The Intro
”Paradise” Whoever named this rock had a terrible sense of humor. A dustball world on the edge of the frontier, Paradise is as close to what the Humans call "hell" as I've ever seen. The infernal dust which blankets the world is jagged, sharp and clingy. Paradise was a young world, and her soil was that of a young world, fresh and new, untouched by wind and water and time. The Humans, so hasty to explore, conquer and terraform, didn't bother to plant vegetation, or fix the soil, thinking they could rely on their technology to replace nature. And when it turned out that combining an atmosphere with young soil and almost no plant life to hold it down created a world choked in abrasive dust storms by day, and freezing, sucking mud at night, they left. But the Humans can't stand to lose, not arguments, not wars, and especially not money. So they took their failure, and bent it to a new purpose. Paradise, once intended to be the desert jewel of the Frontier, became a penal colony for dissidents, subversives, and unruly xenos. The dust, the damn dust that once foiled Humanity where none of us could, was now their greatest ally. It destroys machines, slipping into the cracks and grinding the works away to nothing. Vehicles, power armor, weapons, electronics, all but the most simple and the toughest devices rendered useless by mere dust. Paradise needs no guards, no orbital defense platforms, no patrol fleet. The dust will keep anyone from ever building the means to get off this world. There is only one way off Paradise: the maintenance crews who come to service the oxygen and ozone generators. Their ships are built off-world, specially designed to resist the dust. If a clever man could get his hands on one of those ships, why he might just get off Paradise. But it wouldn't be easy. I've been telling this tale for 40 years, and I've never seen the man that could do it. But who knows... maybe YOU could..."
The Premise
Paradise 2778 is a roleplay set on the frontier world of Paradise, one of several penal colonies established by the Unified Systems Protectorate, the Human meta-corporate empire which dominates the Milky Way, to house the worst criminals, subversives and dissidents who oppose them. You will play as a small group (I'm thinking about five or six) of prisoners who are trying to escape by hijacking a ship. The setting, and thus the tone, of the RP is intended to be very gritty, dark and on the harder side of science fiction. Paradise is a very nasty place, and survival, let alone success, is difficult: the dust and extreme temperatures render all but either the simplest or the most advanced technology inoperable, there is no real production base or economy to speak of, beyond barter and trade, and the Protectorate really doesn't care if the prisoners kill eachother, so the world is wracked in near-constant warfare between tribes and warlords.
I want the RP to focus heavily on the characters, and the interactions between them within this hellish setting. Will they draw strength from adversity and become closer? Will they achieve only a tenuous alliance, waiting to stab eachother in the back when freedom is within their grasp? Will they be able to overcome the differences between their races, and the racial and cultural baggage that comes with living in the Protectorate's 28th Century?
I'm looking for players who are literate, with some experience, and who are capable of producing three to five+ paragraph posts at least once a day. I want people who are interested in writing good characters, and are willing to co-operate and communicate extensively with each other to produce the best story that we can. You should be comfortable with posting detailed, well-structured posts with good spelling, punctuation and grammar. I structure my posting based on a posting hierarchy, with a pre-determined post order derived from people's availability and time zone, so if you're used to a very free-form RP style, such as chat RP, this might not be the thing for you.
As for myself, I've been RPing on various sites since 2010. I've been a regular GM for most of that, running RPs here, and on other sites like NationStates. I focus on literate, high-quality posting, good characters, and like to run a very structured, organized RP. I will use the various unique tools of RPGateway, such as Places and Groups, to their full advantage, and try to make things as uniform and easy to understand as possible with standard character templates, detailed introduction threads, a clear posting order, and lots of fluff and background info in OOC threads.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you find this up your alley!
The Roles
The group will be composed of five characters, plus my own, for a grand total of six. I have three mildly specific roles in mind, which we will need, but the remaining two are open to interpretation.
Cast of Characters:
- The Brains: Taura Lex - (Screwface Romeo)
- The Muscle: (Aracrexus)
- The Stealth Guy: (Open)
- The Tech: (Solo Wing Pixy)
- The Demo Guy: (Quakernuts)
- Other: (Open)
- The Gearhead: (SlightlyIrregular)
You can find the RP itself here: roleplay/paradise-2778
I would make a nice tidy hyperlink, but apparently over a year of RP and forum participation, and GMing three RPs doesn't count as "seeing enough of me"
Lore Threads
- Alien Races: species-information-thread-for-paradise-2778-t92840.html
- Factions: topic-t92845.html
- The World: topic-t92843.html
- The Protectorate: topic-t92844.html
- Weapons: topic-t92842.html
*To those involved in Mass Effect: Independence, relax: this doesn't mean the end of ME:I, and won't interfere with the time I'm already dedicating to it.
