THE VAST AND EMPTY SKY - a Rupudska, Madhouse & Pub RP"A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless." - John Steinbeck
A battle in the Mother-of-Pearl Nebula between Cyanian Empire ships of the First Fleet (pictured) and the Vossonian Sixth Squadron. The ship in the foreground is the flagship HMS Dreadnought of the selfsame class, the remainders are the more common Arcadia-class battleships. All ships pictured barring the one currently exploding survived the battle.It is the year 3616, and it is an uncertain time in the galaxy's history we find ourselves. Three hundred and fifty years have passed since war ravaged it, and tensions once again are on the rise. The Cyanian Empire, born of the ashes of the slain, ancient Rheim Imperium and her allies and Man's great kingdoms and their allies, stood unopposed in the galaxy for more than half of those long years, leaving it free to expand and explore the Milky Way galaxy as it pleased. Even as its sheer size outstripped the pace of even the fastest messenger drones, even as its outer reaches resorted to a sort of feudalistic existence, the whole of the Cyanian Empire prospered, and people were free to travel the width and breadth of the cosmos.
No longer. The allies of Rheim may be either subjugated or crushed, but new enemies are on the rise for the Cyanian Empire. Far to the galactic north, in the outer reaches of the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, a reptilian threat looms: the Cipaqoaltus Federation, a conglomerate of sapient reptilian petty kingdoms, republics, and nation-states that uplift any reptilian species with a hint of intelligence and draw them into their ranks with propaganda, while simultaneously halting (or even reversing) the development of 'inferior' mammalian species, a stark contrast to the Empire's welcoming of all species willing to pay fealty. The Federation claims its democratic nature prevents the abuses of power and internal squabbling that the Empire has due to its feudalistic nature, but this is blatant propaganda. Their ships show little mercy to avian races and far less to mammalian ones.
And to the northeast, at the edges of the Perseus Arm, the Tarkellian Horde awaits any who dare enter the outer Perseus. A hive-mind headed by a telekinetic molluscoid race, they are more than willing to allow other species in - so long as they are willing to join the hive mind as its lesser members... or its slaves. What members of the Horde that maintain their sapience express a shamelessly unhidden sense of superiority - the Tarkellian homeworld took a scant eighty million years to make the leap from eukaryotic life to the spacefaring Tarkellians. The Tarkellian's telekinesis renders their natural sluggishness moot, as does the legged battlepods they use in combat. Not that many live long enough to be boarded - their ships are massive and never fight alone, and if they are provoked to attacking they prefer to destroy from long range.
None of the three powers are willing to share the galaxy with each other, but for the moment, none are willing to come to open war over the galaxy, either. So now the Milky Way holds its collective breath (or species equivalent), as demarcation lines, demilitarized zones, and terrae nullius spread across the galaxy like cracks in a window. The largest of these is the Great Void, a scar left behind by the Rheiman collapse. It snakes between the Scutum and Norma Arms before swelling up to cover the whole of the volatile Galactic Bar before diving under the galactic plane and continuing out to the edge of the galaxy following the Outer Arm south. No great power claims dominion over this or any other void, and lawlessness and debauchery abound. Some planets are run by organized crime, some by openly oppressive despots, some just by plain-old savages and primitives.
It is here, at the northern reaches of the Great Void some eighty thousand light years (and a few year's travel) from Sol, you find yourself on the dry, almost Martian Thrawn B7, a moon of the gas giant Thrawn B of the system Thrawn of the sector Thrawn. A lonely but nonetheless habitable world, the insectoid Thrawnians have three qualities that aid them well in the grey areas where law and lawlessness freely intermingle - They are welcoming, they are strong, and they are very good at looking the other way. The powers-that-be appreciate this, and like many such words they rarely bother the Thrawnian government, treating the entire planet as a sort of 'neutral ground' between the 'real' nations of the galaxy.
This is beneficial to you, a mercenary, for a number of reasons. Maybe you want to relax away from prying eyes. Maybe you want to live it up on the numerous orbital stations, famed for parsecs around for their lively activities, not all of them licit. Maybe you got your hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar (or came dangerously close) and are on Thrawn B7 just to lay low.
But that's not the reason you've come to this specific cargo space port town, Jinbe, on Thrawn B7. For some reason or another, you have drawn the attention of the Empire, and that is not the strangest part of the letter, telegram, or other such message you have received stating such. The Empire does not want you in prison, nor do they want your head -mounted on a stick or a silver platter. No, they want your help, and they have a job for you.
The job is simple enough: Escort a G-class freighter (which is to say a 400 to 500 meter long cargo ship with a hangar for starfighters and shuttles), the RMS Isaac through the Great Void from its hangar here on Thrawn B7 to a small docking station in orbit around Earth. No questions asked, and any previous crimes within the Empire to be waived*. The pay is tantalizing, and the pardon perhaps even more so. Sure, the Great Void is dangerous, but it'll be a hell of a lot safer for you than going through the Empire's territory, and a hell of a lot safer for the cargo (and possibly you) to go through Federation or Horde territory.
Right?
Galactic Map - it should be noted that the Great Void goes over Federation territory and under Imperial territory.
