Don't come too close [sci-fi, psychological]

[Jargo]

- Brief Backstory -​

The year is 4023, if someone would still measure it since the birth of the long-forgotten Christian deity though no one cares about it....

Humanity has advanced tremendously in terms of technology, but in terms of morale it took several steps back. The average lifespan is at least 500 years...

Interstellar travel is the new reality, a centralized government controls those humans who are still living in the solar system or the colonies around it, though independent dominions are also into existence...

That makes up for a very small part of the man kind, since practically every larger ship or a space station is capable of surviving on it's own, growing synthetic food and mining minerals from the dead space worlds, fueling itself from gas giants and nebulae, most humans live on their own small societies in such vessels, to them the concept of money is obsolete and each and every society and person seeks their own goals in life...

No contact has been made with aliens, though man kind has spread far and wide across the galaxy....
Until now...

- Your Character and its environment -​

You can be anyone and everyone you wish, as long as you're human, you can be a cyborg, but your core has to be human. You are the crew of a large mother-ship equipped with everything you can imagine from drones and mini battle-ships to artificial gravity and a forest with wild animals in one section. You have a large quality of resources available at your disposal, so anything you need could be made within a decent amount of time, a few examples are: weapons, ammo, medical devices, robotic limbs, even other spaceships.

You are, at least, vaguely familiar with all the characters on the ship, though you may know very little or too much of the others, depending on what you agree between yourselves. You can have relationship between characters, if you wish.

You are floating in sub-light speed in the void between two large clusters of stars, when something intercepts you. Your engines, apart from prehistoric nuclear-powered ones that would take you eons to travel the distance. You can still maneuver through space, though.

Your first clue of alien presence is a member of the crew found in the forest, at a sea of gore, none of the animals would even go near the remains. Aliens are not invisible to your eyes, you have to think of other ways of spotting them. Their agenda is unclear, no one else has been physically attacked yet, but inexplicable things begin to happen to the rest of you, in terms of thoughts, idea, memories. You all seem to be losing what's called sanity and if you don't do something about it soon, you will all cease to be human... and change forever into something, which cannot be explained, something at the thought of which, your only sensible reaction is to scream in dread...

- The Rules -​

While I said you can be anyone and everyone, I'd like to offer several guideline and give a couple of fair warnings, before you join in.

The action is in far away future, so concepts that are limited to our time frame are to be avoided. And by avoided I mean NOT allowed! Those include, but are not limited to:

• Religion - no need to even discuss why...
• Money as prime motivator (you could still play, for instance, an undercover agent of the central government who has come to cripple this station in exchange for money, but you'd need to make it REALLY believable)
• Lust as a prime motivator, sex and the like can, of course happen
• Greed as a prime motivator
• Systematic substance abuse of any kind, as a main thing for a character's story. It doesn't mean your character can't do it in the RP, but that would just be something for the moment, not the main motive in your actions.

If you want to argue any of the above with me, you can try to, but you will lose :) Those things don't mean you have to be a good/neutral character - you can be a twisted and evil as you like, you will just have to be the scum of the future.

I will not be role-playing a character, I will be the Alien beings and will also guide the RP though mass events.

Now that the obvious rules are given, I will extend a few warnings, please read them, before considering to join in.

• DO NOT join in, if you are very religious (I respect all people's beliefs, but this RP will definitely become offensive to you at some points and I really don't want any dramas)
• DO NOT join in, you are easily disturbed, if you suffer from psychological conditions ESPECIALLY extremely low self-esteem and/or depression. I absolutely guarantee you, that your condition will worsen by far, if you actively partake in this.
• DO NOT join in, if you suffer from any mental illnesses or you are anyhow prone to trauma, same reasons as above
• GENERAL WARNING, this RP will have a very heavy vibe, as I tend to dig deep into each character's problems, so if you prefer something lightly casual and not engaging look somewhere else

Character sheets:
Picture:
Name(s):
Age:
Gender:
Afflictions (family, boy/girlfriend etc.):
Attitude (Personality):
Brief Backstory:
Fears:
Thing you'd like to do, but are too kind/cautions/scared to:
Things you cherish:

 

[Ruko]

Hey @Aleksandar. Nice setting you've got here. One thing though, before I join: If it were me, I'd make the year something more like 4250 AD, to allow time for reclusive colonies to become the normal way of life, and to account for 500 year life spans. Oh also, now that i've actually read the rules section, TBH I find some of the rules ridiculous. Sure, money as a prime factor being outlawed is probable, given that on a space ship holding probably around 200 people there isnt enough demand for money, but greed as a prime motive will always happen regardless of time period. Same with Religion. Religion will ALWAYS exist. It always has, it always will. The only difference is that it will stop being organised religion and turn into personal beliefs and superstitions. It is the human nature to begin believing that things they don't understand are beyond their control.

CS coming here soon.

 

[Jargo]

Hi there, @Ruko nice to see you here :) Firstly, I have to say I agree with you on the age part. Personally I was never one to shy away from big numbers in terms of time span, but I was hesitant, since most of the people may not feel at ease with sci-fi set that far into the future. As for the greed part - consider the setting - you are on a ship capable of making pretty much anything you may want or think of - what is there to be greedy about, what would you want so badly or so much of, that it is the prime motivation for your actions? The only thing I can think of is to control the others, but that is powerlust, not a form of greed anymore. Now, what you are saying - personal beliefs and superstitions - is no longer religion. I am personally also a bit skeptical about that, but I am willing to accept that some individuals may still hold some beliefs and superstitions, based on their own lifestyle, even that far into the future (though it's still weird to me, especially since technology and knowledge of the world would have advanced so vastly much...), but the moment they are individual-specific we no longer talk about religion.

Looking forward to your CS :)

 

[Ruko]

Yeah By CS coming here soon I meant "In all likelihood I will completely forget that I promised to do something and I'll do it tomorrow." I recommend PMming me or something to remind me to do it cos the chances i remember by myself are pretty low :P
If you think about it though, spirituality will always exist no matter whether or not you can explain everything with science. At the heart of it, people enjoy believing that there's something out there that's beyond there control, that will be mystical. Take me for example. I used to be an atheist, but I've come to love Shinto because I like the whole tradition of worshipping everything just in case.

 

[FiliaFlammae]

Hey there! Said I'd take a look. I admit, I too am a bit leery of accepting all of these caveats about human motives, at least without explanation. I'd like to look at them if it's okay with you, if only to get a little more lore from you rather than change your mind.

I imagine that having technology capable of producing anything would put a damper on greed, but I think a huge factor would be how readily accessible one of these matter-makers is and how quickly it works. If everyone has one, say like their kitchen microwave, then sure, you can punch in whatever you want and will have no reason to bother other people for it. But if the matter-maker is a public service with a bit of a wait, and we're that spoiled, there will be people who think that wait is too long, or else think pickpocketing is more thrilling.

If this tech can make anything easily, don't you think addiction would be even more rampant? If your microwave could materialize heroin for you at the push of a button, imagine how many people would try it and have difficulty stopping. Heck, apply that to any consumable. Someone could eat nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches all day and start packing on the pounds, and no one could stop them unless access to the matter-maker were monitored...and then greed, or rather "need," would kick in in full force.

No lust? Are the matter-makers capable of creating humans that are indistinguishable from natural ones? If not, there will be people who just aren't quite satisfied unless they can hook up with another living, breathing, thinking person. Sex toys lack the sense of connection a partner gives. The only alternative I can see is a VR machine/program that makes one think they're with another human when they aren't. (If that's the case, I'd consider that totally valid.)

There are some organized religions that believe there is something more to the world but do not expect anything to defy the laws of physics, seeing their texts more as moral guidelines than as historical accounts. These religions would not be countered by scientific advancement. Many people have this as their individual philosophy or spirituality as well, myself included. The only people who would be slapped in the face by that much advancement would be those who take religious texts and tenants literally...and I wouldn't put it past humanity to adapt existing religions to the time (just look at how the people who think the universe is going to end keep changing their minds) or come up with new religions altogether, such as worship of extraterrestrials. Hey, if we've never seen them, we're going to use our imaginations. Human minds want to imagine, they want to create something more than there is.

I haven't yet accounted for things like a massive shift in social norms, a ruthless law enforcement system, or other technologies that take care of even more needs than the matter-maker does. Any of those could provide alternate reasons for some of your ideas if designed and written well, although I doubt they would be completely flawless. You may also have some other reason for all these shifts that you can't tell us because it's a massive plot spoiler, and if that's the case, I respect that.

Or maybe you're only giving these rules because you want us to use certain types of characters. *shrug*

Anyway, that's my two cents on the setting. I'll start brainstorming for a character.

 

[Ruko]

Aah now I remember why i hadn't made a character at the time. I was waiting for a decision on whether or not my character could believe in phantasms.

 

[MattieLee]

I'll make a CS, it's in progress. This seems interesting to me so I'll give it a shot.

 

[Jargo]

Everyone, thanks for the interest and the questions! As cliché as it sounds, I am buried up in work atm, but I will answer every question tomorrow or on Saturday at the latest.