Owl Knight
Don't let it ruffle your feathers, my liege.
When you arrive at the launch site, it is still in the dark hours of morning. The nondescript van that picked you up from whatever corner of the suffering world you call home pulls up to what looks like the wall of a large factory. Your driver hits a button on the canopy of the van and what you took for a concrete wall pulls back and lowers, revealing a long dark tunnel. Some of you are alone, you endure the dark ride in silence. If your family is accompanying you, you hold them close, praying that at the end of this harrowing ride is a hope at salvation.
Your driver helps you out of the van. You can't help but pity them as they escort you across a vast underground parking complex and towards a well maintained set of elevators. The mutations and scars from surviving the Helsinki Virus and radiation of the uninhabitable zones are evident on the drivers' face. The virus alone makes them incompatible for the initiative and the radiation no doubt impacted their reproductive systems. The guidelines are clear, only those unaffected by the virus and radiation mutation were eligible for selection. You can't help but wonder how these people see you. Do they resent you? Do you really deserve this opportunity where others will be left behind? You can't think about that now. This is not just about saving yourself. This is about saving the human race.
The elevator descends into the preparation zone. Your clothing is confiscated to be burned. No chance of contamination can be tolerated. You stand naked in a plastic lined shower stall as you are sprayed down with scalding water by mutated technicians in full body hazmat suits. Once you are sanitized, you are handed a pair of white cotton underwear and a white cotton t-shirt in a sealed bag. Naked and cold, you move through the decontamination barrier, trying not to notice the dozens of others who surround you, bare bodied as Adam and Eve. Its appropriate in many ways.
Once you are across the barrier you find yourself in a massive hall, dimly lit with florescent lights mounted high above in the ceiling. You tear open your package and dress. The cloth feels fresh and clean. You haven't felt real cotton in years. You can't imagine how much it cost just to clothe the 200 people who surround you.
A massive screen on the wall above you flickers to life. You and the 199 other people in the hall stand and stare in awed silence as the aged face of Gaius Armenia III appears, staring down with a frightful power and benevolence on the crowd.
"My friends," his voice booms from speakers mounted somewhere in the darkness. "You are about to embark on a grand and noble venture. You fortunate chosen few will rise, as the phoenix from the ashes of a world our forefathers drove to ruin to bear the legacy of mankind away from this purgatory and into the embrace of the stars. Our hopes, and the hopes of all who came before, now rest in your hands. It will fall to you to build something better than the sorry world you leave behind. This is your great and noble purpose: to survive, to thrive, and to continue the noble venture that began eons ago when our first father raised his eyes from the dirt to ponder what lay beyond the the stars."
"Make no mistake, though you will be sailing into a bright and hopeful future that many can never hope to taste, the road ahead is fraught with peril. Some of you may not survive the cryostasis sleep that will preserve you on your journey. Though your bodies will only age four months in the time you are asleep, your faster than light journey will carry you over 300 years into the future. By the time your vessel makes its arrival, it is almost a certainty that the rest of humanity will be extinct. You, and the surviving passengers of the twelve New Eden Initiative vessels will be all that remains."
"You will be supplied to survive for two years. If all things go to plan you will receive a resupply shipment at the end of that two year period, but after that your fate will be in your hands. The world will be yours to shape and build as you see fit. So, to ensure the survival of those who take this venture in hand, we present you with the five directives of new humanity:
Ensure the survival of the human race at any cost.
Elect a governing body of five colonists to organize the new colony and begin establishing laws for the protection and survival of the new society.
Explore and catalogue data on the new home of the human race.
Establish a stable food supply chain.
Be fruitful and multiply.
Go now, with the blessing of all those who remain behind to lift you on their shoulders to your new Eden. Our hopes and dreams go with you."
The screen blinks out and the room is suddenly flooded with light as three large doors beneath the screen slide open. For a moment it is blinding, but as your eyes adjust you see something beyond, a great shape behind the lights that seem to draw you onward.
You move forward with your fellow colonists, drawn towards the light by a sense of hope you can't fully comprehend.
In the midst of an impossibly huge launch silo, you gaze up in wonder at the vessel that will bear you away from the planet. You have scarcely a moment to take in the scale of it before you are ushered inside.
You are moved quickly to the cryostasis wing. Inside you see the chambers, they line the walls of the wing on two levels, long steel cylinders with thick glass lids, leaning back at recumbent angles. You are ushered towards one of the chambers and a technician approaches you with a syringe. A quick jab does the job.
"Just a sleep aid," the technician says stiffly through their hazard mask. "It'll knock you out before the cryogas gets pumped in." He helps you down into the chamber. All around you hear other technicians doing the same for your fellow colonists. Somewhere you hear a parent consoling a frightened child. The noises begin to blur as your head swims with the sleep drug.
You are vaguely aware of the chamber lid closing and, in the brief moment before you slip into a warm dreamless sleep you have the unsettling sensation of laying in a coffin.
"Enjoy your flight to ZX-14," a modulated voice hums in your ears. They are the last words you will ever hear on planet earth.
-------------------
Your story will begin one hour after the colony ship comes to a landing on ZX-14. Four months have passed in the ship, but 300 years have expired everywhere else. Outside the sun is rising, and as the gas drains from your cryostasis chamber and your waking rhythms kick in, you awake on a new world.
As you progress out of the cryostasis wing, you will find yourself in the main access tunnel of the ship. If you turn to your right, you will find yourself in the engine room, a space that will swiftly become dormant now that the ship has made its final landing. If you turn to the right, you will see the long passageway leading to the primary airlock. Along this passageway are the heavy doors that lead to the other stations on the ship, the lab, supply station, food storage, armory, and medical bay.
Stepping out of the airlock you will get your first glimpse at your new home.
The ship has come to rest in a fertile valley on ZX-14's northern hemisphere. At the westernmost edge of a rolling clearing, hill strewn and dotted here and there with jagged boulders no doubt left over from some long ago glacier. Towering mountains capped with ice rise on either side of the valley and at the far edges of the expansive clearing, blanketing the feet of these mountains, you can see dense forests of dark green and lavender colored trees.
The clearing is in a slightly raised position and, looking to the north you can see that it slopes down gradually into a long valley that stretches as far as you can see. The glistening waters of a river wind their way north towards the horizon.
Looking up, you see one of XZ-14's two moons, a blood red orb that looks frighteningly close to the planet, as though it might brush the tips of the mountains. But most of all you notice the vibrant, almost purple blue of the sky. A blue sky is a sight no human has seen in the better part of a decade.
When you post, please include a location tag at the start of your post so we can keep track of everyone's location.
COLONY SHIP LOCATIONS
- Cryostasis Wing
- Medical Bay
- Laboratory
- Supply Requisitions
- Armory
COLONY LOCATIONS
- (Character's) Shelters
I will add more as we discover more. Feel free to come up with new tags appropriate to your play!
COLONY SHIP LOCATIONS
- Cryostasis Wing
- Medical Bay
- Laboratory
- Supply Requisitions
- Armory
COLONY LOCATIONS
- (Character's) Shelters
I will add more as we discover more. Feel free to come up with new tags appropriate to your play!
Last edited: