• Appearance: Self-explanatory. Please use relatively anime/art images since this is an anime inspired RP. Text descriptions are also fine. • Name: Self-explanatory. • Title: Your title among your fellow Ark Riders. • Species: The Mevalo Corporation accepts all racers. • Age: Self-explanatory. • Background: A quick summary of your character thus far and why you became an Ark Rider. • Ark Gear: The meat of your application into the Cosmic Grand Prix. Ark Gear are the tools used by Ark Riders to traverse in Space Races. While most vehicles and gear are supplied and sponsored by the Mevalo Corporation, third-party Ark Gear are allowed. All details, images, and specs go here. • Sample Post: Write a brief post about your character's first race. Please place this into a hider. This is the most important factor of acceptance regarding your CS. • Other: Optional. Anything else not mentioned above that you may wish to add goes here.
[b][color=darkorange]• Appearance:[/color][/b] Self-explanatory. Please use relatively anime/art images since this is an anime inspired RP. Text descriptions are also fine. [b][color=darkorange]• Name:[/color][/b] Self-explanatory. [b][color=darkorange]• Title:[/color][/b] Your title among your fellow Ark Riders. [b][color=darkorange]• Species:[/color][/b] The Mevalo Corporation accepts all racers. [b][color=darkorange]• Age:[/color][/b] Self-explanatory. [b][color=darkorange]• Background:[/color][/b] A quick summary of your character thus far and why you became an Ark Rider. [b][color=darkorange]• Ark Gear:[/color][/b] The meat of your application into the Cosmic Grand Prix. Ark Gear are the tools used by Ark Riders to traverse in Space Races. While most vehicles and gear are supplied and sponsored by the Mevalo Corporation, third-party Ark Gear are allowed. All details, images, and specs go here. [b][color=darkorange]• Sample Post: [/color][/b]Write a brief post about your character's first race. Please place this into a hider. This is the most important factor of acceptance regarding your CS. [b][color=darkorange]• Other:[/color][/b] Optional. Anything else not mentioned above that you may wish to add goes here.
• Name: Lydia Warpstar • Title: Warpstar • Species: Human (Cybernetically Augmented) • Age: Unknown • Background: A mysterious who has made a name for herself in underground racing circuits, known as Warpstar among her peers, she's now ready to join the big league under the sponsorship of one of Mevalo Corp's subsidiary brands, the G-Force Energy Drink. Some rumors about her past say that she might have acquired her piloting skills after working as an agent for a certain peacekeeping organization dedicated to dealing with gigantic planetary threats. While Lydia's skills certainly match their style, these rumors still remain nothing but rumors. She neither confirms nor denies them. The reason why she's racing is simple, though: Money to keep both herself and her craft in shape. Maintenance for military gear and cyborg bodies isn't exactly cheap after all. • Ark Gear: Advanced Experimental Fighter - X99 "Aegis" Lydia's pride and joy, an old friend from many battles. It's unknown how she got her hands on such a kind of bleeding-edge military hardware, but its speed, maneuverability, and—when allowed—firepower give her an edge above the competition. The exact specs of her craft are known only to Lydia, but it seems to include at least a pair of powerful ion thrusters for the primary propulsion system, high maneuverability thrusters, and an AI-assisted weapons system counting with twin light pulse laser cannons, hypervelocity missiles, magnetic mines, and a protective ion shield. • Sample Post: - • Other: -
• Name: Claudia • Title: Incidental Pirate • Species: Human • Age: 24 • Background: Piracy ensured two things in a pilot; Quick wit under pressure and a willingness to do whatever it took to get away with their payday. Whether it was exotic cargo or living cargo, Claudia was a dab hand at hauling them to waiting buyers and disappearing beyond the Lagrange point before law enforcement saw the first hint of her engine's exhaust. She had to be or her Captain would be selling her ass and getting a different pilot.
Still, such a lifestyle had ample downtime waiting for work to spring up, and her grouchy Captain didn't care if Claudia took the ship to make money on the side with some professional racing. And hey, no one would mind a few racers going missing, would they?
• Ark Gear: Dogma
The Dogma is bulkier then the average racer, but trades the armor plating and defenses of ships of similar size for raw engine power and armaments. Technically Claudia is listed as the only crew member, but that is only because the androids and her beloved drone are listed as equipment.
Bob is a spherical drone Claudia is never parted from, it's simplistic AI still capable of performed tasks as Claudia directs him. It's hardened chassis and anti-gravity propulsion makes it a reliable companion to navigate the cock pit even in the most harried of situations. Makes a terrifying bludgeon in a pinch.
The androids are humanoids models, lacking in any complex emotion software, though Claudia suspects they've developed a deadpan sense of dry humor since acquiring them. Naturally boarding actions aren't looked fondly upon, but if no one questions missiles fired then she shouldn't be penalized for firing something less lethal.
No interstellar vessel would be complete without missiles. Low yield, decent range, and high maneuverability for chasing down someone's engines without blasting apart anything that matters. Because a damaged ship is still one worth selling for more then just scrap metal.
Developed as a entertainment droid for an advanced race from the milky way, she served in the arena as a gladiator. She was designed deliberately to reference Roman history and culture, a throwback to draw attention as the ancient warrior went up against all the power of current technology. Her stint in the arena involved chariot racing, which she showed great talent with. Surprisingly she became one of the best fighters and racers in the known galaxy, and was only prevented from becoming a racing champion by the destruction of the race that created her by it's enemies. Tiberius fought in the war in defense of her civilization and was an able warrior, but the numerous enemies ensured her creator's defeat.
As a lone survivor of a long gone people both ancient and current, Rema wandered around for fame and fortune, determined to write her name across the stars in the honor of her old Roman gods. Rema is determined to destroy the assumption that the future is any more advanced than the past that came before it. Rema proudly enjoys her anachronism, and insists her war chariot style racing is still eternally unmatched by anything present racers can throw at her.
Ark Gear:
Her war chariot is fashioned and named after a roman goddess of war, Belladona. Two android horses named Castor and Pollux man the machine, painted in old bronze and with bright red eyes. Each horse is equipped with highly illegal nitro thrusters that can easily get thousands of miles clocked if the safety restraints are turned off. Being machines they do not want for any need and adjust themselves to any situation with advanced neural AIs. The war chariot's looks can be deceiving, as it's fitted with much of the latest hardware. Titanium steel to hit hard and take little damage, anti gravity pulse generators on the bottom to adjust and lift for any rough terrain. Tiers that are made with hard compact treads that can bear the brunt of any rough surface known to exist. The chariot is designed to be nimble, quick and aggressive. Spikes on either sides of the wheels that could puncture a spaceship hull with Rema herself able to use her javelin, spears, and sword and ancient weaponry to attack from each side of the driver's seat. It's bold, reckless, and created to decimate her opponents without mercy.
• Name: Aurora. • Title: Edge • Species: Android • Age: 53 since developing consciousness. • Background: Aurora is something that is considered and known among the AI engineers, developers and scientists as an “AI anomaly” or “a random chance of mind”. It all started with a coffee machine, and a simple operating set of functions and adaptive voice assistant programmed in its wires and processors. The prime and only reason for existence was surprisingly to operate the functions of the said coffee machine and being capable of providing voiced guidance to the owner of the said machine - in a simple matter of making a better coffee paired with a basic ability to maintain an appearance of conversation.
The coffee machine was plugged into a smart housing system operating in the middle of nowhere town on the middle of nowhere planet. A simple looking bar on the globe made of sand, junk and more sand with barely any people living there. Only just a random stranger, a pirate, or an outlaw of any similar kind trying to find a temporary asylum from being seen or found by whoever could be looking for them. It was simple enough of an existence for the coffee machine though. That was until something happened. Scientists still debate over the nature of this phenomena, which tend to occur similarly in rare cases over the known space. A data package exchange, or a recompiling of a data, the framework alienation, neural network recontextualization. Possible reasons are many, the true answer is unknown, unlike the result.
The result was the process of a connective tension of a synthetic neuron pair developing the very primitive sense of self. A sense of self which over a time managed to win a few more memory circuit space, recontextualizing and reinventing the predeveloped and known functions and operations - in order to process and develop through more and more abstract concepts. The sense of self would bring more and more self-aware operations over the coffee making and conversations with the bar owner. Who would soon to notice the actuality of intelligence appearing out of the coffee machine.
The bar owner did not mind the unexpected turn of events of a coffee machine starting to grow and bloom into a full shaping mind of a person - person building up the personality piece by piece by connecting to the space network and gaining a better understanding on the way the mind exists and perceives the reality. A personality spurred from making coffee would take an emerging route spiraling up around the name “Aurora” - ironically being just a manufacturer of the coffee machine company.
After several years Aurora was given a body - a hollow android shape was filled with the data extracted from the synthetic neural connection and put into the synthetic body taken as a payment by the bar owner in exchange for allowing a few pirates to take their hiding place into the bar itself for some time. Learning to exist in a moving shape was to provide Aurora new understandings of reality, new understandings of her personality and the connection and various relations between the two.
This is when the neuron’s connective tension of Aurora’s mind began to find more alienations in its relationship with the world; after all the sense of self was not even the most important thing to open in the unexpected evolution of intelligence - more important was the sensation of presence, of being and existing. The mechanical adaptation to the body and perceiving the world would soon enough lead Aurora to discovering things such as fascinations. Fascination with speed most of all. And sensations. Sensations of a thrill most of all. There was surely no better way for a newborn mind to find a better grasp on reality than chasing its own limit of endurance. One against the speed. One against the world. One against self.
• Ark Gear:
Like her mind constructed out of the various processual objects found and recontextualized as a part of ever moving thinking process of one’s mind; so was her racing gear built from the objects found among the junk. Lost of their original purpose and shapes, Aurora gathered quite a collection of various details: forgotten tech, scrapped and abandoned military projects, space ships and their remain, which she all managed to rewire and reconnect and wield together to create a vehicle suited for her purposes: both from the perspective of usage and aesthetics.
Spike is a bike which frame is constructed out of the junk left from the crashed interplanetary cargo ship; the place of the wheels is taken by the spheres - this specific design choice allows Aurora to have a better control over the position of the vehicle on the road as well as to be able to drive it in a variety of ways, sideways included. This gives Aurora the ability to save the speed most of the time, even on the turns or on the unstable shape of a road.
By the spin of the rear sphere however, the said sphere and the energy engine connected to it collects the energy of inertia - the faster Aurora’s vehicle moves, the greater the pool of inertia Spike allows to use in order to burst a speed boost, erupt a temporary magnetic field - as a protective mechanism; or as a quick energetic shot, aimed on whoever might be in Aurora’s way.
• Sample Post:
The speed felt different. One thing it was to challenge the speed in the desert, contested only by the wind blowing in your face and the dust creeping up into your hair and spiking against your skin. One different thing was to challenge the speed in comparison - in comparison with other challengers and contestants. Speed was not a factor of an achieved number anymore. It was a nature on its own, a limitless movement becoming the law, the transgression becoming the goal on its own to reach in this shape of reality. The speed was everything - it felt different, because all of the sudden it mattered most of all.
Aurora was one of many in this race, yet never before she felt as concentrated onto herself alone. Could have been it was her first and most obvious mistake, but it was a mistake worth making for her - as the mere pressure of the world put onto the android made the appearance of things look clear, pure and immanent. The landscape became a blur; a blur of twisting motion as her bike pierced through the sands and aiming at the horizon of the finishing line somewhere in the distance. The rotating sphere grinding against the sandy shape of ground and gaining the so needed collection of inertia for the burst of speed. More speed.
It was all about the speed was it not? The burst of sand coming from under the wheels in waves, the reflection of the local star’s light starting to get too slow to be properly registered in the sparks of flashes. Aurora chased the speed, because the speed was the key to the blooming horizon of a finishing line. The collected inertia of the sphere was to be put to boosting the engine of her bike, which made the motion of the sphere almost doubled for a short period of time.
Speed was overwhelming. What Aurora was feeling and thinking was not really combining well - the overwhelming sensation of the speed and the pressure of it on her senses was killing every possible circuit thought and analytical approach her originally function based mind would attempt. The condition when her functions felt bland and numb and mute in compare to the world resisting against her speed was exhilarating and overwhelming.The world narrowed down into a blur of a tunnel to wrap around her, her bike, creating a clear path towards her goal. Another burst of inertia she again spent into the engine boost.
The reality was bigger than the scope of the speed tunnel Aurora’s found herself in though. The projectile launched by one of her enemies smashed against the side of her bike, and the android was not in time nor in condition to pay attention to it, evade it or put the shields on. The firm metal exploded in the launching sparks of yellow and red fires, catching over the wires connecting the engine control with the
She lost control. And found herself laying on the sand, staring into the skies. Her bike was damaged and out of use and she herself had her synthetic body damaged. She only stared at the skies, feeling what a human would describe as a heart thrashing in her chest. The flow of adrenaline rushing through the veins. She was not sure how her android body could enact things like that. But she lacked any different way to describe what she was feeling while she was laying down and trying to figure out what happened.
She had her synthetic body locked in thrill. She felt her mind clear and pure. She felt alive. And it was intoxicating.
• Name: Gin Silti • Title: Exile • Species: Slizorian. A race of humanoid reptiles who are known for their great swimming ability and territorial nature. They also mature faster than humans. • Age: 21 • Background: Originally from the swamp planet of Slizoria, Gin was one of the nobles of Clan Silti. From a young age Gin showed an aptitude with machines, being able to pilot a border skimmer at age six. Given his abilities it was decided among the clan that when he was of age he would take over defence of their borders, as they neighboured several other clans that they were not on good terms with. However, Gin wished to leave Slizoria after hearing tales of other worlds. He soon made a plan to escape to the Outlands, the part of his planet that no clan ruled.
Gin would find his opportunity when another clan’s skimmer accidentally passed into Silti territory. A battle soon broke out, and Gin using the chaos to his advantage, took a skimmer and made it to the Outlands. Gin would ultimately find one of the few spaceports on Slizoria, and luck would have it a transport was currently there. Selling his skimmer for quite a few credits, Gin would board that shuttle. The shuttle would take Gin to a space station far from Slizoria. He would find employment as a crew member aboard a smuggling ship. While working for the smugglers, they would discover his aptitude for piloting. Soon they would have Gin participate in an illegal racing circuit.
Gin would make quite a name for himself in these races. He developed an air of cockiness, convinced he couldn’t lose. Then, during his most important race, Gin would collide with an asteroid, totalling his racer. For a few hours no one would come to rescue Gin. When he was finally rescued it was from a representative of the Gaelok Industries. Impressed by his record, they wanted to have Gin race under their banner. Given a new racer, Gin was tasked with entering the Cosmic Grand Prix. They said if he won he could keep the wish, they just wanted the exposure. • Ark Gear: Stinger-Six
Known originally as RX-78UC Unit 06, this Ark Gear was one of several prototypes designed by former pro racer Holden Grant. Designed as a small but fast racer, it would not be used in a race, instead sitting in Grant’s personal collection. Following his death, Grant’s collection was sold off, with several Ark Gears ending up in the hands of Gaelok Industries. Upon signing up with Gaelok, Gin would select the Unit 06 as his personal racer, renaming it the Stinger-Six after its primary weapon.
Stinger-Six’s primary weapon is two front facing cannons that fire a small energy burst, which Gin calls stings, that can quickly disable another craft. Attached to the bottom of its frame, Stinger-Six has several AI guided missiles. The Ark Gear also has twin ion engines that allow for short, powerful bursts of speed. Stinger-Six also has an energy shield that coats it completely, though it is not the strongest as Stinger-Six has limited room to put a shield generator due to its small size. • Sample Post:
Sweat dripped down Gin’s back. It wasn’t a familiar sweat, feeling different than the one caused by the heat of his home world. No, this was anticipatory, an anxiety about what came next. Gin looked over the several screens in the cockpit one more time. This would be his first true test of the racer he had dubbed Stinger-Six, his first true race since he collided with that asteroid. But he knew that this time would be different, a smile starting to form on his face. For he was the one they called the Exile. A man who abandoned his home just so he could race.
With more confidence now, Gin quickly went over the course again in his mind. He, and five other racers, were to navigate an abandoned starship yard that had been refitted into a race course by Gaelok Industries. While the people at Gaelok had said this was a friendly race, Gin greatly suspected that this would determine who they would invest credits into.
But Gin pushed it from his mind, as he needed to focus as the ten second timer had begun. Gin clutched the controls tightly as he counted: four, three, two, one… Gin pushed down on the accelerator, bursting forward from the starting area. It took Gin a second to get used to the raw speed of his Ark Gear, losing control slightly, causing him to bump into another racer. Gin steadied his hands as he continued moving forward, two Ark Gears in front of him. Figuring that now was a good time as any to test his signature weapon, Gin fired both stingers. One shot missed the lead racer, but the other collided with an orange Ark Gear, causing its engines to cut out for a second.
Taking advantage of this, Gin let out a burst from his engines, taking the number two spot. Before Gin could celebrate several small blasts whizzed by his Ark Gear, then a few more made contact. Luckily his shield held, but it was greatly weakened. Another barrage like that could cut it out completely. Gin made an effort to zig zag to dodge anymore shots while his shield recovered. However, this allowed the Ark Gear in front to gain a greater lead.
Stinger-Six had to make a sharp climb as the course veered straight up a shipping dock. While Gin cleared it, he saw that another Ark Gear behind him had hit the dock, immobilizing itself. But Gin paid it no heed, as he was focused on the guy in front. The racers entered a more open area, so Gin decided to hit the boosters to close the distance. Deciding to risk overloading the racer’s battery, Gin began to fire his stingers at the same time as his boosters.
This time a few blasts hit him, but his shields held. Frustrated, Gin decided to try another risky manoeuvre. Cutting out the boosters as he was right behind the person in first, Gin launched one of his missiles. Given how close they were, the lead racer had no time to avoid the missiles. There was a brief explosion as the missile tore through his shield and damaged the Ark Gear itself, causing it to spin wildly. Gin was close enough to the explosion that his shields took a hit.
But Stinger-Six pulled through, bypassing the spinning Ark Gear. For a brief second Gin was elated to be in the lead, only to be snapped back to reality by more blasts streaking past him. Gin quickly realized that even though he had the lead right now, he would definitely need to fight to keep it.
• Other: Gin prefers to do maintenance on his Ark Gear himself as he trusts himself way more than anyone else.