Forgotten Canon

[Ducky]

Forgotten takes place in the year 2244.

HISTORY:

Humanity, once ruled by the tyrannical Human Core, has now swelled into the vast Human Empire, conquering the stars. Decades ago, fueled by the need to find resources and homes for billions no longer able to live on the uninhabitable Earth, The Human Core waged nuclear war with the divided powers of the Interstellar Community. Though they had the advantage of numbers, the Interstellar Community was massively outgunned, and the Annexation Wars came to a violent end on Armageddon Day, when the Human Core dropped thirteen thermonuclear warheads on the surface of planet Morcef, killing nearly 20 million in less than an hour. The last remaining independent states, unified under what was called the Interstellar Coalition, quickly surrendered. The Human Core gradually adopted the name Human Empire as it engulfed the entire known universe.

Since then, humanity has lost some of its old leverage – the Human Empire is, in truth, governed as much by non-humans as it is by humans. Nonetheless, hatred continued to boil in the population for decades. In 2227, this anger came to a boiling point. As the Morcefan calendar marked the anniversary of Armageddon day, riots erupted in Murnu City, which then led to the destruction of an orbiting civilian vessel, the DT Jupiter Hardware Blackwall. Over the next few days, a fierce battle was fought between the rioters and the Human Empire Military, and horrifying acts of violence were committed by both sides. Inevitably, the HEM won.

During the riots, tapped radio lines allowed intelligence to uncover the existence of a mysterious leader known only by the name Monarch – due to the cultural implications of the name, it’s likely a Morcefan. Over the next seventeen years, Monarch built up the massive rebellion now known as the Free Interstellar Community (FIC).

Another faction that emerged was the New Human Core (NHC), a political party that officially disavowed any knowledge of a wide range of terrorist actions committed in its name. When the Human Empire declared a state of war with the FIC in the year 2239, NHC activity grew, and it is now evidently trying to seize power – its apparent goal being to return the Human Empire to an age when it was ruled by humans.

[Ducky]

Locations:

The overall known universe consists primarily of three galaxies – The Milky Way (known to most non-humans as The Cord), The Andromeda (or The Giant) and the Messier 51/The Spiral (or The Flail). Other small ‘satellite galaxies’ exist within reach, but those are lawless, barely-visited places.

Beyond these galaxies is a field of extremely high hyperphotonic radiation, undetectable until you are within a certain range, through which no ship can safely pass. Many theories have been proposed as to why the area surrounding the galaxies is safe while the rest of the universe is apparently so deadly. The widely accepted one states that the galaxies once contained similar quantities of radiation, but over time the massive amount of matter gradually absorbed it.

The Spiral/Flail galaxy is located approximately one week’s hyperphotonic flight away from the others. The radiation between the two galactic groups is not as significant as what waits beyond, but it is enough to render travel impossible without all shutters closed and good shielding. Your current budget will not allow for private travel through this field, though public transportation is always an option.

It takes about 24 hours to travel between The Milky Way/Cord galaxy and the Andromeda/Giant galaxy via hyperphotonic flight. It takes anything from a couple of hours to a day or so to travel within a galaxy, depending on where you’re going.

PLANETS LOCATED IN ANDROMEDA/THE GIANT:

Aquaram/Teuwros:

This planet’s name is disputed. The Human Core listed it under the name Aquaram when they arrived; however, Morcefan miners had been operating on the planet by the name Teuwros for over a century before Humanity found it. The Human Empire continues to keep it in the records as Aquaram, but Teuwros is more commonly the name used by non-humans. (Author’s note – I generally call it Aquaram. Maybe this makes me a bit specist, but I swear I am not a xenophobe!)

Aquaram is located in the Andromeda galaxy, orbiting a large blue star. Residents have become used to a hot, tropical environment and a blue tint that colors everything. The planet itself is largely similar to the Earth, save for its vast water concentration. The planet is only just over three billion years old, but hosts a rich biosphere, mostly of various marine organisms. The oceans are rich with oil-producing microorganisms and the crust of the planet is a treasure trove of various metals, most notably its seemingly inexhaustible wealth of copper.

The planet is situated in the middle of a sort of no-man’s-land, and would have fallen under FIC control months ago if not for the high levels of security used.

Murnu City: The first mining company to touch down on then-Teuwros landed on a small island, shielded from the most major storms brought by the planetary jet-stream by a cold ocean current that flows down from the pole towards the equator, acting as a natural sink for the storms’ energy.

Weiswul-Nurswei-Murn, foreman of the mining operations on the island, helped in the design for a larger city infrastructure as it became clear that people would be staying on the island for long amounts of time. In solar year 2117 (still a few decades before humanity left the solar system) the city was officially named Murnu in its honor.

By 2244, Murnu has become a sort of Silicon Valley for the Human Empire, situated virtually on top of one of the largest platinum lodes in the known universe and within spitting distance of fuel and funds at all time. The Murnu Institute of Technology is one of the best engineering schools in Andromeda.

With the spaceport located out on the edge of the island, long-burn micro landings are easy and safe over the water. This, combined with the risks associated with piloting a micro in the upper Aquaram atmosphere and with the higher pollution that is connected to a short-burn landing, has resulted in a legal ban on short-burn landings in Murnu.

Teuwrosme: The moon of Aquaram, called Teuwrosme, is a small ball of rock with little of interest, beyond its small ice caps.

Warrsi:

Warrsi is an earth-like planet in the Andromeda galaxy. It is, in theory, an industrial powerhouse; however its fast day/night cycle, at roughly eighteen and a half hours, and two moons cause it to be very geologically active. Most of the planet, though it remains an ecologically thriving wilderness, cannot be settled properly due to the frequency and intensity of the planet’s earthquakes.

The planet’s flora is spread wide and low to the ground, naturally engineered by evolution to not fall no matter how much the ground shakes. Small areas of land where the bedrock is stable are home to much taller life forms, which makes these zones small environmental microcosms, when they’re not overwhelmed by populations seeking to install larger settlements. Many organizations conserve these life forms in artificial habitats or off-world.

 

Runtari: Runtari City is an industrial powerhouse in the Andromeda galaxy. To balance the massive population and industry with the limited real-estate – a limitation imposed by the forty-three square-mile piece of stable rock on which the city is built – architects were forced to build up rather than sideways. Additionally, they didn’t dare attempt to build downward, as that risked compromising the stability of the city.

The height of the city ranges from somewhat normal skyscrapers at the edges to towers reaching upwards of a mile and a half into the sky at the center. Since a normal tower would act like a filament at that height, they are linked by bridges which act not only for convenience but also to cause the towers to support each others’ weight.

Many manufacturers are based in Runtari City, and the Human Empire orders upwards of 40% of their military equipment from them. Should Runtari fall into enemy hands, the war could very plausibly be lost.

PLANETS LOCATED IN THE MILKY WAY/THE CORD:

Virisoch:

A planet significantly larger than Mars but significantly smaller than Earth, Virisoch’s atmosphere is thin, with pressure differences between sea-level and its highest peaks so vast that it takes significantly longer than it would on Earth to hike the larger mountains of the planet, on account of the frequent stops that need to be made to adjust to the lower pressure.

In fact, were Virisoch’s atmospheric makeup identical to Earth, larger oxygen-breathing races such as the Morcefans would be unable to breathe there; however, its oxygen content is about 53% rather than Earth’s 21% (At this point, though, the 21% has degraded to 17% due to severe atmospheric damage which has rendered Earth too dangerous to inhabit).

Virisoch’s star, Viriketh, is almost identical to Sol; however, Virisoch’s thin atmosphere and slightly more distant orbit cause it to have a somewhat chilled global temperature. Massive ice caps rule the poles and the frost lines of mountains start very early on. Much of the planet’s water is trapped in the poles, as well as some in glacier and a decent quantity in vapor form, which rains frequently on the forests of Virisoch.

The planet’s topography is marred with impact craters. With no moon to protect it, Virisoch was regularly bombarded by meteors in its formative years. Theoretically, another could strike, but the appearance of intelligent colonization offers the world some significant protection. Some of these craters and the fractures they created in the planetary crust can be seen from space while in other places smaller impact craters almost imperceptibly affect the surface. Some, in fact, have become lakes, including the vast Lake Reith, visible from space – north-west of the large Augustus Sea.

The largely forested biosphere of Virisoch, combined with its impressive mountains and river valleys, has made the planet famous for its natural beauty.

Virisoch, The Human Core, and the Visinor: When the Human Core entered the Interstellar Community, the Viriketh system was one of the twenty-three thousand star systems declared as being within the Human Core’s sector. Unfortunately, the Visinor had already extensively colonized the Viriketh system and built several cities on Virisoch.

Knowing there were thousands of uncolonized but habitable systems waiting within the Human Core’s sector, humanity was willing to diplomatically part with the system, but maintain the Augustus Complex for the Human Core Military.

The peaceful negotiations involved in this exchange – during a time when Humanity was ostracized by much of the Interstellar Community – would serve to generate an alliance between Humanity and the Visinor, which lasted even as mankind took the universe by force.

 

VirisochᴒTep: (ᴒ is the symbol I use here, since I am within the confines of font. The actual symbol is a symbol invented by aliens) VirisochᴒTep, which can also be called Virisoch Tep, Viritep or simply VST, is the capital city of Tep, the largest colony-nation on Virisoch. Built straddling a river valley, the city is famous for its architecture and its integration into its natural surroundings.

Due to the Visinor’s incredibly advanced materials science, as well as their knowledge of agriculture and architecture, the Free Interstellar Community seeks to ‘liberate’ them from the Human Empire. The FIC’s siege on Viritep is one of many fronts in this war, as they hope to get past the HEMI forces defending it to force the Visinor Republic (The one sovereign state to never be formally annexed into the Human Empire) to switch sides or dissolve.

The ground war to control Virisoch shows no signs of reaching a conclusion any time soon. HEMIs control the spaceport at Viritep, with powerful anti-space guns constantly on watch. The nearest spaceport controlled by the FIC is in the not-too-distant city of Tep Seir, 354 miles from Viritep. All roads and valleys connecting the two cities are warzones, and both cities have a perimeter of watch towers and anti-space guns.

Davidson-Kappa:

Davidson-Kappa, more commonly known as D-Kap, is one of the Davidson worlds – a human-index set of planets throughout the former Human Sector that technically support life – but only if that life doesn’t much care about comfort.

The planet is a wasteland, with scorching deserts and a thick, dry atmosphere. Oases form around small, shifting bodies of water, only to be struck down by abrupt fires ignited in D-Kap’s high-oxygen atmosphere.

The only reason anyone would go to D-Kap is to mine it, and it just happens that you’re here on this planet right now, directly or indirectly, because of one of these mining operations.

 

Further planets will be unlocked with further progress through various adventures

[Ducky]

Race: Humanity

Lore: Humanity was united in the late 21st century by the Human Core, an oppressive, violent state that ostensibly was acting for the benefit of humanity. Their efforts to control the vast population of humanity resulted in the Second Genocide.

Humanity, before it left the Solar System, was largely confined to Earth. By the time they left, Earth’s atmosphere had lost a vast portion of its oxygen, and the majority of its landmass – as well as much of its oceans – was cityscape. It is now a toxic and radioactive hellhole, unfit for habitation. Some sealed habitats are used for top-security government function on the planet’s surface to this day.

Some humans remain on Earth, grateful for the mysterious disappearance of the oppressive human core. These remaining nations are oblivious to what’s happening in the stars, and gradually expanding across the abandoned remains of the Earth. Life expectancy for these humans sits at around a quarter of a century and dropping.

Humanity has gained a new major religion. The Trigean Church, founded by Martian Colonist Jaine Collin, is an offshoot of Christianity, that seeks to integrate the scope of the universe with the scope of the Bible, finding new answers to old questions through the exploration of space.

Description: Go look in a mirror.

Perks: Immune to capsaicin.

[Ducky]

Race: Morcefans

Lore: Hailing from planet Morcef in the Spiral/Flail galaxy, Morcefans are technically called muwrusw; however, most races, including humans, cannot form some of the syllables in the actual word, leading them to simply refer to them as Morcefans.

Morcefans can form a very different range of syllables than most races and all of their exiting alphabets are massive to account for this. Translating Morcefan text to a human-friendly format is consequently a difficult task, and the majority of Morcefan words you see consist largely of loose approximations – reading them phonetically is not particularly reliable.

The Muwrusw State was once the largest culture in interstellar space, with a strong presence in all three major galaxies. Their proud resistance against the Human Core during the Annexation Wars led to extremely harsh terms on their surrender, causing them to be treated like second-class citizens from then on. This only gave them more incentive to take a strong role in the FIC.

Morcefan nations are led by powerful individuals called paintless monarchs, who are selected by public opinion and hold office until the day they die.

Morcefans have no gender, and their only desired pronoun is ‘it.’ It’s very culturally insensitive to use your own species’ pronouns to describe them (and I do it a lot for some reason).

Because Morcefans are not borne by their parents, there is no concept of family to them. They will never know who is related to them and who is not – and lineage has no meaning to them.

Morcefans have elaborate paint for their carapaces, with a rich variety of patterns. Mixed in are often signatures and important phrases and words. Paint can be easily washed off with soap, but rarely is, other than in circumstances requiring a dramatic change. Connotations of color change over time. Right now, a green-painted Morcefan is considered loyal to the Human Empire, while a blue-painted Morcefan favors the Free Interstellar Community. Red is neutral.

Description: Morcefans are hulking creatures which can grow up to ten feet tall in extreme cases. Their bodies are protected by rigid gray carapaces, though they have an internal skeleton. Normally, they walk on four legs and have two arms, almost resembling a cross between a massive stick bug and a centaur. When the situation demands, they can rear back to put their weight on their tailbone and back two legs, freeing their central pair of limbs for use as arms at the cost of mobility.

Morcefan hands consist of four fingers, arranged radially around the arm. The arms and central pair of limbs possess hands, and the hind legs have a heavy pad that appears to have never resembled a hand in their evolutionary history.

Morcefans breathe in through an opening between the shells protecting their heads and upper torsos, and out through their mouth tubes. Due to the structure of their lungs, they are never not simultaneously inhaling and exhaling, making substantial noise but allowing them much more oxygen intake than other races.

Their mouth consists of a tube running from their back, between two high rows of ridges on top of their heads, and down in front of their face. Large, triangular teeth line the opening of this tube, and though they look vicious, these teeth exist solely to enable the Morcefans to seal their mouths.

Three factors define how Morcefans appear in society: Morcef is a fairly warm planet, the Morcefans have no external reproductive organs and their carapaces protect them from most harm. Consequently, outside of military use there is no clothing in most Morcefan cultures. Most wear harnesses laden with pouches and pockets for the purpose of carrying what they need.

Dialogue: Morcefans have a very distinctive speech pattern. All sentences are structured with themselves as the subjects – “Let’s go to the store” becomes “I think we should go to the store.” Additionally, because of their oral structure, they cannot form ‘th’ sounds, so they opt for ‘s.’ The final version of that sentence would be “I sink we should go to se store.”

Perks: You’re huge.

Age: Morcefans live for approximately 150% of a human lifespan; however, they age at the same rate. The reason for the extra years is that they experience a sort of ‘aging plateau’ between when they are around 25 and when they are 50, during which their body makes copies of the undamaged DNA from their youth. These copies are then used to replace the slowly-decaying helixes like a backup until eventually the copies run out, at which point the body starts aging again.

In their mid-seventies until their nineties, Morcefans typically enter another aging plateau, as their body attempts to replicate the effect – this only keeps them ‘middle-aged’ for a long time, before they finally begin the descent into their twilight years.

Names: [place of birth]-[nation of allegiance]-[personal name]. (Example: Tewurl-Muwrusw-Heihrwey, though its name is an odd one) If you are creating a Morcefan character, message me for help with the name.

Because Morcefan names are often impossible for other races to pronounce, they have recently taken to adopting Visinor or Human nicknames to call themselves by. (Heihrwey, for example, often goes by ‘Jerry’)

[Ducky]

Race: Visinor

Lore: The visinor, or, alternatively, the Tell^Ech come from Tellsoch, relatively close to the Solar system. As such, during humanity’s early years in interstellar space, they were forced to play nice with the Visinor – a move that led to decades of good relations with them. Today, the visinor Republic is the only state that exists independently of the Human Empire – in a gilded cage, to be sure, but that’s better than most get.

Visinor place a high emphasis on aesthetics, and anything their culture creates can be expected to be a marvel to the eyes. The flipside of this is that they will sweep whatever they consider unsightly as far under the rug as they can get it.

Visinor reproduce via traditional paired mating, and partners remain together for a long time, like humans, but their concept of family is dramatically different. Children are treated like students of the parents, learning the trade that their parents practice. In older times most visinor societies were governed by strict caste systems, but now most have been officially abolished. Still, it is hard to move up or down in Visinor society, since the only way to learn a trade is from your parents or from an alien school.

Visinor have an inherent appreciation for patterns – one which shows extremely well in their nomenclature. Stars, planets, nations, cities, and other things are all named according to what can be considered a formula.

For example, the colony-nation of Tep on planet Virisoch: Planet Virisoch in the Viriketh system has a colony-nation called Tep. Its capital is Viritep (for short) and all of the cities in Tep are called Tep [city name]

Description: Visinor have faces resembling the faces of organisms experiencing diprosopus on Earth – three eyes, two mouths. Their nostrils are located with a pair above the central eye and one above each other eye. The center eye focuses independently of the two side eyes.

Below the neck, they have a pair of arms like humans, and an additional arm protruding from what is often misinterpreted as their chest – they in fact effectively have two chests, separated by their third arm. Emerging from their back is what looks almost like a pair of wings, though it serves no practical purpose. Composed of dozens of partially-translucent, deceptively muscular pseudopodia, these seem to be vestigial organs from a time when their animal predecessors used them to attract mates. Now they are known as their ‘aurae’ and are often some of the most decorated parts of the visinor body.

Visinor in some fields, such as military service, often tie their aurae into elaborate braids, a process which is uncomfortable but saves them pain and injury in the long run.

Visinor hands are composed of six fingers, with two sets of three opposing each other.

Three legs emerge from below the torso. Unlike human legs, which have knees and bend towards our backs, visinor legs bend forwards. The side two legs start off tilted back from the body, but bend to face forward at the not-knees.

Visinor are known for their very elaborate clothing.

Very elaborate.

Visinor tend to only stand between around 4.5 and 5 feet tall, making them one of the smaller known races.

Visinor oscillate gender on a weekly basis. In their male state, their scaly skin appears pale, as their body ceases the production of all pigment and rapidly breaks down what’s already been made for use in other areas of their body. In the female state, their skin turns a reddish orange, while their aura turns pitch black and becomes nearly opaque.

Independent of other factors, it’s common for the Visinor to have very pleasant voices. Additionally factoring in their accents, which many humans find pleasant to hear, and their more affluent population’s highly selective choices as to whom they allow to teach them human languages – a distinction they make to deliberately try to learn the languages with a ‘good’ accent – and you get a race whose speech matches the elegance of their appearance.

Visinor in the female state typically speak with unobstructed airways and have more verbal control, as well as a vocal range generally a full octave lower than their male state. In the male state, a gland located in the back of their airway swells, narrowing the passage enough to have a noticeable effect on their voices.

A visinor who becomes pregnant will ‘lock in’ to the female state for the duration of the pregnancy for the safety of the child. Afterwards, they will experience gender phases measured in months rather than weeks until their body chemistry stabilizes.

Naming: The visinor have a first last name structure like humans do, but obviously with a vastly different set of names to choose from. If you are making a Visinor character, message me for help with the name.

Age: Visinor lifespans are approximately 75% the length of human lifespans. Scale accordingly.

Perks: You have an extra hand at all times.

[Ducky]

Race: Recthae

(The singular form of Recthae is Recthan)

Lore: The recthae hail from planet Tenrog in the Andromeda Galaxy. In 1675 C.E. they attempted to conquer the Andromeda galaxy, only to be violently cast down. They mostly keep to their sector now, watched warily by their neighbors. Due to the similarity of their circumstances pre-interstellar travel to those of humanity’s, they resent the success of the Human Core’s conquest.

Tenrog is, today, dramatically overpopulated, with not nearly enough money to maintain the aging infrastructure in place there. The recthae who leave go in search of anything that can help them repair roads, buildings, and farming areas.

They are not a warlike race, yet in their long history they have built a culture to treat their own generously and respond harshly to outsiders. While they would declare war without hesitation over an insult, they historically have gone out of their way to look out for their own populations, even those who would normally have been cast out by society for a lack of physical capability.

Description: Superficially, the recthae are very similar to mankind, with two arms, two legs, a torso and a head with two eyes, two nostrils, two ears and a mouth.

Here the similarities end.

The entire muscular structure of the recthae is different, supporting immensely powerful upper torsos and arms. In theory, their lower body could be similarly strong, but for reasons unknown, they have vastly underdeveloped circulation to their lower body, only allowing the weakest muscle development.

For as long as their history can recall, the recthae have walked with the aid of simple stilt-like supports worn on the legs, that hold their weight while their weak muscles ‘steer.’ In their more modern times, they fairly quickly developed mechanical exoskeletons that go up to their waists, allowing them to walk and even run with ease. The mechanical strength, combined with their natural strength in the more oxygenated portions of their bodies, make them formidably strong.

Biologists trying to study the evolutionary background for this peculiarity have found very little, as even the most primitive of the recthae had a tradition of burning their dead, and even the bones of a recthan will burn to dust.

Their skin is similar to humans, other than a complete lack of hair, a tougher hide and a marble white color. Three horns emerge from the back of their head – smooth and white, curving upward slightly. Calling them horns is inaccurate, as they seem to be a specialized bone protrusion, though their purpose is unknown. The horns emerge behind the ears, and the third horn protrudes from the upper back of the head.

Names: One elaborate, personalized name, consisting of many syllables. Make this up as you please. They’re generally referred to by the first few syllables. HAVE FUN!

Age: Recthae live for about 96% of a human lifespan. Scale accordingly.

Perks: Legs don’t get tired cause they’re robot legs.