The Campaign Builder's Guild

Some of you may remember the Thousand Isles community project that ran for awhile (and may still be resurrected).  I thought that collaboration was a tremendous success, so I thought I'd start a similar project.

The idea is to create a huge, sprawling, richly detailed science fiction universe one world at a time, as a community - anyone can post.  Entries should mostly focus on planets, planetoids, space stations, or other specific locations rather than entire systems or empires; political organizations, species, and the like can be introduced through these descriptions.  Other entries might instead have an even tighter focus '" on a particular ship, character, creature, artefact, or something similar.  There is no minimum or maximum word count, but as a broad guideline aim for a digestible snippet between 100-1000 words.  The overarching goal is to build a futuristic universe from the bottom up, starting with the details.  Entries can relate to one another or can stand entirely on their own.  I'll keep a list of all the entries below, by category.

In terms of content, tech level, style, or aesthetic, anything goes.  I'm imagining the default approach to be more space opera than hard sf, but that's really up to the actual posters.  While the details of human history can be fleshed out as we go I'm imagining that humans have been a space-faring race for a considerable period of time, and have settled multiple worlds; in other words, the twenty-first century is not recent history.

The advantage to this kind of approach is that a) it avoids disagreements about the general shape of the universe and thus doesn't require as much internal cohesion, preventing arguments and creative conflicts that can otherwise threaten mass collaborations, and b) GMs looking for inspiration, ideas, and material can borrow as much or as little as they'd like.

I've added a couple of entries in the post below to start things off.

Planets

Aerl
Perdix
Cyst
Vladiir
Titanos
Durnir
Phantion V
Somniferous VI
September
Bruges
Gronnock
Ataxia
Hess
Ylva

Species

Humans
Elueth
Daidelai
Nemat
Vadtha
Balon
Mechans
Vri
Shaxi
Nemesis
Mwanwi
Ysäj
Brugians
Lorridian
Nyx
The Ir
Ylvs
Herkatoi

Factions

The Erotocracy of Aerl
The Planetary Threat Assessment
The Excelsior/Drake Conglomerate
The Octillionares Hunting Club
The BLZ
The Space Government
Cult of the Odolvwom

Characters

Adamastos
Dr. Iphegenia
Purth
Byzannica
Cosm-Father Dutiful
Ironeye
The Black Lady

Ships

Herkatoi Ships

Technology

Lazarus Fields
Exopod Platforms
Mechocites
Mononets

Region

The Canter Belt
Squamous Telema

Other

Void Beacons
Bug Two
Bug Three
Bug Four

[ooc]A few inspirational sources to ponder:

Orion's Arm (http://www.orionsarm.com/)
Wookieepedia (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page)
Mass Effect Wiki (http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_Wiki)
Species (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_species_%28The_Culture%29) from The Culture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture)
Warhammer 40000 Wiki (http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_Wiki)[/ooc]

Two diametrically opposite species and worlds, to get the ball rolling.

[ic=Aerl]The people of Aerl '" a folk called the elueth, widely regarded as "the vainest species in the galaxy" '" have a society entirely based around physical beauty: the so-called Erotocracy of Aerl.  Within the Erotocracy, ethics and aesthetics have been wholly conflated, such that goodness is equivalent to beauty, evil to ugliness.  The elueth political system is democratic in character, but the voters select their leaders entirely on the basis of their sexual attractiveness.  The election process is thus identical to a beauty pageant.  Of course, the Erotocrats have stables of advisors (appointed rather than elected) who possess most of the real power.  Thus the Erotocrats are, in actuality, the physical embodiments of certain political ideals as well as aesthetic ones.  The result is a bewildering governmental system which seems to only make sense to the elueth themselves.

Physically, the elueth are slender, androgynous humanoids with huge eyes and pale, translucent skins which partially display many of their bizarrely elegant internal organs.  They communicate in part through pheromones, chemical sprays that can be deliberately released from certain glands scattered throughout their bodies.  Humans and other anthropoid species often find the elueth overwhelmingly alluring and exotic, an effect exacerbated by the aphrodisiac cloud that swirls like an aura about all elueth.  Hermaphrodites, they possess both male and female sexual organs; they rarely form permanent monogamous pairs, though they do enter into temporary, contractual marriages formalized to last anywhere from a single month to a full decade.  Through cosmetics, gene-manipulation, and various therapies (some of them carried out by nanites), elueth can live well over a hundred years without aging past their early twenties, when they reach adulthood.  At the first sign of a wrinkle or blemish, however, many poorer elueth who cannot afford nanorepair commit ritual suicide out of shame and self-loathing, literally "saving face" for their funeral.

Though the Erotocracy has no imperialist ambitions it does maintain several colonies on other planets and a largely automaton-based military presence to deter would-be conquerors.  Their chief exports are cosmetic-based technologies, drugs, and highly stylized, dramatic erotica that include tactile and olfactory virtual sensory stimulators in addition to visual and aural content.  Apart from these elaborate, pornographic plays the elueth actually produce startlingly little art: their energies, it seems, are directed elsewhere.  Architecture is perhaps the largest exception of note '" the cities of Aerl emphasize form over function, and frequently include spaces whose sole purpose is beautification.[/ic]
[ic=Perdix]Inhabited almost entirely by the machine-race called the daidelai, Perdix appears outwardly inhospitable or bleak.  Its surface is a grey waste without organic life, a desert littered with disintegrating remnants of the world's original species.  Though many assume that the daidelai must naturally be a race of wholly rational, emotionless beings without a sense of individuality, this is not the case: the daidelai are in fact the scions of a biological race which shed their physical bodies en masse in favour of the mechanical ones they now inhabit, an event known as the Ecdysis, or Sloughing-Off.  Having uploaded their consciousnesses into digital simulacra controlling elegant and wholly customizable robotic bodies of multifarious design, the daidelai allowed their original bodies to perish.  The Ecdysis was conceived of as a spiritual event, a purgation of bodily want and need, a transcendence of the flesh.  The daidelai do not reproduce, instead slowly repairing their own bodies as needed, preserving themselves indefinitely.  Their energy is almost entirely provided by electricity harvested by a swarm of "star-sucks," a huge fleet of individually small satellites in orbit around the system's star which absorb solar radiation and periodically return to Perdix to supply the planet with power.  Of course, the daidelai do not require sustenance in the form of food or water, nor do they wear clothes, though many decorate their bodies with elaborate glyphs and attachments, often hand-made.

Having achieved an essentially post-scarcity economy the daidelai have an ad-hoc, informal political system without centralized government.  Most live alone, considering the family an outdated and unnecessary social unit for post-biological organisms.  Many spend their days in study or in the creation of enormous artworks, some of which are visible from space.  Various sub-sapient slave drones perform any difficult manual labour the daidelai require, though without muscles or a sense of pain the daidelai cannot become physically exhausted.  While their population is static and not particularly dense the daidelai cities of Perdix are nonetheless extremely impressive to behold, with gargantuan mega-structures, public forums, galleries, and archives occupying central positions within communities.  Many daidelai prefer to live far from their fellow machines, however, instead dwelling within huge, self-sufficient mansions in hard-to-reach locations on or below the surface, or in orbit.

While the daidelai are mostly a reclusive species, preferring little contact with the greater galactic community, a few of the machine-race have been known to travel the galaxy or take up residence in the more cosmopolitan cities of known space.  Some become celebrity artists touring systems and erecting their gigantic masterpieces to wide acclaim, or reciting their days-long, multimedia poem-symphonies before mass crowds (on Perdix general wisdom holds that bigger is better).  Others have become missionaries, attempting to convince other beings to abandon their organic bodies and free themselves from "enslavement to the meat"; the daidelai spiritual system is too disorganized and decentralized to be qualified as a cohesive religion, however.  With the exception of converts who wish to emulate the daidelai and abandon their organic forms, few non-daidelai have much contact with daidelai technology '" the machine-race guard their secrets quite closely, having little need for commerce.

It is said that some of the daidelai refused to abandon their flesh-bodies and departed the planet for parts unknown in an enormous generation ship during the Ecdysis.  Their descendents '" if they survive '" have not yet been located, and the destination of their craft was unknown.  At the time of the Sloughing-Off the daidelai had not yet cracked the light-speed problem and were thus unaware of the greater galactic population.

No one knows what the daidelai's carbonic bodies looked like, as producing images of these bodies is forbidden on Perdix as blasphemous '" this is the strictest taboo of the daidelai spiritual system.[/ic]

You know, I really want to contribute this, but all my good sci-fi ideas are currently earmarked for Carbon Skies. This will require some thought.

Ooooh!

Oooooooh!

(I'm excited)

Tempting to do a non-carbon based life form with Starfish Alien Overtones (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StarfishAliens) but that'll take a while and not really add anything.

I look forward to seeing how this will develop.

M.

How about a Hitchhikers style compendium...you know..witty remarks. Dry humor. The works. So many serious sci-fi settings. Inject a little humor into it.

Just my two cents.

I agree!  I thought the Erotocrats were pretty funny, as is the idea of a machine missionary trying to convince you to save yourself from the perils of the flesh and upload your consciousness into a machine body (maybe that's more disturbing than funny... I get those two confused sometimes).  There'll probably be a fairly diverse tone if this gets enough contributors.  Personally I'd want to avoid all-out parody or stuff that's so over-the-top to shatter suspense of disbelief, but if someone wants to write about militant space kittens with souls blacker than daleks and the bloodlust of klingons who terrorizae the universe in ships with names like Mr. Whiskers' Revenge and Deathcuddle then they're welcome to.  Anything goes; no limits.

[ic=Lazarus Field]Lazarus Fields were first developed by humans during the Flenser Wars.  Consisting of a swarm of molecular nanomachines that envelops and clings to an individual's body, a Lazarus Field cannot be seen with the naked eye.  The Field is activated following the clinical death of the subject, having been previously attuned to its user's heartbeat.  The nanomachines that constitute the Field rapidly perform a scan of the user's corpse to determine the cause of death, then set about correcting the problem by repairing damaged tissue and dematerializing foreign objects.  Finally, the Field resuscitates the cadaver's brain and cardiovascular system, effectively 'resurrecting' the dead user.  This process can take as little as a minute to several days if the damage was extensive.

In cases of information-theoretic death a Lazarus Field will be ineffective unless provided with a brain scan of the individual in question.  Most who wear a Lazarus Field carry a mental simulacrum (a previously scanned version of their mind) in a portable drive, clipped to a belt or concealed in a broach, ring, or other ornament.  Such simulacra can be linked to a Lazarus Field such that in the instance of information-theoretic death the nanomachines can restore even a damaged brain to a previously "saved" state (though this is time-consuming).  Of course if the user's body is utterly destroyed the Field will be unable to restore them; if not destroyed itself the Field's drones will simply disperse.  In circumstances in which a resurrected individual wiuld immediately expire upon being revived '" for example, if the user is placed in a vacuum without protection '" a Lazarus Field will be quite useless.

Lazarus Fields are mostly military in application, but some civilians, especially criminal and terrorist organizations have been known to acquire them as well.  They are susceptible to deactivation by EMP or other anti-nano measures.  Of course, most dead bodies that haven't suffered information-theoretic death can be revived in a medical bay later even without the use of a Lazarus Field.[/ic]

Cyst is a volcanic planet with a sulfrous atmosphere, though a vast and briny shallow sea covers half the world.

Nemat - is a collective conscious, derived from thousands of nematodes (worms) that find the poisonous waters as a nutrient rich home for their kind. Though each nematode lacks any defineable intelligence they tend to congregate into vast masses and become awakened. Although they can congregate in thousands of such gatherings, there is but a single intelligence.

Before the humans had devised their Lazarus Field technology, a ship of colonists was forced to land on the inhospitable surface of Cyst, to undergo repairs to their damaged communication array following entry into a rogue meteor cloud tail. Why the humans sought to explore the planet while awaiting maintenance is unknown, however multiple nematodes managed to gain entry into their exo-armors and parasitically infest them. Within the flesh of alien species worms reproduce in mass, eventually killing their hosts, then the nematodes exit their hosts gather into a ball of intelligence and takes over of the ship.

Once a 'brain' is formed, all Nemat still within a host can be controlled by the mass mind so that the hosts become automotons performing various tasks, though complex tasks such as operating a starship is beyond their comprehension.

Thus colonies of Nemat have been established on a dozen worlds. The nemat have no technologies of their own, stealing those of their hosts and adapting them to nematodal biologies.

Vladiir - a dead world destroyed by a self created doomsday device in a final war over 200 hundred years ago.

Vadtha - one of the neutral races of Vladiir who recognized the coming cataclysm left aboard a hundred trader vessels, for a total of 100,000 at the start of their odyssey to which there is yet an end. The Vadtha are traders, fortune tellers, entertainers and purveyors of rare exotica from across known space, though they have a reputation for selling fake goods as well.

The Vadtha are a truly starfaring race, as they have no planet to call home and have spent a half dozen generations aboard their ragtag fleet of mercantile barges and gunrunners. They are a diminuitive humanoid about four feet in height, lythe and elegant forms, raven black hair, and oddly light green eyed, fair of skin they closely resemble humans in every other way.

Once per decade all the disparate ships of the Vadtha meet in a secret predetermined location that changes each time, their most closely guarded secret.

Some call them Gypsies, or a dozen other names in as many languages most should not be translated in polite company. Though they only live aboard their vessels they do frequent every starport to trade and exploit then leave to travel once again.

Most Vadtha vessels are only lightly armed, moderately armored and faster than most vessels of their class. Though these people are not known for agressive tactics of any sort, being exclusively defensive in their capability.

Whether truly precognitive or not, the Vadtha do have a sixth sense about impending doom, and have been known to leave without notice just prior to many disasters that strike. Though they have some reputation as the perpetrators, such incidences are often geologic or beyond their technology. Still this adds to the distrust most have against them.

It is said the only thing more beautiful than their dancing women are the lies they tell.

Titanos - a gas giant in a binary star system, twice the proportions of Jupiter sized world.

Balon - within the 37th gaseous layer of the Titanos stratosphere lives an aerial race of floating beings similar to Portugeuse Man-o-war jellyfish, though are singular species rather than colony like as jellyfish are. Using gas-filled bags and varying applied tension coupled with paddle like fins to their ventral areas they navigate their cloudy layer. Their large brains are hidden under the mass of tissue below their air sacks, are known to be telepaths and only allow remote communication.

Titanos is a world rich in varying gases used by many starfaring nations. The Balon know which layers of atmosphere contains desired gas commodities and sell them to passing tanker traders. The Balon only trade in carbon monoxide to replenish their own layer of preferred breathable gas as a form of currency.

Little is known of their ecology. A dead specimin found in an adjacent layer is the only evidence of their form and biology, most only know them by the voice heard in their head.

The gas giant jellyfish are pretty similar to those from the Hyperion Cantos books by Dan Simmons.

Never read those...

All ecxellent entries, Gamer Printshop!  I really like the Nemat - that style of hive-mind is very underused (only other example I can even think of are cranium rats from planesape).  I was thinking of doing space gyspies as well if no one else decided to, so great job with those!

Thank you, sir! I will add some as I think of them and have time to post. Here's another...

Durnir - is a high gravity planet, with mostly stunted biological forms. It is rich in heavy metals and has an usually large magnetic discharge surrounding the planet.

Mechan - are a race of dwarf-like humanoids, large boned and densely muscular, though only four feet tall they weigh 400 lbs or more per individual. They are a copper-based blood form which confers a copper like hue in their skin and eyes. The Mechan are master engineers and metallurgists. They have shielded the entire planet surface with an armored exoskeleton, and dwell beneath the surface in metallic conduits and catacombs.

While Mechans are extremely strong with high constitutions, they are a slow moving race, though have dexterous hands. Long ago the Mechans created Exopod platforms, which are bipedal robotic walkers with varying limbs for grasping and tooling. These mechanical outer bodies can move at greater speeds, endure harsher environments and lift extremely heavy and hazardous substances. Often these platforms are weaponized to serve Mechan military purposes. The living tissues of the Mechan are not in lethargy, as in a natural state they tend to stay in one place - walking takes extreme endurance on their world. The operating handles and switches in their 'cockpits' take great strength to manipulate.

Mechocites - are complex mechanical computer-robots with nanominiaturized internal parts. Resembling a crab in size and appearance, these self-aware bots integrate themselves into alien superstructures like starships, at first in a mechanical study of how the ship works by releasing nanobots into the ships energy and fluid systems, then returns to the integrated mechocite and begins integrating itself directly into the system. Mechocites work to improve the mechanical operations it finds, bypassing unnecessary substructures, even replacing existing fixtures and assemblies. Self sufficient, self repairing mechocites combine alien technologies into more viably integrated systems.

Mechocites are the primary commodity offered by Mechans to offworlders. However often the new technologies created by mechocites are beyond both their builders and the operators of the ships they attach themselves. So replication by mechanical races fail everytime.

GP

[ic]Void Beacons
Outside the walls of the galaxy lay Great Voids as vast and they are empty. Yet scattered through these voids are a few hundred slowly drifting monolthic and impenetrable structures. Invariably across their surfaces a shimmering string of numbers expressed in the notation of the watcher constantly flow. They hail from an era forgotten even to the enigmatic Vri, themselves ancient grandfathers of the Ecdysis.
Might they be gifts, or prisons, tombs, or traps, or even watch-stations for a race that has transcended the End of Greatness that so plagues most primogenitors? Regardless; the so-called "god-boxes" have captured the imagination of every race to encounter them - invariably appearing throughout the dreams and artwork of an encountered culture. Some who look upon them go mad, though this happens far more commonly among biological sentiences.  
That is all we know. After 400,000 years of study that is all we know.

--An ancient inscription found by Humans in the ancient mausoleum-library of the extinct Shaxi
[/ic]

Ooh, mysterious!

[ic=Planetary Threat Assessment]
    The Planetary Threat Assessment (a division of the Excelsior/Drake Conglomerate)

Now offering Species Annihilation Insurance!
   The Planetary Threat Assessment Board offers a variety of interspecies sustaining techniques, carefully  packaged and carried out by our top scientists.
   
    Don't Fret! We'll come to you!
  Global Warming? Local Star About to Die? OR just a nasty invasion problem? The PTA has a solution for your species continuation problem and a variety of techniques including:

    Genetic Reconstruction , Always popular with the Carbon Based life forms!
   
    Fabricated Climate Development! We start with a tiny speck of dust and rebuild your home planet-The way it might have happened millions-even billions of years ago! Enjoy a full spectrum of species evolution! RAPID EVOLUTION THERAPY NOW AVAILABLE!

  CALL FOR PRICING AND HOLIDAY DEALS!

 [/ic]

  [ic=PTA Database]

    Recent PTA projects/Alerts:
       Nemesis This little life-form sure is a fright! Our scientists are hard at work figuring out how this simple-celled creature can survive in the vacuum of space. Nemesis can infect a whole planet in a mere single local star cycle! NOW THATS FAST!
 Using photosynthesis or some derivative of it, this little bugger will eradicate every living thing-and non-living thing in a quick burst of simple-cell fury. Eventually the planet will be transformed into a floating ball of Nemesis.
[note=] (http://i127.photobucket.com/albums/p136/channinBsan/300px-Gephyrocapsa_oceanica_color.jpg) [/note]

     But this little guys not done there folks!
 
In a matter of months after complete assimilation, the planetoid begins sending out pockets of Nemesis to start the whole process over! WOW
     
     But don't worry! An atmospheric coating process is in the works to protect your planet from any Nemesis incursions! CALL FOR PRICING! Act fast-this is sure to go...well quick as a Nemesis Assimilation Process!

   Brought to you by the Planetary Threat Assessment Division of Excelsior/Drake Conglomerate

[/ic]

 I think this fits in here as well:
Octillionares Hunting Club (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?79837)

[ooc]
   We need a blinking text tag...you know...like on cheesy commercials.
[/ooc]

I can't help thinking that Fabricated Climate Development and Nemesis are somehow related...

Dang, that means I have to come with names for all the races shown in this map... this being one of the few sci-fi flavored maps I've ever made. Plus there's technologies and factions for these as well. (I don't plan to use them for anything campaign wise myself, so I'll donate this to the cause...)

 (http://www.gamer-printshop.com/cbg/avatar-thumb.jpg)

[ic]Adamastos
Those who have encountered this entity quarrel about whether it is a ship or a being. In appearance I am told Adamastos is indigo and amorphous tempest, surpassing the size of many small planetoids

 Luckily - I say luckily because I have good reason to believe that Adamastos is a threat to all galactic sentience - it seems confined by STL travel. But don't get excited by that apparent weakness; I have access to a classified report that a Nemati Brain once sought to take advantage of that and upon launching an infestation-attack, vanished.

Adamastos has been confirmed to be responsible for attacks on Ernhardt Drake's Spectacular Space Crypt, as well as on Mwanwi, BLZ, and Ysäj vessels, and rumored to have 'eaten' a moon (Phantion V) on the outskirts Gnaraerl system, rightfully putting the esteemed elueth Ertocrats on edge.  

The character of these engagements is uniform. Adamastos floats forth and surrounds it's target, thereafter becoming opaque for hours or days. Next Adamastos engage in sudden, abrupt departure from the region. Designer plagues have failed to phase it, as have visceral interaction with various deep-space drives, and at least one usage of a Class VII mononet. Did I mention it probably ate a moon?

I have given these arguments and more and been ignored! What will it take to Dynasties that this is a threat worthy of my considerably violent attention and quthorize action?

~Arthur "Acateon" Bellwether[/ic]

I've left some nouns vague enough that they can fit under several headings. I leave such designation to Steerpike.

I also worry that I'm trying too hard to connect-the-dots. Should I focus on not tying entries to 1000 Worlds lore?

I'll have to ponder where things go!

I wouldn't worry about including too many references to other 1000 Worlds entries.  Once a certain critical mass gets reached it gets easier and easier to trow in references here and there, but trying to pack in lots of references can be difficult.  Adamastos is creepy and cool, though!

[ic=The Thinking Planet]

  From PTA Database:

   ...one of the more unusual planets yet discovered...I'm not really sure how to classify this Mr. Drake. Instead I have enclosed the portions of Dr. Iphegenia's Logs that pertain directly to the situation:

  Transcript:

  Dr. Iphegenia (Speaking to Specimen) Good day.
  Specimen (A tree) Hi!
  Dr. Iphegenia You can understand me?
  Tree I think so.
  Dr. Iphegenia I see.
 
 Dr. Iphegenia had been suffering from temporary visual impairment since landing on Somniferous VI, the planet in question
 
  Dr. Iphegenia Frank, my eyesight is fine now, can you turn off the visual enhancer? Thanks.
  Specimen What were you saying Dr. ?
  Dr. IphegeniaI don't remember. (gutteral vocals from the Dr.)
  Specimen Are you ok?
  Dr. Iphegenia I...ughhh....yes. That was weird. I couldn't think straight. Did you do that (tree)?
  Specimen I don't think so. (it did not)
  Dr. IphegeniaYour just a tree.
  Specimen I am.
  (Specimen is no longer conscious)
   
  Dr. Iphegenia What the hell Frank?
  Frank I don't know sir.

   We have concluded that Somniferous VI has the unique quality of conscious-reality relationship. Remember the old Earth adage "I think therefore I am?" That seems to apply in all cases of organic life forms on this planet. Even foreign subjects. Further research should be conducted with utmost care.

[/ic]

 
  [ooc]
    Working on this one a bit more later...Essentially any living thing on the planet can simply 'will' something into existence. Not sure how to present this idea though.
  [/ooc]

The trend of domestic uplift was short lived on the world of September. In the four months between the passing and the repeal of the bill over three-hundred thousand dogs, cats and parakeets, and at least ten thousand forest frogs underwent genetic neural realignment and began filling the endless suburban ecumenopolis with their throaty and uncoordinated mutt-speech. It was very upsetting to children. Old timers had heart attacks. Ecclesiasts called it the devil's speech and incited pogroms against the pusses and puppydogs. There were frenzied mass stampings of terrified frogs who fled into the sewers and formed a great undercity in the interstices of the reconstitution silos, which they called Libertalia. The ferrets had a strange sort of cunning and disappeared in droves long before the killings began. Lord knows where.

By the time the Global Peace Police reigned in the violence most of the unfortunate animals were dead or had been horrifically trepanned by their guilt-ridden owners. The thousand or so who remained were gathered up by the Space Government and relocated to several orbital stations where they would be safe from their erstwhile masters. But one cat was not discovered. Her keeper, a middle-aged billionaire widow called Bettany Mueller, spent all her life's savings in the purchase of a tiny refitted rocketship and sent the little cat, whose name is Purth, out into the wide wild universe.

Purth is now a very very old cat. She has been on hundreds of worlds and has been genetically perfected by alien sciences so that maybe she will never die. She has been a gunslinger on the mud moons of Prukah and matched the gambits of the cutthroat cardsharps on Vontis Solar. She has seen the galaxy moths gobble up great swathes of space on the verges of Taleante, studied under the perverted tutelage of the Gronnock Mimesis Bug, and padded through the lonely lemniscate corridors that the Aftertime Lords built (or are yet to build) in the cold eternity of the heatless future, when stillness is supreme and causality's arrow is thus ragged and coiled. She has the look of a creature who has seen, and who comprehends, more than you will ever know. Which is to say that she looks very much like an ordinary cat.

The way we understand it, the Brugians (whose world is called Bruges but you may call it whatever else you like if it better conveys some sort of verisimilitude) had such awesome science that they achieved perfect harmony with their planet, almost to the point of becoming a single organism. They could do all sorts of cool stuff like reshape mountains and control the atmosphere and ride starbeams to the moon and back (wank wank). This freaked some of them out. Maybe they hadn't wholly forsaken their egos and were terrified by the prospect of subsumption within the geologic whole. Maybe they were simply ne'er-do-wells by nature. Whatever. They hijacked the worldmind, turned its power against itself, blew up the planet and started over. Nobody remembered what the world was like the first time which is probably why the second time around was exactly the same.

Third time around a voyeur species that looks like fat dried up slugs with crackly skin (they don't have speech so the hell knows what they're called) discovered Bruges and watched the long process of its social perfection and defection and reversion. They've now watched the Brugians destroy and recreate the planet two further times. The sluggers are starting to think the Brugians are maybe just a little bit cracked in the head and they're seriously considering doing something about it. If they do it will get messy very fast because there's actually a very practical reason why World Five is just like World One, and it has nothing to do with existential inadequacy.

there's a point when the rising potential of a species begins to outpace their comprehension of that very same strength. when they're smart enough to recognise the imbalance and humble enough to take the necessary pause and consideration the danger can be averted, but this is a rare fate. the universe is filled with a hundred million prisons built of runaway science.

mimesis
there are three active in registered space and perhaps one dormant in the long-malfunctioning utility fields of PHEGREAH (the repair savants, whose meticulous ministrations are scarcely swift enough to keep those fields from sweeping further across the low plain into grand-terrier, haven't provided reliable accounts of the entity, but it has been confirmed to exhibit i-order wave patterns). the remains of the fifth bug have been scrutinised in every possible fashion by intellects of the highest class and clade. we suspect that they are nothing more than the organism's hypospatial residuum, a sort of spacetime exoskeleton. the creature itself remains unanalysed.

(bug four)
it's called the gronnock mimesis bug, formerly of GRONNOCK, currently active in the principality of GRAVITY 1. we'll speak more on it later.

(bug two)
the seed ship that brought the cardammou people to the planet ATAXIA suffered damage to its terraformation engine en route from the slip rift. unable to settle upon ataxia, the cardammou instead remained in low orbit, dwelling in their latticework satellite cities and farming the steady hail of mineral-rich meteorites with continent-wide kinetic nets while their cultivator class toiled upon the planet surface, completing the work which their ruined machine could not. the cardammou cities beyond the sky are called the VERTIGINE.

according to certain accounts the ataxia mimesis bug had been in stasis near the planet core. descriptions of the structure containing it suggest it was intended as a sort of solid potentiality device (if speculation concerning the misesis bugs' nature is correct, such a large-scale quantum artifice could serve as a prison, binding the organism to a single iteration of spacetime). when the cultivators encountered the bug (either releasing it or merely rousing it, depending on the true circumstances of its internment) it replicated the cardammou civilisation pattern and populated ataxia with imitations of the newcomer species. the cultivators, already pariahs among their own kind, accepted an exalted status among these simulacra.

the vertigines rightly feared the imposter race. they quarantined the planet and charged the cultivators with treason. for many centuries (the ataxia calendar is very short but time passes quick for the cardammou) the true and false people have endured a paranoid standoff but because the vertigines don't understand the nature of the mimesis bug they've nevertheless permitted emissaries from ataxia into their satellite cities. it's possible that the bug itself has infiltrated vertigines and is refocusing its creative power on a mimicry of cardammou spaceflight.

(bug three)
its league-long needleship follows the rumoured course charted by the undiscovered people. when the entire universe has dissolved into silent uniformity they will build the labyrinth that threads into the interstices of former time and the lemniscate mimesis bug will follow them into that corridor where the likes of lorridian and nyx and vri and purth have trod before. there it will learn of the formless aftertime and in that knowing its body will become all of our bodies. if it is going to happen then it has already happened.

BYZANNICA was hatched in the uttermost pit of the Symphony catacomb upon the ecoformed asteroid Sinister Six. It was one of many genderless mutants, whose numbers were growing ever larger as the dis-ease of the Cosm-Father Dutiful spread and infected the stellar territories of Squamous Telema and disturbed the gene-fabrications of the eggweavers. At the moment of Byzannica's birth, so the telling goes, the klaxon fields of Sinister Six resounded with a sudden and extemporaneous song, and that melody, with intricacies baffling even to the great ponderers of Mellifluous Tower, upset the delicate harmonic of the catacomb's pillars and arches so that the city's soaring ceiling smashed down into the nurture fields and killed a thousand broods of juveniles. This was the first of Byzannica's many monstrous miracles. If the child harvesters had sensed the significance of that correlation perhaps they would have killed it were it lay, tangled in cords of rubescent amnion upon the natal floor.

[ooc]Uh oh. Looks like my posts are getting a little crowded. Someone tap in, quick![/ooc]

The planet Hess is covered in water, having few land masses and those mostly small island chains formed by mantle hot spots. Having a dense atmosphere, small polar regions and no major land masses the planet would be ignored by anyone who managed to find it except for the life cycle of Hessian coral.

The coral grows in large reefs in the waters near the equator. Spindly masses of tubular growths they spread across vast areas of the sea floor. At some point in their life cycle the coral begins to grow gas filled sacks, protected away in the core of its mass. After time and age take their toll the lowermost coral begins to break, allowing sections of coral to drift upwards with new found buoyancy. These newly independent sections can be seen breaching the waterline all over Hess. With the new influx of sunlight the production of sacks increases in dramatically eventually giving the masses of coral lift, enough to leave behind the waters that spawned them.

The skies of Hess are full of these floating islands of coral. They vary in size and shape from small spheres a few meters across to kilometer long needle-like shapes. This makes landing spacecraft a dangerous endeavor for all but the most agile spacecraft.

Two promised and much delayed entries; I hope they aren't too lacking in quality. I'm a little sick, so it might show...

The Canter Belt
The Canter Belt is a lawless region,a belt of asteroids circling Marken's Star, a dying star named after an explorer who supposedly found the system by mistake. Most of the planets in the system are worthless chunks of of rock and ice, but when the prospectors checked the Canter Belt they couldn't believe their eyes. The Canter Belt asteroids contain some of the largest deposits of valuable metals and minerals in the universe. Or at least, Some of them do. Tragically, setting up mining operations on a tumbling piece of space rock is both an expensive and difficult business and only a handful of the megacorporations have invested in the venture as of yet. Smaller, independent operations attempt to uncover some of the riches, but this is a dangerous effort at best. Yet the steady influx of people has ensured that a couple of spaceports thrive in the Belt, selling cheap whores and cheaper liquor to underpaid miners. Floating Rock and Last Man's Hole are the most famous (or notorious, depending on a man's sensibilities).
What the Canter Belt is really famous for, though, is the space pirates. Few regions in space see more of their kind, and the Belt is both profitable and sheltered from any intergalactic authorities. The mining companies take all kinds of measures to keep them at bay, but to little avail. Infamous freebooters such as Ironeye and the Black Lady still plague the Belt.      

The Ir
Odd creatures even by the standards of the Thousand Worlds, these are one of the few organisms who live and gather in the black void of space. They appear vaguely like Old World squids, with 7 fleshy pseudopods dangling from a bulbous sac covered in fins and strange orifices, possessing skin like nacre. The Ir are wise and gentle creatures, living for as long as a millenia. They can communicate telepathically with each other and any other living creature and often do so. They spend their lives slowly assimilating stray matter and discussing philosophy with their peers. Their main interest remains alchemy, though. There might be centuries between encounters with the rarer of elements in the darkness of space and the Ir thus desire to remake all of creation with the elements they have at hand. Their sac-like bodies hold all of the atoms they have gathered over the years, and the Ir continually tinker, break down and remake their possession within the confines of their body. Occassionally, a group of Ir might find their way to a planet, slowly drifting to the surface as their sac is dilated into a balloon. On the ground, the Ir gather the knowledge of natives, share their own lore, and feed on the choicest of natural elements the world has to offer.  

[ic=Ylva]The planet Ylva is a lush, heavily forested world with many natural resources. Of these, the most valuable is the mineral myrrode. Myrrode is exceptionally strong, lighter than most known alloys, and easily bonds with cheaper minerals and metals. On top of all of this, myrrode has the unique quality of regenerating itself, replacing the mined quantities. Once off of Ylva, this growth ceases entirely, thus preventing disastrous effects on myrrodan equipment.

The biggest drawback, however, is that myrrode is sacred to the planet's most prominent species, the ylvs, from which the world gets it's name. Ylvs can be a significant threat to mining colonies. While some Ylvan clans have allowed strictly regulated mining within their territory, conflicts between neighboring clans make it difficult to know just how long any site is safe.

Interestingly enough, while the Ylvan people themselves are technologically primitive, they seem to show an advanced understanding of the technology of other worlds. This has lead to the popular belief that they are capable of such advancements, but actively choose against them. This, of course, only adds to their danger, as ylvs have been known to systematically deconstruct weapons in ambushes and raids, leaving scouts and miners completely defenseless against Ylvan spears and arrows.[/ic]

@ Conundrum:

The Canter Belt is tantalising. Are you planning to detail Ironeye or is s/he free for the taking?

@Paraebola: He's up for grabs! I'd like to see your take on him.

[ic=Hekeratoi Ships]
Hekeratoi are a now deceased race of giant space wurms that are supposed to have abandoned their homeworld shortly before its destruction by unknown forces. The ships used to escape are massive creations of slime, goo and raw minerals roughly spherical in shape. As many as 4 ships have been sighted within close proximity of each other. The ships seem to wander aimlessly about the universe.
   How the Hekeratoi created such structures without appendages is unknown-but they most likely had help from another advanced species. The ships are now devoid of Hekeratoi except for the skeletons of the creatures thus providing evidence for their serpentine origin.
   Another theory is that the Hekeratoi are not the wurm creature skeletons found on board but another species that had contact with the space wurms-but no evidence exists as to what this species motives or nature may have been.  
[/ic]
 
 [ic=Cult of the Odolvwom]
The Odolvwom cult exists aboard the aforementioned 'goo' ships in the form of any number of species-organic or not. Castaways,vagabonds, miscreants and any number of societal rejects can be found aboard these ships-where they live off of ageless food stores aboard the vessels. The Odolvwom is centered around the 'engines' of the massive ships. The technology is some sort of crystalline energy conduit-but any attempted study of the engines are met with fierce resistance by the cult. The engines emit a pale blue-sometimes green light that changes color depending on what part of the universe the ship is in. The sound it makes is a soft-almost whimperish ahhhh-duuuuuuhhhhhlllll-vvvvvwwwww-oohhhhm hence the moniker Odolvwom. The cultists return this sound-which can be heard anywhere in the ship.
[/ic]

[ooc]
   The problem with a lot of these threads is that there is no central theme or mythology to keep it all related. Should their be a general aesthetic to this universe or common theme? Should this just be a thread for random ideas? Any thoughts?
[/ooc]

[ooc]Sorry I've been slow to update the master-list, I've been quite busy the last few days.

With regards to Sarisa's comment, I think the best way is to keep themes informal, but we could try and identify some that already seem to be emergent, perhaps?[/ooc]

IRONEYE
He and his crew settle in the town of Charity on the dark side of Challen's Meteor. He has such bounty at his feet as to test the temperance of any pirate, and on all the walls around are stood such cannons as to test their mettle. Eighteen years he sits there in his gloomy hall, growing fat and sotted and foolish, and maybe he grows to thinking all the worthy pirates of his time are given up to the dark.

But there is one remaining, maybe the only one who matters, and she comes swooping down of her lonesome unseen by all his ordnance. So she's standing there in that crowded street. Got that Castellan Single-shot all agitated by her waist and you can imagine all sorts of hate burning in those beautiful green eyes. He catches word of it. He stumbles out of his sweltering cantina. Drunker than a fish, he can't even squint to see her, and she doesn't wait for him to steady. Angry as she is, though, her fabled aim isn't quite perfect. Or maybe there is something to be said of family ties. The beam sears wide. Its edge catches his half-turned head and boils away his eye. But such reflexes as he has, even through the shock and agony: he whips out his Chesterton on hot reflex alone and blows out her ribcage.

It would be easy enough to swallow this story on its face. He readies to kill himself, but his people stay his trigger finger. Soon they're locking him up to keep him from his misery. But in him brooding so long there's time for word to come by way of traders that his little girl has died more than a year ago. It doesn't take him a moment to understand the game that is afoot, nor to know its players. He fixes himself a new eye, gleaming madly, and sets adrift.