AnoNES: Apocalytica

Anonymoose

KING OF MEESE
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,238
Location
Hall of the Moose King
Apocalytica
You are reading the first few words of ApocaNES, a NES set in a world that is virtually identical to our own, but not for long. The inhabitants of this virtually identical Earth have no idea that cosmic forces beyond their comprehension are about to wipe out every electronic device on the planet. A burst of cosmic radiation from an unknown source and a solar flare hit the planet at the same time. What are the odds? In rural America, a terrorist organization has been developing a bacterium that consumes long carbon-carbon chains, like polyester and polystyrene. They release this terrible microscopic monster on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. In a manner of hours, the entire southeast is in darkness and wondering why their clothes, shoes, tires, dog leashes, and grocery bags have all started disintegrating. Due to factors not worth explaining, the bacteria are mutating, and have started gnawing on fatty acids in the brains of unsuspecting humans as well as plastics, and the population of the planet is decreasing at a rate of millions an hour. The governments of the world seem quite incapable of stopping the outbreak because they’ve lost the ability to communicate across the continents. Anarchy is looking pretty attractive to many citizens of every country. Things are getting pretty wild.

Fast forward a week or so. Global infrastructure has taken a hit that none of the remaining humans ever could have imagined. You’ve been doing your thing, just trying to survive, but the tap water stopped coming yesterday. It’s time to venture forth, be it in your small town or your metropolis. Find other people or take care of your hermitage by the river? Hide from raiders or try to join their ranks?

This NES is almost entirely story based. I’m going to ask that you provide some stats for the calculations that I’ll be doing here on my end. I’ll provide a template. There won’t be a formal order system, because I don’t know what your guy or gal will be doing as well as you. The most I’ll need is a couple sentences detailing your movement or improvement upon living quarters, or suicide, or your decision to join the animals in the forest. The rest will be detailed in your stories, where you have an enormous amount of leeway. If you’re not using electronics or plastics, I don’t care. I don’t really even see myself as much of a mod, because I’d like for the story to be the focus, not some update schedule. I suppose there will be updates, but they’ll be random chunks of information that everyone will know. Just like life, where you don’t get a predictable manageable amount of information every day, you will receive these updates without warning. In a world without multimedia networks where your TV was your computer and your cell phone was as well, info may be one of your most precious resources. If you meet other players, they may know nothing. It is up to you to gather information from your surroundings. The info will usually come from me, but I allow some imaginative leeway (I love that word.) where you can generate facts as well, with the only contingency being that they cannot interfere with my facts. Your character cannot be the only one with plastics and computers because he kept them in a bacteria-proof bunker in the Atlantic. That’s just stupid.


The character template is as follows:
Character name: Jon Grissomson or something
Character appearance: details rock, guys.
Character occupation before the cataclysm: Doctor? Welfare bum? Let's hear it.
Character alignment: Good or bad guy? Details rock here as well. Why is he/she evil/good?
Character location: It's Earth. You pick where you go. I'll keep a map of your positions on my end. I don't see any reason to post it.
Character family details: Your family probably suffered losses. Let's talk about what's left, if anything is.
Character skillset: What is your lad or lady good at? handyman, chef, actress? pick a couple things, use imagination and more detail is appreciated.
 
Orders: Okay, so here’s the deal. You make the stories, and I will read the stories and PM you details and/or items that you picked up along the way. These things may be worthless at face value, but an industrious survivor like your character may be able to make use of nearly anything. Some of the info or items you receive may not be relevant until later in the story. This aspect will be the gentle guiding force behind the story, because without a little guidance, we could just wind up with a bunch of never-converging tangents. We may still wind up with tangents, but such is life, and those tangents may become as precious as the story hopefully will become.
I covered this a little bit in the interest thread, but as a reminder, your character could die. Caution expressed in the story will prevent this 99% of the time, but just as in life, accidents can happen.

Confrontations between characters are bound to happen eventually, and upon such an event’s occurrence, collaboration between players could lead to a very intense story moment. Characters can die, but that may not need to happen if the players can find a way to make their characters part ways or even tolerate one another’s presence. The sky is the limit.

Non-player characters will arise at times, but they are not the stars of this story, and their roles could be as small as a wanderer who has gone mad from loneliness to a former crime boss who wants to set up his own government. Your reactions in NPC situations will be one of the larger non-story driving elements in this NES.

Random developments and occurrences are small-chance events that you can incorporate into the stories or not. Weather, animal events, and other minutiae like plant conditions are examples. These may or may not be included in your details after stories, which is entirely up to you.
When and if an update occurs, knowledge that all of the players can use will be presented.
 
Common knowledge as of yet:
All plastics seem to have lost their form, either turning to dust or just disappearing entirely.
Electronics have all failed, including those that were thought to be flare-proof and EMP-resistant.
Some natural rubber has been spared, but for how long, none can be certain.
 
This post is reserved just in case I decide to post a map. Not too likely, but possible.
 
So we have a:
Astrobiologist whose family is in Bristol, UK (He's in North America.)
Schizophrenic young lady,
Hermetic mountain man,
A former marine with a drinking problem,
A pothead in rural Oregon,
A man of the cloth stuck in the Vatican,
Forest Ranger miles away from possible civilization, but with a plan
A doctor who has examined the infected in an up-close and personal fashion
A professor of ancient history who wants to think of himself as a 'restorer' of civilization,
A young man who is struggling to survive against the zombie Horde
A former guitar store salesman who is somewhat unfortunate as of yet.
A news reporter that carries a gun,
An archaeology student,
and A carpenter's son.
 
Okay details forth coming as I am deciding between a man close to being homeless, and a former combat medic...hell may as well be both.
 
Character name: Scott Markham
Character appearance: An average sized, 20-something man. Short, dark brown hair. Recently has taken on an expression of permanant worry since the Event.
Character occupation before the cataclysm: Astrobiologist. Born in Bristol, UK, studied at the University of Glamorgan
Character alignment: Basically a good guy. Trying to get back to England, any way possible.
Character location: Visiting the NASA Astrobiology Istitute in Texas
Character family details: Wife and young girl. What he wouldn't do to see them again...
Character skillset: Lots of stuff...mostly to do with science. Knows basic physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, molecular biology, ecology, planetary science, geography and geology. Never went scouting. Genre Savvy from reading TVTropes in his spare time.

Yeah, I'm going to have to rely on that genre savviness...
 
Character name: Thomas Worthington
Character appearance: 45 year old, graying, fit, etc.
Character occupation before the cataclysm: General Practitioner
Character alignment: Hypocratic oath, good person, wanting to help
Character family details: Wife (Anthropologist), 20 year old son (Home from the military), 16 year old daughter
Location: Montreal Canada
Character skillset: Medicine, biology, History (amateur historian)
 
Beautiful work. I look forward to the exploits of Markham and Worthington.
 
Sounds good. I hope you don't think the 'stereotypical' character thing will be a problem. The people that they start as may be completely different from the people they end up being.
 
Character name: Henry Wallace
Character appearance: 20 something, fit but not overly athletic, brown hair and eyes, average height.
Character occupation before the cataclysm: Ranger/Guide
Character alignment: generally a good guy, will help others but not trying to go out and save the world
Character location: Boundary Waters, the Minnesota/Canada border
Character family details: Has a family in Ohio, Father, Mother, and brother
Character skillset: wilderness survival, orienteering, fishing, hunting, various water craft training
 
Sounds good. I hope you don't think the 'stereotypical' character thing will be a problem. The people that they start as may be completely different from the people they end up being.

I hope so, so far we seem to be endig up with stereotypical mid aged kind strong family loving salt of the earth god fearing men, and that's deadly dull. Characters need to be gritty, suffer hardship and so forth otherwise they end up 2 dimensional. Life generally speaking sucks and character should reflect that. Right now we seem to have the cast of the Posiden Adventure or 2012.
 
Well you need those characters to a degree, but I agree that diversity is needed. I'm sure once everyone else gets in, we'll see some serious diversity. I would actually like to see someone playing as a child.
 
Well you need those characters to a degree, but I agree that diversity is needed. I'm sure once everyone else gets in, we'll see some serious diversity. I would actually like to see someone playing as a child.

I was actually considering the helpless little white girl but I realized that was also a stereotype.
 
Character Name: Michael Jonas
Character appearance: 25, tall and slim, black hair, green eyes,
Character occupation before the cataclysm: Professor of Ancient History
Character alignment: Good, he really wants to help humanity recover from this situation and will always try to save someone if he can.
Character location: Some place between Albany, New York and Washington D.C.
Character family details: He lost all of his family in an accident during the first days of the Catastrophe, which has instilled on him the need to protect others as much as possible
Character skillset: A polymath, he knows much about history from prehistory to the 20th Century, from engineering to chemistry (one of his heroes, even if he is fictional, is Cyrus Smith from The Mysterious Island for his wide knowledge in all fields)
 
Character Name: Nathaniel Brooks
Character Appearance: Early 50s, Brown hair, thick beard, 6'2'', very strong.
Character Occupation before the Cataclysm: Former steel worker turned exile.
Character Alignment: He left the civilized world confused, the wilderness and his hatred turned him into an emotionless hermit.
Character Location: The northern part of Wyoming.
Character Family Details: His family was brutally murdered 15 years ago. While searching for the ones responsible he slowly lost his grip with society. After avenging his family's death, he was forced to flee to the west to avoid incarceration. He has lived alone for 12 years.
Character Skillset: Living off the land, trap making, manual labor, stalking, vintage weapon collecting.
 
Character name: James M. Green
Character appearance: 5' 8" he is of shorter stature, but it is well built. Stocky. Brown hair, blue eyes. 32 years old.
Character occupation before the cataclysm: Former Marine, Corpsman (combat medic fyi), Fishing Boat Medic since.
Character alignment: Tries to be a good person, but has given into his temper before.
Character location: South of Port Angeles, Washington State.
Character family details: None living, lost his wife and child to a car jacking.
Character skillset: combat medicine, carousing, firearms, ship operations, fishing, hunting, brawling (known to start bar fights when drunk).
 
Back
Top Bottom