Battlestar Genesis

If you wish to join in, Battlestar Galactica has been claimed by the UK Space Administration. The humans aboard know nothing about the Cylons, but they do know their own planet is nearly uninhabitable from war, pollution, and plague. The UKSA has sent a crew to the Galactica, then renamed her Genesis. While the UKSA have recovered the technology from the original Galactica Raptor that was left behind, their own technology is limited. They need the Genesis team to find another planet to colonize and for the crew to find the answers to the problems that are beyond Earths ability to solve.

If you wish to join in, each post should begin with your characters location, time and what you are currently doing.

Example:

Flight deck – 0730 Prepping a Tigerhawk

Then feel free to describe your characters current appearance, as well as mood, and thoughts or feelings. As others join in, RP as you will within the rules of the game.

When you move to a different location, be sure to note the new location in your new post, and allow reasonable time to travel. This prevents someone from being everywhere at all times.

Everything you know is disclosed in the short story “Stardust Memories”. Please read through it, it is not long.

Thank you and good hunting.

Outside the porthole, I see the vastness of space. The stars twinkle about, so clear, so distant. Below me rotates the rings of Saturn, mostly made of ice, but it looks like little diamonds to me.

I remember the journey to get here. It started two years ago. It seems like forever now. We left with such high hopes, just risking it all for King and Country. King George commanded a mission to get to this old relic. By his command, we came. And now we reside aboard her. Our primary supply ship destroyed along the way, and the smaller transport, now safely on its way home.

Somewhere out there are the aliens. We know they exist, we encountered them along the way. They seemed intent on destroying us, yet, they don’t. I find this curious, but we don’t seem to discuss this. Nobody really wants to go there, at least, not publicly.

The last of the Tigerhawks were unloaded, they look absolutely brilliant. Starbuck tested out one, it flies like a dream. I know mine is being cleaned of the safety grease they put on, to prevent corrosion while in storage. In a couple days, I will get my first taste of Tigerhawks in space. I am quite excited. I have trained hard, flown countless hours in simulation, and earned my place here with my war record.

Yesterday I was placed on the flight roster. That was a proud moment for me. I celebrated with a doubly fudge brownie. Actually, it was just a regular old protein cake, but I closed my eyes and could almost taste the hot fudge running down the devils food cake. Oh I miss that. I think I shall miss chocolate, and Earth, a lot. However, we are going to be launching on to a new adventure, among the stars, to another world! I think giving up a few things is a worthy trade. It is not like there was anything back home that I cared for anymore, anyhow.

Still, we are also going into a possible war. Not that the UK has not been at war with the ConFed Theocracy for ages already, but this time, it will be with some alien race, with what seems to be superior technology. I just hope this relic can hold out.

It bothers me some, that it seems freshly rebuilt in parts. It is almost as if, it was repaired prior to our arrival, then refrozen. The Admiral, wisely, has sent our DC teams to check every square inch, for anything we might recognize as a bug. How they intend to recognize that from the other alien technology, I don’t know, but I am only a pilot, not an engineer, so I guess that is their problem.

The engines came back on line a couple months ago. That is good, we were all freezing. It has been so long since I was able to feel my fingers, that now they feel funny. Not really, but you know…

It is actually warm in here. Most of the crew walk around in just our spandex undersuits. We are always prepared for decompression, because pressure suits are always in emergency boxes everywhere. I know we all were delighted to have those pressure suits, when it was cold. They maintained our body heat rather well, to be fair, but now that it is truly hot in here, they are better left on the walls in the boxes.

I should mention, the ship, it is very noisy. You can hear the engines vibrating the hull no matter where you go. It is not loud, but it is everywhere. If you are anywhere near the flight deck, you can also hear the sounds of the aircraft being prepared, tested, and the constant thump of landings, as the pilots with serviceable aircraft practice launches and landings. Oh yes, I should also mention, the launch tubes. Now THAT is worth the trip right there. You go from still, to full military power in a matter of meters, while inside a tube. Then whoosh, out into space! Hell yea!

Landings are tricky. You would think that as MASSIVE as the landing pods are, that landing would be simple, but it is not as it seems. We still bounce off the decks, even with the magnetic landing pads deployed. So we hit the deck, then have to counter with the correctional thrusters, and bring the Tigerhawks down again, which can be very disorienting.

And then there is the Red Arrows. So far they got a few working, but nobody really understands them. 1735 reprogrammed them to display in English, so we at least understand what it is the data displays are showing us, but they still hold secrets.

Also, there is the Raptors, which seems very much similar to our Pawnee. They are larger, by far, and apparently are able to FTL. That is exciting. I won’t be flying one of those, at least not yet. I have much to learn about the Tigerhawk in space, so first I have to tame the Hawk.

My duty is in a few hours, so I better get some sleep. I understand the UKSA has another ship that we will be meeting up with for the journey to… well… wherever it is we end up going. We will probably never be back here, to Earth, which I guess must be how the first travelers must have felt when they left Europe for the New World. In a way, we are they. We are the modern day Pilgrims, on our own voyage to a New World. I wonder if it will be anything like home?

OK, lots of OOC knowledge here. PLEASE be careful not to let it slip into game play. The discussion between Shelby and the Commodore is something nobody will know about, that means what was discussed will not be known or speculated upon.

One thing that DID happen that players can discuss freely, at the very tail end of the session, long range telemetry from Icarus, picked up a small object, no larger than a Tigerhawk. It simply appeared, as if out of nowhere. Then it turned 45 degrees, it may or may not have sent a signal to Prometheus, but it was then recorded slowing down. Then after a moment, it simply disappeared again. Just like that, poof! Naturally occurring objects to not tend to change course so precisely, nor do they tend to slow down. This could have been just a sensor glitch, perhaps a reflection off something else. Whatever it was, it was unexpected and undeniably interesting. If you left before it happened, you missed it.

As the mission nears Mars, we will begin to accelerate due to the gravity well of Mars. This will slingshot us towards Jupiter, and then on to Saturn. There is a lot of mystery to unravel yet. The players are just now showing their hands but the game has yet to be discovered. What ARE the different factions trying to do? Who will you trust? Who will you serve?

Well, thank you, everyone who could attend. We had a fair turn out, though I still want to gather a crew for Icarus.

The launch of the mission was a bit chaotic, Im sorry for the difficulties with the sets, the chairs and the doors and all. We moved the ships into their mission profiles, so to get them exactly right, we derezzed the old ones and rezzed up fresh copies. The decision to do that was made sorta last minute, after Venice and I debated the pros and cons of moving them before, during, or after the launch RP. In the end, we obviously decided to just move them ahead of time and use a section of the space station to round out the set. It worked ok, in fact, we turned the ships 45 degrees to give more flight room around Prometheus, for future Tigerhawk and Pawnee flights. However, the ships have security settings that we are still fumbling with. I was working to get them set even during play, and Im sorry it effected a few people, thank you for the sense of humor and just playing it off as a glitch in the ship. Im sorry, and Im learning from my mistakes. I will try not to repeat that one again.

Storyline update: The mission was pushed up 48 hours (In the storyline) because of a security breech, as well as a terrorist attack. This pushed the inexperienced crew to perform at their best. The crews scrambled to get both ships off, and did a fine job with few technical problems. Number 6 engine on Prometheus is acting up, but our engineering team is working feverishly to sort that. Our Minister of Space was conspicuously absent from the Royal Entourage, perhaps in his quarters attending to Item 1735? “Jack” was stranded aboard. What will become of the Crown Prince, trapped on a ship destined for Saturn?

Meanwhile, another series of strange transmissions was detected, then evidence erased, but this time not by Shelby or the Minister of Space. It seems someone else has an interest in preventing the Commodore, and his mission, from discovering who might be on the other side of those communications. And what will happen when Item 1735 is installed into the Prometheus main computers?

As department heads begin to sort out their “turf”, and the command crew begins to learn to work together outside of the reach of the UKSA, will tempers get the better of people? And what of the murderer? Perhaps we will discover more next time?

Project Genesis, discovering our past, ensuring our future…

Well, we are almost to our third officially sanctioned RP session and things have started to come together. Our ground build is nearly complete, just a few details and its ready to go. With that will come venders, so be sure to support them by frequenting their shops.

Imitation is the most sincere form of flatter, or so I am told. So I suppose we should be flattered that the rumor mill says there are people working on stories along similar lines to our storyline. We wish them good luck, everyone on Team Genesis knows exactly what all is involved in creating all original content. It is no simple task. But I suppose, it goes to show that new storylines and building upon the ideas in the series, can actually work. So good luck.

We have been getting a trickle of players in as word spreads about what we are up to here. We are slow to start, without much action, so its taking a bit of time for the story to lay itself out, but the twists and turns should keep people guessing as to what is going on. That will be the fun in the game, trying to work out just what the devious brains behind the storyline, are up to. So we hope to keep everyone going with the “oh wow” factor that made the series so special. Clearly the Prometheus has an unwanted passenger. Clearly there are factions at play. Just who is behind what? Pick your faction very carefully. Not everything is as it seems, and not everybody is who they claim.

What to expect:

In the next session, the mysterious Item 1735 arrives. With it comes the orders “Depart and God Speed.” With no time left to search for the killer, the crew must take its chances, alone in space. The Commodore must prove his mettle. The crew must write the rules of how to function in space. And what of the mysterious communication that was heard? Why was it erased? What does it all mean? You’ll have to figure that out, while travelling to an unknown destination, aboard prototype ships, towards a mission goal that will both change the course of human history, and erase everything e thought we knew about our past.

The thing about destiny is, it is inescapable. It is unchangeable. It is unstoppable. hopefully, it is survivable.

Project Genesis, mankind’s last hope…

Another week, another Monday game session.

We had a smaller turn out, as expected, considering that it is holiday weekend, and a few people may not be as committed to the game as before. This is also expected. We have picked up a few new players over the last couple days, including two just yesterday. Welcome to Project Genesis.

An update of the story line. While Icarus and Prometheus are nearly loaded with supplies, the crews are nearly all checked in, we have large crates containing the Aerospace Superiority Fighter, Tigerhawk, stacked in the cargo bay of Prometheus. They promise the chance of action and adventure. But if UKSA is the only space power in the solar system, just who are they worried about, that they would send the pride of the RAF, to guard against? And there is some question, just who IS calling the shots? Is it the Ministry of Space? Or is it the UKSA? or is it the Crown itself? Choose your loyalty carefully!

Meanwhile, the Minister of Space has secret flights coming and going, unlogged. Mysterious high security bags are exchanged with his hand picked currier and the Captain of the 95th Rifles. He “claims” it is merely sundry business of the Crown as well as delivery of the crews official orders, but the process of delivery is not normal, nor is the strange motivations behind the mission.

Then there is the murder. A powerfully built man, most likely a technician of some sort, is found dead behind the most highly secured Tigerhawk crates. His head and hands torn from his body, not neatly sliced. The strength involved with tearing appendages from a muscular man, likely fighting for his life, would be incredible. How such a thing could happen, and go unnoticed, unrecorded, and unstopped, is a mystery. Yet with all the crew accounted for, who is the dead man? If everyone aboard is accounted for, does that mean one of the crew is the murderer? If so, they must be amazingly strong. So the hunt is on for the kind of man capable of killing a large avionics technician, ripping his head and hands off at the joints and neck, then assuming his identity.

And just who would infiltrate the mission? Could it be the Russians? Maybe its the Chinese? Or could it be the Confederacy? Knowing how dangerous the world is, it could be all three. Or is there a new player in the political world that nobody is aware of?

And finally, just what are the ships waiting for, to be delivered? Food, Water, Fuel, Weaponry, Crew… all accounted for and on schedule. But there is still one item, listed only as Item 1735, that has no description. It has no origination information, nor is it being delivered by normal military MAC flight. Could it be, whoever killed the technician, is somehow trying to effect Item 1735?

More questions than answers. And the mission is still yet to begin. Though with the final shipments arriving even now, it will be a matter of days, till Paddington Station is just a shiny dot in the aft screens, and Saturn is growing ever larger in the fore screens.

There is still time to join the mission, find the answers, and become part of the legend. Project Genesis, discovering our past, ensuring our future.

On behalf of the Lead Team, I would like to thank everyone who came to the debut of Project Genesis.

You may have come for different reasons, but in the end, you all stayed for the same reason, to have some fun. I hope we succeeded in providing a fun platform and we will do our best to continue to do so.

Yesterday was a victory for us at Team Genesis. It was 18 months ago that we were approached with the opportunity to try what we were repeatedly told was “impossible.”

It was “impossible” to get anyone to take any interest in a Battlestar Galactica game, that was not based in the 12 Colonies, did not have Vipers and Raptors, and did not feature a Battlestar prominently.

It was “impossible” to overcome a reputation that the sim had been given, perhaps partly of its own accord, and partly by the actions of others, wishing to malign it for their own reasons.

It was “impossible” to rebuild from scratch, an entire sim, its sets, its combat system, its uniforms and player base.

It was “impossible” to get ANYONE to take notice of a storyline that was as “full of plot holes” that you could “fly a Battlestar through it.”

And my favorite of all, it was “impossible” for a handful of amateurs, with no experience and a shoe string budget, to lead a group of lemmings, much less a Role Playing simulation.

Well, yesterday we did the “impossible.” And we are still working to make the sim better. We have a ground build in progress, complete with an orbital elevator, a section of London, and store fronts for venders. We are still working on all new aircraft, for both Humans, as well as Cylons. We are going to debut a whole new Cylon Centurion, Raider, and Cylon fleet. And before long, Galactica herself will appear, and then the story gets even more intense.

We know our debut was not the largest, it was humble. We know that we are not going to be the talk of the SL world. And for that, we are delighted. We never went into this project with that goal. We are a different kind of simulation. We exist for the players. Don’t take our word for it. Ask those who joined us, see what their impressions are.

While it may appear that we are gloating, please understand, we are not. We are simply thanking those who have given us a chance to try our hand at providing a game with a different focus. A focus on the players. A focus on letting players decide more about the storyline, about their characters, and about the direction the game goes. It is THAT, which we are proud.

And to get here, we overcame some HUGE hurdles.

When we took up the offer to start the project, we first took inventory of the sim, its sim owned avatars, and the staff that remained.

What we saw was devastating. Sim avatars held only a small amount of useful material. The sim itself was stripped of almost everything. The player base was reduced to a handful, and that is being generous. There was nothing for a combat system, nothing that we could point to as a “shovel ready” item supply, and the staff that remained was largely demoralized and exhausted.

So before we set down the first pixel or Linden, we spent a few weeks debating, my hand picked team and I, about if this was even possible. For the record, I voted to not try. It was in that sad a state of destruction. I am glad that I was out voted. Though the road to where we are now proved far more difficult than any of us could have imagined. If our story were a Role Playing simulation, it would be a damn depressing game to be sure.

We came up with a basic premise, a storyline that was largely fantastical, but unworkable given the restrictions of Second Life. There are limitations to the capabilities of Second Life that simply can not be over come.So we had to refine the storyline. time and again we cut, cut more, cut even more, rewrote, re cut, then threw it away completely only to go back to it and revise it some more. And THAT was only the damn storyline! We had not even begun to address the other problems.

So we set out with a storyline that seemed to draw together some ideas that we all found interesting. A little bit of Hunger Games, a dash of Battlestar Galactica, some Star trek Enterprise, a bit of Jericho, some Johnny Mnemonic and a whole lot of cooking, baking, and seasoning. In the end we found ourselves with a dystopic world, where hope is difficult to find, where tragedy is as common as water, and yet, we could all relate. It works off the troubles we experience today in the headlines, and gives us each a sense that we could live in such a world, very much so.

But that was just the first step. Then we had to figure out, where do we even begin with this sim? So we started by cleaning out everything that we could. It was stripped so badly that there was nothing left anyhow. So we finished the job and started with zero.

As we began to set down the initial ships, we had originally planned to use Mercury. However, the builder and scripter for the ship and a key member of the staff that had remained, left us for an extended period of time. This was a difficult problem to work around and in the end we found we couldnt work around it at all. So we all felt our stomachs rip apart as I gave the final order… derez Mercury.

I think we all sat there, stunned, for several minutes when it disappeared. It still brings chills to remember that moment. The anchor piece of work that the sim was built around, gone. I wondered if I had just killed the sim for good. But there was no going back. None of the sim avatars had a copy of Mercury, and Xavier was out of communication. One way or the other, we were now on a course that would either end in disaster, or victory.

About half way through the process, we tried to befriend another sim. The help seemed like man from heaven. We were staggering under a series of leadership coming up missing. Of the initial six members of the team that seemed willing to help, half were gone for extended times, and those left, myself included, were at a loss as to how we would build a sim by ourselves. It looked like it was impossible.

So we tried this, and we scrapped the storyline that we were uncertain about anyways, to go a new direction. It looked like it was working and we were within days of opening. But things fell apart. And once again, we were back to square one, with the ships stripped from the sim, and now, demoralized and depressed, we just about gave in. But once again, my team voted, this time I agreed with them, and we reinstated the storyline we had worked up and set about replacing the ships. By now though, we had lost a huge amount of time.

What I had not disclosed to my team was, the sim owners had given us a deadline. They could not afford to continue to put money into an empty sim. It just was not something they could justify. So we set about how to get the sim going again, with what was now an even tighter budget. And now we also had an approaching deadline that threatened to end whatever progress we made, before we could roll out some attempt. So the few, and I mean FEW of us left, set out to do what even WE felt was as close to impossible as it can get.

We scoured the Marketplace for the best ships we could find. Since there was no way in hell we could build several starships in the time left, we had to turn to prefabricated ships. but we were not willing to settle for anything less than the best we could find. We settled on the Icarus and Prometheus from Moo Spyker. Beautiful productions that met our criteria and have received raves from those who have visited the sim. I conferred with Credo, our scripter, and we got the modular space station. it saved us 6 months of work, easily.

We also had the assistance of Ruath, our Cylon leader. She contributed her work, and created a whole new Cylon ship, the Scout! Thank you Ruath!

About that time we lost another member of the staff, and we were sorry to see them go. It was a set back because we all love them. It was the second time I had to give the order to do something that I did not want to do, but knew was necessary. We scrapped their ground build. I spent weeks putting off the decision. I just hated to say it, hated to give the final order, but with all the set backs we had faced, we needed to think outside the box. We needed to create a ground build that would be able to stand against any other sims ground build. Most of all, it had to be something recognizable to players immediately. So, because the storyline centered around the United Kingdom, we chose to create Piccadilly Circus in London. That build is still under production as of the posting of this memo. It will, when completed, stand alone in and of itself, and also provide a beautiful framework for the game.

We built the Arena. A place where we hope to host Hunger Games style events. Right now we are still working out some bugs in the combat system. What we are going to use is a custom built system, but like all things built from scratch, it is not working quite like we hoped, and those events are still on hold until we can provide an experience that the players will enjoy.

The fighters are still in production for the Genesis side of the sim. As it turns out, the design is nothing short of advanced. It is not a design that can even be built using the prims of Second Life. It must be built completely as a mesh. This was a hurdle we could not overcome, as a team. The single member of the team capable of working with mesh was already busy with a dozen projects. The other member of our team that has mesh experience was also busy with a dozen more. Sadly, I am only a writer, so I was useless. But days before our opening, we received the assistance of another addition to our team. He is very experienced with scripting and mesh. We hope to have those aircraft very soon.

It is unfortunate that our newest member of the team arrived so late, but their RL obligations were many and heartbreaking. But we know that now with the team we have, we can do more to bring the vision of Genesis to life, than ever, and to that end, we are delighted.

So let me thank the member of Team Genesis, past and present.

Xavier Pomegranate, Rhonda Streeter, Anaxamander Barbosa, Maximus Slade, Credo Rolland, Elena Torrez, Venice Ditko, Ruath Hazelnut, Tex Kelberwitz, Donney Dagger and Macy Wezzog.

Most of all, let me thank YOU, the players. And I hope that the challenges we overcame and will overcome, with be remembered long after we have told our story, and moved on to whatever comes next.

Well, here we are late August. Its the 22nd, for another hour at least, and the latest is, we are looking at possibly being able to open in October.

We have some new uniforms almost ready, we have a nice new space station and two great looking ships.

Our initial storyline will be the first journey to Galactica. This will be a longer storyline, since Earth has yet to try FTL for the first time.

So get ready, the journey to our destiny is close. Out there, among the stars, we will find all the answers, we can discover the lost history, and maybe find what we lost in ourselves, along the way.

As of Tuesday the 25th, we have new MK II’s, new MK VII’s, new weapons, we found the uniforms, we found the old weapons, we have a combat system that seems to work, we have most of the Battlestar complete, we have the Arena working reasonably close to finished, we have more players signing up, and we have new builders and scripters.

What we still need:

New Raptor, new Raider, New Heavy Raider, new Cylon Ship, new Cylon avatar, more work on the sim due to new ideas (A ground build idea that might be exactly what we are looking for) and of course, to get the Pirate War going so people can come in, test the system, meet the team and each other, and we can have fun while we continue to work on Genesis.