Arthurians

From Acw

Current revision as of 01:16, 9 October 2008

Arthurians are humans from the Ark Ship Arthur. After arriving at the planet "Avalon" (New Iowa) in 2367, they were involved in The Arthurian Incursion.

History

Disclaimer

Little is known of Arthurian history, but British researchers have been able to put together something of a narrative from what Arthurians themselves have reported, and scraps of information given to them by those citizens who underwent Taliesinn-2's wetware implant process on New Iowa.

Moreoever, as the Arthur travelled at sub-light speeds, despite being absent for 235 Earth Standard years, the time that passed for the Arthurians was considerably longer. The Merlin Server calculates that the Arthur reached its destination in year 373 of the journey - a difference of 138 years.

The Cataclysm of Year 125

The Arthur left Earth orbit in March 2132, passing beyond Pluto in late 2133. In 2140 contact was lost. The logs of the Merlin Server report nothing untoward until year 125 of the journey. An encrypted file on the server holds the key to some sort of cataclysmic event, but as yet nobody outside the Arthur has discovered its nature. It was in about year 132 of the journey that the founding seats, Arthur, Colgrevance, Palamedes, Taliesinn, Gawain and Galahad, were formed, from the already existing Command, Administration, Engineering, Server Maintenance, Medical and Life Support Systems teams on the Arthur. The exact reasons for renaming the teams thus is also kept from Earth researchers.

The splitting of Merlin

In about Year 142, it was decided that the Merlin Server's many Decentralised Processing Units (DPUs) would be shared out in small numbers to individual 'Seat' servers, one for each seat. The Merlin Supercomputer seems to have been upgraded by this point by Taliesinn Seat to its unprecedented and unexplained capacity, and could thus easily compensate for the lost processors. Each Seat was given an autonomous and encrypted server, to serve only its members. Curiously, three DPUs went missing during the splitting of Merlin, and are as yet unaccounted for. Some theories speak of the 'lost Server' of the now-defunct Tristan Seat, or maintain they were destroyed during the Cataclysm, but some are not convinced.

The Arthurian Incursion

After the End

In the years after the destruction of Earth, Arthur Prime aggressively pushed for integration of all humanity into the Arthurian networks. This was a natural development of the Taliesinn Doctrine, but with one important difference - where Taliesinn wanted to help humanity reach the next level of societal organisation and community, Arthur Prime wanted power. Through a systematic diplomatic offensive over the decade following the End, he first established implant manufactories on worlds in exchange for trade concessions. Populations flocked to the implants of their own volition for the chance to take part in the gestalt entity of the Merlin Server. Seat populations burgeoned. The Second British Empire was particularly enthusiastic in its takeup of the implants. The Royal Family was offered its own Seat server, the Pendragon Seat, and eventually this was used by Arthur to dissolve all boundaries between the Arthurian state and the British Empire.

The section of the USSR still loyal to Secretary Baguta also accepted the manufactories, but was much less likely to accept integration. The sudden capitulation of Baguta in 2372 is still pzzling, and has led to speculation that he Arthurians tampered with Russian implants so they coudl be used to dictate attitudes to the vast bulk of the converted Russian population. With the dissolution of the loyalist USSR, the Arthurian Hegemony was born.

Arthurian Houses

Arthurian society is divided into a number of houses, or 'seats', based on the legend of King Arthur. The government of the Ark Ship is the Round Table, which literally sits at a round table in the heart of the ship. Each seat on the council is named for a knight of the round table from the legend. The occupant takes the name of the knight, and the moniker 'Prime' is added after their name. The next in line for the seat also takes the name of the seat, with the epithet '2' after their name. Founding Seats have a '3' as well. All relinquish any previous name they held. In this way, political continuity within each governmental organ is assured.

Each Seat has its own server, and each member is wired through their implants into both the Merlin server and their Seat's server at all times. Though the nature of the implants is not yet fully understood, it appears that connection to a Seat server, over time, creates a limited sort of 'hive mind' amongst members of that seat. Arthurians belonging to the same seat exhibit many of the same personality traits; the longer one is a member of a seat, the more homogenised they become. Over time, it appears that the seat's 'personality' changes slowly with the passage of many members through the seat server.

Founding Seats

These are the seats founded in year 132 of the journey. Each of them has two votes at the Round Table, one each for their Prime and 2.

• Arthur Seat - Head of the Arthur's government.
• Colgrevance Seat - Administrative seat, in charge of resource allocation and logistics.
• Palamedes Seat - Maintenance and engineering seat, in charge of maintaining and adapting the Arthur.
• Taliesinn Seat - Communications and media operators, in charge of maintaining the Merlin Server.
• Gawain Seat - The small seat charged with medical duties. Also manages manufacture and implanting of wetware implants.
• Galahad Seat - Seat entrusted with maintenance of the agricultural and life support systems on the Arthur.

New Seats

Each of these seats have been created since the splitting of Merlin. They only have one vote at the Round Table, and do not have a 3.

• Percival Seat - Seat tasked with spaceborne defences of the Arthur.
• Lancelot Seat - Created to command the Arthur's ground troops.
• Bors Seat - Created since the arrival to oversee settlement and integration on the ground in the CAS.
• Sagramore Seat - Newly-formed seat, made up of shocktroops and combat engineers.

Events

Important events the Arthurians have been involved in:

• The Arthurian Incursion at New Iowa

Spacecraft

Being a space faring people Arthuriruans have no planets as territories. Instead they live on spacecraft

• The Arthur

Current Arthurian Characters

• Percival Prime
• Taliesinn Prime
• Lancelot Cavanaugh
• Colgrevance Stoss

Rumours

Rumours involving the Arthurians:

• The Covenant Keepers
• 3G - Jul 10, 2367 - The Arthurian's Propaganda

This page is about a Faction that exists in the game. It has been added to the wiki, but needs more details.