this is how we talk to the world

{Demi-roleplay entry, but it still counts.}

A friend of mine mentioned I should tour the Doomed ship, as it seems to be dying again. I said, that wasn't a haunt, but it did make me curious. Is it still there? How has it changed since I was running around as a repair tech aboard? Let's go see.

The description, before anything else:

SL's oldest cyberpunk sim, now home to Doomed Ship, SL's oldest and most immersive sci-fi horror environment.

Come explore and role-play in the bloody halls of this immense spaceship!

/*Windlight Sky @ 500m to 4000m: "Doomed Spaceship"*/

Right. Makes sense.



Apparently, I'm a little over average for an American woman, according to this chart. (The average for an SL avatar, btw, they give as 6"8". The bar just before the end one on the left? Is apparently Chewbacca's height.)



The swirling, orange-red portal to the NCS Persephone.



Cargo bay seems intact.



I remember this level. This is maintenance.



Took a wrong turn, fell through a null-gravity tube and found a small bay with a schematic of the ship? Useful, but I didn't know this was here.



Ah, the ship's chapel.



...where, it seems, there's been an accident.

In all honesty, everything seems functional, still, if very empty and echoing. But even in its heyday, large sections of it were. Some went there for straight-up Mass Effect/Dead Space style survival horror roleplay, some went for sex with demons, others--I fell into this camp--picked the role of a functionary and worked on the periphery--always there, rarely involved in the main storylines, just living a day-to-day life on a haunted spaceship. I don't know if it ever worked this way on Doomed, but on Necronomm, its former companion set, you could go to the command center and play the part of the ship's computer, sending out notices that people all over the build would see.

The rules have not substantially changed, it seems, either:

Welcome to the NCS Persephone.

Doomed Ship is primarily designed as a role-play area based around a ship which had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Nastrand Corporation's experimental long-range starship, the Persephone.

THE SETTING

As the distances between Earth and its colonies increased, so to did the time it took to travel between them. Travel could take decades between one colony and the next. The NCS Persephone was designed as a generational colonial transport, capable of carrying hundreds of passengers and plenty of cargo between worlds.

While still in the early stages of construction, changes were made to implement a brand new technology, a "gravity drive", capable of opening a temporary wormhole and so allowing the ship to travel vast distances in an instant, bypassing speed of light limitations. Due to power and space requirements, a large ship was required for this new technology.

During its maiden voyage, after making several such space-folds, the ship failed to reappear. The official report released to the media was that the reactor exploded and the ship was lost with all hands. About 200 crew members and upwards of 500 passengers in stasis.

Thirteen years later, rumours and stories begin to circulate about the ship. Reports of distress signals and disappearing salvage attempts. Some claim to have been aboard the supposedly destroyed vessel. 58 years after the ship disappeared, a distress signal is received near the Solar system.

WHAT HAPPENED (OOC Backstory)

The Gravity Drive used by the ship to cross the vast distances of space in the blink of an eye works by punching the a hole in the fabric of space in two points. The passage is nearly instantaneous, with only a few moments where the ship is outside the universe. What was not known is that where the ship is when it is outside the universe is, quite literally, Hell.

Each time the ship jumped, a little more of Hell came with it.

YOUR CHARACTER

There are many options for the sort of character you wish to play. Movies such as Alien and Event Horizon, as well as games like Doom or Dead Space, are all good sources of inspiration.

Maybe you are most likely a random salvager or explorer who happened upon the cursed ship in your travels and, after boarding, found there was no way back to your own ship.

You may be an employee of the Nastrand corporation whose ship has come across the derelict Persephone, with instructions to investigate under penalty of termination if you failed to do so.

It is not entirely common knowledge that all corporate craft, and most government ships tend to carry at least on synthetic being. Possibly an obvious robot, or maybe a synthetic human passed off as just another member of the crew, but obedient to corporate directives, even if it places the crew in danger to achieve their directive.

Maybe you are a corporate advisor, accompanying a salvage/rescue mission. Unknown to most of the marines who accompany you, you are under orders to keep the ship safe, to return it, and any unknown life forms, to Corporate space at any cost.

Or possibly, you lie in wait on the ship, something it has brought back from the other side.

Group titles are available, but not required for role-play. Some visitors have begun unofficial Doomed Ship groups to provide a greater variety of role-play titles.

LOOKING THE PART

There are two complimentary avatars in the arrival area. One for men, one for women. There are also several inexpensive space suits sold in the shop.

Beyond that, one need only look towards the inspiration suggested above for ideas as to the look of your character. Much of the look of Doomed Ship has been derived from Event Horizon, Dead Space, Doom 3, and the Alien movies. Human avatars for the crew are strongly encouraged, with a fairly free hand for those playing the roles of the demonic creatures which stalk the darker corners of the ship, and the alien beasts which have escaped SciLab containment.

A word about body shapes. Doomed Ship is fairly unique in SL as the environment is designed to scale. Vending machines are 6'/1.83m tall. Desks, tables, beds, and chairs are all made to scale with realistic human proportions. Ceilings and doorways are taller than realistic to allow for the default SL camera, and so that avatars of all sizes might wander the ship.

The average avatar in SL is usually somewhere between 6'6"/1.98m to 8'6"/2.59m. Even the default avatars provided by Linden Lab range in height from 6'8"/203cm (the shortest of the woman avatars) to 7'1"/216cm (the tallest of the mens avatars). To add to the confusion, the appearance editor in Linden Lab's viewer and many resident-made height detectors are broken, using an avatar attribute named AgentHeight, which is not your avatar's size at all.

Human avatars well over 6'/1.83m will look out of place within the Doomed Ship environment. The average avatar may find tables not quite coming up to their knees, chairs so low that their feet sink into the ground. To better fit within the Doomed Ship role-play, it is encouraged that visitors adopt avatars in scale with the environment. The complimentary avatars at the entrance each include a body shape with realistic scale and proportions. These shapes are full-perm and may be shared with others. More variety in body shapes will be made in the future.

A note on the Doomed Ship role-play.

It is impossible, as well as undesirable, for the admin to police and mediate all role-play within the ship. At present there are no plans whatsoever to discourage those who wish to use the Doomed Ship environment for their own role-play so long as they do not attempt to interfere with other visitors, or attempt to present their role-play scenario as official or compulsory.

Additionally, the administration cannot be present to mediate all cases of "power-gaming" or "god-modding". More often than not, those complaining of such acts are the subject of similar complaints from others, as everyone has their own ideas of suitable conduct in free-form role-play such as that found at Doomed Ship. It is recommended that visitors learn who they are most comfortable playing with, and avoid those they have problems with.

And that's pretty much that. If you're interested, go to the main ship's portal; grab an avatar if you need one; decide on a good concept; and see how it goes. Avoid the trolls. Have fun if that's what you're there for. It is a spaceship that's been to Hell and back, after all.