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 Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 10:57 pm
Quick Note: First and foremost, ALL ideas incorporated into this roleplay is MINE and my creative property. I am basing this roleplay off of a novel I am currently working on, so I would greatly appreciate it if people did not borrow any ideas from this storyline whatsoever, as this is all my imagining. Thank you kindly. heart
Table of Contents
o1. The Shattered World.
o2. They.
o3. Commandments.
o4. The Red Circle.
o5. Spirit Eaters.
o6. Resistance.
o7. Firefly.
o8. The Nation.
o9. Profile Skeletons.
1o. Accepted Profiles
11. Timeline.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:01 pm
o1. The world is a carcass to be mutilated by its rulers.
Rulers? In a mortal sense, no. God? In an immortal sense, no. For centuries human beings have feared
the apocalypse, have created myths and legends of its coming and have quaked and quivered from the slightest
hint, the slightest trace of lingering terror beyond the paranoia that it was coming--and yet none could
have prepared for the End, as the End took on quite a different shape than previously imagined.
It was not a meteor bursting forth from the eye of Heaven to rain down upon and decimate the populace. It was not
a climate change so harsh and unforgiving that it sucked the live away from its peoples and melted the ice caps
in the North. It was no bomb, no nuclear imagining concocted by the spiteful hands of impoverished nations or
warring races.
It was humanity itself, the human system, which manifested itself into their own destruction.
We destroyed ourselves.
Or more specifically, They did.
They are what We become, what some of us have allowed ourselves to become, after eons of greed, thirst, gluttony.
A War struck the world quite suddenly, a War erupting between the battling of the world's nations, through prejudice and discrimination, through religious feuds and economic inequality. Nations poured their funds into weaponry, complex machinery designed to destroy thousands in devastating seconds, while the citizens of prestigious nations were cut from their food and water supplies and grew weaker and more feeble by the day. Big business and monopolies fluorished as they offered the lowest prices for the starving, impoverished nations, offering a ray of hope to the people who, once lawyers, judges, businessmen, were reduced to menial factory work for the benefit of their warring country. And it was in this way that the industries' rulers garnered further power across the world, soaked their riches in pools of corruption and seizing it from the people who once coveted it as the center of their lives.
Through years of the corrupted system of capitalism which has thrived as a profitable endeavor for its manipulators, the gap between the upper and lower classes of civilization in "modernized"
nations has all but become a gaping abyss unable to ever be mended and delving 98% of the world's population into
absolute poverty.
Yet as the middle class became a legend of the forgotten years of the world's prestige, the lowest of classes, stripped of their property and their dignity, the world degenerated into an equal stage of life, lives routinized by strict laws, lives in which the impoverished nations which still fight the War struggle to regain their former glory, trapping their people behind identical concrete houses and placing them in diverse yet low-paying jobs. The highest of the high are given rations for food, and although the world itself is urbanized in the year 2050, it is a world of urban decay rather than prestige.
Graffiti lines the blank-eyed homes as casually as multi-colored stars, and although daily life consists of basic schooling for the six to fourteen year old, schools are a place of strict law and punishment on the verge of torture for the disobedient--"can't you see," the authorities say, "your disobedience makes you one of them, one of our enemies, getting in the way of our patriotic learning, our ability to educate our democratic peoples!" Flogging, beating with foreign objects, and depriving a student of his or her lunch rationing are common forms of detention and punishment
for the average elementary school.
Suburbs still exist, as the world has not been completely wiped of its hope--yet these "suburbs" are merely blocks long, and rapidly deteriorating. Each day another child in a "suburb" home has his or her property taken away by the government, the parents jailed for hiding the valuable resources of their wooden, energy-expending residence from the greater good of using such valuables for the War. Each day, a child's parents pass away while fighting in the War, rendering them to a foster family, the pool of which is growing in the thousands as countless adults pass away in the mysterious epidemic.
When over fourteen, the children who are well-educated in the patriotism of their country are transferred from their home to the inner cities, in which they take on "jobs"--jobs as ordinary as hospital staff, teachers, law enforcement--yet with their own dedication and predisposition to defend the name of the high organizations and the upper class which rule them, for the good of the people, of course. Pay is in the form of rations, usually, or Dims--an extremely basic method of money, in which the primitive "Dime" is used and counted as one for each Dim you have in possession. Money has degenerated from a major issue and worry by the populace, which favors receiving nourishment and finding enough food to pass their families by each day rather than fiscal profit.
Although obedience is stressed upon all by the Commandments, crime runs rampant across the ravaged nation. Murder and theft are as common an everyday occurence as sleeping and eating, and the life span has dwindled for some to fifty due to such threats, as well as the subpar working conditions for those less fortunate to be drafted into factories. None know who truly rules them, now; the people care only for fending for themselves in a world of deceit and lechery, a world in which the innate horrors of the human mind have leapt from the subconscious and broken free into reality. Yet when casting a careful eye towards the Government--known simply as The Government--of the nation in question, one can simply conclude they have been ruled as they always have; by corruption.
Though by human beings?
Hardly.
At least, not anymore.
This is something the pathetic lower class would never realize, of course, with the exception, as the majority care more for surviving than examining the world around them. The monsters lurk within their very subconscious, a dark shadow against a thriving ray of hope that has become the essences of their short-lived, flickering lives; yet they are too blinded by their own human needs to ever see it. Except for the few, the monsters are left to fester within themselves, left to reign free, unbidden and unbroken, as a part of the Government, as a part of the major corporations--the lead of which is known as Firefly--which own the people, as a part of their Divinity itself.
The Apocalypse is here, and We are living, breathing, dying in it. They are our owners, and We can do nothing to stop them--
or so We think.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:03 pm
o2. They
We worship what We fear. There is Hell, there is Purgatory, there is Damnation. There is reward for obedience, there is punishment for sins. We as human beings are weaklings, one of the most easily destroyed creatures on Earth for as far as the world has known. We shatter like dolls at the slightest pressure to our skulls, we bend and twist and writhe when poked or prodded, we bleed when pricked with neverending, red tears. We are wasteful, having destroyed the Earth to the point of ravaging the world itself, to the point of shattering nature to irreparability. We have nearly caused the extinction of beasts and animals which could easily rip us apart without our complex gadgetry and machinery on our sides. We thirst, We lust, We feed upon greed, glutton, the need for constant fulfillment, for constant competition with our bestial partners.
We are Sin, manifested; We are Greed, We are Glutton, We are Envy, We are Lust, We are Wrath, We are Sloth, We are Pride.
We as human beings are wastes of perfect vessels; We are the epitomy of a destructive abomination.
And then We evolved--and We became They.
They do not rely upon wasteful material for nourishment. They drink of blood, They drink of red tears. They never die from old age, and so They can labor for the rest of their long years, productive and fruitful. They are cunning in their art of deception, They are stronger, almost inhuman in their stealth, speed, endurance, raw physical power. They do not need harmful weaponry to battle, nor do they need the vice of emotions. They do not feel; They are cold as They feed upon their brethren, almost reptilian in their nature.
They are the evolution of humanity, ruling it from behind the War. They head the massive corporations which tower upon the impoverished nations, They make up the Government which drafts its people into jobs and controls the conduct of humans with an iron hand. They are as Gods to the meek humans, worshipped in shrines along the edges of factories, in altars in the depths of homes as an unknown, benevolent entity.
They were once known in better times as Vampires. Yet to speak of such nonsense is a criminal offense, for it detracts from the stability of the populace--
or so They say.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:04 pm
o3. Unbreakable Laws
In an echo of forgotten religions, the Unbreakable Laws, or Commandments, have been enforced to provide "stability, clarity and unity" in the populace of the urbanized impoverished. Such laws are simple, and deemed relatively easy by the Government to abide by, as humanity takes these laws into their natural ethical
code (or should, by all means, in order to preserve their dwindling populace).
Here is the Unbreakable Word, carved in stone plaques against the insides of every concrete home.
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:05 pm
o4. The Red Circle
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:07 pm
o5. Spirit Eaters
They live within us all, and yet only few of us are brave enough to face them. The darkness of humanity is undeniable, manifested in deeds as wretched and accursed as murder, rape, absolute genocide and destruction. Yet who could channel such wicked thoughts, such naturally poisonous and destructive emotions into a solid state of being, a state of existence?
They have. Somehow, They have succeeded, and have evolved accordingly; ravenous, bloodthirsty machines.
And yet there are some of the human people who have succeeded in channeling such thoughts against Them. Such people, such humans, were once criminals; accused of treason against the Government, accused of such abominable crimes as threatening its stability, or perhaps ethical violations as theft, murder, assault. Yet through such lawfully indespicable deeds, these humans have channeled their own thirst for power, for vengeance, for retribution; and they have evolved to feed upon
the spirit. The spirit is not the soul in a literal sense, the soul which when separated from a human can destroy them instantly; the spirit is the consciousness that links humanity together, the conscious and subconscious thoughts, emotions, yearnings, of each human being, reflected in their dreams.
The Spirit Eaters who were once human peasants can feed upon such dreams, such mental matter, using it for power just as They use blood as nourishment. The use of spirit for these once-humans endows them with the manipulation of powers alike and unalike Them--the powers of telekinesis, the powers of precognition, the powers of speed and strength yet made more for cunning rather than brute, violent force.
And, most importantly, the Spirit Eaters are able to manipulate The Red Circle--the ultimate link of subconsciousness between humanity and Them, the strand which keeps Them anything but bestial monsters, but retains an inkling of Their humanity. And through the use of this Circle, the Spirit Eaters have a fighting, feeble chance to fight back against Them when in physical body they would have been far less likely to win without death. Just as They are strong in their bodies, the Spirit Eaters are strong in their minds.
Yet the Spirit Eaters are still very much like Them--they occasionally thirst for the blood which would very likely corrupt them into the savage, cunning beasts that They are. And so the Spirit Eaters must inject themselves with blood extracts as if a drug to their systems, the dependency weakening their physical bodies to make the newest of the Spirit Eaters bedridden--dangerous to be seen by the law enforcers who work for Them, for if any trace of Spirit Eater is found within the home of a human peasant, they will be eradicated within the minute. And so the Spirit Eaters must be very careful, and work under subtle conditions; in their dreams, in their psyches, invading and infesting the dreams of other human beings to link to the greater subconscious of Them.
The Spirit Eaters have physical malformations just as Them; their incisors are abnormally long, their bodies are more sinewy, paler as marble, though these are the only extreme physical features of the Spirit Eaters that stray from the average human, as to appear as bestial as Them would mean obvious eradication.
Many Spirit Eaters fight their opposition with the forbidden and all but extinct weaponry of the human race--guns of different types and sizes, crossbows, daggers, even slingshots and boomerangs. Anything is used to fight when sought out by Them, or their enforcers--for this is their life which is at stake, their life, and the risk of the discovery of The Red Circle by Them, which would be far, far worse than any death.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:08 pm
o6. Resistance
The Red Circle and the Spirit Eaters must be kept a secret. They must be confined to mere myth by the human populace, must be thought of as a legend by the enforcers.
Though, of course, They know of the existence of rebels, for rebels always crop up about the human monkeys, ready and willing to be squashed--They do not know the girth and full power of the Spirit Eaters, do not know that the Spirit Eaters are in essence the mirror of themselves, yet with differing, even formidable, powers.
And the Resistance seeks to keep it that way.
Human beings do not possess great power amidst the tyranny of They. Such is a fact, and one known by all the knowledgeable world. Yet human beings can still fight, as desperately and as valiantly as they wish. Humans are not as cunning as They, yet there are those that are exceptionally clever, and that can outwit and perhaps even destroy an enforcer if aided by others. Humans are capable of wielding their own primitive weapons, weapons that the Spirit Eaters can also wield; the blades, the daggers, the basic guns.
They can cause uprisings amongst themselves and influence crime to harm the Government in the form of syndicates and secret networks. The Resistance works in many ways destructive to the Government, and are labeled as "terrorists" by the Government enforcers; perhaps easily overtaken by enforcers in groups, yet so numerous amidst the general human population that they are a force to be reckoned with in their persistance.
The Resistance recruits the most spineless and spiteful of human beings, for they know that these people would never give their position away. They may not know of the true nature of They, or even that They exist; yet they vie for a chance to improve their shattered world, a chance to destroy their wicked Government, and because of such, are willing to cause trouble and mayhem in the streets for the enforcers and to defend the Spirit Eaters in their endeavors. They are the backbone of a violent
uprising, and detrimental to any end of They.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:09 pm
o7. Firefly
Any hardworking human being in the nation wants desperately to be a part of Firefly. Rumored as the highest paying corporation in the land, Firefly is
a refined factory-building shrouded in mystery and exclusiveness; its workers, pale-skinned and quiet people, never speak of the place, and the behavior of families who were once loud and rowdy and proud to have been promoted directly by the Government to such a prestigious job become eternally silent and even resentful towards the peasant class as they move to the higher echelon of society, never to be seen again except for the occasional sightings near Firefly.
Firefly is the mainstay of the Government, as a section is devoted to their meetings and cabinet, and an eternal residence of They. Once a human being goes into Firefly, they never come back the same--they are directly recruited into one of Them, though they never know until they get there.
Firefly is the pinnacle of evolution. As a towering skyscraper amidst the concrete square homes and lesser corporations, Firefly offers cutting-edge prestige and power for its employees who are rewarded for their hard work and obedience, their newly appointed Government positions promising to extend their lives, offer them everlasting power and wealth beyond all their imagination. It is the Nirvana of the impoverished world; the upper echelon of the prestigious class.The promotion of an unknowing human into something wicked and bestial.
The building is constantly off-limits, yet if one is seeking a revolt against the Government--obviously, this would be the place. Yet any former attempts at vandalizing or harming the building itself to destroy the inhabitants has always fallen short, the people dying without a second thought. It is almost an inhuman occurence, one would whisper. They would never know how right they were.
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:10 pm
o8. The Nation
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:11 pm
o9. Profile skeletons
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:13 pm
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Posted: Mon Jan 07, 2008 11:15 pm
11. Timeline
[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]
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