Sorry, but the Universe is actually 13.799 billion years old. 19 million years is nothing to it, if you wanted a character within the temporal anomaly to be older than it because of it.

It was ~19m:1; the age of that character is nowhere mentioned here, but it's older than the Universe as we know it.

The 19m was a ratio of Universal Accepted Time to Earth Accepted Time years

Additionally it wasn't even throughout the entire span of the Universe; it was to fudge the Earth's age as well, I believe. It was all on an old page that has been lost to time- or the whimsy of boxes and boxes of such papers xD

Let's see...

If the temporal field was established around 2019, right now, thet's 4014 - 2019 = 1,995 years.

1,995 x 19,000,000 = 37,905,000,000 (37.905 billion years) of external time to ~2,000 Earth years.

By this time, the Milky Way and Andromeda would have merged into the Milkdromeda Galaxy. The sun's natural life is long over, and most stars are dying to entropy. Red dwarves are still going totally strong, though. and have had a huge amount of time to evolve life. Given they emit lots of solar radiation, there's quite a lot of surface volatiles on the unprotected airless worlds around them. I like to think that strange life might sprout up there...

It was established long before our humanity existed- in-universe there have been four distinct eras of humanity, and the universe is also much longer lived than our own. History has also gone a bit differently, Earth being a bit dystopian due to the US' southern civil war victory and eventual extermination campaign after the Umkhonto we Sizwe bombings in South Africa gave their extremists an excuse. The Russian Federation also quietly reverts to partial Stalinism after reforming the entire nation's infrastructure into being centered around 240 story tall central city towers, several floors of which are quietly given over to the new gulag system, including most of the subterranian sectors not used for inter-city travel. World War III happens in and around the 2876 between the Allies and China, with China as the instigator, conquering all of Eurasia except Russia, who manages to hold out largely alone, and World War IV occurs around the 3700s initially between the US and China after the former's aggrivated shoot-down of a diplomatic airship, until Eurasia is once again sucked up in the conflict, although it is a three prong war with most of the world fighting both the US and China separately.


But yeah it was designed well before I knew of the movement of galaxies, but heck it's not all hard SF. Still be fun to find a good middle ground (although it isn't active around the modern era as Earth becomes home to the GDA and eventually has no reason to be covered, being directly defended)


As for strange life... Most of the universe is human, purestrain or otherwise, and no more so than after the IBAE's First Great Defensive War, which was a blitz on all planets identified under the Pure Planet Protocols, securing them from external influence and ecological catastrophe (even against their native populations, should the unthinkable occur) and though most of their territorial gains were single the Pure Planets, it encompassed enough space that even taking a single extra planet to base a response force at meant there was significant forced dislocation of native populations, which ignited hundreds of thousands of immigration wars, leading to a lot of xeno extermination (most of the remaining nonhuman populations live at the fringes of organized space with only the odd former empire managing to hold on to significant territory)

The field's intended effect was to present an image of the outside universe that did not appear to be moving quickly, to allow the purestrain humans of earth to re-progress naturally; furthermore as the sun is within this field it would also not age normally relative to the outside universe so it would still be burning brightly.

Wait, what are the details of the civilization levels in this setting?

How much of the entire 46.6 billion lightyear-radius universe is colonized?

What's the IBAE's most powerful weapon?

Does this setting contain superintelligent beings? Human-level AIs?

What's this about iterations?

Iterations, being, cycles of the universe (both cyclic universe and multiverse theory are present here, with a presumed finite number of multiverses that end and begin anew with essentially slightly randomized properties to produce new iterations, minor differences being capable of producing minor to majorly different universes thanks to differences in what each change's long-term ramifications can be i.e. blue is perceived different vs a fundamantal force of physics being different)

The setting does contain AI, although they're nominally 'typical' shipboard and manufacturing AI, although some superintelligent AI exists, using the alternate spacetime of the Void (which is used for one of the various FTL drives in-setting) to house its processing center, which allows it to attain superintelligence thanks to that spacetime's warped reality. (Infinite nonexistence, best explained as allowing things to exist but not move beyond their own boundries; in the case of ships, they can move through it under the power of their drives, and for the purposes of these AI, solid state processing coupled to infinite room and no functional cooling required allows them to conduct calculations that would be impossible or very difficult to do in a timely matter in this existence)

The most prominent race outside of the various human strains can be considered to have human level, turing-complete AI, although this is more accurately an addition to naturally derived intelligence (classically would be called android or cyborgs, but these are different things in-universe, and they are considered fully artificial and synthetic, whereas BioAndronians are more akin to a naturally-occuring middle ground between organic and inorganic life, merely produced industrially. Within the framework of the canon, spirits are a thing distinct from consciousness, and BAs have spirits, unlike the former two examples, which is why they're not AI per se.)

The full breadth of the Earth observable universe can be considered colonized, as well as space outside of our limit of viewing. (I've yet to design very many planets and the location of BioAndronia in relation to Earth hasn't been established yet but presumably it would be within the halfway mark to the edge of the observable universe and its furthest reaches, as Earth is the 14th planet protected under the Pure Planet Protocol)

The IBAE's has multiple weapons that would compete for most powerful by virtue of raw potential and functionality. The first would be the Quantum Device, which was used to breach through their original iteration (considered to be Iteration 1) into another, and eventually (unknown to them) resulted in the structural failure and destruction of that universe. It was and remains the only QD to exist, although in-canon it is believed a second one exists within BioAndronia should it fall under seige and elect to destroy itself instead of suffer total ecological collapse, but this is 'merely' an enlarged Q Warhead, the normal size typically found on their line ships in the form of a long range torpedo warhead (missiles and torpedoes being distinct ballistic weaponry, missiles being found in vertical and horizontal launchers, characterized by numbers, agility and smaller size, whereas torpedoes are horizontal launchers only, characterized by smaller numbers, low agility but devastating warhead types) Q Warheads themselves are probably the most powerful of all physical warheads in-universe; where antimatter warheads go with the stereotypical 'delete everything in a radius' style, Q Warheads do this but in an expanding wave that can sustain itself for a set period of time, the Q Device's wave front inadvertently having an infinitely expanding wave front and standard Q Warheads typically having anywhere from a minute to a few days, and can destroy moderately sized star systems at maximum settings. (In contrast the BioAndronian Q Warhead has an expansion phase measured in millions of years but expands very slowly after its initial detonation)

In terms of actual functionality, its most powerful weapons would be a mix between the Rage Augmented Generation Energy Device, of which two exist; one prototype on the first main character, which leads to the discovery of the Void and its properties (as well as an unknown length of time spend trapped within until said character figures things out) and the other on his protoge, which is more powerful- the device is amplified in the presence of purestrain human material, and being fused directly with a purestrain human, this effect is amplified even further. It's not used terribly often but it is powerful enough given the right situation, to cause stellar gravitic collapse.

Also in this category of more functional weapons is included the superintelligent AI designed specifically for some of the largest ships to ever come out from the IBAE's shipyards and include entirely AI-designed and driven ships (Iron Sister class comprising the ISS Luna, Sol and Terra) as well as non-limited self-expanding AI derived from the main character with the prototype device, designed to work without a crew but also take over and entirely run other ships as well as improve on itself from launch (these ships are originally more mobile shipyard than combat ship) and these comprise the Forgotten and Forgotten II, both of which are fully autonomous and pointedly aligned to the character, not the IBAE, but were at their disposal until the GDA splintered off from the IBAE.

The final non-standard 'weapon' would be the Philosopher AI, which is the aforementioned superintelligent Ai I mentioned well above, the capabilities of which allow it to function as an FTL drive that is eons ahead of anything else, is the only thing capable of mapping the correct sequence of galaxies for the Stellar Ignition Drive, and the ignition of said galaxies into Quasars, as well as the acceleration, decelleration and terminal navigation from the SID-ignited universe, into another universe, being able to derive how existence comes to be, allowing it to create existence in front of the path of the vessel it is launching via SID to another universe, although this is imperfect and the 'tunnel' it creates rapidly collapses behind the vessel. (It's sheer forcefulness does leave behind a certain mark, although only the Philosopher AI itself can particularly see this; thousands upon thousands of trails branching out from universes new and old, stable and failed, including the stunted earliest attempts that ended in failure)


*Within the framework of the canon itself, the opening segment takes place in an iteration that is at least fifty thousand iterations past the second, and the way things work, there are a handful of people who will always be born if physical properties allow it, with some level of recollection of the past, weather they recognize it is true or not. Successive iterations of the IBAE have thus been able to capitalize on limited knowledge of the past to allow the IBAE to advance further and further ahead of all others each iteration, allowing for a huge gap between them and the rest of the universe's civilizations, any notable ones being presumably contemporaries to the major races of, say, Mass Effect. (Including several collectives of such races and factions; the IBAE is the most advanced civilization in the universe, but not the largest if you include these collectives, although they are more than a match for them if it came to blows)

Line ships? How common are those that have Q Warheads?

In the full scale of things, uncommon, but within just the IBAE Navy, that ship class lies between common and uncommon, though deployment is rare due to their nature. (But at least one is loaded as a suicide measure)

Coolio. I'd like to ask if the IBAE would be afraid of the following things:


1. Cognitive hazards that spread at extremely fast rates (think imagery that makes the human brain lethally malfunction upon trying to process it, you die of a seizure if you look at them and they spread via computer virus)

2. Hyper-fast nanological self-replication. Think Planetary Annihilation.

3. Transapient beings that produce technology beyond human comprehension

4. Undetectable solar-system destroying ICBMs moving at universe-trotting speeds

5. A big galaxy-mass bomb that deletes the universe it's in upon detonation

5b. A less big sub-galaxy-mass bomb that cancels out the existence of everything in a 50 mly radius

6. Virtual hells. (VR simulations where you get tortured limitlessly for eons being kept alive indefinitely)

7. Encountering a universe-destroying eldritch abomination.

8. Grey Goo scenario.

9. The discovery of time travel.

10. Solar-system-sized battlestations that can mass-scatter the stars in an entire galaxy in 20 days.


Also, what megastructures can they build?

1. By and large it would not be possible to deliver such a basilisk kill phrase-esque thing to BioAndronia as all communications are routed through the BioAndroids, so at the first sign of an issue the communication network would be shut down and quarantined until remote disposal could occur.

2. Problematic for the humans and most of the BA forces, but the First Generation BioAndroids, being overengineered, do make use of nanomachines and would be capable of fighting back. (Their line was discontinued as each one's chassis took three hundred years to complete as the material is fully synthetic in production and incredibly dense, and at their height only numbered thirty million. Despite being essentially one man armies that could tie up opposing forces on a planet for a month at a time alone before thermal degradation set in, if all you had to do was keep them busy and prevent reinforcement and you could finish them just through attrition alone, that wasn't terribly effective, so they needed something less engineered and more numerous)

3. Given an arbitrary number of iterations, the IBAE would become exactly this. (There's a small arc involving a war between the universal forces and the GDA faction, whereby they prevent the deletion of the current universe by literally waging war on logic and time themselves, but it might not be strictly canon. )

4. A natural evolution of a type of warhead drive designed to bypass the thick shielding of their line ships by traveling, if you mixed it with Q Warheads. However if we're talking 'it travels at the speed of expansion of a universe or greater' then it wouldn't be possible to accelerate it to those velocities without an AI similar to the Philosopher AI, which exists largely within the same phased out location as the warhead would be traveling through, which would be an obvious no-go risk.

5. That's just an overengineered Q Device that does the unintended effect of the QD, faster.

5b. See: Q Warhead, only bigger.

6. Two of the main characters actually are capable of this; it's not VR, but directly interfacing with an organism's thought processes to put them in a waking hell, such as a thousand years of their worst nightmare, while in the present world, only minutes go by.

7. They squared off against Logic, which determines the viability of a universe and if it is too warped to repair, and if so, passes that on to Time, which is otherwise asleep until needed, and who's sole purpose is to end errant universes to prevent damage propagation. Even the driving forces of the universes can be too trigger happy. (i.e. they've beat the literal highest powers, albeit just once and more through tenacity and stubbornness than actual damage, and these are powers that would act to prevent such universe-destroying abominations from existing)

8. Very nearly occurred to their homeworld. More afraid of allowing it to happen to another than actually afraid of it per se.

9. This exists, but is known to less than a handful of beings and is generally forwards-only, with the only exception being a single case of the grandfather paradox being nullified by way of the universe allowing it, dragging the first main character's predecessor forwards through the past so he could be terminated in front of his present's eyes, ending the Second Great Defensive War by preventing his original self from rebelling, with the universal spirit protecting from the worst of the feedback- though that character had little to do to influence events outside of their own brooding, nobody's quite omnipotent, after all.

Aside from this, the naturally occurring state of some spirits and bodies generating the same through Iterations is a form of time travel by allowing information from past Iterations to be brought forward into the present Iteration.

10. This would honestly probably be a real problem with an enormous battlestation called 4Sin, while intact, if the universe was strictly hard SF. But for the purposes of entertainment such effects are usually reserved for deliberate use rather than "oops we didn't take this into consideration and sort of just fucked your whole galaxy up, our bad" because the general theme of the canon is its huge scale, which I'm now realizing would be a severe issue in reality xD

I haven't given much thought to megastructures, but I'm sure dyson spheres and the like are not difficult. The only ones I've deliberately included would be their shipyards, which are generally planetary rings, and they've a lot of these and of much better size and quality than other empires, giving them the twin advantages of quality and quantity. Aside from this the only other large structure would be the Skylight Orbital Strike Ring, a two-ring gyroscope-like object orbiting Earth well past HEO, the inner ring of which houses thousands of large, high power lasers typically used as an antiballistic missile array, should the nations of Earth ever do the unthinkable, while the outer ring houses missile bays with a mix of conventional, nuclear, and radiation-absorbing missiles (allowing for nuclear strikes on hard targets with an immediate follow-up of absorption material missiles to blanket the area and minimize long-term effects or at least make short-term cleanup much safer. They're also usable in the event the Skylight laser array does not succeed in complete shoot-down, to facilitate the same for any impact sites.)

Skylight OSR is a self-propelled structure, although it's not terribly ergonomic, but it suffices for stationkeeping purposes and as it has both a Void Space Drive (the drive the line ships use) and a Displacer Drive (short-distance omnidirectional drive) it does not strictly need its engines for interstellar propulsion as it can remove itself from station with the DD, orient itself and translate out with the VSD.


Overall the IBAE would be to us, sufficiently advanced to appear as magic, and especially after reading up on Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth Sagas, I'm slowly figuring out how to integrate such compact trancendant technology without losing the sense of scale. (The Commonwealth's "ANA" system being postphysical is a good contemporary for the BioAndronian communication network having distance-ignoring communication capabilities, and the "Deterrence Fleet" being a useful goalpost for an even further Iteration of the universe, to replace the Four Quarters Home Defence Fleet of the IBAE, of which the "Fifth Quarter" is similarly known only in name but not composition, the Four Quarters being displayed openly as deterrence while the Fifth Quarter, unlike the Deterrence Fleet in the Commonwealth Saga, is used as the Four Quarter's offensive fleet.)

So i suppose they build vessels, rather than structures, especially as they don't have a population problem as much of their empire is protected systems, not colonized systems, and most of their population consists of BioAndroids who are quite at home aboard ships. (The 9th generation in fact being living point defence systems)

Hey, this is addictive exposition.

1. What's this Pure Planet Protocol?

2. How would the IBAE fare against a transapient, hyper-adaptive computer/mind virus armed with cognitohazards?

3. How powerful are their surface troops?

4. What if the IBAE encountered a civilization armed with the above weapons and the ability to reverse-engineer their technology in days?

5. What's their raw numbers? How powerful is their FTL capabilities?

6. What's their interuniversal travel capabilities and colonization status?

7. How densely is IBAE space colonized?

8. How large are their ships?

1. Essentially the directive to prevent planets similar in composition and potential as BioAndronia, prior to its near total ecological collapse, from following in the footsteps of the IBAE's mistake. It's largely driven by the sense that they failed their planet and would like to ensure no other planet suffers that fate. Connected to the BioAndronian Creed which is a quasi-religion formed in that vein of prevention, which basically personifies the moon, planet and star, and saying that due to the rarity of moon of significant size orbiting verdant worlds, the one most 'wronged' was the moon, then the sun, its rare gift of such a world with a moon, ruined, and then the planet itself, as they are numerous. (Which is where the three ships of the Iron Sisters class get their names and relative strength, Luna being the largest and most powerful, followed by Sol and then Terra.)

2. Initial attacks would come as a surprise but as the bulk of the population is BioAndroids, they could adapt and act to counter such threats- the IBAE is much more advanced than the Foundation and might be one such entity that would produce some of the objects the Foundation acts to contain.

3. Currently there are twenty two Generations of Combat BioAndroids, many are placeholders but of the ones I've worked on:

First Generation: The first generation is the overengineered, born-and-bred-for-war one man army style of troop, masters of multiple aspects of war and incredibly resilient, capable of withstanding close range nuclear strike, capable of native operation within CRBN zones, weighing in an average of 60 metric tons (with the first one them, Mk. VII, weighing in at 77, the upper range) but utilizing a gravitic generator organ to manage their weight so they don't sink in on weak terrain. Should they be breached, they are designed to go down fighting and take out as many of the enemy as possible, with a redundant circulatory system (they have organics that can withstand significant time without oxygen, but also have a dermal-depth circulatory system separate from their internal one) that is essentially nothing but a stew of virulent and caustic diseases to bring a slow, agonizing death to any that attempt to recover their bodies. Additionally their gravitic generator outputs significant ionizing radiation, turning them into a walking radiological hazard if breached, and its energy output is such that severe changes in its settings can cause serious damage to human-like auditory systems as the high pitch of the generator crash-stopping incidentally resonates poorly with most auditory processing organs.

A secure FTL communication network exclusively for them, removed from normal space and distinct from the main BioAndronian communication network allows them to coordinate across any gulf in space and transfer information right up to complete destruction. They numbered 30 million at the height of production, but after the events of the Second Great Defensive War and the trap they were lured into by their prototype, Mk. VII EX-1, their numbers steadily declined over the eons to just 22,500, leaving the network a largely empty, barren place, limiting communication distance. (It was essentially powered by the collective use of the 1st Gens, and without sufficient numbers and no way to produce more, most nodes are dormant and significantly long-range communication requires extreme distress situations to power nodes by a single unit)

Their critical flaw is a poor long-term overheating problem, which was never considered a problem until the First Gen Massacre in the Second Great Defensive War, and was not improved upon thereafter as by then production had already ceased and the heating issue was not deemed a significant hazard because of the presence of the second generation for combat rotation. Additionally, partway to this upper limit of continuous high-activity endurance, their organics are usually beyond roasted and total failure of their organics forces them into an emergency standby mode, subsuming consciousness and releasing all subconscious IFF functions to instead focus entirely on self-preservation, which poses an issue to recovery as they will fight even their own, and it can take as many as ten of their own kind to subdue them in this limit-released emergency mode, and must be done before they cook themselves entirely.


Second Generation: Devised as 'merely' much more capable regular troops, the Second Generation has nowhere near the aptitude for war nor the durability of the First Generation, but were leagues easier to produce, especially given the unstable ecology of BioAndronia at the time caused by the intensive requirements to produce the First Generation, allowing them to be produced in large numbers without pushing the strained ecology to total collapse. Resistant to typical gunfire and natively protected against many abnormal environments they've largely supplanted the human army as the IBAE's frontline troops and until full production of the marine generation (yet to be fully worked out on my end) they were the primary manpower source for the massive IBAE Navy and still act as shipboard security, though usually not as first line boarding troops. Jacks of all trades through and through, they're the embodiment of cost-effectiveness, and the ethos of the IBAE and later GDA allay the usual concern of 'You're just throwing them to their deaths, that's inhumane!" as both- especially the GDA- operate on a culture of willing sacrifice, where if, in a situation, you could save the lives of many others by spending yours, that act is absolutely and genuinely held in high esteem, and it is an expected outcome, in the sense that few people will do anything contrary to this, not in the "You're expected to die to save others"- self-preservation is still highly valued and an entirely reasonable reaction even in those situations, as none can ever demand any other sacrifice themselves for another. (Reflected nowhere more than their air force, their singular fighter being built around a bomb, as it's terminal role is to slam itself into ballistic missiles in the launch stage in order to protect its airborne carrier from its largest threat, and their one fully spaceflight-capable hypersonic bomber having one nuclear and one huge conventional bomb, and also being built around a third conventional bomb in the event some theater desperately needs a strike and no other units are available in a timely manner and the plane is out of ordinance, the crew has the option of turning it into a manned bomb)

Third Generation: Originally designed as infiltrators armed with weapons of mass destruction, to worm their way into a society and destroy it from an ideal position, they were produced concurrently with the Fourth Generation, resulting in a very short production run as the facility experienced a freak system crash, installing their devastating weaponry in the Fourth Generation and leaving the Third as little more than comfortably durable civillians. They're highly antagonistic and hostile to the Fourth Generation as a result of having their purpose robbed from them, and most soon thereafter left the IBAE to later launch small scale attacks on the IBAE, targeting Fourth Generation CBAs in revenge.

Fourth Generation: Designed as diplomats and negotiators, the Fourth Generation was intended to be pacifistic to enhance their empathy, but wound up being home to devices of incredible power, causing them much distress. Unable to willingly carry out their intended function due to concerns over not fully understanding how to operate (and therefore, not use) their weaponry, they have largely banded together to live out a life of peace. One notable unit is Rckt, the only Fourth Generation who was able to be won over to grudgingly learn how to use their weapon in a stable manner by the luckiest of the failed Prime Generation experiments, Commander Scott R. "Tank" (The Prime Generation being an attempt at fusing a second generation husk with a human, which in did not produce the intended result and either resulted in the death of the subject or their irreversable and severe physical disfigurement and mental deterioration, Command Tank being the only one to escape with 'only' his face hideously disfigured and no mental damage) who's hatred of who he was lead to an odd friendship developing, due to them both being able to empathize with each other. Rckt does not ever use his weaponry in a large scale manner, only touching it off a few times in the course of his time with Commander Tank, and is not capable of using it without Tank's assistance until his death, when the grief of losing the only person to ever treat him with genuine affection breaks the majority of his pacifistic programming, although he is generally still reluctant to fight outside of the fights he chooses.

Seventh Generation: Reviled as hideous and frightening as a design choice, the Seventh Generation is a series of marksmen and skilled infiltrators, physically larger than even the seven foot First Generation CBAs, and capable of disassembling into a frightening abomination to scale sheer walls and squirrel themselves away in ceiling corners and other unlikely hiding places, driven by a desire to not be seen out of programmed shame for how they look and the typical reactions most people give them. Their spindly expanded form offers them surprising resilience by making them difficult to actually hit, and much of their structure in this form can be shot full of holes and still function perfectly fine as it is largely inert. They generally don't have names, enhancing their alienation from even their own allies, although they have long since adopted this of this own will, preferring to be unremembered should they fall. Although they're specialized in very long range assassination and anti-armour roles, their spindly bodies are very nimble and they're quite capable at close combat if push comes to shove, enhanced once again by raw terror at being seen.

A majority of the surviving Seventh Generation in the era of the GDA, post-IBAE, are assigned to the 13th Terror Corps thanks to their fearsome appearance when fully extended, and the natural consequences of sniper operations.

Ninth Generation: Designed from the outset as a living sea of point defense laser carriers, the Ninth Generation has become a class of hyper perfectionists in their chosen aspects, be it energy output, energy efficiency, mobility, whatever they cling to first. Significantly low numbers exist post-IBAE and their original function has therefore not been used very much, but even a handful can be a potent extravehicular addition to existing or damaged point defence arrays, especially as they can interface and better direct these arrays. Most units have their PDF laser in their foreheads but some have chest or even hand examples, and others still have externalized them. FLKN, one known Ninth Generation, having lived post-IBAE in the Earth's antarctic ranges, has specialized in low temperature operations, as well as close combat to a lesser extent, using his forehead projector's hyperefficiency to split its output into two short-range palm projectors for enhanced hand to hand ability, making up for a chassis that was designed more for clambering over uneven ship hills, not hand to hand combat. As most Ninth Gens are, he's not terribly socially adept and comes off as quite the haughty dickhead, although this also means he's hilariously unprepared for certain situations, resulting in, for example, him literally stealing a rather troublesome paraphilia from the GDA's chief intelligence officer, Blaze, with an equally hilarious outcome as he's got no idea in fuck how to handle it, not having any sexual feeling whatsoever- not that others understand this, and he gets his ass beat over the misunderstanding.

The human troops are largely reserve or home defense, largely trained in asymetric warfare and non-infantry roles to keep them relevant in an army otherwise comprised of specialized death machines. They're quite capable for what they are, but their main weakness is the small actual population of the IBAE compared to its holdings.

4. In fact, the Third Great Defensive War was between the IBAE and former subdivision, the GDA, who proceeded to use their distance from the empire after capturing and holding onto Earth despite initial attacks until they could convince the IBAE that they were not capturing a Pure Planet to damage it, but instead to prove that despite their splintering they still held the same core tenants as the IBAE, to more freely advance stragetic thinking and, having left due to concerns over how the IBAE functioned, planned to oust them from their inception. Knowing that a protracted war was pointless, not caring for additional holdings, they struck with their full knowledge of the Empire's inner workings at high value non-pure planet targets to draw the IBAE's ire, relying on their ignorance of their potential and their unwillingness to actually attack Earth, and then swiftly plunged directly at the heart of the beast with a fleet thousands of times larger than the IBAE thought they had. Ground combat was of largely limited scale, as it was all largely a feint to draw as much firepower away from BioAndronia, and any serious ground combat would have ended in their defeat- they may have had comparable capability, but the IBAE simply had the sheer industrial output, whereas the GDA, holding only the Earth's Solar System, did not. Their attack was sucessful due to the overwhelming threat of their armada, that the Four Quarters Home Defence Fleet was not absolutely certain they could stop, even with their individually more powerful vessels. (The FQHDF's vessels are extremely upsized variants of the IBAE's line ship, and their support classes are much larger than any other navy's, a destroyer being more comparable to the capabilities of a heavy cruiser) With the detection of a far-off signal that triggered very old identification warnings, tentatively putting it as belonging to the fabled FFS Forgotten II, Baylock initiated the Pure Planet Protocol's final clause with regards to BioAndronia, and touched off the Q Warhead within, ending the seige an hour after it began, taking out the Four Quarters, 75% of the GDA's armada, and the entirety of the IBAE's central power base, ending the Third Great Defensive War and shattering the empire, which did not fight further, the dispersed former units simply electing to settle on the worlds they once defended or find other worlds. It did, however, result in the leader of the GDA, at the head of the main armada, being listed as MIA, presumed lost in the detonation (since the shock front essentially deletes everything it encounters, positive identification is not possible) and the remainder of the GDA forces retreating back to Earth to close themselves off as the rest of the universe recovered from the shock. (Until the later United Universal Government's continued attempts at first contact- having lost all record of who inhabited the Earth's solar system- caused the inheritor to lash out against the entirety of the UUG, carving an enormous swathe through it, destroying most of its galactic capital, and finally terminating the last of its leadership in the Seige- and later destruction- of Hope, their last military bastion. (The GDA values rememberance above almost all else, and the UUG did not make attempts to 'remember' who they were until well past the point of no return, prompting Ocean Seven to decline their desperate attempt to broker a ceasefire at Hope, which lead to a small confrontation after the conclusion of the war between him and several of his high command, who thought they were in the right simply because they won. Ocean Seven revealed he'd long since realized he'd overreacted but elected to continue to prosecute the war anyhow until it's inevitable conclusion, which was quite the shock to the others; morality plays a role in the story and it's intended that there be no clear 'good guy' at the end of the day, everything being subjective and relative to one another, although it is later revealed that he did not overreact entirely of his own will, as he now channels the entirety of the purestrain human race's energy, and the war was a successful 'bleeding off' of energy, allowing purestrain humanity to pass the critical limit of population that would have otherwise triggered the Fourth Human Ascension, which would have raged unstoppable across the universe with the loss of the IBAE, who had stopped it if only barely, thrice before.)

5. Raw numbers I wouldn't have a clue, not as high as many other empires which are larger, but certainly not a case of 'high quality, low quantity.' It's probable they could easily conquer most of the universe known to them before they started to run a bit thin.

As for the FTL capabilities, they have the standard in-canon drives of Lightspace and Heavyspace (varying in speed and 'presence' in realspace, mostly relevant to concealing their path during transit and allowing passage through denser dust fields) for most ships, but also have the Displacer Drive which I've detailed before, and the Void Space Drive, which is easiest to describe as the relation between Nether and Overworld in minecraft- short distances within the Void translate to huge distances in realspace, with a side of Warhammer 40,000's Immaterium- the Void, not behaving like our space at all, is not traversable under normal circumstances and so only the line ships and some special ships of the IBAE/GDA have the capability of accurate translation, with some of the most ancient ships developing something approximating a 'map' of the Void, similar to how the Navis Nobile in Warhammer 40,000 navigates the "currents of the warp." Additionally, the paradoxical nature of the Void is anathema to the human mind, its sight essentially being a cognitohazard in and of itself, with very, very few people able to withstand looking into its impossible blackness for more than a moment, and even fewer of them able to actively stare into it. (Even the two that can, Ocean Seven and Mk. VII, must still, on some level, guard their minds against void insanity, although they eventually come to experience the void so much that they essentially willingly accept the insanity, becoming a bit erratic when traversing the Void alone on the bridge with the viewports unshielded, but in return suffer no further ill effects, becoming one with the intangible, wispy insanity that flows around them, like some sort of sappy 'elf and forest spirit' ordeal. Additionally, this is the source of their ability to inflict the VR-like personal hell upon individuals, as each are themselves a conduit to the Void, Mk. VII being the original, and commanding a measure of control over it, allowing them to shape their terrifying gaze to their victim's worst nightmares.)

Crossing galactic voids, for the VSD, does not take more than a day, and non-VSD equipped elements of their navies can be pulled in with VSD-equipped elements to facilitate this movement, although all slaved units need to be informed of the dangers of void insanity, and not all non-VSD vessels are capable of fully closing off all external views.

6. The IBAE is limited to its series of universal iterations one by one; it's a small subset of the GDA, the Outcasts (founders) that got the Philosopher AI running to work out how to breach the universe and go to another, and there's never been more than a single vessel involved; it's less colonization, more trying to escape the current universe and find another, the penultimate destination of this voyage being unknown to even them. (And highly dangerous even with their ship's advanced inertial dampers, the raw, unlistable velocities the Philosopher Drive imparts on the ship and crew being more than capable of crushing a human should they move too much as the damper can barely keep up as it is, let alone with a squirming target, and there's no stopping, so if your arm got crushed, it's going to get worse and worst until you either die, black out, or arrive.)

7. Not very densely, with regard to their own population bases, as most of their holdings are protecting the Pure Planets, rather than colonizing them. They are quite far reaching, so their population base is well spread out, as well as their industrial base, although the BioAndronian home galaxy is densely colonized, as the primary industrial base and an easily defended one at that. Much of their colonies outside their home galaxy are not strictly their own people, but rather auxiliaries IBAE-aligned and willing to provide space for industrial capacity in return for absolute protection and economic assistance (The IBAE does not have a native economy, functioning instead on resources; there is quite a large unemployed population who are seen more as employable standbys, rather than unfortunates or scum as we see our unemployed, and employment is willing. Education is completely free and designed to help you find your aptitudes and interests, and if you're not satisfied with where you wound up you can leave that job and go back to learn something else, should you wish, as the IBAE wants its people to do the best they can for themselves, and, generally, someone doing what they want, that they are very well suited for imparts excellent efficiency and output for the IBAE, so there is no reason to not expend the effort and energy to ensure everyone is happy and doing the best they can within the framework of what they're capable of, not what the IBAE may demand get done. You can entirely live without working a day in your life, comfortably, though not particularly with a huge selection of variety- the more you put into the IBAE, the more you get back, and those that put in 'less' than others are not seen as weak or lazy, but rather, giving as much as they wish to attain what they want, and there is little reason to demand someone give more if they're content with their lot. However, much of the unemployed population is actively encouraged to at least do the odd thing here and there, with temporary access to more variety in what they're allowed to consume/have, that's a bit higher than what they'd normally get if they did that job regularly, both to ensure they have a chance at getting something nice and keeping them honed. Most take these offers up, usually of their own will, occasionally wanting something a bit more but being otherwise content with standing by for a higher calling should the need arise. Military service is not mandatory but most put some time in in one way or another (military production counts in this regard) and much of the unemployed stand ready to take up arms if a local threat arose, keenly understanding that their comfortable life would not be possible without the IBAE, in a positive way, rather than a compelling way. In fact, exile is one of the worst punishments, as the concept of working under an exploitive economy is horrifying.

8. Their ships are larger than most, within each class (encompassing 'standard' classes such as destroyer, cruiser, battleship, etc, which would 'average' sized in relation to other science fiction settings), with the IBAE's being somewhat upsized) but also comprising a lot of very large scale ships and classes, some of their most visible ships being:

The on-average 30 kilometer long cylinder-type (360 degree weaponry as opposed to very asymetrical designs like Star Destroyers, or naval-type hulls such as Space Battleship Yamato) Longbow-Class Battlecruisers, the design ethos of which is "if we cover it with weapons, this is another layer of armour, and severe weapon damage does not meaningfully impact our firepower) and its sister, Longarm-Class (replacing a large swathe of weaponry on its upper side with a single or twin cannon) These are the trademark Displacer Drive equipped ships, using their huge size and heavy armour to ignore the problem of shieldbusting when Displacing into atmosphere and instead using its enormous entry fireball as a psychological warfare tool.

Their ubiquitous line ship is also the most visible and well known of their navy, as well as the first ship I ever designed: The "IBAE BAAES SSBCV-77 D-Class MWP"

"Imperial Bioandronian Empire BioAndronian Aerospace Engineering Shipyards Self-Sufficient Battle Carrier Vehicle Type-77 Delta-Class Mobile Weapons Platform" or Swarmcarrier as it is known otherwise as. The Swarmcarrier is a 9km long boxy rectangular vessel, 3km tall and 2km wide, all not counting its enormous engine bank (the central Juggernaut booster engine being a former prototype cannon, stretching an additional kilometer outside the vessel, with a more than three hundred meter long root inside it.) with 1.5 million light laser weapons on either of its huge slab sides, giving it enormous anticraft ('craft' is an in-universe term for small ship like bomber, courier, fleet tender, etc) capability with sufficient output to fight much larger ships that these weapons are not usually designed to fight at all, as well as its upper left and right edges on the top deck have an array of F/A-128 physical batteries (essentially the large 12,8 cm schwere Flugzeugabwehrkanone 40 but modified for endurance and function in space, and using a linear accelerator instead of propellant) running the length in stowable mounts. The underside is purely point defence array batteries, the sheer number of which gives the underside a deadly sting to smaller ships, much like the slab side batteries make a fearsome opponent for larger ships. The forward face houses the enormous hangar door as well as the torpedo bays (along the lower edge, as well as the upper edge on the left and right, flanking the mobile forward bridge's position (that bridge can withdraw into the deck armour if need be and the ship piloted from it or the bridge within the fighting section behind the hangar) The upper side has two long missile silo arrays in the case of the Delta I, supplimenting the enormous E-Beam mounted atop, running the full 9km length of the ship with a 1.5km diamater and a 200m extension off the back of the weapon, housing the capacitor, coolant synthesis and storage units. The ship can be used as a pure bomber carrier, where it gets its name from, or it can house a significantly reduced compliment to instead carry its own small escort fleet of smaller vessels, with a generous 5 kilometer long hangar. The hangar door splits in the middle into four triangular segments that hinge outwards, aligned to the shape of the front of the vessel (i.e. an X shape opening, rather than a + shape). The Delta II variant omits the E-Beam in return for a greatly expanded missile silo field, encompassing the entirety of the upper armoured deck. (The upper deck was designed to look similar to the Essex-class aircraft carrier's deck, namely the presence of the island, duplicated on either side of the ship, and offset the right side has a forward position, and the left side has a rearward position, so these observation bridges can have a better field of view. The top deck is otherwise a solid slab, as opposed to looking like a carrier flight deck, but the fore and rear turret emplacements of the Essex's bridge are present, housing large double turrets similar in design to the five inch guns of the Essex)

The Swarmcarrier was designed to operate alone but is more than capable of working with other units outside of its escort fleet, although it is usually fielded in homogeneous squadrons or if not, in lines of thin depth with support units in front, due to the threat the Juggernaut engine poses to units to its rear, as despite being downenergized to function as a pulse booster, it is still a cannon at heart and will heartily shred anything that happens to be in the line of fire, much like the E-Beam will punch through things to the front, even through shielding. (The Juggernaut engine is primarily used for rapid acceleration or as a recoil compensation mechanism for the E-Beam's non-continous mode of operation, which imparts heavy rearward recoil as opposed to the 'weaker' beam mode, which can be otherwise met with its normal auxiliary engines)

Beyond this, the Four Quarters' Destroyers are the size of contemporary Battleships, and the Swarmcarriers are of an enlarged design (Standard Swarmcarriers are of the Juggernaut-Class, whereas the Four Quarters use those of the WMD-Class, which encompasses all of their ship types)

Even larger than these would be the Iron Sisters, increasing in size from the ISS Terra, to Sol, and finally to Luna, the latter two of which impart severe stress on reality during their in-translation, and the ISS Luna even unleashing a localized electrical storm that can damage or destroy sensors and poorly shielded electrical systems) and beyond even these would be the two ships bearing the name of Forgotten, the FFS Forgotten and FFS Forgotten II, both the two largest ships any civilization has built. (Only surpassed by select ships of the Destiny Fleet, which originated in Iteration One, namely 4Sin, which, while intact, was the size of a small galaxy, and even in its current, almost totally destroyed iteration, is still the size of a small solar system. It is in fact 4Sin that the original Quantum Device was used against, destroying most of the ship and dragging the original IBAE's Origin Fleet and the remnant of 4Sin sideways into their new universe, and keeping them from returning until far, far in the future when Ocean Seven accidentally travels back to the First Iteration when using the Stellar Ignition Drive to try and move forward, and learning the truth behind the original incident and why the IBAE turns out the same way in every Iteration- universe is in a near complete loop, prevented from its proper randomization cycle, and what he thought was originally just fiction he wrote turned out to be the story of the First Iteration in part, discovering that he was not originally from Earth, but instead, the executor of the Destiny Fleet and designer of 4Sin, that the original IBAE was actually a stagnant empire where Mk. VII was kept from the public at large because of the damage his production was threatening to cause, and his discovery of the Void was not capitalized on and the concept of Voidspace travel is derided as lunacy. The Destiny Fleet is revealed to actually be universal observers, mistakenly thought by the denizens of the universe as heralds of doom, and so when one of the smaller Destiny Fleet ships is spotted in IBAE territory, they panic and attack it, prompting the arrival of 4Sin, intended to simply scare them into submission- but instead they chose stubborn resistance, developed the Q Device, and attempted to destroy the 4Sin, shifting them all sideways into another universe and splitting Ocean Seven into two bodies that swap at the end of each Iteration, which is only remembered by the one that pilots 4Sin, while the other is earmarked for rebirth on Earth, to be discovered by Mk.VII and the IBAE, inducted into the Outcasts and eventually inherit the GDA, and continue the legacy of the Outcasts until none but he is left, and following a period of quiet stagnation, decides to figure out what 4Sin is and why it has been seen infrequently throughout time, culminating in coming face to face with 4Sin at close range and realizing he is looking at himself, realizing the only way forward is to drag the 4Sin down into an enormous black hole, taking up the mantle of the master of 4Sin while his double is released, for the next Iteration, from his duty, and gets to forget his past, explaining why despite being able to remember fifty thousand Iterations, Ocean Seven doesn't have complete recollection yet isn't driven totally insane as the remembrance grows in size faster than it shrinks (after a certain point, capacity is reached and he starts forgetting nonessential things and will eventually start forgetting the earliest Iterations themselves)

I've devised a way to calculate the IBAE's numbers and industrial strength:


100 billion (Average number of stars per galaxy) x 2 trillion (high-end estimate for galaxies in observable universe) x average number of inhabited planets per system x the percentage/100 of systems colonized (e.g 100% is x1, 50% is x0.5) x the percentage/100 of systems with planets x the percentage/100 of the observable universe colonized by the IBAE x 4 trillion kilograms ( ~ the iron output of humanity / year in 2019) x how many times the IBAE's planets produce more resources than humanity.

To make it nice and clean: 100 billion x 2 trillion x avg. inh. planets x %/100 col. systems x %/100 of systems with planets x %/100 IBAE-held universe x 4 trillion x times humanity.

Simplifying it: 8.e+35 x planets/system x %/100 col. systems x %/100 planet systems x %/100 universe taken x humanity's iron output. But you should probably replace the 4 trillion kg with how much mass a standard IBAE planet outputs in a year including all metals.



Also, how long did it take the IBAE to colonize the universe?

Can they mine stars themselves?

How much do they typically mine per system from asteroids and gas giants?

Doubtless they can tap into stars themselves, although as for amounts mined from stars, asteroids and gas giants, it hasn't been relevant to the story so there's no particular data on that unfortunately. However, easily habitable planets are considered rare (inclusive of more than just earthlikes) and so there are a lot of undesired planets rich in raw materials that nobody particularly is fond of, so while their output would naturally be high, they have a lot of ground to work with and so can avoid visible 'strip mining' of entire sectors by spreading their extraction out widely, minimizing short and long-term system disturbances and prolonging the point at which truly visible destruction occurs, as well as ensuring that a large scale attack that envelops many extraction worlds can be rectified by increasing extraction at other sites, which have plenty of material left thanks to the ethos of strategic economic width over absolutely gobbling up singular planets at a time, rapidly exhausting local supplies and becoming reliant on vulnerable outer colonies, the capture of which is much easier than core territory and would result in complete collapse of the raw material network.

As for how long, a lot faster than the rest of the universe, just in two distinct and deliberate waves: The first, would be locating their homeworld after the Q Device incident, setting up there, and then rapidly expanding within that galaxy, likely within a period of less than a century (efficiencies of scale as they grow) following a period of building up, identifying the Pure Planets, devising the numbers they need to adequately garrison their systems and the material needed for the selected garrison colony worlds, which would take an arbitrary amount of time dependent on the numbers selected and thus the minimum material requirements to launch the First Great Defensive War and blitz the chosen targets without stalling- the sheer industrial output of an already established technological superpower at the galactic scale would allow them to begin the blitz with far less than they need overall, and simply produce the rest in a short amount of time, possibly even planning for new units to come online as their additional strength is expected to be needed to continue further, rather than wasting time building up maximally and then going forth, which may conclude the war faster but take more time overall. (The former method may conclude the war shortly after the latter method would be starting)

1. What's the strongest scifi universe you can think / search of that the IBAE can win a war of extinction against?

2. The weakest that can win a war of extinction against the IBAE?

3. What could they do if they went all out?

1 & 2: There's way too many I haven't read up on so I couldn't give an accurate answer, but after reading Peter F. Hamilton's Commonwealth and Void sagas, that Earth could give the IBAE a run for its money if only for the near-postphysical level technology and the hypercompact weapons found there (something I've always derided as a bit too haughty and over the top 'godmodding' but Hamilton pulls off with incredible skill and detail, especially because humanity's really only got the Deterrence Fleet that could stand against the Raiel ships (and the Acellerator faction's Inversion Core, but that was more due to reverse engineering the Raiel's own imprisonment shield technology) Out of the limited universes I've seen, only they and the strongest shit from the Xelee Sequence would be able to beat the IBAE, but this is by no means exhaustive, and the former may not remain at that status as I'm taking some inspiration from those sagas, although it's the GDA not the IBAE that will acquire that level of tech (the only significant difference is industrial output and raw strength) due to my somewhat recent ban on mechs, which I formerly avoided using due to the difficulties and limitations of including them in a semi-hard SF universe- bipedal mechs are a pretty stupid thing, but the Rule of Cool prevails, tempered by the limited numbers in-universe.

(The IBAE/GDA mechs are of typical advanced construction while the other empires and the UUG's mechs require environmental or artificial stabilization for firing and are more rugged terrain weapon carriers, less actual assault units, whereas the IBAE/GDA has the three main types of mech: the big bad boys, i.e. Behemoth from Full Metal Panic, the standard large mech a la Gundam, and mechanized infantry suits, which are considered in the same vein as mechs in-universe. The big mechs are very limited in number and outside of the few the GDA built they're almost entirely restricted to the rogue BioTerror Titans of the 13th Terror Corps, which are the largest of any mech resembling anything normal. Several ultraheavy vehicles are technically mechs due to leg-type locomotion, but they are in the vein of Armoured Core For Answer's Spirit of Motherwill-size or larger, featuring four or six legs for orbital deployment models, eight for nonorbital deployment of the same chassis type, and even more for the enormous Coronet Fortress', which is capable of deploying the smaller vehicles (which in turn have a small hangar bay that can house some fairly large tanks) and followed an escalating development cycle, inspired by Star Wars' AT-AT, only beginning as an unarmed armoured troop transport that was field modified to be armed, then officially redesigned as an assault troop transport, going through further development cycles to become the ground-based contemporary to the Swarmcarrier, on a smaller scale- gravity's a real killjoy when it comes to superweapons.

3. Fight a delaying action, switch the full breadth of their industrial capacity over to Q Warheads, and quite literally erase everything. The IBAE and GDA that follows are however designed to be benevolent overlords, the worlds they have acquired but not incorporated are nonetheless governed by them in name, but are left to their own devices, the IBAE/GDA governance being in place just as a formality, in case it is needed to function within the bounds of the planetary legal system. Otherwise, their governance is informal and extrajudicial in nature, but in all aspects they avoid interference where possible, while retaining agents on the ground that have carte blanche to do whatever they need to. These in turn generally do not interfere, but they do often help bypass technicalities and judicial deadlock thanks to their total extrajudicial nature, and the crime rates on planets under the IBAE/GDA umbrella are generally very low, as they are able to fully utilize the fear of an unrestricted, extrajudicial military police force that otherwise does not overly concern the general populace as it does not go around kicking in doors like the secret police of facist and authoritarian regimes (although there is always some level of weariness as they've never experienced such a benevolent regime. The fact that one of the first orders of business for Pure Planet worlds is to come straight out with this but also mention that while they strive to be non-interfering and benevolent as possible, they reserve the full authority to wipe the entire civilization out should they be found to threaten the integrity of the Pure Planet Protocols. They're there to afford a level of crime prevention that normal authorities cannot ethically do and would never be able to even experiment with to prove their ability to not abuse those powers, but their first order of business is protection of the world, not its sentient inhabitants. Stability is a hallmark of such worlds, where most severe unrest is generally in the form of overzealous headcases who've read too much fiction and don't quite get just how wide the divide between the IBAE/GDA and the rest of the universe is.

This universe seems quite interesting. Hey, you got a specific place to put all this stuff, like maybe a question journal?

If I might ask my own, what's the 13th Terror Corps?

It's all over the place, the overwhelming majority of it exists on hard copy from years and years ago- I've been building this since I was in grade 6! (Took a two page comic doodle a friend made and ran with the main character and it just exploded from there, after 2-3 years as a comedy comic I drew on lined paper)

__
The 13th Terror Corps was a part of the IBAE, but was brought along Mk. VII when he splintered off and created the GDA, as most of its motor pool came from the various design companies that he created and subsequently splintered with- mostly from Coronet Steel Superheavy Industries, for their Tiger series transport-capable heavy walkers, and Indigo Hybrid Industries for their range of hybrid artillery platforms, namely the small Atlas, and the TD-88 twin gunned urban tank destroyer; the former serves as a very mobile and fairly small platform to deliver chemical or biological agents, and the latter is specifically designed to be squirreled away in ruins and buildings as an ambush predator, perfect for their sort of shock, awe and surprise methods.

As the IBAE started off as just its capital and a few minor outposts in its system and neighbours, and felt the need to locate, identify and preserve so-called "Pure Planets"- planets similar to the capital, Bioandronia, before its biosphere was brought to its knees in the choking grind of the industry required to make the first wave of their masters-of-all-trades, they needed to fight a war on all fronts and secure far-flung planets. They had the sheer technological advantage, but lacked the initial industrial capacity to fight a war of attrition, so the best way forward was to appear as threatening as possible. The threat that the 13th would be brought to bear against one's cities was enough to pacify virtually all unaligned civilizations, usually after the first time they tried calling the Empire's bluff.

The 13th is also responsible for virtually all of the IBAE's psychological warfare divisions, and later would be the entirety of the GDA's divisions; they are directly responsible for the development and deployment of autonomous vehicles known as "BioTerror Titans", loosely based on the general shape of the Behemoth from Full Metal Panic!, only larger. Their sole directive was self-preservation, and their power source was siphoning the general 'life force' out of living sentient beings. This works even when a victim has been drained past the 'age' they would normally die, as the BTT keeps them alive, and the 'force' they drain is, strictly speaking, infinite- in-lore the 'soul' is a fictional concept, but all living beings do have 'spirits' which are more or less facets of the universe at large, personified, that simply engage new life in contracts, protecting them from the myriad of hazards of existence in return for a modicum of control over the life; this is where people get personality and temperament from! (They exert no direct control, content to simply 'tweak' the living being as if it were, say, a Sim, and then sit back and observe what comes of their creation.) These things are universally feared, as they can withstand most conventional attacks short of an all out assault, and while victims can be rescued, the disconnection process, in a way, 'snaps' them to whatever age they would be had they 'naturally' drained to whatever level they were at. Typically, this is fatal, and in all cases where it is not immediately fatal, it is sufficient to permanently mentally damage or physically disfigure the victim. (One character of the cast, Admiral Seven, is one such victim, and the only one rescued after the general ban on disconnection attempts; he got off easy through a combination of stubbornness and Mk. VII's psychologically overriding eye at reduced power, sufficient enough to mentally disconnect Seven from his body without completely driving him insane, and providing an environment that he could apply his refusal to die on, traversing some six lifetimes of personal hell before surfacing back in control. All he lost was the area between his hip and lower ribcage. Everything functions normally, there's just a visual gap in his midsection; this is physically located in his chamber aboard BTT-001, dutifully safeguarded by what amounts to its own blackened 'spirit' that tried to keep Seven for itself or kill him trying, under pain of death from Mk. VII- as the overseer of the BTT project, it intimately understands the very real threat he poses should it allow harm to befall the piece it managed to separate, the only instance of a BTT 'spirit' feeling genuine fear.)

Overall, the 13th embodies the extreme opposite of things like the Hague/Geneva conventions; they do what nobody else has the stomach for, but they also don't particularly relish it, despite the rumors that their ranks are filled with truly sadistic people that enjoy what they do. They cultivate that atmosphere as part of their role as a psychological warfare division, but in reality, they're just desensitized. They have a job to carry out, and they do it; the culture of the GDA is one of self-sacrifice, and if they must sacrifice their ethics and risk falling to sadism, that the GDA may be seen as a threat not worth pissing off, then they will gladly be the ones to do it that another need not.

They're also very handy as a heavy-handed reminder of the overall theme that there are no heroes, only people we chose to ignore the atrocities of. As they're not part of the regular GDA armed forces, they're under the direct oversight of Mk. VII- and later Ocean Seven- and so these supposed 'heroes' are, in reality, fully aware of what they're committing to battle and are directly responsible for everything they do. (Both founders have directly acted alongside them, cultivating their image in the eyes of their opponents, under the names Yellow Eye and Red Eye respectively- hence the Blackheart sona I have having two different colours, as he represents the both of them!)

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/28187549/

This piece, the story behind it, is thanks to the 13th Terror Corps- they would have been the division responsible for piloting the vessel containing the N23 gas that was mistakenly routed to an active combat zone, shot down and subsequently crashed uphill from a major population center, spilling its contact-lethal load on defenseless civilians, the incident that lead to Baylock becoming reclusive, and the birth of Aberration, the manifestation of his guilt over the incident, as he'd never actually observed the effects of N23/N25 neurotoxin before then but could not accept that this was the fate he'd consigned untold billions to with but a few words for so long. (And, inverting the heroes-aren't-heroes theme, the 'bad guys' are just as human as the heroes, fully capable of feeling crushing guilt over atrocities they commit.)