Le Newbie Questions! (Will be reading in the meantime)

Hello and thanks for being so patient and polite in the shoutbox-figured here would be a good place to ask some questions bubbling in my mind, and with them to assist in helping a friend design his own character companion linked to my own.

Firstly, is the roleplay of the military factions always to be at arm's reach figuratively speaking, and if they meet like cats and dogs in the same kennel? I figured the planets will have their groupings of xenophiles and the like but on general terms if on or off duty soldiers/operatives/etc meet each other, is there possibilities pistols aren't gripped at a glance?

#2! It was mentioned I was able to roleplay both promotions and funds raising (I'm assuming on
GM approval or assistance) though are things like this done over a series of weeks, month, or upwards of a year? This is more clarifying the answer, and if one was able to have access to secondary means of funding through background or roleplay.

3) Do mimic computers have any broad restrictions or rules to follow as a character, and are they built with some hard code rules or do they follow commands/laws as any sentient fuzzy logic creature would?

4) Is there currently a crew surrounding envoys/research teams/VIPs for the Greenies? If not, am I able to apply an expansion on this concept as my base plotline or shall I need to plots it up?

5) Just on general terms, how many different planets are in the immediate empires? Is it akin to Star Wars with a couple score planets, hundred, or only a few homeworlds/star systems?

6) Are militaries in space primarily capital ships, frigates, planetary defenses (Ex: Satellites and ground-based weaponry) or lighter craft/mobile suits with a lot of civil/rogue trader-esque overhauled vessels? I'm assuming there is a great diversity between the militaries, just what is more expected to be encountered on random/average situations.

o.o Hope I don't overload! *provides pasta*

Well, I can answer #5 pretty easily: Check out The Map and see for yourself.

I have a few minutes so I will give an answer to #6

Most of the space faring militaries have varying range of ships. Typically the larger the faction the wider range of ships in the inventory, Although while we have large ships in service, most of the role play takes place on smaller ships. It gives players more to do and they have a greater impact than if they were on a Battle cruiser.

I'll give a run down of what I understand the answers to the unaddressed questions are:

1) Before last year when a treaty was signed, most inter-faction interactions on a military level were at their most friendly passive aggressive and waiting for the other side to give a good reason to allow shots to be fired. Now though there is some small push both in character and out of character to be more friendly to one another with at least one plot working with a multi-national crew.

2) a) As far as I know promotions are handled differently from GM to GM. Some will provide promotions at the end of a mission, or the beginning of the next, while others might require you to take action IC to earn your promotions and will only provide advancement through the ranks should your character prove they deserve it. So if you're interested in pursuing a rising career through the ranks it is probably best to ask the GM(s) of the plot(s) you join to know for sure how things will go.

b) Funds/pay are another thing... So far as I'm aware they're generally largely ignored IC. I think the general policy is that each character gets a monthly paycheck for every month in real life that you're active in a plot, and at your GMs discretion you can have access to those funds depending on the time frame of the plot (since in general they tend to lag behind real time before time skips happen between missions.) Again it is best to communicate with the GM running the plot as they will have opinions on what resources they want their players to have access to.

3) By 'mimic computer' I'm assuming you're referring to the mimicom, however I'll answer for artificial intelligences in general... So far as I'm aware the only limits on these sorts of intelligence are those that are put in place by either players or the GM. Some AI are limited to non-volitional natures, however those should have their status noted on the wiki page. As such if it doesn't say it has any restrictions, you can assume that pretty much anything goes so long as a GM doesn't have any complaints. There are however cultural and legal aspects to consider, for example Yamatai treats any sentient intelligence as a free individual and requires that they be treated no different than any other citizen, meaning that you're likely to have a run in with the law if you try to own a volitional, sapient AI.

4) I... Honestly can't give a good answer to this question. To my knowledge there are no plots that are dedicated to those tasks, however since a plot can take on whatever role is desired by the whim of the GM, it is possible that one of our 21 plots is participating in a task of that sort. Perhaps someone else will have a better answer.

Thanks to everyone who has replied so far. Great show of community!

For No. 4, I'd talk to @Koenig808, the grand poobah of Nepleslia. He will have plot information for you.

Thank you all for the answers, this has helped immensely! I shall look forward to poking Koenig808 then as I was looking into roles for an inter-faction relation beyond merely the combat vessels.