[center][url=https://ibb.co/MxqQLCtP][img]https://i.ibb.co/hJpwvm42/paradose-lost.png[/img][/url]

[hider=Theme Music][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88G5zFWBWng&list=PLMzepslwWUzoqV5kfpIGDyCNUX8_tsnTM&index=2[/youtube][/hider]

[b]500 years ago Earth fell to the waves of AI controlled machines.  Out of that, our people survived, fleeing to the far reaches of the Galaxy where we settled and rebuilt, though much knowledge was lost, including the star charts that might guide our path home.  But now, another threat has found us and once again we must take to the stars in search of a new home or, perhaps an old one...[/b][/center]
[hr]
[h2]WELCOME![/h2]
Hello and welcome to Paradise Lost, an RP where you will play one of the survivors of the Colony of Eden, fleeing from an exterminating enemy horde on a colony ship.  Perhaps you were intended to be on the colony ship, perhaps you snuck onboard.  Either way you're there now!

Eden is a colony with humans and aliens.  You can play either, using one of our main races, or even design your own, though if you're keen for that, join the discord and we'll work one out with you!

In the end, everyone on the ship, human or alien is looking for a new home in an unknown hostile galaxy.  Maybe you'll find somewhere new to settle, or maybe you'll try to head back towards the legendary homeworld of 'Earth'.

Lastly, this RP is open to latecomers.  To make that easier, we're going to declare that the colony ship is full of colonists in stasis.  If you want to join late, we'll just wake someone new up.

Lastly, I've tagged the 18+ bit so that we can explore darker themes.  Not to write porn.
[hr]
[h2]SETTING[/h2]
It is the year 3822 and the galaxy is barely recognisable.

In the Year 2307 ‘the United Nations of Sol’, by then a wealthy Faster-than-light civilisation, joined the ancient ‘Federation of Civilised Worlds’ led by the first spacefaring races. The Federation had lasted for thousands of years and at the time of signing into it, the people of Sol thought it would be eternal.

It was not. By the 27th century, there were growing rifts between the first spacefaring races, with their ‘herd mentalities’ and the more individualist younger races. A number of civil wars shook the Federation. As the Federation struggled with internal problems it was struck by two outside threats that, collectively, proved it's downfall.  The first was an invasion of a devouring insectoid swarm known as the 'Metacer'.  The second was the result of (illegal) AI research in the Sol system - a particularly powerful AI went rogue, sparking the 'Machine War'.

As far as anyone knows the Machine War destroyed the Sol system, though at least one convoy of refugee ships managed to escape, fleeing into a Federation 'Reserve'.  The ships put down on an uninhabited garden world the refugees named 'Eden'.  With their vessels out of fuel and in need of repairs, a temporary settlement was established with the expectation that the Federation would find them at some point, when stability had been restored.  But nobody ever came.

It took the best part of two centuries before the Colonists were able to begin producing new FTL vessels, though the drives they constructed were slow and primitive compared to the ones they had been using prior to settling in Eden.  Star charts from before the migration were non existent.

No sign of Federation or AI vessels was found though a few nearby planets were found to harbor primitive species, not capable of space flight.  The Colony of 'Eden' began to expand, settling on other planets, clashing with and occasionally assimilating the locals.  By 3822, New Eden has expanded to (nominally) control five habitable worlds (though clashes with primitives continue on all planets but Eden), with mining operations on several other uninhabited ones.

Otherwise, Eden began to function much like any other capitalist state.  Farms were built on the colony worlds.  Companies mined on planets and asteroids.  A division grew up between the rich and poor, though the colony remained, for the most part, a fairly equitable meritocracy.  Unlike on Earth, where humans formed the elite in society, on Eden, the Dhasath and Kiellar (alien groups) are just as well represented.

A year ago, however, the outside world finally found the Colony of Eden.  Nobody knows exactly how they landed on Eden and her colonies, but Metacer began to be sighted for the first time in 500 years.  Initially the military was slow to acknowledge their existence or act on the threat, eventually doing so when the first small towns were devoured by the ravenous swarms.  By then, however, it was too late and the collapse of Eden's military was swift.

Today you find yourself one of the lucky ones who made it up to Eden's orbital shipyard where a colony vessel has been being outfitted with the hope of migrating, once again, to a new home.  Rumours are circulating that the Metacer are breeding in the bowels of the station, though that couldn't possibly be true... could it?

[hr]
[h2]LORE[/h2]
[h3]Technology[/h3]
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:

[b]Skrim Drive: [/b]The Skrim Drive is the basic FTL drive used by all species in the galaxy, 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.

[b]Translator Nanites:[/b] Translator nanites, injected into children at birth and which inhabit an individual's brain, allow people to understand most, though not all, alien languages. Translator nanites self replicate, which is useful since nobody knows how to make new ones or, really, how they work.

[b]Energy weapons (Blasters):[/b] 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.

[b]Shields:[/b] Large ships are always fitted with energy shields to prevent damage from space debris as well as weapons from other ships. Shields on surface vehicles etc. have been experimented with but are too heavy to be practical.

[b]Body Armour: [/b]Body armour exists though isn't widely used.  It can minimise injury from handheld weapons rather than completely absorbing the energy from a shot.

[hr]
[h3]The Metacer[/h3]

The metacer are large, ferocious omnivorous insectivores that devour anything that gets in their path including crops, livestock and people.  Most metacer stand about four foot tall, but are around twice as long and appear a lot like an enormous brown ant.  They can move extremely fast and do not appear to feel pain.  Most metacer are not sapient, being little more than dumb animals.  Big, dangerous, dumb animals but dumb animals all the same.  Command Bugs, however, are not and can seemingly exert psychic control over hordes of workers.  These metacer won't usually expose themselves to hostile fire, but if you can find and eliminate them, you can significantly lower the combat performance of nearby workers who will become confused and disorientated without the presence of a Command Bug. Somewhere, a nest will have a Queen, who can also exert psychic control over workers and is significantly larger, though a lot less dangerous as the Queen is usually so swollen with unlaid eggs she can barely move.  Killing the Queen will slow down reproduction, though to be absolutely sure that other Command bugs won't grow into a Queen, all of these individuals need to be hunted down as well.


[hr]
[h3]Species of Eden[/h3]
[u][b]Humans[/b][/u]
As I'm assuming you are a human so I'm not going to write too much here.

Overall humans are the majority of the Eden colony, making up just over half of the population.
[hr]
[u][b]Dhasath[/b][/u]
[b]Singular:[/b] dhasath
[b]Plural:[/b] dhasath
[b]Adjective:[/b] dhasath
Naming: [url=https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/etruscan-names.php]Click here for a generator that will spit out some thematic names.[/url]

[b]Biology: [/b]The dhasath look like humans though they trace their ancestry to the Andromeda galaxy and are regarded as an old-medium aged race (having taken to FTL travel some 450 years before humanity).

Dhasath have less phenotypic divergence than humans and mostly look like Eastern Mediterranean/Middle-Easterner/Iranic people. While humans and dhasath are indistinguishable to look at, species with a strong sense of smell can tell them apart, usually finding dhasath to be sweet smelling.

Dhasath have the same lifespan as a human, though they are fully mature by age 14. A dhasath pregnancy is shorter than a human one (six months) and they produce ‘litters’ of, on average, 2.5 children. All of this means that, given good conditions, dhasath populations can explode.

In addition to this, dhasath require very little water to survive (and very rarely sweat) and can survive extremes of both heat and cold that would kill a human. In periods of stress, dhasath females will stop ovulating.

As a byproduct of their evolution for harsh climates, dhasath produce chemicals in their blood and saliva which can induce euphoria in other species if consumed. This had led to legends of dhasath being able to mind controlling victims with a kiss, though these are only legends.
Unusually, humans and dhasath can produce viable hybrids. Genetic tests indicate that dhasath and humans might have diverged from one another around 1 million years ago, though nobody has a particularly good explanation as to how this happened. The current working theory is that this might have been the work of some long dead precursor civilisation though if it was, all traces of their existence is now gone.

[b]History and Culture: [/b]According to legend, and dhasath religious texts, the ‘Dhasath League’ was a power in the Andromeda Galaxy in the 1600s that was eventually destroyed by an alien race known as the ‘Ragons’ though some legends suggest the dhasath are even older than that, a ‘phoenix species’ who rose from the ashes of a destroyed empire aeons before that. Some of the survivors of the Ragon invasion found their way to the Sol system after the human uplift, becoming major players in Martian politics.

In the 24th Century, when Earth joined the Federation of Civilised Worlds the dhasath began to form communities across Federation space and, when the Federation was destroyed three centuries later, were one of the species that expanded to fill the void left by the extinguished Federation species.

Unusually, the dhasath were something of a species-religious group, almost universally following a syncretism of Christianity and their own native religion known as ‘Makerism’ through which the dhasath clergy were able to explain all things that happened to their species, as part of a divine plan. This has continued in Eden with religious texts detailing their flight to Earth and later Eden.

Around a quarter of the population of Eden are dhasath.
[hr]
[u][b]Kiellar[/b][/u]
[b]Plural:[/b] kiellar
[b]Adjective:[/b] kiellar
[b]Naming:[/b] Kiellar are usually referred to by their first name, but on official documents will be known as <Name> of <Father's name>.  [url=https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/the-witcher-elf-names.php]Click here for a generator that will spit out some thematic names.[/url]

[b]Appearance:[/b]
[img]https://i.pinimg.com/236x/00/b4/2e/00b42e35b5a877b52725522293ad7739--shadowrun-returns-male-elf.jpg[/img]
Kiellar are a moderately tall race, with males averaging about and females about 5’8’’ and males about 6’2’’ with generally slim builds.  Their skin tones are similar to those of humans, as are the colours of their (almond shaped) eyes.  Kiellar hair is similar in shade to human hair, though it is noticeable finer and body hair is sparse.

[b][i]NB: If you want to make a kiellar character and want to use a picture, Shadowrun Elves make good models.[/i][/b]

[b]Biology:[/b] Kiellar have an average lifespan of about 200 years. While an individual Kiel will reproduce slowly (gestation period is one year), kiellar remain fertile for most of their lives and that, coupled with their natural resistance to disease, means that the kiellar population as a whole can multiply quite rapidly – it is not unusual for a kiellar couple to produce over 20 offspring in a lifetime, with over a century between the youngest and the eldest.

Kiellar, additionally, have strong night vision.

[b]History and Culture:[/b] Kiellar legends state that 2,600 years ago, the first kiellar ships left their homeworld of Relenar, somewhere in the Andromeda galaxy, to begin exploration of their solar system. Initially a group of waring Nation States, the kiellar became eager terraformers, turning inhospitable moons into habitable planets before over the course of the next century.

Strife, however, quickly broke out between the colonies, with some seeking independence from their home nations, which in turn ignited a wave of brutal wars across Relenar. Out of the ashes of this rose the ‘All Kiellar Republic’ which sought to unite the waring kiellar nations into one system-wide Republic. At first it seemed like a fantasy, however, the Republic continued to win until, by the time the kiellar discovered hyperdrive technology 2,400 years ago, the whole system was united.

The discovery of alien life came as a shock to the kiellar who, to that point, had assumed they were the only intelligent life-form in the universe. The Kiellar Republic began to trade with some of their interstellar neighbours, however, the kiellar culture was expansionistic and, bit-by-bit, the kiellar began to absorb their neighbours.

The first major setback occurred when the kiellar encountered the Dhasath League who destroyed the Kiellar Fleet, forcing the Republic to pay war reparations. This, in turn, paved the way for the military to seize control of the Republic, claiming the defeat was the result of corrupt politicians. The Kiellar fleet was rebuilt and the Second Dhasath war was a minor (and very unexpected) Kiellar victory, with the League handing over several mining stations and border outposts, but retaining all their inhabited worlds.

Following on from the Second Dhasath War, and the subsequent destruction of the League at the hands of the emergent Ragon Empire, Kiellar Command rapidly became the dominant power in Andromeda, conquering and enslaving innumerable other races, though as they did, increasingly large proportions of their military were required to keep their subjects in line. The Ragon Empire exploited this weakness during the War for Andromeda and Kiellar Command would have collapsed were it not for the intervention of other powers to help defeat the Ragons.

The damage, however, had been done and, following on from the war, Kiellar Command disintegrated into a morass of waring states controlled by rebels or military cliques.  Refugees poured across into the neighbouring Milky Way galaxy and by the time of the Machine War, kiellar were an increasingly common sight.  

kiellar make up around 20% of the population of Eden.
[hr]
[u][b]Other Species[/b][/u]
Due to the large amount of apps for unique species, this is closed for nopw.

[hr]
[h2]THE RULES[/h2]
[hr]
In summary, 'don't be a dick'.  But here they are if that comment is confusing:
[hider=RULES!]
[list][*][b]Decisions[/b]
My word and the word of 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 intend to run this thread as an anarcho-communist cooperative.  This is an unnecessarily complicated way of saying that my word [b][u]DOES NOT[/u][/b] overrule theirs.  So don’t ask me to overrule one of the others.  I won’t.
[*][b]Post Quality[/b]
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.
[*][b]Posting Commitment[/b]
Nothing is worse than making an RP only for it to die. Please try to check in to see if there is room for a post every 24 hours or so. If you find yourself unable to post for extended periods of time, please let us know on the Discord or in the OOC thread.  If it looks like you've abandoned a character in the middle of a fight scene I might decide to kill them off, if I'm feeling particularly malicious.
[*][b]Posting Speed[/b] 
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.
[*][b]OOC thread Manners[/b]
Nothing annoys me more than bad manners on an OOC thread and in the Discord channel. Swearing, passive-aggressive sniping or any other rude behaviour are not welcome on the OOC.  You will be warned once.  If you can’t control yourself I will ask you to remove yourself from the thread.
[*][b]IC thread Manners[/b]
Remember, we are writing a story together, [u]not trying to win[/u].
[*][b]Character Death[/b]
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 (such as [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snTaSJk0n_Y]this[/url]), I reserve the right to announce your character has got themselves killed.  Likewise, if someone goes inactive without explanation and cannot be raised, I may decide to kill their character off.
[*][b]Keep it tasteful[/b]
Yes, this is an 18+ RP but please try to keep things tasteful.  Generally speaking if there isn't a narrative reason for writing stuff other people will find offensive, don't write it.  We'll ask you to correct, warn and/or ban depending upon how far outside the realms of common decency you are and whether we think you're taking the piss or not. 
[*][b]Banning Players[/b]
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.[/list][/hider]


[hr]
[h2]APPLICATION FORMS[/h2]
[hr]
The moment you have been waiting for!

Feel free to app anything you think your character might do.  

Additionally, feel free to write up a number of characters!

When filling in an application form, please delete everything in parentheses.

[hider=Character App]
[h3]Character Description[/h3]
[list]Name:
Species:
Sex:
Age:
Role/Job: (feel free to be creative!)
Appearance:(Feel free to describe with text or put pictures in here.  Please do not use anime face claims.  They're so stylised it's hard to identify defining features)
[/list]
[h3]Strengths and Weaknesses[/h3]
[list]
Skills: (Is there anything you are significantly better at than most other people?  If you include something, make sure it is backed up in the background)
Weaknesses: (Is there anything your character is really rubbish at?  Not essential you put anything in, but can be fun)  
[/list]

[h3]Background:[/h3]
[list]Backstory:(How did you come to be here?)
[/list][/hider]