The year is 2053. The precarious nature of Earth, wrought with tumultuous climate change and split into petty, combatant nations has made it it abundantly clear that the birthplace of humanity can no longer guarantee our safety. To a few astute minds, the need for another world is obvious. The heads of six space agencies, ESA, FKA, NASA, JAXA, CNSA and ISRO have banded together, and, after years of lobbying their distracted governments, finally secured the means to acquire it.
The Homesteader project - fired by the economic engines of the most affluent countries on Earth - seeks to establish a foothold for humanity on another world. Mars.
Using capsules of CFCs, a deadly pollutant on Earth, The Honesteader Project has bombarded the Martian atmosphere for ten successive years. The greenhouse effect is a potent one, and now jets of sequestered CO2 spew day and night from the cracked soil and into the vacuous air. Mars, slowly but surely, is returning to life.
Now, a team of settlers are being prepared for the first of tri-annual missions to Mars, one to test the techniques that will one day be used to cultivate this desolation into a jewel as beauteous as Earth itself. Carried with them are a host of extremophile plants, ready to be seeded and spread across the red planet's barren expanse. In so doing, the first step to a breathable atmosphere is embarked upon.
But this team will also need to have a kinship, for they will be isolated from Earth for years on end. Who will be chosen?
Available Factions
European Federation - ESA - ESA is the government space agency of the 10 year old European Federation. They specialise is rover design and heavy engineering.
Japan - JAXA - Specialise in robotics and automation
United States - NASA - Excellent all round technologists. Massive military budget has inadvertently give them expertise in space-suit design and propulsion.
China - CNSA - Owing to the smog problem faced by Beijing in the early 2000s, CNSA specialise in environmental systems
India - ISRO - Specialise in computing
Russia - RKA (Roscsmos) - Specialise in habitat design
What is this RP?
This RP is a settlement RP based around the construction of a Martian colony. Our characters will be scientists, or others with relevant skills, tasked with helping make Mars liveable. The emphasis will be on character interaction, with opportunity for social conflict. You may play as any sort of character, but they must be employed by the five major agencies listed above.
The RP will begin with our landing on Mars, followed by our characters making their way to the pre-prepared Martian habitat, a simple structure with 12 bedrooms, an airlock and equipment bay, a greenhouse, a medbay, a basic lab and a kitchen, but much expansion is required.
EDIT: Oh, and there's no need to make this RP technicial, quite the opposite, I'd like it to be about exploration. I happen to be an Engineering Student, but prose talking about engineering would be very, very, very boring to read.
I hope this peaks your interest :)
Rules and Guidelines:
1) Try and write detailed posts: Unless you're engaged in a lengthy conversation with another character, exploration RPs like this one require a fair amount of exposition. Take time to describe how your character perceives their environment, and try and maximize the utility of your posts - use events to elaborate on backstory, and, to a reasonable degree, have your character respond emotionally in some way to the isolation of the Martian expanse.
2) Be mindful of setting: This RP centres around a collaborative expedition to Mars between the space agencies of six different states. The people participating in this expedition are likely to have some scientific or technology experience, if not be specialists in a particular field. They are also going to be isolated from the rest of humanity for quite some time. Therefore, nobody on the expedition will be armed, to prevent fallout from the effects of cabin fever. They will also likely have been selected based on two critera, their utility to the mission and their mental stability. While a brilliant mind might be allowed on the mission despite certain mental or physical health issues, most crew-members will have been selected from those likely to be able to withstand the mental and physical pressures of the journey.
3) Try and avoid tropes: I want this RP to focus of exploration and character interaction. For that reason, I'd like us to avoid the tropes normally associated with RPs such as this, namely horror influences like ancient aliens. Our goal is to sustain and expand the settlement on Mars.
Details of Setting:
Equipment and locations:
Due to the CFC bombardment severely altering Mars' climate, the sublimated CO2 in the Martian crust has begun to effervesce. Geysers form regularly and randomly, oftentimes cracking several meters of ground in the process as the gas spews off into space. Mars' volatile climate has been further enhanced - dust devils are commonplace and can cause disorientation, or, if a direct hit, serious damage to a space-suit and its systems. Storms, occasionally dotted with lightning, are now regular occurrences, but can be tracked to a degree from orbit, giving precious time to find shelter. In the event that a crew-member is stranded in a storm, a crude tent of Kevlar-tarpaulin can be erected against a rocky out-crop, allowing a few hours for them to be rescued before their suit, and they inside, succumb to the elements.
The Mars habitat is the base-camp for the colonists, the first line of defence against the crushing, vacuous expanse of the the proto-world outside. Powered by a small fission reactor buried almost five years prior deep beneath the settlement, the pre-fabricated robot workers who's corpses now lie dormant on the surrounding desolation, have managed to build a shelter almost befitting of a modern home.
Each crew-member has a relatively cushy dorm room, complete with a not-too-thin mattress and bed, a worktop and computer, cupboards, and a crude en-suite. Down the corridor lies the communal area, an expansive circular workplace who's cylindrical core doubles as a water-lined radiation shelter for particularly volatile evenings. The workplace contains computers and scientific instruments, food preparation amenities, and a dining table for socializing.
Leading from the core are a set of stairs and and a further, right-angled corridor, leading to the hydroponics lab in which the food is grown and housed, and to the EVA preperation area, which contains tools for the maintenance of exosuits, and the motorized vehicles, as well as a 3-D printer to allow for the construction of a small number of drones, or the fabrication of tools if programmed correctly.
The entire structure is covered in a thick resin derived from the glass-fired remains of nearby Martian regolith, painted over the habitat by the drones.
The standard issue exo-suit was designed as a collaborative effort between United States and European Aerospace firms. Owing to the increase atmospheric pressure generated on Mars in the last decade, the suit has forgone a pressurized internal section, instead opting for a mesh of synthetic fibers, pulled taught to provide an even distribution of pressure across the skin's surface, and rimmed with thick, enduring, carbon fiber plating to better withstand the shredding winds of the Martian lithosphere. The helmet, the only pressurized component, boasts a 180 degree polymer-honeycomb dome, through which photo-voltaic cells convey crucial information, such as weather projections relayed from orbiting satellites, the time of day, and a few voice-activated superficial features, such as crude video-communication with other suit-users.
Fixed to the helmet and on the top of the oxygen tanks (contained within a bullet-proof casing on the back) are three toggle-able LED lights, which allow identification during sandstorms. Handheld torches provide light in more extreme conditions.
The Mobile
The Mobile Habitat is a four-man large rover designed to allow prolonged expedition away from the main settlement. It contains a water-purifier which will recycle all fluids within the module for a period of two weeks, a separate bulkhead in which lichen grows hydroponically and naturally recycles oxygen, a basic dining and work area which can be folded into cots for sleeping at night, an airlock for disembarking, which also contains a small one-man buggy, and all tools required for the mission, and a driver's compartment, which allows for 180 degree vision.
It contains useful scientific instruments including a mass spectrometer, hammers, miniaturized concentrated lasers, a light-spectrometer, microscopes, as well as any payload specific to the requirements of the journey.
The entire unit is solar powered, but its batteries can also be charged via the main habitat's nuclear reactor.
The Buggy:
The buggy is a small, one person rover equipped with an electric motor, which allows for travel at speeds up to about 50mph. It has a small storage compartment at the back, with vials and containers for several different samples. It also possesses two front facing cameras, one on the roof, and one on the grill, a portable lazer, and a spectrum analyzer. It can be deployed from a ramp at the rear of the mobile.
Character Sheet:
NAME: AGE: SPACE AGENCY EMPLOYING: MISSION ROLE: APPEARANCE: (Must provide description - no celebrity pictures) PERSONALITY: BACKSTORY: OTHER DETAILS (if applicable):
Could you please not post character sheets in the CS section until they have been approved. While what you did post is good, I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that the participants in this expedition will have been rigorously pre-selected over many to withstand and even thrive in the isolated environment of the colony. It's unlikely that a character who is terrified of being locked up with other crewmates would be selected for the crew. It is also unlikely that someone with such a manipulative streak would be allowed onboard at the risk of breaking up the crew, though I will let that slide if it's well explained in your backstory.
She isn't terrified of being locked up with other crewmates. Considering that we all have our bad sides, I'd like to assume that everyone on the trip has something that they'd rather not have revealed about themselves. Most people are definitely not 100% friendly, and character depth may be the best way to go about it. She's not manipulative either, considering that again, it's typical that people like doing things for themselves and usually reach out to others if the reward proves lucrative. I think I'd rather have her be human instead of some fantastical type of character? In any case, I'll PM the rest and we'll go from there.
She isn't terrified of being locked up with other crewmates. Considering that we all have our bad sides, I'd like to assume that everyone on the trip has something that they'd rather not have revealed about themselves. Most people are definitely not 100% friendly, and character depth may be the best way to go about it. She's not manipulative either, considering that again, it's typical that people like doing things for themselves and usually reach out to others if the reward proves lucrative. I think I'd rather have her be human instead of some fantastical type of character? In any case, I'll PM the rest and we'll go from there.
There's a difference between being a 'fantastical type character', and being required to meet certain criteria. There's no reason why a participant can't be flawed or faceted, but my point is, since this expedition is costing so much money, only the participants most likely to succeed will be selected. As I mentioned in the OP, cabin fever is a real and present danger to the success of the mission, and so the participants will have been ruthlessly psycho-analyzed. Someone who demonstrates difficulties with socialization, and who is more-selfish-than most, in it for themselves in an environment where personal gain is irrelevant, would increase the risk of conflict between the crew.
I am not saying our characters have to exceptionally gregarious and piously selfless - being too social would be a detriment, but actively being an introvert would make them a bit of a rogue element.
Having said that, from an RP point of view, having someone who is saving 'debts in case strings need to be pulled' would provide some interesting conflict. I'm much less opposed to that tenet.
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