The children of a civilization on the brink, the crew of the Skeleton Ensemble were born into a shattered empire, a broken machine. The Free State remains cut in half since the great schism, and a great many motherships fleeing into the uncharted northern expanse have now seemingly been lost without a trace.

The only chance for a brighter future lies with those few former refugees brave enough to volunteer as a new class of peacemakers, and delve further than ever into the big black, attempting to recontact those lost colonies in the flesh. Beset on all sides by enemy imperialists, skulking alien horrors, and vindictive separatist pirates of their own kin, only by repairing the fractured network of the polysentience may they begin to mend the deep wounds that scourge their race. However, after the years of paranoia and carnage that ripped their race asunder, there is no guarantee the colonists they find will even resemble the calm pacifist spacers they once called brothers and sisters…

Skeleton Ensemble is a roleplaying plot created January 17, 2016 by Primitive Polygon, who is the current Game Master. Roleplay takes place primarily via SP, with frequent posting being highly preferred.

The overall idea is to create a more isolated and foreboding experience, where characters will never quite be sure of who is friend and who is foe. The freespacer-only, tough as nails vagabond crew will be forced to rely on their own wits, cunning and charm. The path ahead will not always be morally obvious. Add on top of this the extremely unique cyborg and robotic character options open to player characters, for a truly 'out there' feel that is equal parts Metroid, Farscape, and Battle Angel Alita.

Themes; Exploration, cyberpunk, cyborgs, high-tech low-lives, existential horror. Space combat and personal combat possible depending on player actions.

• Standard play-by-post.
• All members of the plot are expected to post as often as the plot permits, preferably at least once per week.
• Do not wait on another player to post for more than this. If they do this, it's okay to act as if they were distracted, busy, lost in thought, e.t.c. Seizing the initiative is a good thing! The GM is also entitled to do this to you, if you fall behind.
• If you don't feel like you can post this often, just post in the OOC to give other people the heads up! Letting us know that you haven't just left completely is fine!
• Players who have not posted in two weeks, with no explanation, stand to have their characters injured and knocked unconscious if on a mission, depending on the situation. They probably won't be killed, but their fate may well be left up in the air for dramatic effect…
• Seeing as they are Freespacers, a typical command structure will be mostly absconded in favor of an anonymous multi-choice voting system that the players will all have input into!… However, bonus votes can and will be awarded to those players who put effort into making their character fit the Free State ethos and thought process. This includes backing pacifist solutions to situations, advocating teamwork rather than individual action, and just generally painting a good picture of their type's inherent mindset.

• Freespacer Character Creation Guide
• OOC Thread
• Current Mission Thread; Program 2 (Epilogue); Resurfacing

• Recovered inertialess drive corvette, the “Skeleton Ensemble”.
• Vista's Hippy Cargo Transporter, the “Treasure Hoarder”.

The plot currently requires a Fleshmender (Doctor), a Lodemucker (Miner), a Codespinner (Hacker), and perhaps one or two more Militants.

Note that positions are extremely mutable, however, and you can still create a character for this plot with a different or even completely new job description, as long as the creator is willing to justify how it would fit in with the plot. Something like a scientist or a robotics engineer is possible, but this crew would not put up with a murderous pirate or assassin in their mist. As before, creating something that fits in with Freespacer culture will vastly help your odds with this.

Early in the year YE38, the Skeleton Ensemble had found itself once more stripped of resources and without a standard crew. Having become notorious for their obsessions over polysentience ghost stories to do with exiled spacers and lost fleets, the syntelligence Jack-O-Lantern began to seek out a renewed compliment, one with a more daring attitude, and a thirst for answers strong enough to propel them deep than ever into unknown space.

The vague map they provided might have seemed like a bad joke to some, now that they had settled into a new home within the sanctified walls of Nepleslia's boarders. It was Terra incognita. But to others… It was like the call of the wild, hearkening back to the original, 'true' way of the Freespacer people. It was the perfect opportunity to attempt renewed contact with the separatist colonies, to track down old relatives who disappeared during their race's traumatic downfall, or, indeed, seek out mysterious alien treasures untouched by the big three…

An impromptu meeting at the run-down bars of Nil turned out to be somewhat of a new beginning, with a myriad of strangers turning up to partake in a new expedition. Despite coming from a wide array of backgrounds, from ex-cons to wandering scientists, it seems the ramification of the schism still bound all of them together in a common cause of reunification.

Jack's contacts provided them with a choice of missions to partake in, and in order to secure a more concrete backing in terms of resources, they chose to seek out some of the more pragmatic local options…

Choosing to aid the pro-Nepleslian faction Viridian Array, albeit only in a temporary fashion, the new team found themselves on the shores of Port Hope. Responding to a request for aid from the rather mysterious contact Antibody Hollowpoint Five Seven 57 8449-2815, what they found was a space factory with a dead crew and a severe hacking problem.

Hollowpoint themselves had taken Ziggy and Gemini prisoner, believing them to be related to the problem, whilst an impostor convinced the Skeleton Ensemble crew to break into the deepest cold storage mainframe the system had. This lead to a massive firefight when the two groups met up, with members of both questioning their loyalties at ever turn.

Both Hollowpoints ended up beating each other to pieces, whilst Gemini, actually a spy working for the Astral Locksmiths, secretly broke into the mainframe themselves.

Everyone but the impostor survived, though little clue was left as to their true allegiance or goals. Jack ended up leaving the vessel too, feeling like his guidance and ideology had put everyone's life in unnecessary danger…

Genesculptor and Ziggy, plus a newly recruited Druid called Vista, are currently all exploring the depths of Port Hope station in order to convince him to return.