Welcome to Andromeda: To Boldly Go, a character RP set in a future universe very much like our own. In this RP you will have the option of playing a human or one of several alien races who live in the Sol System and who form the officers of the Cruiser UNS Destiny II. Your mission is to explore unknown worlds and sectors that have fallen into chaos in the aftermath of an intergalactic war. There will be monsters! There will be hostile aliens! There might even be another intergalactic war! This is not Star Trek though; Earth isn't a harmonious utopia and the greatest challenge could be dealing with the different species on the crew...
There will be room for you to write a member of the military, a scientist, a medic, an engineer or any other reasonable role you might think would be on the ship. Everyone you app will be an Ensign, though we will promote someone to be the head of each department immediately prior to launching the RP!
This is not going to be a spaceship RP in the sense of big space battles, this is an RP about the people on the ship and will mostly be set on a variety of strange alien planets... although there is scope for missions on the ship.
This RP is part of the larger 'Andromedaverse' family, though there is no need to have read any of the other RPs to participate. It is set 150 years after the others. Similarly, if you are RPing in an Andromeda thread, some things in the Universe might seem a little different.
This RP is open to latecomers. The UNS Destiny II has a crew of 300, most of whom will be NPCs. If you enter a bit late we will assume you've been along for the ride the whole time, just haven't been part of the core story yet.
Finally, if you want to join and are looking for inspiration, feel free to join the Discord. This thread is a sequel to 'Voyages in Andromeda', the tremendously successful RP that we have been running for the last year. There is a strong, friendly, community that has built up around the Andromeda RPs and there are plenty of people who will be willing to help you create a character... or just have a chat!
SETTING
The year is 2176. The 'United Nations of Sol' are a minor power in the Milky Way with access, through a Wormhole, to the Andromeda Galaxy. Sol is wealthy, though there is growing resentment towards the large population of alien settlers who have made the system their home...
There and Back Again: The Vanishing of the Original Destiny and the Wormhole to the Andromeda Galaxy
In 2026, a multi-national mission to mars was launched from Earth on the spaceship, 'Destiny'. The voyage was expected to last 300 days, though on day 104, abruptly and without any prior warning, the ship disappeared. As far as the Governments of Earth were concerned, the Destiny and all her crew were lost. Eventually, it was decided it must have been some kind of mechanical failure, though no sign of the vessel was recovered.
Nine months later, and after many adventures along the way, the surviving crew members returned to Earth through the 'Wormhole' that nobody had known had existed piloting a highly advanced alien starship known as the 'Defiance'. They did not come alone though. The crew, it discovered had made friends and allies during their time in the other Galaxy. The crew had been supplemented by a number of aliens and they had ostensibly aligned themselves with an alien State known as the 'Gollar Confederacy' which in turn drew the attention of the Milky Way’s Hegemonic Power, the ‘Federation of Civilised Worlds’.
The War for Andromeda
The returnees from Andromeda also revealed that Andromeda was embroiled in a galaxy-wide war between the forces of a massive, imperialistic, military-controlled state, ‘Kiellar Command’ (colloquially known as ‘the KC’) and a predatory alien race known as the Ragons and the war was not going well for the KC.
After several months of debating, it was agreed by the Gollar Confederacy and Federation of Civilised Worlds to assist the KC, despite their ideological differences. This proved the turning point of the war and after many long months of struggle and hundreds of millions of dead, the Ragon Empire was forced to sue to peace and the KC established a heavily militarised buffer-state known as the ‘New Doona'tay Republic’ (the NDR) within striking distance of the ragon homeworld ruled by an unusual mix of renegade ragons and human-like aliens known as ‘dhasath’.
Throughout all of this, Earth remained neutral.
The Galaxies as they are now
Kiellar Command had hoped that the NDR would allow them to focus on quelling internal revolts without needing to keep a constant eye on the ragons. However, the losses from the war proved too much for the bloated empire to survive and over the next fifty years it collapsed under successive waves of dissent and revolution.
Earth was flooded with refugees from the other side of the wormhole, mostly kiellar, with a significant number of dhasath as well (who hoped that their similarity in appearance to humans would allow them to assimilate).
Trade routes still exist between the Confederacy and Federation, though they now require military escorts across the vast expanse of anarchic former KC territory. Earth’s position as the first/last port of call for traders going to and from the Milky Way has meant that it has become wealthy off the back of that trade. To help solidify this, the forces of the 'United Nations of Sol' have seized control of several systems near the wormhole, though there are no permanent Sol colonies in Andromeda, yet.
The United Nations of Sol
Over the last 150 years, earth has expanded to colonise much of the solar system. Mars was terraformed into a liveable planet, while extensive habitats have been established on the Moon, Europa, Ganymede, Callisto, Titan and Enceladus with a combined population of 10.5 billion.
While, initially, all colonies were administered from Earth, large-scale civil unrest on Mars led to the creation of the ‘Martian Federation’ in 2115 though most of Earth’s powers retain control of a port facility on the planet, much to the resentment of the Martian population. Following Mars gaining membership of the United Nations, the organisation was renamed 'the United Nations of Sol'.
While most countries retain their own military arms, due to the considerable expense of operating space warships, the 'Sol Armada' is a joint project under United Nations jurisdiction, though most officers have served in a state military first.
The Destiny II
The Destiny II is a Frontier Class Deep Exploration Cruiser. It is a formidable warship though it is primarily designed to allow for exploration voyages of several years. It is around 300 metres in length with 14 decks at the rear, a central 'neck' section of 5 decks and a 'nose section' with 9 decks.
The Bridge: The Bridge is found on the top deck of the rear section of the ship.
Habitation: Habitation spans the rear and neck of the ship with officer berths closer to the bridge. Officers and civilians have their own rooms. The rear habitation section also contains several mess rooms, gymnasiums, bars, recreation rooms, a VR suite, a cinema and a swimming pool.
Science: Science labs are housed in the rear and nose of the ship. The ones at the nose are generally not used unless the crew are dealing with something dangerous that they need to isolate.
Engineering: Engineering sits in the bowels of the rear section. All essential ship systems are regulated from here.
Docking: The Destiny II carries a compliment of 12 fighters and 3 shuttles. The fighters are housed in a docking bay under the nose with rapid launch facilities while the shuttles are housed in a larger bay in the rear section.
Storage and hydroponics: Storage facilities lie under the living quarters in the rear and neck of the ship. The rear section also houses a hydroponics deck: as everyone gets fed up with preserved food after a while.
Uniforms: Crew wear a utilitarian blue uniform with a high-necked brown, leather collar and epaulettes. Gold insignia are attached to epaulettes.
Computer Systems: While there is an AI on the ship, AI, in the setting, has proved to not always do what it's told so there are certain things the AI does not have control of to ensure that the ship does not end up in a HAL 9000 situation. Specifically, the weapons systems, life support, door controls and HR files, confidential logs and the top secret cypher are housed on a discrete system. There are also overrides in engineering and the bridge to cut the AI's access to navigation systems. Finally, there is a big red button the captain has at his disposal which will cut all power to the server bank with the AI files on it, in the eventuality the AI is trying to kill the crew.
LORE
Technology
As this is sci-fi, there are a number of pieces of technology that will be mentioned in the RP. Here is some info on them:
Skrim Drive: The Skrim Drive is the basic FTL drive used by all species in the both galaxies, allowing them to phase across to hyperspace where an object can travel faster than light. Opening a hyperspace window requires a lot of energy and several minutes to 'spin the drive up'. Skrim Drives are prone to overheating and longer hyperspace journeys will need to be made in hops. That, along with the speed limitation means that most journeys between stars will take days or weeks and movement between galaxies is believed to be impossible.
Most ships can detect a hyperspace window opening or closing a few minutes before the ship utilising their Skrim drive moves through it.
Translating alien languages: The United Nations of Sol use a 'translator-microcomputer-earpiece' when talking with aliens. Other cultures in the milky way usually use translator nanites injected at birth, though Sol does not due to the large proportion of people uncomfortable with injecting small robots into their brain. The earpiece works just as well, though you do need to remember to put it on.
Energy weapons (Blasters): Most weapons used in warfare are energy weapons. Units that are not connected to a generator (such as handheld weapons) will require a battery pack that usually allows for around 100 shots to be fired before needing to be swapped over. A person struck by an energy weapon can expect serious, deep burns with a high chance of death if the discharge travels through a major organ.
Shields: Large ships are always fitted with energy shields to prevent damage from space debris as well as weapons from other ships.
Body Armour: Body armour is in use by the marines, though it mostly minimises injury from handheld weapons rather than completely absorbing the energy from a shot.
Non-Human species of Sol
THE RULES
And because it seems important to include these, here are a few rules for how to behave on the NS forums, just in case you hadn't figured it out already:
- Decisions
My word and the word of any and all Co-OPs is binding. If you don’t like a decision, you can, of course, ask for us to reconsider it. Once. If we made a decision you don’t like, complaining for pages and pages is not going to endear you to anyone. Not me, not the Co-OPs and not your fellow writers.
On that note, I run my threads as anarcho-communist cooperatives. This is an unnecessarily complicated way of saying that my word DOES NOT overrule theirs. If there is an appeal and a dispute amongst the Co-OPs we will take a vote on the matter. - Post Quality
I don’t have a problem with short posts but please use proper spelling (I don’t care what regional variant), grammar etc.
Ideally also try to include a 'hook' when you write a post, which is to say something that gives other people something to respond to. If your post is something along the lines of 'Bilbo Baggins stayed in his room and read a book while the world was ending', don't be surprised if nobody responds to you. - Posting Commitment
Nothing is worse than making an RP only for it to die. Please take a look to see if there is a place for you to post at least every 48 hours or so. If you find yourself unable to post, please let me know in the OOC thread for an extended period of time. If it looks like you've abandoned a character, particularly in the middle of a fight scene, I might decide to kill them off in a hilarious manner. - Posting Speed
On the flip side, blitz posting can also be infuriating. So, especially during the important scenes, I recommend giving your fellow players a reasonable time to make a reply. We all have real lives. That being said, if someone leaves everyone waiting for over 48 hours, feel free to carry on the scene without them. - OOC thread Manners
Nothing annoys me more than bad manners on an OOC thread (apart from that 'Look at my horse, my horse is amazing' song). Swearing, passive-aggressive sniping or any other rude behaviour are not welcome on the OOC. I will warn you once. If you can’t control yourself I will ask you to remove yourself from the thread. - IC thread Manners
Remember, we are writing a story together, not playing to win. - Character Death
Player death is possible in this RP, though will be quite rare and easily avoidable. Please don’t write that you have killed another character unless you have OOC permission from the character's owner to do it. Beat them into a pulp or take them prisoner, but don’t kill them. Having said that, if someone does something really stupid, I reserve the right to announce your character has got themselves killed. Likewise, if someone goes inactive in the middle of a fight scene without explanation and cannot be raised, I may decide to kill their character off. - Godmodding
If your character is unfairly refusing to take any damage I will write them taking damage for you. You're welcome! - Keep it PG13
Shouldn’t need to be telling you this really but keep the erotica and gorn off the thread. Hopefully you all know how to write forum-safe stuff. I will be extremely disappointed if the mods have to pay us a visit. - Banning Players
I really don’t want to be doing that but reserve the right to do so if you cannot follow the (hopefully, rather simple) rules above.
CHARACTER APP
This may be revised as we go on, but for now the only rules for characters are:
- No psychics.
- No personal equipment that is miles better than what the military has e.g. magical armour or super-guns.
- Keep your characters fit the setting. I might ask you to tweak bits if it isn't.
- Not compulsory, but it is highly encouraged for your character to start with a bit of a bad attitude towards one or more of the other races.
- No more dhasath-human hybrids.
Also please remember that for you to be a crew member you were hired to do something on the ship. The bar isn't incredibly high, but if you app a character who has no discernible skills and a drinking problem then I'm going to ask you to redo the app.
Please delete everything in parenthesis.
- Code: Select all
[box]
[size=150][b]Character Description[/b][/size]
[list][b]Name:[/b]
[b]Species:[/b] (Human, kiel, dhasath, gorial or berdikon)
[b]Gender:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Appearance:[/b] [spoiler](Feel free to describe with text or put pictures in here. If you are using a picture, personally, I find it easier to picture a character who is shown in photo/realistic drawing though I'm not going to get funny about anything else. Unless it is your personal stick-man art. I might draw the line at that.)[/spoiler]
[/list]
[hr][/hr][size=150][b]Strengths and Weaknesses[/b][/size]
[list]
[b]Skills[/b]: (Is there anything you are significantly better at than most other people?)
[b]Weaknesses[/b]: (Is there anything your character is really rubbish at? Not essential you put anything in, but can be fun)
[/list]
[hr][/hr][size=150][b]Background:[/b][/size]
[list][b]Nationality[/b]: (Pick a RL nationality or 'Martian')
[b]Department in the Ship[/b]: (Where are you working?)
[b]Backstory[/b]:(How did you come to be here? Also, please note that, unless agreed otherwise, your character is an Ensign)
[b]Personal effects[/b]: (You get a uniform, armour and a weapon if you need it. This is a place for personal bits and pieces that make your character more interesting)
[/list][/box]