Fiction

Garo System
Caperion Sector
Unknown Regions

“Sir, New contact on scopes. Bearing Three-Four-Five.” the Imperial Ensign said

“Identify please, Ensign.” Commander Fitzroy Tosten replied.

“Aye, sir. Unknown origin. Unknown Class.” he said.

“Run a complete scan.” the Commander ordered.

“Already running, Sir. Four percent and rising.” the junior officer replied.

The Senior officer stepped away from his station at the heart of the bridge. His mirror-polished black boots clicked rapidly as he moved towards the large observation window. Commander Tosten turned his eyes out over the long pointed bow of the Warspite. His vision passed over an empty field of stars. He could see nothing.

“Ensign, report.” Commander Tosten demanded.

“Sixty Eight percent, Sir. Hold. Additional contacts. Six, bearing Three-Four-Five. Commencing additional scans.” the Ensign replied.

Tosten turned back. He spotted the vessels immediately. Their organized formation made them stand out against the randomness of the stars. They were vessels unlike anything he’d ever seen before. The swooping hull forms roughly resembled an organic form, but bearing only the vaguest impression of life. Domed sections of hull and cutting engine arrays gave the vessels an appearance halfway between crustacean and reptilian. These half living shapes were melded with bulkheads and foreign metallic alloys. The vessels felt bizarre and alien.

It was nearly impossible to classify the vessels accurately at this range, but by his estimate the mysterious fleet was composed of three heavy cruisers, two frigates, a corvette or their respective equivalents. It was clear that this force was led by the most imposing of the ships, which sat in the center of the formation. It was somewhere between a Star Destroyer and a heavy cruiser in length and bore armament. The Officer measured their movement and in a fraction of a second had completely analyzed the formation and their intent.

“Launch all fighters. Deploy mines. All hands, General Quarters. Hostiles inbound.” Tosten ordered

“Aye, Sir” the Ensign affirmed.

“Get me a secure line to Admiral Typhio.” the Commander demanded.

Read the complete fiction here

Caperion System Highlight

Featured - Home Sweet Home: The Monolith!

Some Art:

Above is an architectural model of The Monolith, Headquarters of Clan Scholae Palatinae and seat of Imperial power in the Caperion System.

This massive building is where some of us call home. Located on a sprawling archipelago in the tropical belt of the western hemisphere of Seraph, the Monolith sits off the Western coast of a peninsula on the Elayan continent. This location was chosen specifically due to its proximity to the borders of the former nations of The Republic of the Force, Namayan Dynasty, and the Republic of Namaya, symbolizing Clan Scholae Palatinae’s rule over a unified Caperion System. Built shortly after the fall of Ragnath to the Children of Mortis, the Monolith was constructed in record time from materials domestic to the Caperion System.

The building's design was completed by architects at Trident Construction and Development, Inc. This company also won the complete construction contract. Trident has a long standing relationship with Clan Scholae Palatinae, based upon their earlier completion of Arx Ondorii in the Empire’s former home of Cocytus.

A glamor shot:

The Monolith itself is a massive complex, spanning nearly 4000 meters across. It is more like a self contained, planned city, than a simple citadel. At the heart of the Monolith is a massive landing platform, which is capable of landing all but the largest of Clan Scholae Palatinae’s warships but serves mostly as a local trade hub for the city. The uppermost levels are reserved for members of Clan Scholae Palatinae, which include training facilities, residence halls, private dining, the Imperial Throne Room, tactical and operational centers, and a large rooftop park and arboretum.

AI Inspiration for a Throne Room:

Behind the scenes: The design for the Monolith was created by myself. I’ve always had a slight penchant for architecture and modeling this beast was alot of fun. Conceptually, I really liked the idea of our base being something very large and imposing. That just feels very Imperial to me. You may also note that when viewed from above it vaguely resembles the Imperial Cog! This was intentional. Crazy, right?!

I drew inspiration from ancient temples and concept art for the Scarif Imperial garrison from Rogue One. Particularly the below image:

While we have the “bones” of the Monolith designed, there is still alot of room for you to add to its complex structure. I encourage you to write about it in your next fiction, RP event, or future Art pieces. Feel free to get really creative! The more we get to see the Monolith in our collective DB work, the better we'll get to know it!

Sithmas and End of 2023

We just wrapped up our annual Sithmas event. This marks the 6th consecutive year we’ve had a Sithmas Event. Without a doubt, this is a CSP tradition and I consider myself fortunate to be able to present it for you this year.

We had a huge number of events and quite a few submissions. Overall, we did pretty well for a hectic holiday season. I want to give a special shout out to Elaine Conrat and Kah’ri Marru who competed in all of the events. It takes alot of dedication to compete in everything and I am super glad to see these two leading the way. Another shout out to Elaine, for absolutely destroying the Sithmas classic “Winterbells” event.

This year has been a bit of a transitional period. We’ve just completed a change of our Summit staff and everyone is getting settled in nicely. Now that we’ve got a bit of our sea legs, we’re ready to seriously get down to business. Say, that leads me into my next point!

What’s Next?

The Summit and I are finalizing our plans for CSP's first new Fictional driven competition series under my tenure as Emperor. We should have it fully armed and operational by this weekend. Stay tuned for a formal announcement! When it goes live you will know.

Our starting point is going to be the fiction I've included above. So make sure you read it!

This ongoing fictional arc will be our official clan narrative for the better part of 2024. While plot driven competitions can be immensely fun, we wanted to add an additional layer to this series of events. One thing I have always felt would really improve these events is some ability to have you determine the outcome.

So, we’re going to be adding in a simple mechanic to make these Fictional events feel more engaging. First, We will be featuring all kinds of locations within the Caperion System and exploring more of the local Systems in our fictional neighborhood of space. The hope is that getting to know the Caperion system will make it easier for us to write and explore our space in other DJB activities. But more importantly, there is going to be a sort of “Choose your own adventure” mechanic!

This concept for this event is wholly a prototyping stage, so things may change in the future. This event will feature what I will be referring to as Interactive Member Plot System or “IMPS”. That said, Here’s a quick breakdown of how IMPS will work.

With each “Chapter”, a fiction will be published in a report or as an event begin post. This is the baseline for the overarching plot line.

The event will run for 4 weeks, with the first week being a pair of simple competitions.

Upon conclusion of the event, a GoogleForm (or similar polling device) will be distributed via our Clan Mailing List and Discord Channels. This poll will consist of 3 or 4 “A OR B” selections, based on the previously published plot. Members will vote which selection they would like to see or which they think is most appropriate for the Clan to do.

All members will be eligible to vote. However, to weigh it towards those who have participated in the event, a members vote will carry with it a number of points equal to the amount of competitions they participated in within the event. For example, if you complete 5 competitions, your votes are worth 5 points. If you do 7 competitions, your votes are worth 7 points. The selections which have the greatest amount of points will be CANON action and will be written into the fiction for the following chapter. My hope is that this will help our members feel a very tangible sense of guiding the Clan narrative. No one likes being railroaded, and I look terrible in overalls, so I’m not trying to be a conductor. I want to put our direction in your hands!

Secondly, Members that participate in the competitions will also be included in the fictions. They may have speaking parts or it may be brief cameos, but my hope is that putting your characters in the action will also help us feel more immersed.

Finally, those members which have what the summit determines to be exemplary submissions for fictions, graphics, and other competitions, will have the opportunity to have their works directly referenced in the ongoing plot line.

Once all these steps have been completed, we’ll be turning back to you, the membership for comments and critiques so that we can improve.

(i love this little guy so much I had to include it. It’s the only sound that can be heard in our home as of late)

Errata

Stay tuned for some opportunities to help the Clan expand our Possessions and update our long neglected Wiki. Sticking with the above theme, we are looking to get our members involved on the ground floor of building CSP for the future. If you’re at all interested in helping the Imperial Historical Overhaul Project (IHOP), drop me a DM or an email!

Shout outs to Zekron Nebulous, our newest recruit. Welcome aboard! Glad to have you!

Shout outs to Titius Osseus. I just wanted to give our Coffee-starved maniac a shout out. I see his name on so many emails for competitions and other events. He’s out there doing thangs! Great job Titius, keep it up.

Shout out to Kah’ri for new swish report graphics!

Shout out to all of those that are making use of our #imperial-development-academy chat on Discord! It's great to see you all discussing your characters, their points of views and interests!

Ask the Emperor

This will return in the future…Instead, have this robit crafted image of a lounge in the Monolith…

Competitions

An announcement regarding out new Clan Fictional event will be going out this weekend!

Recruitment

The Empire needs more Troopers! Do you have friends, family, casual associates, who are interested in Star Wars related content? Think they might enjoy the DJB? Do they like Star Destroyers?

Hop on your admin page, click RECRUITMENT LINK and create a link especially for them!

That's all now! See you all again soon!

-The Usurper

For The Empire!