Ferrymen Of Acheron
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Ferrymen Of Acheron
This is a game that Xenomorph (from anywherebb) and Shadow are trying to create, the game itself is on design phase, and it already have some history (that is still changing). What follows is an early draft of the game's setting.
Actual base history:
Shared universe idea: The Ferrymen of Acheron
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Background
It's set in a universe where FTL travel is possible... but hyperspace is lethal. Any attempt to send a living being through hyperspace will kill the being. Due to the nonexistance of cryogenics, the only way of transporting living beings is to take a DNA sample and a mindscan and clone them at the other end.
The Cult of Acheron is the organisation which does this, since nobody else will - ethics, and all that.
The name comes from the legends of the underworld, and refers to Charon, the ferrymen, who takes the souls of the deceased across the river Acheron (or Styx) to Hades.
The Cult is more or less tolerated throughout known space, but is shunned in places.
Spaceflight
Spaceflight is through automated ships - basically drones of all shapes and sizes. The biggest are the cargo ships, some of which are run as "ferries" by the Cult - they're stuffed with computer storage to hold the mind-scans and DNA sequences of it's passengers. They are operated by "ferrymen" who are cloned the same way as their passengers - but it's their minds that run the ship, running at intervals (two hours or so each month) in the ferry's computer throughout the voyage.
Note that non-Cult passenger travel does exist but is limited to relativistic flight which is hideously expensive - which is one reason the Cult exists in the first place. This is how colonies are usually set up.
Hyperspace
Not a lot is known about hyperspace. It's difficult to get any sort of reading from sensors. What's known is that hyperspace allows travel at about one lightyear per month for a typical ship. (Some ships can get faster speeds - it might have to do with immersion and such).
The mechanism that enables hyperspace travel is really quite efficient in terms of energy, and is the reason that Cultists are able to charge so little (on top of the whole lack of lifesupport necessity thing). You probably only need a megawatt or so per month of ship's time to keep a ship in hyperspace.
Hyperspace radio doesn't exist. The only method of FTL communication is to send a message via drone or ship.
Clones
Making a perfect clone of someone is fairly simple, and clones can even be forced to maturity. Without a mind-scan, though, this clone is mentally blank.
However, a living mind cannot be copied, only transferred - there may be something to the idea of a "soul" after all. Once a mind-scan is taken, the original body becomes brain-dead. Hence, clones are treated like the original person, since the original is dead. There is still the ethical question, though - the old notions still exist about "making copies of people", and many still see the mind-scan as murder - which it may well be in some places, as it kills the old body.
Relativistic travel versus the Cult
Each method has it's pros and cons:
Relativistic travel:
Pros:
- Does not involve death, or anything resembling it.
- Passengers are awake the whole voyage.
Cons:
- The journey may take only a few days or weeks from the ship's perpective, but in reality, it could be several years - or even decades.
- Accelerasting a ship to near-lightspeed is extremely expensive in terms of fuel. Lifesupport is also costly.
- Claustrophobia is a concern as habitable space is at a premium.
FTL travel via the Cult:
Pros:
- Allows travel between stars in only a few months to years of real-time.
- Greatly reduced cost.
- No risk of claustrophobia as passengers are unaware of actual travel.
Cons:
- Ethically risky as it involves death - and in some places, it's illegal, either due to the destructive mind-scan being classed as murder/manslaughter, or due to the cult itself being outlawed, or whatever.
Governments
Space is highly fractured due to the lack of information flow. At most, one government *may*, if it's lucky, control about half a dozen systems, but typically, it's one government per system.
These governments aren't necessarily all the same race - and indeed, they aren't.
TODO: expand on all this, A LOT :P
This history, is copyright of Xenomorph (from Anywherebb)