War Planets

This is a /co/ related article, which we allow because we find it interesting or we can't be bothered to delete it.

War Planets is a CGI animated series from Mainframe Entertainment, the studio that brought you the 90s Awesomeness of Reboot and Beast Wars, though sadly much neglected compared to the others. It is a seriously awesome series, with a very dark, action-focused plotline driven by some excellent character interaction and a superb plot.

In a nutshell, War Planets (also known in some countries as "Shadow Raiders" because the bloody Moral Guardians got pissy about the title, which hasn't helped people remember it) revolves around a tentative alliance of races who must try to band together and survive the depredations of a seemingly invincible planet-eating armada. The problem is, these races used to fight each other all the time, so getting along is going to take some getting used to...

Plot

In a system of four worlds, Rock, Ice, Fire and Bone, each rich in one kind of resource but lacking in others, the denizens raid each other ceaseless, launching sneak attacks and even full-fledged wars to pilfer the resources they need to survive and to try and defend themselves from being pilfered in turn. Which is as stupid as it sounds. If you have a huge surplus of something and need something someone else has a surplus off but they lack what you have, you trade. Then again, they’re xenos.

When a raid on Ice by quarriors from Rock goes sour, King Cryos of Ice and a humble miner, Graveheart, engage in some brief banter. Before Cryos can order the Rockmen executed, an alien ship crashes nearby, a number of other ships hot on its tail. Graveheart rescues the first pilot, a weirdly sexy robo-girl named Tekla, before bizarre creatures of red-black are created by the circling ships. They massacre Icemen and Rockmen alike, leaving only Graveheart, Cryos and Tekla alive. Miraculously defeating their assailants, Tekla explains herself to be the last survivor of Planet Tek, and her assailants as "Beast Drones", servants of the "Beast Planet" that devoured her world and her species with it.

It is a threat that no one world can hope to stand alone against, but can they really band together and form an Alliance that might save them from the Beast...?

Planets

Rock: A dry and, well, rocky world, this planet serves as the primary source of minerals and ores for the cluster. It has four bigass moons, each of which has been converted into a massive energy cannon; with this, Rock can defeat almost any conventional raiding force, necessitating stealth by any would-be invaders. Its ruler is Lord Mantle, a hotheaded, arrogant, bignoted bastard who believes his people are the strongest in the Alliance and his "Battle Moons" make Rock impregnable to any force. Because of this, he refuses to join the Alliance for much of the series, and when he does, it's only by secretly deploying Jade as a spy for his own ambitions. Even when the Beast gobbles down one of his moons, Mantle remains convinced of his superiority, up until he ends up gutted by Blokk. The natives of Rock resemble humans with multi-toned skin and crystals sprouting from their heads and faces instead of hair.

Ice: A frigid world of snow and ice, Ice was raided incessantly for the drinking water that the other races need to survive. Its people are the most visibly alien of the cluster's races, being bipedal lizard-bug. Its ruler, King Cryos, is the most levelheaded and respectable of the cluster's leaders, taking in Graveheart when Mantle exiles him and being the first to support the proposed Alliance. Having been a narrow survivor of the first attack by Beast Drones possibly helped convince him.

Fire: A burning world of rock, magma, molten metal and ash, Fire suffered raids for its reserves of raw energy and fuel-stuffs. Its ruler is the young Prince Pyrus. The natives of Fire are humanoid, but have flaming hair and curling spikes for ears. Fire suffers damage to its World Engine and its populace are forced to flee to Rock's Battle Moons, even as their planet makes a suicidal charge against the Beast Planet.

Bone: A damp and squelchy swamp world inhabited by humanoid lizard-frogs, Bone provides food for the entire cluster. Its ruler is the scheming, treacherous, hedonistic Emperor Femur... and yet he's still less of a jerk than Lord Mantle.

Sand: An inhabited world encountered by the Alliance as it flees its former solar system, the desert world of Sand houses two races; the Sun People (humanoid midgets in powered exo-suits) and the Sand People (horned yetis with turtleshells and telepathy, essentially).

Jungle: A world covered in a giant, telepathically linked forest. The Alliance tries to take it with them, but its World Engine has been rendered inoperable by the roots of the jungle. Subsequently sacrificed to the Beast Planet in a doomed effort to destroy it, but not before giving Femur a "seed" to regrow the jungle from. Assets from this world were later reused for Transformers: Beast Machines, which some take as evidence they're in the same universe.

Prison: A shattered hunk of a planet originally used as a dumping ground for the cluster's worst prisoners.

Beast: An enigmatic and effectively indestructible world -- it hides inside suns and shakes off being rammed by charging planets or eating self-destructing ones -- that seems to exist for the sole purpose of wiping out all life it encounters. Its armies of mindless Beast Drones slaughter the population, and then the Beast World appears to devour the planet whole. Some have theorized that it might actually be Unicron...

Water: A world covered completely in oceans and inhabited by an aquatic people. In the toyline, they tried to destroy the Beast Planet with magic, only for it to no-sell their spellcasting. In the show, they turned their entire world into one enormous gun... which again failed to even scratch it.

Tek: A mechanized world inhabited by sapient robots. The Beast Planet's last victim before attacking the Four-Worlds System in the show.

Remora: A dead world in the Four-Worlds System occupied by the Beast Armada and turned into a forward base. Initially mistaken for the actual Beast Planet.

Reptizar: A world inhabited by lizardfolk; all lore on it comes from the toyline, as in the show, it simply shows up in the last minute of the final episode being devoured by the Beast.

Roleplaying Game?

There is indeed an RPG for the setting made by some particularly dedicted/crazed fans out there. Using the D20 Star Wars system as a base, it can be found here: http://www.ganae.com/ShadowRaiders/SR_adven.html