Admiral Iosif Vranas, hero of the Second Vorqhul War, was instrumental in establishing a lasting peace for mankind's maturing spacefaring civilization. But with the alien menace pacified, humanity's innate thirst for conflict turned inward. Dissatisfaction with Eos' absolute rule over the outlying colonies simmered over the decades following humanity's clash with the xenos. Colonial outrage boiled over at last on Nuevo Arauco, where the Eos-appointed governors were lynched and independence proclaimed. In a panic, the oligarchs on Eos mobilized the most powerful flagship in humanity's fleet: Nemesis, a warship built extensively with reverse-engineered Vorqhul technology. The Cincinnatus of the Second Vorqhul War was called to duty again. This time, Vranas was charged with turning the ultra-lethal weaponry of Nemesis on Nuevo Arauco in order to set an example to all dissident colonists.

Admiral Vranas and his elite crew left Eos to lay waste to the rebel forces of Nuevo Arauco. A fortnight passed before a spy vessel tasked with monitoring the rebel planet returned to Eos and reported nothing had happened at Nuevo Arauco. Eosian Naval Command quickly realized there could only be one possible explanation: their most capable commander has stolen the most powerful warship in the fleet. Worst of all, nobody has any idea what Vranas intends to do next.

The Eosian oligarchs immediately recognized the scope of the crisis, and their orders to Naval Command were clear: recover the Nemesis and neutralize Iosif Vranas at any cost. Naval Command has devoted every resource at its disposal to track down the Nemesis. Spy vessels have been scattered throughout the colonial systems, using their sophisticated sensor suites to sniff out any sign of their quarry while flotillas of warships lurk through the cosmos, ready for a duel with the rogue ship at any moment. But even with the exhaustive search being carried out by Naval Command, the oligarchs are not satisfied. Their contacts within the black markets have made it known to the captains of illegally-operated vessels that anyone who captures the Nemesis and kills Vranas is entitled to a gargantuan bounty and unconditional pardoning of any and all outstanding warrants.

With such tantalizing rewards, the allure of capturing the Nemesis is very great, great enough to lure you into the search for the errant warship. As the captain of either a naval or pirate starship, you have dedicated yourself and the resources at your disposal to hunting down Nemesis. You are not deterred by the cutting-edge weaponry of that ship nor the skill of its elite crew and its master. Neither are you dissuaded by the overwhelming odds of failure and death or the sheer competition, for Nemesis will not be your only adversary in this adventure. Your fellow captains will not likely wish to share the fortune and prestige of dispatching Iosif Vranas, but can be counted upon to confound your efforts at every turn. Your crew may share your enthusiasm for this endeavor or perhaps they might wish for a larger share of the bounty for themselves; count mutiny among the endless list of perils on your journey as well.

But no matter the odds, you are committed to this adventure. Even if you must travel across a hundred alien worlds or light years of empty space, you will vanquish the Nemesis or die in the attempt.



Hello all. I'm counting this as my second serious attempt at starting a roleplay. This is a combination of ideas I've been wanting to translate into a roleplay for some time now, and I've made this thread to determine if the RPGuild is interested in these ideas as well.

First of all, I'd like to pin down what exactly this Roleplay is. Nemesis is a large group (+5 players) nation roleplay. Despite officially being a nation roleplay, the faction size will be relatively small: a starship crew comprised of anywhere from 20-5,000 people and a handful of onboard vehicles such as dropships, bombers, ground vehicles, etc. The main plotline will serve as the glue that binds the players together, but players are encouraged to explore their own sub-plots in parallel with the main story.

Nemesis is an advanced literary roleplay, which means that the roleplay will be made up of posts that read in a coherent fashion with some measure of plot progression and few or no grammatical or spelling errors. If you are not used to advanced roleplays, don't run off! Advanced does not mean you are expected to write 50,000-word novels for every post. So long as the post effectively conveys your story, I consider it advanced. However many words you can accomplish that in is fine with me.

Now for something of a historical synopsis; Nemesis is set sometime in the fairly distant future (~300-500 years). Humans have become a space-faring species for some time and have established colonies on 20-40 planets of varying habitability. A century and a half ago, humanity made first contact with another sentient alien species: the Vorqhul. This species proved to be everything xenobiologists feared first contact with another sentient race might be. Two wars were fought with these aliens over the course of a century and a half, resulting in the destruction of many planets, including Earth. Before the Vorqhul could destroy mankind's second homeworld, a brilliant admiral named Iosif Vranas managed to incapacitate a stranded Vorqhul mothership. Admiral Vranas tasked his engineers with gutting the alien vessel of any non-essential mass, leaving a mostly-empty hull capable of housing an entire fleet of human starships. His engineers were also able to extrapolate the location of a Vorqhul planet from the mothership's distortion drive. Vranas assembled his fleet and had his captains tuck their ships within the belly of the mothership - which had been rechristened as the Trojan. Vranas and his fleet then warped to the Vorqhul planet - a heavily-populated fortress world as it turned out. A series of explosives was set off, allowing Vranas' fleet to burst forth from the Trojan and take the nearby Vorqhul ships by surprise. Avenging Earth and the colonies that the aliens had destroyed, Vranas' fleet launched a withering salvo of 100-megaton nuclear warheads upon the Vorqhul planet and its three moons. Satisfied with the absolute carnage inflicted upon the enemy world, Vranas and his fleet warped out of the system before before the immanent retaliatory attack.

Following Vranas' daring raid, Naval Command was able to contact the Vorqhul and notify the species that similar attacks could and would be carried out until peace could be brokered between the two races. The Vorqhul agreed, and a tenuous peace between man and alien was established. Neither species was to venture into or through the Mutual Exclusion Zone, a wide swath of space separating human and Vorqhul planets. To this day, the peace has held, and no combat has transpired between humans and Vorqhul.

Despite the peace, it is widely feared that the Vorqhul will disregard the peace agreement and once again invade human worlds. To this end, Naval Command has busied itself building a new generation of warships built with reverse-engineered technology recovered from the Trojan. Equipped with a Vorqhul-style directed-energy array and a forcefield system all powered by antihydrogen powerplants, these new ships are expected to reliably kill Vorqhul vessels. The backbone of this new Vorqhul-killing fleet is the Nemesis, a versatile ship powerful enough to take the brunt of alien salvos for smaller, weaker ships; or lay waste to solitary enemies with its powerful armament.

But now that the Nemesis and the only human commander ever to win a battle against the Vorqhul are gone, mankind's ability to fight against a Vorqhul attack is severely diminished.



I plan on putting more content here as this thread (hopefully) generates interest. But I think this is sufficient to give a sense of what this roleplay is about and stimulate some brainstorming. Feel free to ask as many questions as you'd like. I hope to get this to OOC and IC quickly once the interest check takes off.

I would be interested in this, perhaps as Vice Admiral who needs to prove himself to finally achieve a higher rank and command a fleet. So probably will want to Captain a heavy cruiser or somesuch vessel.

I can do things with this.

I would be interested in this, perhaps as Vice Admiral who needs to prove himself to finally achieve a higher rank and command a fleet. So probably will want to Captain a heavy cruiser or somesuch vessel.

Sounds good to me. I'd even be alright with your ship having a few small support vessels in tow, perhaps a handful of corvettes.

Speaking of ship classes, I'll throw out a list of some ship types for people to get some ideas from if they're going the Naval Command route.
- Battlecruiser
- Cruiser
- Dreadnought
- Destroyer
- Frigate
- Corvette

Each of which would likely have multiple classes to give players some variety. For those interested in going the space-pirate route, expect no uniformity in ship types. Pirate vessels should be gritty, Frankenstein-esque contraptions built from captured civilian ships designed to inflict as much damage as possible. Think Millenium Falcon going through a Mad Max chop shop.

I can do things with this.

By all means, do things!

@gorgenmastwhat sort of starship weaponry would be most prevalent? Stuff like Battlestar Galactica, with missiles and cannons? Star Trek style phasers? Etc... also, is there going to be a certain form of FTL travel?

@Inkdrop

I sort of get the impression this may be confined to the solar system but I'm no Googer.

Love this, although I probably don't have time depending on your posting requirements. How frequent do you expect? I would like to play an Eosian commander...used to serve under Vranas and bitter that he was always overshadowed by the defector, this scenario being a perfect opportunity to kill Vranas more for his own personal reasons than the greater good of humanity. Can we expect a cameo from the vorghul or are they pretty much a non-threat?

Hunt for the Red October is one of my favorite films. I'll keep an eye on where this goes.

Interested.

@gorgenmastwhat sort of starship weaponry would be most prevalent? Stuff like Battlestar Galactica, with missiles and cannons? Star Trek style phasers? Etc... also, is there going to be a certain form of FTL travel?

Good questions.

The Vorqhul use directed-energy weapons - flashy beams of concentrated energy focused onto a single point to overheat, melt, or cut through enemy ships. This is the gold standard of ship-to-ship weaponry. A select few larger, more modern vessels like Nemesis will have these. For the most part, however, these weapons will not be as sophisticated as their Vorqhul counterparts due to the inability of humans to perfectly imitate their technology. These weapons will consume enormous amounts of energy and cannot be relied upon completely. DEW-outfitted ships will likely need missile pods to shore up the limitations of DEW weapons. The vast majority of human ships will rely on kinetic weapons - huge railguns and missile pods will be the bread and butter of most warships. But there is plenty of room for space mines, point-defense lasers, rail-miniguns, you name it. Whatever the case, the weapons loadout must have some vulnerabilities or weaknesses. No SS Mary Sues, please.

I envision FTL/warp technology working in a similar fashion to Star Trek's Warp Drive or Halo's Slipspace technology simply because it seems to be the most convenient, plausible means of achieving FTL travel as far as I can tell. In this universe, I've called them Distortion Drives, essentially just an Alcubierre Drive. All the theoretical science aside, these allow a spacecraft to travel at superluminal speeds up to about 50 parsecs/150 light years away at a time. Naturally, there are some limitations to this technology. There is a "recharge" time that must elapse before a ship can warp again and warping very near a star or planet's can play havok on the accuracy of a warp.

Seems as though interest seems to be building steadily. I'll throw up a pre-application sheet to give you guys the ability to really flesh out your ships, characters, backstories, etc. I hate filling out these applications more than anyone, but they serve as a demonstration of active interest in the RP and get you to really sit down and think about your ship and crew.

@Inkdrop

I sort of get the impression this may be confined to the solar system but I'm no Googer.

Multiple star systems. We're interstellar up in this piece.

Love this, although I probably don't have time depending on your posting requirements. How frequent do you expect? I would like to play an Eosian commander...used to serve under Vranas and bitter that he was always overshadowed by the defector, this scenario being a perfect opportunity to kill Vranas more for his own personal reasons than the greater good of humanity. Can we expect a cameo from the vorghul or are they pretty much a non-threat?

I'd love to have you and your character sounds to be exactly the sort I'm looking for. My guess is that 1-2 posts a week would be ideal, but if you have other commitments I get that as well. As for the Vorqhul, I intend for them to have a secondary but active role in the plot. Expect a Vorqhul appearance within my first 3 posts.

Interested.

Hell yeah.

Hunt for the Red October is one of my favorite films. I'll keep an eye on where this goes.

Glad to have caught your attention.

So, do we have to worry about artificial gravity and time distortion and all that? I'd prefer it if we could just nonsense our way past that and brush it under the rug. I am also super excited that this is generating interest and I am already formulating a plan for a small battlegroup.

Interested interested interested.

Potential character idea: A sportsman of sorts, relishing the opportunity for promotion alongside a deeper love of the hunt.

I have an interest for this... FOR SCRIENCE

I want to be a science vessel if you couldn't tell

So here is the application format. I have always hated these things with a burning passion, but I also understand that they are a necessary evil. I feel that these points will give both you and your fellow players a decent look at your ship and your captain. Now I may be forgetting some critical information on this template and/or I might be including fields that really don't matter. Fill out as much as you need to give us a feel for what sort of starship you're using and who your captain is; exclude fields that you feel are unimportant and add fields you think matter. Err on the side of brevity; too often NRP players will expend a huge effort into perfecting an exhaustive application, only to find their creative energy used up before their first post.

Vessel Name:
Vessel Type: (If applicable)
Vessel Class: (If applicable)
Armament loadout: (Brief outline of ship's weaponry)
Onboard vehicles: (Outline of any vehicles carried on the ship such as dropships, fighters, etc. if applicable. Any support ships assigned to your vessel should be listed here as well.)
Crew: (Number of total crew. Might also break down of officer/conscript ratio, describe any marine contingents aboard, list other important crew members, etc.)
Overview: (Description of the vessel, its combat role, brief summary of its history if it is a seasoned warship. Treat this like the ship's bio field.)

Captain:
M/F:
Age:
Rank: (If applicable)
Bio: (Brief history of your captain. The point is not to recount their life story, but to sow the seeds for your captain's motivations and aims by grounding them in a backstory.)

Remember that the keyword here is "brevity". Most of these details will be roleplayed out soon anyway. I'd guess that if you're needing 2k words or more to fill your application out, then you're probably doing it wrong.

So, do we have to worry about artificial gravity and time distortion and all that? I'd prefer it if we could just nonsense our way past that and brush it under the rug. I am also super excited that this is generating interest and I am already formulating a plan for a small battlegroup.

I agree. This is not meant to be "hard sci-fi", so don't worry about those details. But yeah, I am also quite pleased to see this moving right along. Once I have some applications from prospective players we can move right along to OOC stage.

Interested interested interested.

Potential character idea: A sportsman of sorts, relishing the opportunity for promotion alongside a deeper love of the hunt.

I can certainly see a Most Dangerous Game slant to the mission to take out Admiral Vranas. I dig it.

I have an interest for this... FOR SCRIENCE

I want to be a science vessel if you couldn't tell

I don't have a problem with you playing more of a non-combatant role, but I'm wondering if you have a way of involving yourself in the plot at hand or bumping into other players. We don't need people going off and doing their own thing with no intention of interacting with anyone else (I'm looking at you, Aaron). If you can find a way to tie your scientific mission into the story at large, I'm all for it.

REPLACED BY ARK ROYAL

Just the sort of sheet I had in mind. A good example of a succinct, effective application. Very good.

I'm planning on getting my own sheet out for Nemesis tomorrow.

@gorgenmastThank you. I am eager to see others' designs.

It's hard catching you on Steam nowadays so I'll ask here: What kind of government does humanity have? Is it the usual United Nations-like democracy, or is it more of a military government? Given the war with the Vorqhul, maybe the remnants of an emergency military government that just sort of stuck? It could be the reason for insurrection - people are upset that the military hasn't relinquished all power.

Pirate captain

WIP