The Socialist Technocratic Union of Blackgrue (application)
Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2009 2:09 am
(Note: Well over a year ago I applied to join ESUS and was turned down, this is still the same account but I've completely and totally reinvented my nation concept since then and am effectively a different nation. Also I hope you don't mind if I copy-paste a lot of this from my factbook.)
History: For centuries, the many "Spark houses" Lead by the genius inventors known to the locals as "Sparks" within the region were in a constant state of anarchic war. Each Spark house wanted to control the entire region. About 400 years ago, Lord Heterodyne got each of the spark houses (many of whom were 'persuaded' at gunpoint) to sign the Treaty of confederation. This unified the region of Blackgrue into a single state ruled by the Heterodynes. This persisted until the year of the Old Reckoning 1861 when the "Technocrat" party declared the Heterodyne's rule tyrannical. A long and bloody revolution transformed the once peaceful territory into one of war and bloodshed. The technocrats defeated the Royalists and the treaty of unity was signed shortly thereafter, establishing the basis of democracy in the region. The first Technocratic Prime minister, Simon Treyja, converted the economy into a socialist one and granted universal human suffrage. This made the technocratic party so massively popular among the working-class, the other parties in the region don't really have a chance of being elected. Over the next 30 years a strange trend has emerged of dynastic local rulers with their own agenda, but massive public support for the Technocratic party overall keeping them in check. These new spark houses divide the confederation up into a number of de-facto city-states and occasionally a sparky leader will attempt a coup to take the helm of the technocrats. This has always failed miseribly, the citizens of Mechanicsburg (the capitol where the Technocrats rule from on-high) have made a sport out of 'hunting the traitor' where they will tie up the would-be rulers and leave him outside of town in the most humiliating way possible.
Geography:
~~Territory: Claims home star system, and 3 nearby systems near the glactic core's intersection with the Norma Arm, milky way.
~~Homeworld: GruesDotter
~~Exclusive economic zone: 0.1 lightyears past the system edge
Government:
~~Full Nation name: The Socialist Technocratic Union of BLACKGRUE
~~~~Informal names: The Union, 'Grue
~~Government type: Socialist Technocratic Republic.
~~Capitol: Mechanicsburg.
~~Legal system: Federal court based on the Heterodyne common law
~~Sufferage: at age 18 for humans, by application or at 30 for constructs (this is because many constructs age/develop faster or slower then humans).
~~Executive branch: Madame Chair: Dr. Arielle Saito, Vice Chair: General Prost Jägerkin,
~~Legislative branch: See Government Details
~~Judicial branch: Cheif Justice: Ryan O'Mally
~~Political parties and leaders:
~~~~Technocratic Party [Prof. Werner Beetle]
~~~~Jägerkin Liberation Front [Übergeneral Hans Jägerkin]
~~~~BioLife Association [Dr. Tina Tiaman]
~~~~Liberalist Combine [Johan Stockton]
~~~~Back-To-Business Party [CEO Morgan (First name unknown)] (Note: This party advocates destroying the Union and re-instating a business frendly monarch to Castle Heterodyne. It has been summarily outlawed by the Union, membership punishable by Jägerdrougt.)
Military: The Union's military is seperated into 5 branches all overseen by the Central Military Command (CMC)
~~Jägerkin Armed Forces (JAF): The genetically modified Jägerkin make up about half of the ground based military forces. The JAF are known for daring tactics and fearless execution. Called in as shocktroops as well as police forces in conflicts and actions all over the Union.
~~Mechanised Armed Forces (MAF): The Union has a long history of constructing clockwork automatons known as "Clanks". The military applications of a soldier who always follows orders, never sleeps, eats, or requires pay were jumped upon right away. MAF operations generally are used when overwhelming force is required as Clanks take very little initiative and require constant observation and maintenance. the MAF makes up the second half of ground-based combat.
~~The Sub-Navy (NAVY): The Union does not have a traditional Navy, instead opting for a fleet entirely based on submarines. Utilizing cunning and ingenious technological marvel such as submarine aircraft carriers and clank-manned sea-to-air rockets the Sub-Navy's main role is to test out the newest technologies that the Sparks come up with.
~~Airship Command (AIR): Due to their ability to fly at extreme altitudes and stay over a target indefinitely, the Union decided in it's infancy to invest heavily on lighter-then-air craft. The massive airship fleets fill the sky with enormous metal-plated hollow craft packed with weapons and soldiers ready to land and invade.
~~Ætherial Command (ÆC): Space was always a facination with the Union, and almost 100 years ago Ætherial Command was born. Originally their mandate was pure exploration of nearby space via the "Space Cannon" launch platform, recently contact with the East Coast Federation has extended their mandate to cover space military and interstellar diplomacy operations as well.
Government details:
~~History: When the Heterodyne Dynasty ended, the Great Houses found themselves in a predicament. The Heterodynes had solved the problem of unification of what was at the time the largest nation on GruesDotter. Rather then splintering into the warring city-states that once was BLACKGRUE, the houses instead decided to dissolve altogether and form a collective society sworn to work together for the common good. Centralized authority became the rule, and individual megacities agreed to join this new Union. At the time the Heterodynes fell, constructs were slowly being integrated into the workforce. Many of the laws still on the books reflect a sort fear of the constructs, and though anachronistic they remain as a testament of the meganation's progress.
~~Legal system: Heterodyne common law is based on the principles that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and that nobody has the right to luxury while squalor exists. But in addition, certain rights are held by individuals that can only be broken in times of national crisis. This includes the right to privacy, religion, the press, and expression.
~~Judicial branch: The Local Committees appoints 1 judge for every 15,000 citizens not including children. This Judge presides over these 15,000 and any cases brought against them. This is for civil and criminal matters alike. The Judge may request 2 other judges to aid in a case, and if additional judges are unavailable then any attorney may serve as a temporary tribunal judge. Attorneys (who are appointed by the Judicial Committee) take cases as assigned (generally by the court staff, who try to see that all attorneys both prosecute and defend equally in a variety of cases) Litigants may request an Attorney to be approved or denied by the judge or may elect to represent themselves. Appeals are sent to the Area Appeals Court, then the Megacity appeals court, and then the Supreme Court. Megacity level crimes and above are appealed directly to the Supreme Court. Supreme court judges (all 9 of them) are elected by the Judicial Committee and serve for 10 years, and a maximum of 3 terms.
~~Legislative branch: all areas are split based on population and area, Megacities are split into 50 million population "City Blocs" which are split into 10 5 million population "Local Blocs". Those 5 million elect to appoint any members of the Local Bloc. The City Bloc, Megacity Bloc, and National Bloc are all appointed by election from the bloc below them. At any time during a term, the entire population of the Bloc being represented may vote to remove a member. Terms vary based on the Bloc and are chosen by popular initiative. Each Bloc holds 63 members, the exception is the national Bloc which holds 1 member per Local Bloc, with all deadlocks settled by the vice-chair.
~~Executive branch: The Trans Poly-University of Mechanicsburg, built on the site of Castle Heterodyne, is the seat of the Executive Branch, every 10 years, the Megacity Blocs all appoint a single one of their number to run for Chair. If multiple ones are of the same political party, the parties hold a primary election the details of which are up to the party (this has lead to a number of unusual methods, the Jägerkin Liberation Front for example has all their potential candidates fight to the death). Once the final candidates are chosen there is a general election, with all members of the Blocs and Judges getting the equivalent of 1 and a half votes. The winner is elected Chair of the University and in addition to running the state, has the duties associated with being Chair of the largest University in the Nation (though they are allowed to delegate this task). The runner up is chosen to be Vice-chair.
Political parties:
~~Technocrat party: This party advocates technological progress at any cost ecological or otherwise. It has the distinction of having over 80% of sparks and 70% of all researchers as members and is the largest party by about half a billion voters. The Technocrats have held the Chair seat for the last 2 elections, both times electing Arielle Saito, the strongest Spark in recent memory and distinguished by the fact that she didn't so much Break Through as "push through" Allowing her to develop her talents with much less madness then is associated with The Spark. Technocrats hold an invention contest judged by non-candidate sparks to determine their candidate for Chair.
~~Jägerkin Liberation Front: This party advocates military strength and increased funding for such endeavors as well as Construct Rights. A slight majority of the military, including 70% of the JAF are members. Vice Chair Prost Jägerkin is a member of this party, and a distinguished general, having over 2,000 successful captures of breakthrough sparks, 4 rebellions quelled, and countless rescue and police operations under his belt.
~~BioLife association: This party advocates a "Return to nature" which at this point simply means "Clean up the atmosphere". They're largely ignored by the 85% of the population not members. They select a Chair candidate by simple election.
~~Liberalist Combine: This radical party barely clings to the fringes of society edging out a 1-2% share. They advocate extreme human and construct rights, disarming the nation, including the military, and in some cases euthanize the Sparks. They are kept around mostly for humor. They choose a chair candidate by drawing straws, this hasn't happened in over 90 years.
~~Back To Business: This is what remains of the Heterodyne Dynasty. This party advocates destroying the socialist system in favor of a business-friendly monarchy. It has been outlawed and thus has no official population numbers or method of choosing a Chair Candidate.
Appendix A: The Spark:
The Spark of Invention, shortened to The Spark is a biological function of natives of the planet Gruesdotter. The spark is a biological ability to gain insight into an additional superstring dimension, allowing the Spark to perceive raw chaos and it's effects on matter making extraordinarily improbable inventions and applications practical and possible.
It's fairly rare (about 7 percent of the population are born with spark potential, of those 10% do not develop the spark, 40% "Burn out" and only possess the spark for a short period of time and 30% end up dieing at the hands of their own creations or the Government during their "Breakthrough"). A young Spark is often intelligent and anti-social and may dabble in inventions. At adolescence the spark "Breaks through" and in a flurry of invention and madness generally attempts to conquer their surroundings. Many sparks burn out leaving a pile of half-finished inventions which are summarily scooped up by the Union's active sparks to be studied for any evidence of new insight. Many more are either destroyed by their own inventions or killed when the government attempts to capture them. For those that are captured and held in protective custody until the Breakthrough period is over, are then integrated into the Union's university system where they are given a secure and stable employment researching new applications for their work.
The current Chair of the union is Arielle Saito, a strong spark, perhaps the strongest since the Heterodyne dynasty was ended over 600 years ago.
Appendix B: Constructs.
Originally, to enhance a human abilities beyond their normal capabilities, Sparks had to modify them In-Vitro to either be able to accept cybernetics or to add genetic changes. Often carrying said child would be fatal to both mother and child, so most sparks would use artificial wombs. This is where the term Construct comes into being, because normally the enhanced is constructed from birth to serve it's function.
Just prior to the Heterodyne era, Vlad Heterodyne the Blasphemer created a process known as Jägerdraught, which used a number of chemical catalysts and a very primitive form of medical nanobots to cause whoever imbibed it to be mutated into a new viably reproductive, intelligent (Mostly), species known as Jägerkin (See appendix C). This caused a revolution in Construct creation and over the next 100 years construct populations were steadily growing faster then humans were. At the end of the Heterodyne era, the newly formed Union was faced with a dilemma. The Heterodynes did not allow constructs any rights afforded to humans, and many constructs were not intelligent or sentient. They passed legislation stating that any new constructs must be made intelligent, sentient and completely independent of outside influences. They also granted universal construct suffrage at 30 and an application process to grant suffrage before 30.
Appendix C: Jägermonsters.
These are amung the earliest known constructs, they are the most numerous and amung the most unique amung the living creations of sparks. First created over 100 years ago by William "The Blasphemer" Heterodyne, an unfortunate accident made him one of his own creations. Thankfully the programmed loyalty to the Heterodynes prevented his destruction of his own notes.
Jägerkin have a broadly humanoid appearance, although in general they're rather ... odd ... looking and unlikely to be confused with real live humans. Specifically, they usually sport skin and hair in non-traditional colors, as well as claws and very sharp teeth. They may also have unusual shaped skulls, pointed ears, and unusually long arms or unusual leg shapes (though they always remain bipedal). Female Jägerkin seem to have slightly less pronounced skeletal deformities though they also have teeth and claws that mark them as nonhuman. In rare cases Jägerkin may sport tails, though it is even rarer to see them displaying them.
Jägerkin are feared by most people, for several reasons. For starters, they're fearsome hand-to-hand fighters (the name, after all, translates roughly as "hunter monster") who can both absorb and deal extraordinary amounts of damage. Jägers also have an unusual connection to their hats, considering them a status symbol -- the one bit of Jäger wisdom revealed thus far is "Any plan where you lose your hat is a bad plan". Likewise, hats have been an object of jealousy, and are a traditional gift to be presented to a fallen comrade at their funeral or to a groom at his wedding.
The process of transformation is known as Jägerbräu or Jägerdraught, the former being painless and allows the subject to retain memory and the latter being excruciatingly painful and erases all non-knowledge memories in the subject. Other then those differences the process is essentially the same. The subject imbibes or is injected with a catalyst chemical that contains a number of biological agents that separately would cause instant death in the subject. The combination of them instead causes a state of genetic flux in the subject in which 4 new chromosome pairs are added and the 9th and 20th chromosome pairs are dissolved. The subject then goes through a state of biological flux where all of his cells are replaced at a rapid pace until they all match the new genetic information. The end result is a new species that is much more aggressive, physically stronger, deeply loyal to humans (Subject to their internal chain of command's orders), and intellectually inferior in nearly every way. Anecdotal evidence suggests that male Jägerkin can impregnate women, the offspring is always a female Jäger. There is no evidence of female Jägers being impregnated by human men, though this may be because female Jägers seem to have conscious control over their reproductive cycles and choose not to allow this to happen.
It should also be noted that Jägerkin speak with a deep Heterodyne accent, this seems to be biologically ingrained in every language they are trained to speak in. Also These are amung the earliest known constructs, they are the most numerous and among the most unique of the living creations of sparks. First created over 100 years ago by William "The Blasphemer" Heterodyne, an unfortunate accident made him one of his own creations. Thankfully the programmed loyalty to the Heterodynes prevented his destruction of his own notes.
History: For centuries, the many "Spark houses" Lead by the genius inventors known to the locals as "Sparks" within the region were in a constant state of anarchic war. Each Spark house wanted to control the entire region. About 400 years ago, Lord Heterodyne got each of the spark houses (many of whom were 'persuaded' at gunpoint) to sign the Treaty of confederation. This unified the region of Blackgrue into a single state ruled by the Heterodynes. This persisted until the year of the Old Reckoning 1861 when the "Technocrat" party declared the Heterodyne's rule tyrannical. A long and bloody revolution transformed the once peaceful territory into one of war and bloodshed. The technocrats defeated the Royalists and the treaty of unity was signed shortly thereafter, establishing the basis of democracy in the region. The first Technocratic Prime minister, Simon Treyja, converted the economy into a socialist one and granted universal human suffrage. This made the technocratic party so massively popular among the working-class, the other parties in the region don't really have a chance of being elected. Over the next 30 years a strange trend has emerged of dynastic local rulers with their own agenda, but massive public support for the Technocratic party overall keeping them in check. These new spark houses divide the confederation up into a number of de-facto city-states and occasionally a sparky leader will attempt a coup to take the helm of the technocrats. This has always failed miseribly, the citizens of Mechanicsburg (the capitol where the Technocrats rule from on-high) have made a sport out of 'hunting the traitor' where they will tie up the would-be rulers and leave him outside of town in the most humiliating way possible.
Geography:
~~Territory: Claims home star system, and 3 nearby systems near the glactic core's intersection with the Norma Arm, milky way.
~~Homeworld: GruesDotter
~~Exclusive economic zone: 0.1 lightyears past the system edge
Government:
~~Full Nation name: The Socialist Technocratic Union of BLACKGRUE
~~~~Informal names: The Union, 'Grue
~~Government type: Socialist Technocratic Republic.
~~Capitol: Mechanicsburg.
~~Legal system: Federal court based on the Heterodyne common law
~~Sufferage: at age 18 for humans, by application or at 30 for constructs (this is because many constructs age/develop faster or slower then humans).
~~Executive branch: Madame Chair: Dr. Arielle Saito, Vice Chair: General Prost Jägerkin,
~~Legislative branch: See Government Details
~~Judicial branch: Cheif Justice: Ryan O'Mally
~~Political parties and leaders:
~~~~Technocratic Party [Prof. Werner Beetle]
~~~~Jägerkin Liberation Front [Übergeneral Hans Jägerkin]
~~~~BioLife Association [Dr. Tina Tiaman]
~~~~Liberalist Combine [Johan Stockton]
~~~~Back-To-Business Party [CEO Morgan (First name unknown)] (Note: This party advocates destroying the Union and re-instating a business frendly monarch to Castle Heterodyne. It has been summarily outlawed by the Union, membership punishable by Jägerdrougt.)
Military: The Union's military is seperated into 5 branches all overseen by the Central Military Command (CMC)
~~Jägerkin Armed Forces (JAF): The genetically modified Jägerkin make up about half of the ground based military forces. The JAF are known for daring tactics and fearless execution. Called in as shocktroops as well as police forces in conflicts and actions all over the Union.
~~Mechanised Armed Forces (MAF): The Union has a long history of constructing clockwork automatons known as "Clanks". The military applications of a soldier who always follows orders, never sleeps, eats, or requires pay were jumped upon right away. MAF operations generally are used when overwhelming force is required as Clanks take very little initiative and require constant observation and maintenance. the MAF makes up the second half of ground-based combat.
~~The Sub-Navy (NAVY): The Union does not have a traditional Navy, instead opting for a fleet entirely based on submarines. Utilizing cunning and ingenious technological marvel such as submarine aircraft carriers and clank-manned sea-to-air rockets the Sub-Navy's main role is to test out the newest technologies that the Sparks come up with.
~~Airship Command (AIR): Due to their ability to fly at extreme altitudes and stay over a target indefinitely, the Union decided in it's infancy to invest heavily on lighter-then-air craft. The massive airship fleets fill the sky with enormous metal-plated hollow craft packed with weapons and soldiers ready to land and invade.
~~Ætherial Command (ÆC): Space was always a facination with the Union, and almost 100 years ago Ætherial Command was born. Originally their mandate was pure exploration of nearby space via the "Space Cannon" launch platform, recently contact with the East Coast Federation has extended their mandate to cover space military and interstellar diplomacy operations as well.
Government details:
~~History: When the Heterodyne Dynasty ended, the Great Houses found themselves in a predicament. The Heterodynes had solved the problem of unification of what was at the time the largest nation on GruesDotter. Rather then splintering into the warring city-states that once was BLACKGRUE, the houses instead decided to dissolve altogether and form a collective society sworn to work together for the common good. Centralized authority became the rule, and individual megacities agreed to join this new Union. At the time the Heterodynes fell, constructs were slowly being integrated into the workforce. Many of the laws still on the books reflect a sort fear of the constructs, and though anachronistic they remain as a testament of the meganation's progress.
~~Legal system: Heterodyne common law is based on the principles that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and that nobody has the right to luxury while squalor exists. But in addition, certain rights are held by individuals that can only be broken in times of national crisis. This includes the right to privacy, religion, the press, and expression.
~~Judicial branch: The Local Committees appoints 1 judge for every 15,000 citizens not including children. This Judge presides over these 15,000 and any cases brought against them. This is for civil and criminal matters alike. The Judge may request 2 other judges to aid in a case, and if additional judges are unavailable then any attorney may serve as a temporary tribunal judge. Attorneys (who are appointed by the Judicial Committee) take cases as assigned (generally by the court staff, who try to see that all attorneys both prosecute and defend equally in a variety of cases) Litigants may request an Attorney to be approved or denied by the judge or may elect to represent themselves. Appeals are sent to the Area Appeals Court, then the Megacity appeals court, and then the Supreme Court. Megacity level crimes and above are appealed directly to the Supreme Court. Supreme court judges (all 9 of them) are elected by the Judicial Committee and serve for 10 years, and a maximum of 3 terms.
~~Legislative branch: all areas are split based on population and area, Megacities are split into 50 million population "City Blocs" which are split into 10 5 million population "Local Blocs". Those 5 million elect to appoint any members of the Local Bloc. The City Bloc, Megacity Bloc, and National Bloc are all appointed by election from the bloc below them. At any time during a term, the entire population of the Bloc being represented may vote to remove a member. Terms vary based on the Bloc and are chosen by popular initiative. Each Bloc holds 63 members, the exception is the national Bloc which holds 1 member per Local Bloc, with all deadlocks settled by the vice-chair.
~~Executive branch: The Trans Poly-University of Mechanicsburg, built on the site of Castle Heterodyne, is the seat of the Executive Branch, every 10 years, the Megacity Blocs all appoint a single one of their number to run for Chair. If multiple ones are of the same political party, the parties hold a primary election the details of which are up to the party (this has lead to a number of unusual methods, the Jägerkin Liberation Front for example has all their potential candidates fight to the death). Once the final candidates are chosen there is a general election, with all members of the Blocs and Judges getting the equivalent of 1 and a half votes. The winner is elected Chair of the University and in addition to running the state, has the duties associated with being Chair of the largest University in the Nation (though they are allowed to delegate this task). The runner up is chosen to be Vice-chair.
Political parties:
~~Technocrat party: This party advocates technological progress at any cost ecological or otherwise. It has the distinction of having over 80% of sparks and 70% of all researchers as members and is the largest party by about half a billion voters. The Technocrats have held the Chair seat for the last 2 elections, both times electing Arielle Saito, the strongest Spark in recent memory and distinguished by the fact that she didn't so much Break Through as "push through" Allowing her to develop her talents with much less madness then is associated with The Spark. Technocrats hold an invention contest judged by non-candidate sparks to determine their candidate for Chair.
~~Jägerkin Liberation Front: This party advocates military strength and increased funding for such endeavors as well as Construct Rights. A slight majority of the military, including 70% of the JAF are members. Vice Chair Prost Jägerkin is a member of this party, and a distinguished general, having over 2,000 successful captures of breakthrough sparks, 4 rebellions quelled, and countless rescue and police operations under his belt.
~~BioLife association: This party advocates a "Return to nature" which at this point simply means "Clean up the atmosphere". They're largely ignored by the 85% of the population not members. They select a Chair candidate by simple election.
~~Liberalist Combine: This radical party barely clings to the fringes of society edging out a 1-2% share. They advocate extreme human and construct rights, disarming the nation, including the military, and in some cases euthanize the Sparks. They are kept around mostly for humor. They choose a chair candidate by drawing straws, this hasn't happened in over 90 years.
~~Back To Business: This is what remains of the Heterodyne Dynasty. This party advocates destroying the socialist system in favor of a business-friendly monarchy. It has been outlawed and thus has no official population numbers or method of choosing a Chair Candidate.
Appendix A: The Spark:
The Spark of Invention, shortened to The Spark is a biological function of natives of the planet Gruesdotter. The spark is a biological ability to gain insight into an additional superstring dimension, allowing the Spark to perceive raw chaos and it's effects on matter making extraordinarily improbable inventions and applications practical and possible.
It's fairly rare (about 7 percent of the population are born with spark potential, of those 10% do not develop the spark, 40% "Burn out" and only possess the spark for a short period of time and 30% end up dieing at the hands of their own creations or the Government during their "Breakthrough"). A young Spark is often intelligent and anti-social and may dabble in inventions. At adolescence the spark "Breaks through" and in a flurry of invention and madness generally attempts to conquer their surroundings. Many sparks burn out leaving a pile of half-finished inventions which are summarily scooped up by the Union's active sparks to be studied for any evidence of new insight. Many more are either destroyed by their own inventions or killed when the government attempts to capture them. For those that are captured and held in protective custody until the Breakthrough period is over, are then integrated into the Union's university system where they are given a secure and stable employment researching new applications for their work.
The current Chair of the union is Arielle Saito, a strong spark, perhaps the strongest since the Heterodyne dynasty was ended over 600 years ago.
Appendix B: Constructs.
Originally, to enhance a human abilities beyond their normal capabilities, Sparks had to modify them In-Vitro to either be able to accept cybernetics or to add genetic changes. Often carrying said child would be fatal to both mother and child, so most sparks would use artificial wombs. This is where the term Construct comes into being, because normally the enhanced is constructed from birth to serve it's function.
Just prior to the Heterodyne era, Vlad Heterodyne the Blasphemer created a process known as Jägerdraught, which used a number of chemical catalysts and a very primitive form of medical nanobots to cause whoever imbibed it to be mutated into a new viably reproductive, intelligent (Mostly), species known as Jägerkin (See appendix C). This caused a revolution in Construct creation and over the next 100 years construct populations were steadily growing faster then humans were. At the end of the Heterodyne era, the newly formed Union was faced with a dilemma. The Heterodynes did not allow constructs any rights afforded to humans, and many constructs were not intelligent or sentient. They passed legislation stating that any new constructs must be made intelligent, sentient and completely independent of outside influences. They also granted universal construct suffrage at 30 and an application process to grant suffrage before 30.
Appendix C: Jägermonsters.
These are amung the earliest known constructs, they are the most numerous and amung the most unique amung the living creations of sparks. First created over 100 years ago by William "The Blasphemer" Heterodyne, an unfortunate accident made him one of his own creations. Thankfully the programmed loyalty to the Heterodynes prevented his destruction of his own notes.
Jägerkin have a broadly humanoid appearance, although in general they're rather ... odd ... looking and unlikely to be confused with real live humans. Specifically, they usually sport skin and hair in non-traditional colors, as well as claws and very sharp teeth. They may also have unusual shaped skulls, pointed ears, and unusually long arms or unusual leg shapes (though they always remain bipedal). Female Jägerkin seem to have slightly less pronounced skeletal deformities though they also have teeth and claws that mark them as nonhuman. In rare cases Jägerkin may sport tails, though it is even rarer to see them displaying them.
Jägerkin are feared by most people, for several reasons. For starters, they're fearsome hand-to-hand fighters (the name, after all, translates roughly as "hunter monster") who can both absorb and deal extraordinary amounts of damage. Jägers also have an unusual connection to their hats, considering them a status symbol -- the one bit of Jäger wisdom revealed thus far is "Any plan where you lose your hat is a bad plan". Likewise, hats have been an object of jealousy, and are a traditional gift to be presented to a fallen comrade at their funeral or to a groom at his wedding.
The process of transformation is known as Jägerbräu or Jägerdraught, the former being painless and allows the subject to retain memory and the latter being excruciatingly painful and erases all non-knowledge memories in the subject. Other then those differences the process is essentially the same. The subject imbibes or is injected with a catalyst chemical that contains a number of biological agents that separately would cause instant death in the subject. The combination of them instead causes a state of genetic flux in the subject in which 4 new chromosome pairs are added and the 9th and 20th chromosome pairs are dissolved. The subject then goes through a state of biological flux where all of his cells are replaced at a rapid pace until they all match the new genetic information. The end result is a new species that is much more aggressive, physically stronger, deeply loyal to humans (Subject to their internal chain of command's orders), and intellectually inferior in nearly every way. Anecdotal evidence suggests that male Jägerkin can impregnate women, the offspring is always a female Jäger. There is no evidence of female Jägers being impregnated by human men, though this may be because female Jägers seem to have conscious control over their reproductive cycles and choose not to allow this to happen.
It should also be noted that Jägerkin speak with a deep Heterodyne accent, this seems to be biologically ingrained in every language they are trained to speak in. Also These are amung the earliest known constructs, they are the most numerous and among the most unique of the living creations of sparks. First created over 100 years ago by William "The Blasphemer" Heterodyne, an unfortunate accident made him one of his own creations. Thankfully the programmed loyalty to the Heterodynes prevented his destruction of his own notes.