Backstory

The Contact

The main underlying trope is the fiasco of Contact, leading to a desperate lack of information (mystery, surprise, continuously created and discarded hypotheses) and violent clashes (horror and guilt). The problems with Contact are inspired by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiasco_(novel) and a few related novels by the same author. In the game, however, aliens are not very different physically, only psychologically and culturally.

The Contact is mostly restricted to a small, random group of enterprising and adventurous individuals. It does not involve public opinion, governments, corporations, think tanks and groups of interest, but individual beliefs of the heroes, their interests, fears, cynicism, greed, resentment for being wronged by the system, disillusionment about authorities, loyalty to each other and to the humankind. They take decisions in the name of humankind, but do not let the humankind know about it (the player can decide otherwise, but it leads to a quick and bad ending) and keep in mind their own interests (again to an extent determined by the player), especially that the fiasco of Contact and the shortcomings of democracy make the impact of their decisions on the public interest very unclear.

Alien background

The alien civilization is several times older and very different from the human civilization. Nobody knows their goals and motives and linguists doubt they would even understand the question. Having mathematics in common is not enough to talk about life and everything, and even their mathematics is very different (as nonstandard vs. standard analysis, continued vs. decimal fractions, but more so, as far as we can understand).

The guess is their technology, while very alien, is not much more powerful than the humans', in particular in spaceship propulsion and the cost of interstellar travel. That's pure speculation since no alien ship nor any remains thereof were ever found. However, the theory would explain why, apparently, only a handful of aliens was sent, in a flotilla of spaceships small enough to be never detected by humans, or perhaps even in just one ship that got destroyed.

It is speculated they were sent to establish contact with and, as much as possible, influence over the human civilization. To be received with honors due to ambassadors of an alien civilization, and not intercepted and locked out in secret government laboratories, they'd need a fleet strong enough to break through the US air defenses. Then they'd need to hang on at the White House lawn long enough for the press and foreign diplomats to arrive. It wouldn't hurt to be able to blow off a helicopter or a fighter jet off the sky at a moment's notice, in case negotiations take a wrong turn.

Some say the alien spaceship had an accident and the aliens got stranded and acted out of desperation and fear in kidnapping a human vessel. Others say it was the plan from the very start to infiltrate the colonies in man-made spaceships and that they are still hiding in many ships, space stations and asteroid bases. Yet another theory concludes they wanted to build an invasion fleet using Solar System resources and subverted manufacturing capacity, because it's just cheaper than transferring a big enough fleet from another star system. Something went wrong, though, because even their modifications to the Allure of the Stars didn't quite work, as far as we can guess their purpose. Perhaps it was a technology mismatch: not the right materials, not the right manufacturing processes, incompatible components.

Alien backstory

The group of aliens have captured or infiltrated a human spaceship some years ago. The ship's crew apparently became aware of the alien presence, retreated to decks 1 and 2 and sealed the rest of the ship off. They tried to burn the ship in the Neptune's atmosphere, but the aliens got control of the ship's engines and steered it clear of trouble at the last moment, just after the crew escaped in a shuttle. Then, for some years the aliens went in the ship after their own business, probably scouting and mining Kuiper Belt asteroids or Centaurs. It helped that the ship looked like an asteroid itself. Even when it changes course, the observers are not alarmed, because asteroids with affixed engines are in fashion.

After many years, by chance, the ship gets recognized for what it is and boarded, when all attempts at communication fail. The aliens keep silent to pretend the ship is abandoned. Fortunately for them, the spotters are not the authorities, but a bored crew of a tug hauling an old transport vessel full of mined rare earths. As soon as the businessman from Jupiter, who ends up owning he ship, smells rat, he orders and express sale of the ship, instead of investigating and risking any trouble.

Heroes' background

Not much should be said about the heroes past and it should be gender-neutral. The player will have the ability to change names and sex of the heroes and write a few sentences of background for each character. Assignment of starting skills may generate a default background, with some random elements. There will be no romance in the script. Supposedly, there's just no time when lives are at stake. But the player is free to role-play any romance the player wants, using for this, e.g., the ability to rename and describe characters, rooms and items.

They are Good Guys, but not perfect. They never disobey the player in the middle of a fight, but are free to have doubts and personal dramas in response to game events. This helps primarily to attach the player to the heroes, but may also slightly influence their advancement throughout the game. Any deep message or moral beyond "it's fun to be good, even if you die a lot" should be subtle, open to interpretations and, ideally, emerging more from the gameplay than the script.

They've spent the last dozen or more years toiling in space. Most of them in pilot and engineering roles on different vessels, coping for months with ship politics and for years with company politics. Mostly merchant ships of the few main interplanetary trade corporations and mostly serving new, extremely risky routes, e.g., to the Kuiper Belt. No active military nor police, but depending on the skills some may have military past. A scientist and a physical worker are possible, too. Each of them has a fair amount of savings from the years of exhausting work and a growing hunger of independence. And sunlight.

Heroes' backstory

A few friends have a chance meeting on a space station orbiting Triton, the Neptune's main moon. One of them just then learns of a huge, old cruise liner, with powerful propulsion and sizable external cargo bays, for sale for a fraction of it's worth at a nearby dockyard. (TODO: make the fortunate coincidence, the great offer and no other takers believable, e.g., let them bargain a bit? let them hear about the offer from a drunker mechanic in the bar, because the owner is afraid of advertising in the open market? even better, let them find the offer in an old court ad about selling stuff of a company that bought too many old ships and gone bankrupt before even closely looking at most of them; the moon is too distant and rarely visited to invite wreck robbers or inquisitive potential buyers, so nobody is interested until the hero takes the shuttle and looks at it closely. Perhaps let the leader say: "Something obviously stinks there, it's too good an offer, but the papers are legally sound and if we can lay our hands on it and overcome whatever the hidden problems are, we'll gain a great fortune in an instant".) By pooling all their money and getting into debt up to their necks, they could just afford the ship. Then, as soon as the ship is fully operational, even just one full capacity cargo haul from the asteroid belt to Earth will pay back half the debt. (TODO: research the time taken by such a travel, projected spaceship costs, etc. and do the numbers) In time the ship might again get qualified for transport of passengers. Life support on ships of this class has capacity of up to ten thousand persons.

They browse the publicly available ship records on the net. The agent selling the ship emails them what he heard from the ship's owner. The ship was supposed to have a rundown with a meteor swarm, damaging and depressurizing all ship decks from the third downward. There might have been some leaks of noxious cargo, too, so all entrances to level 3 and above are welded shut. Fortunately, two of the five main powerful engines are operational, so the ship is decently mobile. Unfortunately, the external cargo bay doors are stuck closed. Deck 1, with the airlocks, and deck 2 with the navigation consoles are fine. The water recycling basins, pumps and filters work well enough and the air ducts, air filters, pipes and wiring in walls on many levels (that's why all walls are 1 tile thick) are usually in good condition. In particular the crew cabins on deck 2 are fully habitable. The ship is immediately operational, though with no cargo capacity and little redundancy of basic subsystems. The ship's papers got missing, so it's legally a wreck to be hauled to a scrapyard --- the closest one is on Uranus' orbit, but its workshop should also be capable of fixing some of the damage. It's long and risky trek, however, so nobody can legally be hired to make it, especially that the ship is unregistered. Only owners can take such a risk and the current owner is not so inclined, hence the low price.

The friends circle the ship a few times in a shuttle. No visible structural damage, nothing torn apart. The shape seems vaguely right, but no details, not even the meteor holes, are visible among the layers of glued down asteroid rubble. Deck 2 seems long unused but habitable, lifts are dead, a quick trip via half-blocked corridors of level 1 ends with the heroes chased out by the stench (the water recycling? but it smells more like a pig farm). A couple days of remote diagnostics checks on all machinery shows satisfactory results. Huge amounts of fuel. Engines roar like a thousand storms (TODO: or silent ion engines? Visible then, but not easy to hear.). An occasion of a lifetime. They pay, get on board, set autopilot to Uranus, press the button and start counting future profits. After a few days, they begin exploring deck 2 and thinking of ways to safely explore deck 1, too. Who knows, a former private island of a millionaire could hold a pirate treasure trove, can't it?