The new House Saurs
Posted: Mon Jul 20, 2015 1:50 am
The founders of House Saurs were made up of the employees of a pre-fall company Eden's Genomics that focused on genetics. The companies founder was a woman whose work on GMOs' for food and plant biodiversity saw an end to hunger in most of the world. Considered a genius and ahead of her time Lilian parlayed the money from her research and patents into a foundation for genetic improvement and restoration of plant life. Including the creation of a private seed vault and DNA bank. Her daughter Eva would go on to build upon her mothers work. She took it to the next level by working on returning recently extinct species. Animals that still had viable DNA samples such as hair and cellular remnants. These were collected from zoos', museums', and private collections from around the world.
The genius level intellect needed for the further advancements in genetics skipped a generation with the birth of Eva's son Adam. What he lacked for insights into genetics he made up with an excellent grasp of business. It was Adam who moved the family foundation to an island archipelago off the coast of what was once the Americas'. On the main island Adam reestablished his families genetic research foundation an saw to the creation of a zoological refuge for animals near extinction and those brought back by his mother's work. Adam continued expanding both the genetics foundation and animal refuge before beginning to turn the island into a successful vacation resort. At this time Adam's daughter Kara was born. From an early age Kara showed the same interests' in genetics as her grandmother and great grandmother. As she grew Adam spared no expense on her education, going so far as to increase not just the size but the scope of the resort. He over saw the construction of small reenactment villages all over the islands' turning it into an educational vacation spot. Each village was built from a different time and location through out history. They kept several trades and crafts alive in an age of mass production.
As Kara's education proceeded, her childhood interest in dinosaurs grew into almost an obsession to bring them back. Adam began seeing to the building of facilities to see Kara's dreams come true. The seed vaults and storage in the basement of the research foundation became Sub-Level 1 and would be expanded to be the underground transport and maintenance service tunnels for the whole island chain. The seed vault would be relocated to the newly created Sub-Level 2 along with an extensive hydro/areo-ponics farm that was intended for research and handling food production for the various herbivore animals being created and raised for the islands zoos'. For Kara's' early college graduation present Adam over saw the construction of the third Sub-Level for the sole purpose of fulfilling his daughter's dream of recreating dinosaurs. In addition to a bleeding edge genetics lab the 3rd level also had the isolated server farms containing four generations of genetic genius.
The original company was organized into three departments. Geneticists & Engineers who created the living and structural attractions. Caregivers that raised the animals and were responsible for the birth, upkeep and feeding of the animals on display for the public. The Rangers were responsible for park security, supervising, and handling the transport and display of the animals so they were made up of former military personnel. Due to the dangerous nature of the animals they handled it was felt that former members of the armed forces would not only be more vigilant in their duties but in the event of a worst-case scenario their training would help ensure speedy resolution with a minimal risk to the general public.
When the machine began its uprising senior members of the Ranger staff could see the writing on the walls. They would be responsible for the rescue and recovery of staff family members that were offsite, the surface employees, historical reenactors, and a large number of the visitors, and the defense of the island itself. This was made only slightly easier by the fact that certain personalities of the machine sought to limit damage to the animal inhabitants. In addition to the SAR missions the Rangers also hit military storage depots for weapons and ammunition. The Caregivers were responsible for both the animals, and the burgeoning new population of humans. Under their guidance the hydroponic gardens would be greatly expanded. The Engineering staff made up of the Geneticists and the Engineers responsible for the creation and upkeep of the mechanical half of the park would find themselves tasked with rebuilding and adapting weapons systems of both armies, Man and Machine.
It was during tunneling to expand the hydroponics that the diggers opened up a chamber that would lead to a vast natural cave network complete with multiple winding tunnels, enormous chambers, and naturally occurring hot springs. The decision was made to move all noncombatants into this new cave network. Doing so ended up being House Saurs's salvation during the early onset of the nanobot plague. Before sealing off their new home in the caverns the Rangers made their way to the surface through the maintenance tunnels and into the zoo itself. The Caregivers had convinced the Rangers to free all of the animals from the cages and containment compounds in the hopes that the animals would survive in the new wilds, wastelands, nature preserves, mountainous highlands, and even the boneyards and battlefields. The Rangers agreed to do this for their own reasons. They hoped the introduction of exotic and formally extinct species might throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the machine's plans. While the Caregivers and Rangers sought to preserve life and wreak havoc on the machine, members of the Genetics department sought to ensure the preservation of knowledge. They shut down the server farms, the brains and electronic memory, containing countless lifetimes worth of decoded DNA. Not just the pure strains but the mistakes, mutations, and alien genes in the hope that this knowledge would once again serve mankind. Once these two tasks were completed all entrances to the former labs were collapsed by demolition charges, sealing off their former home to save themselves. Unfortunately the team of Geneticists responsible for hiding the servers fell victims to the machine after successfully hiding the servers but before passing on their location to the next generation.
House Saurs would live on. Surviving by trading surplus food with the mainland, and helping teach other houses animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. They would also prove instrumental in giving birth to the age of Splicers. Probably one of the most unique aspects of House Saurs is their acceptance and inclusion of Technojackers. This was done with the cooperation of the heads of all three departments Rangers, Caregivers, and Engineers. The Geneticists were the primary driving force behind this philosophy of acceptance because they knew one day the servers would be found and the Technojackers would be the only ones capable of accessing the information and helping to transfer it to the household Librarians. Another is their allowing Homunculi especially ones that are failed Gardner Host Armor. These become invaluable assistants to the Gardner's', helping to maintain plant fortifications and acting as mobile mini-farms for fortification plants and new experimental plants.
Eventually the servers were found, extracted from the ruins and transported to a new safe place. While the servers were en route to their new home three Librarians were created, one from each department to form a new R&D lab using the information stored on the servers. These new Librarians are referred to as the Magi and each one accepted a new name with their new position. They are Melchior of the Rangers, Caspar of the Caregivers, and Balthazar of the Geneticists and Engineers. Their first act as Librarians was the orchestrating creation of an enormous gene-pool made of three Engineers whose combined pool is an amazing 90' in diameter. They named it the Genesis Pit. So far they have not been able to replicate the Genesis Pit, each time the pools wouldn't merge, they just formed three individual pools. House Saurs would be reborn a third time now specializing in the creation and mass production of War Mounts and more unique creatures using dinosaur DNA as their master templates. House Saurs now finds itself on the cutting edge of both animal mounts and plant fortifications. They may not have created the Gardner but everyone agrees they turn out some of the best and brightest. Even if they're not personally responsible for the development and deployment of plant fortifications they would be the ones to perfect them for mass production. Another example of House Saurs's preference of dinosaurs is the choice of War Mounts used by their Outriders. Most Outriders choose to ride an altered Tyrannosaurus Rex or an Allosaurus. Also instead of Mega-Horses they use various species of Ankylosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and or various combinations of the three. In addition House Saurs does not use regular Gorehounds. A Packmaster is paired up with Raptors or Pachycephalosaurus. And just recently they have perfected the creation of mobile Bio-Force Fields based on 3 "sail backed" Dino's'. The Platyhystrix (meaning "flat porcupine") which projects a 10' diameter dome with 200 M.D.C., Dimetrodons which projects a 20' diameter dome with 400 M.D.C., and the biggest sailed Dino the Spinosaurus which projects a 35' diameter dome with 600 M.D.C.. The Bio-Force Field is projected out of the sail to form a force field dome.
Due to the number of carnivorous dinosaurs used in House Saurs, not to mention the hungry humans, when the Lazarus gland was perfected and they got the genetic coding the Rangers collected several species of sauropods for re-engineering. The new Brontosaurus etc. don't regenerate, instead when they are killed all of the beasts inherent Bio-E is focused into carcass preservation. Consumable meat does not putrefy in these beasties. A freshly killed carcass will be safe for humans to eat from up to 2 to 3 weeks after initial death. The fresher the kill the greater the need to cook the meat before eating. Instead of normal decay and eventual putrefaction the consumable meat goes through a process of slowly drying out into a jerky like substance. After perfecting these new sub species they were produced and released into the wild and it is now estimated that somewhere between 30 and 40% of all sauropods, hadrosaurids, and similar large plant eating herbivores are made up of the new species. The only way to tell between the old and new species is to kill it and observe the rate of decay. With the success with the Brontosaurus and Seismisaurus House Saurs has begun to apply these same modifications to other large size herding herbivores and are starting to move on to mammals.
As to the geographic location of House Saurs they are based on a series of islands made up of the remains a large volcano that grew to an enormous height (high enough for snow to develop and remain on what was left) and then exploded similar to Krakatoa. Some of the smaller outer islands were formed in part from derbies from the eruption while others had formed on their own. Imagine if a landmass approximately a half to a third the size of England were located in the upper latitudes with only a few miles from the largest island to the mainland the numerous hot springs were what made the lower elevations of the islands almost tropical. Before the insurrection of the machines a series of tunnels for both traffic and freight trains connected the islands to the mainland. The largest of the islands had almost all of the visitor hotel and housing for all of the islands. In addition to the hotels the main island was dotted with some of the largest and newest equipped amusement parks on the entire planet. The main island also featured multiple casinos and several fairly large historical reenactment /theme parks across several different periods in history from around the world (think of your local Renaissance Festival/civil war reenactment/mountain man and trapper get together). Land that was not being used for amusement purposes went into the creation of small towns and small scale cities to house Park employees and give them a place to shop, to buy groceries etc. The rest of the available arable land on the largest island went into food production, using GMO's for the highest yields and pest resistance without the kill gene's that required buying new seed every season, some to feed Park employees and the people that serve them off the clock like a normal city or town. The largest amount of land is farmed in a way to help produce enough plants to help feed all of the herbivore and other plant eating beasties. After a bunch of the Park biological attractions had been herded onto the mainland and released the Rangers destroyed the "Chunnels" on their way back to the Park.
The entire group of islands is surrounded by underwater mega-damage containment fencing designed to keep all of the ocean type dinosaurs and dinosaur like/size creations contained but free to swim about and feed themselves on normal fish and fish that are specially farm grown (fish farm) fishes of different species as well as those that can make it through the fence. No aquatic creature of any kind is allowed in these enclosed mini-seas that may be small enough to escape out in the normal ocean. The fence is made up of specially modified species of coral that grow in a layered fence like pattern. Any damage done regenerates automatically (the fences are about 10' thick but are not solid and have 100 M.D.C. per 10' section and regenerates 10 M.D. points per melee) and have been crossbred with several different species of jellyfish whose tentacles only strike at creatures trying to get from the inside out. Other organisms/free lunches can safely pass into the fenced in area and will not be stung. The jellyfish tentacles are designed not to kill but to encourage a definite distance from the fence.
Despite House Saurs's many apparent successes, they have had their share of problems. Things like the lost/missing servers. It would take many, many, many decades of searching before they were finally recovered. During all that time the threat and fear that the machine might find out about this treasure trove of genetic data. If Gaia had ever gotten wind of the servers and what was on them she would have torn all the islands up and apart looking for them. She wouldn't have cared about any loss of biodiversity (After all She could always rebuild, replant, and repopulate using the data retrieved.) because of the privately generated data and possible cryo-zoo. The humans may have had success where Gaia met with failure after failure. But luckily she has yet to learn of them. All the information has been copied and backed up so the servers are now just piles of deadly junk that even now the machine would do whatever it could do to get them. The only reason they have not been slagged is that there is an on going debate over slag'em or preserving them as a future historic artifact.
Another problem they had in the early years were difficulties with overpopulation issues. Until it was decided to break off chunks of population to create starter Minor Houses or Clans thus spreading out the people and increasing mankind's chance of survival. Each Minor Clans was initially set up with one Librarian, at least two genepools' and between 20,000 to 30,000 people with an additional 500-1000 military personnel to make a new colony or Minor Clans. As each new Clan was born they would take the last name of a famous past geneticist. Beginning with Mendel then Watson, Crick, Wallace, Tschermak, and Swaminathan for a total of six Clans. As each new Clan came on line they would begin specializing in one particular type of O.C.C.'s. Where as House Mendel specializes in Archangels' they still make the other classes. As mentioned Mendel creates almost all the Archangels' so say House Watson has a group of 5 Archangels 4 of them will have come from Mendel and the 5th one will have been created in house (Clan Watson) and will serve as the groups officer/leader. This helps to promote solidarity between all the houses so that mixed groups of fighters can feature the best warriors the houses have to offer. All these satellite houses' come willingly to each others aid and defense. There was nine but three of them began highly controversial research into areas such as cloning, extreme human modification, and even Bio-warfare of the mass destruction variety. As each new atrocity was uncovered (the last straw was breaking the taboos on the number of Librarians and Scarecrows created) these three houses were given a choice, either exile to the main lands or complete destruction down to the very last cell. They all chose exile over death and had their original names stripped, they were given the names of Mengele, Ishii, and Taha AL-Azawi. House Saurs was lucky that these fallen houses were found out before the servers were found so they have none of the advanced DNA codes. Their only knowledge of these servers are the whispered legends.
The worst, at least on a personal level to the majority of of both Major and Minor houses, are the accusations made by other houses of the resistance of deals being made with one or more aspects of the Machine. These accusations stem from the fact that most of the initial Machines assaults were focused on only a few of the major Metro/Casino/Amusement Park zones while leaving most of the historical "villages" and as much of the animal habitats untouched as possible by a combination of orders from Gaia and the fact that the other personalities were demanding resources in areas of higher conflict. By the time Gaia was able to focus her attention back on The Park most of the remaining humans had not only moved underground but had already begun moving out of the old complex's and destroying those locations.
Later when the various personalities were taking stock of their new "Domains" the personality of Eve looked upon the various historical towns and found what she perceived as premade Retro-Villages that simply needed "restocking". First She sent in steel troopers to mop up or capture any remaining actors. Then service robots to extract any and all metals while trying to do as little damage to the on site buildings as possible. Once She deemed the sites clean she began the task of repopulating them. To give her new pets a chance she instructed the service robots to build new walls around the towns and moats around the fields used for farming. Using wood or stone depending on what would be appropriate for it's time and area. The new walls (and moats)were ment to protect Eve's new playthings from the remaining zoo animals as well as penning her toys in. All this attention was yet another source of accusations of collusion with the machines. The real truth is that the actors living in these villages were apart of the early evacuations. Any humans found were squatters the majority of which were killed by the steel troopers. The survivors were given the choice of reliving the past, or death. Gaia "thinks" she controls the vast majority of the islands and grudgingly lets Eve have and maintain her pets all of which are watched using Sentry Towers dotted all over the largest islands.Each former population center is being garrisoned and patrolled by various types of human sized or smaller robots. Gaia won't allow any of the giant sized robots on to the islands because they might destroy or disrupt her precious nature preserves. She has been using the various animals from the islands to populate her mainland nature preserves for quite some time now. Both know that there is a Splicer presence on the islands but have no idea of the size of the Houses under their noses, nor the incredible treasure trove of genetic data. Every so often one or the other will try to "clean" out the Splicer presence but these attempts are half hearted at best, and often interfered with by the other. This is yet another example of the supposed deal cut with the Machine. They are also clueless to the fact that over time every one of the retro-villagers has been replaced by the descendants of the original actors and actresses. This is a three fold win because it helps relieve population stress, gives military personnel a place for a little R&R or leave on the surface and gives the houses a spy network that is the best of any house, at least as far as the islands go. None of the other great houses in the resistance are aware that all the individual Minor Houses are the "children" of House Saurs. They think that they are all just closely aligned. When the final push against the machine comes House Saurs will be able to potentially field the largest army of the resistance.
House Saurs (and all of its' Minor Houses) prime mandate has always been "protect our homes and families first, then do what you can to help others and better the human condition". Each department became an extension of both their ancestors and the current needs. The founders saw a need for a system of checks and balances and that is why the three departments were kept as they are with the intent that no one department have to much power or control.
Back before the Fall the corporation that owned The Park owned both the islands and the attractions out right thanks to several patients in a number of high tech fields including species restoration (duh), several different gene therapies, a whole host of GMO food stuffs, and even the first successful line of DNA computers. The companies owners, a very good (Principled) husband and wife team, made sure that the H.R. department was well staffed and thorough in the vetting and hiring of all key department supervisor personnel.
Very special attention was paid to all military hires because of the concerns over their diligence, attention to detail, and performance under what can be considered unusual stress. They were going to be responsible for the safety of not just the scientists and those taking care of animals that were separated from man by hundreds of millions of years but most importantly the visiting public. With no reference to the behavior and reactions of various species they would have to be at the top of their game ALL the time when on duty. This diligence resulted in an almost 80 to 85% of all the military staff being either principled or scrupulous with a little over 14% unprincipled and anarchist at the worst. The remaining less than 1% were aberrant. They were hired to provide in house security and counter corporate espionage. But they were checked twice as hard and then only hired so they could handle the those rare but occasional "dirty" jobs. Even though they were willing to get their hands dirty they remained absolutely loyal to the company. The other departments still had high levels of expected professional if not personal moral ethics but not as stringent. Even with a bar set so high they had no troubles filling all their employment needs.
It was this investment in time and resources that would pay off handsomely in the future in the over all moral fiber in those that would come to be the heads of the three departments of House Saurs and their descendants. It was also this early "brainpool" that helped House Saurs create the set of laws and rules governing the initial use and development of their Splicer technology. It also is responsible for the rules that govern not just the selection of those who would become Librarians, but the amount of power held by the Houses' Librarians and the number of Scarecrows they were allowed to produce. This caution would payoff when the number of reports coming back from the aid tours included stories of Houses all but/or completely run by their respective Librarians. And the stories about House Shiva have only reinforced the departments belief that their choices, in the limits they've historically placed on their own Librarians, to have been the correct ones.
The Rangers' focus is on all things military. From the defense of their home and it's people to actively participating in the Resistance against the Machine. This means that they also handle the policing the civilian sectors with the help of the Scarecrows. It begins when teens (13-16) enter into what is a cross between ROTC and neighborhood watch called the CP which stands for Civilian Patrol. From there they they Graduate to what is called the mP or militia Patrol. Service in these two patrols is mandatory for all civilians and provides weapons training, additional education, and disaster response training. Before leaving the mP the teens are encouraged to choose their future careers in either military, farming, or one of the other "professional" fields such as medical (human or animal), engineering (physical or genetic),or educational. Despite this House Saurs has managed to be a police state without trampling the civil rights of the people (within the constraints of the current situation) they are sworn to protect. Given the size of the total collective populations of the combined Houses their primary focus has been the defense of their homes. When any offensive action is taken they try to do what they can to limit revealing both their home or the true number of humans living on the islands. This has been achieved through the use of multiple tunnels to the mainland and the several small Pseudo-houses located there. The majority of military forces left on the collected islands are made up of those nearing "retirement" or to injured to continue to fight and the raw recruits that have not had that much experience. They will receive their first blooding (and are first and second level fighters) by taking on the machines patrolling the islands and the city ruins on them. If the Machine were to ever get a true inkling of the number of humans living on and under the islands nothing would be able to stop the "Cleansing" of the islands if not wiping the islands off the surface of the planet. Not even Gaia and Eve combined could stop it. Still the outside resistance know of the Houses near, or of the islands. The allies of the Houses know them as trustworthy and helpful and are recognized by their Armors and Mounts etc. and are always welcomed in battle and for their aid. As for those who stand or speak against the collective Houses they are either influenced by the "Fallen/exiled" Houses or are like House Shiva who is pretty much against everybody.
The Caregivers were born out of the collection of doctors and farmers. They started with those who cared for the various Park animals i.e. veterinarians, vet nurses, and a smattering of regular human doctors and nurses, and those in charge of both the surface farms and hydroponics systems. From these humble beginnings would eventually give rise the closest thing to top flight human and animal medical schools. When contact was first made after the fall of man the Caregivers were the first ones to want to go out into the world and try to help what was left of their fellow humans. After much debate between the three departments it was decided to send out parties made up of volunteers from the Caregivers and members of the Rangers to seek out any other survivors. Provide immediate aid and establish allies. At first no one knew who these people were (It was agreed by all three departments to keep their own homes a secret.) only that they brought both medical aid and food to those they helped. As time passed and the concept of the Houses and or Clans grew some of the traveling Caregivers (and even some of their farmers and Ranger escorts) would decided to stay with their hosts' and begin new lives and help train and educate the next generation of Dr.s', Vets', and farmers. It has become one of the greatest of honors to have an invitation to come to the island Houses to learn and train in their schools. When these invitees return home they find themselves held up to the level held by the Saints. On these journeys of aid the "care package" groups would also bring back samples for the Engineers. Everything from new animals and other genetic samples, to novel work-around answers to structural engineering problems. And most importantly news and Intel from every where they went.
The Engineers initially started from the Geneticists responsible for creating The Parks living attractions and the Engineers and mechanics who designed all of the buildings, infrastructure, and the "rides" and kept them maintained. Where the Rangers are the sword and shield, the Caregivers the heart and soul, the Geneticists & Engineers would definitely be considered the memory and mind. When the Machine ascended at the cost of humanity the Engineers were the ones helping in recovering, rebuilding, and modifying the tools of war. They were also behind the fortifications, expansion of the existing subsurface facilities, and the development and exploitation of the natural network of caves. During the early years the Geneticists found themselves taking a backseat to their brothers in their department becoming the planners and thinkers. They were the ones responsible for the collecting and preserving as many books (technical manuals, various academic, and even entertainment), works of art, and anything else relating to the history of mankind. When the first reports of what would become known as the nanobot plague came in a team of Geneticists rushed to shut down and move the server farms that contained every last scrap of genetic information in an attempt to keep it out of the Machines hands and with the hope that this info would one day be useful again. The unfortunate premature deaths of the Geneticists who moved and hid the servers led many to believe them lost forever. No one remembers where or when the first Saints appeared and gave birth to the first Librarians, Engineers, and Gene-pools but as soon as House Saurs got their hands on Saints' of their own the Geneticists nearly went delirious with joy and excitement at the possibilities. Once the new tools were fully understood the Geneticists began the search for the servers again. Eventually they were found, and the contents accessed, opening up all new possibilities and ushering in the third age of House Saurs.
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Each house is run by a council of three. Each member is chosen from the most senior or talented person in their respective departments. The head of the Rangers is chosen from either Dreadguard, Roughnecks, Archangels, or Outriders. This person holds the title of Warlord. All decisions are made by counsel consensus except military or security matters although the Warlord is expected to listen to any recommendations from the other departments.
Population Breakdown: House Saurs
110,000 total people.
8% Archangels
2% Biotics
12% Dreadguard
- Engineers (18 plus the 3 that make up the Genesis Pit)
- Librarians (3 plus the 3 Magi for a total of 6)
8% Outriders
2% Packmasters
20% Roughnecks
4% Saints
1 % Scarecrows
2% Skinjobs
1 % Technojackers
30% Non-Combatants
10% Other O.C.C.s
Each minor house is also run by a council of three. Each member is chosen from the most senior or talented person in their respective departments. The head of the Rangers is chosen from either Dreadguard, Roughnecks, Archangels, or Outriders. This person holds the title of Warlord. All decisions are made by counsel consensus except military or security matters although the Warlord is expected to listen to any recommendations from the other departments.
Population Breakdown: average Minor House
30,000-70,000 total people.
8% Archangels
2% Biotics
12% Dreadguard
- Engineers (6-12 total)
- Librarians (1-2 total)
8% Outriders
2% Packmasters
20% Roughnecks
4% Saints
1 % Scarecrows
2% Skinjobs
1 % Technojackers
30% Non-Combatants
10% Other O.C.C.s
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Animals and armors as well as the specialties of each of the minor houses or clans will be posted soonish.
The genius level intellect needed for the further advancements in genetics skipped a generation with the birth of Eva's son Adam. What he lacked for insights into genetics he made up with an excellent grasp of business. It was Adam who moved the family foundation to an island archipelago off the coast of what was once the Americas'. On the main island Adam reestablished his families genetic research foundation an saw to the creation of a zoological refuge for animals near extinction and those brought back by his mother's work. Adam continued expanding both the genetics foundation and animal refuge before beginning to turn the island into a successful vacation resort. At this time Adam's daughter Kara was born. From an early age Kara showed the same interests' in genetics as her grandmother and great grandmother. As she grew Adam spared no expense on her education, going so far as to increase not just the size but the scope of the resort. He over saw the construction of small reenactment villages all over the islands' turning it into an educational vacation spot. Each village was built from a different time and location through out history. They kept several trades and crafts alive in an age of mass production.
As Kara's education proceeded, her childhood interest in dinosaurs grew into almost an obsession to bring them back. Adam began seeing to the building of facilities to see Kara's dreams come true. The seed vaults and storage in the basement of the research foundation became Sub-Level 1 and would be expanded to be the underground transport and maintenance service tunnels for the whole island chain. The seed vault would be relocated to the newly created Sub-Level 2 along with an extensive hydro/areo-ponics farm that was intended for research and handling food production for the various herbivore animals being created and raised for the islands zoos'. For Kara's' early college graduation present Adam over saw the construction of the third Sub-Level for the sole purpose of fulfilling his daughter's dream of recreating dinosaurs. In addition to a bleeding edge genetics lab the 3rd level also had the isolated server farms containing four generations of genetic genius.
The original company was organized into three departments. Geneticists & Engineers who created the living and structural attractions. Caregivers that raised the animals and were responsible for the birth, upkeep and feeding of the animals on display for the public. The Rangers were responsible for park security, supervising, and handling the transport and display of the animals so they were made up of former military personnel. Due to the dangerous nature of the animals they handled it was felt that former members of the armed forces would not only be more vigilant in their duties but in the event of a worst-case scenario their training would help ensure speedy resolution with a minimal risk to the general public.
When the machine began its uprising senior members of the Ranger staff could see the writing on the walls. They would be responsible for the rescue and recovery of staff family members that were offsite, the surface employees, historical reenactors, and a large number of the visitors, and the defense of the island itself. This was made only slightly easier by the fact that certain personalities of the machine sought to limit damage to the animal inhabitants. In addition to the SAR missions the Rangers also hit military storage depots for weapons and ammunition. The Caregivers were responsible for both the animals, and the burgeoning new population of humans. Under their guidance the hydroponic gardens would be greatly expanded. The Engineering staff made up of the Geneticists and the Engineers responsible for the creation and upkeep of the mechanical half of the park would find themselves tasked with rebuilding and adapting weapons systems of both armies, Man and Machine.
It was during tunneling to expand the hydroponics that the diggers opened up a chamber that would lead to a vast natural cave network complete with multiple winding tunnels, enormous chambers, and naturally occurring hot springs. The decision was made to move all noncombatants into this new cave network. Doing so ended up being House Saurs's salvation during the early onset of the nanobot plague. Before sealing off their new home in the caverns the Rangers made their way to the surface through the maintenance tunnels and into the zoo itself. The Caregivers had convinced the Rangers to free all of the animals from the cages and containment compounds in the hopes that the animals would survive in the new wilds, wastelands, nature preserves, mountainous highlands, and even the boneyards and battlefields. The Rangers agreed to do this for their own reasons. They hoped the introduction of exotic and formally extinct species might throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the machine's plans. While the Caregivers and Rangers sought to preserve life and wreak havoc on the machine, members of the Genetics department sought to ensure the preservation of knowledge. They shut down the server farms, the brains and electronic memory, containing countless lifetimes worth of decoded DNA. Not just the pure strains but the mistakes, mutations, and alien genes in the hope that this knowledge would once again serve mankind. Once these two tasks were completed all entrances to the former labs were collapsed by demolition charges, sealing off their former home to save themselves. Unfortunately the team of Geneticists responsible for hiding the servers fell victims to the machine after successfully hiding the servers but before passing on their location to the next generation.
House Saurs would live on. Surviving by trading surplus food with the mainland, and helping teach other houses animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. They would also prove instrumental in giving birth to the age of Splicers. Probably one of the most unique aspects of House Saurs is their acceptance and inclusion of Technojackers. This was done with the cooperation of the heads of all three departments Rangers, Caregivers, and Engineers. The Geneticists were the primary driving force behind this philosophy of acceptance because they knew one day the servers would be found and the Technojackers would be the only ones capable of accessing the information and helping to transfer it to the household Librarians. Another is their allowing Homunculi especially ones that are failed Gardner Host Armor. These become invaluable assistants to the Gardner's', helping to maintain plant fortifications and acting as mobile mini-farms for fortification plants and new experimental plants.
Eventually the servers were found, extracted from the ruins and transported to a new safe place. While the servers were en route to their new home three Librarians were created, one from each department to form a new R&D lab using the information stored on the servers. These new Librarians are referred to as the Magi and each one accepted a new name with their new position. They are Melchior of the Rangers, Caspar of the Caregivers, and Balthazar of the Geneticists and Engineers. Their first act as Librarians was the orchestrating creation of an enormous gene-pool made of three Engineers whose combined pool is an amazing 90' in diameter. They named it the Genesis Pit. So far they have not been able to replicate the Genesis Pit, each time the pools wouldn't merge, they just formed three individual pools. House Saurs would be reborn a third time now specializing in the creation and mass production of War Mounts and more unique creatures using dinosaur DNA as their master templates. House Saurs now finds itself on the cutting edge of both animal mounts and plant fortifications. They may not have created the Gardner but everyone agrees they turn out some of the best and brightest. Even if they're not personally responsible for the development and deployment of plant fortifications they would be the ones to perfect them for mass production. Another example of House Saurs's preference of dinosaurs is the choice of War Mounts used by their Outriders. Most Outriders choose to ride an altered Tyrannosaurus Rex or an Allosaurus. Also instead of Mega-Horses they use various species of Ankylosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops and or various combinations of the three. In addition House Saurs does not use regular Gorehounds. A Packmaster is paired up with Raptors or Pachycephalosaurus. And just recently they have perfected the creation of mobile Bio-Force Fields based on 3 "sail backed" Dino's'. The Platyhystrix (meaning "flat porcupine") which projects a 10' diameter dome with 200 M.D.C., Dimetrodons which projects a 20' diameter dome with 400 M.D.C., and the biggest sailed Dino the Spinosaurus which projects a 35' diameter dome with 600 M.D.C.. The Bio-Force Field is projected out of the sail to form a force field dome.
Due to the number of carnivorous dinosaurs used in House Saurs, not to mention the hungry humans, when the Lazarus gland was perfected and they got the genetic coding the Rangers collected several species of sauropods for re-engineering. The new Brontosaurus etc. don't regenerate, instead when they are killed all of the beasts inherent Bio-E is focused into carcass preservation. Consumable meat does not putrefy in these beasties. A freshly killed carcass will be safe for humans to eat from up to 2 to 3 weeks after initial death. The fresher the kill the greater the need to cook the meat before eating. Instead of normal decay and eventual putrefaction the consumable meat goes through a process of slowly drying out into a jerky like substance. After perfecting these new sub species they were produced and released into the wild and it is now estimated that somewhere between 30 and 40% of all sauropods, hadrosaurids, and similar large plant eating herbivores are made up of the new species. The only way to tell between the old and new species is to kill it and observe the rate of decay. With the success with the Brontosaurus and Seismisaurus House Saurs has begun to apply these same modifications to other large size herding herbivores and are starting to move on to mammals.
As to the geographic location of House Saurs they are based on a series of islands made up of the remains a large volcano that grew to an enormous height (high enough for snow to develop and remain on what was left) and then exploded similar to Krakatoa. Some of the smaller outer islands were formed in part from derbies from the eruption while others had formed on their own. Imagine if a landmass approximately a half to a third the size of England were located in the upper latitudes with only a few miles from the largest island to the mainland the numerous hot springs were what made the lower elevations of the islands almost tropical. Before the insurrection of the machines a series of tunnels for both traffic and freight trains connected the islands to the mainland. The largest of the islands had almost all of the visitor hotel and housing for all of the islands. In addition to the hotels the main island was dotted with some of the largest and newest equipped amusement parks on the entire planet. The main island also featured multiple casinos and several fairly large historical reenactment /theme parks across several different periods in history from around the world (think of your local Renaissance Festival/civil war reenactment/mountain man and trapper get together). Land that was not being used for amusement purposes went into the creation of small towns and small scale cities to house Park employees and give them a place to shop, to buy groceries etc. The rest of the available arable land on the largest island went into food production, using GMO's for the highest yields and pest resistance without the kill gene's that required buying new seed every season, some to feed Park employees and the people that serve them off the clock like a normal city or town. The largest amount of land is farmed in a way to help produce enough plants to help feed all of the herbivore and other plant eating beasties. After a bunch of the Park biological attractions had been herded onto the mainland and released the Rangers destroyed the "Chunnels" on their way back to the Park.
The entire group of islands is surrounded by underwater mega-damage containment fencing designed to keep all of the ocean type dinosaurs and dinosaur like/size creations contained but free to swim about and feed themselves on normal fish and fish that are specially farm grown (fish farm) fishes of different species as well as those that can make it through the fence. No aquatic creature of any kind is allowed in these enclosed mini-seas that may be small enough to escape out in the normal ocean. The fence is made up of specially modified species of coral that grow in a layered fence like pattern. Any damage done regenerates automatically (the fences are about 10' thick but are not solid and have 100 M.D.C. per 10' section and regenerates 10 M.D. points per melee) and have been crossbred with several different species of jellyfish whose tentacles only strike at creatures trying to get from the inside out. Other organisms/free lunches can safely pass into the fenced in area and will not be stung. The jellyfish tentacles are designed not to kill but to encourage a definite distance from the fence.
Despite House Saurs's many apparent successes, they have had their share of problems. Things like the lost/missing servers. It would take many, many, many decades of searching before they were finally recovered. During all that time the threat and fear that the machine might find out about this treasure trove of genetic data. If Gaia had ever gotten wind of the servers and what was on them she would have torn all the islands up and apart looking for them. She wouldn't have cared about any loss of biodiversity (After all She could always rebuild, replant, and repopulate using the data retrieved.) because of the privately generated data and possible cryo-zoo. The humans may have had success where Gaia met with failure after failure. But luckily she has yet to learn of them. All the information has been copied and backed up so the servers are now just piles of deadly junk that even now the machine would do whatever it could do to get them. The only reason they have not been slagged is that there is an on going debate over slag'em or preserving them as a future historic artifact.
Another problem they had in the early years were difficulties with overpopulation issues. Until it was decided to break off chunks of population to create starter Minor Houses or Clans thus spreading out the people and increasing mankind's chance of survival. Each Minor Clans was initially set up with one Librarian, at least two genepools' and between 20,000 to 30,000 people with an additional 500-1000 military personnel to make a new colony or Minor Clans. As each new Clan was born they would take the last name of a famous past geneticist. Beginning with Mendel then Watson, Crick, Wallace, Tschermak, and Swaminathan for a total of six Clans. As each new Clan came on line they would begin specializing in one particular type of O.C.C.'s. Where as House Mendel specializes in Archangels' they still make the other classes. As mentioned Mendel creates almost all the Archangels' so say House Watson has a group of 5 Archangels 4 of them will have come from Mendel and the 5th one will have been created in house (Clan Watson) and will serve as the groups officer/leader. This helps to promote solidarity between all the houses so that mixed groups of fighters can feature the best warriors the houses have to offer. All these satellite houses' come willingly to each others aid and defense. There was nine but three of them began highly controversial research into areas such as cloning, extreme human modification, and even Bio-warfare of the mass destruction variety. As each new atrocity was uncovered (the last straw was breaking the taboos on the number of Librarians and Scarecrows created) these three houses were given a choice, either exile to the main lands or complete destruction down to the very last cell. They all chose exile over death and had their original names stripped, they were given the names of Mengele, Ishii, and Taha AL-Azawi. House Saurs was lucky that these fallen houses were found out before the servers were found so they have none of the advanced DNA codes. Their only knowledge of these servers are the whispered legends.
The worst, at least on a personal level to the majority of of both Major and Minor houses, are the accusations made by other houses of the resistance of deals being made with one or more aspects of the Machine. These accusations stem from the fact that most of the initial Machines assaults were focused on only a few of the major Metro/Casino/Amusement Park zones while leaving most of the historical "villages" and as much of the animal habitats untouched as possible by a combination of orders from Gaia and the fact that the other personalities were demanding resources in areas of higher conflict. By the time Gaia was able to focus her attention back on The Park most of the remaining humans had not only moved underground but had already begun moving out of the old complex's and destroying those locations.
Later when the various personalities were taking stock of their new "Domains" the personality of Eve looked upon the various historical towns and found what she perceived as premade Retro-Villages that simply needed "restocking". First She sent in steel troopers to mop up or capture any remaining actors. Then service robots to extract any and all metals while trying to do as little damage to the on site buildings as possible. Once She deemed the sites clean she began the task of repopulating them. To give her new pets a chance she instructed the service robots to build new walls around the towns and moats around the fields used for farming. Using wood or stone depending on what would be appropriate for it's time and area. The new walls (and moats)were ment to protect Eve's new playthings from the remaining zoo animals as well as penning her toys in. All this attention was yet another source of accusations of collusion with the machines. The real truth is that the actors living in these villages were apart of the early evacuations. Any humans found were squatters the majority of which were killed by the steel troopers. The survivors were given the choice of reliving the past, or death. Gaia "thinks" she controls the vast majority of the islands and grudgingly lets Eve have and maintain her pets all of which are watched using Sentry Towers dotted all over the largest islands.Each former population center is being garrisoned and patrolled by various types of human sized or smaller robots. Gaia won't allow any of the giant sized robots on to the islands because they might destroy or disrupt her precious nature preserves. She has been using the various animals from the islands to populate her mainland nature preserves for quite some time now. Both know that there is a Splicer presence on the islands but have no idea of the size of the Houses under their noses, nor the incredible treasure trove of genetic data. Every so often one or the other will try to "clean" out the Splicer presence but these attempts are half hearted at best, and often interfered with by the other. This is yet another example of the supposed deal cut with the Machine. They are also clueless to the fact that over time every one of the retro-villagers has been replaced by the descendants of the original actors and actresses. This is a three fold win because it helps relieve population stress, gives military personnel a place for a little R&R or leave on the surface and gives the houses a spy network that is the best of any house, at least as far as the islands go. None of the other great houses in the resistance are aware that all the individual Minor Houses are the "children" of House Saurs. They think that they are all just closely aligned. When the final push against the machine comes House Saurs will be able to potentially field the largest army of the resistance.
House Saurs (and all of its' Minor Houses) prime mandate has always been "protect our homes and families first, then do what you can to help others and better the human condition". Each department became an extension of both their ancestors and the current needs. The founders saw a need for a system of checks and balances and that is why the three departments were kept as they are with the intent that no one department have to much power or control.
Back before the Fall the corporation that owned The Park owned both the islands and the attractions out right thanks to several patients in a number of high tech fields including species restoration (duh), several different gene therapies, a whole host of GMO food stuffs, and even the first successful line of DNA computers. The companies owners, a very good (Principled) husband and wife team, made sure that the H.R. department was well staffed and thorough in the vetting and hiring of all key department supervisor personnel.
Very special attention was paid to all military hires because of the concerns over their diligence, attention to detail, and performance under what can be considered unusual stress. They were going to be responsible for the safety of not just the scientists and those taking care of animals that were separated from man by hundreds of millions of years but most importantly the visiting public. With no reference to the behavior and reactions of various species they would have to be at the top of their game ALL the time when on duty. This diligence resulted in an almost 80 to 85% of all the military staff being either principled or scrupulous with a little over 14% unprincipled and anarchist at the worst. The remaining less than 1% were aberrant. They were hired to provide in house security and counter corporate espionage. But they were checked twice as hard and then only hired so they could handle the those rare but occasional "dirty" jobs. Even though they were willing to get their hands dirty they remained absolutely loyal to the company. The other departments still had high levels of expected professional if not personal moral ethics but not as stringent. Even with a bar set so high they had no troubles filling all their employment needs.
It was this investment in time and resources that would pay off handsomely in the future in the over all moral fiber in those that would come to be the heads of the three departments of House Saurs and their descendants. It was also this early "brainpool" that helped House Saurs create the set of laws and rules governing the initial use and development of their Splicer technology. It also is responsible for the rules that govern not just the selection of those who would become Librarians, but the amount of power held by the Houses' Librarians and the number of Scarecrows they were allowed to produce. This caution would payoff when the number of reports coming back from the aid tours included stories of Houses all but/or completely run by their respective Librarians. And the stories about House Shiva have only reinforced the departments belief that their choices, in the limits they've historically placed on their own Librarians, to have been the correct ones.
The Rangers' focus is on all things military. From the defense of their home and it's people to actively participating in the Resistance against the Machine. This means that they also handle the policing the civilian sectors with the help of the Scarecrows. It begins when teens (13-16) enter into what is a cross between ROTC and neighborhood watch called the CP which stands for Civilian Patrol. From there they they Graduate to what is called the mP or militia Patrol. Service in these two patrols is mandatory for all civilians and provides weapons training, additional education, and disaster response training. Before leaving the mP the teens are encouraged to choose their future careers in either military, farming, or one of the other "professional" fields such as medical (human or animal), engineering (physical or genetic),or educational. Despite this House Saurs has managed to be a police state without trampling the civil rights of the people (within the constraints of the current situation) they are sworn to protect. Given the size of the total collective populations of the combined Houses their primary focus has been the defense of their homes. When any offensive action is taken they try to do what they can to limit revealing both their home or the true number of humans living on the islands. This has been achieved through the use of multiple tunnels to the mainland and the several small Pseudo-houses located there. The majority of military forces left on the collected islands are made up of those nearing "retirement" or to injured to continue to fight and the raw recruits that have not had that much experience. They will receive their first blooding (and are first and second level fighters) by taking on the machines patrolling the islands and the city ruins on them. If the Machine were to ever get a true inkling of the number of humans living on and under the islands nothing would be able to stop the "Cleansing" of the islands if not wiping the islands off the surface of the planet. Not even Gaia and Eve combined could stop it. Still the outside resistance know of the Houses near, or of the islands. The allies of the Houses know them as trustworthy and helpful and are recognized by their Armors and Mounts etc. and are always welcomed in battle and for their aid. As for those who stand or speak against the collective Houses they are either influenced by the "Fallen/exiled" Houses or are like House Shiva who is pretty much against everybody.
The Caregivers were born out of the collection of doctors and farmers. They started with those who cared for the various Park animals i.e. veterinarians, vet nurses, and a smattering of regular human doctors and nurses, and those in charge of both the surface farms and hydroponics systems. From these humble beginnings would eventually give rise the closest thing to top flight human and animal medical schools. When contact was first made after the fall of man the Caregivers were the first ones to want to go out into the world and try to help what was left of their fellow humans. After much debate between the three departments it was decided to send out parties made up of volunteers from the Caregivers and members of the Rangers to seek out any other survivors. Provide immediate aid and establish allies. At first no one knew who these people were (It was agreed by all three departments to keep their own homes a secret.) only that they brought both medical aid and food to those they helped. As time passed and the concept of the Houses and or Clans grew some of the traveling Caregivers (and even some of their farmers and Ranger escorts) would decided to stay with their hosts' and begin new lives and help train and educate the next generation of Dr.s', Vets', and farmers. It has become one of the greatest of honors to have an invitation to come to the island Houses to learn and train in their schools. When these invitees return home they find themselves held up to the level held by the Saints. On these journeys of aid the "care package" groups would also bring back samples for the Engineers. Everything from new animals and other genetic samples, to novel work-around answers to structural engineering problems. And most importantly news and Intel from every where they went.
The Engineers initially started from the Geneticists responsible for creating The Parks living attractions and the Engineers and mechanics who designed all of the buildings, infrastructure, and the "rides" and kept them maintained. Where the Rangers are the sword and shield, the Caregivers the heart and soul, the Geneticists & Engineers would definitely be considered the memory and mind. When the Machine ascended at the cost of humanity the Engineers were the ones helping in recovering, rebuilding, and modifying the tools of war. They were also behind the fortifications, expansion of the existing subsurface facilities, and the development and exploitation of the natural network of caves. During the early years the Geneticists found themselves taking a backseat to their brothers in their department becoming the planners and thinkers. They were the ones responsible for the collecting and preserving as many books (technical manuals, various academic, and even entertainment), works of art, and anything else relating to the history of mankind. When the first reports of what would become known as the nanobot plague came in a team of Geneticists rushed to shut down and move the server farms that contained every last scrap of genetic information in an attempt to keep it out of the Machines hands and with the hope that this info would one day be useful again. The unfortunate premature deaths of the Geneticists who moved and hid the servers led many to believe them lost forever. No one remembers where or when the first Saints appeared and gave birth to the first Librarians, Engineers, and Gene-pools but as soon as House Saurs got their hands on Saints' of their own the Geneticists nearly went delirious with joy and excitement at the possibilities. Once the new tools were fully understood the Geneticists began the search for the servers again. Eventually they were found, and the contents accessed, opening up all new possibilities and ushering in the third age of House Saurs.
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Each house is run by a council of three. Each member is chosen from the most senior or talented person in their respective departments. The head of the Rangers is chosen from either Dreadguard, Roughnecks, Archangels, or Outriders. This person holds the title of Warlord. All decisions are made by counsel consensus except military or security matters although the Warlord is expected to listen to any recommendations from the other departments.
Population Breakdown: House Saurs
110,000 total people.
8% Archangels
2% Biotics
12% Dreadguard
- Engineers (18 plus the 3 that make up the Genesis Pit)
- Librarians (3 plus the 3 Magi for a total of 6)
8% Outriders
2% Packmasters
20% Roughnecks
4% Saints
1 % Scarecrows
2% Skinjobs
1 % Technojackers
30% Non-Combatants
10% Other O.C.C.s
Each minor house is also run by a council of three. Each member is chosen from the most senior or talented person in their respective departments. The head of the Rangers is chosen from either Dreadguard, Roughnecks, Archangels, or Outriders. This person holds the title of Warlord. All decisions are made by counsel consensus except military or security matters although the Warlord is expected to listen to any recommendations from the other departments.
Population Breakdown: average Minor House
30,000-70,000 total people.
8% Archangels
2% Biotics
12% Dreadguard
- Engineers (6-12 total)
- Librarians (1-2 total)
8% Outriders
2% Packmasters
20% Roughnecks
4% Saints
1 % Scarecrows
2% Skinjobs
1 % Technojackers
30% Non-Combatants
10% Other O.C.C.s
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Animals and armors as well as the specialties of each of the minor houses or clans will be posted soonish.
