Rivals OOC

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Quiet One

My God! It's full of Stars.
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Scifi, some fantasy, Mature. Anything that gets my gears going. Not opposed to Yaoi or Yuri.
Posted here is a full description of your home system:

[Stabs=bcenter|500x800]{slide=Planets|center}Rivas:
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Mercure, central hub for all commerce in the Rival system. If you want to smuggle something in or out, stow away on an outbound ship, or sample the widest variety of goods this side of the Milky Way, this is the city for you.
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Phayles has the bustling nightlife, exotic shows, and seedy underbelly you crave! Some of the nicest hotels, casinos and secret dives in the galaxy can be found here. Dignified in the great towers, but there's darkness in those shadows. Watch your step.

Paipas:
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Vaticia, the first Holy City of the Great Migration. Paipas was a bit farther from the home star than Rivas, and so greenhouse gases were pumped into the atmosphere to make the world a viable home. Without argument, this process began here, in Vaticia. While the rest of the planet has made itself more temperate, the Holy City remains humid and overcast. Still, as a central hub for religions ranging from Christianity to Hindu, it rapidly grew.
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Arnell Cosat, the Last Named City. So named because not only was it the last city in the Rival system to be named, but because its last name is that of Emil Cosat, the man who brought Unism to the system. It's clear on the other side of the planet from Vaticia, and is home to the more eastern religions; Buddhism, Hindi, a few Muslims and of course Unism and the Sacrificial Pious.

Aguaceles:
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While there are at least ten thousand floating cities in the waters of Aguaceles, none rival Glim. It is the largest, most beautiful, and the premier vacation spot in the system. Aguaceles has the most delectable seafood ever conceived, nourished by asteroid particles in the water.

Elesandes:
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Home to the Ray pilots. Elesandes is a world with only the most basic of terraforming and simple shelters. Most of the wilderness is kept wild to train new recruits to be adaptive to any situation.

Curgis:
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A mining moon orbiting the Jovian planet Persepolis. Deep down near the world's core is a heavily magnetized ore. When separated, melted, and forged, it produces a magnetically strong metal, ideal for starcraft. On this moon the single biggest concern is health. Toxic gases are regularly released during mining, causing numerous illnesses.

This is not the end. Far from it. There are a whopping 15 planets in the Rival system, as well as over 70 moons.{/slide}{slide=Crime, Religion, and the Families|center}Crime:
The criminal element of the Rival system begins on Rivas, but spreads like a cancer through the lesser worlds. Drugs, weapons, and dirty dealings under the table all make up the secret lifeblood of the system. Unwritten contracts and credit swaps built Mercure and Phayles.
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At the head of this empire is Bolbast Frate. He has run the underground of Rivas for years, but he no longer works things over personally. He leaves things to his mediator, Tyrese Conner.
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Religion:
On Paipas every religion that was on Earth is present there, too, but so too are the newest faiths.

Unism - a combination of the philosophy of Hinduism, the spirituality of Christianity, and sprinkled with the latest knowledge of quantum mechanics. Unists believe that the universe is the literal body of God, and that the soul is a piece of the divine gifted to all beings. Everything is connected, everything is one, and to be kind or cruel to others is to be the same to yourself.

Sacrificial Pious - the Pious believe everything Unists believe, but they go a step further. They believe it is possible to return your soul to the entity of God, and your body becomes a tool to carry out the Divine's will. They believe they literally have no souls, and that as servants of God they are no longer responsible for their actions. They are the most common causes of extremist action.

The Missionary Problem: Paipas, like any religious center, loves to spread its faiths. But often times when missionaries of different religions arrive on the lesser worlds they conflict with each other. Miniature wars break out in underdeveloped colonies.

Families:
For most, this means nothing, but there are a few families who hold special status as founders of the Rival system.

The Joneses - the first person to ever set foot on Rivas, according to legend, was Captain Oregon Carson Jones. At first, the Joneses kept the military and political mechanics of the system in check. But times change, and the great Jones family grew and diversified. Some are mayors, some are soldiers, and others are simple fishermen. They say you can't go five blocks on any given planet without running into a Jones.

The Tulleys - like the Joneses, they were among the first settlers to arrive, but unlike them, they selfishly kept their growing wealth and influence within their family. Their names are plastered over Phayles and Mercure.
{/slide}{slide=The Rays|center}
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The AI brains are all spherical processors about the size of soccer balls. The Rays were designed and built by what has been called the Mother Unit, a quantum computer vast and highly intelligent. No one has ever seen the Mother Unit in person, but everyone knows of its contribution to society. Simple AIs are in almost every city and every interstellar transport.

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The Rays are designed to be perfectly streamlined, but their external and internal paint jobs vary in correspondence with their pilot. The Rays' skins have micro-golfing; trillions of dimples to better slide through the air, and of course the most advanced ion propulsion system out there, to turn on a dime in space and air.

But more important than their outer appearance is the relationship they have with their pilots. The Rays can't speak, but are very intelligent, at least as much as their pilots, but it's suspected they're far more. They communicate with beeps, flashing lights and groans from altering the pressure in the air pipes. The pilots gradually learn to understand them perfectly.

Rays begin as blank slates, with no real personality or preferences. Once they select their pilots they begin to adapt to form an effective relationship between them. They either mirror their personalities or form a contrasting one to provide balance.{/slide}{slide=The Pilots|center}More than just soldiers of fortune, the Ray pilots are heroes, peacekeepers, and celebrities. Originally the finest military pilots in the galaxy, they soon became anyone that could be recruited. The Ray's picky nature and apparent disposition against soldiers meant that a hunt for pilots became a necessity, and produced a number of unique qualifiers:
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Strict warrior James Alfred Singh, pilot of Priya

Levelheaded negotiator and daring acrobat Pedro San Colypsis, pilot of the Archipelago.
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Sex symbol of the unit Arabella Luna, pilot of the Cloud 9.{/slide}{slide=The Gauntlets|center}The Gauntlet is a pilot's most important weapon. Each pilot, upon being chosen by a Ray, is given a painful wristband grafted into their skin and plugged into their nervous system. They vary in size and design, but all of them have the same tools.

A kinetic blaster: like a miniature warp engine, this gun bends spacetime in a concentrated beam, destroying anything it comes in contact with.

Hologram Projector: perfect for displaying maps or decoys.

Microfilament Grappling Hook: for when a pilot needs to swing into action separate from his Ray.

Data Slit: like a USB for hacking enemy systems.

Standard Interplanetary Timepiece: can tell you the time, atmospheric conditions, and local gravity on any planet you're on.{/slide}{slide=The Wanderers|center}The Wanderers are the non-human enemy of the Rival system. The settlers have been fighting them for close to 150 years, and yet there is still no knowledge of their language, social structure, or origins. Even their basic anatomy is a mystery to all but the Rival system's military brass.

It's difficult to say what set them off. The prevailing theory is that they are a scavenger race. The first known sighting of them was when a group attacked a shuttle passing from Aguaceles to Rivas. They stripped it bare, ripped through the siding, and stole not only the basic materials of the ship, but the ship's primitive AI. There were no survivors.

Every time the soldiers encountered the Wanderers, they changed. At first, they had large heads and virtually no bodies or limbs to speak of. Then when they came back they had armored tentacles. Then they had larger, thicker limbs. And so on. Each encounter made them change.

At first it was believed they were different species, but it soon dawned on them that they were the same race, changing. Upgrading.
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One thing that was just recently discovered was a massive machine in space about three light years from the Rival system, a short walk for the Wanderers. It is as large as Neptune's orbit, as thick as ten earths, and has trapped in it a G-class star. Shockingly, experts believe this captured star has traveled millions of light years from where it was born, and that it is now being used as an engine.{/slide}[/stabs]



Name: Oswin Juenva Jones
Age: 23
Gender: female
Appearance:
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Planet of Birth: Paipas
Occupation (sorry - former occupation): Package runner - even the most pious planet in the universe needs its mail.
Talents: Racing/combative Thai-chi/quick-witted
Personality: Oswin is quick and clever, but she doesn't have a talent for subtlety. She's a competitor at heart, but more than anything she has dreamed of open space.

Ray Name: Cerberus
Design: Yellow paint near the cockpit, tracing in a thin line to the tail. From there, cherry red around the front and tracing the back of the wings. The rest is stark black.
Modifications: more powerful core motor, bigger air intakes, thicker front armor. This ship is a bulldog.
Personality: Playfully aggressive. Loyal, like a big dog.

Name: Maxwell Fouxet
Age: 21
Gender: male
Appearance:
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Typically wears a grey, easy-seal jacket and his lucky red scarf around his neck.
Planet of Birth: Rivas
Occupation: "Officially" none, but his family is indebted to Bolbast Frate. His sister found escape fleeing to Paipas, but he's stuck living day-to-day on Rivas, working odd jobs as a busboy, courier, or taxi driver - while trying to save up for a ticket off-world stay out of the sight of Frate's goons.
Talents: Thinks on his feet; has a natural talent for finding escape routes and getting out of conflicts without fighting. Is good at figuring out what's what fast. With almost no experience, he can figure out how to operate virtually any machine after a little trial and error.
Personality: Although he knows how to get away, he is by no means a coward. Can be a showoff of his maneuvering skills to the point of hurting himself, so daring - and bright - but a bit reckless.

Ray Name: Idelaide
Design: Idelaide's exterior is a beautiful merging of pale blues, violets, and greens, tied together with irregular white that resembles whitecaps in an ocean, making her look like part of the sea on her homeworld, Elesandes.
Modifications: The Ray's rare. The first time a Ray was ever made FOR the pilot. She's custom. Idelaide's micro-golfing is smaller than on a normal Ray's, and angled in places to better cut through the air. The shifter is more immediate, changing gears from a gentle cruise to rapid thrust without missing a beat. Her air intakes are smaller, but unlike most models, which have two, she has six. Nothing on Idelaide is bigger, but it's all been fine-tuned, making her the fastest Ray in atmo.
Personality: Idelaide acts as Max's voice of reason. She argues, she contradicts - but she's loyal and always ready for action.
 
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Victoria Green
Name: Victoria Green
Age: 27
Sex: Female
Appearance:

Birthworld: Aguaceles
Occupation: Previous merchant, current blockade runner.
Talents: Well-spoken (she's a proper smooth operator), lithe, quick-reactions, excellent understanding of piloting and operating in space.
Personality: Generally outgoing and charismatic, Victoria functions best in a crowd. She has a knack for fitting herself to the situation, and will often mold her personality to the social environment. Sometimes considered a shallow chameleon by those who no better, the 'real' Victoria is claimed to never be seen.
Brief Bio: Born to neo-Buddhist parents in a run-down slum of one of Aguaceles' cities, Victoria Green is the embodiment of a rags-to-riches story (to a degree). After her mother died, with a majority of the insurance money left to Green in the will, the then 19-year-old fled in a cheap, run-down cruiser to see the stars. Having realized she was on a path that couldn't be sustained, she took up trading before being snatched to become a blockade runner for the Rays.

The Ray
Name: Shūnǚ Yùnqì

Design: The Shūnǚ adopts a fairly plain paint scheme. Maroon stripes slash across each wing vertically, outlined in stark black. In the center of the right stripe rests a white, black-outlined circle with a cowgirl bucking on a 1940's-style bomb, reading "Shūnǚ Yùnqì" in neo-Mandarin characters across the bottom.

Modifications: At the risk of being unable to enter atmosphere as efficiently as lighter, more aerodynamic models, the Shūnǚ sports under-slung engines upon both wings and an up-sized core drive. A majority of the power routes have been rewired to the engines and thrust.

Personality: Serene, as graceful as an 'inanimate' object can be.


Walkter Khan
Name: Walter Khan
Age: 29
Sex: Male
Appearance:

Birthworld: Aguaceles
Occupation: Old-time smuggler, currently Victoria's running mate.
Talents: Slippery, cunning, convincing, skilled marksman.
Personality: The spitting image of a 'smuggler with a heart of gold' (maybe silver or copper), Walter Khan's a decent enough person to be around. Fully acknowledging his position as a prior criminal, he can come across as cold or perhaps ruthless, but otherwise remains sociable enough.
Brief Bio: In older days, when he was a young child, Walter could have been described as 'rich' (though he'll never admit it to anyone). Tired of the 'rich life' as he puts it on the rare occasion, he went to the work wherever he could and took up smuggling via his father's more...shady connections. Years later, he's gotten into 'part-time' legitimate business.

The Ray
Name: Alacrity

Design: The Alacrity's cockpit has been replaced with one bearing hexagonal plas-steel panes purely aesthetic in nature. A rough 'crown' encircles the canopy, a series of golden lines that extend outward at various lengths. White-outlined black stripes dot the wings at regular intervals, running vertical with a slight slant added for variety.

Modifications: Alacrity boasts an armored core and superior cooling systems which allow heat to dissipate in the atmosphere of an expanded interior rather than radiate and hang around in the airless vacuum of space.

Personality: Generally over-eager, aggressive with target locks, and prone to wasteful energy and ammunition practices.
 
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Well, done with my characters. I was thinking of starting this one with all of our characters getting recruited to join the Ray Corp. We get picked up on our various worlds and brought to Elesandes. What do you think?
 
That'll work pretty well - I'm a tad hesitant about making any sort of training montages/sequences last all too long, but I doubt the Rays would pick up people then train them. Sounds much more like a unit of heroes.
 
It sort of is, but I actually did intend on training them. The weapons the Gauntlets give you need to be mastered, as well as flying the Rays. There's also hand-to-hand combat to consider, but that can be less formal. I can make it more entertaining than you might think (with a little help) but I would like to do a small crisis before they're training is finished to rush them.
 
Sounds good.
 
Okay...

Trying to think of how to start this. I think I want the pilots I mentioned in the overview to come to Rivas looking for someone suggested as an ideal choice, an NPC recruit. From there I can show Max running from Frates goons and stowing away on the transport ship the pilots are borrowing for recruits. Either your characters are on board already or the ship picks them up next.

Of course, any ideas to streamline this are welcome.
 
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I am actually asking for feedback, by the way. This sound good? Anything you want to do or add?
 
That's a pretty good way to start right in the middle of things. As for other feedback I can give, I think we'll have to wait until we get the RP going before I can accurately gauge the pace we want to use.
 
Okay. I think I'll try and start it sometime tonight, but it will probably take me a while to finish.
 
Started, but not done yet. Going to cut to Max when I get back to it, then we can have Oswin talk to Green and Khan in the shuttle if you want. If you want them on Aguaceles, you can cut to them on their own.
 
If you want them on Aguaceles, you can cut to them on their own.
I think I'll do that to introduce them - I find it easier to get a character going in my head writing them independently before I go to character interactions.
 
That's fine. I kind of do the same thing. I usually start the action slow in my stories, because I want to establish what's normal for my characters before their lives change, so that sounds like the same thing.
 
Done with my post. Obviously, the storylines haven't collided yet.
 
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An NPC for us to share, the first of probably many.

Name: Jennifer Tulley
Age: 19
Gender: female
Appearance:
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Planet of Birth: Rivas
Personality: Insists she's not helpless, but has virtually no experience doing things for herself. Has a real chip on her shoulder to compensate for her own insecurities.

Ray Name: Vincent
Ray Personality: Subdued. Acts like Jennifer's subordinate, but is really just waiting patiently for her to come to the right decision herself. Is loyal as a family butler.
 
Do they have their fighters yet?
 
No. The pilots in my opening post are collecting everyone and bringing them to Elesandes. We're all normal people to start.
 
Ok, wanted to make sure before I started writing with assumptions!

I've got a start on it, should be up tomorrow or the day after (at the very worst).
 
Got to say, I like it so far. What's going to happen to the Gypsy? Got a plan for that?
 
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