FAQ

[the_measurers]

SETTING

Where are we?

You are on Senburu-Trati'salan AKA The JunkStation, a space colony made out of junk. You're the last great hope for freedom in the multiverse. You're traveling through a hub-universe which links itself to all the myriad universes via gates. Some of these universes are aware of the existence of others. Most aren't.

Your job is to be their first contact, before the Fay'lian get to them. Convince them of the threat these imperialists pose and rally them to your cause. Where you're from could be next, after all.

Well, that's one way of looking at it anyway.

Another is that the station is a collection of desperate refugees, perpetually fleeing the most advanced empire the multiverse has ever seen, vainly seeking allies and shelter, always wondering when the hunters will close in next.

Or you might say you're a collection of dirty, multidimensional hippies and terrorists, who either need to be sent back to your overindulgent alien parents or put in front of a laser squad.

It's all a matter of perspective.



What happens to my character upon arrival?

Upon arriving on Senburu-Trati'salan, your character will receive a small backpack containing the following items:

1. A bottle of very well compressed oxygen and a capsule containing a thin, quick drying, plasticky substance, both attached to the backpack with the nozzles sticking out. Upon pulling a cord that sticks out of the backpack, the substance and oxygen will both squirt out, enveloping the wearer in a bubble of about an hour's worth of oxygen, an hour and a half if you breathe slowly. This is to be used in case of oxygen escaping or you being knocked into space.
   
2. An emergency distress beacon
   
3. A leaflet with instructions on using those items, the station network and vital services
   
4. A remote control for the translation device that now resides in your ear canal; it's best to wear this at all times.

And how do we accomplish our noble mission?

That varies. Sometimes it means going down there in one of your blinking spaceships and awing the local yokels. Sometimes it means secret meetings with the leaders of that place. You may have to aid a pro-resistance faction against loyalists, overthrow a Fay'lian controlled government, destroy a garrison, or participate in other, more bizarre social rituals that have no equivalent in your home 'verse. Basically, you have to do whatever it takes.



How did we get here?

That also varies. There are several options for how to bring your character in.

1. Your character stumbled on the secret of other dimensions in their homeworld and left independently. From there they made their way to Bohr where they were contacted by a Resistance agent and privately spirited away to the station.
   
2. Your character was contacted by a Resistance agent in their home universe, told the truth about the multiverse and signed up there.
   
3. Your character encounters a boarding party from the crew during a mission and insists on going along with them.
   
4. There are strange machines scattered around the Hubverse which reach across dimensions and pluck people out, depositing them in cryogenic sleep pods. We found your character in one of those pods. This is particularly good for characters who would be otherwise unwilling to help.
   
5. Your character appears to be one of the above options but is actually an Imperial agent. Oh yes, we do allow traitors, although they will probably eventually meet a Bad End.
   
6. None of the above. If you have an alternative idea for how your character ended up here, contact us! We can't guarantee we'll accept it, but we'll at least listen.

Can my character leave?

Certainly they can leave the station. The quasi-anarchist political system and frequent arrivals and departures makes stopping them difficult at best. But they can't go home, not just yet. Once a character is removed from their home universe, returning to their universe may cause permanent damage to that universe's integrity. It's not guaranteed to happen but it's risking the lives of millions, billions, even trillions, so majority vote has passed this into one of the few hard and fast laws on Senburu-Trati'salan. If your character does attempt to return to their home dimension, the other characters will stop them.

The Fay'lian know a way to prevent this from happening (which is one of the temptations they hold out to potential traitors) but they're obviously not sharing.



But my character doesn't want to help the rebellion!

Well, simply by showing up on Senburu-Trati'salan, your character is now a terrorist in the eyes of the Fay'lia Empire. And they control most universal gates.

Of course if your character is greedy, overeager to get back home or believes the Fay'lia are the correct side to support, they may waive the charges of terrorism in absentia by spying for the Empire. If you want your character to do that, contact a mod.



What did my character come to the station with?

Generally only the clothes on their backs and what they could carry. If your character made their way through the hub-'verse after escaping their own reality, they can have whatever they could reasonably smuggle past the Imperial checkpoints. If your character was picked up by one of the displacement machines, parts of their sorroundings are often brought with them. That means if your character was piloting a mecha at the time, they'll arrive in their pod with most of the cockpit.



My character is rich in canon, are they still rich on Senburu-Trati'salan?

To an extent. If they showed up in a pod, they come with whatever money/credit cards was on their persons at the time. Although basic services aboard the station are free, money is still accepted. When on certain missions, it will be possible to exchange money for Fay'lia solaris, the most universally accepted currency. The exchange rates are exorbitant.



What if my universe already has knowledge of other universes (such as XXXholic/Tsubasa, Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, etc.)?

They retain that knowledge but it may not provide the whole picture. Sometimes several universes get smushed together while still retaining their boundaries. The inhabitants of these universes, upon breakout, may believe that these are all the 'verses that exist. The Fay'lian may have also deliberately suppressed information about the larger multiverse, something they tend to do to universes they feel aren't "ready" for the whole truth.



What's the premise/feel of the game like?

Entanglement is a cynical space-opera, in the tradition of the new wave of science fiction. That's not to say it's all serious, all the time but the humor tends to be of a rather dark and snarky variety.

Works which influenced the creation of Entanglement:

• Ursula K Leguin's Hainish Cycle
  
• The Dune Books
  
• Infinite RYVIUS (for the handling of everyday life as a space-refugee)
  
• GURPS Infinite Worlds
  
• China Mieville's Bas Lag Novels (for the fully realized social system in a fantastic setting)

My character has superpowers/magic. Can they use them here?

Yes, with a few small limitations. The hub universe is a very young, malleable universe. Individuals who immigrate there generally bring the physical laws of their own universes with them.

Characters that obviously distort the fabric of reality or otherwise do exceptionally "impossible" things will find that at least some degree of their power was tangled up with the nature of their home universes, leaving them less powerful elsewhere. Examples of such characters include Haruhi Suzumiya (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya), Wanda Maximoff/the Scarlet Witch (Marvel Comics), the more fantastical applications of the powers of the Flash or Superman (DC Comics), Goku during much of his continuity (Dragonball series), Father or Hohenheim (Fullmetal Alchemist manga continuity), the Doctor (Wildstorm Universe), and so on. The degree to which these sorts of powers will be reduced will generally be judged on a case-by-case basis, with an eye towards allowing players to do interesting things with their characters without allowing deus ex machina solutions to problems to be easily accessible, and keeping in mind that player characters will be underdogs in many of the game's plots.

When characters who come from different universes with different physical laws fight in ways that directly invoke those differences (e.g. an Avatar: The Last Airbender waterbender fights a Harry Potter wizard), when combat begins, in addition to the physical fight, there is a mental clash too, a clash of distinct ways-of-seeing, willpower, and mental integrity. The loser of that clash then has a fair chance of temporarily losing their powers, of having them strangely affected by the difference in physical laws, or so on (we'll leave that up to you how long that lasts). This can also sometimes affect conflicts that are entirely mental to begin with, such as telepathic battles, if the physical/metaphysical laws being invoked conflict with each other.



My character can shoot laser beams out of his ass. Can't he just blast these fey-whatevers to kingdom come?

Oh, you can try. But here's some things you should know about the Fay'lia first:

1. Their weaponry is very advanced. Suspiciously out of sync with the rest of their society advanced. However strong you are, the Fay'lia at least approach that level when armed as individuals. As a group, in a direct military confrontation (that is, anything that doesn't involve doing extremely sneaky things like planting bombs in their cars or poisoning them, assuming you can even get that close in the first place), you stand no chance. And there are a lot more of them than you.
   
2. Colonial reserve armies (that is, local loyalist forces in conquered dimensions) may be somewhat less difficult to take on, but there's still a lot more of them than you.
   
3. Assuming that in this attempt you aren't killed, you can look forward to being tortured for information ingeniously (and horribly), then either living the rest of your life in a gulag for political prisoners (horribly) or being publicly executed (guess how).
   
4. There is only one arena where you can hope to defeat the Fay'lia, and that is the arena of public opinion. Their military-law enforcement-industrial complex is staggeringly huge but it isn't big enough to stop them if even a third of all the conquered universes rise up in rebellion at the same time and while their propaganda is everywhere, it's also pretty laughable and easily countered by any angry kid with a bottle of space-spraypaint. Your job is to make sure that such a rebellion happens.

My character has an injury/disability/disease. Will they still have that here?

They will still have the condition when they arrive. The medical technology on board is advanced by the standards of 21st century earth but the waiting list for treatment is long. It could take months before they are treated. If the condition is life threatening they will be bumped to the front of the queue, though.



Can I apply a much larger than average character here?

That depends on where they could stay. A character that can exist in vacuum (eg. a Transformer) is welcome to stay on the outside of the station. Other characters that are too big to fit in the EVA pods may have to be confined to the BSL habitats until a special habitat is built for them.



How do characters communicate if they're in different parts of the ship/on an away team/out of shouting distance in general?

On board there are plenty of computer consoles, though most are only capable of sending text and small files Upon arrival your character will be issued their own username and password for the central network, allowing them to send and receive messages both private and public. (It's entirely possible a character might find an out-of-the-way computer that isn't network connected or doesn't run any usable software, though.)

There are a number of cobbled together communicators on board but not nearly enough for everyone. They're valuable items for barter. Technologically skilled characters may build some of their own out of all the spare parts/junk.



What happens if my character dies?

They are well and truly dead, unless they have some kind of regenerative power, and thus become unavailable for reapplication. Please consult with the mods before killing a character!



Who's in charge around here?

The ship is a rough democracy, with bimonthly elections for all staff. More info is available in the post about it.



What is the policy on canon puncturing (AKA can my character know other characters are fictional?)?

Throughout the multiverse, particles run freely, sometimes containing information. When these particles strike others in other universes, they are sometimes written down as fiction. That is how characters who are real in one universe can be fictional in another. If such transmissions are frequent (IE the canon is popular in the 'receiving' universe), this may provide an opportunity to open up a universe to universe gate.

Please do not have your character puncture another character's canon without the permission of that character's mun.



How do all the characters understand each other?

Upon arrival, everyone is issued a Babel Fish to put in their ear or equivalent structure. However these fish, having been on the station for generations with a tiny gene pool, are defective. Shrunken and uglier than normal, they are only able to translate the speaker's primary language. This means that multilingual characters still have a slight advantage, as in life.

APPLICATIONS

What characters can I apply for here?

Entanglement accepts fandom characters and original characters, both from fandom and original universes.

In the case of original characters, we will be scrutinizing your application closely for Mary Sue/Gary Stu-type traits. If your OC is accepted into the game, we still reserve the right to take action against Sue/Stu-ish playing. Fandom OCs may not have a close relationship with the main cast of their fandom written into their history.

You may not apply for mythological characters that are not part of fiction. So for instance you could apply for Mr. Wednesday from American Gods but not Wodin direct from mythology.



Can I app an alternate universe version of a character if another version of that character is in the game?

You may if the character is significantly different from their "main" canon. You may not however app the same character from a different point in time in the same universe. So for instance you could app Cloud from Kingdom Hearts if there was already a Cloud from Final Fantasy 7 in the game but you could not app Cloud from Advent Children.

In the case of characters that are reincarnated/cloned multiple times, such as Doctor Who or Duncan Idaho, please contact the mods so we can decide this on a case by case basis.



How many characters may I apply for?

The current character limit is five, although we may grant exceptions if you prove crazy enough to be able to handle more. Also you may only app up to two characters from the same fandom and they may not share a close relationship.



What happens to dropped characters?

Any one of four things may happen, which are generally up to the castmates and muns of the characters the dropped character had CR with.

• For those characters who came from a pod, neurological damage (and its electronic equivalent) is a common side effect of waking from one. This usually takes the form of episodes of intense pain, followed by frequent fainting, followed by a coma state and then, if not replaced in a pod, death. The cure rate is unpredictable and the pod itself seems to have something to do with it. Sometimes, those who have been sent into the pod are spontaneously awakened, although their short term memory is sometimes harmed.
  
• The character fades into the background of the ship's society. Basically, they're still there, just fading from the foreground for a bit.
  
• None of the above. Got an idea for how to handle things with a dropped character you had CR with? Run it by us.

But seriously: How does podache work? If [character] were ill, wouldn't the first thing to do would be to take her to see [doctor]?

Good question! Podache is the sickness that explains long absences or character drops. Podache is a fast-onset sickness that causes in the body of the infected an excruciating ache and perhaps one other very recognisable symptom. In the interest of reducing the amount of pain the afflicted person suffers, any medical staff is qualified to re-check them back into their pod, where, upon proper re-configuration or some such, the afflicted person's vital signs allow for the pod to be opened again. In this way, it can be said that since it's so very easily recognisable, the need to have it diagnosed was next to zero, and the treatment was simply "Stick them back in the pod."

It's caused by premature opening of the pods before the body of the afflicted has properly adjusted to the partocular environment of this reality.

Thus, the re-entry into the pod would finish the acclimation, explaining the necessity to return thereto, and giving you a convenient, legitimate excuse for your character's lack of presence for some time. Or forever in the case of dropping.



What's the deal with the NPCs?

Here's the deal: The NPCs are actually the majority on the junkstation. This may change as the game grows but for now, yeah, that's how it goes. There's an onboard political/social system already set up, although it frequently devolves into characters hating each other, being manipulative, abrasive, passive aggressive and just plain aggressive towards each other. Noble intentions they may have, but they're only human. Mostly.

This means players are encouraged to make full use of the NPCs in your own logs. Your character's charismatic? Have him or her gather some fanboys/girls. They're an asshole? Make them disliked. You aren't required to have the mods play these NPCs. As long as you don't use them to powergame, it's all good.



Can I have canon characters as NPCs?

You may not have named canon characters as NPCs. For instance there may be Clone Trooper NPCs from the Star Wars 'verse but none of those troopers may be one of the troopers from SW: Republic Commando. There can be a maximum of three NPCs from any particular fandom per character.



I hear you can retcon in things?

Sort of. You may retcon in your character's presence on the ship and CR with other characters. You may not, however, retcon in anything which effects the ship as a whole. That is, no political appointments, engineering projects, channel messages, etc. If you have a question about something you'd like to retcon in, contact us.