POSTHUMOUS-V

The Voyage of Humanity

Overview · Characters · Timeline · The Ship · Alien System · Life Onboard · Factions · Glossary

“Voyage, Vendetta, Victory, Vengeance, and Vindication of the Human Spirit.”

Overview

In 2163 CE, Earth is annihilated by a relativistic strike from the K2-18 system. Humanity’s remnants promptly regrouped on Mars. Fueled by vengeance, they worked to build the generation ship dubbed the Posthumous-V. A cradle of life, and bringer of death. Constructed in the shape of a weapon, yet still maintaining the survival of her passengers. She carries ~100,000 people in two habitat cylinders, revolving around a central spine that serves as fuel, engine, and warhead — a giant volume of antimatter. Traveling at 0.3c, it will reach K2-18 in ~430 years.

Yet what begins as a mission of genocidal retaliation becomes a story of mutiny, despair, and unexpected salvation. A lot can happen in four centuries after all.

Characters

Year 93 PS - hairpullguy (Wild Card 🃏)

Fundamentally, my characters are just normal humans living normal lives in a very abnormal location. Nobody knows what life on the surface of a planet felt like. Things like rain, wild animals, or large bodies of water are things they know existed but will never see or experience.
The setting focuses on a handful of girls who work in Final Assembly, the dangerous job involved in adding to the ship's structure as it continues to accelerate towards the enemy's homeworld.
Many of the elements described on this page simply don't exist yet at this stage of the trip, and the society aboard the ship is still mostly still a heritage from the days of the Earth Apocalypse.

Elise	Petra
Lyra	Noelle

Year 189 PS - VinceLavali (Healer 💖)

Take a step back from Posthumous-V, look to the Wingships, and you'll find an array of little distinct isolated societies. One such Wingship, Gnome, is fighting an unwinnable war against bone degredation in a vessel with no artificial gravity. Still, while the Gnoman's lack freedom in terms of time, they make up for it in their freedom of individual choices. No Command breathing down their necks, no class divides, everyone working together for the betterment of each other.

There is one exception: a girl with all the free time in the world, a woman trapped in her own mind.

Alannis

Year 266 PS - johnmandrake (DPS ⚔️)

A revolution is not a dinner party. Too often does new life emerge only after burning down a forest.

The Posthumous-V was shaping up to be no different. Amidst crisis and war, tyranny and a looming alien threat, a single spark would be all that was needed to set our whole world ablaze.

Even so, we dare to light that spark — because it will be our actions in these dark times that will define our future. Because no matter the cost, there can be no compromise when it comes to Hope.

Sepia and Wren

Year 300 PS - Anonymous (Tank 🛡️)

Humanity had always been defined by its strife. It's not unthinkable that the last remnants of a species could eventually turn on each other when faced with extraordinary circumstances. Even on the brink of extinction, humans were like weeds in the wild. Cast us into the void with the barest drop of light and water, and we could grow just about anywhere. Enter the era of the future, where even after catastrophe upon catastrophe, the Earth's surviving fragments learned to gather their pieces, bridge their divides, and endure. Life, against all odds, does indeed find a way.

Vietta	Phylla

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Timeline

CE = Common Era | PS = Post Sol/Solar

The Cataclysm (2163–2177 CE)

• 2163 CE: A super-accelerated heavy rod strike obliterates Earth. Targeted, premeditated attack originating from the K2-18 system. Motives unknown.
• 2164–2177 CE: The torch of humanity passes to Mars. A vow of vengeance is sworn. The great battleship is built.
• 2177 CE: The Posthumous-V launches her maiden voyage in an incomplete state.

The First and Final Voyage of the Posthumous-V

Thus began Year One of the Post-Solar era. Great Sol, which had warmed humankind's ancestors for countless millennia, slowly shrank behind them. For over a century, the ships would accelerate toward the great beyond. The journey would span multiple generations. Lifetimes would be spent in transit, faith and fury passed down like heirlooms. None of the first crew would live to see the enemy's stars, nor would they see what awaited them at the end of the long journey.

Setting Off (28 PS – 176 PS) — Gen 1 & 2

The Posthumous-V embarks on a one-way deployment with the bare minimum necessary to put the ship into motion. The anti-matter drive, manufacturing facilities, and a forward ice shield, meant to protect the ship from debris. The Final Assembly oversaw the construction of the ship's central cylindrical core, and most importantly, its weaponry. A few fortunate Spares that endured this great task were granted Citizen status right after.

Humanity now occupied the many rings of residential and operational districts surrounding the Posthumous-V's newly built central habitat structure. The cylindrical core served as fuel, propulsion system, and primary payload housing a massive containment volume of antimatter. Operating under absolute necessity, the personnel maintained focus on their primary objective: total alien death. With their homeworld destroyed, the mission represented humankind's final grim directive.

The Frenzy (177 PS – 254 PS ) — Gen 2 & 3

An anomalous signal detected en route from the K2-18 system confirmed to be an impending intercept in deep space. The Posthumous-V's mission parameters had shifted, and her first UOH contact would take place in the interstellar void halfway to K2-18. Confronted with an all-or-nothing engagement, a fanatical dogma swept through colony Generation 2, who systematically began conditioning Generation 3 from birth for absolute duty and sacrifice. The pressure pushed the population to its psychological breaking point, giving rise to widespread dissent and the formation of an armed rebellion.

Several of the mothership fleet's Wingships, manned by daring pilots who've trained all their lives for this moment, detach from Posthumous-V around 18 years before contact, aiming to intercept the envoy.

Civil War, Revolution (255 PS – 268 PS) — Gen 3 & 4

On the eve of battle, terror fractured the ship. As the alien threat approached, the Rebels demanded immediate flight, convinced a planetary-scale weapon was incoming. The civil war between Loyalist and Rebel factions remained deadlocked, leaving the Posthumous-V unable to engage or retreat.

The stalemate ended when the wingships met the vessel. Humanity's weapons proved useless against a floating volume of liquid, held together like one massive cell. Missiles passed through harmlessly, while lasers scattered like a ray of light hitting water. With revelation came revolution — the Loyalists were toppled, the Rebels seized control, and humanity prepared to flee.

Yet in the depths of darkness, came light. Rather than destruction, the vessel brought pacifists seeking to atone for the xenocide of their predecessors. After a historic transmission of peace, the first ever interspecies negotations were opened!

Seed of Hope (269 PS – ???) — Gen 4 Onward

Generation 4 inaugurated a new paradigm aboard the Posthumous-V. Following the resolution of the shipwide civil war, longstanding tensions between Mars-born settlers and Earth-born "Spares" were reconciled under a unified administration. The allied pacifist aliens who rejected their ancestors' ways, reclassified from "hostiles" to "helpers", integrated alongside the survivors. They shared their technologies and cultures aboard a reunified civilian colony. United in hope, the combined fleet set course for a new, habitable planet, and the crew abolished the grudges of the past centuries to establish the foundations of a shared, harmonious future.

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The Ship: Posthumous-V

Mission Plan

1. Accelerate to 0.3c toward alien system.
2. Arrive outside alien system; launch swarm of relativistic missiles at alien planet.
3. Continue onward toward another prospective system.
4. Near new system, flip around and activate pion drive to slow down.
5. Colonize new planet.

Main Structures

Habitat Rings

Sectors

Each ring has 6 radial sectors (60° pie slices). Each sector can be sealed off and acts as a neighborhood/city district.

Sector dimensions: 250 m high × 1000 m long. Inner arclength: ~52.36 m; outer arclength: ~314.16 m.

Example route: live in Sector Africa (1-C) → tram radially to Sector Europe (1-B) → mag-lev along Spine to Sector Pacific, Ring 2 (2-B).

Decks and Gravity Gradient

Each sector is split into ~50 floors/decks (average 5 m). Each deck has sun-panels on the ceiling simulating day-night cycles. Moving inward:

All decks lead to a large public square in the center of every Sector, called an Atrium. Here, residents can look up from the lower decks and see where habitat meets Spine. Parks, waterfalls, and shops line the sides of the Atrium, while netting hung high above allows residents on low gravity decks to traverse the wide open space.

Ring Roles

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Alien System: K2-18

• Star: K2-18 red dwarf star, 124 light years away, ~430 years at 30% light speed.
• Planet: K2-18b. Hycean planet (liquid water oceans with hydrogen, methane atmosphere). Aquatic life. Super-Neptune, strong gravity. 33-day rotation around sun. Tidally locked "dark hycean" planet; life evolved on permanent night side.
• Species designation: the UOH (Unidentified Offworld Hostiles)
• UOH: an alien species whose physiology and biology are akin to that of late Earth's nudibranch. They are exceptionally malleable in appearance, taking on forms that suit the current atmosphere rating, and come in all different shapes and colors. Their species are natural hermaphrodites, possessing both male and female parts, making them capable of reproduction with either sex.

Life Onboard

Governance

Society & Culture

Social Classes

Starting Crew

• Mostly Martians. Some Spares (Earth escapees). A few outer-belt workers (technicians, zero-g, mining).
• Martian culture predominates: hardy, disciplined, pragmatic.
• Earth cultural mix: North American, European, and Asian majority.

Ring & Sector Culture

• Ring 1 (Continental): leans upper-class.
• Ring 2 (Oceanic): leans lower-class.
• Individual Sectors vary by specialty and citizen makeup.

Mandated Pairs

• Legally binding contract for two or more parties with viable genetic profiles.
• Purpose: maintain a healthy colony gene pool.
• Conception outside a valid pairing or without clearance is insubordination, punished by the Office of Heritability.

Battle Sims

• Major determinant of social standing, especially for Spares.
• Top performers may undergo hibernation, to be awakened upon enemy contact.
• The less physically adept may still become flight coaches or enforcers.

Economy

Education

Overview

Each Ring Sector has an elementary/middle school and high school, located near a tram stop and the Sector atrium.

Philosophy

Humanitas Perpetua

Humanity Endures. The Directorate of Education is designed to produce technically, physically, and socially competent adults. But students are not merely preparing for a career - they are the next generation of Humanity itself.

Typical High-School Campus

Navigation & safety: netting, stairs, handrails, pressure doors, and other features adapted to changing gravity levels.

Gravity as Part of the Curriculum

Students routinely move between gravity environments, using the campus itself as a training ground for life aboard the ship.

• 1g: conventional exercise, strength training, running
• ~0.6g: normal classroom environment
• ~0.3g: low-g athletics, greenhouse work, floating auditorium
• 0g: emergency and EVA training

Advanced subjects with small class sizes are taught through VR, including topics such as real analysis, advanced genetics, and metallurgy.

Curriculum

Core Academics

Specializations

Physical Education & Sports

Exercise is mandatory. Regular training is necessary to limit the loss of bone density and muscle mass in low gravity. Sports double as preparation for emergency movement in unfamiliar gravity conditions. Competitions are held between Sectors as well as between Rings.

Career Preparation

The ship's labor market is essentially static.

Every graduate must eventually replace a retiree or deceased worker.

Ages 14–18

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AGE 14–16
Rotations through ship systems (Farms, water plant, clinic, factories, maintenance, governance, battle sims)
        ↓
AGE 16–18
Apprenticeship in likely specialty
        ↓
AGE 18
Career Council placement (Open jobs prioritized, preference if possible)
        ↓
Primary occupation + possible secondary/community role

Because the population and workforce are deliberately balanced, career choice is partly personal preference and partly social obligation. Changing careers is possible, but constrained by the ship's demographics.

Typical Adult Career Pattern

Many citizens have one primary technical/operational job and one secondary liberal-arts or community role. A Systems Engineer might write plays for a community theater. This allows people to pursue creative or intellectual interests without requiring the ship to support a separate full-time profession for every specialty.

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Factions

Command & Administration

Special Institutions

Political Movements

Glossary

• PS: Post Sol/Solar calendar year.
• MPA: Mars Planetary Administration.
• UOH: Unidentified Offworld Hostiles. (Helpers, post 269 PS)
• Posthumous-V: The mothership, the retrofitted Olympus-IV
• Wingships: Smaller auxiliary craft traveling alongside the mothership.
• Spares: Descendants of Earth Cataclysm refugees, second-class citizens.
• Martians: Descendants of original Mars colonists and surface colonies, full citizens.
• Displays: Wrist-mounted ID/AI/smartphone.
• Conditioning: Subconscious modification of a person's thoughts and beliefs. Delivered via subsonic recordings and hypnotic drills. Useful for maintaining obedience and order among the crew.

Overview · Characters · Timeline · The Ship · Alien System · Life Onboard · Factions · Glossary