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All items needed to create your character such as the templates, the accepted database, and other topics like the Face Claim list and the Who Plays Who list, fall under here.

Sub-boards: Pending Characters, Character Database

All Character Trackers and Relationship Pages go here.

Sub-boards: SPECTRE Sign-Up, Character Relationships, Terminals, Character Shops, Frigates

This is where you will find everything to do with Questing on the board. Sign-ups, rules, and what to expect.

Sub-boards: Mission Sign-Ups, Mission Graveyard

The homeworld and capital of humanity is entering a new golden age. The resource wealth of a dozen settled colonies and a hundred industrial outposts flows back to Earth, fueling great works of industry, commerce, and art. The great cities are greening as arcology skyscrapers and telecommuting allow more efficient use of land.

Earth is still divided among nation-states, though all are affiliated beneath the overarching banner of the Systems Alliance. While every human enjoys longer and better life then ever, the gap between rich and poor widens daily. Advanced nations have eliminated most genetic disease and pollution. Less fortunate regions have not progressed beyond 20th century technology, and are often smog-choked, overpopulated slums.

Sea levels have risen two meters in the last 200 years, and violent weather is common due to environmental damage inflicted during the late 21st century. The past few decades, however, have seen significant improvement due to recent technological advances.

Mars was explored via various robotic expeditions for nearly a century before the first manned research stations were placed in the 2080s. The first permanent settlement on Mars was Lowell City, founded in 2103 by the European Space Agency, and based in Eos Chasma. Within a decade, both the US and China had founded permanent settlements as well. However, satellites near Promethei Planum began reporting strange phenomena that gave the region a 'Bermuda Triangle' reputation, mostly unexplained magnetic field shifts.

In 2148, a prospecting team led by Mateus Silva began exploring near the Deseado Crater, and found the source of these disturbances when they unearthed a subterranean Prothean ruin. The ruins contained a malfunctioning mass effect core and several starships, as well as refined element zero. After a global effort, the information remaining in the ruins' computers was translated, identifying the structure as a former observation and biosciences station, set up to receive and process data from Earth as the Protheans studied Cro-Magnon humans.

The motives and conclusions of the Prothean observers remained unknown, but the ruins' data cache, though fragmented, accelerated human sciences by roughly two hundred years. It paved the way for the development of FTL drives and, later, mass effect field technology.

Some of the refined element zero in the ruins, however, fell into less responsible hands. Criminal triads on Mars used it to create red sand; the drug may have taken its name from Mars' distinctive colouring and arid surface.

Noveria is a cool, rocky world, with most of its hydrosphere locked up in massive glaciers. A privately-chartered colony world, the planet is owned by Noveria Development Corporation holding company. The NDC is funded by investment capital from two dozen high technology development firms, and administrated by an Executive Board representing their interests.

The investors built remote hot labs in isolated locations across Noveria's surface. These facilities are used for research too dangerous or controversial to be performed elsewhere, as Noveria is technically not part of Citadel space and therefore exempt from Council law.

By special arrangement, Citadel Special Tactics and Reconnaissance agents have been granted extraterritorial privileges, but it remains to be seen how committed the Executive Board is to that principle. Given its unique situation, it is understandable that Noveria is often implicated in all manner of wild conspiracy theories.

When the turians were introduced to the galactic community, an asari diplomat poetically described their homeworld, Palaven, as “a silver world of fortresses and fire.” Because Palaven's weak magnetic field is a poor shield from its sun, most of the planet's animal life developed metallic carapaces as defenses against solar radiation. Its photosynthetic life is similarly impressive, shutting down vulnerable metabolic processes during daylight hours and repairing cellular damage at night.

The visible fortifications of Turian cities reflect their martial society, but since joining the galactic community, internal conflicts have become honor-bound affairs with few casualties among noncombatants.

The asari homeworld, Thessia, is the core of the largest economy in the Milky Way. The planet's reserves of element zero are so vast that they affect its price galaxy-wide. Because life on Thessia evolved in an eezo-rich environment, the world is home to a wealth of both biotically active and eezo-resistant species. Travel to the planet is strictly controlled, but smuggling remains an issue.

Thessia is host to varying republics instead of a single government and, although each maintains a formidable military, it is notable for having long been free of internal or external wars. The asari are renowned for their cultural and political dominance, and they excel in ambassadorial ventures. They have a strong presence in Citadel politics and galactic policy. However, it is the unfocused political structure of their homeworld that has left the Thessians unprepared for the current conflict.

Alternating between large oceans and landmasses covered in flora, the salarian homeworld, Sur'Kesh, is known for its humid climate and lush vegetation. As with the rainforests that once covered Earth, the planet's many forests enjoy a rich biodiversity. The salarian desire for intellectual stimulation drove them long ago to explore every aspect of their environment, developing ways to thrive without consequences detrimental to their habitat.

The areas near major cities and industrial centers are meticulously maintained, with an eye towards ensuring that sunlight penetrates to the ground level and that established paths through the jungle are kept clear for travel. Burngrass, a soil-enriching and adaptable weed native to Sur'Kesh, has become a major export because of its value for terraforming.

The krogan homeworld boasts extreme temperatures, virulent diseases, and vicious, predatory fauna. Around 1900 BCE, the krogan discovered atomic power and promptly instigated many intraplanetary wars, sending Tuchanka into a nuclear winter. With most of their industrial base destroyed, the krogan entered a new dark age and warring tribal bands dominated. Populations remained low for the next 2,000 years.

First contact with the salarians made resurgence possible. Krogan brought to less hostile planets bred exponentially and returned to reconquer their home. They built vast underground shelters to shield themselves from surface radiation, which proved prescient during the Krogan Rebellions when many of them isolated themselves in a vain attempt to avoid the genophage. Convinced they could outbreed the genophage, they transmitted it into more than 90 percent of the sealed bunkers. Today, Tuchanka's population is sharply limited and while individual krogan are long-lived, the genophage ensures few replacements.

Boards inside.

Sub-boards: Eden Prime, Terra Nova, Feros

Originally an "ark ship" designed to carry agricultural animals, the Purgatory was taken by the Blue Suns mercenary company during a large-scale battle in the Skyllian Verge. In a years-long reconstruction of its interior, the Blue Suns repurposed it to hold sapient prisoners, supposedly because they captured so many in their conflicts throughout the galaxy. When media outlets started investigating claims that the ship was used for slaving operations, the Blue Suns turned a public relations nightmare into a regular income source.

Claiming to be in full accordance with Citadel law. the crew of Purgatory now regularly lands on planets or space stations claiming that they can no longer hold their prisoners because of cost overruns. To avoid keeping prisoners under inhumane conditions, they will have to release them at the nearest port, dumping the scum of the galaxy directly into the local population. Faced with such a scenario, the government usually grants Purgatory's crew massive discounts in fuel, food, and repairs as long as they go away. Some even offload their own prisoners to Purgatory for a fee, grateful to have a problem relocated somewhere other than their backyard. Such unfortunates go in the dark depths of the ship, never to be seen again by their families or contacts.

Purgatory is minimally armed with GARDIAN defenses. Though a cruiser-weight ship, it relies on the Blue Suns' fighters to prevent any attacks bent on a jailbreak or similar events.

A regional hub of asari commerce awash in riches, Illium is infamous for its abusive labor practices and legalization of nearly everything except murder. As such, Illium is the preferred production site for weapons and pharmaceuticals that would be illegal nearly everywhere else, made even more lucrative by legal indentured servitude. Among the biotics-related pharmaceutical producers is the Dantius Corporation, a rising star in galactic commerce.

Despite the dangers of its products, Illium is renowned for glamor, luxury, and safety (provided by near-total surveillance), making it a favored tourist destination. Countless celebrities maintain palatial estates on Illium and in its capital, Nos Astra. The sole obstacle to business on Illium is its extreme bureaucracy, tolerated only for its provision of security.

Regardless of the character of its economy, Illium's self-congratulatory media exalts its own society with the provincial arrogance of "new money", glorifying in "sexiest CEOs" and "ten richest residents" lists.

A typical Terminus colony possessing minimal tourist value, Horizon promises substantial economic opportunity especially in providing new products for humans and supplying the Turian Hierarchy.

Blessed with verdant forests and abundant fresh water, Horizon maintains a colonial culture that thrives as a refuge from the increasing restrictions of Citadel-governed society. Horizon has attracted numerous dissidents, marginal people, and fringe-dwellers from across Alliance space.

A fleet of 50,000 craft holding over 17 million quarians, the Migrant Fleet is the largest array of spacefaring vessels in the known galaxy. Though quarians on Pilgrimage have visited most settled worlds in the galaxy, few outsiders have ever stepped foot inside the quarians' ships.

Here is where you can put threads about anything OOCly. Also where you can request graphics and put up a graphics collection for the artists out there!

Sub-board: Artist's Corner

Look here if you want to post any IC or OOC games in this board~!

The graveyard of finished threads and old character apps.

Sub-boards: Plot Threads, OOC Archives, Finished Threads, Thread Graveyard, Inactive Characters