Utterly Mad

Alright, I have never run an RP, but I tried to write a book a few years ago. The idea was really good, but I lost interest in it because I tend to write stuff I'd like to read. I already knew how it ended and had the whole thing written in my head, and basically thought to myself "yeah, that was decent" and never actually bothered to finishing committing words to paper.

But! The general concept keeps popping up in my head and I think it might make an interesting RP. This thread will be fleshed out a little more this evening and tomorrow, if there's interest, but here's the general concept.

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GENERAL CONCEPT

It's the future, the far, far future. For thousands of years, mankind reached for the stars, using STL sleeper ships. Excitement about the cosmos and what they might hold dominated every aspect of the human culture for a hundred generations as they began to explore the stars. When messages began to trickle back from explorers and new colonies hundreds of years away, it was realized that mankind was alone - while there was plant life to be found throughout the galaxy, and strange beasts here and there, there was no other sentient life anywhere.

This realization struck mankind hard - there was no need for co-operation when there were no outside threats to mankind. There was no need for unity when profit could be made. There was no one else out there, just a universe ripe for the taking. Wars broke out, the global government broke down, and the core regions of human space, namely the solar system, nearly tore itself apart.

Eventually, one faction came to dominate all others, and created the United Terran Authority, claiming control over all of the domains of man. Of course, this in practice was restricted only to the solar system proper, and those colonies who were willing to submit to their control - as FTL travel was not yet obtainable, the UTA had no real way to enforce it's will on the myriad colonies that had sprung up over the course of history. Not only that, but the wars that tore through Terra's solar system also destroyed the records of where most of those colonies might be - mankind has found home on thousands opon thousands of worlds over the march of time, but of these, only hundreds have been located, and even few have been contacted.

Much of this was soon to change. Within eight centuries of humanity's "unification", the UTA announced that they had found a way to move vessels at speeds far exceeding those that anyone had drempt of before. While this technology could be applied to any ship, it was costly to produce, and the knowledge required to do so was so closely guarded and complex that it could almost be considered magic. While fleets of warships, and colony ships, would be equipped with the new warp drives, trade ships, passenger vessels, and other civilian crafts would, for the most part, be left to rely on the warpway network. This network was far simpler to utilize, and consists of large "Gates" that use relatively simple technology to alter the perceptible mass of a vessel and then accelerate it to faster than light speeds. Like a ball launched from a cannon, these ships plow through space until the mass conversion loses hold, then gradually slow to sub light speeds. The UTA has accordingly constructed "corridors" through space with launching stations at regular intervals.

Travelling this way is dangerous - a poor calculation or a malfunction in either the ship or the gate itself can result in ships being launched off course, too slowly, or in some other fashion that leaves them drifting alone in the vast expanse of space, usually with no hope of recovery and no course of action except to make peace with whatever deity the crew follows and wait for the food to run out. It is, however, not quite as dangerous as travelling in a warp capable ship. Besides the chance of becoming terribly lost, warp-ships also run the risk of colliding with previously undetected objects, being subjected to piratical attack, or, as time has proven, simply never re-entering normal space. It takes a bold captain and a brave crew to man these ships.

You are one such person, and you occupy a rare position in within the empire of the UTA - you are a free captain (or one of his trusted advisors). Some how, you or one of your ancestors found yourself in possession of a registered warp ship, not under direct control of the UTA military. Rather than being forced to subject yourself directly to the will of the UTA, you operate under a Warrant of Liberty - your ship and your future is your own, with some conditions attached. This can range from being required to regularly maintain contact with the Fringe Worlds and report happenings there, to supplying new colonies with resources they may require, to participating in military actions or subjugating re-discovered colonies who have not embraced the unity of the UTA. While your situation and possession of the Warrant is not unique, it is not common either, and you could be considered minor nobility if such a thing existed in the UTA.

Your journey starts as such. There is a galaxy to discover, intrigue to pursue, and wealth unimaginable to be found. There are also dangers - rumors of planets outside of the UTA having developed FTL travel abound, and there are many who are not subtle in their jealousy of your station.

Trust no one, and enjoy.

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So, that's the basic idea - there's a bunch more lore, but it's not worth writing unless someone is interested. Conceptually, and assuming anyone signs up, you will have free reign to do whatever you want, in as much or as little detail as you want. The violence will be very realistic, the science based in something close to 'reality', and, should you chose to follow it, a set storyline with a good twist ending. You can also just fuck off into the vast unknown and see what it holds.

As I said in the rec room thread, this is mechanically based off a greatly simplified version of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader (the first ed. rulebook for 40K), but with a different if similarly dark universe. I will supply stats for whatever you guys want, but you can ignore all that and let me track shit instead too.

If you'd like to play, there's a couple firm rules:

1. One person is the captain. If everyone wants to be the captain, or no one wants to, then he will be an NPC (your dad or grandfather or something) who does nothing, leaving that up to you guys as the PCs.

2. Actions will ALWAYS have consequences. You wanna fight the UTA alone, that's fine, but expect to die. Some will not be so obvious. Welcome to an RP where the DM overthinks things alot.

3. Char sheets will be up later. There will be a few hard stats which will be adhered to for my sake (much like what AJ has with SPRAWL), but you're pretty much free to make whoever you want so long as it's somewhat feasible according to whatever science looks like in 500,000 years. Beyond the stats, a bonus to the chance your actions have of succeeding depends alot on how RP-ish you are. Extra credit given for you saying *how* you're convincing the local governor to give you access to his personal army rather than saying "I convince the governor to bend over" or whatever. Besides designing a character, there is also a ship to design if you'd like, or I can do that. Don't matter much to me.

4. The mechanics of the game will be obeyed (I'll detail them further if anyone cares, otherwise you can just trust me that they exist), unless I decided to do something completely different with them mid game. I'm new to this and have no idea how simple or detailed they should be to make this fun.

5. As I mentioned, I will supply a story and some quests and shit for you to follow if you want, but the forward movement of the RP will mostly fall on you as a player. If you don't want to follow the story, then you'll have to come up with some other goals and I'll do my best to make that just as interesting.

Think that covers the basics.

Sounds cool.

This will actually go in a new thread as it comes up, so that I have an IC way of linking specific bits to you. I just can't easily get on the image server from home, so it gets hung onto here.

can i be a hacker man with robotic hands?

A quick question since it pertains to my character idea: Does the UTA have any notable crime organizations in it's territories?

I am exited for this, Get those ref sheets up!

As a final note on characters, if you need more setting info, ask away. Some stuff is set in stone, but most is not. If you picture grim-dark, you're probably close.

And just as a heads up - if you haven't noticed, being in this RP will require a fair bit of reading. I'm wordy, to put it politely. You don't need to be, but be ready for the text-walls.

That looks great! A chaplain is, to many, a welcome addition in the lightless voids.

There is still religion, though it's fairly planet to planet as the UTA has no time for it or interest in controlling it. It plays a very important role in some places, and none at all in others.

Only thing I'd maybe mention - ballistic weapons such as you mention are the most common weapons by far, being low-tech and easy to maintain, present pretty much everywhere, and generally unable to pop a hole in your own ship's hull on accident, but there are laser weapons, as well as energy enhanced melee weapons, and other sci-fi conventions too.