So, with some trepidation and anxiousness; I return to running RPs, or at least, the thought of doing so. I have a great and undying love for modern military aircraft, sculpted heavily by movies of the 1980's and early 90's - my childhood - countless hours of building (and modifying!) plastic model kits, and, most heavily for the relevance to this RP idea, the Ace Combat series of video games. This also overlaps greatly with my love of science fiction, and combining the two, well, that's a given, and a great root for an RP idea. The basic premise I have in mind - and will be hugely expanded upon should this (pun intended) get off the ground, is that following an apocalyptic war against alien invaders, Earth's society has fragmented somewhat. Sea levels have risen and the geography has changed, some areas are rendered uninhabitable, and the world is a changed place. The United Nations have become a global government, with various independent nations, powers, and so on, rising up from the ruins as the world rebuilds from the earlier war. Struggling to meet treaty obligations and enforce peace and safety, and with what little 'standing' military it has otherwise stretched thin, the UN draws upon heroes and heroines of the previous war and their descendants to act as peacekeepers. Popular culture and public opinion has romanticised the notion of fighter pilots following the extensive use of airpower in the war, and the mythos of pilots as cool, heroic, and dashing 'sky knights' has become a strong one. The composite UN squadrons have adopted the name for this new approach of 'troubleshooting' pilots and their aircraft, sent to hotspots of trouble around the world. Especially, as rising powers have started to adopt reverse-engineered alien tech in their efforts to resist UN power and seize resources, territory and power for themselves, with old enmities and hatreds rising in the wake of the destruction. The UN has likewise employed reverse-engineered technology on their own craft, refitting tactical combat aircraft with new systems, weapons, and other equipment to give them an 'edge' as a measure to try and curb this rising power. And in the background, something bigger is stirring... The idea being that the players will pilot 'modern' to our time, and maybe even a little older - i.e. Cold War - aircraft with retrofitted gadgets against sci-fi enemies and tech, in a post apocalyptic, but still organised and civilized [i]enough[/i] setting, so that you can reliably have hi-tech weapons and vehicles around, and some places to enjoy that aren't dirt holes in the ground plagued by roving cannibal bondage gangs, and instead have modern conveniences and a semblance of civilization. Not looking for a huge group, and I'll elaborate more fully on the setting and specifics if I get enough interest for an OOC. Although, happy to answer questions, if people have them. At the moment, I'm still spitballing ideas as well. I've put it as 'advanced', but that's because I like to go into a lot of detail with background and story. You needn't know scads of information about fighter jets or the military to be involved, but a willingness to learn and at least some passing knowledge would be required. Equally, I'm not going to be slavishly adherent to the real world procedures, technology and minutiae of things; that just gets boring and cuts down opportunities for dramatic story-telling and exciting moments. Or encourages people to show off their knowledge, which just comes across as kind of... mm, 'bragging' or 'smug' sometimes. A healthy middle-ground is what's wanted, like the aforementioned Ace Combat, or something similar, like the Area-88 anime and manga. 'Fun, but with a semi-real twist' is what I'm aiming for. Really, as long as you can write well enough and sensibly, and put together at least a few lines with decent spelling and grammar, then that's good enough for me, regardless of the 'category' it comes under. Players will take on the role of pilots in one of the Sky Knights squadrons, so will be somewhat experienced pilots, and chosen because they're skillful, and meet the requirements of being capable and good at working together and meet the right goals and markers. So being a psychotic, anti-social, anti-authority borderline feral maniac wouldn't be one of them. i.e. no edgelord overpowered Mary-Sue characters. And no super-skilled teenagers.