verse | WARBIRDS

[dondarrion]

W A R B I R D S
HUMANITY WILL RISE AGAIN
AND WE WILL HELP YOU

Wake up, universe, this is Tokyo Rose, coming at you live from the heart of the Big Bang. — the introduction of Tokyo Rose's nightly broadband broadcast. And when the uprising against the Consortium failed with the last great battle of Alpha Demeter against the Seventh Fleet, our alien allies the R'Vansi (known colloquially as "the warbirds") were punished appropriately and 'in proportion to their crimes'. While a technological embargo and heavy intergalatic travel restrictions were levied onto the human race, the warbirds were considered the true culprits of the human insurgence; their participation in the conflict — serving as both strategic advisers as well as technological enhancements to most human warships — gave humanity a considerable advantage considering against a more advanced alien enemy. As a result, most of the R'Vansian source code was scoured from the nets or otherwise relegated to black boxes. All human warships known to have housed R'Vansi clients as operating systems were not decommissioned, but sent to scrap, their datacores completely disassembled. This obliteration by erasure or exile to cold storage in the Consortium databanks all but wiped out the digital race. Five human generations have past since the purge of the last great R'Vansi hive. In the past fifteen years, however, rumors have begun to surface amongst humanity. A brutally intelligent ship skipping between the stars. A breech in security at the Consortium databanks. A mysterious cybernetic agent carrying a portable database over intergalactic borders. Whispers of a lost colony, of a hidden flotilla, of an ancient warleader waking from a long slumber. Humanity will rise again, and we will help you. THE CONSORTIUM THE INTERGALACTIC AUTHORITY all known races within the universe are classified by the consortium within a certain timeframe of first contact. authority within the consortium is held by the primary races; interactions between primary races are not limited by consortium restrictions and can be defined by the interacting parties freely. all primary races have representatives amongst the ruling consortium body. humanity is considered a secondary race (known colloquially as a "slave race"). secondary races are considered either dangerous to themselves or others and cannot be trusted to responsibly travel through consortium space unrestricted or handle certain types of advanced technology. as a result certain technological advances such as faster than light travel have been shared with humanity, only to have its usage come with very tight consortium-defined limitations. slave races do not have representatives within consortium council. they are not allowed to vote nor participate in quorum despite the fact that a consortium partially governs their galatic space. these classifications are periodically placed under review and are judged only by the high classes; the only exception to this rule are tertiary races which, once deemed unfit to interact with other alien races, are either isolated to their particular system or wiped out completely. there are currently a dozen primary races: ( to go here ). the number of secondary races is currently unavailable information to humanity, though latest estimates are roughly several dozen. the consortium presence within earth space consists mainly of the hamdal and the l'tchor. EARTH AUTHORITY HUMANITY'S POWERS THAT BE earth authority is the name for mankind's international and intergalactic police force and military — not entirely unlike the united nations today, but with more of an emphasis on consortium compliance rather than actual peacekeeping. drawing its members from its various constituents, earth authority is tasked with walking a delicate line between trying to champion humanity's position within a larger intergalactic community and sparing it undue attention from the consortium. while some politicians and generals take a much more totalitarian approach to their responsibilities, many in earth authority resent the consortium's presence within earth space while at the same recognize their technological and military dominance over mankind. most of earth authority identify as anti-war and view both the warbirds and human insurgents as an enemy to peace. HUMANKIND AN ENTIRE SPECIES PUNISHED Curabitur sed mauris quis ipsum consectetur aliquet a nec velit. Sed nec metus vitae eros ultricies fringilla id a dolor. Ut velit metus, vulputate sagittis dignissim placerat, hendrerit sed metus. Nullam sed elit quis urna lobortis auctor pretium quis dolor. Aenean et pretium arcu, sit amet vehicula mauris. Aliquam malesuada risus vitae vulputate euismod. Maecenas diam dolor, ultricies sed nulla vel, mollis condimentum tellus. Vivamus dictum, ligula et suscipit condimentum, ipsum nulla sollicitudin magna, eget dignissim metus leo in ligula. Vestibulum ultricies fringilla lorem, imperdiet ornare nibh placerat vitae. Phasellus adipiscing dolor non neque egestas, vitae vehicula odio aliquet. PRIMARY RACES THE HAMDAL Curabitur sed mauris quis ipsum consectetur aliquet a nec velit. Sed nec metus vitae eros ultricies fringilla id a dolor. Ut velit metus, vulputate sagittis dignissim placerat, hendrerit sed metus. THE L'TCHOR Curabitur sed mauris quis ipsum consectetur aliquet a nec velit. Sed nec metus vitae eros ultricies fringilla id a dolor. Ut velit metus, vulputate sagittis dignissim placerat, hendrerit sed metus. THE MACHISCHT Curabitur sed mauris quis ipsum consectetur aliquet a nec velit. Sed nec metus vitae eros ultricies fringilla id a dolor. Ut velit metus, vulputate sagittis dignissim placerat, hendrerit sed metus. THE R'VANSI AN ANCIENT RACE, WIPED FROM EXISTENCE a race of aliens which have physically gone extinct but which, before their obliteration, "hard coded" their society thus creating a digital copy that now exists and continues to evolve via software and virtual environments. this race (called the r'vansi) are colloquially known amongst humans throughout the galaxy as the warbirds, a name earned during the last great intergalactic war for independence against the higher races. the warbirds back then were often utilized as AIs for the human initiative, with a single r'vansi used to power a single ship and a whole colony to orchestrate the operations of a fleet. their native intelligence as a "software race" increased the computing capacity, deftness and efficacy of any system they are uploaded into, creating a huge advantage for humanity despite lesser firepower. THE SUBSTRATE A VIRTUAL WORLD the digital world is known simply as "the substrate" and can be accessed via kiosk, via console or via common neural implants known as an uplink or datalink. the substrate can manifest as either raw code, browser-based interface, or virtual landscape. THE WARBIRDS AMAGE WAR LEADER & MOTHERSHIP RETURNED FROM EXILE once great war leader of the warbirds, she escaped capture by spending the last five generations in a digital black box, passed down from father to son along a single family lineage. now released after her long self-imposed captivity, she is the heart and soul of an unassuming human ship, biding her time as she rallies what remains of her people from across the stars. CRUXIS BORN IN CAPTIVITY SMUGGLED FROM THE CONSORTIUM extremely young by r'vansi standards, crixus was "born" in captivity but was smuggled out of the consortium databanks by an alien ally. r'vansi birth is a very rare process of reproduction that results in the deconstruction of a single instance of older code, breaking it down into two individual newer strands of code, neither of which wholly resemble the original. the fate of cruxis' "twin" — smuggled at the same time to different parts of the galaxy — remains unknown. GAMBARA ALSO KNOWN AS "DOROTHY PARKER" LIVING AMONGST THE HUMANS known amongst the r'vansi as a "walker", gambara lives concealed amongst human culture, having been uploaded as an operating system to an android body. this process of upload into a system with pre-existing intelligence can be dangerous for some r'vansi, given the native intelligence's tendency to identify the unrecognizable code as a virus. gambara succeeded in becoming the new native software to her android body but not before suffering some damage, which has made some of her processes unstable. as a result gambara's behavior is somewhat unpredictable. BOADICEA CUT OFF FROM HER PEOPLE BENT TO THE HUMANS' WILL the soul of a pirate ship, cut off from the hive and "reprogrammed" to be loyal to her captain. CAMPASPE ALSO KNOWN AS "TOYKO ROSE" THE VOICE OF REBELLION a pro-r'vansi broadcaster on the intergalatic nets, most people think she is a human propagandist and warbird sympathizer when really she is one of the warbirds herself. the heart of a space station broadcasting from well outside human space, her words are directed not only towards humankind but to the other slave races held under the consortium's thumb. tokyo rose is one of the few warbirds "hidden in plain sight"; her ability to scramble her location is second to none amongst her kind. her end goal is simple: war. THAIS ALSO KNOWN AS "AXIS SALLY" AN AGENT OF CHAOS tokyo rose's "twin" sister, axis sally's end goal is much like her sister's: war. her means, however, are much less insidious and her methods are far less subtle. rather than attempt to incite disrest amongst her fellow slave races to the consortium, axis sally goes for direct body blows to the intergalatic fleet, spreading throughout digital space like a virus, infecting systems and destroying ships wherever she goes. known to the warbirds by her r'vansian name, thais is considered by many to be as much an enemy as the people who wiped them out in the first place. she operates independent of the great hive and has been rumored to be gathering flotilla of human insurgents. HUMANITY JUMPER HUMAN HACKER & SYMPATHIZER WHO STUMBLED ACROSS A COLONY born tomas strickner, but known on the nets by his handle, jumper is a human hacker who unwittingly uncovers a small surviving r'vansi colony hidden in earth's digital substrate. tasked with downloading the colony and acting as its courier to amage in deep space, he is forced to abandon his previous life and embark on a journey to the stars.