Alpha Centauri Roleplaying Cast Call and Introduction

[PVodogaz]

OOC: Hello and welcome folks. Being a avid fan and reader of Sid Meier's Alpha Cantauri story of the last vestiges of humanity on another planet, I have started the following thread and hoping there are interested parties.

Here follows a run down of the premise. Firstly let me introduce my character, Pravin Lal (who is similar to me in real time);

Peacekeeping Forces

"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Commissioner Pravin Lal
'U.N. Declaration of Rights'

Leader: Pravin Lal
Founding Base: U.N. Headquarters
Background: United Nations Space Authority/Unity Ship's Surgeon
Rank: Director
Position: Chief of Surgery
Country: India
Date of Birth: 03-05-2006
Height: 172.0 cm
Weight: 68.2 kg
Agenda: Humanitarian Ideals/Democracy
Aggression: Pacifist with Defence ideals
Priorities: Exploration/Discovery
Choices: Democratic
Aversions: Police State

Service Record

Born 2006, Rajkot, India. Degree in Philosophy and Medicine, Oxford University. Trained in Thoraric Surgery. Achieved international acclaim for selfless devotion to victims of radiation poisoning following the Twelve Minute War and the India Border Conflict.
Served as member of research team investigating genes that encode proteins aiding with DNA repair, University of Basel, Switzerland. Later appointed Assistant Director, World Health Organisation. Top candidate for Chief of Surgery, U.N. Alpha Centauri Mission.

Psych Profile

Seeks to de-escalate conflict and create harmonious environments. Dedication to ideals of U.N. mission unquestioned; loyalty superb. Able to perform well under extreme pressure .87 on Atherholt Trauma Function Test (recovery score moderate).
Deep connection to loved ones possibly exploitable by adversary.

Mission Year: 2101 (just a few months after pod landings)

Please reply people who are interested or want more info and after work later today I will endeavour to answer them

Here's a small teaser =)

IC:

6 Months After Planetfall

The three Rovers moved out from the gates exiting U.N. Headquarters, and sped on the newly made road due east. The two suns beat down mercilessly, a intensely depressing heat, unlike old Earth. Unity Rovers, that were uncovered from a seeded pod close to the new Base.

Pravin Lal looked out of the rover,taking a deep breath from his filtered air mask. When out in the open, people had to wear these mask, for more than five minutes without the mask, the blood of a man would turn thick from narcosis. In the first two weeks after landing, even after numerous warnings, two of his people had died from nitrate narcosis. This was due to the double nitrogen ammounts and the lower oxygen ammounts in Planet's atmosphere....
An advisor's voice broke his reverie.
"Commissioner Lal, we should be at the site in less then 10 Sol minutes."
Pravin nodded absently, still watching the land roll past. He watched as the road skirted the green-reddish tinge of the xenofungal fields. He closed his eyes and concentrated, and he could hear the xenofungus 'sing' to him. What a rich, beautiful song it is, he thought as he listened. Oh Pria....how i wish you could of seen this!

He remembered as soon as they landed, as his engineers awakened the last people from cryosleep, Pravin Lal placed his dying wife in a empty cryocell and quickly refroze her. If in the future there is a chance....a race between time and technology...to save my chosen, I took the chance. Pravin shook his head to chear his thoughts and the song from his mind.

Pravin looked around at his rover, saw his two advisors read the reports from different Scout Patrols, excited yet careful caution etched on their faces. Advisor Sinder Roze, of mild Indian heritage, Advisor Pierson, his piercing dark blue eyes scrolling through his touchpanel link salvaged from the Unity. And of course the Driver, known affectionately as Rank, who had the only experience for now on mechanical know-how. Rank was whistling a tune, an old Earth song 'Yankee Doodle', Pravin smiled softly as Roze looked up at Rank and joined in. Pierson smiled shaking his head good naturedly.
The three rovers rolled up a gently sloping hill and crested it. The top of the hill flattened out into somewhat of a plateau.

"We're here, Commissioner Lal." Rank said, stopping his whistling tune.

Pravin Lal looked out of the front of the rover and his breath caught, ahead of him not even fifty meters away lay the ruins of the crashed Unity...what was left of the superstructure. Rank pressed the Open switch for the rover doors and they rose up. All of them put on their pressure masks, and Pravin motioned the occupants to put on their masks of the other rovers, as he exited the Rover.

The two suns beat down on the scene ahead of him, almost no wind to speak of.
"Record this, Pierson, please." Lal said softly through his mask.

Pierson nodded his understanding and pressed the record on his quicklink video-feed. Around Lal came his small force of Security Police, shredder pistols in their holsters but each of the officers were weary. They wore the sky blue altered Unity suits with the red stripes that denoted they were of the security force.

Pravin moved forward to the crash-site, memories came flooding back...not all that long ago, yet to him it was like a lifetime ago.

He spoke into his audio-feed touchscreen, as he walked toward the two burnt out thrusters.
"Mission Year 2100, Scout patrols discovered the United Nations Space-Shuttle wreckage yesterday whilst on deployment, just twenty Planet parsecs from U.N. Headquarters. Small expeditionary force under my leadership have just arrived at site...nothing much is left of the Unity, salvage crew is now at work."

Pravin turned off his audio feed and watched the salvage and security force comb through the burnt and twisted remains of the once proud ship.
He became aware of a presence settle next to him. He turned his head and saw it was Rank.
"Commissioner, the past seems to have returned again to haunt us."

For some reason, that sentence sent a chill down Pravin's spine.
"Yes...it seems to have, Liutenant."

Suddenly, a security officer waved as he jumped up and down pointing to what was a large piece of what seemed to be a ceiling. Soon, people came over and a excited murmur could be heard. Pravin crossed to where the people stood. As people saw him come, they parted letting him through to the front, all staring at Lal, smiles on their faces. What was it? Pravin queried to himself in his mind. Even my advisors are quiet.

He turned and looked......and fell to his knees.
Pierson came over quickly, thinking Lal was suddenly ill, but Roze waved him away.

Lal stared, tears began to well and finally under his mask stream down his cheeks, pooling at the bottom of the mask. Hope....the symbol of peace survived!
Indeed, the command bay's ceiling had survived the crash and etched on the surface was the U.N. Mission Star Symbol. He said in a husky voice full of unmasked emotions;
"Bring this back to Base with us, we will put this up on the front wall gates to show that peace and hope has not been lost...."

Upon hearing those words, the crowd exploded in cheers.
The hope of peace survives....

"I loved my chosen. How then to face the day when she left me? So I took from her body a single cell, perhaps to love her again."

-Commissioner Pravin Lal
Time of Bereavement

 

[PVodogaz]

Planetfall

OOC: Another snipet of storyline

IC:

PLANETFALL!

Mission Year 2100

Eight pods fired there thrusters and maneouvered down toward Planet's atmosphere, close behind the pods, the superstructure began to disintegrate as it raced toward's Planet's thick atmosphere.

One pod was not fast enough to maneouver away from the outer edges of the ship's twisted metal, as the metal slammed into the side of the pod, making it spin for just a moment before it exploded into a million pieces. A thousand souls gone in one instant.

The other seven pods escaped and entered the atmosphere of Chiron, landing on different parts of Planet. Each pod was led by the surviving chain of command, Prokhor Saratov, Shen-ji Yang, Deirdre Skye, Miriam Godwinson, Nwabudike Morgan and Pravin Lal. The last pod was captured by the Spartan Coalition led by the former security officer, Corazon Santiago.
Soon after the pods landed on Planet's surface, the superstructure of what was left of the Unity that did not burn up in the thick atmosphere of Planet crashed on a high plateau.

And now the remains of Humanity was alone, each pod in a separate section of planet's surface, alone until communications were restored. It was indeed, a brand new chapter of humanity's future to be written....seven factions, seven ideologies but only one destiny....

 

[cats]

OOC

I jsut wanted to say thats a fun game. Coarse I'm a bigger fan of Master of Orion, which was the reason Sid Meiers decided to make Alpha Centari. I also impressed at how it mixes parts of both his original series civilization and the game he saw as a rival game, Master of Orion.

Okay thats enough ranting from me. Good luck with this thread. If you need advice on anything you can pm me or find any number of people to help you in the ORP anouncement board.

You know that offer to help you some how strikes me as selfish on my part. If it comes across to you that way, my bad. I don't try to be an ass I'm just gifted at it.

 

[PVodogaz]

Thankyou Cats

OOC:

I started off as a fan of Civilization I and was hooked since then, i migrated to Civ II (that i have just deleted as the game CD had too much scratches after 10 years).

I have played Master of Orion but but personally have found Alpha Centauri to be able to completely and soundly fill my needs.

Thankyou for the well wishes with the thread and I will if in need of help be in contact with you.

This too is not my first time roleplaying and myself am fairly proficient in the world of role-play.

__________________

Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist.

Academician Prokhor Zakharov
"For I Have Tasted The Fruit"

 

[PVodogaz]

IC - Pravin Lal

OOC - Here is some more background info on the doomed mission of the U.N.S Unity nearing their destination of Planet

Sarah Jaydo's Journal - Last Entry

Why have we come to the stars? Why didn't we surrender when we had the chance? Are we so blind, that we believe this new world will be different, immune to suffering and crime and violence?

The Unity mission was a feeble candle flickering in a blasted night. We rode this illusion into the sky, and now we will die here, or, perhaps worse, die on Planet. Those of us onboard rode an illusion into the night; those who stayed behind on Earth took their chances on a dying world.

As for now, we continue to do what humans have always done. We eat, sleep, make love, hone our skills, pass the time. And deep down we wait for someone, some special human, to rise above it all and make the thousands of years of history, of suffering, all worth it. To enlighten us, by which I mean end our pain, heal our wounds, take away the uncertainty.

But I have seen the sweep of history, and we are no better off now than we have ever been. Just more aware. Planet will be no different.

Unless...

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

"Earth is the cradle of the mind. But one cannot stay in the cradle forever."

 

[PVodogaz]

OOC - Background Info Storyline

Deep in the center of the ship, alone, Captain John Frederick Garland, felt the warmth of his friend's voice through the distance of the quicklink. "It is up to you...goodbye Pravin my friend..." He broke the link and tried to breath, calming himself.

He could taste the blood in his mouth, and feel it pooling inside his suit. Above and around him the inner axis of the ship spun, open to the star-flecked universe beyond. Planet, passed like a living jewel in space, then receded past the ship and appeared again as the Unity tumbled, closer and closer.

They will fight and battle for generations, he knew, the violence spreading across all of Planet's surface. Maybe there will never be peace. But, if there's a chance....

He struggled to rise but could not, and so he crawled through the narrow accessway to the first rung of the ladder. He reached up to grab it, focussing on his gloved hand, on the feel of the rung, trying to ignore the inner surfaces of the ship spinning wildly around him. He reached up, to the second rung, and the third, heading for the ship's axis.

With everystep he left something behind...the dream of peace, memories of the wife and the children he had left behind on Earth, his anger and hate at those who upsurped his crew, the shame at his own failure, his fear, his guilt. One by one, step by step, he felt the weight lifting from his shoulders.
Until, at the last rung, his ego seemed to drift away, his very identity dissolving into the mass of humanity around him, and the space beyond.

He activated his quicklink, and addressed through the ship's Computer, his last address to the crew of the Unity. He could almost see every crewmembers' link beep as he spoke, stopping for a moment the fighting and his voice shaky but strong for this address in the landing pods.

"Hope. We all left our homeworld, for a new beginning, to keep humanity alive...but what have we done? We have brought our hate and misery into the stars, unleashing it on a innocent Planet. But my fellow crew members I am dying and with my dying minutes i will sacrifice myself to save humanity, whatever path it may take. I only have Hope....Hope....Please do not die for even though we can be so ugly, humanity can be also so beautiful. Make a new song, one of peace and beauty, one that makes the universe smile, a song that will make us proud....Goodbye and I will watch over you all where-ever I be."

He cut the link, letting out a breath and lifting his hand, which now held the last concussion grenade. He activated it and watched the countdown calmly, measuring the last moments of his life with it. At one second to go he squeezed the grenade in his hand and slammed it into the nearest explosive bolt.

And then he let go of the ladder.
Captain John Garland fell away from the Unity's core as the explosion he planted rocked the center of the ship and blasted through the explosive bolts like a chain of lightening. He saw the landing pods split away from the useless superstructure of the Unity, free at last, and into the black space beyond.

As he fell away he watched the beautiful sequence of fire on the eternal night beyond, and then the flames reached out to him, turning from fire into white light, and the scream in his skull faded to a hum and then he heard the soft voice of Pravin whisper, "Thank-you Captain, my friend John..." And then a silence.

His last sight was of the landing pods, scattering, and thrusters firing one by one. He imagined them, arcing their way down to the new world, bringing humanity's curses with them, and humanity's gift...

To Chiron, the new world. Planet.

Hope....

 

[PVodogaz]

IC - M.Y. 2100 U.N. Headquarters

Pravin Lal walked alone through the corridors of U.N.Headquarters, his base. In his hands he held the most recent security reports on the earlier mindworm attacks.

He skimmed the reports noting the important information. Giant swarms, like 'boils', of these mottled nightmares had wriggled out of the xenofungal beds close to the base.

These boils had almost overwhelmed base perimeters in several sectors. Pravin exhaled a long breath as he read on. Victims were paralysed with psi-induced terror, and then experienced an unimaginable excruciating death as the worms burrowed into the brain to implant their ravenous larvae.

Only the most disciplined security squads could overcome their fear long enough to trigger the flame guns which did push back the mindworms, keeping them at bay.

Must tend and keep the morale of the people, he jotted down next to the report. That is the key.

He read the last part of the report a clear formulation of approach came like a relief in his mind. Since terror and surprise increase human casualties dramatically in these encounters, it would be prudent to strike first when mind worm boils are first detected.

Pravin approached the command hub, still deep in thought. He would hastily order some Terraformer detachments to construct sensors near vulnurable sites to aid in detection efforts.

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

"I loved my chosen. How then to face the day when she left me? So I took from her body a single cell, perhaps to love her again." - Commissioner Pravin Lal 'Time of Bereavement'

 

[PVodogaz]

Casting Call

OOC: The following is the 1st cast call for character dramatis for this thread. I will give people the freedom to pick the paths and directions of there chosen character and just have fun with them.

Here goes;

Pria Lal - Pravin Lal's Wife (Chosen) who is in stasis following the events on board the Unity.

Miriam Godwinson - Leader of the factioned she has named the Believers, who believes in the workings of God.

Deirdre Skye - Leader of the Gaian Stepdaughter's, primarily an Environmental faction who believes Planet is sentient.

Prokhor Saratov - Leader of the University of Planet, a faction that believes in science and research.

Corazon Santiago - Leader of the Spartan Coalition or better known after the Pod Landings as the Spartan Federation. Her belief is in power through warfare and peace through conquest.

Nwabudike Morgan - Leader of the Morganites, a faction that believes in business and wealth as the future of humanity. He will use any means to achieve a monopoly on Planet.

Sheng-ji Yang - Leader of the Human Hive. See the event before the pod landings on the Unity for a more detailed background on this mysterious man.

Mia Yang - Daughter of Sheng-ji Yang, as ruthless and cunning as any man.

Gayle Nambala - Unity Mission Doctor under the tutulage of Pravin Lal, now mistress to Morgan Senior.

Dana Williamson - Unity Computer Logger, now with the University of planet faction.

Sophia Lal - Talent in the U.N. Peacekeeper Corps, wife to Jahn Lal.

Victor Santiago - Son of Corazon Santiago, Spartan Coalition

Sinder Roze - Intelligence Officer under U.N. Peacekeepers, later formed her own faction the Datatech Angels

Jahn Lal - Son of Pravin Lal, husband of Sophia Lal

Cha Dawn - 10 year old child of Planet, born in the zenofungus, child of special powers. Leader of the Cult of Planet

Aki Zeta - Half human and half machine - Leader of the Cybernetic Conciousness.

James Domai - Drone under Hive control who seized an army of disgruntled drones and set up his own faction - The Free Drones

Ulrik Kierkegaarde - Mysterious figure who believes in a return to Earth for humanity, leader of the Terrans.