What ISN'T The Core?

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The Core is not:

• Lawful Order
  
• Bounty Hunters
  
• Pirates
  
• Terrorists
  
• Good Guys

I have, amazingly, seen people pick up the ID and make the assumption it is one of the above. If you do that you are playing the ID wrong. You are playing the RP wrong. Stop that. You make me cry.

Being a Dickhead's Cool

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You look at the list of factions. Your eyes scroll past them all, your brain writing them all off as boring and uninteresting. Pirates? Lame. Traders? Lame. House Militaries? Laaaaame. For someone as prestigious and avant-garde as yourself, you want to RP something that exists on the same level of grandeur as you. As you reach the top of the list, you spy something that finally tickles your fancy. The Core. A paramilitary hellbent on creating an Empire in the Edge Worlds. "Wow!" you think to yourself "This is just as cool as I am! They're strong and powerful just like me! Better than everyone else!".

For those of you who haven't been enchanted by my wordplay, I'll explain the reasoning for the extremely leading paragraph above. I'm trying to get you into the mindset of a Core pilot. In reality, such a mentality has no place ooRP but is perfect for Core RP.

Core RP demands that you tap into your inner snob. You are allowed to - no, you are expected to - be as conceited and display as much swagger as the in-game chat text limit will allow. You know that chad from school who bullies you out of your lunch money, and you see walking into Mommy's bedroom once you go to bed? Picture that image in your head - minus the last bit unless you're into that. Although you'll never be that alpha IRL, you CAN be that alpha in the Edge Worlds as a Core pilot.

It's all about bravado and pompousness. Years of propaganda, near-religious indoctrination, and rigorous training regimen has led your character to believe they are divine. The Edge Worlds is their destiny. Your brothers and sisters in arms are righteous and true. Your leaders are godlike figures. Your enemies are sub-human degenerates. With all of this zeal, you feel that you are unshakable and unmatchable in strength and power. If you're not taking the aux to put on TCNS, don't even bother. There's nothing else worth listening to, other than the constant stream of indoctrinating propaganda.

The Core pilot demands self-importance to the point of frustration. In a way, it's a weakness. The concept of weakness itself is poison to their minds. It drives them to insanity - often leading to them ricing up their bodies with cybernetic upgrades and drugs, just so they can reach the next level. The irony is, they're so desperate to reach this state of purity and perfection that they lose their own humanity in the process. And with no way to go but forwards, they end up selling their souls to The Core war machine. It's tragic, but hey, ignorance is bliss.

Once again, try to combine the above with your own ideas for interesting results as to how your character's personality plays out. If you want to be adventurous, perhaps deconstruct some of the framework above so that you can play slightly differently to the stereotype. Perhaps a Core character that DOES become aware that they've given up their humanity, but they're too far gone to walk away from what they've become? The possibilities are endless.

Lawful Evil

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The Core, much like the GRN, is of the unique moral alignment that is rarely seen in Discovery. Here's a chart to help familiarize yourself (click it for a larger version):


Long story short: you are not a good guy. I cringe every time I see a Player that picks up a Core ID thinking it's just a lawful Order ID. The intention of this guide isn't to restrict RP but this is certainly the most sacred rule to keep in mind as a Core character: you are a villain. The Core likes to say it's the valiant crusader of humanity, saviour of mankind, however, it is anything but. Through its greed and ruthless exploitation of the Edge Worlds, it's sooner to doom humanity rather than to save it. Objectively, when The Core as a group is viewed through the eyes of anyone but themselves, they are intrinsically evil. They've massacred civilians for the sake of securing territory. However, such a bloody act is not always the norm. The Core achieves their objectives through lawful means. They shy away from outright destruction and instead opt for calculated war and domination through law.

So, instead of launching unprovoked attacks against other groups, The Core firstly obtains a justifiable and rational cause for the attack, such as lack of payment for paying fines or breaking the law. Attacking someone without justification would simply be mindless violence, which is what you'd find in a chaotic evil character.

Imperium Omicronis

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One of the most important components of Core RP is the conquest to establish an Empire. The Core seeks to create the Imperium Omicronis (the 'Empire of Omicrons') within the Edge Worlds region. They see the Omicrons and Omegas as wild untamed space which is full of criminals and terrorists. They feel they are the only ones qualified enough to truly bring peace to the region. However, at least to the upper echelons of The Core, this is mostly a facade. The real objective is to secure a large enough area of space for alien experiments and to ensure complete domination of Nomad and Omicron resources, including the Nomads themselves. This will ultimately allow them to achieve a much more sinister objective (scroll to the end of that section).