Well deserving of a 5. It provides the detail needed to explore each of the setting's major themes, yet doesn't overstay its welcome. What a splendidly horrible world you have built, Scras. I wish more settings had a guide like this. Go to Comment
They are channeling energy from the River of Sorrow which manifests as flames in the case of pyros and the other direct energy parapsychics. Go to Comment
Pyrokinesis is the manifestation of light and heat that appears as flame, but lacks fuel. It is not consuming either solid fuel or oxygen from the atmosphere. So, yes, it could be manifested in a vacuum.
These parapsychic abilities within the setting of the Cosmic Era are a function of arcanotech which in and of itself is neither technology nor magic but something unwholesomely between the two. Go to Comment
Are we thinking the pyro's just catalyze stuff to heat it up and catch it on fire, cause the way you seem to describe they are creating "fuelless" fires, which would suggest direct energy...something EMish. Does this mean they can create or channel energy? Could they make beams of light or gamma radiation? Go to Comment
You are right, presenting this as a conversation, a round table between several people with different positions would be a more interesting and variegated submission. It also would likely end up in the forgotten wasteland of the In Work box.
The format isn't the best, but it's out there, and it's effectively done.
To answer the first part of your question: The things I have presented in the submission are demonstrable facts, and not biased in favor of, or against the Atlantic Federation.
It's unabashed militarism is present in it's foreign policy that is predominantly shoot first, worry about why later, it's large military, active propaganda, and an entertainment culture that is much more 1980s (pro-military GI Joe, A-Team, Airwolf, etc) than would be perceived as tolerable today. The proof of it's space exploration program is that the Atlantic Federation has cities on the Moon, Mars, Ganymede, as well as full size city habitats in Earth and Lunar orbit. It also has the largest space fleet of commercial, civilian, exploration, and military spacecraft. The Atlantic Federation designed and built the Arc reactor, which is the centerpiece of hypertechnology, as well as things like Battlemechs and so on. As for the CogNet, it's technology was developed primarily in the European side of the Federation, and the first node of the CogNet, the 0.0 location is in Switzerland, and the CogNet expanded from there. Go to Comment
"The Federation is known for it's unabashed militarism, space exploration program and being the first NEG, the pioneer of hypertechnology, and the point of origin for the CogNet. "
Who know these things? Your fictional geo-political summaries would carry more verisimilitude for me if they were less demonstrative and more controvertible. It would be more telling I believe to have two or three informed citizens of Scras's mind sit around and discuss the Atlantic Federation than these primary school textbok style summations that have single point of few for millions of people.
Having the enemy subs having free reign of the ocean provides a great story telling leaver, I like the idea of being able to drop agents from foreign powers in with relative ease. Go to Comment
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