welcome to our world

introduction

Welcome to Constellations! We're very glad to see you and we wish you many friends and happy roleplaying.

Constellations is an informal roleplay which emphasises community. Roleplaying is about quality, not quantity - and about fun, not quality. Whether your threads are goofy and ridiculous, romantically poetic or action-packed and dramatic, we want them happening here. Characters can be realistic people and friends or they can be tools to create as much awesomeness as possible.

You'll find our plot below, and links at the top of the page to important threads. By exploring the boards you'll be able to find most of the threads you'll ever find relevant. And if you haven't joined yet... why not? We love you already, y'know!

Need help?
Whatever you're confused about, whether it's an aspect of the rules or plot or the British school system, any staff member will be able to help you and any member will try their best.

plot

Heartsrock School was an British secondary school for talented 11-18 year olds (standard British secondary school with attached college). Whether artists, musicians, sportspeople or just plain academically gifted, the students there were young people with bright futures. Or they were.
December 11th 2410. Students who had signed up for it were on a school trip to the Heartsrock Star Engineers Centre. While being shown around a huge teleporter device known as a 'bounkey', it malfunctioned and the students found themselves aboard the prototype spaceship the AGFS Calliope. Mistakenly thinking it was part of the school trip, a game or simulation, they activated the engine. What they didn't know is that the Calliope was fitted with both lightspeed engines... and a new prototype wormhole weaver engine. They found themselves seven galaxies away from home when the weaver engine broke down. They're stuck in the centre of the hostile Aueei galactic empire with no knowledge of how to fly the ship, very limited communications with Earth and no idea how to get home.
The students had to become a crew - and a crew of only about sixty people on a ship meant to be crewed by a hundred. Gamers were appointed to operate weapons and fly the ship, the nerds taking triple science to try and get the engines to take them home, the singers to hit the notes required to speak the song-language of the Aueei, the popular kids to be diplomats and negotiators, the sports players to arm themselves with laser guns and protect the ship, the student council kids to be the officers of this brave new ship crew. But not everyone is agreed on how the ship should be run, school bullies are a tad more dangerous with no rules to keep them in check... and let's not forget that these are teenagers, stranded with no communication to their homes or families... just trying to survive.
Oh, and the Aueei Empire wants to kill them all.

Accounts played jointly by staff, known as GM (Gamemaster) accounts, will provide the 'official' plots. They will post sitewides such as fires or plagues, 'boardwides' for just one board (such as a bridge plot where the ship is heading towards an asteroid or a sickbay plot with a seriously injured NPC needing help), and run the main story, with events such as needing supplies or possibly finding a way home. You are free to mess around with NPCs and make as many of your own plots as you wish. Please run any sitewides past staff first. Keep in mind that while anyone can control NPCs, some characters played by the GM accounts are actually GM characters and should not be messed with. This should be obvious, but if there's any confusion, ask any staff member.


(always wip and always taking suggestions! Feel free to invent anything and reply to this thread with your idea.)

The year is 2410 and the world has come a long way. We assume our characters all speak languages as they are spoken today without changes, for the sake of ease, with the exception of some slang. Everything else is a little different. Humanity has improved, and there is no longer any prejudice, conflict or discrimination associated with race, gender, sexuality, disability, language or religion - though plenty of conflict between the builders of AIs and those who are afraid of them, socialists and conservatives, and those who believe in Earth's alliance with alien species and those who fear or hate aliens. Earth is a united nation known as the Republic of Earth, part of a Galactic Alliance, led by a Council which is partly elected and partly appointed by exams - the economics minister by an economics exam, the education minister by an education science exam, and so on.

People often live to 130 and war, poverty, famine and many diseases have been largely cured. Cancer still occurs but it is always curable. Some viruses persist, notably the common cold, but most bacterial infections have been eliminated. The world is largely an equal and prosperous place, with eyes aimed outwards, at the exploration of space. Colonies have been established on the Moon and there are two 'space cities', fully self-sufficient space stations orbiting Earth, and a mining colony orbiting Venus. They are nicknamed Air, Water I, Water II and Fire, to make the four elements with Earth. Their proper names are the Primary Civilian Lunar Establishment, Cooperative Civilian Orbital Base, the Skyhome Project and the Venus Enterprise and Resource Base.

Artificial gravity and life support systems make such environments livable and even comfortable. The Calliope has artificial gravity, although it's slightly lighter than Earth's, so crew members can bounce, almost like someone would on the Moon.

Measuring starship speeds in metres per second is impractical, so we speak of speeds in terms of light speed - half lights, double lights, or light squared. Above 'a hundred lights', as the slang goes, one can also refer to speeds as a fraction of 'maximum' - the fictional, theoretical speed at which you go so fast the universe tears itself and you're lost in the void. A hundred lights is around one billionth maximum. Calliope's wormhole weaver engine travelled at half maximum for half a minute before breaking down. Its regular engines cruise at about two hundred lights and in an emergency hit three hundred for twelve hours or four hundred for four.

There are no ways of instantly generating food, but there are food pills, small coloured pills which taste foul but provide a day's nutrition in concentrated sugar and minerals. They taste of nothing and don't fill you up, only keep you alive, so it's normal for anyone except soldiers and starship crews to eat regular food. The Calliope carries enough food pills for the full crew complement - a hundred people - for ten years. It is partly self-sufficient, recycling water and air, but needs to pass through the atmosphere of a planet once every three months to collect new hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen.

Weapons use focused light or focused radiation as well as projectiles to cause damage. The Calliope carries handheld 'reds', or laser pistols, and the ship itself has 'greys', or huge radiation cannons. It also has 'sharpies'. There are handhold weapons that shoot tranquilizer darts (tranqs) and old-fashioned bullets, and the ship itself has cannons which shoot explosives - 'blasters'. The Calliope has tractor beams, a 'shield field' which is effectively only a method of sensing incoming projectiles and deflecting them using the tractor. It also has armour of thick lead coated with mirrors, aimed at resisting radiation and deflecting lasers.

Though there are no (or very few) cyborgs, AIs are common. They handle the operating of many systems and there are a few sentient AIs on Earth, though all have been forced to limit their intelligence due to the fears of those paranoid about what they might achieve. Many children have 'pet' AIs as invisible friends, with limited intelligence aimed at providing conversation and advice only. The Singularity has not yet been reached.

There will be, in time, an 'encyclopaedia' with information about the other known species and planets, a map and specification for the Calliope, and other relevant information about the setting. Any member will be able to submit ideas to the encyclopaedia, though staff have veto power, so as to build up an original sci fi universe with input from all the site's members. In fact, we strongly encourage you to create encyclopaedia threads! Make up a species or information about the Kaasa, Emila and Aueei, or an available technology, or anything you like, really.

glossary

(always wip and always taking suggestions! Feel free to invent your own names, nicknames and slang and reply to this thread with it.)

bounkey = transporter device. Short for 'bounce key'.
AGFS = like USS or HMS. Allied Galactic Forces ship.
Alliance = Earth and the two allied alien species, Kaasa and Emila.
Aueei = the alien species of the Empire the Calliope found itself in, extremely hostile.
Calliope = the ship, also called 'the rust bucket', and occasionally 'The Hummer' for the sound it makes.
a hundred lights = said in the same way as 'a hundred miles an hour', refers to a hundred times light speed.
reds / red guns = laser pistols
greys / grey guns = radiation cannons
blasters = explosive cannons
sharpies = projectile weapons
tranqs = tranquilizer pistol, usually containing different chemicals to allow it to put down multiple different species.
shfield beams = 'shield field' beams which toss incoming projectiles away from ships

Please report any typos or errors you find!