The Terran Coalition, later, the Terran League. Dominated the stars, and began to integrate every species possible into their ranks. However, discontent grew quickly as more and more taxation occurred, more and more rights were stripped, and eventually, citizens were little more than wards of the state.

The Grand Imperator Leo XXII, The last ruler of the League, commissioned a project codenamed 'Xanadu'.

Xanadu was part of the second wave of AI, with the first wave being prototypical, the second wave had eight total intellects.

Alpha, an administrative AI, controlled economics, trade, logistics. Beta, controlled the mighty fist of the League, the Terran Star Fleets. Gamma, bringer of Justice Delta, chief stellar architect Lamda, The learner Theta, the Indocrinator And lastly Pi, the Incomplete...

All served a purpose, all directly reporting to the Imperator and the Imperator alone.

Delta and Lamda hatched a plan, to build Pi, a smart AI like the world had never seen, the first truely sentient neural network, built in two parts, based upon the neural scan of the Imperator himself, and his sadistic mistress, the Queen of Agathon VII, a cruel slaver and criminal mastermind.

Xanadu itself was to be a Dyson sphere, to house a magnificently huge factory, And to power the two part AI that was to be PI.

The purpose was to create a drome fleet, which would spread Omega, commonly called the Mind Flayer.

It would enslave each and every sentient creature in the Galaxy.

Fortunately, those that would resist caught word, forming quickly into the Federation to destroy Xanadu, the first of several alliances that would spawn from the impending Civil war.

The Federation crashed a Battlecarrier into Xanadu, partially collapsing the Sphere and setting the star to Supernova, wiping 4 worlds clean of all life.

The civil war raged for 200 years, culminating in the death of the LONG cybernetically enhanced and now mostly artificial Grand Imperator at the hands of First Citizen Blair, leader of the Federation.

With the death of their leader, and the clear loss of strategic focus, the Council of the Mind, the 6 AIs, launched an all out assault, glassing hundreds of worlds, tearing down the infrastructure built for centuries by the Coalition.

In the collapse, all but 2 AIs were destroyed, thanks to the efforts of the Noble Legion.

The Noble legion was a joint project between the Federation, and the Republic of the Bubble, the two oldest factions to rise against the League.

So named for the Noble Gases, Neon, Xenon, so forth, the Legion were to represent the sacrifice people would go through, to remain independent, just like a Noble gas. A total of 20,000 individuals partook in the project.

It required a brain scan, just like Pi, however, lacking the League's technical prowess, this process killed each and every donor. Their minds uploaded into a State of the art Nueral net, and disseminated, using the finest algorithm the two powers could assemble, leading to a legion of Level 3 AI units that were the sum of the scans, and yet, something different.

The brainchild of Doctor Simon Murao, from the Stellar research array at Maia, his own niece, Denise Murao, was the first sacrifice.

The Legion, with specially designed Fightercraft, and the first of the modern 'super-capitals' fought against the might of the League, with some success, and some failures. Their war rending the state of the Galaxy, with more and more smaller, micronations and warlord powered territories forming in their wake.

Pi, in its incomplete state, was unleashed, and in a day, ten thousand of the legion fell.

But the League did fall as well.

The Galaxy has regressed nigh on 500 years in technology. All AI and AI experiments were outlawed if they were greater than level 1 AI.

Pirates reign, warlords are common place. The Federation, the Republic, the Alliance, and the Empire are all that remain for powers. Their reach limited, their strength sapped.

Contact with aliens was made 70 years ago, and since, 7 space faring races have been discovered.

The stars are in shambles, much mystery can be found in the wrecks of old, who will brave these nightmares of twisted humanity, and broken tech? That my friend,

Is where you come in, a Scrapper searching through these wrecks, looking for someway to turn his life around. —--

Modern society is a mix of civilized, uncivilized, and downright barbaric nature.

If yku stay within one of the three major powers, you're likely to have a decent quality of life, with reasonable law enforcement and generally fair trade, if a bit restricted.

If you venture into the Grave, the areas of space where the great battles of old took place, thats where you can earn the REAL money, salvaging League tech. However, these areas of space are largely uncontrolled, or controlled by roving bands of pirates, slavers, and warlords.

Most of modern society lives on crumbling relics of the League, stations and megastructures that no one knows how to replace, though efforts have been made to colonize ELWs or 'earth like worlds', and the Alliance of Independent Systems is developing proto terraforming technologies.

Life is grim, and with the discover of the latest species, it's been a question of not If, but WHEN humanity will face its next war….

| Legion Unit S-13297 |

LEGION UNIT DETAILS:

First of all, they're all identical, save for body coloration, and very occasionally size.

White= standard unit. Black= stealth/recon Red= demolition Blue= specialist (moddable)

The standard issue Legion unit runs off a biomatter converter unit combined with an emergency liquid cell battery pack.

The biomatter converter converts ANY organic material directly into energy to power the unit. Each calorie taken in equals roughly 15 minutes of run time.

The processor is a (then) state of the art machine learning algorithm with filters and experiences pulled from the Volunteer. What this means, for example, if Madonna was the volunteer for the unit's filter, the unit will be a Legion unit, with traces of Madonna's personality and tendencies. For this reason 95% of Legion units came from military veterans.

Each unit is equipped with highly sensitive Audio, Visual, olfactory, and touch based sensors, and the Visual sensors are most generally covered by a removable, semi transparent armor weave to protect them. Able to detect normal visible light, Ultraviolet and Infrared spectrums, as well as having fully adjustable light sensitivity there is almost no condition in which a Legion unit is without visual input.

Auditory sensors can hear 20% above and below human hearing, and 75% more sensitively.

Legion units feel like humans feel, using a series of modified Piezo sensors, allowing pressure, touch, mild lain sensations, and for training purposes, pleasure.

These sensors are heavily clustered near human erogenous zones, fingertips, lips, and surprisingly, in the back of the throat. Explanation to follow.

Legion units are covered in a synthetic armor weave synthetic which protects against punctures and tears.

Legion units have two primary locomotion and motor functions. First, closest to the Tungsten-Carbide reinforced chassis or the 'bones' of each unit, are a series of modified hydraulic rams, each arm is capable of lifting nearly 600 pounds, and the chassis itself is strong enough to support half a ton of direct force, 750 pounds sustained.

Closer to the skin exists the myomer bundles, allowing fine motor control, and when only human strength is required, these function exactly as human muscle do, contracting when electrical current is applied, these are similar in strength to the finest of female powerlifters. Mixed among the myomer bundles are the insulator deposits which protect the unit from extreme temperatures, similar in texture to human fat for familiarity.

Legion units have an emergency semi liquid power cell stored where the human posterior would be, offering a firm, yet still pliable texture, on top of the Myomer and insulators, resulting in a pronounced posterior. These batteries will last for 200 years if the unit is dormant, or 48 hours if the unit is active.

The remainder of the Legion Unit's interior is taken up with the internal fabricator. Legion units are designed to be self replicating. Upon the injection of unfamiliar 'code' into a Legion unit's replicator suite, the Unit will begin self replication, manufacturing a miniature, self-fabricating version of itself, which requires a neural scan to fully function, operating at a base Level 2 AI if an upload is not received. During self replication the Legion Unit has an increased caloric intake requirement, and it's midsection will swell immensely.

The Legion units are further provided with the means to manufacture nutrition for any human combatants brought in alongside them, dispensed in form of a milky substance secreted from the 'breasts' of the unit.

Unsurprisingly, damaged Legion units are often sold to proprietors of less than reputable establishments due to these features.

The units are 'programmed' to emulate a human female soldier outside of combat, each one's personality matrix a slight difference based on their neural pattern. Pain sensors are equipped to all the unit's to perceive damage, while the pleasure sensors exist to encourage units to self replicate in the absence of orders, in addition, the pleasure sensors in the throat and lips are to ensure that the units enjoy their caloric intake, studies show a happy neural net performs 17.31% more efficiently.

Overall combat logs report Legion units are able to withstand heavy caliber machine gun fire, and light caliber cannon fire, as well as limited explosive concussion without issue, their primary weakness is heat, which will effect them if they are allowed to reach 350⁰

Standard issue weapons include an automatic pistol chambered in .390 Federal, several different blades. Including Vibro, thermal, and electroshock. The blades are stored internally, retrievable from the thighs, while the ranged weapon is an external unit.

The final piece of equipment is the variable function boots. Standard functionality is a high pressure parade mode or 'high heel', other modes include Maglock, low pressure or 'combat boot', and repulsor modes, allowing for limited speed and altitude flight.

Legion Starfighters were based off the Phi class Super Dreadnaughts, the only ships of their class to ever exist. The shop itself bristled with weapons, each hosting 32 heavy caliber anti ship batteries preside, with 24 torpedo tubes mounted 12 dorsal and 12 ventral, with nigh on 200 point defense cannons, and room for 300 Legion fighters each, 60 were built in total.

The Legion starfighter is fully unique, featuring a quartet of fixed, light flak cannons, dual torpedo launchers, and a trio of Missile rails, they manage to accomplish this by scratching life support and GLOC rectification gear, due tk the android pilot. The single most heavily armed fighter of all time, it's maneuverability was second to none, and with a built in C-Drive, they were able to be non carrier based when needed.

—-

FTL and ship weapons and tech.

FTL has been known of for a thousand years, and the Terran Coalition, in its heyday, went to enormous oengths to establish the 'Fretz-Mannaheim' protocol. Whereupon the knowledge of FTL gate construction, plotting, and repairs were made public knowledge, to preserve Humanity's colonies.

FTL is achievable via a 'Graviton Gate' a large, cone shaped cinstruct generally stationed in a stellar stationary orbit around a host star, from which it leeches energy. Using a process called 'Psedeudo Stellar Fusion' any sufficient quantity of matter is converted directly into energy, and then released via Graviton surge. Nearby ships are caught in the Gravitational Anamoly thereby created, and utilize their standard ion drives to traverse the Anatoly, utilizing the warp in space time to traverse great distances in one go.

Gates are constructed at stars, once a ship has traversed the gap between gate and target, the Ship's ion drives take over sunlight travel. However, a sufficiently large ship also contains a 'C-drive', which will accelerate the ship around 99% of the speed of light while handling course correction and collision avoidance automatically. C drives work similarly to Graviton Gates, however their power output is limited by the size of a ship's on board matter storage and the size of the 'cone' mounted therein. The larger the cone, the more graviton distortion, the faster the acceleration and deceleration. C drives take an ENORMOUS amount of power, and their use precludes a ship from firing or using other systems.

Ships are powered by compound fission-combustion engines, utilizing Helium skimmed from Stars, Gas giants, and other sources such as in a Fusion plant via hydrogen fusion, this is further refined via Lithium bombardment, or in a primitive system, by exposure to Uranium fission.

The ship's compound reactor then takes the resulting Helium-3, and subjects it to its own nuclear fission via EM field manipulation, splitting it into it's resulting hydrogen form, which is then further burned by an internal combustion enginge, the resulting heat from primary fission and secondary combustion is what then powers the ship's on board system, including a powerbank, which prevents the ship from needing to run its power plant at all times.

Smaller craft without space for this advanced system utilize a PowerBank only, or a secondary combustion generator as described above.

Due to the constraints of a shop's power limitations, energy weapons are severely uncommon. Only the largest ship's, or stationary weapon platforms laser arrays.

Most ship's are primarily equipped with traditional Kinetic weapons, including guns, rail guns, torpedoes, and missiles.

4 ship types will be examined here.

Frigate Cruiser Carrier Dreadnaught

A typical frigate is an Anti fighter ship, equipped with a large number of small caliber (105mm - 20mm) guns specifically meant for tracking small craft and capable of firing proximity and timed fuse shells, along with a complement of Missiles to hit larger fighter craft. Commonly also equipped with a small number of torpedo tubes to defend against larger ships.

A typical Cruiser is your typical front liner, equipped with a mixture of point defense weapons, as well as anti ship batteries, torpedo arrays, and occasionally a Plasma shield, which is an array of plasma emitters held on an armature away from the ship, detonating shells, missiles, and torpedo via application of intense heat. These are typically expendable, with continued damage resulting in sheild gaps, and they require a tremendously oversized heat sinking array and power plant to operate, making them rare.

Carriers are just that, carriers fkr fightercraft. It's rare for a ship to be a dedicated carrier, most commonly these are hybrid ships, with Battlecarriers being most common, a hybrid of Dreadnaught and carrier. The next most common is the 'support frigate' which will replace its torpedo tubes with fight craft hangars.

Fighter craft are launched via magnetic catapult, and retrieved via standard maglock landings. The carrier will feature a number of fightercraft powerbank charging stations, and have a rather large magazine to refit the fighters.

Fighter craft are generally equipped with small, gimballed, rotary cannons with target prediction, along with several missiles, while heavy fighter craft can be loaded with a number of torpedos, and the largest fighter craft ever seen can support two light antiship barrels.

Dreadnaughts are the rare capital ships. They have built in Graviton drives, docking spaces for a full support fleet, untold numbers of antiship batteries, torpedo bays, and point defense. Additionally, Dreadnaughts are the ONLY class of ship which can support orbit to ground weaponry called 'Kinetic Impactors' which fire a variable sized projectile at a significant speed, impacting the surface and causing destruction varying from a large conventional bomb, to full on nuclear blast levels of damage.

Antiship batteries are generally fixed barrels, of various caliber, that run lengthwise, widthwise, or draft wise, most running width wise. Due to Galaxy wide agreements called the 'Tyr accords' all weapons fired in the vacuum of space are mandated to have self destroying capabilities to prevent the unending travel of the projectile in space, therefore, most parties have opted for chemical warheads rather than penetrators, resulting in the widespread use of ablative plating.

Civilian ships vary in their configurations, but most are dual purpose both aero and spacefaring in design, resulting in aerodynamic shapes with a combination of Ion drives and conventional drives. Weapons are generally much lighter than military vessels, however they are not illegal due to the amount of pirates.

Civilian ships also feature tools like Mining drills, cargo clamps, and basically whatever modularity the pilot can ask for.

— ground combat —

Ground conbat resembles much of the 21st century, as technology reached a zenith, and tactics did not adjust much. Tanks remain the primary means of enforcing power, equipped now with rail guns and sophisticated sensors, firecontrol, and the like. Ground combat is still much more about armor penetration than space combat, and as such, armor is generally thick, and highly dense material, with most modern tanks being made of tungsten-carbide or diamond composite armor.

For particularly harsh terrain, the more advanced I.T.C.T.U or 'Impassable Terrain Combat Traction Unit' commonly called 'mechs' are utilized. These are modular units, usually utilizing either a bipedal or quadropedal chassis, the upper half or 'turret' of the unit is often boxy in design, having to house the engine. Usually these are equipped with your typical antitank cannon, as well as missiles, autocannons, and sensor arrays. There are numerous different configurations, depending upon mission.

Infantry often fight in somewhat primitive exoskeletons, which enhance their endurance and load carrying capacity, while offering little additional protection. AAI, or Advanced Armored Infantry uses a fully powered exosuit able to shrug off most anti personnel weapons and impervious to environmental risks, these are the 'special forces' of most powers.

In years past, Legion units would often be issued to Infantry platoons as their 'Hazardous Task Unit' which often meant going first in a breach, ordinance disposal, antitank duties, etc. Being that Legion units are cutting edge and nigh impervious to anything short of a tank, the AIs were pleased to take this task for their brothers and sisters in arms.

—modern factions—

The Alliance of Independent Planets, or just 'The Alliance' are a loosely affiliated group of planets spanning a dozen systems, total population crossing the 300 billion mark, living on 41 planets and stations. They are a economic powerhouse, with the highest technology levels since the fall of the League. They are led by the 'First Administrator' and his body of elected Oligarchs. They value order and wealth, shunning war. The average citizen has a decent life, but with few rights.

The Orion Federation, or just 'The Federation' is the renamed Federation for the destruction of Xanadu. The oldest of the powers, they value personal liberty, have a highly decentralized government, and a direct democratic system. Currently Firat Cotizen Westland is the head of state. They have a very balanced economy. Not huge, not small, but they have the largest density of naval shipyards. Population around 100 billion

Finally, the Duval Empire or 'the Empire'

An authoritarian regime that rose from the ashes of the League, the Empire is strictly autocratic, with an inherited Imperial throne, and a beauracracy of lesser nobles. Home to Gutamaya Systems, the Empire has the largest fleet, and the most advanced network of Graviton Gates, as well as the remaining two Level 3 AIs, Alpha, and Lamda. They have the largest territory and population, around 500 billion.

The average citizen suffers under the Empire, with extreme tax burdens and only marginal care from the upper classes, slavery is VERY legal, and they're often seen as expansionist and gmpower hungry. However as signers of the Treaty of Murao, they agreed to never again impede upon human free will.

There are several notable pirate kingdoms and Rouge states, as well as lesser powers, including the Republic of the Bubble, a nation of three systems and just over 4 billion people. Their navy is a single Dreadnaught, with a dozen cruisers, 35 frigates, and 1200 fighter craft.

The Republic is heavily focused on making life easy. Often seen as a 'neutral ground' between the three superpowers, the Republic has a president and his cabinet that are elected via a meritocracy system, with only the top 4 most useful and successfully politicians coming up for elections. Ensuring that the president is capable and interested in the betterment of the nation.