《Expanse》 Prologue I look into the mirror. It''s a very simple one, just a mirror, no frame. It is large though at 7¡¯x3¡¯. I, of course, can see myself in the mirror. Your average guy, 5¡¯11¡±, and wishing I had that extra inch so I could just go 6¡¯, and not worry about the 11. Brown hair, brown eyes. Built like an american football player. Although I¡¯ve never played. It was in my genes. My mom¡¯s side of the family has always had strong genes. Practically everyone looks similar to each other. My little brother was mistaken for my twin when we were little, and my older brothers look like me too. All though with varying shades of brown. My sister, who is 40, was my mom¡¯s first child. She looked just like my mom when she was little. Now she has her own daughter who looks just like her, albeit younger. I myself am 21. And the 4th of 5 children. Although by the time I was aware all my siblings had already gone off on their own, so instead of the little brother, I was more of a big brother. Another thing I¡¯ve probably inherited from my mother is my fertility. Not that I know for sure, but it stands to reason. My 3rd brother has 4 children of his own, and another on the way. Of course, it doesn¡¯t help that he is religious and doesn¡¯t believe in the use of condoms. My mother herself had 10-11 siblings, not sure how many exactly, I never was too interested. There is so many on my mom¡¯s side of the family, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if we could make our own small town. Although that comes with it¡¯s own problems. You see, my mom¡¯s side of the family has a predisposition to getting addicted to stuff, as well as practically everyone suffering from depression to some degree. That¡¯s why I am where I am now. One day, I just broke. Snapped. Fell to pieces. Before it happened, I had suffered from my depression without knowing, because I had always been on the winning side, even if imperfectly. But for the first time... I lost. And it changed everything. Suddenly, I had trouble getting out of bed. I couldn¡¯t figure out what was going on. Was I sick? I felt so tired. So so tired. The next day, I couldn¡¯t get out of bed at all. My dad tried everything he knew to try to get me awake. At first he thought I was just tired from staying up late. But when even water wouldn¡¯t wake me for long, he started to get worried. I visited doctors, sleep specialists, even neurologists. No one could figure out what was wrong. It is not often, after all, that depression takes such a physical form. We tried medicines that increase energy, vitamins, hormone pills. Some would work for a week or so, but after I would fall back. I was 18 during this.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Finally after a year I started to get better, not much but it helped. And after 2 years, I could finally function. However, I was changed. If my previous self was an energetic youth, the current me would be an old man, with far too many regrets. My mind, hazy. It didn¡¯t want to work like it used to. My emotions in turmoil. Some days they would be all high strung, and others, they would be so subdued, I had a hard time feeling anything at all. If anything those days were the worst. I took to reading. I had always liked reading, but now it was an addiction. I had to read something! I had to feel something that wasn¡¯t me! I had to escape! I had to learn. How does someone cope with this? How does someone live through this? How do I find myself once more? I¡¯ve never found an answer. But maybe, now I will. Humans are amazing creatures. We have finally created the Full Dive system. A system that allows you to actually BE the character. The moment I heard of this system and the sole game coming out for it. I decided to learn more. I looked through the company website, and learned something. They were looking for volunteers. Volunteers to test the effects of long term immersion. I signed up for all of them, hoping that at least one would get accepted. Luckily one was. The 5 year program. I¡¯ll even be paid 30 grand per year. It might not sound like much, but considering I¡¯ll have no expenses, and I don¡¯t need any training. The best part is that it is tax free. With that amount I¡¯ll be able to start my life again. Assuming I find myself once more. And now here I am looking at myself in the mirror. About to head into my pod. A buzzer rings, signaling that it is time to enter the pod. A technician comes in and places me into the pod, connecting everything that needs to be connected. And then, sweet sweet darkness covers my vision.
Welcome to The Expanse
Chapter 1
Welcome to The Expanse
The Expanse is the game that the pod was developed for. It is the first time in history that the console was made for the game and not the other way around. The Expanse is set in a science fiction universe, and that¡¯s about all anyone knows of it. At least, when it comes to lore.
Please Choose Your Starting Option (special)
Regular: You start like any other player
Extreme: An option for those testing long term immersion, or those who bought pod time after testing. Unlike other players you start alone in a small craft in an unexplored system. Survival is not guaranteed, nor common
This was something they informed us of before the test began. Basically they put a player in a test craft for an experimental warp drive. The test failed, but luckily you survived re-entry. Unluckily, most of the ship components are broken, and you are barely able to keep up thrusters and life support, and the drive has totally melted down. Meaning you are alone, in an unknown system, an unknown distance from civilization. At least, civilization that you know of. Of course the one thing guaranteed is that you are in a system with at least one asteroid belt, with the basic resources. Getting to it would be another matter. Death in the game is not forgiving at all. First off, you ¡®spawn¡¯ in the nearest cloning facility. Luckily your ship has one, although due to malfunctions, it has a limited usage, and you don¡¯t know how many it has left. Then there are the death penalties themselves. First, you lose everything you had on you, including cybernetics. You can have the cybernetics added to your clone for an added cost, or with insurance that you pay a fee for. Secondly, you lose skill progress. 5% for every light year, rounded up. Considering that the nearest star to earth is around 5 lys, that means you¡¯ll lose at least 25% of any skill experience gained if you can no longer spawn in your ship or system. Luckily, the most experience you can lose is 199.99%. You see, you cannot lose skill levels, just skill experience. However you can go below 0%. Which means if you lose 100% more then your 0% you¡¯ll need to earn two times the experience to level the skill again. This may not sound like much, but it is for EVERY skill, and the higher the skill level, the more experience is needed to level it up again. I imagine some of the higher level skills would take months to raise in level, doublingthat time would be a huge loss. Now you may be wondering why I haven¡¯t mentioned loss in levels, but there is a reason for that. There are none. There are stats, however, there are only 2 ways to gain stats. The first and least practical after a little bit is by training them. The second, and most likely where most will come from, is from skills. Each skill gives a certain amount of stats per level. The higher the level of the skill the more stats you get from it. There are 6 stats. These are STR, VIT, AGI, DEX, PRC, INT. Strength is simple enough, the more you have, the more weight you can lift, carry, or drag. Vitality is a little more complex. Vitality decides your ability to resist poisons, or other things such as paralysis from electricity, and stunning blows, as well as how fast you heal from wounds after battle, and your stamina. Agility basically includes things such as balance, coordination, and the ability to move your body in the manner you intended it to. Dexterity is like agility, but it focuses on the hands. Things such as grip, hand-eye coordination, and the ability to do complex actions with your hands at fast speeds. The reasoning for dexterity to not be included in agility, is that it has to deal with the concentration of the improvement. It is the difference between 1 stat point distributed throughout your body, and one point concentrated in your hands. Basically put, your hands need much more agility to do complex tasks, then the rest of your body, and therefore is given a stat for that. Perception is basically your ability to spot details. Clearer vision, better hearing, smelling, taste, more delicate sense of touch, and some system assistance in spotting points of interest, or incongruities. Last is Intuition. Intelligence is not something that can be raised in the game, because what is the point? You can¡¯t suddenly make someone smarter, at least not without messing around with genetics, and that¡¯s impossible with today¡¯s technology, and would be something you would have to do OUTSIDE the game anyways. Intuition is basically the system¡¯s ability to inform you of information. For example if you are trying to create a laser pistol from scratch, and are making the schematics, if you have a high int, the system would give you more information on what you are trying to do then someone with a low int. However, the system only ever provides hints, and directions towards an answer, and never directly provides the answer, unless you have a skill of the appropriate level, that would have involved that answer. An example being if you have laser construction at master level, then you should know the answer already anyways, and just haven¡¯t thought of it yet, and therefore the system would provide the answer.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Another thing is that you are limited to a total of 8 main skills. However you can have as many sub-skills as you want, but sub-skills don¡¯t give any stats. Of course, I researched most of this on the main website. The only thing the staff here explained was our extra starting option. ¡°Extreme¡±
Extreme Selected, are you sure? Yes/No
¡°Yes¡±
Entering Character Creation
Please select your race: Human Beastman
There are currently only 2 races at the moment. The generic humans, and the beast men, who are humans who added beast genes to their genetic makeup. Though most the differences are cosmetic, beastmen have better base PRC, STR, and VIT, but have lower base DEX, and INT. Since I am going to be alone, I can¡¯t specialize, and therefore a generalized human is better for me. ¡°Human¡±
Human Selected: Please Customize Character Appearance
I don¡¯t change much here. First off, I add an inch. I then change my hair color to black, and my eye color to deep blue. I change my face just enough that it can¡¯t be recognized as my face. I shorten all the hair on my body, so it is a little fuz at most. ¡°Done¡±
Avatar Saved: Please select your 5 starting skills (Bonus 2 for difficulty level) Combat Skills: Laser Pistol Laser Rifle Laser Blade Kinetic Pistol Kinetic Rifle Kinetic Blade Unarmed Explosives Scouting Stealth Sniping Suppresion General Skills: Weapon Maintenance Armor Maintenance Heavy Armor Basic Armor Light Armor Acrobatics Bargaining Appraisal Tool Proficiency Technical: Electronic Engineering Mechanical Engineering Theoretical Engineering Electrical Engineering Invention Research Piloting: Small Craft Pilot Fighter Pilot
These are of course all Main skills. Which means they come with several sub-skills that are involved with each process. I take a little while to look through the options and choose the following: Electronic Engineering M-INT m-DEX Mechanical Engineering M-DEX m-INT Electrical Engineering M-INT m-DEX Tool Proficiency M-DEX m-PRC Appraisal M-PRC m-INT When it comes to the stats that skills grant, they aren¡¯t displayed in numbers, but rather in growth per level. There are two growth types, Major, and minor. Most skills have 1 Major, and 1 minor, however there are some that havethree minors. Of course there is a simple reason I chose these 5 skills. First is that I am going to need to fix everything that is broken in order to survive. Second is that I am not going to have anyone to teach me what I need to know, so I need something that can tell me what something is. The third reason is that you can learn skills just through practice. Luckily there isn¡¯t much to hit in space, so I can practice small craft pilot until i get it. Of course, there is one more reason. The possibility of my entering combat is extremely low, but even if I were to get into combat, I won¡¯t have any weapons to use those masteries for anyways, not to mention I would most likely be outnumbered anyways. And with that I have finished my character. ¡°Load Game¡±
Skills Selected: Game Initiating...
Update Just wanted to say sorry, but it may take a while for another chapter to come out. While I got a good start going, I didn''t consider all the game systems I''ll need to think of the rules for. Therefore I am going to have to write a few chapters that will be changed as I find errors in the game system. I am not sure how long this will take, since I am new to writing, but don''t expect anything soon.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Update Just wanted to say sorry, but it may take a while for another chapter to come out. While I got a good start going, I didn''t consider all the game systems I''ll need to think of the rules for. Therefore I am going to have to write a few chapters that will be changed as I find errors in the game system. I am not sure how long this will take, since I am new to writing, but don''t expect anything soon.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.