Bugman

Dead Men on Burning Stars: A Mass Effect Cerberus RP

Hey guys, thanks for the interest, I'll make the OOC next Friday (I have a first post ready to give people a vibe for the start). I will also make an IM maybe Google chat maybe discord maybe Slack once we have characters up for quick communications

The Dead Don't Die.

What are the zombies like? TWD style or night of the living dead or...?

Dead Men on Burning Stars: A Mass Effect Cerberus RP

@LanaStorm @OldManMountain

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.

As it stands, I already have had enough people express interest to get this started, but seeing how many more will join up will be useful to tell how much stuff I should prepare and adjust bits of story perhaps based on what some people want to do. 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.

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 excited to hear from you!

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

From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large

The Fabricator-General drummed the fingers on his seventh mecha-dendrite on the table holographic keyboard before him, a performance The Rites of Anticipatory Tapping. The load time of the cogitator before him was unfathomably slow, thus forgotten parts of his brain brought back emotions he forgot like annoyance and frustration. Again the facility he was in shook, a little rust pouring off of the ceiling onto his robes.

Such was the state of the conflict between the electro priests that they had both activated more than enough countermeasures against each other from scrap-code infections to jamming to servitor-targeted biological warfare that a significant portion of the infrastructure of both sides - and those caught between them - was rendered useless. Navigation systems, auspex, communications, all were now struck to such a degree that they were forced to rely on mainly analogue measures. Cybernetic pigeons with grav-sails coated in cameleoline were now almost the sole connections between different Forges and other settlements of Mars. Ancient and unfathomably mighty weapon systems were unable to be properly utilized, and thus calculations for missile trajectories and the likes were calculated with means as mundane as servitors holding abacuses, pens, and paper. Artillery was fired with unguided shells, the balance now strictly in favour of quantity over quality as guidance systems in each bomb could not connect to any satellite or other means to aim.

This by no means meant that the violence ceased, or was reduced in its scope or magnitude. If anything the opposite, the sudden lack of precision ensuring that far more of those that would otherwise be bystanders were struck in a crossfire that got ever wider.

The thoughts on the war very suddenly stopped as a corpse in the corner twitched, electricity coursing across the electoo runes on its skin. Ocular implants extended out of Salkor’s head like tentacles and turned to face the offending movement, a plethora of volkite culverins shifting to point towards it. Thankfully, this was just a death throe. Every Fulgurite in the facility was dead, some sort of gas attack of the Corpuscarii was employed with careful modifications to pass through typical environmental control systems. Salkor of course took some of the residue found to examine, but his focus was first and foremost upon the data stores at this temple. Apart from a few body guards and tech adepts with infiltration technologies so thorough even he couldn’t detect them, Salkor was alone to investigate. He did not want to be found here by the Corpuscarii, lest they think he was partisan to the conflict and their supporters outright refuse to acknowledge his authority. No, rather it was critical that he find any and all who had contact with this militant sect of the Fulgurites. Trying to resolve the conflict with traditional peace and mediation was something that Salkor desperately wanted to do, but it was also something he had recently acknowledged in private would likely be impossible. Peace by force would instead be the means to save Mars. Every single Magos who was partisan in the conflict would simply have to be threatened to have their support for one or the other side disclosed if they keep on their activities. Presented with a choice of life or death, most would agree to stop arming one or the other side of the conflict and thus without weapons the holy war would at least become a lot less destructive.

A new thought was now a regular occurrence in the Fabricator General’s mind. With confidence he could end the violence, he was wondering what he could do to prevent its resurgence? Something would have to be done to prevent either side from getting ideas about how they can end their schism once and for all, but it was unfathomable what this could be.

“Fabricator General. I am to remind you that your meeting with the Vossite ambassador is today.”

The tentacle eyes shifted, looking for the one that emitted the binharic utterance.

“Very well. Finish after me.”

With that, the Fabricator flew out.

It was some time and many switches of vehicle before at least he was present at one of the last functioning communications hubs to speak with the Vossite. After hitting the long binharic sequence on the rotary dial, Salkor let a few fingers through loops of the curling wire.

As he waited for the connection to follow through the Fabricator General wondered what would happen in today’s dialogue. Undoubtedly, the representative of Voss would have already been briefed on arrival in the solar system of what was happening on Mars. He would very certainly see this as an opportunity for Voss to assert more personal authority and autonomy from Mars. With just how conciliatory Salkor had been to the interests of extra-solar Forgeworlds throughout his career, Voss would likely think they wouldn’t even need to haggle.

But no, today the Fabricator General was going to show a backbone, and upon first implication of Voss’s potential decentralization of authority away from Mars, Salkor would have a simple reply ready.

“Voss also has cults of Fulgurites and Corpuscarii. Do you wish for the conflict to spill out of Mars? Do you wish for this bloodshed to become galactic?” The reply of “No.” was swift. “Then you will assist me, and not ask anything of me.”

Satisfied, Salkor got onto discussing how all the shipments arrived with the Vossite merchant marine would be transferred directly to the ports the Fabricator General insisted upon rather than to the original designated orders from different Magoses of Mars, and how they would return with all sorts of equipment that Mars would need to both cease and recover from the violence. Ultimately, it was a productive day.

From Ashes We Rise: The Galaxy At Large

Amunal looked upon the structure before him. It was the single largest continuous surface constructed in Brahms, and it was incredibly simple. Simply a large, flat rectangle upon which the Primarch was able to make inscriptions. For its calculations, the youth did not truly need this for its memory more than sufficed. But scribbling down a random note about axioms of governance or science here and there allowed the tribal confederation that began to worship him as a God allowed them to swiftly go from backwards savages lacking elementary things from hydrology to literacy, to one of the greatest nations of the planet in a mere generation. They understood but fractions of it, and much of that only years after it was written, but these observations were enough. Where barren land once marred one’s vision, great aqueducts poured brought water to fertile fields. Where once stone tools and animal hide dominated human industry, a standard fashion and steel came to be supreme.

The Master as they called him, rarely gave anything resembling a command. Instead a person would simply approach the giant and as meekly as they could, they would ask a question. Always they refined it as simply as they could, since for every variable the answer would become an order of magnitude longer and more complex. A whole strata of people were assembled to study the works of the Master without bothering him, a fact that he never complained about. Still, sometimes he complained about interference with his work.

Never did he ask for food or water, though it was on occasion brought to him by the adoring people. Rarely, perhaps once a season he would ask for musicians to come. These men and women would feel a great honour was bestowed on them, but they would almost always spend more time listening to the Primarch lecturing them about the mistakes they were making, the issues with their tune or timing or the maintenance of their instruments. Of course, none would even try to deny that they all became superior artists following the experience.

But as the starborne teenager had predicted years before, eventually, the realm of Ummaria would be a problem. One by one true civilizations joined the tribes that Amunal had made ascend, eager to partake of the wondrous being that lead them rather than be eclipsed by those they so recently looked down upon. But with the old Heirarch of Ummaria dead, his son saw the rise of Amunal’s people as a threat to himself, every eye watching him for any sign of a lack of resolve within his own realm and abroad.

So it was that an emissary came from Ummaria, and emissaries were the few for whom the Master was willing to step aside from his great work for. The request was simple, to bow to the Heirarch of Ummaria, recognize his supremacy. Amunal, to the surprise of all, was more than happy to accept this. The emissary that had been dispatched with little expectation of his own survival returned perplexed back to his nation. Again he was dispatched a few months later, with the terms and conditions of Ummaria’s dominion over the united tribes. Once more surprised, he returned with the Master’s signature.

The diplomat would return every few months with new demands from Ummaria, each more egregious than the past, each raising a new voice among the Master’s people that they must not accede. But each time the Master would insist peace was of far greater import. This was until at last the ambassador returned to demand that direct control of the Confederation be turned to him. “No.” was the entirety of the message he was ordered to return by Amunal. Again he returned, now with the threat of war. Amunal remained steadfast, and so the armies of Ummaria were marshalled.

Amunal treated this lightly. He had exterminated entire tribes that he found incompatible with peace and impossible to negotiate with with his bare hands. Indeed seeing himself an ethical person did this in a manner so fast most of the victims died far too fast to feel fear or pain. Though perhaps somewhat more of a challenge, one that might take a few days, he believed that he could destroy hundreds until eventually the Ummarians would retreat.

The fateful day of the first battle between Ummaria and the confederation was an uncharacteristically hot, sunny one. With just a few hundred people who had followed him in worship, Amunal stared at nearly a quarter of a million people before him. Archers, spearmen, cavalry, siege engines, cavalry, all were assembled in a great throng. Nothing present, as far as the Primarch was concerned, could even scratch his skin.

A horseman rode out from the army, offering Amunal a final attempt at surrender, which with a smile the Master denied and then reciprocated. As the horseman too denied this, he wasn’t able to turn his horse around before his skull was split in two.

In a blur the Master ran forth, scything down some thirty people with a flurry of his limbs spinning to maximize carnage, all was going exactly as he expected. Until a horn rang, and several of the carts Amunal had assumed would be full of supplies or perhaps disassembled siege engines disgorged their contents.

Beasts Amunal had never seen before ran towards him, in a few cases crushing Ummarian troops underfoot in their wild charge as they came to do battle. It took a few seconds for Amunal to recognize that these were some sort of humans twisted by unnatural means, and more of a threat than any of the mortals he had just slain.

They were soft, their flesh just as easily torn apart and their bones just as easily broken as that of the un mutated humans. But, there were two problems. First, there was simply so much more bone and flesh to destroy, and there was seemingly more than one brain, heart, and other vital organs to end their lives and even with them torn or crushed the beasts still persisted for some time.

The other issue was that they bore a strength that the same amount of humans for that weight would not be able to achieve. Such was the power of their strikes, the teenage primarch was unable to maintain his chosen appearance and had to revert to his featureless mercurial form by the time he had slain his tenth beast.

By the twentieth, his breath was ragged, and soon he tasted his own blood for the first time in his life. Soon bruises were formed, and slowly his skin split open. His breath ran ragged, some sort of concussion explaining the dizziness that was also a first time experience. He stared at his own knees, vision blurring and a ringing came in his ears that overpowered the sound of another horn. Shadows loomed over him, and he saw hundreds of humans rush forth at him. They stabbed and cut, the majority of the strikes glancing off. But a few struck the already open wounds, and while unable to break any of the flesh they moved and jerked it around to still open the wounds wider. With a roar, the Primarch dislodged each of the mortals upon him and without even wasting time killing them, ran for his life.

The war against Ummaria had very suddenly become a problem. The Master was wounded, something nobody had believed possible. Though he had already recovered from almost all of his wounds in mere hours, he had still ordered the evacuation of an entire half of the Confederation’s land. They were not at all ready for a war. Until now, the deterrent of Amunal’s mere existence had ensured that nobody would strike at the Confederation. Thus their armed forces were tiny, mere militias to respond to the few raiders brave enough to strike at their lands. Overnight, Amunal turned them into a war economy. He found this tragic, but schools he had insisted be set up were turned to small assembly lines for arrows, or places to sharpen newly smithed blades. Every so often Amunal would venture out to strike at the rampaging Ummarian army, but for the first time fearing for his own life these were limited strikes in the night and with nearby detachments of cavalry to defend him should the Ummarians release their beasts fast enough.

Eventually the day came that the Confederation was ready to strike back, and exactly as Amunal had predicted, the Ummarians would not be ready. They faced an army very suddenly larger, better equipped and better led than their own. Very swiftly they were encircled, and the force of hundreds of thousands was destroyed in entirety with a little less than half taken as captives.

An Emissary was then sent to Ummaria asking for their surrender, and once he didn’t return the Confederated army marched into Ummaria, destroying any that refused to spit on the name of the Heirarch.

The capitol was in sight, and still the Ummarians refused to surrender. The gates were breached, fighting was in the streets, and yet the Heirarch refused to give in. His palace was beset, and no order came for the royal guard to stand down. Amunal himself smashed in the gates to the Palace, roaring at the man on the throne. He sprinted through the hundreds of elite warriors assembled to stop him, a crimson slurry flying through the air as he now stood before the Heirarch. The young ruler stared at Amunal, not rising from his seat as he scratched his beard.

“Why? Why?” the Primarch demanded, tears and blood and sweat dripping off of the superhuman in equal measure.

The Heirarch shrugged, undistrubed. “It is my right to rule. To rule all. You included.”

Amunal screeched in rage upon hearing this unparalleled arrogance, eliciting a chuckle from the Heirarch.

“You are unnatural, just as the beasts I was forced to employ against you. But you may still die.” He reached in his robes, and retrieved from them what Amunal would eventually learn was a conversion beamer. With a pull of the trigger, Amunal looked down into his chest where his heart was now exposed. Durable as the young Primarch was, the weapon converted his flesh into energy and with his lab-grown countermeasures yet immature, the effect brought him to the brink of death.

Hissing in pain, Amunal still wasn’t done. The Heirarch was grinning, but this expression quickly fell and turned to a scream as Amunal took a step forwards. The ruler of Ummaria scrambled back in his throne. In desperation he took off towards one of the many secret passages in the wall. But he fell as an enormous hand pulled on his wrist, and then tore both arms off. Both legs than came off, yet to his surprise the wounded Primarch brought a torch to both wounds, intent seemingly on keeping him alive.

As much in pain as he was astounded, the Heirarch looked at Amunal incredulously trying to mouth words that wouldn’t come from the searing suffering he was experiencing. About to fall unconscious, Amunal uttered a single phrase to the Heirarch. “You are the first to break my mercy, and you will be the last.”

---

The years that followed eventually turned Brahms into a world with but one governance, all following the wisdom of the Master. Within Ummaria ancient technologies were recovered hidden beneath ruins and within vaults, upon the study of which many found resemblance to that which Amunal had already written of on his wall. With them compounded with the means of understanding them brought by the Primarch, a global Golden Age began, only a few worshippers of the darkest of Gods resisting this in their deserts and mountains.

But, some began to wonder how the Starlanders would react to this. Very soon, their concerns would materialize.

The bug man's hive of ideas

:D

The bug man's hive of ideas

:>

The bug man's hive of ideas

:3

AI Art Generation: Beneficial or Problematic?

<Snipped quote by Zweit>

snip

ERode

that twitter guy is a troll with some relatively funny bait

anyway my opinion is that ai art isn't bad but of course an expensive artist is probably better. the ethics are the exact same as for piracy. in both cases its technically theft of labour and intellectual property but a lot of people believe things like expense and indirectness of effect make it justifiable. I do both but only on occassion when I can't really make use of the real deal, not particularly gratuitously