No Longer Looking, Thanks.

Started by Cold Heritage, February 26, 2013, 11:02:22 PM

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Cold Heritage

There are a lot of different ways to approach these sorts of pitches, but I guess I'll try and get the nuts and bolts parts out of the way first.

I want to post about four or so times a week with someone else, and to exchange posts that are generally about two paragraphs long. I'm not going to be counting words or anything, and sometimes less will be all that's called for. But I hope to be able to give enough to merit that length of response in most cases. And of course, if the muse strikes and one ended up wanting to write more, that's fine. But I'm not usually the most prolific writer and don't want to disappoint someone seeking more than I can provide.

I do want sexual content, but in the main I expect it to be light and consensual. More to the point, I want the sexual content to be one of many complementary elements of the plot, rather than the focus. With no disrespect to those who desire such, I find that my previous experiences in engaging in purely sexual roleplays resulted in difficulty sustaining interest. Ideally, I would like the sexual content to be the result of a romantic relationship between my partner's character and mine.

I beg some forbearance as I go ahead with portion. I still have a poor grasp of how best to talk about sex and gender in a way that respects the distinction and the many ways individuals choose to identify themselves. If I come across as disrespectful, please apply Heinlein's Razor: assume stupidity, not malice. With that said, my strongest preference is for a female character to be partnered with my character. I would not be opposed to writing a pairing of male characters, but I feel a bit more uncomfortable in that regard because there is a very specific type of male - a twink, and femmer the better - that I find attractive to the exclusion of all others. It feels somewhat unfair to be so picky about males and say I am open to a male pairing, but take it as you will. Likewise, I am open to the notion of writing with a character who identifies themselves or is physically distinct from male or female, but again my experience in that regard is incredibly limited and I feel some trepidation at my ability to approach it with the respect and attention it deserves. My ons fall towards playing essentially a total top, so I may be disappointing in that regard.

Please direct questions on the above to me in PM - it'll probably be easier discuss that stuff there than here.

The basic, bare-bones rundown of what I want to play is a soft sci-fi action story. The player characters would be space mercenaries who travel about and ply their craft, taking jobs suited to their violent skill set. The setting is not something I have set in stone, but I imagine it to be something along the lines of what one sees in space operas and the like: multiple interstellar powers that govern multiple planets and colonies, multiple sentient and sapient star-faring species, practical faster than light travel, and maybe some wink-wink nudge-nudge magic in the form of psionic style powers.

I did not really put too much thought into how far into the future the game would be, but the general idea I had was that it was long enough for a human diaspora to colonize multiple worlds, moons, and artificial constructs, creating one or more interstellar political body. Sufficient generations have passed that more people are born off Earth than not and while humanity identifies Earth as its home world individual humans may not even factor Earth into their personal and cultural identity. There could be just one big pan-human political body that represents humanity on the galactic diplomatic stage, or more than one, though since I envision the player characters being mercenaries this would probably be relegated largely to backstory (e.g. where they grew up and learned their skills) and for representatives offering the characters missions that the powers that be cannot be seen to be officially accountable for.

Space ships above a certain size would have faster than light drives, and they would be able to go at a speed higher than C sufficient enough to make traveling between relatively proximal star systems a practical matter. For longer trips, I'm somewhat fond of the idea of having say worm holes or something like the Mass Relays one sees in Mass Effect. One would use those for extremely long trips between distant systems. It appeals to me because it creates stable traffic patterns that don't make chasing after someone entirely impossible, and because it allows space pirates to set up shop because people just have to travel from a certain point. I'm fairly fond of the 'long jump' enablers being remnant technology of a long dead precursor species - maybe the worm holes are artificial, created and kept stable by precursor technology that resists all scientific examination and attempts to reverse engineer (or maybe not - maybe sufficiently rich powers have managed to create their own, but the projects are of such magnitude in time and expense and work force requirements that its rare for a new one to be made, and more desirable to try and find an existing device). Precursor technology is an interesting MacGuffin to go after and an easy way to get a lot of plots going and to bring a lot of people into conflict.

I would sort of like for there to be aliens. Not to the point where, as in Star Trek or Star Wars, there are dozens upon dozens of different species, but maybe a half dozen or so. It doesn't particularly need to be fleshed out unless it happens to be important - our characters have to fight some of them, important NPCs being members of a given species, a PC's species, and things along those lines. In true soft sci-fi fashion I would prefer if the aliens were, in the main, possessed of the same bilaterally symmetrical body that humans have. There could be aliens that have different physiology, if desired. It might be neat to deal with some aliens that are sort of centaur-like.

Psionics came up earlier, and they're an intriguing element. I don't want my character to possess such powers, but I've enjoyed it when they've come up more than I haven't when I've watched shows, seen movies, or read books. My thinking is probably that for humans, psionic powers are relatively new, but not so new that anyone expressing those powers would be a singular unknown. Other species might all possess such powers to one degree or another, or might have a stable sub-population of psionics treated in various interesting ways. If one wanted their character to have them, we could talk more to develop it and how it's treated in the game world. Telekinesis and empathic powers are pretty cool, but it might be a bit much if we had full on telepathy going on.

In terms technology, I hadn't given much thought to things beyond people wearing force fields and personal armour made of advanced materials in combat, and the powered armour would be like a ten or twelve-foot tall exo-suit someone would wear and tromp along with a squad as heavy support where a vehicle would be impractical. You would have androids and drones capable of autonomous operation, but maybe not full on artificial intelligences who could agitate for robot rights and the like. Everyone would probably a device analogous to a smart phone and access to an internet analog with access to ineffable amounts of data in their day to day life. Probably the usual dichotomy of rich and poor, with the former being glossy plastic in aesthetics and the latter being more rusty metal. I'm thinking most guns would basically be like a mini fabricator that takes a solid block of superdense matter and it makes what you want on the fly - bullets, shot, grenades, rockets, lasers - with different configurations eating up the block at various rates (though the actual managing of ammunition and supplies would not be something the game would engage in - the is not the most verisimilitude-inducing inventory management simulator on Elliquiy today). But you could have people who prefer one thing or the other and buy a model optimized to shoot lasers, or a dedicated rocket launcher, or whatever else on the basis that an optimized model can get better performance in its dedicated role than one that goes for flexibility. There's probably genetic engineering and cybernetics kicking around too, because those are too cool to exclude.

As for the mercenary group, I had in my mind a couple of possibilities. Because I'm asking for a one-on-one rather than group game, I was thinking that the mercenary group that the game would focus on would be small - perhaps a dozen-ish total people, based on a small warship. The group might be part of a larger outfit that exists in the background, or not. I don't expect a writing partner to take on multiple roles (though it's open if it's wanted), and I could do the heavy lifting of NPCing. The main vision had the player characters be part of the combat squad, and we would divide our time between action scenes, downtime aboard ship, and shore leave wherever it might transpire. If a writing partner desired to say, be the ship's engineer and not part of the combat squad, I'd be amenable and the focus would in the main omit action scenes. It's possible for a character to be part of the combat squad and the ship's engineer, if one wished.

As for the character I would play, I had in mind tall, human slab of muscle. Not someone unduly cruel, but definitely someone who enjoyed their work. Loyal to his own (perhaps to a fault), able to take bullets to the face without dying, and prone to dual-wielding machine guns. A fairly over the top figure, though as invincible and plot armoured as most action film protagonists. Definitely human. May or may not end up using a chainsaw sword.

I'm sorry that this sort of went long. In any case, response by PM is preferred, but here is okay too.
Thank you, fellow Elliquiyan, and have a wonderful day.