SCENE: Freighter Bridge, abandoned. Alarms are blaring, red lights flashing, as a planet fills the screen.
SCENE: Cargo hold, racks holding tall silver cylinders, each a stasis chamber holding a single sentient life form, frozen in an endless moment of time.
SCENE: Exterior shot of the ship roaring silently past the viewer, falling towards the planet below. Dramatic music begins to play faintly, slowly building.
Announcer: "Ts'Goda IV, a once vibrant planet whose people destroyed themselves in a violent war two centuries before. An empty, desolate world - and a hundred slaves taken from a distant planet, suspended in stasis are about to be marooned there!"
"Welcome to Shipwreaked!"
Horns blare out as the cameras zoom in on an alien city that looks like melted orange mounds with square holes that used to be windows. A plume of black smoke is rising in the center of the alien city, the cameras zooming in closer on a swath of destruction, ending with the twisted wreckage of the interstellar freighter lying in a burning grassy sward that might have been a park centuries before. There are holes in the hull where the lifepods have ejected. After a pause, the camera pulls back as if rising through the air until it stops, showing a glittering space station lying in orbit. A window comes into focus and the cameras zoom in on a small studio audience and a small stage with a smirking Frengua male neatly attired in pressed khakis, brown boots and belt with a large curved knife sitting on his hip.
"Gentlebeings, let me present to you to Scara!"
[INSERT CANNED LOUD APPLAUSE AND WILD WHOOP TRACKS OVER AUDIENCE'S POLITE CLAPPING.]
Scara grins, his thick eyestalks like a snail’s wave through his dark hair looking into the camera.
"That's right, gentlebeings! I, Scara, have rescued one hundred primitive beings from the slave markets to compete with each other for a chance to return back to their world!"
"Hidden cameras observing their every move, while their Omnis," he paused, showing off his own brown wrist Omni , "listen to every word, every whisper! Before this season is through, you will get to know these primitive people like they were your own family!"
"Of course," the Frengua smirks, cocking his head while one eyestalk winks at the TV Audience, "We're not going to let them all go at once!"
"Let's go back down to the cargo hold to watch as the first few stasis bubbles pop!"
SCENE: Cargo hold. Half of the stasis cylinders remain in their racks while others lie strewn all over the floor of the hold. Viewers can see dents in the wall where cylinders had slammed into them - yet the stasis cylinders are totally unharmed.
One of the cylinders suddenly shimmers like a wand of sparkles and vanishes. The human suspended unharmed inside falls a few inches to the floor, gasping and looking around the shadowy hold. Unseen, the studio audience roars with applause.
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The last thing you remember is seeing a bright light overhead. Now you've woken up surrounded by silver stasis pods inside a crashed alien space ship in the middle of some long abandoned alien city that looks melted, with no idea how you got there and certainly no idea how you're getting home.
What you don't know is high above you, an alien spaceship is gathering broadcast signals from your personal wrist Omnis and thousands of hidden micro-cameras to produce the ultimate reality show - with you and your fellow abductees as the unwitting unpaid talent.
To keep you healthy, an alien symbiont has been injected into you. It keeps you from getting sick from native microbes, viruses, germs and bacteria - and helping you heal faster. Sick people do not make for good entertainment.
You've also had a language implant - it doesn't matter where you're from, you're all speaking Rädetá. You probably won't notice it unless someone says your French (or whatever language they usually speak at home) is very good.
You're all still wearing whatever you had when you were abducted. However, your pockets are empty; any purses, bags, watches or weapons are gone.
You do have what looks to be a bright orange watch somehow molded on your left wrist - the pliable band just tight enough you can't slip it off your wrist (it actually shrinks if you try to remove it and cannot be cut). This is your Omni. The watch counts up to 1999 during the day (0000 is local midnight, 1000 is local noon), but if you tap the watch crystal, it switches modes:
• two-way radio
• Location map, showing you bright orange dots for everyone near you.
• Video diary (players are encouraged to make entries)
The Omni turns red if you come close to dangerous radiation, contaminated or poisonous food/water or out-of-bounds areas. If you get too close, the Omni will sound an alarm.
The characters are ordinary human people from everyday life – students, doctors, lawyers, librarians, reporters, frustfrated writers, cosplay fans, etc. Unfortunately military/survival types are too expensive for the show's budget (Explorer outfits & private security firms bought them out from under us) and are not as fun to watch, so there will be no military snipers or Special Forces types. Because anyone can join at any time, your first post should be your abduction story (one paragraph) then waking up in the cargo hold with your empty pockets and wrist Omni.
Please no god-modding (directing the actions of someone else's character) or meta-gaming (using knowledge that isn't available to your character, such as knowing you're on a game show).
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