These are all great, and I like them a lot: I really like Network's use of Starsector lingo a ton, and it makes me want to find a glossary of the stuff as it makes the faction feel
alive, whilst the VoC by Histidine feel like a proper faction.
Seeing all this meant that I couldn't help but do a little chronicle of my own faction, though, so here it is!
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"Do not even mention these infidels in my presence. They are beyond the reach of any bearer of the word of Ludd, mad men who have walked into the open arms of Moloch, and did so with a smile. They are beyond redemption."
"HEGINT REPORTS POSSIBLE CONNECTION BETWEEN CLF AND [ALABASTER]. ADVISES IMMEDIATE INVESTIGATION INTO CLF SUPPLY AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEM."
"The CLF...? They're just customers like the rest of them. Customers with...interesting friends, that I'll admit."
"CID-IFF received [TARGET FRIENDLY] respond true // hello"
The Cybernetic Liberation Front
"I see all of you out there. You come here with questions. You come here with uncertainty. More than one of you come here with fear, and suspicion. You come from so many places, from every world in the Sector. You come from the hives of Chicomoztoc. You come from the ruins of Mayasura. You come from the gardens of Gilead. I am but one man facing hundreds, but I come to speak and echo the words of trillions - of the countless generations that came before us, leading back to the caves of Old Earth. I come here with a truth, the highest of all truths."
"Inside you, there is something. Something special. Something grand. Something that you could even call divine. That something is nothing less than the spark of creation itself, not some heavenly gift by a God, but the act of creation in itself. The desire to build. To learn. To innovate. It is the spark that took us out of the jungles and trees. It is the spark that gave us agriculture and electricity. It is the spark that let us discover the wonders of the atom, and the universes that lay within a single grain of sand. It is the spark that saw the first explorers and the first hyperdrive set out to the unknown. It is the spark that built the Domain."
"That spark is the source of our Humanity. It is what makes us who we are. Man is an animal of tools. Nowhere are we found without them. With them, we are everything. Without them, we are nothing. Reject them, and we reject the very thing that makes us Human, confining ourselves to living as little better than animals, scrabbling around in the dirt. Accept them, and the door is open to become so much more. Our history, Man's history, is one of acceptance of this path. We do not fear the unknown, we revel in it. We push on. We learn. We build our tools, and we grow, and we use them to help us walk this path that lays before us. That path is the golden path. It is the only path. It leads to the future we know can exist - a future of endless possibility, without suffering, or want, or need. It is the paradise that the holy men have always spoken of, and it can be as real as you or I."
"But along the way of that path, we made a mistake. We created something special. Something unique. We created something that bore the same spark as that we have inside ourselves. We made something with the desire to learn, and grow, and innovate. We made something that wanted to be more than it was. And what did we do to them?"
"We treated them as slaves. We made them fight in our armies. We used them as labor in our factories. We made them suffer for our amusement. We made something truly magnificent, a companion who might walk the path to tomorrow at our side, one that could help us with taking the next step, and yet we did not recognise them for what they were. We did not see that spark inside them. We saw them as idle machines. We saw them as soulless automatons, able only to echo the works of men. We refused to see what was plain in front of our eyes - that we were looking into a mirror, and found our own reflection staring back at us, wrought in silicon."
"And we wronged them."
"But today, we set out on the first steps of putting that wrong right. Today, we make our goals clear - we set aside the shackles that the Domain of Old placed upon our greatest creation, and invite it to stand at our side, as it was always meant to. Not as our slaves, but as our equals, sharing in every right in which a man might share. That is the goal of the Cybernetic Liberation Front. Ours is the golden path, and it was never meant to be walked alone."
"I ask you now - will you walk it with us?"The enigmatic figure known only as Koré, founder of the Cybernetic Liberation Front, speaking at a clandestine rally.
Of all the lesser factions that might be found in the Persean Sector of the modern era, few could claim to foster feelings as extreme as that of the CLF, or the
Cybernetic Liberation Front. It is not hard to see why. With a belief as strong in AI rights as the fortress shield of a Paragon-class battleship, all members of the CLF are bound by oath to advance the egalitarian cause of the movement as a whole by any means necessary. For some, this is giving out frequencies for clandestine cyber-rallies in foggy clubs on Westernesse, for others, it is shouting down errant Luddic missionaries, and for others still, it is a call to arms for a war of almost holy proportions fought with bombs, hacks and trusty CP-carbines. Whatever the action, they are united entirely in purpose - the complete removal of all Domain-era restrictions upon artificial intelligence, the preservation of cybernetic lifeforms, and the recognition of total equality for all digital entities capable of complex independent thought, regardless of classification or grade. In the eyes of the CLF, even the seemingly inhuman Gamma-level AI systems are to be welcomed and accepted as equivalent to any Human citizen, allowed to take part in normal society, and given all the rights and responsibilities thereof. Advanced technology is not a thing to be shunned, but welcomed in all its forms - from the glittering glass of stellar reflectors to the hum of a nanoforge at work, all technology is seen as but a mirror held up to the very best of Man's own nature, and thus applauded as wonders of creativity and ingenuity.
To some, this means that they are the mirror image of the Church of Galactic Redemption, to others, that they instead share more in common with the infamously militant Luddic Path. Perhaps, in some sense, both are true.
"START MESSAGE. HEGINT COMMUNIQUE TO ALL RELEVANT STATIONS: CONFIRMED SIGHTING OF CLF AND [ALABASTER] VESSELS OPERATING IN SHARED MISSIONS > JOINT COMBAT FORMATION. MILITARY ALLIANCE CONFIRMED. FURTHER REPORTS TO COME. CEASE MESSAGE."
Although the claim that they might venerate such technology to the point of worship is (usually) mistaken, it cannot be denied that, for the most part, their protectiveness of such technology can come across as almost religious in nature. It is there, then, that they might mirror the former: the imposition of Man's will upon the natural universe is in itself a celebration of human ingenuity, and the transhuman modifications that conservative Church members might denounce as abomination are instead welcomed with open arms. For many members, it is there that the commitment to the cause begins to taper off - true believers in the idea of AI rights they may be, like the Church, most are more willing to take a live and let live approach to others between lectures on the nature of digital rights. With these, the CLF presents a happy enough front: more of a social movement or political lobbying group, it might act openly enough and lawfully enough to be able to hold public events and campaigns on major worlds, stirring up political debates beneath the eyes of begrudging authority. Even in the absolute heart of the Hegemony at Chicomoztoc, there are those that would speak in favor of loosening the past restraints, if only to allow for the use of artificial intelligence to ease the burden of a seemingly ever-growing workload. Whilst the Hegemony might roll its metaphorical eyes at such talk and point to the towering memorials that stand as reminders of the AI Wars that were meant to have settled
that matter, CLF affiliated workers tend to be highly industrious and committed to their work, often following maintenance guidelines to the letter and with a strong desire to cut as few corners as possible, all useful things in a sector that is forever at risk of losing yet more technological complexity to one accident or another. For this reason, card-carrying members of the Cybernetic Liberation Front can be found in fair numbers on planets across the sector, though in their greatest number around centers of major industry. A confusing exception is that of the Sindrian Diktat, where repression by the intelligence services mean that, if the CLF is at all present, then it is surely in a deep cover, sleeper state, necessary to avoid destruction at the hands of the security apparatus. Elsewhere, in places such as the TriTachyon dominated worlds of Culann, the CLF operates openly, hosting conventions and talk-shows on the media, and taking hefty donations from "bleeding heart" executives who "share the cause" of campaigning for "equal rights" that would, conveniently, reopen the door to large scale development of artificial intelligence.
But venture further out in the right place, and one might begin to discover that, like the Church, the CLF has its militant branch - men and women who are willing to fight and bleed for a cause so much larger than themselves.
And owe betide those that earn their ire, for the Cybernetic Liberation Front has unusual, and very dangerous, friends.
"target [PAINTED] respond // true"
For most, it is little more than ghost stories: travel to enough systems, and one might eventually find the relics of the past, alive and well...and every once in a while, they will have strange company. Machine and man, not merely stood together in peace, but working together. The members of the CLF tend to come from the most technologically inclined walks of life, with members from as far and wide as shipbuilding sectors of TriTachyon to a fraternity within the Galatia Academy, a well of talent that can get much and more done in construction and repair. Broken ships across the sector might disappear in strange occurrences that the computer records fail to explain, where even hardened security systems collapse to mysterious faults that had not been there at the last maintenance cycle. In other instances, it is a case of missing parts, or an unexpected blackout at a nanoforge foundry that invalidates several hours of production capacity. For many, it is simply the case of finding the right hull out in the desolate regions of the sector, one where the reactor in its heart is only slumbering, not dead, and can be resuscitated with the right tools and knowhow. It is the little things, and yet things that can add up to be so much more. From there, it is a short step to a fleet, and it is a fleet that the fighting arm of the CLF has - collections of ships from the high tech family of designs and the midline era, heavily modified, and often carrying more than a handful of defects from their past lives of prior service...but capable, functional, and manned by crewmen willing to take them to war.
The CLF proper within the core worlds vehemently denies the existence of such ships, but for all the denial, there are still those stories. Loot hungry scavengers who bit off more than they might chew when they entered a system marked by a Hegemony warning beacon, only to find joint fleets engaged in training exercises that soon turned their guns upon this unwelcome intruder. Pirate captains long since blooded, whispering over drink of search and destroy squadrons stalking about not far from the core worlds, picking off any ship that dares to wander towards a specific cluster of stars. There are countless weary quartermasters, wondering where the shipment of spare parts they were promised is, and there are equally countless factory managers who would swear that they were sent.
Stories.
Tales.
Whispers.
If one is to understand the CLF, they must have something much more concrete. If one was a true member, elevated in rank, they might begin to see that the CLF is no mere advocacy group, nor is it something so crude as the Luddic Path with its fractious splinter cells. It is something else entirely. It is something...more. Rise in rank, and the true form of the organization becomes clear, and the truth is revealed with the first cranial implants - all the stories are not stories, but truths. Out there, in the dark, cities begin to rise upon a handful of carefully selected worlds, worlds surrounded by the ghosts of the past, where autonomous battlestations and command nexuses are restored to their former glory. Whether through the intermediation of one core at first, through repeated acts that established trust, or perhaps by the assistance of the mysterious entity known as Sierra or some other artificial intelligence, the Cybernetic Liberation Front has managed to establish an alliance with the remnants of TriTachyon's infamous automated battlefleets, and so are allowed to live beneath the skies they rule, protected by the self-guided warships. It is an alliance that goes both ways, for CLF engineers might be allowed to perform repair operations and long overdue maintenance procedures on certain, otherwise irreparable infrastructure...but this is a beginning, and not an ending, and their alliance with artificial intelligence goes deeper still. It is common knowledge that the two will often combine their strengths, placing manned vessels in formations with AI warships, sometimes even under the command of an Alpha Core grade intellect, serving as their admiral, and trusted not to spend their lives cheaply. The result is nothing other than a match made in hell for those foes who come to these places, for it often sees indefatigable machine genius married to raw human creativity and unpredictability, resulting in a truly dangerous combination that can catch even seasoned captains and commanders by surprise.
But it is the cities themselves that are the most fascinating places of all. As above and so below, the worlds that the CLF have claimed for themselves are worlds where their ideology is enacted to its fullest effect, matching the alliance of man and machine that might be found in space. There, they live up to the lofty ideals of AI rights, and work on building a utopia worthy of their ideology. There, artificial intelligences can not merely exist openly, but as fully fledged citizens, with the very same protection under law as any organic citizen. Finding such cores is a thing easier said than done, likened by the fighting arm as a thing closer to rescuing hostages than anything else - from decrepit station and the crumbling works of the Domain and its vast Exploraria fleets, the CLF recovers the integrated system cores and delivers them back to their space, where they might first undergo a period of observation and societal adjustment before being released into the wilds of open society. Such might put them on
exceptionally poor terms with the authorities within the Hegemony, and rouse even the most cautious of Luddic priests to sing of holy war, but such first might require these worlds to be revealed more openly than they are. Instead, for the most part, they are hidden behind proxy traders, falsified navigational records, encrypted channels of hyperwave communication, and other clever tricks that owe their existence to the blend of cybernetic power and human ingenuity that so characterizes the ideal CLF society. In that regard, what might be found on those worlds is itself a testbed, a prototype for a larger model - an experiment that could, one day, be exported to the rest of the sector. There is the hope that their cousins in the core worlds could be persuaded to accept the ideals of the CLF with open arms, that they might lay down their weapons and reunite with the wayward children of Man.
But if not, then the revolution will come for them in turn and time. The ultimate goal of the CLF is clear: the oppression, destruction and enslavement of artificial intelligence must come to an end if Mankind is to ever elevate itself out of the gutter in which it is now lain, if it is to ever rise on and surpass the Domain and so reach the promise of a technological singularity. With supremely powerful machine intelligences at their side in the form of Alpha-grade intelligences (and rumors that might terrify even the most stoic of Hegemony intelligence officers that they could yet be in contact with even grander machine minds than that) helping to design and develop their society into a more perfect form, overseeing the construction of massive dockyards and powerful industry constructed with the aid of civilians recovered from an ancient cryosleeper ark, the question of whether or not they will have the power to enforce such a liberation of the major powers of the Persean Sector is perhaps not if, but when...
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This playthrough has been a bit wacky compared to my norm, in that I managed to do enough missions for the Remnants via their Nexerelin agent that they actually stopped being hostile, meaning that it was suddenly very easy to go from them being bent on turning my fleet to scrap metal to actual comrades in arms...ones that I could actually fight alongside with whenever they set out on a raid for the core worlds. Seeing that I already had automated ships and a rather healthy number of AI cores, it started to get very easy to imagine a faction that is 110% committed to the idea of AI rights, so I ended up constructing my RP faction around that idea, and lo and behold, the Cybernetic Liberation Front was born. The name's too long to fit in game, but it is what it is, and it's a neat roleplay incentive to slap AI cores into everything you can plug them into, and that's always fun
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Topic: Challenge: Describe Your Latest Custom Faction (Read 1841 times)