INK-Interplanetary Networked Knowledge

The full company .lcp file for INK-Interplanetary Networked Knowledge for the game Lancer.

Interplanetary Networked Knowledge - Defending the Future with Heroes of our Past.

INK began as a small group of librarians working out of a vault. This particular vault wasn’t like most, as it was filled with books: hundreds of thousands of paper books. As much of human literary history, scientific journals, and even textbooks and biographies as people could cram into one vault, should the Fall take the feeling and idea of paper. They were all copied digitally, of course, in a central storage area, should the paper itself fall apart, but miraculously the paper survived the Fall and Samuel Gompers, initial founder of Gompers Inkorporated, took it as his life’s mission to spread the literary wisdom and knowledge hidden in these tomes.

These ideas, though, brought more than simple words. The great heroes, creatures, villains, and myths that had been lost to time were unearthed and given back to human imagination. From them, new heroes were forged in the minds of those who read the tales. How INK got into mech production at all is a fluke, as one of the board members, hearing about the various Union projects to protect and spread to new worlds, doodled some plans for a mechanical hero to be brought into the fold. They went to the director, he got some engineers on the idea, they printed it out… and the rest is history.

INK as a corporation wants simply to spread the teachings and knowledge of ancient literary traditions to the new worlds. Not paper over their cultures, but chronicle them so they are not lost to time, and give them glimpses into worlds they might have never known. They name their mechs after the creatures that sparked the first thoughts, and send them out with databases filled with relevant texts, should people be interested in learning more. Those trusted to gain access to the full licenses of a mech will find each INK mech to have its own NHP, a hero to help guard and guide you through these dangerous times.

INK Marks on the Pages of History:

To a certain extent, INK is a company that can be thought of as ALBATROSS. Some whisper stories of their greatness, of valiant heroes in gleaming mechs that fought back invading forces and saved the day. Others think of them as cowards, monsters who stop a library fire for the knowledge, not the people, that would be burned. INK as a company rarely takes stances one direction or the other, but as can be seen by their prolific mech production, they intend to defend what stances they take.

The truth of the matter is that INK, like many corporations in this time, is splintered into factions. With Samuel Gompers long dead, succession issues and debates between whether INK should be neutral keepers of knowledge or active paladins against its destruction have splintered the group into a few distinct wings, which was why NEST formed as a separate company: it could focus on keeping what was around stable while the other factions fought it out.

In truth, more INK member planets became such due to a rugged sense of individualism. Rarely does anything tie the cultures or the peoples together besides the fact that each was saved from losing their individuality by INK members. Whether those members fended off a Karakis or HA force trying to claim the land for their own, they convinced an IPS-N group to move their network elsewhere, or they lessened the presence of UNION on the planet and helped secret away the planet’s history, INK’s marks are on many pages of history in the galaxy. Some are stains, some are flourishes, and some are the only reason the page isn’t blank. It is common for new planets to bring in mech designs as a thank you gift, stories of their own heroes that they can send to help other planets…and thus the line keeps expanding, each planet’s creativity being born of common INK.

(Creator Notes: Currently I am looking for artists and fixing up files for other companies I have put together. When I have art for the mechs, I shall update the file.)