Hyper Core: Anime Mecha

The Story

Overview

Almost half a century ago, the nations of Ridengar and Nairenia opened a rift to another world... a world that was home to a highly evolved and warlike dinosaur species, the Hylek, that invaded this world with their psychically controlled bio-mechanical war-behemoths.

The nations of humanity united to fight back, but it was a losing battle until they developed Mecha... giant robots utilizing Intuitive Synaptic-Haptic Interfaces that were capable of moving with the speed and reflexes of the pilot controlling them. That is when the human nations started turning the tide... but the war went on for 26 body years before the rift was closed and the final Hylek forces were defeated.

Ever since that day, the "Dangers of the Rift" were a looming threat that drove the course of progress and politics. Not only do nations have to contend with the Hylek and Gont refugees that remain on this planet and rebuilding from the war but they have to wonder what else is out there.

What threats, far more dangerous than the Hyleks, are lurking beyond the Rift?

But then the Ridengar Commonwealth, the largest nation on the continent, unleashed six massive battle groups on the eastern nations of Nairenia, Kiarland and Tace while the Divine Kingdom of Stenega, far to the west, did its best to maintain neutrality for fear of being swallowed up as well.

The greatest concern for facing the free nations is now the "Unwinnable War."

First Arc

The story begins in the Eastern Protectorate of the Ridengar Commonwealth, an area that was part of the Tace Confederacy just a few short months ago. Ridengar's 5th Battlegroup, having routed the Tace Defence Force units in the area, is now pushing to secure key locations of infrastructure, such as power plants, hospitals and factories.

The countryside is awash with refugees as people flee the occupying forces.

System

Hyper Core - Game Mechanics
Hyper Core - Player Characters
Hyper Core - Non-Player Characters
Hyper Core - World
Hyper Core - Timeline
Hyper Core - Glossary

Setting

Map

The continental map before the war, and now 1 year into the war.

After initial gains against Kiarland and Nairenia in the north and west the assault stalled. Six months ago, Ridengar launched an attack on Nairenia and Tace from the south, securing the whole southern portion of the peninsula while their forces were away. With each nation trying to defend its own borders, cooperation is almost nonexistent.

Tace Confederacy

The nation of Tace was formed hundreds of years ago by willing alliance between Westiano, Ardmoore and Balesier.

World History

2512 - Discovery Of Omnium
2533 - Omnium Generators see widespread use. 2593 - Start of Civil Unrest in XXX. 2649 - XXX Nation establishes Devolved States. 2687 - XXX Nation establishes Meritocratic goverment. 2728 - Rift Opened
2755 - Rift Closed
2756 - War Ends
2774 - XXX Nation declares ware on XXX, YYY and ZZZ.
2775 - Present Date

Event 1: About 200 years ago, the Villain nation did something/discovered something that started a major upheaval in the world.

What did they do that caused a major shift in the world?

• the discovery of the wonderfloniun (please someone else name this) that acts as the power source/makes Mecha possible and let us handwaved physics. Maybe this kicked off an industrial revolution, which due to positions of wonderflonium reserves favored the advancement of Villain Nation and Tech Nation. (Thorya)

Event 2: About 45 years ago, The Villain Nation and the Tech Nation were conducting joint experiments and opened a Rift. This rift introduced a threat to the world, and in order to combat that threat, the nations developed Mecha.

What came through the rift?

• An aggressive empire launched a war of conquest. The inhabitants of the other side of the rift come from an alternate world where dinosaurs never went extinct, but continued to evolve--including descendants of dromaeosaurids (like velociraptor and deinonychus) that have evolved sapience and a complex technological society. Many of their war "machines" were in fact bio-engineered dinosaurs of other species, adapted as weapons of war. The sapient dromaeosaurids were not all united in their support of the invasion--and many who came through rift were actually imprisoned political prisoners being used as slave labor by the empire. Additionally, there is a second sapient race, descended from hadrosaurs ("duck-billed" dinosaurs), who are much more peaceful, much less technological oriented, but can create complex, mind-blowing art and music. So the the post-rift war world now has two minority sapient species from another world living as refugees and feral bio-engineered dinosaur war machines. (Muskrat)

• The dinosaurid one probably has more to work with as what lies beyond the rift. I wanted to use an idea suggested in an earlier thread (about the motorcycle machines being the cores of larger robots) as a sort of unified motif/aesthetic. I picture like one of the base forms as a sort of black ipod cube with eyes that plug-and-played into other creatures and/or their technology to form the colossi that the mecha were designed to fight. Whether they were sapient, wild, amenable to peace, etc. would be an exercise for one of the other questions. (Brontes)

• Maybe the eldritch abominations are also behind the technology that opened the rift? They knew something unpleasant would come through and wanted it. Maybe they're some sort of psychic vampires that feed off the suffering of other sapient beings, whether humans, dromaeosaurids or hadrosaurids? I say that, although I've never been keen on the eldritch abomination trope and its implication that some beings are incapable of empathy and morality--it reminds me too much of real-world racist ideologies. (Muskrat)

• I hadn't been thinking quite along those lines, but that could work. We could say that the humans of this world gained the tech to allow human-machine interfaces of the sort used in mechs from the technology that was used to turn the dinosaurs into war machines. (Muskrat)

Event 2A: The Rift was sealed 19 years ago, and the war ended shortly thereafter.

How did war end?

How did The population feel about it?

Event 3: 1 year ago. The other nations discovered that the Villain Nation was experimenting again. When the nations banded together and ordered the Villain nation to stop, War broke out.

What was this experiment that initiated a war?

• Various experiments regarding tech/bioengineering with things from the Rift, that may have the potential to reopen it. I assume the experiments have been going on for a while (maybe since the end of the last war), but were only exposed a year ago. (ajdynon)

• I'm a bit partial to the elevator pitch of Ctech, wish it hadn't gotten all weird as more books came out, but with that in mind: Maybe the villain nation are experimenting with an engel or tager type situation, blending some kind of eldritch abomination into with a human pilot/human transforming into an eldritch abomination. (Tigerwolfe)

Glossary

Hyper Core - Glossary