forum The Dark of Space

Started March 14, 2023 by @EldritchHorror-Davadio health_and_safety emoji_events

tune

The year is 2479. Humanity has advanced in many ways, and the progress of medicine and a mostly peaceful world has lead to the population growing by a lot. Project ElbowRoom is the solution. The mission of the ships and crews in ElbowRoom is to find habitable planets that would make colonies possible.

One such ship is the Olympus. Contrary to its name, it's a relatively small ship, with enough room for about 3 crew members and equipment. The team that's been put together are highly skilled individuals, with enough skills to handle the rigors of space exploration and planetary surveying.

You are one of the 3 crewmembers onboard the Olympus.

Captain, Security, Survivalist- @Davadio
Engineer, Technology Specialist, Geologist- @Emmrii
Medic, Biologist, Cartographer- @JustALostM

Character template:

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Appearance:
Desired Role:
Personality:
Backstory (optional):

Name: Romulus Vespasian
Age: 25
Gender: Male
Appearance: Rom is 6'6"/2m tall and weighs roughly 300lbs/136kg, making him pretty muscular and imposing. He keeps his platinum blonde hair cut short around the sides and back, but roughly 6" long on top, usually rocking a fauxhawk. His eyes are an icy blue, and his left one has a large scar running diagonally across it down to his cheek, making him blind in that eye. He has a square jaw and a Roman nose, and was considered handsome at one point, before multiple breaks to his facial bones messed him up. He tends towards black, grey, and red in his other clothing choices, colors which contrast with his pale complexion. His time as a military security officer have left his upper body covered in small scars. He typically wears what look like black jeans over his black boots. His helmet/mask (while flying) is a classic Centurion's helmet, with some modifications. It has no plume; there is an open strip over the top of his head, and his fauxhawk sticks out as the plume. It also has metal strips connecting the two side pieces to cover his face, up to his eyes, which he leaves visible. There is a black glass visor that covers his eyes if he needs it. The entire helmet is black and highly reflective, made of an osmium/titanium alloy. The helmet can be collapsed down to just a collar, with plates covering his face up to the eyes. He has a voice modulator that makes his voice gravelly and deep, more of a rumble. His boots are actually greaves that extend up to his knee when in a fight. He also wears gauntlets which come up to his elbows. These are the made of the same black osmium/titanium alloy and are cybernetically connected through his helmet. The gauntlets and greaves have various abilities, such as extending plates to form shields or extend Rom's reach, or increasing density to add extra power to his punches. They double as armor and weapons, but are tiring to use, which is why Romulus is so strong. The black jeans mentioned earlier are micro-chain mail, but no cybernetics; they just function as armor. His voice modulator can also be used as a sonic weapon.
Desired Role: Captain, Security, Survivalist
Personality: Romulus is friendly and open, largely because he generally feels he has nothing to fear. He has an intense focus when he's working on something, but is otherwise fun-loving. He's got a strong protective streak, particularly for his crew, which he sees as his family. He definitely gives off big brother vibes.
Backstory (optional): Overpopulation meant that the Vespasians were homeless when Romulus was born. To give him a better life, his family sent him to join the Space Force at a young age, and he signed an agreement that he would stay in the service till his 40th birthday, in exchange for schooling, housing, and food. He made a name for himself in combat sports on the base, and used that experience to get assigned to Planetary Security. However, when the opportunity to join Project ElbowRoom came, he jumped at it.

Name: Tristan Moon
Age: 24
Gender: Male
Appearance: Tristan stands at 5’11 and is 185lb. Moon has Heterochromia making him have blue in the left eye and hazel in the right. He has curly, dirty blond hair which complements his different colored eyes. Moon always tries to dress in a more formal way but how formal can you get in space? He usually just wears black jeans with a colored shirt.
Desired Role: Medic, Biologist
Personality: Moon likes to crack a good joke here and there. In reality he's a very quite person except when it comes to his crew. They're like family, and at this point in time, the only one he has. Though he likes to joke around a little, when something needs to be taken seriously, he takes it seriously.
Backstory (optional): Moon never really knew his parent’s as a kid. He was told that his father left his mother and his mother died when he was 3. He was taken in by a poor family. When Moon got old enough, He would travel around the populated earth, searching for something he could occupy himself with. He decided to go to all the different libraries he would come across, hoping to gain knowledge of things that would interest him. At last, He had found it. The vast emptiness everyone had called space wasn’t too empty. At least not for Moon. Thats when he heard of Project Elbowspace.
(Dont want this to die before it starts-)

Name: Alaina de Lugo
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Appearance: Alaina is a Latina woman who is 5’2”, weighs around 115 lbs, and has a slightly curvy build. She has thick, wavy brown hair and almond shaped hazel eyes. Her facial features are very soft, giving her a more innocent look to contrast with her personality. When she’s not wearing her space gear, Alaina often dresses in sweaters, turtle necks, and dress pants. She also has an assortment of very colorful pants with flower patterns that she enjoys wearing on occasion. Alaina, while she keeps herself very neat and tidy, often has cuts all over her hands from her work, and she has a small scar on her upper lip.
Desired Role: Engineer/Tech Specialist/Geologist
Personality: While she can come off as very quiet at first, Alaina is very talkative around those she is comfortable while her demeanor normally stays fairly calm. She’s often considered the therapist of her group and is good at listening. She hates conflict. Alaina reads a lot of books, and she’s somewhat of a romantic person.

The news had gone out: Project ElbowRoom was taking volunteers with qualifying skill sets to man their exploration ships. The Magellan-class exploration ships would house 3 crew, with an AI onboard as well. Space Force offered extensive training and pay, with the understanding that this was a potentially life-threatening mission.
Magellan-class ships didn't look like the typical spaceships. Rather than a long shuttle with the cockpit in the front and the thrusters on the back, the Magellan-class ships were spherical. The cockpit sat on top, and the entire hull was covered in micro-thrusters. The main propulsion, however, was the graviteum engine situated smack in the middle of the ship. It could fold space like nobody's business, allowing the ships to move faster than light. It was fueled by a fusion reactor, which sat near the center as well. The ships had gravity plating, allowing the entire interior of the sphere to be usable space. 3 small but private bedrooms, 2 shared bathrooms, and multiple cargo bays with various purposes took up a good section of the ships. A medbay, a lab, and a small kitchen/dining area/meeting room completed the ship.
The 3 man crews trained in their ship for a year on Earth, getting used to the space, the controls, and doing versions of their jobs. By the time the missions left, the crews were already relatively experienced. They had also had to learn to live with each other.

The Olympus was a Magellan-class. Her crew had signed up around the same time, and had trained for 6 months before starting their year long onboard training. The crew had gelled well, and they been launched with pomp and circumstance. They were given a map of several planets the astronomers thought might be potential colony sites.

That had been 6 months ago. Now, in the long dark of space, with training behind them, they were finding that things were… different. Not bad, per se, just… different.

Romulus was talking to Hephaestus-11, the ship's AI, up in the cockpit about exactly that.
"I guess I just wasn't ready for how lonely it is… we were alone on the ship for that year, but… we knew there were people close by, I suppose. It's just… disorienting."
The holographic bearded face nodded at him. "I won't pretend to know what you mean, but I can see it's been hard on you all."
Romulus chuckled. "Well. Very sympathetic of you." He glanced up at the map as his HUD pinged an alert. They would be within distance of their next target planet inside an hour. He'd need to shift from auto-pilot to manual control. Good. This was his favorite part. The crew all knew their roles, and this was his. Alaina made sure the engine didn't overload as they came out of warp space, Tristan ran scans for signs of any kind of life, plant or otherwise, and Hephaestus-11? Well, he made sure they didn't get hit by anything.
Romulus tapped the communicator built into his collar to call down to the engine room. "Alaina, it's Rom. Engine running fine? We're coming into a big gravity well with this star nearby."