The Exiled Generation
To fill your rosters for the new generation we’re having a draft. You get to pick members of the draft until you have filled all 8 of your roster slots. You cannot see their stats and pre-existing characters haven’t had their Sol War xp paid out yet. Choose wisely. Pretty much all of you except sam have yourself, your advisor, and one holdover who never retired or had anywhere else to go so you have 5 slots to fill. Sam has 4 slots because he has two agents who never moved on.
I ran out of time in getting to the character exp updates and will just do that over the next week since that is also when i’ll be doing the stats for anyone that gets drafted. For the same reason I did not have time to proofread, prepare for jank and blind spots.
Today we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the unification of Sol across the middle planes. Sol News Network covers a retrospective of the last quarter century spent under the rule of Empress Kanika Hassani, eternal may she reign.
Some people might be too young to even remember before the Hassani empire, though old timers like myself can tell you that the twenty five years of peace we have enjoyed is unprecedented. For over a thousand years the elves and drow waged war with one another across the system, and for a thousand more before that kingdoms did the same. Even the insistent attacks on Sol from galactic forces have done far less damage than the initial Nelta invasions. Though some would argue that the Hassani defense policy is a little too aggressive.
Though things haven’t been perfect, rebellions still occur throughout Sol. Some peaceful protests and lobbying. Terrorist attacks from the Hero’s Guild that advocates for elven superiority to return. Crime is at an all time high due to the lack of enforcement under the Hassani Council, though this could also be blamed on the drow territories becoming more integrated into other elements of the system and their lax views on enforcement.
After the Nelta invasions Sol was left in ruins, with a few pockets of civilization remaining while the elves who once ruled became tribal cannibals. Even more was lost during the war between the Void State Federation and the Kar’Soluth territories, as well as the immediately following war between Shetou, Valdir, and the Hassani. Thanks to the work of the Hassani, multiple cities have been rebuilt and are now economically thriving once again. It is amazing how fast things get done when elves aren’t locked in a racial war against one another.
In galactic news, the Reach has been home to those that refused to abide by the Hassani’s rule over Sol for the last two decades. Jydoq continues to maintain its independence. The Yelkin hemisphere still keeps a stance of absolute neutrality though the Karhast hemisphere is at least amicable to the Hassani presence and remains a popular tourist destination after the wars.
The northern galaxy has become traversible again as the war between the two exerlus collectives reached a stalemate. While the fighting continues, resources have become so sparse that both sides have retreated to their original positions to launch small scale skirmishes against one another. Though the galactic north will likely take thousands of years to recover from the destruction of 90% of their metallic resources. Leading to the extinction of 4 sapient species and the collapse of sixteen civilizations. With the fall of their border control checkpoints, we are seeing the slow but seemingly inevitable expansion of hive world species into the galactic north. Many express a lack of concern for the long term possibilities since it is likely that the jesai will curb this before it gets too far as they would be the next ones affected. Though that has brought little solace or aid to the people living in those places.
Others from the galactic north welcome the hive worlds expansion, with the loss of so many civilizations and their metallic resources the organic mass growth that comes with the spread of the Hive World’s influence brings them valuable resources for food and access to new possibilities.
Nelta has managed to reach a ceasefire with the Jesai after the destruction of four hundred planets, thanks in part to an intervention by the Exerlus. The lost worlds now remain as a part of the newly coined “shattered expanse”. A place with no remaining inhabitable worlds that has become the new border between the Jesai and Nelta territories. Despite the agreement to a ceasefire, relations remain tense. Public opinion leans towards, in the quote of our orc anchor “the Jesai are dicks”. Leading to a general distrust of theocracies. In particular it has increased wariness of the supposedly neutral “New Pantheon” created by solians but primarily housed at Diadem under the flag of the Void State Federation. Which remains hostile to the Hassani in general.
This retrospective brought to you by public funding from the Desoir family. Don’t forget to pay your taxes!
Greetings, this is Nakka’s News from the Reach Broadcast Network. Today, I’d like to talk to you about some unique business opportunities. Our field reporters have uncovered some movement in our great anarchic corner of the galaxy.
It is the 30th anniversary of the Void State Federation moving into what we now call Diadem in the northwestern corners of the Reach network. After thirty years, it has become largely accepted that they will not be overrun by the native machines of Diadem and it seems the Federation is here to stay. It being their 30th Anniversary means they are planning an extra special festival as they host every year, there has never been a better time to visit. Their border security is particular lax at this time of year to admit Reachers to the festival. Prize money can be won at a grand variety of events, paid for by the Federation itself. It is also a great opportunity to make connections and find potential contracts. Diadem itself specializes in farming and food production, a lucrative market in a nation of space stations. I also have it on the good word of my contacts that Bakara is experiencing a famine, while it is some distance away they would likely be willing to pay a premium.
For those unfamiliar with the inhabitants of Diadem, they are exiled solians and very multi species friendly. They also include the likes of the Caelkians, the famous Ruffians, the Zenakans, and of course the Nomad Flotilla. All of which are technically members of their government expanse. They also maintain amicable relationships with the Utewa and Vessians. Making this festival a great opportunity for networking with otherwise elusive forces of the Reach. Diadem also provides some of the strongest investments among the Reach into education networks similar to Utewa. Offering alternative academies for those interested. They also boast strong immigration policies, for those who would like a place to settle down.
Diadem also offers the unique gate network into other planes, for those inclined to exploration and pioneering in new realms. Rumors say their Pantheon contains a member who can send a whole fleet to anywhere in the galaxy they desire. Should the price be right of course.
Some are concerned that they are overstepping their position and trying to instate a galactic government akin to Nelta or the southern Hassani here within our beloved Reach. Do not be concerned, the powers that be will tend to them if necessary. Their laws are only applicable within their own borders, should they try to extend their enforcement beyond we can rest assured that they will meet the same fate as the last to try.
For those visiting the ringworld of Diadem for the festivities, it is advised to be culturally aware of their current position. They are a diverse group, but they do prefer conflicts be resolved in non lethal fashion while within their borders. Stick to fists and knives while you are there, and be aware that they have multiple enforcement agencies. It has only been twenty five years since they entered into exile from their homeworld among the solians, but that is a significant portion of some species lifespans. See this image to understand the differences between elves and drow in particular. These are very common species within their collective who have lived long enough to still be sore losers about the matter. Notice the ears. Most other races will be of shorter lifespans, and are a part of what they call the “Exiled Generation”. A group born since the day after the war was lost. They can be a little disassociated from their lost homeworld, true Reachers like ourselves. Consider your business propositions and partners accordingly.
Nearby, Kuhas is also seeing an expansion of its facilities. With the Hive Worlds expanding into the galactic north thanks to the loss of the border stations that kept them in check, now is a great time to make some investments there. A great deal of ships are passing through to prospect the worlds due to be infected. Piracy and security are likewise at an all time high near Kuhas and other northern border stations. Several organizations, including the Silver Fleet are preparing expeditions to see what might be gained. Providing stable employment opportunities. Our informants report a sixteen percent increase in economic activity since last month’s report. It is expected to continue rising with initial projections estimating a few decades of growth. If you aren’t in the northern networks, it might be time to make the journey.
We are seeing a general decline in activity in the southern network. The Jydoq embassies at Elasyn have seen a twelve percent decline in contract offers as the rebuilding of their planet begins to slow, with many projects having been completed. Elasyn itself remains the most profitable world in the Reach, but still sees an overall decline in its economy of eight percent since last month’s report. Continuing a trend for the last five years.
The Hassani employment has increased by seventeen percent, though seventeen percent of only a handful of opportunities is still a very low number of opportunities. These offers are usually made by smaller agencies within the Hassani Empire, as the Empire itself still maintains its strict self reliance. Most of these opportunities are often run by rebels and outlaws of the Hassani civilization. So don’t be too loud about your offerings, as they remain the most militarily powerful civilization in southern galaxy barring the mysterious dead zone around the Blaiken.
Meanwhile, the Reach welcomes yet another enterprising group. That little backwater swamp world southwest of Elasyn finally figured out space travel. Thanks to their capture of some slave ships that made the mistake of misplacing their keys. Despite two centuries of harvesting there, it appears that an outside group may have played a hand in this mistake in operations. The masked solians, who Diadem swears they have no association with. Despite both Diadem and the masked ones having a notable distaste for slavery. Curious. Though either way, the planet has reached official galactic awareness. They are in the usual stages of realizing they cannot defend themselves while others leap upon them. Initial prospecting reveals they are rich in fuel resources, and poor in ideas of how to use it. Whichever side of the matter you fall upon, this development means there is work to be found and resources to be gained whether with these primitives or with their slavers. Particularly for practitioners of the profession we call security. Though, we also have news that the Tungsten Teeth are already on the way, but not who will win the bidding for their services. Consider your moves accordingly.
We have also seen an influx of immigrants from the northern galaxy, seeking refuge from the Exerlus wars. Now that the fighting has settled down, transporters have been finding work extracting those with anything left to trade for passage to a more civilized place. You know its bad when we’re the ‘civilized’ option. This means expect newcomers to be looking for work, newcomers with no associations here in the Reach. For those of you who are looking to hire rather than to work, these newfound independents might be just the right kind of people for your business. The Silver Fleet in particular has been scooping up quite a few to serve as their guides and experts for the upcoming prospecting expeditions into the northern galaxy.
Also for this month’s Rahlken Report, King Rahlken is currently near the core sectors. So stay safe out there. This has been your free report from the Reach Broadcast Network, and as usual we are watching. We know everything, and we could tell you what you wish to know for a price. Please contact our official offices if you wish to buy some specific information.
Thanks to Nah division and Michael Haggard we were able to deploy the scorpion grass project within Beldobaan no less which should stifle their ability to keep track of what we’re up to. Though it appears Sethis Tyne’s sister also managed to get ahold of it and deploy it into our own systems, every time I try to make any entry of Faithrae it is immediately deleted. At the very least the project is liable to keep us safe for a little while from the Hassani’s attention. As long as Renjala doesn’t personally walk around screaming “Come and get me Kanika”.
The medical labs have managed to reduce infection issues and create more safeguards and protocols should we ever get into a war with the Jaal’Darya again. Protocols have also been devised to help quarantine respond to the mummy rot should that be utilized against us. There are two versions of these measures. One run by VSEC Medical which features several plans to slow such infections and another by New Age which hopes to eliminate their spread. You can guess which one involved flamethrowers. The secondary goal of creating a genetic weapon has seen development issues ever since the Revenants attacked and destroyed the lab. They did the same thing to the Jaal’Darya too in order to destroy a project we learned would have weaponized the mummy rot into an interstellar railgun.
The exploration teams have vastly improved our mapping and understanding of the Reach network though it is hard to do so with precision. The network is intentionally chaotic and explorers started encountering resistance when a rumor began that they were compiling information for the Federation to use in expanding to take over sections of the network. The various planets in between the station travel lanes have been further mapped out to discover hundreds of worlds with their own civilizations and colonization attempts by some of these civilizations. As well as massive craters from major cities that were stolen by Rahlken.
While some of the vessians are fine working at the farms to provide themselves with food, they are uninterested in establishing themselves as a member state at this time. In particular because Grand Chief Amasis is already involved in several diplomatic relations with other powers of the Reach and it would create several problems for these alliances if the Vessians as a whole were to join the Federation formally. Also because their homeworld is so far from Diadem it brings about the issue that their world would be the first one targeted by Rahlken if the Federation was perceived as growing too large and destabilizing the gentle balance that keeps the Reach in a state of anarchy.
Through a somewhat long complicated backwards process, we’ve made some progress on the Diadem keys. At some point a powerful civilization involved in the alliance that included the Ika and Kanis had one of the keys in safekeeping. The entire city the key was within was taken by Rahlken some while ago and the key itself was sold off. After passing through a few hands it wound up with the Utewa, and Nah division has a theory that its kept in an underground vault along with many other treasures of the galaxy that they have collected. We have never been able to see the vault so we’re not sure what to expect is within there.
Mornin’ meowstah….nyah. I’m sorry its a habit, I’ve been an aethernet streamer for six years, I’m sorry it just comes out. Please don’t fire me I need this job, with my viewership lately I’ll have to do GFE content and it’s all downhill from there. Once you do GFE you can only get creepy fans in chat and you can’t do porn either because those fans will stab any costars you have in a back alley and then no one wants to work with you except big tough orcs and I’m not saying I’ve tried it but I’m concerned my holes can’t handle that. Nyah.
Eden can’t remove memories as it turns out, that’s Vasia’s line of work. Side effects may include brain damage, worse memories, and developing a permanent problem.
Eden City is now located in my apparent home plane of Valjala and floating around randomly, though the concept of putting Eden inside your Rim never quite worked out. You know, it took me three weeks to figure out what that joke was and I was about to report some of the office staff for sexual harassment there.
We’ve started the project of infiltrating near-era reach civilizations with your little space moths and pandem projects. More accurately we left it to the Shadow Order since distributing information in secret is sort of their gig. Lot of industrializing planet’s don’t know the shadowy demon god is an alien, which keeps things simple for them.
Well if nothing else your sister is a good training partner, though the rest of the office is concerned when you come back from ‘training’ barely able to walk. It really looks like one of these days she’s just going to kill you on accident.
The agent that came back from Arkaric’s club on Elasyn filled half their report with ‘reasons that place is insane’. It is fairly sickening to be honest, but I don’t know why they had to fill half their report with ‘activities that were available’. As for contacting Daiheb, Selona pointed out that he can summon for them upon request, but only if you bring an artifact to trade to her. Wasting the time of someone with powers to rival a cosmic entity is generally ill advised. Though half of the Elasyn operation is a front for people to bring artifacts in, Arkaric serves as the front desk of Elizabeth’s storefront. There is apparently another one in the Nelta territories that Elizabeth also uses.
After years of keeping tabs on the Hydra, we’ve seen them integrate more formally into the Hassani as one of the major governors of Sol. Lancaster and Jaerda’s rants aside, the Hydra is well suited to managing a vast government and the productivity of the Hassani Empire is six times that of either Alnae or Shetou’s performance history. This has led them to recover faster than anyone else from the wars and the Hydra has become one of the main councilors under Kanika. Though they are mostly handling civil matters for the empire.
As for relations between the Hassani and the Blaiken, we’ve been able to confirm that Mother is just outright a part of Selona’s team and by relation comes into regular contact with Kanika. The basis of the connections is that the top leaders of both the Blaiken and the Hassani work for Selona. Along with Jarias the exiled exerlus, Decaelys the entity, and King Rahlken.
Which leads to another path of investigation we’ve been exploring. Decaelys is also a member of this top level group but it can be hard to remember that Decaelys is capable of time manipulation and now is in possession of the Renjala’s Rift spell. They can be anywhere at anytime, since we are most frequently watching the Hassani that is where we see them but our agents report confirmation that she is just as frequently found alongside Mother, Rahlken, or Jarias as needed. Though they still can’t figure out why she’s even hanging out with them. Decaelys is possibly the most powerful member of the entire group, she can literally move stars around after all. Though she is often doing favors and work for the others and we’ve not really been able to figure out why. I don’t think even Selona could do much to her, even if you can see the future how do you stop someone like Decaelys from doing as they please? Either somehow this group provides great value to her or the fact that the jesai worship a cosmic entity that can tell them the future plays some part of their interest in Selona who can do much the same and with much higher frequency.
Ah how young and naive we were when we thought your moocher of a sister could be placated and controlled. Now she owns both our asses, runs more of Diadem than any official government body, and getting her a husband is now the least of our concerns.
This generation continues to see a lot of new prototype designs more purpose built to their function. Though with the creation of the university I have to admit we kind of suck at art. Adrienne and I can do it, though our art is our prototypes and creations. However, data is hard to come by on the phenomenon. Chevalier was one of the most expressive among us, he and Sacha in particular were always the most interested in exploring what it meant to be a voidforged in particular. Their personalities are something of a rarity nowadays and I’m not sure if my designs are to blame or if the current generation is just a product of the times. As well as the new custom frames that we allow others to request with the company we set up.
Even if we live aboard the Cradle instead of Diadem and we have a lot less to be mopey about, the constant bombardment of the meatbags on the aethernet whining about how everything sucks might be taking its toll even on our own who have little else in their history to build context out of. Members with the new more purposeful and unique designs are part of a phenomenon where they exist in a galaxy not really built to give them the ability to express their agency. A great example of this was Arsene. Living in a world built for humanoids, Arsene was never able to interact with them beyond a few purpose built special facilities. We have been careful about that in the repaired section of the Cradle that we lost back in the Sol War, allowing for more access for different body types. The situation is still ongoing, though its something to keep an eye on. Machines like Adrienne and yourself in particular can easily blend into a humanoid world, though Auvray the living destroyer is limited in how they can ever interface with others. I don’t need to blend in, I make the world to my image. I create my companions with my own hands and craft this cradle of iron life to my desires. I AM A MACHINE GOD! That and I can fit in Diadem hallways just fine.
Anyways, for some reason the Director’s board is rallying up a new wave of agents. Allow me to present to you my newest meanest, leanest designs. Oh and Le Havre has been developing so heavily for so long that it’s having a bit of a homeless crisis at the moment. We might want to build more residential zones.