Basic Premise: MC is a customizable alien character, a low-level assistant to their planet’s diplomat at a large-scale event drawing dignitaries from planets near and far. The diplomatic conference is attacked! ZAP!!
Only 6 survivors escape; the MC and 5 others of similarly low station, meaning everyone is pretty young and fairly inexperienced, although you have a mix of human, , alien , robot , and maybe even a giant manatee. (I know this is a dolphin) WARNING! Many of their races do not co-exist well (hence, the conference).
In their desperate escape attempt, these 6 board an unfamiliar vessel, essentially ‘hit the wrong button,’ and are flung to the edge of the galaxy. At least one of them knows the identity of the attackers, and for that reason, the ship becomes a target. Being so far from home, the crew must put aside differences and try to figure out a way to get back and expose the attackers to the rest of the galaxy, while also avoiding detection by said attackers. Oh, and they have to co-exist in a relatively small ship and deal with long-standing prejudices and rivalries.
Features:
Episodic approach, with perhaps 10,000-15,000-word adventures that pair the MC with different crew members, and pose different challenges:
Resource Acquisition,
Navigational Difficulties
Conflicts with Hostiles
Encounters with Unfamiliar Cultures
Customizable MC
Other than being an alien, everything else is up to you…
Pick your form: Disgusting, Blah, Sexy, you pick! Human-like (think purple skin and forehead ridges), Humanoid, or Vastly Different Anatomy.
Pick your stats: Diplomacy, Combat, Trading, Research, etc.
Pursue romance with one of the crew, or perhaps, if you’re feeling lucky and resilient to most diseases, romance an alien on an away-mission.
Try to resolve conflicts (on-board and off) in your preferred manner
This would basically have a Community College Hero vibe. Most of the crew would be young and inexperienced, and there would be a mix of serious and more whacky missions and adventures, with the “return home and expose the attackers” as the overarching goal. Very character-focused.
I know this isn’t much to go on, but might anyone be interested in this? I might write up a few thousand words this weekend to give it a go.
I’m pretty interested in reading this to be honest. Also, I see that the plot basically throws together 6 people of different sentient races that does not like each other so I’m wondering if we will have a option to be prejudiced towards them?
Well, I would keep the crew small on purpose, so that some little rivalries could be developed. And ‘prejudice’ is in the eye of the recipient. Perhaps your MC would have good reasons to dislike some of them.
As long as my mc can be male, or something approximating it in socialisation and appearance in the alien culture you’ve got me at sexy blue or purple (maybe violet?) skinned alien of the sexy space-elf type.
You’ve also got me at the lighter and occasionally less serious tone, which ironically allows the Orville universe, just to give the most recent example that comes to my mind, to have a more real and actually “lived-in” vibe than the seemingly perfect humans that made up TNG’s Federation ever did.
Taking inspiration from that by any chance here?
Pwah, we’re such an ignorant, backwoods backwater that we’re probably some sort of lost tribe or colony even the space-faring humans of this universe (conveniently) forgot they lost. Making a sojourn (t)here would give my alien mc’s a lot of material to relentlessly tease the resident human on board though.
Okay, the response has convinced me to push forward with this. I’ll go over my notes this week and start putting an initial scene together.
And @idonotlikeusernames, I just saw your comment. No, I have not watched the Orville, but I have heard good things about it. Now I have to figure out if I watch it or aggressively avoid it, to prevent being too “inspired” by any of the episodes.
I can recommend it (other then for a day you’re really drunk or really sick, or both), and, yes, I never thought I’d say that of a MacFarlane show. Its comedy elements don’t always hit their mark, but overall it is refreshing and the production values are good with writing seemingly improving every couple of episodes into the first season. Considering TNG took three whole seasons to really hit its stride a weak pilot is something I can look past here and it has a nice combination of fresh and unique elements while being an hommage to Star Trek in spirit going for it.
A thought just occurred to me, since in shows like this the ship is practically its own character will we be able to choose and customize the ship too? Like for example the ship we pick could be anything from luxury ambassador’s yacht to a patrol cutter, science vessel or cargo ship (smuggler?) each with its own different pro’s and cons too?
, alien 
, robot 
, and maybe even a giant manatee. 
(I know this is a dolphin) WARNING! Many of their races do not co-exist well (hence, the conference).
