Due to the dangerous conditions, isolation and hardship involved building Mars base, it has been decided hardcore convicts will be provided a chance for early release by serving their time building the base.   In the past, things have gone smoothly - it seems like this approach might be an effective means of rehabilitation.  

Several politicians have built their careers along with the base and it's time for them to visit.  When they do, they discover that there's more than a few minutes radio delay in the news coming from Mars.   Things are not as they should be and the headcount of their workforce is dwindling faster than a rocket countdown.    

That is the premise of the next Killer game.  

Sign-up by posting your character name for this game in this thread. Include a description and brief history of your character.

For the first time ever you will be able to choose from one of three factions:  staff, politician or convict.  Also, unprecedented for a Killer game, all authors will get to create a second character during their first turn.   Either character can survive and make you the next Master Killer.

The game will start in approximately one week.     

Sign-up now.



What we have so far...
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Commander Farthing (50s)

A tall imposing man, yet not a wrinkle to be found on his uniform.

From his time as a cadet at West Point, he's always believed that following and enforcing rules are what wins a war.   That and a bit of quiet strategy.  He made a career out of the military rising through the ranks, mostly by his use of effective bureaucracy rather than spending any time on the front line.

It was shortly after the fifth Gulf war that he was appointed as Commander on Mars base.  What started out as a starry-eyed project soon turned sour when it was decided he would be using convicts as his labor-force.   He protested strongly against such a policy but the politicians wouldn't listen, all they cared about was how it looked to the voters - and the voters seemed to like the idea.

For a while the convict labor seemed to work out but as he's always said, old habits die hard, the convict were soon up to their old tricks.   This recent spate of killings at Mars base would prove the Commander was right, he just has to make sure he rubs those politicians noses in it when they visit.

DeSean Quinn, 26. Staff (Janitor).

Just another lost soul on the mean streets of New Compton, West California, Quinn has made a career out of staying alive. Whether it's stealing his first meal in a week or taking shelter in an abandoned steel mill, he's done it all in the name of survival. His soft-spoken demeanor and articulate nature contrasts the lost and lonely life he's endured.

Despite this, he respects the mantra his mother passed onto him, "An uneducated man is nothing while an educated man can have anything." After having attended every day of school in Torrance, DeSean graduated with a 3.37 GPA but was arrested two days later for grand theft auto. Knowing that he did steal the car, there was nothing to fight until the police informed him of the body they found in the trunk. Even after swearing he didn't kill the person, he was sentenced to life without parole under the Three Strikes policy.

After eight years behind bars, Quinn's attorney discovered evidence from the scene was improperly handled and got the murder charge dropped. Once released, and with the arrest hanging over him, DeSean turned to Mars because a janitorial job on Mars is still better than a janitorial job on Earth.

BTW can everyone see 3D map at the top of this thread?

Si, si, Miguel.

Are we sure the Mars thing was the way to go?

Quoted from Mr. Blonde Si, si, Miguel. Are we sure the Mars thing was the way to go?

Yep. It will be fun.  People are busy thinking about their characters.   There's some newbies that aren't sure.  But we should have enough people to play within the week.

Changed to use an image for the map.  That will work.

Constance "Connie" Harris (late-20's medical staffer)

An ebony-skinned black woman, Connie is short and slender but with a wiry strength uncommon in a woman her size.

Connie was born and raised in the same slums as many of the toughest Mars convicts. The difference is she made it through her teens without pregnancies or problems, finished high school and became a registered nurse. She's been around the block and has seen some of the horrific things one person can do to another, yet she still hangs on to a naive innocence about the world, and about the kinds of people she grew up with in particular. She saw the Mars operation as a chance to make a difference, to help some of the people that the rest of the world had given up on. She believes that everyone is basically good; that no one is truly "evil" and everyone deserves redemption. But on the Mars base, evil will show her it's true face... and she may not be ready for it.

Michael, the map is easily viewed, but it's so big that it increases the page width hugely and actually puts a scrolling bar on the bottom, meaning to read a post, you have to continually scroll sideways line by line, then back to read the start of the new line.

Anything you can do about this to make reading posts easier?

I've noticed this when peeps post a big picture of video at times and it always makes for such a difficult reading experience.

My character is still coming, BTW.

as a n00b i only request i not be the one to have to start this story off...


Senator Andrew Warren (42)

A Reverend from a small town in Western Oklahoma. Warren set his sights on the White House 8 years ago after his 6 year old daughter
Amy was kidnapped from her bedroom and savagely murdered.

The killer was never found.

When Warren ran for senator he stunned the nation when he publicly forgave his child's murderer. He declared he would make it his political
mission to abolish the death penalty; preaching correctional rehabilitation and second chances.

When the Mars project began, it was Warren's idea to use Convicts for the workforce in exchange for commuted sentences.

In recent months however Warren's behavior has become increasingly erratic and unstable. He's quietly developed a severe drinking problem
and has stopped going to Church. Those closest to him say he's become obsessed with his daughter's murderer, and that many of his fundamental
views appear to be in a severe state of flux.

Quoted from Dreamscale Anything you can do about this to make reading posts easier?

It's smaller now - is it still readable?

Yes...beautiful.  Thanks.

I was thinking about this.  Pretty much any sci-fi has some vocabulary as part of it's universe.

Rather than let each author introduce vocabulary willy-nilly and then trying to keep track of it, I think it might be easier if we just create it up front and have a dictionary to help us use it.  

So, I'm going to ask each player/author to come up with two terms these people would use to describe things in their everyday life.   It might be a piece of electronic equipment (i doubt they''d be using something called iPad), a historical event, a swear word or possibly a drug of choice.  It could be anything really as long as it's something they use in their current vernacular.   Please include a definition of your terms.

Be serious about it because I'll keep track of how many times each term is used and see who did the best.  

Have fun.  

My terms:

Lyzer - like a Taser but injects the victim with a strong fast-acting paralyzing agent.

Sneeze - a sniffed synthetic drug that gives a euphoric hallucinogenic high when made right, but causes uncontrollable, sometimes fatal, sneezing fits when made wrong.    

Michael, these are great ideas and your 2 choices are nice as well.

Along the same lines, would it be a good idea for each of us to also choose 2 technological advances that we all know and understand are now reality on Mars?  My advice would be then to have everything else as we know it now.

Just an idea.