On the Way to Greystone
"We are now roughly half a sol-hour from Greystone Station 1I1," the pilot said over the intercom. The roughly 200 people in the spacious shuttle continued their activities; reading, chatting, listening to music, watching movies. I looked around, trying to count those few people I knew. Most I recognize were either people I'd talked to or the staff for the newly constructed station.
First, and perhaps most importantly, was the station's chief of security, a man called Cassander August. As I glanced at him, Cassander ran a hand over the speech unit covering the lower part of his face and extending partially down his throat. It didn't look to be a recent model, though as a colonial security chief he could probably afford a more efficient one. I had also heard from one of the other citizens that he had been a colonial guardsman on some planet far off where the native species didn't take kindly to strangers, and they had torn his jaw and throat up. Another person said that he had lost his ability to speak when he was tortured by terrorists of some kind, possibly supremacists of a sort. I believed in the former more than the latter. Cassander also had visibly cybernetic eyes, a dark black with pinprick red pupils. Again, not a recent model, but probably a reasonably efficient one. It seemed Cassander hadn't sprung for the natural look for either of his replacements.
Next to him was a mysterious suit resembling one of humanity's more recent space suits. Through the glass of the helmet it seemed unidentified gases and smoke swirled around. This was a Class 1 citizen, an Adolebi named Barr.
The Adolebi were the first and so far only species that had been discovered that was near equal to humanity's technology. In fact in some areas the Adolebi were more advanced; what they had been lacking in was the raw material needed to craft jumpdrives, forcing them to minimize the size of their exploration corps and use extra caution when transporting their citizens to colonies. Humanity, finally happy to see someone they could work and seeing the potential for a technology boom, traded the raw materials for jumpdrives in exchange for some tech, most notably the game changer for humanity - cloning of organic life forms. It's still not known what the Adolebi use it for - it supposedly doesn't work on them, and we haven't really encountered any with their suits off in any case. Our theory, based off certain things we've learned from them and what they've said/divulged, is that they were actually created by another species a long time ago as a sort of space-station organism to work in zero-g, anaerobic environments. We've never actually seen their homeworld - it's one of the only secrets they keep from us, even though we let them on Earth - but they seem to hold it in a sort of reverence.
Barr was supposedly some figure of importance, a minor representative of the Adolebi. Supposedly he was also a researcher of some type. Greystone was an extraordinary planet.
Greystone was an abnormally large planet around an abnormally large star. The so-called 'natives' were a species of tunneling worm-like organisms that were usually as long as a skyscraper is tall. The low gravity helps with that , but it doesn't completely explain it. We've also got some weird readings from it, readings that indicates there's something funky going on. We can't seem to explain how the barrow worms, as they're called, live and sustain themselves, as they appear to be carnivorous biologically, yet there are no lifeforms on the planet rivaling their size. They also have a strange habit of pushing their dead up to the surface, creating large swathes of dead, corpse-filled land nicknamed barrows, hence the name. We don't know for what purpose they do this, but they do it, so there's that.
Then there was the second species of Greystone, some would argue the true natives. According to what I was told, they call them moths, or some mothmen. They are vaguely humanoid, with elongated arms, four multifaceted eyes, four fingers - no thumb - brown hair/fur, and a mouth with sharp teeth and a long, proboscis-like tongue. They appear to be intelligent, unlike the narrow worms. They live in huge tree-like organisms, up in the treetops. They actually do possess wings of a sort. They can't fly for extended periods of time, but for short periods and gliding it works wonders. They appear to feed solely on barrow worm corpses, though we aren't sure how they get all their necessary nutrients. Their population isn't huge, so I guess they could sustain themselves on the worms if they do have all the nutrients needed. We've only observed them - and the barrow worms - from a distance, never up-close, so we don't get how they truly work for the most part.
And then there were at least two lacipers on the shuttle.
Lacipers are human, all right. But they're clones. Class 2 citizens. While out on the frontier that doesn't matter much, cityworlders tend to delegate the roles of manual labor and minor services to the lacies. They say that there's nothing wrong with lacies, but I'm pretty sure that's a lie. For one they tend to have an accelerated growth process in their youth, meaning they do develop faster than us mentally, but only biologically. They don't have experience and they certainly don't know everything. The ones I've met tend to be a strange mix between mature and childlike. We need them to fill out our colonies and ships, though. Natural births just keep getting rarer and rarer. I'm pretty sure we'll have to grant them Class 1 citizenship at some point, probably when they start to outnumber us natural-borns. Hell, even now certain lacies that prove to be above and beyond can be granted Class 1 citizenship.
As I understand it, the two lacies I'm looking at are named Henry Galilei and Todd Brahe. Their surname tends to be one of a famous scientist's, though most lacies that come from the same cloning facility end up with the same last name. I personally don't have a problem with them. I'm sort of a special case, though.
At this point we were so close to the Greystone Station that we had a good view of it. This station was primarily funded by White Spiral Co., as were many, but not all, space stations. I was technically an employee of theirs, and in fact I'm even being paid just to live here. Sure, I'll be asked to assist in dangerous activities by most of the staff, but I'll probably live, and if I ever return to a cityworld I'll have a healthy account. They always paid colonists for the risk of going out to unknown space, where the occasional AI ship gone rogue or pirates of some kind were ten times the threat they were at the cityworlds. Not to mention the rumors of entire stations going missing, out there in the dark...
Suddenly the shuttles lights dimmed. Everyone looked around apprehensively but relaxed when the holoprojectors in the floor turned on and revealed a tall figure hovering over each projector. The figure was like a man, if a man was seven feet tall and had a face like a blank mask. It also wore ornate robes ornamented with golden wings running down the sides. A pair of robotic hands snaking out of the robes were entwined politely in front of it. Its arms and legs seemed almost elongated. Even through the muted colors of the flickering holoprojectors, it seemed regal, almost angelic.
"Welcome to Greystone Station 1I1," it said. It had a voice ringing with civility and humbleness. "I will be your station AI for your stay. Please, call me Ulysses. Do not feel afraid to ask any questions once you set foot on the station. I am familiar with all of your files and can manifest holographically in many locations at once, so you will never be bothering me or getting in anyone else's way if you need assistance. Thank you for coming. Your new residences have already been prepared for you." It flickered off and the lights returned to normal.
AI, especially station AI, were always courteous and ready to serve. As for its hologram, AIs, as one of the few freedoms they have, are allowed to choose their own name (taking into account its purpose and the owner's tastes), usually after trawling the history archives or the Galaxy Web, and they are allowed to design their own holographic form. I've heard rumors that those especially rich people out there will pay to have a synthetic built in the likeness of an AI's holographic form. AIs usually have some pretty unique holograms, so the tall masked man wasn't anything surprising.
I took a deep breathe as the shuttle began docking. I looked down at the grey jumpsuit that indicated I was a Class 1 citizen, which basically meant I wasn't an alien or a clone and that I had access only to things a civilian should have. I know we'll receive our ID cards when we board the station. I also know our luggage, shipped separately and securely handled by an AI, was probably already in our designated rooms. AIs were efficient like that. Most of the staff - the captain, the security staff (except Cassander, who was apparently escorting Barr), some of the researchers, definitely the policing drones. I'd lived on a frontier station before, but the feeling never got old. The nervous feeling, I mean.
Yet as the shuttle doors opened and security staff, dressed in red, ushered us out into lines to get our ID cards, I still thought to myself, This is it. The far reaches of charted space.
Cheers to that.
---~---
So basically, I want to check if there's any interest in an RP where you live on a space colony station - just a citizen, a janitor, security staff, barber, bartender, engineer, scientist, even captain. I've got some plot ideas in mind, but I'd like to say I'm open to any suggestions. Same goes for lore - I purposefully went light on some details so you guys can establish certain things yourself (with my approval). The only positions I would like to reserve are the chief of security, Cassander, and the station AI, Ulysses. I'm open to taking a co-GM to run it a little easier. So yeah. Any takers (or questions)?
