erikaG

Extragalactic Exploration Expedition: Survey Team II

So, for my opening post: I'm still working out a more effective delivery method for the nearby star system report, and just how much information I should include. A lot of research on my part will go into that, but you folks may need to keep in mind that you will have to do a bit a wiki skimming yourselves in order to choose potentially interesting places to go. For instance, that T-class might be pretty dull (yes, that is a scientific star brightness pun).

Sep: in regards to your post: there are only two things of which you should be wary. The first is in regards to the A.I. "A.L.I.C.E." (which, I would love to know, if you actually have an acronym for, and if so, solid!) that you invented. Having some sort of direct interface like an A.I. with the ship's computer is absolutely logical, and I would expect nothing less, but it probably wouldn't have too much "intelligence." It would probably be much more like the V.I. in Mass Effect. The second was something I mentioned previously in relation to the pilot/captain character. There likely aren't any direct piloting controls that are usable by your character built into the initial design of the ship whatsoever. The calculations for real piloting in space would happen too quickly for the human (or most biological) minds to process and the shipwrights would know this. This isn't to say that your character couldn't have jury-rigged the system to give himself more direct control, but the likelihood of us crashing into something while you are in control will increase significantly.

Otherwise it looks good. I would have told you all this in chat, but I needed to put it down before I forgot... because I do that.

Extragalactic Exploration Expedition: Survey Team II

Sure, Foster, that would work.

Just a heads up, I'll be oot 'n aboot buying a car over the next couple of days. I should be back sometime on Thursday if all goes well. See you all then.

Extragalactic Exploration Expedition: Survey Team II

I've got the tech officer position filled with a engineer/programmer-ish kind of person.

Foster: you do realize the majority of the food will come from recycled proteins. The amount of planets where we'll find actual ingest-able ingredients are likely to be slim.

Extragalactic Exploration Expedition: Survey Team II

It was massive. Had the structure not been built in space, it would have been impossible to view the whole of it at once. Even so, any being taking in the spectacle of its design would need to do so from a considerable distance and through a rather well-placed viewport. At a considerable distance from the closest sun, an incredible number of artificial light sources had been included in the construction in order to better illuminate the object as well as the surrounding stations necessary both in construction and operation. Smaller craft buzzed busily about in the vicinity but even the biggest of them were microscopic in comparison.

The magnitude of the galactic jump gate didn't disappoint.

The gate had been in the making for the last few decades and was designed to be a free-floating celestial object tied as loosely as possible to the gravitational field of a stable, if otherwise completely useless, as well as politically neutral, star. Many different factions, though at least superficially friendly ones, allowed the gate to be a joint commission. Despite this cooperation, the associated costs for funding such a project were unlike any single instance ever undertaken before, even after the financing had been divvied between the participating governments. The prospect of such a venture, however, made the cost seem worth to effort, at least to someone.

The purpose of the gate was to cross the incredibly large gap between galaxies in a relatively short period of time. The use of conventional star drives could travel such a distance, however such a trip would take longer than most species would remain alive. And although sleeper vessels were not unheard for taking on such a task, the probability of finding nothing immediately useful on the other side of the expanse of empty space was highly probable. The jump gate, though, exponentially eliminated the delay for a ship of considerably smaller size to make the journey. If this vessel was sent, subspace relays established, and scouting missions carried out, information could be relayed back to the Milky Way quickly. On top of that, if (though most governments were banking more on when) valuable resources were discovered, a sleeper ship with the necessary resources could then be sent to construct a galactic jump gate in the neighboring galaxy.

Of course there was no guarantee that anything found in these neighboring galaxies would be worth anything. Corporations were aware of this gamble and were hoping to make their profit back simply through franchising, advertising, and entertainment value over the course of the lives of those they send, not to mention the interest from debt accrued by the governments taking part in the venture. The crews themselves were assembled, perhaps a little haphazardly as a result of the corporate interference, mostly out of the few who volunteered. After all, if the crews couldn't find anything worthwhile on the other side of their jump point, they would be effectively stranded there, and, with limited personnel and resources, be unable to found a colony of any type. And even if a viable spot was located and either a government or a corporation made a push to send a sleeper ship, the crews of these scout vessels would be long dead by the time any colonists arrived.

In one large, rather overglorified event, more than a dozen scout ships were sent through the gate, each to their own respective galaxy. One by one, the gate turned on, an immense amount of energy was channeled through the system, a ship was pulled in and subsequently vanished into a demolecularized puff of atoms. The gate then repositioned, crews aboard one of the stations recalculated arrival points, and then repeated the process. Until, at last, they were all gone: the scout ships, the news crews, the old hat celebrities, nearly everyone. Then gate sat there, without further function required of it.

It became a massive ring of metal, floating uselessly through space.

***Scan of Nearby Star Systems Report #1***

1. G0-class main-sequence star. Planets: several probable.

2. T-class brown dwarf star. Planets: unknown.

3. F1-class main-sequence star. Planets: several probable.

4. O6-class Supergiant star. Prominent heavy elements appearing in spectrum. Planets: few.

Space Western meets Psychological Drama

OOC is up. Will try to have the IC up later tonight.

Extragalactic Exploration Expedition: Survey Team II

Or XXX2 for short.

Here's the Int check which has some discussion as well as the initial premise of the RP: Space Western meets Psychological Drama

I am hoping to have the first IC post up this evening. Once we've "depleted" our (inter)actions for a specific system, I will introduce a "sensor report." This report will have limited scans of nearby systems from which the crew can then choose (like approximate number of planets, size/type of star, nebulae, etc. etc.). This report won't likely have considerable amounts of more pertinent information like the composition of the planets, signs of primitive life, and the like, but the crew should be able to make educated guesses about the system to promote finding more than just another rock floating through space (but be prepared, the overwhelming likelihood is that we will be finding a lot of rocks... floating through space). The first post will include one of these reports as well as a smidgen of background. I will save my own character posts for elsewhere, and make very clear when I am speaking for my character and when I am giving a sensor report.

Here's the Dramatis Personae as I understand them at this point (tell me if I get this wrong, and remember, we all have a bit of a jack-of-all-trades nature and can see to many tasks aboard the ship):
Sep: Pilot/Captain
Kessa: Communications/Cartographer
Ellri: Xenoplanet specialist
Foster: Cook
Jorj: Engineer/Programmer

Technical details: post length is not something we can always control. Having introspective upon introspective about the recycled apple you ate that morning can be quite droll, and thus posts may very well get shorter with time. I have no problem with that. If you're having a direct conversation with another character however, it might be smarter to do some sort of joint post rather than each person posting one sentence at a time. The galaxy we will be traveling to is the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Definitely feel welcome to join #threads on the irc to discuss the rp at any point, I'm in there quite a bit.

Final note, because I want this stressed before we continue: this rp is designed for character development. While it has "hard" sci-fi as an undercurrent, I designed this rp specifically to see how the interactions of a small group of characters, forever separated from their homes/families, would progress through a greatly uncharted territory. The effect the journey will have on their psyche, how they will cope with the others aboard the ship, these are the things that interest me. The mineral content of P4X776 does not. And even if we stumble across life, intelligent or not, I am still more interested in how such a discovery will effect the mood of the crew, than spending umpteen amounts of posts describing whatever wonderful forms of primordial bacteria we come across, or having futile conversations with silicon-based lifeforms that don't even respond verbally.

Here we go!

Space Western meets Psychological Drama

I'll hopefully have the OOC/IC up tomorrow at some point, maybe even tonight. Just moved from one apartment to another and, well... yeah. Soon, vurry soon.

Space Western meets Psychological Drama

Yes, interested parties are welcome to join #threads on the irc home server of the rpguild's main room.

As far as number of personnel, my absolute max is 7, but to keep everything moving smoothly/quickly, 5 is optimal.

Space Western meets Psychological Drama

I haven't done much updating here, but I have been having many conversations with Ellri, Jordan, and Kessa about this and haven't really gotten around to posting some of what was discussed. One reason for this is because my motivation for running this rp has little to do with delving into the backstory of the situation, but only to deal with the situation and the characters dealing with their circumstances themselves. While I'm sure the history of each of the characters will be incredibly important to those efforts, I'm leaving it open for each writer to figure that out on their own. It's a big galaxy after all, and there are many possibilities, many of which I probably haven't even considered yet. As a note, I tend to be very hands off in those regards.

As far as medics go: I've decided that might be unlikely. The way things are set up, having to rely on too heavily on any one member of the crew would fatal for the entire ship. A doctor especially, if one existed and subsequently got knocked out for any reason, the penalty would lie not just on that character but certainly for the rest of the crew. However, nano-technology is an excellent replacement for this (and would then also fall under anyone who has any engineering experience which they all likely will). With the proper programming, nanites would be able to mend tissue, fight illness, and even repair significant bone/tendon/ligament damage over lengthy periods of time. It would then be up to the entire to crew not only make sure these nanites are functioning properly, but also to have some basic medic training (or really common sense) concerning any injury received.

I think Kessa's character would already cover the field of assistant engineer as her character has skill in the field as we've established it. As far as a coxswain/co-pilot goes, this again is a skill likely to be duplicitous across the board for the crew, especially considering that the actual piloting of the ship is done by computer and the command inputs are really the only effort needed from the crew as far as "piloting" is concerned. This would also allow shifts for the crew to always have some sort of rotation set up for "off time."

All that make sense?

Space Western meets Psychological Drama

I'm having trouble with deciding on this question. With an engineer character who essentially makes sure all the ship's A.I. systems (integrated or free-roaming) to function properly, the character itself could end up becoming more like an NPC to the engineer than an individual role. What made Data so special in Star Trek was that he was capable of learning and then adapting due to the sum of his experiences. As a result, in the Star Trek universe, he was considered an incredible anomaly as far as A.I. went. Story-wise, or at least how we are starting to envision the direction of how things function in this futuristic universe, I worry that an android simply would not be able to function on its own.

Now, I would be completely ok with a cyborg. Take a human and throw in robot parts, sure. But I'm inclined to say no to the android.