Ship Station Pegasus
L'Angel Du Noire
The Pegasus station is a cosmopolitan enclave of diplomats, mercenaries, explorers and traders. situated in geo-synch orbit above the legendary library world of `Tar-Shenna <Tar-Shenna.html>`_, it is the stellar nations' only permitted link with the powerful information held in the vaults beneath the planet's surface. The massive structure is one of the oldest stations still in operation from the first antarean conflict, and spans a full 20 kilometers from base to steeple.
It's sleek design was the brainchild of astro-architectural godfather Sir Lupis Noire of Mournecreek. Memorably described as "Noire's Angel" , the Pegasus resembles a giant creature launching itself into flight. Comparably, the mass-produced and brutal-looking stations of the current trend look like bricks next to a knife.
The Librarians
The secretive Librarians maintain a vigilant guard over their treasure horde of knowledge, acquiring more wherever they can - often at top dollar. To this end they permit the existence of the Pegasus, and allow the nations to install embassies and bureaus whose task it is to solicit information from the librarians in return for planetary imports such as food, fuel and building materials.
These deals are made in the Grand Chamber in the upper steeples of the station. A great baying parliament of traders, corporation reps, government officials and Library Adjudicates.
Trade and Barter
The main currency is detailed mineral content data on outlying systems. jumping outside the beacon network is risky business for any vessel without millitary support infrastructure, and closer to the broiling energies of core-space many exploration ships have been caught in uncharted gravitation and massive ambient radiation levels.
Corporations and governments need resources. metals for ships, minerals for technology and water for life. Locations and validated measurements of deposits of the rarer substances required for complex modern technology have changed hands for more money than an average trader would have made in ten years.
And then of course there are the jackpot prizes - the habitable. Every explorer's dream is to descend on a clear blue planet with verdant foliage, perfect atmo ratios and one-gee gravity. such a find is a one in a hundred thousand chance and the lucky few who discover these new paradise worlds are made men, often founding corporations of their own with the enormous finder's fees. claiming and colonizing a new-found utopia is the modern rich man's retirement cottage.
Of course, it's rarely as clear-cut as this, and often a party will block-buy data to use as a bargaining chip in some other agenda, or a finder will be bribed or blackmailed to submit his information out-of-chambers. In fact due to the huge stakes being played in the grand chamber, the pegasus is as much a political and corporate battleground as any capital world.
Undertow
Amongst the "legitimate" deals of the superpowers and the mega-corporations, the pegasus carries a darker kind of trade. it is a magnet for smugglers of all kinds, and due to that entirely uncoincidental correlation between people with money and vice industry, the lower decks of the station have become rather uncouth in places. Where there is an abundance of petty criminal activity there is ample camouflage for organized criminals. All kinds of organizations have eyes and ears on board the Pegasus.
And for specifically this reason, most intelligence agencies throughout the galaxy deem it prudent to have a healthy mix of informants and operatives active in all parts of the community.
Your role at Pegasus
when you arrive at the Pegasus you will be given options according to your faction and preference. you are free to quit your chosen role at any time, but it may have repercussions with your superiors and colleagues.
Ambassador
You are an ambassador for your nation. your duty will be to deal in information. you will be required to limit access based on your faction's policy, but also to increase your nation's perceived status through generosity or through superiority. you must make the sharp deals quietly, avoiding loss of face, and announce the loss leaders loudly to remind people how magnanimous your nation can be.
Agent
your role is observation and investigation. you will be empowered to ensure that the transactions of your faction are carried out correctly, and to investigate any irregularities with discretion.
Free Trader
They say it's every man for himself, and it's certainly true in your case. do whatever you have to. sell your own mother, but clinch that deal and you're on your way to the lunar hilton penthouse in a hoverlimo, baby. although this profession lacks the support infrastructure and deeper access of the major powers' bureaus, a keen intuition can often win the day over extensive research, and many governments have been left furiously out of pocket by some jack-the-lad floortrader.
Vendor
people gotta eat/wash/buy guns. the pegasus is an entire city's worth of people and they all need to live. this means there can be a promising career in retail or services aboard the station.
Visitor
You're here for kicks. enjoy the sights. look around. visit the forsytha galleries or chill out at the merando lounge. just don't get mugged on subdeck seven.
Fun Things To Do At The Pegasus Station
The Simulator
fancy yourself a general? try your hand at command in the state-of-the-art military simulation exhibition.
The Tar-Shenna Public Directories
a limited amount of general knowledge is available for public access, and the library maintains a splendid hall for viewing the data.
The Celesti Oracle
The pegasus station is the home of the ubiquitous software universe companion, all research and authoring is performed on the premises from the most up-to-date information that the library permits. the Celesti Oracle map room is the largest in existence and supports a huge holographic scale model of the known universe under constant update.
The Forsytha Galleries
home to the largest collections of art in the galaxy, in all media and spanning most of human history after the exodus. the spacious galleries are interactive and various exhibitions on certain topics can be viewed at predetermined times.
The Irwin Memorial Park
few off-world reserves come close to the beauty and serenity of the Irwin Memorial Park in the upper decks of the pegasus. a vast expanse of bio-balanced grassland, forest and jungle kept meticulously verdant by an army of laborers and robotics.
many enjoy simply walking through the park and viewing the vistas of Tar-Shanna through the dome, but for the more action-oriented there is the Saint's Ring Raceway, a multi-surface race and test track on which a visitor can experience the thrill of piloting a variety of wheeled, tracked and hover vehicles from throughout the galaxy.
Notes On Production
here's the text of an email I sent to the DirGames usergroup on the subject Wow. This is a Director project?
well - let's put it this way. I can't see any reason why a low-server-load MMO with the features I've outlined can't be done entirely in director. I've actually managed most of the individual components as tech demos already, i just need to brush up my code flow and work on learning the network stuff and sew all my shit together. my main inspiration has been the Maid Marian games. themes are just insane.
I'm the art director for a homeworld mod team and we've got this enormous universe of fiction, art and 3d models so im determined to put it to good use. (http://affu.dendezyn.net) having an interactive babylon-5 type space station seems as good a way as any.
at the moment I'm developing the net code and the 1st person "engine" i got these features nailed - core app loads "mods" - to enable expandability. currently i have built the main menu mod and the first person mod. the 1st person mod will take care of all actual FPS stuff.
the FPS mod - the environment is generated from a palette of models according to downloaded map data. it loads model packs from the client HD and and map data from the server and then builds a map from the models procedurally.
static room prefabs - a "room" can contain any number of staticmeshes (see below), its own textures and lighting, and is deconstructed into a dataset for later rebuilding (in order to "instance" as much as possible) static meshes a la UT - (pallette of scenery models, eventually i hope to have these user-placeable and get the server to add them to the master map file, allowing users to build parts of the world.
fully bone-animated avatars using basic havok for collision (the physical meshes for my avatars are actually lil balls which roll around - it gives a pleasant forgiving feel to the collision, few sticks and glitches). player avatars for connected users - unless i suddenly get a code team and a million dollars the update will be limited to once a second or so. im thinking about updating with a list of positions instead of just one, and having the client reconstruct the recorded movements of the player... i dunno i gotta work on it. im prepared to accept the limitations of a very low server bandwidth (plus i haven't even explored using UDP).
other mods on the drawing board include
a vehicle driving mod to showcase vehicle models from our Universe (set in a hydroponic "park" on the station which has a test track) (single player "sideshow") a space fleet combat simulator (already built - see the AFF website above) featuring FP combat in everything from fighters to cap ships and a fair amount of tactical command and control. (single player "sideshow") an interactive galaxy map of our universe (already built - see the AFF website above), navigable on these levels - galaxy, star-nation,system,planet,city. (single player "sideshow")
at the core gameplay level i hope to implement these features
NPC's. a morrowind-style dialogue system reading conversation data from the server, which game staff will update regularly. this will provide a mechanism both for learning more about our universe and progressing in the "game" by granting new access to features, evolving into new storylines and incorporating new characters, possibly even dynamically involving other users in procedural story threads. factions - the plot line of this game is in the previouly mentioned WIKI thread, but it involves 3 factions waging a sinister information cold war between their respective embassies and agents aboard a station owned by a 4th party. factions will provide a source of identity, and will be a mechanism for providing jobs, plot lines, characters etc into the game.
persistent world data - i love deep games. and nothing's as deep as an ongoing saga. our mod team has permanent members, and they will eventually be pressganged as admins. they will have their own "offices" in the station map where an AI version of themselves will take over when they're not online. customization - i hope to provide users with a permanent, unique "residence" aboard the station with limited customization options. the physical space will be procedurally augmented from special objects in the map data to avoid intersection and overcrowding.
as mentioned before, users will be able to place staticmeshes on land they "own", so decorating your cubicle will be fun. images can be stored on any webspace and directly linked (they will be cached by the client) therefore a user can apply custom images to their residence (paint the walls and furniture etc). so yeh. its ambitious to say the least. but i plan to take it slowly and add features progressively (hence the mod architecture). endofline
the information trade
the bays are the source of incoming NPCs bringing resource data, biological data, technology data, intelligence data,exploration data.
bio data
data regarding the findings of lifeforms, usually microscopic but sometimes multicellular, insectile or even mammalian. useful to medical sciences and academic institutions.
resource data
usually in the form of detailed radar scans of asteroidal and nebulaic areas useful to corporations, nations
exploration data
data pertaining to unknown regions of space, uncharted stars and possible habitable planets. useful to corporations, nations and academic institutions
intel data
news from around the galaxy. could be a list of resource prices in a particular system, or sensitive fleet movement information
tech data
anything from the invention of a new kind of FTL drive to a new software patch for ship nav computers.
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