Insignia V

The Metallic Homeworld

Insignia V was once a sprawling Utopian world. A marvel of technology created by the ancestor Sparks who gave birth to the Android race; but that was the past. In the last decade, Insignia V has become nothing more than a machine graveyard. A burnt and blasted deadzone of life. After the civil with Gear nearly eradicated the Android race, the power structure of the planet fell into the hands of Kalmega. Unfortunately, when Insignia was most in need of rebuilding itself, the Super Android instead sparked a campaign against the galaxy and began by attacking the planet Earth. Crippling its government and destroying Earth's moon, it was no surprise when humanity retaliated. The short war that was inspired by these events lead to the utter destruction of Insignia V and the military backbone that Red Shot had accumulated. Broken and with their planet nearly torn in half, the Androids following Kalmega were forced to retreat to the stars and leave their homeworld behind. Red Shot himself has been missing since the end of the war.
It has been many centuries since that bitter defeat, and slowly the android race have returned to their former Homeworld and begun to rebuild after their devastating losses. While Insignia V may never be the galactic power it once was, it is slowly beginning to return to its lost glory.

In the aftermath of the Gear Wars, the Insignian people had nearly been wiped out. It could have spelled the end of Insignia. It *should* have. But, as has ever been the case in the Infinite Universe, heroes emerged, if not to set things right, at least to put them on the path.
An Android of tremendous power, one of the leading fists in the war against Gear, returned to his people and established himself as their leader. It was under his hand that the ruins of Zero City were reclaimed, that bit by bit, their world began to heal, in soul if not in body, from what had been done to it. When the remaining fragments of the Life Code were recovered, a story that only a bare handful in the universe still remember, the heart of the great city-Foundry was laid down; not simply a mere manufactory but, at its innermost core of cores, the reincarnation of the great Forges that had been lost to history.
But all was not perfect. The Forges had relied upon a *complete* Life-Code in order to execute the unfathomably complex mathematical that could spontaneously generate a completely new sentient consciousness. The hidden neo-Forge at the heart of the Foundry 0217 had only pieces of that whole. As is ever their inclination, the Insignians found a way to make do with those fragments, but the energy draw to run this neo-Forge was staggering, and worse, it was tremendously slow, since the algorithms they had developed had to run many thousands of times in order to successfully result in one viable life-spark consciousness. Their effective "birth rate" was, as a result, shockingly low, at least by comparison to any other civilized people.
But once again, it should never be said that the Insignian people were afraid to find their own solutions to problems. They could not replenish their depleted workforces, not when the number of new citizens being "born" each day was measured in the hundreds rather than the tens or hundreds of thousands a planet like Earth could boast. And so, before he left to join the other heroes of his era in obscurity, their leader had trained the oldest, the wisest, the strongest living Insignians, had taught them techniques to expand their abilities and allow them to achieve the ranks of the Ascended in the way of the Insignians.
He had left behind the first of the Insignian Masters. Androids who had, by the present day, achieved impressive heights of ability and unique abilities. They were not the dictators of their people; the honorable creed of the Masters bound them to work alongside an elected ruling council that held the true reins of power on Insignia. But it was by their hand that an empty world was slowly filled, bit by bit, with true wonders once again.

— Nygmus

Solar Forest 01-06

• The lifeblood fo Insignia V. Synthetic, mechanical trees process atmosphere gases to allow for organic beings to survive on the otherwise inhospitable metal world. "Leaves" mimic organic photosynthesis to produce huge amounts of clean energy for the planet. It is tended largely by mechanical mimics of Earth wildlife, such as guardian bear drones, cleaning bird drones, repairing mouse and squirrel drones and the like. To an organic, it appears a bunch of twisted, white-plated trees with metallic leaves. There are six of these forests, each numbered differently, all over the world to gather the most power from the planet's sun. These forests, however, are slowly being cut back by Gear and his husks. Wanting to eliminate all semblance of organic life, Gear mows down these once beautiful forests to make room for his War Forges.

Zero City

• The oldest recorded city on Insignia V, where its founding machines started their lives. Where this city once presented one of the most pristine skylines in the galaxy, it is now in ruins due to the final battle for Insignia V. This is where the last free thinking Insignians made their stand against Gear, but ultimately failed against his might. Corpses still lie scattered across the ground, left there by the new Overlord to remind all what it means to stand against his might.

Foundry 0217

• More a sprawling industrial complex than a city and populated mostly bi Gigas-types, Foundry 0217 is one of hundreds of "Foundry-Cities" where many of Insignia V's newest citizens are "born". Powered by geothermal energy, the furnaces that melt the metal of the dead and birth the "living" produce a constant black cloud over the city. Whereas working here once brought pride to the Gigas, it is now run by the mindless husks of Scarlin, one of Gear's Generals. The Foundries pump out weapons of war for an invasion that the galaxy fears will be coming all too soon.

Polis

• Once a small town resembling one on Earth, Polis has been converted into a way-point for the movement of ground goods. Homes have been converted into check in stations for the androids that still possess a semblance of free will, yet have turned themselves over to the power of Gear.

The Razorwire Jungle

• A merciful twist from one of the Alphas making up Insignia V's ruling council permitted an area of overgrown organic matter to dominate a small continent in the middle of an ocean on the planet. Here lies the original laboratories where the first Bio-Androids were born, and it is rumored that a couple of tribes of them live in the jungles, feeding off what wildlife was on the planet before it was colonized by machines. Here, if one were to be suicidally risky, one could see the planet as it looked before the android race took over. However, the area has drastically changed. With Gear's drilling and processing, the ocean has disappeared, leaving a blanket of mush and mud where it once remained. The Bio-Androids are all that stand against Gear and his perfectly mechanical world. They use guerrilla tactics to prevent the Ancient Gigas from mowing down their home and birthplace, but it is a losing battle. With each day, Gear burns down just a little more of the forest, erasing the memory that Insignia V was once a fully organic world.

The Library of Insignia V

• A massive pillar of glittering metal sixty miles south of Zero City, the Library is a heavily-guarded tower of information. All manner of information is kept here; atronomical notes, histories of worlds long dead, books, scrolls, datat tapes, entire hard drives and even a couple of bequeathed android brains full of information exist here, pored over by android scientists in the pursuit of knowledge. It stands alone in Solar Forest 02, with several watchtowers surrounding it. Since the war, this structure has all but been abandoned. Though it is a testament to the former civilizations of Insignia V, Gear has left it standing due to the information it holds. The structure is heavily guarded by a mixture of Gigas and Epsilon, letting no one enter its hallowed halls without the expressed permission of Gear himself.

Iris Observatory

• A massive platform miles across and thousands of feet in the atmosphere, Iris Observatory is Insignia V's larges scientific facility. Here, research for the glory of Gear and his will is done by the minds enslaved after the last war. It rests seven hundred miles south of Foundry 0216, sister city on the opposite side of the planet from Foundry 0217. It gets its name by the massive observatory resting on top, resembling mechanized version of a human eyeball, complete with a shuttering iris to focus in on distant stars.

Warcannon Base

• Situated not far from Foundry 0216 is Warcannon Base, central command of Insignia V's standing army. While a peaceful planet itself since the days of the rebellion, for the most part, ended, Insignia V learned the value of a military presence from observing the Demonic and Saiyan invasions across the galaxy.

Roost Home

• Named from a faulty vocal processor in the android who christened the city, Roost Home is Insignia V's largest spaceport. All manner of craft can be seen here, be they passenger ships, diplomacy ships, or even a few shady black market runners looking to score some high-end technology quickly, though they all fall under the scrutinizing eye of Gear. Passenger ships merely hold troops that gear disseminates throughout what once was the Insignian Empire. Diplomacy ships rarely leave here save for ones that demand tribute from worlds in close proximity. Black market ships are only shady in name, given that they are commissioned by Gear in order to spread technology with the expressed purpose of gaining information from other worlds.

Betapolis

• An enormous city twice the size of Zero Town, this city still shows scars of the rebellion and from the Bio-Android attacks years ago. Though the scars were left in remembrance of past mistakes, Gear has begun rebuilding this city to serve as his new Capitol, leaving Zero City to remain in ruins. Where there was once reenactments of past battles, now there ever remains the echoes of the last Insignians calling for retreat in the battle of Zero City. With no independent minds to hear the message, it is simply an echo of past glories and the last breath of freedom on Insignia V.

Population: Unknown
Government: Anarchy
Threat Level: High
Resource Level: Unknown