CS TV Shows and Video Games

Information for the players of the CS 17th SOG Battalion
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High Command
The Savage Inquisition
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CS TV Shows and Video Games

Post by High Command »

Written by Colton's player and added to by many players since.

CSMT-23: Be it news programming, action adventure, soap operas, music videos, riveting drama, slap stick comedy, or gritty reality shows, the people at CSMT-23 either make it or buy it from independent production companies. Located at Ocean Sky (Blue) 5500, level 19 is the television network that goes by the call letters and SSD Network address CSMT-23, short for Coalition State of Missouri Transmitter, number 23 in the whole of the CS, but most people jut call it call it cannel 23, (see “Communications” section for more).

Like all Coalition news and entertainment networks, they deal in the distribution of state-approved propaganda and information. All of the shows they make available have either a neutral or pro-human slant to them but none of the them preach acceptance or equality for d-bees and demons. Non-humans are always depicted as oafish and stupid as best, or evil and diabolically cruel at worst, but rarely both. The CS propaganda department wants to people to think of inhumans as their inferiors, but they do not want them to think them as easily defeatable and incompetent. The enemy is to be distrusted, laughed at, feared, and even despised, but never underestimated. To preach otherwise would be inviting another fiasco like the Siege on Tolkeen where the enemy was grossly underestimated to the point of where virtually all the soldiers and officers in the CS invasion force were acting like the incompetents they believed the d-bees and spell casters to be. A simple mind set that cost the CS dearly.

All of the shows are about 30 to 60 minutes in length (give or take 10 minutes) and are laced with 7 to 15 minutes of commercials. Some of the more adult oriented programming can be graphically violent and some of the Coalition’s moral opponents in Lazlo have even accused them of using CGI special effects to make the gore even more horrific and sickening than it really is for the purposes of desensitizing the people, (which is true!). The following is a partial list of some of the most popular programs one can have their DCDS unit download:

Witch Hunt is a game show of sorts. Basically what they do is take a spell caster out of prison, Human or D-Bee, give him back the equipment that was on his person at the time of his capture or the equivalent of (armor, weapons, gear…), and then set him loose. Thereafter a few automated multi-spectrum cameras built into high-flying hovercraft follow his every move without his notice. Then, after the caster has been given a 30-minute head start, a pack of extremely well equipped Dog Boys are sent out to hunt him down and kill him! These may be regular Psi-Hounds, Battle Cats, Kill Hounds, Kill Cats, Ursa Warriors, even occasionally Mutant Bats; whatever the Army can spare at the moment. Regardless, the hunters have exactly six hours to pick up the caster’s trail, track him down and rip him into shreds. If the caster eludes them for the whole duration or manages to kill the mutant animals, the caster not only is allowed to make a quick statement into the cameras, but he is actually set free and allowed to go! The reigning champion is a Ryu Man Battle Mage named Ja’Karra who keeps getting caught and arrested by CS patrols. Ja’Karra has been on the show a total for four times, and won every time through brute force. However, most of the time the casters are killed and the pack suffers a minimum of causalities.

Dead Boys is a reality show where troops on patrol are followed around by a cameraman (camera is a small unit built into the side of a helmet) recording their exploits, victories, and defeats. The show is unafraid to show CS brutality against D-Bees and how they are mercilessly dealt with. But they also always take the time to show why the D-Bees and casters deserve such fates by showing them in acts of violence and by interviewing survivors if the monster’s attack. On occasion they have aired episodes where the Dead Boy troops take heavy causalities or are wiped out altogether! This is to show the people that as good as the CS is, there is still much to be feared and despised out there. In fact their highest rated show was one where a platoon of CS soldiers engaged a Splugorth slaver party with two minions and their ten Altara warrior women, six Kydian Overlords and a large squad of power armor clad Kittani. It was a harsh and valiant battle, which the two cameramen caught all of the action, but in the end the Coalition lost. Episodes like this serve to keep the people scared and more than willing to give all they have to fight the monsters that threaten their very existence.

Slopps is a children’s show hosted by a big goofy, cartoonish CGI Human who is designed to look funny, but not so off that he could be misconstrued as a D-Bee. Slopps teaches kids how to hate and fear all things that aren’t Human through animated stories, sing along songs, and special guests. But though the show is a bit preachy and heavy with CS ideals, the program is made to be silly and funny for kids.

Into the Flames is a dramatic soap opera based around the trials and tribulations of a wealthy and powerful family among the Chi-Town social elite. The Crest family has about ten members, but this is a fluid number since some are killed off and more enter the show from the most implausible places. The synopsis of the most recent episode goes something like this. “While Randel is still being held captive in the Burbs, Lisa has given up hope of ever seeing her true love again. Seeing her emotional vulnerability, Bobby decided now is the time to make his move in on her, in hopes of marrying her so he can start raiding the family’s fortune. However, Bobby’s motives are transparent to Rachel and she sets her own plans into motion to take him out of the picture so she can have Lisa all to her self. But little do any of them realize that Randel has escaped his D-Bee captors and is coming home, but how well will he be received?” Needless to say, there is ample nudity and tactfully shot soft-core sex on this show, but the romantic angles never stop. Have no doubt, this is soap at its apex of cheesyness and over-acted drama. Even so, the show has a viewership of over 7 million people in the CS proper and an estimated 19 million more beyond in boarder towns and D-Bee communities through pirate signals and black market one-inch disk sales of the past seasons, (it’s wildly popular in Lazlo)! This has raised Trent Maxim who plays the beloved Randel, and Rebecca Roads who plays the scheming and insatiable Rachel to international sex symbol status throughout the entire North American continent!

Rude Ranch is considered to be THE most tactless, crude, and vulgar show ever. It is a comedy set on a commercial cattle ranch a hundred miles from New Chillicothe. The show uses a mixed cast of Humans and real D-Bees that interact with each other as the stupid ranch owners and their even stoopider ranch hand worker slaves. Most of the jokes revolve around bathroom humor, zany antics, crude sex jokes, and childish pranks. And of course there is no such thing as an intelligent D-Bee on this show, only ones that are borderline retarded and outright idiotic. Though in all fairness, the Human ranch owners aren’t portrayed as any geniuses either. This show has inflamed more D-Bees than the CS knew were out there watching their shows, as if they care one way or the other.

Battlefield Burbs is a dramatic and well-made cop show of sorts set in the burbs of Waukegan. The central premise of the show is about ISS and NTSET officers bringing peace and safety to Humanity in the burbs, and dispense justice to all the inhuman horrors that lay in wait just beyond the walls of the fortress city, and sometimes in it. The show is also about bring law and order to the lawless in the uncivilized burbs and protecting Humanity from itself. The D-Bees and monsters on this show are rarely depicted as dumb or inept, and are often difficult to stop and kill. Many of the show’s gritty stories are based on real case files of the ISS and NTSET and are credited as such. Many in and outside of the CS consider this to be one of the finest crime dramas around due to its all too realistic stories, excellent acting and authentic looking holographic sets and special effects. The lead actor is named Dell Winters and has been called the best acting talent of the times. Consequently, Dell’s character is the only one the writers are not allowed to kill off, but there are a few others that are safe for now, at least until contract negotiations in December. Like the soap Into the Flames, this show is as popular inside the CS as it is beyond its boarders, making it’s stars international icons with fans ranging from as far south as El Paso to as far north as Lazlo.

Silent Commandoes: This series of games and TV shows stars a Spec Ops team based loosely on a real operative team that started out as Nautical Commandos, but were eventually transferred to the Army. They are beyond the best of the best. They regularly do things that "real soldiers" say is impossible - like run silently through ships which echo with every step of anyone except the Silent Commandos, or outrun a nuclear blast (twice) and come away coughing and dirty, but otherwise unharmed. However, despite the unrealistic portrayal, the games and shows are among the highest rated in all of the CS, including the military. It is also one of the most exported games of all time, with the black market releasing its own copies often in advance of the game itself. Unofficial mods allow the addition of D-Bee specialists, though the CS destroys these copies whenever it finds them.

The Silent Commandos are made up of ten men and and women, and are regularly assigned a crack team of Psi-stalkers, psychics, and Dogboys which have their own spin-off games (The Psi-Team Charlie) which has only slightly less of a cult following among soldiers and gamers. New modules are written quarterly which are then released as expansions. These expansion releases coincide with every new story arc the TV shows take. Currently the teams are on recon and terrorist hunting missions on the Tolkeen Border.

OOC: Best to think of Silent Commandos as a mix of Splinter Cell and the Mondern Warfare series - with both stealth and out and out run and gun missions.
What has not been shown on the show is how each of the men and women in the team have either moved to the highest echelons of the CS government, or have gone working directly for the Younger Prosek in public relations or as "military advisors" to the game and TV studios producing these epics.

Buster Bob, Dogboy Patrol: In every episode, Buster Bob solves the case with the help of child informants; typically, the kids either report something 'strange' they saw (note: children can see astral beings, so this makes sense), or they tell Buster Bob about something illegal their parents or other family members are doing, or maybe something about a playmate's family. Then Buster Bob comes in, takes away the 'bad guys' and the snitches get ice cream and cake, and if they turned in their own parents, they immediately get adopted by wealthier, law-abiding citizens or sent to prestigious boarding academies with full scholarships. Burster Bill is the show's burster fireman friend who is a reformed criminal who now works to protect people "You know Sally, when I was a bad person, before the CS showed me the error of my ways, I would set fires just because I could. Now I only put them out, unless it's to light birthday candles!" On Buster Bob's criminals are reformed, because everyone has it in them! Sometimes it just takes longer is all.

Burbs Patrol: Billed as a reality show like Dead Boys, this is actually a scripted program with actors (though only a small circle other than those involved in its production are aware of this fact). It features a Dead Boys-style set-up, riding along with several teams of loyal CS grunts as they move through the Old Chicago ruins, looking for signs of D-Bee and magical activity. As a bonus, the cameras seem to follow the 'troopers' 24/7 for the hour-long show, meaning that there's plenty of opportunities for sexy scenes during off-duty hours. One genius stroke of the production is that they keep a close watch on poll numbers; roughly once a year, the most favorite of the Patrollers gets killed, usually in a graphic and grisly death scene. Naturally, the perps are brought to justice, but such episodes invariably inflame the audience to greater levels of anti-magic, anti-D-Bee hatred. Enlistment almost always goes up after one of these episodes airs.

True Confessions: True Confessions is a late-night program that crosses the line into outright horror-pornography. It features 'interviews' with people who've had encounters with D-Bees and magic users of a salacious nature (or sometimes, a relative of the original person, who is revealed to have died horribly), invariably ending in some form of horror-story. The narration interview scenes are then intermingled with live-action re-enactments. Rape is a frequent theme, of course, as is body-horror (there's always at least one episode a season about some guy who gets lured in by a sexy D-Bee, only to end up physically corrupted, or even pregnant!). Sex scenes are always lurid and exploitative. Some members of the CS propaganda division worry that the show might be sensationalizing such liaisons, but so far, it's been popular enough to resist calls for it to be toned down/removed from the air. It's on the adults only channel, which of course means every City Rat in the Burbs watches it by age 13.

Tales from the Creche-Babies A reality show that shows dogboy pups undergoing basic training. It's getting good reviews among a lot of folks, especially medical types, trainers, psi-hounds and psi-stalkers.
Tales of the 17th SOG
"In so far as you are concerned, I am the right arm of High Command itself. You are my Fist, be ready to strike at any moment." Major Killian Gregor, 3rd SOG Battalion, CSSD, Chi-Town.
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High Command
The Savage Inquisition
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Re: CS TV Shows and Video Games

Post by High Command »

(thanks to Soren)
In The Thick of It: This is a very new game that requires a full-body VR rig or a headjack and specialized hardware. It is hugely popular on the levels where stations have been installed, especially among the adolescent audience it is marketed to. A variety of scenarios exist, allowing players to fight on the battlefields of Tolkeen under General Holmes, or go on anti-D-Bee raids as part of a patrol squad in the 'Burbs, or even on a rathunt, tracking an unregistered Psychic through the lower-level tunnels of Chi-Town itself! The game has received some acclaim for surprising accuracy in the moral quandaries that sometimes face CS troopers--seemingly sympathetic D-Bees whom it's possible to let live without immediate consequence, for instance. Of course, unbeknownst to virtually anyone outside of Internal Security, all games are constantly monitored; players showing sufficient zeal in slaughtering even the most helpless D-Bees and Psychics are marked as potential recruits; those who show excessive mercy, on the other hand, are noted as potential 'Symps' who will be monitored for years to come. Not every game is monitored live, but enough are to create some frighteningly accurate psych profiles on most players.

(Thanks to Bleys for the idea)
Property Stalkers: 'Burbs Edition: From Shanty Town to New Town, the Harris sisters Candy, Theresa, and Cammy are the oddest and most successful psi-stalkers you'll ever meet. Retired from the ISS, they are tired of seeing falling down barely put together properties. They buy properties after disasters, and put up affordable, good looking housing and find good families to sell them to. They are "The Property Stalkers"
Tales of the 17th SOG
"In so far as you are concerned, I am the right arm of High Command itself. You are my Fist, be ready to strike at any moment." Major Killian Gregor, 3rd SOG Battalion, CSSD, Chi-Town.
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