Aphelion
Overview
This story will begin the day after a consortium of intergalactic races introduce themselves to mankind and propose to invite them into their midst as peers. Humankind at this point has stretched out beyond the moon and has set up numerous bases and terraformed all the planets within our solar system. The consortium has noticed our successes and praises our arts, recognising we are very advanced. They also noted however that we are an angry race, which is not a huge issue as we are still young and in our rebellious stage, but that if humans were to be accepted they must come to terms with more than melanin levels. So humankind accepts, and us - the writers - continue from there. Where we go and what we do is entirely up to you.
Aims
This is not a grimdark story about the dangers of trusting aliens, nor is this a kiddie story where we all live happily together. One person may be pessimistic and another may be optimistic; it all depends on how your character views the unfolding events. Some people may not care about what is happening while others immediately set off in search of their planets to learn or to fight. Some have a moderate interest and will watch the news but they have work to do. Unfortunately, I will only allow writers to portray humans because this story is viewed from a larger, single standpoint: what would humans do? What would you do?
Seeing as we have colonised our entire solar system, there are a lot of people doing a lot of things and going to a lot of places, even more so now that we have an entire new universe to adventure to. Therefore, despite us all writing this story together, I want to say that you may never actually meet a lot of the other characters. I will have to restrict too many isolated characters as that is incredibly boring, but if your character is the Head of Commerce and suddenly bans the sale of tobacco, this will have an effect on the tobacco trader currently running between Venus and Jupiter. It's the little details that count in the big places.
Another aspect I have been contemplating is the aliens. I am not a highly imaginative person, and so wouldn't wish to create a whole boatload of races that frankly everyone finds bland and trite. So what I am offering is the chance for other writers to contribute in a huge way to this effort. Create any kind of race you want, and seeing as it is a whole bunch of different people creating a whole bunch of different races, I think it could be something marvellous. This too goes for planets and cities. If a writer is the first one to reach a city, they are free to describe that place as much as they want as long as it is in accordance with the characteristics of the race.
I intend this story to be enormous. Hopefully there will be double digit numbers investing words, actions and emotions into this brave new world, so that this isn't just another space adventure. I am fully open to allowing this to be wacky (within a large boundary, of course), delving into things that many other by-the-book space stories haven't allowed. Along with that, I am also imagining the power plays that will be occurring in the political climate, and this may branch into intergalactic wars and huge moves if we do some incredible things here. I want this to be relatively unprecedented, reaching new levels of depth, growth and interest.
This isn't the DM's story here, this is a whole universes story at play.
OOC: http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/93896-high-cas-adv-aphelion/ooc
General Interest Check thread: http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/93799-high-cas-after-humans-are-accepted-into-alien-government/ooc
Advanced Interest Check: http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/93897-aphelion/ooc