Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[LordBrassroast]

In fairness, if Caliban and Prospero are in the same system in WH40k, it would make sense.  Caliban, after all, is Prospero's unwilling slave.

Nah, they're at the opposite ends of the galaxy. The only connection they have is that they're homeworlds of two different Space Marine chapters

[IronyOwl]

Let's see how far we get. :x

[Iituem]

Chapter Three (a): Planetfall
Chapter Three (b): Campaign Promises

Regarding Odranka's Holding

Sathama is a Class A white star (blue-white to the naked eye) with four planets in its orbit, three of which have moons.  Of Sathama's satellites, two sit comfortably within Sathama's Goldilocks Zone; Sathama III, a vast world dominated by lush wildlife, titanic beasts and treacherous and ever-present storms; and Odranka's Holding (Sathama II), a world colder than its sister-planet despite its closer proximity to Sathama due to a thinner, less oppressive atmosphere.  Odranka's Holding is similar in climate to Caliban, with simple plantlife (the most complex being a form of branching fern) and small animal life in a cool atmosphere dominated by permafrost.  Odranka's Holding has more extremes than Caliban, due to a very slight axial tilt causing seasonal variation.  As a result the poles are covered with thick glaciers and the equatorial band supports enough liquid water to produce foetid and dangerous marshland.  Odranka's Holding has limited mineral reserves, but ample soil to support farms and deep-core mining may yet yield reserves within.


Regarding Orbital Research

Often, conditions on a planet may make close investigation problematic or impossible, necessitating other means of research.  Gas giants are obvious candidates for orbital study, and stars of interest such as the Class K star Braddam can reveal valuable information about stellar life cycles from suitably-placed observation posts.  Whilst environments such as those of Sathama III could certainly reveal a great deal of information about evolution on alien worlds, the alien nature of the local fauna, inevitably lethal disease rate and the presence of enormous creatures only too happy to devour entire installations at a time make a surface research program undesirable at best.  It is for this reason that the Sath-III "Haghonon" orbital base with its crew of 68 physicists studied the patterns of life and categorised the biology and ecology of Sathama III from orbit, up until the tragic events of 2211.  Their work, transmitted in bulk two days before the disaster, will outlive them for centuries to come, and it is our hope that when construction of the Sath-III "Rhass" has been completed, their work may continue in the hands of their successors.

Let's see how far we get. :x

19 hours at present, but my time has been a bit divided.  A lot of that has been spent playing my psionic fungus enslavers, when I've not been in a position to have the quiet or space necessary to record Great Caliban, though.

[Iituem]

Chapter Four: The Temple of Light

Regarding Religion and Great Caliban

Religion is not outlawed in Great Caliban, though a casual observer might not make this distinction.  The Council (the legislative and executive body of the Calibanese government) has never banned worship or the construction of places of worship, but they have steadfastly refused to grant support, endorsement or public funding to any religion or religious projects - discretionary funding is the choice of civil service mandarins, who unlike elected politicians are not answerable to general assent.  Education is staunchly secular, and the Ministry of Education ensures that the religions of Caliban's past are cast in a poor, or at least neutral light.  Overtly religious symbolism or messages are quietly not approved for use in advertising, and many campaigns that subtly ridicule religious beliefs have received covert funding from government bodies.  Over the course of decades, the Council of Great Caliban has reduced the veneration of spiritual powers to a series of empty, ridiculous superstitions - nothing more than 'phantasms of the brain' - and has encouraged the mockery, suppression and outright oppression of the religious minority in Calibanese society.

Historically, religion played a great part in Caliban's politics and government, with several major organised religions serving to bind the petty kingdoms of the past into some semblance of order.  Perhaps unfortunately, corruption became rampant in the heirarchies of the Churches in the centuries immediately prior to the Calibanese Enlightenment, a time of great discovery and shifts in thinking that coincided with a deep and lasting resentment of the priesthood.  Abuse of power became synonymous with faith in the minds of the scholars of that time (quite unlike the Enlightenment on Earth) and the intellectual elite developed an ingrained distrust of the religious that carried through when technology united the world.  The final nail in the coffin may have come when one of the last religious nation-states in the world, the Trinarchy of Nace, refused to submit to general assent as the new order of the world and was forcibly crushed by the armies of Great Caliban, the Trinarchs executed and their religion quietly but forcibly eradicated from public education and history.

Under such conditions, forced underground for their beliefs, is it that hard to understand the radicalization of the faithful?  Is the Final Crucible truly inconceivable?

[Harry Baldman]

Luckily those cultist guys don't seem terribly eager to put that battleship to use. Probably was a bit difficult to steal it/find somebody gullible enough to give it to them in the first place, hence they're a bit protective of it.

[Pencil_Art]

Nice voice.

[Iituem]

Chapter Five: Space Pirates!

Regarding Space Piracy

Obviously, all forms of piracy are motivated by profit, even the profit of surviving in an otherwise unsurvivable situation.  Contrary to popular holovids, most pirates are forced into the situation due to desperation or misfortune, rather than setting out gung-ho in an effort to acquire booty.  Many pirate ships are former mining and salvage ships who missed one too many supply runs or were unscrupulously abandoned by their parent corporations, forcing the crew to turn to piracy to keep the engines running and the air processed.  Another common source of pirates are crew who mutiny following the usually draconic rule of an unpopular captain, far enough away from the core worlds to neither fear nor have hope in the protection of the law against their master.  Such mutineers are unable to return to civilised life for fear of court martial (in the case of naval crews) or civilian prison.  It is only a small few who turn to piracy willingly, although there are those who after being forced into the situation by depredation find they have a liking and ability for their work and - if they survive - become such pirates of legend as Vussari Longshot and Redskin Tak.

Piracy is not possible in isolation, as pirates are not truly self-sustaining; if they were they would colonies, or perhaps rogue sovereign states.  Quite apart from the obvious need for plunder, unless one specifically targets shipping containing the desired essentials of life (air, food, water, parts for repairs) and be fortunate enough to find a frequent and reliable supply of such ships, a crew will quickly run out of essentials and at best be stranded, at worst die.  Instead, pirates tend to seize whatever targets of opportunity become available, taking cargo and slaves and then selling them on via the interplanetary black market in exchange for supplies and energy credits.  Indeed, once survival becomes possible a pirate can become extremely wealthy during their life of crime; the problem being the difficulty in returning to society to spend it.  If there was no market for pirates from unscrupulous individuals, the practice would quickly die down.  As this is sadly not achievable, we must fight the symptom of the disease rather than its cause.

Nice voice.

Thank you!  It's one of my few good qualities.

Luckily those cultist guys don't seem terribly eager to put that battleship to use. Probably was a bit difficult to steal it/find somebody gullible enough to give it to them in the first place, hence they're a bit protective of it.

Pretty sure they built it, which has disturbing implications considering we can't even build battleships yet.  I like to imagine that it's their chief base, partially because their last system is in foreign space and I can't attack them there.

EDIT: Wrong video!  Fixed!

[EuchreJack]

Regarding the Battleship, true spoiler:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next to it is an alien space station that makes the fleet for the Fanatics, including the Battleship.  Fortunately, it takes quite a while to make large ships, hence why you only ever see the one battleship.  This backstory is revealed after destroying the Battleship and Space Station.

[Iituem]

Chapter Six: The Temple Falls

Regarding the Temple of Light

Prior to the discovery of the Final Crucible's home stations, the Temple of Light was thought to have served as its headquarters.  It certainly looked the part.  Compared to the 20-man crews of standard and cultist corvettes, the Temple of Light operated with a crew of three hundred (including support staff) and held a further eight hundred souls as pilgrim-servants to the crew and a select few non-combatant priests, worshipping in the holy sanctum of the Temple.  In addition to its size and impressive complement of weaponry and armour, the Temple was a work of art in terms of both its external hull design and its downright decadent interior; marble columns, fountains and greenery maintained by servants and expensive atmospheric regulators, to say nothing of the staff to serve the crew and priests' every need - and desires.  Whilst an effort was made to rescue some of the souls aboard the Temple in the final showdown with the battleship, all hands were killed during the explosive decompression that saw an end to the Temple.  Flanked by an honour guard of illicit corvettes, the Temple bore down upon the Calibanese fleet with the wrath of the old gods themselves, employing potent energy-based weaponry of a truly alien design.  Nevertheless, the combination of Longspear and Pulnar-class corvettes swiftly tore the Temple's escorts to shreds within the first hour of combat, then closed in en-masse upon the Temple and, aided by the Shortspear shard throwers (employing fragments of Crystalline shard technology) were able to breach the potent armour of the Temple and concentrate their missile fire upon the breach.  The Temple's main beam was able to easily destroy a corvette in one shot, but the sheer number of attackers and the slow recharge time of the Temple's beam meant that despite losses they were able to achieve victory through sheer attrition.

[Sheb]

Just wondering: is there any chance of your Civ IV LP going on, or did Stellaris kill it?

[Iituem]

Chapter Seven: Shipyards

Regarding the Brakma Shipyards

It is to the great regret of history that the Brakma Shipyards could not be captured intact.  The local defenders fought to the last man, engaging crude self-destruct mechanisms to deny Calibanese access to the extensive design records of the yards.  The presence of the shipyards around a pair of large asteroids is intriguing; the need for fresh raw materials from the local asteroids makes perfect sense, but why not build them on or in orbit of a planet?  Most likely the architects desired the benefits of the microgravity available on an asteroid, enabling construction techniques that take advantage of weightlessness and reducing the need for space elevators or shuttles conveying materials to the station itself.  The ship designs speak well of their engineers, but even more so the ability for the shipyards to synthesise complex materials from locally available elements without supervision.  Sadly, little of the identity of the architects is known, but from artwork on the station itself we know that, like the Crucible, they were deeply religious.  Interrogation of survivors suggests that some manner of 'test of faith' was involved in bypassing the dormant stations' security systems - the Crucible considered it a sign from the gods themselves.  But who were these builders, and are they still around?

Just wondering: is there any chance of your Civ IV LP going on, or did Stellaris kill it?

Comatose, but there's hope.  Mind you, the real problem is the transfer to the new laptop.  If anything's going to murder it, it's that.  I may or may not return to that, depending on how I feel.  That close to Domination, I think we'd basically already won.

[Harry Baldman]

Your scientists were so proactive that they managed to find two whole unique alien shipyards churning out cultist battleships!

[Iituem]

Chapter Eight: Waspish Collectives

Regarding the Wessari Heirarchy

Of the neighbouring empires towards galactic north, the nation most inimical to that of Great Caliban is the Wessari Heirarchy, a collectivist autocracy ruled by Emperor Seifeth of the Wessari species, a hirsute species, mammal-like in their equivalents of mammary glands, who evolved on the arid planet of Ugl Mak.  Unlike the Immutharan Heirarchy to their south (who despite their collectivist approach to government are staunch pacifists) and the Commonality of Cavobb (who despite their religious beliefs are staunch individualists), the Wessari Heirarchy combines brutal authoritarian rule with a deep-set xenophobia in their approach to foreign relations.  Interactions with the Wessari, infrequent as they are, are inevitably peppered with slurs and paranoia on their part, and any sort of meaningful trade between nations is impossible.  Yet their use of slavery and oppression has granted them certain material benefits, and the Wessari number 76 billion subjects over nine planets in six systems.  Worse still, Emperor Seifeth's commitment to expansion of the empire will sooner or later result in conflict with their neighbours.  Many amongst the Council and the demagogues on the holovids call for invasion of the Heirarchy, but at this time war would be both bloody and unproductive.


Regarding the Mondak Wasp

One of the native species of Mondak's Retreat, the Mondak Wasp is infamous on the planet for its painful sting, aggressive behaviour and annoying tendency to form nests on sensitive equipment.  An eradication program is underway.

[Iituem]

Chapter Nine: Vengeance

Regarding Commander Rhass

Commander Rhass of Nace is unfairly considered the second fiddle to Commander Haghonon of Pulnar in propaganda materials, and this bias has inevitably lent itself to the history books as well.  Whilst Haghonon does bear the distinction of being the first Kammarian to successfully visit another star system, it was Rhass who captained the first warp-capable exploration vessel, Ihlmac the Crusader and conducted the first full extra-planetary surveys.  Indeed, were it not for political pressure in the Council to have a second starship for extra-solar exploration, Rhass would most likely have been the first to cross the interstellar void as well.  Many of Haghonon's notable stunts and achievements over the decades would have been impossible without Rhass' groundwork, and we are quick to forget the diligence that went into mapping dozens of star systems whilst Haghonon engaged in 'sexier' planetary expeditions.

Rhass was born in 2166, a citizen of the Trinarchy of Nace.  When the Trinarchs fell and Nace was absorbed into Great Caliban, Rhass was a tender three years of age, and so was born into both poverty and the earliest, harshest years of the Council's re-education program.  Like many Nacians, Rhass haboured a quiet reverence for the divine that he kept scrupulously hidden from his teachers and superiors, preaching the word of atheist secularism lest he face narrowed employment and education opportunities.  Rhass was driven to succeed, both out of the need to conceal his beliefs and a desire to better his family, members of one of the many slum-states in Nace.  Rhass graduated a year early from principal education and entered the Grand College at Pulnar on a physics scholarship, whereupon he embarked upon a triple-degree program in astrophysics, engineering and archaeology.  Rhass consistently came within the top four of his class in these subjects, and when he was approached by the Calibanese Navy to work on the team for stabilising warp fields, Rhass left his degree early (later granted as honourary awards in light of his service to Caliban) and joined the high-security project.  In the ten years Rhass spent on the project, he also engaged in astronaut training and, showing an aptitude for leadership and command skills, was picked over his long-term rival and occasional lover Haghonon of Pulnar to command the Ihlmac the Crusader (named for the hero of the Enlightenment, executed for his beliefs on astronomy), the first warp-capable starship completed by Great Caliban.  The maiden voyage of Ihlmac was witnessed by almost every Kammarian across Caliban, taking place on the 1st of Prim, 2200.

Throughout his career, Rhass remained quiet and modest about his religious beliefs, but as his fame grew he campaigned tirelessly for tolerance of belief and equality of opportunity.  It was Rhass' influence upon the media that led to the large-scale revitalisation programs of the slum states on Caliban, including his home state of Nace.  Rhass' campaign for tolerance was less well received, considered at best to be a harmless idiosyncracy rather than a legitimate point of view, and at worst a dangerous political view and supporter of radical groups such as the Final Crucible.

After 24 years of active service in command of Ihlmac the Crusader, 58-year old Commander Rhass was killed in action along with 74 members of his crew on the 10th of Quin, 2224.  A miscommunication resulted in a navigational error, bringing Ihlmac into the Brakma system and directly into the line of fire of the Final Crucible's fleet.  Would it have frustrated the Crucible to know that in so doing, they had assassinated the foremost supporter of their right to worship?

A national day of mourning was held, and to this day Rhass' Day remains a public holiday in Nace.

[Iituem]

Chapter Ten: A Terrifying Opponent

Regarding the Rak'Thelak'Nak

Little is known about the Rak'Thelak'Nak beyond what is available from their own transmissions.  The most disturbing facet of the Rak'Thelak'Nak is of course their apparent similarity to Kammarians.  There has been some speculation that this may simply be a holographic illusion to put us at ease compared to their real appearance - yet this motive does not at all mesh with their perceived lack of care - even outright hostility - with other species.  Analysis of the Rak'Thelak'Nak ambassador's surroundings suggests a median height of 1.3 metres, approximately fifteen times higher than the average Kammarian and with slightly different proportions.  Nothing is known about their internal anatomy, but study of the conditions aboard the ambassador's chambers leads us to believe that they inhabit an ideal, climate-managed world similar to that we have termed a 'gaia' world when observing the holy site to galactic south.

The Rak'Thelak'Nak seem to be terrifyingly ahead of us in terms of technological progress, able to instantly translate our language upon discovery of our ships and possessing a seemingly psychic understanding of our ways and culture (most likely highly subtle and invasive scanning and translation of the records of our flagships by a phenomenally advanced AI).  If limited scans of systems in their space are to be believed, they also have a means of faster-than-light travel unknown to us or any species we have yet encountered.

There have been some concerns that our own race are Rak'Thelak'Nak offshoots, but we have hundreds of years of science and a million-year fossil record to back up the evidence that we are descended from our own world, to say nothing of the size difference.  Somewhat concerningly, however, the Rak'Thelak'Nak claim to have been spacefaring for over a million years themselves, which would put their initial ascendancy worryingly close to the time when Kammarians began splitting off from the Marrinan evolutionary line...