and finally, the one that's actually zombies.

i hate z-com i hate z-com i hate z-com i hate z-com i hate z-com i hate z-com i hate z-com i hate z-com

(i just needed an image to break it up)

SO lets get into it

CLASS: Virus

COMMON NAME: Necroa

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Human, Type II, Necrotic Type IV, Novel (H2N4-N)

ORIGIN: Egypt, Tombs of Giza.

INFO: H2N4-N is a novel virus, originating possibly from Egyptian mythology. Its origin is supposedly from Set killing Osiris, which led to the severing of the cycle of life and death, leading to Osiris creating a “unseen solution” to patch the cycle. Why he had to make it unseen is still unknown but its assumed he just didn't wanna come down there and do it himself. However, it seemed to backfire, causing what ancient Egyptians called a “plague of avariceful hunger to devour ones brethren.” The disease was released when an archaeologist accidentally triggered something that caused a coffin carrying a mummified corpse to fall from its coffin, making mummified brain matter particles to enter one of their drinks, which an archaeologist later ingested. The body warmth reactivated the pathogen in their body, especially since the water it was in already activated it partially from “hydration,” though body heat was the final activator.

SYMPTOM TIME

• Symptom Onset Speed: Roughly a few days or more. A neck bite is usually within a day, or even hours. Ingestion takes mere minutes.
• STAGE I: Hyper-salivation, insomnia, photophobia, and polyphagia, plus psychosis.
• STAGE II: On top of Stage I, it includes autophagia, incessant shivering and spasms, delirium, and the chance for fatal coma and confirmable acute encephalitis.
• STAGE III (dead): After death, it takes about a minute before cytopathic reanimation occurs. From this point on, it also causes anaerobic resuscitation. Really, any form of death can lead to Stage III, though the host has to remain suitably intact and with at least 20% blood volume left, though that would leave the host permanently in hemorrhagic shock which makes them much less effective.
• CARRIER SYMPTOMS: Slightly less intense salivation than Stage I, and minor autophagia and polyphagia, as well as normal photophobia. Basically, carriers arent asymptomatic but they probably can be passed off as something not infection-related.

The undead often mummify themselves when no hosts have been found for a while, to slow down decomposition. However, the virus also goes into hibernation during this, making mummified zombies relatively safe to be around. So long as you dont go too close. The undead also are resistant to decomposing factors. The undead also are surprisingly aware and even slightly coordinated, but still fairly stupid. Best they can do is try to do really obvious flanking. They also can get back up even after severe head injury, and in some EXCEEDINGLY rare cases, decapitation. The decapitation is because the disease triggers partial neuron development in the lungs, which makes decapitated zombies remarkably stupid and also blind, unable to smell anything, tasteless, barely able to process touch, and deaf. The dead also have a very high bite force, able to bite even through very thick clothes. They also have their hands go into rigor mortis when grabbing, making it very hard to break free if they grab you. However, the undead still are shamblers… Most of the time. The disease may infect you differently based on certain traits of yours. Thus, variants can occur…

wowzers, special infected. im sure no source engine game has ever done this one before...

• Shambler: The most common variant, caused by no special things in particular.

• Darter: Darters are usually caused by the host being big on running. This includes Olympic athletes. Darters often strip nutrients from other parts of the body to put into legs, which makes their torso, head and arms easy to rip off. However, the increased nutrient flow to the legs causes them to be rather fast. The nutrients also cause the remaining vocal cords to strain, causing Darters to make signature “yelp” sounds instead of growls.

• Deadnaut: Deadnauts are caused by the host having a high muscle mass. Deadnauts often evolve to be larger and stronger, often relying on pummeling you to death since they have a slightly alternate strain of Necroa which causes the pathogen to replicate inside sweat. And since they sweat a lot, them grabbing you can get you infected. However, their cranium is weak since their bone mass goes to the arms.

• Abomination: Abominations are caused by people with weak stomachs. Abominations often vomit a lot, and their strain causes their digestive acids to become remarkably strong, while also making their intestinal lining stronger. Their hands become corrosion-resistant, and they have slightly increased intelligence. Their strain does not cause viral replication in saliva, but rather in digestive acid. This causes Abominations to vomit into their hands and throw it at you, causing infection and some acid burns. Their intelligence is mostly because the acid they use contains a vast majority of generated lactic acid, thus preserving a majority of their capacity of brain use to aim their throws.

• Barebones: Barebones’ are caused by people who had issues like iron deficiency or were just starving upon infection. Or corpses that were heavily decomposed but infected. They are remarkably weak, and move very slow, and basically are not a threat. However, the problem is that they make little noise and are mute due to having little weight and no vocal cords. They also can walk through water up to a certain depth due to a lack of much of their organs, making shallow island water connections unsafe. Thus, they are arguably more dangerous than a Shambler. As long as you dont see them. A whack with a baseball bat, even with low force, would bring them down.

• Riser: Risers are caused when a corpse is infected while buried. Often, Risers will find a spot and cover themselves in dirt, burying themselves. When they feel movement, they will rise from the ground. Oftentimes they do it when they are close, which makes Risers rather dangerous. Hence, going to graveyards or being around where people have been buried is a stupid idea, since Risers have been shown to be able to force open a coffin when 6 feet under.

• Lighter: Lighters are caused when a corpse had high blood pressure or had an explosive or otherwise combustible compound on the corpse in significant volume. A Lighter zombie, when the skin is punctured and/or their remaining blood suffers enough heat, will catch fire or even instantly explode. Lighters seem to have a thin layer of wax coating their skin that seems to make any fires on them last very long and also not affect their own body. Its like they make their own fire retardant.

• Dead-Ops: A zombified soldier. They typically will be ones wearing facial equipment that prevents biting, such as gasmasks. They retain some intelligence and are capable of performing suicidal charges with live grenades to attempt to splatter their blood everywhere and infect people.

• Zedfighter: A zombified firefighter, typically one still wearing their equipment. They retain some intelligence and are capable of operating a fire axe. Due to having their equipment on, they cant bite and thus are more focused on killing people. The equipment also allows them to operate inside of fires.

• ZedMAT: A zombified individual wearing a HAZMAT suit, MOPP suit, or other full-body chemical suit. They typically have some form of syringe carrying Necroa, or some form of knife or melee weapon.

• Cuirassier: Also called a Zed-Weeb. Typically caused by an anime lover being infected while holding a katana or other bladed weapon. They demonstrate a remarkable ability to instinctively parry incoming projectiles, but resort to biting at melee range. Though, more often than not it winds up being officers of the military during parades or just wearing a cuirass and wielding a saber of sorts. Not a very common type. They most consistently parry thrown projectiles but have been seen being able to occasionally parry bullets. An easy fix is to double-tap.

• First Zedsponder: A zombified police officer. Typically one that was infected while holding a gun. As long as the gun didn't fall out of their hands, they might turn into one of these. They display a limited ability to aim, though their trigger consistency is… poor at best. Sometimes they just pull the trigger randomly. Mostly since the virus wants to pull the trigger, though the virus is not inherently neurological and kind of just leads to occasional nerve firings that sometimes lead to trigger pulls. Which can make them lead other infected to them.

the boring part :(

While infected COULD be cured, the undead must be cured by killing them, as once they die in Stage 3, there’s no saving them (you cant exactly resurrect someone with a bit of medicine unless you somehow figure out how the virus resurrects people). Any weapon works, but it may take a few strikes to bring down a zombie fully due to their inherent resistance to pain. Usually, center-of-mass hits will work well.

It is recommended to stay away from salivating animals or symptomatic people. Carriers still salivate more. You can check to see if an animal or carrier has H2N4-N by splashing water at them. If they express no hydrophobia, then you can have a general idea of ruling out rabies. However, this is not perfect and would require more tests to fully rule it out, such as checking for photophobia or limited starvation of the suspected infected to check for polyphagia. Though, since survivors probably dont have much equipment for this, they are effectively forced to rely on these flawed tests. Luckily, animals carrying H2N4-N are generally no more and no less aggressive than they already were. So, for instance, if your dog is infected, you dont necessarily have to put them down and can keep them around. Just make sure saliva doesnt get into an open wound. And make sure they dont bite you.

Zombies still remain relatively intact, as bleeding still somewhat affects their body. Though due to relying on anaerobic respiration, a zombie can usually survive being mangled significantly. However, losing major organs does noticeably affect them.

If a zombie has intact eyes, they will oddly enough glow bright yellow. So far it seems to be because the infection causes some proteins in the eye to, for some odd reason, start producing a seemingly natural form of mVenus. The cause so far is unknown, but it makes zombies easier to spot.

Depending on how intact a zombie is, they also may be able to sort of speedwalk or even sprint. Though none get as fast as a Darter, it does make zombie speed inconsistent.

BULLSHIT EXCUSE TIME

The zombies seem to have an odd capacity to, by some unknown mean, store lactic acid buildup. While the mechanism of how they do this is unknown, zombies have been seen using whatever is left of their digestive system or mouth to regurgitate from time to time, so the current theory is they store the acid and eventually vomit it when it builds up too much. Some variants, however, seemingly do not vomit. Such as Abominations. Though, Lighters also remove their lactic acid because its part of their fire-retardant wax.

Sequel to my prior post about Uncoha.

Again, reading skills may be required (but less so)

NAME: Xanarite-208, Element 119, Xanarophosphoqartzite

COMMON NAME: Xanarite

CLASS: Crystalline Pathogen

ORIGIN: Space

INFO: Xanarite is an unknown, crystalline contagion originating from the unknown depths of distant space. It appears as a shimmering indigo crystal.

Stage 1: Prickly sensation on the insides, bouts of difficulty breathing, and rasping breath. As well as being scared of everything.

Stage 2: Stiffness, partial sporadic numbness, hacking coughs, and a faint indigo glow of the eyes in the dark.

Stage 3: Constant pain, intense prickly sensation inside and out, auditory hallucinations, and involuntary movement.

Stage 4: Agony, aggression, internal bleeding, bloody coughs with coughing up tiny shards of the crystal, and visual hallucinations.

Stage 5: Death. After death is when you turn into a Xanophage.

Roughly what a Xanophage looks like

Unfortunately, Xanarite is a contagious crystal, and it often grows upon the body and turns hosts into what are called "Xanophages," which are effectively what many would consider a "zombie." They attempt to impale individuals with their crystal-spike arms, which would infect them and turn them. Luckily, they are still mortal, but seem to quickly enter rigor mortis after death, and never fully slump over after death and usually go rigid by the time they fall to their knees or if they die mid-crawl, will remain mid-crawl. They also grow crystalline mandibles from their jaws, and their eyes glow bright purple.

Xanarite has been seen growing on deceased hosts, trapping the expired carcasses within in disturbing mineral formations that grow through the bodies. Although, these formations have provided steady insight into body preservation and life support, as Xanarite seems to keep the host alive to some degree. Hosts whom are deceased appear to be kept alive due to the crystal's high conductivity, which allows for residual bodily electricity to keep body systems in a state of organic limbo long after death, continuously in a feedback loop keeping the host alive despite the crystal growing over bones and skin and rendering the host paralyzed. The crystal seems to grow over the spinal cord, likely as a structural support.

Generally what a corpse crystal formation looks like

Oh, and there's variants. Some Hosts are "Laculator-Xanophages" who have the ability to grow Xanarite spikes out of their back, rip them out and throw them at targets. There also are "Comburens-Xanophages" which are slow and unsteady due to how many spikes cover them, though their spikes have high pressure buildup and violently explode if shattered, spraying crystalline shrapnel everywhere. The base varient are also called "Cuspidator-Xanophages." There is also the "Macellarius-Xanophages" which have 4 crystalline-spike spider legs that suspend its body and allow it movement, and its arm spikes end in crystalline hooks, making them function like ice picks. Although, Macellarius variants biological legs are completely dysfunctional, requiring them to use the spider legs.

Just decided to hear yall's opinions on one of my three zombie pathogens. Thoughts?
And before you say something is unrealistic just know that i dont have a PhD but im perfectly fine with any criticisms :D

[FOREWARNING: Reading skills may be required.]

CLASS: Prion

SCIENTIFIC NAME: Semi-Cerebral Dissonant Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy

ALIASES: The Second Blight (Named after the Black Death due to fatality numbers, and also since the Black Death was known as the Blight. Idk it was a cool name)

COMMON NAME: Uncoha (No, this is not a GoreBox reference)

DESCRIPTION: Uncoha is a prionic pathogen, believed to originate from Saudi Arabia. It is generally believed to be the most destructive pathogen known to mankind, and is entirely incurable due to its prionic nature. It also has rewritten knowledge on prions in several ways.

Speed of onset of symptoms per stage: Between 2 to 4 days. Bites to the neck cause it to be between 12 minutes to an hour.

Stage 1:

• Greying of skin, and bloodshot eyes.
• Blood gains a grey tint.
• Preference of meat in diet.
• Low patience, and anger issues.
• Incessant, uncontrollable, reasonless shivering

Stage 2:

• Aggressive tendencies.
• Extremely picky, always choosing meat to eat.
• Drop in coherence in speech (half of it ends up being primal, ravenous snarls)
• Indigestion after eating a non-meat food.
• Shivering gets worse, and host becomes more clumsy and uncoordinated.
• Hypersalivation due to the salival glands control centers becoming too damaged to properly regulate.

Stage 3:

• Total loss of self-control (remains self-aware).
• Hyper Cannibalism.
• Constant Explosive Disorder (CED)(hyper aggressive all the time).
• Attacks anything that is uninfected and moves.
• Conjunctival Bioluminescence (eyes glow red in the dark).
• Can only eat meat, otherwise they will start vomiting due to indigestion.

There is no cure since its a prion. The only way to treat an infected is to kill them. No need to aim for the head, considering they basically are just really sick people. Though their sense of pain is heavily nullified, so they might just keep going even if you shoot them a few times. Although they still will start flailing if they’re on fire, and they also have the primal fear of not being able to breathe. Hence why tear gas got greenlit.

To prevent infection, avoid being around the infected (they can transmit it, obviously), and avoid the following…

• Anything with stains of red with a grey tint
• Infected saliva
• Animals exhibiting similar signs to rabies, since the pathogen partially activates in most animals. Animals are contagious if their saliva gets into open wounds, but otherwise are not aggressive since Uncoha simply causes hyper-salivation in animals. Hence, there is no real need to put down an infected animal, since the prion barely even does anything to them and thus makes them no more aggressive than they normally would be.
• Infected blood

Infected remain self-aware even in Stage 3. They sometimes (albeit rarely) communicate with inverted, broken english, since thats all they really can do at that point. Common and notorious phrases are…

“Make it stop… Make it stop… Make it stop… Make it stop…”

“Please… God… Forgive me…”

“Im sorry… so… so sorry…”

“I didn't want this… please… end it…”

“Why… Why me…?”

Stage 3 infected also are startlingly relentless in their aggression, and will pursue you until either they lose track of you, or go so long that either you or the infected physically cannot continue or dies of overexertion. Infected also still retain base primal urges, and sometimes can be seen crouching by water sources and attempting to get water. They even sometimes will collapse and try to get sleep, since not even a prion can slow down a body’s need for some form of sleep, even if they only sleep for 2-4 hours.

Semi-Cerebral Dissonant Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy actually means something.

The “Semi-Cerebral” part is due to the fact that the contagion is not inherently cerebral and is capable of affecting a limited range of other tissues. But it still is primarily cerebral, it just has the ability to sort of affect digestive tract lining and the enteric nervous system to cause a bit of those meat preference effects.

The Dissonant part is due to the fact that Uncoha, building on the Semicerebral part, affects more PrP proteins outside the Central Nervous System, primarily in the enteric nervous system. Hence why it is considered a “dissonant prion” due to being so differently behaving to other prions.

The “Transmissible” part is because the prion is directly transmissible between an infected and an uninfected, as well as an infected and the environment.

The Spongiform Encephalopathy part is generally there because its a prion. However, it doesnt really make holes in the brain all that much. The holes are mostly around the amygdala and hypothalamus, as well to an extent the medulla oblongata and some non-cerebral nervous system areas like the enteric nervous system.

The symptom of Conjunctival Bioluminescence (conjunctiva lucens) is actually not an intentional side effect of Uncoha. It is believed that, as the brain loses control, it attempts to create more proteins to help rebuild. However, it seems to only be able to make RFP proteins. As such, a large spike of RFP occurs in the conjunctiva of the eye. Thus, this leads to the symptom.

However, the symptom’s cause is poorly understood, since it hasnt been studied while happening. As such, that is the only theory as to its cause. The most debated points are why it would make RFP when it instead should make collagen, actin, or myosin should be produced with leucine and FRePs proteins. It also seems to create a luciferase protein byproduct.

This is likely caused by certain cells being unintentionally hijacked by Uncoha, causing their RNA to produce wildly incorrect proteins that the body does not necessarily need.

Uncoha has rewritten the logic behind prions in several ways. Namely in transmission.

Curiously, Uncoha seems to bypass the inherent slowness of prions by not really waiting. Rather, infected proteins can misfold other ones before they become sheet-rich. This is apparently done because the infected PrPSc proteins release a tinier protein which is still larger than a microprotein (this somewhat smaller protein that is larger than a microprotein is called a sub-protein) called PrPScM which can cause other PrP proteins to begin turning into PrPSc.

The mechanics behind PrPScM are still generally confusing to scientists. It is unknown how Uncoha PrPSc can produce PrPScM. However, inspection of Uncoha PrPSc reveals that it is smaller in comparison to PrPSc from CJD and Kuru. This indicates it may be shearing itself after creating largely duplicate parts of it, hence creating PrPScM.

Now to some DEBATABLE stuff...

This all is largely based on my own beliefs of logic, but it is arguably the most debatable part about Uncoha.

First, lets look at roughly how fast it could spread. For this, we will use the city of Louisville, KY, as a point of reference.

Assuming the infection arrives through a single individual in Stage 1, it could go one of two general ways.

If Uncoha is widely known, it is likely the infected would be killed on sight.

HOWEVER, if the infection is less known, it has a greater chance to spread.

As such, it would take probably a few days or more for Louisville to fall.

If the infection came through the water supply, it might end up infecting a few high or drunk people, who would be too intoxicated to tell that the water is looking weird.

In this way, it may take an even shorter time frame for Louisville to fall. Largely since it would infect a larger base initial population, which makes it harder to ensure all infected individuals are killed before any turn to Stage 3.

And for tactics? In general, close quarters combat is only really effective when the number of infected around you is low. As such, effective combat in such situations would be to use a melee weapon such as a fire axe or, if necessary, a maneuverable weapon like a handgun or, in some cases, a shotgun.

When the number of infected is higher, it is best to use saturation. Automatic weapons and explosives are best here. As such, it would be advisable to use LMGs, HMGs, or something such as a flamethrower, since infected still respond to the sensation of being alight. Other automatic weapons like assault rifles and SMGs would also work, as long as a sufficiently overlapping volume of fire can be sustained, so that at least one person is always firing at any time.

Im bored. Have fun with my take on hard scifi in the universe known as In The Dark.

TL;DR: im such a physics larper arent I...

Note: I copypasted basically all of this from the google slides i stored this on.

Note 2: If your eyes are not decieving you, this is a text wall. If you dont like reading, please head right along.

First up, we gotta cover the lore.

Humanity had recently united largely under one banner, the Alliance of Federated Colonies (AFC), led by the United Earth Colonies, and members being the Centauri Colonies, Eridani Colonies, Siriusan Colonies, and Barnardsic Colonies. There is also the Coalition of Border Systems (CBS), which comprises of the Wolf Colonies, Lalandeian Colonies, Gliesic Colonies, Arcturan Colonies, and Rossic Colonies.

So far, humanity has no FTL travel. Travel between systems still relies on recently-developed Hypercharge Gates which basically convect a massive voltaic charge into ship drive engines, overcharging them and allowing the ship to rapidly accelerate, which is supported by the voltaic charge causing the ships magnetic field to warp, making the ship rapidly gain velocity. Halfway through it would turn around and begin a deceleration burn when it arrives in the target system. Although this is still constrained by the speed of light, it is anticipated that an Albecuierre-like system could be used to officially break the speed of light. But thats boring.

As of present, the AFC and CBS have only fought one interstellar war, which was the Interstellar War of 2113. In-system wars do happen, though. And as of now, the Dark Forest theory, Fermi Paradox, AND the Great Filter theory is holding up as absolutely no evidence of aliens has been found thus far. Humanity is largely beginning to accept that they are alone in the universe. Though, oddly, universal expansion has slowed down over time to a quarter of its prior speed and levelled out to expand at a consistent rate, significantly lengthening the expected time before the end of the universe. 

Communication-wise, early quantum entanglement is in use. These travel across Entanglement Tunnels between station relays, which means it still takes a solid several hours to a week for a message to arrive to its target, but its better than waiting a few years. It works because the signal speed is faster the closer it is to a Relay. So by having intermittent tidal-locked relays between systems, the signal speed is ultimately faster. Without Superlagrange Point Relays (Superlagrange Points are like lagrange points but towards the very edge of a star’s sphere of influence), the signal time would take multiple months to years... Probably not how it would realistically work but i dont wanna make blokes be 20 before they get a happy birthday email for their 17th birthday.

Next up comes shields.

Yes, I put shields in a hard scifi setting, hear me out though.

Particulofluidic barriers are an array of Novine particles, arranged in an alternating hexagonal lattice. Typically layered close to eachother, these shields cause physical objects to lose velocity inside, which then leads to a repulsive velocity being gained, shunting the object out of the shield. Energy will tend to fray out and lose all its energy. Thermal energy typically ripples through the shield, which is one of the few things that makes the shield have a visible form since the heat glow ripples through the particle layers. Though thermal energy directly doesnt hurt the ship, just makes the space within ever so slightly hotter due to heat radiation. Though since space is naturally so cold, the heat tends to be lost inside the shield. The shield also does block thermal energy, so a tight shield could theoretically cook the crew alive inside their own ship with enough thermal energy. Though, since the space in the bubble remains a vacuum, a shield far from the hull enough allows heat to still radiate away and die out.

The shield must recall expended particles back into the generator capacitors to be recharged and put back in the lattice. As such, the less particles are in the shield, the less effective it is at stopping projectiles and energy. Shields can be modulated for distance. A form-fitting shield that wraps around the ship is extremely repulsive and strong, but theres almost no distance between the shield layers and the hull, meaning if a round passes too much, it hits the hull. Alternatively, the shield could be a large bubble, which makes it affect a larger area but weakens it since the distance from the generator and the gaps. Thus, it cant slow or fray as well, but it could make an incoming energy shot too weak to doo much or a slug too slow to penetrate the hull.

The shield also can be penetrated by energy with a high enough intensity, or a high enough velocity projectile. Since every force has an equal and opposite, then the ship does get kicked back from repulsing physical objects. Though the mass difference usually means that the ship doesnt get kicked back a lot.

The recall of particles is done because Novine is naturally attracted to deactivated Francium. Thus, the core of a shield generator is made of Francium which gets exposed to let particles back in. The less electrons in a Novine particle, the more attracted it is. Deactivated Francium has a drastically longer half-life, though it is an exponential one. Once it reaches around 20 years, then its half-life rapidly begins to decay. Some shield cores also use deactivated Radium which works similarly, though Francium is still used because its more abundant on exoplanets, since less planets have been found with Radium.

Generally, ships have radiator arrays that literally link up to thermal lines in the hull which would be designed to convect heat to the radiators which then spray the heat out through an intentional gap in the shield. Usually, radiating heat out either requires you to expand the shield or lower it.

At system transfer velocities (the speed you go while transitioning between systems or celestial bodies), the sheer velocity of the ship and an interacting object causes a bright flash as the interacting object is aggressively ricocheted off the shield, usually generating thousands of degrees of heat on the interacting object.

And the killer of fun, resources.

Novine: An exotic particle harvested from Novinosine Gas in nebulas. Novinosine decays from Thorium-258, and the particles are not very radioactive. Although, you might not want to stand directly next to a shield if you dont want acute radiation sickness. Used in Particulofluidic Barriers.

Francium/Radium: Crucial to deactivate, as they allow depleted Novine particles to become attracted to them. A core component in Barrier Cores.

Magnetite-Mercury Fluid (Mercurite): A viscous, sticky gel comprised of Mercury and Magnetite, with a trace Iridium content. Extremely magnetic and toxic, and is crucial to the fueling of Reverse-Polarization Accelerator drive engines.

Titanium Carbide/Tungsten Carbide: Critical to the production of ship hulls.

Graphite Weave: A dense, multilayered lattice weave of graphite, typically layered in between ship hulls to increase their resilience. Also sometimes weaved through layers of bulletproof, tempered glass to make it more resistant to damage.

Mercury/Magnetite: Both crucial to the manufactury of Mercurite.

Thorium-258: A heavier, far more radioactive isotope of Thorium. Decently common, and it can be found in the upper Mantle of most worlds, particularly ones in regions where many supernovae and neutron star mergers occured. Needed to decay into Novinosine Gas.

Potatoes: Do you want to eat mashed potatoes for the eightieth time this deployment? No? CRY ABOUT IT.

Now, you're probably wondering how you could die. If you're not, too bad.

Sub-TL;DR: we love having horrible, agonizing ways to die dont we

If a ship gets cored, then typically the ship goes into Condition Five (Radiation Leak), and the crew typically will have to rapidly get into Lead-Lined Combat Gear to continue working. All non-essential crew will have to haul ass to Shipboard Safe Rooms since the radiation dose from the cores is enough to kill a man in minutes from radiation poisoning. Usually if someone is exposed to radiation onboard the ship, then typically the only hope for them is that the dose is low enough for them to get medical attention on a hospital. Otherwise, if its too much, then typically the crewmember is mercy-killed. Though on planetary or starbase hospitals, they do provide certain treatments to de-irradiate your body. Though after that you usually are infirm for a long while for them to be able to recover the damage done by the radiation. Which is an arduous process since they cant exactly just magically repair the DNA.

Ship engines use Reverse-Polar Acceleration where they basically just cook magnetic fields, giving engines an eerie green glow. If these are blown open, then you are subjected to Polarization Sickness which causes extreme confusion, arrhythmia, and progressing organ failure since it basically fucks up your brain so much that it starts forgetting how to keep homeostasis, eventually killing you by some manner of organ failure, usually cardiac arrest or heart failure. Engine room safety kits involve wearing Faraday Suits which are bulky suits fitted with elastic faraday cages. The engine room is also a heavy faraday cage. Engine breaches also are dangerous since the sheer heat inside the cores of each thruster engine causes plasma fires to erupt if they get breached. Plasma fire is basically when plasma ignites the magnetite-mercury fluid (also called mercurite) in the engines, causing possibly the most horrific way to die if it catches fire on someone because you basically just get melted so much that most of your remains will just be ashes.

A ship's purge system is intended to evacuate the ship’s air supply in the event of too much harmful gas, chemicals or other hazards accumulating in the onboard atmosphere, and usually involves locking down every door, opening the air vents, and basically venting the entire ship room by room before shutting the external vents, though it does blare a buzzer 3 times in a room before venting it. After that, it starts refilling the ships oxygen and opening areas that are fully oxygenated. Ships usually have reserve oxygen storage throughout the ship. Though ships have internal recyclers, the storage oxygen is used to refill oxygen after severe loss.

How fun.

More boring lore...

Most large ships are incapable of going too far into planetary gravity (only excursion shuttles and fighters can do that). Thus, ships typically dump waste into gas giants (kinda like Mass Effect), or dumping them at celestial objects like stars or black holes. Also, speaking of fighters, in this universe, fighters are designed to be able to properly work in atmosphere and in space. Fighters cannot carry ship-grade equipment, and thus carry Subship-grade equipment, such as Cadmium Reactors and Polar Accelerators (basically the only engine that has an extremely long fuel time and doesnt kill everyone in the county just from running)

Large ships, on low gravity planets, CAN land. Though they land bow-up and need to use reusable, detaching ascent boosters to reach escape velocity and leave the planet. Though only small-to-medium sized capital ships can safely do this. Anything larger will usually buckle under their weight.

Ship reactors also are their shield core. Typically if their core begins to meltdown, it is considered “flaring” since the energy generation rapidly flares up. A reactor explosion on a ship is a guaranteed death of that entire ship and anyone onboard. A ship that is flaring will have a sort of aurora on the shields as the shiips lights rapidly and erratically either become obscenely bright or virtually not even on, as the ship also starts exploding and having lightning arc across the hull from the excess power before finally going supercritical and vanishing in a flash.

Ships generate some level of gravity by having gravcoils under the floor. These coils subtly shake constantly and always rotate, which generates around a 0.60g amount of gravity. They also use magnetism to attract the crew to the floor since the boots are partly magnetized. This helps against atrophy, though the meals still have to help combat that, and crews are literally forbidden from laying down or sitting on a seat that has a way to rest your back unless its their shift’s Free Period or Lights Out time. Which you can still sit down anytime, you’re just not allowed to rest your back. When in combat, ships typically shut off gravity, and surfaces are colored to help orient. Floors are usually given blue lines, walls have green lines, and ceilings have yellow lines.

FINALLY THE FUN PART

Space combat has, so far, shifted to sort of feel somewhat like what many science fiction movies depicted.

Combat takes place at ranges of several kilometers (usually 700-1000 kilometers). At these ranges, main battery guns and VLS launchers are primary. At 400 kilometers is salvo range where most of a ship’s higher-caliber armaments are in range. At 100 or lower kilometers is knife fight range, where most of a ship’s weapons are in range. At anything above 1500 kilometers is considered long range (also called standoff range), where only missiles are viable. At all ranges, strike craft are considered useful, though AFMs (Anti-Fighter Missiles) and SAD (Shipboard Active Defense/Shipboard Air Defense) turrets render attacks on ships dangerous for fighter craft.

Ships typically use a mix of coilguns and railguns as its weapons, with missiles as a long-range artillery armament and defense weapon. Ships also typically keep the bow pointed to the enemy, since kinetics can ricochet off shields.

The Battle Line, or First Line, consists of Destroyers, Cruisers of all tiers, and Battleships. They soak up all the damage, and also can dish it out very well. Think of them as dedicated combat ships. Most battles start and end with these lines fighting. Dreadnoughts also exist as the prides of an empire’s navy, but are rare and typically remain deep in territory. Dreadnoughts are big enough to see from the surface of a planet while its in orbit.

The Artillery Line, or Second Line, consists of Frigates, Battlecruisers and Artillery ships. They deal the most damage, though First Line can serve as damage dealers well.

The Support Line, or Third Line, consists of Auxiliaries, Tugs and Carriers. If they're being shot at, then something has gone very wrong with the battle. They usually arent armed and provide logistics support to ships that fall back to Third Line in the battle.

If you were wondering, the Alliance of Federated Colonies Navy has the following Dreadnoughts...

AFCN Xochiquetzal Mons: IN SERVICE

AFCN Sekmet Mons: ON DEPLOYMENT - 23rd Fleet

AFCN Kottravey Chasma: ON DEPLOYMENT - 14th Fleet

AFCN Khosedem Fossae: IN SERVICE

AFCN Akkruva Colles: UNDERGOING REFITS - Aladdin Anchorage Yards, Venus, Sol

And the Coalition of Border Systems Navy has the following Dreadnoughts as well...

CBSN Warspite: IN SERVICE

CBSN Excalibur: UNDER GOING REFITS - Salve Anchorage, Kors, Ross 248

CBSN Broken Arrow: IN SERVICE

CBSN Caspar Röist: ON DEPLOYMENT - Task Force Hydra

CBSN Erich Raeder: ON DEPLOYMENT - Task Force Nomad

But what about the planets? Whats happening to the people who are, dare I say, PlanetSide...? Get it? PlanetSide? ... ok im sorry :(

Ground combat is quite the nightmare, since theres very few habitable worlds at the time, so special gear is needed.

Infantry wear EVECHS (Extra-VEhicular Combat Hard-Suits) which are partly-bulky kevlar exosuits meant to protect the user in a gunfight while also allowing them to operate on most exoplanets. Though in most environments, one suit breach is usually it for you, especially if theres no magnetic field.

To deal with injuries, the suit itself uses similar tech to self-sealing fuel tanks, and the suit also injects hemostatics and epidermocoagulants (which basically are meant to cause scabbing as fast as possible) if it detects both a suit breach and bleeding. Though the wearer has goggles and a rebreather in their helmet so that they can still survive for a few minutes if their faceplate is compromised.

In terms of armored warfare, tanks typically are only a 2 or even 1 man crew, as guns are autoloaded by now. Typically one or two shots from a tank’s railgun will kill a tank, though. Tanks also limit their speed to operate similarly on any planetary environment.

When it comes to boarding, a crew will typically surrender if all their Marines are dead. Marines arent in EVECHS gear, so usually the crew gives up anyways. The Saturn Accords dictates an enemy crew on a crippled ship is to be repatriated and given fair treatment according to the Geneva Conventions article “Revised Laws on the Treatment of a Prisoner of War.” It is customary to use cables to tow a crippled enemy ship to your line and to briefly disengage to take their crew in.

(i should probably mention planetkillers)

Relativistic Kill Vehicles, or RKVs, are the space equivalent to a thermonuclear bomb. Both the AFC and CBS possess stockpiles, but due to them being planetkillers (defined as a “weapon of celesticide/weapon of celestial destruction” in the Saturn Accords), Mutually Assured Destruction applies.

RKVs are kept under staggering lock and key. The CBS requires their President to look a man in the eyes, and kill them to rip the codes out of their body to be able to fire a single RKV, and the AFC requires virtually unanimous approval from nearly every single layer of government to fire a single RKV.

But whats it like to BE on a ship?

Sub-TL;DR: gooner's paradise

Shipboard life is usually a mix of bliss, despondency, and boredom. Sure, you have gaming consoles aboard, but you know literally EVERYONE onboard. So usually crews eventually kinda become antisocial. The despondency is usually from realizing that at literally any second you could die horribly, and the bliss is just from the inherent beauty of space and seeing it in person. On most crews, people will literally romance eachother (or just make out with eachother, which has led to ship crews having by far the lowest rate of kinkshaming) just because they need something interesting to do. Hence why almost half of a crew are romantic partners with eachother or just no longer being virgins, and really the only rules for shipboard romance is literally just "Dont have a kid, for the love of God." Basically they just want you to wait to have a kid until your planetside. And, funny enough, some crews tend to get a Bonnie Blue-esque crewmember who just romances everyone on the ship out of boredom or just being good at it. Hence why the saying is "If you think your romance was shit, wait till you see one on a ship." So generally, being on a ship is living with a few dozen people who are either introverted, depressed, bored or horny.

Otherwise, the routine tends to be monotonous. You wake up, work, have First Mess Period, work, have free time, work, have Second Mess Period, have free time, work, have free time, then sleep. And mind you, they do shift rotations, so depending on the schedule it might be Wake up, have Third Mess Period, have free time, work, have Fourth Mess Period, work, have free time, work, then sleep. generally the food is mashed potatoes and milk in small canisters (ships usually have some level of artificial gravity which helps against bone atrophy, and the milk is mostly also to help with it), and usually some form of MRE-ish meat. The mashed potatoes sometimes have slices of meat and/or shredded cheese inside it to add variance. HOWEVER, due to ship gravity, some other foods like breads, chicken, waters, juices, or in some occasions, pastas.

And if you get ouchied?

Medical technology has advanced significantly, though there are still issues being worked on.

Cancer treatments have drastically improved, providing a fairly reliable way to defeat cancer. Although some diseases still have no effective cure, such as prions. Though prion treatments have gotten better, though most prions still have a very iffy treatment rate. They tend to average out around 40% success rates.

The development of epidermocoagulants led to a surge in buyers for home medkits, which has significantly hurt the bandage market. Though, bandages are still useful because the scabs are fairly easy to reopen, so its usually a good idea to bandage a coagulated scab.

Life support has also become much more advanced with the advent of Immunoadjutants, which is a machine that takes over your immune system, allowing it to fight off a wider array of diseases on its own with the help of coded antibodies which help the body recognize diseases that stay hidden.

Humanity has also beaten lactose intolerance by having a drug that helps you produce more lactase. As well as beating a few other defects, as well as a treatment for blindness that helps the immune system forget the eyes exist.

And a probable question...

"erhmmmm why dont they just hand over control of ships to AI"

Vessels do not possess AI cores for a multitude of reasons.

1, Man-In-The-Loop: As dictated by doctrine, vessels dont hand off a lot of control to AI cores due to the need for a person in the loop for anything it touches.

2, Tragedy: On October 29, 2120, an AI-operated defense picket in the Rossic systems experienced context overflow. This caused it to hallucinate heavily, opening fire on a civilian starliner. Hundreds were killed, the vessel was fired upon by the destroyer “Juno”, and AI cores were heavily restricted.

3, No Civilian Access: Due to fears of terrorists using AI-operated vessels, civilians are incapable of acquiring AI cores. Acquisition of them is punishable heavily, often up to life in prison or in extreme cases the death penalty by electric chair.

And why did the universe stop, OP?

uhhhhhh bullshit explanation go!

While scientists have no clue why the universe has quit expanding and slowed to a halt, the real cause is very interesting.

The web of dark energy that determines the size of the universe (scientists theorize that dark energy uses celestial bodies as anchor points for a web, which makes the universe kinda like a mesh of dark energy) has become stretched so thin between stars that the collective Gravitational Constant (or better termed as the Average Matter Density) has reached equilibrium with it. This formula, E=Rho over T (effectively as much as the scientists could boil it down to. This is called an excuse for me to not have to research mathematics for 22 hours just to write a fictional equation), where ρ is the Average Matter Density, and T is the Dark Energy Tension. Thus, gravity can now counteract dark energy, and dark energy, measured as Dark Energy Tension, is stretched too intensely to allow the expansion of the universe. Probably not how it actually works but im too stupid to waste a few hours researching it.

Anyways, thats all I have for you guys.

Feel free to ask me whatever you want or mutilate my universe and point out everything that makes no sense. I dont mind :3