Brummies 15mm Sci Fi - Old crow -Xi'An Force

[has.been]

Impressive work. As to the base, maybe some:- road markings, paper debris &/or
skid marks.

[Ockman]

Cool biker!

[Skullhamma]

Very nice biker lady... such a shame that she's 10mm too tall! 

[zrunelord]

Great work Brummie,
and I agree with skullhamma .

Keep it up
Z

[Brummie]

Thanks all, I always like the odd diversion, don't think there is a biker babe in 15mm come to think of it...

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"Listen to me lass. I understand you want revenge on those scum, but the moment you go beyond the bounds of this town, there will be more than just men you gotta deal with. The desert is full of all sorts of horrors, lying in wait, just hoping for some trigger happy youngster to wake em up..."

Before the Corporate War, Humanity was terraforming world's on an industrial scale. Fully autonomous Mother ships sailed between the stars searching for viable planets; barren world's sat comfortably within the Goldilocks zone of their parent star.

As soon as one of these dozens of Terraformers located an ideal subject, work began in earnest. Terraforming itself had come a long way: first utilised on Earth after the great catastrophe during the 21st and 22nd Century and then again on Mars during the 23rd. In the early days making world's habitable was projected to take a century or more, by the 29th it would take mere decades.

Yet the success of Terraforming technologies soon saw the creation of new habitable world's outpace demand. Numerous worlds never saw human colonisation and remained true wildernesses, left to evolve and adapt without us at their own pace.

Yet after the Corporate War, the autonomous ships began to slowly malfunction. Though autonomous they still relied on their owners checking up on them. However with the total upheaval of the old political order the original owners of these Terra-fleets generally ceased to exist, or stopped actively maintaining their Terraformers. The end result was a frontier full of half finished semi-habitable world's.

Aside from many of these planets being wracked by environmental chaos: gale force winds that could tear flesh from the bone, sudden blisteringly hot summers to nuclear style winters, observers soon began to recognise that on some world's the native wildlife began to change rapidly.

One notable change were the bugs. In many cases they got bigger, especially on world's with a higher oxygen content. Scorpions are one such example, these beasts now haunt the equators of nearly a dozen planets. In some cases they're numbers have grown so exponentially that local Governments have requested military support. On some unsavoury frontier planets criminal gangs and pirates often pay good money for strong specimens for arena fights. The Pirate captain Petri Bitter bred captive giant scorpions, only to then drop them from low altitude onto people/places he didn't like.

Either way, if you're out on your skimmer over the desert dunes, don't fly too low and bring something bigger than a 9mm.

[War Monkey]

Nice pets! they are house broken aren't they?

[has.been]

They look more likely to break houses than to be house broken.

[Ockman]

What a great story!

That scorpion looks mean!

[War Monkey]

Agree, it is a great story, I really like the Terraforming  idea I may have to pinch some for of it for some of my background stories.

[War Monkey]

I just remembered,  your story reminds me a little of SG-U (Stargate Universe) and the "Seed Ship" the automated lead ship that was set out thousands of years ahead of the mother ship, that looked for planets with a better chance or likely hood of life, it would then deposit a Stargate and DNA of the Ancients or something on those line and basically hoped for the best for the mother ship that would come along thousands of years later.

[Brummie]

Cheers Chaps! I've only seen the SG film and some of the follow on episodes, but it's a concept that makes sense I think.

A quick update: some Alien critters and an angry bear named Porridge.

The critter on the left is a Zorb; generally friendly, these creatures originate from a recently discovered alien world currently designated XBP-8. Zorbs actually found their way into Human colonies long before humans new about XBP-8 after Alien refugees attempted to colonise the world some years ago. The Alien refugees later abandoned the planet, but the Zorbs proved so tasty that a large number were brought along for the ride. Luckily the Zorbs have a very specific environment needed for them to breed. They live underground and eat/drink by absorbing nutrients through their skin. They secrete a type of sweat which has proven to be highly beneficial to most plant life. To breed though they need a very specific temperature range. Despite being subterranean, Zorbs can still be seen wandering around on the surface, though why is anyone's guess.

The Critter on the right is an Ickoo Bug. The Ickoo Bug are not edible and are incredibly invasive. Although they have also been found on XPB-8, scientists disagree as to whether that's where they originated from. Ickoos act similarly to ticks, only they're so large for a parasite it is believed whatever they lived on would have been colossal (and so far no such species has been located on XPB-8). Despite this they're highly adaptable and prey on virtually anything. Luckily they don't swarm as Ickoos are highly territorial and solitary for most of their lives.

Last but not least is Porridge, the angry bear. Another one of the 4 siblings, Porridge has a red Plasma cannon just to emphasise how angry she is. Porridge does a little bit of everything; bounty hunting, bodyguard, doorman, Skim-racing, debt collector and even a little bit of theatre. These days though she spends a lot of time saving people from mutant scorpions and blasting raiders in the face, but more on that later...

[War Monkey]

Very nice write up, having creatures good and bad is nice to have in a game.

[Ockman]

Nice stories! And now I want to paint my bears!

[CookAndrewB]

Somehow I missed this thread in my long absence, but it is awesome! Thanks for posting this up, Brummie!

[Brummie]

Thanks again all.

I've been busy with 15mm sci fi alongside my little side projects. Although in Lockdown I'm still technically working. In a way that is both merciful and frustrating my job doesn't do much in service to the community or nation at large during times like this so I've been sat at home spring cleaning, tidying, reorganising and catching up with all the things I'd forgotten for years on end. I've got a lot of sci fi painted up but haven't bothered to photograph it! So without further delay -

These are the Black Hand Enforcers, a politico-military arm of The Dominions Junta. Soon after the uprising against the Federation, Dominion leaders soon began to work to cement their grasp over their newly liberated systems. Terrified of the prospect their people would turn against them just as they had defied the Federation, the Dominion began the development of communities utterly isolated from the general masses. These communities were given their own world's, often high quality planets (Garden worlds) equipped with state of the art orbital defense installations and furnished with excellent public transportation and health systems. From a young age the colonists of these planets were indoctrinated with Dominion ideology, provided extensive education and even military training. Their lives were utterly bound to the progression of the Dominion state and once they'd come of age, many were deployed either overtly in Dominion administrative roles such as political officers (Shepherds as they're known to average citizens) or covertly 'seeded' into private businesses or organisations as Watchers, amongst other things.

It is possible for a normal citizen to be adopted into the ranks of the 'Political Class'. However it'd be quite rare that it would be done with them coming to a full understanding of the true nature of who their comrades are or where they're from. These communities have no name that helps to identify them, even the intelligence agencies of other nations have difficulty identifying their existence without close observation.

Yet there is one facet of these communities that is almost impossible to hide; the Black Hand Enforcers. Made up of individuals who have shown particular dedication to the Dominion, many have undergone numerous mind and body alterations that render them more biological machines than humans. For these reasons the Black Hand is rarely deployed to handle internal dissenters, instead they're sent to hunt down enemies beyond the Dominions borders, especially those that the Dominion believes pose a significant threat.