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.

---

"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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