Some of us were cops, doctors, scientists. But a lot of joe-schmoes, real nobodies too. Accountants, code monkeys, construction workers. But in the end we were all soldiers, brought together by one fact. We wanted to fight for the future of humanity.
They hated us for it.
Hi! I'm Bugman, this is a check for an RP I have had planned for quite a while. Dead Men on Burning Stars is an RP set in the Mass Effect universe, namely following a moderately good Control ending. The players will take the role of members of a cell of Cerberus, which shall eventually be united as a crew of a ship. While this will chronicle the adventures of the team as they travel the stars to accomplish goals of Cerberus and eventually uncover a galaxy-spanning threat to mankind they are suddenly thrust into resolving, there will be just as much focus on the interpersonal relations of the crew, their lives. Thoroughly damaged, traumatized, and probably not exactly good people, the crew will nonetheless be people with real wants and desires, regrets and struggles that they have to face the demons of together. Very heavy inspiration is thus drawn from the styling of the Mass Effect game series, but also from similar "crew-based" media namely Firefly but Star-Trek and the likes too. The main difference being of course, is that we are somewhere between anti-heroes and anti-villains rather than being true protagonists.
But if you dreamed of an RP where you can be on Santa's naughty list in the Mass Effect universe, this is for you. This is very heavily inspire by ME2 being my favourite installation in the series, with the aesthetics from art to sound design to individual characters of Cerberus being some of the coolest stuff in the setting to me.
I will want and welcome diverse characters, though I will want everyone to be useful and sufficiently sociable (sorry lone wolf enjoyers!) such that I or my co-GM are able to include you in some ongoing RP (though of course, it will be encouraged that at least in between large missions people make their own RP between each other).
I will not have a specific format of character sheet I have in mind. Instead, I will experiment a little and allow you to include simply whatever YOU personally think is necessary for the GMs and other players to know. A few things like maybe some knowledge of their appearance, how they got into Cerberus and what role they serve in the team, as well as their standing in it are of course critical, but beyond that? Its up to you. Just remember some critical things. As a member of Cerberus, you are not an ordinary person, you had implants that were brainwashing you in the name of murderous death robots and inevitably you are a traumatized, and deeply flawed individual. But still a human with hopes and dreams. Preferably (but not necessarily) you would also have some shared story with at least some of the other characters people would put forth.
For an example, here is a character I will play within the team.
Eric Josef Lasalle
Callsign: "Cimourdain"
Cimourdain was born long ago in the distant year of 2062 in Lyons, France, long before the formation of the Systems Alliance or any knowledge of aliens, biotics, mass relays and what wonders and horrors the galaxy might hold.
Eric was always a man that wanted more than he could get in life. A family man with a great many kids, he kept insisting on trying to get out of his simple job as a janitor - no, "sanitary engineer" as he called it. Start a band, businesses, join the reserves, all these ventures failed. Still, he had managed to save up for a comfortable retirement in the colony of Shanxi, a paradise in the stars he could enjoy his later years by the side of his beloved. Unfortunately, Enora Lasalle would very soon die with the arrival of Turians to the planet's orbit. An unassuming chunk of space debris would be hurled down by the invader turning the couple's property into ash and rubble. The only solace to the grieving widower was that her death would have been instant.
So incensed with hatred was he, Eric instantly joined the fledgling resistance against the Turians. Though very old, he was still welcomed with open arms as even Turians could tell he was elderly and thus would rarely assume that he was carrying an IED or the likes on him.
Still, eventually peace came. Changed, now furious at the entire world, the Catholic faith that the man held previously dear was suddenly detested by him as the Papacy called for reconciliation with the aliens that so recently incinerated his home. He saw himself embodied in Cimourdain, the former Priest turned radical revolutionary in the French novel "93", from which he derived the name under which he contacted Cerberus as the organization published its manifesto.
Older than he already was at the time of the contact war, the young organization of Cerberus saw little use in the man. Quite cynically, when they at last relented and took him on board it was largely to be a test-subject for many of their experiments that the Systems Alliance was not willing to undertake. Almost to their surprise, the man kept up his enthusiasm for Cerberus with every needle and incision, such was his ideological fervor to prevent the destruction of man by Turians once more.
In about a year of constant experimentation that Eric had survived, he had gone through and (to everybody's surprise) survived enough modifications to make him a huge walking investment. While much was the prototype for more refined processes they would apply to other agents, he had still endured enough surgeries to augment him into a capable field agent. While never being an assault specialist or the likes, he came to be a reliable infiltrator and "clean up man" who hid evidence of Cerberus involvement in events across the galaxy. Yet always he dutifully returned to the facilities where yet more surgeries would be performed on him, now in equal part experiment and simply facial reconstruction works to embrace a new identity. An almost constant in Cerberus since its very early days, Cimourdain would come to be a very trusted figure in the organization, speaking with the Illusive Man many times before at last being attached to a cell after seemingly having been on every corner of the Milky Way.
With connections everywhere, Cimourdain has to some degree come to be an intermediary between the Captain and Cerberus leadership, compiling different missions and assignments for the Comamnder to consider. While still keeping his job as a "clean up" man after the crew's missions, Eric is also somewhat of an "everyman" around the ship. He will fix minor broken systems like air conditioners or shower heating, cooking when there is no Mess-Sergeant, helping maintenance of personal equipment, or discretely purchasing things when on worlds.
To the Cell, some might consider Cimourdain a liability of sorts to themselves. Almost dangerously loyal, if ever the crew would consider en-masse defection he would likely thwart their efforts. Otherwise he remains somewhere between the "cool" and the "creepy" uncle. Always talking about strange, decades old interests or events. Asking questions too personal he insists would be normal back in his day, or offering to help people with personal matters they thought they had kept private.
With the end of the Reaper war, Eric is somewhat changed. As time went on, many of the technologies that helped Cimourdain overcome his age were Reaper tech that was "fried" as the Reapers left Earth's orbit. While still outperforming his centennial years, things like senility can slowly creep in as he might suddenly forget where he is, or what he was doing. Moreover, he often struggles to differentiate between him or the many identities he has undertaken before telling random stories of his youth in an effort to "ground" himself in the world.
Now, half of the fun of Mass Effect is aliens and the like, and I am understanding of that.
I will allow people to play non human characters, but there needs to be an extremely compelling backstory to explain why they got involved with a human-centric organization of freaks like Cerberus. Perhaps an unshackled AI housed in a bot frame along the lines of EDI, maybe a Salarian who joined years ago purely for the science unbound by the shackles of ethics. Maybe a Krogan who joined Cerberus back when it was just an alliance black-op seeing it as a powerful ally in venting hatred for salarians, turians, asari. It could even be that your character was "forced" to join when they began to be indoctrinated, but Cerberus used its technology developed on Horizon/Sanctuary to take control of this person. But in all of these cases, remember that you need to come up with a convincing reason for why they would stay with Cerberus after the reaper war ended.
Maybe the salarian sees Cerberus as still the best way forward for science, maybe the Krogan hasn't let go of grudges over the genophage even after its cured, maybe the character Cerberus used its reaper-control tech on is simply grateful for no longer being under the dominion of the reapers and has grown somewhat of a stockholm syndrome. Regardless it needs to be a convincing reason for why any alien would stick with Cerberus especially as with the existential threat of the reapers gone, "the ends justify the means" won't apply. At least, for a while....
Indeed, as the story progresses there may be more possibilities for aliens to join the team, but that will be later.
But as a TL;DR of that, I will only allow at the beginning just 1 non human character that I will be very nitpicky over so make it good.
Ideally, people will try to have some shared background in their characters. To that end, here is some homebrew lore for the Theseus cell which would be a good origin for characters.
The Theseus Cell was formed in 2179 out of the merger of three cells. Cerberus defectors from the Dolon cell responsible for infiltration and intelligence gathering made contact with STG, knowing many figures they could approach were likely compromised. In turn, the Dolon cell lead STG to a Cerberus research facility, but not before loyalists tipped off Cerberus about the impending attack. STG’s attack was swift and brutal destroying most of the research staff, and indeed of the reinforcements sent to defend it from the Salarians as the Dolon cell’s loyalists slew their treacherous comrades. With the Dolon infiltration cell, the Galen research cell, and the Ulysses battalion all shells of their former selves which moreover had broken anonymity with one another, the Illusive man decided to reconstitute them into the new Theseus cell. Since then the Theseus cell has been united into a diverse but cohesive unit capable of performing a variety of tasks and without reliance on other cells that hyper-specialized ones often have.
Since its inception, the Theseus cell has absorbed many other weakened cells, individual operatives, and acquired recruits to perform its duties. At the conclusion of the Reaper war, the cell had about a hundred operatives.
-Eric Lasalle was a member of the Dolon cell, one of the foundational to Theseus. One of the loyalists that reported the betrayal of the rest of the cell in favor of STG to the Illusive Man, this has earned him respect from devoted ideologues and distrust from others.
As it stands, I already have had enough people express interest to get this started, but seeing how many more will join up will be useful to tell how much stuff I should prepare and adjust bits of story perhaps based on what some people want to do. Before considering joining, just know that I will expect at least some sort of contribution to the RP on a bi-weekly basis, but preferably more. I don't necessarily mean a post, but at least some sort of addition to say a google doc, or if you are too busy to do writing yourself then at least a suggestion of what your character might be doing at some point that it can be added for you. Any less, and we get into iffy territory. I'm going to be a lot more amenable of course if people communicate their rough schedules and business beforehand.
And of course, I'm not a giant snob, I'm not going to expect you to dump something the size of the Illiad or the Vedas, nor that you use worse with eleven syllables. As long as you are trying your best, we'll work out, hence why I put this in casual and not advanced.
In the long run, I also do plan a spin-off RP in the same sub-setting where another team (currently undecided, maybe spectres, maybe just a coalition of citadel race special forces/interest groups) is dedicated to hunting Cerberus and the team of this RP, though perhaps eventually working together with them as they run into similar issues.
With that, I am excited to hear from you!
If you have any questions, feel free to address them to me here or in DMs :>
Every soldier must know, before he goes into battle, how the little battle he is to fight fits into the larger picture, and how the success of his fighting will influence the battle as a whole.
Hey guys, thanks for the interest, I'll make the OOC next Friday (I have a first post ready to give people a vibe for the start). I will also make an IM maybe Google chat maybe discord maybe Slack once we have characters up for quick communications
