Immaculate NES II: Emperor of the Fading Heavens (pre-NES thread)

[Immaculate]

KF: i hadn't really seen any role for houses from the fading suns universe here but its certainly possible- but i like your explation for what happened to them

also the second symbiot invasion never reached Asimov (thank goodness- all that plant and animal life would have quickly been parasitized and probably that would have served as a big enough breeding/training ground for the symbiots to knock out mankind completely)

 

[Immaculate]

Very good tyrs... nice and balanced- i think your assets are well chosen and you should be able to grow quickly if you play as intelligently as you usually do.

assuming you don't lose to a military invasion...

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

KF: i hadn't really seen any role for houses from the fading suns universe here but its certainly possible- but i like your explation for what happened to them

also the second symbiot invasion never reached Asimov (thank goodness- all that plant and animal life would have quickly been parasitized and probably that would have served as a big enough breeding/training ground for the symbiots to knock out mankind completely)

I was just to lazy to come up with a new House name soI stole the one you mentioned earlier
so maybe instead of symbiots he defended the planet against an invading House?

 

[Immaculate]

sure, sounds good.

 

[Immaculate]

Game Mechanics
When submitting orders please do so in thread or by e-mail (not PM). In thread is best if you aren’t being sneaky.
Orders can involve 1 action/project per character/scepter. So you will have 3 actions/projects to start with as a major noble house and 2 otherwise. This can change.
Each project/order should be limited to one not too long paragraph that details what resources are being applied to the project and the expected goals.
When submitting orders, please copy and paste your stats previous to or after your orders to save time/effort.
A note on stats:
Stats will be descriptive… things like very low, low, mediocre, average, above average, good, very good, excellent, immaculate-like, will form the continuum. Often relevant decisions will be based on a combination of stats. High industry will be more useful if you have the manpower to work that industry for example.
A note on combat resolution:
Purely arbitrary with a dice roll for each unit involved to give me some idea of how the unit did… there is no such thing as unit quality or equipment- all stats are purely descriptive. Your character leadership will be highly important. All offensive wars will require a character to lead them. Defensive wars fought under a major character (to which you assigned orders) will do much better then the lieutenants and sub-commanders you do not order directly.
A note on movement:
Individuals can move anywhere on your planet in one turn (unless under siege or if you have lost all air travel capacity for whatever reason).
Military units can move according to their type. If you have an infantry division that is just walking around then you can expect to have fairly limited movement. APCs will increase movement but reduce the type of terrain they can access. Fleets of transport jets and military engineers to build airports can obviously open up a lot of strategic movement.
Movement between jumpgates takes about 3 months (though this was not the case in very ancient times- the difference is thought to be due to the current configuration of the jump engine) Those involved in the jump are not aware of time passing or of even existing- for them the jump is instant. Food does not spoil and clocks only move a very slight amount (microseconds) during the jump. Most jumpgates are located in orbit around either their associated planet or around the associated star but in sync with the associated planet. Travel from planet to jumpgate can take between 3-5 months. There is no way of determining what lies on the far side of a jumpgate without sending some sort of probe/scout (which can take 6+ months). This limitation applies to the engines of everyone, including the church, the league of guilders and even symbiots. The transcendals don’t seem to be limited in this regard however; their travel between jumpgates is actually instant.- they also don’t seem to use conventional jump-engines.
Travel between stars without jumpgates is impossible for mankind (as far as we know). In addition, the church teaches that the space between stars is full of demons and evils best left untouched. There is probably some truth to that.

 

[orangelex44]

Tentative House Query holdings:
- a geographically small, but ancient and politically important fief on Errovus Secundus
- more significant territories on Arrakis, including the Chamber
- more recent expansion on Clarke, including the Spaceport

As for where my characters are located, I'll get to that eventually.

 

[Tyrs]

That's probably a good idea Orange

House Tsedeq holdings
-Two major cities on Clarke, both on the largest islands in the Eastern Hemisphere: Refuge (Southern, middle) and Absolution(Equitorial, left)
-Various fishing, mining, and oil industry support town and villages scattered across Clarke
-A handful of oil prospecting sites on Arrakis ruled by the Oreb family
-A very small unimportant fief on Errovus Secundus, though one that includes a tiny private landing port and an import/export business. Ruled by the Tormah family.

 

[Tyrs]

I finally managed to get the original game Emperor of the Fading Suns, and WOW, that game takes A LOT of effort to get a hold of, and then A LOT of effort to get working. But I can see why you'd want to based an NES off it though Immac, it rocks once I got it working!

 

[Immaculate]

Can you take a prnt scrn of the byzantium secondus overmap? (if possible)...

EDIT: yeah, i was impressed with the game...

 

[Vertinari118]

Travel between stars without jumpgates is impossible for mankind (as far as we know). In addition, the church teaches that the space between stars is full of demons and evils best left untouched. There is probably some truth to that.

Can I PM you a couple of possible loopholes that spring to mind regarding this rule. Well one is more of a different but related issue?

EDIT: Coeus is up and I have changed the name of the Order as per our agreement. Everyone else take a look.

 

[Immaculate]

Yes, you can always feel free to PM me or e-mail me. my e-mail is philgob (at) hotmail (dot) com. i also have MSN but don't use it unless i need to.

 

[orangelex44]

Any Given Morning...

Spoiler :

Ichabod Sterling really hated coming to Arrakis.

It was hard to say why. It might have been the heat; even though he never really left climate-controlled areas, desert planets *always* felt hot. It might have been the travel; when everything was said and done, the ‘short’ jaunt from Errovus Secondus still took a solid four months. It might have been his schedule; he never went to Arrakis unless he was working, and in his endless drive to leave the damn place he tended to be working nonstop the whole time.

But it was probably the people that made these trips such a pain. On Secondus, he never had to deal with the likes of Carson Moran-Buxby, Nikolai Newbhr, Guy Fye, or Nytalia Alstan-Quer. Especially Nikolai. For that matter, he could pretty much ignore the entire Council, since none of the other members lived on ‘his’ planet.

Yeah, it was certainly the people that bothered him the most. It wasn’t that Carson or his cronies were exactly disagreeable, because with the exception of Nikolai they were pretty personable, cultivated, and easy to talk to. However, when you spend virtually your entire life in strong opposition with someone it becomes hard to enjoy that person’s company. The constant subtle jabs about his age (which, really, were ridiculous; he was long past forty, even if he *looked* twenty), the self-congratulatory glances when their slight majority carried the day yet again, the maneuvered exile of Ichabod and his supporters. There, at least, they had backfired somewhat – Ichabod’s place in Secondus gave him a leg up on influence on the Regency, while his strategically-placed allies controlled virtually all the important posts off Arrakis. His fellow Sterlings and the Creyban ruled a third of Query’s Clarke fiefdoms, and with Alex Black owning the spaceport… well, suffice it to say the conservatives were trying to get Ichabod and Co. permanently back on Arrakis any way possible.

Yeah. That was why he hated coming to this stupid planet. And the low humidity bothered his sinuses, worse luck.





“Guy!”

Gustavus Fye turned his head to the sound. The movement bothered his neck; that wound from Third Yeltsin kicking up again.

The girl – she might call herself a woman at eighteen, but at least one planet’s laws disagreed with her about it – was jogging out of the room Guy has just exited carrying a hat. It was a very nice hat, pointed in the style of House Query generals, and with real gold thread. Not that anyone noticed; the jogging was causing some interesting natural forces to interact on certain physical structures, and the successive motion was quite entertainingly distracting.

“You forgot your hat.” The girl kindly went on tiptoe to put it on his head, and quite unnecessarily rubbed those same physical structures against Guy in the process. “Now you look professional, Mr. Fye!”

Guy simply nodded, and continued walking back to his waiting chauffeur. Not, of course, without a glance back to watch her jog back to the door.

He spent the entire drive to the Chamber skimming over logistics reports. These particular reports weren’t technically something Guy needed to be looking at, but Dick Berkely and Hrold Vyryr kept trying to sneak more funding for their little projects through the Clarke Guard Navy. Worse, they were getting pretty good at it, and Lord Admiral Reynseirholfer couldn’t keep up anymore. Stupid prick. Of course, Admiral Prick had gone whining to Earl Moran-Buxby, and said Earl had yet again asked Guy to come to the rescue.

What Guy wasn’t about to tell either of them was that he’d known about at least two of the money leaks beforehand, and that one of those two was actually shunted to the House Guard. Let the Church claim the evils of technology entire; armies knew better, and Guy had learned firsthand that lasers beat rifles any day of the week. Thus the presence of the House Guard slush fund. As for the other leak, well, Dickie had always been a pretty decent friend over the years, even if he was a bit annoying. Guy couldn’t imagine what the hell he was doing with what looked like half the entire budget of the Clarke Navy, though. Not to mention the rather open secret that a no small part of the smuggling through Clarke and Arrakis, which the House was supposedly trying to ‘suppress’ at the firm urging of the Regency, was actually funding and support for black Query military efforts. So black that even the Trusted Council didn’t know about them. Guy was probably supposed to know, or at least was supposed to try and find out, but if he was right about the Councilmen behind them he was fine with not knowing. They were capable enough, and anyone can be a security leak.

Before leaving the vehicle, Lord General Fye gathered all the reports together. Probably a third were falsified somehow. He left all but two of them behind. Admiral Prick, and even the Earl, could stand to shell out a couple million firebirds to a good cause.





“You look quite fine today.”

It was true. The Crown contrasted nicely with the yellow hair, the robe was a perfect shade of purple, and combined with the bright green eyes the Crownbearer looked like a true princess.

She looked up at the speaker, and pushed the beautiful silver Crown back on her head just a bit.

“Shut up, Nytalia.”

Her older cousin, the Grand Duchess Nytalia Alstan-Quer, simply smiled. The Crownbearer was indeed pissy today.

The teen Crownbearer continued, “I always look fine. It’s my job to look fine. To look fine, sit pretty, and do absolutely nothing. I’m effing sick of it. All I want to do is have one, just ONE, bad hair day. To be able to wear a torn pair of jeans and a grubby T-shirt. Maybe go on a run, or something. But no, I can’t do that, because Crownbearers never do that, and I’m the effing Crownbearer.”

The tall, powerful, and phenomenally deadly guard behind the Crown gave an almost inaudible chuckle. The Crownbearer immediately turned her head to give what, in a perfect world, should have been a killing glance.

The Grand Duchess smiled a bit wider. “Well, I’m sorry for that. Really, I am. However, in order for you to do any of those things, someone else would have to take your place, and I long ago determined that person was NOT going to be me.” There was some rather loud swearing from the throne. “That wasn’t very nice. Just for that, I think I’m going to be leaving.”

There was more, and louder, swearing as Nytalia exited stage left. It was always… refreshing… to visit her cousin, but while the throne room was a nice place to visit the Trusted Council Chamber was a much nicer place to work.

I didn't really have anything better to do on a Sunday night, so here's my first effort of Immac's second world. Basically, I'm just trying to start creating the characters properly.

 

[Immaculate]

good story Orange- glad to see you flexing your creative muscles. i like the labyrinthine and distinctly feudal political apparatus you describe as well.

 

[orangelex44]

I do try. This is pretty rough yet; I haven't introduced enough character flaws. I wanted so badly to get my five people... I had to ditch some of my more interesting ones to get the useful ones, to my sorrow.

Actually, so long as I'm posting, what are you going to do for stats? I'm guessing you'll be the one to do the national ones, to some arcane balancing system, but what about the character ones? Will you be accepting recommendations for traits?

Another question: what of the first Regent? I've kind of been assuming that we'll be voting on that to start the NES off, but I suppose there's no reason to assume that.

 

[Immaculate]

Yeah, pre-update 1 we'll vote on reagent.

The traits will be purely descriptive so for now, you've described your characters and i'll let that affect their capacities. if they are described as supermen then perhaps you forgot to mention his crippling addiction to gambling eh? but so far all the descriptions have been fairly balanced. some people said their character is corruptible but a competent financier and that seems appropriate- others that the character is a military genius but a political failure- thats fine too... so far so good.

 

[Immaculate]

To answer another good question:

Just putting the final touches to my noble house, but I was wondering how important are these ''assets'' that the others seem to be talking about? Do I need to think seriously about what assets I have now if I'm going to be successful in-game? Can you get new assets? How much am I limited to at the moment?

But then Tyrs put that one of his assets was a freighter, which I had just assumed everyone had plenty of to transport things between the planets...?

Slightly confused I think.

If you give your character orders like: administer the development of a new fishery in such and such place, then yeah, you'll probably get new assets.

new assets shouldn't be too hard to develop but their significance is variable. if you are the only one on the planet with a refinery and there are several with oil wells, its quite an asset. if there are several refineries and only 1 oil well, then its not nearly as beneficial.

Starting assets give you something to build on.

You start with ONE (1!) lander with a jump-engine (ie- capable of interplanetary travel). You also all have a wide variety of WW1/early WW2 era rifles, artillery (horse-drawn), anti-aircraft guns (horse-drawn?), propeller planes, steam and oil-based navies which you can use to push your military might around with but because they'll melt in the face of helicopter gunships with SAMs and cybernetic legions and such they are just sort of background. They do let you move around on your planet though (transporting huge amounts of resources might be a different matter). Don't worry about those sorts of assets; they are background.

Your assets represent substantial commerical, industrial, military or other assets. You will all have a few mines and stuff but unless you have mines as an asset or live in a very mineral rich area you will probably be a net ore-importer. If you do have mines as a an asset you will probaby be a net ore exporter (assuming the market is good).

 

[Kyzarc Fotjage]

so the only method of interstellar travel are jump-gates and a ship needs jump engines to pass through jump gates, or is this more like Babylon 5 where capital ships are capable of interstellar travel without jump-gates, because they can make portable jump-points?
How could someone get to a new star-system if the former?

 

[Ekolite]

Ok thanks, that clears up a lot of confusion. It does seem a little limitting to have only one ship capable of inter-planetry travel though, especially considering most houses are going to have fiefs split across multiple planets and have some sort of base on Secundus too. Movement of resources and military from place to place seems like it will be important. How difficult is it to buy/build new ships?

That also brings up the question of how characters on seperate planets communicate with each other?

 

[thomas.berubeg]

That also brings up the question of how characters on seperate planets communicate with each other?

Through their Sceptres. If you mean the common folk, then, odds are, they don't.

 

[Immaculate]

No- no portable jump points are possible. its only through existing jump gate. Jump gates were created over 5000 years ago (no one knows exactly when) by a species that looks like giant octopi. no one has been able to make new jump gates yet (even the transcendent kappa)