Pluto VII [OOC]

[Cherubian]

The IC-Thread can be found here.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen to my first attempt at starting a group thread. I have never organized one before, and all but one of the group threads I participated in have died a slow death rather soon, but maybe – hopefully – this one will be different. I will try my best to make this happen, and with your help we might succeed.

The whole setting and its ramifications are a work in progress, and I will try to keep this thread updated to reflect its development. In particular suggestions by writers, those participating in the thread as well as those aspiring to, are definitely welcome.

 

[Cherubian]

General Overview

The story of this thread takes place at space station Pluto VII in a geostationary orbit around the planet Pluto. (I grew up learning that Pluto is the ninth planet in the system, and I do not care that they downgraded it to whatever now.) The station itself is huge, but has seen better days some 20 years ago. It is still in use, though, and maintained accordingly. More details can be found in the sections below.

The main intention is to create a fairly isolated microcosm with enough room for the players to maneuver. There are a surprising number of parallels to a frontier gold mining town in the Old West. The writers will act for various inhabitants of that station, be it a corporate manager, bodyguard, criminal, slave, or whatever you can come up with.

The roleplay will start sandbox style until the players have settled in a bit. From then on my intent was for the political situation on Earth to escalate, and to see how the station and its characters react, considering that it is the choke point in the Earth supply line for one war critical resource, but no nation on Earth can just send a few reinforcements due to the distance, which means the station and its small military contingents are on their own.

To keep the story interesting and not entirely confined to the interaction of the players with each other it would be welcome if each of the players would be willing to occasionally write for some temporarily appearing NPCs. If one of the players wants to seduce some high ranking official, that would be more fun if someone else plays that official. If someone wants to be raped by a brute, someone needs to play that brute, etc… This should for the most part be short term engagements only, although some might evolve into a recurring theme. I see this as a giving and taking for the greater enjoyment of everyone.

 

[Cherubian]

History

We are writing the year 2073. Over the last 60 years the geopolitical balance has changed. The United States have lost their dominant position. For too long too many of their intellectual elite went into banking or finance basically just trying to produce even more creative ways to create paper money, and in the 2040s that bubble burst violently, causing another world wide economical crisis that hit the US especially hard. Meanwhile other countries have caught up.

Russia has a despotic oligarchy trying to act as if it were a democracy, but where any opposition too vocal is crushed by the almighty secret police. However, driven by the greed and ruthlessness of the leading caste that held the economical and the political power its economy has prospered, and they are back at least on eye level with the US.

China has not changed much politically since today, albeit has gained a lot of economic power. By now its sphere of influence has expanded over most of southern Asia and the Pacific, even into the Middle East. Iran nowadays unofficially is just a willing pawn. The annexation of Taiwan in 2047 has caused quite the international stirrup, but Russia did not really care and the US did no longer have the means to do anything against it. By everyone’s guess it is only a matter of time until the dwindling Japan will follow the path of Taiwan.

The European Union has managed to stay intact, but the internal strifes caused by its federal structure have prevented it from rising to the number one global power. So it is just one of the big four, and the one most internally at odds with itself.

Africa still is just a toy in the hands of the big four, exploited for what little natural resources it has left and kept low by its own internal struggles, intentionally caused from the outside.

The four global powers currently are at an uneasy standoff, each still with enough of a nuclear arsenal to cause global mayhem. It is back to a four-way variant of the good old Cold War. While World War III could be averted yet, several smaller skirmishes however have happened, the biggest one happening as in 2046 China used a fake pretense to invade Australia, and the US as well as the European Union went to its defense. During the following three months most of the continent was devastated, and the local use of tactical nuclear weaponry – the only time this happened so far - turned large stretches of it into a radioactive wasteland. What is left of the continent kept its independence as China finally withdrew, but there was no real winner in the conflict.

In general the gap between the rich and the poor has widened again. Modern machinery has made most manual labor too cost inefficient in the 2030s, causing a huge wave of unemployment. Now, a generation later, societies are slowly adapting, but the wealth is still distributed unevenly. The dwindling of many of Earth’s natural resources, in particular oil, also has had its negative impact on the average person’s well being.

In the wake of the 2040s economical crisis a modern form of legal slavery has been reintroduced. Various reasons can lead a person into a contract of slavery, either for a limited time or for life, the most common one being personal bankruptcy. While theoretically laws protect the human rights of slaves in practice these are hardly enforced, and very few slaves dare to openly accuse their master for fear of what might happen to them should they not be able to prove their claims.

Technology has not evolved as far in general as analysts might have predicted in the early 2010s. In most areas of life not too much has changed since then, with two notable exceptions. For one, at the end of the 2020s significant improvements have been made to spacecraft propulsion technology, allowing for a more large scale exploration of the solar system. But even the fastest ships still need about six months for the one way trip from earth to Pluto.

The other advance was in bio-engineering and cybernetic technology. The insight into the workings of the human body has been greatly improved, and, especially motivated by the military, ways have been explored to enhance its capabilities, be it via genetic manipulation, vat grown improved replacement parts or cybernetic implants. However to this very day all but the minor modifications display significant negative side effects making them unsuitable for use by the masses.

Space station Pluto VII has been built from 2051-2052 in a period where the state of technological advance suggested that humanity was on the verge of developing FTL drive technology. In a rare joint effort of all the global players the remote location of the station was built as a testing ground to achieve the final break through. At its height it housed over 3 million inhabitants, mostly scientists, technicians, and whatever infrastructure was necessary.

However by 2060 it became clear that the enthusiasm was not warranted, and none of the promising attempts bore any results, so one after another the companies withdrew from the station, shutting down most of its operations. Finally just a token watch post and an astronomic observatory was left.

Its second spring, however, began in 2069. In 2068 a group of European scientist made a revolutionary discovery that allowed a save way to store Hydrogen by embedding it in crystal structures. This allowed hydrolysis to be used as a safe and efficient way of energy storage, and made hydrogen fuel cells a viable engine alternative, as now the energy that could be created by erecting huge solar plants in the remote deserts of the world could be safely transported to wherever it was needed. The only drawback, however, was that for the production of the storage crystals the rare isotope Palladium 110 was needed, Which on earth was very expensive to produce. But as fate would have it, huge deposits of exactly that one had already been discovered on Pluto.

By today, the population of the station has increased to half a million again. But where previously mostly scientist resided the station nowadays is occupied by mining companies, and whatever comes along with them. The mining itself is done by huge automated machines on the surface of the planet, but the space station is needed as a port for the gigantic freight vessels transporting the rare metal to earth after it has been refined from the ore.

 

[Cherubian]

Space Station Pluto VII today

The space station itself is a gigantic ball of metal about three kilometers in diameter. A huge engine in its core ensures earth like gravity throughout the station. Even with the recent influx of new inhabitants vast stretches of the station are still unoccupied, be it abandoned laboratories, empty housing complexes or vacated storage facilities.

The one center of the station is the space port, a high tech loading station for the shuttles from the planetary surface as well as the freighters on their way from and to Earth. The other is the so called Valhalla, the high security section where the richest companies have their headquarters, and where the highest ranking corporate officials reside together with their families.

Spiraling outward from it the quality of housing and living in general deteriorates. Next is the residential area of the higher ranked employees, and at the far end are the slums, where those that are barely able to make ends meet by scrounging up the scraps of the upper echelons make their living. As is usual wherever civilization goes crime follows, and a few crime syndicates have already formed on the station, for now operating mostly out of the lower end of the station. They provide the working populace with sex, drugs, gambling, and any other vices one can think of.

The station has its own security force, jointly financed by its ruling companies. But as everyone would guess security is mostly focused on Valhalla and the near neighborhoods, and like most everyone else is unwilling to bite the hand that feeds it, so impartial action cannot always be expected from it. Similarly a theoretical independent judicial system has been installed, that is judging crimes and handing out penalties based on some international consensual law, but like with station security its independence in practice is not what it should be like.

Each of the major political powers of Earth has its own embassy on the station, coupled with some military presence. No one likes the other side to be armed, but then everyone likes to keep his own weapons which leads to an uneasy standoff.

 

[Cherubian]

Application Process

One of the things I noticed harming group threads is an uncontrolled influx of players. I therefore will be very conservative in administering this one. In the beginning the thread will be capped at four writers, with me being one of them. If you are interested in joining, please contact me via PM first. This will not be handled on a first come first serve basis, instead I will handpick the starting writers completely subjectively, most likely depending on who inflated my ego the most with her application . Please wait for my go before you post in this thread for future coordination. Posting here before that will harm your chances of participation if anything.

 

[Cherubian]

Characters

So I have not scared you off yet, and you are still eager to join, but you need to know what needs to go into that PM you need to send me?

Well, first there is what usually is expected. There are very few limits to what you could be playing. Describe your character, describe her role on the station, her strengths, weaknesses, and her history. Spend a few words on any modifications she might have (if any), and their side effects. Do not forget to provide a name, either .

Besides that, as a little experimental special, I would like you to define her attributes and send the values you have come up with to me. See the corresponding section below for more details.

Once the first drafts of your characters are accepted I would strongly encourage the writers to come up with a good reason why their characters are in regular contact with each other. The bodyguard might be employed by the gangster, etc. If necessary, please be willing to make minor adjustments to your backstory to achieve this. At that point the discussion in this thread can get started.

 

[Cherubian]

Attribute System

I will try a little experiment here, and bring a few numbers into the character creation process. Ideally this will help to better define each of the characters, and also resolve the occasional issue about who is better at which task. Each character will start with a number of attributes. It is always tricky to sum up all the various capabilities of a human being into a set of numbers, and compromises were necessary in grouping the various skills. I hope I have struck a good balance, but I am always open for suggestions.

The attributes have a value on a scale from 0 to 5, with the exact value having the following meaning:

0 – Even for a regular human you are extremely lousy at this. You most likely have some disability that is the reason for this score to be that low.
1 – The capability of an average regular human.
2 – The capability of a very capable regular human.
3 – Either the capability of an extremely talented regular human, or of a very capable human with some minor modification.
4 – Modifications are very likely involved for most stats, coupled with very high natural capability. You are extremely good at this, and there are at most half a dozen humans on the station with that level of expertise.
5 – The best. The result of exceptional natural aptitude combined with extensive modifications. For any attribute there may be at most one character who has the stat at this value.

Note that for some attributes (e.g. Leadership, Persuasion, …) no modifications are required to reach level 5.

The attributes currently used are:

Abstraction: This stat covers two aspects of your character. The first one is the ability to process complex sets of data, be it theoretical physics or complicated stock processes. The second one is the ability to memorize things.
Body: Your raw strength, as well as endurance
Combat: Your ability at violent conflict resolution, be it unarmed, with melee weaponry or firearms.
Coordination: Your agility, reflexes, and speed
Electronics: Your ability to handle, repair, maintain, and even build technical devices without any moving parts. These are mostly computers and other electronic devices. It also covers attempts at hacking other computer systems and picking of electronic locks.
Leadership: Your ability to have other humans to follow your lead, be it as a military officer or a corporate manager. This usually affects larger crowds/teams of people and works mostly through the characters magnetic personality. It also covers large-scale empathy.
Mechanics: Your ability to handle, repair, maintain, and even build technical devices with any moving parts, like engines, vehicles, machinery, etc. It also covers picking of mechanical locks, and in a loose interpretation of the term ‘moving parts’ this also includes any sort of chemical reaction, in particular demolitions.
Perception: Your ability to notice things. It also covers how keen your senses are. It might also cover limited empathy.
Persuasion: Your ability to convince others to see things your way. This usually affects single targets and works through the characters convincing reasoning. It also includes any attempts at deception and covers small scale empathy.
Willpower: Your ability to not crack under pressure, to resist outside influences, and to just be generally stubborn.

I have intentionally left out physical attractiveness and the capability to seduce, as this is a SRP forum and therefore everyone should be entitled to be as hot and sexy and she feels like, so these attributes can still be freely defined by the writer without limitations.

You get up to 25 points to distribute among these. Since there is no strict rules system behind these yet that would strongly affect your role playing experience, a character with less that 25 is definitely viable. If you want special advantages (ambidexterity, a very high position in one of the corporations or within station security, etc…) this will cost you points. I will set the point value of a particular advantage on request. Similarly, taking a particular disadvantage beyond the flavor induced drawbacks of modifications might earn you extra points, although I am a bit more reluctant here and will decide case-by-case.

Regarding modifications: In many attributes they are required to reach the highest attribute levels, and any but minor and cosmetic modifications come with some drawback. Be creative here. Usually the fact that the nervous system has been tampered with and some substantial part of your body is either a machine now or at least severely changed by bio-engineering is most of the time the cause for some sort of psychosis.

As mentioned above for each attribute there may be at most one character having a value of 5 in it. If two of you want to be the best at some particular task I will be the referee and decide, using some incomprehensible ways to come to my decision.

No character may have a value of 5 in more than two attributes. If the character has two attributes at 5, they have to be closely related. Mechanics and Electronics is a reasonable combination, Persuasion and Combat is not.

Also I expect some common sense when attribute points are assigned. I do not want to see a technical genius (Mechanics and Electronics at 5) that has an Abstraction of 1.

 

[Cherubian]

Reserved.

 

[Cherubian]

Reserved ..

 

[Cherubian]

Reserved ...

 

[Cherubian]

Reserved ....

 

[Cherubian]

By now we have enough applications, and I would therefore ask everyone I notified via PM to please post their characters. Discussion is also now officially open.

 

[Cherubian]

Name: Michaela Kleinschmidt

Gender: Female

Age: 25 (born in 2048)

Appearance:
Michaela has a slender well toned body with a slim waist, long shapely legs and a small but firm behind. In stark contrast to that her breasts are almost unnaturally large (around a DD cup), which is unexpected on such an athletic woman.
Her face could be considered very pretty, if it were not for the hardened and abrasive expression that dominates it most of the time as well as her cruel and cold dark brown eyes. Her hair is black and currently of about shoulder length.
Michaela usually does not pay much attention to her wardrobe, wearing plain, functional, and often old and washed out clothing.

History:
Michaela was born and grew up in Germany. Her father left her mother before she was even born, and they barely managed to make ends meet, avoiding a slavery contract for both of them only by a hairbreadth several times. She herself grew up as an average girl with average looks that was good at sports but did not display any other special qualities or ambitions.
When she was sixteen, her mother died in a traffic accident, and she was on her own. Not seeing any other way to avoid slavery she enlisted with the armed forces. The basic training turned her into a disciplined, loyal and somewhat talented soldier, athletic and a good marksman, but definitely not officer material.
Which was exactly what the scientific division was looking for. They wanted some talent in their test subjects to make it worth the effort, but not risk the lifes of valuable soldiers with lots of combat experience. So she was approached with the offer to participate as test candidate in some “Improved Training and Body Development Program”, as it was called. Not knowing what that really meant, and actually a bit proud that she was chosen she readily signed the agreement. She had condemned herself to a time in hell with that.
It turned out the main focus of the program was on highly prototypical military body modifications. The complete nervous system was replaced by vat grown improved tissue, and the rest of the body was adjusted by major genetic rewriting, basically building her completely anew. Nobody could gauge what effect these combined and never before attempted procedures would have on the human body, and the results were a disaster. Of the three dozen test subjects those that did not die immediately of the shock to their physique suffered horribly from a months long constant agony as the transformation took effect, and almost everyone displayed other, terminal, side effects of the manipulation of their genetic code, eventually causing fatal mutations in all but one of them. Michaela was the lone lucky survivor, but she was also changed by the experience.
Maybe it was the fact that her nervous tissue had been completely replaced, maybe it was them messing with her genetic code, maybe it was just the trauma of the experience, but most likely it was a combination of all three. The result was a woman that was no longer loyal and disciplined, but rebellious and antisocial, often rude, sometimes violent or cruel, and subject to extensive mood swings. These were not the attributes that the initiators of the project were looking for in the super soldier they were trying to build, and so she, like her deceased comrades, was labeled a failure. Finally the decision was made to shut the project down. She was drugged and left behind, with an explosive set up in the heart of the facility to erase all evidence. But their modifications had been too good, and the effect of the drug wore off far sooner than expected, allowing her to escape just in time before the bomb blew up everything. Now presumed dead she had no desire to return to the service, and knowing that should the initiators of the project find out that she survived she would be hunted she ran as far as possible, to the end of the known world, space station Pluto VII.
Almost broke she is now trying to find some employment to earn her living. Her less than charismatic attitude and her very specialized, although excellent skill set do not make this any easier.

Modifications:
Michaela’s main modification is her completely rebuilt nervous system, allowing her to process any information and execute any action at a speed far greater than any normal human could. Her musculature has been enhanced to cope with this rapid speed increase, and her sensory capacity has also been biologically enhanced. One of the scientist probably thought it would be funny if he snuck in a little modification to her genetic code that caused her breasts to grow to and stay at DD cup size no matter how hard her physical exercise would be.
There is a price to be paid for this, though. For one there is the above mentioned effect on her personality. She can reign herself in to act civil, even well mannered, if her motivation is strong enough, but only for a limited time. Then the genetic change causes her body to react unexpectedly to various substances, one of them being alcohol which has a far more devastating effect on her. And lastly there are the more subtle effects of perceiving the world around her in slow motion all the time, without any option to return back to “normal”. To blend in somewhat Michaela has learned to slow down her movements, but she tends to overcompensate when doing that making her appear slow and sluggish.

Attributes:
Abstraction 1
Body 3
Combat 5
Coordination 5
Electronics 1
Leadership 1
Mechanics 1
Perception 4
Persuasion 1
Willpower 3

 

[kittenofdeath]

Name: Jason Smith
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Appearance:
Jason is a fairly unimposing figure, he’s tall, standing at 6’3 even with the bit of a hunch he usually has, but the rest of him just looks about as bulky and fierce as a newborn. He’s in excellent shape though, his body is the product of a strictly enforced diet and mandatory exercise, with practically no fat on him and even a bit of muscle definition he could almost look strong if he took his shirt off and flexed.
His right arm is fake, up to just above the bicep it’s a perfect cybernetic copy covered in synthetic flesh, completely undetectable to the naked eye, but from there turns to a cold metal shoulder as it joins with the skin, the bracing for it extending over parts of his chest.
His hair is a light brown, almost blond even, and it falls back behind him just past the shoulder blades when he ties it back to work, though most of the time he leaves it down, letting it frame his rather soft face, which tends to make people miss the cold spark of a cruel intelligence that hides behind his dark green eyes.

Skills:
Abstraction: 3
Trained to be a thinker, so he can solve complex problems like a child’s puzzle, though he lacks knowledge on a great number of things.
Body: 1
He’s in shape, but that’s about it, apart from the cybernetic arm he’s pretty average.
Combat: 1
About as useful in a fight as an old man.
Coordination: 1
Rather clumsy with anything other than his hands.
Electronics: 5
Genius in every sense of the word, skill and talent mixed with state of the art hardware implanted in to his head.
Leadership: 1
Not a leader, but not a follower, both involve relying on others, and they can’t be trusted to stay loyal or not fuck up.
Mechanics: 3
Mostly theoretical knowledge, but he learns fast and knows how to improvise.
Perception: 1
Normal, kinda crappy if anything, needs glasses to read
Persuasion: 3
Not a people person, not in the slightest, never bothered learning how to be one, but when he doesn’t have to be nice, and is sufficiently motivated, he can pull strings like a master puppeteer.
Willpower: 2
Spite is a truly outstanding motivator, and Jason is a spiteful man, but it only helps so much.

Flaws:
Bad eyesight, needs glasses for close up work, but fine otherwise.

Modifications:
The most obvious one is his arm, a simple replacement job by his owners, nothing special about it, though Jason has made the slight addition of a spring loaded blade in the wrist. A rather expert creation, the slender yet durable blade is disguised so well within the arms normal parts that its virtually undetectable by any means, not that he's ever had to use it.
He also however, has radical and extensive augmentation to his brain, countless procedures of both biological and cybernetic alteration were used to make his mind a useable supercomputer that aids Jason in his tasks, and can be accessed externally by an outlet on the back of his neck.

Biography:
A slave, born one, raised one, and regretfully still one, Jason had been used as fodder, an expendable test subject to save the useful kids they were messing about with, but he was more capable than they knew. He staged an almost successful escape attempt, after manipulating and tricking almost all the other test subjects in to causing some kind of distraction and plunging the facility in to chaos, he made his move. He almost made it out, but one of his fellow test subjects figured out that he had tricked them all and decided he needed to pay for that, so she doused his right arm in some exceedingly vitriolic compound she had cooked up, quickly turning the limb in to a stump.

He was in no condition to run at that point, he tried, but he failed, he then tried to talk his way in to it not being his fault, but that failed too on account of the final goodbye he had programmed in to the facility’s computers, some photoshopped pictures of the wardens wife, he didn’t take it too well. After that, things actually got better, he had failed, but he had failed spectacularly, enough to make them well aware of how useful he could be in the future, so he stopped being expendable, though the other test subjects didn’t take too kindly to him.

Years passed, he grew, learned, lost and he was eventually deemed ready for service, officially, he has to be a programming expert assigned to the Pluto VII branch, unofficially, he is the exact same thing, only he programmed other peoples things, such as erasing information from other peoples computers, or writing a virus to simulate a hardware fault in someone’s cybernetic lungs.

 

[Belinda35]

Name: Fiona Cole

sex: female

Age: 40 (born in 2032)

Appearance: She is a slim black woman and looks younger then she is. Someone said that she would look like an idealized mixture of Marsha Hunt and Angela Davis. This description isn't really that bad. She has her hair in a large round afro-look, but she is not as tall as Angela, her skin is darker, her body a bit more buxom but still very slim, and her features are different, her lips are fuller, her eyes a bit bigger. She is 5'8 tall and has measurements of 36-24-37, C-cup. She wears more decent make-up and is dressed elegant, but rather cool. Typical is a black turtleneck and very tight bellbottom pants, sometimes she wears a miniskirt or minidress and boots.

History:
Fiona is intelligent and highly educated, and she applied for a high rank in the american embassy. Many people on earth were happy that she left, and she was happy to leave earth and its political system and the slavery behind. Soon after she arrived, she made first enemies by her unforgiving and strict manners. But she has always been good enough to cope with that. She is the supervisor of financial affairs with earth, and so quite an important person to deal with. Having her as enemy, will mean a lot of trouble. She has also a large collection of files about many people, that contain explosive informations. She has taken care that this information will reach the right hands if she should die suddenly. Only very few people know about her secret political ambitions on Pluto VII, and thoise people will not tell. She has also taken care that nobody can prove her anything about the way she supports her political groups with money, besides propganda materials as their head ideologist. Her enemies have nothing in hands against her in legal terms, and they would not dare to kill her. They are looking for other ways to gdeal with her, and she is aware of danger coming. She is not sure if she knows all her enemies, and she does not know how who might be aware of her secret politic agenda and its details.


Modifications:
none

Attributes:
Abstraction 3
She is highly skilled and educated, which makes her a feared enemy. She knows the system very well which allows her to take some liberties that others donÄt have.
Body 2
Although slim and feminin in apperance, she is in a very good physical shape, surely about average in her age group.
Combat 2
She is certainly not a great fighter, but she does some training in self-defence.
Coordination 2
She is not extraordinary, but still quite well in that.
Electronics 1
She has only basic skills. She works with computers, but does not go into the technical side.
Leadership 3
She has experience from her jobs in govertment and education, and is now in a high rank in the embassy. She has also an equal position in her more secret politic agenda.
Mechanics 0
She has no interest in such things.
Perception 4
It is one of her main weapons to be well informed what is going on. She quickly finds weaknesses and dark secrets and she reports all of them to have them handy.
Persuasion 3
She has moved herself in an influental position in her job and personal politic matters. Her intelligence and knowledge give her quite some advantages in persuading people.
Willpower 4
Her willpower is almost an obsession. You could even say she is fanatic in her goals.

 

[Talon]

Name: Seth Plissken
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Physical description: A tall young man, just over six feet, with a well developed physique and broad shoulders. Dark shoulder length hair frames a cleanly shaven face with dark eyes set below a thick brow. His facial features, while certainly not unattractive, are rarely enough to set him out from the crowd. He carries himself with an air of confidence, and speaks with a slight country drawl.

Brief history: Seth was born on a cattle ranch in Texas in the year 2046. His parents had at one time successfully owned the land they worked, but after the collapse of 2040 and the technological advances in the farming industry they eventually had to surrender their land to the Federal Government in 2052. His parents both had to enter into a slave contract in order to feed Seth and his older sister, Kate. As Seth grew older he naturally gravitated to a life of crime, and with his parents gone and his sister unable to control him, Seth was eventually arrested at the age of 16 for attempted Grand Theft Larceny. Facing jail time or mandatory early enrollment in the Armed Forces, Seth chose to join the U.S. Army and leave his family behind rather than rot in jail.

Unlike ordinary life Seth excelled in the military. He was drafted into the Infantry and eventually became part of a Covert Operations unit. His unit participated in many of the small conflicts that took place between the four World Powers in their Cold War, all of which are still currently classified. Seth was discharged after ten years of service honorably, and after returning home he found that his parents had passed and his sister left on a slave contract. He tracked down enough information to determine where she had gone, and with the little money he had left from his military pay her booked transport to the Space Station Pluto VII. He plans to find work on the station as a bodyguard or in a security detail.

Body Modifications: Seth has only one mod, received during his military service, an experimental adrenal gland enhancement. Extremely high tech for the time, the mod is wired into his nervous system and helps regulate the gland's administration of adrenaline into Seth's system. This effect triggers when the mod detects distress and keeps a steady flow of adrenaline into his system throughout the episode, improving his reaction time and pain resistance. The mod also slowly tapers off the adrenaline to prevent the "crash" typically associated with coming down from an adrenaline rush.

Attributes-
Abstraction: 2 - Slightly higher than average intelligence, but a very quick study.
Body: 3 - Well muscled frame developed from years of military training. Not enhanced with body mods.
Combat: 4 - Weapons expert. Excels in firearms and hand to hand combat.
Coordination: 3 - Just recently seperated from the military he is still in tip top physical condition.
Electronics: 1 - Can understand and operate most technological devices with basic proficiency.
Leadership: 3 - Discharged as a 1st Lieutenant, mostly experienced with tactical leadership of small Spec - Ops teams.
Mechanics: 1 - Can understand and operate most mechanical devices with basic proficiency.
Perception: 3 - Excellent uncorrected vision. Trained to be aware of his surroundings at all times.
Persuasion: 2 - Proficient in basic interrogation techniques. Trained in light espionage should he be captured in the field on mission.
Willpower: 3 - Stubborn, at times to a fault.

 

[Cherubian]

Very good so far, so now about the initial setup...

Seth and Michaela are both easy, they will sooner or later (rather sooner) end up in Fiona's service. The reason for that will be apparent soon enough.

That leaves Jason. The easy way would be for one of the involved parties to come into the posession of his property rights. Either Fiona who is looking for a tech expert and purchases him legally, or either Seth or Michaela win him during some gambling session or whatever.

Additional suggestions and comments are always welcome. This is the discussion thread, discuss!

 

[kittenofdeath]

Very good so far, so now about the initial setup...

Seth and Michaela are both easy, they will sooner or later (rather sooner) end up in Fiona's service. The reason for that will be apparent soon enough.

That leaves Jason. The easy way would be for one of the involved parties to come into the posession of his property rights. Either Fiona who is looking for a tech expert and purchases him legally, or either Seth or Michaela win him during some gambling session or whatever.

Additional suggestions and comments are always welcome. This is the discussion thread, discuss!

He could attempt an escape and screw it up somehow, such as transfering himself to a lot of slaves marked for sale, intending to escape at whatever facility he gets transfered to, but then either one of the scenarios you describe happens, or he actualy does get away and then needs help to stay free, at which point he could hire someone (Seth or Michaela) or gets protection from Fiona in exchange for his services.

 

[Talon]

Sounds like a good idea. I had the idea that my character would be looking for some cash immediately upon arrival to the station so he would certainly be for hire. He has some deep hatred for the slavery system, so not a problem for him to help Jason escape legally or not. Would probably leave room for some interesting scenarios in the future if Jason escapes rather than just being transferred to another 'employer.'. I guess it depends on how cleanly you want to wrap that up, because I'm sure the place Jason escapes from wouldn't be content to just let him go.

Also depends on how you want the characters to meet for the first time. If you want the same sex characters to meet first or if you want female/male interaction first. We could also wrap this thing up easily by having Fiona send both Seth and Michaela to get Jason. I'm good with any of these scenarios.

 

[Belinda35]

Fiona is sworn enemy of slave trade, and this opinion of her is known. It is not illegal to dislike slavery (I guess), but it makes her many enemies.

 

[Cherubian]

Well, I have a very nice (in my opinion) intro scene for Fiona and Michaela already forming in my head that will bring the two of them together, and Belinda agreed to it.

So it would probably indeed be best if Seth helped Jason during his escape. Maybe he just comes along as Jason is being taken into custody by one or two thugs? Then when Fiona is looking for more muscle and hiring Seth he could just bring Jason along - where else would Jason go after all. And once it turns out he is a computer genius he'll be more than welcome.

I have no particular preference regarding same-sex or opposite-sex couples forming first, but this way just seem like it would make the most sense.

The disadvantage would be that except for same-sex encounters the sex scenes would have to wait a bit....

I will try to get the IC thread started soon.

 

[Talon]

I can definitely handle that. So I'll just write an intro post and then I'll react to kitten's post in whatever manner he chooses to make contact. Doesn't nessecarily even need to be a payment type deal, if your running from some thugs or getting jacked by them Seth is not going to just demand payment upfront before jumping in. So feel free to go wherever you want with that, I'll react accordingly.

I have a few setting related questions I was going to PM you with Cherubian but I thought everyone might benefit from the knowledge so I'll post them here.

1. What is the street level of weapon tech? Still using slugs/cartridges, or have we moved on to more advanced technology?

2. How prevalent are firearms and how difficult are they to acquire?

 

[Cherubian]

Regarding Talon's questions:

1. Weapons have not advanced that much, it is still slugs/cartridges. Just think about how much weapon technology has advanced during the last sixty years (i.e. not THAT much when you really think about it). The individual handguns are maybe more precise/durable/sophisticated than what we have today, but that is it.

2. You do need a special permit to carry a firearm. The closer to Valhalla you move, the more likely this rule is actually enforced. There is always the option to try to hide the weapon, but metal detectors do exist, again mostly near Valhalla.
You need to provide a good reason for obtaining such a permit, "I just like to have a gun" does not count. But officially working as a bodyguard most likely will suffice.
Acquiring a firearm illegally is not impossible, but harder than in a contemporary American city, the criminal scene in that regard simply is not as developed (yet). If you have a permit, it is no problem at all of course.

 

[Cherubian]

The IC Thread is finally up here. Go at it, girls and guys.

 

[Belinda35]

Bye the way, if anone does not know what an afro is, look here:
//img.timeinc.net/time/photoessays/2011/women_revolutionaries_mr/angela_davis.jpg
or here:
//lh6.googleusercontent.com/-EwlBsas1ZgM/TXKQeTw-puI/AAAAAAAAAj8/PkQuGQai8I4/s1600/Marsha+hunt+red.jpg