Thanks for responding SMT (:. Your encouragement excites me that this is a near and possible hope. I'm planning to spend a great deal today interacting with Castle's event on Outlands. I really hope to see you there and you don't know how cool it is that you responded to this and are interested. Thank you.

Hey everyone. I would like to say first off that the developers and all else included have done a fantastic job on the Outlands, there are even weather effects. It's a beautiful server that is the antithesis of City 45, making the two contrast nicely.

Constraint often allows for refined writing which is why I've loved the City for so long, but the Outlands is about unrestrained creativity. I've seen people with robotic arms, fully functioning cars, medical doctors with pistols for self-defense, gillie suit-clad snipers who were not Combine; I've crouched around a fire during a storm, and got lost in the wilderness all in the first day.

Why am I making this? The outlands server is almost always abandoned.
This is a call for the community to consider making Outland characters. Some of you may know that Greg "Castles" is doing an event to get people into the server. This is not a closed event! But this thread isn't about Greg.

Come to the Outlands! Consider it! Veteran players, come on the server with me when there's only a few people and bullshit and light role-play to keep the thing warmed up so other players will consider joining when they see a player count that at least has a pulse.

I'm making a call to the community to finally breathe life into the Outlands, this is your chance to be the beginning of a new era in HL2RP. The server is ripe for the formation of new groups and new players with their own stories and struggles. I feel I have exhausted a lot of my creativity in City 45 (I've played too damn much, and I know some of you have too damn it!)

So please, join me sometime and let's play. My steam profile is suttreetoadvine, you'll see Atticat come up. Add me, and message me if you wanna go on the server.

We have the community
We have the competency
We have the creativity

Please, consider joining something and let's make these excellent two servers even better.

Player Section

Steam Name: Suttreetoadvine
Age: 21
How long have you been Roleplaying? (can be any game): Seven years
How long have you been playing Serious GMod RP?: Two to Three months

Character Section

Authorization(s):
Basic hand to hand fighting skills

Name: Taishi Wu
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Affiliation: None

Write a detailed in-canon back-story how your character obtained these authorizations.
Taishi grew up in Pyongyang, a skeleton of a city in North Korea. At the time, North Korea was controlled by a tyrant named Kim Jong-il whom had ruled in the wake of his passed Father. The harsh Communist regime of North Korea strictly regulated every imaginable aspect of Taishi’s life. Gendered roles were selected, with woman being expected to work laborious hours with little to no nutrition while raising children of their own. Most North Korean infants were born underweight and died early out of the womb. Many whom survived lived with life-long disabilities.
Taishi spent her childhood with an older brother, named Dongha. Dongha was protective of Taishi. He had been sent to China many times as a teenager to receive education in what Taishi’s parents described as “a more opportune world”. While Taishi and Dongha had been born into the divided Koreas, her parents had seen the era when the country was united and whole, before entire families were forced to fight against one another; some never seeing each other again after the DMZ was established.

Dongha used to tell Taishi stories about the triumph of Communism in China. They would sneak out into the farmlands and stare at the night sky where stars hung in the blackness like the great cities in the distance, so beautiful, and out of their reach.  Dongha would tell Taishi stories of the red guards in China under the incandescent moon. Her brother taught her Chinese and would read “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” to her by candlelight. The stories of fearless warriors like Zhang Fei, Ma Chao, Xu Chu, and Dian Wei would entice her. She was captivated by the legends of loyal generals such as Zhuge Liang, Guo Jia, and especially Jiang Wei. Taishi dreamed of visiting China one day
.
Taishi’s teenage years consisted of attending school, learning basic English and rudimentary propaganda on a daily basis. She was taught that Kim-Sung destroyed an American tank with a pine cone. And she was taught that the heavens themselves opened up when her current despot leader was born. When she asked her parents about Kim Jung-il, they would only respond with distant frowns.

Taishi’s parents were not wealthy, but they had close relatives in China who pulled as many strings as they could, but no amount of favors could fix the famines of her homeland. Taishi received the chance to join the military upon graduating high school. Her parents urged her to go, fearing for her chances of surviving the famines that came and went beyond the government’s seeming control. It was her wish to join the medical corps, but North Korea wanted a show of it, and most women were selected based on their beauty. Taishi was rather ugly, a fact that had always shadowed her. She was segregated into the artillery branch as an officer of the Korean People's Army Ground Force, thank to her family in China, and although it had hurt her very much to have been rejected into the medical branch, her parents couldn’t have been prouder.

In 1993, Dongha returned to Korea from China. He and Taishi climbed to the top of a mountain overlooking the vast farmland covering the plains like a checkered quilt. They stared at the innumerable stars glowing in the darkness and watched as the fire-lit agrarian countryside disappeared, field by field. Dongha began speaking of reforms in China, something about private enterprise and self-run businesses. He spoke of luxury and wealth and education that supposedly had taken root in China. He seemed optimistic. He tugged at Taishi’s military jacket and told her to escape with him to a better world. She cried. That was the last time she would see her brother.

In 1994, after Dongha had returned to China, another famine broke out. Food was extremely scarce. Cannibalism had taken route through the corners of the countryside. Even some in the military had started to kill one another to free up room for promotions and to survive. Taishi stood at her military post, day after day, guarding the looming M-1978, or KOKSAN Howitzer overlooking the DMZ. At night she could see the distant cities pulsating with vibrant lights like another world entirely. Some of the time with her unit was spent training in hand to hand combat and small firearms, but their real jobs were scavenging for food, collecting bits of rice from abandoned farms or sometimes, even fallen comrades, and desperately trying to stay nourished. Taishi became scared of the officer’s insignia on her shoulder, fearing that she would be mistaken for somebody with real status and killed for her food.

 The Combine’s assault on earth was fast, too fast for the backwards government of North Korea to even respond. The citizens were in a state of shock. Nothing changed for Taishi. Her nation had traded one tyrannical government for another. It was only when the segregations came that her parents were sent away. The organic vessels of the Combine loomed overhead like angry gods of past civilizations, arriving to cleanse the people of their fallacies. On the train to unknown destinations she sat quietly, this was her first time on such a transport. The other captives joined her in mutual silence. The moans of the rails echoed throughout the car. Some were visibly unnerved, others cried. The train came to a halt.



What will these authorizations give your character in regards to perks or defects?
Perks
Advantage when fighting other citizens in hand to hand combat, (not CCA)
Small arms basic training and understanding of cleaning and operating (Only looking for this auth in Outlands)

Defects
Will be of little use against CCA (CCA have armor, training, and Taishi is malnourished from supplements)

What do you plan to do with these perks/defects?
Defend myself when attacked. Heading to outlands. This are for self-defense not marauding.

Will anyone else need these auths? (If so, list OOC and IC name(s))
No.

Which server does this apply for?
City (hand to hand) Outlands (both auths)

Extra Notes (optional):

I have edited the story slightly to include small arms training.

Isn't going around mugging people with a gun supposed to be an example of abuse? Sounds like power gaming to me. I don't know the details so my words hold little water concerning this situation.

I'm in. I hope I don't miss it.

Roven's an extremely competent role-player. He's brought a lot to the server in the form of coherent and interesting ideas. I fully support this.

So I'm writing many of my ideas down for books. Maybe the Union will have pity and publish some of them. Here goes.




Combined Cultural Evolution

   Title: The Combined Cultural Evolution

The prosperous Han dynasty persisted in China from 202 BC to 220 CE, or Common Era. Nearly four hundred years of solidarity, cohesion, unity. These words came to symbolize the strength of China’s second empire after the Warring States Period.

The combined efforts of the people of Han achieved countless feats. It was learned through advanced astronomy that the sun reflected off of the moon and that the earth, moon, and sun were spherical. It was recognized that the human body was subject to the forces of nature. The Pythagorean Theorem was developed in a culture that had never encountered Ancient Greece.

But, like all human civilizations, it could not last forever. Greed and corruption became rampant, civil servants were rewarded based on whom they were, not what they were. Merit was punished. Bloated, sluggish, inefficient aristocracy reigned. Eventually, the empire collapsed under the weight of incompetent human rule.

China was plunged into nearly one hundred years of warfare. Cannibalization occurred; towns were burned to ashes, technology decayed along with academic institutions, and the potential of mankind became ever bleaker.

It was not until Cao Cao, the great visionary, set out to unite China. Creating the kingdom of Wei through his shrewd intelligence and incredible talent as a leader, he built the most prosperous and most populated of the states. Cao Cao was not liked by his enemies. Many accused him of treacherous acts towards the child emperor. But just as the Universal Union, and Cao Cao knew, the fate of China’s people could not be left to the hands of an incompetent with no ability to discern what leadership was.

Cao Cao suffered a seething setback when he was defeated by Wu in the battle of Red Cliffs. His men were sick from the alien environment of the southern swampland, being accustomed to the plains of Northern China. He chained his ships together. This would prove to be a terrible mistake. Wu attacked with fire and in a miraculous turn of events, the wind blew in their favor. Cao Cao would never live to see a fully united China.

If it were not for his opposition by the kingdoms of Wu and Shu, China would have been united much faster, and they may not have fallen to the nomads roughly forty years after finally climbing out of the war of the three kingdoms. The new Jin dynasty, which was created by a successful coup launched by one of Cao Cao's generals after the former's death, came to dominate and finally unite China.

The illustrious Cao Cao took hard steps to unite the desolate and war-torn world. Dissidents had to be executed. Lords from all corners of the land aspired to be ruler. But Cao Cao was the one to stay. He was the one that captured the hearts and minds of the people through merit. He established farming systems to re-locate peasants onto abandoned farmland. He was a poet and a general. His military was devotedly loyal to him. He was a genius. And once again, when he perished from a brain tumor, his empire crumbled on the weight of his incompetent sons, like many empires throughout history.

To my wine I sing
of the times of peace,
when officers shall not make calls at the door.
The ruler is bright and virtuous,
His ministers loyal and trustworthy.
Abiding by propriety and courtesy,
The people have no cause for lawsuits.

From three years of farming, nine years of stores,
The granaries overflow with grains –
While the elderly have no need to labour.
Rainfall is abundant and of proper time,
The myriad of crops a great harvest yields.
From the highways are pulled back mighty steeds,
Their manure used to fertilize the fields.

From dukes down to viscounts,
all love the common people,
demoting the unworthy, raising up the good –
As fathers and brothers they nurture the people.
Those who defy the law
are punished according to the severity;
though none is so selfish as to take roadside property.
The jails are all empty,
and on Solstice day no sentences are pronounced

All live to eighty or ninety,
and pass away only of old age.
The ruler’s compassion touches all creatures equally

- Cao Cao
This was Cao Cao's vision, and this is the vision of the Union.



The Combined races of the Universal Union managed to unify earth after seven hours. This is an incredible achievement worthy of more praise than any human leader throughout history. This is the next step, the evolution of human society. Seven hours to unite and bring us into the fold of the greatest civilization known throughout the universe.

Hard steps are taken because they must be. Rations must be distributed carefully as the planned economy is carefully assembled. If we are going to be a civilization that lasts, then we must trust the Union’s plans, for they have won their merit.  No more squabbles over petty nationality. No more technological stagnation. This the dawning of a new age.

Don't like the map? Play Outlands, the entire server dedicated to Citizen and Resistance RP.

Nobody is on outlands. At any rate your comment is irrelevant because it does nothing to address the fact that the main faction of HL2RP, which it seems I need to remind people, is the citizens, gets almost zero attention. What about the apartments in D6? Just spruce them up. Do something for god's sake. Don't just remove Precinct Two for no reason whatsoever.

I am ignorant of coding and what generally causes RSO, but lights in the apartments that turn on and off are too much while the CCA gets a giant elevator, secret rooms all over the map like the torture room in the train station, a huge elaborate base that they obviously do not need, lights and props all over the Nexus including interrogation chairs that generate lightning when turned on and tons of other excessive nonsense. Don't even get me started on the small little CWU base that nobody seems to care about.