UN|GEIST-SLF-Sirene | Unioner Spyglass Ghost Ship

[The Syndicate Leagues]

Because mystery stories are fun stories.

- 250 million credit fee is aboard the UN|GEIST-KKS-Sirene. It’s all the cash on the vessel.

Request ship:

Improvised Spyglass Colony Ship (Arbiter battleship model). To be shared with the top two Unioner OFL Command Ranks. If the Greens aren’t comfortable with the rank-locking concept, Taeni will fly the ship.

Request IFF: Unioner Guard IFF. Guard IFF is to encourage the ship to avoid docking on non-Unioner stations. 100% on RM cap guns, Sirius Civ cap guns. Can use Battleship codes according to availability.

New ship name: UN|GEIST-KKS-Sirene

ID: Special Operative ID restricted by the same terms as the Alster Union ID. Can only dock on Unioner bases, Separatist Bases, and Pirate IFF bases.

Ship FX:

Tekagi’s Arch Lighting effect placed on a central internal hardpoint (critical for the RP of the vessel).

Rheinland Battleship engine FX (Illustrates that the ship is kit-bashed out of irregular parts. Also makes the vessel look a bit less Hellfire.)

Green contrails

1) Forum Name of the Owner:

The Unioners.
20210924 Update: Ownership transferred to @Enkidu

2) Exact name of the ship:

UN|GEIST-KKS-Sirene


4. Why is this request necessary for the continuation of this character's roleplay?

We’re now at the point where any additional RP with the ship, other than continually iterating on the backstory, would be 1) forced, 2) a little absurd as the vessel is presently stuck at 10% powercore and doesn’t have the FX that will make the ship the odd, deformed character that it’s meant to be.

As the ship is starting to become the template for ingame RP activity, it’s critical to the ship’s continuation that it starts to have a role. Besides, we’re now at a point at the story where all the backstory threads converge – it seems the perfect time to transfer the vessel from complex origin story, to physical vessel.

A big push for the RP was, just as we were in the process of rep-fixing the vessel after the capture event, was several 5th fleet pilots emerging into the system, and immediately became curious over what the UN|GEIST-KKS-Sirene was, and roleplaying around it. Unfortunately there wasn’t much the ship could do other than RP a little bit, then cloak and run off to preserve the air of mystery, but it’s already having the desired quizzical impact of creating RP, be it ingame RP or MDs. People seem to be responding to the ‘defective power grid’ concept extremely positively. We’d like to send the request now whilst all the substantiating RP for it is essentially finished, whilst the ship still seems new and fresh as an ingame entity on the server. The next day, we had an even more fun encounter with the 6th fleet, who RP'd seeing the vessel's fx even though they wern't visually prominent yet. There appears to be major RP traction for the idea of an old, fairly creepy, barely working old-model spyglass battleship as an Easter-egg vessel in the discovery of today.

The directly involved factions in creating the legend of the Siren are:

Kruger (For various joint RP over the year).

DHC (Participating in the Lutz Gilger story arc).

Unioners (Various members for influencing the storyline, contributing to the capture event, etc).

Junker Congress (Helping out with odd jobs here and there).

BDM (Approving the creation of MND characters to develop the story of the ship, approving the ship’s existence and its transfer to Unioners after, along with the ingame and forum event that started the whole RP off).

The Lane Hackers (For participating in the spyglass story arc and just generally being really fun to RP with).

Elaboration on the RP origins:

The RP for this ship has been constructed in an exercise of multi-narrative storytelling. The average “ship defects/is salvaged/trade-me-parts” RP didn’t seem appropriate for a vessel with an inherent air of mystery. Therefore much of the RP is simply people trying to find out what the vessel is, how it operates, what the previous occupiers used it for, what became of them, and what sense of foreshadowing that will yield for the future.

We got the idea from having a hard look at maritime mythology. The sea is vast, mysterious and alien - sailors who had been travelling around the world for centuries looking for gold and spice still retained superstitions right up until the age of GPS. It's not inconceivable to imagine the same in a 'dense space' universe such as Discovery.

The overlapping stories are a mixture of realtime narratives (with their date of authorship roughly matching ingame time progression) with some backstory-padding. They detail what happens to the ship right up until the Unioners jump the vessel out of Bremen and into unknown space.

The RP is effectively a narrative homage to paranoia-based scifi narratives contained within the confines of a scifi derelict, including movies like 'Pandorum', 'Alien', 'The Black Hole', 'Event Horizon'. That's the kind of storytelling we've gone for here.


05: What short-term and long-term goals are you planning to achieve on this character?


The ship itself is the character. Characters aboard the ship are, at some point, all going to die.

Other than that, create science RP for other factions by being around and being interesting, generate MDs and activity interest for other groups, pragmatic concerns. Serve as the primary HQ for GEIST, the wing of the Unioners controlled by the Arbeitsdirektor alone, giving them a little more ingame exposure.



06. Provide links to the relevant forum roleplay.


There's a lot of it. Both ingame and out.

Mythology:

(This is a critical part of the RP – the sense that the ship is inherently mysterious).
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=150730 < Discusses the possibility for manmade spacecraft to drift unknown in lost regions of space.
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=150656 < GEIST file referring to the idea that unidentified spacecraft could be the origin of paranormal phenomena. Shows the origin of Unioner pilot superstitions.
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1936663 < Personal logs supposedly from the Siren. The language is mostly conversational yet there’s a background sense of general creepiness. It doesn’t describe the whole story. It provides context for what both the Unioners, BDM, and MND know about the vessel during their respective occupations of the hull.
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=150739 < Backstory (this is a God’s-eye view of the ship’s mythological story. Not everyone knows every detail of this, it’s mostly for further investigation if people so choose).
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=157576 < The piece of Sirian folk music that originally inspired the name of the Dies Illa (lyrics original). Note how the Mythology sections are meant to be “clues”. The true origin of the ship is meant to be semi-mysterious.







MND and BDM investigation of The Siren:

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=149375 < Major Finn Haast of the MND – Federal Police exchange program gleans wise to the general pandemonium and superstition within intercepted Unioner pilots from his analysis of listening post data at Border Station Lübeck. Hoping to feather the twilight of an otherwise unremarkable career, Haast triangulates the trajectories of the panicked, detected Unioner fighters to a position within the Voelkhoven Nebula, Koeln, and sends the BDM the first images of the vessel. Lusting for promotion to the primary fleet, Haast attempts to board the vessel, without due caution, by himself.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1897768 < Immediately after Haast’s final transmission, the BDM primary fleet send a research and recovery team to given position within the remote Nebulae. They attempt to contact Haast, but both parties find themselves jammed by the vast amount of interference created by the unknown ship. After extensive mutual efforts to communicate, a signal line is strung between the two ships, and BDM primary fleet agent, callsign Zeal boards the vessel on an extremely hazardous EVA. The ship is discoverered to be a tomb. (Events played out ingame without a script, improvising RP as we went along. The above link is Direktor Geoff Enfield’s mission report within the Buro archives). The vessel is towed by the BDM cruiser to Schatten research Station, in Frankfurt, where it can be placed under intense analysis by the shipyard.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=154420 < Fast-forward several months, the project has been mothballed due to increasing tensions between Rheinland and the GMG. Haast has been booted off the project and in his stead, Lutz Gilger, a straight-laced, conservative, MND atheist, has been positioned to run the project.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tz+Daumann < Lutz acquires weaponry for the project under a shroud of relative beurocratic secrecy from Daumann. Officially, the weapons are to protect the archaeological site. Unofficially, Lutz intends to arm the vessel to prevent the project from being defunded – this then turns into an attempt to decharge the vessel’s excessive power grid.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=154865 < Lutz Gilger’s biography, providing background to the character. It strongly suggests that Gilger was picked by the BDM to analyse the ship as he would be immune to rumour and superstition influencing his judgement.
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1940814 < Haast becomes increasingly insane due to his lack of promotion, celebration, or indeed any formal recognition of his service after the recovery of the Dies Illa (original name of the Sirene). He appears to hear voices in his mind and experiences extreme anxiety – it’s implied that he has experienced nervous system damage from the massive electromagnetic fields present around the Illa’s poorly insulated Electronic Attack Systems affecting his physiology. He begins to obsess about Gilger and hold him accountable (without proof) for the loss of his control over the project, and begins to start publicising whatever information about the project he can find. The Unioners ultimately find out about this (as most of them read Fact Fight).





https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=154941 < The primary Lutz Gilger narrative arc, taking place slightly before and in the months after Wilde (presumed GMG) attack on Fulda border station. In the interests of security (and budget cuts for non-wartime programs), Gilger moves the vessel to Bremen – obstensibly their task is forensic archaeology. However, Gilger is privately keen to arm the vessel as a Rheinland battleship in an attempt to maintain funding and contribute to the war effort. Over time, Gilger’s crew and hardware progressively succumb to bizarre health ramifications, disturbing Gilger. He, however, remains rigidly by-the-book throughout, and refuses to succumb to the superstition infused into his surroundings. The narrative ends with Gilger’s decision to move the ship out of Bremen, back to Hamburg for impounding.

This is when the timeline converges with the end of the Unioner timeline.






Unioner investigations of the object:

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...light=Soma < About two months into the Second Volksrevolution Civil War, the Unioners order an investigation of an unknown spacecraft causing apparent distress to Unioners operating in Koeln. Whilst the reports are initially considered an embarrassment, the Unioners investigate regardless. Initially believing the source to be the work of foreign research teams, the Unioners go down the rabbit hole of attempting to acquire and analyse exotic manmade energy sources to determine the source of the “ghost” readings. This turns out to be a rabbit hole.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1879933 < Early on in the Unioner Hessian conflict, pilot Gunda Riehl notes the deleterious effects on Unioner morale the rumoured “Ghost ships” are causing within the Hamburg/Koeln unlawful world.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=154864 < The Unioners, already strongly suspicious of the Hellfire Legion, start to suspect that the Ghost Ship may be the result of a Spyglass electronic warfare array after Legion ships appear with ever-increasing frequency within Bering. The Unioners aquire a Spyglass receiver to collect transmission data themselves – this same array is later used by Captain Weiss to track the Dies Illa upon its exodus from Bremen.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=157364 < First hinting at Captain Weiss Abendroth – the Unioners mentioning “The captain of the Schwarzwald” and of the movement of LWB into the Unioners. Abendroth becomes the head of the Union Navy and eventually the Sirene’s commanding officer.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=158919 < Further elaboration on Abendroth as a character and her presence within GEIST. Her need to debunk the mysterious is what drives the vessel’s discovery.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=149585 < The Unioners mention the existence of “strange ships” to the Core. They hazard a guess that the vessel might be the work of Nomad interference, and thus try to craft a relationship with the Omicron movement.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...355&page=2 < A cabal of Unioners collaborate with the SCRA and the Hessians to bring an end to the second Volksrevolution civil war – violently - by having the Arbeitsdirektor assassinated, in part a desperation move by the Unioners due to the number of ships rapidly being lost. The posts also mentions the history of Petra Abendroth – close relative of Erica Weiss-Abendroth, an incoming Reichsadmiral of the United Unioners and LWB. Keen to escape the “Abendroth curse”, especially in a time of assassination, Weiss attempts to capture the Dies Illa in part to show her dominance over superstition.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1980865 < Biography of Admiral Abendroth. Displays her personality type as a supposedly unlucky commander.
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=158651 < Abendroth privately collects the quantum arrays, attempting to trace the vessel to undermine the culture of superstition with the Unioners.
https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...t=Berthold < Abendroth orders Oberarbeiter Herman Meyer to take up the assignment of dropping the quantum-array upgraded sensor modules in a triadic fashion around possible vessel locations.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1965998 < Gunn reports her encounter with the NTF – a group of Extra-Sirian preppers who, in the past, attempted to secede from Sirius in a spyglass-based colony ship in much the same way that the crew of the Dies Illa attempted to seclude themselves from the sector through their own craft. The NTF claim to be looking for a spyglass, reinforcing her assumption that the supposed “ghost ship” is simply an electronic warfare vessel – the truth, but not the whole truth. Gunn also expresses even-handedly the need for a strong military leader to take control of the chaos the Union has fallen into during the merger of the LWB refugees and the Unioners – a role that Weiss, armed with the Siren, moves in to fill.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1980919 < Abendroth orders Oberarbeiter Dross to depart the trial of the Corsair Custodi prematurely to attempt the triangulation of the Sirene using an experimental hyperspatial jump carrier, the Lorentz Von Rohe following Haast’s betrayal of Gilger.

This is when the Unioner timeline converges with the BDM/MND timeline.

Post capture (and, for RP dative purposes, post SRP sending, assuming acceptance)

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1981166 < The RP capture event of the Sirene. Full logs are enclosed. Sadly the OBS video corrupted on export.
Summary of the event: Whilst being chased by Lawful Rheinlandic vessels, Oberstarbeiter Mary Dross of the Unioners, after triangulating the position of the Sirene, was tasked with leading a rapid reaction force involving the KKS Westfalen, two cruisers and a wing of strike fighters and bombers, to Bremen on the orders of Admiral Abendroth. Upon sighting the Sirene in high orbit of Delmenhorst, the Unioners and the MND broke into a protracted gun battle, during which the Unioner bombers targeted the Sirene’s secondary batteries with torpedo weaponry, blowing off enough guns for the Lorentz Von Rohe, an experimental jump carrier, to get close enough to the Sirene to enter the jump field. The fighters, shielded on the far side of the Westfalen from the Sirene’s remaining anti-fighter weaponry, entered the jump bubble, jumping the entire strike force, along with their MND prize, into the Omicron Gamma system.

A protracted boarding operation was roleplayed out ingame, with Unioner fighters keeping the shield of the Sirene down as marines were dropped from the Lorentz’s cargo bay around the vessel. The ship was effectively captured by the Unioners, who proceeded to combat-escort the entire flotilla to the Bering system, in cruise and impulse. Over this entire mission, the Sirene was being played on hardcore-mode; if it died for any reason, that would have been the end of the ship.









The Unioner investigation begins several months into the thirteen-month war (second Volksrevolution Civil War) between the Unioners and the Red Hessians, and ends a month afterwards with the Westfalen dispatched to intercept The Siren.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=149599 < The Unioners eventually plonk the Siren here post-capture.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=149922 < The Unioners acquire a large metallurgical press to increase their production of hull panels, which are used for resurfacing the Illa.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1981164 < Concealing the Sirene using a Hansa acquired cloaking device.

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid1981178 < Records of ingame encounters, now that the ship is tagged.

07. Provide a cliffnote/summary for the links provided above.

In a sentence: a short story told over various comms, forum sections, etc, detailing discovery, frustration, betrayal, regret, between several characters over several decades.

Below is the spoiler version to disincentivise people from metagaming and reducing the fun of the ship.

cliffnote backstory

A hastily-cobbled together Junker facsimile of a Spyglass, constructed in the period shortly after the rebellion of Drake Thastus when the Legion's fame was beginning to create ripples within the independent underworld. The vessel's exact creators remain relatively ambiguous, but it appears to have been traded through the hands of various institutional paranoiacs, with each successive crew coming to violent ends, over and over. Constructed entirely out of incompatible and otherwise inadequate components, the pseudo-spyglass writhes with powerful electromagnetic fields, shorting out non-integrated equipment and even creating headaches and strokes within its successive crews. The vessel is effectively the textbook unlucky ship, daring to their doom any band of adventurers stupid enough to attempt to crew her for very long, having killed off its original creators, successive scores of Unioners unlucky enough to run into the vessel, driven a former agent of the MND to near-insanity and treason, and passing into local legend. The backstory is less a narrative of the construction of the vessel (not that interesting) and more an account of the various intrigues and backstabbing made by the various parties attempting to gain control of the vessel, resulting in large amount of character death. It's effectively the ultimate ghost ship for the Discovery universe, killing off each successive group that gains access to the ship.

- The ship is being requested as a way to pep up Unioner RP, give other factions more interesting message dumps, etcetera. The ship is the result of one year of RP with occasional on-off logging as an indie vessel. The RP has now progressed to the point where it would be exhausting to keep it a primarily forum-only entity, and now needs to exist ingame.

This ship is not being requested for any PVP advantage. The only people who would fly this vessel arn't particularly good at battleship PVP, whilst the turtle is arguably a better battleship anyhow. The ship is there to look cool and spark RP inspiration for players old and new alike, in the same way the Necrosis did or the Harmony does. In-game, it probably won't be hyper-capable, it being the longest battleship in the game whilst having to travel through a large number of asteroid fields.


18. How long has this character been building its backstory?

First ingame event with Finn Haast, the ship, and the BDM| officials, was about 13 months ago, I believe. On-off forum and ingame RP since then to a total of 3 major ingame events and 23 significant RP threads, give or take.



However, the cojoined RP also involves tangentially the NTF, Order, Core, Liberty Separatists, along with a few others. It uses RP research taken from over seven years of discovery. The ship was originally intended to be a unique ship, unfortunately the model is bogged down in development.

Character References:

I feel that the Unioner HC are relatively well-known to the community, with the positives and negatives that involves. If we use this ship abusively/cause drama, revoke the vessel. It's intended to be a fun RP asset in the same way TAZ's Persephone is fun to encounter. The moment the encounters stop being fun, Bastille the ship.

However, here’s an encounter that got put in the Kudos thread from the 6th fleet that just occurred between the Sirene and a cruiser. Community attestation is usually a good benchmark:

Kudos to UN| ... Vessel. This is was good RPing. I'll go and tell the security services what's going on in Bering. xD

- 6th|LNS-Hampshire.

Thanks, however, go to @Durandal , for okaying use of his model for this crazy RP experiment. He could have easily denied it and left the project in the lurch, since the Arbiter was originally his model. Thank you.

Also @Neraxon , for always believing in UN, even when times seemed tough, and @Geoffacake , for helping with this RP.

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"Though the past is scarred and the future untold"
" Be the boot heavy, the vacuum cold."
"I of the Liga,  do not fold"
"For suits or saints or beggar's gold.
Information - Recruitment - Message Dump - Feedback

[Skorak]

Approved.

Usage of RM guns under the assumption that they'll be used until UN guns are in.
Usage of UN guard IFF as long as the IFF exists.

The Arbiter seems to have no contrails that could be changed to green ones.

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[The Syndicate Leagues]

Unioner Spyglass Refit. Unique ship request + SRP update

ship icon

"The Unioners have a great many gifts. They have a Mark I, and the means to maintain it. And now they have the blueprints needed to exact any severe repairs or restorations. May whatever deities they ascribe their strengths to grant them and their Spyglass a stronger, more permanent presence than ours did. If not for their people, then to keep it alive. To give it a place in the universe where it can continue to exist as a testament to the will of the oppressed, the strength of the people, and the legacy of the golden age of the Western Independent Worlds. The Vespucci Triumvirate is long divided, but by the efforts of the Unioners, its greatest achievement will last."~ Harold Kane

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-. Forum name of the owner: https://discoverygc.com/forums/member.ph...&uid=32365

-. Exact name, identification and affiliation of the character: UN|GEIST-SLF-Sirene (currently UN|GEIST-KKS-Sirene

-. Which official faction(s) are involved in construction of this ship? UN, Kruger, IRG, SCEC, NO, FL-ER, H.


-. Provide links to the forum roleplay/futher roleplay/construction roleplay done so far around this ship: Further down the page for formatting clarity.


-. Provide a cliffnote/summary of the roleplay done so far and planned to be done during the construction stage.

context

The ship that would became the Syndicliga flagship Sirene is an aging underworld copycat of the famous LNS Spyglass, constructed together from inferior components and a less-than-intuitive understanding of the original hull by unspecified third parties within the Kansas system, in the years immediately following the Nomad War – neither the Hellfire Legion, Vagrant Raiders, or Lane Hackers have claimed responsibility for the hull. Whilst externally comparable to the original model, the vessel generated an unacceptable volume of electromagnetic noise from its jammers, effectively nullifying its strategic utility. What logs of its successive crews remain from the era of its construction complain of continuous, sleep-depriving headaches, equipment failures and even auditory hallucinations – even strokes and cellular damage in areas of the vessel where gauss exposure exceeded human toleration by several thousand times. Amidst the few circles who kept record of the unlucky ship’s existence, the vessel gained a reputation as a Sirian Marie Celeste, doomed to bring ill-fates to whoever boarded her decks. Alternately junkerised together by squatters or robbed for components by scavengers, the ship drifted abandoned within the borderworlds for nearly twenty years, drifting out of the unstable jump connection into the Cologne system, where its chimerical jammers, idly operational since the ship’s abandonment, started to compromise Unioner patrols in the region. Pilots within the belt would report hearing a ‘siren’s song’ of noise as comlinks and neuralnet navigation failed, leading to a massive increase in Unioner arrests and interceptions by the Rheinland Federal Police. As the MND mounted an investigation into the hull, the Unioners likewise attempted to suppress the legend of the much-mythologised hulk that lead unwitting Unioners to their doom, fearing a collective decay of morale.

In 823, the BDM successfully recovered the Sirene by cross-referencing the narratives of the captured Unioners against one another, impounding the hulk within the Thuringia naval reserve for future disassembly. Languishing in the Thuringia reserve yards, Captain Lutz Gilger of the MND, delegated to oversee the project, believed that the vessel’s extensive sensor arrays would prove invaluable after the initiation of conflict between Rheinland and the Gas Mining Guild within the depths of the crow nebulae. Gilger. This point of view made Gilger extremely unpopular with those who would rather have seen the navigational hazard reduced to its structural members, however, Gilger persisted, re-arming the vessel with flak and Cerberus cannons in demonstration of its strategic utility. Unfortunately for Captain Gilger, the Unioner investigation into the object had successfully identified the hull as the cause of the interference. Hoping that a successful capture of the Siren’s Song would sabotage the cult of paranoia developing within the Unioners, the Direktorate mounted, under the aggressive-ex Schwartzwald commander Erika Abendroth, a daring raid into the naval reserve, successfully capturing the vessel whilst local defence forces were sorting out to prepare for coming strikes into Sigma 13. Commandeering an experimental Jump Drive carrier extracted from the League of Hyperspace People, Abendroth successfully abducted the hulk into the protective fields of the independent worlds, whereupon Unioner bomber craft pelted Gilger’s newly configured point defence batteries into submission. Overjoyed at Abendroth’s successeses, the Liga quickly began stripping the vessel’s systems, hoping to turn the warship into a figurehead for the cosmicist movement that favoured the spaceborne expansion of Unioner society over lobbying for the development of Unioner planetary interests. Crudely completing the battleship’s re-armament, the Sirene was positioned as a floating battery in Pacifica low orbit, one part deterrent, and two part propaganda statement.



The Unioners have found the Sirene extremely adaptable to their strategic imperatives – far more so than the half handful of oxidising, chimerical Bayern battleships in their possession that, despite their age, possess far more sophisticated anti-tamper systems than are present within the Sirene. Whilst the Unioners field sufficient shipyard capacity to in theory construct indigenous battleships, a lack of any planetary industry makes it more fiscally cost effective for the Unioners to restrict their largest ship classes to the modification of existing hulls. Due to Sirene’s adaptable nature, the warship has repeatedly been the subject of cutting-edge Unioner overhauls to her offensive, defensive, power and propulsion systems, to the point where as much as thirty five percent of the battleship’s original internals have been replaced by Unioner patches and improvements.

The ship is considered part prestige command and part drudgery for the few gifted Star Arbiters who command her hull, yet remains notoriously unpopular with her crews – who, despite added insulation and the mending of many of the battleship’s worst defects, experience health conditions within the machine spaces of the Sirene’s stern. There remains a pervasive rumour – that the Direktorate has struggled to suppress, that the ship is uniquely vulnerable to invasive electronic warfare when the vessel’s jammers are offline, in part due to the total absence of the same anti-tamper systems that make the Sirene so invaluable to the Unioners.

The ship is being roleplayed according to the story of the presently unfolding Bering crises, and the accompanying roleplay of the ship being viewed by the Unioners as a solution to the Bering crises:

TL-DR of below

- Longstanding tensions between the Separatists and the Unioners inflame into a surprise hot war. Pacifica is unprepared to defend itself and is near-immediately blockaded by the Separatists. The Unioners begin to assemble a task force to relieve Pacifica.

- Pacifica is struck by an NEMP bomb fired by the Hellfire Legion and sanctioned by the Separatists. The Unioners conclude that the task force will not arrive in time to evacuate the station.

- The Unioners decide to jury-rig the Sirene with a crash-developed hyper-efficient jump drive module. Development begins on the drive.

- The Drive system is steadily fleshed out as specific requirements are isolated. External suppliers are dragged into the program.

- In the meantime, the Unioner diplomatic corps labour to expedite the program through the acquisition of material and technical assistance via third parties.

- How long has this character been building its backstory? Two years. Maybe two and a half.

Character references are at the bottom of this form.

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model preview

Image of the ship's underside for visual reference. Actual model is slightly higher quality: https://i.imgur.com/8VIP7mc.png?1

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This Unique Ship request is designed to replace the Sirene's current HF Arbiter model in favour of a heavily remodelled, retextured, reoptimised variant which can serve as a visual representation of a Spyglass retrofit. The Model is a soft retcon of the old spyglass battleship model/what the old model was supposed to look like in the context of the newer Arbiter model within Discovery history, plus the addition of Alster Union-specific and shiplore specific modifications, bringing the ship's aesthetic style into a balance of Libertonian and Rheinlandic visual themes. Both the model and the infocard have been kept ambiguous enough that the ship can be re-used by other factions in other SRP requests should they so choose. Texture and model quality is extremely high, yet due to great optimisation the ship will cause less lag than nearly every other battleship in the mod. Overall filesize is comparatively small and the ship has been confirmed to function perfectly ingame without introducing bugs or other difficulties for any of the players it encounters. The ship has also been made more efficient so it should cause less problems ingame than the stock arbiter does. It will not be a taxing vessel to encounter for people who have antiquated rigs.

Not only will the vessel be less visually confusing to encountered players than the current SRP, it will also improve the quality of encounters.

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The ship is the result of roleplay that has been under development since 2016 involving Rheinland, Liberty, and Interhouse factions.

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Request part 1: The Spyglass Retrofit battleship that has/will be sent to the dev team with the included .CMPs and other files, with full readme instructions with how to properly set up the ship To be operated under the same terms and tech usage as the original Sirene request, replaces the Arbiter model and infocards with the Sirene model and infocards. Contains new geometry, textures, hitboxes, light points and hardpoints, contrails, turret positions. (Admins + Devs)

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Request part 2: Right to rename the UN|GEIST-KKS-Sirene to UN|GEIST-SLF-Sirene (Admins)

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Request part 3: The removal of the current JDm4, replaced with an ID that allows the vessel to jump without batteries, using water as fuel providing 40 or more units of water are present in the cargobay (to be consumed on jump). (Admins + Devs) (Drive balanced and created by @Aristaan. Ship cargo increased to suit the drive. Drive reduced to four jumps).

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Request part 4: outer_sanctum_lightning should be added to HpDocklight05 , an internal docklight that cannot be seen from the outside. It will allow the Sirene to turn the FX off in situations where the lightning is no longer required or immersive, such as Connecticut, or when InRp the ship's jammers are disabled (when surrounded with friendly ships, or attempting to be discreet), via the /lights command. (Admins - this should already be done in the default lightpoint positioning).

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Request part 5: the attachment of Shooter's custom engine FX in replacement of the Rheinland battleship engine on the current request. (Devs).

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Request part 6: mounting the small mining FX as listed within the readme on the contrail hardpoints added to the ship. Due to the new textures and geometry, they will appear as secondary engines when mounted. (Admins - this should already be done in the default lightpoint positioning)

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What will this ship be used for and why is this request necessary for the continuation of the ship's roleplay?

The ship is being positioned as an essential element to how the Unioners view the Pacifica conflict. It's indispensable for some of the coming inter-faction events we intend to conduct within Bering in the coming future, whilst ingame it serves as a visual indicator of the Unioner faction's role as underworld engineers, tinkerers, and modifiers of unusual equipment.

Visually, the ship as it currently exists does not appropriately visualise the pre-existing (and future) roleplay of the spacecraft. The ship is frequently referred to as an 'Arbiter' ingame, despite the fact that it isn't, in-lore. This should rectify the problem.


There's an in-depth readme for ship setup that comes with the file, credit to @eigos for both writing the readme, conceptualising the visual setup, and ensuring it all functions as it should.

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Vessel to operate under the following ID lines:

- Operates under the terms of the Alster Union ID, with the following additions:
- Cannot engage any targets outside of its ZOI except in self-defence, or the defence of vessels of the same IFF, or allied vessels explicitly trading water to the Sirene.
- Cannot mount a conventional jump drive in addition to the BIFROST device (Unique vessel ID). ID functions as a batteryless jump drive that consumes the water commodity as fuel.
- Cannot demand credits under any circumstances.
- Can demand water only outside of it's ZOI from vessels hostile to the Alster Union, and attack them if they do not comply.

To use the same tech as the original request: (100% Unioner cap turrets, 100% sirius civ/codename, 100% RM turrets <for green flaks only - supported by previous SRP lore).

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Qualitative roleplay:

https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=159187 < Original SRP request - contains backstory for the vessel's visual style and the relevant substantive role-play of the vessel until the present day. Much of the model's origin roleplay was covered in the original request, unfortunately, there wasn't a model that suited the docking light placement requirements/textures/fx available at the time.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2028074 < A formal description of the Sirene class with the function of the Multi-Mission Jump Module explained within.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=163339 < First formal meeting of the Liga design directorate in response to the Pacifica attack by Harmony. The committee reveals that the Unioners have been entirely unprepared for the strike and their fleets would take weeks to properly assemble. It is decided that Unioner fleet mobility is vastly insufficient for the range of territory the Union is forced to protect. Project BIFROST, a project aimed at creating a more efficient, more tactically useful drive than the false-economy of battery-drives, is announced, yet no solid objectives for the drive are established. A range of aspirational requirements are outlined and Schultzky is assigned to lead the project aboard the Sirene, which is considered to be the most expendable ship in the Unioner’s handful of large warships, should the program result in hull loss. A mission is set: To Jump the Siren behind the Harmony blockade, pick up any Refugees that can be carried, jump immediately again without refuelling to the Tau Worlds, to secure the safety of the crew. It is near-universally assumed to be a suicide mission.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...oner+Drive < Schultzky aquires a Jump Drive Mark Four from the League of Hyperspace People, promising to share any research findings.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2028085 < Frei arranges the collection of coolant oil, shipped from Gallia by the Unioners’ covert sympathisers; Kruger Minerals. The drive requires oil to cool the vessel’s onboard equipment, acting as a thermal sink for whatever the primary heat exchanger cannot dump overboard through water boiloff.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=163462 < Schultzky’s account of Project Bifrost. Whilst initially jubilant, he becomes increasingly frustrated with the program as vessel resources seemed to be imperilled, lives are lost, and the rescue effort is slowed.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...jump+drive < The Unioners agree to evacuate five hundred of their own non-combatants from Pacifica to the Natio Octavarium’s Camberra outpost in Tau 44 using the experimental drive.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164036 < Harold Kane draws up the expanded Spyglass blueprints for the Unioners, based upon the ‘Metropolis’ – a sister ship of the ‘Sirene’, once called home by the Vagrant Raiders.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=163284 < Pacifica’s defences are overwhelmed by a Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse warhead, fired by the Hellfire Legion and observed by the Liberty Separatists. The station is badly compromised, and the chief arbeiter of Cologne, Corin Frei, seizes emergency powers to bring the station back under order, taking the mantle of the Arbeitsdirektorate for himself. He immediately authorises the assembly of a design committee to establish technical methods of breaching the blockade.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=163806 < Stefan Morgenstern of the Unioners requisitions plastics from Freelance Escorts and Repairs.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164129 < Morgenstern’s plastics shipment is repurposed by the Unioners as magnetic insulation for the heat exchanger.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2028412 < IRG is contacted for a formal exchange of technical knowhow to expedite the project. Instead, IRG begins to surveil the Unioners, searching for diplomatic leverage with the Red Hessians - The Sirene proves the perfect counterbalance. After the Unioners begin to suspect IRG, the Unioners abandon the request for technical information.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2028794 < Logistics logs of the construction of the heat exchanger.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2028280 < Vulkan’s observations of the heat exchanger’s construction, including the final installation of the device.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...t=hessians < The Red Hessian Armee provides the silver required for the Sirene’s bow plates.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164140 < The theory and premise behind the heat exchanger.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164480 < Design Document of the heat exchanger.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...e+Unioners < The Natio Octavarium smuggles superconducting materials through the blockade.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164208 < Frei procures logistical assistance for the heat exchanger.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...=SCEC+Frei < SCEC is contacted by Frei over the procurement of sophisticated mining machinery to aid in the conversion of water to heavy water within the vessel's heat exchanger. Instead, the Unioners discover that it will prove extremely difficult to accumulate the desired heavy water in sufficient quantities artifically. The Unioners commit to frequent jumps to the Barrier to procure heavy water for the vessel.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164410 < The Unioners test the MJMM for the first time, in the company of three patrol craft. The Unioners encounter the Zoners of Galileo, and the Outcasts, who discover the existence of the vessel, sparking a chain of diplomatic fallout.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164514 < General order 418 is placed by Arbeitsdirektor Frei, resulting in the standardisation of all Liga vessels away from antiquarian Imperial doctrine.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...l+unioners < The Sirene's commander briefs battlegroup Scarabeus on the plan to evacuate Pacifica using the Sirene's jump system.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164473 < Corin Frei requests additional LWB support within Rheinland itself as the Unioners mobilise to protect the Sirene before the coming assault.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...pid2030536 < Arbeiter Hunter Wolff's observations of the Galileo Jump Test.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164477 < The heat exchanger, and the drive, are considered to be of sufficient operational readiness after the completion of the Galileo Jump Test. The Drive is considered functionally ready for deployment into the field.

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https://discoverygc.com/forums/showthrea...tid=164477 < A final review of the heat exchanger's performance. It is noted that a significant amount of deuterium-infused ice will need to be required to ensure drive performance, in excess of design expectations. The drive is nevertheless considered ready for field operations aboard the Sirene.

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Factions involved in the roleplay situations surrounding the request:

, IRG, SCEC H.

Factions involved in the physical and technical construction of the ship/sourcing components for the ship:

THP, RHA. UN, Kruger, NO, FL-ER.

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Why are you requesting a battery-less drive?

Possibly some of the best RP the Unioners have experienced has been with the League of Hyperspace people. Blind Jumping became something of a fun hobby, and appears to be an enjoyable generator of activity. It also seemed like there were more interesting ways to respond to the “blockade of Pacifica” roleplay than just punching through – the most ‘Unioner’ option was to modify a pre-existing vessel specifically for that purpose. Since fuel-less jump drives can make intercepting a vessel overly challenging, we would like the drive to consume water, which would be coolant dumped overboard during the activation of the drive (effectively acting as a chemical heat sink as it InRp ‘evaporates’ into space after use) This still limits the number of jumps that the vessel can make before it needs to stop at a station and acquire more, or shoot asteroids and mine more water for itself (or use other ships as water miners), promoting gameplay interaction. The drive effectively works similarly to how old jump drives used to work before batteries were implemented – however, instead of burning fuel, it evaporates coolant, at a much more efficient rate, whilst the roleplay behind the drive adheres fairly accurately to the real-world laws of physics and represents a conceivable technological development within the Discovery universe.

There are also very few water-dropping fields in Rheinland, along with friendly unlawful bases that sell water. This means that the ship will occasionally have to jump to remote systems to re-intake water, then jump home, or travel to hostile systems such as Kansas to re-tank, forcing PVP interactions. We hope it makes for some fascinating gameplay encounters.




We would like the water consumption rate to be forty units per jump, which seems reasonable given the vessel’s small cargo size after all equipment is added on, and the fact that water cannot be purchased everywhere, unlike batteries. It’s also low enough that if the vessel finds itself stuck somewhere bizarre, it can hypothetically ‘mine’ itself enough water with its secondary guns, given an appropriate field. (Water consumption and ship cargo size rebalanced by @Aristaan )

The vessel will not use its jump drive to evade hostile encounters.

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Do you guarantee not to use the vessel abusively?


Yes. If this guarantee is in any way broken, Bastille the ship. Please place the people who use the ship and the quality of encounters involving the ship under high scrutiny. It's meant to be a fun-magnet designed to add more 'discovery' to the discoveryverse. If it violates any of these principles, please remove the ship. The ship itself is not in any way overpowered, underpowered, or game breaking by any principles now it's gone through its balance pass, thanks to @Thunder and @Aristaan balancing both the ship and the drive system.

The ship will be tightly controlled inside of UN and should hopefully serve as an incentive for good behaviour. The ID is quite restrictive to prevent un-fun situations (for example, a battleship obliterating a transport), as the ship cannot engage in credit piracy. The ship is meant to serve as a visual motivator for roleplay situations and has been constructed accordingly - it's got a lot of flashy FX and beautiful textures, but at the end of the day it's just another skill-dependent heavy battleship like any other in the mod.

Some of the request features, like the internal docking light point to turn the Sirene's arch lightning off when it isn't thematically appropriate, such as in Connecticut , are meant to make the ship less intrusive for other players, improving the vessel from where it is now.

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If you need to provide character refferences, state some names:

Tanith here. I would consider the content of my character to be well-known by now, with ups (I love to interact with people, discourage rumour-weeds wherever possible, try to create good times for the members of my own faction and others, rarely break the rules on the server or the forum), and the bad (I'm direct, sometimes insulting and unreasonable myself when I believe someone is being unreasonable). As the person who will initially fly the ship around, these factors are certainly worthy of consideration. So I'll end with this:


This ship has been a thoroughly enjoyable project to mature. It's been able to slip into the space between pure tech RP and inter-faction politics. It's created rep-changes, friendly and violent encounters. It's been complimented in the quality of its encounters. It's allowed us to develop characters beyond those which have access to the vessel. Flying the vessel has been quite therapeutic - reactions are pleasant and I always feel motivated to create the best encounters I can because of it. The ship is a positive feedback loop to which I have invested two years of discovery, and hope to invest more.

The following individuals would likely vouch for me in this department:

@Aaron_Cianci
@Lucas
@Durandal
@eigos
@Felipe
@Neonzumi
@Felipe

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Location of cash: UN|GEIST-KKS-Sirene. A full one billion credits are available there. The money amount on it isn't completely exact as the vessel is occasionally used and moved in its present state, so we ask that you don't zero the ship.

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Developer Credit:


All credit to @eigos for the fantastic remodel, re-texture, and custom animations, along with all the sleepless nights you put into it, and to @TheShooter36 for the engine FX, @evanz for the vessel's custom icon. @Durandal for advice and checking everything was above board along with ensuring the texture, engine, and cargo door animations worked, @Thunderer for balancing the ship, and @Aristaan for balancing the drive unit and the ship's cargo volume to match.

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Thank you to everyone who helped us get here, and thank you Discovery Community for being enjoyable enough that it's a worthy use of time to develop long-reaching roleplays such as this one.

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"Though the past is scarred and the future untold"
" Be the boot heavy, the vacuum cold."
"I of the Liga,  do not fold"
"For suits or saints or beggar's gold.
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