Galactic Empires II [M]

[dakkagor]

They were definitely thinking Pokémon when naming it, and it was too punny a name to pass up.

[Sylent]

Hope to join soon. I'm about to start moving, so I hope the activity requirement for this RPG isn't insane. Had some questions but haven't gotten a response yet, so waiting on that...but I do have the app partially completed and I'm slowly making my way through the thread so I'm semi-caught up. I understand y'all're at a good point for new character entrants...

[AngelDellaNotte]

This isn't a fast paced game so I wouldn't worry about that. Yes, we are at a very good point for someone to join. You could play as one of the crew that has been on the planet for the last two years.

[Sylent]

Haven't gotten quite that far in the story...though, admittedly, I started skimming and mostly just reading Dak's posts the closer I came to the end of page one. Loooots of content to peruse.

So now monsters of metal and flesh are eating people to assimilate them in order to save the universe. Yay?

So if I understand things from the lore thread...

The Concert is the collection of species/cultures with which this RPG is primarily concerned. The Concert War was a war between these species/cultures that ended in 2599. Just to confirm, what's the current year in-game? I think I saw it somewhere in the RP early on, but don't recall precisely where...

A Pathfinder's job is to scout unexplored planets, systems, and regions of the universe. Is this done as part of a crew, with the Pathfinder(s) being the forward scout(s), or do Pathfinders act alone and return to a command center for infrequent or regular reports? Or am I misunderstanding how they operate entirely?

And if he's been on the planet for the last two years, would he have been integrated into the organic machine ecosystem as well or is it possible to have avoided that?

[AngelDellaNotte]

Yeah, it's sorta the Borg meet Reavers. If you think you've read a lot you should take a peek at part one. I don't recall the exact year but it has been about ten years since the end of the war. The concert forces are still recovering from the war and the Lyrans are adjusting to their new government. Three ships were sent to explore a far away Galaxy believed to be where an ancient civilization was from. Most of the crew was in cyro sleep for the last two years. When they arrived things went to shit real fast. The crew that was awake took refuge on the planet. I don't think you can avoid a melding with the local ecosystem. Communication with home base is very spotty and I don't think they know what is going on back home.

[Sylent]

I think it was something like 2612 or something? Hang on, I'll see if I can find it...

Ah, yes...00:26 15 April 2612 (post #18), according to a PDA.

So 13 years, approximately, since the war ended...so someone who was 29 would have been...16. I think it would be pushing it to say that a character at that age was involved in the war, even in the last of it. Unless they were recruiting soldiers really young; 16, maybe, but I doubt a green 16-yr-old soldier would have been sent to the battlefield unless the Lyrans were really desperate. Humans aren't a purely war-driven species to begin with, no matter how important war seems to be to the species as a whole in any given setting. So yeah, that's probably pushing it.

So I have to read back and figure out where a young Lyran Pathfinder would have been during the last 13 years since the war...




Anyway, I've read long threads before. It's just that I'm busy IRL and trying to catch up on this as much as possible so I can make a proper character to enter with, which means a lot of reading/skimming in a short period of time.

Which actually brings me back to my other question(s):

A Pathfinder's job is to scout unexplored planets, systems, and regions of the universe. Is this done as part of a crew, with the Pathfinder(s) being the forward scout(s), or do Pathfinders act alone and return to a command center for infrequent or regular reports? Or am I misunderstanding how they operate entirely?

And also, so there's absolutely no way to avoid being integrated like the other survivors this late in the game? Just for clarification, because it does affect how I think about & write the character...

[dakkagor]

And also, so there's absolutely no way to avoid being integrated like the other survivors this late in the game? Just for clarification, because it does affect how I think about & write the character...

There is no way to avoid integration like the other survivors this late in the game. Even if you had tried to spend all your time in sealed armour, you would have had a breach at some point and the nanites would have got into your system, colonised your bone marrow and started to replicate and make changes to you.

A Pathfinder's job is to scout unexplored planets, systems, and regions of the universe. Is this done as part of a crew, with the Pathfinder(s) being the forward scout(s), or do Pathfinders act alone and return to a command center for infrequent or regular reports? Or am I misunderstanding how they operate entirely?

Most pathfinders would operate as the 'pointman' for a small group of specialists, including some proper academics, but it would be a small crew of no more than 20 on a small frigate sized ship designed to make long unsupported trips into wilderness space. On the Elcano the Pathfinder Corp would have had a dozen members, and would have had the entire ships resources to call on before the mission went badly sideways.

[Sylent]

How badly would the nanites affect a Lyran, psychologically speaking (in general, I mean)? They're not exactly the friendliest toward alien species to begin with, and now infused with one...also trying to figure out what the exact changes would be, or perhaps how much customization freedom I have here (if any). There was something about being able to "hear" the ecosystem...

[dakkagor]

In general . . . well, we have one Lyran NPC (Severt) who is handling it quite well, and is quite philosophical about it. While it might be freaky at first, after a year or more living with it most Lyrans would adapt to the idea. If you think about it, we already in the real world live in symbiosis with many different colonies of bacteria on our skin and in our gut, so one of nano-machines isn't so different. ( healthy human who weighs 200 pounds has about 2-6 pounds of micro-organism in their body, more than half the total number of cells in the body are 'foreign').

Yes the away team (and Sayori) can hear the local wildlife. The nanites have given them ability to detect radio waves, and has tied the data that produces into the processing centres of the brain that talk to the ear, so they 'hear' it.

[AngelDellaNotte]

Curious, how long does it take to start melding with the nanites? When will the second team start showing signs? They've only been on the planet a short time but still exposed.

Sylent, I am looking forward to seeing your character and having another Lyran on the team. I wonder if Miranda will get along with them. Suppose it will depend on their political views.