Trans-Neptunian Ecumenocracy of Orcus

First Things First:

The Trans-Neptunian Ecumenocracy of Orcus is a trans-world organization that exists beyond the orbit of Neptune and extends well into the Oort Cloud of the Solar System. It is not associated with terrestrial powers such as the Atlantic Federation or the Eurasian Alliance. It is marginally associated with the Glassenheim Foundation and the Anunnaki, though these two clandestine organizations are very much unaware of the size, economic potential, and military power of Orcus.

The core of Orcus is homo sapiens xenus. The Xenus are entirely the creation of the Anunnaki and related secret organizations and exist in the same sphere as relic hunters in the deep system hunting Imbrian ruins and relics. The distances are so vast and the dwarf planets and their moons are so small that a scout ship could pass through the 'heart' of Orcan space and never see anything. Once released on the Anunnaki's generational goal of supplanting humanity and raising their creators up to near godhood over the survivors, the Xenus split into two sects: the Sednans and the Orcans.

The Sednans are based on the dwarf planet Sedna, and function as the Anunnaki's dogs on a leash. They answer queries, send reports, and otherwise do what looks like the Hidden Master's bidding. The Orcans moved away, extrapolated their own technology, and divorced themselves entirely from Earth, especially the Anunnaki and their hoary existential pseudo-sorcery and eschatological prophesying. They fully intend to become what the Hidden Masters desired, with the caveat that the Hidden Masters will be the first thing they will remove when they return.

The Mobile Command Center and Planetary Siege Fortresses

These two items form the backbone of Orcus. The MCC is a massive dropship, spheroid in shape, based on the venerable Overlord. The new vessel is almost twice the size and has replaced most of the original's ability to carry mecha with modular bays. The most common use of the MCC is to set up and establish colonies on dwarf planets, hidden moons, and large asteroids. Where the Inner System powers will hollow out such a piece of space real estate and turn it into a habitable station, Orcus tends to mine them out, and then pick up all their gear and fly away to the next target. unlike the Inner System, there is not a trail of habitable stations through the outer system.

MCCs are accompanied by a small number of defensive picket ships, and a number of tow ships. These are little more than skeletal MCCs, superstructure, and engines, used to tow standard template construction installations to the target site, and then one by one deliver them to the surface. As the housing barracks, mobile warehouses, and other equipment is dropped to the surface, they are linked to the power plant of the MCC, powered up, and the crews and their robotic helpers move en masse to the new site. In a relatively short amount of time, the installation will mine out the target, refine, and export the raw materials back to Orcus or a nearer hub, and then leave for the next site. This scale of mining allows the Orcans to field a large amount of material in terms of ships, mecha, and aerospace craft. Despite this, the distances involved and the relatively small number of Xenus in Orcus, their output is a fraction of what Inner System powers can put out.

In response to things such as the Atlantic Federation's Battlestar program, or the New Hanseatic League's dreadnoughts and battleships, Orcus fields Planetary Siege Fortresses. These are superficially similar to the MCC, but they are larger, have much thicker armor, and replace the mining and extraction abilities of the MCC with mecha bays, weapon turrets, and electronics warfare equipment.

The Orcan Fleet has dozens of MCCs, but only seven Planetary Siege Engines.

Author's Note: there is currently zero chance the Orcan fleet could perform any sort of invasion against any of the inner system planets. While seven planetary siege engines can bring a large amount of material and firepower to a battle zone, it is insignificant compared to the military might of the Terrestrial powers, and the garrisons of Mercury, Mars, and the Lunar Free State are more than sufficient to win a toe to toe fight against such invaders. Despite their grandiose name, Siege Engine ships are much more suited to capturing moons, asteroids, and projecting force against Orcan colonies that rebel against the central command structure.

Orcan Brood Ship

There is currently only one brood ship operational, the Paragon. This ship is based on the Planetary Siege Engine frame and engine configuration but swaps the weaponry and vehicle bays to house an incubation facility and creche chambers. The Paragon can birth twenty new Xenus adults every week for up to six months. This isn't that the creches can render an adult grown from an embryo in seven days, but that it has facilities to stagger production so that the months-long incubation periods are layered for steady production.

The Paragon is currently parked on Orcus itself and is currently being used for working on upgrades to the Xenus species. Previous plans to build more brood ships have been shelved in favor of building more of the MCCs and conventional ships, as well as investing in orb craft construction.

Orcus and Orb Craft

As there are almost no atmospheric worlds that the Orcans, and Sednans for that matter, deal with, they have close to zero aerospace craft. Lacking atmospheres and troublesome aerodynamics, the Orcans have nothing aerospace or aerodyne, and most of their first and second-gen craft fall into the 'brick in space' design school. After the first few orb craft were built on Earth, the designs were broadcast to Sedna by their secret masters, and what Sedna knows, Orcus knows. The Xenus of Orcus were quick to pick up on the value of the new feat of engineering. As such, most current Orcan fighters, attach ships, and small craft are orb based.

The Blazer is a small fighter armed with a blistering number of medium lasers. It is fast, highly maneuverable, and requires very little material support.

The Comet is a better-armored version of the Blazer, but the regular lasers are replaced with pulse lasers, more suited for ground attack and strafing missions.

The Shooting Star is a medium fighter armed with large lasers and has retractable hardpoints to allow it to carry a variety of missiles.

The Falling Star is a large orb craft designed to drop a squad of armored Orcan marines on-site, and then support them with pulse lasers.

The Meteor Swarm is a medium orb craft with minimal weaponry, but an extensive drone control system. It has a number of very small orb craft slaved to it, and these can be armed with as little as a few small lasers or a single medium laser but can engage in acrobatic maneuvers that would kill a living pilot, and are expendable in combat.

The Orcan War Moon deserves notice, as technically no two are the same. They start as captured asteroids, and they are built up into an orb craft in shape and structure, though mobility is the last concern. These are found near important locations where their thick armor and heavy weaponry make them space fortresses. Most can support a few dozen to a few hundred crew, and are almost as much monastic retreats as they are military installations. 

Personal Equipment

Orcan Battle Armor is a heavily reinforced version of an encounter suit, with dense biomer plates covering the shoulders, torso, abdomen, groin, and thighs. This offers good protection from kinetic and concussion weapons, moderate protection from energy weapons, and good protection from parapsychic attack. The armor is technically organic, but not alive, so it offers resistance to said parapsychic manifestations that normally bypass armor. Leather armor technically provides the same protection but there are not a lot of cattle out beyond Neptune.

Orcan Bio-suits go a full step further and create a suit of living organic armor that has to be grafted to the circulatory and nervous system of the warrior who dons it. Once attached, it takes surgical procedures to remove the armor, and most 'commandos' accept the fact that they will wear the suit until they die. By integrating organic metals, and thermoablative gel cells, the armor can resist almost all known weapons, with the bonus of being able to heal over time. The suit enhances parapsychic powers, has extended life support ability, and can allow a commando to survive in hard vacuum and radiation for a functional amount of time, minutes in actively harsh conditions, up to an hour in normal cold space.

The Parascanner is a cranial/ocular device that allows a Xenus commando to scan for parapsychic energy signatures. When the sensor is turned to very high sensitivity it can work as a life-detection sensor, but a weak parapsychic would appear like a floodlight. The P-Scan is typically used to hunt for parapsychically active DFE monsters, but is also used in Orcan parapsychic duels.

The Para-Beam is functionally the first true parapsychic/psycho-weapon created. The weapon is a fist-sized crystal, grown under extreme conditions, that allows a parapsychic to attune to it, and then use it to produce an energy beam. There are two applications, one folds the beam and creates a parapsychic energy circuit, and the second is a release of energy in the form of a 'blast' or cone. Folded beams, themselves glaring violations of physics can be used as 'energy swords' but they have limited use as melee weapons, as an energy sword has no actual structure or mass, and cannot be used for blocking. Using it to block will either slice the opposing weapon/tool/object in a spray of liquid and vaporized material (itself a hazard) or the opposing object will pass through it and through the para-beam user. These so-called 'psi-blades' are good for dealing damage but can fail when encountering thermoablative armors and weapons, such as hyperedge swords. The blaster version functions as a short-range area of effect weapon, operating in the same profile as a handgun. Damage, range, and effect are largely dependent on the user, though the most common is a non-elemental beam that is white and deals a modest amount of damage. This is considered useful since many parapsychic abilities do not have a means of direct damage, so the para-beam lets those with weird, novel, or just useless manifestations serve as Orcan commandos.

Parapsychic Weaponry and Burning

When a parapsychic loses control of their abilities, they can enter a state known as burning, and their power is no longer under their control, and they often lose control of their own faculties. A commando can overuse a para-beam and trigger their own burning state. This can be seen as a final act of defiance in the face of a suicidal situation, or a complete failure of control in a duel. Either way, the effects of the para-beam change as the user's conduit changes. The intensity of the beam increases, range and damage increase, and unusual effects can be seen. It is a great frustration to the Orcans that these burning state modifications cannot be recreated outside of a burn, such as the device creating a scattershot or 'beam shotgun' effect, or lobbing parapsychic energy spheres that explode like grenades.

The Wonder and Horror of the Medical Mechanica

The Medical Mechanica is a large egg-shaped bio-reactor that functions in the same manner as a med-pod, dream tank, and a bio-forge. These devices are used to heal and regenerate wounded Orcans, especially their parapsychic commandos, and leaders. The device also functions as a personality stabilizer and therapist, as parapsychics who've gone into burn or suffered fragmentation or degeneration of their psyches can come out like a new person. This alone is enough to herald this device as possibly the greatest piece of tech the Orcans have created. It has not been sent through the channels to the Annunaki, and they are only aware of the Medical Mechanica as just high-end med-pods.

They don't know the full potential or horror.

The Medical Mechanica can resurrect the dead. A recently slain person can be placed inside and the machine will attempt to bring them back, and most of the time it succeeds. The most common limitations involve the victim having been killed by a parapsychic predator, something that 'consumes souls' and as such the body will be alive, but a soulless mindless vegetable. Other factors include too much time has elapsed. The biomass needs to be fresh, and there is the notion that the spirit itself need want to return. Victims of long torture and abuse, the weak-willed, the mild-mannered, and those of a deeply religious persuasion tend to not reanimate as their former selves.

The danger there is that something else might choose to occupy the waiting mortal vessel. Thus, there are youma and desolate ones among the Orcans. A lesser spirit creates a youma, a creature with access to the host's memories and abilities, but the will of a monstrous creature. A greater spirit steps out as a parapsychic demigod housed in the body of a supra-athlete warrior. If the Anunnaki knew how many Desolate Ones existed among the Orcans they would not be able to sleep. The martial culture of the Orcans and their long divorce from Earth allows them the cultural and social ability to integrate the more mild and agreeable Desolate Ones to literally join their society.