Thinslayer

Star Trader

Ed was struggling to read the manual, so Captain Darcy strode over to show them the ropes. "Okay, so here's the deal. Most ships need about six bridge crew; captain, helm, weapons, engineering, science, and communications. But this here is Warp Fighter; she ain't got time for six people shuffling around her decks. So the controls here are designed to minimize the amount of work you gotta do."

"I'm the captain, so I get my own chair behind you two. I also handle comms. I'll show you how that works once you've got the hang of things. Now, the piloting controls are gonna look a little familiar. The right stick lets you pitch, roll, and yaw. The left stick, the throttle, lets you thrust and reverse. The thumbstick on the throttle lets you thrust in other directions, like sideways or vertically. Handy little bugger. The trigger still fires the particle cannons, but mind you, it takes forever to charge those babies on a fusion reactor, and they still pack a hog-whallop, so don't go blasting away at things like some hotshot. We're a cargo ship, not a fighter."

"Situated in between your two seats is the interactive holographic star map. It responds to motion controls, so you can touch and swipe to see where you wanna go. Poke at a star to blow it up and see what the other planets are, and poke the star again to go back to the galaxy map. The little button at the base lets you switch to the 3D radar. Poke at any of the objects on the radar to see a detailed wireframe rendering of them, along with details like their make and model, class, speed, and direction."

"Touchscreens for both pilots let you guys manage whatever you want. You can bring up controls and displays for the weapons, shields, damage reports, fuel and energy levels, autopilot options, planetary maps, and whatnot. Or you could just use your voice. This ship's got audio-visual ports in all kinds of places, so she can hear your commands and see your gestures. I prefer that over touchy-feely stuff anyway. Don't ask her to do anything too broad or complicated, though, 'cuz she's not that smart."

"Any questions, kids?"

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It may help to step back and consider the character you're playing. It almost feels like Sofie's reverting back to the Pureheart archetype you've been trying to avoid, and I think it's strangling her character. Picture Sofie how you first introduced her - alert, nimble, and dangerous. I don't picture her waiting for things to happen to her. The kind of person who can dodge a surveillance state and reach across the stars is the sort of person who you'll find at the center of events, the initiator.

Make her the protagonist in her own story. She should be fighting Ed for the limelight, not just sharing it with him.

Sofie has just been given the (metaphorical) keys a starship. She has a Training Pilot License and can fly wherever she wants with it, provided Darcy is present. Oh, and she has a copilot named Ed or something. What does Sofie do?

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Had to get something written before Labor Day ended. From here, I'm thinking Sofie could join Ed and discuss their roles on the ship, maybe their opinions of Darcy and their contract with him, and possibly a romantic moment.

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"I what? I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said."
Darcy laughed. "I said you look like you could kill a man a thousand different ways with your bare hands. That's more than this old rust-bucket can say." He kicked the side of the ship.

Ed squinted. "What, you mean this warship can't kill people?"

Darcy crossed his arms and replied, "Her auto-pilot's wonky and auto-targeting's terrible. If she's a warship, then I'm a millionaire. Nah, she's a civvie through and through. The only thing she's got going for her is her durability, which I only found out because of her wonky auto-pilot. Frankly, this rust-bucket's gotten me into more scrapes than I can count, so you have no idea how happy I am to have someone who's even remotely good at piloting."

Ed could have sworn he felt a rumble somewhere deep in the belly of the ship. "Then I guess it's a good thing we have someone who, as you so aptly put it, could kill a man a thousand different ways with her bare hands," he retorted as he flashed Sofie a wink and resumed fishing for the User Manual.

He finally located it beneath a pile of unpaid bills and opened it. Ed motioned Sofie over to read it with him.

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I think I've still got writer's block, and I am so, so sorry for making you wait so long! I came up with an idea, though, so the writer's block is going away soon. The Raving Maiden will be a repurposed Warp Fighter, a relatively small vessel designed for about 3-6 crew members. Made up entirely of SEED, Warp Fighters are a form of artificial life, complete with a brain and central nervous system. This gives them a tremendous amount of survivability and autonomy, at a cost of computational performance and reliability. Their substantial individuality is both a blessing and a curse; it can make them supremely capable or unfortunately stunted. The Raving Maiden is among the latter, designed as a combat ship, but with little of the mental capacity for one. Thus, she was robbed of her Q-Core (Quantum Singularity Core - a black hole, basically; an immensely powerful reactor) and turned into a civilian vessel.

These features are not broadly known, however. Warp Fighters are better-known for their transformation abilities (which the Raving Maiden lacks, due to not having a Q-Core), and are rather famous for their sleek and powerful humanoid forms. When the troops needed heavy armor and firepower on the ground, the Warp Fighters filled that role. Their designers wanted them to take on a more tank-like appearance for ground combat, but the humanoid form was the Warp Fighters' own choice, and the designers had little say in that. :P

In short, the Raving Maiden is a character all on her own. ;)

Our first mission: Locate the Raving Maiden's Q-Core!

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I developed my username from a combination of my real-life physical build and my favorite Halo game mode - Thin Slayer. Very rarely do I play any games lacking combat mechanics, so the Slayer part is more often appropriate than not. I mainly picked it for the Cool Factor. :P

As for what to write...I can definitely see how you developed writer's block. I'm getting writer's block just thinking about what you should write, lol. That's what took me so long to respond your OOC post, actually - I was mulling over story options, couldn't think of anything, and forgot to reply. xD

Take your time, ineffable. We'll work something out together. ;)

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Ed did not fail to notice Sofie's kindness when he woke up that morning. While he didn't mention it to her, ever since that day, the two worked together on friendlier terms. Ed wanted to learn more about her, but more often than not, homework got in the way, as did the chronic sleeplessness. They settled on a daily routine - Sofie made breakfast since she got up early, and Ed made dinner since he got back early. Homework they did together, and their instructors always complimented them on their quality and timeliness. When the externship began, Ed and Sofie were the first ones selected for starship duty.

Their first assignment was at the helm aboard the Raving Maiden. The transport's former helmsmen were arrested for Piloting Under the Influence, and their captain, Richard Darcy, was strapped for cash and couldn't hire an experienced crew.

"So we're slaves, in other words," Ed clarified, crossing his arms.
Darcy shrugged and slipped his hands in his pockets. "I prefer to think of it as a non-monetary exchange, barter, if you will. You get free helm experience, I get free helmsmen. Win-win! Come on, it's a sweet deal."

Ed gave him The Look, and held it for a few seconds before allowing himself to smirk. "Aww, okay, I won't push it. Deal." They shook hands and made to board the Raving Maiden. Unlike starships in other nations, where function took priority over form, Crescent manufacturing processes were so advanced that both form and function were attended to in equal measure. Thus, even a lowly vessel like this one looked more like luxury liners or battleships. The Raving Maiden was highly modified, with very little of her original baby-blue colors left on the hull, revealing the natural muted ebony of her semi-organic construction.

"Arrowhead on the base of a teardrop. That's what she looks like," Ed concluded aloud. "I've seen pictures of the type on the internet, bt never seen it up close. She's a beautiful ship."
Darcy gave him a laugh and a playful slap upside the head. "Don't suck up to me, boy. Go read the manual. It's over there in the glove box, under the copilot's console."

He turned to Sofie and sized her up. "Well well, what do we have here? Honestly, girl, you look like you could kill a man a thousand different ways with your bare hands. You gonna be okay?"

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I'm also attempting to build a lego model of our starship in my spare time. Wish me luck!

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Sweet! So, we need to do a timeskip, and I'm not sure how to proceed from the current hook. Tentatively, I'm thinking it'll look like (and this is a very rough draft)...

"Ever since that day, Ed and Sofie studied together on more amicable terms. Ed relied on Sofie for her remarkable intuition and superior knowledge, and such were her abilities that he often wondered whether she was really taking this course anew. Since they had much material to study, they had little time to develop their friendship, so by the time they were ready to board their first starship, they still knew very little about each other. They both applied for crew positions aboard the [ship name pending], captained by an old war vet named [name pending]. [More description pending]."

"Their first job was [to be determined]."

Still working on it. :P

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Crud, I am SO sorry for the long wait! I won't pretend I've been doing anything productive - I've been on a World of Warplanes kik for the last week, and haven't had much desire to write during that period. I get on these "kiks" for a few weeks every several months, so it's kind of cyclical. My previous kik was was NieR: Automata. It's died down a bit now, so I'm ready to write again.

I have an idea. RPs rarely seem to use an episodic format, and I think it would help considerably, since it's easier to come up with a short plot than to map out an entire story for a human playerbase. So what I'm thinking is this: We'll come up with some interesting situation, create a short story around it, and wrap it up so we can start another short plot. With each one, the characters should be working toward a larger goal, which we can expand on bit by bit with each episode.

Down to experiment with me?