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[mainiac]

Current Characters:

Raoul Sabrovwich
Alexia 'Lexi' Colez
Desmond Greer

In the end, nuclear fires engulfed the earth, an agonizing climax to a long chapter of human suffering.  As the social fabric was rent, humanity had subjected itself to every form of cruelty and misery known.  Man had done unspeakable things to his fellow man in the name of nations, religions, race, hatred, fear and simple plain greed.  By the time the cities were scorched by that terrible inferno, they were already burdened with a heavy toll of human suffering as the downtrodden masses grew ever larger.  A world that had been home to twelve billion inhabitants as the 23rd century began was home to half that many by the eve of the final devestation.  As the nuclear holocaust brought in a new age, scarcely half a billion people remained to see a new order calling itself the Iron Legion rise out of the ashes and crush all resistance before it's armies.  For the first time in history a single, terrible regime ruled over the entire earth.

Even in the most terrible moments people will still find hope.  Some fools still clung to the outdated idealism of a more optimistic age that had passed long before they were born.  Some idealists still believed that the laws of might and brutality might be subverted.  And some dogs just plain refuse to lie down and die.  No matter how strong the Legion would appear, it was certain that some of the dogged survivors still eking out an existence on the scarred and poisonous surface of the earth would fight on.  This is not their story.  This is the story of a different group of people entirely.  They had the strength to fight the Legion, but they did not live among the devastation of earth.

Even as the light of civilization on earth was dimmed, a spark of hope escaped the war torn world.  In the dying days of the idealistic era, a toehold had been established on the moon, the first permanent human settlement outside earth's protection.  And even as the earth crumbled, this toehold had been able to grow.  Even as the strife from earth poured out into space, humanity spread, burrowing deep into the moon, creating new self sustaining habitats in the space near earth, creating greenhouses on mars and even venturing out into the asteroid belt.  Life was not easy in these young colonies where the environment provided nothing and human labor and ingenuity had to provide everything.  But when the earth was consumed by fire, it's colonies were spared.

Despite being spared the initial destruction, the colonies are not safe.  The Legion is above all covetous.  What they can't have they must destroy.  They wish to reach out into the darkness of space and take control of that last bit of humanity that is outside their grasp.  But perhaps out here in space, they can be escaped.  Perhaps they can even be driven back and the spark of freedom that escaped from earth could ignite a flame of hope that would reignite the world.  But that is far to grand an idea for now.  For now, the peoples of the colonies worry about survival and whether that means fighting the Legion or surrendering to them...

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So, I feel like running a free form RP and I'm wondering if anyone else is interested in this setting idea.  If you are, submit a character description including the following:

Name
Age
Any important physical characteristics
Describe something special about your character
What your character does for a living
Where your character is from and a touch of background
Any notable skills you wouldn't expect from the above information
Any notable relationships you wouldn't expect from the above information

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The Hitchhikers Guide to the Solar System, pocket edition.

Don't Panic! 

The solar system is a pretty amazing place and if you're interested in doing the low budget tour, then you've got some wild rides ahead of you.  But keep your head and you'll be fine.  There's odd jobs to be done anywhere that there's two oxygen molecules to rub together up here so you ain't gonna starve and you probably aren't worth the trouble of killing.  The pocket edition of the guide is too small to give you all the ins and outs but it should be enough to help you find your feet.

Earth: The old lady and center of human life.  Don't go down to the surface without a good reason because the cost of a ticket back up ain't to be sneered at.  A hitchhiker is better advised to check out the GeoSyncs.  The SolarSat fields (that's microwave transmission solar power collector satellites that beam energy down to earth for all you rubes) are the perfect place to find temporary work and it's now surprise that there's a vibrant subculture in the many maintenance rings that even includes some hitchhiker retirement communities.  Cheap berths and good times are available, especially if you are decent with electrical wiring and a welding torch.  At nights, there's all sorts of entertainment from the wholesome to the dangerous.  At day, there's a few decent rehab clinics if you made bad choices at night.  Theres a steady traffic to both the Range stations and Mars and it's possible to catch rides to other places as well. Revision: since the nuclear war, employment at the SolarSat fields have dried up.  Be advised that the GeoSyncs are a lot less fun and a lot more dangerous these days.

The Range:  Hitchhiker slang for the Lagrange Orbit Satellite Cluster.  Floating out in the shared orbit between Earth and the Moon, these stations are somewhat hit and miss for Hitchhikers.  The larger stations, especially O'Neil station, are some of the more cushy places this side of Earth's atmosphere and can chew through your cash pretty fast.  The work situation here is somewhat complicated.  It's nearly impossible to get part time work in the heavy industries or shipyards without a union card, unless you don't mind having your legs broken.  A lot of the high end stations are fun of the nine to five crowd, pushing papers for a living.  But you might be able to find irregular work serving the suits and it's a decent place for a talented musician or cook.  The smaller stations aren't as expensive, but the employment opportunities aren't going to be great in the immigrant ghettos.  Some of these stations are jam packed full of innocent babes from earth who barely know the ways of the System.  Travelwise, the Range is a great place to get to anywhere from.  If it's made in space, they make it in the range, from solar panels to spaceships so all lanes lead to the Range.

Mars: The Red Greenhouse shouldn't be visited on a whim.  Most of the time it's not much fun, the traffic is slow and there aren't any jobs.  That changes around harvest time when suddenly migrant labor is going for a premium and the shanty towns in the canyons come to life.  Fill your pockets fast by working the greenhouses and enjoy the harvest festivals.  Just make sure to have your ride off the planet planned out way ahead of time.  If you try to find a berth halfway through planting the next crop, you'll find yourself shit outta luck.  Luckily the harvest doesn't ship off all at once, so if you plan ahead you can leave with the harvest.

The Moon: If you feel like getting a dose of history, the moon is nice to visit.  There's even a couple free museums.  But you wont find much more then a vacation here.  There's plenty of traffic shipping the slag out of the mines but there isn't much work.  There's not enough dock work to go around and the mines aren't going to employ you without a fancy certificate for a load of specialized training for the machines.  Plus your bones won't do too well with the low gravity after a long stay.  Like you'd expect from such a dreary location, there isn't too much night life to enjoy either.  Kiss the dirt and move on.

The Wilds: Comet prospecting is unpredictable and harsh, but water is valuable stuff and some of the crews make a killing.  Signing on with a crew however is decent work that doesn't take much more then an affinity for space.  But it means getting stuck on a slow tug for weeks at a time.  The shipyards on the other hand are quite lively little hotspots on the other side of the orbit from earth.  Be careful, because they're designed to suck the money out of you as fast as possible.  But if you can keep your wits about you the casino's, races and nightclubs can all be a blast.  When you are broke and depressed, it's not too hard to thumb a ride back to the Range or Mars from any of the Docks.  There's always a shipment heading back but be prepared for a long trip.

The Rim: If you feel the need to keep moving the rim is perfect, anything that ain't nailed in place is in motion out there.  The inner asteroid belt offers a wide variety of little settlements that appear and are abandoned all the time as the excavations change and the miners move on.  There's work of pretty much any sort available if you are willing to chase it.  Just be careful you don't lose yourself out there, unless that's what you are hoping to do.  This is as far from the rest of civilization as a person can get.

[Armok]

This looks interesting. Like most of these games do it seems to lack clear explanation of what kinds of tech exist and what the public attitude towards it is. Saying some well known setting those are based of might help.

Name: Raoul Sabrovwich
Age: 23
Any important physical characteristics: microgravity adapted, multi armed _{(cybernetic, genetically engineered, or from being an alien naturally having those pending on more setting details)}, minor cybernetic for interfacing with computers, aesthetic body modifications from some 23rd century internet subculture.
Describe something special about your character: a hacker, a slob, and a supreme master of multitasking. Usually seen with a caffeinated drink on one hand, something edible in the second, talking on his phone with the third, filing with the rest, his eyes darting between 5 screens or so as he also does two different jobs at once and surf the net, all this overlaid by a synthetic voice reading a book on some new technical subject. A coolkid.
What your character does for a living: Remote operating things. From combat drones to research probes to mining equipment to the giant arm on the space station. There are plenty of things where it's to dangerous, or simply inconvenient, to have a human pilot in it, but that you don't want to just leave up to AI. In fact, most physical labor probably fit that description, and is controlled by random unskilled people over the net. But sometimes the equipment is to dangerous or expensive, sometimes the task is to hard or sensitive, sometimes you need to control something that dosn't have an interface that a layman can understand. That's where highly trained professionals like Raoul comes in.
Where your character is from and a touch of background: Born in an interplanetary craft, and grown up online as his parents never had any time and they moved around constantly all over the solar system, a lifestyle he has continued.
Any notable skills you wouldn't expect from the above information: He also does some professional gaming and has a reasonably famous blog, but neither of those give that much of an income.

[mainiac]

Right, I was so caught up in describing the social situation, I forgot the sci fi part.  You actually did a pretty good job guessing the appropriate tech level.  Raoul is the kind of tech expert you'd find for instance running the mining machinery on the Moon, overseeing the SolarSat field maintenance or doing work for one of the more automated factories at The Range.  He's better off and more tech savvy then most people but not unique.

Tech wise, the world is beyond 20 minutes into the future but it's before anything that really changes life as we know it.  Think of near future settings like Firefly or Cowboy Bebop, we've advanced a little, but things still aren't perpetually shiny.
-There's no warp drive and the fastest way to get off the surface of a planet is still a rocket, just a really fancy rocket-scramjet hybrid.
-Computer technology still followed Moore's law for a while but it turns out that people didn't need much beyond terahertz calculations and picobyte storage space to store their email.
-A few fancy electronics are used by the tech savvy, simple cybernetic interfaces, microwave power transmission.  Electrical engineering in general has done pretty well.
-Spaceships are propelled by ion drives when flying for distances and, if you can afford it, maneuvered at close quarters with inertia drives which can fake being a reaction-less engine to the untrained observer but are actually pulling some fun shenanigans with the momentum of fast moving particles in very small orbits.
-Dwarf Fortress became a MMO and then a religion in the 2040's, but most of the followers were killed out in a religious pogrom and only a few communities remain, mostly on Australia and Mars.
-Artificial gravity exists, you just spin a wheel and you've got artificial gravity. 
-The Star Wars space defense system worked great after another 200 years of refining, but was no match for the suitcase nuke. 
-Advanced automated factories existed, but were few in number thanks to a half century of economic turmoil and the nukes took out the rest.  The advanced factories in the Range were always smaller and more based on filling demand rapidly and less geared towards large scale, highly automated fabrication.
-AI is possible but rare, expensive and feared.  Advanced Automation, basically dumb AI, is cheaper and less feared but still unusual.
-Medical science has improved a bit and gene therapy exists but is very expensive.  Still doesn't mean they can do things like engineer you to be immortal or have two hearts.
As a general rule of thumb, things exist if people today can understand how they would work and it's just a matter of refining them.  But scientific breakthroughs aren't too plentiful, there's the inertia drive, gene therapy and scramjets but nothing else that's very exotic.  A lot of times, the simple solution is used, for instance the Martian farms use simple reinforced greenhouses and plain old steel is used for the superstructures of the stations in The Range.  Also keep in mind that the Earth has been in a period of stagnation for more then a hundred years and the past few decades in particular have been outright decline.  A lot of things that are possible in theory are too expensive in practice.  So keep that cybernetic interface it's really just a fancy mouse, but don't expect to have a cybernetic muscle enhancement or sub dermal body armor.

[Armok]

Ok. And about the many arms? Probably genetic shenanigans together with some surgery to make it actually work?

[mainiac]

Well, pre-embryonic gene therapy could produce those sorts of changes.  Adult grafting seems a little far fetched.  But the question is why someone's backstory would justify such an... abomination.

[Dwarmin]

Name: Desmond Greer

Age: 42

Any important physical characteristics: Nearly as pure Human as one can be these days-few implants or cybernetics, except for a wrist interface/communication device, which is seriously outdated by even the failing standards of today. Has a hollowed out left tooth he can open with a motion of the tongue-it can store about a thimble of liquid. He can't remember when he got it. A medical technician once told him he's got some sort of solid implant attached to his spinal cord, which couldn't be removed without killing him. Whatever it is, it occasionally makes the skin above it itch uncontrollably. He's been saving money to hire a *real* doctor to remove it...

Describe something special about your character: Desmond is a man looking for a woman. Not for love. When he finds her, he's going to kill her. See, he meant this special woman 5 years ago-a Lady in Red. What happened before or after that, he can't remember. All he knows is that he met a woman in a bar, and when he awoke the next morning, she shot him in the head....he survived, somehow, but after that, he lost everything he ever owned or cared about. Even apparently, his memories. His personal records were wiped from...everywhere. He was never born. The only thing he had left was a face. Her face. And he's been looking for that face ever since.

What your character does for a living: Desmond usually works for people who need someone without a past-leg breaking, stealing, arson, intimidation, debt collection...he needs the money to grease wheels, and moreover, earn the connections he needs to ferret out his past. He's not past the occasional honest labor, if he gets paid well enough.

Where your character is from and a touch of background: Desmond woke up on a scummy hotel in the outer rim. He can't remember where he lived before.

Any notable skills you wouldn't expect from the above information: Desmond is an able diplomat, able to keep his simmering rage to a smolder when he needs to sweet talk a s emmark or pry information from an reluctant source. When he can find time to rest, he likes to tinker with firearms and explosives, and even dabbles in amateur chemsitry. He also, ironically, seems to have a nearly photographic memory of his time *after* the incident with the lady in red. He has rarely forgotten anything that has happened to him since that day.

Any notable relationships you wouldue to inherit hidn't expect from the above information: Though he can't recall anyone from his past life, he had made some new "friends"..
- F. Lauer: Known as "Flayer"-a minor criminal boss working from the outer rim. Often hires Desmond to work for him, and has promised to help him in any way he can, as long as he keeps the good results. He hasn't really come through yet, though.
- Spider Kel: Lauer's right hand man, and due to in herit his trashy little empire. Views Desmond as a threat, but is too much of a coward to do anything about, for now.
- Lefty McDouglas: A guy that works for flayers crew. Sort of friends with Desmond.
- Tangiers: Only a name, but whoever she is, he's also looking for desmond. Seems to be leaving a trail of bodies in her wake, or maybe she's only easy to blame?  Desmond has entertained the idea that Tangiers is the lady in Red herself...
- "Alpha": A mysterious man has promised to "tell Desmond everything he needs to know...for about a billion credits. He seems willing to wait, too...Probably a scammer.




OOC: I hope all's good with this?

[Armok]

Well, pre-embryonic gene therapy could produce those sorts of changes.  Adult grafting seems a little far fetched.  But the question is why someone's backstory would justify such an... abomination.

Parents belonging to some weird religion maybe? Maybe they even had that change themselves, and he inherited it.

[mainiac]

Well, pre-embryonic gene therapy could produce those sorts of changes.  Adult grafting seems a little far fetched.  But the question is why someone's backstory would justify such an... abomination.

Parents belonging to some weird religion maybe? Maybe they even had that change themselves, and he inherited it.

I like it.   Just don't expect everyoe Raoul meets to feel that way.

OOC: I hope all's good with this?

The photographic memory is a nice touch.  Regarding his past, do you mind if I take liberties filling in the blanks?

[Dwarmin]

Well, pre-embryonic gene therapy could produce those sorts of changes.  Adult grafting seems a little far fetched.  But the question is why someone's backstory would justify such an... abomination.

Parents belonging to some weird religion maybe? Maybe they even had that change themselves, and he inherited it.

I like it.   Just don't expect everyoe Raoul meets to feel that way.

OOC: I hope all's good with this?

The photographic memory is a nice touch.  Regarding his past, do you mind if I take liberties filling in the blanks?

No problem. Gaps in a characters memory are gold to plot writers.

[Kashyyk]

I'm tempted to join, but I want to ask a few questions first.

Is there as specific story we're going to follow once you get enough players, or is it freeform? and How often are you going to require us to post?

Regardless of the answers, I'm definately gonna watch this.

[quip]

Name: Robert Blank 'The Burning Corpse (as he calls himself)'
Age: 56

Any important physical characteristics: Massive burn wounds all over his body to acompany a mass of scars and various other wounds. His left eye is missing along with several fingers and his nose.

Describe something special about your character: Robert actually has no real genetic alteration or anything of the sort to explain how he  can still live on with his mass of wounds. In fact he has absulotley(?) no genetic or cybernetic modifications- since he does not trust anybody to perform any such surgery.

What your character does for a living: He claims to be a mercenery(?) but actually is more of a wandering bandit. Killing anyone who gets in his way of riches.

Where your character is from and a touch of background: Robert  never actually knew his parents, he was raised by a gang of Martian crinimals who never told him how he ended up with them. Later he fell out with the leader of the gang on whether or not it was fair to kill for fun- Robert claimed it was 'inneficent' and 'unprofessional' to do so- the argument ended with Robert murdering his 'freinds' and starting work as a 'Gun for hire' albeit one with very loose morals.

Any notable skills you wouldn't expect from the above information: He has a surprising intrest in machines and science. Skills he has used several times to murder those who thought him a dumb thug to be tricked out of payment.

Any notable relationships you wouldn't expect from the above information: Several members of the local comunities around the area his gang lived see him as a form of misunderstood hero, why this is is unclear.

Is that alright?

[Iituem]

Sure, why not?  I'll go with the party's general thrust and be a vagabond.  We should probably have a character with a conscience, though.

Name: Jack 'Knife' Roberts
Age: 24

Important Physical Characteristics:  Chronic pain.  Jack is a mutant, and not the good kind.  Being brought up on post-war Earth has left Jack with a malignant form of cancer (amongst other internal problems) that is eating away at his life and will eventually kill him.  In nothing less than a miracle, the deformities do not extend to his outer body, so he appears perfectly fine beyond the occasional bouts of coughing up blood.  Modern gene-treatments can resolve the cancer no problem, but they are terribly expensive.

Specials: Aforementioned cancerous time-bomb.  Jack has a high tolerance for pain, not out of any special physical ability but simply because he's lived with it his whole life.  Jack's skills are survival in a post-cataclysmic wasteland, stealth, small arms and melee combat.

A Living: Anything that will get him the money for the treatments.  Jack has killed, stolen, run drugs and even dabbled in slavery - and all that before getting off old Nanny Earth.  Jack can't afford the patience for long term plans when the cancer will kill him in a couple of years without treatments anyway.

Background: Jack was born on old Nanny Earth and spent the first two decades of his life surviving, mostly through sheer barbarism and being faster than the other guy.  The handful of doctors left on the planet were able to diagnose his condition and let him know that whilst cures existed he would never be able to afford them.  Jack recently bribed/blackmailed his way onto a craft off-world and paid for the first in the long line of treatments he'll need to beat the disease, but he's broke again and needs to make more money for the rest.  Quickly.

Skills: As above; stealth, survival, small arms, melee combat.  Somewhat athletic, better at sprinting.  Not strong, not weak.  Jack has a spot of skill at gambling with cards and dice, and enough reading, writing and basic math to run a book or a brothel.  Jack is not charismatic, but has good physical senses and a healthy degree of paranoia.

[mainiac]

Well, there are some things that are beyond the players control but I'm not planning to railroad things.  I have the antagonists' opening moves planned out, but it's not certain where things go beyond that.  I imagine you've already figured out by now that the war and the Iron Legion are going to spill out into space.  But it's not going to be a straight up story of conquest and resistance, there's going to be more then two sides and as such it's a mite unpredictable which way things will go after the opening scenes.

No problem. Gaps in a characters memory are gold to plot writers.

And I've been watching this tv episode while thinking about that Lady in Red.

Is that alright?

Good stuff.  Nice to have a Martian in the bunch too.

[mainiac]

Important Physical Characteristics:  Chronic pain.  Jack is a mutant, and not the good kind.  Being brought up on post-war Earth has left Jack with a malignant form of cancer (amongst other internal problems) that is eating away at his life and will eventually kill him.  In nothing less than a miracle, the deformities do not extend to his outer body, so he appears perfectly fine beyond the occasional bouts of coughing up blood.  Modern gene-treatments can resolve the cancer no problem, but they are terribly expensive.

This backstory is fine except for a little chronology problem. The war wasn't 24 years ago so he couldn't have been born after the war.  The nukes started going off a couple of years ago and most of the past two years has been the Legion stomping on any military groups that withstood the war. They existed before the war but no one really thought too much about them. In a world full of paramilitary groups, mercenaries and sadistic organizations of all types no one thought they were special.  Apparently everyone was wrong.

The world was a messed up place before the last war however and there's plenty of ways for Jack to have been born with cancer.  He could have been born in a failed state stuck in decades of civil war for instance.  Those places hardly even noticed the war.

[Digital Hellhound]

Name: Suhayl Mahir

Age: 34

Any important physical characteristics: Short but with a big, muscled build, Suhayl is an intimidating sight wherever he goes. His body bears scars he is proud to show off - some painted black for a defeat, some white for a victory. Suhayl has dark, deep-set eyes accompanying dark brown, short hair

Describe something special about your character: Has addictions to over a dozen different battle drugs, combat stimms, reflex enchancers and what have you, caused by years of fighting in the pits of Mars' shanties. Has several crude, pain-killing or strenght-enchancing implants in the back of his skull and just below his lungs, prone to malfunction and sudden activations.

What your character does for a living: Shipyard Worker/Thug-for-hire in the Range

Where your character is from and a touch of background: Born in a Mars shanty, Suhayl was the oldest child in a family of six. Gang wars were common and particulary vicious and the local law enforcement undermanned, untrained and always short on supplies and arms, and thus unable to keep the peace. Suhayl joined a gang and convinced them to expand their protection to his family and the southern end of the town. Unfortunately, another, bigger gang found out, and wasn't too pleased. Suhayl's gang was wiped out.

Suhayl survived the attack, but was made into a pit rat for the new gang - someone forced to fight in the combat pits for the amusement of the more morally dubious.
He was quickly packed aboard a transport with a dozen other pit rats and shipped up to Olympus Mons, and then taken in by the owner of a Wilds station, on her montly visit for just that purpose. The chosen pit rats were once again packed aboard a transport and sent off towards the Wilds. Once there, they were all immediately sent to a Swarm Match - a veteran gladiator armed to the teeth fighting a dozen fresh recruits with nothing but knives and rocks. Quite surprisingly, they won, and Suhayl quickly became a regular fighter.

His fighting career lasted for nine years. At that point, he was a champion fighter, and had gained quite a collection of implants and battle drugs. As a champion, he had also been earning more than enough money to buy his freedom, a flight off-station and a worker's union card, amongst other things. Suhayl then began doing different jobs in the Range - mostly low-pay industrial and shipyard work, but with the occasional mercenary contract and such every now and then.

Any notable skills you wouldn't expect from the above information: Suhayl possesses some insight into first aid and surgery and starship engineering, the latter due to lenghty lectures on the subject by a fellow worker at the shipyards.

Any notable relationships you wouldn't expect from the above information: Knows a surprising amount of people in the Range, as well as dozens of mercenary captains and companies, and is known as a famous champion fighter in the Wilds.

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8 replies, huh? I'm guess I'm not a very quick writer.