The Imperial Year 3714 Mankind had finally begun to reach out to the stars again. Less than five hundred years after the liberation of mankind from his own devices by the Ultani, he was, with some aid, again exploring the surrounding systems. With guidance from the mysterious Ultani advisors, man managed to avoid most inter-conflict and war long enough to make significant developments in technology, boosted by discoveries of artifacts presumably made by man long ago. As man rebuilt his old empire, a rift grew in the populace. Ever since man was made free of the very machines he constructed by Ultani forces, the Ultani have maintained the utmost secrecy concerning all things outside of man''s domain. In fact, their advisors, the only ones ever seen, offered very little more than advice in vague riddles to the men of the Union. As such many people began to grow angry that none of their questions concerning other races or about exchange of technology amongst other things were not even acknowledged let alone answered. The remainder believed that the Ultani saw it fit to guide man and let him progress on his own, interfering as little as possible. As the rift grew more and more over the years, one faction decided to act to get the information it selfishly wanted to leap ahead of its competition. The Kindas Corporation funded a mercenary assault on a scheduled visit by an Ultani advisor. The attack went ahead as scheduled with sixteen fighters and a corvette intercepting the target as it reached orbit. The mercenary forces'' weapons were completely ineffective against the advanced shield surrounding their target. Ignoring its attackers, the Ultani advisor took over global communications transmitting the message "There can be no hope for mankind." With that done his ship shot out into the stars, he nor his companions never to be heard of again. Following this man fell into a great civil war. The three intertwined governments fell one after the other within months of the wars beginning. As the weaker warring factions were lost in the battles three powers emerged, each based primarily on one of each of the primary planets. These factions were the Empire, the Order and the Corporation. The Empire emerged on Talas, from old Union generals and loyal soldiers. They managed to conquer and hold more than 80% of the none primary worlds. The Order consists of those who were angry at man''s warlike ways, especially in terms of the unwarranted attack on the Ultrani, an actively seek out the old advisors. The Corporation, having risen out of the merger of many companies at the onset of the war, is concerned with its own power, harboring a dark secret of which only vague whispers concerning the Father and the Age of Ruin can be heard. Immediately after the war an Order acolyte made perhaps the most important discovery in several hundred years. He found through his extensive research that man was not originally from any of the sytems he now inhabited. Realizing that the Order Elders would bury him and his findings he managed to escape to Talas and made the discovery public, later being found dead in his room, cause of death unknown. This information nearly sent the people into another war as they fought over the veracity of this message, as well as its possible implications. Unfortunately he had little time to ponder or fight over this as he was soon cast into a fight in which he was not the aggressor. A small force of some unencountered, yet strangely familiar appearance, was found examining one of the moons on the fringe of charted space. Whether they were advance scouts for some greater force or an exploration party was soon discovered as they attacked and captured the ships bold enough to investigate their presence, though they eventually fled with the approach of an organized fleet of cruisers. What they wanted with clearly inferior ships was unclear but their intent to return is almost definite. It''s really late so I can see myself changing most of this...just trying to put some thoughts down (on a forum for starters...hehe) Of importance...this is going to be a simplistic run-of-the-mill turn based strategy...we just need some Java experience and a little lan game seems right. Basicly we want three sides. The "Order," the "Corporation" and the as-yet-unnamed robot race. The Order will be the wave-assault brute force in numbers side, the corp will be the power-armoured mercenaries, the robots being the highly specialized, hard to kill small unit equals a small army side. As per story, the robots turn out to actually be shells for the intelligences of the few surviving men from terra at the time of the Scourge, when the rampant genetic manipulation finally resulted in a horrible disease that swept the infant empire of man, killing all it came in contact with. They may be looking for genetic material with which to rejuvenenate their lost samples (yadda yadda). The Order and Corp rose from a colony that was established from one of the many fleeing groups (can you say easy sequel? haha) from the crumbling Empire''s space. Well...sorry for the rambling...maybe tomorrow I''ll proofread this...Thanks for any thoughts/ideas. (Again this is just a little project...though storyline can always be borrowed from in another project). ------------------------- Every servant has his place, no matter lowly or modest. To know it is his greatest comfort, to excel within his greatest solace, and his master''s contentment is his greatest reward. - Serve Microsoft today, tomorrow you may be dead.

Hi kordova, sup? Question, do you envision this as an RTS or a RPG?? If it''s going to be RTS then yes its very generic. If its going to be RPG then theres a lot more potiential as far as storyline / twists and turns / etc.

Hello TechnoHydra!

I am another of the individuals in this project. It was only by accident that I even saw this post (kordova...keep up the updates within the group please....!!!).

Anyway, we are really in the preliminary stages of flipping around ideas for this project. Perhaps the "neatest" idea I personally feel (kordova''ll back me up I hope) is the following:

This is all still knid of shapeless so bear with me. I just realized this belongs in game design but for the sake of story development here goes:

The three sides are clashing on perhaps one key world over some secret technology or what naught or perhaps over multiple worlds each world being a very large over-all mission. The three sides are basicly going at it in an rts style constructing bases, training units sending them to battle. Meanwhile the player(s) is perhaps one of the three sides or an Ultani (still shaky on this point - oooo maybe another old terran but of another ilk...hmmm) and he must proceed with his various missions (per world?). He advances his levels and such, while not afraid to fight, all-in-all not willing to commit against what will eventually be the nearest bases splurge of men (as he is ultimately hopelessly outnumbered now matter what he does - diplomacy on all levels needed).

I hope this helps...I''m tired too.

Ummm...kordova I''m on your comp and I can''t seem to override your password on this board...I''ll have to post on your account (sorry...) - blooper (At least I''ll kill your dumb sig !!)