"Welcome to the city of Nova, where the future is now the present."
⫸ H I S T O R Y O F N O V A C I T Y
T H E R E S O U R C E W A R S began around the year 2080 [archaic calendar] and were the deadliest and most destructive wars in human history. It began with the discovery that major oil reserves in several nations, including the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, had almost simultaneously run dry. Coal and natural gas soon followed. The major world powers scrambled to obtain resources, launching massive invasions into countries such as Venezuela and Australia in order to secure the limited supply of natural resources. With impending doom on the horizon if they were not secured, thermonuclear weapons were quickly threatened and then launched. Massive population centers were evaporated in the cascading conflict. The doomsday clock had struck midnight, and self-inflicted extinction seemed totally inevitable.
B U I L D I N G T H E N O V A C O R E. In an attempt to save humanity, 3 of the world's largest multi-national corporations banded together to escape impending doom. In a deserted part of the Southwestern United States, they pooled all their remaining resources into the construction of a massive energy source, the likes of which have never been seen before. In a few years' time, their work was complete. A hydrogen fusion reactor of massive proportions, large enough to be seen from space and potent enough to power an entire city. This was the Nova Core, the only reactor of its kind and one of the only sources of conventional fuel in an Earth that was strapped for resources, and its activation marked the beginning of a new era for humanity, signifying the year X0. The Corporations, however, had no intentions of sharing this newfound power to the rest of the world. They focused inward, beginning to build a massive city in the desert and only admitting a select few into their self-created paradise, Nova City, the last beacon of hope. With much of the rest of the world having fallen to the violent conflict of the Resource Wars, Nova City remains the largest and one of the only hubs of human life on the planet. It has a population of some 15 to 20 million or so people scattered throughout its vast cityscape and gathered in its sky-piercing towers. The only place in the world where science is thriving and people are, on the whole, happy.
F O R G I N G A C I T Y. The three Corporations, upon completing the Nova Core and setting up Nova City, took steps to ensure their dominance. They created a puppet government called the Council of Democracy which was supposedly elected by the people but actually directly answered to the Corporations, with all important executive power being relegated to the CEOs and boards. All matters of policing, infrastructure, and resource rationing are given to the Corporations as well, and individuals that are arrested are not put in prison but instead remanded to the custody of the Corporations, who can choose to do with the inmates as they please. The City was more importantly divided into sectors: the industrial sector of Nova City, called The Iron Heights or just The Heights, run by the F&M Corporation; the financial sector of Nova City, known simply as Downtown, run by the Sagawa Corporation, and a largely residential sector (with significant laboratory real estate) called Prosperity City. The high culture and government center of the city is concentrated in the central area of Nova called the Diamond District. The areas outside of Nova City are called the Wastelands, though the barren irradiated fields of the Wastelands are separated from Nova by a gargantuan wall, and above that an aerial fortress of drones that make sure that all entry and exit of Nova City is entirely monitored.
M I N O R C O N F L I C T A N D M A J O R C H A N G E. For the first few decades, the rapidly-expanding city of Nova was the only safe haven from the nuclear Armageddon beyond, and things were mostly going well. There were still swaths of poverty, but in a world where having some sort of shelter is a blessing, Nova City was a paradise. There were a few problems that the Corporations had to deal with. Firstly, in the year X34, there was the Great Repulsion. With news that thousands of migrants, moving in large packs, were descending on the city, the Corporations decided it would be better to keep their population controlled than accept the refugees, and deployed their droids to build massive walls around the City, walls that remain to this day. The second major conflict that the Corporations of Nova had to grapple with was the AI Crisis of X72. Breakneck-pace development of AI had led to the question of whether or not AI sentience was to be allowed. The Corporations decided that it would once again be better to have control, and ordered the Council of Democracy to pass the AI Sentience Ban of X72, which totally prohibited AI sentience and made it a major felony. This did lead to some protests, as there were a number of sentient AIs that had already been developed and had begun to assimilate into society, but the Corporations remained firm, and thousands of sentient AI were either disabled or heavily re-programmed. There are rumors that there are some sentient AI, or Androids, out in the streets of Nova, though the Corporations publicly maintain that they were all destroyed. In reality, the Corporations may even have some in their employ (and under their close watch), though this information is not necessarily public knowledge.
S T A T U S Q U O A N D T H E R O L E O F C O N T R A C T O R S. Though it may appear like Nova City is the modern-day equivalent of Eden, not all is as well as it seems. For starters, Nova City has strict migration laws between the city itself and the outer territory called the Wastelands. The Wastelands are the wild, irradiated patches of desert that surround Nova City, inhabited by millions of lingering humans, all vying for entry into Nova City. Occasionally scouting droids are sent out to select suitable candidates for entry into Nova City, but very few individuals are ever given admission past the high walls of Nova City. Furthermore, not all is holly and jolly between the corporate overlords. The Corporations have natural competition for their vision of Nova City, and in their conflict with each other, turned to less-than-legal means in order to get what they wanted. They did this through the hiring of Contractors. Contractors were either residents of Nova City, the Wastelands, or distant foreigners that were brought on by one of the Corporations to work as assassins, bounty hunters, saboteurs, spies, so on and so forth. In reward for their services, the Corporations gave them unlimited access to their respective arsenals and cutting-edge developments, a hefty paycheck, and most importantly, access to the Nova Core. The Nova Core's power, unbeknownst to all but the most elite members of society, could be used to repair the human body from near-death, so long as the brain was still functioning, and could thus prolong a person's life for a significant period of time.
Contractors from rival Corporations often work against one another and are usually rivals, though occasionally two Corporations will band together to snub the third, or sometimes all three will work at a common goal. Not as though these politics matter to the Contractors. So long as the job is done, the paycheck- and the power to cheat death itself- is there. As the Corporations will often tell you, just keep your eyes and ears shut and do the job.
⫸ F A C T I O N S
T H E F I S K E R A N D M A D S E N G R O U P [ F & M ]
The Fisker and Madsen Corporation was founded in Denmark by Oskar Fisker and Christoffer Madsen. Christoffer Madsen was a brilliant engineer that had a number of cutting edge weapons ideas, and Oskar Fisker was a venture capitalist looking for an investment. The two forged a partnership and created the F&M Corporation. Oskar Fisker assumed full control of the company after Christoffer Madsen mysteriously died in a boating accident, and signed a number of major contracts that made F&M and its weapons an instant international player. The reigns of the corporation were handed down through the Fisker line to the current CEO, Augusta Fisker III, also known as "The Boss," a shrewd businesswoman with money on her mind. F&M specialize in high-tech weapons development and are pioneers in the usage of nanotechnology, thanks to major investments made in the field by former CEO Anders Jantzen Fisker. F&M seeks to use nanotechnology in order to [REDACTED].
S A G A W A H E A V Y I N D U S T R I E S
Sagawa Heavy Industries is a corporation whose origins are shrouded in mystery. What is known about them is that their first factories opened in Japan under the watch of wealthy Japanese recluse Shinohara Sagawa, a man who had initially made a small fortune from patenting a procedure to grow square, stackable oranges. Lauded as a brilliant investor, Sagawa was believed to have had an existential crisis and vanished from the public eye after his innovation went big, disappearing for a while before returning and presenting Sagawa Heavy Industries, which had a goal of bringing advanced AI into every household in Japan, and eventually the world. Shinohara Sagawa died shortly after the completion of the Nova Core, and while there have been a number of predecessors in his stead, he has still called the shots after having uploaded his consciousness into his own servers, presiding over the Sagawa Heavy Industries known as "the Shogun." Using their advanced robotics development, Sagawa Industries seeks to [REDACTED].
B I O S O L U T I O N S I N C O R P O R A T E D
Founded in Brazil and the most modern of the three major Corporations, BioSolutions Incorporated are at the cutting edge of pharmaceutical production, cybernetics, and DNA manipulation. BioSolutions originated as a conglomerate of multiple smaller South American pharma groups merged together by Brazilian millionaire Fabiano Gomes, who then proceeded on a ruthless campaign of consolidation, controlling as many medical patents and new inventions through the use of capital or sometimes violence. Skirting along the edge of the law, BioSolutions Incorporated soon held the key to all the medical solutions on the planet, which it then commercializes for profit, still watched over by Fabiano Gomes, who had himself constructed a vat for his brain to be preserved in, thus earning himself the moniker "The Brain." BioSolutions seeks to use its advanced medical knowledge to [REDACTED].
T H E S T O A T S
Named after the common mustelid vermin, the Stoats are a cyberbike gang and are easily the most prevalent of Nova's street gangs. With most other types of racketeering businesses having been either stamped out or secretly controlled by the Corporations, the Stoats pose one of the few threats to the Corporate hegemony of power. That being said, the threat they pose isn't particularly large. The Stoats are, at their worst, a minor nuisance to the Corps and have sometimes been of assistance. They do occasionally require pruning to be kept in line and shown who's boss.
T H E W A S T E L A N D E R S
Those living outside of the boundaries of Nova City are termed Wastelanders. Forced to remain nomads due to roving clouds of radioactive sand called Hotstorms and limited supply of food, Wastelander tribes hunt the radioactive game that roams the area and lies in wait, hoping for a chance to make it over the walls of Nova City, either by selection or by force. Wastelanders are usually much stronger, more agile, and more capable of using classic weapons such as the bow and arrow, but are almost entirely illiterate and have never seen any technology more complicated than a crossbow before.
⫸ I N T E L
A U G M E N T A T I O N S
The human body is limited. It doesn't work too hard or last too long on its own. With the miracle of tiny electrochemical bugs called nanites, though, the human body can be transformed improved dramatically and even given abilities once thought to be relegated to comic books and movies. Augmentation technology is incredibly expensive and requires surgical implantation, thus making it unavailable to the general public and very difficult and expensive for black marketers to attain. All three Corporations have independently developed nanite technology in order to create augmentations, though BioSolutions Incorporated has leap-frogged ahead with their particular DNA-targeting Mark IV Nanites.
N I G H T L I F E
From street scum to gang members to Contractors to high-rank businesspeople, everybody wants to lounge sometimes, and Prosperity City thankfully has a thriving nightclub seen. Oddly, vaping is still in fashion, as is booze, but both are outshone by a new drug called Afterburn, a type of barbiturate that instantly can turn somebody into a party person and is extremely unsafe perfectly fine for you. (Afterburn was created by the BioSolutions Incorporated labs, and it's a conspiracy theory that BioSolutions distributes the drug directly to gangs for kickback, a theory that is absolutely true). There are countless nightclubs and bars in Nova City, but the swankiest one that is favored by most Contractors is the Rabbit's Foot, a club owned by a man called One-Eyed Jack where violence between Contracts is strictly forbidden, and the third drink is always free.
T H E V E L V E T M A R K E T
Contracting is not an easy job, but more importantly, it's not a cheap job. Corporations are, for totally hegemonic powers, incredibly frugal, and while they're willing to provide augmentations, weaponry, and et cetera to their employed Contractors, they also take the costs of those purchases directly out of one's salary, and the exorbitant pricing for laser weaponry and augmentation is not worth paying. On the other side, it's not easy to stoop to the level of common thugs and get cheap, defective World War II relics. For those that have connections and know the right people, the Velvet Market is the go-to option. Run by a known gunrunner named Eth3r, the Velvet Market is a secret emporium for high-tech gadgets and gizmos located in the back of an antique technology store.
T H E N O V A C O R E
The massive reactor located at the center of the Diamond District, smack-dab in the middle of the city, the Nova Core has been powering the entirety of the Nova megacity for well over a century now. Outside of simply being a supersource of energy, one of the harnessed applications of the Core's energy is its ability to restore even the most severe of injuries with directed and specific exposure by restoring cell life. One would think that this secret would be given to hospitals across Nova City, but it is not, instead being reserved for use at the discretion of the Corporations.
O U T S I D E O F N O V A
There are believed to be other walled cities other than just Nova that survived the peril of the Resource Wars, but the Corporations deny that these cities exist, and children in school are taught that Nova is the only center of civilized life in the world. The reasons for this are unknown to all but the top brass of the Corporations, and because leaving Nova is both strictly forbidden, nign-impossible, and something most people don't want to do, nobody has ever explored the rest of the Earth outside of the immediate proximity of the Wastelands.
⫸ M E T A
R P S T A T U S
Currently TOTALLY OPEN! Feel free to start writing an application right now, if you so please! And also be sure to...
J O I N T H E D I S C O R D !
Join the Discord for direct communication with your fellow RPers and myself! It'll be fun, pinky promise.
discord.gg/5jGWkTTHQU
C H A R A C T E R A P P L I C A T I O N
Enjoy. If you have any changes you want to make to formatting/BBCode or any additional information, feel free, but make sure all the criteria listed in the sheet make it into the final product.
G U I D E L I N E S
I'm really not the specifics type, and if you pitch something to me, I'll probably begrudgingly say yes, but here's the general list of guidelines.
- Communication is required. If you think something is really dumb and won't work in the RP, please ask me! If you have a question about the lore, please ask me! If you can't respond for a little while or need some other type of workaround, please speak to me! Most importantly, if you're going to leave the RP, please let me know! No judgement will be passed or criticism dished out, just communicate openly and we shouldn't have too many problems here.
- You can have as many characters as you want, and they can do anything you want them to do, but keep in mind the RP will center around Contractors, so if your only OC is a gardener, you're probably not going to be basking in the spotlight for very long.
- Posting standards are lax. Give at least a good, solid paragraph per post, more preferred, but obviously in an RP it'll be very situational. Post whenever you feel like, though if you're going to be totally unavailable to post for more than 9 or 10 days let me know so we can find a workaround. I won't kill your character off except by request or totally mutual assent.
- For faceclaims, the tone of the RP is not hyper-realistic, so the preference would be towards some type of art. That being said, totally understand the faceclaim struggle, so if you have an IRL faceclaim, just float that by me and I'll probably give you permission to do so.
- Please wait for my full approval before moving your character into the character tab.
- Lastly, my word is totally final. I do want to work around what each person has to offer, but that's that. Sneaky subversion tactics will not be tolerated.
- Most importantly, have fun and remember, the golden rule is to ask!
E D I T S
- 5/23/2022: Added this section, made a couple minor tweaks to the App.
