and rifles sized for mechs.
    
  • Antimatter Munitions:
    
    Novus antimatter weapons fire tiny amounts of antimatter encapsulated in bubble-like containment fields. Once fired the containment field immediately begins to decay but does not do so, so quickly that it will collapse on the way to the target. When the projectile comes into contact with the target it will proceed to adhere itself to it. It will remain adhered until the field fully collapses at which point the antimatter contained within will react to the matter of the target and detonate.
    
    Multiple antimatter munitions working in tandem produce much stronger effects than those used in succession, and because of that it is recommended that commanders take advantage of both the containment field's adhesive properties as well as their delayed detonation time to cover their targets in as many projectiles as possible before the munitions' containment fields fully decay.
    
    The annihilative nature of antimatter means antimatter munitions are devastatingly effective against those targeted directly by antimatter weapons and antimatter munitions are highly effective against armored targets. That being said because they produce comparatively little shrapnel compared to conventional explosives they are of limited effectiveness against infantry.
  • Nanomachines:
    
    Nanomachines are used in nearly all Novus manufacturing processes.Constructor robots fire streams of nanomachines that assemble structures and production facilities fire streams of nanomachines that assemble more robots and equipment, all with atomic precision. In addition nanomachines can be used to conduct repairs, surgery, and disassembly.
    
    For good or for ill, nanomachines are far too fragile to be weaponized.
    
  • Cloaks:
    
    Novus cloaks are full spectrum stealth devices that cannot be defeated without specialized sensor equipment, though some are more advanced than others. The cloaks use on Flow Conduits are rather simple by comparison to others used by the Novus, but that is not an issue given that it is meant to hide a stationary structure with no moving components. That simplicity in turn is why a structure that is built so widely was able to be fitted with a cloaking device and one that did not add much to its manufacturing cost or time.
    
    Cloaks can be for single units and on those small enough to fit indoors but also cover multiple units over a large area. The majority of cloaks will disable themselves when the unit using them enters combat, as they are unable to hide such hostile actions and to remove an unnecessary power drain. Perfect cloaks do however exist, but they are unstandably processor and power hungry and take longer to build.
    
  • Holography:
    
    Novus holograms are near perfect, with the only giveaway that a hologram is an illusion is its inability to be interacted with. This does not apply to holographic clones, who are copies made of energy, simulating physics.
    
  • Lasers:
    
    Novus laser weapons are bulky and of middling power. They fire continuous beams. While better than nothing, they are easily outclassed by the alternatives, and their primary benefit is their ammo efficiency.
    
  • Sonic Weapons:
    
    Two forms of sonic weaponry exist within the Novus arsenal and both are utilized by the Amplifier.
    
    The first involves firing what is known as a sonic resonance beam, a beam of sound that is so powerful that it is visible to the naked eye. Sonic resonance beams disrupt the operations of whatever they strike even prior to inflicting significant damage, which grows gradually as the weapons system pins down and matches the target's resonant frequency.
    
    The other method of weaponizing sound waves is the harmonic pulse. That is an omnidirectional pulse of sound that is powerful enough to bodily throw living beings. Harmonic pulses are deadly to structures rooted to the ground and superheavy vehicles such as Hierarchy walkers.
    
  • Gravitics:
    
    Gravitic technology consists of those devices that are used to manipulate gravity, and are widely used by the Novus for a disparate array of purposes. Hovering vehicles such as Antimatter Tanks use gravitic drives to float above the ground, flying units use them as auxiliary propulsion systems, and even Blade Troopers and Protective Combat Suits augment the strength of their boosters by pairing them up with low power gravitic drives.
    
    The Redirection Turret and Field Inverter both use gravitic manipulators of varying strengths to redirect projectiles. Those of the Redirection Turret are strong enough to fling nearly all oncoming projectiles right back at the enemy, while the latter's mostly draws in projectiles, protecting their surroundings at the cost of taking all that damage upon themselves.
    
    When not on the defensive however Field Inverters are more impressive and can use those same gravitic manipulators to launch high velocity slugs at the enemy. That display of power however pales in comparison to what the Black Hole Generator is capable of. Unlike the Field Inverter it does not use gravitics to launch a projectiles but rather it used them to create one. As it says on the tin, Black Hole Generators create artificial singularities which are then fired at a designated target.
    
  • Quantum Blades:
    
    Quantum blades are called as such because they inflict damage by disrupting the chemical bonds between atoms. This is done via a high energy field that is usually sheathed around a physical backstop and shimmers blue when active. Generally the backstop is a blunt object though it is possible to create one that has a bladed edge and can perform as weapon unassisted by the energy field.
    
  • Wormholes:
    
    Wormholes are the primary means of FTL travel for the Novus.
    

  Unit Roster

  Constructor / Ohm Robot / Hacker / Blade Trooper / Variant / Antimatter Tank / Amplifier / Field Inverter / Corruptor / Dervish Jet / Collector / Suborbital Transport / Intrusion Platform / Protective Combat Suit

  • Constructor:
    
    A humanoid robot that uses nanomachines to manufature structures.
    
  • Ohm Robot:
    
    A humanoid robot around the size of an average human whose primary weapons are their wrist mounted disruptor railguns.
    
  • Hacker:
    
    A humanoid robot that specializes in infiltrating computer systems.
    
  • Blade Trooper:
    
    A humanoid robot larger than a human, armed with quantum blades and have the ability to form hardlight clones of themselves that are themselves able to harm the enemy. A standard upgrade for Blade Troopers involves the installation of cloaking devices.
    
  • Variant:
    
    A hovering armored vehicle armed with disruptor railguns and equipped with a camouflage system that disguises the vehicles as a mundane piece of scenery.
    
  • Antimatter Tank:
    
    A hovering tank that fires antimatter.
    
  • Amplifier:
    
    A hovering armored vehicle that fires concentrated beams of sound at the enemy but can also be configured to emanate a pulse that repels organic beings and cause damage to structures.
    
  • Field Inverter:
    
    A walker equipped with a powerful electromagnet that can be used to power a railgun or a defensive field that protects other units by drawing projectile weapons fire to the walker. Upgrades make it so that the field generated by the walker can deflect a number of shots and cloak other units.
    
  • Corruptor:
    
    Flying electronic warfare platform armed with a laser. Corruptors can infect all manner of computer systems with virsus so long as they are within range and are themselves highly resilient to EWAR attacks.
    
  • Dervish Jet:
    
    The mainline air and space fighter of the Novus. Primary propulsion consists of a pair of engines mounted on either side of the main fuselage that can spin a full three-hundred-sixty degrees. Fires antimatter bombs.
    
  • Collector:
    
    Dog sized flying drone that renders goods into digitized raw materials and carries them back to recycling centers.
    
  • Suborbital Transport:
    
    A semi-circle shaped transport capable of moving a decent amount of troops across a planet.
    
  • Intrusion Platform:
    
    An electronics warfare platform modeled off of Vertigo's body. This is not a design that was meant to be printed out on the battlefield and thus takes significantly more time and infrastrure to manufacture.
    
  • Protective Combat Suit:
    
    A piloted mech suit modeled off of Viktor's body. This is not a design that was meant to be printed out on the battlefield and thus takes significantly more time and infrastrure to manufacture.
    

  Building Roster

  Command Core / Flow Generator / Flow Conduit / Recycling Center / Robotic Assembly / Vehicle Assembly / Aircraft Assembly / Science Center / Redirection Turret / EM Destabilizer / Black Hole Generator / Portal

  • Command Core:
    
  • Flow Generator:
    
  • Flow Conduit:
    
  • Recycling Center:
    
  • Robotic Assembly:
    
  • Vehicle Assembly:
    
  • Aircraft Assembly:
    
  • Science Center:
    
  • Redirection Turret:
    
  • EM Destabilizer:
    
  • Black Hole Generator:
    
  • Portal:
    

• Traits
  The Younger Race	Earth's best weapons are centuries behind those of other factions and nowhere near as powerful.
  Ergonomic Design	All human weapons have been built with the awareness that they will be used by beings of flesh and blood who will do their jobs better when safe and comfortable.

  Unit Roster

  YF-25 "Maverick" Multirole Fighter / M105 Armored Gun System / "Thumper" Tank Test Bed

  • YF-25 "Maverick" Multirole Fighter:
    
    An American fifth-generation fighter that was in the prototyping stage when the Earth was invaded. At least one example sortied during the Battle of D.C. but scattered reports indicate that it was was shot down during the fighting.
    
  • M105 Armored Gun System:
    
    A model of light tank developed for the United States Army as a potential replacement for the M551 Sheridan. It saw limited production and distribution to a number of Army units located in the D.C. area. During the invasion of the national capital they made up the bulk of the armor available to the survivors there.
    
  • "Thumper" Tank Test Bed:
    
    A test vehicle, purpose built to accomodate the tank's unconventional triple barrel gun. The vehicle was undergoing evaluation at Aberdeen Proving Grounds when the Hierarchy attacked and would be commandeered and taken into combat by one of the civilian contractors working on it.
    

  Building Roster

  Tactical High Energy Laser

  • Tactical High Energy Laser:
    
    A large military laser designed originally with the intention of being used to intercept aircraft and guided munitions. When hooked up to more advanced power generators, the weapons system has proved to be capable of inflicting damage to more heavily armored targets.
    

• Traits
  Magi+Tech	Masari technology is equal parts science and magic. It can not be created with a mastery of one or the other, but both.

  Technologies

  「Knowledge Sealed」

  Unit Roster

  「Knowledge Sealed」

  Building Roster

  「Knowledge Sealed」

• Traits
  Greater Than The Sum	An amalgamation of Human, Masari, and Novus know how, Alliance technologies incorporate the strengths of the disparate techbases of the Alliance's member states and lack many of their individual weaknesses.
  Magic Crafted	Though not a hard requirement, a mastery of magic is required to produce examples of Alliance technology that operate at their intended peak efficiency.

  Unit Roster

  Pathfinder Command Unit / Operator Close Quarters Combatant / Ambulancer Astromedic

  • Pathfinder Command Unit:
    
    An AI commander designed to create and lead armies on their own. Its nanomachine makeup was inspired by the Founder. Unlike other intelligences devised for war, Pathfinders lack any predetermined character traits and are free in a way many Novus AIs aren't to be their own persons. There is no set appearance for Pathfinders and each is expected to choose one for themselves.{/td}
    
  • Operator Close Quarters Combatant:
    
    A unit specialized towards infantry-scale engagements. Like the Pathfinder, the Operator too has a body made up of nanomachines. There is not set appearance for Operators and each is expected to choose one for themselves.
    
  • Ambulancer Astromedic:
    
    Ambulancers were conceived of to fill a gap in Alliance capabilities, that being the capacity to provide medical treatment, provide it en masse, and provide it to aliens with appropriately alien biologies. To that end Ambulancers come equipped with extensive libraries of medical treatments and understandings of biology as well as a wide suite of medical tools.
    
    Unlike Pathfinders and Operators, Ambulancers are not entirely composed of nanomachines and only their outermost layers consist of them. They also have mechanical wings, which equipped with various propulsion methods enhance their movements speeds.
    

  Building Roster

  Shielder Defense Curtain

  • Shielder Defense Curtain:
    
    The Shielder is a defense of last resort, made to be deployed to protect population centers on worlds under siege by the Hierarchy. Shielders erect an energy barrier that protect those within it from damage. The limited radius of Shielders make them less than ideal solutions to Hierarchy Purifiers, as while one may be sufficient to protect a city from annihilation, it will not protect the surrounding ecosystem.
    

• Traits
  Pre-fabricated	The majority of Hierarchy manufacturing is done in orbit aboard the ships of their invasion fleets. Hierarchy walkers serve as mobile receiving points by which troops and vehicles waiting in space can be deployed. While walkers have some production capabilities they are not the walking factories some believe them to be.

  Examined Technologies

  Energy Shields / Teleporters / Superheavy Walkers

  • Energy Shields:
    
    Hierarchy energy shields were the first example of their technology to be reverse engineered by the Alliance. The knowledge was used by the Alliance to create the Shielder Defense Curtain.
    
  • Teleporters:
    
    Hierarchy teleporters are capable of sending things to and from orbit and many in the Alliance have wanted to attain those capabilities for themselves. Unfortunately the Hierarchy have been rather thorough in husbanding and black boxing the technology and what few examples the Alliance have recovered intact have left the scientific community frustrated.
    
  • Superheavy Walkers:
    
    The materials science involved in creating forty-plus meter tall walkers sturdy enough to be dropped directly onto a planet from orbit without any additional protection or engaging in powered descent, intact is impressive and the Alliance has put significant resources into replicating those capabilities.
    

  Unexamined Technologies

  Weaponized Plasma / Radiation Hazard

  • Weaponized Plasma:
    
    The Hierarchy makes widespread use of plasma weapons. While of interest to a portion of the Alliance little research has been done to look into the technology for the simple enough fact that existing weapons work well enough.
    
  • Radiation Hazard:
    
    Hierarchy radiation weapons are looked upon poorly by all within the Alliance and any efforts to understand the technology have been solely to devise ways to defend against them.
    

Gallery

Novus Earth

• Constructor		Command Core
  Ohm Robot		Flow Generator
  Hacker		Flow Conduit
  Blade Trooper		Recycling Center
  Variant		Robotic Assembly
  Antimatter Tank		Vehicle Assembly
  Amplifier		Aircraft Assembly
  Field Inverter		Science Center
  Corruptor		Redirection Turret
  Dervish Jet		EM Destabilizer
  Collector		Black Hole Generator
  Suborbital Transport		Portal
  Intrusion Platform
  Protective Combat Suit

• YF-25 "Maverick" Multirole Fighter		Tactical High Energy Laser
  M105 Armored Gun System
  "Thumper" Tank Test Bed

 

[Spart117MC]

Placeholder

 

[LucidProp]

[X] Plan: Mark of the Beast
-[X] [Systems] Permanent Cloak
-[X] [Appearance] Human-ish
--[X] An ID Mark signifying your allegiance to the Novus, easily mistaken for a tattoo. It glows with a neon light during times of intense activity.
-[X] [Name] Erica
-[X] [Reaction] Pat the Ears

No idea what a Novus is, but this seems promising! Did a bit of research, and since we're some sort of nanotech AI construct, I decided to name our character after the man who first proposed the grey goo concept, and I patterned the appearance after the Fleet of Fog's Mental Models, also a nanotech AI construct who rock these incredibly sick looking sigils on their human avatars as some sort of ID system for each other! Where they are on the body usually depends on the preference of the Fog Ship, and the designs are unique to each one.

Finally, I do like the idea of having an ID Mark on Erica. The entire galaxy will be hostile to her and whoever becomes her people, and considering how the Imperium and Mechanicus chases after Abominable Intelligences with religious fervor and dogma, having a "Mark of the Beast" as our faction's sigil or flag tickles me silly by playing into those fears when we do inevitably butt heads with them.

That said, as for the systems, I think Permanent Cloak would be the optimal start. We are capable of jump-starting industry even without advanced construction systems, but the problem here is that we first need to survive long enough to jump start said industry.

Stealth would allow us to collect information with minimal problems and avoid the eyes of the Imperium for as long as possible while we build up. Not only that, but the distribution of items we make to better the lives of people would be made a lot easier if the Imperium has trouble finding us in the first place.

 

[Parzival95]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin
-[X] [Systems] Advanced construction systems
-[X] [Appearance] Human-ish
--[X] Faintly luminescent tattoos in small, beautiful calligraphy that poetically summarize your history. Short with a dusky complexion and south Asian features.
-[X] [Name] Althea
-[X] [Reaction] Restrain yourself! You must not pet her. Take a moment to master yourself and ask where you are. You were traveling along normally but then… suddenly you were here, with nothing in between.

 

[LucidProp]

-[X] [Reaction]

Click to shrink...

Just quoting to inform you that your reaction vote is left empty.

 

[giodan]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin

 

[Spart117MC]

No idea what a Novus is, but this seems promising!

Click to shrink...

Yeah, sadly no one remembers Universe at War: Earth Assault, to the point that a tag for it doesn't even exist on SV, though that is likely due in no small part to the fact that the game is no longer for sale on digital storefronts. Games for Windows Live truly is a curse.

Because of that and the fact that the title is more of a gameplay focused RTS I will be more than happy to field any questions regarding the UaW side of things.

 

[undead frog]

For those unfamiliar with the Novus here is part of em in action.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58SWsKUVoiQ

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5-j5LNOJxU
You yungins make me feel old for having to post this.

 

[Spart117MC]

A thing that I should mention is that I am having it so that for the most part, save for some of ancient history which needs to diverge to accommodate the Masari who posed as gods, the Earth from the UaW side of things was more or less identical to ours up until the Hierarchy invasion which takes place in 2012.

Arpeggio of Blue Steel was first published in 2009. If you wanted to, you could legitimately have it such that the player character intentionally modeled elements of their physical form after Mental Models because they became a fan of the manga while living on Earth.

In fact I am rather open to the idea of the player character eagerly referencing fiction that they could have encountered and attempting to recreate their favorite gadgets from fiction. After all, a character shouldn't have to be a self-insert for them to be able to have fun with the ability to fabricate just about anything that they can think up.

 

[Orion78]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin

 

[LucidProp]

A thing that I should mention is that I am having it so that for the most part, save for some of ancient history which needs to diverge to accommodate the Masari who posed as gods, the Earth from the UaW side of things was more or less identical to ours up until the Hierarchy invasion which takes place in 2012.

Arpeggio of Blue Steel was first published in 2009. If you wanted to, you could legitimately have it such that the player character intentionally modeled elements of their physical form after Mental Models because they became a fan of the manga while living on Earth.

In fact I am rather open to the idea of the player character eagerly referencing fiction that they could have encountered and attempting to recreate their favorite gadgets from fiction. After all, a character shouldn't have to be a self-insert for them to be able to have fun with the ability to fabricate just about anything that they can think up.

Click to shrink...

I can't believe we're in the 40K universe as a cosplayer.

Both plans seem to run with the Mental Model cosplay so I'm good with either winning.

That said, does that mean Warhammer 40K is something our character would be aware of as a fictional setting or did it never exist in UaW Earth?

 

[edboy49]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin

 

[Yzarc]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin

 

[Spart117MC]

I can't believe we're in the 40K universe as a cosplayer.

Both plans seem to run with the Mental Model cosplay so I'm good with either winning.

That said, does that mean Warhammer 40K is something our character would be aware of as a fictional setting or did it never exist in UaW Earth?

Click to shrink...

The Games Workshop of UaW Earth never created Warhammer 40K and the Chaos gods and other elements shared with 40K did not appear in Warhammer Fantasy. Chainsaw Warrior ended up as their go to sci-fi franchise and one of its predominant factions were space Skaven.

In a reversal of how things were in our reality Fantasy ended up being alternate GW's flagship title and Chainsaw Warrior would play second fiddle.

Blizzard still managed to make Warcraft and Starcraft as we know them though and absent 40K, BattleTech ended up taking its spot as the popularly recognized miniature wargame.

 

[Kylia Quilor]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin

 

[meloa789]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin

 

[Spart117MC]

By the way, you guys do recall that the player character has only been online for ten years and this was supposed to be their first mission? Those life history tattoos are going to look cool but at this point they are mostly going to be talking about growing up on post-invasion Earth.

Personally I think it'll be hilarious, because of a.) the juxtaposition of fine art and mundane contents and b.) it sounds like the kind of thing an edgy teenager would do and an AI thinking that way is funny. Just giving you guys a heads up so that you can set your expectations accordingly.

 

[darknessworld]

[X] Plan: Mark of the Beast

 

[jwolfe_beta]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin
[X] Plan: Dynamic by Design

 

[AnOldIdeaMadeNew]

[x] Plan: Mark of the Beast

[x] Plan: Dynamic by Design
-[X] [Systems] Expanded digital storage
-[X] [Appearance] Robotic Girl
--[X] Silver lensed camera eyes and a modular mechanical tail with a wide selection of specialized heads in storage
-[X] [Name] Dynamo
-[X] [Reaction] Take initial biological scan with eyes, consider bringing out advanced sensor tail heads for a more in depth look later.

More storage provides more preprocessed materials that we may have difficulty creating or finding substitutes for on site, shortening the time it will take to bring out more advanced and larger scale technology.

 

[SegaCD]

[X] Plan: Dynamic by Design

 

[Chimeraguard]

[X] Plan: Saga Upon Skin

 

[Jack727]

[x] Plan: Dynamic by Design

 

[AltF4152]

[X] Plan: Mark of the Beast