Updated the OP with some overview on the UWG/ tech level as well as completing the RX moon setting description 
Cath
Member
So this is what
we're up against
- Last Seen: 8 hrs ago
- Old Guild Username: Catharyn
- Joined: 12 yrs ago
- Posts: 2288 (0.50 / day)
- VMs: 0
-
Username history
- Cath 3 yrs ago
- ████████ 12 yrs ago
-
Latest 10 profile visitors:
-
Most recent →
adncod,
abcbcb,
Lunamaria Hawke,
Hibachi90,
Scrawl Banditta,
ppppppp,
Not a Sayan,
Simply Not Real,
Nallore,
SkyeOfStars
Status
Recent Statuses
4 yrs ago
Need two more people for our Fantasy + Sci-fi roleplay - we have angry burning trees!
1
like
4 yrs ago
New interest check is live, check it outttt
4 yrs ago
If i could go back now, i wouldn't change a thing
1
like
4 yrs ago
You've got red on you
1
like
4 yrs ago
Its just me, you, a pile of Chinese food and a couple of f**k off spreadsheets.
3
likes
Bio
New roleplay: https://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/189457-the-eye-of-the-needle-where-fantasy-and-sci-fi-collide/ooc
Hey, I'm Catharyn! I joined the Roleplayer Guild on 2nd Feb 2011, then rejoined on the 17th Jan 2014 after Guildfall.
I was active every day until late 2015, accruing (i think) around 7k posts across dozens of roleplays. Then, I started working and had to gradually slow down my RP schedule. In 2017, I officially went on hiatus when other commitments got fully in the way of roleplaying.
This continued until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, when I suddenly realised I had a lot more free time in lockdown! So in mid-2020, I returned to the Guild with a vengeance. I also managed to get The Cradle 1x1 off the ground - a story i've had percolating for almost a decade.
My posting schedule has slowed down a bit now that the world has opened up again. I still love science fiction, fantasy and espionage themes, and generally aim for around 300 words per post.
Hey, I'm Catharyn! I joined the Roleplayer Guild on 2nd Feb 2011, then rejoined on the 17th Jan 2014 after Guildfall.
I was active every day until late 2015, accruing (i think) around 7k posts across dozens of roleplays. Then, I started working and had to gradually slow down my RP schedule. In 2017, I officially went on hiatus when other commitments got fully in the way of roleplaying.
This continued until the COVID-19 pandemic hit, when I suddenly realised I had a lot more free time in lockdown! So in mid-2020, I returned to the Guild with a vengeance. I also managed to get The Cradle 1x1 off the ground - a story i've had percolating for almost a decade.
My posting schedule has slowed down a bit now that the world has opened up again. I still love science fiction, fantasy and espionage themes, and generally aim for around 300 words per post.
Most Recent Posts
The Nomad [OOC]
Prologue
Begin log
"The lines of communication are back online after eight days of nothing from Earth. The war is over, we got the communique this morning. 27 past years, almost a thousand ravaged worlds and billions of dead is what it took to stop Humanity being erased from the Milky Way permanently. Was it worth it? Perhaps, but i suspect the struggle has only just begun.
The ripples made by our fabulous war with The Nomad and its slaves will be felt for as long as mankind breathes oxygen or craves violence. Our little colony escaped destruction by a hair's breadth; one of The Nomad's fleets is just outside our atmosphere, floating listlessly and without power. We watched it burn the system's capital world from orbit til its surface shone like glass.
The pre-war fast travel networks are down, and its no secret that we're desperately low on ships, but someone at home thinks we're worth bothering with. I received word last night that a UWG Cutter Class vessel, the Scythian, is enroute to the system. When we asked why, we were given instructions to monitor all comms channels for further instructions. This has got to be Naval Intelligence jargon for 'we've been commandeered by a Naval Intelligence spook and we don't know why we're coming out there', i can feel it. Matter of fact, i'm going to ask the Director about this right now."
End log.
Introduction
The year is 2804 and Humanity, led by a coalition of world governments, has inhabited almost a thousand worlds. That is, until they lost almost all of them again. 27 years prior, teams led by Earth's Naval Intelligence department uncovered what they thought was an artifact buried deep beneath the sands of desert planet. They were tipped off about its location by seemingly the only inhabitants of the planet, a sect of fanatical zealots worshiping a thing they called The Nomad.
Naturally they decided to investigate and upon finding the artifact and discovering it had the potential to yield many technological breakthroughs, attempted to relocate it back to Earth. The artifact awoke, and bore a startling resemblance to the world destroying Nomad that the world's inhabitants had so eagerly described. The teams didn't return to the vessels in orbit, and then the entire solar system went dark.
The United World Governments didn't know what to do. Should they cover it up, hope it goes away? For almost a year that is what they did, assuming that the exploration crews had just stumbled into some nasty accident. This illusion was shattered almost a year later when the Outer World of Cornucopia was completely destroyed, beginning the First Contact War. The Nomad was ruthlessly effective, harvesting resources from destroyed planets to build mega-factories that churned out spaceships and mechanical killing machines at a frightening rate.
It took the entire effort of every human being, friendly AI and alien mercenary in UWG space just to slow The Nomad. It leapt into each pricey naval engagement with vigour; seemingly with more craft at its disposal than last time. The UWG were growing desperate, digging up artifacts in other areas of deep space and researching long lost technologies from past civilizations. The war came to a close just as The Nomad's main fleet finally found the Sol System and jumped in.
Something happened during that final, embattled stand. The UWG deployed some kind of device and all The Nomad's fleets just deactivated; doomed to hang listlessly on the precipice of victory. I've been painstakingly piecing together the war from rumours, pirate broadcasts and snippets of overheard conversations. The UWG are not telling us something, i just know it! I'm going to find out what it is.
Roleplay Information
Hello and welcome to The Nomad! I'm Catharyn, your GM. This is a story driven (with short respites at regular intervals), galaxy spanning adventure full of intrigue, space battles and an ancient secret that threatens to finally erase Humankind for good! The main starting point for this Roleplay is RX3248, a small moon orbiting the system's recently decimated Capital World, Ha'Mdama. A UWSC Cutter called the Scythian is enroute to the system on an urgent and secretive mission, having been commandeered by the famously shadowy Naval Intelligence Department. The inhabitants of RX don't know it yet, but they may be in the centre of the flashpoint which will ignite an entirely new kind of conflict. If you're interested in the roleplay but have some questions, come and say hi in the OOC and ask away. I promise we're friendly! If you're convinced and want to create a character, head to the Character Sheet tab here.
Playable Species / Factions
Hello. Do you have any particular specifics about settled worlds/stations, tech overview of humanity etc. in mind? I don't want to accidentally put something into the CS that would contradict the lore.
Hi, yes i'm working on the tech overview and details for important colonised worlds this evening. There will be loads of info going up on the OP soon so keep checking back. Was there anything specific you wanted to know now so i can tell you quickly?
Hey Wendy! I started roleplaying on the RS forums too! Welcome back to The Guild
Are we allowed to be part of the UWG crew or just the colony? Just wanna know before I start deciding on a character.
You can be UWG aboard the Scythian, i'm just finalizing that plot-line now.
how big is the colony anyway. Is it basically a town near a colony ship landing sight, a bunch of small towns a la the old west or something else. I was thinking of maybe either making a character that is the colony's (meager) automated defense system or perhaps an alien trader that got trapped there. Knowing the scale of the colony would be useful in both those circumstances.
I'm gonna write up a detailed description of RX today, but essentially its a collection of small colonies (small being less than 10 buildings), each a short buggy ride from one another. The infrastructure is fractured purely because the terrain is fairly inhospitable (space suits on when outside the biospheres) which prohibited a large central colony. So there'd be a science base, a fairly basic automated manufacturing facility, a security base which handles automated defences and a space port with some other general housing and commerce modules.
@bmxbrat484 Thanks, i'll keep that in mind. I'm updating the OOC today with setting and more direction for our start points.
Character Sheet
Full Name:
Known as:
Species:
Gender:
Age:
Appearance:
Vocation: (What do they do for a living, if anything)
Personality: (Only put something here if you plan to stick to it)
History:
Valued possessions: (If anything)
Miscellaneous:
Species Application
Name:
Status to Humans: (Are they known, on good terms or unknown)
Life expectancy:
Genders: (Standard Female/Male or something else)
Full Description: (I want to know everything that makes them alien, pictures are useful)
Type of society: (This includes how their civilisation is made up)
Technological advancement: (Use this)
Miscellaneous:
OOC is up! Head on over, i'm going to put a rudimentary CS up in the character 0th post.
RX3248’s spaceport had not aged well. Initially meant to house a purely industrial complex, three terminals spread like spikes on a trident away from a series of landing pads that looked out over the moon’s dried out ocean. A control tower looked out over the port, piles of discarded machine parts stacked up against all four of its walls.
Originally a large open space adjacent to the largest terminal was set aside to store containers of Helium-3 ready for shipping. However with space at a premium and twenty seven years worth of refugees to house, it had been completely swamped by cheap housing units. Rectangular in shape, hundreds of them had been stacked in rows with metal staircases down to the ground. In the middle of this maze of prefabs was a larger community centre/canteen/whatever was needed area. In all the spaceport housed 70% of RX’s 40,000 strong population.
Now the Helium-3 shipments were kept at the place they were mined, and when ships were ready to be loaded they trundled down a funicular railway and straight through the centre of the colony. They trundled past the moon’s hospital, some of the permanent residences, a utility vehicle pool, the marketplace, the Colonial Administration and a mess of other buildings. The town had been arranged in a symmetrical semi-circular shape, but more ad-hoc buildings disrupted the open space which had been created, extending the feeling of a shanty town.
The Col-Ad building was where most of the important decisions were made. The colony’s Director maintained a small staff of administrators and representatives from other stations on the moon that helped to deal with the strain of people asking what was happening and trying to further their own cause. The lobby was always busy, with inadequate facilities and lack of space further exacerbating the perceived chaos of it all. The Col-Ad building ground floor was separated into around a dozen meeting rooms, with each having been partially taken over by wounded UWG personnel that had been left stranded after ‘Mdama fell to The Nomad.
Clara arrived by buggy, having hitched a lift with a couple of the science team who were making the journey anyway to requisition more lab equipment. They clanged up the few short metal steps to the Col-Ad entrance, making way for a gaggle of refugees taking a stretcher back to the hospital. They had been swamped with walking wounded and medical supplies were running dangerously low.
That UWG vessel in orbit better have some more. Clara thought as they walked through the doors and into the airlock. As oxygen flooded in, all three of them took off their spacesuit helmets, collapsed them down to a third of their regular size and clipped them to the back of their suits. Clara tapped personal assistant device on her wrist, opening a line of communication with RX’s director.
“James, its Clara. I need to see you now.”
“Oh, fuck off no it's too busy up here Clara. Don’t waste a journey, come see me once this UWG ship has touched down.
“Too late, i’m already here.”
“For fuck sake, alright come on up! I can spare you two minutes.”
When the communique came through that morning, there was a kind of collective stunned silence across the colony comms network. The war was over, but it was still nowhere near sinking in. There was a general feeling that there was still a lot to do before the moon’s own personal struggle was rectified. And then, only then, would people celebrate.
Clara agreed to meet her colleagues back at the buggy and left them in the line for the main reception desk. She zigzagged her way past throngs of people waiting for ration cards to take to the store rooms and showed her clearance to a pair of armed security guards. They let her into the central elevator, which whizzed her up four floors to the Director’s office. The doors opened to a waiting room packed with people. She could just about pick out Director James Ogilve in the middle of a mass of shouting people.
“I don’t have anything to tell you at this time, i will make sure that i get as many injured people up onto the ship to use their hospital! Please, let me do my job so i can help you do yours!” He shouted over the noise. He spotted Clara, and motioned her forward while making a general shooing motion with the other. “Everyone please make their requests and questions known to Yulia my assistant. Clara come with me!” As the crowd rounded on the small desk of a well built woman in her fifties to wave papers and data pads, James ushered Clara through the open door of his office.
The Director’s office was simple, with a few exotic pot plants and a view over the whole colony taking up an entire wall. Several administrators sat on the office’s two sofas, furiously tapping at portable workstations, blue and orange light bathed over their faces. Ogilvie sharply clicked his fingers at them and made the same shooing motion.
“Out please. Go and help Yulia.”
They packed up their stuff and jogged outside, closing the doors which dimmed the sound of the commotion outside.
James Ogilvie was a tired looking man. He wore a once-crisp white shirt which had a coffee stain down on the collar. Clara took a quick look around and judged that he’d probably been sleeping in his office. He sat on the edge of his desk and looked at Clara for a moment, scratching his stubble.
“Can i get you a cup of coffee?”
“No thank you, so what's going on? This UWG ship, the Scythian is it? It didn’t give any inclination as to why it's hot footed its way out here so fast. Only for us to monitor all comms channels. They only say that if there's some Navy politics going on and nobody knows whats happening.”
“How the fuck should i know? I saw the same message you did. They haven’t opened a comm line yet so i’ve been sitting here with my thumb in my ass, trying to keep everybody calm. People are scared and hungry, and this ship looks like their only way off this rock.” Ogilvie got himself a cup of coffee and handed one to Clara, who put it down on the desk. He took a big gulp, his left hand shaking slightly.
“What was that thing you were telling me about, before all hell broke loose this morning. Some kind of artifact? Is it valuable?”
“Yeah, i left it with Dr Gao. Its inconsistent with the civilisation whose ruins we’re digging up, which means they probably got it from someone else. Its unlike anything i’ve ever seen before, and its age seems to predate that of the original precursor civ in this sector which--”
Ogilvie’s personal assistant device chimed from its cradle on the desk. “Message from the spaceport control room Director Ogilvie.”
“Patch them through.”
“Director, the UWS Scythian is requesting permission to land.”
“Grant them access, request a comms line with their commanding officer.”
“What are you going to ask them?” Clara murmured, shifting forward in her seat.
“Why the Navy sent them to a forsaken moon light years from anywhere when there are worlds with hundreds of millions of people on the brink of collapse.” Ogilvie replied, reaching across his desk to grab an earpiece. He popped it in his ear and stood up, walking over to the bay windows looking out over the spaceport.”
“Good evening, allow me to introduce myself. I’m James Ogilvie, Director of RX3248. May we now know why you made it all the way out here? We didn’t request a Navy transport and i doubt we’d get one unless there was something here that you wanted.”
The Director didn’t appear to like the answer he was given. A few seconds past and Clara could see his eyes hardening even more. He didn’t believe what he was being told.
“Well i must say, that's a very efficient service you’re operating there. In that case, i will deploy personnel to help unload. Please make your way to my office when you are first able, one of my staff will show you the way.”
Originally a large open space adjacent to the largest terminal was set aside to store containers of Helium-3 ready for shipping. However with space at a premium and twenty seven years worth of refugees to house, it had been completely swamped by cheap housing units. Rectangular in shape, hundreds of them had been stacked in rows with metal staircases down to the ground. In the middle of this maze of prefabs was a larger community centre/canteen/whatever was needed area. In all the spaceport housed 70% of RX’s 40,000 strong population.
Now the Helium-3 shipments were kept at the place they were mined, and when ships were ready to be loaded they trundled down a funicular railway and straight through the centre of the colony. They trundled past the moon’s hospital, some of the permanent residences, a utility vehicle pool, the marketplace, the Colonial Administration and a mess of other buildings. The town had been arranged in a symmetrical semi-circular shape, but more ad-hoc buildings disrupted the open space which had been created, extending the feeling of a shanty town.
The Col-Ad building was where most of the important decisions were made. The colony’s Director maintained a small staff of administrators and representatives from other stations on the moon that helped to deal with the strain of people asking what was happening and trying to further their own cause. The lobby was always busy, with inadequate facilities and lack of space further exacerbating the perceived chaos of it all. The Col-Ad building ground floor was separated into around a dozen meeting rooms, with each having been partially taken over by wounded UWG personnel that had been left stranded after ‘Mdama fell to The Nomad.
Clara arrived by buggy, having hitched a lift with a couple of the science team who were making the journey anyway to requisition more lab equipment. They clanged up the few short metal steps to the Col-Ad entrance, making way for a gaggle of refugees taking a stretcher back to the hospital. They had been swamped with walking wounded and medical supplies were running dangerously low.
That UWG vessel in orbit better have some more. Clara thought as they walked through the doors and into the airlock. As oxygen flooded in, all three of them took off their spacesuit helmets, collapsed them down to a third of their regular size and clipped them to the back of their suits. Clara tapped personal assistant device on her wrist, opening a line of communication with RX’s director.
“James, its Clara. I need to see you now.”
“Oh, fuck off no it's too busy up here Clara. Don’t waste a journey, come see me once this UWG ship has touched down.
“Too late, i’m already here.”
“For fuck sake, alright come on up! I can spare you two minutes.”
When the communique came through that morning, there was a kind of collective stunned silence across the colony comms network. The war was over, but it was still nowhere near sinking in. There was a general feeling that there was still a lot to do before the moon’s own personal struggle was rectified. And then, only then, would people celebrate.
Clara agreed to meet her colleagues back at the buggy and left them in the line for the main reception desk. She zigzagged her way past throngs of people waiting for ration cards to take to the store rooms and showed her clearance to a pair of armed security guards. They let her into the central elevator, which whizzed her up four floors to the Director’s office. The doors opened to a waiting room packed with people. She could just about pick out Director James Ogilve in the middle of a mass of shouting people.
“I don’t have anything to tell you at this time, i will make sure that i get as many injured people up onto the ship to use their hospital! Please, let me do my job so i can help you do yours!” He shouted over the noise. He spotted Clara, and motioned her forward while making a general shooing motion with the other. “Everyone please make their requests and questions known to Yulia my assistant. Clara come with me!” As the crowd rounded on the small desk of a well built woman in her fifties to wave papers and data pads, James ushered Clara through the open door of his office.
The Director’s office was simple, with a few exotic pot plants and a view over the whole colony taking up an entire wall. Several administrators sat on the office’s two sofas, furiously tapping at portable workstations, blue and orange light bathed over their faces. Ogilvie sharply clicked his fingers at them and made the same shooing motion.
“Out please. Go and help Yulia.”
They packed up their stuff and jogged outside, closing the doors which dimmed the sound of the commotion outside.
James Ogilvie was a tired looking man. He wore a once-crisp white shirt which had a coffee stain down on the collar. Clara took a quick look around and judged that he’d probably been sleeping in his office. He sat on the edge of his desk and looked at Clara for a moment, scratching his stubble.
“Can i get you a cup of coffee?”
“No thank you, so what's going on? This UWG ship, the Scythian is it? It didn’t give any inclination as to why it's hot footed its way out here so fast. Only for us to monitor all comms channels. They only say that if there's some Navy politics going on and nobody knows whats happening.”
“How the fuck should i know? I saw the same message you did. They haven’t opened a comm line yet so i’ve been sitting here with my thumb in my ass, trying to keep everybody calm. People are scared and hungry, and this ship looks like their only way off this rock.” Ogilvie got himself a cup of coffee and handed one to Clara, who put it down on the desk. He took a big gulp, his left hand shaking slightly.
“What was that thing you were telling me about, before all hell broke loose this morning. Some kind of artifact? Is it valuable?”
“Yeah, i left it with Dr Gao. Its inconsistent with the civilisation whose ruins we’re digging up, which means they probably got it from someone else. Its unlike anything i’ve ever seen before, and its age seems to predate that of the original precursor civ in this sector which--”
Ogilvie’s personal assistant device chimed from its cradle on the desk. “Message from the spaceport control room Director Ogilvie.”
“Patch them through.”
“Director, the UWS Scythian is requesting permission to land.”
“Grant them access, request a comms line with their commanding officer.”
“What are you going to ask them?” Clara murmured, shifting forward in her seat.
“Why the Navy sent them to a forsaken moon light years from anywhere when there are worlds with hundreds of millions of people on the brink of collapse.” Ogilvie replied, reaching across his desk to grab an earpiece. He popped it in his ear and stood up, walking over to the bay windows looking out over the spaceport.”
“Good evening, allow me to introduce myself. I’m James Ogilvie, Director of RX3248. May we now know why you made it all the way out here? We didn’t request a Navy transport and i doubt we’d get one unless there was something here that you wanted.”
The Director didn’t appear to like the answer he was given. A few seconds past and Clara could see his eyes hardening even more. He didn’t believe what he was being told.
“Well i must say, that's a very efficient service you’re operating there. In that case, i will deploy personnel to help unload. Please make your way to my office when you are first able, one of my staff will show you the way.”
© 2007-2026