This help file is for players who wish to put more detail into their profile in order to bring their character to life in a more vibrant way.
Everything mentioned in the BASIC PROFILE HELP file still applies, in addition to the below. The information in this file is mainly for the three major alliances: The League, the AEU and the Fringe, but knowing this information may assist with a Mutuality profile. For help specifically regarding Mutuality, please check HELP MUTUALITY PROFILE.
1) HOME
For a more detailed profile you should consider where exactly your character was born.
What planet was your character born on? What city? While the game itself mentions only a handful of cities, each planet would have hundreds, if not thousands of cities. Consider how many cities are on Earth in total, today. The major planets in an alliance (Old and New Earths, Chetumal) would have a number of cities similar to this. Most of the other planets would probably have a number of cities similar to an entire continent of Earth, today.
When you get to the Fringe worlds of Tikal, Ticul, Pital, Frontera, Ardsley, the AEU world of Aenea and the League world of Callisto, these worlds would likely have a number of cities similar to a single country or so.
In general, make up a city name that sounds plausible for the world and alliance your character is in and from.
The Fringe would tend to have mesoamerican, South American or Spanish city names.
The AEU would have a mix of names, from Western European or American styled to completely faux names. (For example, New Phoenix and the Velourian Sea)
The League would have standard city names, and of course a caveat is that Old Earth is in fact this Earth, birthplace of humanity, giving many options if you choose for your character to be born there.
You should also consider the attitudes and life on the planet of your character's birth.
The League tends to be focused almost exclusively on Old Earth, with people from Earth tending to unintentionally ignore or dismiss the other colony worlds. There is also a level of censorship from the government, creating an even larger divide between the general populace and the pilot league than the other alliances, with much information available to the pilots being unavailable to the rest of the population. The main focus of the League post-subjugation was Old Earth, with many stations and other colony worlds being given far less funding for reconstruction due to this.
The AEU is a far more liberal alliance than the League, and tends to be more decentralised; each world having relative control of its own affairs, with a representative for each world in the Cabinet, giving a voice to local government. Post-subjugation, President Sheffield halted all non-essential spending and focused the entire alliance and its entire surplus into rebuilding what had been destroyed. Sheffield was also one of the first alliance leaders to begin work on preparing for the Catalyst, giving, once construction had reached suitable levels, a large percentage of AEU coffers to the New Coalition.
The Fringe varies wildly depending on world, though martial law is mostly in effect on all of them. Chetumal is relatively liberal, but other colony worlds would have far fewer supplies and be more like third-world nations. One major difference between the Fringe and the AEU and League is that the Fringe is controlled by one woman: Nina Thomas, Space Chief Marshal and technical tyrant, rather than an elected leader.
2) EARLY LIFE
For a basic profile this can be ignored. For a more detailed profile you can if you choose go into more information regarding things such as how your parents raised you, your early education and friends, etc. Any interesting events in your character's young life, even if they won't effect your character significantly as an adult.
It should be reiterated that family members are unlikely to be pilots unless they are not a major part of your character's life. A pilot would not be able to visit or speak to your character post-licence, your only contact would be letters. Parents would not be pilots.
3) SCHOOLING
Between the ages of 13-16 or so, your character is likely to be at a high school, secondary school, or college. There is plenty that can be written about here, from adventures with friends to how teachers acted towards you and why, or even just anything that you think may be interesting that could take place.
Note that this does not mean you need to write every basic detail of lessons, just focus on things that helped shape your character into the person they are, or explain why people reacted towards you the way they did, or why your character reacted how they did to events.
4) THE DECISION TO PILOT
As mentioned in the basic application help file, the majority of people in a person's life would do their best to convince them not to be a pilot for multiple reasons. Many people fear or hate pilots, starting from plain jealousy and moving all the way to the fact that pilots interact with members of the other alliance pilot leagues.
After the Outsider subjugation began, following on until the current opening event, a significant number of civilians hate the pilot leagues and blame them for bringing the Outsider menace to humanity, regardless of how accurate their view of events is.
You should explain what made your character choose this path, even with such as the above being the case.
Please keep in mind that parents, family members or friends being killed and wanting to become a pilot for revenge is not a valid reason. Pilots undergo significant psychological profiling in order to make sure they are not a risk to the pilot league, the alliance as a whole and humanity in general. This also means that pilots are free from mental instability.
5) PILOT TRAINING
Pilot training in all three alliances can only legally begin at the age of 16. Your character would have spent at the very least a year and a half in a flight school, with the usual length being two years but occasionally becoming three. Pilot licences themselves can only be acquired after a person's 18th birthday.
Capital planets (Old and New Earth, Chetumal) have hundreds if not thousands of training facilities, though usually concentrated in the most built-up areas. The smaller colonies such as Callisto, Ardsley and Aenea would have at least one such facility, but unlikely to have more than three or four. The other worlds in the alliances would have a number of facilities between these figures, depending on the world in question.
If there was a choice, why did you pick that particular school for pilot training? What were the other cadets like? What was the training itself like?
It is unlikely that a character requiring a special application would have trained to become a pilot after 2305. The vast majority of special application characters should have gained their licences before 2304. There is some leeway between 2304 and 2305 (for League) and 2306 (for AEU and Fringe) as cadets would still be gaining licences at a very reduced rate during the subjugation of humanity, ending at the surrender of the respective alliance.
You would have had a full curriculum of ground school lessons, simulated flights, real flights and full combat training.
Ground school would be learning the regulations of starship flight, such as command codes, ship designations, how to talk to flight control, how to request landing/launching clearance, etc along with the basics of the starship command console layout.
Simulated flights in a simulator would be used to give the cadet an idea of how to control the flitter, scout, destroyer, gunship and cruiser classes.
Real flights would take place in a scout to begin with, co-piloted with an instructor, eventually moving on to dual-flitter flights with an instructor in a secondary ship with slaved controls in case of incident. There would also be group flights in gunships to train for crew work.
Combat training would begin in a special force-feedback simulator with AI combatants (designed only for the fighter class of ship), moving on to real ships, beginning with free-for-alls in flitters, moving to team conflicts with fully-crewed cruisers, all refitted with special computerised sensor system controls replacing laser turrets and torpedo launchers. Cadets would then proceed to fight in a series of test combat scenarios with the ship computers monitoring the battles and producing a log afterwards for cadets and instructors to discuss.
6) PRE-OUTSIDER EVENTS
Special application characters will have likely been pilots for years before the Outsider subjugation of humanity. This means that they are also likely to have been involved in the conflicts and events of Known Space.
You should consider what year your character finally gained their licence, and use the below brief timeline to see what events would have occurred while they were in space. For more specific dates, please see HELP TIMELINES or visit the website at http://www.squidsoft.net/sc/.
The AEU and Fringe opened private pilot licence availability in 2248, the League in 2260. Keep in mind that your character must have been at least 18 or older at the time of gaining their licence. It is VERY unlikely that any player character would have gained a licence before 2265, however. It is probably best for you to stick to a character age between 18 and 40, or within a couple of decades of your own player age.
From the 2270s to the 2290s there were several interalliance wars, beginning with the League/Fringe war, ending when the EAOS break the League siege of Campeche and join the Fringe, forcing the League to surrender.
Following this, the AEU attacks the now-weakened League, eventually reaching Alpha Centauri before the EAOS intervene to drive the AEU back, this time aiding the League in defending their space.
In January of 2297, First Contact with the alien Jinu occured. This was an in-game event, and as such you should probably not mention being directly involved unless your character... was. You can still use the event as a way to explore your character's reaction to it, though.
Shortly after, still in 2297, the thought-to-be divided unregs suddenly produce a unified force that calls itself the Renegades. They possess large fleets of ships and advanced technology, using it to almost defeat the alliances until the alliances locate Renegade fleet command stations and manage to destroy the vast majority of their fleet. Since part of this event dealt with the alliances stopping the Renegades through lethal means, (by shooting stun-weapon equipped Renegades on board the station with temporarily EAOS-approved lethal weapons), there is plenty to mention regarding this. The surrender of the Renegades results in the immediate appearance of the Outsiders, who had attempted to use the Renegades to conquer humanity by proxy. They declare themselves rulers of humanity and the Jinu. How would your character have felt about this?
In April of 2298, the Outsiders show humanity and the Jinu the amassed fleet of the IFS, an assumed collective of other aliens. The 'coalition' of humans and Jinu are informed that this is an invasion fleet, preparing to attack Known Space. The combined human and Jinu force destroy it. This begins a war with the IFS, with the Outsiders officially forming The Coalition to aid the human and Jinu war effort. What was your character's thoughts on the revelation of the IFS? What did they think of the formation of the Coalition?
For many years things progress like this, with the IFS conflict being the only major event barring minor pilot league vs pilot league action, along with a slow crackdown by the Outsiders of human and Jinu freedom. Several times, incidents by pilots cause the Outsiders to bar warships from flying, but this restriction is always eventually lifted. What did your character do during this time?
After 2304, the Outsiders declare the terms of occupation violated by the Coalition, with the three major alliances believing it to be the fault of the EAOS with James Korie stealing the expedition starship that once helped locate Jinu space. How did your character feel when the Outsiders made the announcement informing humanity and the Jinu that they had violated the terms of occupation? Was your character aware of the EAOS disappearance at the time?
The Outsiders send a small force to destroy the beacons connecting human and Jinu space. Jinu and human pilots attempt to stop them, but fail. The First and Second Thirties are now separate. Contact with the Jinu is lost, as is contact with Coalition Command and all humans in the Second Thirty at the moment of the triangulation beacon destruction. How did this affect your character? What did they do? Did they attempt to fight the Outsiders to stop them destroying the beacons, or were they elsewhere?
Over the next couple of years humanity loses ground significantly along with production capacity slowly failing as the Outsiders push further. Unexpectedly, in 2306 a collective of unregistered pilots come to aid the alliances, giving them plans for low-cost hull plating and cheap production chainguns to replace expensive laser turrets that have become harder to build. The alliances officially recognise them as the Sovereign Mutuality of Disparate Freemen. Even with this assistance, the alliances do not win any battles against the Outsider fleet, merely hold them at bay temporarily. The Outsiders push first towards the League, reaching Old Earth with the mothership in December of 2306, forcing the League to surrender. By May of 2307, the Mutuality retreat to their stations hidden somewhere in uncharted space, causing the alliances to think of them as traitors to humanity. Within a couple of months, both the AEU and Fringe surrender, unable to hold the Outsider advance at bay any more.
How did your character react to the appearance of the "unregs"? What did they think when the three alliances gave them official status as another alliance? What did you do during the subjugation? When the Mutuality vanished, leaving the alliances all but helpless, how did you react? What did you do when the alliances finally surrendered?
The Outsiders unleash a computer virus in mid-2307 that wipes the vast majority of technological research done by humanity. Portions are saved through hard copy and offline storage that was hidden during orbital bombardment, but much is lost. How did your character feel about this?
For the next three years there is little freedom for humanity. Limited interplantary trade is allowed, but very few pilots are allowed access to the clunky unarmed starships that are the only class available. The rest are refused the ability to fly.
What did your character do for these three years?
7) RECENT EVENTS
If you have not been a part of the in-game events and plots, you can use this page: http://squidsoft.net:7779/recentevents to get to grips with a basic rundown of what has occured since opening. You can also (though you don't have to) use these events to show more of your character's personality. What did they do during these events, as they were not directly a part of them? What did they think when they heard about them?
As always, if you have specific questions regarding information in this help file, or your profile, please feel free to ASSIST, and a host will answer it as soon as someone is available.
