User:The Collective Mind/Prototypes

Afor
Natural selection is the only natural part of Afor evolution. They are the product of millions of years of slow guidance, the end result of artificially-induced global cataclysms and climate change, external eugenic selection, and subtle genetic manipulation.

All of this has resulted in the modern Afor: massive hircine bipeds, shock troops for an unseen master. Evolved and abapted to be the most dangerous organisms their homeworld of Menadh could ever produce.

They're big, strong, smart, and fast. They're not the biggest species in the galaxy, or the strongest, or the smartest, or the fastest, but what they are is all four at the same time. Also, they're all latent Essence users. Patience pays, especially when you're trying to grow super-soldiers via millions of years of natural selection.
 * Biology
 * tall - 7 or 8 feet, and strong, but have little body fat -- compounding their strength, they have no muscle inhibition
 * fur colors - various shades of grey, black, and brown, which gradually grades to white as they age
 * digitigrade legs for high speed
 * horns -- usually 2, occasionally 4
 * omnivorous, rapid and highly efficient metabolism, can eat just about anything and digest it too without problems -- no problems with food spoilage -- which is a good thing, because their horrifying metabolisms need a lot of fuel
 * redundant major organs: two hearts, four lungs (two "secondary"), blood gets oxygenated really well, contributes to their considerable endurance
 * goat pupils -- they used to be a prey species
 * Essence
 * all have considerable latent potential -- however they cannot immediately access it
 * Sociology
 * shaped by intense self-categorization -- ingroup and outgroup hard -- defend the ingroup and the outgroup can go to hell
 * very low empathy -- not inherently violent, more like they have nothing restraining them from violence
 * tend to be resistant to change

Tenet
examples of ritual: perception filter, remote viewing, fleshcrafting

one holy tenet: pursue your ambitions, and four principles

Perception alteration. Key to Tenet's continuing secrecy is the ability to alter the perceptions of observers. In its most basic form, this ritual may be used to render Tenet assets difficult to notice or outright invisible. Advanced forms of perception alteration disguise the true appearance of assets both visually and to many forms of instrumentation. For example: Tenet spacecraft may appear as unrelated pirate vessels, and its planets may appear both uninhabited and uninhabitable.

Remote viewing. The ability to covertly and indefinitely observe targets represents an important part of Tenet's intelligence operations. Multiple methods of performing remote viewing exist, each with their own costs and benefits. Sympathetic magic, for example, allows magi to see directly out of discreetly planted symbols or effigies, but such objects are generally non-mobile and the link between object and practitioner is easily disrupted. Scrying, another method, has an adjustable field of view and may be used to track moving targets, but is commensurately more difficult to perform with any clarity.

Stasis. bubbles of frozen time, thaumaturgically complicated and expensive to maintain but worth it -- food never spoils, wounded can receive medical attention "immediately",

Fleshcrafting. One of the two "Holy Arts" said to have been taught to Tenet magi directly through divine correspondence. It is believed to be one of the most difficult schools of thaumaturgy to learn [requiring a comprehensive understanding of all fields of biology], and its practice is both prestigious and applicable. Not only is it useful medically, it is also how Tenet constructs its biological servitors. Fleshcrafting is a vital part of Tenet society, and its control is part of how Tenet magi ensure their social dominance.

Something about servitors -- the tenet equivalent of machinery, which is either biological horrors or magical robots

As thaumaturgy is an analogue for scientific and industrial methods, servitors created by thaumaturgy are an analogue for robotics. Servitors may be biological or artificial. Servitors are distinguished from enchanted objects by their autonomy. Servitors have limited agency and are capable of making and acting on decisions.

biological servitors, created by fleshcrafting: list

artificial servitors, created by thoughtbinding: list

a page for eyes of zeyyd? shapeshifters, mind readers, exist to stir up trouble in outlying systems for a raider fleet to take advantage of

Servitors are autonomous

Ghuruk are considerably more dangerous than conventional fleshcrafted servitors and are capable of operating independently of a handler. As with all Tenet bio-servitors, ghuruk demonstrate exceptional speed, strength, and regenerative ability. However, ghuruk are uniquely able to channel Essence, thereby enhancing their lethality through paracausal means.

All understanding of Ghuruk biology is speculative, as dead Ghuruk rapidly disintegrate. Tenet is believed to be incapable of replacing lost Ghuruk [being too advanced for its current level of thaumaturgy to replicate]; thus, their deployment is reserved for emergencies and operations of extreme significance.

The following target profiles are written in the context of Tenet bio-servitors. See SI:C1 for their context within the Prime Criterion.

Tenet servitor type E/B-A [ghuruk ammur]

Height: 11 ft

Length: ?

Mass: 14,000 lbs

Function: Shock trooper/tank destroyer/terror weapon

Incredibly resilient servitor type. Regenerates from injury at greater speed than conventional servitors and will continue to fight following catastrophic injury [such as bisection, dismemberment, and decapitation]. Only total destruction of both cranium and center of mass has been observed to reliably kill an Ammur.

Essence capabilities: Advisory: Notes:
 * Pyrokinesis: Ammur may generate and hurl projectiles composed of Cryptic plasma. This plasma is hyper-oxidizing and is known to cause incombustible materials to ignite, in most cases explosively.
 * Aciukinesis: When attacking, Ammur focus Cryptic energy into their claws and teeth, imposing an artificial and exceptional degree of sharpness capable of cutting through superhard materials.
 * Wallcrawling: Despite their size and weight, ammur are capable of scaling sheer, vertical surfaces.
 * When orbital bombardment is impossible, air or artillery strikes are recommended, ideally multiple passes. Do not assume an ammur is dead until it has disintegrated.
 * Tenet scripture describes Ghuruk Ammur as being raised in armies of billions during the 'War in Heaven'. As Tenet has only a limited supply of Ammur, it must be much more selective in their deployment.

Motive
doctrine -- interchangeability and redundancy, fortifications everywhere, defeat is worse than death organization --
 * generally, inferior armor combined with superior weapons and plenty of support
 * everyone is a combat engineer, combined with motive construction technology means fortifications get erected stupidly fast
 * noncom equivalents called "conductors", ranging from GDC:1 to GDC:12


 * commissioned officer and enlisted equivalents called "operators", ranging from GDO:1 to GDO:10 with specialist qualifiers as necessary


 * Garrison infantry
 * Shock infantry

Hubs:
 * Mechs: biped/quadruped/hexapod/scout
 * modular weapons mounts
 * Land carrier
 * 1) Triumphator -- the first, and biggest
 * 2) Alliance
 * 3) Keyport
 * 4) Axis
 * 5) Reliance
 * 6) Stronghold
 * 7) Colossus
 * 8) Hallowed
 * 9) Virtue
 * 10) Imperial
 * 11) Crossroads
 * 12) Helicon
 * 13) Phalanx
 * 14) Regime

!!ALERT!!
PRIORITY RED MESSAGE

FROM: Prime Analyst (11:18): Travat Petrushov, Asken [Legions: Intelligence/Alien]

TO: Sector 11 Intelligence Director: Anaya Kiril, Toboloi [Legions: Intelligence/Alien]

SUBJECT: IRON AXIS threat capacity review

TAGS: IRON AXIS, threat level, allies...

MESSAGE BEGINS.

Sir Kiril, I fear we have severely underestimated the threat capacity of IRON AXIS.

Earlier today (cycle 05-12), reconnaissance fleet T490-11:18 clandestinely entered IRON AXIS space outside Sector 11 to observe Channel operations and IRON AXIS activities in and around system AY/1787. AY/1787 was believed to be a major IRON AXIS population center based on intercepted comms traffic and hyperspace activity (attached: AY/1787, Stellar Activity, 599 03-01).

It appears that most of what we know about IRON AXIS is built on faulty evidence.

The asteroid habitats within joint Imperial-IRON AXIS space seem to be no more than a manned perimeter, a buffer zone for potential threats. What the recon fleet discovered was an actual IRON AXIS city. Look at this:

This is AY/1787:08, the smallest of the eight planets in the system. All of them were like this. This represents an astral engineering capacity millennia beyond our capabilities. They're taking the whole planet apart.

Attached is a full report on IRON AXIS activities and construction within the AY/1787 system. To summarize: From the scale of this project, the sheer amount of resources involved, and the fact that no Monitors are present, we must assume that the AY/1787 project is not unusual for IRON AXIS. It may even be routine. Espionage Officer (11:18) Kol is organizing another reconnaissance operation to probe deeper into IRON AXIS space to confirm. Target stars are UY/2410, UD/0122, and AY/4415.
 * AY/1787 is covered by an incomplete stellar shell, made up of an estimated 72576 solar collection satellites.
 * Extensive celestial demolition in progress; AY/1787:03 estimated to be fully dismantled within 4 years.
 * No fewer than five Channel nodes present. Channel activity 864% greater than previously estimated average.
 * Orbital habitats:
 * 3 confirmed Class 4 (metropolis+), 1 unconfirmed
 * 33 confirmed Class 3 (metropolis-scale), 58 unconfirmed.
 * 70 confirmed Class 2 (city-scale), 119 unconfirmed.
 * 284 confirmed Class 1 (colony-scale), 537 unconfirmed.
 * 8 new IRON AXIS starship types, apparently specialized for planet-dismantling/megastructure-construction purposes.
 * No Monitors detected.

Based on the findings of T490-11:18, I humbly submit that IRON AXIS should be reclassified to Threat Level 2. I await your response, Sir Kiril.

Prime Analyst Asken Travat Petrushov

MESSAGE ENDS.

GLORY TO THE EMPIRE - LONG LIVE THE TETRARCHS

Quote
"Motive is the most thoroughly joyless society I have ever had the dubious pleasure of studying."

- Oraxes Merl, Necrox Commonwealth (Biotic Catalogue)

"One of my friends heard from a Motivator that the Monitors get weirder the deeper inside you go. Things like the corridors changing when you aren't looking, weird sounds, rooms that don't make sense... he heard the pipes and the wires start looking like writing, when you get far enough."

"Don't be fooled by all the gears and pistons - Motive builds for function, not aesthetics. Their tech's at least as advanced as anything you've got. Probably more."

- Analyst Shuykim Auv, Imperial Intelligence

Concord Terminal
Welcome to Concord Terminal, our foremost intergalactic diplomatic nexus! If you're reading this, then you are either a traveler on a long journey, a foreign dignitary on a mission, or some other valued client of our services. Whoever you are, you've come to the right place. Motive knows your needs and is ready to serve! WARNING TO PSYCHICALLY SENSITIVE INDIVIDUALS: while staying at Concord Terminal, you may experience feelings of dysphoria, subjective blindness, and the sensation of being watched. This is normal.
 * About Concord Terminal -- history, significance
 * Accommodations -- whether you're here to make use of one of our channel gates, seeking to negotiate a trade deal, or something else entirely -- atmosphere and gravity habitable for most forms of organic carbon-based life, notify within 24 hours if you have any requirements significantly different from the norm
 * Layout: production lines, habitats, wormhole gates, defenses
 * Quotes -- "customer reviews"
 * Great accomodations and wonderful staff. Felt like I was being watched the whole time. 5/5
 * The rooms are lovely but the food is awful. 3/5
 * Definitely go for the guided tour if you have the time! I thought I'd seen big, then I saw the assembly line for spaceships.
 * Went to the bathroom. When I came out the way back wasn't the same as the way to. Wandered around for 20 minutes before I found a concierge to ask for directions. 2/5

Prime Solar Republic
The Prime Solar Rebellion is the name for a series of conflicts in the Trans-Western Territory between Motive and rebellious elements of the Prime Solar Republic. Following years of increasing Motive influence within the economy and politics of the Prime Solar Republic to the detriment of civil rights and freedoms, multiple rebel cells began to form within the Republic, all with the ultimate goal of expelling Motive interests from Republic space. These cells were highly variable in size and social class, ranging from secret partisan movements to renegade military formations. After a time, they became collectively known as the Solar Resistance.

These rebellions both slowed and accelerated the process of assimilation. On one hand, Motive experienced setbacks as the Solar Resistance broke supply lines and bombed vital installations. On the other, Motive suffered no significant losses outside of its interests in Republic space, and furthermore began instating martial law across broad regions of space to "ensure the peace and security of Republic citizens", supplanting Republic governance entirely.

As Motive consolidated its control of the Republic, the Solar Resistance similarly began to centralize as the various rebel cells united, adopting that collective moniker as their own. With their various assets pooled together and with popular support from the people of the Republic, the Resistance escalated the conflict to open warfare.

1
Andres!

Far-flung outpost of the Prime Solar Republic. City of brick and stone and glass, built with muscle and pioneer spirit beneath a red sun, on the edge of a brown dry plain. Its people: plain, rustic, honest.

Andres has new tenants now.

They brought concrete, steel, smoke, noise. The low buildings of Andres (built low and tough to withstand tornadoes and dust storms) are dwarfed and humbled by their new neighbors: ugly gray compounds and complexes, monolithic and sprawling, edged with foglights and razor wire. Tall spikes pierce the sky, vent greasy fumes into the air. Nature is adjourned. These new structures stand immobile, heedless of wind and weather. Quiet Andres now rattles with the sound of machines and brutal industry -- the song of Motive.

Descend into the smog-shrouded streets, down between the high gray tenements and apartments onto ash-stained pavement. Dawn is approaching, a lightening in the smoky sky. A new day begins. Loudspeakers chime, awakening people from their beds: time for work.

2
Kar Zeil slams his back into the wall, panting. The barrel of his blaster pistol is glowing cherry red with heat but he doesn't have a spare to replace it with. This is not going to plan.

The plan: infiltrate Andres. Create a loud, flashy distraction. Plant bombs in Motive's factories and production lines while their forces are all rushing the other way. Cripple their industry in the Dryden region, clearing a way for a major Resistance push.

Their successes: infiltrated Andres without incident.

Then some Motive patrol had caught the distraction team in the middle of wiring that chimney up. No way to pass it off as an accident. They'd made a big bang all right, but hours too early -- and now, alert to insurgents in their midst, Motive has flooded the whole city with troops. The sheer bad luck of it all makes Kar seethe.

"Take mine," says Beck. He hefts a stolen Motive rifle. Kar drops his pistol -- heat degradation would steal most of its potency, and he doesn't have the means to cool it -- and takes the proffered weapon gratefully. The gun's workings are complex (Motive loves complexity) but he's used enemy weapons before. He cycles its firing mechanism and takes stock of his forces.

Right now, it's just him, Beck, and Trenn. Every man of them carries a demo charge, but unless they can link up with other Resistance fighters along the way (not likely, given the fight raging all over the city) they'll have to reach Target 2 by themselves. Not good odds. But the Resistance needs this break, and Kar refuses to fail it.

A platoon of gas-masked Motive soldiers tromps past the alley they're sheltering in, all boot-stomps and rattling gear. Kar waits for them to pass, then darts across the street. Beck and Trenn follow.

"We're close," says Kar. "Hear that?"

A slow clunk, clunk, clunk above the din of combat, interspersed with mechanical whirring. Target 2 is a facility that manufactures payload-less artillery shells, to be armed elsewhere, and the clunking is the noise of shells being loaded onto racks by heavy lifting arms.

They run towards the noise, passing intersections and alleyways. A squad of Motive troops pops around a corner and Kar shoots on instinct, flinging one bewildered Crewman backwards in a spray of armor shards and sending the rest scurrying back for cover. Kar and his team dart into a side street as the other Crewman return fire. No point in shooting back -- they can't beat Motive in a open fight, on its own turf. Speed is of the essence.

The walls of the narrow street are a blur. The noise is getting louder. Kar can hear other notes in its rhythm now, following their own individual beats. A kliklikliklik and a buzzzzz and a ''stomp - stomp - stomp. ''Engine-song, he's heard it described. The song of Motive. In fact, that stomping sound seems to be getting louder faster than the others --

Kar and his team burst out of the street and into a concrete courtyard. At the same moment, golden sunlight breaks through the oppressive cloud cover behind them, illuminating the brutal industrial mass of Target 2 --

-- and framing the towering tripod scout walker patrolling it with a stomp - stomp - stomp.

The walker halts. Atop the three pillars of its legs a cylindrical head rotates towards them, its searchlight pinning them in horrified place, its autocannons leveling downwards towards them. Even blinded by the searchlight Kar reckons he can see the Crewmen operating the thing behind the narrow viewslit on its head, see the shells loading into the barrels of its cannons that, for the moment, take up his entire world and doesn't this planet have a red sun --

Something person-sized, sun-bright and golden, smashes into the scout walker's head and obliterates it in a brilliant magnesium flash. Kar shields his eyes just in time (fragments of metal bounce off his head and elbow), and when he looks up, he sees that armored cockpit transformed into a shattered, scorched shell like a broken wineglass. And he sees that glowing person-shape perched atop it, and sees the whole broken contraption (knocked off-balance by the blow) slowly topple to the ground with a metallic groan. When it hits, it hits with a colossal crash, throwing up a cloud of dust and soot.

Kar rushes into it, but all thoughts of Target 2 are forgotten. The light was so beautiful. He needs to see it again, almost physically needs it.

A gust of wind blows the dust aside. And kneeling atop the ruin of the fallen scout walker is a woman.

She is radiant, beautiful. She glows with inner light. Wisps of it rise from her limbs like tiny solar prominences. Gossamer insectoid wings twice as long as she is tall trail from her back, her waist, drifting weightlessly around her. She stares at her own hands as if awed by her own power.

Kar stumbles and sinks to his knees. Behind him, Beck and Trenn do the same, each similarly enraptured. None of them are suspicious enough or resistant enough to wonder how natural their reactions are.

Slowly, she looks up at them. Her eyes are white on white. Slowly, joyously, she smiles.

"Are you with the Resistance?" she asks.

Kar stands. Her attention on him feels like warmth and light. "Y-yes, ma'am," he stammers, then almost chokes with embarrassment at how childish he sounds in front of her.

"You're here to free us."

Not trusting his voice, Kar nods.

"I have... power, now. I can help you fight them. But I need to know how." Her wings flare outwards like fans. Her smile turns fierce. "Tell me what to do."

Kar suddenly remembers he has a mission to accomplish, and he smiles too. His heart lifts with rare hope. The mission has just become a lot more possible.

3
VL: I'm not casting doubt on what she's accomplished. I'm just saying.

MO: And I say it doesn't matter. She hates Motive; she fights for us; good enough for me.

VL: But who is she? Where did she come from? How did she Ascend? As far as I know there are only three ways for that to happen, and none of them are plausible here. When someone Ascends there are galactic consequences. Is nobody else suspicious?

MO: You're out of line, Vic.

ND: You wouldn't be talking like this if you'd seen her. With your own eyes, not the picts and recordings.

VL: No. I wouldn't.

ND: ...what do you mean?

VL: I haven't seen her with my own eyes and I intend to stay that way. Keep her away from me. I'm done here.