This is an interest check.

Sometime during the late 21st century, a breakthrough makes interstellar travel both fast and cheap. Probes outfitted with this new drive discover several world within range that are already suitable for colonization. The United Nations Space Agency (Or U.N. SPACY) built a handful of colony ships so that humanity can build new thriving colonies - except on Bedlam.

Civilian shipyards get into the act, and eventually there are space freighters, cruise ships, and even yachts visiting these worlds.

The Scorpio is one of the Astrology line of cruise ships - this fleet of twelve ships run a one-year circuit from Earth to each of the colony worlds before returning. There are long layovers at each colony and the ship itself is well-stocked with entertainments for the travel between worlds.

Some passengers get on at one world, then off at the next while waiting for a retrograde ship of the line to take them back, while others go around for a complete circuit.

This is important, because all the characters are going to be passengers, nobody will be a crew member.

[list]
[*]Perhaps you're a singer doing a colony tour?
[*]Scientists or academics on a sabbatical trip.
[*]Aristocrats or the extremely wealthy on an extended holiday?
[*]A company rep making the rounds of the colonial offices?
[*]A spy collecting intelligence from one or more passengers on board?
[*]A currier making their rounds to the Terran Embassy (or perhaps one of the other colonies)?
[*]A fired employee whose settlement included a round trip ticket? 
[*]A Terran marshal who's picking up Earth tourists arrested for criminal behavior?
[*]A con man making a living preying on the lonely wealthy patrons?
[*]A P.I. who was hired to keep an eye on someone's wife or husband?
[*]A U.N. SPACY officer traveling to their next duty station?
[/list]
Or something else - just as long as we're clear they're a passenger.

Now, to no surprise, the cruise ship doesn't want passengers blasting holes through the hull. No bombs, battle suits, automatic weapons, armed drones, or combat lasers allowed.

Civilian slug throwers with sub-sonic ammunition and a license to carry, Zap pens, tasers, pepper spray ($$$ Cleaning fee $$$), and tangle grenades ($$$ Cleaning fee $$$) allowed. 

Unruly passengers can find themselves in the ship's brig, or sedated and hibernating in one of the cold berths.

Aliens - yes, there are some alien races in this game - and they all live on Bedlam, a former mining world now a refugee for a few hundred races stranded there following a civil war, which we think might be over. We have launched interstellar probes to check out some of the alien home worlds. They didn't come back. A few yachts go missing each year, but we can't be sure they got hijacked by aliens.

Bedlam gets its name not only from the alien diversity, but from the fact there's at least two or more races celebrating every day of the Bedlam year as a holiday. A quiet night is seldom.

Only a few non-human characters will be accepted - mostly because few can afford such a trip, and they stick out like sore thumbs.

[color=fff200]*NOTE: Aliens have been stranded on this remote mining planet for forty years, huddled around this desert spaceport rather than try for the greener areas. The canal feeding water to the city is about 38 years old. The being who helped push the construction of the canal and died during it is memorized as a statue under which his remains lies. He looks remarkably human.

It should also be noted that when the humans first arrived on the edge of the Bedlam system, concerned about all the debris from the wrecked warships and refugee ships that didn't make it down, one of the aliens recognized English and in very short order, the refugees knew it too, but it doesn't seem related to the guy who helped build the canal.[/color]


Yachts are very expensive and seldom found on a cruise ship simply because if you have a yacht, why are you on a cruise ship? However, there may be some personal shuttles (no interstellar drive) for those wealthy enough to have one.

So does this peak anyone's interest?