Firecracker_

Ryker's Convoy: Clear House's Goodwill [High Casual-Advanced]

We are Clear House. We are the remnants of what used to be of our planet, Firmia. A long ago, maybe a few hundred years in the past, Humanity was betrayed and annihilated by an alien race called the Yulu. We fought hard and bravely, making the enemy pay 10 lives for every single life they took of ours, but it still wasn’t enough. Once they saw that fighting us on land and space was futile, they released their trump card on us: an artificially engineered genophage, a disease made specifically to target and kill the human race. When the efforts of other laboratories failed, the scientists here at Clear House tried to cure the disease, or at least to develop a vaccine to halt further infection, but their failed experiments, stressed and made difficult by the constant threat of war, only served to make the genophage worse, but they kept it a secret, reporting it as a natural evolution in the virus.

Within weeks, the human races was in shambles, millions had already died, and even more were dying because of the genophage. Once our numbers were small enough, the Yulu came all the way to our planet with the intention of finishing us off, but they failed. After taking another few millions lives in ground wars, the Yulu finally left Firmia, essentially leaving the remainder of the human race to die. Small groups, like those here at Clear House hid for many, many years, never finding a good enough time to rise and face the world how it was. The Scientists of Clear House withdrew their scientists and families to a secluded island facility used for only the largest and most secretive experiments the company took up. Now, it’s used as a safe haven, one of the few bastions for humanity left on Firmia.

When the laboratory closed the island off to any further outsiders, there were roughly 100 families of scientists, 25 families of people of interest, and roughly 10 families of civilians, resulting in a total population of roughly 1,000 people. Through a few droughts, famine and other hardships, 200 years later, the island has maintained a fairly stable population of about the same amount, but the families from long, long ago are still almost as separated today as they were when they first inhabited the island. The scientist families live in and under the facility, studying and teaching mostly within the family, leading to generations of scientists who strayed very little from that path. The non-scientist families, however, melded together more completely, living outside the walls of the laboratory, along the beaches and treelines of the laboratory.

Thanks to the self-sufficient and tech packed laboratory, the island was able to keep a fairly stable amount of farms operating, and was able to draw from the sea for water. For any apocalypse planner, it was the perfect place to hide out, but as time passed, a question was raised: What was left of the rest of the world? The lands of Firmia were mostly destroyed, in some parts, even completely devoid of life, due to the war between the two races, and there was no guarantee that there were any other groups of survivors left. Could Clear House be the last humans on Firmia?

---

Men and Women of Clear House Colony, it has come time that we silence all the doubts and rumors and answer all the questions that have been floating around Clear House for a long time now. We have questioned too long if there is anything left out there, anything to be found, if we are truly the last men and women of Firmia. It’s been long enough that we have been content to simply ask questions, but never to answer them. We’ve grown too isolated in our ignorance, and it’s time we change that.

Here at Clear House, we are in a position that nobody else is. We have not only the technology, not only the supplies, but the drive, the devotion and the knowledge to re-discover this world that we have inherited. Mankind may have fallen to one knee, but we can help it rise back onto its feet and stand triumphantly in the face of adversity. If there are sick out there, we can cure them. If there are injured, we can heal them. We can reconquer the world in the name of Mankind, and pursue one of the primary goals that Clear House was founded on very long ago: We can learn, teach and discover. Firmia has been reshaped by genophage and genocide, and we alone at Clear House have the means to reverse these changes. If there truly are other people left on Firmia, I can only imagine that they have been waiting for a savior or force of good to come and help them, and we can be the saviors of this planet.

I’m inviting every able bodied man and woman, especially those of you with professional skills, to join me and my team on a trip into the unknown, a trip to the Firmian mainland supercontinent, Primia. We are in a position power that will allow us to better Mankind as a race, to come back from this near extinction and come back stronger than ever before. If we squander this power, we are dooming our race to another 200 years of suffering and death. We’ve been getting lazy, complacent, ignorant even in our place of comfort and safety. For us to be of any worth to our fellow man, we must get down in the dirt with them, suffer with them, and rise with them. We’ve run out of time to imagine and ponder, now we must act. Please, join me on this trip, this ‘convoy’ if you will, into the darkness.

-Ryker Darian
Junior Director of Clear House

---

The characters of this roleplay will be some of the many different and varied members of Ryker’s Convoy, taking a journey into the unknown lands of Primia, the super continent that makes up a majority of the surface on Firmia. We will be doctors, soldiers, scholars, any range of occupations on a goodwill force to bring a semblance of peace and order back into the leftovers of Humanity. We are many generations down from our ancestors that originally populated the island, and a large amount of you, the families outside of Clear House, have become less and less informed of the world that came before you, the turbulent history of Mankind, life on Firmia, and even the red taped origins of Clear House. Some of you are even somewhat suspicious of Clear House’s true motives in this convoy into the mainland, but a lot of you would grasp any chance to get away from the island, so here we are, getting ready and due to embark soon. Who will join Ryker on his trip to Primia, who will refuse and stay on the island?

Thanks for reading! Feel free to ask any questions or express any interest here on the thread! The complete story and background of Clear House and this version of Mankind is still being written, but it is very possible that we can write it as we play! Again, thanks for reading.

The Death March (Post- Apoc. , Large Group)

@gathering gloom@Zugzwang@JulienJaden I am currently working on the backstory and tons of other stuff related to this roleplay, so please, stay tuned and don't forget about this! I will have the OOC up as soon as my time allows me.

The Death March (Post- Apoc. , Large Group)

@JulienJaden Thanks! If this garner's enough interest, I'll be sure to make an expanded backstory and information bank, and all that good stuff. If you want specific information, go ahead and PM and I'l tell you what I have, or work on filling blanks that you ask me for!

The Death March (Post- Apoc. , Large Group)

@gathering gloom@ZugzwangGlad to hear it! Thanks!

Deadland Wasteland: The Beginning

oh my. is.. is this what I think it is.

The Death March (Post- Apoc. , Large Group)

My father told me that the first time they called for one of these expeditions, no one expected them to go as bad as I did. Even if a bit apprehensive, people were genuinely curious to see what happened to the rest of the country. Most of the people in the city had been alive before the shit hit the fan, and had hopes for reclaiming lands they used to called home. I was just a baby the first time around, so I only know what he told me.The next time they did it, though, I was around 5 years old, so I can remember a few things fairly vividly.

I can remember my father, angry at the world, just about. He never really directed his anger at me or my mother or anything, but I could tell something was wrong, his usual demeanor was just completely different, as if he gave off a whole new aura or something. That sweet, gentle father I had known had been replaced by this despondent, depressed, gray man. He lost his color. Quite a few times, I walked in on him crying, either alone or in the company of my mother, who this sort of… solemn look on her face. Something akin to sadness mixed with helpless. Thinking of it now, it makes me sick to my stomach. That's been my father for the past 20 years, just about. I see the old him every now and again, mostly in the pictures we have together, but, it's just not how it could, and should, be.

I didn’t really know what was going back then, only that, my parents kept telling me that “Mommy is going to have to go on a work trip.” and that it may be a long time until I saw her next. I felt sad, but I had to be strong for my mom. I remember hearing things calling the expedition “a load of utter horse shit” and “just another way to control the goddamn population.” Whether it be from small bits of conversation I heard on the street, or hearing my parents’ conversation through a locked door or from around a door frame, the general consensus was that this expedition was a “death march.”

It was a rainy morning the last day I saw my mom. My father had me on top of his shoulders, and we both waved back at my mother, who stood amongst other doctors at the top of their huge housing unit. The rain was hard enough to where it was hard to tell who was crying and who wasn’t, but it was safe to say most of us were, including my father. First and last time I ever saw that. Other children, my age and little older, followed suit with me, boarding one of their parent’s shoulders to wave goodbye to the other parent, or some would reach at their mothers and fathers from the sidewalk. I just gave my mother a great big smile, and a thumbs up, and she smiled back. I didn’t notice it back then, but that smile was showered in her tears. My father stood silently, giving a wave and blowing a kiss to my mother. I could feel him tense up when the unit she stood on sprang to life and left the gate. I didn’t know it, but it was the last time I was ever going to see her.

I can remember this underlying sense of rage in all the sadness, in my father especially, but, I was too young to really know why. I figured it was a chore that people didn’t want to do or something, but I know now. I know they all thought they were going to their death. which, in the end, I guess wasn’t too far from the truth. Murmurs of “Damn the Council for pulling this bullshit again.” or “What the fuck is the Council thinking trying this again.” ran rampant through the crowd there, and I could remember hearing them for weeks to come.

Soon after she left, Dad had begun to take down pictures of her from around the house. Too much to deal with being reminded of her left and right, I’m sure. I got along fine, the naive confidence that my mother would return keeping me from getting too sad. I managed to snatch a picture of my mother before my father had taken it down, and I kept it hidden in my room, talking to her when I got down, or when I made Dad mad and figured mom could help. I thought he’d get mad if he saw I had it, so I made sure he never found it. Other than that, she slowly began to fade from the forefront of my mind.

I don’t think I’ll forget the day they sent out the third of these damned expeditions. Most people, including my Dad, had taken to calling it “The Annual Death March.” There wasn’t as much a crowd as there was before. It wasn’t raining, and the lack of raindrops oddly correlated with the lack of teardrops. Huddled around the large housing unit that they took were mostly men in white jump suits, chained and shackled. Stood among the various platforms of the unit were prison guards, doctors, and other important looking people, with the rest of them tucked away inside the unit. They waved at the groups of people gathered on the sides of the road as the massive gates to the city opened, and the housing unit began its slow trudging out of the gate, with the men and women around it following suit.

That was the last time I saw those men and women, and that was the last time I can remember them running another Death March. That was the same day I figured out that I wasn’t going to see my mother again. I felt sour, like someone had just taken my favorite toy and smashed it. I missed her for a long time after that, and when I told my father that I knew I wouldn’t see her again, I won’t forget his face. The closest way to describe it was disappointment, like he had let me down. I think it was better that way, in the end. We helped each other through it, and I matured a bit sooner because of it. It was a sobering feeling, ever for a 10 year old. I even showed him the picture I saved. I sometimes wish I hadn’t. Seeing that picture was as if I just pulled the scab the rest of the way off.

The political backlash and civil unrest caused by the third annual Death March was enough to keep another one from happening for the foreseeable, and damn near enough to topple the government. Luckily, the trouble and cost of overthrowing our government these days is a bit too much to deal with considering they weren’t doing much else wrong. Plus this time, instead of sending valuable people like doctors and soldiers, they sent mostly prisoners, with some skilled people mixed in. Pretty fucked up, looking back on it. Pretty much had thrown all those men to the wolves.

Now, though, they’ve called for another Exploration Expedition. And now, it’s my time to go. Maybe I should’ve listened to my father, and been an artist instead of a doctor.

---

So, in this roleplay, you guys, the characters, are the freshly chosen crew for 2096’s “Exploration Expedition, or known more affectionately by the locals as the Death March. There hasn’t been one in about 15 years, and the last one was a pretty controversial event, and many, many of the city’s inhabitants are still, for the most part, against any expeditions of the sort, including us. We are a mixture of all sorts of skilled persons, such as doctors, soldiers, hunters, anyone that could fit an important and specific roles on, basically, an expedition into completely unknown and uncharted territory. We don’t know how heavily changed or morphed the landscape of the United States can be, so anything is possible, along with monsters and creatures of untold horror. I have a slight backstory and other things that I have decided for the universe, but I wanted to probe for interest before I continued putting a lot of work into. If you have questions, want more information, or are interested in the roleplay, just post here in the thread, and I’ll try to get back to you guys as soon as possible! Thanks for reading!

RP Tag Requests

Hmm. I feel like any roleplay, regardless of genre, could be dark and grim, but not everything is dystopian. Just my thoughts.

RP Tag Requests

I think "Dystopian" would be a good term. Dystopian worlds don't really fall within Apocalyptic nor Post-Apocalyptic as it's not really world ending, just a really miserable version of our current day society. Just a drab, more depressing and harsh version of life, not a complete fight for survival in a drastically destroyed/changed version of our world.

You Are Dead

@Midori Hey, that sounds pretty serious man, its alright. Just take your time!

You Are Dead

@Midori@Athinar@Kenny1 Is this dead?