Space Race RP OOC (Call For Interest Contest)

[Ghostwish]

Welcome one and all! As you may have noticed, two space-empire-controlling RPs have been startedat the same time. This is not a coincidence. Tezkat and Ghost were discussing ideas for an RP based on the premise of the players controlling an entire empire. This is where their similarities ended, and their differences of opinion on how to run the RP surfaced. Since both of them, of course, think their was is better, it was proposed that instead of endless hearsay and philosophical debate, they simply put their respective ideas to the test.

Both of these RPs have their intros below this paragraph in thier respective threads. This is NOT a time for actually posting profiles. This is a dual call-for-interest contest. This 'contest' will run for two weeks, from today to Friday the 21st. Please read -both- of the threads and their respective introductions. Then, decide which one you like better, and state "I am interested in this RP" in whichever thread you like better. Please, do NOT post interest in both. The reason for this is that it is known the CMF roleplaying population is -extremely- low, and running both RPs simultaneously will likely put too much of a drain on the players, and may lead to the end of both. This is what has lead to this being a contest in the first place. The 'winning' RP is the one that has the most individual unambiguous statements on interest at the end of the two-week period. The other RP, in deference to the winner, will close down. However, that's only the expected outcome, and the other two possible outcomes have been accouned for as well. In the event that one "wins", but neither have enough interest to actually start (four players or less is the rule of thumb), then it will be accepted that the basic premise of both RPs is flawed, and neither will start. If both RPs tie with the same situation above, neither having enough interest to really start, tat will lead to the same situation. In the quite unlikely, but accounted for, event that both RPs tie -and- have enough individual interest each to start (five or more players, rule of thumb), then both RPs will begin, and signups will be unresricted, i.e., people who have already expressed interest in one RP may sing up for both if they wish.

And without any further ado, You Be The Judge, roleplayer. Read both threads, and decide which one you think is better. Happy roleplaying!

The stars. For eons beyond reckoning, your people have looked up at them. As they developed, they tried to peer deeper and deeper into the sea of specks and lights, even made feeble attempts to enter them. But it is not until now that your race is finally taking their first voyage into the infinite.  The secrets of FTL are known to you now, and it is time to take those first, delicate steps into the unknown.

Welcome to Space Race, an open RPG focused on the development and survival of your race. The concept of this type of RP comes to me from many years ago, on the forums dedicated to a game called Escape Velocity Override. It changed, and evolved, but the forums it ran on ultimately went dark. However, this open-ended style of exploration and story-telling has always appealed to me, and thus I have decided to see if it will take root here.

The concept is simple. A comprehensive adventure and story of a star-faring species as a whole. The game does not focus on individuals, although they can certainately take a part. You yourself might be the Prime Minisiter, Emperor, or sole-leader of your species, or perhaps even the member of another player's race, a savvy trader, elite soldier, and so on. But it is your species that matters, for this is a game of progress and history, and all but the most prominant individuals are ultimately washed away by the sands of time. And even their lives are petty and insignificant when compared to the story of the race.  It is the actions of the race as a whole that will determine the future... if there is one.

There are no statistics in this game. It is driven and controlled solely by the roleplaying of those who take part. Now, what determines the results of your actions is the GM or GM(s), if others are willing to volunteer to be a impartial, lawful judge. Other games can have as many plusses and numbers and epics as they like, all that matters here is the character of your species.

Designing your race, however, is not so simple. In fact, one of the most prominant reasons to leave out any manner of 'stats' is the simple fact that attempting to comprehensively chart every single aspects of one species would be akin to Dungeons and Dragons character creation multiplied by the entire population of planet earth. It is impossible for anything but the most convulted machine hive mind, and even it would probably rather play minesweeper 5000 or something.

But, if you have the creative drive in you, it is not so difficult. Start from way out, zoom your focus as far out as it will go, and consider your species as a whole. What is their drive? Knowledge? Necessity? Greed? Simple curiousity perhaps? Anything works, and then you get a bit closer, zoom in just a little. How do they acquire this? What tools do they have at their disposal? Then you can start getting very personnel, and start nitpicking the fine details. Do they appreciate what they are doing, or is it a matter of shame? Has their goal become a religion, or do they fool themselves into thinking their goal is elsewhere, and secretly coveting reality in private?

That is the core of your species. The soul, so to speak. Now, what's next? You can take any route from here, but perhaps it's time to think about what technology your species favors. What is their, dare we call it this, flavor? Simple or complicated? Powerful or diverse? Bare-boned economical, or comprehensive? To give you a playing field, here's some basics.

There are two different types of technology. Mechanical, and organic. Mechanical is practically every single sci-fi you can think of. Metal, computers, eletricity, where as organic comes along every so often, but simply imagine a living spaceship. Metal is bone now, computers are brains, and electricity is replaced by nerve impulses. Mechanical technology tends to be very tough, and easily adapted on the fly, although it is susceptible to EMP. Organic technology tends to be very efficient, and very fast, but can contract diseases and the like. Mechanical ships tend to have more armor, and more room for upgrades, cargo, etc, where as organic ships are quick, and usually favor shields or ECM of some kind, instead of going into combat bare naked. There's also how they perceieve the universe, namely, sensors. The quantitative and complicated scanner arrays on mechanical ships will quickly find the yield and type of ore in an asteriod or on a planet and have the range to spy from far away, where as the sensitive nerves of an organic ship are not so easily fooled by stealth, and can quickly assess the biodome of a planet. But, your race could be unique to any of these.  Think about it.

From there, consider the different types of weapons. They come in a mariad of different types, but you can roughly classify them into two different sets of two subgroups a peice. Kinetic and energy, ranged and close up. Kinetic involves, quite simply, hitting something with mass. Railguns, gatlings, dakka, dakka, and more dakka. Energy is slightly more refined, involving the careful manipulation of powerful forces, but are also more difficult to use. Lasers and beams and photons and the like. Mechanical technology favors kinetic, organic favors energy. And each of those has the far off and up close varients. But hey, stop and ask yourself if your species even uses weapons at all!

Because that brings us to what is perhaps even more important than how your species struts about and blows things up. Those aspects belong in 4x games, but here is where Space Race excels. Diplomacy. Culture. Interaction. Think and define how your species reacts to other intelligent life. Are they silver-tongued devils, or about as elegant as a brick slicked down in grease? Maybe they're xenophobic! Or xenophiles! Really, I cannot give you much in the way of guidelines here. This is where your creativity counts for the most. Unlike 4x games, this is a game where a warlike race of conquerers might find themselves losing to a race of pacifists.. simply because their population has become infested and addicted with the other's culture! So go wild. Let your imagination soar.

Think about their culture. Think about their society. Their art. Their customs. Their language! Their fetishes? Maybe. You might want to avoid trying to create the human race in this regard, as they have a myriad of different cultures and factions. Try and pick one or two particular aspects that appeals to you, and build your race's identity off that cornerstone. Also work out how their leadership works. And not just how, but how WELL it works, if at all! Is there crime? Your race might eventually spawn a pirate faction then. Maybe they're pacifists. Perhaps it's a hive mind. While you're there, try and hammer out their economy. Just how industrious are they? If they are capitalist, what flavor? A thriving, mercantile society, or a corrupt dictatorship of corporations?

But let's jump back a bit. Remember technology? One of the most important aspects of your race will be just how they get around. What, exactly, did they come up with in terms of FTL? Warp gates? Hyperdrive? Slipstream? Maybe they just teleport from place to place? What advantages and what disadvantages might your species particular types of transportation have? Sky's the limit, but try to stay within reason. You don't have to hammer out the technical details of how it works, because, hey, maybe your species doesn't even know. They just know how to use it, and what the drawbacks are.

On the grounds of understanding, it's time to think about science and research. Just how witty is your race's eggheads, and how well can your species implement new technology? Perhaps there's some religious precedent that keeps your people near stone-age in tech, or perhaps there's such a prolific amount of science injected into your people's very blood that they are not certain what to do with all of their inventions because there is so many! An authoritan, dictatorship state will suffer in creativity, and thus research, where as a race of free art will soar. But every species will have a blind spot somewhere, a blind spot where another race might excel in. Alien technology indeed.

Quite a lot done so far, hm? Well, now it's time to define them physically. This is where I cannot possibly give any kind of advice beyond simply making them functional with their tech, and their society. They could be plain, they could be extraordinary. Perhaps they're so alien that other races will be baffled as to how their physiology works. But also be thinking about the hard facts Carbon or silicon based? Maybe energy critters? Oxygen breathing? Methane breathing? Goodness, perhaps they breath what is akin to nerve gas! Reproductive style? Reproductive speed! All of these are important things to map out, so think carefully.
This might expand more later, if perhaps something else comes up, but here comes the best part.

Your introduction.

Your species has only had FTL capability for a short while. Perhaps a few decades in human time, perhaps shorter, perhaps longer. Nuclear power is the order of the day, or perhaps finer if your species is of a scientific bent. You have a meager fleet, more for the overly productive species. A scattering of economic vessels or perhaps greater if mercantile defines you, and perhaps a militia of sorts for a military if you are not one of the warrior races. You have but your homeworld, and the first colony ever settled by your people. Only the most expansionistic races will have more than this, but it is on that very first colony where the event occurs.

Undetected by sensors, unnoticed by vessels passing through the system comes a sleek, perfectly oval-shaped vessel that is dozens of times the size of any ship in your fleet, as black as the night, and just as mysterious as it descends into orbit around your world. And then, across all frequencies, the hail comes through. No video. Only audio, and the gravelly, tired voice that is carried on it.

"Greetings." In your own language, no less.

"We are the Areal'Sager'Pyx . We have watched you grow since ages past, as we have watched those who came before you. The cycle repeats. Life, death, life again. Proof of this is on this very world. Seek here." And a series of coordinates are broadcasted, pointing to a particular place on your colony's surface.

"We know this, for we are ageless scribes of the history of the stars, and we have shown ourselves merely to inform you that you will be watched. As will the others.  We will record your story, and preserve it for those who come after."

"You are not the first, nor shall you be the last. We have witnessed the rise and fall of more civilizations than there are stars in the night sky. Only we have endured. Our fate. Our curse."

"We will give you the location of our closest nest. But not seek us in friendship or cooperation. We fly alone. Seek the others."

"We watch."

And with that, the vessel drifts away into the stars. No hails are answered, no attempts for their attention awarded. The vessel vanishes, leaving no wake or trail to follow.

[Railock]

Since I just got this forum account to start participating in these rp's...As I said I would, I vote for both and will happily play in either or both should such a happy event of them starting take place.  So...I want to rule an empire, count me in!