Bugman

The bug man's hive of ideas

I won't be active for a few days due to work stuff but when I return it would be nice to have some DMs :U

What kind of RP mood are you in?

rewatched arcane with my so and now dreaming of something in LoL/Runeterra/Arcane setting once more

The bug man's hive of ideas

:0

Dead Men on Burning Stars: A Mass Effect Cerberus RP

If there is space I would like to try this out.

@Pigeonpal

Hi, check out the main thread wherein we have a discord and such roleplayerguild.com/topics/191819-dea…

The bug man's hive of ideas

:v

Dead Men on Burning Stars: A Mass Effect Cerberus RP

Very well @L C

Not all that used to discord so its barebones but I don't think we need much more than just a chat:

discord.gg/AYNSKAPKu5

Dead Men on Burning Stars: A Mass Effect Cerberus RP

@L C@LanaStorm@Sylvan@OldManMountain

Did a small introduction in the IC to give people a taste for how we'll start. When we got a few characters in we can get started. For now, I was wondering, if I was to make an instant messenger what would people prefer? I am most acquainted with slack for chats but I know most people like discord.

Dead Men on Burning Stars: A Mass Effect Cerberus RP

Cimourdain

Eric Josef Lasalle

Callsign: "Cimourdain"

Cimourdain was born long ago in the distant year of 2062 in Lyons, France, long before the formation of the Systems Alliance or any knowledge of aliens, biotics, mass relays and what wonders and horrors the galaxy might hold.

Eric was always a man that wanted more than he could get in life. A family man with a great many kids, he kept insisting on trying to get out of his simple job as a janitor - no, "sanitary engineer" as he called it. Start a band, businesses, join the reserves, all these ventures failed. Still, he had managed to save up for a comfortable retirement in the colony of Shanxi, a paradise in the stars he could enjoy his later years by the side of his beloved. Unfortunately, Enora Lasalle would very soon die with the arrival of Turians to the planet's orbit. An unassuming chunk of space debris would be hurled down by the invader turning the couple's property into ash and rubble. The only solace to the grieving widower was that her death would have been instant.

So incensed with hatred was he, Eric instantly joined the fledgling resistance against the Turians. Though very old, he was still welcomed with open arms as even Turians could tell he was elderly and thus would rarely assume that he was carrying an IED or the likes on him.

Still, eventually peace came. Changed, now furious at the entire world, the Catholic faith that the man held previously dear was suddenly detested by him as the Papacy called for reconciliation with the aliens that so recently incinerated his home. He saw himself embodied in Cimourdain, the former Priest turned radical revolutionary in the French novel "93", from which he derived the name under which he contacted Cerberus as the organization published its manifesto.

Older than he already was at the time of the contact war, the young organization of Cerberus saw little use in the man. Quite cynically, when they at last relented and took him on board it was largely to be a test-subject for many of their experiments that the Systems Alliance was not willing to undertake. Almost to their surprise, the man kept up his enthusiasm for Cerberus with every needle and incision, such was his ideological fervor to prevent the destruction of man by Turians once more.

In about a year of constant experimentation that Eric had survived, he had gone through and (to everybody's surprise) survived enough modifications to make him a huge walking investment. While much was the prototype for more refined processes they would apply to other agents, he had still endured enough surgeries to augment him into a capable field agent. While never being an assault specialist or the likes, he came to be a reliable infiltrator and "clean up man" who hid evidence of Cerberus involvement in events across the galaxy. Yet always he dutifully returned to the facilities where yet more surgeries would be performed on him, now in equal part experiment and simply facial reconstruction works to embrace a new identity. An almost constant in Cerberus since its very early days, Cimourdain would come to be a very trusted figure in the organization, speaking with the Illusive Man many times before at last being attached to a cell after seemingly having been on every corner of the Milky Way.

With connections everywhere, Cimourdain has to some degree come to be an intermediary between the Captain and Cerberus leadership, compiling different missions and assignments for the Comamnder to consider. While still keeping his job as a "clean up" man after the crew's missions, Eric is also somewhat of an "everyman" around the ship. He will fix minor broken systems like air conditioners or shower heating, cooking when there is no Mess-Sergeant, helping maintenance of personal equipment, or discretely purchasing things when on worlds.

To the Cell, some might consider Cimourdain a liability of sorts to themselves. Almost dangerously loyal, if ever the crew would consider en-masse defection he would likely thwart their efforts. Otherwise he remains somewhere between the "cool" and the "creepy" uncle. Always talking about strange, decades old interests or events. Asking questions too personal he insists would be normal back in his day, or offering to help people with personal matters they thought they had kept private.

---

With the end of the Reaper war, Eric is somewhat changed. As time went on, many of the technologies that helped Cimourdain overcome his age were Reaper tech that was "fried" as the Reapers left Earth's orbit. While still outperforming his centennial years, things like senility can slowly creep in as he might suddenly forget where he is, or what he was doing. Moreover, he often struggles to differentiate between him or the many identities he has undertaken before telling random stories of his youth in an effort to "ground" himself in the world.

Dead Men on Burning Stars: A Mass Effect Cerberus RP

Part 1: The Cradle of Humanity

18/10/2186

One by one, these souls would awake from the rubble of Earth. They were different from the thousands, millions, billions that opened their eyes to a new world. Their minds, their bodies, they were broken in a way far more literal than all the other who had suffered the great war that had finished mere hours ago. Their arrogance, their folly, it would be a cause for them to begin mourning sooner than everyone else, and without the celebration of victory that came first.

These were the agents of Cerberus, the self described vanguard of humanity. Did I die? The question would not be uncommon for them. The technology almost all of them had implanted within to some degree was quite abruptly malfunctioning. Servoes still whirred, hydraulics still pumped and tiny circuits still let electricity flow. Yet suddenly there was freedom from the discrete but ever present influence of the Reapers on each person that bore them. But though liberating, every person that felt the severed connection would suddenly be unable to escape the sensation that something was missing from them. Was it a part of their consciousness they had come to call their own? Or was it perhaps that the last months, year or even longer were not done in their own minds? A portion of their lived experience was done by the hand of another being, their brains spectators on behalf of a consciousness that had lost control.

Reactions to this were different. Some fell into a sudden despair, running off in madness until shot or captured. Others decided to retire by sticking a pistol up the roof of their mouth and pulling the trigger, while far more decided to raise their hands and surrender to the nearest Systems Alliance troops.

But the greatest portion knew that, even if they had failed, if they had been in great error, their duty to mankind remained. Or at least, that is what they said in many cases simply fearing the great prison sentences and other reprisals for their activities admist the Reaper war.

Whatever their reason for not casting off their old loyalties, these people were many.

Lagos 6:28AM

Cimourdain awoke the third time within the hour. He was not himself. The man stared at the ravine mere centimetres from his feet, coming to the realization if he would have come to consciousness any later he would have been dead. The elderly fellow gasped as he looked further down, hear a crack on the surface. It was some sort of crunchy rock, likely dirt subjected to superheating from any amount of advanced weapons let loose on Earth's surface in recent history. A few panicked back-steps were taken as the surface Eric stood on mere moments ago fell into the earth's deep wound.

On instinct the agent wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand, only paying attention to his actions as he saw the red of blood smeared on his glove. "No." he whispered, not really sure what he was denying.

He wandered aimlessly about the ruined city, every so often helping somebody up, or hurriedly rushing away if they paid attention to his strange bionic eyes. Eventually he decided it was best to find a set of sunglasses to ensure a moment of peace.

The sun rose, and smiling as its warmth touched his pale skin Eric could finally remember his name. With that more memories flooded in, and the realization came that he had a job to do at the same time as he stared into the eyes of a young man. The fellow had half the skin of his face missing, exposing the glowing blue cabling he knew too well mirrored his own.

Eric motioned for the lad to follow him, as he activated his omnitool and sent a message on every Cerberus secure connection he had access to. They were to rally at a bombed out apartment he was confident nobody was in, and with that lead the other operator to their new shelter.

---

Hours passed, and sitting on a chair missing its back Mr. Lasalle looked upon the assembled people. More than he feared, less than he had hoped as was so commonly the case. He wasn't exactly sure what to say, and if he even ought be the one to say it. Was he the highest ranking one present? He hadn't spoke to enough of the people present to really know. Eric hoped that at least he could bring guidance to these lost people. If somebody looked on edge, perhaps he would give them a talk. Truth be told, most of the people present didn't at all seem even functional. Some were gibbering madly, others simply clutching at their heads or sobbing. Nobody knew what to do, but they had to do something.

Standing up, he decided to slowly walk towards a staircase open thanks to a missing wall, from where he would have elevation to address all present. Before arriving at earth, he was one of many officers to receive a small file that detailed what to do in an event like this should command break down.

The war had just ended, and yet there was now another battle to fight.

Dead Men on Burning Stars: A Mass Effect Cerberus RP

---

Some of us were cops, doctors, scientists. But a lot of joe-schmoes, real nobodies too. Accountants, code monkeys, construction workers. But in the end we were all soldiers, brought together by one fact. We wanted to fight for the future of humanity.

They hated us for it.

Anon.

---

Hi! I'm Bugman, this is a check for an RP I have had planned for quite a while. Dead Men on Burning Stars is an RP set in the Mass Effect universe, namely following a moderately good Control ending. The players will take the role of members of a cell of Cerberus, which shall eventually be united as a crew of a ship. While this will chronicle the adventures of the team as they travel the stars to accomplish goals of Cerberus and eventually uncover a galaxy-spanning threat to mankind they are suddenly thrust into resolving, there will be just as much focus on the interpersonal relations of the crew, their lives. Thoroughly damaged, traumatized, and probably not exactly good people, the crew will nonetheless be people with real wants and desires, regrets and struggles that they have to face the demons of together. Very heavy inspiration is thus drawn from the styling of the Mass Effect game series, but also from similar "crew-based" media namely Firefly but Star-Trek and the likes too. The main difference being of course, is that we are somewhere between anti-heroes and anti-villains rather than being true protagonists.

But if you dreamed of an RP where you can be on Santa's naughty list in the Mass Effect universe, this is for you. This is very heavily inspire by ME2 being my favourite installation in the series, with the aesthetics from art to sound design to individual characters of Cerberus being some of the coolest stuff in the setting to me.

I will want and welcome diverse characters, though I will want everyone to be useful and sufficiently sociable (sorry lone wolf enjoyers!) such that I or my co-GM are able to include you in some ongoing RP (though of course, it will be encouraged that at least in between large missions people make their own RP between each other).

I will not have a specific format of character sheet I have in mind. Instead, I will experiment a little and allow you to include simply whatever YOU personally think is necessary for the GMs and other players to know. A few things like maybe some knowledge of their appearance, how they got into Cerberus and what role they serve in the team, as well as their standing in it are of course critical, but beyond that? Its up to you. Just remember some critical things. As a member of Cerberus, you are not an ordinary person, you had implants that were brainwashing you in the name of murderous death robots and inevitably you are a traumatized, and deeply flawed individual. But still a human with hopes and dreams. Preferably (but not necessarily) you would also have some shared story with at least some of the other characters people would put forth.

For an example, here is a character I will play within the team.

Cimourdain

Eric Josef Lasalle

Callsign: "Cimourdain"

Cimourdain was born long ago in the distant year of 2062 in Lyons, France, long before the formation of the Systems Alliance or any knowledge of aliens, biotics, mass relays and what wonders and horrors the galaxy might hold.

Eric was always a man that wanted more than he could get in life. A family man with a great many kids, he kept insisting on trying to get out of his simple job as a janitor - no, "sanitary engineer" as he called it. Start a band, businesses, join the reserves, all these ventures failed. Still, he had managed to save up for a comfortable retirement in the colony of Shanxi, a paradise in the stars he could enjoy his later years by the side of his beloved. Unfortunately, Enora Lasalle would very soon die with the arrival of Turians to the planet's orbit. An unassuming chunk of space debris would be hurled down by the invader turning the couple's property into ash and rubble. The only solace to the grieving widower was that her death would have been instant.

So incensed with hatred was he, Eric instantly joined the fledgling resistance against the Turians. Though very old, he was still welcomed with open arms as even Turians could tell he was elderly and thus would rarely assume that he was carrying an IED or the likes on him.

Still, eventually peace came. Changed, now furious at the entire world, the Catholic faith that the man held previously dear was suddenly detested by him as the Papacy called for reconciliation with the aliens that so recently incinerated his home. He saw himself embodied in Cimourdain, the former Priest turned radical revolutionary in the French novel "93", from which he derived the name under which he contacted Cerberus as the organization published its manifesto.

Older than he already was at the time of the contact war, the young organization of Cerberus saw little use in the man. Quite cynically, when they at last relented and took him on board it was largely to be a test-subject for many of their experiments that the Systems Alliance was not willing to undertake. Almost to their surprise, the man kept up his enthusiasm for Cerberus with every needle and incision, such was his ideological fervor to prevent the destruction of man by Turians once more.

In about a year of constant experimentation that Eric had survived, he had gone through and (to everybody's surprise) survived enough modifications to make him a huge walking investment. While much was the prototype for more refined processes they would apply to other agents, he had still endured enough surgeries to augment him into a capable field agent. While never being an assault specialist or the likes, he came to be a reliable infiltrator and "clean up man" who hid evidence of Cerberus involvement in events across the galaxy. Yet always he dutifully returned to the facilities where yet more surgeries would be performed on him, now in equal part experiment and simply facial reconstruction works to embrace a new identity. An almost constant in Cerberus since its very early days, Cimourdain would come to be a very trusted figure in the organization, speaking with the Illusive Man many times before at last being attached to a cell after seemingly having been on every corner of the Milky Way.

With connections everywhere, Cimourdain has to some degree come to be an intermediary between the Captain and Cerberus leadership, compiling different missions and assignments for the Comamnder to consider. While still keeping his job as a "clean up" man after the crew's missions, Eric is also somewhat of an "everyman" around the ship. He will fix minor broken systems like air conditioners or shower heating, cooking when there is no Mess-Sergeant, helping maintenance of personal equipment, or discretely purchasing things when on worlds.

To the Cell, some might consider Cimourdain a liability of sorts to themselves. Almost dangerously loyal, if ever the crew would consider en-masse defection he would likely thwart their efforts. Otherwise he remains somewhere between the "cool" and the "creepy" uncle. Always talking about strange, decades old interests or events. Asking questions too personal he insists would be normal back in his day, or offering to help people with personal matters they thought they had kept private.

---

With the end of the Reaper war, Eric is somewhat changed. As time went on, many of the technologies that helped Cimourdain overcome his age were Reaper tech that was "fried" as the Reapers left Earth's orbit. While still outperforming his centennial years, things like senility can slowly creep in as he might suddenly forget where he is, or what he was doing. Moreover, he often struggles to differentiate between him or the many identities he has undertaken before telling random stories of his youth in an effort to "ground" himself in the world.

Now, half of the fun of Mass Effect is aliens and the like, and I am understanding of that.

On non-human characters

I will allow people to play non human characters, but there needs to be an extremely compelling backstory to explain why they got involved with a human-centric organization of freaks like Cerberus. Perhaps an unshackled AI housed in a bot frame along the lines of EDI, maybe a Salarian who joined years ago purely for the science unbound by the shackles of ethics. Maybe a Krogan who joined Cerberus back when it was just an alliance black-op seeing it as a powerful ally in venting hatred for salarians, turians, asari. It could even be that your character was "forced" to join when they began to be indoctrinated, but Cerberus used its technology developed on Horizon/Sanctuary to take control of this person. But in all of these cases, remember that you need to come up with a convincing reason for why they would stay with Cerberus after the reaper war ended.

Maybe the salarian sees Cerberus as still the best way forward for science, maybe the Krogan hasn't let go of grudges over the genophage even after its cured, maybe the character Cerberus used its reaper-control tech on is simply grateful for no longer being under the dominion of the reapers and has grown somewhat of a stockholm syndrome. Regardless it needs to be a convincing reason for why any alien would stick with Cerberus especially as with the existential threat of the reapers gone, "the ends justify the means" won't apply. At least, for a while....

Indeed, as the story progresses there may be more possibilities for aliens to join the team, but that will be later.

But as a TL;DR of that, I will only allow at the beginning just 1 non human character that I will be very nitpicky over so make it good.

Ideally, people will try to have some shared background in their characters. To that end, here is some homebrew lore for the Theseus cell which would be a good origin for characters.

Theseus

The Theseus Cell was formed in 2179 out of the merger of three cells. Cerberus defectors from the Dolon cell responsible for infiltration and intelligence gathering made contact with STG, knowing many figures they could approach were likely compromised. In turn, the Dolon cell lead STG to a Cerberus research facility, but not before loyalists tipped off Cerberus about the impending attack. STG’s attack was swift and brutal destroying most of the research staff, and indeed of the reinforcements sent to defend it from the Salarians as the Dolon cell’s loyalists slew their treacherous comrades. With the Dolon infiltration cell, the Galen research cell, and the Ulysses battalion all shells of their former selves which moreover had broken anonymity with one another, the Illusive man decided to reconstitute them into the new Theseus cell. Since then the Theseus cell has been united into a diverse but cohesive unit capable of performing a variety of tasks and without reliance on other cells that hyper-specialized ones often have.

Since its inception, the Theseus cell has absorbed many other weakened cells, individual operatives, and acquired recruits to perform its duties. At the conclusion of the Reaper war, the cell had about a hundred operatives.

-Eric Lasalle was a member of the Dolon cell, one of the foundational to Theseus. One of the loyalists that reported the betrayal of the rest of the cell in favor of STG to the Illusive Man, this has earned him respect from devoted ideologues and distrust from others.

Rules

1) Follow the site's rules ofc

2) Be nice, kind, respectful, etc. of me and your fellow RPers. This is for fun, don't compromise that.

3) Any and all issues you might have with me or other players should be raised immediately and publicly or in DMs with me.

4)

activity

Before considering joining, just know that I will expect at least some sort of contribution to the RP on a bi-weekly basis, but preferably more. I don't necessarily mean a post, but at least some sort of addition to say a google doc, or if you are too busy to do writing yourself then at least a suggestion of what your character might be doing at some point that it can be added for you. Any less, and we get into iffy territory. I'm going to be a lot more amenable of course if people communicate their rough schedules and business beforehand. (And of course, I'm not a giant snob, I'm not going to expect you to dump something the size of the Illiad or the Vedas, nor that you use worse with eleven syllables. As long as you are trying your best, we'll work out, hence why I put this in casual and not advanced).

5) Also as with most RPs I would prefer you to be 18+ because the same content from violence to drugs to intimacy as is in the source material of the setting will be covered.

In the long run, I also do plan a spin-off RP in the same sub-setting where another team (currently undecided, maybe spectres, maybe just a coalition of citadel race special forces/interest groups) is dedicated to hunting Cerberus and the team of this RP, though perhaps eventually working together with them as they run into similar issues.

With that, I am very eager to see what characters folks might cook up.

If you have any questions, feel free to address them to me here or in DMs :>

Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.

Bernard Montgomery