Board Thread:Forum Roleplays/@comment-26084195-20150511055945

Ok, I'm going to warn you all right off the bat: this has nothing to do with LOTR. It is in this world.

"The year is 2670. 170 years since the passing of the golden age of humanity." The General stared out his window at the landscape of Aurum, the capital of the United Colonies of Mankind. "You're young and naive. You don't know what really happened. Sit down son, and let me tell you the harsh truth. It all started when something odd appeared above Earth, and crashed there. It was a white sphere about the size of a baseball, but so heavy it took two men to lift it. It was brought to a lab, where every test imaginable was performed on it, with no results. Then, after weeks, all the doors to the room it was in closed and locked. It broadcasted it's message on all frequencies, to every corner of Human space. It said: get out, get out now. You are all doomed. If you want to live, follow me to Sigma 04, where you'll be safe. Then it broke through it's chains and flew out of our solar system. Most didn't believe it. If only we had, we might be in better shape. But there were about 1,000,000,000 who did. These "Abandonists" gathered themselves a fleet of starships to go to Sigma 04. Our alien buddies, the Shaltari, laughed at us, said we couldn't even keep our own people in check. So we sent our fleet to stop theirs. But they were too determined, and with help from the White Sphere, they smashed our blockade.

Then along came the Scourge. Our armada was weakened. Within weeks those parasitic buggers had taken Earth and all the Cradle Worlds. The only way we managed to survive was by desperately fleeing to the harsh but mineral rich outer colonies. I know you were taught that it was a brave retreat, that we hold out as long as possible and we were stoic and organized to the last, but it's bull. We ran, far and fast, because we were afraid. And justly so. Only one man has ever escaped Scourge captivity. He only survived a few days before killing himself because he couldn't stand hearing the screams of the victims echoing in his ears. So here we are now, living on harsh, horrid planets, churning out the massive war machine we need to retake Earth and the other gems of the Cradle Worlds. But now we don't just have to contend with the Scourge, we have to contend with the Shaltari, and worst of all, the servants of the White Sphere, the Post-Human Republic! And we've put on a good show, but sometimes... I wonder if we'll ever manage to see Earth returned to us."

This is a futuristic roleplay based off of the popular tabletop wargame Dropzone Commander. In this roleplay you may choose to be a member of the vile and parasitic Scourge, the determined and vengeful United Colonies of Mankind, the mysterious and war-venerating Shaltari tribes, or the highly advanced Cyborg race that is the Post-Human Republic. Here's some info on each.

UCM: Forged in desperation, united by adversity and resurgent in power, the UCM exists for a single purpose - to wrest mankind's lost strongholds from the clutches of the Scourge. A collection of diverse and remote frontier worlds, the UCM is a restless cultural melting pot, bubbling with a righteous desire for vengeance.

One and a half centuries after the Scourge captured Earth and the Cradle Worlds, the UCM has expanded beyond all recognition. The greatest military force in the history of humanity has been assembled; a vast armada recently unleashed against enemies old and new.

The Colonies

The UCM consists of a series of former frontier planets, once peopled only by desperadoes, ne'er do wells and enterprising characters, eager to forge new lives and seek fortunes. These worlds were not chosen for their beauty or amenity, but rather for their considerable mineral wealth.

The course of their development was irrevocably altered in the chaotic aftermath of the Scourge invasion, when scores of fleeing refugees descended on these obscure backwaters. A measure of the enterprising and hardy character of the original inhabitants influenced this massive influx of new blood, creating a new and dynamic civilisation.

Today, the colonies have become the industrial powerhouses they were originally intended to be, churning out the mighty war machine required to take on the Scourge. Their extensive natural resources have proven crucial to mankind's spectacular recovery from total defeat. The estimated population of the UCM has recently exceeded 20 billion souls.

Military Might

Despite its democratic underpinnings, the UCM is essentially a military state. This has arisen not through tyranny, but rather through necessity. Many senior army and fleet offices come automatically with Senate and even High Council seats. Most civilian politicians recognise the need for defence issues to supersede all other concerns and are firmly behind the Reconquest. The UCM has essentially been in a state of war since its very foundation.

Most UCM citizens live austere and often harsh lives, human toil being the lifeblood of the Reconquest. Most accept this with stoic determination, and hope one day to see the lush Cradle Worlds and even Earth itself with their own eyes. These distant jewels have a place in the heart of many who once listened in awe to their grandparents' tales of great cities, lush gardens and lives of leisure. All understand that a free future can only be theirs through annihilating the Scourge.

On the Offensive

Central UCM military strategy calls for efficient, lighting fast planetary assault from space. Almost all UCM materiel has been designed with this fundamental tenet in mind, from the heaviest dropship to the humble assault rifle. All UCM constructs are lightweight, efficient, utilitarian and cost effective, facilitating en-mass deployment.

Vehicles

Modern UCM armoured vehicles are a far cry from the ungainly, lumbering contraptions of the 20th century. They are necessarily lightweight, and are protected by advanced composite armour, active countermeasures, low signatures and sheer weight of numbers.

UCM vehicles are distinctly utilitarian in appearance, with harsh lines and compact forms. A common theme in UCM tank design is an extremely low profile. This allows for maximum efficiency in transit, and presents a more difficult target to the enemy. Part of this design necessitates cramped crew compartments, where drivers often lay prone inside their machines.

The UCM's industrial powerhouse churns out armour at a staggering rate, aided by the colonies' epic reserves of raw material. Armed with the potent weaponry, the UCM's armoured hordes are poised to deliver crushing vengeance to the Scourge, and all others who stand in their way.



The Scourge:

.The Scourge are foul, neuro-parasitic lifeforms which can utterly dominate an unfortunate host, bending its life to its will. They thrive on the conquest and absorption of other races, their very mode of existence as potent a threat as their formidable battlefield technology. They are the galaxy's ultimate predators.

Their breathtaking assimilation of the central planets, including Earth itself, has made them the primary threat to the very existence of mankind. Their methods of killing on the battlefield are abhorrent to witness, but violent death at the hand of their potent plasma weaponry can be as nothing compared to the dread of being taken alive.

'Pure' Scourge

Outside a host, a Scourge isn't much to look upon, sickening though they undoubtedly are. Scourge adults are wispy, boneless, soft bodied creatures, frail in the extreme. Indeed, its fetid body is hard to identify amongst the myriad swirling tendrils of its extremities.

A Scourge can survive for its full lifespan without a host. It has been postulated that the Scourge evolved independently from hosts and only presented neuro-parasitic abilities late in their development. Once beyond the larval stage, in fact, it becomes impossible for a Scourge to take a host at all, and it must henceforth live as a pathetic, fragile creature for the remainder of its foul existence. It was a drive for physical improvement which ultimately led the Scourge to find strength in the bodies of other races.

Pure Scourge are obviously utterly unsuited for the open battlefield. Indeed, in gravity beyond 0.5G a Scourge cannot even move outside a liquid. Pure Scourge are however commonly found on the battlefield in control of vehicles, confirmed by studies of Scourge wrecks. Inside their unsettling and insectile war machines were found pockets of a black, tar like nutrient soup, floating inside which were pure Scourge. It seems that if larvae are not provided with a host in time, Scourge find strength in a manufactured chassis. The disturbingly predatory, organic qualities of the movements of scourge vehicles can be explained by this unholy communion of Scourge and construct, a process which is understood to be permanent.

Taking a Host

To live with any degree of potency, a Scourge must take a carbon-based host early in its life. How this is done remains a mystery to UCM scientists, since no man has ever seen the process and lived to tell the tale. Those few to have escaped Scourge 'breeding hives' speak of the unendurable screams and the agony of the victims, a torment understood to last for months in some cases.

Externally, captured hosts retain their normal physical characteristics in the early stages of possession. Internally however, the Scourge will have fully developed into a web of gelatinous fibres, bound to the nervous system of the host.

In a fairly short time, external symptoms become obvious. A heightened thirst, coupled with a constant sweat is the first noticeable sign of possession. Curiously, hosts lose the ability to produce colour pigment, and over time became more and more pale, the eyes eventually turning a sickly red. Their thirst and propensity to sweat also heightens with time, eventually reaching a stage where they routinely drink the blood of the fallen, comrades and enemies alike.

The Scourge  prolongs the life of the host but ultimately ages itself, although it can live for several centuries. When the Scourge eventually begins to die, the host becomes increasingly erratic, as the Scourge's iron grip on its nervous system deteriorates. Eventually, the Scourge dies, closely followed by the host, wracked with apparent insanity and pain.

Usurpers by Nature

The Scourge appear to be exploiting captured planets to the full, running all human industrial centres 24 hours a day, and often augmenting and expanding them with their own, sinisterly organic looking structures. Areas of little use to the Scourge, such as the once thriving entertainment and cultural centres have been left to rot, leading to eerie vistas of beautiful buildings reclaimed by nature.

It has been suggested that the Scourge may be able to make use of a measure of the hosts memories, an insidious and ominous prospect explaining their continued use of human structures and systems. Indeed, this can be seen as a highly efficient mode of conquest, since a ready-made environment exists amongst the host's former cities. In this way, the Scourge not only absorb the bodies, but also the technology, knowledge and power base of their vanquished prey. As the Scourge conquer, they only become more potent as the Galaxy's apex predator.

Invaders  The Scourge are masters of planetary invasion. Their entire fighting system is geared towards this single minded goal. Their dropships are strictly one-way transports, deploying from low orbit in freefall and only capable of sustained powered flight at relatively low altitudes. Sinister grav-tanks can deploy from these peculiar, vertically configured craft in seconds, reaching the combat zone faster than those all other races, save the Shaltari. Their weapons are short ranged, but spectacularly destructive. Their entire ethos demands lighting speed, intense shock and merciless aggression. The Scourge do not know retreat, they either conquer, or die trying.



PHR:

A tiny portion of humanity turned its back on mankind in the waning days of the last Golden Age. Over one and a half centuries later, the PHR has emerged from the shadows as an unrecognisable civilisation, its people irrevocably changed. They are no longer simple human beings, they are post-humans - cyborgs.

A society no more than three billion strong, the PHR is a nation of elites, each individual more than a match for several lesser mortals. With remarkable speed, they have made technological advancements surpassing those of the UCM. Since its fiery birth, the PHR has been guided by the enigmatic White Sphere, a mysterious object of immense power. It is treated by the people of the PHR with a reverence bordering on worship.

Birth and the White Sphere

The PHR was born through division, fire and death. Shortly before the Scourge invasion, a mysterious object of obviously alien origin fell into the atmosphere of Earth. It delivered a bleak warning of impending doom to humanity.

Heeding the warning provided by the White Sphere, a tide of convinced souls known as the Abandonists left Earth and the Cradle worlds to their prophesised fate. In order to make good their escape, they chose to fire upon the fleet sent to stop them. This provided a chance for the majority of their armada to jump into the unknown darkness of space. Their faith in The Warning spared them the horrors of the Scourge invasion, and resulted in the seeding of a new society.

Today, the Sphere occupies a revered and crucial position in the Republic, determining much of its policies. It is almost certain that a good measure of the PHR's evident technological superiority can be attributed to the Sphere's apparently benevolent influence. The Republic has morphed from a desperate collection of mutineers and refugees into an unrecognisable society in less than 170 years, a feat only accomplishable with considerable aid. The question of motive is obvious, but theories here are too wild to justify putting down in record. For now, the White Sphere remains the greatest enigma to trouble the UCM.

Emergence

The fate of those who escaped remained utterly unknown until the eve of the UCM's ambitious Reconquest campaign. A strange and unlooked for ship suddenly appeared over Aurum (site of the UCM seat of power), containing a delegation from the self declared Post-Human Republic. This mystifyingly changed yet humanlike group, entered an audience with the UCM High Council, and avowed their nature as descendants of the Abandonist movement.

What knowledge UCM has acquired in the brief time since the PHR's emergence is incomplete at best, and more often pure conjecture. Most has been gleaned through frosty diplomatic relations and interrogations. In these few short months, the UCM acquired a number of prisoners and bodies for autopsy, since armed conflict has already erupted between the two factions.

Post-Humans

From the earliest encounters with citizens of the Republic, their 'changed' nature was instantly noticeable. While clearly human, their appearance, speech, movements and mannerisms were somehow uncanny and certainly disquieting. Their claim to being more than simply human was never in doubt from the moment it was voiced.

Early research indicates extensive use of cybernetic prosthetics and modification, both for the purposes of injury repair and for improved physical performance. These artificial additions vary from simple bone and limb replacements to incomprehensibly advanced bio-artificial melding of living tissue and fabricated nanostructures.

However repugnant this sounds, subjects appear at the height of physical perfection, despite the aforementioned gnawing feelings of 'difference' engendered to all who look upon them. Most UCM citizens who have witnessed them in person regard them as abhorrent and unnatural, a virtually distinct species to their own.

Elite Armies

The population of the PHR is tiny compared to that of the UCM. In order to be effective as a fighting force, the PHR concentrates on maximising the survivability and lethality of every unit. With superior technology and artificial enhancements at its disposal, the Republic has proven highly successful at this aim.

Since the PHR seemingly has no short term desire to recapture Earth and the Cradle worlds, it has no need of a vast military machine such as that of the UCM. Without this necessity, the Republic has been able to focus on providing a matchless quality of training and equipment to its few troops.

<p style="font-size:0.9em;margin-top:0px;line-height:20px;">Vehicles

<p style="font-size:0.9em;margin-top:0px;line-height:20px;">In many respects, PHR vehicles are very similar to those of the UCM. Both groups share common heritage, although PHR armoured units have evolved quite differently to their counterparts. Technological advancements and higher build quality generally make them superior in most respects. Well armed, they are often outnumbered, but seldom outgunned.

The most obvious difference is the presence of the imposing battle walkers, coupled with a cleaner, more developed aesthetic. The Republic still makes use of traditional treaded vehicles however, and shares broadly similar troop delivery and extraction methods, supported by a series of dropships.

PHR vehicles make use of an extensive array of optical and electromagnetic systems to provide the crew with detailed situational awareness, their most distinctive physical feature being prominent EM scanning domes. Most units feature no windows whatsoever, relying entirely on these systems for vision. All PHR vehicles with a living pilot are equipped with neural connections to an isolated onboard AI. This provides tactical assistance in combat, including targeting and threat analysis, further enhancing the effectiveness of the pilot-machine union.

<p style="font-size:0.9em;margin-top:0px;line-height:20px;">

<p style="font-size:0.9em;margin-top:0px;line-height:20px;">The Shaltari:

<p style="margin-top:0px;line-height:20px;"> T he Shaltari are an ancient and highly developed species. Their technology is advanced to a level of sophistication rivalled only by its potency. They have traversed the stars for millennia, learned myriad truths, and have fought countless wars. Through their knowledge, the Shaltari transcend even death itself, and can endure indefinitely, perceiving the ebb and flow of time like no other race.

<p style="font-size:0.9em;margin-top:0px;line-height:20px;"> In battle, the Shaltari are fearsome adversaries. Their swiftness is unmatched, their firepower unequalled, their bravery undeniable. The beauty of their constructs bellies their true nature; engines of death, honed to lethal perfection long before humanity learned to throw stones. They are peerless masters of technology.

Physiology

Shaltari are diminutive in stature, standing a little over four feet high. They are roughly humanoid, although disproportionately long-limbed. They are covered from head to foot in long, thick spines, the colour of which can be changed at will. Waves of complex patterns can be broadcast at bewildering speed, a trait which has been likened to cuttlefish on Earth. Despite this, individuals do present a 'dominant' colour for the majority of the time, believed to be linked to complex psychological conditions.

Shaltari have large, ovoid eyes. Unlike human eyes, these appear opaque and lack pupils. Despite this, their vision is broadly equivalent to that of humans. A Shaltari has no discernable nose or ears, although a small mouth is visible, lined with short, sharp teeth.

The Enduring Consciousness

The natural life of a Shaltari is believed to exceed three centuries. Like all known lifeforms, biological mortality eventually sets in, bringing old age and death. This loss of education, expertise and experience was mourned deeply by the early Shaltari, a race which has always valued knowledge above all things. This sense of futile loss was eventually banished by their most important technological innovation - consciousness transfer.

Near mortal death, this advanced process allows the psyche and memories of the subject to be transferred into another physical body. Brain-dead 'shell' bodies are grown especially for this purpose, allowing the consciousness of the individual to endure beyond natural demise. This simple summary represents the limits of human understanding of this revered and enigmatic process.

<p style="font-size:0.9em;margin-top:0px;line-height:20px;">In this manner, some Shaltari have 'lived' for millennia, progressing though dozens of bodies. These 'Elders' have vast levels of experience at their disposal, knowledge which enabled the Shaltari to expand technologically beyond the scope of all other known races.

Warrior Veneration

In current times, the most common way for a Shaltari to meet death is in battle. To the human psyche, it would seem logical that participation in war would be desperately avoided by such a race. This could not be further from the truth, due to the central tenet in Shaltari culture - Warrior Veneration.

While the Shaltari value knowledge above all else, they respect martial endeavour beyond all other undertakings. The Shaltari have had to fight for their existence countless times over millennia as starfarers. As such, their veneration for warriors has reached a zenith unequalled by the younger races.

This deep reverence has resulted in a dominant warlike subculture within Shaltari society. This is a clear two-tier structure where those who have never seen battle cannot even be bestowed with a name. The Shaltari believe that this basic level of respect can only be achieved by fighting for the race. This attitude has extended to dealings with humans, where Shaltari ambassadors refuse to speak to or address by name those without military experience.

The Tribes

Over time, the Shaltari have come to embrace the concept of strength through diversity, struggle and competition. Since they are accustomed to being the most advanced and powerful race in their spheres of influence, the only logical source for such contest has been with each other.

Throughout the ages, differences of opinion and various cultural nuances have developed between disparate groups, resulting in clear divisions within Shaltari society. These divisions are appreciated and indeed lauded by all Shaltari as a driving force for development, invention and improvement against stagnation.

Humans have come to refer to these distinct blocks as 'Tribes', a simple term used by early Shaltari ambassadors. Tribes were assigned designations corresponding to early indigenous Earth nations and cultures, a practice continued by the UCM (United Colonies of Mankind). These are normally allocated randomly and do not indicate any similarity between the Tribe and its original namesake. Ancient names such as Apache, Inuit, Amazon and Inca are in common usage once again, although now with very different connotations.

Technology

Shaltari vehicles are highly distinctive, and justly famous for their geometric complexity and exquisite splendour. Many have likened their appearance to jewellery, although this masks their true nature as beautifully engineered killing machines. It is understood by UCM scientists that practically every apparently ornamental feature has a real function, the nature of which is normally a complete enigma.

A central pillar of Shaltari battlefield technology and strategy is teleportation. This allows for troops to be deployed, rerouted and extracted in a matter of seconds, without needlessly putting lives at risk during transit. Their tactical manoeuvres are therefore quite unlike those of any other known race, making them slippery and formidable adversaries.

Shaltari gunnery is rightly feared, their weapons being the most advanced yet encountered by mankind. A wide array of lethal devices can bring shattering firepower to bear from afar. Only the very strongest armour can hope to withstand such overwhelming force.

<p style="font-size:0.9em;margin-top:0px;line-height:20px;">I will take the role of most NPCs, as well as the narrator. Furthermore, given that this is a roleplay based off of a tabletop game, any combat that takes place I will play out using the actual models. If you want to take a look at the forces available to you, go here: http://www.hawkwargames.com/pages/dropzone-commander

Rules:

No metagaming or godmodding, obviously.

Listen to me, as I am the narrator!

​ No one besides me can say the outcome of any combat, as I must play it out first.

Try to be realistic! The UCM don't get energy shields, and the Scourge don't get teleporters! Stay within the bounds of the technology you are given.

Here is the character layout you should use:

Name:

Faction:

Rank:

Appearance:

Favoured vehicle:

​Story:

And finally, please do have fun!<ac_metadata title="The Assault, a Dropzone Commander RP"> </ac_metadata>