It’s weird because it’s white. Bring back the dark things!
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I dunno, it’s starting to grow me. Like a fungus, actually…
HELP!!!
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I actually like this forum a lot more than the old one. White backgrounds are nice to look at, and it has a pretty usable mobile version.
Also, RP!
“As for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur.”
Russ Ames took a sip of his coffee and chuckled. “We’re only missing the murderers. Fingers crossed.”
He gazed out the small window in front of him, the only one on the compound. Though the sun had just set, the landscape outside was still bright. Incandescent pools of molten rock cast a gloomy light on the blasted landscape around them. Delicate rains of powdery sand fell against the glass, the remnants of the day’s temporary atmosphere. The only motion came from the insectile Prospectors, newly freed from their daytime pens.They scuttled over the still glowing hills, scanning the newly exposed ground with their many sets of eyes. Occasionally he would see the flash of a Prospector’s laser, then a frantic scrabbling as it tore into the powdered rock.
Russ closed his bible and fanned himself with it. Management generally advised against using the windowed lounge so close to sunset, as despite the best efforts of the air conditioners it was almost unbearably hot. But any other time, the view was just of a bunch of spiders climbing over cold, dead rocks. Only in this magic hour could he get a sense of the withering, constant wrath of Gemini’s sun. He closed his eyes and imagined he could feel the star trying frantically to bore through the many miles of rock and iron that now lay between it and the compound. He felt its hate, its desperate desire to rid its satellite of these arrogant invaders. He felt the constant waves of fire that broke against Gemini’s shore, scouring it clean every day.
He drifted off to sleep. When he awoke, the rocks outside were dead. The only light came from the compound’s floods and the feeble red running lights of the Prospectors. He downed the last of his now cold coffee, smiled an arrogant sort of smile, and strolled out of the lounge.
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Setting the bar high, I see.
EDIT: I’ve added a (rather crude) map of the facility that Cise and I came up with. This will be useful for certain parts of the game, as well as roleplaying purposes.
“Mr. Fang I have an offer that you cannot refuse.”
That is how the conversation that brought me here began. If I had known how it would all end I would’ve refused. It all seemed so simple at the time, so logical. One choice led to another. One small seemingly insignificant decision after another led me down a slippery slope until here I am. Stranded on this forgotten planet in the middle of nowhere. My ship shot half to hell, almost half of it’s crew dead. All I could do was order the evacuation as I watched the broken wreck of my once beautiful heavy cruiser crash helplessly into the mostly uninhabited planet.
In these circumstances I should count myself lucky to be alive. Who would’ve thought someone built a mining base all the way out here? All I can do is wait for the next cargo ship to arrive to transport me and the battered remnants of my crew to a station were we can continue our journey home. But it would be a while yet until the next ship arrived and all I could do in that time was think about how completely I have failed my mission…
Noble strolled out onto the mining platform and gazed about at the Big-Ass Ravine. Despite being a veteran miner for the past forty years the Big-Ass Ravine still made his heart leap in wonder - it was really the most Big-Ass thing he had ever had the chance to lay eyes upon… bigger than the so-called ‘Big-Ass Skyscraper’ on his homeworld and even bigger than that Big-Ass ship that brought him here all those years ago.
In childhood Noble had always had a fascination of rare minerals and metals - the stuff he only seen the richest of society wearing. He dreamt about having the opportunity to cradle large quantities of it… more than even the richest 1% of society would even lay eyes upon. And so it was that Big-Ass advertisement they erected on the side of the Big-Ass Skyscraper showing the CCW employee hoisting a Big-Ass chunk of Bigassium Ore that caused him to take on this perilous contract. It had lived up to it’s promises… though the fascination died off pretty quickly.
Noble’s thoughts turned to more important matters… he had recently been appointed safety overseer for the west cavern and had been given access to maps of the whole facility… but far from being worried about his cavern he had recently become more concerned with the basic layout… Who thought to build the only entrance to the Life Support systems behind the Big-Ass Fusion reactor?.. just then interrupting his musings the bell sounded through the intercom and Noble shuffled towards the lift for the next laborious work shift in the cavern beside the Big-Ass Ravine…
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Hendar hated Gemini with a passion, and he was sure the feeling was mutual. If it wasn’t dust making him hack up the nth lung, it was the heat cooking his implants. But all that ore…
That was what kept him coming back, what kept them ALL coming back. All that ore, just waiting to be mined out, for Hendar to haul back to that ever ravenous, ever GRATEFUL, monstrosity called civilization.
Or at least he could, if this infernal dustball’s magnetic field hadn’t played merry hell with the Lady Luck’s systems, “persuading” him to stay a little longer.
Diving into the bowels of the Lady Luck’s command and control systems, Hendar began yet another in a long line of battles with his nemesis, Gemini.
A red-robed figure sat down wearily in a darkened corner of the mess hall, a dismal, irrevocably dusty place. Resting his head against his hand, he slumped and recalled all the trials he had been experiencing these last few months. Sourcing a newspaper service for his local village somewhere in the jungle seemed like an innocent way to gather news from the outside world.
“How did it come to … this?” Arkenbrien wondered silently, slowly shaking his head.
The supplier … that supplier … had the audacity to mock, well, everything, and had openly despised the Dread Lord whom he worshiped. His wrath kindled, Arkenbrien attacked the heretic. The battle that ensued was tremendous, and Arkenbrien caused many a welt on the newspaper man’s head with his mighty cudgel. That man… whoever, or rather whatever he was… was possessed, he was convinced, and had somehow turned all of his cudgels into paper mache, save his holy cudgel, which the newspaper man had conveniently thrown into the darkness. Weaponless, he cast a spell to create an illusion of himself to distract the man, and returned to the temple, looking for a weapon that was not made of the evil paper. After an initial fruitless search, his dark eyes rested upon the Hyper-Super-Epic-Awesome-Burning-Ember-Fire-Sword, the holy grail of the Dread Lord’s violent religion, and had taken that in his zealous battle against the newspaper man.
Spying the cudgel in the darkness, he spirited the sword to the illusion, who was still battling amid the horde of razor sharp paper airplanes that somehow was conjured up by a passing falcon. Finding and picking up the cudgel, he turned, and rather to his embarrassment the newspaper man had disarmed the illusion and was chasing it around with the sword. He charged the newspaper man after a moment’s hesitation. However, instead of fighting Arkenbrien with the sword, the newspaper man threw it into the darkness. With a flash of pale blue light, the sword disappeared.
After the battle, which only ended after a local villager (smelling of smoke and brimstone) had announced that somebody was murdered. Not that that mattered, the Dread Lord often required the blood of a sacrifice, but it whoever had killed the victim did it with the wrong weapon - normally murders in that area was done with a pitch-fork like sword, in accordance with the laws of the Dread Lord’s religion. The temple had dozens of them in the gift-shop.
After that mess was sorted out, the Dread Lord came to him in the spirit world (Ark had died during that ‘mess’)(thankfully it was with the required weapon) and had required that the Hyper-Super-Epic-Awesome-Burning-Ember-Fire-Sword be returned. Resurrecting his body, the Dread Lord had made it painfully clear about the consequences of failure. After searching in the darkness, the sword was not found. Upon studying the darkness, Ark had discovered a … something. Whatever it was, it was round, translucent, and shiny. Touching the object, he found himself out side a city. A city that was made of anything but the usual earth, sticks, and leaves of the village.
Stumbling into a bar several painful hours later, he sat down in a darkened corner not unlike the corner he was in now. Painful, because he had foolishly forgotten to end his illusion spell, and the illusion had followed him through the … portal… thingy. Of course he tried to correct the mistake and end the spell, but going through the portal had changed the illusion into a permanent illusion… if that was possible. The fear of being dispelled left the illusion, and the illusion turned into a hyper-active inquisitive child-like version of himself, wholly uncontrollable by any words or spells of silence and obedience Arkenbrien could say.
And so there he was, in another time and place, looking for a sword, with a immortal (he tried)(really hard) raving lunatic following him around. Obviously, the sword couldn’t have conveniently gone to the same place as he had, and so he wandered aimlessly, doomed to ever search until he had found the sword. What was worse was that the illusion had taken to mackerel after one of the people in the bar had carried in a bagful of the stuff - curse him - and had stunk of fish ever since.
“Here, it looks like you can use this.”
Waking, he jerked his head up and saw the cook (or, as some called him, the professional microwaver) handing him a glass of something.
“A Pan-Galactic-Gargle-Blaster. It …”
“Yessss, I know, thank you.”
Ark took the drink, and swallowed it without even flinching.
“… You really needed that. Listen, there are living quarters just down that hall the the right, now skedaddle, else I’ll have to put you in the bin with the rest of the dust.”
“I ssseee.” Ark replied, slowly rising and straightening his back.
“That’s odd… I hired a new janitor, looks kind-of like you. Funny that.”
Ark stiffened.
“Did he smell of mack…”
“YEEEEEEHAAAAAAWWWW!!!”
A flash of red streaked by as the illusion rode on a anti-grav scooter fused to a vacuum cleaner.
“This is going to be a long night.” Ark shook his head, and hastily shuffled toward the hall.
@LyskTrevise - Why is the life support behind the fusion reactor?
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Russ was hardly five steps out of the lounge when he realized he’d left his bible behind. As he ambled back into the room, though, something outside caught his eye: A Prospector was tugging at some barely visible piece of metal just outside the window. He watched with some interest as it tried valiantly to free the thing.
He wondered idly what the thing was and why it was worth so much of the Prospector’s time. A piece of that fallen cruiser, perhaps? Such things were valuable, and some unscrupulous supervisor had probably ordered an off-duty spider to go fetch it.
It was with a great deal of surprise, then, that Russ saw the Prospector pull a black greatsword, fully five feet long and covered with evil-looking runes, from the ground. He stared, open mouthed, as it walked off with its prize.
That’s top secret information, sir. I’ll need you to stand back with the rest of the crew now.
@NobleBrutus Your post made me laugh pretty damn hard, man. It was a good read.
Also, the game should begin today with 14 people, but may be a tad late as we adjust to the correct number of players for the game.
We expect the launch to be tonight once we finalize everything.
@LyskTrevise I try my best 
… Couldn’t resist when I seen the map.
*Hot and sweaty, Noble stumbled back out of the lift. The final shift of the day completed, he wandered back to his usual perch on the mining platform overlooking the Big-Ass Ravine. Noble had a bad feeling, as he gazed routinely at the Big-Ass Ravine he resolved a crisis was long overdue. Even were there not the problem of envious rival corporations the whole facility was falling apart from poor management, worker discontent and increasing production pressure. With this thought in mind Noble resolved to leave his job mining Bigassium Ore with CCW at the possible first opportunity. It would be good to see the Big-Ass Skyscraper in his homeworld once again and perhaps catch up with some long out of contact relatives. Noble new that even such a Big-Ass company as CCW must honour a 40 year veteran with a short break, or at least a reallocation to another facility. The next export shipment was not that far off… Noble just hoped he hadn’t left it too late… *
I guess I ought to get in on the whole “RP” thing 
Here goes. I hope no-one minds me adopting my “Emperor” persona.
Emperor Falkon gazed blearily out of the living quarters window. The dust storm outside had reduced the visibility to less than a few hundred metres, and was blocking communications and any hope of transport of this accursed rock.
This trade deal was important for the Phoenix Imperium, but he had hoped his presence would have shortened negotiations, not lengthened them. The quarters were decidedly miserable considering the company’s bulging treasury, and CCW’s fellow patrons seemed decidedly untrustworthy. Moreover, the miserable security unit in this facility was monitoring him, and constantly refusing him access to the Hangars. In fact, trying to go anywhere apart from the Main Hall, Mess Hall, and the Loading Platform over the Big-Ass Ravine was decidedly difficult.
The Emperor made a mental note to punch the facility’s administrator the next time he saw him, then ask for his damn sword back, he was beginning to feel he’d need it by the time this storm was over.
The Emperor lifted himself off the hard stone chair, and made his way out of the quarters. Whilst the food on offer here was truly horrific, his own supplies were locked in the hangar with the rest of his gear and he was beginning to feel terribly hungry. “Gruel for one”, he mumbled bitterly to himself and set off down the hallway…
Okay, just a short RP to get going – but first, may I RP an under-officer of yours, @TigerFang? No problem if not, I have alternative roles I’d love to try too.
Of course you may. I’d love to have a partner in RP. I have absolutely nothing against it. On the contrary I am delighted that you would consider it.
Okay, thanks – now I only have to live up to it. No pressure… 
Why are we RP’ing in red? Doesn’t that clash with the votes later?
Lieutenant Xamino downed another shot of whiskey in the mess hall. He wasn't a drinker, but having no ship and thus no active duty, he had little reason to deny himself some fine dinner enjoyment.He had enrolled on Captain Fang's ship due to the prospect of easy work to build up his experience so that some day soon he could call a small freighter his own. Ever since leaving the military, that had been his dream – the taste of command, of having an own ship. Technically, he'd already had that, but a one-man fighter was a bit different from a corvette or even a capital ship. A cruiser had seem the perfect candidate for stepping toward his life goal, but now...
Pirates. Why had pirates been out here? The captain hadn't had any answers, at least not while he was still confronted with loosing his ship. Xamino called up the bartender to pay, content with the slight elevation he now had from the alcohol. He'd sleep deeply tonight – which had been his goal. The loss of friends, subordinates, hell, even of higher ranked officers he had come to respect and trust was still too fresh, and nightmares of the red shots against the armor still haunted him every night. He hoped that that would pass someday, although he'd never forget if he could help it.
I'm thinking too much again, he though. Loss was not new to him, but it never became easy – one just learned to become accustomed to it. Closing the top buttons of his white uniform – his only remaining clothes – he made his way to his sleeping cell.
No clue what role I had on your ship, Tigerfang, feel free to give me something, I’ll play along. 
Not that it matters all that much, but the RP was done in brown. It was the first dark color that occurred to me.
Also, have we figured out private messaging yet? I seem to recall some problems in that area.
Edit: Well, that’ll teach me not to post things before I do 10 seconds of primary research. Kind of embarrassed now.
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Roles have just gone out with very little difficulty, and this post will be updated momentarily to start the day. Sorry for the delay.
DAY 1
The facility’s crew looked onwards as the monthly supply ship slowly lumbered away from the port, its cargo hold now laden with billions worth of credits in ores and minerals. The work was done, for now, and they would resume their schedules the following day. The ship no longer in sight, the crew slowly shuffled and made their way back to their rooms for the night for some well deserved rest and relaxation.
They didn’t get much time though; Just over an hour after the ship had left an alarm went off inside the facility. Red lights began flashing, bouncing off of the metallic walls of the hallways as people began to run towards the main hall where a crowd had started to form. The chief security officer was dead - his throat had been slit as he sat in his chair watching the monitors. To make matters worse the communications relay was reporting an error, and was offline. The crew couldn’t contact anyone outside of the base, they were cut off.
It only took a few minutes for the rattled crew to start jumping to conclusions and throwing around the blame…
Event 1: Repair The Communications Relay
Stage 1: Search the facility for problems
The communications relay is a complex system, and a wide range of things could have happened to it. Choose an area to search and either post it here, or private message the location you wish to search to Cise and I (Make sure to put both of our names in the PM). Put your selection in Bold Purple font. There is no chance to die (by running into an agent, or vice versa) in this event.
These are the locations you may search:
Life Support
Fusion Power Plant
Ore Processing and Loading
Mining Platform
Armory
Main Hall
Cargo Storage and Unloading/Docking
Hangars
Living Quarters
Mess Hall
Security Room
Air Strip
Russ rubbed his chin.
“A tricky situation. Let’s run through the options! Life support and the fusion plant are out, if there were any problems there we’d have bigger issues than a fried relay. The main hall, mess, and living quarters aren’t isolated enough, any shenanigans would be too easy to spot. The security room and armory are under observation, I’d assume, and the air strip is too open. I’d look for somewhere isolated, closed off, and dark, where someone could get in and out without too much trouble. As our esteemed guest, His Excellency Emperor Falkon, has pointed out, the hangars are tough to get to. So my guess… I’d check the Cargo Storage and Unloading/Docking Area. This whole mess started after that cargo ship left, anyhow. Maybe someone working on loading the ore decided to put in some, ah… overtime.”
He sighed.
“But I could be wrong, of course. Anybody care to weigh in?”
When the alarms started going off TigerFang wondered what he did to incur so much bad luck… Did he kill someones puppy at some point? There had been no space for him and his crew on that cargo hauler but he was able to send a message to his employers to send a ship to retrieve him and his people. However it looked like he might not get to see that ship take him off this cursed planet. Maybe he deserved dying here for the disaster in which he led his ship and his crew… but his men were not at fault.
The captain didn’t feel like throwing around accusations at this point as to who might be responsible for the murder but he was a practical sort so he decided to just go ahead and try to fix things. Maybe he could find something useful in the Hangars.
[OOC] Can I sue you guys for stealing my event from my previous wolf games? [/OOC]
[OOC] @xamino well you could be the astrogator if you’d like (the vessels navigator) [/OOC]