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[Parsely]

-A Screenshock Game, Intro By GiglameshDespair-

Humanity was advancing greatly in fields of science. Despite the occasional war mongering between nations, Earth was mostly peaceful, and very prosperous. Third world nations developed greatly. Climate change continued, reducing the amount of habitable land for humans. The human population had, at it's peak, ballooned up to 13 billion. Earth was fed using hydroponics space stations dedicated to growing cash crops, their power supplied by the gestating seeds of what would eventually become the powersat network. The Moon colony was established. Terraforming of Mars began and was expected to yield results in hundreds of years. Everything was going right.

As Mars became more independent from Earthly supplies—and supplies on Earth grew scarcer—tensions developed. It was then that the first major Screenshock incident happened.

A Screenshock is a particular series of images, colors and sometimes sounds that triggers a fatal feedback sequence within the brain; a cousin to the epileptic fit. The first of the Screenshock viruses was an ultra-advanced computer virus, semi-sentient and capable of adapting to situations. It infiltrated a vast quantity of the networks across the globe.

Cranial implants had been growing in popularity. You could access the net without using your hands, it made people sharper by boosting reaction times, and performed various other sundry tasks. The virus vectored using the high resolution screens—terminals, televisions screens, smart phones, computers and the omnipresent advert boards found in modern human settlements—and attacked every person in the world equipped with implants, overlaying screenshocks onto one's VR overlay. Overnight, the human population of Earth dropped to a mere 4 billion. The virus had spread to everything, ruining the automatic infrastructure of Earth. Even today with all the precautions that are taken it has proved almost impossible to truly eradicate. With this massive simultaneous loss of life, the forward progress of humanity had been stalled.

When the tattered remnants of Earth attempted to take more food aid from Mars than it was willing to supply, the only true interplanetary conflict occurred, though no history book calls it a war. The end result was Martian independence and a similar agency would later be promised for all colonies that would be established. Earth itself is a desolate place, with widespread food shortages, high unemployment and common natural disasters as surface conditions continued to worsen. The golden age of Earth had ended.

Certain technologies regressed rapidly in response to the Screenshock that had ravaged Earth in an attempt to reduce vectors for and prevent Screenshocks. High-resolution screens are no longer used, relying on much more simple monitors to display data. Later, after a small incident, sound outputs are also reduced. Implants remain widely used but most are simple and only have a few specific functions, turning away from the gratuitous, jack-of-all-trades devices of old. Everyone has at the very least a basic implant in the skull that automatically provides their name, date of birth, home world and citizen number.

Using semi-autonomous mining drones, Earth's industries have shifted towards orbital enterprises monopolized the by huge corporations responsible for the early colonization efforts. 5 sleeper colony ships were produced and sent out to distant star systems. 4 colonies were successfully established and the largest, and oldest, of these has over a billion inhabitants, similar to the population of Mars. The fifth ship has yet to arrive.

Then came the age of the Lightpusher. Using massively powerful nuclear engines to reach 70% of light speed, they are the only ships that allow a human to travel interstellar distances in the space of his own lifetime. They transport goods and information, which has become a commodity to be bought and sold, between the scattered colonies. A joint-corporation effort led to the creation of a Lightpusher colony ship, which successfully traveled to and set up a colony in a far star system. A few Lightpushers have been chartered to explore select systems for a potential second Lightpusher colony. Most, however, simply move luxury goods from system to system, where they are sold by the ton at an extravagant rate.

The colonies have not encountered alien life beyond the primitive, living or dead. Each colony has it's own in-system powersat network to power the various craft, the colony and space stations present. Military ships are nuclear-powered laser platforms and are primarily used to deal with potentially threatening space rocks; there is no interstellar warfare as there is little point because relativistic travel prevents timely conflict. Visual tech is severely inhibited by the risk of Screenshock so accurate, real-time sensor readouts are a finicky business, so computers are often relied on to do tasks that require millisecond reactions. Ablative laser travel requires constant communication between the powersat and the crew of the ship making it's burn, on more than one occasion a sat has accidentally missed it's mark and caused a disaster.

This is the world humanity lives in today.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There is a note at the bottom of the schematic:
interior diagram not to scale, exterior conception is approx. 1px/m
needs must denote locations of drive propellant storage
- C

The TMV Wilhelmina has a generic prefix identifying it as a Tug Merchant Vessel. She's 287 meters from the tip of her bow to the edge of the engine nozzle. Unlike most lightpushers it's not laser-powered, instead it carries it's own power, an over-sized nuclear drive. It's much more expensive and interstellar trips take slightly longer than by laser ablative travel, but the ship is more than twice as fast as any other ship when it comes to in-system travel. The HULL 1 Bulk Cargo Nacelles™—colloquially referred to as pillboxes because of their shape—are manufactured and spend their entire lives in space. During preparation they have their "lids" removed for ease of loading and are then reassembled and attached to the flat nose of the tug by sturdy, short docking clamps that serves as air-locked connecting corridors. In exchange for the uncompromising design they cannot be detached in an emergency from within the ship, it must be done by an EVA team with special equipment for decoupling. The Wilhelmina can push up to three HULL 1 BCNs containing a maximum of 100,000 tons of payload each.

The Wilhelmina's Captain is the sole owner of the vessel.. Or he would be if he could pay off the multi-million dollar mortgage. Void Black is the story of the voyages of the Wilhelmina's enterprising crew, and the journey for prosperity among Humanity's stars.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Intro
Amongst the ship's company, there is one person who is absolutely vital: the Captain. There must be a Captain amongst the crew in order to play.

If you want to be the captain, remember that there can only be one captain, and the captain needs to be an interesting and dynamic enough character that they can glue everyone together. It’s better for a captain to have a good personality, an interesting story, and a bit of flash than for the captain to be a perfectly optimized machine. If you don’t want to be the captain, remember that it’s the player who is selected as the captain that selects his crew members, not the GM. He mortgaged the ship out of his own pocket and thus handpicked his men. Thus, the captain will determine what kind of outfit this is and non-captain sheets may need to conform slightly to what the captain needs in order to be attractive as team members.

In essence, if you want to play as the captain, it’s important to impress the GM with an interesting character and a good amount of charisma and mystique. It’s not as important to fulfill any role perfectly; you’ll be able to hire on a team of other players in order to accommodate your shortcomings. It’s also important to remember that the captain isn’t the be-all-end-all of the game. The captain is like Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly), Colonel O’Neill (Stargate), or Gandalf (LotR); he holds things together and keeps everyone on the same page, but he doesn’t solve every problem by the power of his grace and majesty alone.

However, if you want to play as a crewman under the captain, it’s more important that you impress the captain, not the GM. Granted, if the GM is extraordinarily impressed, he may choose to put in a good word with the captain. The GM also reserves the right to veto any character sheet, but both vetoes and recommendations should be sparing. Impressing the captain with a character that shows a good potential for fun interactions, team synergy and party building is what’s important. This is not to say that team characters should be: “I work well with people. I have no strong interpersonal conflicts. I love all living things except the ones my captain doesn’t like.” That misses the point. Jayne Cobb (Firefly) and Simon Tam (Firefly) are opposite ends of the spectrum, but they interact in beautiful ways that make their team more interesting. In narrative those kinds of characters that have a stark difference toward another that influences their interactions are called foils. Colonel O’Neill (Stargate) and Dr. Jackson (Stargate) exist with similar chemistry and, if you look at any good book/show/movie with an enjoyable team, every team member has some amount of conflicting personality. You are not a band of magical friendship balls that are destined to become Power Rangers (Power Rangers*) and save the world. You are meant to be people, and people all come with flaws (that's right no Sues on my ship).
 
As a final tip for character building, you’re absolutely allowed to weave your bios together as long as you have the consent of the other players. You’re a fairly new crew, perhaps still working out the kinks, but all players on the team will have had a good amount of time to learn about each other prior to the events of the game. Two characters that have good chemistry, good story, and complementary skills will always be a far stronger entry than either one alone.

Sheet (Skip here if you cannot be arsed to read!)
Name: [Last Name], [First Name]
Role: [A brief description of your job. This is free form and can involve whatever you want as long as it describes what your character does in three words or less.]
Personality: [A brief description of your attitude, way of life, methods of thinking and problem-solving. A fun character has a balance of strengths and weaknesses.]
Biography: [A brief description of who you are. What have you done to get here? If you're the Captain then maybe add a little bit of information on how you met your team members if you picked people you knew, though it's entirely possibly that you picked everyone up by prospecting on the net (probably somewhere in between). For the other crewmen, create a brief description of how you came to be employed by the Captain. Tell us about the things you want, the things you’ve done and the things you regret.]

Code: (Sheet) [Select]

[i]Name[/i]: [Last Name], [First Name]
[i]Role[/i]: [A brief description of your job. This is free form and can involve whatever you want as long as it describes what your character does in three words or less.]
[i]Personality[/i]: [A brief description of your attitude, way of life, methods of thinking and problem-solving. A fun character has a balance of strengths and weaknesses.]
[i]Biography[/i]: [A brief description of who you are. What have you done to get here? If you're the Captain then maybe add a little bit of information on how you met your team members if you picked people you knew, though it's entirely possibly that you picked everyone up by prospecting on the net (probably somewhere in between). For the other crewmen, create a brief description of how you came to be employed by the Captain. Tell us about the things you want, the things you’ve done and the things you regret.]

Character Selection Process
Step 1: Selecting the Captain
Captain selection is open from the moment the OP is posted, and the captain selection process will continue for at least a few days after the OP is posted, perhaps more than a week. This gives potential players time to read up on the lore and get into the setting a little, then build a good captain regardless of timezone.

Naturally, players are also free to post non-captain sheets during this time, but there is a good chance these sheets will need to be tweaked a bit when the captain is chosen.

Step 2: Selecting the Crew
After the Captain is selected he needs to hire his crew. The Captain could have been traveling and trading for some time with his ship and his previous crew's contracts have just run out, or perhaps he's just bought the Wilhelmina and he's taking her on the virgin voyage.

Step 3: Planning the Voyage
First decide what system you're in: Marlowe, New Hope, New London, Kulan, or Shotel
Then the Captain should allocate all 300,000 tons of his payload (the rest of the crew can get involved in this as well). To make things easy, simply pick one type of commodity for each of your sub-holds. You can be as specific or as general as you like. So for example: 3.1 and 3.2 can be devoted to military supplies, 2.6 can be reserved for liquid hydrogen containers and cash crops, 1.2 can contain asteroid minerals. Don't worry about your destination for now. Once that's done, then off you'll go and the journey will begin!

Tips
- Nepotism is encouraged. Pick people you like to form bonds with.
- Other than the Captain, you'll almost definitely need these types of roles on your ship: Engine Officer (someone who understands the nuclear drive and can maintain it; if you have problems with the engine and no engine officer, you'll be dead in space), Roboticist (there are several robots onboard and without this archetype you'll have a hard time maintaining them)
- These are useful but less necessary roles: Astrogator (most of the driving is done by the computer but it can't hurt to have someone there to take over in an emergency), Security Officer (pirates are nonexistent but stowaways running from debts can be a nuisance), Light Craft Pilot (if you want to put your shuttle to it's best use), EVA Specialist (every crewman is trained in null movement and the use of a space suit but few men have experience in a vacuum; an untrained person would practically be committing suicide to attempt an EVA mission)


*That was a joke. Get it?

Spoiler: And More! (click to show/hide)

Implants
Almost everyone has at least a cheap ID chip implanted directly into the bone of the skull, it's difficult to get a legitimate job without, but some kinds of people prefer to remain off the grid. On some colonies you forfeit citizenship without an ID chip. It can be read remotely using a wi-fi connection and a VRO or a sophisticated but bulky hand scanner; it contains basic data on them—name, sex, date of birth, home world—a lot of information systems are automated so people don't have to interact with them. Common programmed functions in implants: thought-activated math functions for easy number crunching, eidetic memory, protector chips designed to interrupt viruses including experimental ones meant to defeat the mimetic Screenshock. Everyone on the crew will definitely have an ID chip as it behooves them greatly, unless they have a particularly shady background or severe cyberphobia (not entirely uncommon in a world where you can be killed without warning simply by looking at a computer screen).

Virtual Reality Overlay (VRO)
VROs are somewhat common. They're done in one of two ways: either you have an implant in your occipital lobe that creates interactive illusions, or you do it the primitive way and have your eye (or eyes) scooped out and replaced with a mechanical prosthetic. Both are expensive and have different advantages. They're considered to be somewhat opulent, in popular fiction they are the tools of rogues. Most probably one or more of the crew of the Wilhelmina will have some type of VRO.

Powersat
These large laser installations are found on the surface of or in orbit over any inhabited planet. They are used to launch Lightpushers on their way and consist of the most valuable and advanced technology available to humans today. Parabolic mirrors are arranged around planets they're located at such that they can fire in any direction even if the laser is on the opposite side of the planet. Their range is millions of kilometers long and they can and have been used in the past to defend against attacking ships. Unlike military ships

Ablative Laser Drive
Most Lightpushers are fueled by visual spectrum lasers located within powersats or on landlocked installations which illuminate, in brief pulses, parabolic mirrors that concentrate the radiation into a severe point, which is used aimed at an ablative solid (graphite) stored on the rear of the ship. The reaction causes an explosion that propels the ship towards it's destination. This type of propulsion offers huge advantages because ships do not need to bring their own drives during travel, allowing them to achieve higher speeds and carry a larger payload. Once they've reached their destination world Lightpushers hire nuclear tugs to help them dock. Some Lightpushers carry secondary nuclear drives for moving around independently but this design is normally only practiced in military ships.

Nuclear Drive
Most ships built for in-system travel fly on atomic powerplants that generate electricity using nuclear fission which is used to ignite the liquid hydrogen reaction mass that propels the ship.

6mm Holdout Pistol
A low caliber handgun with underpowered ammunition that is only effective at short range. Used for self-defense in the close corridors of spacecraft. The crew of the Wilhelmina probably own a few of these.

Pulsed Less-Lethal Energy Weapon (PL-LEW)
Excerpt from a weapons manual: The PL-LEW fires a laser pulse that is very intense but only a fraction of a second in duration. The pulse illuminates a 2000 square centimeter surface in front of the weapon which vaporizes the victim's clothing or skin, creating a plasma burst intense enough to knock the victim to the ground. This blast is notoriously painful but causes no permanent harm if the PL-LEW is used as instructed. Please make sure your battery is properly fitted prior to firing. Point the weapon at the target using the built-in sights, lining up the rear and fore apertures, and place the crosshairs squarely over the target's torso for best effect, then discharge. There is no recoil, but keep the butt of the weapon placed firmly against your shoulder for best accuracy. Do not aim at face. Once the weapon has been discharged it is safe to remove the depleted battery and load a fresh one. Return depleted battery to the special carrying vest for proper disposal later. WARNING: Batteries are one-use only and each contain a charge of about 30KJ of energy, or the equivalent of 7 grams of TNT. Handle with care.

Robots
Bots are totally obedient, rugged and expendable. They come in all sorts of purpose-built shapes. They're extremely popular as pets and spacecraft crews often pay well for the latest practical models. The TMV Wilhelmina owns a pair of bots: a GP-01 Multipurpose and an LC-H Cargo Loader.

Common Commodities
Fuel for powering atomic devices is immensely important. Uranium-233, Uranium-235 and Plutonium-239 are used for atomic rocket fuel. Plutonium-239 can also be used to make nuclear bombs. Uranium-238 and Thorium-232 are normally useless but can be processed into valuable isotopes using breeder reactors to turn them into Plutonium-239 and Uranium-233 respectively. Atomic fuel can be found in deposits on moons, planets and asteroids.

Gaseous hydrogen mined from planetary atmospheres is a very common commodity needed everywhere.

Medical products like drugs are produced in labs and distributed throughout the system.

Construction material for building ships, space stations and other artificial satellites, pressurized facilities and solar arrays are always in high demand.

Luxury items whose demand increases as income rises like certain kinds of automobiles, wine, bottled water, tea, exotic foods, watches, clothes and jewelry have a very high value per unit of weight. You should always be trading luxuries.

Raw ore and ice is always being mined from planets, satellites and asteroids and brought back to the trading stations for shipment to centers of production.

Colonies
Only the Sol system has multiple major colonies in the same system. The others are known respectively as Marlowe, New Hope, New London, Kulan and Shotel. GM Note: More on this later.

[Parsely]

INDEX
Turns
1

Players - 6 Players total, this includes the Captain. Total is subject to change.
Draignean//Robert Raker, Captain
Tiruin//Helen Atreides, Physician/Therapist (FO)
Cheesecake//Riley "Chainsaw" Sawyer, Ship's Cook/Enforcer
Dutrius//Peter Williams, Nuclear Grease Monkey
SeriousConcentrate//Elizabeth Marello, Roboticist
wipeout1024//Amaani Warsame Jama, Astrogator

Waitlist - People die and are replaced.
Mastahcheese//Cromwell Jackson, EVA Specialist

[BlitzDungeoneer]

This seems...interesting.
Reserving a spot for a sheet.

[~Neri]

I'm interested as playing as the roboticist. Shall wait for a captain character before fully deciding on character. Although I have ideas floating around.

[Yoink]

I would like to join this, although given my track record I doubt I would make a good captain. >.>
Perhaps I will post a sheet anyway if no-one else has been chosen in a while, but more likely I'll wait 'til the Captain is decided upon.

[Adragis]

Likewise. I wish to reserve a spot until a Captain steps forward.

[Haspen]

Imma PTW :3

[Cheesecake]

Reserving please. Probably gonna go for the Security Officer, once the Captain's been chosen.

[Tiruin]

PTW O-O
Or...reserve ._.
I've vested interest in a medical/psychological profession. But...*reads necessary roles and tech level* aww. No high-tech medical equipment? :<

[Parsely]

No high-tech medical equipment? :<

Nope. No medigel. All the more reason to have a medical doctor on-board, don't you think.

[GiglameshDespair]

Watching how my setting is liked. :3

[Haspen]

No high-tech medical equipment? :<

Nope. No medigel. All the more reason to have a medical doctor on-board, don't you think.

Tiruin prepare your painkiller syringes and amputation saws! :3

[GiglameshDespair]

No high-tech medical equipment? :<

Nope. No medigel. All the more reason to have a medical doctor on-board, don't you think.

Tiruin prepare your painkiller syringes and amputation saws! :3

Fetch the handrills, it's trepanning time!

[Cheesecake]

No high-tech medical equipment? :<

Nope. No medigel. All the more reason to have a medical doctor on-board, don't you think.

Tiruin prepare your painkiller syringes and amputation saws! :3

Fetch the handrills, it's trepanning time!

No need for these fancy painkillers! Tell 'em to bite down on their belt and boil some wine!

[wipeout1024]

This looks interesting, maybe I'll apply.