Reyn
Undying God of Eurobeat
The Pioneer Project
"Gooooood morning, Starship Valentine! O-or more specifically, good morning dear resident! Since you have just woken up from a few years of cryosleep and may not remember a few things, let me just give you a helpful recap!"
An image of a young, pink-haired girl appeared on the screen in front of me, smiling in that same, cutesy way the artists had designed her to.
"My name is Ray Systema, and I'm the navigation system for this vessel! It's my job to not only keep us moving in the right direction physically, but emotionally as well. That's why I have this friendly and approachable AI: to help any shy and scared people adjust from cryosleep and resume their lives on SS Valentine as usual!"
I looked around myself at the others in the room, their faces illuminated by the warm, pink glow of the screen. A pre-recorded message, no doubt. They wouldn't bother wasting valuable computer space on personalised conversations...
"A-are you alright there, Lorithia?"
She... it used my name. That wasn't out of the ordinary, I suppose, they did have data on all of the passengers. "I'm fine, System." I growled, struggling to move my numb lips in the still-present chill of the cryochamber.
"System? Why, nobody's called me that in years, Lorithia! There's an 'a' on the end now, if you wouldn't mind adding it on. The human-sounding name was to make me more approachable to people like you!"
Oh. Perhaps it was custom, then. "Look, just tell me what they want from me." It was getting easier to speak, which meant it was getting easier to show my distaste towards System "And, if you're so bothered about names, then how about acknowledging my rank for once, hm? It's General Croix to you. General Lorithia Croix."
"Ahhhh! I'm so sorry, General Croix! I did not know that was your preference. It's being stored in the database right away, don't you worry!"
I waited for her to continue. She didn't. Typical. "Just going to ignore my first question, are we?"
"A-again, my apologies, General Croix! As I said before, I am here to help shy and scared people adjust to life outside cryosleep, a-and you looked like you needed some assistance, considering how long you've been out for..."
"Go on, then." I sighed, knowingly giving in and allowing the change of subject "How long was it. 20 years? 40 years?"
"I'm afraid not, General. It has been around 365 years since your last sign of consciousness; 364.637, to be precise."
365 years. Three hundred and sixty five years. I looked away from the screen, staring once again at the few others in the room with me. How long had they been here? Why were we kept here so long? How come...
"We're still quite a while away from our destination, but we just wanted you to be one of the pioneers who set foot on this new planet. After all, your years of service fending off those 18 attacks from the Felrann certainly puts you in a position to deserve it!"
Deserving. That was my job, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. "There's no need for that, System." I was able to push myself away from the back of the chamber and open the door. System's voice followed me as I stumbled groggily towards a bench in the centre of the room, speaking as soon as I sat down.
"Oh, don't be like that, General! N-now, I suggest you introduce yourself to the other pioneers before you continue, I'm sure you would've heard of at least some of them before!"
"Some?" This was odd, I had spoken to all of the others personally before the voyage even started.
"A-ah, well, you see.... the other ships.... they had a bit of an.... u-uh.... error......"
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Useful information
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The ship was created in the year 35XX due to rising concerns about the imminent invasion of the Felrann race: a mammalian species from Andromeda-07 who saw Earth as a potential mining planet and wanted to take it. Approximately 40 years into the Human-Felrann war, the humans realised that it could not be won. In order to save as many lives as possible, 2 ark-class and 18 scout-class starships were launched into space, searching for a new planet to colonise. Of those 20 ships, only one remains in stable, functional condition. After a century of its voyage, the highly-populated ark-class ship, S.S. Romeo, suffered a spontaneous communications malfunction and a total electrical shutdown, supposedly due to the stress caused on the mainframe by having System 0972's AI present on such a large network. All of the scout ships suffered the same fate; breaking down completely as System blacked out on them and causing slow and terrifying deaths for the passengers in the cold vacuum of space. Thankfully for the residents of S.S. Valentine, the destination had already been decided once the last scout fell, so System set a course for Hyalus-12 which was some 250 lightyears away.
This emblem can be seen throughout most of the ship.
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System 0972 (aka 'Ray Systema') is a computer program which began development around the same time as the construction of S.S. Valentine and it's companion ships. At first, it was little more than a navigation aid, working as a kind of glorified sat-nav to the pilots of these ships, and allowing them to have a way to communicate with the other ships. As the ships grew in size and the scale of the project was actually visible to the developers, they began to realise that this program was going to have to do a hell of a lot more than just tell people where to go. Thus, the navigation prototype was developed into System 0972; a condition-maintaining, advice-giving, navigating AI companion with a constantly learning and changing 'brain' to help relax the obviously nervous passengers and make it seem as non-threatening as an all-powerful AI mainframe can be. In order to achieve such an image, a mascot was needed. One of the developers, a woman named Evelyn Voltair, wanted the mascot's appearance to be based on her girlfriend, Rayenn Evans, who was fighting in the war at that time. The artists agreed and nicknamed this new mascot 'Ray Systema', in honour of the girl she was based on.
Rayenn died in the war 3 days before she was due to board the ship, causing Evelyn to fall into a spiral of despair. She had to be kept away from the familiar face of Systema, so was forced on S.S. Romeo earlier than the rest in one of the cryogenic facilities to help her adjust to life on the ship. Her unfrozen body was found 103 years later, hanging from the control room ceiling, but her death was unknown to the rest of the fleet due to the imminent, catastrophic failure of the communication system.
The people on board S.S. Valentine seem to like Systema and treat her as some sort of robotic maternal figure. This connection was intentional, as the developers wanted Systema to help relax them and stop any problems from arising within the ship. After all, they had a long journey ahead of them and most would not survive to see the end. Something had to remain constant through the generations.
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In case you couldn't tell from the setup, things aren't going to go all too well for the pioneers in this RP. From what I had in mind, I doubt they are going to reach their destination at all or, at least, not in the course of the RP. If you're looking for a combat-based, alien-fighting RP, this is not for you. Same goes if you just want a relaxed, sandbox-type RP. There will be plot and it will involve things going wrong. If anyone has any specific ideas, feel free to PM me, and if there are any questions then I will do my best to answer them without spoiling anything (although, to be fair, you can probably guess most of the spoilers if you pay enough attention).
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Ok then wow I was not expecting that much interest, thanks lads. Just do a CS and stuff and I'll start it up once you guys are ready. This RP will be in third person, due to the votes on the poll, so please try and keep consistent with that. Thanks for your support~
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