<[b][url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/24780/posts/ooc]Sheets[/url][/b]> <[b][url=http://widget02.mibbit.com/?settings=c2129339a43d8c49d86c34fa8dff7610&server=irc.foonetic.net&channel=%23Waaagh]Chat[/url][/b]> [CENTER][IMG]http://art-on.ru/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Manyuhin-08.jpg[/IMG] [I]Vladimir Manyuhin's post-apocalyptic rendering of the Lincoln Memorial.[/I][/CENTER] [B]TL;DR Summary:[/b] [indent] - Earth has undergone a nuclear apocalypse following a great chaos in the 21st and 22nd centuries that depopulated much of the planet and set it back to a new dark age - Hundreds of years later, civilization exists, but as isolated communities focused on subsistence, and some kingdoms of cobbled-together tech attempting for trade. - It's a world lit only by fire - In all, the tech level is pre-industrial -- while useful technological knowledge for survival survives in some aspect, the means of manufacturing has devolved. Also, resource depletion makes redevelopment of technology much, much harder. - That means electronics and things that are generally made with advanced industry do not exist. Blacksmithing, for example, has made a comeback. - Humanity continues, though at a greatly reduced population level with a much reduced life expectancy due to a lack of modern medicine. - And then the aliens invade, with advanced weaponry and tech, intent on goals they have not explained, using robotic foot soldiers to do their bidding. - The characters are part of the same region; [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence,_Missouri]Independence, Missouri[/url] -- not the pre-apocalypse town, more like a community built on the bones, at the intersection of two rivers. Some of the characters can be part of the ruling class, the underclass or even, from further west, part of a tribal horde of some sort -- nomads with even less tech than the 'civilized' folk. - Advanced Standards - Please post the character sheets in the [url=http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/24780/posts/ooc]Character Sheet Thread[/url]. - [b]Important[/b]: We need to discuss social, political and religious issues such as the conflict between various cultures within the Midwest, notably tribal types (maybe patterned off of Native American tribes, but perhaps also descended from various other groups), religious groups vs. secular scholars, urban vs. rural and so forth. This can be very rich and interesting...and also, in the face of an invasion by outsiders, the politics are going to be a sticking point. Let's develop this together. ;) [/indent] [hider=In Character][B]In Character Info:[/b] [indent][I]In the 21st and 22nd centuries, Humanity shot its wad; they reached their pinnacle of technological development and were in the process of a new frontier in space when disaster struck -- the details are hazy to those left behind, but historians argue about the causes. Some blame religion, some blame a lack of morality, some blame the enchantment with consumer goods and an obsession with a luxury lifestyle. Some play out the old exploiters and exploited model or argue makers and takers. Others invoked Malthus -- population vs. resources. Others pin the blame on the greed of individuals. Whatever the case, that civilization went up like a matchstick in nuclear flame, and the hopes and dreams of humanity went with it -- details of that period are hazy, the history incomplete and the stories of survivors kept by the descendants of those survivors. Each of those accounts varies. What followed was a brutal dark age of depravity and fighting as humans went to war with what weapons they had and managed to exacerbate the problems humanity faced to the point where civilization itself was destroyed as the cycle of wars made people even more desperate to do whatever they had to in order to gain a short term respite from these problems. In the end, nothing stopped the decline of humanity, the series of increasingly brutish events that brought low all of civilization and left nothing but rust and ashes. What emerged, like in the Fall of Rome, was a new and different human civilization that was shaped by the necessities of survival, with little thought to the things that elevated the society that preceded it -- technology was a dream dimly remembered as people once again toiled and lived and died in nasty, short, brutish lives. The flame of humanity had guttered out, and Earth was finished. Never again could humanity develop the same paths that it did the first time, where it used basic technology to extract certain resources, because those resources were used up and then squandered -- the very things needed to recreate high technology were only accessible with that technology, which became the irony of the age. Some claim that Humanity is better than it was, even in this technologically devolved state, though most like the idea of returning to a state of great leisure, of short work hours and long lives. Most can't imagine a world like the one that existed before, of the technology of magic. But when invaders attacked from outer space, they didn't need to imagine this magic. It was being used to subjugate them.[/I][/indent] [/hider][hider=Out Of Character][B]Out of Character Info:[/b] [indent]There's a twist to this RP of course, but I won't ruin it. Instead, I want people to focus on their characters, and imagine what sort of survivor society might manage to claw its way out. I want to pick a location to set this in and craft the place a bit to fit the characters. I imagine a world of barbarism with pockets of civilization, where everyone has reverted to much simpler technology due to resource restrictions and technological limitations. After hundreds and hundreds of years of the fall of a civilization more advanced than our own, the reality is that such technology no longer functions -- places like New York city are concrete overgrown with grass and rust flakes where skyscrapers once stood. The plastic might still be around though (huehuehue) as a grim reminder that petroleum isn't as easy to get to as it once was the first time that humanity developed technology. All this and then an alien invasion that is going to be fought by these barbarians. The characters are in the same region; Independence, Missouri -- not the pre-apocalypse town, more like a community built on the bones, at the intersection of two rivers. Therefore, there is some economic and cultural activity -- the tech level is pre-modern, however. It has not industrialized. I will be scrutinizing sheets to try to enforce the tech level edict, but it is roughly the 17th-18th century, pre-Eli Whitney. Labor is the primary means of getting things done, machinery is not powered. The horse is back in vogue as a means of transportation and humanity's trusty work partner. (Though there are probably lots of mules.) The politics, the religion and the issue of rural farming folk vs city folk vs tribal nomads vs settled ex-nomad tribals...well, that can come out as the character sheets roll in. That can also be discussed in the OOC.[/indent] [/hider]