Deepfish
The Fishiest of Fish in the Deepest of Depths.
Set in the year 4978, mankind has been sailing the stars for over 2500 years now. While initially we set for the stars full of hope that we were not alone, that hope died centuries ago. Over a one hundred lightyears radius around earth has been colonized by humanity. There are over 13 trillion human beings across the thousands of worlds and over time the massive empire has fractured into many subsections. Over the millennia countless advances have been made but none more pertinent to mankind’s development than the discovery of the astral plane. An alternate layer of reality made up of the universes collective psychic energy.
It allowed us to travel through it, making time and distance irrelevant, so long as you could generate the energy required to keep the tunnel open. More that that though it allowed us to access materials from it that were not found in the material plane. Nth metals, strange energy charged crystals, and shockingly we found structures there, countless ruins and remnants of what were clearly inhuman civilizations. As the astral plane allowed us to spread across the galaxy we found more than a hundred different civilizations, or rather the ruins of them scattered throughout the cosmos.
It became clear to mankind’s leaders and greatest minds, that we were just late, a period of life springing up had to have occurred in the past, and we were just the ones on the tail end of that stretch. Most of the civilizations we found never left their world, most seemed to collapse before their own period of industrialization, a few made it into space, but to date only one seems to have gotten as far along as we have, perhaps further. The Zanthem Peoples as we have taken to calling them. Though their ruins are among the oldest we have found them on dozens of planets, separated by dozens of lightyears. From them we have learned much via reverse Engineering the remnants of their technology and following blueprints left by them. We made starships and crafts of remarkable materials and for a long stretch mankind seemed to be the inheritors of the cosmos.
We were not.
It started nearly a decade ago, but it hasn’t stopped yet. The madness spreads through worlds like a plague, driving others to attack their homes and loved ones. The horrors and fear of such things mutated the Astral plane, turning it into a deadly blender of Dangerous energy fields, and nightmarish creatures of our own imaginations given form by the astral energy. Entire worlds cry out death rattles that send chills down the spines of mankind. None want to say it but we all think it…is this what happened to the others? Are we struggling against the inevitable? Yet many others decided they would fight. The Planet Thandren, one on the outer edge of the empire approximately 48 light years from earth, is among the most dedicated to resisting this.
They have created a three phase plan to fight back, First muster a fleet of Astral ships and modify them with heavier defenses and weaponry. Second, Cybernetically modify their elite soldiers and deck them out with weapons and armor crafter from astral materials, things that can kill the nightmare creatures. And lastly using genetic modification and Astral energies to create potent psychics who could deal with the madness and stabilize the Astral plane in their local area. This New military force was crafted against the will of the greater empire making Thandren and rebel planet. Perhaps it was the madness touching the leaders, perhaps it was just egos clashing, but one way or another Thandren finds itself alone, trying to stem the growing Tide of Chaos spreading across the worlds of mankind, with even the Sane remnants of mankinds empire standing against them. How can they hope to face such odds alone?
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Hey guys. This story will revolve around the New and old Forces of Thandren, Which are the Star knights, Cosmic sorcerers, Planetary Assault Force, and their Stellar navy.
The star knights are warriors taken from the military elite of Thandren, and then given pieces of “Thought metal” from the astral plane. This metal would be mentally bonded to the person who it was given too and over about a year or so would grow into a suit of armor and a weapon, both of which gain their form and function from the imaginations if the one who had it. There is a limit to the size and power these armors can give…but that limit goes well beyond what should he physically possible. For example one star knight was shown catching a damaged starship and bringing it to a landing, engineers were baffled at how the knight, being only 6ft 9in when armored could carry the 300meter vessel without the force pushing him through the hull like a nail being driven into a board. Or how another Star knight was able to briefly resist the pull of a singularity, until a tractor beam could move him away from it. These star knights have a clear advantage over other military units from other planets and even the empire itself, however they are difficult to make, with many dying in the process as the Thought metal drains their mental energy, some knights have suits and weapons that were influenced by the candidate’s before them who died trying to complete the armor.
The cosmic sorcerer is a human being that was implanted with several small energy crystals extracted from the astral plane. After a period of time being devoted to meditation, emotional control, and mental/emotional exercises the sorcerers crystals will absorb enough astral/thought energy to begin to form micro portals into the astral plane within the sorcerer or sorceresses body. This allows them to pull astral energy into the physical world and change its form to almost any energy type. Those with enough scientific understanding and practice can even weave these energies into matter, masters of this process can craft complex things like spaceships and buildings. However even the most basic sorcerer is a potent weapon against any astral beings, and have been said to be able to cure the madness infecting people, though only so long as they are within the radius of that person and stay focused on repelling the chaos.
Thandren is no stranger to conflict, being a world on the edge of the Empire but ever loyal to earth it has found itself sandwiched between Separatist worlds who see its iron rich composition as a key resource for war efforts even before the plague of madness. As such the Thandren Military has become a potent force capable of adapting to enemy strategies and boasting some of the most experienced troops of the human race. While teamwork and cooperation are essential to maintaining a successful military, thandren also trains each individual soldier to best highlight their own talents accepting men and women of all shapes and sizes and putting “aces in their places”. While many question thandrens military doctrine none can deny its effectiveness as they have yet to lose a war since their founding 900 years ago. Of the 22,000 souls onboard the Kerlassi, 10,000 of them make up the planetary assault force. With a variety of vehicles and weaponry at their disposal.
Thandrens stellar navy is actually a recent attachment to their military force, comprised mostly of private explorers and researchers with pilots and flight crew pulled from the private sector. These are among the top scientific minds the planet has to offer and many are here as part of the auxiliary maintenance team providing medical, psychological, material, and morale support, they are not helpless by any means either, the stellar navy come equipped with strike craft, star fighters, long range scanners, astral projection systems, and they maintain the skills necessary to repair the ship even from a derelict state. Without the stellar navy this entire operation would be impossible, the bulk of the command staff for this mission are from the Stellar navy.
if you dont want to be an armor clad super soldier, or a Psychic Mage, thats fine too. We will need normal human soldiers and naval crew to operate the ships, and i actually intend to have the command team of this mighty force be purely human, as im sure we can all agree mankind would not be keen on turning over the keys to a battlefleet to an untested genetically modded superhuman of anykind. So our knights and sorcerers will be answering too and working with standard humanity.
If your interested let me know. I will start crafting the threads when a certain number has been reached.
Any questions, concerns, suggestions, or critique is welcome and i will address them as fast as i can.
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