The city of Edge located in the Oban star-system.
Prologue:
"Subject 426-G, report to Sector 2 for immediate decontamination."The air spoke to her, a harsh, tinny voice filling the tight chamber, a disembodied robotic drone that came from somewhere unseen, from the ceiling, the floor, the walls and corners, everywhere.
She looked up blankly, staring at a flickering red bulb hung limply from the roof on a single spindly strand of wire. She looked up through blurred, tired eyes, dazed and confused like a newborn baby, soulless eyes, the thoughts behind them empty, vacant. Red light lit the room, a dim throbbing pulse that stuck to the world, to anything it touched, like glue, coating everything with a thin film, a bloom of eye-straining scarlet, the warm afterglow of a fire, of smouldering embers and scorched rock. She sat slumped on the floor in a heap, barely clothed, barely conscious, steam rising rising from her body in twisting, wispy ribbons. Her skin was damp, coated with tiny bobbled droplets of viscous, transparent fluid that shone like a thousand tiny red stars under the dangling light's watchful gaze. The woman had been discarded, thrown away, yesterday's waste, dumped in a forgotten corner like an old rag-doll.
The voice rang from the air again, urgent and commanding, ordering her to do something. Just what, though, she wasn't sure; the words ? some far-flung corner of herself assured her that's what they were, though the definition and meaning escaped her ? flowed into her and sat heaped in her mind, a towering pile of jumbled meaning, building up and bloating her thoughts like so much undigested food, clogging her mind with a delirious headache. For a few minutes she had no idea where she was, who she was, when, how or why, or even any knowledge of these concepts. The world washed over her wasted body, smooth stone against a swelling ocean, her mind empty, a child's.
Something clunked deep inside the wall her body leaned against, cogs turning, steel rods slipping in and out of place. The metal slab slid back, then dropped out of sight, swallowed by a mouth in the floor, and very suddenly the room became much bigger. She felt tiny, alone, utterly confused, a thousand thoughts raced through her head, if only they would stop, if only she could understand them. A burst of brightness shone through from the new door, a shaft of bright white flooded the chamber, cleaning away that horrible, sickly red. The woman turned her head, tilting it back in search of this new wonder, and her body followed without thought. She fell back against the solid cold steel floor, knocking her head against the surface, her eyes tightening in pain. They opened slowly, catching a momentary glimpse of something, something familiar, not familiar, but that she knew.
It dawned on her then, her memories came flooding back, the walls of their cage washed away, the world crystallised in a single moment of clarity, and she knew everything she'd known before. She'd been Wiped, must have been, she knew now, though that simple fact had escaped her previous self. And now they were both going to pay for it. The voice called to her a third time, angry now, impatient, and before she could react, before she could move, her bare, naked shoulder was caught in an iron pincer, a solid metal claw-like vice. She was pulled, dragged back from the chamber, out across the numbing cold metal floor and into the light, a light that now faded, leaving everything in blackness. She was moved with inhuman force, the beck of an inhuman voice, a force she lay helpless against. The woman became very, very afraid.
She watched blankly as the light of her cell became smaller, drifting into the distance until it became a single pin-prick, then disappeared completely, giving way to a fog of complete dark. From the walls and corridors drifting invisibly past her there flitted clouds of whispers, abject whines, pitiless howls echoing from those unlucky enough to Clear early. She sailed past them in cold apathy, her skin raw and bloodied from its bare scraping across the varied metal surface, she gritted her teeth in pain without so much as a wince. Just anger, anger and self-pity. Programming kicked in at that moment, the sort of delay that had already caused her current situation, and a new wealth of knowledge flooded into her already saturated mind, knowledge she'd rather have done without. Protocol had been violated, and now... Well, now she was off to face her punishment. It was as simple as that.
An early Clearing was thought by many, though particularly newcomers, to be torture, something painful, undesirable, or just plain bad luck. You got to learn quickly that that small measure of pain and momentary terror was the best thing that could happen to you; the alternative, for most, was far worse, far more scarring. The woman stared down the long, endless hallway, a stretch of world drowned in pitch, and closed her eyes.
She wouldn't see light again for a month.
OOC: Roleplay Summary:
It's the 22nd century (the future, the far future, not today, not tomorrow, not next year, we're talking over a century from now. The Future), and you're a citizen of Edge, an inmate of one of the galaxy's largest, oldest and most ruthlessly violent prisons. Whether or not you're a new arrival of this particular hold, you've been a convict for a long, long time. Whatever your crimes, whatever your reasons for being here, all that matters is that you're a prisoner.
Forget your Human Rights, because you sure as hell don't have any here; the only thing that's going to ensure your survival is you, and you alone.
Edge was once a pristine new colony of Earth, a settlement at the furthest reaches of humanity's interstellar space-flight capability, but now? Now it's just a forgotten husk, relegated to housing the scum of every society rich enough to send their prisoners there. The old high-rise towers, immaculate sprawling coastal villas and megacities have long since crumbled into dust, rust and disrepair.
There is no culture, there is no economy, there is no government, there is no authority here except for what few automated systems Earth has left behind. There is nothing but what you can scrounge up from the wreckage. Some people have made a life here, in spite of their terrible crimes against humanity, setting up an existence that, at least superficially, resembles home, a home they knew once, but now lies in distant memory, a vague haze of images from a past they don't quite remember, or wished they never did.
Most of Edge is a crumbling wasteland, with civilisation just an echo, but there are places where order stands firm against the chaos and anarchy, a place far removed and protected from the onslaught of its inhabitants. This place is known as the Compound, and this, not the moon itself, not anything else, this is your world, where you eat, where you sleep, where you are punished. You don't so much as serve out your sentence; there is no chance of redemption, of freedom, of escape: you're here forever.
Welcome to Edge.
[ooc]Player Information:
The role of players in this role... play, is that of prisoners of this terraformed moon which, if it hasn't been mentioned enough already, is called Edge. While I might ideally like our players to be anything they want to be, there are a few practical constraints for this scenario, which I'll lay down below.
1: The Galaxy is devoid of known intelligent life-forms, our interstellar travel is barely even in its infancy, and if I see one more military/science-experiment character I will lose my sanity, therefore: You are, in 99.9% of cases and unless otherwise specifically requested, Human, in biological make-up if not temperament and mentality.
2: For rather insignificant reasons, inmates will all (that is, without exception) have either a) Been prisoners of Edge for a couple of years, or b) been in the prison system elsewhere for a couple of years. If a new arrival on Edge, you'll be the latter.
Since harsh worldwide reforms on Earth in the late 2000s, convicts are classified as sub-human, without any enforced rights or legal protection, no government mandated rehabilitation programmes, and no contact with the outside world. They're dumped on decrepit, washed-out shells of former settlements like Edge and left to rot. Crime rates on Earth are phenomenally low.
And...
3: Edge is a dangerous place. If you're not fully comfortable with, or prepared for, your character to experience pain and discomfort at any time and any level up to and including death, then this is probably not the best environment for that character. Or you.
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Beyond that, there are one or two four terms you should become familiar with:
Programming: The artificial insertion of information into a person's memory, using a variety of processes with varying legality. Programming normally takes place after a Wipe, where the individual's memory and thought processes are more pliable, and is used most often on the prison population during CryoShip transit to a new facility, where instilled in their minds are the protocol, rules and regulations of the new holding area. Programming asserts itself during, or just after, Clearing, allowing a fresh inmate to adjust themselves quickly and efficiently to the practices of a given environment.
Wipe: An induced loss of mental information or knowledge. Through intense chemical and psychological means, areas of an individual's memory are blanked out, removed completely, or blocked from access. A Wipe is in most cases temporary, and often a necessary pre-requisite of Programming.
Clearing: The automatic process of recovering lost information, or the revealing of new information, in a person's mind, normally following a Wipe or Programming session. Clearing can take any amount of time and varies from person-to-person, but generally takes place within 24-hours of a Wipe. Normal Clearing encompasses a slow trickle of memory back into the conscious mind based on the body's current stimuli, and is reasonably harmless. Early Clearing on the other hand, where previous information and knowledge re-establishes itself in a person's consciousness all at once, is often immensely painful and can result in permanent mental damage.
RET: Relative Earth Time. Quite a lot of people, colonials, settlers and the like throughout the explored regions of space still count time using Earth's local 60/60/24/365 system, even on worlds whose orbit and rotation times and seasons are vastly different. Some people say it helps to ground them in unfamiliar or inhospitable environments, others say it's just lazy. It confuses everyone regardless, but works pretty well in space.
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Finally we reach the arena of Character Creation. All I will ask from you is a Character Summary, meaning a short-ish block of text including the Name, Sex and Serial Number of your character, along with any other information you consider relevant such as a picture or the inclusion of a written description of their appearance. Serial Numbers consist of three numbers suffixed with a letter. My character is, as stated, 426-G, but I expect most of you to be late 'D's, 'E's and very early 'H's, or earlier on in the alphabet if you've been on Edge a particularly long time. Anything else you include is at your discretion, as is the length; I'll read it regardless.
I would like, for no discernible reason, balanced sexes in terms of characters, so take that into consideration when coming up with something. And we'll be starting at Compound, either as new arrivals or people already processed and held there, unless someone specifically requests they start out in the Zones and unregulated areas where all the shit goes down. Compound is more or less a run-down, town-sized prison with very high walls, maintained by automated systems and squads of robotic guards. Fun.
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There's a fair bit of this universe I haven't ironed out, and some things may not be clear off the bat for people, so if you have any queries, however stupid you might think they are, just ask.
Alright then, let's rock.[/ooc]
Yesterday, 03:46 PM
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It?s known that Romney stands against rights for LGBT people. He signed the National Organization for Marriage pledge to stand against marriage equality, appoint Supreme Court Justices who would also stand against equal rights for gays and lesbians and fight to write discrimination against us into the US Constitution.