User:The Collective Mind/Concepts

IRON AXIS

 * Motive? Array? Lattice? Nexus?
 * Industry taken to extremes; people treated as less than machines
 * Technically post-scarcity if the people were allowed to enjoy its resources
 * Inspiration: Line, Galactic Empire, Grineer, Cabal, the Sevastopol and other human engineering from the Alien franchise, naval ships and submarines

Technology

 * A lot more advanced than their aesthetic suggests


 * Megastructures. Megastructures everywhere
 * Astral/macroengineering is easy; dismantling entire planets
 * Industrial capacity through the roof; capable of matching much larger nations because their entire civilization is dedicated to manufacturing
 * Wormhole network: Channels, faster than hyperspace
 * Vehicles powered by some kind of oil?
 * Thorough knowledge of chemistry and biochemistry; "truth serums" and poisons can be modified to work on all carbon-based life
 * Structures made of something that looks like concrete but is much stronger

Culture

 * Looks to the present, not to the past; no statues, stories, history begins when IRON AXIS was founded
 * The Monitors control everything: massive sentient 22-km long warships/cityships, dictating all of IRON AXIS actions
 * Some mystery about the Monitors; intelligence but no sign of artificiality; what inhabits them?
 * Known Monitors: Triumphator, Archway, Keystone, Alliance...
 * People are expendable, cogs in the machine, easily replaceable; beneath the machines they service
 * Literal assembly line people -- Brave New World style
 * Only interest in planets is as resources; entire population carried in Monitors, superstructures, and orbital habitats
 * No religion, but almost religious reverence of their machinery, especially Monitors
 * People tend to be drugged to the gills on attention-sharpeners, libido and appetite suppressants, various anti-fatigue stimulants, etc.

Military

 * Huge and still expendable; main purpose is to delay enemies until IRON AXIS can deploy its superweapons
 * The "sound-bomb": delivered by missile or mortar, emits waves of discordant, annihilating (psychically-enhanced?) noise, vibrations cause massive internal and mental trauma to almost all organic lifeforms, bypassing most forms of armor
 * Sound doesn't carry in space, so bombs latch on to spacecraft and deliver their noise directly into the ship's structure
 * Only work when deployed by IRON AXIS? Extension of Monitors' will?
 * Some kind of electronics killer? Integrated into Monitors?
 * Monitors are almost excessively difficult to destroy -- one recorded as continuing to fight even with 70% structural damage -- one part ridiculous decentralization, one part animating force

Kamen Rider

 * Vaguely grub-like race, artificial creations (no sign of creators), hatch out of crystalline "cocoons"
 * Large innate magic potential, cannot be accessed without their signature armor
 * Otherwise physically unimpressive
 * Peaceful, spiritual; Buddhist influences, Taoism? Isolationist, self-sufficiency
 * Population is constant; grubs are asexual in all senses of the word; new grubs spawn out of the cocoons when old grubs die
 * More grubs inside cocoons than grubs outside cocoons; population could theoretically be an order of magnitude greater but nobody knows or wants to know how to open the others
 * Imago gives grubs immense capacity to harm; therefore the right thing to do is to use them for everything except hurting others

Imago

 * Magical equivalent of powered armor; at most basic level enhances strength, speed, perception (possibly)
 * Capable of focusing the grubs' innate magical potential into various parts of their bodies
 * Imago:
 * effectively grant superpowers (super speed, elemental control, regeneration)
 * very few exist (half a dozen?) in the hands of the race's leaders
 * each Imago has its own unique powerset
 * Instar: grub copies of the Imagines, inferior
 * Different "levels" of ability for both Imagines and Instars; requires meditation and training to unlock full potential; Imago masters take apprentices to teach them
 * Armor or physical transformation?
 * Bug theme: Imagines represent all arthropods, Instars are just insects?
 * "Insect" Imago dismantled to figure out how to create Instars?
 * Alt: Showa riders
 * Multiple/power-up forms? Kuuga-style?
 * Mostly used for practical/spiritual purposes rather than combat

Belt

 * Name?
 * Magical artifact used to summon Imago armor
 * Only a handful of "true" belts exist, created along with the grubs; the rest are inferior grub copies, attempting to reproduce the original magic/technology
 * Crystal power? Animal spirits?
 * Belts can be used by other races, but not to same capacity as grubs unless similar magic potential
 * Always shaped like belts? Maybe bracers, or other armor?

Enemy Dossier
BIDONITE ESOTERICA

IDENTIFIED THREATS TO THE UNITED BIDONITE EMPIRE

What follows is a partial list of alien species that pose a threat to Imperial reconstruction.

BALZER
Codename STEEL PLOW.

Balzers are a cyclopean, sturdy race that evolved in high-gravity conditions. The Bidonite Empire destroyed their civilization two centuries after their then-ongoing interspecies war had the ill grace to spill into Bidonite territory. Since then, the species has existed in a state of constant, violent anarchy; petty warlords fighting each other for leadership of the survivors, armed with scavenged technology, with the ultimate hope of retaliating against the Empire.

Balzer pirates remain a perennial threat to the Empire's southwestern borders, raiding colonies and supply lines for much-needed resources. On the whole, however, they are too busy fighting themselves to be a serious danger to the Bidonite Empire.

NECROX
"Their civilization cannot have developed naturally. There should be countercultures, internal variations. In point of fact there should be more than just one culture in the first place. No outside forces act on them, like they do with the Assembly. Like the Collapse did with us. And yet, this species-wide devotion to a single philosophy... Mark my words, something is very wrong with the Necrox."

- Dr. Bironak Aaban Mesimar

THE GALACTIC COMMONWEALTH OF PROGRESS AND ENLIGHTENMENT, codename GREEN ARM. A technologically advanced meritocracy dedicated to the philosophy of "Progress", or the ideal of accelerated societal and scientific advancement unbound by any code of ethics or conduct. Governed and populated by the Necrox, a species of great biological curiosity.

The Commonwealth is not a united force. It is divided into several dozen "societies", all in direct competition with each other -- it is believed that this accelerates Progress. Still, every one of those societies serves a central government that oversees and regulates all aspects of Commonwealth infrastructure, communication, standardization, squabbles between societies, etc.

The societies that have most frequently come into conflict with the Empire are the Steel Claws, the Life Gardeners, and the Technocrati. As luck would have it, these three societies are among the largest and most powerful within the Commonwealth.

NARI
The NARI KNIGHTS

Initially mistaken by Imperial surveyors for a pre-gunpowder/iron age civilization native to the planet Ehlna, the vaguely batlike Nari only received comprehensive attention from the Empire upon the discovery of immense anti-spacecraft artillery emplacements hidden in the Ehlna Spine mountain range a handful of kilometers from their monastery-fortress.

Closer examination of Nari technology revealed that their ubiquitous plate mail was in fact incredibly advanced powered armor, and their anachronistic swords were sheathed in crackling power fields capable of shearing through solid titanium with little effort. Imperial Intelligence theorizes that Nari personal defense technology has far outstripped Nari firearms technology, forcing them to regress to close combat as their primary means of warfare. Scavenged Nari armor plating has been shown to withstand coilgun rounds, particle beams, and high explosives with minimal damage, and could only be breached reliably using tank guns and dedicated anti-tank weaponry.

The Empire knows very little about the greater Nari civilization. All four known Nari colonies are extremely distant from each other, and consist solely of a single well-defended monastery-fortress and surrounding villages, with no other holdings. Each monastery is either placed on land holy to the Nari and/or protects a relic that the Nari consider holy. No large Nari population centers are known to exist, nor other Nari nations besides the monastery-builders. Nari spacecraft, civilian or otherwise, appear to be very few in number.

Characteristic Nari isolation and insularity prevents meaningful Bidonite diplomacy. As per Imperial regulations regarding neutral alien-held planets, settlement on Nari worlds is strictly forbidden. For the time being, the Empire is content to leave the Nari alone.

ICEWORLDER
"They're a very honest people in their own way. Very open and upfront about how much they want to murder you. I can respect that."

- Colonel Vahar Myral Dun

THE ICEWORLDER ALLIANCE, codename IRRITABLE REACH.

The Iceworlder Alliance is a military alliance of seven Iceworlder nations. Belligerent, heavily militarized, and intensely xenophobic, the Iceworlders respect no political boundaries and operate according to their own ruthless directives.

Iceworlders are a hulking ammonia-based species that thrives in subzero environments, and must rely on armored environmental suits to survive outside those conditions. They bear a vague resemblance to crustaceans. The Empire is long familiar with the Iceworlder Alliance, having been in conflict with the race since pre-Collapse days. While the Alliance gave Bidonite space a wide berth both during and after the chaos of the Collapse (not wanting to invite destruction upon themselves), rapid Bidonite expansion has caused them to resume hostilities with a vengeance. However, their own expansion over the past three centuries has brought them into direct conflict with the Necrox, and the ensuing war has done much to reduce the amount of pressure either nation can bring to bear on the Bidonites.

MARAKK
Codename BELLIGERENT RED. Originally a rank-expunged dabidon born on Furosh, a planet conquered by the Empire. The self-styled "General" Marakk, seeking to overturn Imperial rule, gathered an army of malcontents, terrorists, and rebels, and began a bloody uprising on Furosh that cost millions of Bidonite lives and billions of sporebucks of infrastructure damage. While the rebellion was crushed following deployment of the Royal Guard, Marakk himself managed to escape despite grievous injury. Necrox involvement was suspected but unconfirmed.

Years later, Marakk returned at the head of a mercenary army, known simply as Marakk's Army. The General and his Army, operating from a ramshackle yet formidable fleet of spacecraft, struck repeatedly at Imperial supply lines and delayed shipments of food and materiel to the front lines of the Bidonite-Necrox conflict. Among other effects, his actions are believed to have led directly to defeats in the Corbus and Datarat systems. The 114th Combined Fleet was mobilized in response to Marakk's attacks.

While the 114th dealt the mercenary general a crippling blow with the destruction of his asteroid bases in the Parigon system, Marakk once more evaded the killing stroke, with the Necrox Commonwealth openly and violently revealing their involvement by engaging the Combined Fleet long enough for him to escape with what remained of his army. Since then, General Marakk has been reported working openly with Commonwealth Claims Control against Imperial forces, though he and his army appear to have taken independent mercenary contracts on occasion.

ASSEMBLY
"The Assembly is the most thoroughly joyless society I have ever had the dubious pleasure of studying."

- Oraxes Merl, Necrox Commonwealth (Biotic Catalogue)

Codename IRON AXIS.

Assembly was discovered approximately a century into the Second Founding, a civilization that made its home in the debris disks of star systems rather than planetary bodies. Discovering that Assembly territory intersected Bidonite territory and planned Bidonite expansions at many points, and finding that Assembly had little interest in their planets, the Empire was quick to exchange languages and diplomats with them and eventually struck a mutually beneficial alliance.

Assembly is notable for three things.

First are its exceptionally large spacecraft. Being a spaceborne civilization, whatever part of its population that does not make its home in asteroid habitats is instead carried in gargantuan asymmetrical "ironclads", serving at once as colony ships, factories, and fortresses.

Second is its channel network, a portal system operating according to principles unknown to Bidonite science capable of transferring ships across space at speeds faster than any known hyperspace drive. Part of the terms of Assembly's alliance with the Empire is leasing the use of the channels to the Empire, allowing the Imperial Armada unprecedented mobility within joint Empire-Assembly space.

Third is its society. Assembly is single-minded to the extreme, being utterly devoted to industrialism and acquisition of resources. This unnatural monoculture is enforced by the cabal of artificial intelligences that rule Assembly, where people are built to serve machines rather than the other way around.

While the Empire has no plans to betray their alliance, the Bidonites are nonetheless wary of how so much Assembly territory intersects their own. The amount of space they share has only grown since the authentication of the alliance.

Notable Imperial Assets
DEAREST AND GLORIFIED SOLDIERS OF THE LEGIONS

What follows is a partial list of Imperial Legions assets that have, in some way, achieved renown in the Empire.

IIBARAZ
A world famous for being one of the eight "petty empires" in the post-Collapse era of the Empire, especially for having fought and successfully held back a Biomachine incursion until their disappearance from the galaxy. Famous for producing soldiers of particularly high quality and notably devoid of the unflappable cheerfulness endemic to most other regiments.

Instead, Iibaraz is notable for its lack of cheer. Its soldiers are grim and relentless, taking Bidonite tenacity to a whole new level. They gather overwhelming force, steamroll enemy positions with a massive mechanized push, rapidly fortify the captured area, and repeat. Very little can deter them -- positions held by Iibaraz soldiers must be killed to the last Bidonite before they are ever relinquished.

STRENGTH OF WING
A legendary Imperial battlecruiser with a long and celebrated history. Flagship of the entire Imperial Armada, currently captained by Admiral Sorel Obir Set.

The Strength of Wing was constructed shortly before the Collapse, having originally made a name for itself in the Second Iceworlder Wars, where it, operating alone, destroyed three Iceworlder ships of comparable tonnage while protecting an evacuee convoy.

After the Collapse, the Strength of Wing was one of those ships of the Armada that went dark to evade detection and destruction. With its entire crew in cryosleep and all but the most important systems shut down, it drifted in deep space for twenty-seven years.

Rediscovery came about after the Second Founding, when, through sheer luck, the Strength of Wing 's automated systems detected the the distress signal of an Imperial expeditionary fleet. Once revived, the Strength of Wing proceeded to fight and help win one of the first battles of the Balzer War, its sudden appearance earning it even greater fame.

The Strength of Wing became one of the figureheads of the resurrected United Bidonite Empire -- like the Empire itself, a symbol of the past returned to the present. With the Imperial Armada still budding and weak, the immense firepower the ancient battlecruiser could provide was greatly appreciated. It went on to fight several key battles against the Balzer pirates, eventually turning the tide of the war over the water world Oocalis by destroying two Balzer motherships, the loss of which greatly demoralized the enemy.

Since then, the Strength of Wing has remained one of the Empire's key assets as it grew in size in strength. Its heroic reputation only grew with every battle it fought -- and though it didn't always come out victorious, battle damage was always an excellent reason to refurbish the aging ship with all the most cutting edge technology the Imperial Armory can manufacture.

ROYAL GUARD
The Imperial Royal Guard is the personal army of the High Sovereigns, used to protect them and their rightful authority. While the Guard is largely considered ceremonial, it sees little action only because there has been little internal strife within the Empire lately. The role of the Royal Guard is to put down uprisings and rebellions -- internal threats -- whereas the Imperial Army fights external threats. Nevertheless, the Royal Guard tends to wield the latest weaponry and wear the most advanced armor, earning them the nickname "gold haulers" (a rough translation) from other elements of the Legions.

AMBASSADOR BETIK KYN MORAT
A polyglot aadamez ambassador who first made a name for herself by talking down the rebellious Sovereign Tovar Mamoz, her efforts in settling territory claim disputes between the Empire and the alien Mavra led to the discovery of her ability to learn other languages with astonishing speed. Since then, Ambassador Morat has become a mainstay of Imperial-Alien diplomacy. Her talent is a form of savant syndrome; she was born with a Bidonite neurodevelopmental disorder similar to autism in humans. At current count, she is fluent in 12 languages and conversant in 24 more.