By the middle of the 22nd century literally thousands of extra Solar planets with conditions that might support life had been discovered. Most had gravities higher than Earth, what were known as Superearths. Such worlds tended to have floating crustal movement. Earth's population had skyrocketed to 12 billion. Global warming was increasing with no end in sight. The governments of Earth had no recourse but to make plans for a number of interstellar missions aimed at the preservation of the human race.
Earlier in the 21st century (2072 to 2095) dozens of interstellar probed, nicknamed Comet Class XS probes had been launched. They were designed to reach speeds around 25% of the speed of light. At a predetermined point the main probe scattered multiple probes bound for various systems along its trajectory. Tanis was some 127 LY distant. Its probe had not even reached the system when the Tanis mothership was launched in 2147, some 60 years after the probe was launched (2087), and altered course when one of the probes scattered by the main probe sent back telemetry of a viable system.
The mothership was designed to reach a speed of 10% of the speed of light. It took some 1357 years for your ship to reach the new world. It was of a mixed design; park Ark, part Sleeper ship. Only 5000 colonists were sent on the mission - about 25 times what was needed to start a new civilization utilizing the embrionic storage systems of the Ark. Thousands of "near perfect"human embryos were stored there. The future. It was the crew's job to build the colony and prepare the way for the children.
In 2337 the Tanis mission began the trajectory changes that would guide it toward its destination. 17 years later all communication with Earth was lost. There was no turning back. News of living conditions back on Earth was something out of science fiction horror. It was getting crowded even in space. The flight crew kept the news to themselves and continued their mission. A little over halfway there, the ship's sytems began to suffer their first failures. High energy cosmic radiation began to take its toll on the ship and the colonists. The flight crew was forced to awaken engineers in attempts to modify the shielding to survive the trip.
At the end of the journey most of the flight crew was dead of old age or hibernation unit failures. Most of the engineers with skills for keeping the ship or hibernation units working suffered the same fate. Of the original colonists only 1500 survived. In its degraded condition the mothership made a poor orbital insertion and ended up crashing into the planet a modest distance offshore of a major continent. Sections of the ship still protrude above the water - high enough that gravity tore part of it down.
The flight crew had many years to plan for contingencies and they planned well. Two major plans were made. One was ejecting hibernation units to the three most viable looking sites detectable upon final approach. The other was having units eject after crashing, the rational the ship's carcass would provide much material for building the colony.
Welcome to Tanis. On Earth the year would be 3504. But for all intents it is Year One.
Rules and General Info:
1. Please no aliens, androids or cyborgs. Humans only. It is really more a matter of maintenance facilities not being available on a new world. Yes, there will be a psionic element in the game. For those who love this sort of thing, please discuss it with a moderator. I am not looking to have Firestarter in the game.
2. PC's should be a cut above average. Remember, 5000 colonists were handpicked out of a population of 12 billion. However, as families were also brought along there is room for exceptions with good justification. Think of the sort of crew that would be selected for the first Lunar or Mars colony. Even the smegheads would need to be trained in basic safety protocols.
3. Yes there will be First Contact situations.
4. Technology available is comparable to that seen on TV shows like Earth II, Deep Sea Quest.
5. Subjects should include Dates, especially if a background post. In other words, make it clear for newer players where the game is at chronologically.
6. NO ONE LINE Posting. While I don't expect a three page professional effort, I want something better than a sentence or two. The posts should make sense when read by outsiders trying to catch up on the story. If necessary, include a short excerpt from the post you are responding to. If that excerpt is longer than your post, you should probably be working on a Joint Post and holding off on posting here until you have content and context developed.
7. Run only YOUR character, not others, nor NPC's owned by others. Please do not try to run the aliens until their full nature is well understood and updated. Inactive PC's will become the property of the game for the sake of continuity.
8. Yes, we will work with new players. But they should be prepared to work within the constraints above. If you need help with character development, please ask. Mitheral has been running games since 1980; Sharlene since 1995.
9. No, we don't expect everyone to post with the sort of energy the moderators have.
Submit any questions to Sharlene FIRST please. She is the lead GM and has final say in all matters.
