Interest Check: Starbound, The Great Adventure [Scifi]

[GloomCookie]

The year is 4491. Humanity has spread beyond the bounds of Earth, colonizing the moon, Mars, Venus, the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus, and planting the flag on several of Neptune's moons and on Pluto and Ceres. The warring nations of Earth are now united under the United Solar Nations, housed in orbit between Earth and the moon.

It was here, in the largest station ever built by mankind, that a committee met twenty years ago to discuss the findings of a scientist working on Titan. Those initial meetings eventually made their way to the assembly floor, where deliberation and discussion began. Some questioned the need, others the expense, but ultimately the debates were settled, and the vote was cast. By the slimmest of margins, mankind authorized what would become known as Project Starbound. Humanity's first faster than light space ship.

The first years were spent testing the drive, launching test probes towards the edges of the Sol system. Then, the engineering, planning backups and redundancies, ensuring the vessel would be functional so far from support, while a large asteroid was hollowed out to become the construction site of the massive vessel. As the keel was laid, the top leaders in every discipline, from medicine and biology to engineering and quantum mechanics were gathered to take a historic trip out beyond the Sun's influence. Simulations were done, calculations poured over, and finally, all that remained was the pomp and circumstance.

Every dignitary wanted to be there, at the historic christening of the Starbound. The speeches, the press, the endless photography. All of it eventually faded, and in the aftermath was the mission. It's T Minus 24 hours.

Are you ready?



Hi peeps, wanted to do something again so I said fuck it, let's go big or go home. This is a science fiction story centered around the good ship Starbound, humanity's first FTL enabled starship and all the mishaps and adventures that she'll get into. I want to do an extremely system light game meaning that it'll mostly be a CYOA style. You pick a few things here and there, and this will either work to your advantage or disadvantage as the game progresses.

I won't go into much detail about what the Starbound will encounter but picture a mix of Star Wars, Star Trek, Buck Rogers, and a touch of Warhammer 40K. And no, the Tyranids will not be making an appearance. Anyway, I am open to ideas and story elements so if you're interested, leave me a message saying so and I'll see what I can mix in. For now, peace out.

[Elizabeth Ecsed]

What's the general tech level, especially in regards to stuff like biomods?

[GloomCookie]

What's the general tech level, especially in regards to stuff like biomods?

Most humans are biomodded to some degree. While some people are selectively tailored prior to birth, most humans are still created the natural way, and that of course introduces random chance into the equation. Most genetic illness has been eradicated, though there are still a few communities that don't subscribe to biomodding (the Amish, for example), but 99.9% of humans are. Biomods range from synaptic boosters to increase concentration to memory interfaces to augmented limbs/organs. This comfortability in fixing and replacing body parts means the average human lives to be 170, with the leading cause of death being accidents. While ther are some humans who live to be over 200, most simply degrade to the point that they start to cross the threshold of even a modified human would consider to be still a person.

An example would be an old man who has suffered such mental degradation that he simply cannot function without implants. At that point, he's not a man, he's a machine. Because true AI doesn't exist even in the 45th century, becoming more machine than man gets you treated like a simulacrum of the person you were. The person may move similar, act similar, but there are enough tells that the uncanny valley kicks in and they're seen as disturbing. So, if a person reaches that point, it's game over.

Most people work in highly specialized positions, leaving the manual labor to automated systems. The emphasis is on becoming the best of the best, with friendly competition on who can outperform. Two surgeons might, for example, hone their techniques so that one performs the surgeries with less recovery period, while the other less intrusively. Most people enjoy two or three day work weeks, spending their leisure time how they wish. The only major limiting factor is the difficulty travelling between planets, which becomes easier by the day but is still troublesome enough to warrant only dedicated travel. Communication between planets is also a major hurdle, given that even between Earth and Mars, communications takes 22 minutes between the two planets. Some worlds, such as the Jovian moons, have complex webs that let them communicate near instantly, but not all worlds have this network. Because of how solar mechanics work, one of the largest hubs of communications is on Mercury, which is the closest planet to all the other worlds most of the time. While Mercury itself is sparsely populated, it still has the largest network of communications directories in the system ringing the day/night divide.

Most people speak one of four trade languages, depending on numerous factors: Japanese, Cantonese, English, or Spanish. There is an unofficial fifth language that blends the four, but it is considered low class and only spoken by the dregs of society. These are the people who, even in a prosperous future, fell through the cracks. Lacking a social identification number and living off the recycling heaps, they come from all walks of life who hit on hard times. While the various governments have tried to solve these issues over the past several millennia, there will always be those who just disappear out of the system. These poor souls often comb the recycling piles looking for whatever is on the quota for the day, be it steel, aluminum, paper, plastic, whatever the bosses demand. In exchange, they're given enough food to survive and can sometimes squeeze into overcrowded bunk houses.

On the colonies, homelessness isn't as much an issue, but it does come up. The lack of open atmosphere means that everything must be recycled, including people. People are often composted and turned into fertilizer, as morbid as it sounds, though the colonies do try to observe religious views. The Martian colonies are the most advanced, rivaling Earth for prestige, but they are but shadows compared to the weight of Earth. While Earth's population has only reached 13 billion, those billions out produce almost every other colony save the Titan heavy industries. Earth's major disadvantage is the relatively deep gravity well, which limits transport to and from the surface. While the fifth space elevator is under construction, there is still a limit on how much tonnage the space elevators can move at a given moment. That's why when Project Starbound was announced, Titan's heavy industries produced the bulk of the metal using resources from the asteroid belt, while more advanced components came from Earth and things like furniture and basic electronics came from Jupiter and Mars.

Probably got a bit rambly but I hope that explains the dynamics of the various planets a bit and the technology.