The Stars Beyond

[Aury]

It only mentions the old Kithe Republic, which evolved in both name and backstory to be the progenitor faction to a bunch of the frontier factions (including the Hycrotans, Valuf, Enovi, Skinrya, etc), but they were still a nomadic people - just rather organized with big fleets. The Kithe worldcarriers are the end state of the nomad city ships from back then.

We'll go through and update the lore in the item descriptions.

[136166]

Intresting. I suppose that means the Skyrina are humanoid? I pictured them a bit like a bird. I thought the Hycrotans were the first in general, the one to get out there first, and use all of those ancient weapons, and colonise the weird ruins.

[Aury]

Intresting. I suppose that means the Skyrina are humanoid? I pictured them a bit like a bird. I thought the Hycrotans were the first in general, the one to get out there first, and use all of those ancient weapons, and colonise the weird ruins.

Skrinya:
The skrinya are avian-like. Their progenitor faction, the Neogene nomads, were neohumans that didnt simply genemod to survive, but built a culture around it - the various forms common among their descendants are either: 1) adaptations to environments when survival become a higher priority (Skrinya, Valuf, Cobali, Miun), or 2) snapshots of the biomorphological trends of the originating nomad fleet(s) at the time they split off or otherwise lost the technology to genemod from their peak (Hycrota, Enovi, Kithe). The only group to have actually kept the Neogenian version of the technology alive (and built upon it) is Chimera Corp (unrelated to the "Chimeras" from Corporate Command), which is headquartered in Anubis (They just aren't in yet, because they require functionality that wont be in until probably API55), and sells genome editing capabilities.

Hycrotans:
The Hycrotans were the first to split off and move into the outer frontier.

[Aury]

v0.4.3.0 release:

Changes:

• Updated a bunch of item descriptions
• Moved later game ships to shipbrokers instead of being in the game start menu for debugging purposes

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bNyG1l ... drive_link

This is intended to be the final version for 1.9.2 (stable). Further development will be aimed at version 2.0a2+

HD graphics will be available late monday/early tuesday here:
https://multiverse2.kronosaur.com/trans ... &release=1#

[136166]

Intresting. I suppose that means the Skyrina are humanoid? I pictured them a bit like a bird. I thought the Hycrotans were the first in general, the one to get out there first, and use all of those ancient weapons, and colonise the weird ruins.

Skrinya:
The skrinya are avian-like. Their progenitor faction, the Neogene nomads, were neohumans that didnt simply genemod to survive, but built a culture around it - the various forms common among their descendants are either: 1) adaptations to environments when survival become a higher priority (Skrinya, Valuf, Cobali, Miun), or 2) snapshots of the biomorphological trends of the originating nomad fleet(s) at the time they split off or otherwise lost the technology to genemod from their peak (Hycrota, Enovi, Kithe). The only group to have actually kept the Neogenian version of the technology alive (and built upon it) is Chimera Corp (unrelated to the "Chimeras" from Corporate Command), which is headquartered in Anubis (They just aren't in yet, because they require functionality that wont be in until probably API55), and sells genome editing capabilities.

Hycrotans:
The Hycrotans were the first to split off and move into the outer frontier.

Note: Chimera, in science, is a term for a hybrid.
So the Hycrotans pretty much jumped for the stargate. Or were an exploration team that never came back. Then Syrtian War, some guys move into the Borderlands to avoid the Gene Ban, or are displaced. Some are still angry and break into the Sapien-Solarite Superfaction. They get a ton of illegal thermonuke stuff and try to send it to Earth to destroy the Gene Ban Guys. But the CW Fleet jumpscares them. Some run further into the Frontier, and become the Solarites.
Skyrina: Avian
Valuf: Canine?
Cobali: Snake/Naga
Kithe: Cat?
Miun: ???
Hycrota: ???
Envoi: ???
Illeska: Dragon?
Chimera Corp: All the above.
Sol: Dalek/Kaled

[Aury]

The Neogene Foundation left Sol relatively early on in the 2100s (~2109) as a large fleet of smaller, less centralized ships rather than gigantic lone arkships which were slow to build - only 3 had been launched by the time that the Neogene Foundation left. This was long before the Syrtis war broke out (over a century!). They still had some rather big colony ships that were meant to fill specific roles, while being a lot cheaper to scale production. The whole Neogene fleet made it out into the borderlands and inner frontier region where they explored and part of the fleet broke off to explore deeper in the the frontier where they settled and became the hycrotans, switching focus from perfecting gene tech to studying the alien artifacts left in that region. The Cobali formed around the same time, as they were attacked by early raiders in the area and separated from the rest of their fleet, forced to flee into a resource poor dead-end region.

The Sapiens incident that lead to the creation of the Solarites & Sapiens Order had nothing to do with the Neogene faction - in fact the Neogene foundation was not directly impacted by the Gene Crisis as that took place 6 years after they left. The Sapiens incident that lead to the formation of the Sapiens order and the Solarites was entirely the doing of an extremist Sapiens branch.

Skrinya: Avians (High caste skrinya are fancier and more ostentatious, low caste skrinya are not)
Valuf: Cold-weather canines, mostly wolves
Cobali: Attempted to become dragons, ended up as kobolds instead
Kithe: Large Feline-hybrids
Miun: Different hybrid lineage
Hycrota: hyeanids mostly
Enovi: various terrestrial herbivores
Chimera Corp: Capable of making "All of the above" and much more. Actual employees are predominantly various peoples from the Coalition (augmented humans & hycrotans are some of the more populous demographics, but the Coalition has a very cosmopolitan demographic makeup)

[Aury]

Oh, you edited your post to add some more stuff

The Ilesska are not neohumans and did not originate from the Neogene Foundation, they are a sapient non-human species created by the Alderem as a slave species, for engineering, basic labor, and domestic labor.

The Solarites are baseline, unmodified humans.

The Sapiens Order are extremely mutated clonal humans that do kinda resemble a cross between a dalek and a human teratoma due to replication errors from generations of imperfect cloning & radiation. They think that they are the baseline humans and that everyone else (including actual baseline humans) are genetically modified super-beings that they must crush in order to 'reclaim "humanity's" rightful place'

[136166]

I was kinda joking about Sapiens/Solarites being daleks.
Just planning for my fanfic.
Adding in other characters.
So what do the Alderem and Illeska look like?
I guess Halon is baseline human.
Illeska is Elite.
They have Plasma Railguns and real ECM and practical stealth armour.
They are pretty much aliens.
If aliens = no human DNA.
P.S: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... acePirates

[Aury]

The Alderem... could be described as almost being 'caricatures of human beauty' - they have what would by modern humans be seen as impossible standards of beauty to naturally achieve, to the point of potentially triggering an uncanny valley response, or simply appearing downright strange or grotesque to most outsiders. This impossibility is by deliberate design, in order to reinforce the stratification of their society based on who has access to modifications that can let them achieve these standards - except unlike the Skrinya who simply do it by brute force and a caste system, the Alderem do it economically by simply keeping the best modifications out of reach of the less well-off.

There are additionally two main slave species created by the Alderem as well:

The Ilesska are furred theropods created from spitz dogs and saurian theropod genes carried forwards in a number of avian species. They are deliberately designed to be 'cute' and neotenic for several reasons:
1) it makes it easier to craft a narrative of 'we know best, you are but children' and to get both populations to subconsciously accept it.
2) big eyes and ears are easy to trigger sensory overload in, for the purposes of punishment and suppressing rebellion while largely leaving the Alderem unhindered.
3) it subconsciously & reflectively enforces their already engineered instincts to be meek and submissive towards authority figures
4) the Ilesska were intended from the outset to be able to serve in domestic roles, beyond just basic labor & intellectual tasks, so looking pet-like made them 'fit the setting' better
Their demeanor generally causes them to prefer massively lopsided engagements, which is hard to do when you are rebelling (Having the financial backing of the AIC definitely helps though) - as a result, the Ilesska prefer to go all-in on high-quality ships, battlefield manipulation, and ambush tactics; hence their unconventional and advanced arsenal. The average Ilesska is not brave enough to fly a small, fragile ship so that combat role is relegated to drones - otherwise they would probably run into a lack of willing pilots rather fast.
Despite their engineered meek demeanor and cute appearance, there are definitely exceptions to this. For example, General Avlea (mentioned in one of the new item descriptions) is about as far from 'meek and cute' as you can get - she is heavily (and intimidatingly) cybernetically enhanced to make up for mutilation sustained during torture by the Alderem, and has an intense hatred of slavers: Wiping out the the Alderem is only the start of her plans. The High Caste Skrinya are next on her list and she has aspirations even farther abroad, including eventually taking on the Sung.

The other species is the Hodren, a borderline sapient species of brutish-looking gorilla-rhino hybrids that is mainly optimized for heavy labor with combat-specific variants. They are unable to do complex tasks or think independently, but can be trained to be very good at a specific task. Unfortunately for the Ilesska they are insufficiently intelligent to be able to join them in rebelling and they simply continue to obey their Alderem masters.