LoopyPanda
Black Jacket
GENRE: FURUTISTIC/SCIENCE FICTION
Last Edited 5/21/2018: Completed.
Overview
In the year 30XX, the Milky Way galaxy faces an emerging threat known as Genma Platt. Mercury has been under his control for about 6 months thanks to careful interloping during heated political tension between the Mercurian Union and the Venusian Empire, who declared war on each other. He now has control over Mercury, but has not made another move yet, citing that he must be patient to reap the rewards. Fearing what is to come when he exits his state of hidden activity, the Terranovan Union has undertaken a plan in the past 4 months to secretly infiltrate Genma’s base of operations by employing a specialized squad unit called the Orion Squad. Genma Platt has been declared by the Terranovan Union as a potential galactic threat. Because of his ruthless coup on Mercury and his apparent access to Class 3 weapons that take substantial amounts of resources and energy to power, the TU fears his next move will leave a swift and brutal blow to his next targets, one of which has been predicted to be Venus due to their substantially weakened access to manpower and resources. The Orion Squad thus has been tasked to be the ones that strike him down, led by Special Ops Commander Aurelia to coordinate their secret coup-- however, the question lies in how well the Union’s carefully calculated plans will work upon execution, especially against an enemy with no clear reasoning to his motives and no reliable information having been collected on him yet. With emerging rumors of an approaching new world order, anarchism and crime rates have increased. How much impact will Genma’s forces inflict upon the galaxy?
I. THE TERRANOVAN UNION
The Union was originally between nearly all the rulers of the solid planets in our section of the Milky Way Galaxy, as a means of conditional allyship in the event we would make contact with other life forms from other star systems in the galaxy. After Genma revealed himself, they now spend much of their focus on the well-being of their people and formulating a strategy that will defeat him & restore balance to the Solar System. Genma had struck in the middle of a short-lived war between Venus and Mercury, which allowed him to easily overpower the already-weakened armies. He took hold of Mercury first, Venus (his next target) emerging barely unscathed with a very reduced army. It was the first time in several centuries that a planet was completely taken over by force in one fell swoop; this shook the Solar System’s leaders greatly. None of them knew how to counter such a threat like this, but saw first hand that numbers alone may not be enough.
Since the Venus-Mercury war had already reduced the numbers of their fleets and his attack on them further shrunk the number, his presence has made many surviving soldiers defect or go AWOL. The remaining fleets of the intergalactic rulers have now been designated as ground security on their home planets. Heavy limits to intergalactic travel have been set; special permission is required to be in space.
In the meantime, those left in the TU have agreed to raise a group of hand-picked individuals in order to serve as the force against Scorpius. Because using their fleets would only waste resources and lives by making a predictably obvious move against Genma, and surrendering has proven to guarantee no safety, the hierarchs decided it would be a better plan of action to gather them all on Mars and strengthen this squad underground, away from prying eyes. This way, they would be able to take advantage of Genma’s slow but careful preparation to strike Venus, given the mass-destruction weapons he has under his arsenal cannot be used in quick succession and his elite Scorpios are occupied with ensuring full takeover of Mercury. However, because of the war that had raged shortly before Genma’s intervention, the ruler of Mars appointed a Commander and her Lieutenants with the task of managing this squadron, fearing that the other planetary rulers couldn't be trusted to make the correct decisions in a time of tension and unrest. This squad has been given the name Orion.
Members of the TU:
Chairman: High Council member Ziara Elmak (who also represents Mars)
Earth: Global Ambassador Devan Mercer
Venus: Conqueror Empress Ragna Mystia
Pluto: High Priestess Saevi
Mercury: Grand Ruler Harec Ethin {Status: Assassinated}
II. The Orion Squad
A small unit led by Commander Aurelia, who maintains communication with the Union. Crafted to aid the Terranovan Union in their surprise siege against Genma, some will presumably have other motives than to simply protect their home planets. Some may have been nominated to serve by their planetary leaders, others volunteered as part of the resistance, and so on. It’s all the same to the Union so long as they have sufficient manpower; those brave enough to accept are even offered a formal pardon for any criminal track record to avoid jail time. But because they needed capable individuals, people were allowed to decline at any point during the rigorous rounds of training in exchange for being placed under a gag order of nondisclosure.
Naturally, the weak were weeded out. It’s expected that very few to accept the job remain psychologically fragile. To prepare the Orion Squad, the commander had initially screened them by testing their physical abilities and capacity to withstand potential traumatic events (injury, death etc) via simulations in addition to weapon training of their choice to reduce the likelihood of the TU’s plan from completely falling apart. The draftees who survived each phase of recruitment to the end of their training make up the Orion Squad.
While the TU agreed upon this form of recruitment, some still affirmed it was at least somewhat ethically questionable. Simulations and the real thing were two different circumstances.
Since they are the Union’s secret to gain an upper hand over Genma’s force, they will perform recon missions and any necessary combat in order to uncover the source of Genma’s strength and reveal his real motive, allowing them to formulate countermeasures accordingly.
REWARD: A portion of the hefty monetary reward for Genma’s head (split and distributed to each member), an Intergalactic Federation recognition award, and access to other possible rewards. The current bounty on him is 500,000 Nova Credits-- but the leader of the Terranovan Union based it on mere estimation, as any promising intel that the Orion Squad manages to bring will significantly boost the bounty.
III. SCORPIUS
A. CRIMINAL: GENMA PLATT
Genma is an alien cyborg who has been labeled as an intergalactic force of terror. He has committed acts of murder, theft of classified weaponry & documents, and has nearly all of Mercury’s inhabitants held as hostages. His home planet is unknown. It is speculated that he has at least one accomplice that helped him infiltrate between the two warring planets to kill/overthrow their rulers, which sent the Milky Way into a state of panic once the outcome of war was fully under his control. Like him they are also robots (or have had several parts of their body replaced with cybernetics). Collectively, Genma’s syndicate is referred to as Scorpius. His motives and main objectives are currently unknown; all that the TU can gather is that he’s aiming to overtake as many planets as he can to utilize all their resources. Any data on him so far has been limited.
When he revealed himself to the galaxy, it was only shortly after Venus’s army had gotten no indication of a surrender or negotiation from neither the general of the Mercurian troops or the Prime Ruler. In fact, that day, none of the Venusian soldiers could find any enemies. On the battlefield, it looked as if they had up and disappeared. The TU reported no contact from any of Mercury’s appointed messengers, and were unable to contact the Prime Ruler or the leader of Mercury’s war force. Everyone from all sides found this incredibly suspicious, but the Conqueror Empress of Venus ordered a complete withdrawal of all troops on the field regardless. Even though it seemed like Venus had won this war, the Empress did not feel victorious. Instead, she felt uneasy. She took this hunch and tried to distance her people from Mercury completely.
The next day, however, a transmission came through to the TU’s communication system from someone on Mercury, and subsequently was broadcast across the Intergalactic Networking Terminal. It was from Genma.
[“Greetings from Mercury, my fellow denizens of the Terran System! Hope you don't mind me interrupting your regularly scheduled programming for a minute. On behalf of the Grand Ruler of Mercury, I would like to declare that the war between Venus and Mercury is over. Now, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Where is Ethin?! Didn’t Venus win the war!? Why are we looking at a literal who and not the Grand Ruler himself?’ I'd like to happily explain... you see.”
With a sinister smirk, he gestured to something behind him slumped over in a chair of some sort, but was too obscured to get a clear view.
“He’s dead. Empress Ragna is not responsible for his death-- Scorpius is. You may call me Genma Platt, the leader of Scorpius. Long story short, we infiltrated Mercury’s base where the Grand Ruler was basing his operations and persuaded him to order a complete withdrawal of his troops. The Empress is quite an intuitive one, she saved us from having to do more work. You made the right choice, Miss Ragna. As for Lord Ethin, he served his purpose, so we did away with him once we got what we needed.
I plan to make Mercury the first planet under my new empire, as will the rest of our Solar System in due time. Regrettably, I have to prepare quite a bit for when I seize the rest of the Terran planets, so it looks like you will have more time to yourselves before I approach your rulers for their decision; to surrender their power to me and the empire that will be Scorpius, or die. Of course, I don't believe in senseless slaughter, so I think your rulers will have plenty of time to deliberate. I assume that the planets who have multiple rulers assigned somebody to be their planetary ambassador. If not… you’d better find one soon! The Terranovan Union represents your home planets, meaning I will be interested in their decisions above all. We’ll be in touch.”]
B. Scorpius
Genma’s henchmen, singularly called Scorpios, are all presumed to be robotic in one aspect or another. To make themselves more efficient combatants, many of them have replaced at least part of their body with cybernetic attachments. Others are robots whom were either reprogrammed by force or defected to Genma’s army on their own accord. Some Scorpios are likely reassembled from scraps of robots Genma considered too defective to serve him properly. These types of scraped-together Scorpios lack abstract thought and sentience, which lets Genma order them around for combat fodder.
