[Recruiting] Arcadia: Home Away From Home

Arcadia: Home Away From Home
The Premise
In the year 2090, Earth is a planet on the brink. Wracked by war, disease, poverty, social upheaval and runaway climate change, the future of humanity seems, for perhaps the first time, truly in doubt. Several O'Neill cylinder colonies spin at the planet's L1 and L2 Lagrange points, a small but permanent Martian outpost has recently been founded, and the now twenty year old moon base on Luna has been transformed from a simple colony into significant shipyards, manufacturing and processing facilities. The base is a staging ground for the launch of the United Nations Space Ship Esperar. A key component of the most ambitious space project in history, the Esperar will carry over a hundred thousand colonists out of the solar system, and far beyond. Nearly 40 light years away, the Earth-like planet Arcadia orbits the G-class star at the center of the TRAPPIST-1 star system. All analysis suggests the world is a garden paradise, teeming with primitive life and possessing an atmosphere humans can breathe.

Apply Within
The colonist selection process is about to begin. For those interested, please fill out the form below and reply in this recruitment thread.

Name:
Background / Specialty:

You've decided to leave Earth.
Why? Who or what are you running from, or running towards?
Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind?

More About the Game
Concept: A hard science fiction exploration and survival game on a distant world filled with wonder and horror. Heavy on faction and interpersonal play. Since PCs will be grounded, realistic characters and not larger-than-life heroes, character death is a possibility. Step carefully.

Aim: To have fun with everyone playing a well-realized and very socially-focused sci-fi game. I intend to lean into having the players drive decisions and big chunks of the action. The planet will be a sandbox to explore, though it will not be passive. We'll target playing for a year and evaluate continuing, or not, at that point or some other good break in the action.

Tone: Realistic and serious with moments of levity, joy, fright, revulsion, and camaraderie. Dark and gritty without being grim. Depending on how things go, significant strangeness or otherness might well creep in.

Subject Matter: Mature -- this will be hard R. Violence, gore, body horror, dangerous action, vengeance, anger, romance, sex. We'll use lines and veils to dial in further for folks' comfort, but be aware the game is meant to be visceral.

Touchstones: 2001, Alien, Aliens, Annihilation, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, Children of Men, Ex Machina, Gattaca, Gravity, Her, Interstellar, Moon, Prometheus, Solaris, The Martian, Sunshine.

System: Offworlders (modified, no need to buy the game -- I'll provide what's needed for full character generation. It's an excellent indie space game, though...)

Expected Posting Rate: Daily

Safety Tools: X-Card, Lines and Veils

Feedback Process: Stars & Wishes

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In terms of the skills and specializations needed, the sky is the limit. Scientists, administrators, security specialists, shipmates, doctors, farmers, colonists, mechanics, pilots, xenobiologists, surveyors, leaders, councilors, law enforcement agents, medical support staff, engineers, operators, laborers, system specialists, roboticists, entertainers -- and many more. Pitch any and all ideas and we can talk about them.

I'll be selecting 4-8 folks to get started, and expect to recruit and add people as the game goes on, injecting new blood (there are different ways I plan to do this, in-game) and replacing folks we might lose over time.

Note that this game is explicitly friendly to LGBT and any other minorities or marginalized groups.

Thanks for your interest.

Name: Sean Greyfaust
Background / Specialty: Doctor. General Practice with some Emergency medicine.

Being a doctor means believing in the hope that Life can endure. What can possibly be a larger symbol of hope than a colony ship. A ship carrying the seeds of the human race. And seeds, like people need tending to.

The Earth will be missed. The warmth, the sun on your, un-helmeted, face. Moving to the moon has been hard, but the Earth was always there in the viewport. The promise of home, someday. Now surrendered for the future, one that faces vast darkness and a loneliness that I may not be ready for.

Might as well throw my hat in the ring early.

Name:. John Daniel Mankiller

Background / Specialty:
Medical John is a holistic medicine specialist, trained to treat patients physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

Originally from the Midwest of the United States.

You've decided to leave Earth.
Why?
He feels like he could do more to help the segment of humanity leaving the cradle of Earth than he can the ones staying behind.

Who or what are you running from, or running towards?
The journey to another star is something that's been dreamed about for centuries and the opportunity to be amongst the first to set foot on a truly alien world is a big lure. So is being able to escape the "crab bucket" mentality that has all but doomed Earth...

Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind?
There's not a small bit of guilt about abandoning everything you've known and experienced for a new world amongst a bunch of strangers. By the time they arrive at their destination, everyone he knew would having all lived and died. There is No Going Back...

Celeste Moulin
Background/speciality: doctor/surgeon

Reason for leaving: Earth is a corporate hell-hole unfit for human habitation, coupled with a perhaps naive hope Arcadia will be better. And she has always had an intense interest in space exploration.
And the opportunity to make history also has certain atraction.

Regrets to leave behind: friends, family. And also modern comfort. And millennia worth of culture both ancient an modern. And cats.


Given the touchstones, are andoids/AI a thing in this world?

Just dropping by to admire the amazing formatting for this recruitment post!

Wow, this is such a bad game idea. Who gave you the impression anyone would want to play this 😝

Of course we need to do the hardest part of character creation, finding a name, before even applying... I'll get back to this

Lots of medical personnel so far... You could be in for a"Grey's Anatomy in Space" campaign if you're up for it, Harrigan 😉

If not, I can easily shift specialities to Engineer/Archetect.

And to echo Nezz's sentiment, the recruitment formatting is quite impressive!

Thanks. It's better now, hopefully -- I didn't realize linking to the game itself would post the game's formal description at the top. So that's cleaner now.

@Carabas -- happy to openly discuss how advanced tech is. I'm thinking in 2090, not *that* advanced. Absolutely there will be lots of applications of Artificial Narrow Intelligence, but Artificial General Intelligence (often depicted as true, learning / creative AI) would still be decades or hundreds of years away. Given how advanced some ANI looks today, I think it could get pretty damned sophisticated by 2090. I'm also open to the idea of talking about special science projects and whatever -- secret tech that's more advanced, etc. PM me if you want to discuss it more.

Androids -- that I can see, for sure, though they wouldn't be completely autonomous. Again, PM me if you have cool ideas to explore.

Names can be placeholders, didn't mean to pressure people. Just trying to get ideas flowing. =]

Also, thanks for the bad idea comment. A certain someone's cryochamber just might get unplugged en route...

Oh, and @witchdoctor -- people can switch around specializations as they need to as well. Again, just looking to start the neurons firing.

Name: Vincent Chen
Background / Specialty: Xenobiologist, bio-medical engineer

Vincent's research team has focused on the man-machine interface that has allowed for better medical prosthetics and robotic constructs taking advantage of human neural structures in its circuitry.

You've decided to leave Earth.
Why? Who or what are you running from, or running towards? Vincent is running towards fame and glory, for the chance to show what his creations can really do, and possibly to get away from the more controlling aspects of government overseeing his work.


Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind? Vincent will miss his research team at John Hopkins and the state of the art facilities there. Intellectually, he knows that he is heading to a primitive planet but surrounded by technology on the ship, I don't think it has sunk in just how much infrastructure he will have to build to continue working as he has.

Name: Linda [placeholder]
Background / Specialty: Photographer

A photographer? Yeah. Someone needs to catalogue the new world and make pictures of it for the knowledge databases.

Why? Who or what are you running from, or running towards?
After her mother died of illness, her father, an excellent engineer, applied for a job on this mission. But he did convince to take Linda, just graduated from journalism school, with him. For both of them it is a form of escapism, leaving the memories of mom's long sick bed.

Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind?
The wild, party life she had as a student. In this mission she needs to be more disciplined really.

Goood, gooood, keep the ideas coming...

Not applying (even though it does sound awesome, I'm currently already in a sci-fi game and have my solo game as well), just want to give a little counterargument to your point that in 2090 computers won't be that advanced. 2090 will be in ~70 years. 70 years ago we might as well have called ourselves neanderthals if we had known where we would end up with digital electronics. The first mobile phones came on the market 50 years ago. In the 1950s computers still functioned on relays and vacuum tubes, and now we are working on quantum computers. Human knowledge is doubling at a breakneck speed and it is both awesome and frightening. It's possible I'll still be alive in 2090, and I know I will live in a completely different world by then, for better or for worse.

Name: Victor Trembly
Background / Specialty: Operations Security Specialist

You've decided to leave Earth.
Why? Who or what are you running from, or running towards?
Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind?

- Victor was once a member of the Marine Raider Regiment back on Earth. He was known amongst his comrades to be very good at his job. Sometimes a bit too good. He's seen a lot during his operations. As Earth began to fall apart and through his experiences being in special forces, there were times where he thought, "was it all worth it?". He contemplated this question many times, and when he was given the opportunity to join the Esperar to journey off-planet and into a completely other system, he thought - maybe, just maybe...this could be different. This could be a chance to start over. This could be a chance to protect something better, more innocent, and not something with a history full of war and bloodshed. He would take the position with this hope in his heart that he wouldn't have to draw his weapon at another human who was just trying to fulfill their own duties to their own people. However, deep inside of his mind, he knows that the feelings of the heart are sometimes too good to be true. As it's human nature to be greedy and full of hate. So, he will always be prepared...always.

- Victor would leave behind his "brothers" from the Regiment. They motivated him, lifted him up when he was down, and would potentially lay down their lives for him. Perhaps they weren't qualified for the trip, perhaps they had family they had to take care of. All that's known is that they couldn't come with him, and after all his years serving, this was the first time Victor felt truly alone.

OMG, such a cool project here! *_*

Name: Leah Johansen.

Background / Specialty: Art historian. Former Curator of European Art at the MET.

Few things can transport Leah to another planet. A tiny speck of lead white, in a pearl, reflecting the light, in front of a bone black background. The interplay of light and shadow in the moisture of a lip. A yellow patch in the middle of an old orange brick wall. Complete tonal precision. And now, a fucking intergalactic ship named Esperar. To wait. She has this feeling as if she has been waiting all of her life. Was this what she was waiting for?

She would have saved more. She pushed for more. To no avail. Apparently, not everyone in the leadership of project Arcadia agrees that saving a Fabritius should have a higher priority than, say, saving a couple of more human lives. That's fine. She's emphatic, there is no reason to make her feel ashamed for trying to save a painting that, almost 450 years ago, was lost to a huge gunpowder explosion, only to be left behind hundreds of years later. But, you know, after all, humans die, all the time. There's no reason for letting art die. The thing is, she does feel ashamed. She is in charge of the complete vault of human expression, the last remnants of mankind's genius and sensibility, the very thing that makes us human, and she will fight for each and every piece under her charge. Maybe she sounds shallow, taking such an interest in mere objects when humanity is on the brink. She feels guilty. She knows that for every artwork that is kept in a proper environment on board of that ship, dozens of persons will have to face their demise on Earth. But what is humanity, anyway, if not the total sum of its achievements? Memory is important: if we don't want to venture into that dark, void space, just to give start to another Dark Age, we ought to bring with us proof that we are, despite all of our faults, worthy of being saved.

Oh, I don't disagree -- 70 years is a long time and there's no doubt the breakneck pace of technology innovation will continue, but there are a number of barriers that have to be figured out -- breakthroughs that need to be made (see: fusion, the slowing of Moore's Law and limits on current microchip architecture, beamed power, etc.). I bet a bunch of these are solved -- what I'm saying is specifically for AI, and for the kind of completely autonomous AI many science fiction movies have (AGI), some smart people actually theorize it's not possible to get there at all and we haven't even taken our real first steps. I don't subscribe to that, but for sake of argument here, I'm going to call AGI a future development.

If you aren't already aware of it, Harrigan, you should check out the SFIA YouTube channel. There's a lot of material there that would be useful for this particular game setting.


SFIA playlist

Name: Elder Lucien Havel
Background / Speciality: spiritual leader

You've decided to leave earth:
While the terrible tragedies of colonisation and religious imperialism were very much a relic of the earlier centuries, it was Lucien Havel's firm belief that a voyage of such ambition and scope would require theological underpinnings as well as spiritual guidance, both of which he felt called upon to offer. As an elder of the non-denominational Unitarian faith, there could be no greater evangelism than for this journey to constitute both a pilgrimage, symbolically a 40 light year journey to an arcadian destination, as well as an opportunity to provide leadership, counsel and succor for those in his company. Already some among the hundred thousand colonists were heartened to hear that a pious figure of authority would be on board.

Name: Ernesto Villanueva
Background/Specialty: Surveying, Land Navigation and Cartography

You've decided to leave Earth.
Why? Who or what are you running from, or running towards?
Ernesto got into a little trouble with the Bratva, i.e., Russian mob. He owes them A LOT of money. An enterprising young Bratok caught wind of this colonization mission through some contacts in the space agency. In exchange for absolving his debts, Ernesto must go map out the land on his behalf and claim the most valuable land he can on behalf of his patron.

Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind?
Ernesto left his entire family behind as a desperate attempt to spare their lives from the consequences of his actions. He can only hope that the agreement has been honored and that several Villanueva generations have proliferated in his absence. He knows that the mob could be anywhere and can get to anyone so he'll hold up his end of the bargain as best he can to keep his family safe.

Name: Monika Konzett
Background/Specialty: Being rich. And maybe psychology

Monika comes from wealth and her family sponsored a non-negligible part of the money needed to get this expedition underway, which is also how she secured her place in it. Officially, she's here because of her psychology degree, in order to help with unrest among the crew and provide therapy to help with the inevitable mental health issues that will come for members of the crew during this mission. However, it's hardly a secret that she's underqualified for this position and that it's her family's money that actually got her in.

You've decided to leave Earth.
Why? Who or what are you running from, or running towards?
Earth is turning worse and worse. With all the recent social upheaval in response to the growing wealth gap in the world, the Konzett family feels less and less safe staying there and while the patriarch of the family, Monika's father, was unwilling to risk himself on this expedition, he felt that it would be a wise move to quickly establish a Konzett foothold outside of Earth, which is why he sent his daughter on this trip.

Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind?
While Monika will miss her friends and some of her family members, most of all she regrets having to say goodbye to her giant Rottweiler Alfred. What she's less eager to admit is how much she will miss the comforts of life at home. She believes she's capable of withstanding the stress of this expedition, but she will definitely miss her comfy bed, huge house and all the tiny comforts she's grown so used to throughout her life that she doesn't even notice them anymore. Not until they're missing.

Really appreciate all the submissions, and thanks @Witchdoctor for sharing that channel. Wasn't aware, looks great! Bear in mind that while I espouse to love hard science fiction, and plan to bring a fair bit of it into the game, I'm no expert or scientist. I can fake it decently enough, hopefully, and we'll see how far that gets us. ;)

Hope to make some progress on the game, select the PCs, etc., by or on the weekend.

Ian Riley has one of those faces.

There’s something familiar about it, like he was your high school friend’s older brother, or the guy you see every third Tuesday at the coffee shop. He looks like your next-door neighbor from the arcology twenty years ago, or maybe the tow truck driver that finally picked you up that day your skimmer stalled out and you were stranded for three hours in the bad part of town. Maybe you saw him on TV, maybe on the cold open of a detective show, the kind where a couple is walking down the street arguing about whose turn it is to tell Aunt Jenny she can’t come over for dinner, and then they stumble over a body.

You feel like you’ve seen him somewhere before, like you know him but can’t quite place him. His face is an affable face, handsome but not too handsome, wry-eyed and crow-footed, hair peppered with grey at the temple, stubble edging the jaw. He’s at that indeterminable age between thirty-five and fifty, skin tone halfway between caucaisan and something else. He comes off as vaguely nonthreatening, with an easy smile and the tendency to lean against things in a casual slouch. He makes eye contact but not too much eye contact, nods and listens and greets you like he’s met you before. His is a face that opens doors and lowers guards, and gets people to open up.

Good thing, then, that he does what he does - Ian is a reporter for the United Nations Correspondents Association, sent with the colony to chronicle the journey to Arcadia and the countless stories of the mission’s personnel.

At least, that’s what he is on paper. The truth, as always, is more complex. Ian left behind a lot of things on earth, including a sea of debt, a murder charge, and several bitter exes. No, he doesn’t really have a masters from Northwestern or experience as an entertainment correspondent at Reuters, but that’s all right - the college he’s actually from is called the school of hard knocks, and his job experience is otherwise known as fake it til you make it. Ian Riley isn’t even his real name.

Ian has his thumb on the pulse of the colony’s burgeoning black market, and he knows where and how to get any kind of contraband you choose, anything from the moonshine stores on level eight to the underground nightclub on C-deck. His face and his credentials open doors and make friends, and if that doesn’t work, he has a backup plan for everything.

It’s a good thing he’s so resourceful. He’s being blackmailed by one of the most powerful people in the colony, and he has to play along and tell the stories he’s instructed to tell, but hey, maybe he’s got a plan for that too.

Name: Elisse Oneida nickname Elon
Background / Specialty: Chemist/Entertainer

There are some that say Elon was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps not. Whatever the truth of her birth circumstances, the details are lost or hidden now. Records show that she was from New York originally, but even her birth-name has been ex-sponged for one of her adult choosing. Oneida could hardly be her born surname, although there it was on the document, as if it had always been so.

If pushed, she would admit to having spent her earliest remembered years in a commune of sorts and that's about all she would say on the matter. Around the age of eight she was sent to live with her fraternal grandfather, a French diplomat. With him, she became well-traveled and tutored in many things.

Her life and past are a mystery. She is bi-lingual (English/French). Hobbies: Audio Engineering/DJ. Passion: Dancing

You've decided to leave Earth. Why?

Her grandfather, the diplomat, is getting very old and she has no one close left. She wants to reach for the stars and hopes to find a new life out there somewhere.

Who or what are you running from, or running towards?

Elisse is running from her past. She has witnessed things that could get her dead, if the right people find her.

Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind?

Her grandfather. The familiar places and comforts of the Earth.

Alrighty, I see this so far:

Esidrix - Sean Greyfaust, doctor.
witchdoctor - John Daniel Mankiller, holistic medicine or engineer / architect
Carabas - Celeste Moulin, doctor / surgeon.
Verrain - Vincent Chen, Xenobiologist
Cettish - Linda, Photographer
Heavy Duty - Victor Trembly, Security Specialist
Rodian - Leah Johansen, art historian
BedzoneII - Elder Lucien Havel, Spiritual Leader
WarDomo - Ernesto Villanueva, Surveying / Land Navigation / Cartography
bowlofspinach - Monika Konzett, rich girl
argo - Ian Riley, reporter / black marketeer
JamaisVu - Elisse Oneida, Chemist / Entertainer

Look correct? Missing anyone? Might be reach out to a few of you in the next day or so to ask a question or two...

Quite the potential cast! Looking forward to seeing where this goes!

This really interests me but you've got plenty of bodies to fill the freezers aboard ship. I really ought to check the Tavern more than once a month. =D

Never hurts to throw a character into the mix if you have one in mind...

Yes, Harrigan already said people will be added in later on as well, so definitely still apply. And I can always put in a good word for you with him. I have used puns to worm my way into his heart

Please do submit if you're interested! I haven't made any decisions yet on the initial cast...

Name: Harper Wheeler
Background / Specialty: Eternal Student / Archaeology, Anthropology and History.

Harper had always been fascinated with different languages and cultures, Ancient Egypt and Greece captured her imagination as a child and when she found out in her teens that there was more to the world than just this, she began to ready everything and anything she could on pre-history. When she was old enough, she attended university and double majored in History and Archaeology, her roommate Irina Varias was majoring genetic analysis. Together they went on to study genetic migration patterns in prehistory with a specific bent towards the islands of the South Pacific.

There was work there, so much work. With sea levels rising there was a huge number of sites that needed to be investigated before they could be claimed by the ocean. Eventually the amount of work and the pace with which it had to be done proved to be insurmountable as more and more information was lost to the tides and a sense of hopelessness and frustration began to invade her life.

The end came when Irina was killed in a helicopter crash on Rapa Nui not a half kilometer from the site they were working on near Ahu Akivi. Harper watched in horror as the helicopter spiraled into the ground and exploded taking with it the only person who mattered in her life.

There was nothing left for her on Earth not anymore. Her last grand parent had passed while she was in high school and her parents had died in a car crash just before she obtained her Masters Degree. So Harper decided that maybe her future lay not here, not among the ruins of a dying planet but maybe just maybe somewhere out there in the stars.

Dig Harper and the other submissions! Don’t dig not being able to spend the time I wanted on setting the game up this weekend. Still have some work to do on the foundation / system. Should make decisions on players over the next few days. Your patience is appreciated…

Alright, I have things in shape to at least get started with this project. As I mentioned before I'm wary of large games, but I think I've got a couple of ideas that'll make it work. If not, we'll adjust as we need to, or the whole thing could go up in great ball of nuclear fire. Either way, let's proceed!

In the game: witchdoctor, Cettish, BedzoneII, WarDomo, bowlofspinach, argo, JamaisVu, Emberskyes.
In the wings: Esidrix, Carabas, Verrain, HeavyDuty03, Rodian

Sorry I can't accept everyone at the outset -- eight is already a huge stretch for me. Chances are good someone won't dig the game or will need to drop for other reasons, so you five on the waiting list, let me know here if you'd be interested in a spot should one open up. Cool? These were not easy choices to make, and I greatly appreciate the time everyone took with their submissions.

Invites going out shortly.

Name: Caradog Parry
Background / Specialty: Laborer / animal husbandry

Caradog oversees a small family holding near the Clwydian Range in Wales. Primarily tending to a herd of welsh mountain sheep the struggle has only deepened for him as the economy and the environment seem to be collapsing in equal measure. Carradog had a go at a proper education and a 9-to-5 but couldn't quite stomach it and returned to the farm.

You've decided to leave Earth.
Why? Who or what are you running from, or running towards?
Look at 'em all. Lining up to explore a brave new world. They're all dreamers, and big brains and hardly enough fat or muscle to carry them through the first harsh winter. Somebody's going to have to dig the ditches, find the water, build the fences. Someone like Caradog. Things haven't quite worked out here, not the way he imagined. He's friendly enough, kind enough, eager to help where he can and make things better, but it seems like those sorts of old-fashioned values have gone out of vogue and it's getting harder and harder for an average person to make it. It's dog-eat-dog with hoodie wearing executives tossing table scraps to the masses while they dine like kings on the efforts of all their work. That's never been his ambition but he's tired of doing everything he can just to keep his nose above the waterline. Carradog's had enough of whatever this morally and ethically bankrupt society can offer, it's time for him to see if he can't find something better.

Conversely, who or what will you regret leaving behind?
The farm has been in the family for generations, and I'm all that's left to tend to it. It'll be a right shame selling it off but there again there wasn't ever much future in it for me, just a fool's hope of living out the rest of my days with the sun on my back. If I can find a place as lovely to make for myself in the new world it won't be a great loss. I am sad to leave my hound Elmor, but I've found a good home for him with the Owsley's and their young boys are giving him plenty of lookin' after.

Adding Caradog to the stand-by list, @Zagrave!

Definitely still interested in case a spot opens up! Thanks for the opportunity.

Yeah, keep me on the backup roster. Hope it all goes well.