<![CDATA[Discovery Gaming Community - The Vault]]>https://discoverygc.com/forums/2024-09-18T14:40:44ZMyBBHokan]]>2021-05-26T12:18:49Z2021-05-26T12:18:49Zhttps://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=188291<![CDATA[Planet Marseille]]>Infocard Wrote:Marseille is an unspoiled oceanic paradise, with no landmass rising much further than sea level. The climate on the planet is relatively mild, with polar regions only slightly cooler than the equatorial regions that receive most of the sunlight. The thick atmosphere and deep oceans are in constant motion, forming an immensely complex hydrologic cycle that contributes to the unique climatic conditions. The planet's ocean life is abundant, with numerous species unlike any other organic life forms found elsewhere in Sirius. Creatures similar to Earth's echinoderms are very widespread in the upper oceanic layers. Several species of that group contain the symbiotic bacteria that generate the substance from which a powerful stimulant called Nox is derived. The bacteria extracted from their hosts are shipped to drug laboratories in frozen form, which is the only way pure Nox can be extracted. Attempts to cultivate these bacteria in space or on other planets have all failed. The bacteria cannot survive for long without their hosts, and symbiotic echinoderms require a very complex environment to live in throughout their life cycle.
Marseille is possibly the only planet in Gallia that was colonized earlier than the Crown sanctioned. Several ocean platforms were set up before the government greenlit construction of permanent oceanic settlements. These platforms and settlements, operating in somewhat a similar vein to the Zoner freeports of Sirius, began to appear in the deeper, more remote sections of Marseille, away from the watchful eye of the Royal Police. Despite the efforts of the Police in subduing such illegal construction, the various communities survived and thrived beneath the seas, eventually forming their own provisional government in a silent secession from the Crown. Any sort of census of these "sunken cities", as the illegal platforms were called, has never been taken.
By the 620s AGS, the first legal resort platforms appeared planetside. The platforms were initially designed to serve as high class resorts with high prices and even higher quality standards. Massive, city-sized ocean liners moved from island to island. Most Gallic nobles considered Marseille their number one choice of planetside resort destination, and the resort officials quickly partnered with Cannes to provide something of a monopoly on the highest luxury in Gallia. While it was never officially confirmed, it is rumored that even the Gallic monarchs themselves visited Marseille incognito multiple times.
Marseille is home to over four dozen resort settlements on the few suitable larger islands. This is not a large number compared to some of the other resort planets, but on Marseille’s are large and versatile, providing multiple types of entertainment concentrated into a central location. The planet is also home to one of the largest surface shipyards in Sirius, producing cruise liners, yachts, and a wide variety of service ships necessary to ensure safe and reliable operation of the planet's facilities. While safety and comfort were the number one priority for companies in charge of operating Marseille's resorts, the occasional rumor of Unione Corse and other "undesirable" elements being seen at the planet’s major spaceports persists, raising concern about the actual safety of vacationing on Marseille.
In 742 AGS, the Second Gallic War reached Provence. The Battleship Arles and her attendant ships, long-charged with what was considered a “cushy” position of defending second-rate nobles on their long beach vacations, now found itself squaring off against a Council task-force headed by the Battleship Oblique. The fighting was long and arduous, a cataclysmic confrontation that left both the Arles and Oblique destroyed outright, along with most of their attached fleets. In the aftermath of the Royal Navy’s pyrrhic victory, what few Royalist forces remained quickly fled the system along with the high-ranking government officials on Marseille, effectively abandoning the system to its own devices. The resulting debris from the engagement continue to rain down onto the planet to this day, creating a humanitarian crisis all its own as the unprepared luxury resort is bombarded by the aftermath of war.
Those sunken cities would come to the aid of les Marseillais, however. As the literal fallout from the Royalist abandonment of Provence rained down on their heads, those illicit platforms hidden below the depths re-surfaced, offering humanitarian aid and support to the bleeding resort-towns. As the situation stabilized and the people turned to their new saviors, they returned with their proclamation of their independent, libertarian state - the Syndicated Minarchy of Provence. Having operated in relative peace and silence under the oceans of Marseille for the better part of a century, they now offer the only form of legitimate government to the abandoned Marseillais, one that the populace has seemingly readily accepted. They remain closely tied with the Provençal Corse, and together have extended the Minarchy’s power from the depths of Marseille to the entire system of Provence de facto.
In the chaos that engulfed Gallia following the end of the Second Gallic War, the systems of Languedoc and Dauphine also aligned themselves with the Minarchy. At the first Parisian Assembly, the Minarchy was recognized as a legitimate governing body, gaining a seat at the negotiating table with the Republique of Gallia and the Grand Duchy of Burgundy. Militarily weakest of the three Gallic splinter states, they became the first signatories of the Terms of Gallic Confederation. As such, Marseille now enjoys its status as one of the three Capital worlds of the Confederacy's constituent states.]]>falseTraxit]]>2020-07-15T10:17:13Z2020-07-15T10:17:13Zhttps://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=181856<![CDATA[Olympia]]>The Infocard Wrote:With the Gallic war winding into tighter circles around Bretonia, the Royal Fleet was faced with the reality of retreat. The northern front had receded to New London, forcing Bretonia to scuttle Southampton Shipyard, losing its most valuable wartime manufacturing plant. While the fleet was still strong enough in numbers to hold the capital, the loss of industry disrupted Bretonia’s supply chain to emergency levels. Yet while the pillars of her empire were crumbling, Bretonia did not stand alone in the face of conquest. A close tie with the Crayter Republic had become a steadfast alliance of mutual survival. The Liberty Navy, not seeking to lose a close ally and neighbor to the tyranny of Gallic rule, ratified a treaty of lend/lease with the Royal Society to supply new warships and equipment to the Bretonian fleet. This equipment was authorized for any use in the Gallic war, with one exception. Liberty Naval Command made a strict warning to the Royal Fleet that any use of Libertonian warships within the Omegas would result in serious diplomatic consequences.
Having nowhere to go, Bretonia needed to find a way to expand its dwindling manufacturing capabilities during wartime. Being the largest and most available region to Bretonia’s grid-east, the Omegas provided the best option for incursion. As the war swung her eastward, Bretonia had found herself faced with two opponents: the Independent Miners Guild and the Red Hessians. The Independent Miners Guild had once been close allies with the Crayter Republic, whose help Bretonia requested in mediating diplomatic talks to acquire Aland Shipyard. Bretonia offered to expand and upgrade the shipyard with advanced House technologies and return the station to the Guild at a later date when the war with Gallia had been won.
Much to the shock and dismay of the Crayter Republic, the IMG declined this offer and instead chose to take up arms against their former ally. Calling upon their friends in Rheinland and the deep Omegas, Aland was soon surrounded by a formidable defense of ALG and Hessian ships. Outraged by their unwillingness to aid the war effort, a group of Crayterians rallied behind the commander of the Olympia, who had pledged his loyalty to Bretonia in the conflict. The Olympia Battlegroup leant considerable strength to the effort of defeating their former allies in the battles ahead.
The siege of Aland began in early 826 AS. The first attacks on the station were assessments of defensive response capabilities. These light skirmishes were deterred by the defending forces, with minor losses to each side. This was followed by a series of capital engagements grid-west of Aland. Bretonian and Crayter Republic forces staged their attack from Battleship Norfolk, charging eastward in long drags that were easily detected by enemy forces. This line of attack was adjacent to a fairly active tradelane, providing the defenders an advantage for the positioning of snub craft. The Bretonian fleet quickly became aware of how active the Hessians had become in the western Omegas, with Aland Shipyard receiving a large amount of support from throughout the region.
One battle became two. Two became four. The Bretonians fought valiantly, but could not muster the strength to overcome the stalwart defense that was put up by the Hessian and IMG forces. Throughout the battles, the Olympia's cohort lost the most vessels in the attempts to take Aland. Despite the bitter rivalry between the Olympia Battlegroup and the Independent Miners Guild, it was the Red Hessians that most often met to defend the station.
Continued losses were not sustainable. What began as an attempted blitz had been baffled into a series of nine battles, each more costly than the last. Bretonian naval command ordered a halt to the attacks on Aland, returning the fleet to New London for a re-assessment of the strategic situation. While direct attack had proven unfeasible, there remained an ace in the sleeve. The Olympia Battlegroup possessed an experimental jump drive which was capable of taking the fleet in a simultaneous jump to a calculated destination. The Olympia's commander was eager to use this new technology to help secure victory in the war. The drive was installed on the Olympia herself, a Deimos-class dreadnought. It had been proven capable of taking a mid-sized fleet with it through a jump. However, the dense asteroid field around Aland was a concern to more skeptical Bretonian leadership.
In desperate need of a victory, Bretonian naval command refused to commit to any plan which was not thoroughly considered, and had the proper window of opportunity for success. The arrangements of the jump and ensuing battle were heavily deliberated. The discussion resulted in a two-phase plan. The Liberty battlecruisers supplied through lend/lease could not be deployed into the Omegas, however they could be used to relieve other ships of their orders for re-assignment to the siege of Aland. First, use the relieved Bretonian warships from New London to draw the Hessian forces out from the perimeter of the station, drawing them into combat in the tail of the Cross-Vandermeer Comet. Battling in the cometary tail would provide obfuscation to sensors and visuals. After the diversion was properly sprung, then the primary fleet would engage their jump from the north of the system and come out the other side right on top of Aland. Technical schematics of the station provided by the Crayter Republic exposed a vulnerability in the CO2 scrubber system which could be used to deploy sleeping gas across the entire station. In order to accomplish this task, the Bretonians assembled a task force of Royal Marines hand picked with the skills required for the mission. Amongst the warships would be six Clydesdale freighters, each carrying a marine fireteam. The vessels would ram strategic weak points on the station and cut an opening to board. The operation was devised to be as quick and non-lethal as possible, quickly taking command of the station without causing major damage to it. This operation was thus named Operation Chrysalis.
On March 23, Operation Chrysalis was initiated. Several prominent warships approached Aland from grid-south and drew out the Hessian forces. As Bretonia had hoped, the Hessians were eagerly led from base to pursue, high on the success of their previous victories. The diversion had begun. The primary fleet gathered grid-north of Aland and waited for the cue. The Olympia’s scanners were brought online and calculations were quickly made. The destination was a static point in space above Aland, with the exact position being slightly adjusted in real-time to conform with the movement of the asteroid material. The field was dense, but initiating the jump at the right moment would result in the fleet arriving unharmed. An automatic system onboard the Olympia was enabled, ready to trigger the jump at the correct time. With supreme confidence the captain of the Olympia greenlighted the jump. The warm light of subspace was the last thing that he saw. The jump drive had functioned perfectly, and delivered the fleet exactly where it was directed. While the calculations had been mostly correct, the latency gap of the scanner allowed for a minor discrepancy in the proper assessment of fleet position. Within an instant, one third of the fleet had been properly materialized deep inside of cosmic debris. The surviving fleet quickly sprang into action, the instant loss of vessels going unnoticed in the first moments of the frenzy of battle. Olympia had been delivered into a tight cluster of chunky asteroids, her hull now bisected by a dozen massive rocks. A handful of others shared the same fate, losing their vessels and their lives to the miscalculated arrangement of macro-dust, causing several human-rock transfigurations best left to the imagination.
The surviving Clydesdale freighters rammed targeted weak points on the station and began welding open an entry. Several marine fire-teams succeeded in taking command of the Aland’s control center, the other marine teams storming the life support facilities, dispersing sleeping gas into the atmosphere of the station through the emergency sprinkler system. Station lockdown prevented retaliation and compartmentalized the workers into different parts of the station. Marines were under orders not to kill personnel unless explicitly necessary. The captured personnel were now prisoners of Bretonia onboard Aland. The Hessian forces remained engaged with the Bretonian diversion, trading losses on both sides.
BMM now occupy the station and maintain the facility to Bretonia’s standards. The Olympia’s sacrifice was not in vain. The facility is currently being used to repair, re-supply, and construct new ships for the war against Gallia.]]>falseTraxit]]>2020-07-15T10:15:16Z2020-07-15T10:15:16Zhttps://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=181855<![CDATA[Planet Leeds]]>The Infocard Wrote:An uninhabitable tomb of ash and glass, Planet Leeds was once a vast Bretonian ecumenopolis of manufacturing plants, smelters, and residential blocks tightly sealed against the toxic smog. As the most resource rich world within Bretonian's borders, Leeds was exploited, polluted, and eventually reached an unsustainable population of over 15 billion during the 726 years it was held by the Bretonian Crown. This placed Leeds in the spotlight of the Green Front's campaign, and contributed at least in part to the militancy of the Gaian movement. The planet's population slowly dwindled to roughly 6 billion from the time Gallia made landfall on Leeds in 821 AS until the end of the war in 826.
Following a series of key military defeats which made it clear their war against Liberty and Bretonia would be lost, House Gallia authorized the Glassing of Leeds, culminating in the greatest loss of life in human history, with 5 billion people dead. The order to glass Leeds fractured Gallia both politically and militarily. Entire systems seceeded from the Gallic Crown, and over a third of the ships in the planet killing fleet attempted mutiny, with most destroyed in the process. Despite this, Gallia's scorched earth doctrine succeeded before the Allies were able to breach the system. The complete loss of Bretonian industry on Leeds has been attributed to the Royal Enclave's survival in the trio of sytems Royalist Gallia retreated to following end of the war.
Although colloquially referred to as the Glassing of Leeds, the destruction of the planet was a three stage process designed to both maximimize damage to infrastructure, and render the planet entirely unreclaimable. Stages one and two of this process were carried out in tandem, with surface level glassing as well as deep beam strikes against fault lines to induce planet wide tectonic and volcanic activity. Stage three saw the melting of the planet's polar ice caps, releasing gigatons of methane and carbon into the atmosphere to induce a runaway greenhouse effect. As a final contingency, Gallic Royal Intelligence forces detonated several cobalt bombs at key points chosen to maximize fallout, salting the earth with deadly radioactive particles for hundreds of years to come.
Today, Planet Leeds is a hellscape of endless radioactive firestorms raging over the obsidian of vitrified cities. Quakes and volcanic eruptions are still frequent, and vast chasms of magma sit agape between tectonic faults. Fierce eletrical storms ravage the planet, and water vapor released from the melting of the polar ice mixes with clouds of soot, showering the planet in rainstorms of ashen mud. The light of the Leeds star fails to permeate the dense veil of volcanic ash, leaving the world in perpetual darkness until the ash falls. Though the planet is cooling while under volcanic clouds, as those clear, Planetform expects the temperatures to climb due to greenhouse effects, and the average temperature is projected to rise by at least 25 degrees Celsius over the next 50 years. Planetform scientists have written off Leeds as a lost cause, and damage to the planet is irreparable with current techologies in Sirius.]]>falseTraxit]]>2020-07-15T10:13:29Z2020-07-15T10:13:29Zhttps://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=181854<![CDATA[Aland Shipyard]]>The Infocard Wrote:A large station within the Wilkes Ice Field, Aland was established in 805-817 AS by the Independent Miners Guild. The IMG used the unoccupied space between two trade lanes to construct their first shipyard capable of building and maintaining large vessels. The war in the Tau borderworlds, and more recently in Bretonia's core systems, caused Aland to attract a significant number of workers from that region.
One of the few industrial complexes not directly affiliated with a house, Aland enjoyed a relatively peaceful status quo largely unmarred by politics since its construction in the early 800s. This changed in 826 AS when Bretonia, still reeling from the loss of Southampton shipyard in the Gallic blitz, laid claim to the Guild station.
While Bretonia originally extended an offer to upgrade the shipyard and return it to the Independent Miners Guild by the end of the war, the Guild was skeptical of such a promise from Bretonia in their weakened state. Seeing a Gallic victory as an inevitability, the Guild chose to resist. Both Rheinland's ALG and the Red Hessians came to the aid of the miners, mounting a staunch defense which kept Bretonia at bay for nearly three weeks. Aland's defensible position in the dense Wilkes field and phalanx of weapons platforms and cruisers withstood several large scale offensives from Bretonia's Norfolk battlegroup, resulting in a costly stalemate for both sides.
When the Guild threatened to scuttle the shipyard on March 19th, 826, in the event of a successful Bretonian push on the Wilkes field, Bretonia abandoned conventional offenses. Realizing that a lightning strike would be needed in order to successfully wrest control of the base from the Guild, Bretonia devised Operation Chrysalis. Pivotal to Operation Chrysalis was the Olympia's experimental jump drive, which the Crayterians assured Bretonia would be able to plot a jump solution into the Wilkes field without intersecting the celestial debris.
Although Operation Chrysalis did not proceed as planned, two thirds of the main attack group's vessels reached Aland, including five of the six Clydesdale freighters packed with Bretonian fireteams. As the battle raged outside, Bretonian marines breached the station near critical points such as the command center and life support, where sleep gas was distributed via Aland's CO2 scrubbers. Though the naval engagement was costly, the station itself was taken with a minimal loss of life and its infrastructure fully intact in under five minutes.
Now under the control of BMM, Aland has begun much needed repairs to wounded Bretonian vessels which have not been properly serviced since the fall of Southampton in November 825. In addition, the first Fortitude class Bretonian battlecruiser chassis have been laid down at Aland in time to see action for the closing days of the Gallic War. Following the end of hostilities, Aland Shipyard remains in Bretonian hands, and continues to produce military ships to replenish Bretonian fleets while a new shipyard is being constructed.]]>falseTraxit]]>2020-07-15T10:06:31Z2020-07-15T10:06:31Zhttps://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=181853<![CDATA[Battleship Ottawa]]>The Infocard Wrote:Commissioned in 804 AS, this Overlord class Battleship would have replaced the aging Battleship Yukon. Before the Ottawa was christened in 806 AS, a public nostalgia campaign persuaded the Navy to have the Yukon refitted, and its serviceable life extended until 825 AS. Left without a battlegroup to spearhead, the Ottawa was used to placate concerns from Ageira executives about supposed Lane Hacker incursions from the Tahoe Ice Cloud. During this time, the Ottawa saw little action on its lonely surveys of California space, but when the Ontario system was opened in 809 AS, the Ottawa was made the flagship of its own battlegroup.
The Ottawa’s service life was increasingly varied. Seeing little action in the Liberty-Rheinland War, the Ottawa combatted domestic insurgencies with a taciturn delicacy rarely seen outside outside of the LSF within the Libertonian uniformed services. Surreptitious field retrofits to the Ottawa’s sensor grids, along with the addition of highly classified spyglass rectenna cut directly off an older, failed Liberty Navy Research and Development program, made the Ottawa and her airwing uniquely suited to hunting Cardamine smugglers and trade lane inhibitors between California all the way up to Alberta. The Ottawa forged a formidable record for herself over her twenty years of service, rarely deployed to the front due to her value as a homeland security asset, and the ‘goodwill’ of Los Angeles’ senate, who politically benefited from the efficacy of her battlegroup.
When the Gallic war finally came to California, the Ottawa was valuable in halting the invasion, her advanced sensor suits allowing for fighter co-ordination through the mirrored ice of the Tahoe nebula. The Ottawa, along with her accompanying vessels, battled the superior tonnage Carcassonne to a tactical standstill, preventing a ground war from breaking out in Liberty and potentially reducing the theoretical losses of the Second Gallic War.
In the final months of the conflict, the Ottawa was rushed into Bretonian space for the final, desperate effort to lift the New London bombardment. With insufficient intelligence data as to the formation of the Gallic defences, it was hoped that the Ottawa’s extensive signal intelligence capabilities would provide the united task force of battered, demoralised, and structurally crippled Allied forces with early warning to the extremist nucleus of King Charles’ armada. Between the steel tombs of the greatest military engagement in history, the Ottawa survived, her battlegroup smashed around her.
The Ottawa’s final operation occurred only a matter of days after the New London engagement. Leading a disorganised, war weary column of battered Bretonian and Libertonian survivors of the new London siege in various states of repair to break the bombardment of Leeds in Operation Dunkirk. Any major capital asset not required for maintaining civil order that still had propulsion control followed her lead into the previously locked gate, the codes having been provided by Gallic defectors who were unable to stomach the immolation of Leeds.
Moving ahead of the allied fleet, sensor suites path-finding for rest of the invasion force, the Ottawa hoped to jam the improvised Gallic early warning systems beyond the gate. Probes deployed into Leeds had sent back telemetry on what appeared to be storage containers and little else surrounding the gate, presumably in preparation for abandonment of the New London gate site. The false negative provided by the probes heuristic algorithms proved fatal, as the ‘storage containers’ were in fact a new Gallic super-weapon – the ‘Montagne’-class beam platform.
The Ottawa’s luck had failed her, as the scarred battleship had expected to encounter only conventional weaponry within the Gallic defence grid. Instead, the Montagne platforms locked on to the advancing Ottawa and stripped her of resistance within a seconds, hot plasma searing away shield emitters, turret blisters and communication rectennas into molten, blinding slag. Before her destruction, the Ottawa was able to transit one last message to the Norfolk and her battlegroup which were directly behind her, and due to the Ottawa’s sacrifice, loss of life in Operation Dunkirk was somewhat lessened.
Blind, crippled and lame, the battleship’s wreck drifts in a wide heliocentric orbit around the Leeds star. No escape pods could have viably been deployed from the deformed hull, and any crew members who may have survived the initial blast have long since suffocated; trapped within the wreck. All members of the Ottawa’s bridge crew were posthumously decorated by President Powell, and were listed in the postwar memorial celebrations by order of the Bretonian Queen.]]>falseLoremaster]]>2020-07-08T13:18:35Z2020-07-08T13:18:35Zhttps://discoverygc.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=181654<![CDATA[The Vault]]>
The Vault
Disclaimer:
This section was created to store inforcard descriptions that have otherwise become too big, and need to be cut down. Instead of throwing all the information away, the details will be posted in this sub-forum for the sake of keeping a record.