Cosmic Journey

Discussion thread.

Alone in the universe.

For 700 years humanity had been travelling across the stars, discovering new planets, colonizing new solar systems, leaving Old Earth to seek new homes for themselves and their families. Building new civilizations, forming new nations. Life continued on as it had always done. The people worked, played, fought, as they had done for thousands of years prior and would continue doing for thousands of years to come.

For 700 years they spread out, and while finding many inhabitable planets, there was no intelligent life forms out there. No one out there for humans to call brother, or even enemy. The universe turned out to not be a very chatty place. Humanity was alone in the universe.

Until one day they weren't.

Nobody knows why the Invaders came. Nobody could figure out what they wanted. What humanity quickly learned however, what that the Invaders were numerous, powerful, and on a quest to destroy all human life. With their great fleets and powerful armies the Invaders took one planet after another, toppling governments and nations, overwhelming and crushing military forces. Planet after planet was desolated, billions lost their lives in this senseless massacre.

Billions more fought back. Recovering from their shock, the human nations banded together as one for the first time in history. For ten long years the sons and daughters of humanity joined the battle against the Invaders. Mighty starships blazed away at each other for control of space, ground soldiers fought house-to-house against an entrenched enemy to rescue lost souls. Unimaginable horrors were inflicted on one side and then the other.

Numbers, resources, and the daring of soldiers and their leaders finally won the war. As powerful as the Invaders were, they could not keep up in the face of humanity's iron resolve. The tide turned and the so did the Invaders. With irreconcilable losses, they retreated with less then 1/7 of the ships they had begun with.

At a fantastic and ghastly price the war had been won. Recovery could begin. It wasn't going to be easy, for while some countries far from the front like the old and powerful Earth Federation had gone through the war without much infrastructural damage, others had been nearly wiped out or had collapsed under the pressures of war and peace. Reconstruction will be as long as the war as refugees and aid go this way and that and unstable governments try to solidify their power.

And just under the surface of everyone's thoughts is the dreaded question. What if the Invaders come back? Humanity had thought they were alone in the universe, and this ignorance had nearly destroyed them.

And that's when the newest incarnation of the United Nations declared the formation of the First Expeditionary Fleet. A scientific-military force whose stated goal is to follow on the trail of the fleeing Invaders, find their home base and asses the strength, and also to find out just what else is out there.

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Got all that? Cool. Now the sum up; YOU are a part of the First Expeditionary Fleet, as a part of the crew of a ship, maybe even as the captain of your own vessel! In addition to the military crew, there are civilians as well, diplomats and entertainers, scientists and journalists and others who volunteered to go along and aid in this cosmic quest. With your comrades you will explore the unexplored and see the wonders of the galaxy! And fight aliens!

Overall I'm aiming for a consistent and hard feel for the science fiction involved, so please use some discretion when thinking up your character. More information concerning the setting will be available upon request.

Normal RP rules apply. GM will accept or reject depending on how well they mesh with the game. For the time being, alien characters will not be considered, but multiple characters are welcome and even encouraged.

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CHARACTER SHEET

• Name: What do we call you?
• Gender: Boy or Girl? Professor Oak want to know!
• Age: How old are you?
• Appearance: That hairstyle is soooo 2740's.
• Skills: What can you do? Of what use are you?
• Bio: Where are you from? Why are you here
• Occupation: What do you do in the fleet?
  • Rank: Military characters only.

Roster:

• James Energa, played by Deus Dactyl

edited 9th Jan '13 3:47:18 PM by Parable

So... Space Opera RP, if I'm getting this right? Will have to think of something, then!

...So, uh, just in case I fall back on old habits... Would a mecha pilot be okay?

Depends on the mecha. If it's something Gundam-esque, I'd have to say no. Something a lot smaller, of the more terrestrial variety, would be acceptable though.

So something more along the lines of a Knightmare Frame would work, then? I can work with that.

Smaller and sans the roller blades.

They're only about 4 meters tall, though. Although I'm fine with ditching the rollerblades.

Alright, that's cool.

Questions answered elsewhere:

The first two are only frequently used on large ships or platforms. Plasma won't be like a hand gun but can be used in larger high powered personal weapons. Cyborgs, within reason, yes. Don't go making Robo-Cop on us. Sentient A.I.s, no.

edited 6th Jan '13 1:48:17 PM by Parable

Ooh, looks fun. Just need to come up with a character idea.

Um, just out of interest, how heavily combat-oriented is the RP going to be? I mean, based on the fact that you emphasised the presence of non-military personnel, I'm guessing there's going to be a fair bit of non-combat stuff. I just want to know if it's feasible to play something like a cook (for example) without making them an expy of Akito Tenkawa.

edited 7th Jan '13 12:37:21 AM by tachikaze

Burn up, hurricane of justice!

I've never seen Martian Successor Nadesico, so you could make an expy and I wouldn't even notice.

In all likelihood, while fighting will pop up often, I think the more exploratory and character interaction nature of the game will take front seat. In some cases, a few characters will be fighting while the others are doing things of a more diplomatic scenario.

Definitely going to write up a character sheet for this when I get to a computer. Espatiers (redshirts) forever!

edited 7th Jan '13 5:37:16 AM by DeusDactyl

This certainly looks interesting. Would a xenobiologist be an acceptable character?

The Danse Macabre Codex

Totally!

• Name: James Energa
• Gender: Male
• Age: 22
• Appearance: Short, muscular, and black-haired. He wears a dark green t-shirt with the black uniform of the Espatiers, and a set of battered dog tags. Is Ambiguously Brown.
• Skills: Small arms (handling, cleaning, operating), hand-to-hand combat, basic medical care (stopping bleeding), improvising equipment
• Bio: Energa grew up on an inner planet with the brothers and sisters of those fighting on the front lines. When he graduated secondary school, Energa, along with most of his classmates, enlisted to fight. He completed Espatier training in time for humanity's counterattacks, and was a squad leader throughout most of the fighting to retake human planets. When the Invaders fled, Energa reenlisted into the Fleet to wipe them out once and for all.
• Occupation: Espatier (space marine), humanity's infantry.
  • Rank: Corporal / most junior non-commissioned officer.

edited 12th Jan '13 3:05:35 PM by DeusDactyl

Accepted!

Interest detected. Perhaps I'll have a look.

Name: Virginia Ahn

Gender: Female

Age: 23

Appearance: Slender and deceptively youthful in appearance, thanks in part to a less-well-developed feminine physique. Usually can be found wearing clothing impractical for her scientific work, but somehow never gets it caught in stuff. Routinely wears her blue-tinted hair (black dyed blue) back in a ponytail secured by an orange patterned scarf.

Skills: Despite looking like a teenager, 'Ginny' is skilled in the creation, maintenance and general engineering of weapons and computer technology. She became the assistant to a prominent professor for her work in reverse-engineering Invader weapons captured on the battlefield. Not that the reverse engineering worked without the appropriate tools; she spent most of the time just taking them apart and studying them. Bio: Ginny was born on a world with an nationalistic government regarded by many other human settlements as oppressive, manipulative and dangerous due to numerous occasions of saber-rattling whenever a threat was perceived. Youth organizations existed to prepare children for later mandatory military service. Against this backdrop Ginny was seen as odd for not making many friends due in part to quirkiness and interest in machines. Before her term of service in the military came up, the Invaders arrived.

While her homeworld put up a stiff fight, and continued attempting guerrilla warfare with cut-off units after the official fall, it eventually went quiet. She traveled with her family to a refugee center on the last ship to escape the planet. Several members of the family were in the military, and her mother was a scientist; this ensured she was close to military environments as she became an adult. When she reached the appropriate age she enlisted with the remnants of her nation's scientific corps (everything back home had run through the Army), and assisted with projects to research captured Invader tech. She displayed an early aptitude for this, and helped to at least figure out how things worked, what their weaknesses might be, and the like. A professor also in the corps noticed this and took her on as a full time assistant. It was this professor that the united human effort recruited to the Invader-pursuing force. He passed on en route to the fleet, leaving Ginny in the precarious position of technically being a member of the fleet, but not having an immediate boss. Occupation: Scientist - Exo-Tech Specialist Rank: Effectively a Junior Lieutenant

Not sure if this works, but will edit and/or submit a different character accordingly.

edited 7th Jan '13 8:54:24 PM by Bombadillo

Avatar from: http://x0whitelily0x.livejournal.com/5953.html N: 5 F, 0/40 S

• Name: Arthur ‘Artie’ Shelly
• Gender: Boy
• Age: 26
• Appearance: Artie is an albino, with all that entails: white hair, pale skin, red eyes, and a healthy respect for sunscreen. He’s lean and a little taller than the average person, due to growing up on a planet with slightly weaker gravity than Earth, and because his homeworld was also colder than Earth he often wears light clothes that cover as much of his body as possible without making him too hot. Perhaps his most striking feature, however, is his visor; a cybernetic augmentation designed to protect his sensitive eyes from ultraviolet radiation, the visor is a pair polarized obsidian lenses housed in units built into his temporal lobes which connect to form a single unbroken band (in out-of-universe terms, think of it as a cross between Adam Jensen’s shades and Geordi LaForge’s iconic visor). He can retract the lenses at will, though he rarely does except in private for personal reasons.
• Skills: In addition to protecting his eyes from ultraviolet radiation, Artie’s visor can also record whatever he sees in digital format; the visor’s card drive can store thousands of hours of footage, and he has spare cards in the event that he runs out of space on his current one. He’s also had basic medical training and can administer first aid or CPR, but don’t expect him to perform surgery or fill cavities—he’s not that kind of doctor, he'll have you know. While he’s no warrior and would much prefer to let the Expedition Fleet’s soldiers handle the fighting, Artie does have some skill with a pistol and can defend himself; just don’t expect him to pull off trick shots or outdraw seasoned professionals.
• Bio: Artie grew up on Hak’az, a cold little mud ball with near-constant cloud cover and a weaker gravitational field than Earth’s; the planet was spared the ravages of the Invaders, so he never witnessed the horrors of that conflict first-hand. Having lived most of his life on that dreary, depressing world, Artie often wondered what life must be like on other planets; he’d always been fascinated by the idea of alien life, and when he learned that they really did exist he was thrilled. He threw himself into his studies, gaining a doctorate in xenobiology, and when word reached Hak’az that the U.N. was putting together an Expeditionary Fleet to explore the uncharted regions of the galaxy and learn what else was out there, Artie was all too quick to sign on.
• Occupation: Artie is a xenobiologist; his job is to study any alien species the Expeditionary Fleet comes across and find out what makes ‘em tick.

I hope this is acceptable; if any changes need to be made, I'll gladly do so.

The Danse Macabre Codex

Ginny and Artie are both perfect as is are are accepted! Welcome to the UN Expeditionary Fleet!

Name:  Jaxe 00088 00426

Gender: Male

Age:  26 

Appearance:  Tall with a small amount of muscles.  Greasy hair dyed a garish red and cut down to his jaw line. Complex tattoo over entire back terminating on upper-arms and lower-back. The design is thin soft lines slithering from a center point on his neck below the number 00088 00426.  Pale complexion from the amount of time spent in his rig.

Skills: Qualified in using the HED-SCAR system. Qualified pilot in remote control repair-drones. Qualified in external ship repairs in case of manual space walks. Ground and atmospheric vehicle repairs. Basic basic-weapons training.

Bio: Born on the ocean planet of Krilos. The planet of Krilos has no surface landmass and instead the surface of the planet is one never ending series of hurricanes. Under the ocean's surface is where all of the buildings can be found. Jaxe's home "town" consists of ninety large buildings capable of holding ten-thousand prisoners each. 

Jaxe was a class two resident, someone born into the system, so he had the privilege of receiving an education, in an attempt to reprogram him to be fit for the day he earned his freedom, he learned how to weld, repair circuitry, use a HED-SCAR*

and all the other tools needed to become an engineer for asteroid mining ships and vehicles. The scam is that a class two resident can never actually earn their freedom, but at least their rental contracts allow them to leave the tide. He and his two cell siblings were looking forwared to this fate when the invaders attacked. Krilos quickly lost it's volunteer forces over two years and started drafting. Being prisoners with the basics already needed to repair in space Jaxe, his cell siblings,  and about 500 other prisoners got drafted into the military engineering corps of Krilos. By the time the invaders got into the upper atmosphere of Krilos, he had finished basic training. His brother and sister both died when Krilos came under attack, one in the defense and one in the retreat. With Krilos fallen, the remaining government travelled with the remainder of fleet. Eventually the government disbanded before the war ended and the fleet and personal were absorbed by the other governments that had not fallen.

Occupation: Repairs.

edited 8th Jan '13 12:35:40 AM by InfalliableLiar

Stop caring and embrace nullness.

Right, time to try this.

• Name: Mors Aes
• Gender: Boy
• Age: 20
• Appearance: Looks fairly youthful, but despite this constantly rather haggard. Stark white, due to artificial means (a chemical leak from a gun turret on his home planet permanently caused it to turn white), but greasy hair cut short and rough. His skin is naturally a pale Caucasian, but is commonly tanned and burned due to a lot of sun exposure. His remaining eye is a light grey, but the left side of his face, including the eye, is missing and replaced by advanced metal cybernetics, highly functional but appearing like plain metal, a matte silver with a glowing red eye. His clothing is merely practical and generally fairly drab, be it civilian clothing or an adequately kept military uniform.
• Skills: Highly skilled as a medic, with everything from incredibly low-tech plants to highly advanced medical machinery. He was trained in action to work in civilian and military circumstances. His replacment eye also has not only the full abilities of a normal eye but also posseses some further ability, that being the ability to record what he sees and to augment his vision, providing an ability to display information or provide a further degree of sight.
• Bio: The world Mors hailed from was one which had its own fair share of war and troubles, and even when it seemed there was a chance for peace they became a front line against the invaders, a powerful military force composed of several forces which had previously fought each other. His father died at a young age and he was raised on a military base to fulfil the same occupation as his mother, a military medic. He learnt from an incredibly young age and quickly rose to great skill, and as was typical for that planet ended up treating people on the ground until they could pretend he was old enough, then sending him to war at the first opportunity, a fair deal younger than what they claimed their age of conscription was. He lost his eye and a chunk of his face soon after going to war, which was replaced by cybernetics. He was a soldier even against the invaders, and when they were defeated what was left of his homeworld drafted him into another war for that planet alone. That war lasted for only a month before burning out what was left of the planet, and Mors, with nobody else left by this point, ended up looking for a job and finding the fleet. Medical assessment declared Mors unfit for duty, causing him to be assigned as a civilian medic on the Athenian Owl.
• Occupation: Previously military, now civilian medic.

edited 23rd Feb '13 3:04:43 PM by Replica

@Replica: I think the equivalent for Private or Private First Class would work. Still not too sure myself on the rank structure

Jaxe and Mors are accepted.

Deus suggestion works.

I'm curious, is 00088 his middle name?

Question: how large is the fleet in terms of ships and manpower?

• Name: Cletus Deluxe
• Gender: Man
• Age: 30
• Appearance: Basically this◊ without the pony tail. So male, tan skin, regular height, blue-collared muscle tone, short - not buzzed - black hair.
• Skills: He can fix just about anything lying around that doesn't require a fancy doctorate in Computer Engineering or Quantum Physics, and cars as well, knows how to get even the toughest stains out of most materals, and can reheat/rehydrated/reconstitute rations right-quick. He also has a strong stomach and is able to not throw up even when faced with the strongest odors and sights.
• Bio: Born on Omaha Prime, Cletus wasn't really raised in the best of environments, often seeing his dad get beaten by loansharks and bookies. He helped out at his dad's autobody, though, and dreamed of being able to open his own shop one day. He was taking night classes in business management when the war broke out, and for the next ten years, he worked in the factories that were churning out. He started out on the lines, but wound up getting stuck with cleaning duty, and after a while, it just stuck. Now, he figures that if he's going to be snaking toilets and cleaning windows, he might as well get to see the galaxy while he does it.
• Occupation: Chief Custodian