The year is 2205, and the popularly dubbed Space Age of Exploration still goes strong. Mankind has not advanced very far technologically, and it has become apparent that faster-than-light speeds will not be possible in the foreseeable future; but there are plenty of planets and moons within the solar system which have proven advantageous to colonize.
This new era of exploration and colonization did not come about in a time of splendors. Earth suffers terribly at the hands of her children. Humanity has scarred the world badly, and a third World War in the year of 2086 left large chunks of the planet's surface irradiated and unsuitable for human life. Between nuclear war and climate change, the race for the stars has never been more desperate, and the great nations of Earth, their resources spent, turn to those people who have the wealth and power to take people to the stars: the megacorporations.
Big business took the reins of exploration, and not without consequences. With virtually unlimited power outside Earth placed into their hands, megacorporations found themselves able to effectively create their own laws far from any meaningful government inspection. They did their job well enough: Mars, Titan, and Europa all proved to be suitable places to colonize, and a great many people were taken there. Starports were constructed at various points between Earth and Jupiter, and mining operations began on various moons and planets. But corporate rule proved as tyrannical as any in the history of mankind, only this time it came with very good PR and highly regulated media.
Space has become very much a sort of corporate Wild West. Away from prying eyes on Earth, different corporations contest each other's claims on the Red Planet, engaging in very real and protracted violence. Space privateers work for whichever megacorporation serves them best, raiding and trading as suits their needs. And then there's Ganymede, the icy Hell at the edge of civilization.
Ganymede was initially not considered for colonization, as initial surveys revealed no life in its vast subsurface oceans, and corporations were in no rush to conduct terraforming operations. Later surveys in 2178 revealed the presence of impressive deposits of minerals down in the ocean, however, including an entirely new material: Aetherium. Named after the classical element Ether, this substance had a myriad of properties unlike anything scientists had ever seen.
Unfortunately, those properties aren't public knowledge. Lunarfields Enterprises, the company that discovered the material, reported it to its parent company, Galaxy One Bank. Galaxy One decided the substance was worth investigating, and so in 2190 Lunarfields Enterprises established a colony on Ganymede to begin the extraction of these materials: El Cielo, a little island of human construction on an icy wall just over the subsurface oceans.
It's 2205, and the colony of El Cielo has become a busy place. It's not a happy place, to be sure. There's no OSHA regulations, half the populace are penal colonists, and deliveries of supplies necessary to survive arrive only once every four months. A starbase over Ganymede provides minimal communication with the outside world, and the only radio stations that can be heard are all company-sanctioned. Submarine workships gather materials from the waters beneath and deliver them to be picked up by company vessels on that four month schedule. Demands for more and more Aetherium and other materials have gotten harsher, too. Dependence on company drop-offs, the omnipresent threat of privateer raids, and the struggle to maintain their own facilities have made the people of El Cielo very disgruntled and pessimistic. The likelihood of Delta P effects on underwater miners doesn't lighten the mood very much either.
To make matters worse, the people of El Cielo aren't allowed to refine their own materials. Lunarfields Enterprises wants them to be wholly dependent on the company; so, while food may be harvested from hydroponic gardens and from the small fish farms the colony has, no medicine may be refined, no ores refined into metals, no cybernetics created, no computing technology developed. Yet sometimes these things become necessary, and sometimes corporate drop-offs arrive later than expected. It all has to be conducted in a clandestine fashion, however: the consequences for corporations finding out could be dire.
If El Cielo is going to survive these dire circumstances, it needs strong leadership. It needs community leaders, engineers, and people who can protect the colony from threats internal and external. It needs someone like you.
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Howdy, and thanks for reading the crappy post up above! This is a colonial RP, and it goes into the Nation RP section because while it DOES focus on a single colony, everyone is roleplaying a faction leader within the colony. El Cielo is a place with a lot of problems, as you may have figured out. Like... a lot of problems. 'Paradise on Ganymede' is the slogan Lunarfields Enterprises used to lure people here in the first place.
Let's list a few 'things to know' about this RP:
- Firstly, everyone is working together. You all want to see this colony survive. After all, you live here, and you're not going to get off this frozen rock any time soon.
- In this imperfect future of humanity, corporate power is relatively unchecked. Conditions are somewhat better on places like Mars and obviously on Earth itself, but Ganymede is kind of screwed.
- If you didn't know, Ganymede is a moon of Jupiter. I probably mentioned that already. Did I? I hope I did.
- Also, this is NOT a post racial society. Racism is still very real, and in fact the penal colonists on Ganymede come largely from the U.S. prison system. Combined with the fact that pretty much only blue collar workers will end up on this pit if they arrive of their own volition, you've got a population of largely African American and Hispanic American descent living on this icy hellhole. Obviously you can roleplay someone of any heritage, but it's noteworthy that racism still exists here.
- Roughly half the colonists are penal colonists. The other half are, as said, blue collar workers who work for awful wages from the company. They're not leaving the colony any time soon either.
- You probably should watch a video about Delta P effects so you know some of the environmental hazards of working on this moon. Likewise, you might want to watch some stuff on Decompression Sickness.
- El Cielo uses artificial gravity and hydroponic farms as well as fish farms to make life somewhat more normal.
- You do not know what Aetherium really is. That information isn't something made available to you. Your job is just to mine it, because you're just another statistic in the eyes of the company.
The government of this place isn't quite a democracy. Different factions within El Cielo prop up their leaders to serve on a council of sorts, and decisions are made by the council on important matters that affect the entire colony. However, the colony ends up working for One Galaxy Bank and Lunarfields Enterprises in the end. You're free to govern yourselves so long as you meet their quotas; but one of the 'game over' scenarios definitely involves not meeting quotas and not having any means of surviving on your own. You do still depend on company drop offs, as brisk and cold as they may be.
You'll be expected to create your own faction, understanding that your ultimate goal is survival and that you're not going to be expected to try and, say, violently overthrow everyone else or anything. Indeed, some of the problems you guys will encounter will be internal. Prison riots, civil unrest, outbreaks, old equipment going bad, etc. are all examples of potential problems you'll face. Privateer raids, corporate inspections, dealing with smugglers, attending to vessels in need of a stopping point between Earth and the outer solar system... These present other situations that may come up in this roleplay.
Do note: this isn't a story about conquest, about vast military conflicts, or about glory or making history. This is a roleplay focused on survival, community, and hope. There are mysteries to be solved, too, and strange things to be explored. This is a story wherein you are very vulnerable, and you need to find ways to protect yourself accordingly. How you do so and what path your colony takes in the end is up to you.
Also, your characters can die. If being a leader to you means getting the job done personally, you may die. Whether you're defending the colony from raiders or a rival corporation or you're taking a submarine into the deep ocean because morale is low amongst the workers, you are putting yourself at risk of dying. Life on El Cielo is not easy.
There's more details I can offer, but I'd like to save most of them for later, assuming there's enough interest in this roleplay to warrant creating an OOC thread and IC thread. Let me know if you're interested and I'll make an executive decision on that matter!
Also, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
