^ Probably the only post in this entire forum when all points of someone are valid and correct
Soooooo, any news on the sketches?
Not yet, working on them.
- Name
Roger G. Valor, codename g4borg
- Brief Description of appearance
Silent, closed down personality with strong ideals.
- Role in the SC universe
Financed by an undisclosed Software Megacorp, he moved to live the life of a mercenary. Federation in origin, he has a past in military and corporation intelligence warfare. Albeit living in the Empire, he has still sometimes the function of transmitting good-news-messages behind the lines, usually exchanging favors. Investigated once from two major Jericho Families for Sabotage but the file was sealed with the codename “Gabriel” from the highest authorities.
- Allegiance
Known underdog personality, however proven to be loyal and diplomatic in split-side affairs. Currently enjoying residence in the Empire.
- Corporation
CEO of Owl Initiative, affiliation Empire.
They also have an electronics & rigging shop at Landa-7 Dock 5. We recalibrate EM Harmonizers, so if you want the passives tuned, come in for a flyby. We have also one of those Soda machines with the secret ingredient.
- One funny thing that distinguishes you above others
Roger is an ideal side or quest character, because he is just there, occasionally saying something good, and then again falling back to geektalk or theories about engineering or possible situations in battles he usually lost. He has no problem with this in his own company, so usually he keeps a quiet appearance to strangers and enjoys flying in space and shooting big guns, letting him go his past, but occasionally, some comment might escape his lips.
He likes to shift attention away in every way possible, even by turning a moment into complete weirdness. He has still to break the 4th wall, however he is pretty confident to achieve it.
Roger enjoyed military service in the empire in Interceptor squad “81-222 Valor” named after his grand uncle Victor Valor and the general term the name represents. Radio Communication with Valor Squad if Roger was flying in it, Roger Roger, became unbearable in tactical situations, hence his cryptic codename, which was never explained in how to pronounce it.
He likes to fly limited edition crafts where he can tinker with the hardware himself, saving him some money. He uses the money to keep his gaming implant up to date, where he plays online space ship games in secrecy. He plays them even while actually drifting in space with his Alligator 3. He goes with the username of JPHack in that game, wait what now? Kidding.
- Name
Yurka [of the] Sanctuary
- Brief Description of appearance
“Who invited the robot with a black box for a head?”
It’s more of a tall rectangle… Central iris [or short eye stalk] glows red, but visual sight is a redundant sensory input. There’s a plaque on the right side of his head, but all of the information is covered with duct tape. Black metal wearing black robes, eerily similar to the old Jericho order’s clothes [if Jericho had an ‘old order,’ all at your discretion of course. Basically, *very* outdated Jerry royal clothes.]
- Role in the SC universe
“It was our victory before the Empire even warped in. Dreadnaught Grand Fujiyama and Dreadnaught Assayer were united for the great oppression. Intel came in, we expected it to inform us that the Empire was on the move. Instead, it was the Assayer messaging that it was assaulted by mercenaries two sectors over and would be late to the party. And with the turn of our head we saw the truth in the field of lies. The guise flickered away, a single frigate surrounded by a large cloud of debris. It was the first time I witnessed the art of the Mad Survivor, for who else could have fooled our families but a myth?”
Sometimes, in what would become decisive battles in history, there would be an unregistered vessel, launching one final missile, or intercepting a mortar and being blown to shreds before the mortar could hit its intended target. The unsolved cases were always attributed jokingly to the ‘Mad Survivor’, a legend of a pilot of ghost ships, whose only ‘sighting’ was by a pilot who nearly lost his life through asphyxiation. Looking into the cockpit of the ship that covered him, he saw only a red glow before he fainted.
- Allegiance
N/A
- Corporation
N/A, though I assume has good relations with NASA?
- One funny thing that distinguishes you above others
If anyone ever says he’s a machine, he will always insist he’s human [even though he is well aware of his machinations]. He’s also assumed male because his voice is a ‘male voice’, however, when asked to dance, he immediately assumes the follow.
Though he is well-versed and assumingly has a computer’s vocabulary, he will often end up talking with simplicity, calling specifics ‘thingies’ or ‘objects’. Will often ‘misuse’ words, and assume double meanings where it naturally makes no sense, such as giving orders to “re-collect the playing cards,” and expecting that you have both picked up the cards, and memorized who had what hand in that game of poker.
EDIT: woah, I went back to actually read other’s characters and noticed I totally tiptoed with Astraal’s world. Unless Astraal has expanded ideas about his events, I have nothing against tie-ins or ‘large universe’ coincidences. Otherwise, his character has seniority and mine’d have to be changed.
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EEEEEE " Voyd" AAAAAA
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Greyish white flesh, with a light watery sheen. A good 8 1/2 feet long, and somewhere in the range of 419–573 lb.
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To eat fish and enjoy life.
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To the ocean.
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NASA, cause they put dolphins in space.
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I like to eat fish.
I request EEEEEE " Voyd" AAAAAA to be the pilot who almost died of asphyxiation.
Ho, god, I have alot of work to do. SO MUCH CHARACTERS! Keep em coming!
Now to work on the inevitable PLOT TWISTS!
Examples…
“My mom IS my dad!” *Gasp!*
“Dad, dad, Im mom.” *Gasp!*
“Mom, Dad, I’m empire.” *GASP!*
“I dont actually eat sweet rolls.” *The entire galaxy gasps*
- Mercenaries are selfish people by nature, but usually stay loyal to other friends or their corporations.
There ain’t no rest for the wicked,
Money don’t grow on trees.
I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed-
Ain’t nothing in this world for free.
No I can’t slow down-
I can’t hold back-
Though you know I wish I could.
No there ain’t no rest for the wicked,
Until we close our eyes for good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBgp5aDH23g
If I have time to draw a reference picture, I’ll submit a bio here. There any deadlines? :]
[…] There any deadlines? :]
‘Work in progress’
He’s still at the sketching part, so you can write it down.
There ain’t no rest for the wicked,
Money don’t grow on trees.
I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed-
Ain’t nothing in this world for free.
No I can’t slow down-
I can’t hold back-
Though you know I wish I could.
No there ain’t no rest for the wicked,
Until we close our eyes for good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBgp5aDH23g
If I have time to draw a reference picture, I’ll submit a bio here. There any deadlines? :]
There is no dead lines, exept the deadlines I set for myself. Right now I’m working on a custom made galaxy map. After all our hero or characters need refrence points and everyone needs to know where things are. A galaxy map, or an unoffical galaxy map is needed.
‘Work in progress’
He’s still at the sketching part, so you can write it down.
Yes, alot of the sketchs, random ideas are being laid out. then when I have additional time, I will start on the first rough draft of the chapter. I dont want to toot everyone horn and make everyone thing this gonna be the best dam fanfic they ever read, but more of a fan fic where people have a say in where the story and characters come from
I have some thoughts from my own works you may find useful, or simply informative to what goes on in my head:
WHY ARE CORPS RUNNING EVERYTHING?
To answer this question, we need to understand what a “Corporation” is in the Star Conflict universe. But first, we need to understand what the Empire, Jericho and the Federation are. They are Confederations. Put simply, the notion of having a central, overarching government for an inter-planetary nation is a logistical nightmare. It’s the problems of the ancient world applied in a modern context; when it takes months, if not years to physically move goods and personnel from one side of your nation to the other, maintaining a cohesive, uniform order is next to impossible.
Admittedly, we don’t know how big the SC universe is, but given when it is set (the 4500s, give or take a century) and given how many sectors there are (at least 1,337) it is safe to assume that Humanity has gone a long way and colonised a great many worlds.
Back to the Corps. Who do you think colonised all these places? Sooner or later, government is going to stop trying to push out (probably at the point they can no-longer control people on the fringe without risking a civil war) and private individuals will take over. Enter the Corporation. These entities are the ones that pushed the boundaries of known space, who plunged deeper into the darkness and claimed the riches of the galaxy as their own.
Now we can establish what a Corporation is. They are client states of their parent nation; technically operating within their laws and social norms, but possessed of a degree of autonomy and independence that allows them to act distinctly from, or even against the will of their parent.
Enter the Mercenaries
This brings us nicely to the notion of Mercenaries, and why they are so prevalent. Again, it’s likely a question of changing meanings. All the pilots in SC are called “mercenaries”, yet it’s clear that a great many have very strong loyalties; there are those who will not fight against the Empire, or those who see themselves as Jericho pilots. This suggests that they view themselves as “soldiers”, not mercs.
The answer here is simple: the term “mercenary” is used to describe any pilot who is expected to provide his own hardware. A soldier, meanwhile, has his equipment provided by the government. Under this definition we can encapsulate most, if not all the disparate viewpoints of our player base: Jasan Quinn, my in-game persona, is a “mercenary” because all the Wardens Order provided him was a rank and some letters of marque.
So where does this leave Corp pilots?
Corporations are unlikely to possess an “official” standing army. The reason for this is pretty obvious - the last thing any of the three big factions wants is to have a Corporation powerful enough to bring them down from within with a change of allegiance! However, if we assume the events of Star Conflict take place out on the fringes of known space (a reasonable assumption), and as such it is difficult for the core powers to exert political or military might (another reasonable assumption - when was the last time anyone saw an Imperial Army detachment, or the Jericho / Federation equivalent?) then the Corporations not only have more leeway to flex their military muscle, but they are required to do so!
Look at it from the Empire perspective a moment. Who are the big Corps in Empire right now? A quick login to check the Sector Conquest map reveals that, of the 18 Imperial Sectors, 7 belong to ALPHA, 3 to ESB, 2 to NASA (we lost one to ALPHA recently) 2 to the Space Invaders and three to “unmarked” Corps. That leaves one sector - one out of 18, that is not under the control of a Corporation.
The Federation have it even better. Of their 12 territories, SIRIUS own nine, making that Corporation the unofficial representative of Federation interests, and enactor of Federation will in the Sector.
Out here, the Corporations are government. Out here, the Corporations are the military. This is taken to an amusing extreme with Jericho, who have two Sectors under “government” control, but their home base is Corporate; the Syndicate calls the shots there.
To meander back to the pilots, Corporate Mercenaries are not likely to be Mercs at all - they are instead private army. The game doesn’t allow a Corp to buy gear for its members, but no-one can deny that Corp members share a common bond and a sense of camaraderie that often overrides loyalty to their core race. In the future, Star Conflict will hopefully include more features to allow players to show their Corp membership with customisation options, which will only further reinforce the idea that governments have increasingly less control over this region…
In closing…
When the common man of Sector 1337 talks about “The Empire”, they probably don’t mean “the Empire on Terra”. They might mean the Legion - the military vanguard of the Empire. They might mean the Wardens - the clandestine guardians of Terra. More likely, however, “The Empire” means ALPHA, or ESB, or NASA (not wanting to ignore or devalue any other Empire Corp out there, but I think most people would agree that those three are the best known Empire Corps). To speak of “The Federation” is to invoke images of SIRIUS, or the now-defunct Dynamis Corporation. For people on the edge of their domains, military and civilian, the Corporations are all. They are public service providers, suppliers of consumables and designer merchandise, enforcers of law and the soldiers who wage war for their people.
So just remember kids; when you buy a NASA brand repulsor drive for your knew TG-32 Hoverskiff, you’re helping the Empire win the war against the tyrannical Jericho and the corrupt Federation! When you buy NASA’s new Quantum Data Steamer, the profits go right into paying the wages of the brave pilots of the SDS, the Roughneck Squadron or the Fighting Space Whales! When you choose to power your offworld settlement with the new NASA “Moho” deep core geothermal system, you are giving us to means to develop and manufacture bigger and better ships, such as the new “Viking” Interceptor or “Dragon” Frigate. We are fighting for Humanity’s future, and this is a fight in which we must all do our part. Do yours, and it’ll be our honour to do ours!
NASA: We put people in Space!
Thanks Jason, I will have to save this into my extensive notes.
- Name
ShadowBlade,
- Brief Description of appearance
Mid 40s, always wearing the Warden emblem, has many custom made implants, dark brown hair, hints of asian features, average height
- Role in the SC universe
NASA Engineering Division, Advance Research
Developing Warden’s “Emperor’s Shadow” Rapid Deployment Network
- Allegiance
Empire
- Corporation
The NASA
- One funny thing that distinguishes you above others
Redisigned the singularity cannon to accept explosive potatos as a viable(and highly effective) ammunition
[hella-long post] [stopping at corps section for something (read below)]
To better understand corps in this setting (future, expansion, military etc.) a good parallel documentation would be on AVP series’ Weyland Yutani. Follow it’s interests and non-allegiance status and personal interests of the leadership and you get the main point. The soldiers operating under it are obviously mercs. When such a corp declares an allegiance it is more likely to become a subfaction like the Legion or Wardens. Being a private corp can mean it can change it’s allegiance on a whim.
This is a tremendously briefed description. It can go on for pages i believe. But you get the main points i suppose?
I do like to think of corporations similarly, and had the same kinds of background thoughts,
I always saw merc corporations being licensed to work in a giant artificial brave new world created by the superpowers, to keep unity within their own confederations, by moving the attention to a global battle which “evens itself out”, creates opportunities and similar, and at the same time offers the chance to remove any uncontrollable elements, like pirates or uprisings; it also increases the identification with the faction amongst the people, and further boosts technological advancements.
Only main difference to brave new world is, that all three parties are in constant conflict, there is no peace time in the sectors fought over between two factions, however fighting seems at the moment also regulated by some military rules.
People brought up in such a world would see this as “normal”.
I do think, all the big nations might have their own navy fleets, which are kept as kind of a defensive measure, or to secure the more populated worlds, while the war of corporations for sure is also important for prestige and resources.
I also think, being a big corporation might create good ties to the governments, but obviously, they keep the real control, and do not let the home planets fall into enemy hands at all costs, while still granting legislature over the sector. Otherwise, it would mix politics with sports, business and military, and one thing politics for sure has not unlearned in the next 40000 years is how to get rid of military control, while keeping the military under control, and to make deals in business to their favor.
This would of course mean, the sectors we fight for, are not heavily populated areas, and the map we see does not contain the majority of planets controlled by the factions, but the battleground “inbetween them”, since most likely, habitable planets are more scarce, but each sector or solar system has tons of resources to exploit.
I have some thoughts from my own works you may find useful, or simply informative to what goes on in my head:
I had assumed that the original Empire [maybe they were even the precursors] had shattered awhile ago [since, like you said, all the players are ‘mercenaries’]. If we take into account that seemingly all the factions are using mercenaries for their battles, the idea of soldiers and armies died with the Empire. We know that Jericho is made up of Families [the ‘I have titles and better genetic engineering’ kinda Nietzschean types maybe], and they actively make and design ships [as do the other factions obviously]. I’m really just repeating a few things, I’ve already forgotten what Jasan said, but most of it sounded good. We just have to remember that though we are all mercenaries in-game, there are a ton more people in that world that aren’t even flying ships. I’m willing to bet that the new Empire is only the sect that 1)managed to ‘inherit’ what was left of the old Empire, 2) originally kept the ideals [which have now been washed away with time]. Of course the corps are the driving forces right now, but with contracts and such, I think few people would be so attached to a single group and, for the most part, a person ‘switching sides’ is barely a slap in the face for anyone. This is only conjecture, and surely our characters would break these molds, but that’s how the ‘typical player mercenary’ in this world seems like.
That wasn’t well thought out, sorry, I keep getting interrupted. The actual thing I was going to say is that we can safely assume that there are around 2674 sectors. A bit of leeway, but I doubt there is anywhere beyond 8000 circumstantially.
…the idea of soldiers and armies died with the Empire.
That leaves a very illogical world behind. The Empire was founded out of the Direktorium. Generally, I would not focus too much on the corporations as being the only one in power, that sounds like a big lack of creativity. Corporations might be important in outer space, and might be very lucrative, but it is also wise from a writers standpoint to keep some parts vague. If you want to write a background story, or create a background arc, you cannot “foreplan” everything, because that leaves a very empty world, and you will not lose the bitter taste of it, no matter how well written it is.
Also “Jericho Families” describes very much their social structure, much like Klingons, Amarr, Drow, etc. they seem to have small units, which once however were controlled centrally. Each family might have it’s own forces, as described in the backstory, where some Jericho families raided, while others did not.
Of course all major empires have fleets, soldiers, and we even know their structure by name for every faction. They do not seem to engage each other however directly, maybe only help to defend the sector where the home station is. You need a fleet to be safe from your mercenaries being outbought by the enemy, anyway.
Nobody said, we are fighting for the worlds, which are inhabited. We might even not be allowed to enter inhabited worlds with active weapons on our ships. Our tactical sector card could as well show us the territory between the 3 empires, which is considered as important for the mystery of the Precursors.
How much importance a corp has in a controlled sector might be different from corp to corp.
One could say, that there might have been a secret meeting in the Federation once, by Imperial and Jericho heads, and they have discussed the situation about the precursors, and found a very logical way to
* keep their own empires intact
* strengthen the loyalty of the people by having a clear and common “enemy”, even if secretly all factions actually want their own right for peace.
* improve their own space ship designs through constant conflict and testing.
* be ready for whatever lies behind the precursor findings.
* earn money for selling ships to a never ending war without risking your own troops
simply by giving mercenary corps rights to carry weaponized ships into battle for the flag of the faction. Of course, the sector conflict can be used for political pressure, and it is very likely, that the bigger known corporations have a lot of fame in the respected homeworlds, and people follow the sector conflict like we do football matches.
“he whose hand shapes what is.”
Think where that is from for a moment.
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Chris “Hyranic” Telranic - Uses Hyranic as a code name.
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About 24, Dark Hair and Jericho Implants. about 6’1. Prefers to be the “Strong silent” type in the room, though is known to be very outgoing around friends.
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My background story is here… : [http://forum.star-conflict.com/index.php?/topic/19692-your-work-before-becoming-a-mercenary-in-sc/page-2](< base_url >/index.php?/topic/19692-your-work-before-becoming-a-mercenary-in-sc/page-2). Currently a loyal pilot for WPK
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Harbors no love for ethier side, would rather fight for the Empire or Jericho.
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Joined Wolfpack shortly after becoming a Mercinary. Currently flys with them and NASA
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Has a broad collection of faction jokes, and secretly makes multple attempts at JPHack’s sweetroll stores.
simply by giving mercenary corps rights to carry weaponized ships into battle for the flag of the faction. Of course, the sector conflict can be used for political pressure, and it is very likely, that the bigger known corporations have a lot of fame in the respected homeworlds, and people follow the sector conflict like we do football matches.
The only major flaw I see in that theory is the fact that as the war goes on with no real gains, people are going to become resentful. Winning is always good - everyone likes to win. Losing can be good too; the very real threat of imminent destruction pulls people together. But a stagnant war, with no real hope of victory but no real threat of defeat? That is not good PR material.
The only major flaw I see in that theory is the fact that as the war goes on with no real gains, people are going to become resentful. Winning is always good - everyone likes to win. Losing can be good too; the very real threat of imminent destruction pulls people together. But a stagnant war, with no real hope of victory but no real threat of defeat? That is not good PR material.
But what if the higher ups made this whole war to cover up a greater threat, a hidden issue, something that will make everything stop and turn to deal with this new threat or thingy or what ever.