Photos Empire

[Badger Man 22]

Well I did not know that, if it helps you then by all means, keep it. I presumed that it was due to not being aware, rather than for your own aesthetic purposes. 

Also none of the images look stretched, the grenade looks round save for one bit which is a straight line. Maybe that error is on your side?

[Yuu]

Is the rear portion of that gun... floating? 

[UFO King]

So, come to think of it, the number one question you should asks of yourself of your creations is, "Do you love them?"

I sure do! In fact, I think the scientific realism only opens up a vast new world of possibilities - but there's a lot to be said for fantasy, of course. The reason I've been recently rather inactive is because of a fantasy world I've been constructing, actually.

Oh, and blank space is honestly a terrible idea. It takes up too much space and makes images look amateurish. I can tell it's scanned from the pencil marks; you don't need the snow ghosts.

[GroxGlitch]

No, the read of the gun is not floating. It, like most newer-generation Photos rifles and carbines, features a detachable, telescoping stock. That's just to show that it's detachable.

[Yuu]

Oh...


Man, I feel silly now. >_>

[GroxGlitch]

Ok, so the life of a normal Photos citizen. Your average Photos will have a decent standard of living, even if they are poorly off.
The lowest level of housing is a government-build complex called a "basic" (Or, as most Photos refer to it not so kindly-like, a "cubicle").
These are small apartments, consisting of a kitchen, bathroom, and co-joined living room and bedroom. While they're not the best thing to live
in, they cost no money to rent; therefore, many Photos who are just out of the educational system will be stuck living in a Basic until they
can get a decent job and aford a better living space. Most of your food and other items will come either from a super-store, or a smaller
dedicated market. Many people end up joining the military, as it pays well. Still, the majority of people stay out of the army and take up other
professions. There are profession schools that teach Photos specialized fields of work, much akin to a college. (That's pretty much what they are,
but nobody's telling!) The government at least tries to give inhabitants of the Empire (Photos or otherwise) a decent standard of living, even if unemployed.
While granted, building Basics and other government-run facilities isn't necessarily cheap, the government manages to budget itself such that it stays out of the red, even if it does come close on rare occasions. The minimum retirement age in the Empire is 65, but military service removes this limit due to the pay: by the time most Photos leave the armed forces, they have enough money to retire comfortably. In all, the people of the Empire can live comfortably one way or the other, considering that the government is willing and able to step in and help.
The Empire at least tries to help in situations of genocide and other acts that are, in the moral stance of most races, "terrible". They try not to overstep their boundaries, but sometimes they have to in order to right a situation; they deal with the political problems later, after the crisis is averted.In most situations, people who try to step on toes end up backing off after they see the reason for stepping over political boundaries.
The Empire has it's own internet system, in addition to GalactiNet (I think that's what it was called, I don't exactly remember what was decided upon, I think that was before my time), called EmpireNet. (Yeah, whoever named that wasn't very creative.) Updates on the econemy, recent happenings in the military, and news for individual planets are all held inside EmpireNet. A sample website would be:
 
 EN.EmpireNews.Photise.net

This would be accessing the local news site for the Empire's capital, Photise. It's also possible to link pages on other networks to EmpireNet using the LinkSys command, which would look something like this:

 EN./LinkSys.GPA.Home/.net

When linked using LinkSys, it converts the page into a format usable in EmpireNet's proprietary format. This means that so long as access is granted, any webpage is viewable in EmpireNet's standard browser. Note that /LinkSys/ is not as simple as adding that syntax to the address bar; it's just the browser's syntax showing the linkage. If the page has not been added to the LinkSys database, it won't work, and will return an incorrect address error. (Note, I'm going to TRY to do a picture of the EmpireNet standard browser viewing the homepage in 'Shop.)

[GroxGlitch]

GEBARIS-CLASS FREIGHTER:
The Gebaris is the standard Freighter of the Photos Empire, built by Kesaris Shipyards. It's a large and fast design, with a huge amount of transport space. The only bad part is it's cost. The only reason it's even remotely economic for it's price is it's durability (excluding getting shot at by pirates and the like, it doesn't really like that too well) and it's huge storage capacity.
Again, it doesn't fare pirates too well; many of the vessels were lost to Pirate activities, which spurred Kesaris Shipyards to develop a "B" model; the major difference between the standard and B model is that the B had it's armor upped to military-grade plate, a shield generator installed, and a trio of  relatively low-output plasma guns mounted on to ward off pirates; the B model is categorized as a Runner by the Photos navy due to it's military grade armor and the fact that it's armed, regardless of how small said armament may be.
A MODEL PICTURES:

[UFO King]

Looking good! The government still seems ominously omnipresent, so I'm sticking with my totalitarian military dictatorship theory. I mean, the council itself seems pretty dictatorial even if not technically autocratic, and who's to say the elections aren't inherently rigged? "EmpireNet"? It's like they're asserting their dominant presence wherever they can.

[GroxGlitch]

KESARIS SHIPYARDS:
Kesaris Shipyards is a major naval company in the Photos Empire. They have developed a large number of ships, including one or two for the military. Even on ships it has not developed, it still produces many of the ships used in the Empire, due to it's wealth (the company actually privately owns a few worlds which it uses as factory worlds to produce ships; most factory worlds are owned by the Empire as a whole and are used for a variety of purposes; even owning a single one privately is seldom heard of; owning multiple is a feat only Kesaris Shipyards has managed).
Kesaris Shipyards has a reputation for high-end craft that aren't cheap; mainly the reason the military has only a few ships produced by them (the navy isn't cutting corners, but Kesaris would be producing BMW's if it were a modern car company, with perhaps a few Ferraris thrown around for good measure). A few ships (such as the Gebaris) are of lower price and these are used frequently, but 90% of the time only the wealthy can afford a Kesaris ship.
The company itself was started by a woman named Traes Kesaris; her father was a wealthy businessman, and he left her a metric crapton of money when he passed away. Wanting his legacy to endure, she founded Kesaris Shipyards, going for high quality but low price craft. Now, that got mutated over the years into the luxury of space craft, but she tried. She ran the company as CEO until her passing from a brain tumor at a 46. After she passed, more wealthy people took the CEO position and promptly turned it into the BMW of Photos spacecraft.

Things such as the moniker "EmpireNet" are an attempt at national pride. A bit heavy handed? Yes. Are they trying, at least? Yes.

[Augustus]

It's funny that UFO brought up the Photos government being Omnipresent with how socialist the Perrachi were.

[GroxGlitch]

Well, UFO does have a good point; the Photos government is, for lack of a more fancy phrase, all over the damn place. The government's huge and wide-branched (all those military branches like the Xylanis Waratica and Xylanis Opairis have a political end, meaning you've got, what, five government boards just for running the military? So with all the various Xylani that make up the Empire, the government gets big, quick.) The government, High Council especially, works tirelessly to keep corrupt people out of government positions, with a pretty damn merciless division of the Xylanis Tribunalis keeping things clean and smooth. Mr. Clean ain't got nothing on these folks
The government as a whole does it's best, but as I said, it can and does occasionally act a little heavy handed, if well-intended. Bear in mind, even though the government is big, it's not oppressive. People are allowed to and even encouraged to state their opinion of laws and acts put out by the government, to an extent; giving your opinion is one thing, starting riots are something entirely different.
At the head of things, the High Council keeps everything running. Councilmen are chosen from the most veteran politicians, and if the public doesn't like them, they're not getting in, plain and simple. Plus, with their being five councilmen, it keeps everything running in the best direction, as the people with the best ideals for the job get picked and the majority rule keeps things going in a positive direction.

[UFO King]

It's funny that UFO brought up the Photos government being Omnipresent with how socialist the Perrachi were.

Fool, true socialism is free. Look up Debs and Goldman for a change instead of those lying bastards Stalin and Mao. The whole idea is that the government bends to the people, not the other way around.

But it's not like perrachi ever achieved actual socialism under the PSR. Well, they've got the Tzhan Commune now if you want a taste of proletarian power, but that's more communist.

[Augustus]

I'm confused. Didn't you say that the PSR had to currency, wouldn't that make their Government free (from the POV of the citizens). I'm just not seeing much of a real difference between the Photos now and the PSR, I never even said anything about Mao.

[UFO King]

had to currency, wouldn't that make there Government free 9from the POV of the citizens

Because money equals no democracy...?

[Augustus]

Oh, you meant  free, politically, I thought you meant free as in not having to pay.