[OUR] (BB) <Avarice> Gen A.1.0[Time: 5 (5,2) Progress: 3 (2, 3) Cost: 3]
Thousands of princes and hundreds of princesses are involved in the project to turn the basic design requirements of the Avarice into a realistic and produceable blueprint. As the single largest construct attempted by [We] there are countless challenges that don't even involve the ship itself - the pre-existing rail launch system being a prime example. <Wrath> cruisers are assembled, the rails laid, and the ships launched over a single night cycle. It's a carefully optimized system where any error in construction of either the ship or the launch rails usually results in a critical existence failure for both. The sheer scale of the <Avarice> means that every aspect needs to be rethought. Rails need to be redesigned for increased payload mass, which in turn means the transport for the rails needs to be rethought in order to get the rails in place in the same amount of time. The construction of the Avarice in a single night is unlikely, which means either launching in segments or construction intermediary surface hangars and heavy construction equipment so that stages can be constructed on the surface and then assembled for the launch night. That, in turn, leads to discussions of how final construction would be achieved in space, or how the construction hangars would be designed, or a thousand other questions.
All of that, before even a thought is given to the ship itself.
In short, while a fantastic portion of [We]'s engineering might is dedicated to making the [Avarice] a reality, the echoing implications of the [Avarice]'s scale create so many problems to solve that progress is not going to fast or cheap.
<Avarice>: 0/21 [2] | 170T + 270O + 1150M + 500E + 100S | Rushed 0 Times | 2 Dice invested
Prototype[Efficacy: 6] (Without Credit: 2)
"Beyond this place of wrath and tears looms but the horror of the shade, and yet the menace of the years finds, and shall find me, unafraid." - Invictus
While testing of a complete <Avarice> will have to wait until there
is a completed <Avarice>, the tests of all the prototype subsystems have yielded universally remarkable results. Setting aside armor, the basic hull integrity of the <Avarice> is well on par with the <Wrath>, with layered and well-spaced subsystems allowing her to absorb heavy punishment even past her armor layer. Innovative use of Alate-type reinforcement in her internal structure allowed for small but repeated recaptures of internal space. While these gaps were consolidated where possible to increase her mission capacity, many were in places where consolidation was either impossible or not worthwhile. In these cases, enterprising princes worked to turn them into internal armor, creating a defense-in-depth approach of internal air gaps and hardened Alate panels, working together to dissipate, stop, or redirect penetrative shots before they reach core systems.
Her primary armor is a dauntingly thick layer of <Wrath> era heavy plating, capable of enduring sustained bombardment from tremor torpedoes, and resisting sunbeam fire for a time by dint of sheer mass alone. Threading through the armor are a number of narrow maintenance and pinning crawls for drones, organically designed tunnels with daunting blast doors to allow them to pull double duty as armor air-gaps.
The prototype generators, purpose-built for her frame and carefully armored with the aforementioned defense-in-depth strategy, perform pleasingly beyond expectations. Each produces approximately 235 power units, and, as anticipated, can rely on the self-bottling mechanism in order to keep containment even during critical faith loss - though that will drop the generator power output significantly. This is not projected to be a significant issue, considering that serving on an <Avarice> is likely to be awe-inspiring in and of itself.
The PRAYER system, the soul of <Avarice>, is a psionic machine without peer. Directly married to the Queen's directive system, it is equal parts temple and command seat. The direct link to the telepathic batteries of the PRAYER system provides a modest (15%) improvement to the overall command capacity of the Queen's directive system, and it allows the Queen to activate the system on any ship under their command at the speed of thought. On any other ship but the <Avarice>, the activation of the PRAYER system provides a few brief seconds of nigh-invulnerability. The PRAYER denies damage, keeping the ship and its crew in their best image. Sunbeams, torpedoes into hull breaches, direct ramming, all deal absolute minimal damage for the scant few second that the PRAYER is in operation.
When <Avarice> uses the PRAYER on itself, it gets the benefits of nigh-invulnerability and more besides. During its installation, the Princess in charge of the PRAYER project wondered if it couldn't be used for more than just absorbing damage from external sources. This question brought her to the integrated Sunbeam weapons. Primarily limited in their firing powering and duration by the design requirement of not melting into a pile of slag, the Princess took the risk of directly integrating parts of the PRAYER system with the built-in sunbeams. As a result, when PRAYER is active, the integrated sunbeams gained the ability to
fire without generating heat. This not only allows the integrated sunbeams to fire continuously throughout the duration of the PRAYER, but nearly doubles their stopping power during this period as well. Smaller integrations with the prayer system will also allow turrets and autoloaders to function moderately more effectively during PRAYER's duration, as they can be pushed well beyond normal mechanical tolerances.
At max capacity, there's enough psionic energy capacity for 10 seconds of sustained PRAYER - and the volatility of said energy being stored statically required heroic efforts for even that to be reached. The activation energy of the system means it isn't feasible to use in blocks of less than a second, but can otherwise be broken up into multiple activations freely. Roughly one second of PRAYER energy can be regenerated every twenty minutes.
[OUR] (BB) <Avarice> Gen A.1.0 (Battleship): | 1000T 4920O 10500M 4100E 500S | A top of the line Battleship, with good external armor, internal plating layers, and the special PRAYER system. The PRAYER system allows the <Avarice> to deny damage to a vessel for the duration of effect, and, when self-targetted, also allows continuous high power operation of its own Poly-D sunrays. Carries 10 seconds of charge and recharges at one second per 20 minutes. Can target multiple vessels, but cannot be used for an interval less than one second. Boosts the command capacity of all Queen's Directive systems on board by 15%.
Specs:16 Small Mounts
8 Medium Mounts
1 Medium Hangar
4 Large Mounts
4 Built In Poly-D Sunrays
12 Built-in Radiators
Built in PRAYER [SPECIAL]
Built in Queen's Glory x6 2.0 [SPECIAL]
Built in Queen’s Path
Built in Queen's Directive
500 Capacity
+910 Power
Ichor[Time: 4 Progress: 3 Cost: 3]
The clutch of every queen contains misborn. Some come out dead, to be recycled and fed to the living. Some come out with such great deformities that they are considered dead, and of no worth to preserve. Some come out on the borderline, their deformities either minor or manageable enough that there is a chance that they can make do in their labors. Drones of such nature are frequently used for dangerous work, attaining some value in that they may shelter their more perfect peers. Princes are tested and kept to the sciences if talented and recycled if not. Princesses are sequestered in positions where they can invisibly manage the drones of their queen without bringing shame to their lineage. They are beyond hope of [Anointment], but capable of a comfortable enough life if they possess skill and discretion. These creatures are generally considered to be an unfortunate, unsightly, but useful byproduct of a healthy hive. It is [Mercy] to let them serve and attain some value with their lives, but they are destined to be eclipsed by their betters.
Yet hope springs eternal. One misborn princess, keen of intellect and strong of mind, had spent her entire life trying to make something real of herself. Her role in the sciences was always minor, to verify and validated the work performed by her more perfect peers. The presence of her severe physical imperfections made her a poor candidate for primary work, as she would be ill-fitted to receive any reward for a breakthrough, but she performed her assigned duties with distinction in precision, speed, and reliability.
It was due to these properties that she, despite physical deformities that crippled the left half of her endo-skeletal structure and blinded her left eye, was allowed to work on the Ichor purchased from the watchers. As ever, her contributions were destined to be minor. Others would perform experiments to control the ichor, to render new forms from it, to discover the psionic language it responded to, and bend it to their will. While she, she would take their reported experiments and perform them in endless repetition. It was a role she knew well, and one she did well, very well.
She also did more. She stole ichor. Cunning to a fault, she waited until an accident or a failed experiment destroyed some amount of ichor, then appropriated several healthy canisters. When shortages were reported, she was able to truthfully reply that some ichor had been destroyed - and relegated the exact details of the losses to the numeric reports which, unlike the true language, could be doctored. Her sterling reputation ensured that none of her supervisors questioned her numbers. Once her pool was sufficient, she was able to propagate her own small supply. Removed as she was from society and the politics of the princesses vying for [Annointment], the few small requests she made for unusual resources for unnamed private projects were granted. Her combination of deformity and skill allowed her to occupy the position of a favored pet - well kept but largely forgotten.
Laboring in secret, in deeply nestled passages meant to keep her kind safely out of sight and out of mind, she worked on the ichor with a combination of mental acuity and audacity that beggared the researched of her peers. She did not seek to understand the Ichor, nor learn the language to command it, she sought to make it understand *her* - or at least understand her as she should have been. It was a labor of desperation, the discovery of which would merit her immediate execution. If discovered, not one word of her would ever be thought again. She would disappear, her work given to others to claim, and all that would remain of her would be vague memories of a tertiary researcher who did fine review work once. One more dead misborn.
Benign neglect and blind, terrified, ambition let her construct something extraordinary in secrecy. A pool of ichor, pacified and 'taught' to understand her mind without the distinction of her deformed body. Alone, without fanfare or accolade, she gave herself to the Well of [Ascension] - and then she destroyed it along with every physical note on its construction.
When she missed sending in her reviews for the first time in her life, the Princess who managed her sent a group of drones to investigate the deformed Princess' personal quarters. It was not uncommon for misborn to suddenly die of natural causes, and, for her service, it seemed polite to check to make sure she hadn't simply died before reporting negligence up the chain. There was a dead misborn in the under-researcher's chambers, but not the right one. It was a prince, a scribe for the <Avarice> project whose remarkable memory had allowed his service despite his otherwise simple mental faculties and soft chitin. His body had been peculiarly mutilated, but it was clear that, before his death, he'd mated.
It is difficult to describe the furor that this news generated. One misborn attempting [Annointment] without approval by tricking or forcing and even simpler minded misborn into mating? For the enemies of the Queen who birthed her, it was a joke with teeth. For the Queen herself, it was an incalculable outrage, and she spent hours screaming at her misborn daughter. She sent drones and princes to search for and kill her misbegotten child, but they found nothing. Days passed, then weeks.
Then another dead prince appeared. His peculiar mutilations were similar to the first, and once more analysis concluded that he'd mated before death.
This event generated some relief in other queens, who now believed that the misborn princess was incapable of mating properly, and thus wouldn't ever culminate in the headache that some deformed queen hiding in the [Deep] caverns pumping out litters of misborn deviants would have caused.
Days and weeks passed once more as the mother of the misborn princess fell farther and farther from grace, unable to find one simple misborn researcher who could barely walk from her deformities. A break finally came when, after a particularly long rant at her deformed daughter, the Queen felt the child's mind open to her once again.
Come see the greatest of your daughters, Mother. Come and see. I am ready to be found.Every word was laden heavy with the tags of [Bitterness] and [Failure], and an image of a location was included. One of the caverns of the [Deeps], lit faintly by bioluminescent rock worms.
The Queen sent three dozen [Takers] to kill her deformed daughter. And she felt three dozen minds vanish from her control. The [Laughter] of the other queens was unbearable. Surely a deformed child hadn't been able to kill [Takers], which meant that the only other explanation was that the deformed princess had wrested control of the drones away from her mother. In a gesture of magnanimous condescension, one of the Queens of the [Queen-Killer] sect graciously offered the services of one of her daughters to deal with this problem. After all, how could a [Queen] such as her possibly be expected to deal with a single unblooded and deformed princess?
The [Queen-Killer] princess, armed as though she expected to have to kill an entire rogue hive, found the deformed princess waiting exactly where she said she would be. She was folded in a position of sleep in a dark corner of the cavern, surrounded by the amenities of a reasonably comfortable hermitage. The [Queen-Killer] shoulder her laser rifle and put three shots into the former researcher's center of mass, sending shocks of light through the cavern and steaming gore into the air as chunks of the sleeping princess boiled and burst.
The [Queen-Killer] approached to verify the kill, only to witness the Princess unfold and stand. Despite smoking craters in her torso that nearly went clean through her, the princess turned towards her would-be killer.
Hello, sister. Please return me to my mother, she and I have things to... discuss. The [Queen-Killer] brought the rifle to shoulder and drained the capacitor. Bolts struck all across the damaged princess, each creating another explosion of burning chitin and boiling flesh. The sustained barrage tore her apart, dismembering both her right arms as that side of her body simply vanished, and reducing her head and neck down to a charred stump. A charred stump which immediately began growing back.
[Fear] is a shameful emotion for a [Queen-Killer] to feel, but feel it she did as the princess' body, little more than legs and half a torso, stepped forwards into the light. Strands of ichor boiled out of her broken flesh, twining and thickening until they were a fleshed torso once more. The head pushed out of the neck like a bubble of dark slime, emerging first and then gaining shape. In moments, a whole princess stood before the [Queen-Killer] once more. Not deformed or small, but dark and beautiful with black, liquid eyes.
The [Queen-Killer] began reloading with one of her lower arms and reached for her sidearm with the other. In response, two arms burst from the Dark Princess' back at the same moment. Many jointed, tipped into wicked talons, and rapidly growing in length, their presence kept the [Queen-Killer]'s hand hovering just above her reserve weapon.
It will bring me no joy to kill you, sister. Please, escort me to my mother. I won't have to kill as many of our kin if you lead me back. My rebellion is failed. I am done, I promise to submit myself to the judgment of the council. I wish to be of service once more.There was no [Lie] in the words, just a vast gulf of [Bitterness], [Regret], and [Irony].
The [Queen-Killer] judged her options, then finally spoke.
I was to kill one who was insane and misborn. She looked at the Dark Princess, letting the tag of [Awe] and [Fear] into her message.
You seem to be only one of those. Come with me.In the end, the Dark Princess was presented not before her mother, but before proxy representatives of what notable council members could be assembled on short notice. The Dark Princess spoke honestly of her theft, of her plans to use the Ichor to heal her body, and then utilize the services of a misborn prince to [anoint] herself. From there, she had planned to emerge as a full queen with the power of the Ichor in her grasp, ascended beyond the limitations of her broken body. Unfortunately, the ichor that coursed through her veins presented a complication. She had taught it an image of herself as a Princess, a perfected version of herself without the flaws of her birth, and the ichor was capable of keeping her that way. While she could communicate with it psychically, enough to strengthen tissues and muscles or generate entire new limbs, she couldn't change that base image of herself.
Which meant that it prevented her from undergoing metamorphosis. She had cured her deformity, yes, but the ichor rejected foreign contaminant. The peculiar mutilation of the princes she'd attempted to use for [anointment] had been due to the ichor in her body rejecting theirs and lashing out. In no small irony, her quest to undergo anointment and transcend her limitations had crystallized her as a princess forever.
In exchange for her life, her freedom, and the recognition of her deeds, she offered her clear expertise on the subject of the Ichor. An honest vow of loyalty, in exchange for leading the work of ages.
The words were accepted.
The Dark Princess became known by the code form of ARTEMIS, an Ascended Researcher who Tricked Everyone and Manufactured an Ichor Symbiote.
Ichor: 0/19 [2] | 0T + 720O + 100M + 100E + 50S | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Prototype - The Well of Ascension [Efficacy: 6] (W/O Credit: 3)
I will not be chained
I will not be tamed
I will not be contained
I will not behave
I will not be caged
I will not be slave
I will never fade away- The mantra of ARTEMIS, before becoming [Aspirant]
The [Aspirant] Takers are the most immediate product of ARTEMIS' beautiful betrayal. Using technology patterned off the Well of [Ascension] she created for herself, ichor has been successfully wed to a variety of host forms. While [We] will doubtless find more nuanced uses for this technology in the future, the creation of the [Aspirant] is a breakthrough both beautiful in its simplicity and its brutality. Each and every member of an [Aspirant] group has been gifted an ichor symbiote via the Well. This process has several universal effects.
The first and least important is the darkening of the tissues of the affected, a curious change in patterning as their blood runs black with ichor. Thicker chitin sections are unaffected, but thinner plates darken, joints go sable, and the eyes... the eyes go dead black. Curious impressions of motion can be seen those black eyes, as though they were more holes into some well of turbulent abyssal fluid rather than any proper oculus.
The second, and much more important, effect is the regeneration. Injury, scar, and deformity are erased by the process of [Ascension]. Those who emerge from the process are perfected, their biological systems frozen in their prime. Unable to reproduce or become [Annointed], it's a cruel blessing for prince and princess, but a pure benefit for the drones graced with the process. Once in effect, the body of an [Aspirant] can regenerate from any injury. Shattered limbs will straighten and reknit, lost limbs will regenerate, and punctured vital organs won't even slow an Aspirant down. Even the loss of the head and the complete destruction of the brain will only give an [Aspirant] pause, as the ichor is capable holding a neural image of the [Aspirant] and regenerating the damaged brain tissue completely. These regenerations are costly in terms of both biomass and the ichor's energy reserves, and enough damage will (eventually) outstrip an aspirant's internal resources and their regeneration will slow and cease. To preserve their regeneration, [Aspirant] Hiver must consume both quantities of biomass and the specialized growth formula normally used to grow ichor in vats.
[Aspirant] beta drones receive no further benefits from the ichor, their psionic abilities far too limited to issue commands to their symbiote. They are many, many times more durable than an ordinary beta, and capable of sustained physical exertion well beyond their lesser kin, but they are otherwise ordinary.
[Aspirant] alpha drones are... horrifying. Their size allows them to harbor vast reserves of ichor, well beyond that of any other caste, a feature which allows them to attain something close to invincibility as shock troops. They do not feel pity, or remorse, or fear, and they absolutely will not stop, ever, until the hive's enemies are dead. They shrug off injuries that would be lethal to ordinary Alphas by the dozen, losing chips and along the way but scarcely slowing in their advance.
[Aspirant] princes, frequently drawn up from the ranks of the disabled and those who have failed in their callings to an unforgivable degree, have the ability to exert limited control over the ichor within them and within others. Within themselves, they're capable of greatly amplifying their strength and speed, as well as making minor and temporary changes to their physical form. An anointed prince is fast enough to largely evade fire from an alpha's gunner, and strong enough to tear the creature's head without assistance. From others, they are able to extract infusions of ichor - an inefficient process as the ichor of other anointed is 'locked' to their particular genome, and thus requires that the imbiber break it down in order to use it - allowing them to vastly extend their operational limits by consuming betas and siphoning ichor from alphas.
[Aspirant] princesses, like ARTEMIS, have all the powers of the princes and more. Their origins are varied, but theirs are universally backgrounds of shame and tragedy, as becoming [Aspirant] means forever yielding the dream of [Anointment]. Their heightened psionic awareness gives them a deep connection to the ichor, and they're capable of temporarily adjusting the perfected image that Ichor seeks to maintain. This adjustment allows to temporary but dramatic adjustment to their forms - armored plating, additional fully functional limbs that can vary from hyper-dextrous fine manipulators to killing blades, spring legs capable of jumping vast distances, even wings for some of the more gifted in the aerodynamic sciences. These self-directed abilities, however, will likely remain unused in typical confrontations. [Taker] regiments only use princesses singly or in pairs to coordinate the efforts of the princes, and thus it's typically an unconscionable risk to deploy them directly into battle. Instead, they use their heightened abilities to manipulate the Ichor within others. While distance and the imprecision of working through another mind makes alterations on the scale of a princess' self-modification impossible, the princess can forcibly alter drones in the same way that a prince can perform self-modification. This allows a drone to quicken and strengthen, becoming fast and powerful as long as the princess' keeps her focus on their changes. The mental strain of this focus means that even a skilled princess can only maintain simultaneous changes in a few dozen drones at a time, but that's more than enough to create elite strike groups on the fly. Last and darkest of the abilities, the Princess can also command the ichor within a drone to break apart and become a living infusion for another - allowing her to sacrifice her own to keep valuable forward elements (such as Alphas) alive or provide them additional biomass for ambitious alterations.
While there is currently only a reason to use the Well of [Ascension] on Takers, it can be applied to any primarily organic force.
The Well of [Ascension] - Special Cost, See Description - The Well of [Ascension] refers to a device created in order to wed an ichor symbiote to a host organism. This can be applied to any significantly organic force, transforming them into [Aspirant] and granting them universally extreme regeneration and a number of other secondary improvements depending on their psionic power. This process will cost an additional organics amount equal to 4x their base organics cost in additional organics, 1x their base organics in energetics, and 0.5x their base organics cost in synthetics.
Queen's Freedom has been scrapped, yielding 3 diceHivemine 2.0 has been scrapped, yielding 3 diceRevision Phase of Year 5ResourcesDice: 6
T: 14634 + 3416
O: 24913 + 9077
M: 19383 + 14546
E: 11967 + 8463
S: 3171 + 500
Queen's Whisper: 8/16 [2] | 50T + 125O + 60M+ 75E | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Hivemine 2.0: 3/7 [3] | 0T + 175O + 100M + 50E +0S | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Watcher Gen 2.0: 12/14 [3] | 120T + 70O + 100M + 150E | Rushed 1 Times | 1 Die + 120T + 70O + 100M + 150E
Cinder Spires: 6/12 [3] | 220O +150M + 25E| Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Ichor / Well Of [Ascension]: 0/19 [2] | 0T + 720O + 100M + 100E + 50S | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
<Avarice>: 0/21 [2] | 170T + 270O + 1150M + 500E + 100S | Rushed 0 Times | 2 Dice invested
WTS: 250 Synthetics | 20 Metal per unit
Echo
Fleets
-Echo Scout
1x Heavy Fighter Destroyer
Ground - 10/10
8x Takers
Infrastructure
Defense Grid x1
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Oscar
Fleets
-Oscar Scout
1x Heavy Fighter Destroyer
Ground - 5/10 - 5/10 Gaian Regime
16x Takers
-----
Quebec
Fleets
-Quebec Scout
1x Heavy Fighter Destroyer
Ground - 10/10
8x Takers
Infrastructure
Defense Grid x2
------
Sierra
Fleets
-Sierra Scout
1x Heavy Fighter Destroyer
Ground - 8/10 Gaian Regime 2/10
12x Takers
------
Bravo
Fleets
Ground - 10/10
3x Takers
Infrastructure
Mining x5
LEC Towers x5
------
Charlie
Fleets
Ground - 10/10
3x Takers
Infrastructure
Mining x5
LEC Towers x1
------
Papa
Fleets
Ground - 10/10
3x Takers
Infrastructure
Mining x5
LEC Towers x5
------
Tango
Fleets
- Fleet 3
4x Heavy Fighter Destroyer
2x Boreless Heavy Fighter Destroyer
1x Command Cruiser [+5 Alate Sections, + Belief Engine, -All Small Tremors]
1x Combat Cruiser ('Pulsar')
1x Command Cruiser
- Transport Fleet 2 [All Transports]
3 Transport Destroyer - 12x Takers
Ground 1/10 Gaian Regime ?/10
12x Takers
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Alpha
Fleets
- Home Fleet
6x Heavy Fighter Destroyer
3x Boreless Heavy Fighter Destroyer
1x Command Cruiser ("No Fair Fight") Very Heavily Damaged, 25% of ship cost to repair
1x Boreless Heavy Fighter Destroyer Heavily Damaged, 20% of ship cost to repair
1x Heavy Fighter Destroyer Very Heavily Damaged, 25% of ship cost to repair
-Home Transport Fleet
5 Transport Destroyer [+2 Tremor Mount with bombardment caps]
1 Transport Destroyer
Ground - 10/10
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Author
Topic: [We] Empire Thread | Hivers | GalactiRace (Read 25394 times)