Navi Verse

8/19/2019 Navi Verse

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http://boards.4chan.org/tg/res/18734234

Pick colors.

Durendal

Zen (Not that Zen)

Filan/Filanwizard zen4life

Aliasi

http://chat.mibbit.com/?server=irc.esper.net&channel=%23ship-tan

Black = Codified

General Info:

I should probably have asked this earlier, but is this setting being built for the purpose or running

games in or more towards literature/fapfics?both

Navits and things about them: Anyone stumbling on this without prior knowledge: A

Navit is a modified, giant human able to function as a spaceship. Think the following:

We should probably use the term Mecha Musume somewhere.

A male ship is technically a Navitos, not a Navitas. I’m not entirely sure Latin works that way, but

on the other hand we’re using dog-Latin to begin with. :P

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Size arguments go here:

I propose that we have three different sizes of Navit:

Size:

--Standard, which is ~1000x enlarged (approx 1.6-1.8km)

--Small, approx 2-3x human height, used for ground work, military, etc. (can workalongside humans in mechs. (These are not rightly Navits, I don’t think. They retain only normal

human awareness, and only the largest would undergo some of the more radical changes

(reactor heart, etc.) Considering, a ground-based giant like this is called a Mund, short for

Mundus (“World”) as in, “Homo Sapiens Mundus.” “Mund” sounds like a Slur, and full navits

likely use it as such.(no, not navits like we have gotten around to defining them. Perhaps they

were intended to fill a ‘warrior’ role by the original race. It would make sense to have them as

stronger, tougher, bigger humans. I think that it would be neat to have both the Munds and the

Navit’s dislike each other. Not because they think that the other is inferior, but they are envious.

The Munds envy the Navit’s ability to jump and their essential-ness to humans, and the Navit’s

are envious of the Munds because they are much more human sized, and therefore find iteasier to make friends and talk to people. Of course, both claim this is false. I’m not sure i like

the word ‘Mund’ though, like you said, it sounds pretty bad.)

--Other, which usually comprises of accidents and special cases. EG: Sura the carrier

mentioned below.

-- I’m still fond of an ‘ascension’ stage as in the original setting, but this should obviously

be a very, very rare occurance, with none known at the default “year 0” of the setting. Probably

a natural result of singularity event - a Navit’s nanomachines dissassemble a spare planet or

three to turn into computronium to expand their minds, and next thing you know you accidently

the whole star cluster. Sounds silly but could be a good ‘end boss’ threat in an RP. The race

which originally developed navit tech have done something like this, ending up as energybeings. So maybe the odd human navit has accidentally followed their path to an intermediate

stage like you describe.

--Ships larger than ‘standard’ are less active, due to the time it takes to send signals from one

end of them to the other, and ships smaller have much less efficient jump drives, requiring

relatively more power the same jumps, and are severely limited in range. Small Navit have only

enough energy for a single short range blink, two if they have augs for it.

Creation/Metamorphosis:

---A navits development is ego-centric. Their appearance at the end of the process, as well as

their capabilities, will reflect their self image.

--So if one pictures themselves with say long blue hair in their usual imagination they

will become a ship with long blue hair?

--Yes, exactly. Though there can be more too it than that. It reflects the subconscious

more highly than the conscious.

--But surely most people would think of themselves as, fundamentally, themselves. I feel

that it shouldn’t really work with ‘I believe I’m a fairy at heart, and now I have these wings’, and

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similar.

--It’s a subconscious-reflecting thing., as stated above. If they think they’re a fairy at

heart, that might do anything, but if they have a *personality* that reflects a flighty, fey-ish

nature, then that would be more likely to get those sorts of results.

-- It’s seem likely that a certain amount of idealization goes on, and quite possibly by the

time these become a standard and accepted thing recruits know to concentrate on what theywant to ‘be’, although presumably this is for relatively minor overall changes. Hair, eye color,

build sort of things.

--Possibly also add how things work for the creation process, does the navy hope purely

for people to sign up directly to the program or do they also advertise it to target people. I would

imagine people skilled in certain fields of knowledge might be asked directly. Though it would

be a huge sacrifice to ask someone to make.

I think there’s a lot of potential for story of people who have run out of options, and the

sponsored one way trip is a nice out from their old life and its troubles. In general, the more

open it is the more options we have to play with. I would imagine there’s some trainingbeforehand, but there doesn’t need to be much, as the navit’s get pretty much everything they

need by default, and the augs cover the rest. I would imagine there’d be a psych screening as

well, since you don’t really want a crazy person running about in a body that big. But again, the

more lax the requirements, the more interesting the setting.

True I could see this especially depending on the setting of the world, is Earth a good

place to live or bleak with millions crammed into mega-cities consisting mainly of arcologies.

But such should be discussed up at locations. A good person, at the wrong end of the financial

totem pole could get their family a good life. I imagine being a Navit pays well.

It might pay well, but you might have to pay off the cost of the process, which you might

not manage to do in a conventional human lifetime. Might depend on employer?

--Training Process -- by zen, --== FOR REVIEW BY EVERYONE ELSE ==--

Navit recruitment begins with a 12 month waiting period. Once an individual applies for the

program they are put on the waiting list for 6 months, in which time they are only required to

submit medical and psychological tests. For the following 6 months, any navit’s who pass the

previous tests is given a wage, and told to ‘Make the most of their remaining time as a human.’

Most recruits go travelling during this time.

‘Training’ for Individuals who are in the navit program lasts for about one year. Most of this time

is spent learning about star navigation, diplomacy, battle tactics, augmentation functions and

alien species. While the mechanics of hyperjumps and FTL communications are discussed

cerebrally, such navit abilities are instinctive to navit’s so they do not need to be taught. Since a

navit’s ability to learn and remember things is much greater than that of a humans, it might be

wondered why the course even exists when it is by no means necessary for the conversion

process, which is actually rather foolproof and usable by any technician who has had a half

day’s briefing. The reason for this training is in fact to get individual recruits used to the sort of

command structure of the human navy, and to ensure that post conversion they will have people

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that they know and can talk to: their classmates. The year long course also allows for additional

time for recruits to drop out of the program, if they are unsuitable or wish to keep their humanity.

Dropping out of the program here, after a fair chunk of money (see next section below) has been

put into your upkeep and training is frowned upon, and might leave you in deep debt. ((Maybe

you have to work in other sections of the navy to pay it off? char idea here.))

((Should note that there should also be post conversion training too, things like handling ships. A navit could crush a small shuttle by accident instead of using a light touch without even

knowing really. So I picture some post conversion training to get used to actually operating their

body at that size. something that simply cannot be done in the classroom at human scale.))((of

course! I had forgotten about that. If nobody else has, I’ll write up some stuff next time I get a

chance.))

Note, this system would only be instrumented after the navit technology is understood, and is in

wide use. Zara definitely falls in this time, and she is approx 2000 units in. Probably

established between 1000th and 1500th navit?

my vision of the basic timeline then.

1-6mths: Basic training, education, etc.

6-11mths: last six months at being a normal sized human, encouraged to go out and live life a

bit, make final departure stuff with family(Not that they couldn’t return in Avatar form later on).

Last month: Final prep point of no return, cloned into a “virgin” body that has no augs in the

first week, next three they serve on board an older navit just to get an idea of the conditions

their crew will live in when they are converted, End of month 12 they move to the conversion

station and begin the process.

Six months post morph: This is the final upscaled training where they learn things that are

completely impossible to teach through all other methods. The big things are simply adjustingto their size and learning to grab things again. With a final course on landings. Learning to grab

ships is vital since that is one way they have to bring them through a jump and smaller craft

could be damaged or destroyed by an overly tight grip.

--Metamorphosis process proper

You guys will have to help me out a bit here.

But there are some points to consider:

how long does it take to transform: months, a year, many years?

How long does it take to build the augs that navit need? Are they mass produced and

adapted, or bespoke for individual fit.

Related: if they take longer to manufacture then the navit, they would have to be

in construction while the recruit is in training, and if they drop out of the program

then that’s a lot of resources wasted.

where do you get the materials to make something 1000x bigger?

etc.

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In the original version of the setting the morphing process takes about 1 year, I picture it as

once they know who is actually going to go through with the process they adapt the bays to the

people. As for materials, only simple answer is space mining, However how much it takes

who knows.Filans got this all right here, the time and the augs. Mechanical stuff doesn’t take long to

produce thanks to nanolathes and such. As for the materials, what’s needed most is carbon,

and that’s sifted from the gas giant planets atmospheres by magnetic scoops and fired via mass

driver to somewhere for processing. I Believe that Parthenon also has a chamber under mars

somewhere that can make things jump to it, and uses it to collect raw materials, a great deal of

which gets shuttled up to the shipyards.

Not every rampant AI is malevolent :P

More thought on the process, a sort of weakly assembled timeline.Months 1-3: Initial growth begins, person is effectively in complete stasis, scientists gain a firm

grasp on the potential final size in the end of month 3.

Months 4-7: The most major of changes start and the highest risk part of the metamorphic

process happens, It is at this stage where the body begins to change from its normal human

biology to that of a living ship. This is a stage when the brain becomes fully depedant on

external power until the heart fully becomes a fusion reactor. Corridors start to form and grow,

The lungs become a large chamber and no longer function. By month 7 they can survive in

hard vacuum and the morphic chamber is decompressed.

Months 7-12: Final months of the process are the final growth to full size, the Jump drive fully

matures. Gravity drives begin to self calibrate, and from months 9-12 the engineering crew

comes on board and starts to install technological systems. cyberware is finalized, additional

life support systems are installed.

Intellegence/Brainpower

<

● they are pretty intelligent humans, else they would not have been picked for Navit'ness

● they are Navit's so they get intrinsic abilities to multithread(limited) and calculate

subconsciously Navit related things (jump coords and where communications come

from)

● they have supercomputers slaved to their brains, so they can run complex numerical

calculations for whatever they need, and control subsystems like augments

>

Navits, like humans, do a lot of things subconsciously. Just as it takes quite complex

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calculus to properly describe the arc of a thrown ball, yet even a young child can accurately

catch one, a Navit doesn’t have to be trained to do basic functions - the training lies in knowing

how to interpret their new body’s signals, making better use of those functions (everyone can

run, not all of us are Olympic sprinters), and using the more conventional cybernetic hardware

spliced into their systems. (True I do picture them having basic knowledge, adaption would be

converting the previous desires to walk/run into altering the power output of their gravitydrives)(I had a fairly long argument discussion with Durendal on skype, and we came up with a

reasonable system for how it would all work. He said he was going to write it up into something

reasonable, but i guess he’s been busy.)

Another training thought I had.

Something I call “Clean body training” in short where they are trained to remain as

effective as possible with most of their non biological hardware shut down. Reasoning is that

any external cyberware could be damaged or destroyed in combat or by whatever nasties exist

in space in the form of natural events. This training would actually come in three phases,

First would be the Navit fully crewed but a near total loss of cybernetics, This would be almost a

dual training in that it would also train the crew in only having the Avatar of the Navit as a point

of interaction as well as damage control of systems they can repair.

Second would be full cybernetics but no crew, naturally they can operate without a crew but the

idea is more psychological. While they are ships they are also people and loss of a long term

crew in combat due to a weapons hit to crew compartments would still need them to focus just

as much as the captain of a fully mechanical vessel losing several decks. The idea is to keep

them at optimal thought process even during severe loss of crew. This tier of training is alsoused for ships who may regularly have to operate uncrewed such as Navits stationed at

colonies in more of a communications role but called on for emergency defense.

Third is more of a general last ditch test, full cybernetics and crew loss. This is effectively

reducing them to how they are when they first poke their heads out those ship yard doors in

orbit of Mars. This level of training is usually only used for those in full military combat roles, A

civilian vessel, research vessels, and other non combat rolled people are generally advised to

jump before reaching this point of damage. However it should be noted a ship in this condition

is still an exceptionally dangerous combatant for smaller all metal ships such as frigates and

cruisers.

Persons and places:

--Earth and Luna.(figure discussions of important locations of the planet and moon can go

here.)

--I should also add we might want to figure out how Earth is as a place to live, is it over all a

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nice place or is it overcrowded and polluted or a population on recovery from something like

WW3 or WW4. overcrowded and polluted could give even more reason to have more Navits to

help get more and more colony ships out of system and more colonies built and defended.

--Rio Metroplex, Location to another large city of Arcologies and home to groundside

Navit command due to its location close to the equator. the city itself is centered on what wasonce Rio do Janeiro. Primary parts of Navit Command are the Alexia Memorial Landing

Complex, Named for the first person to enter the program and the first one to die during the

process, the complex was named after her due to her sacrifice in the name of the program.

Four large support Arcos surround the complex each named after the other four who did not

survive the processes of becoming ships. Rio also features a unique groundside service station

that is actually situated out in the water and has a large cradle of sorts to allow navits to lay out

flat. its water location allows them to take large amounts of weight off their frame.

Did you just script the beach episode? I’m impressed!

--Northestern Metroplex, A region in the locations once identified as theBoston-Washington corridor is now just a continuous city, filled with hundreds of arcologies

from one to three kilometers tall and region total of roughly one billion population. Also known

for housing the ground side sections of Navit Central Command. NCC is located at the

locations that where once identified as a large airport for Philadelphia and an old naval yard.

And one of the few areas with a Navit landing pad inside city limits. The location is still viable

because in an emergency a Navit can abort into the nearby river as storm shields will stop the

waves from getting into the city itself.

--Mars and Parthenon.

Though the first world colonized by a fledgeling humanity, Mars can no longer be considered

entirely theirs. Well before the current age of space travel, a facility on Mars conducted several

experiments into Artificial General Intelligence, with results far beyond their wildest dreams.

Using a human ego as the catalyst for the experimental computer, named Parthenon, the

science team set events in motion that quickly became out of hand.

Seeing faults in its programming and architecture from the start, the man/machine immediately

started a self improvement process, culminating in it seizing control of every thinking thing on

the planet through cyberbrain hacks and forced uploading. earth’s governments instantly feared

the worst, but quickly found their fears were slightly misplaced.

Parthenon returned all of the egos it had gathered to their original bodies, sans only one piece

of information: The identity of the volunteer who had been used as its catalyst. It then promised

full cooperation with humanities goals under one condition: Mars belonged to it, and it alone.

The Martian moons maintain some of Sol’s largest shipyards. Constant streams of raw materials

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and finished technology arrive in orbit, fired from cargo mass drivers up from the surface, where

the planet is rapidly being torn apart by Parthenon to fuel the exponentially growing Navitas fleet

efforts.

A constant background radiation spills off of the red planet, consistent with that generated by a

Navit’s jump drive. Also, there have been a few instances of tight-beam pulse transmissionsbeing intercepted from Mars, directed, oddly enough, at the sun. What exactly Parthenon is up

too is unknown, but it’s incalculable processing power bestows technological gifts on mankind

daily.

Persons of interest

--Corissa.

Corissa (NC-6 ) was the first Navit to successfully survive the transformation process. 1 - 3 died

during metamorphosis, 4 failed during testing (jumped into a sun or something) and 5 could not

adapt to her new self and took her own life. After a successful career as science ship/colony

vessel/general test subject Corissa, nearing one hundred years as a navit, decided to continue

her life as an avatar, the technology recently perfected. Her body stands on earth supporting

the Human Space Agency (rename, methinks) as a symbol of progress and power (Think Atlas).

Most stellar communication is routed through her though most believe that job is done by an AI.

She runs odd jobs for the agency, usually as a handler for Navitas having personal problems.

--Sura

If Corissa was the first successful Navit, then Sura is the most successful. After several build up

cycles, she is the largest Navit in the fleet, at nearly twelve times standard size. She acts as a

fleet operations and command vessel; and is one of few morphs large enough that her shield

projectors can be mounted on outriggers instead of prosthetics. She has an enormous launch

and recovery capacity for small conventional craft; partly in fact that the emplacements on her

left and right arms are the hulls of mothballed carriers.

Technology:

(I had a thought this section should at some point be rebuilt to make a separation betweenspace and ground weapons. Though I picture Navits in ground combat to be very rare, such

as when a good surprise is needed or a tough stronghold needs to be broken but is hardened

against orbital strikes)

Arms and Armor:

--Shield generators do nasty, nasty things to biological matter. A Navit’s shields must be

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mounted on a fully mechanical prosthetic. It must be switched off in hand to hand combat with

another Navit, as if the shields touch, the overload would almost definitely kill both of them.

Though in the event a Shield-bearing Navit can strike an unshielded one with the field, death is

likewise near instant.

---One thing to add is the Navits should have a very low power shield like field that they

generate from their on board systems that are part of them biologically. This shield would haveno combat use but would protect them from damage caused by orbital debris and

micrometeoroids.

---This was one of the functions of them wearing carbon-fiber body suits. :P

---So a diving suit type look where it fits over the body and then whatever else could be worn

over that?(armor if going to combat, Casual cloths of having a day off)

--How about, since the alien em-biggening technology is supposed to be more or less self

contained, the Navits can withstand regular impacts and stuff, but the suits would be useful for

avoiding wear, identification markings, etc. Could also use it like camoflage

--Mayhaps the original aliens who turned themselves into spaceships had a harder outer

coating, like a shell or something? Assuming that you don’t want giant naked spaceship girls,which I thought was part of the point here...

Well, it would get just a tad campy for them to be completely naked. For the most part I imagine

heavy Augs would make them appear clothed, or holoprojectors would. But mostly a carbon

fiber suit would avoid unnecessary wear. One of the other big things is that there’s not a lot a

Navi can carry with them, and Clothing may be one of the last luxury items they can really say

they own.

Well clothes and EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE ONBOARD, if you think about it.

True enough, though I imagine that the normal world and what a Navit percieves as “their”

perception is a distinct psychological line. It’s entirely possible they consider possessions at

human size irrelevant.I would imagine mementos and such would still hold value.

So I imagine they might have some Navit sized cloths somewhere or just the carbon

bodysuit?(Though on an off day a ship in Jeans and a T-Shirt would be kinda funny.)

It would be rather entertaining to have the entire ship put on red alert for and bracing for impact

just so you can change into some casual clothes.

Any of their clothing would be so nanite-infested that it could slip itself on in parts and

reassemble into a whole.

Presumably the bodysuit can reform to mimic the looks of other clothing, to make it simpler,

since there’d be some practical problems in taking such along. On the other hand, I’d imagine

some Navits *would* eschew more covering then absolutely necessary as their minds distance

themselves from humanity, a la Mokoto Kusanagi from Ghost in the Shell. (She doesn’t walk

around half-or-fully naked all the time JUST to appease the otaku, there’s reasons!)

As in the short below, the bodysuit is made of protective stuffs, and also incorporates a limited

holographic projector, allowing various clothes to be pretended. I would imagine there would be

a dress uniform that military navit are required to wear for public appearances or something.

--How much would one actually distance themselves from their humanity though? As they are

still “legally” human in setting and not just considered equipment.

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--Legally, yes, but I imagine a hundred years in your mentality starts to shift a little. Though you

have a point in it being mitigated, since in setting EVERYONE is an immortal...well, for lack of a

better term, ghost in a shell. (Something that hit me on this, Normal humans likely still run out of

life eventually... even augmented ones. Maybe the Avatar helps Navits however keep some of

their humanity as it allows them to interact on the same scale. That said I do figure fresh ship

people still hold a strong connection to their previous form while older ones will surely feel morelike a new life form. Possibly to the point of only having business actions with normal humans

and their casual life slowly drifts to only being with fellow starships.)

I kinda really really like the idea of swordfighting spaceships, even if it would be a risky move.

My idea for shield projections was kinda like safety glass. It’s pretty tough and can absorb

impacts but too much stress/repeated strikes will ‘shatter’ and make the shield weaker. The

shield can be rebooted to fix breaks, but this leaves the ship vulnerable to attacks.

A clear line of sight is required between a shield and its generator. Interruptions will cause the

shield to become unstable and weak, and prolonged disruption will cause shield failure. Theidea here is to make it so that a navit cannot use a single generator to create a spherical bubble

shield containing itself. Also, a neat tactic could be to fly fighters underneath an enemy’s

shields, causing them to fall.

Also, Would it be worth considering making shields a human own technology? So the

aliens wouldn’t have it or know how to deal with it? More down under aliens.

--I’d say yes and no. Shields aren't new. What humans are doing to make a shield is new.

The ability to mount a full-blown shield system is one of few advantages conventional warships

hold over Navitas.

--A thought I had about shields would be that some weapons beyond the pistol could carry a

shield array for the Navit, Much like some heavy machine guns have an armor plate in reality I

think some heavier Navit guns should project a similar style shield. So the sniper rifle below for

example could have a large shield panel to protect the sniper. (Cannot hide in space so the

energy signature of the shield is not a big deal)(that works, but if you had the generator attached

to the gun, and the shield was hit by anything it’d throw your aim off pretty bad.) (Very true I

would imagine it’s better than being hit in the face with a railgun slug though.)

--The standard weapon carried by most Navits for self defence is the H&K HNWS-02 4m 65cal

handgun. It is a magnetic induction weapon with a magazine of one-hundred inert slugs. It is

absolutely lethal to unshielded targets, and the kinetic energy transfer can punch through a light

to medium shield at acute angles. It is roughly equivalent to a light cruiser main gun.

--Battle weapons: it occurs to me that Navit’s are probably big enough to wield conventional

ships as weapons. If conventional warships are of the ‘one large spine mounted weapon’

variety then this would work, less so with the ‘lots of guns everywhere’ type.

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Entirely possible. Though that depends on the ship in question. I feel conventional ships may fall

into either the Halo-Esque MAC gun type, or the Honorverse-ey Beam-missile spamming sort.

I was thinking that a Navit going into combat might depending on intended role in the fight either

carry something repeating like the deck guns on many modern cruisers only bigger and arailgun. But with the capability to mount underslung weapons systems. These systems should

come in the flavor of a heavy anti-ship torpedo or a multiple shot anti-fighter missile rack.

--The standard long range standoff weapon is the Lunar Dynamics SR-357 Super-Heavy Laser

Rifle. This weapon is the primary long range weapon of a Navit, While the pistol is a

destructive weapon the Sniper Rifle allows a Navit to hang back and provide heavy fire support

in the form of a high precision Terawatt class Gamma Ray Laser. With a weapon size of about

2/3rds the length of the average Navit it packs the punch to knock out shields and cut through

armor at extreme range. A primary drawback is that even with the high output of Navit reactors

it depends on capacitors to recharge between each firing. With a slow fire rate it is advised thatSniper Navits use small moons or have good frigate support for cover. This weapon is too large

to be removed from orbit, however it can be used to destructive effect from Orbit to Surface

without the collaterial of kinetic weapons. The sniper rifle also has a crew, of about ten

engineering staff. While a crewed gun that is actually a gun seems unusual, if something

breaks despite the size of the weapon many parts are too tiny for a Navit to manipulate as such

an engineering team is on hand to fix technical issues.

--A common Close to Medium range heavy weapon is the GB-1984 Heavy Proton Cannon, A

high powered particle weapon that can be used to punch through the thickest armor on the

largest battleships. However to keep the hitting power high it is best used at shorter rangesthan platforms like the sniper rifle, Naturally this means it is wise to make sure fighter support

has taken out the vessel’s turrets. A Unique feature of the GB-1984 is its on board anti-grav

units allowing its use in ground combat situations, while odds are it would never be used

against ground vehicles or infantry(it would simply vaporize a wave of tanks considering scale),

It can be used to burn out underground bunkers fortified beyond the capability for orbital strikes

to take out.

--Targeting Assistance Simulated Intelligence: Basically a step below an AI but still hugely

helpful for Navits and their ability to target things at long range. the SIs do things like advanced

calculations taking such loads off the navit allowing them to concern themselves with the

battlefield as a whole and simply aim the weapon via the scope or their HUD if they use a visor.

In addition to blades formed with the shield generator system, a secondary close combat

system is the fusion pile, which is essentially a very short range, large-caliber hellbore. Typically

mounted on the forearm, and detonated when the Navit throws a punch.

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I propose three different types of ‘armaments’ in the human space navy:

1. Conventional warships (ships of the line, lots of little guns, etc. mostly outdated or used

for in-system defences.)

2. External Navit weaponry (dedicated systems for use by Navit, such as the sniper

mentioned above)

3. Warships that can be wielded by Navit (self sufficient warships with a single ‘spinemounted’ weapon that can operate independently, or hooked up to a navit to overcharge

it with the Navit’s superior power supply, increasing range, rate of fire or damage. Ships

of this type need energy based weapons like beams, lasers, gauss or railguns)

Yes, this works, though I don’t think all conventional warships are completely outdated. I

imagine they still have a role to play in a lot of engagements, though a different one that before.

Whereas Navits and navit-wielded ships have a very potent main weapon, smaller craft may fill

point defense roll, or larger warships may be either carriers or missile spammers. Carriers and

missile spammers is a good point. other ‘utilty’ combat ships would be in the same bracket, i

would think, whereas most (new) combat ships would be navit-wieldable.

--The point defense of military Navis is handled by a series of five (One on each hip, each

shoulder, and on the back) tribarrel 20mm CIWS railguns. All three barrels fire in unison to

increase the rate of fire. Instead of utilizing a large capacited charge to maximize acceleration, a

constant energy flow throws small spherical pellets at ludicrous refire rates. The weapon

exceeds one hundred thousand rounds-per-minute, though it is never fired in such sustained

bursts.

--Earth has a large network of SOLG platforms in orbit. These are one of very few things that will

absolutely, positively, kill a Navit in one shot if it connects; so they’re also pointed at theshipyards for security purposes. A good number are also aimed downward, in the event a

landed Navit gets rowdy, or at rival states. These are the WMD of choice in the modern age; far

cleaner and more cost effective than nuclear arms. (Take it these are just bigass railguns? not

sure what SOLG means)(no idea)(Strategic Orbital Linear Gun)(so essentially just a very very

large kinetic gun then...)(It’s an Utterly Pointless Reference)

--Jump Packs(this name can of course change if too cheesy). large backpack like devices

devised to assist Navits into orbit as to ease the stress on their own drive and reactor systems.

Jump Packs are effectively self contained dual nozzle fusion rockets that have their own on

board reactor and merely have a data link to the person wearing it as well as the normal

structural mounting. The units are reusable and when one lifts off they typically leave it in orbit

for the next Navit who might have to land there. The primary invention of these however was

not for civil cargo usage but for the event a ship had to lift off in a combat situation. While under

their own power a Navit can break orbit in five to ten minutes a properly fueled Jump pack

brings this down to under a minute if unloaded. Launch assist packs? depends on if we want to

use ‘jump’ for hyperspacing or not. like most things its a placeholder name. figured it sounded

better than jet pack. I considered “Saturn X Auxiliary Thrusters” too, but figured a shoutout to

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the old moon rockets was cheesy.

--Haul Pack, A different kind of backpack unit that instead of adding thrust allows the Navits to

carry extra cargo or even a bunch of smaller vessels to a destination. Such a setup can allow

even a normal sized ship to carry four frigates or a squad of fighters along with them. However

the normal and typical usage of them is assisting with colony building and allowing the Navit tocarry multiple prefabs for faster orbit to surface movement of colony buildings. Combat usage

would typically be extra ammunition for any kinetic weapons they might be using at the time or

even extra ammo for their combat fleet. A final use is to carry tanks of He3 fuel for the normal

starships of a fleet. Are you thinking more of an enclosed backpack or a sort of cage like

structure? Cage/Rack like structure kind of like the roof rack on a car. Reentry is not the same

issue we think of it as because heat is not the same. A Navit will not come in as fast as a NASA

space capsule or the shuttle’s Mach 12. because with their gravity drives they could come in

much slower.

--Aux Reactors, Coming in various sizes from small units mounted to hard points on the body toa larger unit that is actually multiple small reactors in a backpack style frame these systems

provide a boost in power not available from their own internal reactors. Commonly used by

Navits to augment them during usage of high output energy weapons or boost the power of their

shield. However not all weapons gain from these as systems such as the Sniper Rifle provide

their own micro reactors.((we’ve said that the Navit’s have some of the most powerful reactors

already? But maybe a sort of supercapacitor

thing is more appropriate?)) (This will stay a reactor, I have big ideas in my head for why. But

mainly it will be refocused to ground usage. Basically I picture them needing a power boost on

the ground to be in ground combat but still remain fairly ‘light’ on their feet. as such most of

their on board power would be going to the grav drives to reduce their own weight. the Auxreactor would then power non natural systems like the shield or weapons. The planetfall aug

could benefit from this extra power.)

--Planetfall Augs: This is an idea i had for a short that I didn’t get around to fleshing out. Navit’s

designed for planetfall on enemy planets have mechanical ‘angel’ wings. These have lots of

point defence, shield generators, thrusters etc. and are quite articulate. They let a navit land on

a planet from orbit with protection, and can then go about their rampaging.

Tactics(Space and Ground usage of Navits in Combat)

Navit combat is one place they come into their own, with no delay between choosing atarget and opening fire on said target other than the speed of nerve impulses which a mind can

be trained to cope with anyway. Navit combat can range from up close to ranges greater than

any human battleship. At long ranges laser sniper rifles are the favored toys, However at

distant ranges they also can function as command and control focusing their huge processing

power on computing the battlesphere. C&C is the role of many extremely experienced ones in

the Naval fleet, However many still prefer the front lines when diplomacy shifts from tachyon

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radios and pens to guns and guided munitions. Basic combat training in both ground and

space engagements is required for all navits. Combat and Deep Space Exploration trained

people are normally required to seek more advanced roles especially explorers as they could

very well be the ship of the line in an explorer fleet with no proper backup.

Space Combat:

Space combat is where Navits are generally at home when fighting needs to be done,

They move naturally here as a fish does in water. Being a person and having similar movement

range to a normal human they have no blind spots when it comes to fields of fire they can

effectively aim in any direction just as a human could by moving their body. Firepower for the

ships comes from an array of specially crafted navit weapons(such as the canister pistol, laser

rifle and particle based assault rifle. And even melee weapons.), Many modern warship

designs also allow the vessel itself to be physically handled by a Navit as a weapon, the spinal

accelerator weapon slaved to the Navit while the turrets remain under crew command. It should

be noted even the dedicated weapons are crewed.

In combat Navits are used as snipers from extreme ranges to head on assault ships that

can and have actually ripped apart smaller vessels by hand. Frigates can generally if needed

be crushed in their grip. Fighters are generally taken care of by automatic point defense

systems or a swat with a hand(honestly when you are 2km or bigger a one man fighter is pretty

much like smacking a mosquito). larger vessels are engaged with use of the shield generator

and ship to ship weapons. when working in groups and medium range sniping the turrets and

launcher systems of an enemy vessel can be destroyed by sniper fire and another can come in

close and this is when an option to surrender/go home or have the ship finished off is given.

Pirates and low threat attack groups generally avoid human solar systems with an on duty Navit

as one usually needs a lot of ships or a battleship to even consider engaging what is effectivelya living battleship.

Ground Combat: Ground combat is possibly even more complex than space combat for these

literal titans. While in space movement is free and their mass can only have effects on their

ability to change directions, On the ground they have to consider the side effects of them simply

being there. incorrect alterations to the gravity systems could cause massive collateral

damage(It should be noted they can stand upright unassisted, But it is generally not suggested

to do much movement as it makes the locals unhappy with the rattling from each foot fall.)

Weaponry does see some changes but the pistol being capable of launching canister roundsallows them to swap to ammos such as those that deploy cluster munitions. other systems

include simply supporting with high volumes of fire from their many CIWS turrets to MLRS

systems and their simple scale of being there. for bunker busting outside of the usual fare of

high velocity weapons, Some navits have taking a liking to the use of mining tools such as

lasers normally used for cracking open asteroids for the formation of mining colonies.

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While it is known there are other species with the navit technology, it is doubtful two would even

desire to engage in ground combat, and the damage to the colony would likely be total if they

did.

Infrastructure--FTL Technologies

-Transportation

The main feature of the Navit is their ability to travel faster than light. The alien technology that

creates Navit also imbues them with an ability to make hyperspace jumps. The range on these

jumps is unlimited, however longer jumps are less accurate. Jumps can be made on target by

having another Navit ‘spot’ for the jumping one at the target location. Navit with more

experience (older) are usually better at calculating destination points accurately. Time spent in

hyperspace varies with jump length, but not linearly. Jumps of about are optimum,

taking a little under an hour. Longer jumps take more time, slowly increasing without bound (eg:

5 times in 3 times time. If i am not maths retarded, it should always be shorter tomake one long jump instead of several short ones). Shorter jumps actually tend to take longer,

and jumping to where you currently are is not recommended if you have any appointments to

keep in your lifetime.

Upon jumping spacetime around the Navit becomes unstable, it is uncertain if a particular

nearby object will or will not enter hyperspace along with the Navit. This makes exclusion zones

around exit points necessary. If the Navit wishes to transport something with them in a jump

then s/he must make physical contact with the object and additional calculations for the jump

are required. Experienced Navit’s or ones with spare time can expand the scope of their

calculations to attempt to make the zone of disruption around the jump does or does not affectthings/areas. Theoretically a Navit could jump from the surface of a planet and leave nothing

more then a successful breeze, but the closest that anyone has come to this resulted in the

‘Summer of Endless Rain’ on in . Ever since this, jumping from a planet has

been a deemed a (war?)crime.

((side note: Small navit use a similar but different system to make their jumps, which are

instantaneous/in the order of seconds. They, however, need to be able to see where they are

going, and have other limitations(see above).))

Attempts to replicate this ‘warp-jump’ technology by human scientists have failed. Other races

might have had more luck. (Other races might also use other systems, Something like Warp

drive instead of a hyperspace jump, Warp drives have no top speed but they are true travel

time systems. with speed meaning say 30x Light they would experience the whole trip. Warp

systems can also bring fleets meaning a species would not have to fit drives to every ship. It

would just make sense to have more than one FTL system in setting)

((clarify please, do they sit there for the full 30 years? or do they just see everything rushing

past?))(Well 30x light is just an example speed, but rather than instantly jumping like BSG FTL.

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I figured some races might have a warp drive closer to Star Trek or the real life theoretical

alcubierre drive)

(Oh, that’s pretty much how it works currently. The navit and the people on board have to wait

about for the amount of time it takes to get there, but they’re in some sort of hyperspace-reality

thing that doesn’t quite match up with anything in our universe. Essentially they take a step in

an extra dimension, walk for a bit and then come back. Originally I wanted to make it aninstant hop mechanic, but that makes the universe a little bit too small. Maybe there could be

an alien race who has this, and everyone thinks they have a HUGE army because they always

fight a full compliment, but really they are the same ships just everywhere.) (I kinda figure alien

races could all have different types of FTL, Maybe just asspull something for each one.. I mean

it works for other scifi to just asspull things.)(That it does. Though it is meant to be impossible

for humanity to develop their own ((We need an excuse for ship-tans)) so there must be some

difficulty in getting it to work. Maybe limit it to, say: progenitor “be anywhere i want”, guys who

developd the navit process “Hyperspace drives”, odd alien “instant hop”, + 1 or two more

‘generic’ alien FTL techs, which have been spread through trade between races, but humans

aren’t trusted enough with.) (or some other materials issue on top of that, But just as Humansguard the Navit production science I would certainly see other species closely guarding their

own FTL technology.)

-Communications

Navits are capable of transmitting data through instantaneous FTL systems IN THEIR BRAINS,

however doing so required concentration and energy. Communications can be received without

spending much effort, and even in hyperspace(although the hyperspacing Navit would be a little

bit preoccupied)). For a Navit to be unreachable is unusual, it would either have to be actively

blocking calls (in stealth mode or something similar) or unconscious.

Many developed worlds have a resident navit who usually lives in orbit or on the ground whoacts as the information hub of the planet. Smaller worlds usually rely on visiting Navit to pass

along messages, based on a priority system. Standard procedure for any Navit is to append

any interstellar messages it sends with a compressed packet of information. This is filtered by

the receiving Navit and resent until it reaches its destination. This works, but is not particularly

fast. It’s much faster then the next best available, conventional EMF waves.

---The setting supports transhuman elements; including the concept of cyberbrains and such.

This is actually how humanity was uniquely able to reverse engineer the original biocraft; by

literally hacking its central nervous system and sifting through its memories. (Which amounted

to a databank of all Anou science up to the point of the ship's loss.)

Navitas brains are typically augmented heavily. On that note, this also means that individuals

with pre-existing implants cannot become navits due to the process rejecting the non-organic

matter, causing it to be “Left behind” as the body grows, typically resulting in fatality, especially

in the instance of neural hardware.

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Once a Navit is converted, however, their nanite servitors are capable of updating augs with

their development, avoiding this problem in fully developed Navis.

Navits minds are generally far too vast to be stored properly in a Cortical Stack of any kind.

Though their Ego/Ghost could theoretically be backed up, the loss of their higher dataprocessing functions would likely result in adaptation trauma so severe it would cause complete

fragmentation of the subjects psyche.

Navits ability to grow physically, and the nanite colonies slaved to the process, couple with their

human capacity for learning, means that any Navi is essentially an extremely slow working Seed

AI, and a singularity waiting to happen.((Can you explain what you mean by singularity? This is

contrary to my understanding of the word in this context))

THe process of backing up the self, or remotely broadcasting it to another body, is common

pratice among normal humans. Its worth noting that while Navitas can remotely operate otherbodies, their ego is non-transferable due to the computing constraints of any other classification

of brain; biological or otherwise.

Navits are however capable of Forking (Copying aspects of their ghost for use in other bodies or

servers.) though the result has only their personality, generally, and not any data they may have

posessed.

The process of creating a navit is exclusive with the ego. A clone body undergoing the process

will fail without a ghost. Any attempt to replace a Navits ghost with that of someone else will

likewise likely destroy both egos.

A navits immense processing power does mean that they themselves can act as ane go server

for essentially as many people as necessary. A popular method of a “Colony ship” could well be

to transfer the colonists as datamorphs, and clone them fresh bodies on arrival.

I don’t think this is going to work, this conflicts too much with what we have written about the

conversion process. Talk to me when next you get the chance. (This highlighted bit? To clarify,

there’s quite a difference between the operating ego and a riding one. We can toss it regardless

though, it’s not of any huge importance. Besides, the idea of a Navi having to cart around a

skyscraper sized server block for this or that is a decent one.)(er, no, sadly i refer to the whole

transhumanism/ghost in the shell thing. If navit’s have to be unmodified humans before

transformation then you’re going to need either to only accept babies or somehow keep them

separate from humanity birth so they never become augmented. Both of these sort of dissolve

any personality that you can give the recruits.)(I’d just assumed that everyone got new clones

ebfore they became Navis.)(... my brain... give me a minute) (Might be good to maybe have the

Servers needed for full operation of a Navit but they could technically still jump if the servers

crashed, something like space navigation in sub-light and FTL should be innate to them without

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the augs/server cluster. but advanced tasks would certainly need them.)

--Avatars

An avatar is a human sized body which a Navit can occupy, so that they can interact withhumans on their level. Usually a Navit’s avatar resembles itself, either as an miniature of

themselves, or of as they once looked as a human. However an avatar can be built to any

specifications and does not even need to be human.

In a time when it is as easy to change one’s body as it is one’s clothes, it might be expected that

a Navit would have many avatars that it uses for various purposes, but this is not the case. In

fact an avatar is something of a luxury item for a Navit, with most only owning a single one. This

is not due to the difficulty of building a body, a task humanity has become proficient at, but the

nature of Navit minds.

A Navit’s psyche cannot be contained inside anything smaller then the brain it has, so an avatar

must be piloted by remote. The system by which this works is a biological one, a Navit can

produce a gland which acts as a receiving node for control when wired into a body. At first

inspection this gland resembles a human brain, but it is almost entirely devoted to transmitting

data. A navit is ‘born’ with a single avatar node, and more cannot be produced except by

cloning, but the process is lengthy, and prone to failure. Most Navit send cells back to earth to

be kept in vaults in case of damage/destruction of their avatar.

All military Navit’s are provided with a single avatar when commissioned, which is engineered to

be as accurate a model of the full size Navit as possible. Civilian Navit’s usually commissiontheir own avatars through standard body-shops, at their own expense.

The strength of a link while piloting an avatar can be varied, depending on how much the navit

wants to experience. It does not take much concentration to use an avatar as a mobile voice

box, but to gain full sensory feeling requires a loss of awareness in the Navit’s main body.

There are failsafes in place in case of emergency (such as either the Navit taking structural

damage or the avatar being destroyed) that eject the psyche back to its own body.

An avatar can be set to run by subroutine, although since everyone will expect it to be the Navit,

this is not usually recommended.

The number of avatars that a navit owns is a reasonable indicator of its age and success. A

more experienced Navit can enter and leave an avatar more quickly, and skilled ones can

sometimes operate multiple avatars simultaneously.

((more exotic avatars could be squid-like repair drones, or even escort class starships))

((Since the process of creating A navit requires a resident Ego, creating an Avatar that is also a

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navit is nearly impossible. It could be done by making it from a pre-existing avatar, as long as

the navits mind was linked to it at the time, but is really a gross misappropriation of

resources.))((Ie: Creating a Navit using an avatar as the base body is impossible?))((It is

possible, but pointless. The resources used to create a Navit means it’d be better to just give

the body to another person, instead of having it on standby all the time))((I tend to think we

should stick with them having a single Avatar which serves as their face to the crew and topeople aboard stations or colonies. Naturally replaceable with ease in the event of loss. How

the Avatar looks should maybe be up to the ship, their current image only human scale or their

previous human form))((That was the feel I was trying for, one avatar per Navit, usually. I also

wanted the loss of an avatar to be kind of a big deal, such that a navit would try their best to

avoid such an occurrence, which is why i included the ‘brain’ control devices.))

One thought about the avatars I think is that they would also help the ship people hold onto

some of their humanity simply because the avatars would allow them to see people on a normal

scale. rather than needing to “CSI visual enhance” the ground below them to even see a

human while they are landed.Yeah, that was the general idea. And Navit who fall farther fromhumanity tend to use their avatars less and less, or modify them to be less humanoid and more

of tools.

Alien Races:

-Will the stories be human focused, or are alien races playable?

-I’d say alien races would certainly be playable, but humans would be the focus,

since the Navits are.

-is trade between species common or rare? How chummy are the races. Is itmass effect style everyone works more or less together but hates each other, or more

irresponsible captain tylor “we know nothing about them, but respect them, but we are at war”

-I imagine this depends on the species in question. It’s likely that at the “now” in

setting, first contacts are only just happening, at least on humanities part.

- on that then, it would be nice to have an alien species that, while not outright

evil, does not really understand humans or similar species at all, and tends to get into a lot of

fights with. Somewhat tyranid(40k) or rachnii (ME). Hiveminds or queen centered colony

structures are cool. This gives some ‘clearly bad’ things for spaceship girls to shoot. Also

swarm ships with space wasp fighters, etc.

--Bad guy bugs is tropey enough to fit this rather well, yeah.- thinking on that, maybe there could be two main types of creatures in the

universe, humanoid aliens vs insectoid. they could have their own territories and politics on the

other side of the galaxy ( or whatever the scope of this is). Maybe humans are interesting

because they are on the border of humanoid space. *shrug* dunno.

--Could be an interesting way to go about it, yes.

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Is it worth running this as a very simplistic good/evil thing? If you wanted to catch more of the

magical girl-vibe then you could have the aliens as insectoid creatures and just play them as the

enemies of humanity, etc. Then you can get to do fun things with hiveminds and other ‘alien’

concepts. ((Totally not thinking of Macross here... Totally))

I’d say Allies/Enemies/Neutral/Unknown. Neutral being not an ally but willing to do businesswith humanity. but a human commander(or navit for that matter) should not expect them to

come screaming out of FTL to back up a distress call.

Possible to run this way, certainly. Though I do have some spare ideas. I’ll fill them in down

below as I remember.

Yes: https://reader009.{domain}/reader009/html5/0729/5b5d11a4eabea/5b5d11ae3879a.jpg --Delicious looking

RACE LISTINGS:Format:

--Name

Theme:

Technology type and level:

Galactic political influence and demeanor:

Colony expansions size/number:

Notes:

--AnouTheme: Progenitors

Technology type and level: Both Mechanical and Biological high enough for whatever

Galactic political influence and demeanor: NA, they are not directly around anymore

Colony expansions size/number: NA

Notes:

The anou were the race who came up with the bioship technology. The vessel that wandered

into Sol was actually ancient beyond reason; the Anou did eventually use the technology on

themselves, as the first step of ascendance into a higher state of being. All Anou now exist as

spacefaring energy beings, or as individual egos that reside bodiless within them. It’s quite

possible, under the right conditions, that a human Navit could make this same metamorphosis.

Navit technology was an invention by the Anou as a step towards their ‘ascension’. Navits are

an elaborate mix of mechanical and biological technology .

--Graecians

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Does this progenitor race still exist? Are they active?

--yes and yes, though absoloutely nobody except the Anou have the advancement to even

detect them or their meddling.

The Graecian race would have you believe they were ancient when the universe was young,

despite the seeming improbability of that. Whatever the case; they are the progenitors of allhumanoid life. (Which they refer to as “Standard Template Organisms”) and essentially are in

the process of using the local universe for laboratory purposes. There’s not really anything they

don’t know, or can’t do, but the effects of sentience on local reality have them stumped.

The anou were their first big breakthrough in this category, but they have even higher hopes for

humanity after a certain incident with them. (See Ruth above, in characters, when I get there)

Graecians appear as flawless humanoids with perfectly white hair and eyes. Their skin color is

dependent on their rank within the hierarchy, along an inverse color specturm, with Violet being

the lowest field technicians, and Red being the administration.Can we please roll these guys in with the anou?

Possibly, I’ll have to think about the new dynamic of them. Originally they were supposed to be

a little at odds with each other .

--The Rivals.

Origianlly I used the Vindian race for this, but they’ve since been slid into another sci-fi setting of

mine. The idea was for one other race to have stumbled onto this line of technology, to give

humanity a rival, who’s goals and worldview are at counters, but who possess roughly the same

technology.

I think that the main rivals should be effectively humans. Maybe they can have horns, or

green/grey skin or elf ears or hooves or something, but they should be effectively human in

terms of intelligence, strength, etc.

Agreed with this. I rather like the idea of Space Drow.


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“Responsibility”

This is what the Colossus of Rhodes must have felt like; Michelle thought.

She stood straddling the primary terminal building of the Lionel space port, and none of the

other landed vessels measured up. The Civilian craft that plied the system were all smaller end,

and all but the largest conventional military ships were still smaller than Michelle. Her body was

fixed solid, unable to move even involuntarily until she consciously decided otherwise, which

was good. At a 1.5 Kilometers and change tall, she could easily destroy the entire facility just by

shifting her right foot left. The main Terminal would fit nicely under the toe of her boot without

incident. Without her sensor modules, she'd likely not even feel it disappear.

Not, of course, that she would do such a thing. She’d been instrumental in helping found the

Colony of Lionel, and would no more intentionally harm a single person here than she’d tear herown heart out. But still, there was something delightful about reminding herself of the power she

wielded now and then.

In the distance was the First Lionel Arcology; the huge structures being seen as ideal to

sprawling development on some worlds, to avoid ravaging their ecosystems. It was roughly as

tall as Michelle was, and she unlocked enough of herself to smile in their direction.

Those looking back, and there were many, saw what appeared to be any other

twenty-something caucasian woman; chestnut hair tied into a shoulder-length braid, wearing

blue jeans and a long sleeved white shirt with a short sleeved navy-blue jacket. Of course, allshe was really wearing was a skin tight bodysuit, the rest was simply a holographic projection

she was fond of. The real thing showed through where the hologram faltered around her

implants, of which she had, by her estimation, far too many.

The most obvious were the large sub-reactors that sprouted from the back of her shins, and the

platforms where turrets jutted from her hips and shoulders, though at her scale, the small

defense weapons were hardly noticeable. A small, compact sidearm hung at her right hip; a

Linear-gun that would have passed as battleship material for a normal human.

Michelle stood there because she stood guard for the colony; her enormous, cybernetically

augmented brain acting as the hub of communications for the entire world, and aside from a few

aging light cruisers, she was their only defense against any spaceborne threat. Her and those

like her’s unique ability to travel and communicate faster than light made her the only thread

connecting Lionel to the galaxy at large, and the responsibility was sometimes crushing.

Far more often though, she was simply, completely, utterly bored.

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She possessed a small number of clone bodies that she could possess, allowing her to move

among and interact with human society, but they could be a pain to use, and in the back of her

head she was always fully aware of her real self; standing there with hands behind her back,

unmoving except for her hair in the wind and the simulated motion of her navy blazer.

Occasionally she got to fly into orbit and back, shuttling loads too large for the systems smalltransporter craft to handle; but launch and reentry were the most restrictive flights imaginable,

especially with the spaceport here built to handle ships with insignificant tonnages compared to

her eighty-megaton bulk. Michelle wanted dearly to ask them for a chance to break orbit, to just

burn through the system without a care, just to really fly again. But even if they approved such a

request, it’d shatter any semblance of professionalism she’d built up over thirty years of service.

Her idle thoughts were interrupted by a radiation spike further towards the center of the system.

A moment later the light hit her, a flicker of blue-white that blotted out the sun with its radience, if

only for a brief instant. What remained was a gravitic anomaly detectable even from this range

by every ship in system.

Tilting her head skyward to see, Michelle appended the occurrence to a data packet and fired it

off to command, the response coming back with in moments.

“Anomaly on record: FTL drive technology of Vehreen Hegemony. Exercise caution.”

A useless directive, as a gaggle of additional signatures flitted from the rift, Michelle could detect

warships large enough she could decide to exercise caution herself.

Finally gathering her wits, Michelle got in touch with her Captain. The title was more ceremonialthan anything though; it had been a half dozen people since she’d come to Lionel, and they saw

it as a prestige post more than anything.

“Are you getting all this, Mr. Killigan?” She asked through her speakers on the bridge.

“That’s Captain Killigan,” the reply came back from the middle aged overly handsome man

pacing about the small command deck located at the base of her skull. He had always held

himself in far greater esteem than she was comfortable with.

“We’ll argue semantics another time,” Michelle returned, certain they would. “What are we going

to do about our company?”

“I’m certain they’re nothing to worry about,” he replied with inexperienced confidence, “There’s

no record of the Vehreen being hostile that I can find.”

“There are forty three of them being passively aggressive that i can.” Michelle told him, a sliver

of ire finding its way into her voice. The relationship between any given member of Homo

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Sapiens navitas and their captain was a tricky balancing act at best, and for the three years he’d

held her command, Killigan hadn’t really even tried.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the man said, effectively brushing her off. Through cameras and

biometric readings, she could tell the rest of her bridge crew, some longer serving than him,

didn’t like him any better.

Despite that though, if there was anything the man could have said to ease Michelle’s

tension,he hit it right on the money.

“Why don’t we get off the ground.”

The Lionel spaceport trembled slightly as Michelle reflexively tensed her muscles, halfway out of

standby just at the mention of being spaceborne again. With the sort of precision care only a

heavily augmented individual was capable of, she lifted one foot, carefully, and slid it back,

placing it down just as gently. Between her own gravity fields, the dampeners in her boots, andthe precision of her movements, the people below barely felt the action.

Still, she rarely moved, and every head on the planet turned to watch her slow, deliberate

movements. Here on the ground with most of her power spent just supporting her weight,

Michelle could only move slowly, though if she moved at a tenth the relative speed, she was still

a thousand times the size of her old self, and it didn’t take her long to all but tip-toe away from

the spaceport and the city, to a less populated area.

-

Safely at a distance, Michelle took a bounding step forward, then another, kicking in her drives

and creating a steady spindle of gravity; a pulling force above and ahead, and a shove behindand below, throwing herself into the air and flattening the trees for a mile around.

The ascent to orbit was relatively rapid, her control of local gravity making it a smooth one.

Within minutes she was floating amidst the closely packed structures of lionels orbital

infrastructure.

“Any news on the incoming?” she asked. An old habit; her muse AI’s scrambled to bring her

answers before her (nominal) commander even had time to consider the question.

“Still on their way,” Killagan said, simply repeating the obvious, “Load up just in case.”

Michelle rolled her eyes and slammed a twenty kiloton magazine of smart slugs into her

pistol in a practiced motion, her left hand moving to retrieve others of its ilk from the

nearby space station that acted as her equipment locker. Each such magazine held a

specific type of ammunition; from inert slugs the size of small cars to canisters of

anti-missile guided munitions. She gave the weapon a reflexive little twirl, then blushingly

apologized.

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"Sorry guys...forgot," Michelle's voice came over the intercom on the small command deck

built into the forward lip of the lower receiver.

"Not an issue, just a little disorienting," the response came from the petty officer in charge

of maintaining the weapon, "Regardless everything checks out. We've got this mag

programmed for maximum dispersion."

"Perfect. I have a feeling if things go south, we're going to need to have that." Michelle said,

hoping things didn't in fact ‘go south’.

The Vehreen ships approaching from the inner system were all enormous, as large or larger

than herself. From what she understood, they fought primarily with long-range guided

weapons; in their case prodigiously overpowered antimatter warheads.

“Do we have any transmissions?” Michelle asked; sifting through the recon data of the

approaching fleet, taken by the thousands of micro-satellites that shot about the systems orbits

at C-fractional speeds.

“Nothing yet,” Killigan returned. She could see him leaning forward anxiously in his chair

through one of the cameras on her bridge.

“Then perhaps we should give them a call;” Michelle offered, maneuvering into a higher orbit to

join the few conventional warships that made up Lionel’s defense forces.

A small squadron of light cruisers, vessels barely the size of her forearm, shifted toa dmit her

into their ranks, though she ahd little heed for them as she broadcasted a pre-recorded

challenge to the approaching vessels.

It was nearly ten minutes out, and ten more back from the system center, before she routed the

message to her bridges main screen.

The image that appeared was a pale, dark haired woman, seeming very much human aside

from the blueish tone of her skin and slight point of her ears. The Vehreen, like many species,

had a form that mimicked Homo Sapiens, though any xenoarchaeologist would argue they all

mimicked something far, far older.

One leg crossing the other, she sat in a command chair that looked more like a throne; themassive warships of the Vehreen fleet having the mass to spare. Leaning forward ever so

slightly, she responded to the non-descript hail.

“To the local population and it’s defenders, I Jinlis Aryay IV, of the noble house of Aryay, as a

vassal of His Imperial Majesty Vehreen, do hereby claim this system and it’s people, in Anex, for

the barony of Aryay.”

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She gave a small smile,seeming pleased with herself, “this is not an act of war by the

Hegemony as a whole, but by the authority of myself, as leader of a sovereign member of it. I

give four hours for your military to withdraw. You are not to attempt to evacuate your civilians,

my new subjects, or to damage your infrastructure, or there will be consequences.”

Michelle blinked stupidly for a moment as she watched, then shook her head, sending her

muses scurrying to formulate tactical plots and assess the threat posed by the approaching

fleet.

“She can’t be serious...” Killigan muttered, “...she has to know the Federation won’t stand for

this...”

“With all do respect Sir , the Federation is small fish compared to the Hegemony, tech base

notwithstanding,” Michelle scolded him over the loudspeakers, “I’m getting a feed on their

government structure...if she undertakes this action she does it on her own authority...but if weleave, then coming back to retake the system would be attacking the Hegemony as a whole,

and their Emperor would intervene. That’s not a war we can win...but if we stop her here and

now, she’ll be forced to concede her defeat. No Vehreen royalty has ever looked favorably on

personal initiative that failed from the records I have.”

“You’re not seriously considering that we fight that Michelle!?” He all but bleated

“With the other possibility leaving Lionel to be forced into servitude?” She responded chillily, “I

owe it to them to try.” They were her people after all, she’d carried the colonists here, watched

over them for nearly sixty years, this upstart immigrant wasn’t possibly suggesting...

“Michelle I’m Ordering you to gather all the personnel you can and retreat!”

She didn’t even think about what happened next. A shift of perspective, and she wasn’t an

indomitable mile and more tall, but a more manageable six-foot-two, assuming control of her

avatar, the (mostly) human body stored aboard herself that she used to interact with her crew

and visit with humans in a more normal fashion.

Her boots struck the decksole with a thud as she leapt out of her storage module before her

new eyes had even opened, and she stormed down the hall to the bridge, every head whipping

around as she entered, wearing a rough approximation of what her ship-self pretended too.

“Michelle! This is no time to be coming to the bridge a...” Captain Killigans sentence ended with

a loud CRACK as Michelle’s backhanded slap broke his jaw and sent him sprawling to the deck.

“With all do respect Captain, I am your vessel, not your subordinate. File whatever protests you

want, but do them after you get the hell off of me,” she snarled, pointing at a bewildered rating,

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“You! Take the Captain to the boat bay or the brig, his choice.”

She turned to exit the bridge, nodding to Killigans exec, “Commander Xiao, please take over.”

The woman gave a sharp salute and settled into the captain’s chair, not sparing a second

glance for the man she was replacing. her and most of the rest of the crew had been born on

Lionel, and would be damned to be ordered away from it because of a superior’s cowardice.

Especially not when the resident goddess had their back.

Back in her full self, Michelle had to admit to herself, despite her bluster in confronting her

Captain; she was afraid. Defending Lionel was her duty, and she’d never live down abandoning

it, but the force approaching it was enormous, nearly twenty vessels as large as herself, and

several times that number in small screening elements.

Thinking hard the whole while, she started broadcasting into the quantum comm-net that linked

every Navi in the fleet; “to any ship within two hours time to Lionel please respond, any vessel, aVehreen fleet has declared hostile intent against Lionel.”

The responses were instant: no help was coming. The fleet was quickly in uproar at the attack

on space they protected, on people they protected, but no amount of indignation was going to

get them here in time to stop it.

Sighing inwardly, Michelle nodded and finished her pre battle checks, steeling herself for an

encounter she felt certain was going to get her killed.

“It seems to me,” A small voice, more a collaboration of many voices, said somewhere in theback of her head, “that you’re in need of a little Deus Ex Machina.”

- - -

Being as she was a mile some tall, capable of interstellar flight, and more individually powerful

than every nation on earth had been at the start of the 21st century, Michelle had plenty of

reasons not to put much stock in religion. There were plenty of regular humans who saw her as

all but a goddess, after all.

Of course, among the ranks of Homo Sapiens Navitas, there was a surprising number who were

religious; though no pre-space faith would have suited for a race of people who doubled as their

genetic ancestors starships.

That faith was instead directed at Parthenon. The Parthenon Project, undertaken far before her

own time, had been an effort to meld the minds of a number of participants with the most

powerful AI ever built, in an attempt to soft-start the Singularity; to create a recursively improving

machine-intelligence that would aid in unlocking the secrets of the universe.

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They failed and succeeded in equal measure. Few of the scientists ever returned from the

research facility on mars; and those that didn’t were wiped clean from existence by a

monumentally powerful computer virus, torching every record of them. Every human presence

had been subsequently chased from the surface of mars, only to be invited back years later to

find it irrevocably changed.

Michelle wasn’t much for history, but she had been “born” as a ship at the shipyards anchored

to the martian moon of Phobos; and knew the red world below as a glittering sea of light, a

constantly changing and upgrading morass of server stacks and machinery that could only be

guessed at, for Parthenon was not in the habit of explaining itself to its creators.

It’s attitude was otherwise amicable; and almost parental. Parthenon had guided them to the

archeological finds that had taught them how to create the Navitas. Parthenon had supplied the

raw materials from places unknown to create them. Parthenon...

“Is speaking to you now, yes.” The voice(s) in Michelle’s head cut short her train of thought,

“you seem to have acquired yourself a problem.”

“Y-you could say that...you, how are you...how do you know about that already?” She asked,

bewildered. The comm-net that instantly connected the Navitas only connected them, after all.

“And who do you think routes your messages?” Parthenon returned with a strange sort of

chortle, “I agree with your assessment. Letting the Vehreen have their way here will only

embolden them.”

“And how do you propose I stop them?” Michelle said quietly, the dots on her sensors slowly

inching closer in its orbit.

“I propose we stop them, actually,” the response came, and Michelle could feel another

presence, or a shard of a presence, filtering into her mind. Her muses shouted for less than a

millisecond about an intrusion attempt before ignoring it.

“Whoa whoa, what are you...?” Michelle started to ask before blinking in surprise. She felt

suddenly as if she’d stepped out of a small room into the world beyond as the new passenger in

her head began streaming her data; tactical plots and data on the approaching fleet that were

too detailed to be real, readiness reports about her own body that were impossible as the

processes that controlled her movements were rewritten on the fly, optimized to perfection.

“So why don’t you go make these little imperialists think twice about tangling with a Navitas?”

parthenon suggested, it’s composite voice carrying a note of supreme smugness that Michelle

could guess at the origins of. If there was anything the machine enjoyed, it was rubbing the

capability and dedication of the race it stewarded into the faces of all comers.

Navi Verse

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Transcript of Navi Verse