Nobody knows what Bruce T's real name is. What we do know is that the 'T' in his pseudonym stands for 'tankie', referring to his leftist politics.

Bruce T was a famous Marxist-Leninist kung-fu monk, who was living in America when the Doomerist Jihad started. Despite multiple attempts to recruit him, Bruce T refused to join the Despair Speakers, stating that the Imperium's fascist policies could never align with his own.

As a young child, Bruce T grew up in China, where he was trained in martial arts in the Shaolin temple. From a young age he developed amazing skills, capable of easily defeating his peers, or even many of them at once due to his long hours of practice.

Afterwards, Bruce T decided to go around the world to fight martial artists from every country. However, when he was in America, the Doomerist Jihad started and he found himself unable to leave.

Due to being a rogue rebel and dangerous dissident, Bruce T was extensively hunted by the Imperium of Despair, primarily by Bashar Mukuro Ikusaba during the Jihad. However, Bruce demonstrated extraordinary aptitude with martial arts, at times taking on hundreds of Reserves or Monokuma units at once.

Bruce T once found a group of scared children inside a school. While he was searching for food to give to them, they were slaughtered by Bashar Ikusaba, causing him to develop a strong hatred for the commander. They fought on several occasions after that, with neither side managing to gain the upper hand.

Near the end of the Jihad, Bruce T was swarmed by Despair Speakers, and almost died. However, he was saved by Duncan Illinois at the last moment and joined the Red Army afterwards.

I'm trying to write a dark (and communist) twist on a classic princess story for this world. Their monarchy is modeled after my best interpretation of and assumptions about royalty in Medieval/Renaissance Western Europe (it doesn't actually take place there, but I wanted that general aesthetic), but that's not something I've done a lot of research on and would like people more knowledgeable to weigh in. Is there anything in the character profile I have for her that would absolutely not happen in a Western European style monarchy?

Context for this world is that it is inhabited by intelligent animals, think Zootopia but more sci-fi, and with quite a bit more political and societal turmoil during the time period this post focuses on. Also, these are normal, animal shaped animals, not anthros. They do have human scale lifespans though, if only because a 15-20 year lifespan for a cat is not conducive to detailed character development.

Princess Iliana the Second (her mom is the first), later known as Nikita Almondtail, was the crown princess and heir to the throne of the former Feline Empire. She is a domestic cat with a coat of brown and cream patches. One might even go as far to say that the brown tones on her fur, which extends to her tail, resembles the colour of an almond.

Predictably, she was born to a life of the highest luxury, at least materially. As a kitten, her father, the king, would beat her mercilessly for any perceived transgression, while her mother mostly ignored her. She was born into a time of great unrest in the empire. The Unitist movement was picking up speed, which is an ideology that involves making peace and cooperation between predator and prey animals, collective ownership of property and resources, basically vegan socialism. The king was trying to quell the dissident voices in his typical brutal way, but was failing slowly but surely. This was endlessly enraging and terrifying for the king, and he took it out on his helpless daughter. This caused her to both fear and resent her father from a young age. Even at this early age she could recognize the irony in being taught that royalty must be graceful and elegant in everything they do, that they cannot so much as slam a door or make a thud when setting something down on a table or the floor, yet the king beats her whenever he sees fit.

At some point in her childhood, she asked her mother for a mouse toy, as in, a plushie that she can cuddle when alone in her chambers. Her mother, not really paying attention to what she was actually asking for, went and got a live mouse from the kitchen and gave it to her to basically be her personal slave. However, she quickly grew attached to the mouse, which she considered her only friend. The mouse would often be the one tending to her bruises and scratches after her father beats her senseless.

At the same time, she was being taught how to hunt. But, due to her emotional attachment to her own mouse, she couldn't reconcile whether mice were friends or food. What made that one so special? And what makes these mice so worthless that they are fit to be eaten alive? Combined with the fact that her father, whom she already hated, was pushing her to learn to hunt, she despised every moment of it. Some cats greatly enjoy the screams and pleas of their prey, her father sure did, but she was not one of those cats.

In her teenage years, as she secretly worked to gain precious few morsels of knowledge of the outside world that her parents had tried to keep from her, about the nature of being a cat, and hints of the disparity and oppression that the working class beyond her castle wall faced. She became obsessed with the idea of being an obligate carnivore and the idea of biological dependence on prey. Specifically, why? Why couldn't she eat plants like her prey did? What about her body was preventing her from not having to kill to live?

When she became an adult, her parents wanted her to begin her training as the successor to the throne immediately, all in the palace of course, she can count on her paws the number of times she was allowed off its grounds. But, she somehow managed to convince them to let her go to university first, arguing that an educated ruler would be taken more seriously by the other powers in diplomacy. She was enrolled in the Royal Feline Science Institute's Moonpeak campus (Moonpeak is their capital city so it was literally within walking distance) and began studying biochemistry, following what she had been curious about for a big part of her life. This is when she also adopted the name Nikita Almondtail to hide her real identity. As a side note, the last name scheme of something in nature plus a cat body part is squarely a working class name. Her calling herself Almondtail would have been extremely scandalous should the aristocracy or god forbid her dad finds out.

She learned about the biochemical mechanisms of her own nutritional requirements, and also learned about the work that other predator animals have done toward making peace with their prey, the cutting edge of which was the dietary enzyme supplement, a pill that is swallowed to give predator animals the ability to subsist on plant-based food. This greatly intrigued her, but unfortunately, the only products available are for omnivores, not carnivores, so she could not take advantage of it.

It's also during this time that she met Yvonne Dandelionpaw (Old Reddit link, actually it's a little out of date with my developments for Yvonne, but she's my main character so I'm spending more time editing and adding to her profile before I post a proper updated version on Lemmy) who was studying quantum chemistry, but who was also a vocal Unitist. They formed a connection and became friends, with Yvonne even taking Nikita to general meetings of the underground Unitist cell that Yvonne was apart of. They even worked on a joint thesis project for their degrees, developing an enzyme supplement for obligate carnivores, which they would later perfect and turn into the product now known as ATDP, which is the first and still only dietary enzyme supplement capable of providing complete nutrition to felines from plant-based sources.

It is unclear exactly when Nikita revealed her real identity, but we do know that she revealed it in her final year of university, first to Yvonne, then to the rest of the Unitist group, denouncing her father and his empire and vowing to join them in their revolution. First there was a great amount of friction and distrust toward the princess, but it was quite quickly worked out, many members saying afterward that they could somehow just tell that she was sincere. After some brainstorming, it was decided that she would go back to the royal palace, while keeping in secret communications with the Unitists and acting as a double agent. The aristocracy was beginning to take her more seriously now that she was an adult, and because the king was aging fast and rumored to already be in poor health. She misdirected and deceived them prior to and during the outbreak of the revolution. As her involvement was becoming more clear, she officially defected to the side of the revolution, re-joining Yvonne as they once again worked together, this time to develop a covert, nearly untraceable neurotoxin that was used to carry out highly targeted assassinations on key members of the aristocracy and military. At this point she had fully changed her name to Nikita Almondtail, casting away her royal past and resolving to make a new life for herself as a unitist worker.

As the revolution drew to a close and the trials against the monarchy began, Nikita was the only member of the royal family who did not so much as see the inside of a courtroom, she was seen as a comrade at that point. The rest of her family was sentenced to death. Nikita attended the execution of her father. Standing in the first row, making sure his father could see her in the crowd. As the firing squad took aim, it's said that Nikita's eyes burned with satisfaction and triumph.

Does this progression make sense? What are your thoughts on her backstory? BTW yes, this is inspired by that one Chinese emperor who got successfully re-educated into a worker following the revolution in China.

So the aviation industry in my science-fantasy socialist world with intelligent animals is dominated by hovercrafts. They levitate and move by manipulating gravitational fields, and can move freely in any direction, are very quick to respond to control inputs, can hover in place or go as slow as they want since they don't have a stall speed. Basically, if regular planes are like an eagle soaring in the clouds, a hovercraft is like a hummingbird darting around with absolute precision. However, hovercrafts can also be very fast, with the ones used in commercial aviation having a similar top speed as today's airliners, with the benefit of course that they can slow way down on takeoff and landing (both of which are done vertically onto a landing pad) and only hit their top speed in cruise.

But, they also have birds and other flying animals in this world, and obviously safety is extremely important. The gravitational slipstream engines of hovercraft are considered safe for flying animals to approach at low speeds, as they do not have spinning blades or create strong air currents, that's why they are the norm for aircraft and the only type allowed in populated areas. So really the only real thing to worry about is a collision.

For the brunt of collision avoidance, my solution is to have to stratified airspaces: Animal-prioritized airspace starts from the ground and extends to some predetermined level above either the average tree line in a forest, or above an absolute altitude value, depending on jurisdiction, it would be set based on how high birds and other animals can actually fly on their wings (which according to this is apparently about 5500 m being the highest typical altitude, but some of the highest recorded being over 7000 m. For reference a 737 has a max altitude of 41000 ft, or about 12500 m), above which the airspace is designated for aircraft. Basically, in airspace where you'd expect to run into flying animals, they get absolute priority because they are extremely vulnerable in a collision. Their cruising altitudes are similar to our planes, because they absolutely need to be well above any animal when traveling at high speeds. To quote one of my avian characters: "Back when cats still ate prey, if you got caught your death rate was, what? 50 percent? 60? And that's pretty bad. An animal on aircraft collision is more like a 99.9% death rate."

However, hovercrafts still need to descend into the forest canopy to land and drop off/pick up passengers. I envision landing pads both on the ground, inside tree cover, and on the roofs of buildings providing last-mile transportation in a city. They don't have to deal with bumper to bumper traffic like we do with private cars because they only have essentially aerial busses and public transit, but that only means a hovercraft would only come every few minutes, and the rest of the time its path would be invisible. We have a static safety measure in road vehicles or trains because the infrastructure is clearly visible and you know if you see a part of the ground that looks like that, there will be cars or trains coming. But in the sky, the aircraft corridors and approach areas for landing pads are on maps only. The hovercrafts will have navigation and automatic flight path following capabilities, but if you're a bird flying through the forest, there is nothing to hint that you're in the path of a busy flight corridor unless you actually see a hovercraft, and even then it could turn and change directions, you'd have no way of knowing what their path will be unless you've memorized the charts and have really good spatial awareness and ability to translate a set of coordinates denoting waypoints into where around you that actually would be. If they were unfamiliar with the part of the city they're in, they would disrupt hovercraft traffic by blocking their path at best, or end up in an instantly fatal collision at worst.

Birds in this world would definitely be smart enough to actively avoid hovercrafts and wouldn't place themselves in the path of one if they can help it, but the issue is having the information to do that in advance, and I really don't want to make this world cyberpunk and have glowing holographic tubes denoting every flight corridor and animal-restricted airspace. Actually, in-universe they really prefer to have cities, which are mostly inside forests, look as natural as possible even with their very advanced technology.

Does anyone have any ideas how I might be able to rectify this? Anyone else have naturally flying members of their society flying next to powered aircraft? How do you deal with it? Have you come up with any other aviation safety mechanisms that I might not have thought of? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

I had a little fun coming up with names for the "Arcs" or books of the potential story I had been thinking about. I haven't made progress with writing it or know specifically what is going to happen in these Arcs, I just thought it would be fun to do a broad draft. Sci-Fi cyberpunk dystopia with themes of (how surprising...) revolution. The world is not our own, it takes place in a similar world that is far more technologically advanced.

Title: Black Hand

Arc 1- Absolution

Arc 2- The Syndicates

Arc 3- Insurrection

Arc 4- Political Animals

Arc 5- Against Empire

Arc 6- Elysium

Arc 7- World Revolution

I'm curious to see what names for story arcs you guys might have thought of. Of course, another way to do it would be to name it after you finish actually writing it, so it differs for people.

The doomerist jihad was a continuation of a series of defeatist protests shortly before the birth of the Imperium of Despair.

After the coup that replaced the US government, a jihad begun, partly sparked by the Padishah Kaiserin, that aimed to exterminate all hope ~~and get rich in the process~~. This resulted in waves of Despair Speakers and Reserves ransacking large cities across the west, with attempts stopped brutally. However, the Jihad was unable to reach several areas, most notably AES states as well as swathes of Russia, South America, and Africa.

By the time the Jihad ended and the Red Army was organized, over 23 million people had died, and 102 cities completely destroyed. Many nuclear reactor sites had also been detonated out of sheer stupidity or intention. By this point the despair was very real and prevalent, and conscription rates for the Reserves soared ever higher.

This extremely unstable state rendered logistics for the Imperium Army a complete nightmare, with most food supplies being leftovers salvaged from storage areas. In addition, most industries, with the exception of those subsidized with Imperium gold, collapsed.

In total the Jihad was a complete disaster for the human race as a whole. However, it would be unfair to say that nothing good came out of it, since it was a major part of the Golden Path, designed to wipe out global imperialism completely. We must remember that the Tyrant was a complicated figure, and we are still exploring her effects on the world today.

Respect the sandworms because

Losses: Red Army: est. 24000 wounded and killed

Fedaykin est. 7000 wounded and killed.

PLA est. 2100 wounded and killed.

est. 450 tanks lost

est. 1038 aircraft lost

est. 3700 artillery lost

5 ornithopters lost

Imperium of Despair:

1 Junko lost

Reserves: est. 52000 wounded or killed

Verzweiflung Waffe SS: est 31000 wounded or killed

Despair Speakers: est 3000 wounded or killed

Monaca's Volkstrumm: est 24000 wounded or killed

Monokumas: all deactivated

est. 1400 tanks lost

est. 1800 aircraft lost

est. 3900 lasart lost

est. 1300 ornithopters lost

This is my attempt to write the actual Interspecies Peace Agreement, the treaty that basically say natural predators or prey won't eat each other anymore. Think Zootopia but with actual animal shaped animals instead of anthros.

This is the (socialist) world it's set in: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/985699

The ISPA has way more provisions than just banning predation. Other protections granted include freedom of migration between ISPA territories, and that you can't discriminate by species (or discriminate in general). I'll write those sections in the future, but for now I'd really love to know what you think!

Interspecies Peace Agreement

Article 1: Scope of this Treaty

The terms of the Interspecies Peace Agreement ("ISPA" or, "this Treaty") shall apply to:

1. Any animal residing in or passing through the natural territory of any species, clade, or taxa, that is signatory to this Treaty

2. Any animal who is a natural member of any species, clade, or taxa, that is signatory to this Treaty, or is a registered citizen of any territory in the scope of the previous paragraph, regardless of their geographic location

3. Any individual animal signatory to this Treaty, or any registered citizen or member or any territory, nation state, population, community, or other entity that is signatory to this Treaty, or

4. Any animal, entity, territory, nation state, population, community, species, clade, or taxa, who engages in or wish to engage in commercial, cultural, technological, or academic trade with any member entities of this Treaty, when interacting with any ISPA signatories.

Article 2: Predation and Causing the Death of Animals

Signatories of this Treaty are to criminalize, immediately following the signature of this Treaty:

1. Predation of Any Animal, and

2. Causing the Death of an Animal

For the purpose of this Treaty, an animal is guilty of "Predation" if they willfully eats, directly or indirectly, any bodily tissue, organ or structure of any other animal.

Predation and Causing the Death of an Animal shall be separate criminalized offenses, and in cases of Causing the Death of an Animal for the purposes of or to facilitate Predation, they are to be prosecuted concurrently as separate criminal charges and criminal sentences executed consecutively. Attempts at either shall also be criminalized under the same or a lesser charge. Where a group of animals engage in a conspiracy to commit or attempt Predation but not all animals are directly involved in the death or attempted death of an animal, the entire group shall be charged with both offenses.

ISPA member entities shall also be required to take all reasonable actions to educate against, prevent, investigate, prosecute, and execute criminal sentences for any instance of Predation or Causing the Death of an Animal.

To see how the treaty is ratified, here's a look at Section One of the Feline Criminal Code. They have the harshest punishments for predation as, being cats and all, they have the biggest problem with their citizens preying on others and only recently signed the ISPA.

Section 1; Paragraph 1

Any Feline who engages in, attempts to engage in, or takes any action in preparation to engage in, encourages another animal to engage in, or facilitates another animal in engaging in Simple Predation is guilty of a Class 5 offence under this section and shall be sentenced to fixed term imprisonment of no less than one year but not more than twenty years, and optionally fined without limitation.

1. For the purposes of this act, Simple Predation is "Predation" as defined by the Interspecies Peace Agreement, where the act does not involve, neither directly nor indirectly, the death of an animal, or the animal has died of causes unrelated to the act of Predation.

2. Felines sentenced under this paragraph shall not be eligible for parole until half of the given sentence has been served.

3. Felines sentenced under this paragraph shall be barred for life from holding public office, working in any Public or State-run Ministry, Institution, or Enterprise, voting in any election, applying for the sealing or removal of any parts of their criminal record, holding a passport, or migrating out of Feline territory.

4. The above restrictions may be individually released by a ruling of the Feline Central Court and if authorized by the Feline Ministry of Security, with additional conditions placed on the continued release of these restrictions.

Section 1; Paragraph 2

Any Feline who willfully causes or attempts to cause, by any means, directly or indirectly, the death of another animal, or either willfully or recklessly without regard for the safety of others, engages in any act they know to have a high propensity to cause or contribute to the death of another, and where the act does in fact cause or contribute to the death of an animal, is guilty of Willfully Causing the Death of an Animal and a Class 9 offense under this section and shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life without parole.

Section 1; Paragraph 3

Any Feline who commits an offense under Paragraph 2 for the purpose of committing or facilitating the commission of an offense under Paragraph 1, is guilty of First Degree Predation and a Class 10 offense under this section, and shall be:

1. Sentenced to imprisonment for life without parole for one count of this offense, or

2. For two or more counts of this offense, sentenced to imprisonment for life without parole, or, if requested by the Feline Ministry of Justice Public Prosecutor's Office and authorized by the Feline Ministry of Security, sentenced to death.

I'm sorry, I had to rip off another term from Dune. Anyways, enjoy this shitty Komaru mouse art by yours truly:

Well anyways, you may want to ask, what is a Fedaykin?

Well, as you've probably gathered from the title, they're elite soldiers of the red army. I realize now that I've never gone into the lore of the red army, so I'm saving that for a later post. But for now, we're staying focused on the Fedaykin.

Aside from normal Red Army soldiers, there were also dare-to-die corps of volunteers who would perform dangerous missions. Eventually, these groups gathered experience and were reorganized into the Fedaykin, possibly the only military force in the world at the time capable of confrontation with Despair Speakers. Notably, although Duncan Illinois was capable of easily taking on multiple Despair Speakers at once, he never joined the Fedaykin, citing his duties as a general.

Notable members of the Fedaykin include Komaru Naegi, and Natsuki. Because they often dealt with Despair Speakers and other similarly powerful units, they were quite well-equipped from captured Imperium equipment, including Komaru's iconic long-barreled Imperium lasgun.

Fedaykin first saw combat during the latter half of the Battle of Moscow, when they arrived along with 130 divisions of Red Army reinforcements to aid AGC Kirigiri's line, proceeding to encircle Miller's command group. More Fedaykin were present at later battles including the Battle of Hope's Peak Academy, where they were vital in taking the position that would allow for the destruction of the bridge the Padishah Kaiserin was standing on.

After the war, the Fedaykin remained as highly trained units in various socialist militaries, still existing as of the time of the Second Killing Game.

In the latest chapter of Doom Messiah, we briefly got a look at a new type of Imperium officer, the judge of the change.

He was suddenly distracted by a massive commotion near the entrance of the camp. There was the Monokuma banner, then the black-and-yellow arrow flag of the Imperium. It was an Imperial envoy. Alscaen hurried towards the entrance, where a boy he’d never seen before was standing with a platoon of monokuma units.

“I am Hajime Hinata, Judge of the Change”, he declared. “I am on official business for the Imperium of Despair.”

A judge of the change?

As if reading his thoughts, Hajime continued, “The Padishah Kaiserin has appointed me to evaluate the possibility of placing more Despair Speakers under your command.”

Alscaen bowed. “You will not be disappointed, judge Hinata. My assault on Moscow will begin in a few hours.”

Other than that, we don't get a lot of information about the position and its function. So to satisfy your curiousity (honestly, how many of you are even reading the actual fanfic lol), I'm just going to explain it right here.

Again, I ripped the name from Dune. Although this time, their function is quite similar to the original.

Basically, whenever a major change was to be made, such as in this case placing more Despair Speakers under the command of general Miller here, it was not done immediately. Instead, a Judge of the Change would be appointed to observe and reach a decision, which they would then report to their superior, which in many cases was the Padishah Kaiserin herself. As such, Judges of the Change were very respected within the Imperium.

Massive spoilers ahead:

Although Judges of the Change were important, their job was actually relatively useless as the Padishah Kaiserin was perfectly capable of such decisions herself. Their primary function was to provide her with data that was needed for a projection-map of the world.

The Judge Uniform was similar to that of Despair Priests, although the robes were shorter and lined with gold instead of black. In addition, they were usually escorted by mostly ceremonial units.

After the collapse of the Imperium, most Judges were captured and imprisoned.

Throughout history humans have always pursued longer lives, hoping to achieve immortality eventually. But no matter how far medicine progressed, there was always a cap, a limit imposed on human lifetimes that could not be reversed but with extremely advanced technology, technology that even now has not emerged yet.

People were always searching for workarounds, but although these studies yielded useful results, none actually suceeded in extending a human lifetime significantly.

With a single exception.

The body of the Padishah Kaiserin, following her death at the liberation of Hope's Peak academy and the then-young Pavel Arkhangelsky, was always seen as an attractive target for study or simply historical value. Researchers however were unable to find uses for it, and eventually they simply gave up and locked the corpse in a freezer for a few dozen years, where it was later rediscovered.

By this point medicine had progressed enough for researchers to propose a gholafication of the body--- that is, to restore it to birth condition, in the hope they would be able to restore some functionality and perhaps glean some information about the golden path from the ghola. They succeeded in restoring its functionality, managing to create a mostly healthy ghola-child, although she had none of the memories of her "previous" life. She did, however, retain an intrinsic fear of heights that they suspected stemmed from her original death, that is, falling off a bridge into a river. This was probably the only sign of success during their entire study. The creation of gholas ran into ethical problems following this, and further experimentation was closed down.

After a few more unsuccessful probes the researchers once again gave up and gave custody of the ghola-child to Leto, who was only around ten years old himself around that time. The two were later forced into the Second Killing Game aboard an expedition no-ship they had been offered to join.

The rest involves severe spoilers for Children of Doom, so I'm just gonna stop here.

So this topic seems to be on the brain lately, actually been meaning to do a prompt like this for a while because I'm very much a stupid name enjoyer, but this seems like the right time. What are some organization names, or names in general, in your world that your characters think is stupid? Do people still actually use the name or do they have an informal substitute?

Some random sharingan clone political symbol for my setting called the Circle of Five. It's a symbol dating back to the Lyconian Empire and has two different meanings depending on who you ask.

In the traditionalist Lyconian Diaspora (aka descendants of the 1 million wolf-people forcibly enslaved) see the central dot representing order; the other outer dots representing honor, bravery, and loyalty respectively; and the "Fifth" circle representing harmony.

The Wolfstaater version (Wolfstaaters are descendants of survivors of the Lyconian Empire's cataclysmic collapse during the Great Immolation) has a radically different meaning which it gained during the first 200 years after the Red Storm, a series of leftist revolutions that swept not just Wolfstaat (which was smaller compared to today during that time) but across the Lyconian Isles in general. The reason why it took 200 years because the Wolfstaater Civil War (which lasted for over 100 years) slowed the progress.

The central dot now represents discipline; the outer dots representing peace, progress, and compassion; and the "Fifth" circle representing justice. The 3 outer dots gained a much stronger meaning when Socialism - a post-Lyconian philosophy based on collective good and protection of the weak - was formally adopted in the Charter of Union which established the Federation.

This flag was adopted shortly after the Tetsujima War.

Here's the symbolism.

Red represents the blood of the workers and peasants (symbolized by the cog and wheat) sacrificed during an even in Medieval Wolfstaat known simply as The Uprisings. The Red Star represents Socialism. The Circle of Five in the Red Star is deliberate choice by the in-universe designer.

To quote a message I posted here. The Wolfstaater version [of the Circle of Five] has a radically different meaning.

The central dot now represents discipline; the outer dots representing peace, progress, and compassion; and the "Fifth" circle representing justice. The 3 outer dots gained a much stronger meaning when Socialism - a post-Lyconian philosophy based on collective good and protection of the weak - was formally adopted in the Charter of Union which established the Federation.

This means the Circle of Five in the Red Star symbolizes the need for discipline to build a socialist society.

By the time of the age of no-ships, artificial intelligence had progressed to the point where they were able to control most functions of no-ships as well as being nearly indistinguishable from humans. However, in the case of a breakdown or error, there were always humans who were ready to take control of the no-ship's functions as needed. These people. who were often well versed in no-physics and computers, were known as shipspeakers.

One such AI, known as "Marty", was in control of the Krasny Fujisaki during the second killing game. Notably, despite the hostile AI Daniel taking control, she still managed to continue a niche existence inside the ship's systems, aiding the crew when she was able to.

Though they had a vast knowledge of no-physics, shipspeakers were not necessarily mentats. However, they were still able to perform foldspace calculations quickly when required.

The role of a shipspeaker must not be confused with that of a captain. Captains were mostly in charge of providing morale and establishing command over the crew, while shipspeakers were supposed to handle the more technical aspects of no-ship travel. However, they were often unfamiliar with machinery other than their Markov Drives and no-field projectors, meaning that most no-ships had machinists as a seperate occupation.

Many shipspeakers spent large amounts of time interacting with the ship's mechanical parts and conversed with the ship AI than their crewmates. This, coupled with their technical knowledge, led many to be viewed as oddballs by their crew members. This slightly negative view can partially explain the ghola caregiver Leto's disgust for Miu Iruma during the Second Killing Game, though other factors may have played a larger role.

By now I'm almost finished writing the first class trial, so make sure to read it once it comes out :)

Anyways, today I'd like to talk about some very elite soldiers of the Imperium. As you can probably tell from the title, they are Despair Speakers. But what exactly are they?

Unlike the Reserves, Despair Speakers generally don't subscribe to defeatist ideology themselves. Why would they? Compared to the Reserves, they have a high fighting ability and are treated like nobility. It's not a bad comparison to say that they're similar to Sardaukar.

Although they were extremely trained and powerful, there were never that many Despair Speakers. At the peak of the Imperium army, only five divisions of despair speakers existed compared to nearly a thousand divisions of Reserves and a hundred divisions of Verzweiflung SS, with most of these units under the direct command of the Grand Bashar Mukuro Ikusaba. Notably, five battalions of Despair Speakers were lent to general Alscaen Miller during the Battle of Moscow. Despite being vastly outnumbered, they still did significant damage to the Red Army before being captured in the encirclement.

When they were not engaged in combat, Despair Speakers performed rituals, where they were frequently called to perform dances in grotesque masks or gunning down masses of suicidal civilians, or sometimes both at once. They were well versed in religion, often performing the same functions as Despair Priests.

Following the death of the Padishah Kaiserin, many Despair Speakers escaped to form small guerilla groups. They vowed to uphold the ideology and spirit of their deceased leader, until the hidden no-room containing her journals was discovered and excavated and the nature of her actions was brought to light.

Basically title. I've found it's a very useful tool that is only as good as how you use it. Of course I've run into some issues with it trying to impose certain ideals on my stories (like claiming there are "core values and themes" in the Pokémon world when in reality it's no different than our world), but aside from these little hiccups I've been in the process of building new stories from already existing universes (i.e. Naruto, Pokémon, Persona).

I'd like to hear if anyone else has been doing the same, or if they have any tips for using ChatGPT as well.

Kind of a weird question I know, but let me explain. I'm not talking about your themes or messages, but the general feeling someone looking into your world or imagining themselves in it might get about the situation, when the world is not in conflict. Basically, you know how when you watch a franchise like Star Trek, it has certain recurrent moods and feelings, like the tranquility of flying through space, the bittersweet isolation of being on a ship in deep space, where you are close to your crewmates but far from everything else you know, and the general professional but still sufficiently jovial atmosphere that they seem to go for? Or with Pokemon when it's very adventure driven and based around meeting everyone you come across and making friends both with other humans and also with these magical creatures! I'm sure you can think of descriptions like these for your favourite franchises. We've all imagined ourselves in these worlds or imagined ourselves as characters in these worlds right? What were some of the vibes or feelings you imagined when you imagined your world? Or I guess another way of putting it is what would a slice of life exploration of your world be like?

Branches off somewhat in 2022, although many things stay the same

2022: China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, and Korea create the Hanoi Pact in order to assist socialist construction in all areas

2024: Ukraine War ends, resulting in Russia taking Donbass region as well as NATO arsenal depleted. Communism in Russia has grown stronger as a result of a real antiwar movement rather than a NATO-sponsored astroturf. Ukraine still exists as a NATO vassal state and blames the war on "communism" despite Putin not being a communist.

2024-2027: The KPRF grows stronger, winning many elections. The main political divide is now between KPRF and Jedinaja Rossija

2027-28: Eventually, Russian oligarchs had enough and wanted to end the threat of the KPRF, resulting in mercenaries to be used to prevent KPRF members from entering the Duma. This was the flame that lit the fuse of the 2nd Russian Civil War. Gennadij Źuganov proclaimed that the KPRF members who were barred were "militants", leading to a major split in the party, resulting in a lot of the lower echelons reorganizing into the KPR(b). War was officially declared on the KPR(b), with Jedinaja Rossija declaring them a terrorist group.

2029: The KPR(b) ended up winning the war and proclaimed the USSR reborn, changing its name to the KPSS. The USSR joins the Hanoi Pact later.

2030: The United States starts placing soldiers in Taiwan, resulting in a strongly-worded letter from China demanding America remove their soldiers from Taiwan. America declines, resulting in the East Asia War.

2030-2034: The anticommunists, made up of the US, NATO, Occupied Korea, and some others, had the upper hand at first, but they were eventually ousted, first out of Korea, then out of the Philippines. The anticommunists also had no luck in Europe, either, with Hanoi Pact forces pushing all the way to Germany. Communism also gained popularity in Latin America, as well as the idea that LatAm should be unified into one nation. Maoist groups had a truce with China and fought on the side of the communists.

2032: In Germany, the German Communist Party (DKP), the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), and the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) all united into the Communist Unity Party of Germany (KED)

2033: In Romania, there was a patsoc takeover in the Socialist Party of Romania (PSR), resulting in them taking up socially reactionary stances

2034-35: The East Asia War, now WWIII, ended in a Communist victory. New socialist states joined the Hanoi Pact, such as:

• Republic of Japan
• Socialist Republic of the Philippines
• Indian People's Republic
• German Socialist People's Republic
• Second Polish People's Republic
• Socialist Federation of Latin America

Romania, now under patsoc government, also joined the Hanoi Pact. South Korea, now governed by the People's Democracy Party, is now a transitional state that is able to write its own laws, but its foreign policy is managed by Pyongyang and aimed at integration. Maoist groups in the Philippines and India also managed to gain a stronghold in the north of their respective countries, resulting in these MLM-governed states:

• People's Socialist Republic of India
• People's Socialist Republic of the Philippines

The peace between Maoists and MLs also deteriorated, as the Maoist CPP declared the Hanoi Pact to be revisionist, and formed their own bloc, with the Indian Naxalites (Maoist Bloc) The USSR occupied Poland in a program called "Rapid Re-communization" in order to rid Poland of reactionary politics. These policies were attacked by the Romanian government, with the PSR chairman claiming that it was "social-imperialist" and "violated national self-determination", which many Hanoi Pact communists saw as a dogwhistle for the PSR's homophobic stance. However, in Britain, the CPGB-ML upheld the PSR and also condemned Rapid Recommunization.

Until this chapter comes out, I'll leave you to interpret this.

While lasguns themselves are a relatively new concept, lasers have been around for quite some time. Since the 1960s, lasers have existed in various forms, though all were much too weak to deal much damage to human targets.

During the age of the Imperium, Lockheed-Martin was more or less coerced into mass-producing laser artillery for the Imperium's military. This often ended poorly, as the lasers had a tendency to jam up when firing over fog and smoke, a property which was heavily exploited by the Red Army. Increase the beam's power, and the ionization of the air surrounding the beam would not only destroy the lasgun but also injure allied troops, perhaps more so than their targets. As such, all the Imperium lasguns remained mostly as museum specimens or simply left to rust (although fibersteel can't really rust, but that's besides the point) in warehouses.

Lasguns found some more use during space exploration before the birth of no-ships, where early exploration ships used them to destroy small asteroids, or simply to knock them off course. Laser satellites were also deployed to clear out fields of space trash, though this was not a very widespread use. With the advent of no-ships, lasguns became practically useless again. Due to warfare in space, well, never happening, ship-mounted lasguns as weapons were never very widespread.

It wasn't until some years later that a new way to use lasguns as a personal weapon was found. By having a single gun project many beams to converge on a single point, the air could be turned to plasma (or the target burned) far from the gun, allowing for medium to heavy long-range beams without any harm to the user. This still had some drawbacks, namely that enough vapor or smog would still stop it. However, since there was no risk of a stray projectile piercing the walls of the vessel, they found much use among crews of no-ships.

Although again, nobody really ever used them because there was nobody to fight.

The ghola Haika used one such lasgun while being forced to participate in the Second Killing Game aboard the Krasnyi Fujisaki.

On a final note, several large lasgun platforms are currently under construction to defend earth under the off-chance that any no-ships should encounter hostile foreign life, although this has been deemed very unlikely for many reasons by the world's top mentats.

I have my own worldbuilds to showcase soon.

Finally putting this part of my world to text after holding off for so long trying to think it through. I'm very much looking for feedback on this whole idea and progression in my world, and whether our society today would it consider too unethical for the quite explicitly socialist side to pull. Please let me know what you think!

I should also mention that this is in no way in reference to or inspired by any human events or atrocities. That was not my intention, I did not go out and try to find for human tragedies that I could use for my own writing, and this is entirely a figment of my imagination, inspired mostly by other fiction and not real events.

Context for this world is that it is inhabited by intelligent animals, think Zootopia but more sci-fi, and with quite a bit more political and societal turmoil during the time period this post focuses on. Also, these are normal, animal shaped animals, not anthros. They do have human scale lifespans though, if only because a 15-20 year lifespan for a cat is not conducive to detailed character development.

I really need to start with some background information beforehand, otherwise the story feels incomplete.

A pervasive and central part of this world is the problem of predator and prey. But being intelligent animals with their own hopes and stories, it becomes very morally problematic very quickly to hunt and eat your prey, at least for some predators. This brings us to the Feline empire. Some cats came to really enjoy the screams and pleads of their prey and really put effort into making them suffer while eating them, in that way your cat at home plays with its prey and bats it around, letting it go and catching it again till it gives out. Other cats, the vast majority in fact, did not like hunting and eating other animals, but either had no accessible alternatives or the alternatives were prohibitively expensive, it's extremely hard to convert an obligate carnivore to eating plants, at least physiologically. Still others were completely opposed to eating prey and saw eating prey as eating their comrades and made every possible effort to avoid it.

But as you may imagine, the meat-free alternatives for obligate carnivores were quite limited. Omnivores like most canids had enjoyed something called a Dietary Enzyme Supplement for quite a while now, which is a pill that is taken either with every meal or at regular intervals, that arms the digestive system with artificial digestive enzymes, that can more efficiently break down plant matter, including cellulose, and use those breakdown products to synthesize nutrients in vivo. Nutritional supplements and synthetic meat substitutes had existed for even longer, but they were mainly compatible with omnivores, not carnivores. So Felines that wanted to stop eating prey and stay healthy were forced to mix and match various expensive enzyme supplements for omnivores (they were hard to get in Feline territory) with expensive "special" nutritional supplements, pay close attention to what plant based foods they're eating to get enough base nutrients like protein, and monitor very closely for the earliest symptoms of malnutrition. And if they were nursing kittens, they would be producing much less milk and less concentrated milk, leading to malnutrition in their kittens. Not to mention even weaned kittens are voracious little things and would be very expensive to feed without prey.

Collectively among the general public, issues with eating prey were weighing on their conscience, and there was a dream of a dietary enzyme supplement for obligate carnivores. A cheap and convenient thing for Felines to essentially go vegan. But their government was Trophist (pro-predation) and gave no funding to these silly ideas of cats not eating meat, and other carnivore groups didn't seem to care.

That was, until there was. Biochemist Nikita Almondtail and quantum chemist Yvonne Dandelionpaw (note that these are Reddit links while I'm editing those character profiles for posting on Lemmy) had developed ATDP, the first ever nutritionally complete dietary enzyme supplement for obligate carnivores. A pill that only had to be taken once a week, and which will not only allow Felines to digest and more importantly derive all their nutrients from plant based food, but to digest cellulose, and a range a food wide enough to include the softer raw plants. And critically, initial tests on Felines showed that it was safe for use when pregnant, and when nursing, could satisfy kittens' nutritional demands if done right, and could allow mother cats to produce just as much and just as high quality milk as pure meat eating cats. But, plant based food was more stable and reliable, higher output, and in a time when food insecurity and hunger was rampant among Felines just as it had been the nature of being a hunter, they could have a safe and reliable source of food that they controlled, no cat should go hungry again, all while making peace and even making friends with prey animals! Two cats developed ATDP no less, and it was tailored specifically for Felines! It used brand new technologies that the Felines had recently pioneered, including a newly discovered super-element called Intium. It was a triumph of Feline technology and science, and was poised to rid Felines of the need to kill and eat prey forever. That was, until the king of the Feline empire personally banned its production or further development, first stating that it unpatriotic and "against nature", though changed his narrative to saying that it wasn't safe for Feline to use after strong public pushback.

This triggered a series of events that would lead to the outbreak of the Feline revolution, quickly escalating into the Feline civil war. Unitist (essentially, vegan socialist) movements among Felines had been growing steadily for a long time, and this is not the first time Unitists engaged in civil disobediece and even attempted insurgency, but the banning of ATDP pushed the Feline population over the edge and support for a Unitist revolution skyrocketed. The public had had it with their Empire and was determined to dismantle it in favour of a Unitist republic, just like the Unified Territories next doors. The empire responded with violence and terror against these Unitist cells, determined to silence them. This was when Yvonne Dandelionpaw and Nikita Amondtail came back together, using the knowledge they learned from developing ATDP, namely protein science and Intium, to develop a weapon to turn the tides in favour of the Unitist revolutionaries.

They came up with something they called Catsbane, a neurotoxin developed by the Feline Unity Army and was used to assassinate numerous key figures of the Feline Empire they were trying to overthrow. Basically, they would find a way to tamper with the supply chain of mouse and bird meat, lacing the meals of the royal elite with the poison in highly targeted assassinations. There were even cases of captured prey animals slated to be eaten by high profile individuals who willingly took the poison in order to pass it on to the cats, with the long delay to symptom onset allowed them to not experience the effects until, you know. Being a pro-drug, the chemical would be absorbed through the intestines and slowly processed by the liver into its physiologically active, toxic form. It would then travel into the brain where it interferes with the surface proteins of neurons such as ion pumps and neurotransmitter receptors.

It was engineered to kill as silently and non-dramatically as possible. Victims would not feel symptoms for anywhere between days to over a week, at which point they will experience insomnia, disorientation and disassociation, memory loss, escalating into unresponsiveness and coma, before death comes about two to three weeks later. The "Catsbane stare" was coined to describe the blank expression late stage sufferers would develop as their brain shut down. The chemical is very difficult to detect before symptoms set in, and there is no antidote. Catsbane was also nicknamed "peaceful rabies", due to the fact that it has a period of no symptoms post exposure, is hard to detect until it's too late, and it targets the brain.

A total of 120 assassinations were carried out with Catsbane, all in the Feline Empire's military or royalty, and it was a major contributor to the success of the revolution, with most agreeing that cats would be still eating prey if it wasn't invented. Obviously, this was extremely controversial. Many supporters of the revolution argued that this poison was much more merciful than the cats who ate prey gave their victims (getting eaten would also be up there in horrible ways to die, but that's not a medical condition), while many others questioned the integrity of a movement by cats who claim to want to live in harmony with their former prey animals engaged in killing other cats.

After the revolution, the new Feline Democratic Republic, the Unitist republic, banned the poison as a Schedule 1 chemical weapon. The state-run Feline Science Institute is usually very open about providing anyone with their research and papers for free, but the synthesis of Catsbane is a notable exception. Some believe not even they have the synthesis procedure anymore and that all documents related to how to manufacture it was destroyed (they definitely still have it, though, in secret). Interestingly, the general Feline public had nearly complete support of these assassinations, but many prey animals (generally prey animals who lived in the nearby Unified Territories which was already Unitist for a long time) criticized it as even Unitist Felines were still killing animals, and highly polarized opinions among prey animals living within Feline territory (called the prey diaspora, long story). Many ended up trusting the Felines enough to stay and the Feline government post revolution is committed to making sure they are safe and can lead good lives alongside Felines.

For Felines themselves (all animals in Feline territory actually), the Feline government is constitutionally required to ensure both plant based food and dietary enzyme supplements will always be freely and readily available to all animals in Feline territory, as that was a massive part of the revolution. The signing and near unilateral support of the Interspecies Peace Agreement banned predation, for all Felines anywhere in the world, from the cheetah to the domestic cat, in theory forever.

There are rumours that the Unified Territories, which included the native territories and governments of their regular prey animals like rodents and birds, as wells as small to medium omnivores like dogs and foxes, aided the Feline Unitiside side. But no they definitely did.

What do you think? I definitely intended it to be a little morally grey, but hopefully not morally bankrupt. I want to explore the idea of what might happen in desperation when your revolution is about to be crushed by the fascist opposition, and this was not without some regrets and doubts of their actions by the cats involved. I know that the animals will almost certainly have different values and perspectives from ours, but would this be considered a war crime in today's human world among human socialists? Would you personally be able to justify it? Any thoughts or questions please let me know! Especially if this is contradictory or unbecoming of a socialist revolution, I definitely want to know and will revise or do away with this part of the lore.

Basically, for my second fanfiction in the series, I have a killing game taking place on a no-ship moving faster than light. Now you may have some questions, including (a) what a no-ship is, (b) how it can go faster than light, and (c) what a Markov Drive is and what it has to do with all this.

First, a disclaimer: although they share a name with the no-ships in dune, they are not alike. And please don't try to build one in real life, because it probably won't work. No, it definitely won't work.

The invention of the no-field preceded the no-ship. Shortly after the Imperium of Despair collapsed, Microsoft experiments on pocket dimensions was discovered and repurposed by Soviet scientists, who eventually created the no-field: a method to achieve absolute privacy, by creating a small pocket universe and hiding objects inside. The pocket would be projected as a one-dimensional point in realspace, and since it was a closed system if you looked around you would just see reflections of yourself and other objects in the no-room covering up the entire place. Needless to say, this was quite disorienting, so later no-rooms contained a shell that would block off the view of those inside.

Eventually, it was realized that the ability of a no-field to reduce an object to a mass-less point was useful for high-speed travel, as the object would no longer be limited by its mass. By simply expelling exhaust from a channel to realspace, the ship could reach astonishing speeds on little fuel. This contraption, which could not surpass the speed of light and only approached it, was known as a no-ship.

Early no-ships had no way of surpassing the speed of light. However, this was overcome by yet another new technology, the discovery of Markov waves. These were discovered by soviet scientist Andrei Markov, and they had the ability to create powerful gravity waves, which would compress space around it, leading to the phenomenon known as "foldspace". Soon, a way was invented to mount Markov Drives on a no-ship, thereby allowing the point to travel a distance within foldspace that would correlate to a much larger distance in realspace. It's similar to compressing a spring and walking along it. When the spring is decompressed, you will find that you have traveled far despite not having to walk that much.

Markov drives had a short range, so most of realspace was not affected outside of a small region around the no-ship. Despite this, Markov waves still leaked from the area, causing large waste of energy despite a theoretical potential for zero waste. During the Second Killing Game aboard the no-ship Krasny Fujisaki hosted by the hostile AI Daniel, Miu Iruma devised a way to focus the Markov Waves inward to achieve absolute efficiency, as well as rendering no-ships completely undetectable to the outside world.

This is a world I have created for roleplaying and storywriting. The formal description is still a work in progress. I would love some feedback on this long writeup, particularly as I intended it to be a socialist world.

Millions of years after humanity disappeared from Earth, animals have evolved to take their place. Technology is rediscovered from the ruins of the former human civilization, societies form and fall. There is chaos at first as different species fight for the dominance over the natural world that humans once enjoyed, but also because it was in the law of nature. The closest to achieve this was not a single species however, but the Unified Territories, an alliance of many member species from across the food web. Charters were established to abandon the barbaric rules of nature, allowing once natural enemies to live in peace.

Basic Information

The Unified Territories covers just under half of the Earth's land area, and controls at least one major splotch of land on every continent, and in every major biome. As the name suggests, it consists of land jointly owned by seven member taxonomic groups, which are in the order of joining, the vulpines (foxes), avians, rodents, dogs, mustelids (weasels, badgers, etc), leporids (rabbits). Feline territory is next door and is allied with the UT, but not formally apart of it.

Each taxonomic group has its own government, but must abide by two main treaties: the Interspecies Peace Agreement (ISPA), whose most famous term is the agreement to not eat or kill any other animal, UT citizens or otherwise, intelligent or otherwise; and the Unified Territories Charter (UTC), which is the actual treaty that signifies membership in the Unified Territories. Non-UT territories must sign the ISPA to engage in trade and formal relations with the Unified Territories, and the terms of the UTC require that joining territories sign and fully implement the ISPA before a request to join the UT is even considered.

Historical & Ideological Context

As animal societies evolved, different intelligent species began dividing up land area, forming boundaries and pushing out animals that were not allied with them. This resulted in areas ruled by animals belonging only one or two taxonomic groups. Alliances and rivalries quickly formed, followed by conflict, invasion, betrayal, annexation, and all the other trappings of emerging societies, rinsed and repeated for many a generation. All the while, technology and science is both being independently developed by the animals and unearthed from the ruins that the humans left behind.

This cascade of events arguably started when some groups of predator animals started to make alliances with what would have been their natural prey for their mutual benefit, which was often cooperation in battle, exchange of technology, or even trading of resources. While massively unpopular at first among both predators and prey, with time, the benefits of cooperation in a world with rapidly advancing technology would become more and more apparent, leading to wider acceptance of the practice. These alliances almost always included the stipulation that the predator animal would at least not eat the members the territory that allied with them, but sometimes the stipulation would extend to entire species or groups of species. In extraordionarily rare circumstances, predator animals would even agree to abandon eating animals altogether, in what can be thought of as a precursor to the Interspecies Peace Agreement. In these types of societies, predator animals gradually grew more accustomed to eating less meat, or even eating no meat at all, and began to see what once were prey species as allies that benefited them in ways other than being prey, maybe even collegues or friends. Some of these alliances became so strong that eventually borders between territories blurred and dissolved, and other species joined in the alliance, meaning even less animals that the predators were allowed to eat, but this supposed drawback faded in importance as the broader quality of life improved through the cooperative advancement of technology.

However, relationships between predators and prey at this point were such that if your species were in a formal alliance, they can't eat you. If you weren't, it was fair game. The threat of eating a prey species was often used as leverage by predators, basically comply with our demands or we'll start hunting you again.

This hypocracy was pointed out by scholars and philosophers on both the predator and prey sides, but for a long time not much changed because of the mostly monarchist empires that dotted the world that left no room for questioning the king's decisions. And even if there were, technology that can allow predator animals to subsist entirely on plant-based food simply did not exist yet. Some predator animals tried to get around the moral issues by eating only prey that have died of an unrelated cause, and this was quite controversial among prey species, with some figuring that it was better than living members of their species getting eaten, but others objected to the idea of the tomb of their beloved relatives being the belly of a predator (not the best material to make a casket with if you want to memorialize and preserve the departed). Nevertheless, access to freshly dead prey was mixed at best, and even if you swallowed the prey moments after they drew their last breath, the risk of food-borne infection was still much higher than live prey because most un-eaten prey animals died of disease, and this was still a pre-antibiotic era.

This is also when many species and taxonomic groups became one government, as it was advantageous to have a united, consistent front when negotiating or generally interacting with other species. Say you're a mouse. You see a cat, you know what to expect because who they can and can't hunt is strictly enforced by their empire, so if the empire promises they won't eat you then you can be reasonably sure every cat won't eat you. This makes you more likely to engage in trade with cats and generally benefit both parties. This idea of species and taxonomic governments survive to their modern age, but now serve the purpose of better representing common interests, needs, and opinions of similar animals, though even this is challenged and many believe that it's better in the long term to change to a single government for all Unitist animals, and abandon drawn borders and territories as well. Debates about this in modern times is as spicy as back then when they were discussing the idea of "If you ally with us we won't eat you," with most believing that while a full dissolution of territories and separate taxonomic governments is inevitable as animals commingle more and more, but their society of predator and prey is simply not mature enough for this to happen tomorrow.

Meanwhile, technology for processing plant matter to be more compatible with carnivores, as well as attempts to synthesize nutrients only found in meat were happening at a breakneck pace. Starting with various methods of cooking and fermentation, but slowly progressing to proper bio- and organic chemistry as the field became ever more advanced. At a certain inflection point, when technology for this had advanced far enough to completely replace animal meat for some predator species (omnivores first, the tech to convert an obligate carnivore to plant based food came much later), a new ideology began to crop up: Unitism, based on the word unity, specifically the motto "Unity Among Animals." The idea was that if your species was able to subsist entirely on plants, the eating your fellow animals was obsolete. That if, instead of worrying oneself with hunting or avoiding being hunted, if we all just came together and pooled our resources and knowledge, everyone taking care of everyone else and operating as a collective where things were jointly owned and animals' needs were provided for, we can all but eliminate suffering and make life better for every animal: big or small, predator or prey, furred, scaled, or feathered. The flagship treaty developed under this new ideology is called the Interspecies Peace Agreement, which, among many other protections and rights granted, forbids any animal, species, taxon, or other entity signatory to it from eating prey, with no distinction between if you have an alliance with them or not, and the treaty explicitly states that you cannot rescind it once signed. This is the founding document for two of the three major world powers in the modern day.

This is contrasted with Trophism, which says to eat prey and take care of no one but yourself. Based on the word... trophism, which is a biology word that refers to the process of organisms deriving energy and nutrients. The super technical way of saying eating food basically.

History of the Unified Territories

Arguably the first organized movement to abandon the food chain was jumpstarted by a red fox by the name of Akko. He lived in a territory with multiple predator-prey alliances, and one of the more powerful territories at the time. In his young adult life, he studied politics in hopes of becoming a general for the territory leader, but in doing so, he began to see the political dynamic as one that was, quote, "built on hypocrisy, unfair distribution of power, and injustice". He took exception to the notion of predator-prey alliances often being decided by heriditary territory leaders, sometimes "based on nothing but their personal preference". He thought it hypocritical for predator animals to decide who to eat and not eat based purely on their territory's political alignment, where were often unstable, and despised the fact that not preying upon a particular group was being used as a political bargaining tool. Furthermore, Akko saw a major problem in the ways that societies where very different animals coexist are set up. Smaller animals would often have an easier time affording living expenses, simply because the prices of food and other resources were consistent for everyone, but physically smaller animals required less resources. In response, tensions would still be present between even allied species, and descrimination would result. He also noted the inequalities stemming from class and lineage. In his many writings, speeches, and public demostrations, he advocated for a society where all intelligent animals had the same opportunities, and could live without fear that shifting politics would suddenly cause them to fall prey to their former allies. Akko referred his idea of animals living in harmony as "unity", and reasoned that the only way to achieve this would be to unite all territories, pooling their resources and providing to individual animals not equally in amount, but equally in the sense of satisfying their needs and giving them the same opportunity to thrive. He also believed that animals should not only refrain from killing or eating allied animals, but all animals, as the endgame of his ideology is to create a world where every animal lives in unity with one another.

The Unity Revolution was the period of time between the rise in popularity of the ideas presented by Akko and the formation of the Unified Territories. It consisted of many species and territory specific revolutions of varying degrees of peacefulness. Of note is the fact that the felines played an especially antagonistic role in many of the revolutions as they resisted the movement. The times where it seemed that the Unity Revolution would fail were almost all caused or contributed to by the felines, so needless to say, it would have come as a great surprise to anyone living at the time if they learned that the felines are now also Unitist and allied with the UT. Despite pushback from multiple fronts, the Unity Revolution eventually succeeded, forming the Unified Territories first between the vulpines, avians and rodents, and eventually more taxonomic groups, comprising just over a majority of the worlds's intelligent animal population.

Political Structure

As mentioned, each taxonomic group has its own separate government, which has the authority to make some taxonomy specific civil laws and regulations and provide taxonomy specific services with the most important one being healthcare. There are also regional governments for each geographic location that work with the taxonomic governments. However, most of the power is held by the UT central government that is comprised of all the taxonomic and regional governments collaborating with each other. The UT government, among other roles, owns all the land, controls most of the resources, and handles all taxonomy agnostic legislation, including criminal law and foreign policy. It also has the authority to overrule any taxonomic or regional government. Any citizens of species not apart of the seven taxonomies has no taxonomic government and only falls under the authority of the UT government and their regional government, but due to the UT's heavy emphasis on equality, their lives are not much different than those who also have a taxonomic government. The purpose for the taxonomic governments are to efficiently address the needs of individual species, which can vary greatly due to their physiological differences. With the amount of diversity in the UT, it would simply be too much for a monolithic government to manage effectively. However, most of this occurs in the background, and most services are provided simply under the name of the Unified Territories itself.

The UT government's main branch consists of the Unity Council, which consists of seats allocated both for each taxonomic group and by region, as well as representatives of non-native citizens. By design, every citizen receives equal representation through voting for council members as well as frequent referendoms and opinion polls.

Various ministries, such as the Ministry of Security, the Ministry of Resources and the Ministry of Housing exist as part of the UT government, and are the entities that allow UT society to function.

Society

UT citizens have public ownership of everything in their lives as it is all government run, and there are no private companies. Again, this is in order to ensure equality between animals and to place the citizens first. Essential aspects of life like food, housing and healthcare are rationed to each animal based on their needs both as a memebr of a species and as an individual, while credits are given in exchange for working in a job, which can be exchanged for luxury or otherwise non-essential items. Healthcare is always free, as is education as long as the animal meets the admission requirements. This also means that animals can study to work in a field that they have a genuine interest for instead of simply working to cover their living expenses. Science and technology are very popular fields for this reason, allowing for rapid technological advancement.

The Unified Territories recently reached a milestone where they, by some metrics, surpassed the technological prowess of humanity during their golden age, but one wouldn't be able to tell by looking at the surface of their society. There is a great emphasis on not making cities look too artificial, instead relying heavily on natural elements and the landscape itself, and even Central Valley, the capital city, looks more like a forest with technology and infrastructure peppered about as opposed to a human metropolis.

When you think about scenes playing out in your world, what is the visual medium? Is it the same as the real world? Is it some form of cartoon or anime? 3D renders like a Pixar movie? Something else?