while necessities – uniforms, basic toiletries, a laptop or tablet to access the ship’s systems and personal video logs, and anything necessary for work – were provided to the crew of the Argo as a part of the ship’s basic equipment, every crew member was also allotted a certain amount of space, both physical and digital, for personal effects.
for physical items, each crew member was allotted one (1) plastic box, 2″ x 2″ x 2″, to weigh no more than 10kg, in which they could put any physical personal effects they wanted for the mission (keepsakes, accessories, non-uniform clothing, etc).
for digital materials like music, video, photographs, or ebooks, each crew member was allotted one (1) terabyte of data on a dedicated hard drive to be stored with the ship’s primary servers, which can be accessed from any computer terminal or personal laptop on the ship.
this week’s character development task is to explore what your character brought on the Argo with them, both physical and digital. this can be done any way you’d like – as a graphic, a self-para, a list, or any other way you would like to present it.
while light-speed delay means that communications from Earth have grown scarce and arrive with increasing delays – meaning that messages the crew is receiving these days were recorded fairly soon after they left Earth, four years ago – the crew does receive messages from their friends and family back home.
each crew member was asked to provide a list of family members and friends authorized to send them messages through mission control for the duration of the mission, and when mission control sends communication bundles to the ship, any messages from the crew’s family and friends are a part of those bundles. those messages anchor them to Earth – sometimes, they’re a pleasant reminder of home, other times a bittersweet reminder of the things they’ve given up to be here.
write about your character receiving a message from the people they left behind back on Earth.
on a mission as long as this one, one of the most important things is the crew’s dynamic. four years so far means four years of friendship, four years of fighting, and four years of history between every one of the characters on the ship. to help kick-start building those relationships out of character, and to provide every writer with the information they would know about your character, the first character development task is all an about me page and character shipper.
below the cut, you will find a suggested format for this page; you can feel free to deviate from this form as you see fit, adding anything else you deem relevant or interesting or skipping sections or questions you don’t want to complete. this is intended as a suggestion for those who don’t know where to start. fill out everything you think is important for your character, add anything else you might find vital, and be sure to take care in filling out the bottom section for connections and relationships to help kick off out of character plotting!
there is also a list of questions to think about in terms of outlining wanted connections -- again, these are all suggestions so feel free to ignore them or make up something else if it suits you better.
while all character development tasks are optional, this one is highly recommended to make plotting between players and establishing character dynamics easier. as full apps and bios will not be posted on the main page, this will allow other players to learn about your character’s backstory and personality.
the basics
full name:
gender:
pronouns:
age:
birthdate:
sexual orientation:
ethnicity:
nationality:
history
hometown:
family:
spoken languages:
education:
religious background:
you can put your character’s full biography from your application here
connections
you can use this section either to list wanted connections (a best friend, a rival…. or get as creative as you want) OR to discuss generally how your character relates to others (what kind of people they like, what kind of people they can’t stand) – either way, this section should give other players a jumping off point for determining how your characters relate to one another
here are a few questions to jump-start your plotting:
who does your character admire or respect?
who does your character spend their free time with?
who does your character go to for comfort or advice?
who does your character butt heads with most often?
who does your character go to to blow off steam?
who does your character do their best to avoid?
who surprised your character the most?
did your character know anyone before training for the mission began?
who does your character trust? who do they distrust?
who makes your character feel competitive? who makes them feel capable? who makes them feel anxious?
who do they look forward to having rotating duties with? do they have a gym buddy? someone they watch movies with? who is the first person they talk to in the mornings?
who would your character least like to be stuck in a crisis with? who would they seek out in a crisis?
have your character’s opinions on anyone changed significantly over the course of training and the past four years?
Glasses case with spare pair of glasses with a stronger prescription than she needed prior to departure.
Some small board/card games sans extraneous packaging (a typical card deck, Fluxx, Carcassone, Gloom, and Coup)
Good, cozy flannel
A pair of thick, warm socks
Loose leaf paper
Space pen (best invention ever)
A very small pot of honey (because uncontaminated, it has an indefinite shelf life, she wanted to see what would happen to it in space)
Digital Materials
A couple seasons of Battlestar Galactica (the 2004 remake)
Harry Potter (books, movies- including Fantastic Beasts)
Four complete seasons of Top Model from various countries
Dog videos. Also videos of other small animals.
Several e-books and archived webpages of European folklore stories and history
Complete texts of Dracula, Flowers for Algernon, Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead (although she’s a little ashamed of keeping anything by Orson Scott Card), Stardust, and seven contemporary genre books that she had not read prior to departure, including an LGBT sci-fi anthology that she keeps forgetting the name of.
French and German language audio/visual learning courses (which she has not touched)
Wedding and engagement photos
Some other relatively recent photos
Scans of her diplomas (they’re comforting, somehow, okay?)
The most current photos of her side of the family from before she left
Soundtracks to The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast films
Selections from an assortment of artists’ works including Sara Bareilles, Shocking Blue, The Swell Season, Phil Collins, One Direction (only some shame there), N*Sync (no shame there), and Train.
An impressive collection of Dutch folk music.
A lot of Christmas music (for someone who isn’t much for religion)
A plethora of recordings from the past fifteen years of Eurovision competitions
Crossword puzzles (which she has figured out how to complete on board using PDF programs)
while light-speed delay means that communications from Earth have grown scarce and arrive with increasing delays -- meaning that messages the crew is receiving these days were recorded fairly soon after they left Earth, four years ago -- the crew does receive messages from their friends and family back home.
each crew member was asked to provide a list of family members and friends authorized to send them messages through mission control for the duration of the mission, and when mission control sends communication bundles to the ship, any messages from the crew’s family and friends are a part of those bundles. those messages anchor them to Earth -- sometimes, they’re a pleasant reminder of home, other times a bittersweet reminder of the things they’ve given up to be here.
write about your character receiving a message from the people they left behind back on Earth.
