Inspired by the likes of Jet Set/Grind Radio, Mirror’s Edge, and the best of dystopian cyberpunk fiction like Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” and the comic series “Transmetropolitan”, not to mention the most hilarious film ever, Pirate Radio, I bring you:
"Tee, I think we lost them!" the young green-haired man rasped, a hand clenched over his black Protot7peTM jacket as his eyes wildly searched the buzzing chaos behind them. Bright modern screens depicting models demonstrating the latest must-have gadget on endless repeat clashed with neon signs, the streaks of light caused by vehicles and drones dashing through space occupied just seconds ago by a pedestrian, and the endlessly diverse crowd that swelled and breathed across the platforms and buildings that made up Floor Fifty-Eight, Shinjuku District. Nothing. Or at least, no sign of the unmarked individuals who had caught the tail-end of the young man and his partner as they fled their hidey-hole on Floor Sixty-Two seven blocks over. It was strange... the MetPo usually were so damn proud and excited to be killing that they wore their uniforms with pride. But if not the MetPo, then... "Tee, you think that...?"
"Shut up, Ruu. I'm listening." Ruu's partner Tee was crouched on the ground, one hand pressed to his ear while the other held onto a complex device that looked like a heavily modified radio broadcaster. It was normally useless to try and hear anything over the sheer noise of Metro Tokyo, but with the special device embedded in Tee's ear, he could cut out most frequencies except the ones he was looking for - the sound of spider drones crawling over the concrete exteriors of the skyscrapers. After a long moment, he stood up with a smile and turned to his partner. "Hey, Tee, I don't hear the drones so the fuckin' MetPo must'a lost us, ya? You can't shut down, Vibe Radio Sixty-Two, isn't that rig-"
Ruu suddenly realized that Tee was no longer where Tee had been standing moments before. In fact, what was left of Tee completely covered the wall behind Ruu in a macabre display of violence. Whirling around all too late, Ruu saw the perpetrator of his best friend's murder just as the bio-chemically charged round entered his chest. As he slumped to the ground, Ruu could feel the nanobots released by the charge chewing away at his body. He had maybe fifteen seconds to live. Rolling over in agony, he blurrily saw the woman who had fired the gun reach down to his ear and pluck out his listening device. He opened his mouth to scream, to ask a question, to say something... but nothing came out but an agonized moan. The woman looked down without pity and snorted.
"Would'a worked, kid, if we were the Met. But we ain't the Met." And with that, Ruu knew no more. The woman calmly deployed her clean-up drone, and within a minute the only trace of the murders were blood stains that merely added to those already covering the concrete. Turning briskly, she walked the one block to the "chute", one of the aptly named vertical tunnels that allowed for garbage disposal to the Graveyard, and dropped the remains in. Seconds later, all that was left of "Vibe Radio Sixty-Two" was an empty apartment soon to be seized by desperate neighbours.
This is...
RADIO FREE METROPOLIS
Credit to: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Jet-Set-Radio-Future-Gum-391718154
Intro
Welcome to the year 2134. Humankind has done the miraculous, leapfrogging off of the Earth and into space. The last three decades have seen millions of tiny, fragile, all-so-moral earthlings escape the tomb they dug for themselves with pollution, waste, and most of all war. These privileged few have started the exodus, but there is no guarantee, especially not the likelihood, that humanity will make a full escape. Though the nuclear holocaust that devastated the Earth’s population in 2084 failed to produce either the doomsday or send the remnants of human civilization back into the dark ages, it did centralize the three billion remaining to a few self-governing megacities holding upwards of a hundred million people each. To name but a few of the main ones: New Amsterdam on the old Antarctic shelf, the Chicago-Detroit-Toronto Metropolitan Area, the twin cities of Paris-Brussels, the sprawling masses of poverty and suffering in both Lagos and Cairo, the mechanical marvel of Metro La Paz in former Paraguay, and the ‘natural’ New Sydney in the terra-formed Australian desert. These new megacities were formed to house the millions displaced by rising ocean levels, and those forcibly displaced to make the most efficient use of the arable land left behind. There is natural life in these new edifices of concrete and steel, but is tucked away behind miles of pipes and roads and skyscrapers, each layered on top of the next to firmly segregate the fortunate from the less fortunate. The struggle of mother earth against her most rebellious sons, however, is not so easily suppressed…
Some more fluff and intro-stuff to make the following OOC more understandable.
The important stuff for RPing: the playground is 3D. Thus, keep that in mind when on a battlefield or doing something cool. I've kept landmarks out of it for the most part, so feel free to invent your own; they'll be important so that characters can rationally expect to meet up again in the chaos of Metro Tokyo without relying on too much technology.
The following is a brief overview of a few groups that will certainly be present in the RP in some form or another. Improvise and add on to them as you will. I haven't added resistance groups like Radio Free Metropolis, as those will be first introduced in the IC, but be aware that they do exist. You can invent some, if you'd like.
Style of RP
In this RP, I want to try something multimedia meaning if you can tell part of your story or contribute to the world of other characters through photography, art, music-writing, poetry, descriptions, or any possible creative way that you can imagine, I invite you to do so. This does not mean that if you are only comfortable writing you can’t be a part of this story: I encourage you to dig just as deeply into building parts of the world as well. You also don’t have to create every single multimedia piece you use, and can draw from your favourite artists of all kinds. However, the reason I’m trying this is because I think it deepens the connection and satisfaction when you have created something yourself that enriches other people’s roleplaying.
Once you have familiarized yourself with the setting, which I’ve tried to keep brief enough to allow you guys to develop landmarks while providing you the basics to write them in the first place, I want you to write characters that follow these few pointers:
Juxtaposition: imagine life in the 22nd millennium, in such a tight and cramped space as Metro-Tokyo. How would you innovate to meet your goals? In the face of such chaos, would you go hyper-advanced to gain a technological edge over the average person with all the risks that entails (in terms to thievery and exposure to high-tech threats), or would you fall back on old technology retro-fitted for the modern age?
Branding: Everything is branded. Everything. Even if you don’t want to fall into a subculture, you’re already there, and someone has done it before you. People make a living in Metro-Tokyo simply keeping up with the culture and fashion confusion, to absolutely no end at all.
Be a Part of the Story: Design a character that is out on the edge in some way – what skills do they have to contribute that are unique and with appropriate support could pose a threat to the existing system. Don’t imagine such power that your character could singlehandedly take down the hierarchy, but assume that they are several orders of magnitude more talented (though not necessarily trained and skilled) in their chosen niche than the people around them. The examples that I have already seen or thought of range from the expected such as an agile scout, hacker, or brute force thug, to the unexpected but useful, such as a filmmaker, actress, or weapons tinkerer.
Leave Room for Character Advancement: should be self-explanatory. You’ll all be special little snowflakes soon enough, believe me.
Please review the following character sheet, even if you've posted one, and feel free to go back over it and add in more detail if you wish given the new material I've posted above.
"Tee, I think we lost them!" the young green-haired man rasped, a hand clenched over his black Protot7peTM jacket as his eyes wildly searched the buzzing chaos behind them. Bright modern screens depicting models demonstrating the latest must-have gadget on endless repeat clashed with neon signs, the streaks of light caused by vehicles and drones dashing through space occupied just seconds ago by a pedestrian, and the endlessly diverse crowd that swelled and breathed across the platforms and buildings that made up Floor Fifty-Eight, Shinjuku District. Nothing. Or at least, no sign of the unmarked individuals who had caught the tail-end of the young man and his partner as they fled their hidey-hole on Floor Sixty-Two seven blocks over. It was strange... the MetPo usually were so damn proud and excited to be killing that they wore their uniforms with pride. But if not the MetPo, then... "Tee, you think that...?"
"Shut up, Ruu. I'm listening." Ruu's partner Tee was crouched on the ground, one hand pressed to his ear while the other held onto a complex device that looked like a heavily modified radio broadcaster. It was normally useless to try and hear anything over the sheer noise of Metro Tokyo, but with the special device embedded in Tee's ear, he could cut out most frequencies except the ones he was looking for - the sound of spider drones crawling over the concrete exteriors of the skyscrapers. After a long moment, he stood up with a smile and turned to his partner. "Hey, Tee, I don't hear the drones so the fuckin' MetPo must'a lost us, ya? You can't shut down, Vibe Radio Sixty-Two, isn't that rig-"
Ruu suddenly realized that Tee was no longer where Tee had been standing moments before. In fact, what was left of Tee completely covered the wall behind Ruu in a macabre display of violence. Whirling around all too late, Ruu saw the perpetrator of his best friend's murder just as the bio-chemically charged round entered his chest. As he slumped to the ground, Ruu could feel the nanobots released by the charge chewing away at his body. He had maybe fifteen seconds to live. Rolling over in agony, he blurrily saw the woman who had fired the gun reach down to his ear and pluck out his listening device. He opened his mouth to scream, to ask a question, to say something... but nothing came out but an agonized moan. The woman looked down without pity and snorted.
"Would'a worked, kid, if we were the Met. But we ain't the Met." And with that, Ruu knew no more. The woman calmly deployed her clean-up drone, and within a minute the only trace of the murders were blood stains that merely added to those already covering the concrete. Turning briskly, she walked the one block to the "chute", one of the aptly named vertical tunnels that allowed for garbage disposal to the Graveyard, and dropped the remains in. Seconds later, all that was left of "Vibe Radio Sixty-Two" was an empty apartment soon to be seized by desperate neighbours.
Welcome to the year 2134. Humankind has done the miraculous, leapfrogging off of the Earth and into space. The last three decades have seen millions of tiny, fragile, all-so-moral earthlings escape the tomb they dug for themselves with pollution, waste, and most of all war. These privileged few have started the exodus, but there is no guarantee, especially not the likelihood, that humanity will make a full escape. Though the nuclear holocaust that devastated the Earth’s population in 2084 failed to produce either the doomsday or send the remnants of human civilization back into the dark ages, it did centralize the three billion remaining to a few self-governing megacities holding upwards of a hundred million people each. To name but a few of the main ones: New Amsterdam on the old Antarctic shelf, the Chicago-Detroit-Toronto Metropolitan Area, the twin cities of Paris-Brussels, the sprawling masses of poverty and suffering in both Lagos and Cairo, the mechanical marvel of Metro La Paz in former Paraguay, and the ‘natural’ New Sydney in the terra-formed Australian desert. These new megacities were formed to house the millions displaced by rising ocean levels, and those forcibly displaced to make the most efficient use of the arable land left behind. There is natural life in these new edifices of concrete and steel, but is tucked away behind miles of pipes and roads and skyscrapers, each layered on top of the next to firmly segregate the fortunate from the less fortunate. The struggle of mother earth against her most rebellious sons, however, is not so easily suppressed…
Some more fluff and intro-stuff to make the following OOC more understandable.
The important stuff for RPing: the playground is 3D. Thus, keep that in mind when on a battlefield or doing something cool. I've kept landmarks out of it for the most part, so feel free to invent your own; they'll be important so that characters can rationally expect to meet up again in the chaos of Metro Tokyo without relying on too much technology.
The following is a brief overview of a few groups that will certainly be present in the RP in some form or another. Improvise and add on to them as you will. I haven't added resistance groups like Radio Free Metropolis, as those will be first introduced in the IC, but be aware that they do exist. You can invent some, if you'd like.
In this RP, I want to try something multimedia meaning if you can tell part of your story or contribute to the world of other characters through photography, art, music-writing, poetry, descriptions, or any possible creative way that you can imagine, I invite you to do so. This does not mean that if you are only comfortable writing you can’t be a part of this story: I encourage you to dig just as deeply into building parts of the world as well. You also don’t have to create every single multimedia piece you use, and can draw from your favourite artists of all kinds. However, the reason I’m trying this is because I think it deepens the connection and satisfaction when you have created something yourself that enriches other people’s roleplaying.
Once you have familiarized yourself with the setting, which I’ve tried to keep brief enough to allow you guys to develop landmarks while providing you the basics to write them in the first place, I want you to write characters that follow these few pointers:
Juxtaposition: imagine life in the 22nd millennium, in such a tight and cramped space as Metro-Tokyo. How would you innovate to meet your goals? In the face of such chaos, would you go hyper-advanced to gain a technological edge over the average person with all the risks that entails (in terms to thievery and exposure to high-tech threats), or would you fall back on old technology retro-fitted for the modern age?
Branding: Everything is branded. Everything. Even if you don’t want to fall into a subculture, you’re already there, and someone has done it before you. People make a living in Metro-Tokyo simply keeping up with the culture and fashion confusion, to absolutely no end at all.
Be a Part of the Story: Design a character that is out on the edge in some way – what skills do they have to contribute that are unique and with appropriate support could pose a threat to the existing system. Don’t imagine such power that your character could singlehandedly take down the hierarchy, but assume that they are several orders of magnitude more talented (though not necessarily trained and skilled) in their chosen niche than the people around them. The examples that I have already seen or thought of range from the expected such as an agile scout, hacker, or brute force thug, to the unexpected but useful, such as a filmmaker, actress, or weapons tinkerer.
Leave Room for Character Advancement: should be self-explanatory. You’ll all be special little snowflakes soon enough, believe me.
Please review the following character sheet, even if you've posted one, and feel free to go back over it and add in more detail if you wish given the new material I've posted above.
