It all started with the first manned mission out of the solar system. 2080. The plan was for a large shuttle carrying a crew over just a couple hundred men and women willing to sacrifice their lives, to cross just outside of the edge of our solar system, get whatever readings or samples they could, and to make the return trip. Over all, the mission should have taken almost exactly one hundred years. No one was going to survive the trip, while human lives have on average extended slightly, it was still just too long of time. Their mission was to get the shuttle pointed correctly, engage the on board auto pilot, then enter the sleep pods to be injected with a lethal dose of anethesia.

By the year 2045 the crew had reached their "destination". The readings they sent home showed nothing much out of the ordinary, exactly what was expected. Except for the radiation. It was high doses, and of a variety we hadn't experienced on earth. It was an exciting discovery. Over time maybe maybe this was something that could be harnessed. The possibilities could have been endless. After two years of floating in space, the crew prepared to turn the shuttle back, and plotted their course.

This is where things began going wrong.

The plan had been for the crew to... Go to sleep... In a kind of tiered system. They were to handle it in groups, starting with the least important members of running the ship. Janitorial, cafeteria, and the like first. Then the assistant scientists were up next. Finally the senior reseachers, leaving only a group of three men who were necessary to pilot the ship. Once they confirmed the autopilot was functional and the course plotted, they would be the last ones to go under.

2190, the ship crash lands as planned in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. It took a crew of a couple hundred men just a week to recover most of the wreckage. The bodies of the crew, what could be found with the wreckage in the water, had burned beyond recognition upon re-entry. They would be given heroes funerals. High levels of the same mysterious radiation was found on the pieces of the ship that were recovered.

It started with the men who recovered the wreckage. They began developing exceedingly aggressive forms of cancer, some of them died within a couple weeks, the longest lasting one just a month. The cancer appeared to spread to the doctors and nurses who helped them, the family who visited them, the other patients in the building. Even quarantining them off didn't appear to stop things. However it was transmitting, it was transmitting quickly. Within the following six months, it was estimated half of the population of the United States had fallen victim to the disease, and there was a certain death following contraction. It seemed a small percentage of the population were immune to catching the disease, but the future still looked bleak.

Then people started waking up. Bodies that had been dumped into mass graves that had yet to be buried over began pulling themselves out. People who had passed away in their homes without anyone to dispose of them began making their way out into the streets. They didn't appear to have any reasoning or thought, and were viciously violent. At the sight of a living person, they were drive into a rage, attacking them, clawing and biting at them. The few people who had seen this happening and gotten away alive claim they saw the reanimated people cannibalizing their targets.

Within the next few years the population of the United States was nearly wiped out, most people who survived the "outbreak" spent their time traveling alone, rarely coming across another living person. Some who did band together did what they had to do to survive. Some called them bandits, or raiders, or simply just gangs. They took what they needed to to feed their own, despite who it may hurt in the process. Others tried to form small communities to get some semblance of their old world back, as hopeless as it may feel.


So my idea of this is very loosely planned right now. I enjoy the possibility of things changing up as the story goes, though I do have some key bullet points we would be following, that I'll reveal as the story progresses. The starting point of it would be a small group meeting up, the size of that group would be decided by how many people show interest in this. The goal of the group will come up ICly, while I don't necessarily want to play a "leader" just because I'm starting the RP (in fact I feel more comfortable RPing outside a leader role), my character will have some information to get the group started. Again, would be revealed ICly once everyone is "together".


The story will begin in the Midwest United States, rural Ohio to be precise. The plot of the story will lead our group nearly across country, so this is planned to be a somewhat long term RP. The year is late 2100s, but technology isn't anything super crazy, we're playing under the assumption people just stopped inventing things in the mid 2000s. At this point of the situation, technology wouldn't be much help. Sure, it's possible to find batteries for radios or flashlights, ammunition for guns, stores of food, etc. But few places have electricity, you're not likely to find much fuel for vehicles, etc.


The characters involved should be pretty normal people. There's the possibility of a member of the group being a soldier or something, but no one in the group will be starting out carrying machine guns or grenades or something. Everyone will be allowed to give their character a starting "inventory" of supplies. What those could be is left up to the players involved writing their character, but I just ask that it's nothing crazy.

So if anyone's interested I'd love to hear so. I ask that this be considered more of an "advanced" RP. I'd appreciate people being able to make posts that really contribute to things, so no one or two liners or anything like that. If we get some interest, I'll start up an OOC thread soon.

Eh, sure. I'll probably have a gal ready.