Capellan Authority

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Played by Omega Chief in CYOE2


History

During the scattering, not everyone was all that lucky. In the case of Salina Genetic Research Station, they were decidedly unlucky. The station had originally been parked at the edge of the Sol system, allowing its research (Which was both morally and legally grey) to be done far from prying eyes.

However prudent this move may have been at the time, when the Node Storm struck at the start of the scattering, the station turned out to have parked directly on top of where one of the first nodes formed. And after a highly damaging subspace trip, the crippled structure was left in a decaying orbit around an inhospitable frozen world, beyond the average life zone of the systems star.

The surviving researchers could do little but watch, as their station plummeted from the sky, to smash into the frozen wastes. Remarkably, some of the leading geneticists survived. They were however stranded on a planet with extremely minimal supplies and in danger of freezing to death every night, it didn’t take them long to realise they would not survive here for long.

Not wanting all their work to have been for naught, and perhaps seeking a way of surviving through legacy, he geneticists devoted all their time to repairing the incubation tanks and working on what would fill them. As time went on, the geneticists soon realised they weren’t going to survive long enough to meet their legacy and so they recorded messages, unlocked the databases and crammed as much knowledge as they could into the mental imprinting software.

And so it was that the first Salinians, as they would come to call themselves, emerged from their incubation tanks, there heads filled with knowledge and a desire to learn more. And so they set about learning everything they could possibly learn from the stations databases, though some trouble was had differentiating fact from fiction after all, even most of the historical records took place on a planet that looked nothing like their own, this mild confusion between reality and story still persists to this day.

Their new found knowledge and technical understanding inspired the first Salinians, they had a reason that was more then survival now, they wanted to grow, expand and eventually return to space, to achieve this goal they picked up the research where the geneticists had left off working to craft a perfect society, one that matched the ideals they loved from their databases.

Thus the modern Salinians, complete with their caste system were created, and set out to thrive on this cold desolate planet, creating the firs cities, building up a technological base and in two centuries came to dominate the planet. As life became easier and the jobs available diversified the initially rigid case system began to become softer, until it resembled its present state. As the planet become crisscrossed with developing cities, and the first primitive space probes went beyond the boundary of their atmosphere, the Salinian leadership gathered together, to formally cement their ties as one people, who would have authority over their world and system, just as the First had dreamed, thus the Capellan Authority was founded.

Now finally, the dreams of the First have been achieved, the Salinians have total authority over their system, a mighty space fleet and industry and at long last, the nodes have opened, letting the children of Salina into the galaxy at last.

The Salinians

Appearance

The Salinians are basically humanoid in appearance, at least they are externally, internally there are many major differences, most dramatically the high level of bio-synthetic integration, with implants covering a wide range of uses, though none but neural interfaces are ever visible externally. While each caste has its unique visual theme, Salinians in general are terribly androgynous with a wide range of hair and eye colours (far wider then the human norm) and many have bioluminescent tattoos, the most sophisticated of which can change the colour of their glow on demand or even perform mini-light shows.

Every Salinian is tank grown, there is no such thing as a natural Salinian pregnancy, it could be that they’re incapable of reproducing naturally at all, their racial androgyny certainly doesn’t help to judge if they even have genders any more.

As a people from a cold dim world, the Salinians prefer low lighting levels and low temperatures, as such their colonies and ships are designed with this in mind, ambassadors to other races typically at least wear eye shielding and sometimes even an environmental suit to keep themselves refreshingly chilled.

Castes

Every Salinian is created as a member of a caste; each caste defines their role in society and the jobs they are assigned to. Within the Champion, Foundation and Manii castes there is significant room to improve ones station, to a point, be it for a Champion to go from foot soldier to general or for a Foundation to go from work team leader to captain of a starship. Only the Apex and Union caste members stay locked in their positions.

Apex Caste

The leaders, princes, politicians and fleet admirals. The Apex caste as designed to be the very best they can be without becoming over specialised. They’re likable, charismatic and of all the Salinians, tend towards the least androgynous, but there’s still significant room for doubt. Apex caste politics are part theatre, part art form and part actual government. Their debates being spectacular theoretical performances, full of uplifting speeches and even mock duals, making Salinian politics a surprisingly fun thing to watch and indeed their broadcasts are some of the most watched in the Authority. The Apex caste itself is subdivided into several factions, each one with a specific focus, such as the Soben who focuses on offensive military matters, the Natree who focus on defensive military maters and the S’leem who focus on research. Every member of the Apex caste has this factional allegiance marked on their forehead, backs of their hands and sides of their feet, rumour even has it that it’s also marked on their chests, but no Salinian ever reveals their chest, leaving it a mystery. These markings are built into the Apex caste as they are grown and are impossible to remove, making changing faction impossible.

Union Caste

The city-coordinators and starship-minds. The Union Caste has the honour of not being one of the original four, only after the Authority was founded, some five hundred years ago when the vast cities were reaching their limits of expansion and experimental capital ships were being launched did the Apex caste leaders and Foundation caste science teams realise that they needed more computational power and coordinators who could do better then the teams of Foundation caste members who were in those jobs now. And so the S’leem faction of Apex’s and their Foundation science teams developed a new caste to fill these rolls. The new caste represented an even higher union of biological and synthetic engineering then any other, coupled with how they were build into ships and cities, lead to their caste name being decided upon as Union. Members of the Union Caste never leave the tanks they’re grown in, they are in fact incapable of doing so, as their lower bodies merge into vast computational units, this makes them semi-AI constructs in a way and they most often communicate to other Salinians via holographic avatars, which helps to reinforce this in popular culture. Usually there is only one Union per city or capital ship, however their vast thinking power sometimes leads research facilities to gain several Union researchers.

Champion Caste

The soldiers, warriors, hunters and generals. If there’s one thing their databanks told the Salinians, it’s that war was almost constant and inevitable anywhere but Salina, and even on Salina there were large predatory animals that threatened the early expansions. Thus the Champion Caste were developed. Strong, fast, intelligent, designed for combat and those grown post founding of the Authority come with the ability to interface with power armour, all in all they are some of the finest soldiers in he galaxy. Oddly enough however, they’re only deployed as ground troops, never as pilots or captains, while some may rise even as high as ground generals, the Champion are never more then military advisors or liaisons between ground and space forces. Champions are the tallest and largest of all the Salinians and are the only ones confirmed to lack a gender or indeed any form of reproductive system at all, reducing the number of weak points and ensuring the body has more room for redundant organs.

Foundation Caste

The advisors, middlemen, middle classes and supervisors. The Foundation caste is one of the most diverse and fluid of all he castes, as its members cover everything from factory supervisors, to scientists, to advisers to their Apex leaders, to even captains of medium warships. The Foundation appear most like the First and indeed they were based on the Firsts template, being simply cold adapted tank grown humans and as such are smaller and slighter of build then their Apex leaders, but also the least physically variable in terms of body structure, were it not for their individual fashions, tattoos, hair and eye colours the Foundation caste would clearly be nigh identical clones. On warships the Foundation caste fills the rolls most outsiders would assume would go to the Champion Caste, mainly as officers and squadron leaders and of course as captains of the medium sized warships.

Manii Caste

The workers, pilots and engineers. The Manii outnumber all of the other castes combined, every city, colony and ship has at least one team of Manii somewhere. They help build and expand the authority, pilot every ship and even captain some of the smaller ones. Typically the smallest of the Salinians (Though some manual labourers are equal in size to the Foundation caste) but also the most physically variable, ranging in sizes, musculature and even eye size, as the gunners and pilots of warships tend to have larger more complicated eyes then other Salinians to aid in their duties. The Manii also serve as additional troops or in other support roles, such as medics in combat. Despite being almost undisputedly at the bottom of the caste ladder, the Manii are happy with their place, and well respected by the other caste and on top of this, they have the most room for personal improvement and promotion of any caste as well as the most freedom to pursue their own agendas.

Culture

Despite being a race of tank grown clones, Salinian culture is incredibly diverse and individuality is incredibly cherished.

When any Salinian, aside from obviously those of the Union Caste, emerges from their incubation tank, they are bald, grey eyed and have almost no distinguishing features. They do however have all the knowledge they need for their work already uploaded into their minds and so get to work almost immediately. However, every Salinian has mandatory break time, and is encouraged to take un-mandatory breaks and vacations by their older colleagues, who help teach them about the rest of the world and the Authority in general, or at least the parts that fall outside of their basic need to know memory uploads.

And so they new Salinians develop their own personalities, begin to grow their hair out and gradually develop an eye colour, many even taking on varied bioluminescent tattoos, at this stage many go to optional education centres to expand their knowledge to move further or to another job or otherwise develop hobbies. Generally speaking, the older a Salinian is the more unique and individual they are.

In terms of religion or beliefs, the most dominate one is that of the ‘life story’ which stems from the blurred lines between fact and fiction the Salinians suffer from, the tenant of this belief state that everyone’s life is its own unique story, that should be recorded for future generations to read and learn from, they commonly state that as the Authority grows into space, there must be an evil empire out them to fight, though some whisper that perhaps they are the evil ones.

Another major system of belief is that the First, the initial Salinians created by he geneticists, were gods who created all things for their chosen people, who had opened the nodes to let the Salinian people come to find them once more. The counterpoint to this of course is that the First were devils who subverted the geneticists work, and exiled them here for no reason.

Luckily, Salinians are on a whole very mellow when it comes to beliefs and things rarely ever get so far as heated debate.

Geography

Capella System

The seat of power of the Authority, the Capella system is a small dim blue star at the mid point of its lift cycle, it has a gas giant, Draconis, in a close orbit. The Apex science factions leading theory is that Draconis is originally form much further out in the system, or possibly from outside the system altogether, and its movement in system displace many of the former planets, explaining why the only other world in system is the frozen Salina. Draconis itself is extremely warm and turbulent due to its close proximity to Capella, the vast orange clouds of the gas giant spread in thin bands around hurricanes the size of planets, making Draconis unsuitable for even gas mining.

The other planet in the system Salina, named after the station that first crashed there approximately one thousand years ago, is a snowball planet, utterly frozen over from pole to pole and well beyond the standard life range of Capella. Despite this hardy plants and animals have somehow adapted to the freezing conditions, and today, grand arcologies rise out of glaciers and snow fields, sparkling wonders in the dim blue light. Most notably he capital city is built around the ruins of the original station crash sight, which is now a museum and memorial to the First.

Vega System (SYS-5)

The Vega system is a mostly uninteresting green star, with a pair of gas giants locked in orbit around each other, doing a constant swirling dance around the star. The larger of these gas giants is a huge white monster of a planet named Moby, constantly being chased in a dance around the system by the smaller blue green banded gas giant of Ahab. The strange orbit of these two gas giants as flung all of their moons out of orbit, leaving them moonless.

The Authority is however in the stages of setting up gas mining facilities, and processing stations at the sweet spot of calm gravity between the two.

Deneb System (SYS-2)

The Deneb System is a pair of binary stars orbiting each other, this unstable gravitational configuration has ejected almost all of the systems contents, leaving only a near molten rocky world near the centre of the system (Hades), and a small ball of frozen gas near the systems edge (Hel).

The Authority has decided to annex the system and is in the process of building defensive bases and shipyards.


CYOE 2
Empires The ForgottenAquarian UnityHoly Empire of AthaniaChurch of CreationDiscontinuation of Theoretical HostilitiesDominion of PariiaCapellan AuthorityGlaciatus SyndicateHegemony of Sangheili