Saturday, November 11, 2006

"There comes a time in a man's life when he realizes he's nowhere near where he thought he would be...Not for a lack of his imagination, but rather for circumstances too unpredictable for the sane mind to comprehend." -Captain Daedaelus Nine-Tails.

The year is 5000AD standard Holy Terra calendar. [5000.1.18.0600 League Standard]
It has been over two thousand years since humans have colonized most of space, and less time since they've forgotten that they did. After the discovery of the jumpgates, spacial colonization was easy and humans lived among the stars more diverse than Earth could ever hope to be. But when a government rose to rule over all the Known Worlds humans no longer called Earth home, but whatever rock they happened to live on. This Second Republic kept order through corporate sponsorship and a mass welfare system. But after the welfare system crashed, the Universal Church start assembling the masses for reform, and the landlords of the planets wanted their share of power, the whole government went into a mass collapse bringing education, economy, and technology with it. Humanity had now entered a dark age.
Out of this dark age came an emperor to shed the light. Emperor Alexius Hawkwood, leader of the known worlds, has lead the noble houses into peace with eachother, the church has offered their blessings and prayers to his hope of order and long life, and Merchant League, the last of the Second Republics corporations now acting as independent guilds, even offered their support to his throne. For once it looked like their would be a life that should last among the stars in harmony and a fragile but understood peacefulness. But then the stars began to fade.
No one knows why the suns are fading, the Church has it's own explanations based on the sins of humanity while the aliens and the scientists each have their own explanation. Now the Emperor has issued a great quest: to explore undiscovered frontiers, to find the lost worlds of the Second Republic, and to solve the mystery of the fading suns.

Welcome aboard the CSS Morningstar: captained by the ex-pirate Daedaelus (known as Daely Nine-Tails by his crew) and crewed by five oddities and travellers from throughout the knownworlds. The Morningstar, an escort class ship with two turrets, guns too heavy for its chassis and a helm to exotic to be manned by human hands. When the Charioteers guild of space travel offered it to him for half price the only explanation they could give him was that it came from no where. He has assembled a crackpot crew of a an Etyri ostrich like alien pilot (for it was discovered it took an Etyri to fly the damn thing), a suspicious but friendly Engineer with a steel smile, a casanova former military medic with some skill to aim a handgun, a travelling, black robed confessor who seems to get into the most prestigious locations with too much ease, a gentleman noble who seems to have too easy of a time finding out what needs to be known, and an extra gunner, who seems to be missing. Daely will have to hiring for that one.
His crew's occupation consists of doing odd jobs and enforcing the Charioteer guild law by hunting pirates when they are found and ensuring that all found jumpkeys, keys used to operate the jumpgates between star systems, are acquired unto guild property. However, they are about to set off on a journey to save the universe........ Of course who would know? Did Arthur know about his great story when he was a stable boy? Did the disciple of Jesus know how they would take part in changing the world? Hell if I know.