Sawbones
The penal ship slips down into the highest echelon of the atmosphere, its engines shuddering heavily as they switch to more powerful mechanisms that are better able withstand the gravitational forces applied on them by the nearby planet. You brace yourself on the bunk, gripping the hollow metal frames as the porthole is suddenly obscured by the rough, pocked texture of rusted steel, burning with bright-red sigils you recognize as glyphs of both protection and confinement-- standard fare for any spaceship, though obviously strengthened by the red glow it casts over your cabin. Your ears pop from the sudden changes in pressure, and below you the interlocking green lines of the gravitational simulacrum slowly fade, leaving you to adjust to the surprisingly gentle pull of terrestrial gravity. The ship settles as it finishes its preparations for the imminent landing, though its descent hardly slows.
The jarring movement of the landing gear dislodges your grip from your bunk’s frames and leaves you tumbling onto the floor, dazed. When you manage to regain your bearings, rubbing your head with a curse and a grimace, you reach under your bunk to grab the shoddy, patchwork satchel that carries what little the prison system gave you to survive on-- a few changes of “casual” clothes (really nothing more than rags; your jumpsuit was better maintained and of better quality, and it was made of itchy grey fabric striped with shiny orange accents), a few days’ worth of prison rations (disgusting, to be sure, but edible, and you’ve eaten worse), and some other strange item you can’t possibly understand the usefulness of. Why would you ever need this? You think as you check to make sure it’s closed properly, then sling it over your shoulder, adjusting the cap on your head to shadow your face as you wait for the sealed door to open.
The glowing red glyphs (identical to those on the sheets of steel now covering your windows) flicker for a moment, then go out like a sputtering candle as the door hisses open. You glance over at the other bunk in your soon-to-be former cabin, briefly wondering where your roommate is, before dismissing the thought as unimportant as you turn to walk out the hallway into the freedom that was rightfully yours all along.
Stepping onto the catwalk, you take your first deep breath of freedom, and with a smile you- immediately begin coughing, doubling over as you choke on unfamiliar air. Looking around you find you’re not on Polissa, as you had expected, but... another world entirely. When the fuck did the ship make a hyperjump?!
A) You recognize this place as Tali, a small colony stranded in the middle of a massive wasteland planet of the same name, spotted with coarse desert vegetation and dusty, harsh air. The landing pad you stand on is no more than a glorified strip of concrete and tar placed unceremoniously in the center of some dusty, silty soil. Many rundown shanties are scattered around with no discernible roads to connect them, and the only building that sticks out is a dilapidated shack of a bar, recognizable only by the neon lights it has hung about itself like the garish jewelry of a cheap courtesan. It’s also the largest building around after the loading dock itself, which isn’t saying much. The only reason why you know this tiny backwater planet is Tali is because of a certain incident several years ago, where a beloved celebrity was killed and eaten by the indigenous giant siltsnakes while on a goodwill tour... and the crude sign next to the loading dock, on which is written (beneath the graffiti and various other defacements), “WELKOM TO FUKKING TALI”. Hei-shen spelling. Charmed. Well, at least you know what the filter mask and goggles are for now, you think to yourself as you reach into your satchel to pull it on, your eyes already beginning to water from the silt carried along by the winds.
B) This is Centralis, a small space port on a temperate, well-biomed planet. The air around you is... fresh. Pure. Easy to breath. Sickening, you think, frowning stormily as you try to inhale the cleanest air your lungs have ever experienced without vomiting. It’s a rather small city (though you’ve been told many times that everything is tiny compared to Polissa) that sits astride the strip, with beautiful gardens filled with flowers and trees on either side. A number of visitors and workers hurry about, though many pause long enough to give you disgustingly cheerful smiles before moving on with their busy days. Large, rolling hills of farmland and pastures reach to the horizon everywhere you look. Objectively, you can see why the port is such a popular tourist destination for the wealthy of Polissa, but you’re more interested in the medical applications of the flora decorating the city; you think you can see at least four different species that can be distilled into a treatment for regenerating severed limbs. Sighing, you pull the citizenship application papers from your satchel, searching the text to see if there’s been some mistake. Nope. You’re assigned as an aide in some resort somewhere as your first parole job.
C) Some hanger. The air is grimy, worse than at the prison, and the sounds of mining machinery roar in the distance. The tang of ozone is heavy, and the landing pad is filled with ships, loaded to the brim with shiny, silvery ore, and more and more come in to land, depositing people before taking off again. A number of rough, stout looking men brush pass you, glaring every now and then. One even shoving you hard away as he passes by, grumbling something.
D) Oh, wait... this
is Polissa. Large, massive craters are scattered throughout the city, which, while never exactly prosperous, now looks more akin to a collection of shacks, hovels, hastily repaired buildings and tents. Soldiers march up and down the roads, looking battered, beaten, weary, their clothing frayed and their weapons rusty. Things have definitely changed while you were gone... and not for the better. Barricades surround the port reflective surfaces emblazoned with charred, occasionally broken sigils. And, as your eyes widen with shock, a set of soldiers march pass you, the captain sizing you up, the cybernetics on her face twitching and the surgically attached filter lung breathing slowly. They continue to march on, and you exhale heavily.
Wait a minute, Option 3 had 5 votes. Option 1 had 4 votes, option 4 had 3 votes. How is that a draw?
On that note, D, and our name is indeed Marko.
((It's called your gm doesn't know how to count. So yes, option three wins, as does option D and Markus Finn, or Marko for short, since having just Marko would be strange. Also, sorry about the sudden drop in quality and the time it took. My computer stopped working correctly.))