The Scotsman

Starship Troopers/The Forever War meets Death Race

Bump, if you have any constructive critisism about the idea or just how I've presented it then feel free to bring it up to me too. This is a story I am quite eager to at least try, so to let it fade because I can't put my thoughts down properly would be a big mistake on my end.

[High Cas+] After Humans are accepted into alien government

Yeah, sounds fun.

Lot of potential characters for such kinda of RP.

@Double Capybara

Very much so, another reason I am encouraging writers to fully embrace the enormity of the scale here.

Modern Age Spartacus?

Hasn't been long since the last bump, but one for the night.

[High Cas+] After Humans are accepted into alien government

Bump for the night.

Starship Troopers/The Forever War meets Death Race

We've been at war for hundreds of years, or only a handful. It depends on whose calender you look at. We've invested our late twenties, or five generations of humanity. It depends on which philosopher you listen to. We listen to none, because they don't know what it feels like to return home and find it gone, walk up your street to find your old neighbours great-great-granchild lying in the gutter, dying from an overdose of one of the new drugs hitting the poor and ignorant. They don't know. You don't know. We are the dead, the gone and forgotten and were contented as that until even our final resting place has been bought and sold for by the corporations pock-marking the TV's and roadside billboards and internet. When before when we died those who had died partly with us would only remember us, now we are spectators in a stupid man's game of which we are the players, a self-citing roundabout of new recruits dying followed by new recruits dying, all signing up to receive their medals like they had on their screens. Before we were soldiers, hidden away to protect the weak-stomached and do their dirty work, and now we're actors, told to minimise swearing because we're live and someone is always watching. You can't fight wars against these intergalactic creatures like this, and it's showing. Corporations are buying and selling our lives in sports we never wanted.

-----------------------------------

I don't have a title so any suggestions would be much appreciated.

It's a simple story of soldiers in a distant land doing what their job tells them to do, but they know someone is watching and judging and analysing. It's the psychological terror knowing every mistake and death is witnessed by someone who doesn't care. They are cameramen in a shitty reality show filming someone being killed, and all they can do is shoot the enemy because it's a cross-fire, and yet they still have the voice in their brain calling them un-heroic because they wouldn't charge out for their wounded comrade.

In short, it's a depressing tale of soldiers who can't find their way forward because no-one knows the direction, and they can't find their way back because they've been left behind by their own race, and they can't stay where they are because there's a little fat kid watching with his friends calling the Sergeant a 'fucking faggot' because he won't order his men to go over the top and charge the enemy.

MostMany of the main details have not been determined yet, because I wanted to propose the idea first and foremost. See how it was received. But you may have noticed that I mentioned aliens in various ways throughout the previous text. That's because the enemy are aliens. You may have also noticed I have not mentioned them frequently, and that's because they are not the main focus of the story. Of course, there will be battles (which I hope will be intense), but they are a co-antagonist to the hidden eyes and angry voices. The best way I can describe the soldiers is the phrase 'stranger in a strange land' (nothing at all to do with the novel).

The reason I cited both Starship Troopers and The Forever War is because Starship Troopers (the book) is quite a grim outlook on these wars and can be considered a good source for my view of this story, and The Forever War addresses the feeling of being forgotten by your own people very well.

If you have any questions or thoughts, please let me know.

Casual Interest Check: http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/124445-high-cas-primetime-wartime/ooc

[High Cas+] After Humans are accepted into alien government

Aphelion

Overview

This story will begin the day after a consortium of intergalactic races introduce themselves to mankind and propose to invite them into their midst as peers. Humankind at this point has stretched out beyond the moon and has set up numerous bases and terraformed all the planets within our solar system. The consortium has noticed our successes and praises our arts, recognising we are very advanced. They also noted however that we are an angry race, which is not a huge issue as we are still young and in our rebellious stage, but that if humans were to be accepted they must come to terms with more than melanin levels. So humankind accepts, and us - the writers - continue from there. Where we go and what we do is entirely up to you.

Aims

This is not a grimdark story about the dangers of trusting aliens, nor is this a kiddie story where we all live happily together. One person may be pessimistic and another may be optimistic; it all depends on how your character views the unfolding events. Some people may not care about what is happening while others immediately set off in search of their planets to learn or to fight. Some have a moderate interest and will watch the news but they have work to do. Unfortunately, I will only allow writers to portray humans because this story is viewed from a larger, single standpoint: what would humans do? What would you do?

Seeing as we have colonised our entire solar system, there are a lot of people doing a lot of things and going to a lot of places, even more so now that we have an entire new universe to adventure to. Therefore, despite us all writing this story together, I want to say that you may never actually meet a lot of the other characters. I will have to restrict too many isolated characters as that is incredibly boring, but if your character is the Head of Commerce and suddenly bans the sale of tobacco, this will have an effect on the tobacco trader currently running between Venus and Jupiter. It's the little details that count in the big places.

Another aspect I have been contemplating is the aliens. I am not a highly imaginative person, and so wouldn't wish to create a whole boatload of races that frankly everyone finds bland and trite. So what I am offering is the chance for other writers to contribute in a huge way to this effort. Create any kind of race you want, and seeing as it is a whole bunch of different people creating a whole bunch of different races, I think it could be something marvellous. This too goes for planets and cities. If a writer is the first one to reach a city, they are free to describe that place as much as they want as long as it is in accordance with the characteristics of the race.

I intend this story to be enormous. Hopefully there will be double digit numbers investing words, actions and emotions into this brave new world, so that this isn't just another space adventure. I am fully open to allowing this to be wacky (within a large boundary, of course), delving into things that many other by-the-book space stories haven't allowed. Along with that, I am also imagining the power plays that will be occurring in the political climate, and this may branch into intergalactic wars and huge moves if we do some incredible things here. I want this to be relatively unprecedented, reaching new levels of depth, growth and interest.

This isn't the DM's story here, this is a whole universes story at play.

OOC: http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/93896-high-cas-adv-aphelion/ooc
Advanced Interest Check: http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/93897-aphelion/ooc
Casual Interest Check: http://www.roleplayerguild.com/topics/93895-high-cas-aphelion-title-wip/ooc

Modern Age Spartacus?

Bump!

Football fans

Steelers fan here, excited for next year, but more so excited for all the shit teams who are looking scarily good (Bucs, Jags, Raiders etc). Does the Guild have a fantasy league? If not it could be interesting.

2245 AD (Nearly Complete) (Sci-fi, Semi-Realistic) (Over 60 Pages of Unique Lore) (Comments Wanted)

I've just read through a 76-page Google Doc, count me in. Pretty stoked for such a wonderfully devised universe.

Modern Age Spartacus?

I'm looking for the general idea behind Spartacus (a slave pushes back and starts a rebellion) in the modern times. It will have heavy amounts of battles, but I also want to focus a lot on the interpersonal relationships between the different races, slave houses etc. Basically the Spartacus TV show with guns instead, but just as many wicked action scenes. A lot less sexual content, but lots of violence and swearing.

Should also mention that this will be High Casual upwards. Good grammar and a few nice, thick paragraphs are pretty necessary.

If you are interested or have further ideas, I'd love to hear it.