Race/weapon/ship/nation information on the Jordaxian Empire.

[Jordaxia]

(About time I done one of these. Bear with it, it's going to be mainly written with few stats, and contains ships that I've never used, or haven't gotten around anything more than the basic product pitch of it. This first post is about the two races (one will be introduced in a forthcoming RP, and the important events in the human section)

Flag of the eternal Empire:





(yeah yeah, hardly award winning, I know, but shut up!)


Races of the Jordaxian Empire:
Humans
Philosophers.

The Jordaxian Empire is one of the least habitable places in the sol system, home to just under two billion humans, who have been adapted to fit their new environment better. Far taller and physically weaker than a standard human, the tallest Jordaxians stand eleven feet off the ground, the smaller ones closer to eight feet. The brain is the same size as a human standard brain, whilst all other major internal organs have changed in proportion to the body. Given the low to non-existent nature of gravity aboard Pluto, Charon, and the rest of the Jordaxian Empire, muscles are underdeveloped compared to a standard humans, giving them a "lanky" appearance, and the extreme distance to the sun gives the Jordaxian a very pale appearance. Hair colour has the same variation as the human standard, as do the eyes. Ethnically, Jordaxians have a similar profile to Earth Indians, Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Indonesians, due to a heritage with each of these cultures, as is evidenced by the adapted Indian caste system, and the music prevalent in Jordaxia. Most names in Jordaxia are Tibetan/Buddhist in origin.

Politically, Jordaxia is a dictatorship, however the two castes exert considerable political influence, and are partially democratic in nature. Voting has never been necessary, as the rulers tend to be benign, and poor rulers can be ousted by the castes. Whilst that in itself is illegal, it takes a concerted effort between the castes to do such a thing. Given how rarely the Castes agree, when a Padshah (ruler) is ousted in such a method, it had always been due to intense dislike of the regime rather than some conspiratorial plot.

Legally, Jordaxia has a quite strict set of laws, however most of these are ignored in favour of a more relaxed, common sense based legal system. Outside of the main asteroid settlements and Planetoids, Lawlessness prevails, and there are a large number of Freelancers, Pirates and Mercenaries, clustered primarily around Varuna, A planetoid on the outer reaches of the Jordaxian sphere of influence, but with widespread infestations all around the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt. Several mining families in the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt are forced to pay "protection" money to these pirates, and there is little the Imperial Jordaxian Empire can do to prevent these hit and run tactics used by the pirates. The mercenaries are used to supplement the fleet, and support trading routes in use, but even these are not totally secure to pirate attack.

Historically, Jordaxia has been isolationist in Galactic affairs, though it maintains strong ties with the r-ESUS. Unexpansionist in nature, the Jordaxian Empire has not had territorial trouble with any neighbour, and is unlikely to have one. This approach has led to Jordaxia being seen by some as an galactic backwater, swarming with bandits, and being too cold and unspectacular for any tourist, save interstellar hitchikers with no money to travel anywhere else.

Militarily, the Empire is weak, with insufficient forces to keep its own interior secure, and low quality ships, many without any gravity generators at all, due to the low need for gravity generators aboard ships coming from a nation with little of its own at the best of times. Weapons research, particularly into temporal, telepathic, and extra-dimensional recieves no funding, whilst conventional weaponry, especially missiles, recieve the majority of the limited budget, which has lead to the warrior caste funding its own weapon and ship research in order to keep up with the times. Ships are built in large quantity, favouring the Nonsequitor, a small destroyer, over any other ship in service, such as the Sharky and George, Rata-tat-tat, or the Pregnancy Test, which sees usage as a command ship.

(These will be added to on moments of insperado, but for now, they are finished. They are quite sparse compared to the reams of mental notes that I keep,but meh.)

The Philosophers.

This peculiar species was discovered on a small, temporate world in star system SGER-2352/Big Boy. The planet itself, called SGER-01/Carthage/Not Kansas, is unexceptional, being of a type similar to Earth, but with an average temperature .8 degrees celcius higher. It is 80% covered by ocean, and has four continents: Scrooge, Huey, Duey, and Luey. On each of these continents, Philosophers can be found in moderate numbers. Having a technology level similar to Jordaxias, but entirely lacking in spaceflight capability, seemingly of their own choosing, the Philosophers have begun friendly relations with the Empire, and ambassadors have had numerous conversations with the leader, or Philosopher Ruler, in their own terminology. They appear to have an extensive interest in the workings of our nation, and indeed all other civilisations in the galaxy, despite having no knowledge of them, apparently, just months before. They have also expressed interest in having representatives sent to Jordaxia, in order to better see for themselves how such a civilisation exists. Given the Philosophers evident intelligence and aptitude for law, debate, bureaucracy, among other things, The Padshahs advisors have even suggested integration of the Philosophers into the Empire, to serve as the Judiciary Caste, though it has been acknowledged that little is known about them, or even whether they would want to participate in the Empire.

[Jordaxia]

The Nonsequitor

This destroyer is the visible symbol of Jordaxia, the standardised military vessel of the Empire. Small, manoeuvrable, and the testbed for virtually all new military technologies in the Empire, the Nonsequitor is a functional, modular platform used to deliver firepower to the enemy, and retreat before the enemy can return fire in force. Using missiles of varying design and power from its many missile tubes, and having powerful EW fields installed into the ship, it can effectively disrupt tracking and scanning devices. More of these devices have a cumulative effect due to the design, making large fleets difficult to track automatically. Further, the hummingbird missile, standard modular armament for the Nonsequitor, has a variety of different purposes, including further EW fields in order to turn a battlefield into a chaotic mess, where the Jordaxian Nonsequitors can move about more freely, hopefully leaving the larger ships used by most nations floundering, looking for targets they have little chance to hit. Despite all of this apparent technological superiority, the Nonsequitor has an estimated power several times lower than that of an equivalent ship of another nation. Even if the hypothetical big ship couldn't land a hit on the Nonsequitor, it's no guarantee that without serious support, the Nonsequitor could overpower its foe. This is why Nonsequitors always travel in packs, and if isolated, can be overpowered relatively easily, a fact which is not lost to the small crew of these ships.

The armour and shielding systems of the Nonsequitor are unique to the nation. Using easily affordable (comparatively) base materials such as titanium, covered in a layer of thermokinetic foam, provide protection from beam weapons and railgun shots, as well as incendiary, beam, or kinetic missiles. whilst such a system is not perfect, it does allow Nonsequitors to survive low powered attacks. The Eggshield, one of the more peculiar shields that we have evidence of, does not rely on the traditional "forcefield" mechanics so common among other nations. Instead relying on network of gravity well generators, and specially designed diffractive gasses, it helps to dissipate beam weapons before they hit the hull, allowing the Thermokinetic foam to dissipate more heat before it burns and becomes useless. A new form of armour has also come into use, that of reactive electron armour, or the "pea soup gun". This shoots a thick spray of electrons at an incoming target, essentially providing a brick wall for it to impact off of, either harmlessly ablating it, or slowing it down considerably. this three layered protection allows the Nonsequitor quite acceptable survivability when up against several smaller vessels, but ships equipped with very high yield weaponry (that's a relative term, I don't just mean superheavies, for example) can still expect to neutralise a Nonsequitor in one shot. whilst Jordaxian ships almost never explode, usually giving the crew the ability to escape, extensive ruptures can expose the crew to vaccuum, and the death that usually follows from exposure.


The design of the Nonsequitor was first formulated, according to popular myth, when the head research team spent far too much time watching old Earth B-movies whilst incredibly drunk, and used the "flying saucer" shape due to insperation from these movies. In actuality, the flying saucer design allows for the simplest coverage areas and construction capability, whilst reducing the surface area and making the ship a harder target. Whilst this is ineffective against effective targetting computers, if these can be neutralised, the Nonsequitor becomes a very difficult target to actually hit. The saucer shape also lends it a certain aerodynamic function, and it can work in-atmosphere more efficiently than most destroyers, providing fire support at critical areas, like an oversized bomber. Masers, mounted on the top, and underneath centre of the ship allow close range beam weapon coverage, to help make up for the poor point defense system. In addition, Hummingbird missiles can be configured for point defense duty, circling the Nonsequitor until a target comes within its range, before dispatching its submunitions and sending a signal to the other designated point defense missiles. so far, the Nonsequitor/Hummingbird combination means the ship can be used effectively for the following tasks.

Ground bombardment
Fleet engagement
Escort Duty
Electronic Warfare (EW)
Minesweeping
Antifighter Screening
Recce ships
Command ship (Hummingbirds can carry messages to each other in case of thick jamming, where proximity to the ships reciever (a hummingbird can get as close to 50 cm to the reciever in order to force a message through) )
Special Forces insertion
ViP transportation
and many other roles.


Powering the Nonsequitor is the Gridsphere, the result of Generations of research into the phenomena. The grid, or gap between planes, is accessable to most nations, and, used correctly, can power a ship. Capable of allowing literally infinite (ok, not infinite, but as close as is practical... it's the same result!) amounts of energy through, it must be carefully siphoned, otherwise the ship will, quite literally, disappear in a flash. (fortunately, in the case of such a disaster, the gridsphere itself will be the first thing to go, essentially closing the door to the grid as it fails, and preventing formation of a white hole equivalent.) As a result of such a massive amount of power available, inefficiencies are inevitable, and have been cultivated, to an extent, to limit the power available to safe levels. A weakness of the sphere, however, is FtLi, which would shut the sphere down, given it works on an FTL principle (this is essentially a hyperspace drive that doesn't have an exit in hyperspace). In answer to this, capacitors are used to keep the ship running at combat readiness for up to twelve hours, or 32 in non-combat situations.


(I think I'm done now, but I might think of something else to add, as I'm sure I've forgotten something.)

[Jordaxia]

Hand held weaponry of the Eternal Empire, as well as the Doc Ock powered armour suit.

Hand held weaponry has never been fully developed in the eternal empire, as it has, by and large, never been necessary. As it stands, most civilians tend to favour imported models from other nations due to their high level of expertise in the design, and cost compared to Jordaxian manufactured arms. However, in the lawless Oort Cloud and Kuiper belt, small arms have been used as an integral part of the equipment of mercenaries and pirates for many decades.

The "Spork" pistol:

The Spork is a modular firearm, capable of firing multiple different types of rounds over a varying range.

The primary firing method is a small, low powered maser, capable of incapacitating a target at a range of 1500 metres. Given the way that a maser operates, it has pinpoint accuracy, and cannot be used for suppressive fire. Given the invisibility and silence of a maser pulse, it makes it very difficult to locate a shooter. On maserpulse setting, the pistol can fire 70 rounds per minute for two minutes before overheating. Reduction of that firing rate to sixty rounds per minute will allow for fire to continue for ten minutes before overheating, due to optimisation of the coolant for such a firing rate.

Incendiary round:
Large and expensive, the incendiary round is also one of the more terrifying rounds to have fired at you. Compared to the noneffect of a maser, the incendiary round is loud, has a very visible impact, and a terrific recoil for the shooter. Able to hold only 9 of these rounds per clip, it is also effective for very light anti armour fighting.

Armour piercing round:

The armour piercing round is a brutally efficient weapon for snipers and marksmen in general, but actually has less chance of killing compared to many other rounds due to an inordinately high penetration capability. It makes a hole through a target damaging whatever it strikes, but little else. The armour piercing capability comes into its own in eliminating an opponents cover, however. With nowhere for an opponent to hide, surrender becomes a viable option. In the case of a "golden shot" where a driver or pilot is tantalisingly visible in your scope, but cannot be hit due to a few centimetres of clear armour or bulletproof glass, the armour piercing round enables you to eliminate the threat, potentially removing the avenue of escape for your primary targets, or making your mission that much easier without air support to worry about.

Automatic fire:

The best round to use in a suppressive position, the automatic fire method on the pistol allows immense amounts of ammunition to be directed at one area for an immense amount of time, preventing a foe from establishing your location with any certainty, and allowing an ally to flank and remove his cover permanently. Little more can be said about this method. It is brute force pure and simple.

Dum-dum round:

The dum-dum round is especially lethal when it comes to inflicting the largest amount of damage on a foe. Though this round has little penetrative ability, it destroys itself on impact with its target, causing huge amounts of damage. This bullet can remove limbs from a target with surprising ease, although, as previously stated, is next to useless against an armoured foe. (if I got the name wrong for this one, pm me the correction...)

Grenade:

A more lethal version of the incendiary round, but far larger and heavier than the incendiary round, with capability to immobilise or destroy light vehicles, or at the very least, seriously damage the armour. The weight of the shot means that it needs to be fired in a parabola to ensure that the shooter will not be hoisted by his own petard, or another euphemism to the same effect.




"Crushinator 5000" depleted uranium rifle:

There is little to be said about this rifle other than it is extremely dangerous to small armoured targets, and fulfils the same function of the Sporks armour piercing and rapid fire function at the same time. Horribly loud, people who traditionally use this weapon are going deaf, or are already deaf. This weapon also has a gaussgun secondary barrel, which can be replaced with the chemical explosive round. The gaussgun mode has a far slower rate of fire, but due to the accelerated speed of the bullet, causes more damage on impact. Both chemical and gaussgun modes of fire are still very rapid, however, and this rifle should not be underestimated. it is the standard storming weapon of the pirates inhabiting Jordaxia.

"Marshmallow" Flamethrower.

Almost purely a phsychological weapon, having had its function replaced by more modern weaponry, the flamethrower is still efficient at scorched Earth attacks, especially on board spaceships where there is little place for the crew to hide. Under normal circumstances, the attacking force would be behind the flamethrower troop, allowing him to clear out any opposition. As a result, this person is usually thickly armoured, and may be a mercenary from an old Doc Ock unit, making the flamethrower doubly dangerous.

"Eh, Steve" Grenade launcher and minesweeper.

One of the few weapons primarily used by the Jordaxian navy, the "Eh, Steve" is a weapon with two vital uses. In primary firing mode, the "Eh, Steve" is a high powered assault grenade launcher, used to clear our rooms before a thrilling, yet costly, firefight can take place. In a ship where there are known to be no hostiles, the minesweeper can be used to examine corridors to ensure that there are no explosive devices planted. It works using a clever laser profiler that sweeps the corridor checking for partial or complete matches for known explosive weapons profiles, before sending a far more powerful laser burst to detonate it, allowing search parties to continue un-exploded.

(more will come later.)

Doc Ock powered armour suit.

This is the standard assault platform for the Jordaxian navy, being at once terrifying, powerful, fast, and deadly. Using eight limbs to allow it stability and all terrain capability, and bringing its six elbow mounted weapons (four miniguns, and two 2in gaussguns) to bear on a target which has, more often than not, no chance to survive. Almost invincible to anything smaller than a rifle shot armour piercing round, it can survive most everything. Point defense computers in-built can assume automatic control of the miniguns allowing slow explosive projectiles to be shot out of the air, but at close range, there is occassionally not enough time to intercept the weapon. The gaussguns are powerful anti-armour weapons, and can reduce buildings to rubble in a matter of moments. With all this going for it, the Doc Ock seems almost bereft of any real disadvantages. However, given that it works on an eight limbed basis, it cannot be piloted by a regular human, and a co-operative assisting AI is bulky and inefficient, leading to conflicts with the AI and pilot. For this reason, Doc Ock operatives are genetically enhanced by corporations in Kanuckistan to pilot the suit as if it were their own body. Due to the cost of such a procedure, there are only three hundred and ninty six thousand operatives in Jordaxia, replaced on a fifteen year schedule. Given the versatility and capability of the suit, it makes up the bulk of the Jordaxian army, with artillery and other heavy, anti-armour weaponry making up the rest.