Interest check. I'm new to this forum but not to RP. Part of the reason I'm here is because of this pet project that was too futuristic for previous hangouts. I hope you like it. Casual/advanced, possibly for Nation but I'm not clear about the criteria for that forum - you'll note I use UK spelling but other spellings of centre and colonisation are acceptable. :)
Inspired by various things including Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile, Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, various Harry Harrison books, 2001, Star Wars and other films, Arthur C Clarke, Iain M Banks and lots and lots of other sci fi. This has been kicking around in my head for years and is quite detailed but I'll describe it as briefly as I can. :)
Background:
Near-future Mars. International anxiety about global warming, asteroid strikes and other potential global disasters inspire the United Nations to work together to start the colonisation of Mars, to ensure that humanity hasn't got "all of its eggs in one basket". It is still at the early stages (first basic colonisation started over 50 years previously but most of the long-term residents have been on Mars for perhaps 20 years - settlements are well-established but most adults came from Earth); the population is relatively small (perhaps only a few thousand spread out over small settlements) and is made up of pioneers who have come to the Red Planet for varying reasons - inspired to be part of a brave new world, having specialist skills, escaping their past, preserving their vanishing culture, for example. So the colony is not really intended to do anything for Earth other than survive and continue.
Due to the low population and isolation (Mars is at least nine months' journey from Earth) it has settled into a kind of feudal society, with each settlement being self-governing, setting its own laws and customs. Due to the clear need for working together in this kind of environment open warfare and the like don't happen, but politics and espionage do. Weapons are banned and not imported from Earth, but of course primitive weaponry could be created by a sufficiently determined person.
There are various major population centres, although they are small by modern standards - a large farming dome may have a small village of a hundred people living in it, and mining settlements may only have ten or twenty hardy miners working there. Some groups travel between the other settlements in massive building-sized vehicles nickamed "dozers" after the bulldozers they resemble; units on tank treads, moving from village to village trading and in many cases, providing a mobile "resort" to give the farmers and miners a few days of fun until they have to move on to the next place. Domes and dozers often feature oxygen-producing plant life and drinking water sculpted to create lakes and small patches of green land under the domes and behind the walls, and settlements have often been made to look as much like "home" as possible, to be comforting - a dome might contain a small lake amongst green fields and trees, with a central hall surrounded by thatched cottages, for example. Colonists live relatively simple lives but have access to basic modern conveniences as described in this summary.
Colonists don't call themselves "Martians", reserving that term for the "little green men" typical of Martian folklore. Aliens do not exist but mothers frighten their children into bed by telling them that the Martians will get them unless they behave. The colonists refer to themselves as "Mariners", partly in homage to the old probes that scanned Mars so long ago, and also to the pioneers that sailed the seas of Earth before that.
Due to the relatively high gravity and lack of atmosphere on Mars, a space elevator has been built to receive ships from Earth (the Ares, the Athena and the Enyo) as landing manned ships would be impractical (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars), although as the Martian colony is meant to be self-sufficient the ships from Earth do not arrive often, and new colonists only bring the bare minimum - the tools of their trade, if they have one, and one standard-sized suitcase with whatever they can't bear to leave behind. As music, books, films and personal photograph storage are provided on Mars electronically by means of everyone's PIE (Personal Information Equipment, a kind of PDA/tablet which wraps around the forearm like a bracer but can also lie flat, with email, web, cloud storage etc), people can bring as much electronic media as they wish. Popular things to bring in the suitcase are musical instruments, hobby and crafting equipment to produce luxuries that can be traded, and items of personal significance like family heirlooms. Larger items such as large musical instruments, weaving looms etc. may be permitted by Landing if the person can show a useful skill with it. People either pay their own fare by selling everything they own on Earth apart from their case full of treasures, or if they have mastered a particular skill that is in high demand like a surgeon or an agriculturalist they may be sponsored by a settlement and will work there when they arrive. These people are referred to formally as Craftmaster/Craftmistress (the genders are considered equal but some females prefer the old-fashioned term) and are held in high regard. Some come to Mars only intending to stay for a few years to do a specific job; some burn their bridges on Earth and come to Mars for life.
Each settlement is self-governing and there is no currency as such other than work and good old-fashioned trading; colonists are guaranteed air, water, medical care, basic rations and clothing, and a bed in a dormitory at Landing or their sponsor settlement, if they have one. Landing provides this free at point of need, and taxes are levied from the settlements to provide this, in return for new colonists for the settlement and centralised services such as the PIENet.
People are paid in Work Hours (H) that can be traded for what luxury goods are produced on Mars, like home-made crafts, clothes, services, and artworks for the home. A simple job that requires no skills would be paid at one H per hour, and this is subdivided into 60 Work Minutes (M), Therefore, if one sees a meal in a restaurant advertised as costing H1:00 and a drink costing 30M, then you could pay H1:30 in total electronically with your PIE, or if you were a new colonist with no Hours to your name, you might offer to wash dishes for an hour and a half to pay for your meal. A skilled worker would get a higher rate per hour, agreed in advance.
For RP purposes, think about what your local minimum wage for an hour's unskilled work might be - this is one H. You now have an exchange rate and can work out the rough value of items from there. For example, the minimum wage in the UK for an adult is about £6, so that is H1, and conveniently 1M would therefore be 10p. A meal that I'd buy in RL for £10 would therefore cost about 100M, or H1:40. Note that I'm not expecting you do to lots of maths for everything (I'm terrible at it myself and may have got this wrong!), just try and keep the prices reasonable! Exchange rate at time of writing with the dollar is $1 = 60p so one Martian work hour is approximately $10 and so a work minute is about 16 cents.
People often have more than one job; if on a dozer, for example, they might work as a repair engineer or schoolteacher while the dozer travels but as a barman or musician when they are at a settlement providing recreation for guests. New colonists are usually given simple work to do until they settle in, like cleaning or harvesting, until they decide what they would like to do as a career, if they haven't come to Mars with an existing trade. Settlements are small and close-knit, so people know their neighbours and newcomers are quickly noticed. People are generally helpful with helping newcomers settle in, but are sometimes a little suspicious of new colonists as well, until they get to know them.
During their free time they might use their PIE to listen to music or read; many settlements have an area set aside for entertainment, and of course people who have brought musical instruments or a good singing voice entertain in the bars - while many people keep to current trends, there is a fashion at the moment for late 20th and early 21st century music and film - you will often find a "rock night" or "disco" being held by historical re-enactors, and old 2D cinemas showing classic "flat" films are very popular, and most large settlements will have a local radio station with music and local news, that also broadcasts over the net to other settlements.
Each settlement has a representative on a planetary council that meets over the PIEnet when necessary, and once a year on the largest settlement, Landing, which is at the base of the elevator. The yearly meet is quite an event - most dozers endeavour to be there, and settlements send trade representatives. Entertainers may put on shows, and there are dances and meet-ups with the aim of kindling romances, so that people can meet someone new.
Animals are bred from those brought to Mars either as young animals or frozen embryos and while animals like sheep, cows and goats are relatively common in the farming domes, pets like dogs and cats are a very expensive luxury.
Personal transport - settlements are small and so most people walk around, but there is some public transport, such as small vehicles like golf buggies that transport people to medical bays, goods around a dome etc. People less able to walk have wheelchairs, and the buggies can be hired like taxis. Some domes are large enough that cycles can be hired to cycle round them for exercise and fun. Farming domes sometimes have ponies that the locals use for farming duties and riding, and have been known to hire them out for pony rides to visiting dozer residents. ;).
Between settlements, there are small tracked vehicles like buses and small flying craft but these are expensive, so mainly used for valuable cargo and travel like medevac to Landing or urgent travel for a Craftmaster. A mining settlement may save up to buy transport as a gift to a resort dozer not due for weeks, so that a married couple can have a private honeymoon. Most people wanting to trade or relocate "on the cheap" wait for a dozer to visit and basically hitch a lift, working to pay their way. Dozers therefor have permanent residents but often some casual workers wanting to get from A to B.
From an RP point of view, the GM will play the part of the Landing Government and has power of veto. If you want to make large-scale changes to the RP you will have to summarise it in the OOC and have it cleared by Landing before you RP it. I'm keen to see people freeling RPing a character or RPing your own settlement how you see fit, and interacting with other parts of the story as set, but any godmodding, treading on toes or significant change to the main storyline without checking it's OK with everyone involved runs the risk of being written out. If in doubt, ask in the OOC.
Basically, this is my world, it's lived in my head for years and I've played in it for a while. As you can see it's taken quite detailed shape; do ask if anything is not clear, but I've tried to explain it as well as I can. I'm looking forward to letting people come in and play but don't break it. ;)
Happy to take suggestions for involvement/fleshing it out. I will play the GM/Landing Government as far as setting the world-spanning plot points go, and will also write a dozer called Whitebridge which is basically a travelling retro early 21st century-themed British seaside resort/hotel on caterpillar tracks that trundles round Mars bringing the seaside to the masses. Other people/settlements - let me know what you'd like to do. I'm happy for people to RP the goings-on of an entire settlement as long as they do it from one character's point of view so things don't get out of hand - can be the leader or a new colonist seeing that settlement for the first time, for example.
Once we have a consensus on how this might work I'll start thinking about character sheets, maps etc.
/edit. Added clarification that some jobs get higher rates than H1 per hour, and section about personal transport.
Inspired by various things including Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy, Julian May's Saga of Pliocene Exile, Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, various Harry Harrison books, 2001, Star Wars and other films, Arthur C Clarke, Iain M Banks and lots and lots of other sci fi. This has been kicking around in my head for years and is quite detailed but I'll describe it as briefly as I can. :)
Background:
Near-future Mars. International anxiety about global warming, asteroid strikes and other potential global disasters inspire the United Nations to work together to start the colonisation of Mars, to ensure that humanity hasn't got "all of its eggs in one basket". It is still at the early stages (first basic colonisation started over 50 years previously but most of the long-term residents have been on Mars for perhaps 20 years - settlements are well-established but most adults came from Earth); the population is relatively small (perhaps only a few thousand spread out over small settlements) and is made up of pioneers who have come to the Red Planet for varying reasons - inspired to be part of a brave new world, having specialist skills, escaping their past, preserving their vanishing culture, for example. So the colony is not really intended to do anything for Earth other than survive and continue.
Due to the low population and isolation (Mars is at least nine months' journey from Earth) it has settled into a kind of feudal society, with each settlement being self-governing, setting its own laws and customs. Due to the clear need for working together in this kind of environment open warfare and the like don't happen, but politics and espionage do. Weapons are banned and not imported from Earth, but of course primitive weaponry could be created by a sufficiently determined person.
There are various major population centres, although they are small by modern standards - a large farming dome may have a small village of a hundred people living in it, and mining settlements may only have ten or twenty hardy miners working there. Some groups travel between the other settlements in massive building-sized vehicles nickamed "dozers" after the bulldozers they resemble; units on tank treads, moving from village to village trading and in many cases, providing a mobile "resort" to give the farmers and miners a few days of fun until they have to move on to the next place. Domes and dozers often feature oxygen-producing plant life and drinking water sculpted to create lakes and small patches of green land under the domes and behind the walls, and settlements have often been made to look as much like "home" as possible, to be comforting - a dome might contain a small lake amongst green fields and trees, with a central hall surrounded by thatched cottages, for example. Colonists live relatively simple lives but have access to basic modern conveniences as described in this summary.
Colonists don't call themselves "Martians", reserving that term for the "little green men" typical of Martian folklore. Aliens do not exist but mothers frighten their children into bed by telling them that the Martians will get them unless they behave. The colonists refer to themselves as "Mariners", partly in homage to the old probes that scanned Mars so long ago, and also to the pioneers that sailed the seas of Earth before that.
Due to the relatively high gravity and lack of atmosphere on Mars, a space elevator has been built to receive ships from Earth (the Ares, the Athena and the Enyo) as landing manned ships would be impractical (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Mars), although as the Martian colony is meant to be self-sufficient the ships from Earth do not arrive often, and new colonists only bring the bare minimum - the tools of their trade, if they have one, and one standard-sized suitcase with whatever they can't bear to leave behind. As music, books, films and personal photograph storage are provided on Mars electronically by means of everyone's PIE (Personal Information Equipment, a kind of PDA/tablet which wraps around the forearm like a bracer but can also lie flat, with email, web, cloud storage etc), people can bring as much electronic media as they wish. Popular things to bring in the suitcase are musical instruments, hobby and crafting equipment to produce luxuries that can be traded, and items of personal significance like family heirlooms. Larger items such as large musical instruments, weaving looms etc. may be permitted by Landing if the person can show a useful skill with it. People either pay their own fare by selling everything they own on Earth apart from their case full of treasures, or if they have mastered a particular skill that is in high demand like a surgeon or an agriculturalist they may be sponsored by a settlement and will work there when they arrive. These people are referred to formally as Craftmaster/Craftmistress (the genders are considered equal but some females prefer the old-fashioned term) and are held in high regard. Some come to Mars only intending to stay for a few years to do a specific job; some burn their bridges on Earth and come to Mars for life.
Each settlement is self-governing and there is no currency as such other than work and good old-fashioned trading; colonists are guaranteed air, water, medical care, basic rations and clothing, and a bed in a dormitory at Landing or their sponsor settlement, if they have one. Landing provides this free at point of need, and taxes are levied from the settlements to provide this, in return for new colonists for the settlement and centralised services such as the PIENet.
People are paid in Work Hours (H) that can be traded for what luxury goods are produced on Mars, like home-made crafts, clothes, services, and artworks for the home. A simple job that requires no skills would be paid at one H per hour, and this is subdivided into 60 Work Minutes (M), Therefore, if one sees a meal in a restaurant advertised as costing H1:00 and a drink costing 30M, then you could pay H1:30 in total electronically with your PIE, or if you were a new colonist with no Hours to your name, you might offer to wash dishes for an hour and a half to pay for your meal. A skilled worker would get a higher rate per hour, agreed in advance.
For RP purposes, think about what your local minimum wage for an hour's unskilled work might be - this is one H. You now have an exchange rate and can work out the rough value of items from there. For example, the minimum wage in the UK for an adult is about £6, so that is H1, and conveniently 1M would therefore be 10p. A meal that I'd buy in RL for £10 would therefore cost about 100M, or H1:40. Note that I'm not expecting you do to lots of maths for everything (I'm terrible at it myself and may have got this wrong!), just try and keep the prices reasonable! Exchange rate at time of writing with the dollar is $1 = 60p so one Martian work hour is approximately $10 and so a work minute is about 16 cents.
People often have more than one job; if on a dozer, for example, they might work as a repair engineer or schoolteacher while the dozer travels but as a barman or musician when they are at a settlement providing recreation for guests. New colonists are usually given simple work to do until they settle in, like cleaning or harvesting, until they decide what they would like to do as a career, if they haven't come to Mars with an existing trade. Settlements are small and close-knit, so people know their neighbours and newcomers are quickly noticed. People are generally helpful with helping newcomers settle in, but are sometimes a little suspicious of new colonists as well, until they get to know them.
During their free time they might use their PIE to listen to music or read; many settlements have an area set aside for entertainment, and of course people who have brought musical instruments or a good singing voice entertain in the bars - while many people keep to current trends, there is a fashion at the moment for late 20th and early 21st century music and film - you will often find a "rock night" or "disco" being held by historical re-enactors, and old 2D cinemas showing classic "flat" films are very popular, and most large settlements will have a local radio station with music and local news, that also broadcasts over the net to other settlements.
Each settlement has a representative on a planetary council that meets over the PIEnet when necessary, and once a year on the largest settlement, Landing, which is at the base of the elevator. The yearly meet is quite an event - most dozers endeavour to be there, and settlements send trade representatives. Entertainers may put on shows, and there are dances and meet-ups with the aim of kindling romances, so that people can meet someone new.
Animals are bred from those brought to Mars either as young animals or frozen embryos and while animals like sheep, cows and goats are relatively common in the farming domes, pets like dogs and cats are a very expensive luxury.
Personal transport - settlements are small and so most people walk around, but there is some public transport, such as small vehicles like golf buggies that transport people to medical bays, goods around a dome etc. People less able to walk have wheelchairs, and the buggies can be hired like taxis. Some domes are large enough that cycles can be hired to cycle round them for exercise and fun. Farming domes sometimes have ponies that the locals use for farming duties and riding, and have been known to hire them out for pony rides to visiting dozer residents. ;).
Between settlements, there are small tracked vehicles like buses and small flying craft but these are expensive, so mainly used for valuable cargo and travel like medevac to Landing or urgent travel for a Craftmaster. A mining settlement may save up to buy transport as a gift to a resort dozer not due for weeks, so that a married couple can have a private honeymoon. Most people wanting to trade or relocate "on the cheap" wait for a dozer to visit and basically hitch a lift, working to pay their way. Dozers therefor have permanent residents but often some casual workers wanting to get from A to B.
From an RP point of view, the GM will play the part of the Landing Government and has power of veto. If you want to make large-scale changes to the RP you will have to summarise it in the OOC and have it cleared by Landing before you RP it. I'm keen to see people freeling RPing a character or RPing your own settlement how you see fit, and interacting with other parts of the story as set, but any godmodding, treading on toes or significant change to the main storyline without checking it's OK with everyone involved runs the risk of being written out. If in doubt, ask in the OOC.
Basically, this is my world, it's lived in my head for years and I've played in it for a while. As you can see it's taken quite detailed shape; do ask if anything is not clear, but I've tried to explain it as well as I can. I'm looking forward to letting people come in and play but don't break it. ;)
Happy to take suggestions for involvement/fleshing it out. I will play the GM/Landing Government as far as setting the world-spanning plot points go, and will also write a dozer called Whitebridge which is basically a travelling retro early 21st century-themed British seaside resort/hotel on caterpillar tracks that trundles round Mars bringing the seaside to the masses. Other people/settlements - let me know what you'd like to do. I'm happy for people to RP the goings-on of an entire settlement as long as they do it from one character's point of view so things don't get out of hand - can be the leader or a new colonist seeing that settlement for the first time, for example.
Once we have a consensus on how this might work I'll start thinking about character sheets, maps etc.
/edit. Added clarification that some jobs get higher rates than H1 per hour, and section about personal transport.
