Core Commander Technological History

Ack! I kept forgetting to post this today, even though it's been done for a while. Oh well, at least it should be a better read than most of my posts. It was certainly easier to write.

Late 1910s--Lt. Dominic Herschel finds proof of a couple of phenomena when he accidentally builds the first Push Core, in the process of trying to design a new capacitor to use in radios during World War I. Able to recognize something interesting when he sees it, he shows it to Professor Nazady of the Hillford University Physics Department, who happens to be a friend of his. His studies allow him to name the Nadazy Sphere, and lead him to postulate that stars are actually much heavier than they appear, and burn chemically, merely appearing to be lighter due to a naturally occurring Push Core. He is wrong, but never learns it, as nuclear technology is never pursued seriously enough to prove such.

Push Core: A type of circuit with remarkable properties including the Pushfield, which resembles an inverted, much stronger form of gravity. Multiple Push Cores can exist on the same circuit, so long as they each have a power source. There is a minimum power requirement based on the size of the circuit, or the core collapses.

Pushfield: A very powerful, omnidirectional repulsive field, with fairly rapid tapering. Repulsion affected by density, allowing Push Cores to hover over heavier than air substances. Does not affect objects encompassed by a Push Core circuit. Rather than repel other Push Cores, it synchronizes velocity of their projectors. Can’t impart or receive more energy than is put into it this way.

Nazady Sphere: Found in the center of active Push Cores, it takes the form of a glowing sphere in the center of the apparatus, appearing amber at most tested power levels, although this may be a result of the materials (copper wire). Not solid, but rather causes all matter inside its circumference to glow, and appears to produce light equal to the power the circuit is fed, causing confusion over the other effects. Oddly cool, as well, resembling a laser more than any heat based light source. Size is based on the size of the circuit, but may vary slightly based on power input, as it gets brighter towards the center, at a rate that mimics the Pushfield.

Late 1930s--Experimental Push Core based aircraft are fielded in a combat setting for the first time, acting more as skyships than as conventional airplanes. Due to the mobility and cargo capacity of these craft, as well as the difficulty of hitting them at range due to their Pushfields, they become the primary military investment on both sides. Of the ways to counter this, one of the most successful is the fielding of small drones, both rocket and Core equipped, controlled by both radio and Core pulses, although this requires Drone commanders to be trained.

Although bullets with extremely weak Cores are eventually fielded, they never get small enough to justify giving them to standard infantry, and why settle for a tank when you can have a flying tank that can go as low as five feet off the ground, while avoiding most forms of tank trap and still being able to run over opponents? War ends when a huge Push Core is used as an earthquake bomb that wrecks Paris, and in the process puts nuclear weapons research off indefinitely.

Drones: Remote controlled, high explosive warheads with a Core just strong enough to piggyback off of their Commander or opponents. By the end of the war, both gun equipped and stealthed versions have been developed, but are never deployed until near its close.

Core Signalling: As Push Cores double as working mass sensors, there was a major push to replace Drone radios with a cheaper Core based signalling system. Never succeeds entirely, but aids encryption enough to satisfy the project backers.

Commanders: As AI was limited in this era, all Drones had to be controlled manually requiring great skill. As they controlled Push Core equipped drones, while riding in vessels with Cores of their own, the game is called Core Commander.

Strategic Pushfield Warhead: It turns out that a big enough Push Core can, if buried deeply enough and fed enough power, cause a large enough earthquake to level most cities. Delivery method is a groundpenetrating bomb case, albeit scaled for significantly greater penetration. End result is a bomb the size of an SUV.

1940s-1970s (Late WWII to beginning of Space Race)--Push Core vessels get larger and larger, and while they don’t entirely phase out ships, they revolutionize trade and can usually double as sea vessels. Mass drone deployment is developed for them, although out of wartime the process is slow. Likewise, computer assistance for controlling them becomes an even bigger priority, leading to better computers at the start of the space race.

Incidentally, jets are finally developed in the sixties, and propeller planes are phased out over the next twenty years.

1976--Space race is interrupted by World War III. ICBMs haven’t yet been developed, so even countries willing to face the punitive sections of the Geneva Conventions cannot deliver an SPW without using an airplane/airship. Much larger Core equipped ships appear, with much greater Drone compliments. Other types of drone come into their own. Experimental technology, such as the Blizzard‘s Rapid Deployment Coilgun, is fielded.

Set of Core Commander II. The United Front is once again a major player, and while barely half as many lives are lost as Core Commander I, battles tend to be larger in scale, and more impressive.

Pendulum Basic Power Theory

Hello. Sorry this is a bit late, but it is still Thursday.

Heartbeats, breaths, flares, the ticking of a metronome, the cycle of the day or night. The swinging of a pendulum. All carry power, or can, beyond what they must to exist. Pendulum is a world alongside our own, only accessible when day and night are at the end of their arcs, about to trade their duties, for the top of the morning is the part where it stands still.
The Somniac is one of the few people who has been able to reach Pendulum, perhaps the only one, depending on where its denizens come from. This appears to be mostly happenstance, a case of her being in the right place at the right time, but in any case she gained an ability from the experience she never displayed before. Said ability appears to be inherent to the world of Pendulum, whose denizens can shift something like weight between cyclic systems, such as the aforementioned heartbeat or breath. In order to be used effectively, one must draw in Weight at one of the inactive periods, at the top of a systems Arc, and release it during their most active period, at the Equilibrium. This allows one to gain power rather than merely distributing it over a larger Weight, and to release the most power at a time, without losing too much Weight in the process.
The process manifests as an effect quite similar to a rhythm game, with the objective being to gain the most power from outside sources as possible, while simultaneously wasting as little as possible when releasing it. It also adds an element of strategy, in that systems with more Weight are harder to stop, and systems without much at all can be affected much more easily, forcing one to balance between mobility and durability, all the while keeping in time, in order to avoid letting one’s Velocity get too low.
The Somniac is very, very good at keeping her Velocity up, although this is most likely because she travels so frequently between the worlds, allowing her to leech a high starting Velocity in the process. She is quite inexperienced with her power, however, and cannot use its more complicated effects to start with, her learning to do so is one of the driving forces of the plot, as she observes the various functions and attempts to replicate them, usually by facing those who specialize in them in combat.
When on Earth, she retains her powers, albeit somewhat restrained, as Earth systems are much more difficult to shift Weight between without losing so much Velocity as to make the process worthless, and no one knows or remembers how to do so without the training Pendulum provides.
Or at least, that’s the explanation she came up with. Whether or not others can use her powers is unconfirmed, as it requires enormous Velocity expenditure on her part to do anything visibly unnatural, and she may have used most of her spare power strengthening and regulating her sister’s heart when it was damaged.

Fray Classes

Hi. This needs some editing, but I'm tired. It also doesn't cover everything, or at least I'm not satisfied with just these, so I'll probably do some more later.

Reaper: Reapers are the heavy machine gun class, combined with the speed and mobility more commonly associated with ninja types. They have very fluid ground movement, but lack vertical speed unless they can find or make ramps, because most of their movement isn’t actually walking, it’s jetting around on slipskates. Their iconic loadout is pair of circular machineguns, barrels located on the bottom of the cylinder, hanging from the chest with leather postboy satchel straps. Ammo is located in the backpack, which carries an impressive amount at the cost of little actual general carrying capacity.

Reapers as a class generally rely on their namesake scything streams of bullets, forgoing grenades or explosives almost entirely in favor of cutting up bits of their environment. They also have exoskeletons that let them ignore almost all recoil, making spinning rocket dashes plus fully automatic machinegun fire an entirely viable tactic. This also makes them slightly less versatile, especially in high cover, long range environments, as they don’t actually have the accuracy to properly engage snipers or the indirect, indiscriminate fire needed to sweep bunkers. As a result, they are one of the most utterly fun classes to play, but serious gamers tend to pass them up unless they have heavy backup. A shame, really, because they are supposed to be the game’s mascot role.

Buster: Busters are a class specializing in long range explosive attacks, with relatively lower mobility than their fellows, designed to allow devastating first strikes and assaults, destroying cover from afar. Limited ammunition is its main weakness, it requires careful budgeting of shots to destroy cover and kill opponents without leaving oneself defenseless. Nevertheless it can be a very fun class for anyone who really just loves blowing stuff up, especially with the addition of incendiaries, as one can often destroy huge portions of the environment with a full loadout.

Despite its obvious advantages, a skilled player can often use the Buster’s own explosives against it, as they produce large smokescreens if deployed in mass, as well as the tendency for long bursts to make the followup shots detonate early. Combined with the time it takes to change positions and its limited close combat capabilities, it is mostly a support or ambush class, requiring a lot of skill to use solo.

Because of this, Busters are mostly only used by the unskilled and the very skilled, the latter of which tend to use it in a somewhat traditional sniper role, with carefully placed and timed shots, high concealment, and a very careful approach to close quarters fights. They are, however, regarded as one of the top tiers for skilled players, allowing the potential for unparalleled battlefield control and very long range, as well as the best ammunition lethality to quantity ratio available.

Keeper: Keepers are the defensive packrat trapmaster class, with a large backpack, several weapon types, decent speed, and an emphasis on versatility. Keepers move both by running and with short range rocket assisted jumps, and their backpacks carry lots of grenades, armor, and fuel.

Their iconic loadout is a huge, semicubical backpack, heavy armor with visible rocket funnels at the back, and a recoilless assault rifle, with a split exhaust port that make it resemble a truncated crutch, with a large box magazine that is shoved all the way through, keeping the gun symmetrical. The gun has an optional bladed edge and rear handle, allowing it to be used as a combination sword and carbine at the cost of some comfort while aiming, and they can be dual wielded. As the Keeper specializes in endurance and versatility, their main advantage is in extended firefights, where they have the option to fortify a position with their enhanced strength, large capacity for smartmines or other defences, and where their extensive ammunition reserves will let them outlast other classes.

For experienced players, keepers are critical parts of any team, allowing much better long term performance, but mostly viewed as a class to offload to the less skilled, as they lack the obvious firepower of other classes. Despite this, they actually have the third best track record for kills to losses, as they rarely engage anyone with longer effective range then themselves, being able to simply rely on their fortifications.

Sniper: Snipers still exist in Fray, despite the emphasis on small teams of heavy hitters that can ignore such boring things as logistics, simply because being able to kill entire teams of opponents from concealment well away from where they could return fire is very fun for a select few. Most rely on beam weapons, which have reasonable range, somewhat slow firing speed, reasonable ammunition, and instant pinpoint accuracy. The limited firing speed can be compensated by simply carrying more than one, and all these factors make them ideal sniper weapons, allowing players to avoid many of the difficulties in actual sniping.

Some snipers, however, prefer projectile weapons, accepting the steep learning curve, target leading, and extra visibility in exchange for range, rate of fire, ammunition capacity, and minor indirect fire ability. While significantly less popular than Busters, which have most of the same advantages but with much bigger explosives, a small but dedicated fanbase remains, notably including Kiska/Aimbot.

Driver: Drivers are pretty much exactly what they sound like, being a dedicated vehicle class. They (mostly) forgo the exoskeletons of other classes, instead piloting wheeled or treaded vehicles, allowing the best speed, armor, firepower, and carrying capacity of any class, but trading most of the ability to navigate uneven surfaces, evade fire, or utilize cover proportionally. This only applies to dedicated vehicle specialists, as most classes love the ability to use motorcycles, preferably with a mounted turret of some kind. Well liked for transport of fire support, but generally treated as inferior to Busters, which can usually kill them before they can return fire. While aircraft are generally rare, Drivers become a much more attractive class if they can get their hands on one, as the few available are both really cool and very powerful.

Dive Units (Fray Universe)

Full Immersion Physical Simulators, better known as Dive Units or Divers due to their use of fluid suspension, are a type of virtual reality simulation equipment.
They take the form of an adjustable body frame within a thick plastic saline filled shell, a bodysuit attached to the frame, a fairly powerful computer, an air helmet, and a filter to keep the tank clean. Procedures exist to flush the tank if the mask seal breaks, breathing is obstructed, or the user goes into cardiac arrest.
The frame can be rotated to manipulate balance and the sense of motion, but the body is intended to be locked in place--touch and muscle movement are entirely simulated, decreasing the cost, maintenance, and safety concerns, although more articulated frames are in development as next generation Units.
The actual control and tactile feedback is accomplished by the skintight bodysuit. Said bodysuit is actually an enormous number of microelectrodes, tuned and wrapped to the contours of the body, so that it can artificially stimulate the nerves. The suit is then attached to the frame, through which the computer cables and air hose are routed, and the frame has emergency release mechanisms placed where the jands can be comfortably reach them, but designed that activating them is difficult to do by accident.
While microelectrodes are sufficient to simulate muscle movement, there is no viable way to directly simulate vision artificially, so it simply uses advanced goggles, which employ some very clever tricks to produce a higher definition 3D image than the system actually computes.
During login, users are rendered unconscious, partially to reduce the risk of discomfort or seizures, but mostly to take advantage of the body’s natural tendency to dream about being in positions it isn’t actually in, and believe its eyes over its actual tactile senses. When the user wakes in the gameworld, their entire body is stimulated somehow, generally with water or fierce wind, and this is actually a way to fool the brain into believing the false sensations it is being fed. The hands are still free and capable of movement, however, and can be used to pull the eject switch if necessary.
A full set costs about 500$, not including saline or filters, and it required some very clever marketing to actually sell, due to the required space and one player limit. It was originally marketed, along with it’s accompanying physics system, as an advanced military training device, designed to let soldiers simulate action in conditions well away from training centers, and after that became unprofitable, they offered a significantly cheaper version to the civilian market as a combination luxury bed and MMORPG. This actually became a runaway success, mainly because they decided on an open sandbox style crafting system, and it was sufficient for testing real gun, vehicle, and house designs.
Now, they’re fairly common, at least partially because they really can be quite comfortable to sleep in, allowing them to take the place of the bed in many small apartments owned by geeks. A fairly popular, slightly more traditional MMO named Fray was released for it about five years ago, with the distinction of being a similar work in progress, most notably in the form of it’s debugging; Several professionals and many players take the role of the Red Team, trying to break the ingame society in any way possible...

Observed Universe Intro

Hi. The author is tired, so his last minute rewrites may suffer for it. He might go back and fix it eventually, but probably not soon.
Anyway, here.

Pact: Noun: A binding alliance or treaty. Usually intended for the long term, or until all set goals have been achieved.

Observer: Noun: One who witnesses events.

In this world, it is possible to attract the attention of beings from outside it. One side effect of this is to allow feats that would otherwise be impossible, so long as they fit within preset parameters, which can be defined by any form of communication. The only beings capable of being reached have been dubbed Observers, as that was all it was known they could do for some time.

It was eventually discovered that Observers could take control of a willing host, so long as that control was both well defined and freely offered, and in the process it was found that Observers were not bound by time in the same manner as anything else in the universe-they frequently displayed foreknowledge of events beyond all but the most precise forms of omniscience, and their skill or preferences could vary dramatically during a task, but they would always succeed eventually. This was taken to it's logical conclusion when the man who discovered all this decided to make a Pact to take over his country, and ended up leaving enough destruction in his wake that most knowledge from that era was lost. In the chaos that followed, Powers based on those granted by Pacts were developed as a much safer alternative, various systems to suppress Pacts developed similarly, and the world still faces at least one major catastrophe per century.

Welcome to the Observed Universe.

Timeless Intro Speech

Hi everyone. This is something short I came up with a couple days ago, and liable to grow into a proper universe. That said, enjoy!

“Once, long ago, the world was unified. Oh, there were many nations, to be sure, and many cities, but rare indeed were those that could not talk to the others. The world entered an age of progress that has never been seen before or since. But with that progress came war, and eventually, weapons that could end those wars with little more than the touch of a button.

The world entered an uneasy truce, that no two sides with these weapons would fight each other, lest either be convinced to use them, and this this truce lasted for nearly a century.

But something had to be done. And eventually, three young scholars developed a solution.

They created a machine that could wall cities off from time, allowing flawless interdiction of the great weapons. But this great defence had a great cost, as communications that had once taken seconds now took hours, and if the target was similarly walled, months. Gone were the days where one could carry conversations across the world.

But the great weapons were once again being deployed, frequently and without warning, and so the loss was considered acceptable, and so the great age of progress ended.

That was more than two hundred years ago, by our reckoning, but outside it has been a fraction of that.

And you, brave souls, are those who would travel outside, becoming our messengers, our repairmen, our couriers, our soldiers.

Our Timeless.

Welcome.”

Admit it, you'd read the series.

A Selection of Historical Archetype Pieces (Binding Universe)

Hi. Do you like the new heading? The author has actually Googled it, and now believes he may have been the first to coin it. Anyway, have a post.

The Coalheart: A device of some prominence in the history of the European Empire, believed to be the first instance of a device base for an Artificial Changeling. Allows immortality so long as it contains burning coal, although it may be possible to substitute wood instead. Over time, the blood of it’s user turns black as it dumps smoke into their veins, this is faster if they take advantage of the ability to avoid eating or breathing normally.

Natan-Natan, the Sword of Exile: Retrieved from the Castle of Loss in the First Timeline by Fourth England only recently, so its history is mostly unknown. Capable of opening portals to banish or cut targets, and while said portals are connected to a pocket timeline unique to the sword by default, the target can be changed with training. It carries a strong impetus to never return to the place where one gained the sword until one gives it up, although this is not entirely compulsory. Can also be used to make access to an area difficult, although this is a more advanced function.

The Seal of the Amethyst Emperor: Used to authenticate the lords of noble houses, as well as every new set of Samurai armor during the reign of the Wandering Empire, effectively controlling the military and symbolic strength of the various factions. It is therefore of incredible cultural and strategic value, and whoever it recognizes as its master was the rightful leader. It cannot easily be stolen, as it will burn those who take it from a rightful master without leave, and can be summoned at will by its rightful master, to which it is spiritually linked, and similar measures are in place to prevent its destruction. It will only acknowledge a ruler who fits certain criteria, determined both at the time of its creation and by the previous emperor at the time he last held it. In modern times, its use is almost purely ceremonial, but if the need seems dire, it may once again grant its blessings to worthy servants...

The Thousand Blades of Battle: A more mythical Piece, straddling the line of full Eidolon, The Thousand Blades of Battle are a collection of weapons that appear to worthy wielders in moments of need, generally with the restriction that they be carrying a blade of their own to give it in trade. It contains at least a thousand Archetype Pieces of varying power, and is suspected to absorb any sufficiently unclaimed blade that has been used extensively in true, if not mortal, combat.